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!
"Tumseas," Jack supplies, still peering out of the window as he takes a sip of his whisky, wincing around the bite of the alcohol. "Cousins of the Tulmhainar - its this big tortoise you can find in the Greatwood." But he's sure she'll know all about that. Glancing back to pretty, blonde and off limits, Jack hates himself a bit and raises his glass in a cheers right back at her.
"You'd be better off comin' after Deepfrost if you want to get a tan," he points out, as if the season might have escaped her notice (and it probably has). Setting down his drink and watching her over the table, eventually Jack huffs out a sigh. "Listen, kid. It's great that you're all devil-may-care an' shit, but don't you reckon your good ol' Dad'll have somethin' to say about all this?"
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.
"No, yeah." Flora says with a quick nod. "I know. I've seen a Tulmhainar actually." She adds with a casual hasn't everyone? no? oh, how about that sort of shrug.
"Still warmer than other parts of the world." Flora astutely points out, before Jack reaches for the rug underfoot and begins the motions of yanking it out. Smiling into her drink, the girl raises a rather challenging eyebrow at one of her icecubes before fixing Jack with her best and brightest stare. "Interesting." She purrs. "Now why would dear old have anything to say about me having a nice friendly drink here with you, Jack?" Flora wants to know, her heart beating faster. "Unless this isn't a nice friendly drink? But in my experience—" (read: in Vai's stories) "—nice unfriendly drinks don't normally come with guys concerned about the girl's dad."
There. Had that worked? Painting Jack out to be a coward? Taking a healthy sip of her drink, Flora tries to seem like the only thing she's holding is Jack's stare.
"Yeah? Are they like the stories?" Jack wonders, letting a finger run around the rim of his whiskey glass as he watches her act her way out of the situation like an old pro. And he's very impressed, actually - if he weren't who he was, he'd likely be two drinks deep and well on his way to something he'd regret when Remi Taliesin found out.
He holds her stare and tilts his head for a moment, watching her sip sophisticatedly at her water. "'Cause I've had friendly and unfriendly drinks with your dear old pa, an' I ain't touchin' what's his with a barge pole. No offence." Not that he cares if she takes it either way. "Now finish your drink an' I'll see you to an inn, an' your monster family never needs to know, yeah?"
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 no, not at all." Flora says with a knowing shake of her head. "They're actually very very sweet." Mirroring the motion of Jack's finger on her own glass, whether consciously or not, Flora takes a moment to bask in her success before it all starts to go to shit.
Running her tongue defiantly across her teeth before pressing it against the inside of her cheek, Flora leans jerkily back in her chair whilst folding her arms across her chest (but not across her cleavage). "What's his?" She demands, indignantly. "Offense." It doesn't occur to Flora to wonder how it is Jack knows what he does, instead, her young mind is simply trying to figure out how to salvage what had been going so well.
Wilting a bit, Flora exhales and drops her gaze to her water gin. "How about instead of an inn you show me to where one of Frey's shrines is." She asks in a voice that sounds as young as she suddenly feels.
Tulmhainar, gin and Flora belonging to Remi aside (Jack's a piece of shit and he doesn't give a fuck, what of it), it's actually a relief to see her drop the coquettish act. At least in front of him, anyway - he won't deny that he'll enjoy watching her flirt with someone else, when it's their balls that might be chewed off by a manticore.
The shrine bit throws him off a little, but he rolls his shoulders in an easy shrug. "It's a bit of a walk up to the Rainbow Road, but I can do that," he says, knocking back the rest of his whiskey. "Figured you'd be more of a Ludo minion though, honestly."
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.
We'll see if violence runs in the Kaliesin branch of the family, but for now, Flora just offers Jack an incredibly childish sneer, feeling both sorry for herself and annoyed. Was she surprised that Remi had somehow managed to ruin her beach day, even though she'd literally come most of the way across the world to get away from him? No. Was he and the rest of the Greatwood going to hear about it when she got back? Oh you can just bet on it.
'Why.' Flora wants to know, rising abruptly from her chair and no longer trying to make her breasts eyecatching. "What about me has given you the impression I'm a carbon copy of my dad, huh?" Annoyed not only at Remi but at Jack too for becoming even more attractive for being unattainable and uninterested, Flora felt another warm rush rise from the center of her chest to flush her cheeks which she promptly tried to chase away with the remainder of her water gin.
Raising an eyebrow to see Flora rise so abruptly to her feet, Jack places his empty glass onto the table, though his fingers remain wrapped around it as he looks the young woman up and down. He resists the urge to smirk only because he doesn't really want to be slapped across the face by a teenager (it might not hurt very much in the long run, but if Flora's not into it then it's not all that enjoyable either).
"Your temper," he drawls instead, rising to his feet and stepping out from the table. "But there's no need to get your knickers in a twist. I just figured Ludo would be keen to get its rags all over you. Frey's as good a god as any, though." So saying, he's already on his way out of the Hanged Man, holding the door for her with a roguish flick of the wrist to accompany it.
"Are you just goin' to say hi?" he inquires. "Because I've heard that shit gets old."
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.
Laughing genuinely, Flora gives her head a shake. “Temper? Oh you haven’t seen anything yet.” She trills, sounding almost proud of having inherited her mother’s penchant for wild and unpredictable acts of violence. And then, because he’d left the door so very open for it, the girl adds: “Who says I’m wearing any?” She wonders, of her knickers and whether or not they were twisted, before sashaying through the open door with a, “ Thank you”
Scrunching her nose up at the sky and making a mental note to get herself sunglasses or a big floppy hat—or both— Flora shakes her head. “You think with my dad being who he is, I haven’t been warned about wasting their time?” She grins. “No, I have something in mind.” And she did. Something wicked and cutting and perhaps a touch surprising; not that it would come as a surprise to Jack, though. “A notebook that writes down all the nice things people are saying about me. What do you think?” Flora lies, batting her eyelashes at Jack and grinning. Flora was not so naive that she hadn’t realized what having inherited her mother and father’s good looks would mean for her, and what the world in turn would assume about her.
"With any luck I'll continue to be blind to that part of your colourful personality," Jack drawls as he follows after her, letting the door drop shut. While Flora squints, of course Jack has a pair of sunglasses, and he slides them onto his nose and pats his pocket for his cigarettes and his matchbook. "If you weren't wearin' any, I'd have seen it when you got soaked in the ocean," he quips, striking up and taking a long pull off the cigarette.
Tilting his head - for someone who doesn't want to be associated with her father, suddenly she's all about his teachings - the captain merely shrugs his shoulders. "I figured you already had a notebook like that," he admits. "Dear diary, and so on. I'd ask for swimmin' lessons, or maybe sharp stick to poke people with."
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.
“So you were looking?” Flora gasps playfully, flashing Jack a scandalized gaze. Every time the girl thinks that she might finally have a foothold when it comes to their conversational banter, Jack promptly tugs the rug out from under her feet leaving her feeling young and the sort of naive that isn’t cute. Flip-flopping as those who are young and inexperienced are wont to do, Flora swallows hard and resorts to brutal and quiet honesty.
“I want something I can throw. A bit flashier than daggers, but that sort of thing. Something quiet and unassuming. Something I can pretend is costume jewelry, maybe.” With her aqua eyes focused on the sands and a coral blush on her cheeks, Flora hazards a glance of her shoulder in Jack’s direction seeking his approval while doing everything she could to tell herself she wasn’t. But then, Flora was basically the epitome of #DaddyIssues so that shouldn’t come as such a surprise.
"Maybe," Jack says, because he knows it'll annoy her more than a straight yes. But of course he was looking, because this had been in the five minutes before he realised she was six years old, like, two days before. And hell, give it a season or two for her mind and her hormones to catch up with her body, and he'll be looking all over again. For now, as her quips become brutal honesty and she glances over her shoulder at him, Jack raises his eyebrows over his glasses.
Exhaling a long stream of smoke and flicking the ash from his cigarette, he leads them off the boardwalk and onto the sandy track that will wend them up towards the Rainbow Road. "Clever," he remarks. "You any good at throwin' weapons? Ain't as easy as it looks." He holds out the smoke for her to take a drag, if she wants.
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, it absolutely does annoy her such that Jack will be treated to a bright flare of youthful emotions that chaotically explode before fizzling out. The life experience it would take to be able to walk the line between being taken seriously, being confident but charming, and also satisfying her need to win the approval of those around her is far too fine for Flora to walk with any modicum of accuracy. So it is that she continues to waver wildly, unsure and unable to get her footing.
"Hardly anything is as easy as it looks." Flora replies with a shrug, before shaking her head at the offered cigarette. Young as she was even Flora could see that she'd blown it with Jack, and that he undoubtedly thought of her as nothing more than silly. No sense in filling her mouth with ash, then. Not when the damage was already done. "But that doesn't mean I can't learn."
It's imperceptible, the way Jack winces behind his sunglasses at the flare of emotion that comes battering against his magic. Practiced as he is at this game, it doesn't take much for him to recover, and he rolls his shoulder in a shrug as she refuses a bit of old fashioned peer pressure. With the cigarette back between his lips, the captain buries his hands in his pockets as the road twists this way and that.
"You can say that again," he mutters. "An' you've got your head screwed on right when you want to. I can teach you, if you get your shit from Frey." Whatever that happens to be. "You'll end up goin' through a lot of blades, though, unless you throw 'em where you can get 'em back."
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.
"Hardly anything is as easy as it looks." Flora says again, flashing Jack a smile over her shoulder before biting at the inside her cheek to restrain the way her smile wanted to positively radiate at his small compliment, backhanded though it might have been.
"Really?" It would take someone with Jack's ability to decipher if Flora's surprise was due to the captain's sudden offer of aid or the notion he might be skilled at throwing things. (It was both). "I wouldn't have pegged you for the sort who throws things." Flora mumbles, unsure how to gracefully accept his offer without coming across as being even needier than she likely already had. What she should have been worried about was how she'd be expected to repay someone like Jack, but...she wasn't. "Oh. Well that's a good idea."{s/ay} She muses, of having the blades potentially return to her. "I guess you're not just a handsome face, huh."
