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!
There is little to transport, considering she has only returned from the Wilds for less than half a season. Nobody thinks twice of the last Wordsworth meandering through town with a pack on her back given her proclivities for plants and harvesting. Perhaps when they notice the apothecary is boarded up anew they will think again of the bright hair in the cold spring light and wonder, but until that moment nobody will think to miss Evie Wordsworth.
She steps through the portal with little more than her best winter clothes and all the herbs she could carry. Food, temporary lodgings, that she can acquire swiftly enough. Bartering even easier given her magical abilities and worldly skill. As her boots crunch into the layer of snow that meets her on the other side of the portal, Evie lifts her head to the blinding strike of sun against the permafrost, wind tugging her long crimson hair out from her head to stream like a banner across her shoulder. Pupils shrink, leaving only sharp blue behind, and the healer breathes out softly.
How long has it been since last she visited these lands? Since she lived here, trained here?
Adjusting the straps of her bag on her shoulders, Evie takes a moment to revel in the silence of the early morning. Perfectly, splendidly, horribly alone. And then she begins to walk. Deimos will meet her, as he had promised, but she will not sit idle while she waits for that to happen. She never has before, and today is not the day to start.
ache first, but then let the cuts close spit out the blood
Some things were cyclical – branches upon branches, nestled with boughs and limbs turning and twisting back upon one another. The Sword didn’t expect the Evergreen to be one of those – despite the namesake – presumed she was another lost and gone. Caido was renowned for the sharp, stark moments of clarity, people there one instant, and rendered intangible the next, with ghosts and phantoms and wraiths lingering in between.
He swallowed down the ones that suddenly loomed and threatened, strides even across the snow, head held high as he meandered through the opened gate, the air and wind pressing back. The vestiges were cold and distinct, snapped against fur and pelts, and he relished in it for half a moment, before his long limbs carried him along trails unearthed, towards a portal he barely-ever used now.
Companions followed, nosey and yearning for a taste of liberation from walls as well, the peryton flying above, the unicorn at his shoulder, one reflecting, the other meandering, unfurling wings. Deimos, in his residual form, was reduced to silence, and only inclined noise at all, when they reached the open mouth of the cave, snorting at the familiar, even if it had been years, shock of crimson hair against the outline of ivory rime. His monolithic form stood along the aperture, jaw jutting out towards the last Wordsworth. “Evie,” was a booming rumble, echoing and bounding from the cavern’s wake, with the etchings of a smile imprinted along his mouth. Belial followed suit with an obnoxious, welcoming bellow, while Zuriel stood her ground next to the General.
watch your body pull itself back together then let your soul do the same
Just as her hair is a beacon, so to her is the breadth of his shoulders, the furs along his collar. His voice carries in a rumble like thunder. Evie has never been afraid of storms. Where Sam would cower away in the corner with his books, muttering softly about fires and their risk, Evie would slip out of the back door to run barefoot through the streets to the sparse woods beyond. Her way lit only by the intermittent streaks of lightning brightening the heavy black clouds overhead. She would lay on her back with the sky above her, rain slicking her hair back to her head, and she would laugh with every roil of thunder that would shake through her very bones.
His call is like that, to her. Calling her home.
Her easy steps hasten slowly, bit by bit, until she is running for him. Hair a streak of copper against the blinding white, pale cheeks rising to pink as a smile pulls on her lips. There's no point in a return call, not until she is already crashing into him. Tucking her arms beneath to wrap around his waist instead of throwing them over his shoulders. Here, grounded beneath the natural weight of his biceps, buried away from the yawning sky's omnipresent gaze, Evie lays herself against him the same way she used to lay upon the earth - knowing she is safe, that the world is unmoving beneath her. "Deimos," she murmurs back, belated, and though her eyes are wet they are hidden behind her lids and her voice doesn't tremor betrayal to his ears. Squeezing her arms around him, she chuckles. "I almost hoped you'd grow round during LongNight, so I might have leverage to keep you from dragging me to the training grounds," she laughs as she pulls away, not forcing either of them to be entangled emotionally for too long. The grief is still there, but for the first time since she returned to the Grounds, she feels like there is finally a center of gravity to her world again. Someone she cares for, who knows her well, who cares for her instead of what she can do for him.
ache first, but then let the cuts close spit out the blood
Another snort unfurled as she crashed into him, and he withstood. Storm after storm, tempest after tempest, he remained firm and unyielding, half-afraid the world would find the cracks nettled along bones and fragments. And when they didn’t, the monolith held fast, steady in the incoming waves and the unfurling ridges, head above the surface of the tides and the slamming wake of winds. Maybe he’d worn them over. Perhaps the scars weren’t so open, and he’d learned how to hide the inward lacerations; no bleeding on the surface.
The General lifted her, for half a second, to curl underneath brawn and might. If he noticed the wet eyes and the tremor in her voice, he made no mention of it; only laughing, forcing all the wraiths away as the comment assailed his ears. “Too busy to become fat,” despite the amount of sweets he still found around the markets; but he’d never been the type of creature to fall prey to complacency – training, exercising, fulfilling all the fundamentals his warriors needed and then some – no protector of Halo could go rolling and stumbling through the streets.
Releasing one another, his eyes took her in quickly, efficiently, as any soldier might scrutinize, though his look was teasing, age-old, familiar from years and years before. “You clearly need it.” With a wrinkle to his nose and a boyish grin, and perhaps a poke to one of her arms, he offered a thicker pair of gloves from his pockets, before turning, maneuvering away from the Fangs maw. Zuriel bobbed her head towards Evie, and Belial followed suit, screeching overhead.
Only then did he address anything else – while they were moving, while they had opportunities to sink and slink without the other truly seeing. “How are you?”
watch your body pull itself back together then let your soul do the same
She has relied on him as so many others have, and for a moment there is shame in that. But then he is lifting her into his arms, feet swaying off the ground, and even disconnected from the earth she has had her hands in since childhood she feels just as centered and still. He smells a little different now. Different climate, different duties. Even here there is change. But beneath - the weight of his arms, the tickle of his scruff against her temple as she hides against his throat - everything is still the same. The Sword and the Evergreen. Steel and earth. Two things that will change but never fade - and that is why they are the last.
Laughing along with his deeper timbre, she grins cheekily at him as she is released, and swats at the hand that pokes playfully at her arms. They remain toned, but only because of her work in the Wilds, and not because of training. I'm no baker, dies in her throat, a grief they share, and a grief she can't carry alongside Sam's right now. "Oh I'm sure I do, but I need to brace my ego for the way you'll destroy me before I step into that arena," she laughs. It will happen. Deimos has always been her trainer in that sense. Evie has hardly ever sparred with any other.
Taking the gloves gratefully, though she does not speak it aloud, Evie spares a quick touch to Zuriel's shoulder as she passes the unicorn before looking up towards the companion she does not yet know - huffing a laugh at the loudness of the peryton, which seems so at odds with Deimos' countenance. It is there, with her face tilted to the sky, that his words come to her. She softens, despite keeping pace with militaristic precision despite never being a formal soldier. The Grounds did that to you. Lowering her face slowly, she looks to the trail ahead of them, quiet. Neither of them are emotional creatures. Evie moreso, of course, but too used to having to conceal and mislead to be frequently honest.
"I continue on," she says softly. "I don't know how not to. There is no laying down for people like us." The borrowed gloves creak as her hands tighten around the straps of her backpack. "But I am...angry. So very, very angry." The muscle in her jaw flexes as her teeth clench, and Evie must breathe through it for a few long moments before she can continue. "I miss him, more than our parents. As much as...as Amalia." Whose name is still hard to say, damn her. Damn them both. "But I am still so angry. At the Gods, at The Voice, at Sam, at the fanatic that believed killing him would mean anything in the grand scheme of this war." Sam, who was stronger and older than most of the Ascended, but who would have cut off his own hand before harming another soul. "At The Voice for changing him, at the Ascended for attacking Stormbreak in his name as if he would have ever wanted that kind of violence and retribution on his behalf. They used his death as motivation for their own hatred and frustration - without ever thinking about Sam. Who he was, what he meant to the world, what he would have wanted." Scoffing, she kicks a chunk of ice, sending it spinning off the trail into the softer snow where it lies.
"Everyone is demanding we pick a side - but why should I, when I despise them all? When both sides have taken so much from me?" Taken Amalia, by turning her into a Demigod and forcing her to turn her back on Sam - and even Evie, by moving her to Stormbreak. Taken Sam as a child by Ascending him, then taken him again in death at the hands of an Old God fanatic. Her parents, her friends. Her. Ludo had disparaged her the one time they'd met, and she had run before she could dream of trying to get into its graces.
"So. Here I am. Trying to do what little good I can, be of what little use I can be. Use this gods-forsaken magic for something." An unglamorous life, unbefitting her fire, but there seemed no other choice these days.
ache first, but then let the cuts close spit out the blood
The easygoing wake lasted for a breath or two more, and then he could feel the residual mettle clawing its way over the surface, threatening to overrun any other emotion. Zuriel turned her noble features from Evie, a light snort billowing in her direction, before her muzzle briefly grazed over his shoulder, as if she could feel the storm brewing below his chest. The pathway opened in rime and ice and snow, but he wasn’t certain he was ready for the impending wake unfurling right then and there – despite the inquiry.
The anger threatened to overrun everything else. He could hear it in the clench of her teeth, in the length of her stride, in the sweeping, stomping turns they made towards the beckoning Citadel. The warrior understood it well enough – the depths of rage, the culmination of grief and contempt burning and blazing, until the inferno swept and collided, until there was naught more than those combusted aches of devastation, the driving need to break the world apart with bare hands. So he remained silent, quiet, as the eaves broached and collided, as his eyes kept towards outcrops and trail markers, not flinching at Amalia’s name, at people who’d been so integral to their lives, gone. Ghosts labored and lingering, despite the way their lives had been so deftly intertwined, despite how many times he might’ve tried to avoid the heartache.
And when the words faded, when everything seemed to settle, briefly, his own rumble craved to follow suit. To stay in those hushed thresholds – tempting, smothering, suppressing every dirge and requiem. But he couldn’t now. The General clenched his jaw and then eased them apart, staring straight ahead. “Then you do not have to.” He’d never been one to force his ideals, his opinions, his beliefs, on another, even when he was contorted firmly into Old Gods’ proportions. “I do not know where she is.” The name not needing to be said – a presumption, perhaps, but there nonetheless. “Noah was made the demigod of Vi, and when I asked -,” he ceased there, a roll of his shoulders unfurling the mess of emotions threatening to overwhelm and tangle him in gnarled knots. The once-Shield had made her feelings clear well before, regardless. The sharpened state of his piercing eyes settled firmly on the spires in the distance, and nowhere else.
“I am sorry about Sam.” Because he was – and about Bastien, and Rexanna, and a thousand others that had made their hearts and souls known, even when the Voice held the latter in her grasp. A pause, listening to naught more than the wind billowing, to Belial’s wings unfurling ahead. “Did you have a goal in mind?”
watch your body pull itself back together then let your soul do the same
He makes it all so easy. So simple. Acceptance, devoid of judgment - even the barest hint of it. Amalia could never manage that, incapable of concealing her frowns or the averting of her gaze. Sam, too. It shouldn't blow the air out of her lungs so easily, having her worldview accepted without qualms, but it does. It makes it all the easier to absorb the rest of what he has to say in the wake of it, stunned as she is, though Evie likely wouldn't have had the heart to say much more given the flood of words that had just escaped her. She may not be as short with words as Deimos, but she has never been a wordsmith like Sam was.
"She made her choices," she rumbles quietly. "Wherever she is, I don't owe her my worry or my wondering. The path she picked had no footholds meant for us - so wherever it took her, I don't care to try and follow." And that's why Evie had never despaired when nobody followed her into the Wilds, not long after she was named Queen. The transient nature of people in Caido was simply something to be accepted. Amalia's departure may have been packed with more grief and betrayal, but the end was always the same. People left, and those left behind carried on.
"Thank you," she says softly of his empathy. Because what more was there to say? His body would be dismantled and parted out to the Ascended, and burial rites mattered little when she would never see him again in the afterlife. She had done them anyway, but even in the moment they had felt performative.
Looking to the same spires he watches in the distance, Evie's hands restlessly squeeze around her straps. "I want to re-open the Magic School." It feels like a heavy weight slides off her shoulders, saying it out loud. "Zariah's intentions aside, I never want an Abandoned to feel the way I do - did - my entire life." She struggles with it even now, despite how far she has come with performing her magic in public. "But that is a longterm goal. For now - I want to open an infirmary here. Not just an apothecary shop like my old store. A place for salves and tinctures, yes, but also for healing. From me. With magic over medicines." A smaller step, but just as important in the grand scheme of things.
ache first, but then let the cuts close spit out the blood
The words and phrases flickering thereafter gave him the greatest pause; enough to mull over in the breadth of his overbearing silence. The wind billowed and crept and didn’t curl into his furs, but ruffled against and upon, and battered at nothing. Diction he hadn’t heard, or perhaps hadn’t been ready to chisel against the frame of his mind, hadn’t said, hadn’t proclaimed, anywhere amid his heart and soul. She put it bluntly, as one might a weapon, away from the multitudes of anguish he’d drowned in years and seasons ago – where he’d been scalded, maimed, made to believe he was worthless, meaningless, devoid of love. The Sword had healed somewhere in the midst of all that grief and sorrow, but as always, there was more to be done. So all he could rumble thereafter was a quiet fixture too, gaze pinpointed on snow and ice. “We all deserved better.” And left it at that.
No sinking, no dwelling, no wondering, no ruining; no more – there was too much else to be done.
His head tilted, listening all the while, as she described her plans. He nearly snorted at the insinuation of the Magic School, and Zariah, who’d left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. Making no mention of how he’d wished to burn the entire thing to the ground, the piercing slate of his gaze finally landed somewhere along her shoulder. “It unfortunately carries her stigma with it. But perhaps it is something you could ask Noah and Cordelia about.” If they granted permission for it to reopen – maybe after the war.
The rest of the schemes and goals were feasible though, and Deimos found himself nodding along, content with discussing calculations rather than the multitudes of emotions he left behind. “We will always need healers,” and one of his hands went to Zuriel, patting her on the neck as they wound their way along paths. “Remind me to show you the greenhouse too.”
watch your body pull itself back together then let your soul do the same
“We did,” she rumbles in reply, and it feels like they stand shoulder-to-shoulder before a grave with depths they cannot gauge. Laying to rest all their suffering and loss. Moving on a little more every day because there was simply nothing else they could do. Evie’s may have been refreshed with Sam’s murder, but even that was a familiar method of grieving merely directed at a different person.
“Her stigma has ruined enough. The Grounds alone will never forget her reign of terror. But I refuse to let her be the face of the Natural Abandoned in Caido - even if following in her footsteps makes me taste vomit just talking about it,” she mutters, though her mouth curls with amusement at the last line, vulgar and intentional against the tyrant’s name.
Though the last hook of his words pulls her physically sideways, a covetous gleam of excitement shining in the bluefire of her eyes. “Greenhouse?” Her voice slides higher, almost girlish, immediately invested in this new idea. “Is it communal or private? How big is it?”
ache first, but then let the cuts close spit out the blood
Maybe the grief would always be there; a reminder of lost moments and things and souls, but not as sharp. Not as poignant. Not as haunting. There were some days where the thoughts were overshadowed by the present, by pieces and pockets of amusements or joy found in the carved-out spaces of the world. Little by little, bit by bit, until they weren’t so looming, daunting, and fraught – where the loss of another didn’t make up the core of one’s existence. Didn’t swallow. Didn’t consume.
His head tilted vaguely, eyes watching Belial unfurl his wings and drift downward as the Citadel loomed closer on their snowy path, listening to the notions of Zariah. While they had no more to fear from her, and only a scattered few remaining from her bloodline (Neron, and probably others), she’d cast a wide shadow on both the Grounds and Halo. “Perhaps it should not be thought of that way then,” and he wrinkled his nose in distaste, as if even the Merciless’s footsteps would’ve been tainted. “If permitted, you could make it in the likeness you choose.” Alter, morph, change, into something beneficial and well-meaning, then the overwhelming, overbearing, overwrought manifestations of a tyrant. Even the edifice, the surroundings, themselves – and it would make sense, given how abandoned the property had been.
At least there were motions towards the present with the greenhouse, and he snorted, allowing the depths of his smile to curl in the corners of his mouth at her reaction. Boyish again, when given the opportunity. “Communal. Made by the nature side of Frey. Fairly large and instrumental for Halo," relieving them of the necessities of trade, given and granted more independence. "Fruits. Vegetables. Herbs. Medicinal aspects.”
watch your body pull itself back together then let your soul do the same
If anyone had thoughts on Zariah’s reign, it is the two of them. They had suffered greatly, and while they are free of her now those dark days would need many more years to fade in their memory. “I think that would be best. When I trained there, it was cold and grandiose. That’s not the environment I would want to instruct students in.” She would have plenty of time to plan and orchestrate, to construct a business pitch, sketches and blueprints to present to Noah and Cordelia for their blessing. It would not be a short affair, but it would be worth it if she could garner approval.
She nearly vibrates from her skin as he expounds on the topic, scarcely blinking despite the cold making her eyes water. “Incredible!” she gushes, fingers twitching restlessly with the desire to bury into the soul, learn all the sprouts and seedlings by touch. Pausing, she averts her eyes slowly, tongue working at the insides of her teeth uncomfortably. “Did…have you met them? Frey?” Asked quietly, but intentionally removing any notion of implication or feeling in her tone.
ache first, but then let the cuts close spit out the blood
“Sounds like Zariah.” And he snorted again, the warm puffs of air looming from his presence, before dissipating back into the cold air. Strides kept to the path, that now seemed far more tread upon, as if many had been coming and going throughout the morning – some blending out into the Tundra, but most volleying and yielding back to the gates and walls they passed along. He nodded to the guards along the eaves, making several mental notes, before carrying on. “Was it as miserable as her reign?” Forceful, binding, tyrannical simply for the sake of oppression?
Based on the other excited portions though, and much easier topics, the grin remained. “Do you want to go there first?” Maybe, simply, for the sake of appeasing curiosity. For some reason he hadn’t expected the next inquiry, though maybe he should’ve, based on who they were. “Yes, but always briefly. So plans could be made for Halo.” If there was any speculation about her alteration in tone, he didn’t voice it, given how Abandoned were treated; he knew. He’d been immersed in it for a long time. “We are working on a weapon at the moment.”
watch your body pull itself back together then let your soul do the same
Civilization becomes readily more apparent the longer they walk. The walls are familiar in their outline and imposing force, but they’ve changed since she last called herself a citizen here. More attacks that left damage and subsequent repairs, ongoing construction, different soldiers. Her eyes sweep over the long lines contrasted against the horizon, taking it all in even as she snorts plainly at his question. “Ironically it was almost boring. You’d think she would have enjoyed the opportunity, but maybe she lost her touch.” And then, relying on the play on words, Evie lifts a finger to tap against her temple and grins. “Or was a little too touched.”
The eager gleam to her eyes is tempered by an understanding tilt of her mouth. “So long as I’m not keeping you from your duties, I’d love that.” It’s as good and fitting a welcome-home as could exist for someone like Evie. Maybe it’s the magic talking, or just her own upbringing, but being able to get her hands in the soil of Halo feels like it will make all of this feel more real. That this really is home now. And that’s precisely why she asks about Frey, even though it sobers her expression and draws it away from his. “I’ve only met Ludo and it was…not great. But everything I’m capable of doing, everything I’ve ever loved doing, it all feels so tied to them. To that side of Frey.” Sighing, she runs her gloved hands through her hair. “It’s an endless cycle. I denounce them in one breath and still hope for their approval in the next.”
ache first, but then let the cuts close spit out the blood
A very juvenile grin wrapped around his mouth at her insinuation. “Probably the latter,” and his nose wrinkled slightly as they turned along another path, the cobblestone streets lined with kiosks, stalls, mini markets along upon corners. “You are welcome to join any of our trainings in the meantime. I try not to make them boring.” A devilish little gleam of a snicker tucked within the corner of his lips, and then they were nearing the greenhouse, the glass dome and its veneer flashing in the haze of the morning sun, pressed amongst the distance.
He snorted at the semblance of keeping him away from the barracks – truth be told, they were probably sick of seeing him, or wondered when he’d do something else other than work. “They should be able to survive without me for this long,” and if they were all marked, scarred, blemished, and mauled within an hour, he could sneer and deliver lectures later. Besides, he could afford some time for her.
The Sword hadn’t known about her encounter with Ludo, but didn’t press the inquiry suddenly lingering behind his teeth. Instead, he permitted another light round of laughter at the insinuation – the hallmarks of an Abandoned in a world made and anointed by gods. “That sounds familiar. But, from what I have learned, they seem to be the least judgmental.” A shrug of his shoulders followed suit, piercing eyes going from her, and back to the road ahead.
watch your body pull itself back together then let your soul do the same
