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!
Melita thought she was very clever, crafting her own nuances of avoidance.
In and out of the house on tiptoeing feet and wide berths along the morning breeze, clambering along edges and boundaries of clifftops, rounding down over thunderous branches of waves and turrets of crag; bolstering her bare feet across warm dunes until no one could chase and no one could find. Save for Fangorn, but he was permitted the access of her embers and toils, and together they spirited away from reaches of family, where she wasn’t sure if she was wanted, and wasn’t certain if it would be the same again.
Change was harsh and cruel sometimes – and she didn’t quite know how to face it. So she didn’t for the moment, choosing to instead twist and turn her head into the wind, sprinting across vast wakes and beelining for a cherished place along the tides. The gourd sauntered gleefully behind, vines akimbo and waving, and they were mutual spirits on surf and swell, until her feet touched upon dampened, soused sand, and sat along its reaches.
The vestiges of ocean spray curled her locks and made her cinders – but she paid no heed as her dress soaked into the runes too, hands beginning to form the strands of a castle, born and rising from the shore.
This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight
05-11-2021, 02:00 AM (This post was last modified: 05-11-2021, 02:04 AM by Kamaria.)
love should be as flowers of the weedy sort
Perhaps Melita thought herself clever, but Kamaria did too. Clever enough to sneak after this mysterious presence that snuck through their home. Her hair is a blazing orange that catches the eye, and a pumpkin trails at her feet, brought to life by some sort of magic. So it's no surprise that the interested, curious child trails after their thunderous wake, trying to keep up, failing sometimes, but soon to resume.
She felt no hesitation at the fringes of this mysterious pathway into the ocean, felt no pang of danger or fear. Only a stubborn sense of curiosity, and with that she approaches. Her father had told her of someone in their family who matches this woman's description, and Kamaria is confident in getting to know her. Even if she would rather not be known, apparently.
The jubilant child dashes after the duo on her tip-toes, bare feet curling across the wet sand as her own dress catches the ocean's spray.
Playfully, she reaches after the pumpkin's wispy vines where he rolls along, trying to catch them with excited giggles. "Wait! Come back!" She coos.
Her wayward steps come to a halt only as she reaches Melita's more direct vicinity. She straightens up from her chase and her blue-green eyes seek the older woman's golden hues. "Hi! Can I play with you?" She smiles hopefully, hands pressing together behind her back as she glances down towards the castle between them.
In a cruel twist of irony, it turned out that there was no escape at all.
She could hear the giggles trailing along the waves, and a singular look over her shoulder told her all the other details she needed to know. The little girl, just one of many she’d been avoiding, toddled and teetered after Fangorn (who didn’t know quite how to behave, and that made two of them). Melita had half an inclination to become completely feral and wild, to snarl and unhinge, to be a ferocious thing simply because she could. A few years before, she probably would have – with teeth that gnashed and bit, with manifested claws of sedition.
But it wasn’t this child’s fault that her father was a moron.
Her eyes flickered from her gourd (who had ambled quickly over to her side and tucked himself near her ribs), to Kamaria, softening the fringes of a sigh into some manner of scolding. “You shouldn’t have come out here by yourself.” And Melita didn’t want to babysit. She didn’t want to do anything but be left to her own wiles, her own devastations, without some other form to look after. Half the time she was enough. Her hands continued to sculpt and whittle from the damp pathways, shaping a line of sandy stones. “Do you know how to make a sand castle?” The tones were light, airy, ethereal, managing to billow away from the molten mess inside her bones, eventually lifting her chin to stare in some reign of open defiance.
This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight
The pumpkin hides beside his companion to escape graspy fingers. Kamaria giggles as he does, but makes no further attempts to continue her pursuit of his now-tucked vines.
As she meets the woman's gilded eyes, she can clearly see the disapproval that haunts there. Her smile leaves her lips and turns into a hurt frown. She's never been so blatantly rejected before. It leaves a sharp sting that glazes her eyes, but she doesn't dare cry.
Especially not when suddenly the air turns lighter as relent takes the place of rejection. Kamaria considers the question, enthusiasm returning, a smile building back up to shake apart her pout. "Yes! I know how to make those," she boasts. And, being a child, she has a moment of childlike bluntness, giggling with it, "I can make a better one than that." She points her toe towards Melita's beginnings of a sandcastle.
Tempting as it was to settle right into the folds of being an outright ass and a defiant little brat, and Melita fought the urge, the youth simply raised her head at the girl’s insinuation. An enticement to grind her teeth along her jaw, to hiss and howl and scare the youth away rose through her chest, and she could feel every ounce of energy pulling her back from the frenetic embrace. She didn’t really care if Kamaria could make a better sand castle (and she doubted it anyway – if she chose to relent into that sudden competitiveness with a child). “Go ahead then,” came on a lofty, imperial, haughty shrug and sigh. Cry, leave, build. It scarcely mattered. That’s what she could tell herself.
Then she began to shape more than just the foundations, whittling and carving upwards, cutting through portions and pieces of the dampened proportions – elongating the procession of mocking-stone. The waves rolled in, greedy and avaricious, but the modest means and earnest structure didn’t threaten to topple; creating a firm base by which it would last and stand.
This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight
Of course, given permission, Kamaria's smile turns into an excited grin. She sets to work promptly, needing no other assurances. Give her an inch and she'll go a mile, there's no regard for the underlying reluctance. If Melita doesn't want her there, she'll have to be more forward than that.
Kamaria doesn't begin with the sand, however. By now, she's done this a few times, and so she goes to gather up some seashells first with all the confidence in the world one would have when they know exactly what they're doing.
She stops beside the little naturally-formed building, pausing to appreciate it's forms and shimmering surfaces. Along its edges, she bounds with shells piled against her chest. She locates a few pieces of seaglass, coral, and tucks them into her arms too.
Returning, she flops down onto her knees adjacent to Melita and her work-in-progress castle. Bluish eyes glance over curiously, but she's not too concerned by what she sees yet. Obviously she has some catching up to do, but she doesn't rush it. The process is the best part, after all!
For now the shells serve as tools, as she begins to scoop the sand into piles to draft out where she wants the highest and lowest points of her castle to be. Using a mix of molding fingers and shaping shells, she manages to build a base with smooth walls and even some shapes carved along them.
As they work, Kamaria tilts her chin over her shoulder to look at the red-haired woman beside her. Her smile dips downward into a subtle frown and she asks, "How come you don't stay when you come to the house?" She isn't meaning to be confrontational, of course, not understanding the complexities of all the different situations and relationships. All she knows is that Melita is family, and she's around, but she never visits. "Is it 'cause you don't like me?" She lifts her brows with concern.
Melita, despite her earlier notions, did manage to watch the youth dutifully, without prompting. Eyes followed after the child’s movements, ensuring there was some safety in accord with gathering seashells, with portions of seaglass and coral, with the waves cascading and rippling through. Kamaria didn’t seem bothered by anything at all here – not the salty air, not the winding breeze, not the Hels coasting overhead, and the honeybee narrowed her eyes briefly in speculation, in the same haughty nuances as before, when the child had returned.
Manifesting dedication into her own abilities, she laid the groundwork for the second tier, compiling buttresses and thickening spires, leaving naught to chance should the tide come in closer. Fangorn eventually left to gather some broken shells found along the dampened sand, ground into the earth, hidden from view, and when he came back his vines had plucked away at the grains of dunes, revealing natural patterns and wondrous hues. “Thank you,” she ushered to her companion when her hands were free of sand, wiping them off on her dress, and scratching him along the top of his head. Thereafter, the shards were placed upon the bottom layer, ensuring there was some beauty in its dune conjectures.
And all the while she hadn’t expected the question, so as Melita narrowed her brows and stuck out her tongue in concentration, it stung right into the press of her spine. She looked up rapidly, staring over at the girl, jaw clenching, feathering, and if it were possible, some smoke and fumes would’ve resided in the heart of her gaze. “Your father pisses me off,” and then she wondered if that had been an okay thing to say. Shrugging, she moved onward, trying hard not to wrap her fingers into a fist and lay waste to the project in front of her. “We had an argument. And I’m not sorry about it.”
So she snuck around instead of coming face to face with Sunjata and all the other ridiculous semblances around the house. Instead of seeing as little to no consequences were rendered after such a bewildering decision. Instead of staring the result straight in the face, like she was doing now. But to blame the one in front of her for all the problems? It wouldn’t be fair, even if Melita was drudging around in a barbaric mood. It hadn’t been Kamaria’s fault that Sunjata was stupid and Safrin was manipulative and knew exactly how to play him, and that Nate still came back as if nothing was the matter. She was truthful instead. “I don’t know you very well.” To decide if she liked her or not.
This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight
Kamaria continues to work at her own castle, though she cannot help the small looks of awe as she checks in on Melita's every now and again. It only gives her determination to make hers the best she's ever done! Her simple base eventually becomes a single-story castle with pillars that come up to make it look very fancy, she thinks. There are even windows and doors carved into the sand, though they're clumsily done. The shells are used mainly for decoration and the seaglass becomes a colorful path leading down to a moat she begins working on.
She's startled by Melita's harshness, however, never having been spoken to so brazenly before. Even if it isn't about her, it still feels as wounding. It's her father, after all, and for that she feels a strange sense of shame. Her gaze ducks down and her brows scrunch, lips pressing together in a more rigid pout.
Melita then points out that she doesn't know her, and to Kamaria this is an easier fix. Though a solution regarding Melita and Sunjata's argument still brews in the back of her mind. "Well.. my name is Kamaria, and you know my daddy... My mommy is Safrin, and I miss her a lot..." she tilts her head and looks down at her sandcastle.
"My favorite color is purple but I like a lot of other colors, too!" She perks up at this, smiling encouragingly at Melita while her head is still tilted like an owl's. Eventually, as she speaks, she'll right herself and rest her sandy hands in the lap of her dress. "I love the beach! Collecting all the different seashells is really fun. I have way big ones all. over. my room. Strawberries are my favorite fruit, but I like all food. Did you know? When I'm seventeen I'll get a whole bunch of tattoooos! Daddy said so. Oh! And if I was a bug, I'd be a butterfly." She thinks that about sums her up.
In conclusion, she directs the spotlight onto Melita, "There, now it's your turn. What would you be, if you were a bug?"
Melita had never been known for any artistic skill. Bastien had tried once, while she depicted her birthplace, in streaks of gold, crimson, and sienna, with leather wings scorching over the horizon. But she wondered if she should be applying the same wake now, and so she sent Fangorn off in search of more sea glass, competitive to a fault, in leagues and contests with a five year old. Which individual was more juvenile had yet to be determined.
Concentrating on her efforts, and not bothered in the least by her emboldened tone, the youth missed the way Kamaria wilted and pouted. Perhaps it was easier to ignore anyway, since the alterations were there in rapid formation, and Melita was forced to glance back at her as she made her first proclamation. Nothing she didn’t already know – but the last line irked, irritated, and pressed downward on her heart. Not something she particularly cared for. Mutinous as ever, her chin took on another defiant edge, lifting slightly, imperial and bratty. “She doesn’t come to see you?” Was that something goddesses did? Bestowed their children upon mortals they could manipulate, and then disappear back into the ethers?
She wouldn’t know anyway. Only one of her parents had ever wanted her.
Then there was an array of wild exposition, and the girl’s eyes widened simply to absorb and take it all in. Hues and colors, whirls of fabrication; portions of shells and the sea, fruit, some bizarre etching of tattoos prompted by Father Flood, and then butterflies.
And still Melita didn’t expect the question to be rounded back upon her once the herald’s daughter took a breath. But the answer was simple and ready, something she’d always known. “A bee.”
This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight
05-27-2021, 10:04 PM (This post was last modified: 05-27-2021, 10:07 PM by Kamaria.)
love should be as flowers of the weedy sort
Kamaria pauses and she grasps the shell tighter, sand scratching between her fingers. She bites her lip as she looks down at the castle she's constructed. Suddenly she continues her work on the moat, saying, "My mommy's not like other mommies." Not a mother to be there at her every beck and call, but a mother all the same. As she scrapes away at the pliable earth, she adds with a meeker voice, "She loves me, and daddy, but she loves other people, too."
But Kamaria does cease in her castle-building, if only to tell Melita more about who she is, to know her better. As she speaks about all of her favorite things, her rounded cheeks blush pink and her eyes light up with excitement. She presents Melita an opportunity to do the same, to get to know one another. And, while she does get an answer, there is no flush of enthusiasm within the woman's face. Her smile falters, though she tries to hold on to some semblance of it.
"If you were a bee, you could sting my dad - and then maybe you wouldn't be so pissed off anymore," she offers with the beginnings of a giggle in her voice.
There's a pause, though, and she considers Melita for a moment. "What does he do that pisses you off?" She asks in much more earnest, no more rosy cheeks and giggling lips but widened eyes and stressed brows. And yes, she says 'pisses off' just as easily as Melita does - though with less understanding of what it actually means. She thinks she gets it, though. Her father had done something that deeply upset Melita, or maybe multiple things, and they hadn't made amends. Yet.
For once, the youth was hushed in her considerations. Of a goddess who loved a vast many, instead of a collected few, or if it was the other way around – how Sunjata had finagled his way in as he’d done with countless others. Promises of loyalty, of love, of protection, until it seemed to meander straight into futility. How long did those convictions last? Until the next impulsive wave? They were both impetuous to a fault; Melita would readily admit that with any emboldened jut of her chin and seditious brow – but she hadn’t spun her way into the earth the way her uncle had. “Well, I hope she comes to visit you anyway,” she murmured. It would still be a shame to not have a mother to guide her. If that was what Safrin would be inclined to do.
Fangorn returned once more with collections of sea glass; soft rumbles of eagerness in supplying his gifts. The vines dropped near her lap with aplomb, perhaps in an ease to make the situation more bearable, and the dulled edges were alive and awakened with color. A beautiful amber, caressed by salt and sea, a vibrant mulberry, wine tone, clearly from someone’s favorite bottle, and several other adornments of crimson, as if they’d been lost in the fire and frenzy of celebrations on the beach. Another affectionate pat and scratch was given and delivered, and Melita hummed while she worked, placing them in the center, to surround a proportion she’d eventually carve into the wake.
She muffled a snort at Kamaria’s response, but it still clung to the back of her throat in a blistered preamble. “I’ve stung him many times, and it doesn’t seem to do much.” Her eyes lowered, not looking upon the girl with her sudden grasp of inappropriate language, with faltering smiles and too many widened proportions. The reality snapping back into her – that her attempts meant nothing – and wondering why she bothered. Her voice quieted, eyes narrowed, pretenses of concentration upon the dunes and sand sculpted and whittled beneath her hand, creating an imposing, beautiful structure, as if that was all it would take to mean something to the fools she considered family. “He makes decisions without considering other people. He doesn’t ask.”
This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight
Her seafoam-colored gaze flinches when Melita snorts audibly at her question. Kamaria finds herself chewing thoughtfully at the inside of her cheek. It's something little she'd seen her father do a lot, and it's here for a moment that she wonders how often he must feel troubled, with how much she's seen him do this nervous tic. Was it always because he felt bad?
"Well, when bees sting something, they usually die after," she comments, and it feels unhelpful, feels like nothing more than regurgitated facts she's learned in her classes. But maybe there's a point within it. "Maybe you should stop stinging him and just talk to him instead..."
As for making decisions without considering other people, Kamaria doesn't see that within her father. Her expression deepens and she wants to disagree, wants to find some way to defend him. "Daddy does lots of things for lots of people. My mom doesn't get to spend lots of time with me, but I know it's not because she doesn't love me. It's 'cause... she has grown-up stuff to do," she explains, though the vagueness of it feels drowned out by Melita's vexation. It's difficult for her to go into details, especially when she is still so new to this family, this world, and how complicated being a grown up really appears to be now. "What did he do that he didn't ask you first?" The question is hesitant, almost like she doesn't really want to know, but unless Melita tells her something more, she can't understand.
For now, her sand castle remains untouched, and truly she isn't sure that she can add much more to it. She likes it the way it is, simple, true to itself and true to her. As for Melita's? The work and attention the woman puts into it is astounding, and quite frankly far better. "I think you win..." she mumbles absently.
The youth didn’t really care about the euphemisms, metaphors, or clarities woven between a namesake, or if they hovered in contradictions. Instead of rampaging forth, which she suddenly yearned to do, her jaw clenched and feathered, brows furrowing, staring down at the sand castle, rather than over at the girl. “I have talked to him. It doesn’t seem to do anything.” Nothing stopped. Nothing ceased. Nothing changed. Even when he still spoke to her now, of life and events and alterations, they were usually after the fact, and incapable of being morphed back into the shape she could readily understand.
And as for the latest subject matter? It stared at her now. Her chin jutted outward again, layers of defiance for something she couldn’t fix. “It wasn’t about me.” But Melita, for all her forthright, blunt endeavors, wasn’t about to paint this child the ease in which the world had been tossed over because she now existed. Or at least, it had. Maybe Nate was over it. Maybe it was best that Ru had left, to brighter, greater things. Maybe everything had woven and eroded so far and away it was like circumstances meant very little. “Nevermind,” came on a mutter; fingers twisting back towards the opus before her.
The light mumble piercing through had her scoffing again though, another snort rounding through as she placed finishing touches: a little flag pole at the top (a stick), silhouetted by sun, dunes, and surf. “It’s not always about winning.”
This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight
06-12-2021, 08:32 AM (This post was last modified: 06-12-2021, 08:33 AM by Kamaria.)
love should be as flowers of the weedy sort
Kamaria grows meeker still, at Melita's stubborn assurance that nothing would make anything better between her and Sunjata. While she is frustrated at her own inability to penetrate this wall, she doesn't feel angry, because she understands the simple fact that not everybody gets along. Much as it isn't what she wants. She's experienced it with other children in her classes - kids who will pick and bully or think themselves better or even those who remain distant, quiet.
Sometimes, it just isn't meant to be. But family? That's different, and hard, and she only wishes that Melita would come around more. But perhaps that message has been lost in the echo of points said in different ways, and obstacles gone untrumped. There's something defeating about it all.
Melita scoffs and says it's not all about winning, and Kamaria's head tilts curiously at that. Though she can't bring herself to smile, she gets up and works her way slowly over towards the woman. Her eyes may be downcast and stormy to Melita's fiery waywardness, but she tries to rise through it. Gently, she tries to bring her arms around Melita to hug her.
"Don't be pissed off, please," She requests genuinely, promising, "I'll be your friend, and I'll tell you about everything!"
