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!
The knife, at least, is easy to dodge. His aim from where he’s stuck isn’t very good and panther!Wessex just side steps as it flies into the dark. Oops. Will need to get that later, can’t just have daggers lying randomly around the Grounds (Or maybe they should?). She turns and begins to try to look for something else to throw at him, something to defend with, but the clang of the ladder draws her attention back to him.
Tail twitching, her golden gaze contemplates the young Ascended and his predicament.
To help or not to help?
On silent, padded feet, she slowly weaves her way back to Nikolai, slinking over the wooden, folded legs until she’s on top of him. And then… she sits. On his chest. Careful not to press the bars into him, she just sits and then gives a very, very smug grin that show her incisors off - and begins to clean her paws.
Nikolai opens his mouth to snark, but it closes harshly with a click as Wessex simply starts to groom. The incredulity on his face is clear to see, as is his building annoyance. He's already at a bad angle for lifting the ladder but now there's a full-grown panther sitting on him. What the fuck is he supposed to do now?
Nikolai bares his teeth in a snarl and attempts to get his elbows in tightly enough to lift the damn thing, and the damn cat. He manages to raise the ladder a bit. Wondering if he can squeeze out, Nikolai tries to hold the ladder while simultaneously shimmying out form under it. He fails horribly and the ladder (and cat) once more crash on top of him.
Thoroughly embarrassed and only further annoyed, Nikolai glares at Wessex. He's barely keeping his temper in at this point. It's only the respect he has for Wessex that's stopping him from screaming at this point. Nikolai is a lot of thing but he's clever enough to have learned that that doesn't work with the Demi-god. So instead, he tries an unconventional method of persuasion.
Flopping tiredly, he eyes Wessex sadly, putting on his best 'kicked puppy' look. "Wessex, please?" He's just a small baby Ascended, a little sibling. Surely Wessex will help him?
Unfortunately for Nikolai, Wessex is not so easily moved. Surely there’s a lesson to be learned here, other than pay attention to your surroundings.
As it is, he’s a sitting duck here; if he had tried to move her instead of the ladder, he might have gotten a little help, but instead she remains on his chest and watches with a distinctly feline amusement as he tries to shift the ladder. It comes crashing down around them, leaving Nikolai trapped and Wessex’s tail bruised (though that doesn’t hurt at all). Pulling it out with a growl, the demigoddess is more concerned about his inability to shift a ladder off himself (she isn’t sitting on top of the ladder or weighing it down) than his pouting face.
Chuffing quietly in encouragement, panther!Wessex refuses to move, instead making it very clear with a look to the ladder that he will need to push it off himself in order for them to continue.
The slight bit of encouragement is barely heard over the internal screaming going on in Nikolai's head. How the fuck is he unable to move this thing? He had no idea that he was so weak. It's embarrassing, degrading, humiliating. All of the above and more, and Nikolai really just wants to set the damn thing on fire at this point.
As it is, the young Ascended gives it one more try. Finally, finally the ladder shifts. He's able to push it off of himself and send it crashing beside him. Flopping down, he eyes Wessex grumpily, "Next time, mind helping me with strength training?" He's a grown ass man (sure Nikki, sure), so that was just ridiculous. But it is a harsh lesson that he needs more physical training, not just mental.
As the ladder goes over her head and crashes to one side of them, Wessex gently reaches out and pets Niki upside the head with her paw. It’s probably the equivalent of patting him on the head. Then she shifts off him as well and nods at the request, tail swishing languidly back and forth. Sure. Strength training she can do.
And she’s about to shift back when something different catches her attention.
Something big. Something rumbly. Something that shakes the ground and she can feel it in her paws. A low growl starts to build in her chest, as a warning to Nikolai as she seems to reflexively crouch down, scanning the darkness for movement. And there, in a nearby house, is the source of it. It’s almost as if the walls of the building itself are moving. Perhaps the sounds of the materials falling and the darkness have emboldened it, but from the basement of an abandoned house comes a stone golem, who wastes no time in heading for the loudest thing around - the two of them.
Wessex’s claws and teeth will be no match for its brute force, but her speed might be, and so she darts to try and intercept it as it makes its way, swinging chunky arms, towards Nikolai.
Being pat on the head by a panther is a bizarre experience. But it makes something in his chest warm. That sensation quickly turns to ice when it becomes clear that there's a threat present. Glancing to the side, Nikolai spies the knife that he'd thrown previously just as the golem emerges.
Going wide-eyed, Nikolai successfully ducks as it swings. Darting over he attempts to pick up his knife but ends up having to duck again instead. "Shit. Do you think any of these weapons can hurt it?" Still doing his best to avoid the golem, Nikolai glances at the piles of weapons that Wessex had been sorting earlier.
Throwing herself head-first against the golem to try and throw it off balance, she doesn’t have time to see if Nikolai is able to dodge the attacks, because the focus of the golem’s attacks seems to go back and forth between the two of them. Wessex isn’t sure what to do, other than dodge for a moment, while she tries to think of a plan. Can she communicate while shifted?
Nothing will - just daylight, which -” she doesn’t need to finish that sentence, do they? It’s LongNight. Daylight won’t be coming for a while. Stay out of reach, she instructs, though that, too, should be pretty obvious. Let’s lead it somewhere it’ll get stuck or we can hide? It seems silly, but the panther tries to turn and lead it towards the ladders and random shit again, hoping that it might get tripped up on the stuff lying around. Wessex, for one, purposefully hisses and scuttles backwards towards the ladders again, hoping it might get an overgrown foot stuck between the rungs or something.
Nikolai feels a surge of panic as Wessex explains the depth of the situation. Only sunlight? Fuck. The Demi-god's plan of entrapment or evasion seems like the best call and after taking a second to ground himself, Nikolai jumps in. He races forward to run alongside Wessex.
Glancing at the golem he taunts it closer, "Come on you piece of shit! How pathetic can you be?" Make it angry, make it sloppy. That's the plan as Nikolai makes his way onto the debris pile. Grabbing an item at random, a piece of stone and steel, he tosses it at the creature. He doesn't check to see if it hits, only continuing to follow Wessex's lead.
Both fortunately and unfortunately for the pair of them, the Golem is as dumb as a pair of rocks and taunting doesn’t do much. Leading it astray, however, does. Nimble and quick, Wessex tries to stay in between the Golem and Nikolai whilst keeping an eye on both. It isn’t easy, and panther!Wessex takes a number of swats directly to her side.
However, with a bit of finagling, they’re able to send one leg through the very ladder that entangled Nikolai and with the added distraction of something big and loud attached to it, the Golem turns its frustration to that instead, leaving the two Ascended to flee into the darkness. And the Golem? Well, whether or not it’s able to figure out how to remove the ladder isn’t her problem.
All they’ll know is that it won’t be there after the sun rises for Flowerbirth.
