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!
Milo somehow managed to distract from that predicament currently cycling through her head, enough to take the bottle and a few more swigs while he talked. Was it better or worse to have been like him – tucked away in Torchline, not immersed in the hellholes of Outlander worlds, or submerged into the horrors here? “Which do you prefer?” She wondered out loud, head tilting vaguely, ignoring the marshmallows now. Fangorn made some hissing, rumbling sounds, either in comfort or confusion.
Nose wrinkling, she sighed, poking at the ground again with her stick. “Would you rather stay in Torchline, or venture out more?” Like with the Ark and the rest of them, dragged around and traversing around? Melita hadn’t even realized it’d been her tugging him along most of the time – either to the Climb, to the Feverlands, or elsewhere.
Which does he prefer? It’s a good question – one that has him drawing silent as he truly thinks on it. The alcohol burns in his gut and he waits quietly to decide whether or not it would’ve been better had he held a more adventurous heart. Truthfully, though, when the Ark returns he’s far more excited to bury himself in the blankets of his bed, in the comfort of home, beside Aurelia and her warmth.
“I think… I’d rather stay in Torchline?” He finally decides after a moment, letting his bronze gaze lift to meet Melita’s own gilded pair. “Traveling with the Ark’s nice, it gives m’an excuse an’ stories… But when ’m not on th’boat, I’d rather never have t’leave my home, y’know?” He doesn’t know if she understands that, but there’s a part of him that imagines she can sympathize with it even in the slightest.
If she’d had a choice in her childhood, if chaos hadn’t been unleashed upon them, if the world hadn’t ended, would she have stayed in Helovia? The answer was almost instantly yes; because it’d been a wonderful land amidst wars and strife, cruelty and barbarity, pieced together in her favored desert, where the wide open skies never ceased, where dragons always called, where her mother worked and her sister lived. But that hadn’t been for her – and then there was the Rift and escaping its hellhole, and here. Caido. Being uprooted and unsettled had been a massive portion of her life – and maybe that was why she traveled and traversed. Why she didn’t care about the dangers. Why she scoffed and rolled her eyes at monsters, and grit her teeth at the thought of war.
Because it’d happened before, and would again.
She allowed for a small, sheepish smile at his answer. Why wouldn’t anyone just want to stay amongst and amidst the beaches? “There’s nothing wrong with being safe and comfortable. And knowing exactly where you want to be.”
The difference between them is that Melita had been molded from it just as much as Milo had been molded to picking an easy job, one that had him not far from land – not like his father or brothers where they spent the majority of their time on fishing boats. He’d remained an option for his mother and sister to rely on, having a job with a front of a dockworker, simply smuggling items to and from the Ark out through the Fingers to wherever they needed to go.
The rest of it, though? He can’t imagine a life like that, doesn’t know if he wants to.
“Sometimes… I think I feel bad, y’know? ‘Relia, she’s so used t’travelin’ ‘n shit. Bein’ someone. I’d jus’ as soon be content stayin’ home and doin’ what I can there.” He frowns as he picks at the spots of dirt and ash that’s floated away from the firepit with the blunt end of the stick he’d roasted marshmallows with.
Her frown reappeared, emerging back in flickers of the fire’s glow, in the streamlined surfaces of sticks prodding into dirt, where ghost stories had unfortunately morphed into their own. She’d like to clench her jaw and possibly stomp her way back to the Ark, reel off the feelings of the alcohol and the way life had played out – but Milo’s thoughts kept her brows furrowed, and her figure still sitting upon the log. Like she had to come to defend both of them; Aurelia – a friend who’d altered so significantly that Melita wasn’t really sure what or who she was anymore, and Milo himself. “But she’s not here anymore. She chose to be the Arbiter.” Less adventures upon the sea – and more tied into courts and legalities, the ones Torchline chose to care about anyway.
Little did they know of the circumstances unwinding back home, where there was even more change to be had. “And you’re still someone – even at home, or at the docks, or smuggling away.” A slight smile pressed in, wearing over the edges of the grimace. “It doesn’t make you any less.” Should Melita have been more too? And what did that signify? What did that mean? “Maybe you should talk about it with her, when we get back.”
He sighs lightly, nodding when Melita mentions that Aurelia isn’t here. And perhaps it’s his drunken state that has him thinking about what the honeybee girl says more intensely. His brows inch together and his hand rises to rub at the side of his face. “I, uh,” he pauses as a quiet groan leaves him. “Only really got into sailin’ with the Ark ‘cause of her. Wanted t’help her. Jack wanted a healer. Worked out.” His shoulders shrug. “I dunno what t’do now that she’s not here.”
And she wouldn’t be when he got back either, except he doesn’t know that yet.
He squints at Melita in consideration before his hand drops back to his lap and he nods. “Maybe. Dunno, we’ll see.” He doesn’t even know where to start. Things for Aurelia had been so turbulent lately and he’d tried his best to be her rock – but with this time away he feels as if he’s drifted, floating further and further down the river away from home.
“Well,” she paused, dismayed, saddened a little, wondering how often he’d been forced to do things he didn’t want to do. “Do you enjoy it now?” Or would it be his last voyage – sailing into the swamps? Would he simply linger and live his life in Torchline, accompanying Jack with alternative smuggler duties, and leaving them to recruit for more individuals yearning for the sea? “And you need to tell me if you don’t want to be dragged out somewhere,” she snorted – presuming his easygoing nature had just been the forefront of adventures, willing to go merely because she’d asked, even if it was absurdly stupid.
She breathed a little easier, presuming he’d have some discussions with Aurelia about it. The notions weren’t really her business after that, so she cast her stick back out, traced and drew little lines of a boat.
He hasn’t really let himself consider whether he liked it or not. He’d grown used to having sea legs, grown used to the regime of the Ark and working with the people within it. Gotten used to dealing with Jack more and more, and now that he was on a boat his family seemed a bit more comfortable even if they still didn’t know the type of work he did. So he considers it for a bit, sucking on his teeth before he eventually nods, a sheepish smile crossing his face. “Yeah. Think I do.” He offers gently, shoulders relaxing a fraction with the prompts from Melita.
As for telling her whether he wants to go with her or not, the smile he casts her way is nothing short of bright as he shakes his head and a chuckle colors the air around them with the sound of the crackling fire. “’Lita, if I didn’ wanna get dragged out ‘nywhere, I wouldn’ say yes.” He sits back a bit, gaze casting over Fangorn before landing on the picture she draws into the earth, waiting to see what else she adds in with the boats.
Her head tilted, taking another swig of the liquor as he contemplated, finally relenting an answer. There was an undignified snort behind it, a warm round of laughter buoyed by booze and no more discussion of ghosts. “Good,” she finally responded, humming lightly under her breath, adjusting and adding to her bizarre, poorly depicted Ark, placing a grumpy Jack with his sear cat at the helm. “Where do you think we’ll head next?”
Her own bright grin returned towards his at the acceptance and admittance that she hadn’t been pulling him along out of his discomfort. “Okay. Just making sure.” With her boldness and audacity, it might’ve been easily misconstrued or overlooked.
Her own laugh makes it easier to manage, the smuggler casting a grin her way in amusement before he’s shuffling a bit and watching the image she draws. Where would they be heading next? He doesn’t know. “Dunno. I don’ really know much ‘bout the Wilds ‘n stuff.” His shoulders rise and fall in yet another shrug before he puffs out a sigh past his lips. “Sure it’ll be excitin’ though.” They usually were. This time, instead of ghost whales though, they were dealing with vampire gourds. Certainly good for story making, at least.
As for not being dragged along, once he’s sure she understands that she hasn’t been dragging him along unwillingly, he lounges back a bit, stretching out his legs in front of him before he puffs out a sigh. “Where do you think we’re headin’?” He asks, casting his firelit bronze gaze over toward her again.
Considering he wasn’t the adventuring type, she snorted; the answer laden within those broad streaks of indifference. While she worked on her pathetic, poorly-drawn sketch, now adding cannons and sails to the masts, other little hallmarks of people and crew members aboard its wooden frame, she pondered. “I’d like to go somewhere I haven’t been before.” But there was no way through the mountains of the Draig. “Maybe we can go a long way round to Hak Etme,” and there Melita laughed – couldn’t imagine how long such a journey would take. Or how familiar, how wonderful, how enlightening, it could’ve been – a landscape much like the one she’d been born within.
“But who knows with Jack,” she muttered – it depended on trips, necessities, things they were smuggling.
“Maybe.” Milo offers with a soft laugh, a lighter smile gracing his features. It would take time but there wasn’t anything saying that if they didn’t go this time that they couldn’t go the next time the Ark sailed out. So speaking of Jack, the smuggler reaches up to run at his chin, considering her curiously before he’s leaning forward to inspect her drawing again. “Could suggest it t’Jack? Maybe next time we’re sailin’?” To take a trip to a place he’s understood to be a desert of sorts.
The rest of it though, his bronze gaze falls back to the drawing, watching it with interest before he’s drawing up to point at the crows nest. “Oy, put me there with m’spyglass!” A bright grin is sent Melita’s way, excitement to see how she tries to draw him with his addition, however crude it might come to be.
At Milo’s question, Melita laughed, bright and exuberant, casting off the shards of earlier discussion with a wrinkle to her nose. “Right. I’ll just let Jack know where I’d like to go. He’d love that.” She tilted her head, angles of brows suggestion a look of have you ever met Jack? without the air of the facetious inquiry making it out into the swamp.
Her drawing persisted, and she snorted a little at his suggestion – but placed him in there just the same, a rudimentary figure with something that might’ve looked like a spyglass, if one was drunk or tipsy. She outlined the rest of the Ark, even put a miniature Saiden somewhere along the bow, with one eye, so he resembled Cyclops, and all the others they’d left behind. Even some ghost whales came along the side, and cannons pinpointed on them in case she ever got her shot. “There!”
“Oy, it’s a suggestion.” Milo quips quickly, a bark of a laugh leaving him as he shakes his head. “’Sides, I think if we get back ‘n y’can find someone from there with th’talk of what they got, then y’got yer proof.” He reaches up with a finger to tap at the side of his temple as if to say ‘yes, I’ve thought about this before’, before he’s settling to watch her draw, leaning back against a hand as the fire continues to crackle between them.
When she’s done and she pipes up her there!, Milo is leaning forward to inspect it with a bright pale grin. “Looks jus’ like me.” He agrees with another chuckle, before his head tilts slightly. “That Saiden?” He asks curiously, gesturing to the cyclops, humming another laugh at the idea of it. It fit, don’t get him wrong, but the idea of it all was still far more amusing than he’d initially anticipated.
