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!
04-21-2022, 09:37 AM (This post was last modified: 04-29-2022, 02:50 AM by Maea.)
Maea
give me shelter, or show me heart
Seeing Wessex with her lantern of bone reminded Maea of the festival to come. And while there would always be those whose losses lingered in her mind, this year she felt a need to do things a bit differently.
In the cover of night, as an old moon tainted the crests of rolling waves with its pallid light she made her way out to the moving islands of Kuali'i. It took no small amount of courage to cross the water in her little row boat. Memories of the last time she ventured out to sea were ingrained in her subconscious, and every rise and swell of glittering water contained the ghost of whales, of bitter regrets and longing. By the time she made it to shore and could jump out onto the shifting sand she was already exhausted. But there was no time to waste. She had to be gone come morning, or risk exposure to the dangerous Torchline sun.
On bare feet, Maea began to pick her way along the shoreline and stopped every once in a while to examine a seashell, a piece of driftwood or other washed up debris. Whenever she discovered something that shifted in white, she collected the item and stashed it into a fold of her coat. The pockets were already full to bursting with crafting materials.
When she could carry no more, she settled on the beach and spread the items before her. Sorting and selecting the items that touched her heart, and brought old memories back into focus.
watch me fall apart and I'll be yours to keep
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
Dark eyes peer out from the shadows between the trees. They watched the boat arrive, at first supposing it to be a spirit made of moonlight and luck; but further inspection revealed the corporeality of a mortal form, however graceful. The dark figure dares not move, dares not reveal their vulnerability to this newcomer until it is certain that they mean no harm-- or even that they could not cause harm, despite intention.
Because their own boat is all but ruined, a shard of wood splintered off by the amusement of an impish encantado and lost to the depths of the fickle ocean. Trust and regret aside, the time for cursing their poor fortune has passed. The islands could change at any moment, and Chaele’s circumstances are dire.
So they emerge from the treeline, desperation hidden behind an eerie stag skull mask whose antlers arc high above their head. They step onto the sand, long tattered skirts crusted with salt and caution, footfalls heavy to alert the stranger to their approach. Their arms, free of an abandoned cloak, flex nervously beneath so many runes carved into their dark skin.
Giving a large berth and a wary head tilt, they notice the collection of items strewn at the other woman’s feet. The practice feels familiar to the shaman, whatever the reality might be. They offer an assumption, which is equal parts greeting and apology. “A totem?”
Picking up a comb-shaped sea-shell, Maea chose a drill from the small selection of tools. With care she made tiny holes in four corners of the item, and proceeded to do the same with the other shells. While her hands and eyes were busy, the ears were not, and over the swell of waves the picked up the sound of aporoaching feet.
Only when they stopped near her and a voice broke the silence did she look up, and her pale eyes widened in surprise at the ominous figure that loomed over her. If the voice had not been so ordinary, she might have worried about spirits or apparitions.
"A lantern," came her soft reply. "For Ludo's Festival. Perhaps you know of it?" A simple gesture of a hand invited the stranger to take a seat, before she returned her attention to the task.
watch me fall apart and I'll be yours to keep
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
A frown twists over their cracked lips, perhaps visible despite the low light from Maea’s upward view of their face beneath the mask. They are neither fond of heralds nor festivals, preferring solitude to worship. But the lock has been set on their circumstance, the pomegranate seeds eaten, the tower door sealed. Chaele is stuck in this place, unless they can convince this stranger to take pity. They take a step toward her, then lower themself into the sand.
“No,” is the wary reply, with hands crossed into the folds of so many skirts. As soon as the denial is made, a distant memory occurs to them-- made of sweets and lights and ghost stories-- but it is too vague to be of any use. Eyes behind holes in bone tilt toward the project between pale hands. “What purpose does it serve?”
"If you make a lantern and think of a lost loved one, on the Festival of Lights you might be granted a glimpse of them again," she replied, not even raising a brow that the practice might be less than obvious. Perhaps this person was another Outlander, or just of a different culture.
Carefully selecting long and thin pieces of driftwood, they too were given holes. Once that was done, she picked up a thin thread waxed into stiffness and began to tie the wood together into a lantern base. The shells were then woven together, to make up the bottom and walls of the item. Once the base was ready, she might add more things. Dangly bits hanging from the bottom rim, to rattle and click with movement.
"What brings you out here, anyway?" She didn't sound very curious, but it was a polite thing to ask. And the person had taken a seat; though Maea couldn't figure out why.
watch me fall apart and I'll be yours to keep
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
It is easy to watch her hands, to avoid her gaze, to shut out the desperate circumstances and settle in the rhythm of work for a time. It is like witnessing the creation of a little world, an idea made whole in calcite and wax. There is even a certain solace in the memories Maea’s words evoke.
“I think I do remember.” There had been a time when Chaele wrapped paper around wire near the warmth of a hearth, before they really understood what gods were and how little they meant to the divine. Their shoulders slump with grief, thoughts of one particular lost love rolling in with the brine.
The question brings them back to the task at hand: the investigation of this woman and the extent of her generosity. “I am always in search of unique things. Places of power, and the items that inhabit them. There is magic in these islands, which I seek to understand.” The truth is sufficient, it seems. “And you? I imagine you can find such tokens as those on any given beach.”
A quiet nod, then silence as the sliver of aged moon sunk into the ocean and was gone. The lack of illumination did nothing to slow those milky hands, and despite their puckered and scarred appearance they were deft enough at what they were doing. The lantern took shape one piece at a time. And if it was not the most flawless creation under the eyes of Rae? Well, neither had she ever been.
"I used to know someone like you, once," came her soft response, as the stranger shared some of their purpose on the shifting isles. "Though my friend sought lore and song and the history of a place, as much as its power. Do you learn much, in your travels?" A wistful smile, a long, tentative glance lingered on that eerie yet beautiful mask, before the lantern regained its due attention.
"Very true. You might say I chose them for the powers of memory they hold." She hesitated and looked up, considering the person beside herself. A complete stranger - yet perhaps confidence could be a benefit here.
"I suffered terrible trauma in these waters, you see," she went on; having decided to share some, if not all of the story. "Now I need to move on, and so I went where I don't wish to be, so that I might remember, and accept what happened - and move on." She raised the half-finished lantern to emphasize its purpose. A lament for the dead, a mute hope of glimpsing that which was buried and gone.
watch me fall apart and I'll be yours to keep
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
Chaele’s eyes are not as keen as some, but they do not need more than starlight to make out enough of the figure beside them. It is the cold that bothers them more, absent their usual cloak and buffeted by broad ocean breezes. Their rune-carved arms shake occasionally as they meet the shadowed gaze opposite, neither truly seeing the obscured eyes of the other.
“My travels have only just begun,” she answers quietly, not quite successful in the attempt to seem more humble than inexperienced. “But I have collected much, mostly herbs and stones and bones. Attempted to decipher the energies they contain. What seems mundane is not always so.”
Like the seashell, its power to protect set aside to greet those who would lay anchor after a hard voyage. Or the driftwood, its old life dried to a husk as it wanders in search of a new one. There were surely more valuable, more potent things in the world, but how could one comprehend them if they did not start with the rest?
“Memory is the truest power there is. That which is passed from one soul to another... skills and stories and truths and traditions. It is our understanding of the world that harnesses it.”
As the lantern is lifted, Chaele can almost see the weight of grief in the gently swaying strings. She is curious as to the rest of the story, but does not have the words to say so. “So too is it a curse, sometimes.”
A simple nod, understanding glinting in night-darkened eyes. "And what will you do with the knowledge, once you have collected it?" Simple curiosity brought her head askew in a cat-like manner, keen yet distant. Seaglass of multicolored hues was carefully selected and strung together in a net of fishing line, to make up a cobbled path for a candle to rest upon. It would form the base eventually, but for now it remained a mere snarl of twine in her hands.
"I agree. In essence it is nothing wrong with remembering the past. It's when one remains chained to it and unable to move forward that it becomes a hobble around ones feet." A wry twist of her mouth described a humorless smile that did not reach her gaze. "Someone I care about suggested that keeping busy and creating new memories was the way to move forward. I don't disagree - but it feels appropriate to... I don't know. Commemorate what was, perhaps? Lay it to rest, might be a better phrase."
watch me fall apart and I'll be yours to keep
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
“I should think there is no end to the collection of knowledge. And that the knowledge itself will suggest what must be done with it. But I have come to understand that it will provide a certain freedom-- from ignorance, from danger, from oppression.” It is a vague answer perhaps, one that does not commit to any definitive justification for her life's goals. At the very least, it is a defense of Chaele’s own longevity, a reason she deserves to leave this place.
She looks out over the water then, the horizon invisible between the starry sky and its reflection. A keen ear might hear the fear in her voice, however much she attempts to hide it behind a pretense of compassion. “The line between chains and graves is a thin one, true. But your friend was not entirely wrong. By putting your intention into this thing, this creation, you are giving it form. Making it more real. And so it will be as you intend it to be: a laying to rest.”
The antlers bow low as her eyes drop to her hands, barely visible in the low light. Then the shadow of her twists as she returns her gaze to Maea. “I am called Chaele.”
A thoughtful silence was offered in response, as the woman's words gave the pale girl a lot to consider. It was not hostile in any way, merely contemplative in the same measure as the knotting and pulling of the twine in her hands, around stones that each held some significance.
When the stranger offered her name, and became a stranger no more, the confidence was met with a soft smile, kind and somewhat shy. "It's nice to meet you, Chaele. My name is Maea." The sigh of waves filled in the pause where she hesitated, and accompanied her as a quiet symphony in the backdrop when Maea found her words again.
"I was just thinking... that I wish I had met someone like you, many years ago. The way you view the search for knowledge - it is so much more peaceful and open than what I'm accustomed to." Tying off a final knot, she cut the twine with a knife and began the process of assembling the lose pieces of the lantern. "Have you ever considered sharing your findings with others? Taking on students, or just... I don't know. Letting someone record them?" She bit her lip, and gazed between the work in her hands, and the masked figure beside her.
watch me fall apart and I'll be yours to keep
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
It is a slow, thoughtful conversation, one which allows the rhythmic hush of the ocean to participate in the spaces between their words. It takes Chaele a moment to comprehend Maea's description of their search for knowledge, for they are not often accused of openness. "Mine is not a peaceful existence. I have forsaken the protections of civilization to learn what I have. To commune with the land and understand its bounty." And its predators and treacheries and utter apathies.
"I have had my own mentors, though no apprentices. My few attempts at sharing my expertise have been met with cynicism at best."
But surely she insinuated something that they did not understand, some violence made of steel and ink that could not be compared to animal or herb. They return to the previous subject with the eagerness of a student in a library. "What sort of search for knowledge are you accustomed to?"
There was a quiet hum, a thoughtful acknowledgement of the reservations Chaele made. Even so, what they described was different from how Maea had come to view the search.
"I used to be a part of a guild, called the Loreseekers," she told the other. "We were based in the Hollowed Ground, and for a long time its purpose was to seek a way to escape the barrier that locked us all inside. After, it grew into a quest of exploring and understanding the mysteries of the world beyond. I am afraid that curiosity and a hunger for knowledge often drove us to go where we were not always wanted."
A soft shudder passed through her, as memories returned of more unsavory adventures. "There was never much patience for giving up civilization, or to do as you seem to, and immerse yourself with a place in order to understand it."
A few final knots was tied and the lantern was complete. Maea held it up, examining the details closely to see if she was content with the result. "Still. Even though it wasn't perfect, the guild did good things, too. Educating others, offering a place for scholars and the curious to gather. There were a lot of adventurers too, who joined for a chance to see new places. I've... been thinking it might not be all bad to revive such a guild."
watch me fall apart and I'll be yours to keep
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
The shaman thinks they know what it is to delve into dangerous places, but in truth they have never participated in a war or angered a god or faced down a dragon. Theirs are the dangers of predators and poisons, of hungers and infections. Hazardous, insidious, difficult perhaps, but not existentially dire. Maybe one day they would lay this present self to rest. But for now, as they tilt their head in observation of the lifted lantern, they find themself intrigued by the prospect of adventure.
“I have found that most knowledge does not want to be found. Perhaps loreseeking is an inherently defiant act.” Their words are soft and pensive, their interest piqued as they advise, “To hunt is to know what it is to be hunted.”
Even amid the water’s noise, the tone in the Ascended’s voice is not lost on the Abandoned: while hopeful, her old memories weigh in the proposition. Chaele’s instincts stir warily, though not contentiously. “It may not be a task fit for adventurers, who would just as soon destroy a thing as study it. You would have to choose your members wisely. But it sounds to me like a worthy cause.”
