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!
Ask anyone, anyone at all; what's the first thing a girl does when she and her twin decide to rapidly age themselves up? Why, hop on the first skyship out of the Greatwood to head directly towards the ocean, of course.
Though Flora was flying solo, today it made her feel invigorated instead of slightly anxious. Today was the start of her new life. A life not lived huddled up in the woods, learning about various flora and fauna from a witch (which, let's be real, Flora had very much enjoyed (luv u vai))); it would not be a life lived hoping and praying not to run into a certain star/dragon/huntsman or whatever else Ronin was calling himself; it would not be a life lived in the shadow of a one night stand (and really, it wasn't even that).
The point of all that is just to say that should you be strolling along the beach, you'll find an exuberant young woman playing and splashing in the waves.
Jack doesn't stroll along the beach. He swaggers, or at times stumbles (#drunk) and occasionally maybe he even skips. Right now, though, he's doing none of these things - he's sitting in the sand a few feet up from where a young woman frolics in the water, having just woken up from a nap.
With the season turning colder (and an ice rink or some shit appearing in Haulani), this is a lazy time for Torchline. And the captain isn't setting sail until Flowerbirth, so, y'know, ditto.
He's just struck a match to hold it to the pipe between his lips as he spots a particularly vigorous wave heading the pretty little thing's way. Jack wonders idly whether she knows how to swim.
full speed ahead 'til i'm dead
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
Of course Flora knows how to swim. Flora has swum in the waters of the Stonesong, and by that I mean she's trundled in up to her knees (maybe mid-thigh on a daring day). But she's seen plenty of creatures swim and it honestly doesn't look that difficult, so she's fairly certain that if push came to shove she could manage without too much trouble. Of course, she isn't planning on swimming today, if only because her recently cobbled-together outfit was really too cute to get wet (and, given how flowy and sheer the dress she was wearing was, it would probably disintegrate).
Anyways, fast forward to that rapidly approaching wave. It's like one of those comical moments where someone shouts WAVE! and the person in the water waves, instead of, you know, bracing themselves for impact.
Hit hard, Flora finds her feet suddenly somewhere over her head as she's hurled right into the sand. Unable to breathe or orient herself, the newly-minted teenager feels herself being pulled out to sea as the wave begins to recede.
I think I've fucked up, Flora has time to think before swallowing a mouthful of saltwater.
He was only joking about the swimming part, honestly. This bitch, if she's a native Torcher (and at this point in time Jack has no reason to think she isn't, but more on that in a sec), she probably learned to swim before she knew how to walk. So as the wave approaches, not ominously exactly but a close cousin to it, the captain has enough time to watch her not react to know that she's about to get wiped out.
And when she does, and the wave wumphs her under the water, Jack does what any sailor worth his salt would do. He finds it fucking hilarious. The snort of laughter that leaves him almost has him choking on his pipe smoke, and he's wafting it away from his nose and mouth when he realises she hasn't resurfaced yet.
Sucks to suck, he supposes, the captain rising to his feet and brushing the sand from his pants to stretch his arms above his head. And yet, his footsteps take him closer to where the waves lap against the shore. "If I buy you a drink, would you do that again?" he calls.
full speed ahead 'til i'm dead
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
Rising to the surface and gasping like a bad actress who is miming coming back to life, Flora coughs and sputters behind the curtain of her hair. Her dress is sandy, ruined, and bunched uncomfortably around her body, but the worst part of all (aside from the fact that her impeccable makeup is mostly certainly ruined)?
If I buy you a drink, would you do that again? "ohmygods" Flora whispers to herself, cheeks flushing. Near death? Listen. That isn't that big a deal. Having been seen?
Snapping her shoulders up as perfectly as Elle Wood's, Flora casts a confident aqua stare around as if having expected Jack. "Uhmm," she replies, stalling for time. Quickly adjusting her dress (wet as it now was, it did hug her new curves rather nicely, she had to admit), Flora pushes back her blonde hair but fails to notice the large headband of seaweed clinging to the top of her head. Sweeping her eyes over Jack (cute? check), the girl flashes what she hopes (aka has been practicing in the mirror) to be a flirtatious smile. "Well," Trying to stroll sensually out of the water (oww, there was sand between her thighs), Flora nods. "..you already had a private showing. I think that's worth a drink in and of itself, don't you?"
Cute? Thanks, doll. Jack does take the opportunity to let blazing blue eyes rake over her curves (new? did she used to be a dude or something?), and he's definitely not disappointed, drawing again on the pipe between his lips. "Ain't sure it's private if you showed the whole beach," he drawls, huffing out a whorl of smoke. "But you did give me a laugh, so I s'pose I owe you a drink at least until you dry off." Isn't like it's going to cost him anything really, is it?
"What's your poison?" he asks, turning to walk down the beach towards where the Hanged Man sprawls out onto the sands. "Nice crown, by the way." He's referring, of course, to the seaweed on her head.
full speed ahead 'til i'm dead
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
Jack's eyes cause a warm rush of something that makes Flora feel a bit like that wave had, rush through her. No one had ever looked at her like that before, and to the surprise of absolutely no one, she loves it. "Well, but you got the front row." Flora replies with a laugh, knowing she'd lost this exchange but not feeling horrible about it.
Walking at Jack's side as if she owned the entire beach (despite how her feet slid in the sand, foreign as it was to her), the captain's question has her mind reeling to come up with a fully formed and believable lie. "Gin." She titters confidently. "But not that quick stuff that's only aged for a few weeks, y'know? And nothing with vegetables." Knowing this much about spirits because of Remi, Flora rolls her shoulders and her eyes with as much haughtiness as she thinks she can get away with.
"My..?" Feeling her way up from the bottom of her hair to the top of her head, Flora finds the seaweed and throws it off with a shiver, before flashing Jack a non-plussed smile. "It's so good for skin." She drawls as if he might care. "You should really try it."
"I ain't gonna argue with that," Jack says of his front row seat, the captain smiling to himself all over again at the memory of her tumbling arse over tit into the water. Casting a sidelong glance at her - because that's a very pretty lie she's spinning there - he thinks it's all going very well indeed when the R word slips through her thoughts like whatever's the opposite of rohypnol.
That's not a name he's heard in a long time, and honestly, it's sort of one he hopes stays the fuck away from Torchline. (Chance would be a fine thing, Jack). "Gin it is," he drawls. "Sure we can find somethin' for your refined tastes." He holds out the pipe for her to take a draw if she likes. "Call me Jack," he adds. "You drown in Torchline often?"
full speed ahead 'til i'm dead
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
Flora, oblivious to just about everything, thinks things are going swimmingly. She's even managed to figure out how to walk through the sand in a way that makes her hips sashay back and forth. Instantly accepting the pipe without having a single clue as to how to smoke it, Flora pops it into her mouth. "Mmmmm." She hums around it, placing the stem far too deep into her mouth and inhaling.
As the smoke hits the back of her throat, Flora swallows, sputters, and coughs. Gulping in air, the girl shakes her head as her eyes begin to water, more worried about how she was going to explain this than the fact that she was choking. "..so good.." She manages, sounding suddenly like she was a 60 year old lounge singer. Clearing her throat, Flora offers the pipe back. "The pipes we have back home are different." She says with a shrug, absolutely thinking that sounded believable.
"Okay Jack." She liked how that sounded on her tongue. The Juh and the ahhh and then the k!. "I'm Flora." As for Torchline? "Oh you know, here and there. For shopping trips, and to see Safrin at the Lighthouse, and of course to come to the beach." Which, you know, was technically all true.
They're almost upon the Hanged Man, and the only reason Jack isn't losing his ever loving shit over Flora's attempt to look cool and smoke a pipe is because he's busy digging in her head. Busy putting two and two together (and a lot of other numbers that all say run the fuck away) and realising who she actually is, who her parents are and why his being around her might be quite bad for his preference to keep breathing.
"Yeah? And where's home?" he asks, knowing it's the Greatwood but wondering what she'll come up with. Pushing open the door to the Hanged Man and stepping inside, it's belated that he holds it open for Flora as well. (And it's absolutely because of Remi and we all know it). "Shoppin', Safrin an' the beach. Sounds like you got it all figured out."
He gestures at a table by one of the open windows, the captain meanwhile heading to the bar for some 'gin'.
full speed ahead 'til i'm dead
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
Oh Jack, as if Flora is going to trip over something that easy to answer. "Home is such a funny, concept, you know? Home is where the heart is. Home is where you lay your head. " She rolls her eyes as if actually the question was so far beneath her.
"I bet you could still teach me a thing or two." Flora sings in response, meaning her words flirtatiously yes, but not quite the way one might take them had it been Maeve speaking them. She hadn't even had her first kiss yet, but was she going to let Jack know that? No. Except of course she just had.
"On the rocks." Flora calls after Jack, thinking that addition would make her former lie all the more believable as she approached the table he'd gestured to. Opting for the sunnier side (it would make her hair dry into pretty curls and make her eyes sparkle, she thought), Flora plops down, slyly adjusting her dress to reveal a bit of thigh and pulling at her neckline that it might look casually revealing.
Rising from the sea like some warm and welcome submarine is a Tumsea. With a smattering of starfish on its shell and a coating of seaweed, the creature looks as if it is trying to reflect the starlit heavens. Slow and kind, the creature glances your way, and though it is difficult to ascribe a smile to a creature such as this, indeed it seems to be smiling at you before descending down back into the waves.
You’ve encountered a Tumsea. This counts as a rare creature encounter for the purposes of levelling, but does not count as a Random Event for levelling or MP. There will be no further admin/re intervention. If you choose to follow this creature, you do so at your own risk, however, just having it in this thread is enough to satisfy your levelling requirements. You may not kill your rare creature without admin permission.
Tumseas (rare/mythical): Smaller cousins of the Tulmhainar, Tumseas are like moving ecosystems all unto themselves. With shells of brilliant blues and earth browns, these turtle-like creatures can grow to nearly 4ft in diameter and can hold their breath for decades at a time. Bringing vibrancy and health to all the underwater trails they follow, Tumseas are thought to be good omens and are often followed by schools of fish encantados
Jack is at the bar but still in range of Flora with his magic, and gods but he wishes he wasn't. It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't know all the shit he suddenly definitely knows, and rather than seducing some wet bimbo and disappearing the morning after, suddenly he's babysitting Remi Taliesin's crotch gremlin who is actually, like, six? Or something?
Returning with his whiskey and her water-with-a-lemon-slice in a gin glass, he pauses as he stands over the table, raising his eyebrows out at the shore where he thinks he can see a... Tumsea? "Huh," he says, completely missing Flora's attempts to look gorgeous in favour of the starfish spangled turtle.
"Oh. Here." Setting down the drinks, Jack slumps at the table as well and regards her. "So how long are you gonna be makin' Torchline your home?"
full speed ahead 'til i'm dead
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
Huh hits her like a lead balloon, but once Flora realizes Jack isn't looking at her, (which, rude) she too looks out the window. "Oh! It's one of those...oh, what do you call them again?" Miming as if the word was just on the tip of her tongue, Flora accepts her drink with a coquettish smile while trying to press her shoulders together to emphasize her cleavage.
Maybe he's gay? she thinks suddenly to herself, noting his rings and casually tousled style. Wouldn't that be just her luck.
"Oh, I dunno.." Flora answers, aiming for aloofness as if she were some world-weary traveller who just couldn't possibly commit. "Long enough to get a tan." Holding up her glass for his, she makes an obvious cheersing motion before taking a sip of her 'gin'.
"mmm! So good. I've had better, but this is pretty okay." She says of her water.
