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!
Impulsive, impetuous, and inclined to boldness, the Honeybee characteristically peered over the edge of the cliffs. Mouth agape, jaw slackened, she watched the world below press and lurk, thundering waves surging against rock, battering against archaic stone, gradually carving its own wake into the earth. She rather liked it; this show of power and dominance, this way to demand and announce and proclaim, and watched for some moments, absorbed by the display.
Gusts of air thermals and geysers blew back tresses, and Fangorn obliged by not standing beside Melita. But Sila was enthralled, and the little bronze dragon unfurled her wings to catch bits and pieces of the filtered wind, delighted, screeching contentedly as one easily took her upwards. “Well, go on then,” Melita encouraged, and the shy creature strived again, permitting the warmth of the vestiges to conjure her up and up and up.
Eventually, the youth turned to Ronin, one hand pointing along the jagged precipices. “Have you gone down there before?”
Melita stands like a woman without a care, her little dragon an equally cheerful and chaotic companion on the edge of the world. Beside her, if not a few more feet back from the edge of the Falling, Ronin has his hands in the pockets of his coat and Sugar coiled around his shoulders. Call her mature (hah) but she's less inclined to catch and play with the thermals and air currents these days, preferring to cut through the air like a knife when the time calls for it.
"Hm? Down onto the cliff sides?" the Huntsman echoes, tilting his head and stepping a bit closer to peer off into the churning waves. "I can't say I have," he says. "Not on foot, anyway. I have flown over the Falling as a dragon, and I've swam below it with Remi once or twice, but I've not explored the rocks." He grins. "Why, did you have something in mind?"
The Honeybee didn’t say how much the cliffs reminded her of another world, another place – but the Throat’s precipices had been cut and slashed with red, like blood and crimson, like rubies and supremacy. She hadn’t been able to play on those as a little girl either, though she’d certainly been willing to give it a try if an adult turned around long enough. Even now, as she watched the rolling waves encounter and crash into the rock, she permitted a wistful sigh, head tilting back towards Ronin’s response.
“Oh, just that maybe a relic would be there too.” She shrugged her shoulders, indicating nothing of her vague inclinations to go hiking amongst the jagged edges. Finally rising from her crouch, and watching Sila soar along the thermals, twisting back and forth on her young wings, the possibilities coiled back into her mind. “How was swimming?” She’d imagine far more treacherous than the lazy waves along Torchline’s shores (minus the monsoon season).
"What, just snuggled in the rocks down there?" Ronin flashes her a lopsided smile, rolling his shoulder in a shrug. "Worth a try I suppose. The Temple, the Sleeping Steps, the Celestine and where the Tower used to be certainly haven't been helpful, right?" So saying, Ronin puts his fingers to his lips and lets out a shrill whistle; on command, one of the clouds snags away from the overcast sky and soars down to meet them.
Hopping aboard to sit, he pats the ethereal substance beside him. "Come on - it's better than potentially falling to our doom," he says, grinning. "As for swimming, it was... macabre, I suppose you could say. There are a lot of shipwrecks and skeletons under there," he murmurs.
“Maybe,” she considered, figuring it was a decent guess as any of the others they’d attempted. Were they doing it all wrong? Having never bene one to wander into the midst of relics, and usually just blindly meandering into stupidity and danger, this one left her a little miffed. It made sense that there wouldn’t be a gigantic sign looming and pointing out the item, but something had to give, right?
Her awe shifted anyway when the cloud came over, recalling hunting bone monsters with the same strategy. “Thank you,” and she snagged at Fangorn as he protested, sitting down with him nestled in her lap (grumbling/screeching). Sila was on her own with wings, but the young bronze’s eyes widened just the same, intending to follow after the puff of elements.
Macabre swimming caused a wrinkle to her nose and significant pout; the glory of the powerful waves manifested suddenly seeming more dire, more vehement, more potent, uncertain if her admiration of them was fitting thereafter. “Oh, that’s too bad.” So she wouldn’t be asking if any of the remains had significant portions sticking out of them. Onto other subjects as they coasted then. “Did Maeve tell you about the giant landshark we fought?”
"You are very welcome," Ronin says with a smile as he gets comfortable. Sugar trills at both Melita and Fangorn, not deigning to move from around her bonded's neck but seeming content with them hopping aboard regardless. Once they're all comfortable and headstrong pumpkins aren't trying to launch themselves off the side of a cloud, Ronin allows it to drift down over the side of the Falling, into the mist and against the steep, wet crags.
"It was too bad. I guess it should be expected though," he murmurs, before blue eyes widen with interest to hear of a giant landshark. "She did not," he says. "Tell me more. I thought landsharks in general were already pretty big. How giant is giant?" he wonders.
Melita didn’t lean over the boundaries of the cloud, though it was tempting. Instead, she sat very prim and proper as the wind blew against her hair, marking it in all sorts of crimson directions, ensuring Fangorn wasn’t going anywhere from her lap, while looking across at the crag. Were it just her will being capable of summoning relics, some might have sprouted against the outcropping of wet, misshapen rock, but instead, it was merely mist, fog, haze, and disproportionate stone.
Her nose wrinkled at the notion of how to describe the landshark to scale. “I’ll show you what I got from it!” and then maybe he could envision it properly. Keeping one arm still wrapped tightly around the grumbling gourd, she opened up her bag to grab the tooth – utterly massive, but weightless, and handed it over to him.
Whilst Ronin isn't necessarily willing something to be there, nestled in the cliffside, he is gazing at it all with blatant curiosity. He's never considered how Stormbreak came to be, but this steep jut of land carved by the ocean and the wind makes it look quite formidable indeed. "You know," he says conversationally, "you would think that there were a lot more storms in Stormbreak, given its name."
But then there's a giant landshark tooth being handed to him, and Ronin's eyes, already fairly wide, grow into saucers. "Wow," he says, because eloquent as he might be, the tooth steals all of his more impressive vocabulary for a moment. "Holy shit. And you guys killed it?" He sounds impressed, flashing her a proud grin.
Humming at the comment, her eyes narrowed along the cliffs, and then upwards, towards the sky – where clouds roamed and dissipated in what she presumed to be their residual sentiments. “Maybe it…breaks them up,” and she winked, but with not much understanding of meteorological effects on land, she could only shrug her shoulders and muffle a laugh. “No weird weather here for you though? Torchline is cold.”
Giant landshark teeth were far more amusing and diverting, so it only took a matter of seconds for her to snap back into Cheshire grins. “Yeah. And Evie rode it.” Extending bragging rights for the Evergreen, even if it had been by mistake (Melita didn’t know that). “I’m not sure what I’ll do with it yet,” probably another weapon to her repertoire of armaments.
"Ha, maybe it does," Ronin remarks with a grin, following Melita's gaze up to the clouds overhead before it returns to the crags and cliffs, where a lot of annoying nothing is going on. "No weird weather here though, no. I did notice Torchline was feeling chilly, though. Maeve got in touch and mentioned it being due to a shrine for the Eirachi? I was going to help her out in dealing with it."
And Evie rode it. "I didn't think I would be jealous, but I really am," he says with a chuckle, handing back the tooth to Melita where it won't tumble carelessly into the waters. "Maybe you can carve it into a pointy hat," he suggests, helpful as ever, only to be interrupted by the rumbling of his own stomach. "Say, do you want to get something to eat and we can come back later to finish this tour of the Falling?"
She didn’t frown, but there was some furrowing of her brows as she continued to gaze out over the scenery and see nothing out of the ordinary. She only tilted her head back to Ronin when he had some information to share, and then the implications pressed onward, her eyes narrowing down at Fangorn in her lap. “Weird. Why would someone put a shrine for Eirachi there?” Huffing a breath, she folded her hands back over the top of the gourd, who grumbled incoherently. “I can help too.” Maybe they could blow it up.
The smile returned at the tinges of envy, because the Honeybee was too, and gave a wistful sigh. “I know – I think I’m gonna ask her how she did it.” With the tooth outstretched, the youth took it once more, placing it back into the somewhat safe confines of her satchel.
An offering of food only caused a widening of her gaze. “That sounds good. Do you guys have anything special here?”
"I have no idea," Ronin murmurs, frowning to himself. "Though I have heard that, of all the seasonal deities, she's quite partial to making deals. Perhaps she did something for someone and this was the price." It still doesn't help with the who aspect of all of it, but expanding one's reach into Torchline seemed very... Eirachi. Still, to hear that Mel would help too is encouraging, and Ronin smiles. "I'll write back to Maeve and let her know."
His smile grows as the subject moves onto food, and the nimbus is already starting to drift vertically back up towards the Falling and solid ground. "I don't know if it's special like a specialty, but the food at the White Hart is really good. You can be the judge, though." Hopping down once the nimbus falls to a halt, he'll help Melita down as well and promptly lead them towards the Silk Houses. Which y'know, they're meant to be checking too, so it all counts.
