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!
He does not expect the pup to respond to his friend's name (and no, Mateo still has not put two and two together to come up with dog yet), and as the wader approaches, it feels as though he will have to stop his impromptu weapon from becoming a toy. Still, swiping at the bird a few times seems to do the trick; gaining confidence as it starts to retreat, Mateo waves his branch very threateningly after it. "Yeah, and stay away!" he calls after it, grinning and beaming down at the pup.
"You helped too. Here," he says, tossing the branch for the canine to chase. "But we can only play for a bit - I need to find my friend Ever. And my arm still hurts..." His fingers have gone numb actually, but it doesn't hurt so bad when he keeps it braced against his chest, so... that's currently the plan.
08-02-2021, 07:07 PM (This post was last modified: 08-02-2021, 07:17 PM by Everest.)
Everest
Snarling and snapping his teeth, but only because Mateo was wielding the stick like a sword and it seemed like the thing to do, Ever was quite certain he'd never felt this much adrenaline racing through his system ever before. This too would become a common theme for the Hart boy, but for now at least with the bird flouncing off to the other side of the river, Ever feels as though he might be able to catch up to his thundering heartbeat.
Glancing at the stick and feeling his paws immediately lumber at it, Ever halts as he hears Mateo say he needed to find him. Oh, he thinks clumsily to himself as he shifts back. Sitting on the sands with Mateo's stick in one hand, Ever beams up at his friend and waggles the stick in his direction. "No, it's me, see? I'm the dog." And then, as if it weren't obvious, he adds, "I'm an attuned."
Heaving in a breath and feeling suddenly exhausted as the adrenaline begins to wear off, Ever gently places the stick down at his side before struggling to his feet. "I think that's the scariest thing that's ever happened to me." He admits, still very much needing to pee. "What about you?"
Mateo is still watching where his stick has been thrown, so it takes him a moment or so to realise that Ever has shifted back into himself. And then a few more moments to realise that Ever is there, and that he was the dog. It's very helpful, in fact, when the boy lays it out for him, Mateo blinking at him before letting a smile spread across his face. "That's so cool!" he blurts out.
"Did you see? We managed to scare away the weird bird thing, too! We're a great team." He grins, drawing up beside his friend and feeling very proud of himself, even if he's still only one armed. "Oh! Look - there is my dads' houseboat," he says, pointing up river with his good arm (and still not realising that the proximity to his parents might have everything to do with why the wader disappeared).
Ever isn't so sure that it's cool, but he nods just the same. "You think so?" He all but gushes, feeling his cheeks heat up so much that he forgets about the pain in his bladder. "I thought you did really good with your stick. It was like a sword. I'm pretty sure that's what scared it off."
Spinning around, Ever narrows his eyes and sees that yes, just around the bend is a pinkish-orangish-brownish houseboat. 'You know, when you said houseboat, I just imagined a house that was floating on the water." The Hart boy admits with a crooked smile. "I didn't think it was going to be a boat that was also a house." This was a poor explanation of what he meant, but given his relief at knowing that they were somewhere instead of just wandering through the woods, had loosened his tongue a bit too much.
"Do you think your dads will be mad?" Ever asks in a whispered voice, drawing near Mateo and frowning. "You know, about your wrist?"
"Yeah, for sure!" Mateo gushes right back, grinning hard enough for his dimples to show. "So you can turn into a dog whenever you want to? And just chase your tail and run all over the place?" Clearly Ever is living the high life, and Teo waves a hand as if to say his stick is nothing in comparison. "I wonder what it would be like to use a real sword, though," he says offhandedly, meandering towards the houseboat now.
Speaking of which... "You know that would make more sense, wouldn't it?" He tilts his head, as if imagining a little thatched roof and a chimney on top of the boat, so it would look more authentic. "Mm...? Oh, no, I don't think so," he says, glancing down at his arm and leading them towards the boat. "It was an accident, and we can tell them the bird story. That will distract them."
"Yeah. Sometimes I shift when I can't get comfortable because as a dog everything is comfortable." He says with a slightly proud smile that wavers as he considers his friend's question. "Probably really heavy." Ever decides after a moment, shrugging.
"Maybe it could have the same enchantment as skyboats? And just hover above the water?" That sounded really neat, and though he doesn't know it, Ever is suggesting the first properly mobile home in Caido (Sorry Ianto, wagons don't count). "I think my parents would just be...DisSaPoIntEd. Do yours ever do that? When they say they aren't mad, but they frown and do that...like, Big Silence thing?" Unsure how to describe it, Ever just vaguely waves his fingers out in front of him as if this will make it more clear.
"For real? I bet that's amazing," Mateo says with a broad smile, ruffling a hand through his curls and thinking what it might be like, to enjoy life as a dog and just... roll around and nap and whatnot. It probably wouldn't be so interesting when he realised he had no thumbs to plant things with, but on the other hand, he could dig a lot of holes. "Mm, you're probably right. My dad and my big sister are part of the dragoons - do you think we could go in the Dragon's Nest and see for ourselves?" he asks.
WAGONS DO COUNT OMG. "Would it need an anchor, or a big rope to tie it to stuff?" Mateo asks, imagining the floating home drifting away into nowhere if it wasn't tethered. As Ever starts to talk about his parents, though, Mateo's brow furrows, the boy looking honestly confused as he glances across to his friend. "No..." he says slowly. "No, my dads have never done that with me. Is it weird?"
Although Ever has precisely no inclination whatsoever to step so much as a toe near the dragoons, he still nods his head immediately. "Sure." He chirps, ever the willing sidekick to Mateo's adventures. He also absolutely assumes his friend means see the swords, and not steal a few swords and playfight with them, which is likely to be the case.
THIS IS THE CAIDO EQUIVALENT OF BEING UPPER MIDDLE CLASS IG. "Yeah I think so, but most boats have anchors don't they? So it would fit. And since your dads are strong, they could just pull it to wherever they wanted to go next." It would make finding his friend very difficult if his house kept moving, though, and that makes Ever frown a bit.
'..oh...' Wondering which of them has the non-standard upbringing (it's both), Ever twitches his lips and shrugs a bit oafishly. "Yeah it is weird. It's like...the silence gets really big and loud. Like the pressure has gone up and you're waiting for your ears to pop but then never do. And everyone floats around in it and pretends everything is fine, but it isn't." Huffing out a sigh, Ever kicks out at a rock which bounces only a few feet away. "You're lucky that your dads don't do the Big Silence to you."
Mateo? Steal swords to playfight with them? Never. He's got to wait for his arm to heal first, be real. Luckily, Ever has thoroughly distracted him with the thought of his fathers lugging around a houseboat after them, like some hermit crab gone wrong, and he's chuckling to himself even as they come up beside said houseboat (not like the one in their imaginations, but still). "Maybe that's what they plan to do with this place," he says. "Though luckily it has to stay in the water, so it can only really go up and down the river."
His amusement fades as talk turns to the Big Silence, Mateo frowning and glancing back to his friend. "It sounds horrible," he murmurs. "No, they don't do that to me. But I do walk in on them taking each other's clothes off a lot. And they're not silent at all," he says, clambering aboard the houseboat and offering his good arm out to help Ever as well.
'Well it doesn't have to stay in the water." Ever says under his breath. Not with what Remi and Ronin are capable of, but he takes his friend's point. Now that it's Ever's turn to be puzzled, he scrunches his face up and tilts his head. "Why? My parents never do that. They can take their clothes off on their own." He wondered if an inability to get undressed was Remi and Ronin's Achilles-heel,
The dock shivers and rocks beneath his feet. Clutching Mateo's hand with his own, Ever scrambles up onto the boat which is not entirely stable, but at least is moving a good deal less. "And it was an accident!" Ever hastily calls out, trying to smooth down his shirt and stand up taller.
Outside, Remi is still knocking down trees for an extension onto to Vai's hut, so it'll be the Huntsman, hopefully, who answers his son's call for help. Or praise. Or whatever it is Mateo is doing.
"My parents can do that too. They just like to take each other's clothes off, I think. That's what you do when you're in love, right? Take clothes off, kiss a lot, touch each other and whisper things like shhh, Mateo's sleeping! and stuff like that?" It's probably a very good thing that they are aboard the boat by now, because it means that there's very little chance for the conversation to get any weirder. Probably.
Because it is the Huntsman who answers, Ronin having been putting the finishing touches on their kitchen - which explains why he emerges with a half eaten bit of toast in his hand. (He's testing it). "An accident?" he echoes Ever, glancing between the two boys with a cheerful smile before noticing Mateo's limp arm.
"Oh," he says, to which Mateo offers his father a bright grin.
"Can you fix it please? Ever and I were playing. We scared off a big bird, right Ever?" He glances to his friend.
Ever of course has no idea if that's what you do when you're in love, but what he does know is that it makes him feel incredibly unhappy and uncomfortable to even imagine it. "..uhh..." If Ever was Mateo's sidekick, his action figure's catchphrase would be "...uh??"
"Yeah, it was." Ever offers in a pleading tone, about it being an accident. No matter what his friend might have said, Ever can only imagine Upset following the revelation that Mateo had been hurt. "Mhmm. It was really big. Really really big." With eyes impossibly large that very much suggest the boy is not exaggerating one tiny bit, Ever nods his head rapidly up and down.
'Mateo fought it off with a sword." Then, realizing maybe this elaboration would get his friend in trouble, quickly adds: "Well, a branch, but he weilded it like a sword."
Luckily for Ever, Mateo happens to know that his fathers are bigger kids than most kids, so as he puffs out his lower lip at Ronin and nods along with his friend's story, he's already reasonably sure that things will be alright. Indeed, Ronin ushers them both into the houseboat where the scent of toast and jam is still prevalent (covering up the smell of fresh paint) and sits them both down at the recently-constructed table, making sure to finish his snack before fixing up his son's arm.
"A sword?" Ronin gushes, to which Mateo nods vigorously along with Ever, only to wince and flinch away a bit as his father coaxes his arm out straight. "Well this doesn't look good, does it?" the Huntsman sighs. "I'll get Virgo to fix you up this time, but you'll have to keep your arm in a sling for the rest of the day, okay?"
Mateo pouts at this - naturally - but he nods along, glancing to Ever across the table. "At least I will still have one good arm. Do you want to go for a walk along the river after this? I think there's a bit of the Stonesong where you can sieve for gold."
Gingerly Ever takes a seat at the table, scooting in and keeping his arms close to his body as if the entire thing was built from matchsticks and might collapse at any moment. Glancing around at the mention of someone called Virgo healing his friend, Ever expects to see someone pop out of one of the rooms, or perhaps even a companion—unicorns could heal, right?
Distractedly, Ever looks back toward Mateo, and just as he's about to nod his easy acknowledgement, his face crumples. "Oh!" He exclaims, and though he's now pouting too, his is genuine. "I left my backpack back near the.." Not wanting to say giant mushrooms lest he get them into trouble, he just widens his eyes in a gesture that he assumes is absolutely clear and also completely undetectable to grownups.
