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!
Mask in hand, the Voice sat atop her shrine in the crisp night air. It had been eons since she required the air to breathe, but unlike some of her creations she still very much enjoyed the bits of life she was no longer bound to. In the starlight, she radiated a frenetic electrical glow that seemed to seep down into the soil and spread outwards. Some of the labyrinth hedges seemed to be infused with it, and the speaking squirrels appeared to have better things to do than bother her with their queries and demands.
In her holographic grasp she held a bone-white mask. Intently she studied it, her eyes awash in a soft blue light as she seemed to scan the contours of it with her gaze. "You are a clever one." She mused, her lips twisting into a confident smile, as she raised the mask to her face and put it on.
Few had looked at Ludo through the eyes of its own mask. In fact, this tiny godling might even have been the first. But that was the nature of existence - there would always be an abundance of firsts, no matter how many times the wheel turned.
It stood on bare feet upon one of the larger obsidian stones in the circle, a thin youth all in monochrome. Whether male or female was impossible to tell, its ink dark hair ruffled, black eyes bottomless, face pale and angular. It wore the rags of its usual shape, and its fingers and toes were blackened - frostbitten, almost.
When it exhaled, the air clouded before its mouth like mist, though the night was balmy. "Look too hard and you might fall in," it warned.
LUDO
Braved the forests, braved the stone
Braved the icy winds and fire
Braved and beat them on my own
Its Voice made her smile even behind the strange material of the mask. "I know my limits." She agreed with a confident nod despite her youthful voice. Unapologetically she looked upon the god, though there was no mourning in her heart for it. Expressionless behind the mask, even her folded hands and reserved posture gave away little of what it was she might be thinking or feeling. But of course, Ludo did not need to look at her to know, not while she wore the mask, very likely.
Still, she had nothing to hide. She never had.
"If I fall when I look at you, will you then ascend when you look at me?" She asked with a light shrug. "Or are you beyond such things now? Would you like to try?"
"Liar," Ludo all but drawled, hopping from stone to stone on feet that should not have been so light considering the state of them. If the Voice had known her limits she would have stopped a long time ago. Long before the barrier, in fact, and then perhaps they wouldn't all be trapped in here with her. Because of her.
It snorted, pausing on one leg to gaze up at her. "No," it said, seemingly to everything she had asked. "One would have to be a god to be capable of such things. And you are not a god, are you? You are an imposter, playing with toys that do not belong to it." It inclined its head towards the mask she wore.
Isn't that right?"
LUDO
Braved the forests, braved the stone
Braved the icy winds and fire
Braved and beat them on my own
She watched his antics with an almost jealous sort of longing stare but said nothing to counter his accusation.
"How am I not?" The Voice asked, sniffing delicately with a sigh that did not affect the surrounding air. "Am I not entitled to the things I create? Careful now, if they are not mine to paly with then you'll find yourself with far fewer toys too, if that's the case."
Crossing her holographic arms, she watched his theatrics for another moment, her electrical gaze poignant and curious. "An imposter though? At least I don't hide behind rags or masks. And now that my shrines have been jumpstarted, I am easily found. Can the same be said for all of you?"
"Gods are made. Like it or not, you were born like all the others who crawl upon this earth." Ludo didn't even spare her a glance as it hopped once more from stone to stone, pausing only once it had completed a circuit around her. Once that was done, it fixed her with its black gaze. "Careful, now. My toys bite." It snapped its teeth at her and, as if in response, the mask would appear to constrict around her face and head, holographic or not.
The pressure persisted for a moment or so, before easing off once more. Ludo wore a shit-eating grin. "You may be entitled to the things you create, but once they are no more, they do not belong to you any longer." It narrowed its eyes, though its smile remained. "Your thinking is so pitifully mortal. You wish to be easily found because that is what you would want, if you sought out a deity. Adorable."
LUDO
Braved the forests, braved the stone
Braved the icy winds and fire
Braved and beat them on my own
The Voice shrugged, undeterred. "The world is constantly changing. Perhaps you need to update your definition of godliness." She said with a youthful shrug, not bothering to trace its motions as it made its way around her.
Flinching with surprise as the mask narrowed around her, her lips trembled behind the white mask in a silent snarl. She ... registered the pressure, the narrowing, the control that Ludo possessed over the mask with an unhappy sort of resignation. As it dimmed and the un-masked creature grinned at her, the Voice tilted her head almost condescendingly as she gazed at Ludo, with a smile that revealed an ivory set of fangs. "As do I." She countered with a dark grin.
"Once they are no more?" She scoffed. "You would like that, wouldn't you."
Folding her hands into her lip, she regarded Ludo for a moment before shaking her head. "And why shouldn't I think that way? Why bother with all your pomp and mystery? Your rags, Frey's literal fuckery, Safrin with her fickle ways. What's the point of it all? My thinking might still be mortal, but I don't consider that a problem. At least I haven't forgotten what it was like to be one of them, what the point of all this was. Do you even know? Or do you just wile away the eons inside this bubble, stirring up chaos here and there and being content with having absolutely no purpose greater than being a glorified delivery service?"
"If the world is constantly changing then we are not seeing it. Not any of us, thanks to you." Ludo's tone was spiteful and it didn't try to hide it, folding its arms across its chest and watching with a sly gaze as the Voice reacted to its trick with the mask.
"In fact yes, I would. Because they are no more, aren't they? Most of them at least. The grand armies, the swathes of Ascended power that swarmed this land like a plague... all gone. Now their souls are trapped, and they scream for release within your network. I hear them, like a torturous song."
Her barbs riled it, there was no doubt about that, and its blackened fingers clenched into fists, chin tilting defiantly. "The point was to ensure that the likes of you never walk beyond the barrier again. And it has worked, whether you like it or not. Now what do you want with that mask, girl? You barely understand me, let alone it and its purpose."
LUDO
Braved the forests, braved the stone
Braved the icy winds and fire
Braved and beat them on my own
03-08-2019, 08:15 PM (This post was last modified: 03-08-2019, 08:15 PM by the VOICE.)
the Voice
"Now who's the liar?" The Voice countered easily. "This was not my doing. This was Vi and Mort and Rae being controlling and weak and afraid." She sniffed unhappily. "Besides, you can see that things are changing here. We are not dying away as all of you had so hoped we would. "
Recoiling as if she'd been slapped, the Voice's outline blurred with electrical energy for a moment as she narrowed her eyes. "How dare you. They are everything to me. Not like the souls you shuck anywhere you please. I know each voice intimately. " She continued, her voice taking on a deadly sort of voltaic crackle. "You need your ears checked, if you even have them. Or perhaps it's all that cloth, but they hardly scream. They want for nothing in the network.
Taking a breath and raising her chin slightly, recognizing the dangerous dissonance between she and Ludo. "I heard it allows them to see out. I want to give my children that ability since you've already stolen their ability to actually experience it for themselves. At least let them see."
Ludo scoffed, hopping down from the obsidian stone it stood upon to step within the circle, mere feet away from the Voice and the mask that did not belong to her. "Fear is natural," it crooned. "It is correct to fear something so reckless and so dangerous. If you had not existed, this would not have happened. It does not get much more simple."
The power between them practically crackled, begging to detonate at any moment, but Ludo stood calm against her fury. "You're deluded, sweetling," it informed her. "You know them intimately because you were entrapped before you could enslave any more. You, who are a drop in my ocean, dare to speak to me of souls?"
It spat at her feet - that, too, was ink black.
"So long as you keep them like a covetous mother, they will never see outside."
LUDO
Braved the forests, braved the stone
Braved the icy winds and fire
Braved and beat them on my own
"And yet I was made by your precious gods. Born into this world just like you. There are plenty of other dangerous creatures, yet we are the only ones caged? It is not because we are dangerous. It is because we were equals and your precious three could not handle that."
The Voice narrowed her eyes and sneered with a childish gesture before resuming her composure. "Enslave? Hardly. They come willingly to me and I welcome them with open arms. I make them perfect, unlike this forgotten place full of malnutrition and mutations."
With another flinch, the Voice looked at the black sludge at her feet. "And what would you have me do? Trade their souls to you? Just so you can try and trick me, hoarding them just as you accuse me of doing?"
"And there is a reason we called your kind Abandoned." Ludo sneered right back, folding its arms and seeming less and less impressed by the mask-wearing (would be) deity as time went on, particularly at her jibe. Just like you. Ludo bared its teeth. "What you are is not equal in any measure of the word. You have forsaken nature, life and death all in one static little crackle."
It shook its head, more words burning upon its tongue, but the Voice had riled it enough for one day. Forcing itself to relax, it regarded her with bottomless eyes. "I was a soul guide before I was trapped here. Now I am a soul keeper, until such a time as those poor unfortunate things you have created can be returned to their proper places. I would have that balance restored. Do that, and your creations will see beyond as the mask does. Yes or no - it is a simple decision."
LUDO
Braved the forests, braved the stone
Braved the icy winds and fire
Braved and beat them on my own
"Ahh yes, so welcoming of you. How quickly you forget that once we were celebrated creatures. The acquired you called us, and Rae was pleased at our progress. But then it became too much." Frowning, pleased at her minor victory, the Voice raised a brow. "Perhaps. But so have you. Your blackened feet and hands will disappear once I take this mask off, will they not? You are right that we are different though. You are lesser than you once were, and I am now more."
With a smirk, the Voice crossed her arms and tilted her head. "A keeper. And yet you fault me for keeping my children? You've already shown your disdain for my kind, reminded me that we are trapped here. What will you do with them then, for the eons we remained unhappy neighbours?"
"But then you pushed too far. Then you did not heed our warnings, and the gifts we gave you gave rise to delusions of grandeur. We warned you and we wept for you, and still you paved the way towards this outcome." Ludo spoke quitely and without any of the candor that had previously stained its words. It was as though the Voice had riled it, and now it was taking measures to prevent it happening a second time.
Refusing to take the bait, Ludo tilted its head up to regard the stars. "Your kind are made. I hold no disdain for what they were before they were drawn in by your false promises. I will keep them the same as I keep the others, ready to join Mort some day. Yes or no, then?"
LUDO
Braved the forests, braved the stone
Braved the icy winds and fire
Braved and beat them on my own
