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!
Knives, Hadama knew well. Keen eyes caught on the blade's construction and balance, a professional consideration of the craftsmanship that had gone into it, and the techniques so much more common on dry land.
He was also curious as to the blade's purpose in this fascinating design, peering at the construction lit by candle and star as grass wove through freshly-perforated shell. He had no idea what to expect when she stood until she turned around again to face him, sea-mask in place, and he was able to meet her dark eyes squarely without the protection of the antlered skull. He inclined his head in agreement to her intonation, but at her question he turned his head to examine the strand - still visible beneath the light-dancing water, only barely covered yet as the tide made its inexorable return.
"Indeed. You could safely wade to shore still... but the tide will be your ally if you want to swim." And the sandbank beneath the water might prove treacherous footing under the slip of wave and current. He pushed himself back into deeper water off the sandbank, giving her space to make her own choice. "Do the marks on your face also have meaning?" he asked curiously as he waited.
The knife wears the patina of long use, not as sharp as it could have been and not as well balanced. Chaele had bartered for it cheaply a few seasons back, from a trader who no doubt thought he got a good deal. She slides it back into its sheath and doffs the belt it hangs on, then stuffs everything into her burlap bag and ties it shut with a rope on her waist.
The last thing to do is take care of the candle, which she plucks from the sand and extinguishes with a breath. It could have been deposited just as well into the sack, but she has noticed how his eyes have been drawn to it. As she wades further down the slope of the bank, Chaele holds the candle out to Hadama. “Perhaps you may have no use for it, but wax is known to waterproof certain things. It also symbolizes family and connectedness, should you ever decide to use it in ritual.”
The water quickly rises to engulf her. Its cool, rhythmic touch is like a heartbeat embrace, tide currents reminding her of what it is to be a part of something large and distant. His question lingers in the brine for a moment as she takes in the new sensations quietly.
“They are called Words of Intention,” she finally replies, having begun to float just at the water’s surface. The delicate mask rests on her skyward-facing cheekbones as she continues contentedly, “The facial scars are a summation of the rest of the marks on my body. Each limb, each piece holds a different meaning. There are runes to represent blood, balance, freedom, fortune...”
He accepted the candle solemnly and with a nod of thanks. He twirled it in his fingers, smoothing the runnels of wax thoughtfully as he waited for it to harden before tucking it into his own pouch. "Thank you," he said gravely. "I have used wax to waterproof metal. But it is very strange to see fire tamed to it."
Shorefolk in the water were always a disconcerting sight. They either had too many limbs, or else far too few, depending on one's experience. Either way, Hadama held himself to courtesy and made a point of not looking at Chaele's legs as he gave her space and floated a short distance away in the deeper water, able to relax now that he didn't have to arch his back to hold himself upright out of the water. He was in no rush, and quietly waited for his companion to find the right words.
"These words are also a ritual?" he asked, making a guess based on what else she'd told him. "Of what you desire? Or... hm. Of what you wish to become?"
Chaele is not graceless, her sweeping arms and rocking legs carrying the same habit of any Torcher who had learned to swim in the warm peninsular seas. But still she does not move with any intuition or fluidity, her limbs fighting the ocean current instead of swaying into it. Her neck is stiff with the instinct to keep her mouth and nose above water, submerging only to clear her braided hair out of her eyes.
Those same eyes downturn from the stars to view Hadama and his inquiry, then lower further to the bare arms she outstretches before her. Nodding in agreement with his first guess, she clarifies, “Each part of the body has a different meaning. These represent That Which I Give.” Her fingers trace over the scars on her left forearm, stylized shapes that resemble bones and cards and a shining crystal ball. “Fortune. And That Which I Carry.” She reaches up to her bicep, where the scars twist into a four-cornered symmetry of wind-like curls. “Freedom.”
Legs kicking within the tangle of her transparent underskirt, Chaele quickly moves her arms outward again to get a better tread in the water. With one crab-leg whisker already sagging from its wax fastening, she peers toward the refracted image of Hadama’s arms in the faint Arclight. “Everyone has such Intentions, even if they are not written in flesh. I wonder what you would write, if given the opportunity.”
He floated close enough to see the marks she spoke of, noting the similarities to some objects which he recognized - bones - and others he was less familiar with, such as the cards. The scars which she called 'freedom' were in a shape completely unknown to him, and he studied them more closely, ever-curious to learn more of dryland custom and communication.
Her own curiosity was met with a tilt of his head and an amused gleam in his eyes. "Survival, mostly," he rumbled. The mermanta lifted himself out of the water nearly to the waist, timing the movement to a ripple of light across the water. Gold gleamed in twisting lines across his dark skin and darker manta hide; scars left by tooth and coral, metal and burn, tattooed over with an almost metallic ink. Not so many as a warrior or hunter might have, but enough to show the dangers of living three decades in the sea.
He subsided back into the waves, the night-dark waters hiding the golden traceries of his past once more. "For my own intentions... hmm..." He considered the marks on her arms and those visible above the mask as he floated beside Chaele for a little while before continuing. "Strength. Protection." That which he gave. And for what he carried: "Duty."
He turned his gaze outward once more, green eyes bright. "What words would you use for your future?"
The shells on her face clack a little as her head tilts, the wax that holds them together already peeling from its hasty application. Chaele observes the kintsugi on his back as she treads in a slow arc around him, pausing with every pushing wave that disrupts the awkward rhythm of her swim. “Survival is more than what it seems. It is oneness with the entities of nature that would challenge you, and those that would sustain you. It is the freedom of skill.” She lifts her shoulder briefly out of the water to reference the wind-shaped carving once more.
She might have nodded if she did not need to keep her head above water, his words of intention matching that which she might have guessed. Such things are tenets of Survival, after all, and each are epitomized in his defense of the Hale Ka’aila. Her gaze deflects as his does, a hesitation in response to his question. In the meantime she eyes the distant shore, measuring her own strength and ability to reach it.
“The chest and neck represent That Which I Desire.” Slick with salt water, the visible parts depict meticulous geometries that might resemble an ascension or a puzzle. Her lips, exposed against habit, take the shape of a different word before she decides on, “Magic. And the thigh represents That Which I Promise: Balance.”
Those markings would be difficult to see beneath her undulating skirt, which straightens as she kicks backwards toward solid land. Her eyes are on the reef, which gurgles with new melodies as the tide rises. “Is your duty to the ocean, then? To the people that inhabit it?”
06-01-2022, 01:31 AM (This post was last modified: 06-01-2022, 01:31 AM by Hadama.)
Hadama tilted his head in acknowledgment of Chaele's interpretation, neither agreeing nor disagreeing but quietly accepting her worldview and learning more about it as she offered more insight into her beliefs. He floated calmly, not still in the water but letting it flow under and around him without fighting it while she circled him to observe his own markings.
He didn't miss her look towards shore, however, and he began a slow, unhurried path towards it as they continued to speak. "Magic, I understand," he rumbled before ducking beneath the water to wet his head and neck again. Surfacing once more, he looked back to her frankly. "I also desire it." If she meant something else, he didn't pursue it; he didn't speak with drylanders enough to have learned to lip read. "Promising balance, though... I do not understand. Who do you promise it to?" He had a guess, but was content to wait for confirmation before making unwonted assumptions.
Her own question was met with a tilt of his head into the water, a duck below the gentle, persistent waves and up again as he considered it. "To my family. My ancestors. My gods. But also to my home," he added after a moment's pause, affirming her guess. "The cities, and their protection." He resisted the tide for a moment, waiting for her to catch up. "The ocean... is too vast. But my people..." He trailed off, brow furrowed and perhaps faintly troubled under the bright moonlight. "...Yes," he admitted at last, slowly. "To them, too."
The past, the divine, the civilizations that honor them-- these are not things that occupy Chaele’s thoughts very often, and when they do they are usually accompanied by disdain. But if this chance meeting between the Hale Ka’aila’s destroyer and its protector has proven anything, it is how two very different people can share their worldviews with curiosity and respect. As her legs toss rising bubbles in their slow path toward shore, the shaman contemplates the horizon and the water below it. “The ocean contains all of those things, as well as the lives and forces that sustain them. Does it not deserve your duty?”
In both an explanation and an answer, she continues, “Balance is a thing that is harnessed by the world’s natural places. Its oceans, its mountains, its forests and rivers. Some things eat other things, or shelter them, or compete with them. Life begets life, death becomes soil, strife befalls all. It is my duty to maintain that balance. I promise it to the land, by which I mean all of nature. I sustain it, despite the world’s complacencies. I defend it from that which would encroach on it.” She pauses in her progress, spitting up some salt water as a lulling wave catches her off guard. Her eyes are inflamed somewhat with their exposure to the ocean and she blinks a little as she tries to get a better look at Hadama’s expression, despite his continued stoicism. “At least, in what ways I can.”
Her question was tucked away for further consideration while she answered his own, and he listened intently. He couldn't tilt his head while swimming, but he paused when she did and met her gaze beneath the light of stars and a rising moon. "There are times you sound like a follower of Rae and Frey," he said slowly, bemusement in his voice and in the easing of his expression considering Chaele's disinterest in the gods.
"The ocean... is," Hadama spoke slowly, turning around an idea he had never examined before. "It is not one thing. It is many things. Some in harmony, much in opposition." He nodded to Chaele, respectfully disagreeing. "It is not balanced. It is change, always. To serve one aspect is to be in conflict with another. To claim duty to all... is to never act. Or even by inaction to favor one side over another." He began to swim again but backwards and slowly so he could continue speaking with her. "I am not explaining well," he apologized.
"How do you decide when a thing is out of balance? Or encroached on?"
“I speak of the balance between life and death, on the scale of natural communities. A predator or disease or disaster which causes death is an important part of the maintenance of that community, such that life can be served and renewed. Just as a birth or a herd or a symbiosis sustains life, such that the benefits of death can be upheld.” The second part is said with somewhat less conviction, her tone shifting from a potential follower of Rae to perhaps one of Mort. Chaele’s opinions are shaped by her understanding of surviving in the wilds, almost in spite of the gods who would presume to abandon her.
Her gaze shifts toward the horizon, a sort of symbol of the ocean in its entirety, as she considers its mutability and depth. His explanations make some sense to the shaman, though perhaps their ideas about nature intersect in more ways than even she realizes. “The imbalance inevitably comes from people-- who would over-hunt, overharvest, oversettle, overreach. Or worse, bring in their healers and well-intentioned rangers to inflict the cancer of abundance and over-life. So while occasionally I support areas that have been affected by disaster or cull areas that have been overpopulated, mostly I protect the wilds from people.”
It was no light and simple matter that they discussed, and Hadama took in Chaele's words with intent interest and turned each concept over several times. Their viewpoints were not, perhaps, so far apart when it came to the natural rhythms of the world; the need for death to balance life, and life to balance death. He nodded solemnly in understanding and even, perhaps, agreement.
But as for exactly what constituted natural vs unnatural, he was less certain. He swam a little farther before pausing and venturing his opinion. "Humans are not the only predators that overhunt," he said with his usual care for each word as he explored these new ideas out with her. "Orcas and sea otters do so as well. As sea urchins would overharvest, and the algae that brings the red tide overreaches." He tilted his head in the moonlight, remembering years in his own life when things had been unbalanced. "When the orcas overhunt the otters in an area, the sea urchins become overabundant. They strip the mussels and the kelp. The damage can take many seasons to recover." He looked to Chaele curiously, and the mask she had created of the sea and shore. "I do not understand how people are different. Are they not also part of the natural cycle?"
The brief quiet that follows is like a shaking head, though Chaele’s body is busy with the motions of her leisurely swim. Though she moves much more slowly than Hadama, already her words contain pauses as she spits out seawater or catches her breath.
“Populations fluctuate, and their effects cascade to others,” she agrees firstly, though the details of the ecosystem he describes are mostly novel to her terrestrial experience. “Predators and prey oscillate over the generations as they adapt to each other.
“Some people remain a part of this natural cycle. But many have removed themselves from it. Seasons of recovery cannot be compared to the intended permanence of cities that hoard resources and accumulate filth. People oppose death, pursue longevity, claim the riches of the land… every year they become more capable of widespread destruction, or cancerous growth.”
Thoughtful silence only earned Hadama's respect and he moved with calculated slowness through the water so as to remain near to the human. She was an able swimmer but the waters were dark and the incoming tide occasionally carried stray jellyfish tentacles or stinging seagrass in its current. He gave her space enough to swim at her leisure, but stayed close enough to come to her aid if it was needed.
The sea did not often reward complacency.
Again the heart of their discussion found common ground, but the devil was in the details. The mermanta submerged for a few seconds to wet his face and hair, and surfaced again. "I think... it is natural for living things to oppose death," he began, stoic brow furrowing faintly in thought. "Though I do not think human cities are so different from coral reefs. But I have only begun to explore Haulani and Kaiholo recently. There is much I cannot see from the canals." And of other human cities he had no experience at all. In this, he trusted that Chaele's firsthand experience far exceeded his own.
"Your words for your own kind are harsh," he said finally, slanting a concerned glance towards the shaman as they came into waters shallow enough to stand in. "But I respect your intentions."
The shore is fast approaching, the brine cresting on low waves as they press closer to land. The dangers that Hadama observes are not unknown to Chaele, though she is less familiar with them than she would like to admit. The Abandoned swims in bursts, riding the flow and pushing through the ebb. The salt on her brow is not only seawater as the muscles in her arms and neck strain through the last stretch. Her mask has also begun to fall apart, all but one wax-fixed crab leg returned to the ocean.
“Life opposes death, just as death opposes life in the balance of nature. But only people use magic and medicine to prolong life beyond its natural conclusion. Only people resent that they must mourn.” Her own resentment only grows, perhaps hypocritically, as memories of loss darken her gaze and the acknowledgement of her own harshness earns an agreeing hum. “What of your underwater city? Does it not expand every year, or accumulate resources for growth, or take advantage of the life around it?”
Finally her toes touch sand, and she looses a hot breath onto the cold water. Arms floating at rest on the water’s surface, she begins to wade onto the mainland.
