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!
Down and out, and out of luck, we're spinning but the needle's stuck
The door tore out of her hand and slammed open as a gale thundered past. It swept both Maea and a swirling flurry of snow across the threshold and she hurried to close it again, lest the blizzard claimed the interior entirely. The storm had been raging for the better part of a day now, and while it would have been more practical to teleport herself into the VlamVloed, she had wanted to experience the snow. Feel the wind, the ice, the stinging cold against her face and the strain in her back as she fought her way through drifts that kept blocking the winding streets.
As always, she was left disappointed to feel so little of all that.
Taking her time to dust off the white from her hair and clothes, the snow-wraith of a girl gazed about the bar. Memories crowded in her mind as the familiar decor registered. The colors, the many items crowding the space behind the bar, it all carried a tang of bittersweet recollection that would have had her turn on the spot and leave, had it not been for the one new addition to the establishment.
Bracing herself, she approached the bar and offered a half awkward little wave to Neron.
"I see you got the job," she said in way of greeting, with a faint smile playing over the lips. "Congratulations."
Maea
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
The VlamVloed still doesn't feel like the Kraai, exactly. It isn't the decor or the layout - those sorts of issues are inconsequential to Neron. It's the more subtle stuff - the regulars, the extra staff, the way the books are kept (or not, as the case may be) and the sorts of alcohol patrons prefer. He's still getting used to it, but all good things in time, or so they say.
"Thank you. I would have been very disappointed if Sunjata had decided that my credentials weren't satisfactory," he says, grinning as Maea struggles with the door - that, at least, seems familiar to Halo. Standing behind the bar in his customary black, with his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, Neron looks the part at least. "How are things? Did you still want to help out, or is this more of a leisure visit?"
Down and out, and out of luck, we're spinning but the needle's stuck
"I'm sure you would have found some way to persuade him otherwise," she hummed, mouth twitching at the self-satisfied look of the man. He did look very professional standing behind the bar, with every bit of swagger and confidence she'd observed in other establishments. Not that she was an expert.
It took a mastery of will to keep her hands from shaking as she rested them against the polished counter. Ghostly figures pulled from old recollections kept dancing at the corners of her eyes. Seated in the many chairs across the room, leaning against the bar beside her, opposite her. Ignoring them stole so much energy that her response came out slow, almost sluggish.
"A... bit of both? Amun isn't home right now, and I - I could use a distraction." The ghosts were in her eyes too, despite the upward curve of her lips. Turning the lavender eyes dark, some haunted wasteland full of broken things with jagged edges. Maea made a slight gesture to the room at large, that included Neron himself. "Put me to work as you wish." Maybe the silent please made her pathetic. Maybe it was reckless to offer such loose reins to someone she didn't know - because she meant it. Would do anything he suggested if it meant a reprieve from her own head.
But she really couldn't make herself care about caution. Where was the need, when none of the alcohol surrounding them sufficed to make her reckless and stupid anyway? Would that it could.
Maea
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
"I have been known to keep a few tricks up my sleeves," Neron agrees with a lopsided smirk, wiping down the counter and looking Maea up and down with the subtle glance of a predator, though he doesn't intend to attack her. No, he recognises in her movements, her expression, the exact sort of weakness that one might take advantage of in the right circumstances. And the Hailstorm quite likes Maea, so that won't do at all.
"You asked for it," he drawls, the picture of casual cheer as he lifts the counter for her to sidle behind the bar next to him. "I find organising the booze to be very distracting. There are so many near empty bottles here, too. You can either look through the shelves and call out their names, or you can write the names down. Lady's choice."
Down and out, and out of luck, we're spinning but the needle's stuck
"Indeed I did." Strange, how small things could mean so much. Never would she have thought to return to this bar on her own, and certainly not to work. Yet here she was anyway, grateful enough to weep over the simple acceptance he offered. No questions asked, no conditions - not even a hint of curiosity over why she needed distractions. It was... more welcome than shed realized.
Masking the sappy sentiment behind a smile that did very little to hide her emotions - she'd never been good at that, let's be real - Maea sidled over to join Neron, sparing only a brief moment to reel at the different perspective offered of the establishment.
"Might as well learn where everything is," the girl shrugged, foregoing the list in favor of looking through bottles. The sheer amount of them had her brows lifting in some surprise. "It's more than I thought. Can't all be from the Grounds, can it?"
Reaching up on tiptoes, Maea turned a bottle with perhaps a shot or two left to examine the label. "Winged Whiskey. Mango Gin. Peppermint-bark Lager, all gone in a serving or two" she read out, and glanced over a shoulder to see if he was keeping up.
Maea
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
"I didn't expect you to feel that good about it," Neron remarks with a playful bob of his eyebrows; Maea's emotions betray her, as she's already pointed out, and the Hailstorm is nothing if not observant. Nevertheless, he inclines his head in a nod to allow her access to the shelves, meanwhile taking up the list of stock he's obtained from the VlamVloed's bookkeeping.
"Not all, no. There were establishments in Halo and in Torchline previously - I imagine they shared the stock across the locations. Some of this won't be coming back, given that it's just the VlamVloed now." Glancing up as she starts to read out the bottles, Neron makes a note and reaches out for her to pass them down to him.
"That mango gin is one of them, I'd think. I'll need to check on the whiskey, but we can restock the lager. I wonder if we could make something new, given enough time."
Down and out, and out of luck, we're spinning but the needle's stuck
Her mouth quirked in silent laughter, barely contained. "I'm so sorry to disappoint. If you prefer me to suffer, I could hang my head and sigh a lot?" If that's what it took to stay...
"Hm, I see. That's too bad. There's a lot more variety on everything these days. Even if I never drank much before, it's still sad to see things go stagnant again." The explanation made a world of sense, and Maea paid more attention to the labels as she sorted through them, calling out and passing down the ones that were running low. It became a game to guess which region a variety came from; the ones from Torchline generally had the crazier names.
"Oh, probably. I remember chatting with Weaver about doing something similar, when she was just starting up the Kraai," she said conversationally, on the topic of making spirits. "My family made apple cider occasionally when there was a good year, and I brought the recipes we kept to Halo. I meant to show them to her... Not sure what happened to the journal after I died though."
Straining to reach a bottle on a shelf, her fingers only barely scrabbled against the brown tinted glass. It looked strangely familiar.
Maea
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
"I expect at least one deep sigh every hour, preferably when a particularly drunk patron asks for another drink well past his limit," Neron informs her without looking up from his list. He sounds serious about it too, though the smirk on his face says otherwise. He jots down a couple of notes against the bottles they likely won't be able to restock, humming his agreement with Maea and glancing up at last.
"Well, perhaps there's hope for Torchline, but I haven't heard very much regarding it," he admits. "I know that their leadership is sworn to Safrin, though. Maybe they will make an exception for us if it's to trade booze"
Raising his eyebrows regarding the journal and the recipes, Neron smiles at her. "Maybe they found their way into the Kraai regardless. I remember finding a recipe or two for apple cider. I can't remember it by heart, unfortunately."
She scrabbles to reach one of the bottles and Neron steps forward to steady the stool she's perched on. "Want a hand with that one?"
Down and out, and out of luck, we're spinning but the needle's stuck
"Whatever you say, will do," she drawled back, in a decent imitation of the Halo accent, complete with that begrudging weary sigh all those hardy souls got whenever anyone tried to tell them what to do. It wasn't too far off from the farmers here in the Grounds, come to think of it.
Glancing back over her shoulder at him, Maea's brow quirked upward. "Even if the leadership is disinclined, aren't there other routes to go? Or is the business downstairs no longer in session?" Her gaze dipped pointedly to the floor, where she knew a hideout once housed all manner of colorful individuals. If Neron ran two bars for Sunjata, she assumed he would know about the shadier details of the Flood's business dealings.
Turning back to the work at hand, she smiled wistfully at the idea of her brief friendship with Weaver bearing fruit. "I wouldn't put it past her to have taken the notes. Ah - yes please." Flashing a smile at Neron as he offered to help, she scooted aside on the stool to make room for him - or hop down, really, because that was a lot of tight quarters and she wasn't that comfortable around him yet. "If you'd like, we could always check if there's anything left of my old house? The vats and barrels and all the equipment needed for making alcohol should still be there." Though, since she hadn't been back there in years, it was a big 'if'.
She kept her eyes trained on the bottle she had been reaching for. It shouldn't be there, really; not after so many years. Even if it was almost empty. Even if it looked to have been untouched for a while now.
Maea
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
Smiling at her attempt at the Halo accent, Neron places down his list so he can approach to help her get down the bottle from the top shelf. "It disbanded when Sunjata left Torchline I think," he murmurs of the business downstairs. "I did speak to him about it the other night, though. We're going to try to bring it back up, but we need to scout for new members in the Grounds." What's a guild without people to be a part of it, and all that?
The close proximity clearly doesn't bother the Hailstorm, and whether she remains on the stool or hops down is of little consequence to Neron. Retrieving the bottle, he climbs down and wipes off the dust, turning it this way and that to try and find a label. Hell if he knows what it is. "Oh, that's a clever idea," he says of her old house, steel eyes flashing up to offer her a fanged smirk. "Perhaps they'll come free with a couple of burly guys to do the work as well."
Down and out, and out of luck, we're spinning but the needle's stuck
In the end, Maea chickened out and skipped down to give him the space. Or herself, rather, but that thought was squashed firmly down beneath talk of guilds and alcohol. Like a heel stepping onto a bug and twisting for good measure.
"Ah, that makes sense," she murmured. "I would offer to help, but... I'm terrible at lying. And I'm not sure I could stomach taking orders from Sunjata."
When Neron failed to find a label, she extended a hand for the bottle. "May I?" Should he offer it to her, Maea would turn it over to reveal a round label glued to the bottom of the flask. A huff of disbelieving laughter broke from her, even as her brows pinched together. "Valair Cider," she read, having no difficulty interpreting the flowing letters that must have been written by her brother's own hand. "It must be the very last of it... I can't believe it lasted this long." There was a bit of a pause; "I'm a little insulted, actually. It took them three years to drink up a batch that shouldn't have lasted more than a season or two?"
Rolling her eyes she handed the bottle back to Neron. And nodded, as if the idea of tearing out a part of the inventory in her childhood home was nothing. "Oh, probably. I'd rather it be put to good use than sit and molder in a ruin."
Maea
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
05-24-2022, 01:22 PM (This post was last modified: 05-28-2022, 07:45 PM by Neron.)
Neron
the wind breathes lonely longing to be seen
"If it makes you feel any better, I don't think Sunjata will actually be there all that often," Neron says with a crooked smile, though it's directed down at the bottle as he examines it. "But the lying could be a small issue. It rather defeats the purpose of spying when you tell people you're doing it, right?" Chuckling, he glances back up at her just as she asks to see the bottle, which he surrenders willingly.
Eyebrows raise to hear that it's her family's cider, Neron jotting down a note or two onto the parchment he's been working on and tilting his head at Maea. "Perhaps they just forgot where it was," he tries, glancing up at the high shelf. "Regardless, if you feel sore about it, I can serve them a cocktail with it even though it's likely spoiled by now." Vindictive? Neron? Absolutely.
Down and out, and out of luck, we're spinning but the needle's stuck
Maea considered it, though the hum that followed remained unconvinced. "Perhaps... Why aren't you heading it? I always figured you to be more of a leader than a follower." Had his stint as Warden been mere fluke? "Either way, I might be interested. That is, if it's possible to learn how to hide things better. I wouldn't want to be a liability." Or butt in where she was not wanted.
Neron's offer drew a wicked laugh from Maea, and for a moment she seriously considered it. Then she ruefully shook her head. "Wouldn't want to ruin your reputation by serving potentially flawed drinks," she said. "Share it with me instead? If it's turned enough, we might actually be able to taste it." Rather selfishly Maea found she didn't want to share the last lingering remnant of her past with anyone who could frown at the taste of it.
Maea
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
Neron merely wrinkles his nose at the idea of heading the guild, and he waves a hand at her. "I like plausible deniability for just about everything," he says; something he'd been sorely missing as Warden. "And call me crazy, but right now I'm enjoying the freedom of just... being. You know?" Maybe she doesn't. Either way, Neron certainly is not a leader these days. A lawyer, maybe. But not a leader.
"I could teach you some clever sleight of hand, or how to keep a good poker face," he says with a grin, before tilting his head back down at the cider in his hands. Her suggestion is a decent one, and Neron gives her a gentle nod. "Alright, let's do it," he says, offering her out the bottle. "You get the honour of opening it. I will get some glasses."
And he does just that, once she's accepted the burden of family cider from him. Blowing into each glass, his magic causes frost to coat it, ensuring that it will be icy cold for them to drink.
