From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
05-10-2021, 09:51 AM (This post was last modified: 05-10-2021, 10:00 AM by Kova.)
KOVA
The library has come alive today. With Kova's constant presence here since Aisha brought him to Halo, he's done all he can to bug the absolute shit out of the librarians. Or, as he calls it, spice things up a little. Sure, he likes reading as much as the next person, but it gets real dull sitting around in the cold, watching life drag by. Aisha has that monster hunting guild she runs.. or something. So he's been left to his own devices.
The people here are so uptight, he thinks, so serious and cold.. bland. Like the snowy mountains they live on. They could use a bit of.. color, he thinks.
With begrudging permission from the librarians, he's set up a spare room for painting. Old sheets have been spread out on the floor from corner-to-corner, and he's been granted full permission to paint the walls in this dusty old room. Considering they'll soon be covered by massive bookshelves, suppose it doesn't truly matter how it looks in the end.
Cans of paint line one of the walls, with an assortment of brushes in a sloppy pile next to them. All sorts of colors are here. Green, purple, red, blue, yellow, orange, black, white. Any color you could possibly want.
There's already a brush in his hand, ridiculously long, dipped in a bright turquoise color that drips from the end of it. He takes a step back to look at the wall, bringing up his hand to his chin. In doing so, the brush he's holding flicks over his shoulder, leaving a thick lather of paint on his shirt. He seems not to notice.
"Hmm, what should go here..."
Open to 1 other character!
Every moment just came together like Two feet hangin' in the water
They don’t have a library like this in the Grounds so when Wessex has some questions, she sometimes pops into here to do a bit of research. Or ask the all-knowing librarians.
While on the hunt for a side room she could have sworn held books about agriculture, she takes a wrong turn somewhere and ends up here, instead, almost barreling into the room, so sure it’s the right one. But the dropcloths stop her in her tracks and she looks at the room, more than a bit confused. Because this is a library, not an artist’s hall.
“What’re you doing?” Wessex asks the young man, half-curious and half-still wondering where that damn antechamber actually is. "I mean it's obvious you're painting. But why?"
05-16-2021, 02:30 AM (This post was last modified: 05-16-2021, 02:34 AM by Kova.)
KOVA
Kova hears her footsteps before the woman even speaks, and his head turns just enough to be able to look at her as she comes right in - as if she owns the place. Which is fine. Maybe she does, for all he knows.
Her presence is tall and strong and he half-expects a beration, rather than a question. Ah, but a question it is - and not one, but two. Two very important questions; what and why.
"I'm not just painting," he says, lowering his hand and the paintbrush as a big dollop lands on his shoe. Again, no mind. She might notice that his clothes aren't quite Halovian, at least not when he's inside where it's warm enough to shed that bigass coat Aisha gave him. In fact, he has a pretty tattered, boyish appearance. "I'm expressing myself," he says it with a passionate flare, as if he knows what he's talking about.
"Why? Well, because why-" with a flick of his wrist, he uses the brush to splatter turquoise all across the wall in front of him, "-not!"
He chuckles joyously at the way it seems to already make the room feel that much brighter. Looking back at the woman with questions, he says, "Come on! Give it a try, feels kinda good!" He motions towards the paint buckets and unused brushes with his own, more paint splattering across the floor in his wake, "You can pick any color you like!"
Every moment just came together like Two feet hangin' in the water
Wessex almost recoils from the room and the painter upon hearing that he is expressing himself, something that is so far outside her comfort zone when paired with art that it’s almost scary.
And the Wraith is scared of very little. Except, perhaps, unrestrained emotion. She’s so tightly wound, some people say, that a stick can’t even make it up her ass because there’s no fucking room.
With every fiber of her being yelling to quickly and quietly back out of the room, she naturally has no answer for him when he asks why not? “Yeah, uh… dunno. Good - point.” In fact, the Queen is probably inching backward, looking back out of the antechamber again, “Y’know, I was looking for -”
Except then he tells her to try it and Goddess above, she has never backed away from a challenge (because that’s what it is to her, a challenge). Cringing inwardly, she takes a look at the splatter and then the brush, the paint cans, back to the man, who seems delightful and eager and everything she is not. “O…. kay.” Hesitant, but ultimately agreeable, Wessex goes for the can of black paint, dips the brush, and then tentatively flicks it against the wall so it’s more of a line than a spray or splatter.
Kova arches a brow at her feet, which seem to stammer backwards in a casual 'I'm out of here' fashion. He turns more fully to face her then, a smile spreading across his lips. "What?" He asks cleverly, leaning forward a bit in his feigned interest, "Looking for what? Everything you need is right here!" And he leans back to spread his arms out in emphasis of the paint and the blank canvas that is the walls.
And of course he wants her to try it out. Kova doesn't know any better and this woman fits the perfect bill of that uptight, bland Halovian. This is exactly what people like her need, he thinks; a bit of expression.
So it's not a challenge - not really - but if she takes it that way, it makes no difference to him. He likes games, anyway. So he shifts back on his heels to watch her very cautiously begin. His head tilts and he keeps his smile, amused. Her timidness doesn't seem to suit her. Maybe this is genuinely very new to her and maybe she's so stuck in her flow that it's jarring.
"It's a good stroke... if you wanted to paint the wall from top-to-bottom," he comments, "where's the personality!? Black isn't a simple color, you know," he smacks his lips and gets a more thoughtful expression on his face, his brows raising and his lids lowering, "it's the absence of light! The color of darkness, shadows, death. Maybe.. rebirth? What does that look like to you, hm?"
"I like this color," he grins at his brush, "it reminds me of something... refreshing. Like cold water on a hot day, or... a strong breeze when you're all sweaty." And as far as Kova is concerned, he lets the paint create its own masterpiece. Splashes of bright blue begin to swirl across the wall as his hand smooths through the shapes. He dots the brush around on the side to create something like a flower, though he's not very good at details.
Turning, he looks to see what Wessex has accomplished in this time.
Every moment just came together like Two feet hangin' in the water
This is very new to her. Very alien. Very much not in her wheelhouse and yes, Wessex could just leave, but something inexplicable keeps her here. Like maybe she has something to learn from this guy that she randomly stumbled upon in the middle of a library that is not in her home region. Maybe this is some sort of... fate.
Because as far as she’s concerned, top to bottom is the way one paints and the Wraith hasn’t really thought about paint - or a color - have personality before. She raises a brow at the brush in her hand and then squats down by the can, as if she can try to peer into the void and find the words he’s using to describe it. What she actually sees is herself, looking back at her.
Wessex is all those things: darkness, shadows, death, and rebirth. She swallows thickly. Needlessly.
“Me,” she answers. “They call me the Wraith.”
His descriptors of the blue make her thing a bit more and she nods, agreeing with his far more knowing assessment of the color, then dips her brush back into the can and hums a bit, before standing and taking aim at the wall once again This time, she goes through a slash-and-parry move, brandishing the brush like a knife, a very focused expression on her face.
He tilts his head curiously at her as she kneels down by the can of paint, brows raising with his now-genuine interest. Her declaration that all of those dark, black things look like her causes him to hesitate. His initial reaction is that that's sad, and it scrawls across his expression momentarily in the way he frowns and his eyes soften with something akin to sympathy.
But quickly, the look is washed away as he tells her what the color blue means to him. And as he paints, he thinks about her words. Few as there were, it held a lot of meaning. When he'd taken on this endeavor, he hadn't meant to bring someone down but to lift them up. So his mind works, gears turning, until finally he finishes painting and he turns to her.
"So..." he clears his throat, looking closer at the slashes she's painted across the wall, "Wraith, huh?" He hums, "That's pretty badass, you know. People just call you that? Man. What I'd give for a title like that," he chuckles, before returning to his own paints. "I think I'd want people to call me... 'The Greatest Explorer'!" He grins.
"Alright, let's up the ante. Really put all your energy into it, yeah?" He says over his shoulder.
Then, without further ado, he demonstrates what he means. He darts from here to there, splashing the bright color across the walls in different directions, sometimes closing in to swirl the brush directly upon the wall wherever he sees fit.
When he's finished, he stops and folds his arms over his chest. "Think you can do better?" He asks, brow raising at her in challenge.
Every moment just came together like Two feet hangin' in the water
Even Wessex isn’t expecting herself to laugh, but here she is, laughing (and it seems just a tad too loud for the library) at his observation. “Yeah…. Yeah, I suppose it is kind of badass.” Ok, it is and she knows it, but there are days, and they’re becoming more and more common, where she doesn’t want to be the Wraith. She wants to be something else, and the kid surprises her by hitting the alternative spot on.
“That’s - that’s actually what I’d rather be called some days too,” she says, warmth at the admission flooding her body. “Exploring sounds like the best job in the world. What’s your name?” quickly follows before the challenge and she watches as le artiste works his magic on the walls.
Nodding to accept the challenge, Wessex steps up to the proverbial plate, dipping her brush into the black paint again and watching it momentarily drip onto the dropcloths on the floor, then she turns to the walls and goes through a series of motions that seem almost like a fight-dance, where the wall is her sparring partner and she is the demigod warrior that she is, keeping the concentration until the wall ends. Pulling away from the creation, there’s a black streak on her arm, another on her shirt - alas, they are but necessary casualties.
Kova eyes her, turning his grin more fully towards her at the admittance that she'd rather be known as an explorer too. "It is the best job in the world," he confirms with ease, "though I'm more of an explorer by lifestyle than by trade - but, hey," he shrugs, tilting his head back to his side of the room so he can begin to dart around and really throw his paint all over the damn place. "Name's Kova!" He pipes up after a moment. There's not much order to the chaos but, by the end of it, he thinks his wall looks.. cool.
As he turns to observe the Wraith, his thick eyebrows lift in genuine surprise. She's really taken to it this time! He smiles softly as she works, saying nothing to draw her out of her focus, but he does watch very intently. It's almost like the brush is her weapon, and the wall is some sort of foe she's gotta take down. Which... well, hey, maybe he'll have to save that analogy for later. These close-minded fighter types might need that sort of motivation.
When she's finished, her wall looks like something out of an art gallery. There's passion, flare, and he gives her a slow clap. "Well done! You really outdid me there," he casts a look over his shoulder at the flowery, blue, haphazardly painted wall behind him. He'd had no idea what he was doing this entire time, faking it until he made it. But along comes this lady, and.. well damn! He's genuinely impressed by the abstract look she's achieved. "See? The dark is just as inspiring as the light. You just had to find your muse, I guess."
He leans over to put away his brush, tapping it against the paint can. "I think that's it for me today. I could go for a bite ta eat after getting shown up like that! Whaddaya say, Ms. Wraith?" He shoots her a friendly glance.
fin~
Every moment just came together like Two feet hangin' in the water
