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!
you can tell how dangerous a person is by the way they hold their anger inside themselves quietly
The Sword knew the route by heart now, having walked its pathways amongst the caverns many a time. The circumstances were far better in each experience; the first through trial and error, then hunting for rare flowers, and the ensuing moments layered in either nuances of gore crows, swamp rats, or anything else meandering through the halls. But the passages stayed empty for that afternoon, leaving him less apprehensive about departing Halo for the remains of the day. Perhaps.
He let that stretch of trepidation coiling around his chest depart as the first plumes of Frey’s Breath came into view; vestiges of warmth echoing in their own silent repose. Jutting his jaw forward, he indicated the sentiments towards Evie, waiting for the impending reaction. “There you go.” Belial, ever eager, didn’t wait for anyone else before hooting and hollering off, unfurling his wingspan to bound around rocks and crag. Zuriel paid no one any heed and proudly, elegantly, meandered in moderation, pulling at some stray weeds growing out of the walls. Deimos permitted a slow roll of his eyes before shifting his bag higher along his shoulder, strides purposefully longer to tease and taunt, leaving the healer behind if she didn’t pace through quickly.
Not for the first time the Evergreen is grateful for her companion’s adventuring ways, because quite unlike Deimos, she is entirely lost in the land they find themselves in. The cave system had earned a dubious look - the last caves she’d explored had been filled with boxes stuffed with human bodies, thanks Halo cannibals - but it seems luck is on their side today, fickle as she normally is, because the journey itself is uninterrupted by anything more dangerous than conversation.
Her first sign of their arrival is the slowly increasing radiant temperature of the tunnels and the widening of the walls to accommodate a larger underground area. When her eyes flicker to Deimos, his gesture redirects her gaze, and a noise of pleased surprise hums in her throat at the sight of steam. Before she can marvel any longer, Belial’s excitement echoes loudly as he goes cavorting off, sparking a laugh from her. It cuts off with a playfully offended noise as Evie realizes she’s being left behind, hurrying along behind the mountainous man with a huff that is plainly at odds with her eager smile.
The springs, once they’ve exited the tunnel, are a sight to behold. Evie sucks in a sharp breath of surprise at the sheer size of it, drinking in everything she can; the slightly sulfuric smell, the thick steam against her skin, the bubbling chorus that is too omnipresent to properly echo. “Oh wow,” she whispers, slowly moving forward to peer into one of the pools. Kneeling down she sticks her hand into the water, marveling at the heat that envelopes her fingers. “They’re really safe to swim in?” she asks over her shoulder, eyes wide. Evie trusts what he says implicitly, but her curiosity wins out over that faith.
you can tell how dangerous a person is by the way they hold their anger inside themselves quietly
Belial soared over the unfurling plumes of steam and heat, rushing along on some unseen thermals, as Deimos set the bag down along a rock close to the fringes of the pool. He tilted his head towards her, avoiding the mischievous and boyish inclination to rush over and push her in from her current perch, still smirking despite the inquiry. “Should be. We used this water for healing back when many were sick.” Himself included; and it had ensured the illness held off for days at a time while they worked on solving that issue – eyes distractedly maneuvering away and back towards the cave system aperture, recalling the falls and the roar of the leviathan, the fiery caprices and powers of Tanau.
Shrugging his shoulders and bringing his focus back to the present, he sat down on another boulder, taking off his shoes and placing them beside the bag. On another notion and consideration, his stare went out towards the springs again. “Probably for a range of time, anyway.” Maybe like a sauna; limitations due to the complexity of the heat.
The residual juvenility won out in the end regardless, the Cheshire grin returning in broad strokes, a goading, a challenge, lingering across the rumbling accord. “You do not have to.” But it wasn’t going to stop him. Deimos stripped out layers quickly and efficiently, tunic and pants gone and tucked away, revealing predicted muscles and scars, leaving little to the imagination, save for swim trunks. Putting those amidst the rest of the belongings, he wandered towards the fringes, and stepped down in.
The notion of healing perks her ears unsurprisingly. “It has healing properties?” Blue eyes fall back to her hand beneath the surface of the bubbling water, wishing she had some cut or scrape to test the waters against. Unaware that her current state of dryness is assured only by the barest threads of Deimos’ control and the distraction of recalled events she had not been present for.
Taking her hand out and flicking the residual water off with a snap of her wrist, Evie turns and follows Deimos’ lead in removing her boots. By time she has them unlaced and is toeing them off, the Sword has already disrobed, and Evie lifts her head at his teasing to scowl playfully back at him, retort on her lips. Only to jolt and avert her eyes at seeing miles of scarred skin she had never been privy to before. The shock of heat to her cheeks feels girlish and ridiculous, so she forces herself to focus on her own attire. Buckles, laces, fabric. Not skin and muscle.
Her own swimsuit is a simple thing. A bikini, but plainly blue colored, no frills or intricate designs. Tying her hair up into a topknot in what will surely be a vain attempt to keep it dry, Evie sets her pile of items next to Deimos’ before venturing to the edge. A foot gingerly tests out the temperature, and upon finding it hot but not scalding she steps in up to her knees, eyes going wide. “The bubbles feel so strange!” she laughs incredulously, a whole-body shiver overtaking her as her skin tries to adjust to the tickling sensation against her calves. Looking back up she gauges Deimos’ height against her own. “How deep does it go?” Arms slightly out at her sides to keep her balance on the rocky basin beneath. If she stepped into empty space and went tumbling, she’d likely slice open a foot, and that didn’t sound fun even if it did have healing properties.
you can tell how dangerous a person is by the way they hold their anger inside themselves quietly
“Yes,” resounded with another distinctive rumble as he waded, the water immersed along his calves until he continued and persisted, permitting a restless sigh to uncoil from his lungs at the first rush of warmth. "We drank some of it to keep the sickness away. Would last for about a day." The springs beckoned and lulled though, and he only turned back as the liquid reached his waist, catching her eye for a moment with a boyish glint. Moments later long locks were hastened back into a makeshift bun, before he tilted his head. A quick scan of her own figure, for which he’d give zero explanation, commenced and then ceased when the piercing gaze landed back upon hers, snorting at the bubble comment.
Deimos had never fully studied the depths of the Breath before now, but swift perusals and studies from earlier had garnered a light fixture of fathoms, pointing along an outcropping of rocks. “Should be fairly shallow there,” imagining that many leaned and sat amongst those proportions much like a throne, permitting the healing properties to simmer, brew, and sink into muscle, sinew, flesh, and bone. It was already slinking against his battle-hardened proportions, lush and content, sinuous and tranquil. “I can go further and see if it drops.”
Always a strong swimmer, for no child raised along the ocean would be anything but, he wandered farther and farther out with powerful, swinging strides, parsing through until it wrapped and corded along his chest, and seemed to cease. A gradual descending angle, then the ground under his feet plateaued before he could touch the opposing wall. His shoulders shrugged, unbothered, before he pronounced the newfound sagacity over the surface. “Starts sloping there,” jutting his jaw out towards the center.
Yet another thing to marvel and wonder at. Evie wishes for a moment to have brought a flask or vial to have brought some home to examine, only to chide herself lightly for it a moment later. It wasn’t as if she needed it the way others did, and who knows if its effects would even last if taken away from the source? As she lifts her eyes from observing the water to find Deimos silently and shamelessly returning the examination, her cheeks darken but her chin rises. Alright; if fair is fair, then so be it. She takes a moment to let her eyes linger on the broad cut of his shoulders, the scars and lines of hard-earned muscle, allowing herself to look instead of averting her gaze this time. Scars in particular are a novelty to a woman who had never earned any of her own. Between healing and various skincare salves, Evie’s skin was rarely ever blemished by more than soil and freckles. Even Sam had been equally incapable of such minor, human tarnishes, and Amalia’s had never lasted long either. Fingertips twitch with the desire to touch, and she sinks them into the water to crush that thought immediately.
Watching him wade deeper with powerful strides for the sole purpose of easing her mind, Evie watches him go with a fond smile, secure in the knowledge that he won’t see it. Until a dawning idea turns that smile into a devious curl, and she wades deeper after him, relaxing with a sigh of pleasure she can’t help as the water encases her and soothes away aches and pains she didn’t know still lingered.
When she manages to open her eyes again, refocusing on her plan, Deimos has unfortunately already found the end. Never to fear, he’s still close enough. “Right about…there?” Pointing with one hand, she waits for his eyes to follow her finger, and then splashes the water at him with the other while he’s distracted.
you can tell how dangerous a person is by the way they hold their anger inside themselves quietly
Deimos took pride in his scars and the stories in their lines; had never bowed his head at their entities. A spear taken for a friend, snagged and rooted and embedded in his skin, rather than the comrade. A blade cut and slashed so another was not. A fight drawn his way so an ally could escape. A burst of damnation for someone who deserved it. Details upon details and blood upon blood spilled for others; no shame in the way they marked and pierced his flesh. Survival, persistence, and perseverance, upon shades of battlefields and the hollows of hostility, wars waged and the beasts who remained resolute in the countenance of violence. So he hid his laugh while she looked and measured her own defiance, eyes lowered back towards the water, easing his way back through the middle, loosening a few more breaths embedded in his chest as the heat pooled and pulsed.
Following her movements, he hadn’t thought she’d enact the mischief first – mostly because his plotting had been forthright and probably at any point – snorting as the splash landed directly in his face. He took a singular moment to look unimpressed, features returning to a residual, habitual state of apathy as the warmth drenched down his nose and slid down his beard. “Really,” followed on another deadpan, indifferent haze –
And all the while, the pulse of his incantations swarmed, humming with relative ease as they cut through the water, rising behind like a cresting, crawling wave. It could’ve cast an impressive shadow, if the healer was paying attention – and like a yawning mouth, widening, heightening, until it was purposefully brought crashing down, intent upon Evie’s frame.
He should take pride in them. Evie marvels only because they are ruggedly beautiful in a way she’s unfamiliar with, and for a moment she wishes she were capable of painting people instead of plants, because the way they live naturally with his body as he parts the water is an artistic vision.
As is his deeply unimpressed look, water dripping off his beard and clinging to his eyelashes. Evie lifts a hand to try and muffle her giggles, but the open cavern is damning, and even the bubbling springs can’t hide her choked laughter. The wave behind her is hilariously silent, leaving her unaware of the swift retaliation coming her way until it’s already upon her. Evie manages a single startled shriek before she’s swept up in it, knocked forward into the depths of the water and ruining her plan of keeping her hair dry. Popping back up above the surface with a splutter, blue eyes spark as they narrow on Deimos, electric and bright with challenge. “Oh you’re gonna get it,” she vows, lips trembling with the desire to grin and break her attempt at a threatening scowl.
With how the wave knocked her closer, she jumps off the bottom of the pool to lunge for him, aiming for his broad shoulders to get purchase on with her wet hands to try and dunk him.
you can tell how dangerous a person is by the way they hold their anger inside themselves quietly
He’d take the echoes of laughter ringing against walls, shaking his head as the droplets cascaded about, a bit like a hound dripping wet, coming in one’s home to get out of the rain. But instead, all of it was immersed in heralds of mischief and nonsense, permitting his own rumble of laughter to resound once she sputtered back up from the surface. Perhaps this was the way they relaxed – not people accustomed to lounging or loafing, pressed into mayhem to appease the restless coils of energy.
The goading had been intentional, and Deimos remained unbothered by the notions of a challenge, intent on rising to the forefront thereafter. Veiled threats and pretenses did little, save for causing another rally of his amusement as it expanded through his chest; Belial opting to respond with his own hoots and hollers as he passed over.
If dunking him had been her objective, it was a lofty, lofty goal – he almost felt sorry for her as she rose up, he remained completely unmoving – broad shoulders taking the brunt of her touch with a brief undulation and roll of muscle. He tilted his skull in her direction, twisting it back and forth with a sad look on his face. “You can do better than that,” was a tease and taunt with a broad grin, before he maneuvered out from under her touch, taking a deep inhale through lungs, then diving and ducking below the bubbling surface.
The warmth engulfed him entirely at that moment, coiling and entangling around joints and tissue, and he was immediately on the move – long, broad strokes of arms and legs cutting through the water far quicker and swifter, nary a splash to signal his ambitions.
Belial is a further riotous presence, cheerily adding his own sounds to the chaos, and as Evie blinks water out of her eyes she can’t help but smile. Admittedly her plan wasn’t the best in the world - when she trains with Deimos they don’t often grapple, and she’s used to having the advantage of surprise - but she’s realizing just maybe she picked the wrong battlefield for this particular war. Playfighting someone with water magic who grew up beside an ocean? Maybe not her smartest move, but she’s more fire than plotting some days.
All she really manages is to cling to his shoulders, wetting them only by virtue of what clings to her own arms. It’s harder to keep a hold than she expected, and his disappointment is met with sheepish laughter. He slips away from beneath her as gracefully as a seal, and Evie yelps as she’s plopped unceremoniously back into the bubbling water, up to her neck where it had only been to his chest. By time she turns around he’s gone, and the frothy top of the water makes it impossible to spot him from above. The only reason she doesn’t worry is because Evie knows he has masterful air control, so holding his breath is an easy thing. Turning in circles uselessly trying to find him before he does whatever it is he’s planning, she doesn’t bother fighting the grin on her face. This was far more fun than sitting and relaxing, staring silently at a cavernous ceiling. “Deimos come back!” she laughs, calling out helplessly in hopes he wouldn’t leave her on pins and needles for too long.
you can tell how dangerous a person is by the way they hold their anger inside themselves quietly
He didn’t need his shift for traversing here; coasting along with the bubbles in his eyes and the churning of the water in his wake. Masterful, powerful, and completely at ease, extending long arms and limbs in mighty strokes and tides until he could feel the rising tension. A smirk commandeered his mouth as he heard the laughter, edged and etched in uncertainty, in trepidation, for his machinations. At least these plots and notes of deviousness weren’t dipped or etched in derision, pettiness, or contempt; amusement for amusement’s sake, a rise and fall in how far they could push and cajole.
The Sword shifted back around, orienting his senses to locations by noise and pale legs stark in the abyss. Choking down the threat of a riotous chuckle, he paused in his precision, waiting out the moment, bit by bit. Purposeful restlessness, pulling at the strands of edged anticipation; eternally a patient and forbearing man, capable of toying with his prey. Maybe allowing a glimpse of the inevitable, a movement of water deemed unnatural amidst the unwinding, soothing abyss.
Then he struck, keen and adept, hands intentionally striving to grab hold of her legs and then simply drag, swimming beneath as she might scream and holler from above.
Even in the midst of adrenaline-fueled suspense, there’s no pettiness or sourness at having the tables turned. Too immersed in the fun of such childish gambits that she’d never had the pleasure of experiencing in her youth. Even the anticipation is fun, not unlike a young child squealing with glee as their parent prances behind them, threatening imminent capture as they’re chased. Evie can’t help the way her legs pull close whenever the bubbles brush against them in a way that seems too human, suspecting every current and shadow as laughter simmers in her throat.
For a moment she glimpses the darker tan of his skin beneath the surface, and has just enough time for her eyes to widen -
Hands grab around her legs and pull, and Evie is brought shrieking and flailing through the water. He continues on, resisting merely yanking on her once, and all Evie can do is try to keep her chin above water as she squeals and laughs. All that pulling her legs against his hands achieves is dunking herself beneath the water, Deimos’ grip too strong to break. So she sucks in a breath and pulls her legs in, submerging herself intentionally and forcing her eyes open to glimpse Deimos’ dark hair - the best signifier she has beneath the water. With her telekinesis she reaches out to the only two things on Deimos’ body she can influence - his hair tie and his swim shorts. She pulls on both, hoping to release his long hair and - well - pants him, for lack of a better descriptor. Hoping it would distract him enough to release her to put himself to rights. The rest of the reasoning is purely for the sake of mischief and fun, but it’s two birds with one stone in her book.
you can tell how dangerous a person is by the way they hold their anger inside themselves quietly
A game of calculations and devilry amidst once-tranquil waters only conspired further – and he came along the surface, breaking over its plain with a cascade of movement as she shrieked and flailed. He inhaled rapid breaths while trying not to laugh, continuing to drag her along behind him as swells of the rushing liquid unfurled in his wake, casting undulations through bubbles and mirth. In the end he did anyway, the chuckles remaining in bursting refrain – imagining the absolute chaos any passersby would see if wandering down the same halls – though based on their shouting and screeching, maybe no one would dare.
Deimos would’ve been content to continue rambling around in the same stead, circling the pool until they either grew bored or tried something else equally ridiculous. Except there was movement, out of his control, where it shouldn’t have been, and his eyes narrowed slightly as discernment came to fruition – hair and shorts lifting.
Snorting at her antics, he rushed them along purposefully, paying no heed to the impending doom of his trunks. “You could have just asked,” he noted with the blunter edge of sarcasm over the squealing. Indifferent if he lost them or not, the Sword still wasn’t going to simply permit her a win – amplifying their speed until they were careening along –
Then releasing her, to spin out and about amidst the waves they’d created.
For all the mythical shapes his soul is attuned to, surely he must be missing one, because Evie is certain he must be half-mer with how easily he drags her around the pool, snared by long pale limbs. Even the disorientation and chaos can’t stop her from laughing amidst sputtering water out of her mouth, joyously light.
Evie certainly isn’t expecting him to ignore the fate of his shorts, nor the deadpan comment, and her laugh-pink cheeks darken even as blue eyes narrow in catlike challenge. It’s wiped from her face as she is released suddenly, sending her rolling through the bubbles in a flurry of limbs and muffled exclamations that are swallowed up by the water. Popping back up like a particularly stubborn otter, hair tie swept away leaving fiery licks plastered to her shoulders, Evie locks her eyes on Deimos and swats a strand of hair out of her face, torn between grinning and glowering. She manages the narrowed eyes, but they’re weakened by her smirking lips.
“Pretty please?” she simpers sarcastically, and reaches out with her magic to yank forcefully on his shorts. Allowing him a modicum of decency in the fact she can’t see beneath the froth and foam on the surface of the water, making the action less bold but still embroiled in revenge.
