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 world loomed before him, impossibly vast and wide, and he beckoned at it with claws and paws and fangs and might, heedless of the way the snow fell and pressed into his coat, at the way the wind whipped. Wild and unfurled, coils of power stirred and content, satisfied and molten, infernal and untamed, muscles taking in the discord, and working in their piercing, monolithic decrees. They ran past herds of luxere with their glowing antlers shimmering in the hovering dusk, and he chased after the wind, the Citadel, the formations of crag and summits, and everything else laden in between. For a stretch of time, there was nothing more than the driven onslaughts of his fiendish delight. Predacious grandeur and carnivore machinations – primitive revolution in just the sedition of his amusement.
Ears pricked and turned in all directions, senses accustomed to snagging at information, hearing the inquiry over the gales. Perhaps it was too bad she wouldn’t be able to sort through any Attuned measures, because the assortments of juvenile mischief soared and roared – but he acknowledged the question with a long, illustrious howl. She could partake the meaning in whatever she gleaned.
Belial, however, had more than enough wisdom and sagacity to pass on to the Sword – Chaele, maskless, grinning, rune-covered and no longer quite as furtive. Maybe that was more than enough anyway.
Besides, in no time at all, the Citadel rose from beyond – framed by walls and heights.
This must be what flying feels like. The biting air, the rushing world, the timeless moments that seem to both pass in an instant and stretch for an eternity. Chaele gives up the task of examining her surroundings and checking her periphery; she closes her eyes and lets her other senses take in the spectacle. For that short, breathless time there is nothing else except for the smell of frost in her nostrils and whipping chill on her skin and the rhythmic beating of paws against tundra. Bare, bright, and beholden to nothing.
Except, of course, for the steed who pulls her, who decides her path and so her fate. She knows, logically, that the palace spire will eventually rise up from behind some crag or hill and that, eventually, the walls will stand to greet them all. But she opens her eyes too late-- it is too sudden, too close for comfort. Immediately her hand scrambles for her mask and despite the trouble of the wind she dons it, holding its protection and solace hard against her forehead. Perhaps Belial is observant enough to detect the glint of fear in her exposed eyes before she covers them.
“Here,” she suggests, even as they remain about a half-mile from the gates. Her mind has returned to preparations and strategies, her head rocking from side to side in surveillance of their new location. The sky is clear, but the cold is persistent. Even if she could prepare the means to survive on the outside, it would take longer than the few hours left to spare. Still she searches for an excuse not to cross into that civilized domain. “This is close enough.”
The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head The thunder of the drums dictates
Eternities might have stretched out before him and he would’ve still plunged onward; content with the swiftness, the sureness, the steadiness of the ground below claws and paws, head and limbs outstretched to take hold of the wind and the snow and everything else in between. Notched and nestled with his prowess, with his potential, Deimos was merely a Stygian formation, easily shifting through the semblances of the tundra, unfurling before its wake. The spires and turrets and walls beckoned, but so did the rest of the plains, the mountains, the summits, pulling him together and apart with memories and lives – of bones nestled in caverns, of wars fought on a different countryside, of the way things faded and remained all at once.
However, then there were beckoning words, and it took him a moment to register the phrases for what they truly meant – the Citadel not far away, a few minutes easily. Pondering, leaving the inquiries lodged behind fangs, his movements began to slow. The strides not elongated, not striving, driving, until eventually he ceased altogether – a mighty heave of his sides as he took a long, slow breath. Not labored, but catching at the multitudes anyway, muscles keen and ready and eager for another bout.
The rope dropped from his mouth, and his gaze swung to the world around them – places one would hide and tuck themselves away. Thereafter, he shifted back, remaining still an instant longer as senses adjusted from hound to human, the arch of his brow defining the Sword’s key features once more – stoicism bound to curiosity and inquiry, waiting for her to decide and decipher. The only remaining question he’d bother to ask was about the arm – figuring she could get it doctored up either by his unicorn or a healer in Halo’s fold. “And your arm?”
The rhythm of the falls, the number of dead The rising of the horns, ahead
Already the memory of freedom fades, the realities of gravity and pain and survival sinking in the pit of Chaele’s stomach. The snow has a different texture when it is still, she notices, as her hand slips away from her mask and touches the soft blanket of sled-tossed ice. Like the cloud that assures the storm.
Having her own adjustments to make-- from movement to stillness, from honest to masked, from formless flight to heavy form-- the shaman gives herself a moment to tip her feet off of the sled and find her balance. Her injured arm, its muscles strained from the persistent demands of holding onto the sled, does throb somewhat with the aftershocks of release; her opposite and rises to touch the wound, testing for its warmth and wetness.
The now familiar curve of his brow gives her pause, but ultimately she is pleased at his reticence as she stands.
“I have the elderbush leaf,” she reminds him, more a simple fact than a reassurance. Then she glances toward the south east, as well as the first dark hues of a rising dusk. Her tilting gaze searches for a particular cluster of trees, above which happen to be rising a view circling vultures. “And a stash of herbs not far from here.”
She seems to face the Citadel then, though her mask forces her gaze sideward toward Deimos as she fumbles with the ropes to free the one gore crow from its bindings. “There is time yet to light a fire, if I go there now. I am grateful for all the help you have given; I am in your debt.”
The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head The thunder of the drums dictates
More used to the arts of Zuriel’s infinite and instant mending, where stitches and seams came back together with a touch of her horn, he could only blink at the notions of the herbs and leaves again. The shaman would know far more than he, ignorant to concoctions and assuaging properties in the natural state of the world, so he could only nod, and bite back on the offer of sending Belial after the unicorn. Instead, his eyes went to the collective threshold of where she’d likely stay – reminded of days of exile, in a day not so different from this one, narrowing them briefly in silent speculation, but ultimately keeping all the other notions to himself.
It was a parting due anyway, back to civilization, where he’d offer the gore crows to the butchers and they’d share them amongst the Halovian citizens, and protect, guard, and ensure their shields were drawn for another day. Her tones brought him briefly away from the thoughts of the near future, piercing gaze swinging to her stance, to the way she seemed eager to slide and slip away.
Debts. The Sword nearly snorted. How many owed him some and they'd never been collected?
“You are welcome,” was a rumble over the ice instead. “Good luck.” He gave a wave, before picking up the rope once more, intending to drag the sled in this form the rest of the way. Belial offered a chirrup of farewell too, though with a far more Cheshire inkling to the tilt of his deer features. From there, they could walk into the Citadel’s intervals, beckoned by other duties and responsibilities to the world around them.
{FIN}
The rhythm of the falls, the number of dead The rising of the horns, ahead
