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!
Trust me,, Ronin has told Seraphina in his invitation into the Wildwood. I have just the thing that will develop your skills with the bow. And now that they're here, buried in trees that are alight with colours from the falling leaves, he flashes her a grin.
"Don't worry," he says for perhaps the third time along their trip. "Don't think about me. Think about your target. Think about how it moves."
And what is her target, pray tell?
Him, of course.
Shivering a bit, Ronin shifts into the proud stag he becomes at Leafchange, crowned in glowing antlers, pawing at the ground with his hooves. But then he's gone, prancing into the trees and fully expecting Sera to take shots at him. And to hit him, if she can.
i can be a handful, but that's why you have two hands i'm not ever careful, and i can be rude
Greatwood living has Seraphina out of her typical blouses and heels for a more rugged appearance – boots now, paired with a shirt that still could be considered relatively blouse-ish while still being perfect for the weather and whims of the woods around them. It also works well for training, paired with a durable set of pants. And so she’s content to follow Ronin, expecting to see archery targets in the distance, with the quiver slung on her back and the bow in hand – her eyes look for something that simply, honestly, isn’t there.
“I’m sorry, what?” She blurts out around the umpteenth time that Ronin’s assured her he’d be fine. What if he wasn’t? What if she was a good enough shot to shoot him in the eye?
How the fuck was she about to explain that to Remi?
Puffing out a somewhat irritated sigh, she stares at Ronin before he shifts, twisting the bow in her hand before she’s reaching back for an arrow. “Okay, fine.” Seeing as he hasn’t given her a choice in the matter before he’s turned into that beautiful deer and sprinted off like bambi through the trees.
She steps forward to line him up in her vision – so she hopes – before she lets an arrow loose (part of her hoping it hits so that he might tell her how shitty of an idea this is and call it off for actual training targets, while the other part hopes she misses in order not to hurt him.)
you can be a red light stop, or run right through i can be a danger, danger for you
Sera won't be able to hear it without an Attuned bond, but rest assured, Ronin is absolutely laughing at her as he prances through the undergrowth. His instincts sing with the movement, and he leaps over a fallen log and even twirls a little, only for Sera to let her arrow fly. It goes wide at least, thudding into the tree trunk next to his head, and his tosses his antlers as if to say ha! try again!
And she'll soon get the opportunity, Ronin weaving away through the trees until he's suddenly lost in them. All falls silent, and then he's blurring by in a roar of movement and the thunder of hooves, as if daring her to try and shoot him in the behind. (And she just might this time.)
i can be a handful, but that's why you have two hands i'm not ever careful, and i can be rude
A huff of annoyance slips from her nose as the arrow lodges itself into the wood beside his head – irritated only by the way he tosses his crown of antlers as if he’s taunting her. So she sucks down a breath, reaching back to nock another arrow into her bow, trying to let her gaze focus on him again when he suddenly disappears through the fucking trees. Damnit, comes a mental hiss, before she’s waiting, slowing her breath, focusing and focusing.
Then she hears his hooves and turns, arrow pointed right at the man, aiming to lodge her arrow right into Huntsman-turned-Bambi’s ass. She doesn’t give herself time, however, to wait as it zips through the air – her eyes focused on Ronin while her hand flies back to grab another arrow, ready to nock it and try again.
you can be a red light stop, or run right through i can be a danger, danger for you
And he'd do it again too, Ronin too busy tromping through the undergrowth to pay attention to Sera's annoyance and frustration. Or at least, that is the case up until the point where the arrow grazes just past his rump, and if there was ever any doubt about the fact that a stag could look disgruntled, Ronin proves it as he gazes over his shoulder at her. He does, however, also see her nocking another arrow, and it prompts him into noping the fuck out of there.
He runs in the opposite direction, the luxere tossing his head at her again (for good measure, hahaha) and leaping between two trees in the hope of getting away from this new volley of arrows. If he'd been able to speak, he'd have sassed her or asked if she wanted him to stand still. As it stands, though, Ronin's mere presence will have to be enough to annoy her.
i can be a handful, but that's why you have two hands i'm not ever careful, and i can be rude
Truthfully, it works well. The antagonizing, forcing her to work under pressure. She’s already nocking another arrow by the time she sees her arrow graze past his rump and she wonders if the little sprinkle that had come from it was dirt or if she’d managed to get a bit of fur in that attempt. Regardless, if anything spurs her on it’s the look he gives her when he looks back at her. It does quirk the corner of her lips up in a small attempt at a smile as she tries her hardest to focus on him again.
He takes the opposite direction than she expects but she hasn’t let her arrow loose yet, watching as he leaps between two trees and she tries to focus on where he’s heading rather than where he is, trying to use her Artificer’s mind to calculate perspective and positioning and where the wind is coming from and how far of a distance he is from her to account for drop of the arrow’s height. And when she’s figured it out and held her breath, she lets it loose again.
you can be a red light stop, or run right through i can be a danger, danger for you
The problem with all of this, of course, is that Seraphina is no fool, and with a keen mind and an Artificer's talent, she is naturally going to learn the ropes of this little training exercise quite quickly. And so as Ronin continues his prancing, he's suddenly aware that Sera hasn't yet taken her shot. And as he lands between the two trees, she still hasn't. Only when he glances across at her does he see her release the arrow, the luxere forced to skid to a halt to avoid an arrow to the throat.
He blinks, frozen for a moment in the undergrowth, before his eyes narrow and his antlers lower, and he (naturally) charges her. Whether she can get an arrow nocked and released in time is irrelevant - Ronin will get within a mere few feet of Sera before he abruptly pulls away, prancing like the fanciest of luxeres in an unmistakeable gotcha!
i can be a handful, but that's why you have two hands i'm not ever careful, and i can be rude
She can both hear and see as he skids to a stop, the way the dirt around his hooves lifts over the edge of unmistakable green. The arrow misses, and Sera hisses a sigh of irritation again – of course, not wanting to hit him but at the same time she wants a bit of a win. She reaches back to grab another arrow when he freezes, and by the time she’s pulled the bowstring back she’s suddenly right in the path of what appears to be a really fucking pissed off Luxere heading her way.
She freezes for a second, hand trembling on the arrow as she holds her breath and when Ronin pulls away from her with a gotcha right before he has a chance to collide into her, she’s swinging the bow around with a “you fucker!” chanted into the trees after him, calculating everything much quicker this time and letting it loose, hoping he catches him right in the ass.
you can be a red light stop, or run right through i can be a danger, danger for you
It does. It does catch him right in the ass. Right in the left buttcheek, in fact, and the mere shock mixed with the sudden bite of pain has Ronin shifting right back into himself. "OW!" he announces to the woods even as he's tripping over his own feet and falling on his face, blood staining the fabric of his pants around the arrow in his butt. (Shrek jokes, anyone?)
"Alright, alright! Fuck, I concede!" With a face streaked with dirt, Ronin glances up and grins over his shoulder at Sera, though it's a smile tinged unmistakably with pain. "Please don't shoot me again. And if it's not too much trouble, maybe help me up? And to a medic?"
i can be a handful, but that's why you have two hands i'm not ever careful, and i can be rude
She thinks she might remember the sound of the arrow sinking into his rump for the rest of her life, if only for the fact it’s so much more than she’d expected. Her hand hovers over the quiver as she stares at him, watching him shift back into himself and fall unceremoniously into the dirt and she’s already slinging the bow across her shoulder, jogging over to him so that she might help him up.
His concession has her softening a bit, though there isn’t an apology. “You asked for it!” She retorts, unable to keep the edge of a smile from her face, reaching out to help him up even if the arrow still remains poking out of his ass. “I guess it’s not too much trouble.” She huffs, leaning back to get a good look at the arrow, before she’s helping him back toward the populated space of the Greatwood to search for a medic. “Hope you don’t plan on sitting for a while.” She murmurs, looking up at him with that very same amused yet serious look.
Luckily for Ronin it doesn’t take long before they find a medic that can pull the arrow out of his ass and patch him up, and Sera stays throughout it (perhaps for a bit of bragging rights and a bit of emotional support), before they’re on their separate ways again.
- FIN <333
you can be a red light stop, or run right through i can be a danger, danger for you
