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!
With Noah tending to news in Torchline, Deimos spent the next few hours wandering, exploring, deeper into thickets he’d yet to reach. Hailing a temporary return to King’s End could’ve been in between his talons and plumage, but the crashing serenade of water, of a chance in tranquility, spurred him through ferns and greenery. Sometimes the brush enveloped his massive form, so he was hidden and tucked away, and the world wasn’t watching, waiting, for another iniquitous or stupefying plunge from his motions. Sometimes the grey fur caught the edges of sunlight, and they blurred together in streamlines of silver and gold, and he wasn’t immersed in the lines of failure.
Onwards, upwards, moving forward because there was no way back to the past, and if he slid into its roots and nettles, the thorns would stick into his ribs and there’d be no way out again.
His tiger gaze eventually caught the figments of ivory rising into the midst – mist and falls, what undoubtedly led and fed the lake he’d presided within some seasons before. But now he was on top of its landscape, tail flickering over the sticks and stones, limbs rising, coiling, before he bunched the muscles and sinew together to leap along a series of boulders lining the edge. And sat there, lost for a moment, like a great behemoth, piercing eyes gazing over the surroundings, and thoughts eventually turning, churning, over what more could be done before the snow arrived, and the frost settled.
For all the size and weight a siberian tiger possesses, she slides through the jungle undergrowth like a shadow. Beneath swaying palm leaves, the sound of her pawsteps covered by the roar of the falls, her scent masked by the mist, she's not to be seen or heard unless she wants to be.
Here in the jungles it's her natural element, both as a tiger and as a human. Perhaps that's why she feels so comfortable in this form, able to relate to it so easily and steadily. Perhaps that's why she can lose herself to the animal, dive in and immerse herself, let the darkness of her humanity fade into the back of her mind.
When she can taste the scent of another tiger on her tongue, it draws her attention sharply back to the present. Her blocky head swings toward the direction it seems strongest and she makes her way downwind towards it. Since there is no bond shared, she cannot tell if it's another Attuned.
Still, she ducks beneath the canopy of a low-growing shrub and peers out at the large tiger. Judging from the behavior, she thinks it might be a person, too. Who else had a tiger shift, other than her? She'd never met anyone, that she knew of, with the same shift.
Her stripes blend in beautifully with the greenery and the shadows, until she steps halfway out onto the wet stony ground. Her head lowers and a cautious look enters her green gaze. Hello...? Can you hear me? she speaks into a bond she isn't sure is there, dotted ears swiveling, Who are you?
keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you
There were one or two breaths of stillness, of nothing but the falls drumming over cliffs, of naught but the residual echoes of water crashing, descending, into an abyss –
And hollowed, carved back out, paws on stone and ground that were not his own. Prey would have instantly fled, back into the confines and sanctity of the earth around it. But he was no such animal, no such being; even if he’d recently had to escape the wake of his own home. There were powers and persuasions to consider – the armaments stored and fueled in his body, the properties and abilities stored in his presence. If it were another animal, a creature, he could compel them away. If it were a monster, there’d be other circumstances to consider. The calculations curled, contorted, coiled, in rapid relay, and he broke his own stillness to counteract the curiosity.
He flicked an ear, but didn’t lower his great head, his skull inclining in the direction of the noise. The piercing blue eyes fixed directly on another tiger – markings, hues, and colorations different from his own, but very much the same prowess, the similar entity. Face to face with another carnivore, another raptorial denizen, left some other particulars off by the wayside, and as he deliberated, the voice caught tethers in his mind.
The Attuned bond might’ve pervaded his surprise, incapable of drawing those lines back while the expressions and inquiries lanced through. His eyes widened substantially, before narrowing back into their feline parameters, and the edges caught fragments of what might’ve been familiar. Yes came on a deep rumble, and the puzzle of complexities stoked further. Giving his name around these parts may have been a dangerous stretch – having marked and chiseled his way into multitudes of foes instead of friends. There was a brief moment of apprehension in his machinations, before extending his name, waiting for the inevitable. Deimos. His ears curved inward, then turned again, intending to catch and snare. And you?
The name is ice that grips her lungs, expelling her breath suddenly and coldly. Deimos? A growl pushes through, one that surprises her, one that communicates both fear and warning. But she cuts it off forcibly, catching it in her throat like a smothered flame. The anger that comes is a complex kind, a feeling she has yet to work through.
From the events of the Slagveld, and everything to follow it, she had thought and focused very little on Deimos and what hand he had to play in it. Some, but not as much as Hotaru.
Now, facing it, facing him, she comes to the realization that she didn't want to turn her sights on him from the beginning. He was someone she knew, had trusted and learned from. Hotaru's betrayal was easier to digest in some ways. The wrath of a woman scorned, so the saying goes. But Deimos? Why?
You know me. You helped me, before, to master my abilities. It's me, Aurelia, or don't you remember? She steps forward, slipping from shadow into light, pausing as her claws scrape against the wet stone. Her head lifts to look directly at him, but the anger in her voice ebbs away into something like hurt, I thought highly of you, I thought you were someone I could trust. A heavy breath heaves through her chest, tense as her guard refuses to come down, I don't understand. Why you helped Hotaru...
keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you
I remember. came on a chiseled tone, on a deepening rumble, on a narrowing of his eyes. Cold-blooded, stone-effacing, as if carved from slate itself, and he didn’t move a single muscle. Presence was enough.
His mind contorted back into those moments of fire and brimstone, of Belial’s sights pinpointed on a dying Atlas, the flare of Hotaru’s grief overlaid the proportions of flame. Of months before, when he’d aided Aurelia in similar incantations, as they trained along pools and haphazardly rampaged through jungle warrens. Of eons and cycles pressed over the wake of the earth, and a sense of raw bitterness embedded between all of them.
He didn’t care about her ire piercing through – not really. Not now. Not so long after. Not when they’d lost it all. Not when there’d been so many other summits to climb and spiral downwards. And what did I do against you? Not a god damned thing, though he wondered if she’d press enough to warrant it. I warned Sunjata many times not to hurt her. And still, it hadn’t mattered.
The Sword’s stare flickered away, back to the layers of water, back to the filaments of mist. If it helps in your anger, it led me to losing everything I had worked for. He didn’t square his glance back upon her, losing it to the haze, never backing away from his position along the stones. Why did you kill her companion?
She doesn't expect the sharpened retort, proclaiming that nothing he'd done could've effected her. And she doesn't know what to say to it, not right away, so she lets it fester in the air, in the quiet ringing of bloodflow in her ears. She listens, because she had not done enough of that before. But she wishes for things to be more than different now. For them to be better, if such a thing were attainable.
Her shoulders relax and her claws sheathe. In truth, she does remember that he'd lost much thereafter the events took place. But such was his choice, risking all of that. None of us walked away from that unscathed, she states coolly. Sunjata lost something irreplaceable in that fire, something so close to his heart - and he had left the heavy weights of leadership. Hotaru lost her companion. Aurelia had nearly lost her own life. And Deimos? Stripped of his rank, pushed from his home, his reputation stained. Nobody won.
As for the companion, there are flickers of defiant indifference still but, in their shadows, guilt. Still it isn't something that haunts her every waking moment anymore. Not after all she's been through. You both knew the risks of attacking the city. You had to have known, what could've happened. It was Hotaru's arrogance that put her companion in danger. A false sense of invincibility, if she really thought he was so untouchable. That, or she accepted his life as worth the risk. I know the part I played in that night, but the blame doesn't lie with me. You both attacked my home, and for what? To prove a point?
keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you
Perhaps none of them had – but it’d been a bitter, rancorous road walked, with layers once so eagerly, contentedly achieved, stripped away, denied, gone. There were dozens of parameters tucked away in those designs. Aurelia could’ve left Atlas alone, and put portions of the fire out. Then she wouldn’t have been chased down by a rampaging Valkyrie. He could’ve refused Ru, as he should’ve done had he not been so enraged with the machinations of the world, tired of being doormats for those who seemingly had no consequences rendered for all the hurt they’d caused. And the center of all of it could’ve simply listened to him the first time, when he’d told her Sunjata didn’t deserve her trust, her tears, her emotions.
He turned his feline head back towards her for an instant, still adamant on the front of Atlas. The creature itself did not deserve it. Whether or not it was Hotaru’s arrogance, the unicorn had done what he’d been told to do. You could have extinguished the blaze. But for beings so consumed by the inferno, they’d left the empty building to linger in the smoke and ash. His eyes twisted back towards the falls, a deeper breath surging in his lungs, released out into the mist. Vengeance. You know it was for revenge.
But this world was different than Helovia; and their tactics had scorched back tenfold, instead of spurning effective measures onward. The rumble in response was a solemn, quiet one, piercing gaze flickering to bits of fog and haze, suddenly wishing he was ensconced in it. And no, pausing before she could even ask. It was not worth it. The Flood and all his antics, all his lies, all his deceit, never had been.
Yes, I could have, she replies immediately, pausing to take a stabilizing breath, I should have. She should've done a lot of things differently.
Vengeance and violence, the outcome of them is just more of the same, and now he knows why she set Atlas aflame after he had set the Slagveld aflame.
None of us have enough sense to break the cycle. They tell us a war is coming and what do we do? Prepare for it, without question, like... mindless soldiers. Sheep. Without even pausing to ask why or if we should. Her gaze casts away, along the cliff's edges and nooks, cast in a layer of fine mist that cools the sweat on her nose.
She steps towards the outer edge, adjacent to him now, closer in his vicinity. Her forepaws teeter on a rocky outcrop, and she stares down the vastness before her. I know I didn't, not at first. But I've been ruled by violence - vengeance - for so long. You think it has a purpose, a place, a time... but it doesn't.
keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you
He watched her from the corner of his eye, not quite a glare, but not quite amiable either. Too many gnarled knots and precise, intricate wounds notched down the damnation of his spine, across the reaches of backs and plains, in between ribs and corridors of lungs and hearts. The Sword, and the Reaper, had spent multitudes of time in the whims of violence, vehemence, and vengeance. Sometimes it was all he’d known – nefarious and sinister, unwinding, unfurling, before battlefields and amongst, amidst shadows, desecrating those who’d dared to blight those in his land. Those in his keep. Those in his protection. Those he cherished and beloved. Because why should any adversary, any enemy, be permitted to cast their wounds, their brutality again, and again, and again? A challenge rang in his throat, a rumble low where a stone had been slung, pulling and dictating the way his life had worked for so very long. And when they keep hurting the ones you care about? What do you do then?
His head twisted back to her eventually, out of the cool mist and along definition of his carnivore form. Because I refuse to do nothing when one of my own is marred. Political maneuvers, fires stoked, infernos reached and breached, and still, they had never seen the depths of desecration Deimos would go to - had - since the days of the Basin.
And the Voice? His eyes narrowed, speculation curling and conforming, a tiger’s jaw clenching instead of a man’s, but habitual and routine all the same. Do you believe the gods would stop it? His gaze flickered away from her, parsing through the falls, watching mist roll. I have nothing against the Ascended. Save for a few who’d snagged at his edges, and it hadn’t been because of their race. But I have seen and been victim to the Voice’s machinations. And something needed to be done so more weren’t plagued by her plots and ploys.
She doesn't mind much the way he stares, doesn't even turn to meet it. His guard is still up. As it would be, it makes sense and she hasn't much to hold against him for not trusting. That's more often a mistake than not, it seems, yet she does it against her better judgement. She trusts that, even beyond the boundaries of civilization, he won't attack her. At least not here or now, not as long as she doesn't attack first.
And, if her words have been any indication, she doesn't intend to.
The rumble in his throat does make her look, though, dragging her muzzle away from the mists to point it in his direction. She blinks slowly. Maybe it's just a blink, maybe it's subtle body language from cat-to-cat. Destruction, violence, bloodshed. Is that the only way the world can resolve issues? If that's the case, then it's not a matter of who's right or wrong, of who did what or who caused this and that. It all comes down to who is stronger. She says, and it's not so much a retort as... nihilism, depressing realizations about the reality they live in.
She ducks her head down, defeated because she did not have a revolutionary idea to pitch. She didn't have the argument or rhetoric to truly change the machinations of... anything. Let alone Deimos, solid and stony as he is. No. The war is promised. She sighs heftily through her nostrils, lips flaring with the breath. I don't pretend to think that it will magically go away. Or that doing nothing would be better.
But... where I come from... there was a war, too. Similar to the way the Gods have disdain for Ascended and Abandoned, people thought magic was evil, she turns her gaze back to the mists and the abyssal cliffs before them, but rather than settle their differences, the people fought and fought... until one side was almost completely annihilated. Her eyes narrow, her muscles tighten, and she sharpens with a deep-rooted anger. But not the fierce, explosive kind. The kind that settles in the wires and roots both, the kind that poisons a society and condemns it for decades until its people are so squashed down that they have no more will to fight.
She steps away from the ledge and faces him, That kind of victory came at a cost, and life was no better. In fact, it was worse. It was crueler. I've seen Caido from the outside - and the inside - and I'm afraid for it. We'll destroy ourselves and everything about the life we know. As humans... we always do.
keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you
It is the only way I have ever seen. His mind turned elsewhere, inward, something in the mist and midst of worlds apart from here, or conversations he'd had with a Shield in prior, lighter, happier years – where the viciousness rolled in through muscles and veins, where it was a part of the everyday world. Cretins who stole. Demons who abducted. Murderers who maimed. Torturers who smirked. Treacherous reels of battles cascading and unrelenting savagery hastened from every walk of life – from their deities, from their sights, from their sovereigns, where greed was a part of the background and survival was burned into force, calculations, and derision. Caido could’ve been different, maybe, if history didn’t loom and threaten, didn’t march its way to repeating itself, if cosmic beings could refrain from interfering. But that was already too far gone.
His stare slid back, refocusing on words and words and words, snorting; not disagreeing or aligning with her, but striving to figure where it all fit. Would you rather have no repercussions or consequences at all? And what would that solve? What would that prove? That some people could be walked all over, marred, bludgeoned?
Acceptance of more battles on the way hadn’t been his intention, but maybe it was better off that the discernment was already there. But the soldier and tiger didn’t expect the sudden confession, the marks of history, or the past centered squarely in rooted edges and sentiments. His eyes narrowed briefly again, not combatting it, not bombarding it, but settling in its denizens; accustomed and familiar to the pockets of rage. I have endured war many times. Accustomed life of a warrior, sent to protect the lands he cherished, or the people he’d sworn himself to. He didn’t require the notions of life thereafter – he’d stood along its thresholds, buried his friends – the reasons might’ve been different, but results often the same. Have we not already started as you said? Hunting for relics? Ensuring lands are sworn to their proper gods? But he couldn’t quite fathom where she craved to take this discussion – because the powers that be had already set everything in motion. His head turned back towards her, the tilt of his head indicating curiosity and inquiry, but in the murky haze of confusion alongside it. He didn't know where she was going with it.
12-17-2021, 02:07 PM (This post was last modified: 12-17-2021, 02:18 PM by Aurelia.)
Aurelia
Her gaze softens, brows unfurling as she listens to what he says. It's short, simple, but it tells all. It's all he's ever known. It's a truth she knows well, reminded of the ever-darker days before Caido. They had been nothing but brutality. Life was merciless and so was she. It had only seemed right. But, then, she had held onto her anger; a cycle she doesn't wish to continue moving forward.
No, I didn't mean that.. she replies, voice faltering. The white tip of her tail swishes back and forth in reeling thought. Handing out punishments and consequences. Hadn't that been all they'd done, and still nothing to show for it? Patterns repeat and, in spite of that, trust is granted over and over. Or grudges being held fast to some unknown, bitter end. In either case, no efforts mattered. People would eventually be whittled back down to the spilling of blood - deserved or otherwise. Maybe their sights would be set on something different, maybe not.
I don't have the answers, she says finally. Only questions, it seems. I don't have this all figured out. Her gaze shakes as she takes another step toward him, and I know you've seen this all before. You have seen it, lived it. I have only been apart of its aftermath. I don't plan on staying behind as the world moves on, but if war is an inevitable part of that then I'd like to have fewer enemies going forward. A steadying breath moves through her powerful lungs as she stills. I contributed to the chaos already. I regret that... I lost control, and the outcome was something I couldn't handle, let her be the last to admit it. Her nostrils flare nervously, I don't want that to happen again. I don't wish to be at odds with you, Deimos, I never did. That battle wasn't ours. If we can find a way to be allies... put the past behind us...
keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you
Deimos drew back into his silence and stillness; the poise, pose, and prose of warrior prowess, inevitably waiting for the blade. A soldier who waited, patient and diligent under all that stoicism and reticence, who bled just the same as the rest of them, who hurt and conspired and tried. So he listened, head still tilting into tiny degrees and decrees, an ear swiveling as if to catch the words she uttered, even if it was all contorted inward, across a length of calm and composure pressed into his chest.
Perhaps none of them had the answers. Trials by fire, literally and figuratively, gazing out over horizons that would give nothing to see their insignificance shoved aside and into ash, into dust. The inevitably was something Deimos had already accepted – knew and understood at the heart of his formidable soul – but seemed to be an instant she was working through. Roles and roulettes, tried and true and muddling and perplexing all at once, and he permitted one long breath through his lungs, not certain what to say, what to utter at first.
But his tiger brow furrowed in some wave of confusion as her turn persisted, continued, relenting to him. It was not in his expectations – he’d considered Aurelia to be amongst the many who’d seen his actions, for better or for worse, and cast him off. The olive branch extended was perplexing, still long since ill-used to the notions of forgiveness and repentance, coming from worlds where bitter lives met bitter ends and drowning his wake in his violence, in his vehemence, had been the only thing that mattered once everyone else had disappeared. It’d once been all he’d had.
That battle wasn’t ours stung in a way that he didn’t want to quite voice, pushing to the back of his mind for later (because how many had he forged along for everyone else?). For a moment, he blinked out over the mist, listening to the falls echoing. I did not consider you an enemy, he finally said, pondering the refrain further. Baffled, perhaps, by the way she’d mauled and murdered. But maybe she’d been surprised by his disastrous tendencies, how far he’d go in rancor and vengeance. We all made stupefying decisions that day, and none I care to repeat. Harsh, grueling, life lessons that still stuck in his spine and caught in his ribs. I would like to put the moment well behind me. Even if they couldn’t do the same with the consequences.
He may have become silent but she could still feel his emotions thrumming through the bond, as present and steady as the beat of a heart - but just as quieted by all the noise outside. She had never known Deimos in this way, never could have, before. The gifts from her Attunement have granted her deeper insights into the thoughts, the emotions of others. So she tentatively broaches that connection, focuses on it, trying to tell what it is the Sword is feeling. Beneath his steely exterior, she can feel his battle-torn pain and memories stronger than anything. It gives her pause, makes her heart sink in her chest. It gives her no more confidence for the outcomes in the inevitable future of Caido.
And the sting of her words that he tries to push back. The feeling is grating, even if brief. Which words, she can guess, but she doesn't say much further on that. She doesn't blind herself to the part she played in things, a part she had no need for. She should've done things differently, just the same as the rest of them. She had been shocked to find out Deimos' direct involvement in it, and her prior interactions with him had caused her to hesitate in doing anything directly against him. Never mind the fact that she hadn't the strength or means to contain him. She couldn't bring herself to even consider trying.
Her gaze softens, lungs reverberating with relief to know that he didn't want to be enemies either. Me too, she agrees somberly, though she knows that - truly - it can't be forgotten. Even between them, even if they agree to move on from it, they will always remember it. But if she could help it, she would keep it from becoming a cause for discourse.
Where do you reside now? She had heard some things after Deimos and Hotaru were banished from Torchline, but not much. Her ears swivel with uncertainty. I mean.. if you don't want to say, I understand. After Morgan took Halo back, I only hoped that you both wouldn't set against Torchline again, since Sunjata had left. But I wasn't sure, and then... I never saw or heard from either of you, then I.. disappeared, myself. I still haven't seen Hotaru since she escaped. Her ears twitch and her gaze drags away, a mixture of emotions stirring quietly on her side of the bond. She had always been paranoid that the Valkyrie would one day return to finish her off. There had even been a time that she considered doing something horribly immoral if such a thing did occur. A low point, even for her.
Now? I hope she's found some sort of peace, the words are quiet, as if she hasn't spoken them aloud before. She knows that Hotaru had been egregiously hurt, even if she didn't feel that her actions were justified. That pain had been what drove her to anger, Aurelia could understand that much at least. And she had only further fueled it with her own actions. Her gaze returns to Deimos, a shift within it as she comes back from her thoughts, I hope you both have.
keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you
