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!
Life is so much easier with longer limbs and hands that can do more than cling to whatever is small enough to fit within teeny tiny little fingers. Enzo doesn't rightly recall the process of growing up, but he also doesn't rightly care. Mud is far better appreciated at eight than eight weeks.
It's perhaps still a little too cold for shorts, especially at the water's edge, but their mother had eventually decreed that skin was easier to clean than clothes and sent them off to do as they pleased. She's somewhere at the top of the bank, doing whatever it is moms do, but her shrewd eyes don't deter Enzo from his adventuring. Because mud, for whatever reason, likes to move now.
Books and the like could inform him that this is called memory mud, but experimenting with hands (and feet) is far more enjoyable. "Flora, look!" his high voice carries over the burble of the river as he sinks his hand into the blob of mud, and giggles with fascination as it begins to climb towards his elbow stubbornly.
and though I can't recall your face I've still got love for you
11-09-2021, 09:26 PM (This post was last modified: 11-13-2021, 05:43 PM by Flora.)
Flora
You know what isn't interesting? The how's of something that we aren't even going to talk about. So don't worry about the shrine or the ageing; all that matters now is that the twins are old enough to walk on their own, to whisper secrets to one another, and to begin to scheme and dream about the lives they will one day live.
"MMmm?" Glancing over her shoulder, barefoot, grass-stained, and with a flower halfway toward her mouth for an experimental nibble, she flashes her twin a bright smile before prancing toward him like a fawn through tall grass. "Oooooh, it's going to swallow you up and then you're going to become a mud monster." Flora declares with a grin. "And I'm going to have to take care of you, and when you squelch around a corner and frighten everyone, I'll have to say, Oh don't worry, it's just Enzo." She adds cheerfully, before crossing her arms to see if her twin would continue to become a mud monster or not.
Enzo’s mind is almost immediately derailed by the sight of Flora holding her namesake up as if to nibble on it, and for a moment despairs that he hadn’t thought of it first. Then the mud tickles up the inside of his elbow and makes him jerk at the sensation, and the thought is shaken loose to be lost for the moment.
Her grin is infectious, and he swings about to brandish his mud-encased arm at her like a sword. “You’d be the best mud monster watcher ever!” he assures with a cackle, envisioning a looming sentient mud creature skulking about after Flora’s tiny frame. And as all obnoxious brothers do, Enzo grins and dramatically moves closer as the mud writhes on his skin. “But what if I take you with me?!” He lunges for her with a dramatic war cry, waving his arm about in her general direction. “One of us! One of us!”
and though I can't recall your face I've still got love for you
"I would, wouldn't I?" Flora agrees, tilting her chin up and striking a somewhat heroic pose. In later years she'll perfect this stance, but for now it's serviceable to any who are watching (none are). However as Enzo begins to mud-monster his way closer, the girl shrieks dramatically and instantly begins to flail away from her twin's muddy fingers. "Don't you dare!" She orders, nimbly leaping over a log, graceful as a deer.
"Don't you dare Enzo, or I'll...I'll cut off all your hair in your sleep!" She cackles, her voice halfway between laughter and shrill defiance. All is going well enough, until Flora's next step happens to be in a puddle of mud. A puddle that is far deeper than it has any right to be; instantly Flora is caught up to her waist, and fingers previously holding flowers are left clutching at brambles and branches. "Enzo!!" She screams, and though her mother is the more obvious choice to be called on in a time of need, always the girl will turn to her twin first.
Wrong, actually, Enzo is watching. Appreciating her heroism as it deserves to be, faithful single man of an audience that he is and probably forever will be. Today is a day for audience involvement however, and Enzo gives chase after his sister with a cackle like the bark of a fox. Her threat is not at all empty, she can be as mischievous as he is, but what's a head of hair worth to an eight year old boy?
Whatever retort is on his tongue withers and dies as his sister's blonde head suddenly disappears from view, taking his heart with it to somewhere around his toes. The shriek of his name fills him with a sense of terrible wrongness that he's sure will make sleeping entirely impossible, but it makes his limbs move even when they feel like ice. "Flora!" He catapults himself over the log and is reaching for her shirt in what feels like a blur, yanking at her with all his might - and a little something extra, something as yet still foreign and unused.
and though I can't recall your face I've still got love for you
"Pull me up, pull me up!!" This was what Enzo was doing of course, but when in this sort of situation, you simply had to scream out demands that were already being followed. Anyone who has watched a teen slasher movie knows that. Despite his tugging and her kicking, Flora seemed as lodged in the mud as she had been when her twin had bounded to her side.
"Oh gods, don't let me drown here. But if I do, don't you dare tell anyone that this was how it happened. No one is killed by mud!" It was very like Flora even now, young as she was, to be embarrassed about the manner of her death even as she was dying (not that she was of course, it was just some mud). Bright with panic now and flushed, Flora reaches for one of her twin's ankles as if she might somehow transfer her strength back into him.
"I am, I am," he yells impotently in her face, eyes bugging out of his head. Oh god, oh god, his sister is gonna die right in front of him, she's going to be eaten by the mud and his parents are going to kill him. Flora seems just as mortified by the idea, though maybe for the wrong reasons, but Enzo is too busy slipping down onto one knee as she grabs onto his ankle to point it out.
"I won't! You uh, you got carried off by a dragon! That's cool right?!" Enzo frantically promises. Being a little closer to the ground now he tries to grab Flora under her armpits. "Lean, lean, lean! Like you're swimming!" It's the world's squishiest, most awkward hug, but at least he has a better grip on her this way - interlocking his fingers behind her spine like he's one of those creepy chiropractors that look like they're killing you on the table.
and though I can't recall your face I've still got love for you
"Well...do it better, then!" Flora implores, her voice cracking with panic. "Better make it two dragons." The girl pants, and gods she loves her twin in this moment but she will absolutely kill him if he lets her die here.
Kicking her feet and wriggling like some epileptic fish, Flora squirms and squeals for all she's worth. At first, it feels like nothing at all is happening until her stomach begins to slide against the hole's opening and though it hurts, it also means that they're getting somewhere. "THREE...DRAG...ONS...!" Flora exclaims, arching her back and kicking just as hard as she can. There's a moment of weightlessness as the mud relents, and then Flora lands with an oooooooooof half on top of her twin.
Even spiked high with girlish panic Flora's imperiousness is familiar, and Enzo is just as biddable as he always is with her, tugging harder until he's sure his arms are going to pop off with the strain. It's harder when she begins to writhe, Enzo's butt meeting the slick ground with a harsh thud that's sure to lead to some soreness. At least it affords him a new angle, digging his heels into the earth and bracing with his legs to pull harder on his twin.
Her voice in his ear is loud, but if she's talking she's not sucked into the earth right? What's a little hearing loss compared to that? Then with a pop their momentum rubberbands back into them, and Enzo is knocked flat - and then breathless - as Flora lands on top of him, elegant limbs turned into graceless, bony implements that dig into his belly. "Brown dragons made of mud," he wheezes senselessly, arms still wrapped tight around his sister, spooked. "Are you hurt?" If he asks if she's okay he might get an earful, but he's too stunned to check for himself.
and though I can't recall your face I've still got love for you
