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!
you can't see, we've been falling from the 5th story, hope we don't hit the surface
He’s needed to come to Torchline anyway to find the fishing line that he’d spoken with Wessex about. So it’s no surprise that he wants a bit of an adventure afterwards as well, especially noticing how the vampire gourds seem to be every fucking where. At least this time he has company in the form of Samuel, an effort to get closer to the rest of the Ascended ever since he’d come back.
Also an effort to figure out what Sam was good at, with whom in the upcoming war would be paired with him for maximum efficiency. So it’s no surprise that this is also part of seeing what they’re both made of. Luckily for Sam, though, Varus is quite experienced and quite old, with a metal arm that flexes as they move under the cover of night and moonlight before the Peepholes are upon them.
“It’ll be quick, I promise.” He assures the red head, flashing a bright smile. “Watch out for the holes, they’re big. Just don’t fall in them.” His metal hand rises to scratch at his stubbled jaw with a huff of a laugh. “Might be fun to punt some pumpkins into them though.” Make it a game, whoever gets the most pumpkins in the peepholes wins. What do they win? Who knows.
Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
Sam had been on what was meant to be a peaceful walk, quite determined to put thoughts of the war or having to be prepared out of his mind, when Varus had co-opted his down time to be some sort of strange gourd-based training exercise. He'd followed along because he'd never been good at saying no (and the man had a somewhat frightening robot arm), but he was clearly displeased about it, hands shoved into his pockets as he trudged along behind Varus.
"Yeah...what do you think the holes are for, though?" He asked, leaning over one, curious enough to break his sullen silence. They seemed too big to be the result of a burrowing animal, but too ramshackle and messy to be human-made. "What if kicking them down there makes them more powerful somehow?"
you can't see, we've been falling from the 5th story, hope we don't hit the surface
“They’re probably tunnels or something.” Varus comments, unable to remember what exactly had caused them, but recalling how people had left offerings at the entrances to a few of the tunnels, rumored to have disappeared the next day. Nomads, perhaps? Creatures? Maybe that’s where these fucking pumpkins go whenever it isn’t Leafchange?
He slows his pace a little to stand side by side Sam, watching as a pumpkin edges closer to the red head, Varus immediately moving to swap sides with him to kick the pumpkin away, watching it roll through the underbrush with a snarl and a hiss. “Good thing ya got me then, huh kid?” He teases, flashing a fanged grin Sam’s way, flexing his metal arm.
Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
"...For who?" Sam continued to wonder, imagining creatures similar to the Prince squelching about underneath them. As much as he would usually take offense at being called 'kid', he allowed it from Varus, since the man was literally hundreds of years old - that didn't stop him from wanting to roll his eyes at the flex though.
Well, if there was already one gourd in the holes, Sam supposed more couldn't hurt. Turning around to find one he grabbed it around the bottom, so it's teeth couldn't reach his fingers; there were always a few around him at this time of year, ready to chomp on his ankles in eternal revenge for their lost parent. With a nervous little throw he tossed it down into the hole, watching as it disappeared from view and worryingly, did not make a sound as if it had hit any bottom.
For a moment he was silent, peering into the tunnel, then he looked back over at Varus. Remembering his age had brought questions to mind that Sam couldn't put down now that he'd considered them. "Um. I was wondering...have you ever seen anything like now before? I mean, where everything is getting so intense between the Ascended and everyone else."
you can't see, we've been falling from the 5th story, hope we don't hit the surface
“People, creatures, trees, who knows?” He comments as if it should be relieving, though realizing shortly after with the nervousness that’s slipping from Sam that it certainly won’t end with such a fun and good note. So he withdraws a bit, flashing an apologetic smile. “If it helps, those holes have been there for a long time. Since I was a kid. Never saw anything come out of it before.” But then he’d shut down, and who knows what had happened before he was born and during the time he’d been effectively turned off.
Still, Varus watches with a slightly calculating gaze as Sam throws a gourd down into a tunnel, his oceanic gaze rising immediately when Sam’s question is brought up. There’s a moment of pause, a moment where a frown tries to tug on his face. “I have.” He comments a bit sadly, moving to fall into step with Sam to kick off the pumpkins from reaching the kid’s ankles. “It’s why I chose to Ascend in the first place. Shit was unfair for us and I wanted to give us a solid chance. Just… Didn’t work out so well in a fight in King’s End.” Broad shoulders shrug, his metal arm glinting with the moonlight as his gaze turns ahead of them down the path.
Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
"Hm. When you were a kid, was it different at all here?" It had been so long ago, but the Wilds often felt like somewhere untouched by time, pure nature existing on it's own terms and not subject to the passing years.
He still kicked and punted pumpkins while listening to Varus, the action so automatic nowadays that he didn't really have to concentrate on it. Sam couldn't hurt a fly, but he could hurt a gourd. Varus said that he had seen something similar and seemed sad for it, but to Sam it was comforting: it had happened before, and yet it was all still here. There was a future after it. "So...you wanted to give the Ascended a fair chance...by joining yourself? That's quite a high opinion of yourself, isn't it?"
you can't see, we've been falling from the 5th story, hope we don't hit the surface
There’s a hum of a thought that leaves his lips before he shakes his head, a quiet laugh leaving him. “Everything was different except for the Wilds. Untamed as always, just… More populated.” He shrugs, casting his gaze back over toward Samuel with an almost small apologetic smile, as if it likely wasn’t the answer the red head was seeking, but the answer he could give regardless.
The rest of it, though, has Varus picking up a gourd with his metal arm as it tries terribly hard to latch onto him with its vines. He tosses it into a hole as they pass by, perhaps with a bit more force than necessary as Sam’s question distracts him. “No, not just me.” The Ascended says with a bark of a laugh. “There were a bunch of us that joined. I was just one of them that helped promote you all before I officially ascended.” Heaving a sigh he doesn’t need, the metal arm rises to run through his hair, growing a bit longer day by day. “Plus my skills were pretty useful for them at the time.” And soon, more than likely, they would be useful again.
Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
Sam nodded slowly, finding some kind of peace in that. Maybe the Wilds would stay again this time, a preserved relic of time forever. A part of Caido not in the crosshairs of the war.
The gourds were swarming, but by now Sam was so used to them being around his ankles that it didn't really bother him; he studied a leaf with his fingers for a moment, impressed by it's colour, before swinging a leg to kick more gourds down the holes. Looking to Varus, he smiled as the man laughed. "Oh. Is um...is anyone else that joined then still around?" The answer would probably be depressing, but Sam was always eager to meet older Ascended.
"Skills? I mean, obviously your arm must be strong, but what can you do?" He asked, unaware of the man's job and pleasantly curious.
you can't see, we've been falling from the 5th story, hope we don't hit the surface
“One of them, yes.” Varus replies swiftly, encouraged by the smile Sam offers him. He moves to kick another few gourds down into the Peepholes before he’s ending up on Sam’s other side, metal arm gleaming as he shrugs lightly. “Aamu, you might’ve seen him around.” He pauses, a hand rising to scratch at his cheek as he considers it. “He’s the one that trained me further and helped me with the whole Ascension.” Honestly, Aamu was his oldest and best friend.
But as for his arm, he looks down at it, lifting it before his face as if he can see something inscribed within it, before he shakes his head and lets his oceanic gaze land back on Sam. “Actually, the arm’s new. I got it after I woke back up. The other one was mangled pretty badly. Isla took it off.” It was how they met, actually. “I’m an assassin.” He says pretty openly. Sam was family, after all. Did it matter much if he knew what Varus had done before he’d shut down? How useful his skills were?
Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
"Oh..yes, I've met Aamu. He's...different to you. Seems older somehow." Sam had met other Ascended that had lived hundreds of years, and a lot of them had been quite odd. He'd thought it was probably normal and expected after such a long life, yet Varus seemed just as average and personable as anyone else he'd met. "Do you...view people differently, when you've lived that long?"
Sure, he'd been absent for a lot of it, but Varus had to feel as if he was significantly older than most of the Ascended currently living.
Looking about for gourds and seeing that for now he had apparently managed to quell the surge, Sam leaned against a solid rock (making sure first it did not have a hole to fall into) and tried to act cool as Varus told him of his occupation. "Oh. I see. Um...do you...do it a lot? That kind of work?" He didn't have the guts to ask, but what Sam really wanted to know was: how many people have you killed?
you can't see, we've been falling from the 5th story, hope we don't hit the surface
“He’s been Ascended longer than I have. Maybe that’s part of it.” Varus says with a slight shrug, unsure what exactly the difference between them were aside from the obvious – Varus was more carefree, more playful, much more of a jokester. But he was also deadly, cold, venomous when in the right mindset. Aamu, for all his abilities as a swordsman, had always been calm, collected, cool, with genuine intrigue and interest in the world.
The question does stump him, though, and he’s silent for a few moments as he kicks another few pumpkins away from them. “Not everyone. Some of you all seem like kids though. Worrying about the little things when there’s much bigger fish to fry.” He offers, head tilting to look back at Sam with the raise of a brow. “I think you all need to just relax a bit more. Have more fun while we can. It’ll help.” A crooked, fanged smile spreads across his face that only remains when the question of whether he does a lot of his work.
The smile is playful at first and turns a bit sharper, a bit more toothy. He watches the other Ascended lean against a rock and Varus finds himself stilling, peering up at the branches above them. “Haven’t needed to since I got back, but I did a lot of it before I shut down.” He pauses, his gaze lowering to level on Sam. “Most fun I’ve gotten recently is stopping a thief from the Grounds.” He shrugs as if it were boring work.
Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
"Maybe." Sam agreed, though that thought had always scared him; that after long enough of being Ascended they would somehow fundamentally change, the human essence within eventually made weak enough to fade away and be replaced by the Voice's tinkering machinery.
Varus seemed normal enough, at least, beyond the whole killing people thing.
Well, he was definitely a worrier - Sam knew that much about himself. Hell, since they'd started kicking gourds, he'd checked over ten times that the ground beneath them was solid enough to not crumble and cast them down into the holes too. While Varus was right there, he couldn't help but balk a bit at the suggestion. "Fun? With a war and people wanting to kill all of us?"
'Stopping a thief' could mean all kinds of things, but Sam was glad Varus spared him the details. "I see. Have you met Wessex? She's...I mean, she's not officially our leader, but she basically is."
you can't see, we've been falling from the 5th story, hope we don't hit the surface
Varus focuses on Sam, a dark brow rising in curiosity even as an amused smile spreads across his face. He reaches out to rest a hand on Sam’s shoulder, giving him a light squeeze before withdrawing back into his own space, hands slipping into his pockets as he looks back down to one of the Peepholes that seems relatively empty from offerings for the moment. “It’s all the reason to have more fun.” He offers, surprisingly optimistic.
“You spend the years leading up to the war, worried and stressed out and sad about everything when you should have been living.” His gaze snaps back to Sam’s face, a hint of wisdom hidden in his gaze that seems to suggest it was something he wished he had done more before the first war, before he’d shut down, before he thought he didn’t get another chance until he’d managed to come to.
The question of Wessex though, it has Varus offering a brighter grin. “She was the first one I met when I woke up, actually. She found me, offered me a bite, and took me to Isla.” He offers with a soft nod. “I’ve been helping her with trainings and things. Why do you ask?”
Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
Sam gave Varus a nervous, but genuine smile at that sentiment. He'd never been good at seeing the brighter side of things, often erring on the 'doom and gloom' side, but it was a little easier to try when surrounded by optimists. "And um, what do you do to have fun?" Without drinking, sex or food, a lot of people would say the Ascended lacked a lot of options for pleasure.
Despite the warning, Sam was still going to worry. Maybe even more so now, because in addition to worrying, he would now worry about worrying too much.
It was all very worrisome.
Peeking about for any more gourds and lazily kicking a twig into the holes, Sam shrugged. "I just thought you might want to, since...like I said, she is our leader. Sort of. Maybe you know what you need to do on your own, though. Do you...think that you're going to fight in the war? Kill people...for the Voice?"
