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!
Mateo falls for a lot longer than it feels like he has bounced, and when he hits the ground, although he's cushioned by a lot of fallen leaves and moss and other detritus, he still, y'know, hits the ground. And it's unpleasant as all hell. "Questa è l'idea più stupida che abbia mai avuto," he grates as he finally manages to surface, having been sucked right down to the forest floor.
"I'm over here!" Vaguely he can hear Ever calling for him, scrambling to his feet only for pain to lance through his wrist, something that has him cursing all over again in another tongue. "Your turn!" he says jokingly, not that it is remotely funny. "I think I hurt myself."
At best Ever can hear the garbled sounds of the travelling tongue, and it's lucky that he hadn't been closer lest he spirals into more of a panic thinking he was having another stroke. Already sweat had begun to bead across his forehead, and his little heart was hammering so hard in his chest that it was distracting. Only because of his canine instincts does Ever find Mateo in a timely manner. Without them he'd have wandered about, crying out for his friend and lamenting his poor sense of directional hearing.
"My turn?" Ever repeats, red-faced as he arrives at Mateo's side, only to see him cradling his wrist. "Oh no.." The boy murmurs helpfully, before something like eagerness shoots across his face. "I know first aid. My name is Everest Hart and I know first aid. Can I help you?" This is what his mother had taught him to do—you had to give your name, say you knew first aid, and ask if you could help. You couldn't just start helping someone, after all. Consent was always important.
Dropping his backpack, the boy ferrets about for a moment until he pulls out a bag of thick blue stuff, a piece of wood, and a bandage. Glancing up at Mateo expectantly, Ever patiently waits with his strange assortment of things.
Now it's Mateo's turn to think he's having a stroke. Or he would, if he knew what a stroke was, because as Ever comes and introduces himself, the boy swears for a second that something must be very wrong for his friend to not know who he is. "I know who you are, Ever," he says quickly, the melodic tone of his accent growing thicker with masked pain. "I will be okay, I think it is just a sprain." It absolutely isn't, and Ever is right to pull out all the stuff that he does, but it doesn't fill Mateo with glee.
"What is all of that?" he asks, his arm remaining cradled against his chest (and oh boy, it's starting to swell). "You sure you don't want to jump? I did not make it look as fun as it probably is."
"I know you do, but I still have to say it." Ever protests. This causes his cheeks to grow hot given how little he likes arguing. But, he did have to do it. At least, he's fairly certain. 'But even if it's a sprain—" He begins, cut off as Mateo redirects his attention to the things he's holding. "Oh, well, this is a gel that when you crack it apart creates an endothermic reaction—or is it exothermic?" Pausing to frown, Ever gives his head a shake. "It makes it cold. To reduce swelling. And then a board to keep the joint straight, and a bandage to hold everything together until we can get you to a hospital." Because as the son of a doctor, of course Ever's instincts are to go to a hospital.
"Jump? Wha--uh.." Glancing over his shoulder where the mushrooms tower innocently in the distance, he looks back to his friend with a completely fake smile. "I..uhmm...I will, if you let me wrap up your wrist." He decides, holding out his fistful of supplies as if this will convince Teo to agree.
Between the blinding pain in his arm and the way Ever is saying things that he can't make head nor tail of, Mateo is thoroughly useless as a friend right now but pretty good as a patient. Indeed, when Ever is done with his explanation, the boy obediently holds out his wrist for him to do whatever he wants with. "A hospital?" he mumbles. "I do not think I need one of those. My father is able to heal, we just need to get to the boat."
Despite himself, he's smiling to hear that Ever will make the jump as long as Teo does what he's told, and he shrugs his shoulders and promptly regrets it. "You don't really have to," he mumbles. "But it was fun, until it wasn't. Maybe we can try again another day?"
'Oh..' If Ever sounds mildly disappointed that he won't get to use his first-aid skills, the feeling will quickly pass once he realizes all the ways in which doing so could go wrong: what if he wraps too tight? what if he smushes one of Mateo's tendons? What if the blue goop gets everywhere and burns his friend's skin? Honestly, it's probably for the best.
"Okay, well then... let's go find the houseboat, and then after—"
rustle rustle
"...after..." The colour begins to drain from Ever's plump cheeks as he trails off, blue eyes squinting into the underbrush. "...after.."
rustle rustle
"..uh..did you hear that?" Ever asks in a trembling voice that seems to have affected his hands as well; his shaking fingers drop the would-be ice pack he was holding, making the boy jump.
"That does not mean you can't use the first aid things now," Mateo protests. "It might actually feel quite good, and I am not sure where--" The Stonesong is, he means to say. It might take them a little while to make it to the river, and a little while longer before they figure out where the houseboat is relative to it, and why had this seemed like a good idea? The thought evades him, that Remi would not deposit them too far from home, and as far as Mateo is concerned they are in the middle of nowhere forever.
And now there's rustling in the trees. Mateo jumps as well at the sound of the ice pack, his arm moving to cradle back against his chest, and he turns to face the underbrush alongside Ever. "Who is it? Who is there?" he calls out. Clearly it's a monster, or at least something that understands the language they speak. Anything else would be ridiculous, right?
For a moment the rustling stops and the Greatwood seems to close in around the boys as an eerie silence falls. Ever is certain that Mateo can hear his heartbeat, and had his friend not been cradling his arm against his chest, the Hart-boy would absolutely have reached out to grip Mateo's hand. "Are you sure we should—" Ever starts to whisper, but he's cut off as the rustling starts up again.
Only this time it sounds as though it's coming closer.
"GO AWAY!" Ever yells loudly, sounding shockingly confident. Reaching down for the icepack, he lobs it into the bushes. If they're going to die, then he won't need to bandage Mateo up, right? The rustling stops for a moment before something emits a loud SqUaK of outrage. Ever's bladder suddenly feels extremely full, but that too won't matter, if they end up dying.
Mateo is not sure that they should, whatever the end of Ever's sentence might have been. And he'll never know now, because further rustling in the trees causes him to scramble back a bit, even as the Hart boy lobs his ice pack and defiantly yells into the undergrowth. "What animal says SqUaK?" he wants to know, his voice sounding a lot higher than he remembers it being.
With the arm that isn't likely fractured, he reaches out to tug at Ever's sleeve, as if he might be able to encourage his flight response that way. "Come on," he urges. "If we run, we might be able to get away from it. Otherwise we will have to fight, and I do not like our chances." In the years to come this will doubtlessly change, but for now at least, there is still enough caution in Mateo's little mind to know when he's beat.
'uuhh...' Ever starts, but his mind has gone completely blank. There's nothing to reach for and in this moment you could have offered him the Caido-equivalent of a million dollars and he'd not be able to name a single animal.
The tug on his sleeve is nearly enough to have Ever's legs unfreezing, when the rustle rustle begins again, and before either boy can do much about it, a whispershore wader bursts through the leaves. With its blue and wing wings fanned wide and its beak opened in a menacing V, the bird stalks forward on pencil-thing legs and eyes the boys vehemently. "SQuAk?" It demands of the boys, glaring at them with a predatory store that seems absolutely ill befitting a bird.
Hissing now as it spreads its wings wide, Mateo is quite right that fighting is a poor option, which only leaves running.
Uhhh is probably about right, if Mateo thinks about it. Only he's not thinking about it, or anything much at all right now, other than whether he'll trip over a root like Ever did whilst running from a monster. Only when the beast emerges, it isn't a monster at all except it really kind of is, and Mateo steps back a little further to see the whispershore wader coming at them so vehemently.
"Assolutamente no!" The words roll off his tongue quite without thought, and though there are plenty of rocks around that would probably do nicely when it came to fending off the bird, Mateo only has the use of one arm, and he needs it for fleeing. (You read that correctly).
"RUN!" He turns and whips away into the undergrowth, hoping that the other boy thinks to do the same. He doesn't want the great SqUaKiNg monster to eat his friend.
there was no where for me to stay, but I stayed anyway
Ever doesn't need to be told twice. In the months and years to come, never will the Hart boy prove to be a hero. He won't have a moment of glory when the situation seems dire, nor will he go against the odds to stave off a monster.
Shifting, the greyish-blackish pup gives a yelp of both alarm and agreement, and tucks his tail between his legs. He currently has no idea where he's going, and given that he hasn't a mouth that he can ask with, Ever is left trotting in Mateo's footsteps despite being slightly faster in this form.
Behind them, the wader honks its outrage and pursues without thought. In the back of its pea-sized mind it reasons that these human-cubs have fish, because they always had fish. Maybe they even had fish in their bellies that, if torn open, would be only partially digested.
It takes some time before Mateo realises that Ever isn't behind him - or that there's a puppy trotting at his heels instead. This would have normally resulted in a chorus of awwwhs from the boy; alas he is far too invested in not being killed by a honking great bird. It seems to take forever before they come bursting out of the undergrowth where the Stonesong rushes before them, Mateo turning and realising that now they're pinned between death and deep water.
"Ever?" he calls, figuring his friend to be eaten lost in the woods still, and he glances down at the pup only briefly. Then Teo is reaching out, because next to the pup is a big old branch, and if nothing else he can try and look threatening with it. Indeed, when the wader approaches, Mateo will swipe at it with the branch, trying to dissuade it from its rampage.
08-02-2021, 06:41 PM (This post was last modified: 08-02-2021, 06:42 PM by Everest.)
there was no where for me to stay, but I stayed anyway
Hearing his name, the pup yips brightly in recognition. For a moment his panic is overcome by eagerness, and he gives his tail a body-shaking wag in response. Only then as Mateo goes for a branch—stick? chase? throw? at a time like this?—the Wader ambles out of the brush behind them onto the shoreline. Looking quite pleased to have pinned its food between more food (the salmon in the stream), it snaps its beak several times wondering if its prey could kindly lay down belly-up so that it could eviscerate them.
Down shore, aware of the DaNgEr, Remi watches with his arms folded across his chest and a smile on his face. He doesn't flinch as the Wader takes a few snaps at Mateo which his son is easily able to fend off, and only decides to intervene when the bird's hissing comes absurdly aggressive.
From the point of view of Ever and Mateo, their combined stick-and-bark-attacks will prove SUPER EFFECTIVE. All at once the Wader will screech, flapping its wings and nearly tripping over its own feet in an effort to flee. Skittering down the bank, the heron-like bird will disappear into the underground while the man-turned-manticore upstream will chuckle to himself, before disappearing back to his own tasks as well.
