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!
"What they got? A wall and a few guards? If you gimme ten minutes and I got these, I'll be outta here."
That's what Adam had said, while gesticulating to the silver pistols at his hips that were most definitely compensating for something. And so now that LongNight was over and the nights were warmer, you're damned right he was calling the other man's bluff. The Ascended stood on the fringes of one of the fields of sweet grass that would lead, inevitably, to the barrier, having agreed to meet Adam there at sundown.
Lucas's three shadows danced about his heels like a cloak, though the night was still but for the chirp of crickets and the rustle of the grass. He buried his hands into the pockets of his coat - the same coat he'd been wearing the night they had met, consequentially - and cast his green gaze out across the fields. No sign of a wall or the guards Adam had professed to be able to deal with. He wondered what the newcomer would think of that.
Adam hadn't actually expected Lucas to make good on his promise to take him out to the barrier (didn't he know he was about to be horribly embarrassed? most people who challenged Adam Motherfuckin' Pikely gave up once they realised what they'd done) but he had, setting up for them to meet in some random field at nightfall.
He realised this sounded very much like he was about to be murdered, but...he had guns and had survived every assassination plot he'd been a victim of so far. Just let Lucas try.
As he got towards the spot described he did notice that there was none of the signs of the border wall he thought he'd be dealing with, but it was not at all clear from his appearance that it bothered him. He swaggered up with confidence, the cocky grin he always had plastered onto his face and his hands resting lightly on his hips. Sometime in the last few days he'd gotten (stolen) himself a coat too, a long black leather thing which only further elongated his silhouette.
He glanced down at the shadows moving at Lucas' feet; just a trick of the light, probably, and then smiled at the man himself.
"So. Show me this big spooky wall, then. I'm ready to shake in my boots."
Luckily, Lucas was not in the mood for assassinations tonight. No, not when he could watch some newbie throw themselves against the barrier. Did it count as murder if Adam murdered himself by stupidity? And if he did manage to get out of the barrier, well... all the better for the Ascended, right? A smile spread across his lips as Adam arrived, Lucas nodding to him politely in greeting. "Did I ever say that it was a wall, good sir?" he asked, setting off dutifully into the tall grasses and beckoning for the other man to follow.
It didn't take them long to reach the very outskirts of Caido, where the world beyond was bleak and endless and blank and so obviously a veil that it made Lucas's teeth grind. No wall, no guards, no defences. No nothing.
"Go ahead. It should be easy for you," he invited.
He was not good nor a sir, but Adam let that one go with a shrug. "Nah, but that's sure what it sounds like." He was sure whatever it was, he'd be over it and out before Lucas even knew what was happening. For their walk he was mostly quiet, inanely humming odd snippets of songs he half remembered and loudly yawning to show just how boring this whole journey was.
But as the barrier came closer with its undeniable nothingness, he grew oddly quiet. When they reached it he pursed his lips out, looked it up and down like a builder surveying a site. Just keep it casual, he told himself. He'd handle it.
"This it?" He asked, his casual swagger automatic with just about everything he handled. Adam reached down to the ground and picked up a stick, tossed it towards the barrier. Just to see what it'd do.
Whatever it sounded like, Lucas knew exactly what it wasn't, and that was a fucking wall. As they arrived just at the point where it might be dangerous to proceed further or linger unnecessarily, the Ascended stopped and folded his arms across his chest, not trying to hide the amused and almost self-satisfied smile on his face. "It certainly is," he drawled to Adam, wondering what his first move would be.
Rather than just walking on into the barrier like Lucas had hoped expected (hey, he wanted to know exactly what happened when someone did that), Adam picked up something to throw at it. A smart move - though even Lucas was surprised when, as soon as it hit the 'bubble', the stick was flung back in their direction. He sidestepped it, watching as it landed harmlessly between them.
"Do the guards often react well when you throw sticks at them?" he wondered.
Adam jumped back as the stick came flying towards them, not so much out of fear as of surprise. Well...that was unusual, and there was definitely some magic shenanigans going on here. He'd never liked those. In fact he liked them so little that he immediately felt sour towards the wall, not just because it was keeping him in but because it was showing off.
"Well, we'll see if it spits this back." He said, pulling a pistol from his hip and holding it towards the barrier. There was some logic here - the bullet would shoot with much more force than he could throw a stick with, could break a seal that he couldn't with just his strength...but also, he was mad and wanted to shoot at it.
Not at all thinking to preserve his bullets in the moment, he fired a shot into the barrier, stepping to the side so it wouldn't shoot directly back at him if it did come back.
Lucas, in just a few moments, would be able to confirm to Adam that it had come back. Right into his left shoulder, in fact, just beneath the collarbone. The Ascended had let his arms drop to his sides, an expression of interest and amusement flickering across his face as the other man produced his pistol. He could have made several loaded comments at that point, most of them chock full of innuendo, but before he could select his favourite one, well...
The shot fired out into the night, leaving his ears ringing, and then there was a hole in him that hadn't been there a few seconds ago. Eerily, Lucas didn't really react or move, given that it hadn't caused any pain. He did stumble back a little with the force of it, though. "Wow," he said eventually, touching a hand to the hole in his coat and shirt and the silvery sort of liquid seeping from the wound. "I liked this coat. Fuck you, man."
03-06-2019, 08:19 PM (This post was last modified: 03-06-2019, 08:23 PM by Adam.)
The shot fired and Adam saw no change, did not catch the bullet flying backwards. For a moment he assumed the bullet had been eaten up by the barrier or actually gone through it...then he heard Lucas speak behind him. Adam turned and his eyebrows shot up as he realised he'd shot his new friend (friendly acquaintance? Not-so-friendly acquaintance?).
"Oh, shit. Sorry." He stepped forward to hold Lucas in case he fell but stopped short, noticing that he seemed...incredibly not bothered about all of this. Most people, when they had been shot, screamed and fell and cried. ...Or at least bled. Lucas just seemed pissed about his coat and Adam could see that the liquid coming out was not blood.
The fuck?
"...Er...are you...alright? Y'don't seem that hurt." He pointed out, frowning and putting his pistol back to his hip as he shifted his weight to one side.
Lucas was grumbling to himself as he further examined his coat, poking a finger through the hole from the inside to wiggle it at Adam as if to show him what he'd done to the garment. Oh, and... yeah, his body, he supposed. "Sorry doesn't fix this," he muttered, sighing and shucking out of the coat so he could prevent it from getting covered in whatever was leaking from him.
"Holy shit, is that what I bleed now?" Beneath the coat the silvery substance was sluggishly coating his shirt, which also contained a hole where the shot had pierced into him. "I don't feel pain, it seems. Good trade-off I suppose, given that I can't get it up anymore. Well, not a good trade-off, but... eh." He glanced up to meet Adam's eyes. "So how's that great escape going?"
Sorry might not have fixed it, but that was all Adam had, so the best he could do was an apologetic shrug. Besides, Lucas didn't seem particularly distressed. He seemed at about the level of irritation someone would be at if they'd split some soup on a nice shirt.
"What the fuck is it that you're bleeding?" He asked, leaning forward to look. Was Lucas dead, as per his theory, or sick with a very strange disease? Was he filled with water like a balloon? Did he need a cork putting in the hole? Adam resisted the temptation to shove his finger in the circle after Lucas'. "Y...Y'don't feel pain...?"
His escape or lack thereof seemed very unimportant next to the fact that this guy didn't feel pain and bled transparent goo. "Uh, no. I wanna talk about this. What's your deal?"
"Reanimation fluid, I think the technical term is. From the little I've gleaned from watching and listening to those here." Lucas wrinkled his nose, wondering whether he ought to put pressure on the wound before pausing with his hand halfway there. It was as if his awareness of his own body had suddenly taken over, advising him of what was damaged and in need of repair and whether or not he ought to remove the foreign object lodged in his shoulder.
He decided against it, dropping his arm back to his side. The bleeding was already beginning to stop, anyway. "Apparently not," he murmured about his lack of pain. "Or pleasure - but I already knew about that one. Hm? My deal?" Lucas glanced up, wondering what elaborate lie he could use this time to wrap around the nature of becoming an Ascended, before he eventually just... decided the truth was just as crazy.
"I was the Devil, once. In a place that was much nicer than this one. But for reasons I neither need or want to relay to you, I've been pulled here. Except there weren't any Devil prototypes lying around, apparently, so I've become this instead. Ascended, they call it. I'm still learning about it myself."
Reanimation fluid...? Adam had only ever heard the word reanimation in relation to zombie stories. Lucas didn't look like a zombie. Or if he was, he was the healthiest zombie Adam had ever seen. No pain and no pleasure sounded distinctly dead too (or at least, if Adam were in that situation he'd want to be dead).
All questions about that went out the window when Lucas claimed to be The Devil. Adam's world had this figure, enough so that he immediately snorted. Oh, this guy thought he was ~edgy~ did he? Adam had heard plenty of guys nickname themselves devil or lucifer, but no one had actually claimed to be Beelzebub himself.
"Oh, come on. You? Tall, blonde pretty boy? You're the fucking devil? Mate." Everything in Adam's expression said as if. "You don't need to lie to impress me, you know."
Lucas could only give a quiet smile at the predictable response from his companion - he had figured that Adam wouldn't know what the Devil entailed, or he'd not believe him. Once upon a time in a different world, the audacity would have resulted in quite the firework display from the Ascended. Alas, here he wasn't nearly as powerful, though the shadows at his feet did writhe suddenly in the moonlight.
"Listen, you asked what my deal was. You don't have to believe it, but either way, now I'm here I'm very much not what I was. Ascended are fairly common throughout the place, but... I'm still finding out the extent of what they can do." He shrugged, before grinning cheekily across at Adam. "Are you saying I've already impressed you without the lie, then?"
"...I guess I did." Adam replied, but still wore an expression of amused scepticism. The guy could swear he was the devil as much as he wanted, but Adam wouldn't be convinced until he saw a pitchfork and horns. Or fire. Or some kind of example of real power besides leaking clear fluids.
Still, Lucas' next line made him smile for reasons other than mockery. It was cocky, a little flirty. Adam shrugged and crossed his arms, stood with one hip out to the side. "I'd say you get a 6.5/10 for hotness, but honestly? Not much past that. You better show me some shit you can do beyond not care about getting shot."
Taking a few more steps away from the barrier (while he wouldn't admit it, he knew when he was beat) he looked Lucas up and down. "You got anything beyond claims of being..." Adam couldn't help the laugh. "...~the devil~?"
