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!
Flowerbirth brought the sonnets, the stanzas, and the lyrics to rebirth, renewal, and the blessed, warm, open embrace of the sun. Melita faced it as she often did, with a bright, radiant smile settled across her lips, a hum on her tongue, and motivation for the oncoming days. There was a method to her mercurial, whimsical ambitions today though; instead of wandering around without a base purpose, slashing through the air with a makeshift spear, or chasing down local wildlife, she opted to give back to the haven that kept her safe during the ominous, foreboding menace of Long Night.
She stretched, she yawned, and awakened to the softening breeze, the chill still vibrant and floating down the coils and curls of her long, untamed locks, but she encouraged it, setting a lighter, swifter pace. There were no knives, no claws, no eerie, acrimonious touch of talons or threats out in the midst of the roads and pathways, yet, her eyes caught the traces of their nefarious touches, marked and etched ruins scattered amongst the columns and avenues. She nearly stopped moving, just to stare, just to take it all in; bitter, rancorous reminders of things lost in the snow, in the open chasm, in the perilous void, devoured and swallowed, never to be seen again..
The honeybee child didn’t shudder, didn’t quiver, didn’t trip or stumble at the sights, but the nuances set a touch of the Rift down her spine. If she hadn’t already been on a mission, she would’ve stayed here, taking apart the rubble, trying to make it something new, fresh, instead of an acrid reminder of days bombarded with unrest and uncertainty. She lifted her furs higher across her shoulders until they tickled her neck, her chin, and then turned towards the Rathskeller, Fangorn dutifully bounding behind her (however, even his gaze lingered on footfalls they’d taken only months before, erased by the burden of hostility, dread, and doom).
Once they’d arrived at the door, Melita let herself in, and took in the scene before her. Though some other inhabitants had done their part to cleanse the threshold, it was clear there’d been far too many creatures holed up in one area, signs and signatures of various upheavals worn into the tables, the bar, the chairs, the rugs, and everywhere in between. The youth paused briefly to nod at the barkeeper, then took off her overcoat, and rolled up her sleeves. Turning to Fangorn, she arched a brow, and brightened even more than before – purpose gleaning into each and every motion. “Let’s get to work!”
While the gourd companion simultaneously watched and picked up a few items of trash in its mouth (chewing on them thoughtfully before deciding they were not worth the effort, and spitting them back out on the floor), the honeybee girl unleashed a firestorm of movement. She grabbed hold of items left out, placing them either on the tables to locate their owners later, or to discard when she got the opportunity. Trash was placed in piles to bag up when she was through, and glasses strewn about the area, still reeling with the smell of alcohol, were put along the bar to be cleaned and polished for their next consumer.
Emmett's recovery had been stumbling and unsure, beginning and stopping several times and seemingly without logic; sometimes he could walk about fine for hours and sometimes he would be bedbound all day with a terrible nausea if he dared to stand up. It was frustrating not knowing how well he really was, not being able to return to the farm to clean up because he didn't want to be stranded if he had a bad day.
Not that he really wanted to clean up what would be left behind after what had happened. At least the monsters would have taken the bodies, he supposed.
He was well enough on this particular day to sit up at a table in the bar and sip at a drink as he tried to work out a new layout for the farm that would allow him to grow at least enough crops to keep the place going but also be manageable for one person (two, if he could bear to ask Phoebe to help).
Speaking of crops...he glanced up to see a...walking gourd? Enter, with a young woman. They immediately began to busy themselves tidying up and ever the helper, Emmett felt instant obligation to help.
He stood up, wobbled a little but stayed upright. "Hey, y'lookin' for some help?"
The honeybee girl had been so diligent and focused on her efforts – a one-track mind, devout to singular things for the span of however long it took her to find something else – that she hadn’t noticed someone nearby. Fangorn’s eerie, enigmatic stare swung towards the other inhabitant as their voice carried through, and Melita followed suit, gilded gaze riveting, centering, on the boy nearby.
“Hello!” Her voice was cheery, and she quickly blew a wild bout of hair out of her face as she stood up from retrieving garbage from under one of the tables. He asked to help, which she’d gladly receive, but the keen set of her gaze caught him wobbling. Was he injured? Had he been one of the many escorted to the infirmary during the Long Night? She had tried to help one of them – but it’d been too late (and Kiada’s tears, her anger, her rage, stayed with the youth for a while; she knew the essence of grief, the pulsing, overwhelming invasion of it around one’s soul). This one had clearly survived.
Or maybe he wasn’t hurt at all, and merely suffered from low-blood sugar, or took a false, specious, deceiving step. It felt wrong to deny him the opportunity to clean if he longed to do it – Melita wasn’t an individual to hold someone back. She didn’t care for the feeling of another tugging at collars and throwing them aside, leaving dreams to die, forcing ambitions elsewhere; she liked to lift them all up, so they centered squarely in the stars, in the heavens, aspirations clear and devout. While cleansing an entire area likely wasn't the epitome of the other youth's wishes and yearnings, it still held the same, corresponding sentiments. “Only if you want to,” she inclined, smiling brightly again, before grasping another glass that had managed to roll underneath a chair.
"Always wanna help if I can." Emmett said, walking with a bit more confidence to the bar, where he asked for a glass of water; just something to sip while he worked so that the exhaustion would not be coupled with thirst. "...I uh, don' recognise ya. Do you work here?" While he had not ever lived in town, Emmett knew most familiar faces here well; if he didn't know someone he usually assumed them an Outlander, and he knew how Vervain liked to take those in.
With some water in his throat and determination in his mind he set forward to pick up a few chairs by the bar, neatly slotting them under the table. The action took more effort than it should have done, clearly a strain for him, but he didn't complain or ask for help.
"If..if ya need to move stuff outta here, if we get a cart or somethin' I can do that." He offered. Transporting carts and bags of things had always been his main job given his animal form; it was such a normal part of his life he didn't think to mention that to her. "I guess it depends how bad it is everywhere else...Where are we dumpin' rubbish?"
Melita smiled once more; the beatific graces filling the indentations of her grin as she continued, and Fangorn glared at the youth from his corner by a chair. She appreciated the offer of help, so hopefully things would be accomplished faster, and the Rathskeller could be returned to a cleaner, more prosperous looking threshold, instead of looking as if a tornado blew through. As for working here - Melita didn’t currently have an occupation anywhere. Previous experiences were beholden to ripping demons apart and ensuring her friends and family survived another day – which, while monsters were amidst the current kingdom, nobody seemed to be hiring for this background. Her resume went unfulfilled and scattered. “Oh, no,” and she glanced back up at him, tilted her head, tried to study and examine where she might’ve seen him: in the background, a blend of images along the scenery canvas? “I stayed here during LongNight. I figured I’d help pick up the place.” The girl grabbed hold of some more spare pieces of paper, a few with notes scrawled across the top, but otherwise naught signifying any pertinent information. She figured if they’d been incredibly important, they would’ve been snagged by the owners sooner; in they went to the trash pile. Her attention directed back to him for a moment, corresponding his inquiry back, a volley. “Do you?”
The little warrior paused, realized her rudeness, and then offered her hand, advancing closer as Fangorn uttered a feral hiss. “I’m Melita.”
Thereafter, she folded her arms across her chest and took in the rest of the scene. It came down to figuring out where to unfurl the chaos, and she studied which particular avenue she intended to incline down, when the stranger’s offer came through the air. It was a good notion, for there was enough junk and trash piled to dispose of – but the location and how was up in the air. Was there a designated area for waste and litter nearby? She’d never really considered the options. “That’d be great! We certainly have enough collected already,” and one of her hands waved over to the generated stack of various objects, but mostly broken, discarded portions of rubble and debris. Her gilded eyes settled back on him, mind running, scrutinizing, attempting to determine a solution to a multitude of things she was still ignorant to – but ever so willing to learn. “If we take it outside, could we burn it? Is there a trash area nearby?”
"Oh, well tha's real nice of you." Emmett replied with a wide smile, thinking a lot of Melita for returning to help. A lot of people who had stayed here hadn't; it was why the place still looked like such a pigsty. "Oh, nah, I work up at my familie's...at...uh..." He suddenly looked lost, like a little boy unbalanced in a world he didn't yet know. "...My...farm."
There was a quiet moment after where he said nothing but worked further, moving chairs and picking up rubble and trash, placing it in piles on the tops of tables. "Oh! Emmett." He took her hand and shook it with a easy friendliness.
He surveyed the room with her, but he saw something good; a job to be done that could consume his mind and take him away from his thoughts. "Errr..I mean, I'm sure we could clear outta space somewhere for a fire. Lotsa people have stuff to burn. And I can carry stuff there."
"I can be a donkey, so." He awkwardly fitted in, not knowing how else to bring it up.
She received a compliment and returned it with a bright smile; winsome and genuine, lifted all the up to her golden eyes. They were small snippets of helpfulness and assistance, but with the burden of sheltering so many individuals, it seemed only right that she give back in some fashion. But then something was off; she watched him as he started to answer her first inquiry about occupations. There were answers and enigmas lying beneath the farm response, but she didn’t press. The girl was tempted, for her mind was a whirling blur of questions over and over, until she’d been suitably distracted by another moment or instant, and then it started once more. But LongNight had immersed itself into their lives with a blistering vengeance, and she had a feeling it had sunk its claws into Emmett too. She remembered Kiada and the death knell sparked against the door, her eyes flicking toward it absentmindedly, before casting downward, back upon the loose wads of paper and the wrappers at her feet. So Melita kept her inquiries light and airy, humming, the only time she could ever hold a melodic tune. “A farm! What does your family raise?”
Then introductions passed, hands shaken, a mutual exchange of amiability. “Nice to meet you, Emmett.” At the very least, afterwards, he seemed to be consumed with the notions of where to put all the trash, garbage, and debris they managed to accumulate, which, based on the current piles, was going to be an issue soon. Why couldn’t anyone pick up after themselves? Was the bar always like this? She almost growled at the notion; but she was sidetracked again by the pressing answers. “That’s a great idea!” Maybe it could be a public burn, like the Spark Bird’s magnificent display, except this time it’d be a massive inferno to send Long Night into the distance, far down the line of another pressing year, incoming but farther, farther ahead. Maybe it’d be part of renewal and rebirth too – like when flames traced over woods, eating away at old ash, sunken pine, destroyed oak, and allowed new shoots, leaves, and saplings to reach through the cinder paths.
Of course, immediately after her head twisted back to stare at him at the information about him capable of being a donkey. The girl blinked, once, twice, thinking perhaps she’d heard wrong or misinterpreted his meaning; she even glanced down at Fangorn to confirm her confusion and bewilderment. Was he a shifter then? There’d been a few in the Rift, but more of them had incantations and enchantments, bestowing them until exhaustion against the onslaught of terror and misery. Melita had nothing but her wits, strength, and incredible tenacity to push onwards. “You mean – you can change into one?” There was no disbelief on her tongue, but genuine, intrigued surprise, hands still holding onto her latest trash collection. A moment later, perhaps in the space of a beat, a reaction was chosen with aplomb and good-heartedness. “How cool! Did you get to choose what you shift into?”
The phrasing of 'what does your family', the sharp reminder that once the farm that was once his own responsibility had been a joint effort - Emmett took a moment to reply so he wouldn't cry. "Uh..few things. We plant'a lot, 'n' have sheep, cows. Used to have some pigs, but...the cows 'n' sheep go for longer, so."
She agreed to his plans of a fire, so Emmett tried to think harder of where they could hold such a thing and when. With his body in the state it was he wasn't really in the state to be throwing anything onto a pyre, so they'd have to get some help...he hated having to be so dependant on other people. It was why he was pushing himself so, still helping to clean despite the nagging pain in his side and limp in his gait.
"Oh, uh. No, I didn' choose. I don' think anyone can...you just have it since you're born. But uh..." To show her he transformed, becoming a donkey in a matter of seconds, looking quite odd among the tables and chairs of the inn. He wiggled his ears and stomped his feet (everything felt stiff) then changed back, grinning with a little mock bow. "Like tha'."
The youth imagined the farm he described while she tended to a few last remnants of trash and garbage, putting the remaining articles in the designated piles. Her mother had always been a healer, so the gardens were packed with healing, soothing herbs and their home had been a threshold of welcoming, inviting nuances; it’d been wondrous, refreshing, a haven, a sanctuary. What would it have been like with a few animals? Melita would’ve been ecstatic, even wilder than before, and Clementine probably would’ve been overjoyed. The could’ve beens and the what ifs were all varnished, coated, and lacquered with regret and rue, but she still thought about those dreams from day to day, when the sketches weren’t outlined in bleak, dismal outlines, when the world didn’t seem so grave and gray. “That sounds lovely,” she hummed, distracted by memories, by details eternally etched in her mind.
Before she had a chance to ask further inquiries, because the girl was forever full of them (curious and curious her mother would’ve laughed, gentle and regal, then assisted in ensuring the honeybee child learned in her midst, but utterly incapable of stopping her from leaping off of ledges and diving straight into ocean waves), Emmett proceeded to answer her other questions. It was too bad one didn’t get to choose their shifting technique, though she could comprehend the circumstances – everyone would likely be a massive cretin, maybe a bear, a wolf, or a colossal cat, capable of implementing and ensuring malicious, vehement damage upon their foes (that’d be her first thought; bestial and a little savage). Her eyes rounded when he finally displayed his power, quick and swift, as if he’d had eons of practice (was it painful?), and even if the long ears, hooves, and ability to bray seemed outlandish along the threshold, she clapped – amused, the bright grin still shining amidst the debris and rubble. “Well done! Very impressive!”
Her eyes swept to the littler and junk once more, and then she went to the door, opening it wide in preparation for carrying and hauling the items through the aperture, piled to their final destination of ash and cinders. “If I start taking things out, and we could find a cart to pull…this could work!”
His donkey shift had always been such a normal part of his life he couldn't see it as impressive or anything to be congratulated on, but he bowed again and grinned in response to the praise. Emmett had often wished he could be something a bit more exciting, more glamorous, but...a wolf or a bear wouldn't be much use around the farm; would scare the animals.
Emmett nodded and walked by her to run quickly out to the market; behind his stall there was a small cart he used to store any extra produce he had at the end of the day. It would take a few trips with the amount of things they had to burn, but it would do. Running it back, the wheels squeaking and shaking, he stopped by the door and transformed, pushing his head through the harness once he'd shifted. This was clearly something he'd done many times before.
With a flick of his head (large ears bouncing about) he indicated for Melita to being stacking things in the cart so he could move it.
Melita was fortune to be in the presence of someone who knew exactly what needed to be done, and how to accomplish the task. She’d still be wandering around gathering objects here and there, then trying to figure out how or where to put the debris. While Emmett left to grab hold of his cart and other wares, the girl occupied herself by shuffling some of the larger objects outside, dragging them across the Rathskeller floor, and ducking down if anyone tried to catch her eye with the steady racket and din echoing along the threshold. Fangorn gave his best efforts in snatching a few papers with his teeth and bounding outside with Melita, close at her heels, spitting them out on the newly-assembled pile.
When Emmett returned, and she bowed her head in thanks again at his transformation and cart, she started loading up the transportation with the trash, the rubble, the ruin, the memories of LongNight. Content to contribute, she absorbed herself with the task, quickly, efficiently, securing the amount of debris until it didn’t seem capable of holding anymore. “Is that okay? It’s not too heavy?” She glanced his way, tilting her head, waiting for some confirmation, a donkey nod or shake of his skull. “I can follow you to the dump site, and then we can burn it!” The last few intonations were said in a boundless excitement, energetic and fervent, eternally entranced by fire and any other elemental properties she didn’t hold within her essence.
Emmett ee-yawed and nodded to confirm that the weight was fine; he'd pulled much more cumbersome things in his time at the farm. Masses of crops, wood from the forest for fires, his siblings when they were bored and wanted a ride...some debris from the pub was hardly enough to give him a problem. With a determined snuffle he set off walking.
Melita seemed excited about the fire (almost a little too excited. He didn't want to be encouraging a would-be arsonist). Emmett personally had always found a fire a little frightening, the speed at which it could spread, destroy, consume; he'd seen several farms go up in smoke over the years and it had never been a fun experience.
He walked up to a small spot of clear ground just out of the settlement and shuffled out of the harness before transforming back into his human form. "Right, so we should start settin' up here. Do ya...have a way to start a fire?"
Melita followed along once Emmett informed her that the weight was manageable (she didn’t want to burden him, and the way he’d walked earlier indicated some sort of wound), humming a little tune under her breath as Fangorn bounded behind. Her fingers grabbed hold of some debris loosened by the wagon’s journey across cobblestones and marred streets, but otherwise the journey seemed to go smoothly.
When they ultimately arrived at the determined location, and Emmett’s question extended to her…Melita grimaced. The slightest frown puckered its way down her brows and along her mouth, and she inwardly winced at her stupidity. Of course, when she’d begun her cleaning and sprucing up the Rathskeller, she hadn’t intended to be lighting anything ablaze, and hadn’t thought to bring anything incendiary. “Give me just a second!” Then she raced headlong down the streets, Fangorn in hot pursuit, hair wild and savage behind her, until she was ultimately a blur of crimson. Once she returned to Iskra’s home, breathless, she grabbed hold of the flint she knew was loitering by the windowsill, and returned swiftly back to the chosen spot for a blaze. “Sorry,” she panted, cheeks flushed and rosy, heart beating a firm, clear rhapsody, but ebullience wide and encompassing. “I have some flint. It should catch fairly quickly.”
Once they’d unloaded the debris again, she bent down next to a collection of newspaper and broken pieces of wood, perfect for kindling. “Before I start it though, do we have anything to put it out?” That’s all they’d need – a fire spreading through the domiciles and settlements. No matter her excitement in a potential inferno, she didn’t bear a willingness to see anyone harmed or marred by her exploits.
Melita didn't have any way of starting a blaze, as it turned out. Emmett supposed there wasn't really a reason for her too - he supposed he'd been hoping for the off-chance she was a fire mage or some kind of arsonist. Before he could apologise and go to find a flint himself, she had run off to find something. He waited, sitting on the ground to rest his aching legs.
Eventually she returned with flint in hand and Emmett smiled, standing up (with a groan) to greet her. "Ah. That'll do it. Good job." He looked at the pile of debris, waited for Melita to light it...then she brought up a very good point. Just how were they going to put it out?
"Er...well. I can go get some buckets o'water from the Oasis, or we could clear the space around it and let it burn out. Tha's usually what we did at the farm. Eventually it just..." Emmett pushed his hands down in the air to indicate a weakening blaze.
