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 reticence faded away at the brief muffle of a laugh, the slight angle of his smile, taking the compliments for what they were worth. He only slid closer as she began to unfurl whatever these seemingly random cards signified: gaze and mind attentive, head tilted to listen. The soldier, given his occupation and ambience, wasn’t a being to have ever studied or examined the surface, but he did now. Citadel representation in an Abandoned, in balance, in lovers (he would’ve chuckled again, had he not thought it pinpointed directly to the two who’d orchestrated the management of the mountains), caused his stare to pinpoint back to the witch – waiting for the explanation.
And so they came: in changes required, in patience, in difficulties. The last segment caused a long, slow sigh, jaw placed in his hand as the piercing gaze swept over the intervals again. “Fewer now, but yes, you are right.” Kiada was the foremost in his mind – though he didn’t think it was a segment of striking her down. He’d once considered Morgan a valuable friend, but betrayals had slid swift, keen, and fast in between his ribs. Neron was nothing to him. And Sah was in their threshold. The citizens, the people, were the others he cherished; and this would be ultimately for them.
The fourth card and all its revelations turned the dismal, melancholic features back into something resembling patience – his usual forbearing stature. “We had already been planning a similarity. No coups. No violence.” Deals with who, though? The light smile fixtured back, stare wandering back and forth over the forms, the rumble of mischief returning. “An accurate reflection. I am surprised.”
Deimos' quiet pleased her; while it was clearly in his nature, it felt respectful, as if he were truly listening to what she had to say despite his hesitation in believing it. She nodded with a smile as he confirmed she was right, restraining herself from saying 'of course I am'. Honestly though, she had been able to see his personal attachment to this matter without the cards. Mildew had been alive a long time and knew how to read someone.
When he said he was surprised she gave a sharp laugh and stood up, going over to her fireplace where a kettle whistled. "It would be nice for something to be settled without violence. After all, a war is coming. There's going to be plenty of bloodshed." Mildew sighed as she lifted the kettle from it's perch and began to pour her tea, bitter and heavy smelling black liquid into uneven cups. "I know many will relish in the deaths of the...Ascended, nowadays - sorry dear, I remember when they were Acquired - but I don't celebrate the end of anyone. They've taken a dark path, but...they must have had families once." Taking the cups, she gave one to Deimos and kept the other for herself, going to sit opposite again.
"Tell me. Clearly you're a strong man - one look at your arms tells me that. But everyone has a weakness...what would you say yours was, dear? I have things to help. You might need them." Mildew's eyes twinkled over her cup.
The kettle whistled and he listened all the while, picking up on pieces left unsaid, the notions of Mildew having been around that long. Perhaps she’d gained immortality along the way, and seemed far more understanding of the plight surfacing, circling, and hovering around them. Taking the uneven cup, he extended a modicum of gratitude, “Thank you,” before placing it in between his hands, mind already brimming over with inquiries. “Were you around then, before the last war?” His eyes narrowed, pondering if she’d been involved in the multitudes, if she’d seen and worked out the patterns already constricting, confining, and binding them all. “I do not relish the thought of their demise.” Especially a choice few; eyes cast downward, considering the tea. At one point he’d been a part of Kiada’s family. Was he still? Or had she cast him aside with the last words shared?
His jaw clenched habitually, routinely, biting and fighting back a lot of things unsaid in furrowed brows and quiet efforts. “But I have seen the Voice spread disease and death.” Surely Mildew had too – in all this time.
His gaze lifted back up to her, a very slight tilt to his head in the lightest figments of confusion, as her statement continued. Deimos was no fool, fully aware of all his defects and weaknesses, and the list was quite long. On a self-deprecating laugh, he shook his head. “There are many.” Not in the physical, but certainly emotional parameters and realms. “A difficult time communicating,” and here was a snort to follow through, stare circumventing back to the cup. “I have been told I am selfless to my own detriment,” and he shrugged his shoulders – cringing inwardly, the rapid-fire of memories threatening to stir. “Resistant to change.” He could go on and on, but that was likely already too much. “I have been working on them – but I am not certain how you can help.” Or what “things” could, or would, materialize for such matters.
Mildew sat down with her own cup and nodded, crossing her legs and placing her hands around it. "Yes, I was. For quite a while, too. I'll let you in on a secret, dear -" She leaned forward and with a conspiratorial smirk, said in a low voice: "I'm over five hundred years old." The lack of specifics was less out of embarrassment and more due to her no longer properly counting her age; eventually it had stopped mattering.
She would not deny that the Voice had caused her own share of death. "Absolutely. It needs to be stopped, by any means necessary. But to relish in the end of anyone's life is wrong." Staring down into her cup for a moment, tapping the side to cause little ripples to go across the surface of the tea, Mildew let out a soft sigh. "I wish there were a way to take the Voice's influence away from them."
A difficulty communicating; she could see that. Deimos seemed tense, each word carefully given and so much seemingly held back. Selflessness was less of an issue, in her eyes. "Oh, I can. If you would want me to, I have ways. You would like to communicate better?"
Perhaps it was wise for Deimos to not yet have taken a sip of the tea – as Mildew leaned in and promised a secret (for which he kept many), he couldn’t hold back the cheeky grin or the round of laughter. “You do not look past three hundred.” Juvenile at best, for he probably had never met anyone around such an age, unless they were deities, the boyish shrug catered to the notions of more speculations pressing their insistence in his mind. “Were you involved in the last war?” His voice grew carefully neutral, not quite solemn, but curious, trying to perceive what the circumstances and events had been before. Scouring for relics, or holding those cherished items already, the originals formed at the behest of immortal beings?
The Sword eventually swallowed down a bit of the liquid, not giving the notions of savoring an adversary’s death the deep rumble of his voice. There’d been many times where he’d stood over an enemy’s lifeless body and felt the keen, predacious glint of contentment, of knowing it was one less individual preying upon those he protected. These weren’t quite the same circumstances. “There have been some thoughts about it,” and his brows furrowed, head tilting, surveying the tea again, as if some secret would come flickering out of its depths. “But without the Voice, they would no longer function.”
Ways made his brow arch back up again, the deep contemplation resonating. “I suppose…” though this time was infinitely more guarded and suspicious, waiting for some underlying threat to come crawling out. “And how would you do that?”
"Oh, thank you very much, dear." Mildew laughed too, touching her own face as if to make sure she really didn't look her age. Her smile faded as Deimos asked about the war further and she shook her head, holding her tea up to her face as she looked over the walls. "Not really. I was there, but...I've never been a fighter, not really. I helped to protect the Wilds as much as I could and I healed those that found themselves here." It was so long ago now, but she remembered bandaging up soldiers determined to end the Ascended menace. If they had known their sacrifices would have come to nothing in three hundred years, would they still have fought?
Impressed as he made a decent attempt at sipping the bitter tea (it was an acquired taste, to say the least), Mildew nodded. "Oh, I know. I just think it's awfully sad, darling. Frey teaches us that all life has value." The Ascended were a lost cause, but Mildew yearned for a way to cure them.
As for how she'd help him - She smiled and reached into a drawer fitted into the wall, pulled it out and took out a small wooden figure. It was crudely carved into a man, with a head and arms and a painted face that seemed to be shouting. "Simple. I enchant this for you. Whenever you hold it, you'll find yourself able to communicate better."
He took another sip of the tea, letting it sit and settle on his tongue in all its sharpness; his inquiries unfortunately driving the conversation elsewhere. But knowing the past might have represented and cultivated proportions of the future – of comprehending which direction they were all headed next. Or, maybe, they already realized, and it was only a matter of time. He wasn’t sure he enjoyed either notion. Several more questions layered themselves behind his mouth and over his teeth, but he shook them off, settled for something else once he swallowed down the drink. “We will always need healers, wars or not.” A shrug of his shoulders, the lightest touch of a smile again; considering the amount of stupidity, recklessness, and monster encounters they faced on a regular basis.
The Sword wouldn’t be one to argue against the sagacity of all life holding value – he just didn’t have a way around the current complexities. His voice came on an air of contemplation though, vocals echoing thoughts sauntering through, rather than just lulling them into his habitual, silent calculations. “If the Voice were to be locked away again,” instead of torn apart, the way the other deities might have intended or craved, “Do you think it will just be a repeat of last time?” The bubble over the Hollowed Grounds, where a majority of Ascended had made their fortress, rebuilt, reconstructed. A world isolated and cut off. The Voice rising once more, insisting some other newcomers she’d pulled from other walks of life set her free.
Deimos’ suspicions, at the very least, could be drawn away from the walls and ceiling, as Mildew took out a wooden figure. Not smoothed out, not ornamental, but clearly simplified, he arched his brow, leaning over to take a closer look at it. “Did you make this?” More angles of curiosity, of days where they’d had artisans and keepers of crafting abilities in their guild – and now very few remaining. His mind recollected the last portion of her statement with another grin. “I can enchant items too. I have not met many others who can,” save for Remi, ages before, or Jigano, long since disappeared. Then he nodded, half-expecting the figure to be doing the shouting for him, and the imagery amused him. “Sure. Go ahead.” Another semblance pulsed immediately afterward, a wry tilt of his head. "Do you want something in return?"
Mildew nodded, knowing full well that she held a valuable gift here in her hut. Not quite the impressive miracles that the Abandoned could manage, but an ability to care and manage many without panicking. One thing her many years had given her was patience. "Mmm." Was all she said though, nodding and taking her own sip of tea.
As for her predictions for the future, all she could do was shake her head. "I'm afraid I have no idea. I wasn't involved with the decision, obviously, and I was kept away from the majority of the complexities and consequences. I think...it's...sensible, to entirely eradicate the problem. But it might not be practical - and in that case, I think putting her away while we work on another strategy may be the best thing we can do." Mildew shrugged and pulled a strand of her hair around her finger, letting it fall into a ringlet by her collarbone. "History does have a tendency to repeat itself. I've seen many men just like you, you know. I've been in a lot of times where it feels like the world might be about to turn upside down."
She laughed as he asked if she made it, looking around the hut as if hunting for a potential other crafter. "Yes. I did." Her amusement softened as he mentioned his own skills, but Mildew kept the smirk on her face as she took the figure back to enchant it. Closing her eyes and holding it in her hands, she mumbled softly under her breath and handed it back after a few moments. "Here. If you need to tell someone how you really feel, this will help."
Mildew has given Deimos:
Screaming Figurine This small wooden figurine of a man screaming, when held in ones hand, will make the user entirely unable to hold back any feelings or thoughts and will cause them to ramble incessantly if they do speak. (However, these feelings and thoughts do not need to be honest)
Kept and tucked away; safer than most, given what he’d heard of the past. How many others could face the same fate? Could wind their way around swamps, deserts, forests, and oceans, without being absconded, or taken apart? The Sword was not one to hide, and had no designs to do so – the thoughts nestled and intertwined on those that had no ability, yearning, or cause to fight. His tone grew solemn, brows furrowing again, eyes lifting to rest somewhere on the hut, but nothing in particular. Men like him cut in a way he wasn’t certain how to voice, especially after working on himself – on not believing his soul to be insignificant. “And yet you survived,” he offered instead, relenting in a more jocular way, sipping at his tea again while his mind reflected and contorted, pooled together the latest undulations.
But then his gaze swept back to watch her work – knowing full well how he achieved his own merits and incantations, but not of others. There appeared to be a few soft utterances, and he waited for something to happen, piercing eyes going back and forth, from person to object, but nothing significant seemed to alter. Not overtly so anyway, and when she didn’t request anything in return, the skepticism and suspicion came flickering back over him.
Deimos took it anyway, because it was the polite thing to do and he’d accepted the matter already, placing the lopsided mug in his lap, taking hold of the silent, screaming figurine. Within a moment, the obligatory, noble, polite thing to do, ingrained in him since he was a young child, burst from his lungs and over his throat without any calculation behind it. “Thank you. I appreciate it. I am not often granted gifts.” Which, for him, was rambling, and his brow arched, snorting at the device, before exchanging it with the mug again, giving another dubious stare.
"Oh, yes. I always will, too. I'm smart enough to not involve myself in things that might go sour." Mildew said with a cat-like smirk, taking the last sip of tea from her cup then placing it down on the floor with a soft clink. She might have said something about Deimos needing to be smart enough to do the same, but something told her that this man wasn't the type to sit back and observe.
He took the figurine from her and she accepted his thanks with a nod and a brighter, more genuine smile. It would work, perhaps a little too well for his liking.
Standing, Mildew gathered the cups and cards, going to put them in their respective homes. "Now dear, I have just noticed the sun in the sky - I must go and attend to my mushrooms. You are welcome to rest here a moment longer if you like, but I cannot let them stay out too long. They will be far too chewy for the stew." And with that, she was gone.
