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!
Her first offering had failed, and at first she was surprised...but then felt stupid. Of course her offering wasn't accepted at a Safrin Shrine. Could someone have post partum baby brain? So once again Phoebe made her way up to a shrine, this one most decidedly for Frey. She placed down her offering of peaches and prayed, "Frey, thank you for providing a safe haven for people during the war, and for all you do each day to bring beauty into the world."
As she opened her eyes she noticed another offering at the shrine. A small bouquet of flowers that had wilted under the heat of the sun. With a small smile she reached out and touched them, sending a pulse of healing magic to the plants. Quickly the blooms plumped back up, regaining their shape and scent and vibrant color. There. Frey would like that much better.
i'll let you into my soul but wipe your feet at the door
"Gods be damned," Amanda muttered as she trudged through the multicolored lands, pelted by the thick mist from the geysers. "Just had to drop it there, didn't I? I hope that pain in the ass is gone, at least."
She looked around, feeling lost. She usually navigated the area around here by following one of the colored paths of stone; if she arrived by walking down a red path, it was easy enough to follow the same path home. But she couldn't remember which path led to the shrine. Not that she ever visited such places. She'd stumbled across it completely by accident last time. And now that she was actually trying to find the place, she couldn't figure out where it was.
She stopped at a geyser centered among multiple converging paths of different colors. The multiple colors swirled together around the geyser, resulting in a variety of prismatic stones that were far more beautiful, and more valuable, than the stones of a single color. She'd collected one there, she remembered, right before stumbling across the shrine.
She turned to the left, thought about it for a moment, then turned back to the right, nodding to herself. She quickened her pace, being careful not to slip on the slick stone where the geyser spray had left puddles here and there. Before long, she found the path she was looking for. She followed it down, heading for the shrine.
When she got there, her head was already down, searching the ground. "Where is it?" she muttered to herself. "I know it had to be around here somewhere..."
She was so focused on her search that she didn't notice the other girl until she ran right smack into her. "Oof!" Amanda stumbled backwards and fell right on her butt.
Phoebe stumbled forward a step or two, hitting one of the peaches she had brought with her foot. Thankfully it didn't break, only bruised. But she was quick to infuse it with healing magic so it was whole once more. There, offering safe.
Then she glanced back and saw a woman she didn't recognize on the ground. "Oh! Are you alright?" she asked, offering a hand to help her up. "I can heal you if you're hurt."
i'll let you into my soul but wipe your feet at the door
Amanda grumbled to herself as she pushed her way to her feet. She reluctantly took the offered hand, accepting the woman's aid in standing back up. She took a step back and brushed the dirt from her butt, letting out a long sigh.
"Nothing hurt but my pride," she said. She started looking around again, eyes scanning the ground. "Sorry if I'm interrupting your...praying or worship or whatever. I'll just be a minute."
She stepped over to the shrine and started pushing aside the flowers and fruits, searching for her lost item. She was sure it had fallen off her belt around here somewhere.
"You haven't seen a knife, have you? Black handle, wide blade, few scrapes on the metal?"
As she was moving the offerings around she happened across a juicy looking peach. Without giving it a second thought, she picked it up and took a bite, chewing on it as she continued her search.
Phoebe blinked. Well she was rather brusque, wasn't she? She wasn't sure she would ever get used to those in Torchline who were rough around the edges. Or anywhere for that matter. "No, no it's quite alright. I was just getting ready to leave." she said with a bit of apprehension as the girl began rifling through the offerings.
And then the woman picked up one of the peaches she had brought Frey and began to eat it.
"Hey!" Phoebe snapped, going from warm friendly stranger to irritated defensive stranger in a snap. "That's my offering to Frey! What is wrong with you, eating offerings to the gods?!" If Phoebe had been a cat her fur would have been all puffed up as she glowered at the other woman, equal parts aghast and angry.
She half expected Frey to show up and spank the girl for her disrespect.
i'll let you into my soul but wipe your feet at the door
"Hmmuh?" Amanda mumbled around a mouthful of peach. She looked up at the other girl, uncertain for a moment why she would be so upset. Then she remembered. Swallowing, she said, "Oh. Right. Shrine to the sex god and all that."
She looked down at the peach, then shrugged and took another bite. "I doubt she wants it now. What kind of sex god would want a half-eaten peach?"
She continued searching until she found her knife. "Ahh, there it is." She picked it up and wiped the blade off on her pants. She examined the blade. It looked a bit dull.
Finishing the peach, she tossed it aside, then stepped over to the stone of the altar. She started scraping the edge of the knife back and forth on the stone, using it like a whetstone to sharpen the blade.
As she worked on the knife's edge, she glanced at the stranger and said, "Nice, err, day for sex god worship, right? Gonna get you some of those infinite orgasms?" The last girl she'd met here had said that Frey was good for that sort of thing, so she figured that had to be what this person was praying for.
09-15-2022, 03:15 AM (This post was last modified: 09-15-2022, 03:15 AM by Phoebe.)
Phoebe
"They. Frey is a they not she or he." she corrected quickly, already feeling her irritation reaching a boiling point. Disrespecting Frey was not a way to get on Phoebe's good side. "And they aren't just a sex god. They are also the god of nature and nurture." she added. She hated that people boiled down the complexities of Frey into a single attribute.
And just when she thought things couldn't get worse, the woman began to sharpen a knife on the shrine. Phoebe choked on air at this woman's audacity. Without thinking she reached out to grab the woman's wrist, intent on holding her hand in place if she succeeded, a steely glare holding her gaze. "Look. You might not be very religious and that's fine. But for others, this is a sacred site where you have now eaten an offering and desecrated a shrine. The least you could do is be respectful of the places people hold as sacred." she snapped,
"And no, I am not here for infinite orgasms, I was here thanking them for the sanctuary they.created to protect innocents from the impending war."
i'll let you into my soul but wipe your feet at the door
"They. Right. My bad. Didn't mean to misgender a god."
She didn't care one bit for the gods, but still, there was no need to be rude about it.
She was about to say something else when the girl for some reason grabbed her by the wrist. Amanda jerked her arm back reflexively, but the stranger had a good grip on her, and was apparently surprisingly strong for such a skinny thing. Amanda tried twisting her wrist around to break free, but it was no good. The girl's grip was like iron. Soft iron, that would have felt pretty nice, actually, under different circumstances.
"What's your friggin' problem?" she asked, glaring at the girl. She reluctantly listened to the girl's tirade. Amanda didn't care for being lectured any more than she cared for the gods. Not that she had meant to desecrate anything. It's not like she'd come here to desecrate something on purpose.
"All right. Fine. Sorry. Sheesh." Amanda grumbled. She waited until the girl let her go. Then Amanda leaned down and picked up the half-eaten peach. "Sorry I 'desecrated' by littering on your shrine. I'll throw it away."
She held up the peach to demonstrate, then turned and hurled it as hard as she could off into the distance. She turned back and spread her arms out wide. "See? Trash is gone. No more desecration. I'm sure Frey is very happy now."
With that, she returned to sharpening her knife on the shrine.
How rude could one person possibly be? This rude, apparently. First she waltzes in and eats an offering, then she starts sharpening her knife on the shrine, then she gets sassy? Oh no ma'am. Phoebe did not like that one bit.
And apparently she was oblivious on top of it. The Nightingale watched in confusion as she threw the peach pit away from the shrine... then continued sharpening her knife on the shrine. "What is wrong with you!?" Phoebe shouted, hands clenched in white knuckled fists. "Stop sharpening your knife on the shrine! It isn't a damn whetstone! It's a sacred place for channelling the gods!"
i'll let you into my soul but wipe your feet at the door
Amanda paused in her sharpening. She looked down at the knife, then up at the stranger, then down at the knife again.
"Oh," she said. "{i]Ohhhh[/}. Right. THAT kind of desecration."
She held up her knife and inspected the blade. It looked quite a bit sharper. A thought occurred to her.
She tilted the blade towards the other girl and asked, "Do you think the gods might channel their sacred stuff into my knife cause I sharpened it on their shrine? Like...the shrine is sacred stone, so some of that sacredness should have rubbed off in my knife, right? Made it nice and sacred sharp?"
She looked around for a way to test the blade. She started reaching for another of the peaches. "Oh, right. Y'all don't like me touching the peaches."
Instead she grabbed one of the flowers and held her knife up to it. She delicately slid the blade across one of the petals, watching carefully as it sliced through the recently-rejuvenated plant. She leaned in close and examined the sliced petal, looking for any signs of sacred flame burning through the plant.
"What do you think?" she asked, slicing off another petal, then showing the flower to the girl. "Regular sharp, or sacred goddess sharp?"
Phoebe spluttered in pure shock. Infused her blade with sacred energy because she sharpened her knife on the shrine? For the first time in her life Phoebe actually felt like breaking someone's nose out of the sheer audacity of their stupidity. That isn't how that works, she wanted to shout, but the woman continued on her path of destruction.
Her whole face turned red and cheeks puffed with held air as the woman sliced the flowers with her blade. "Stop it! Just stop! Those are offerings too! This is a shrine, everything here is an offering so keep your hands to yourself!" Gods she wished she could still call down Frey to smite this blasphemous wretch. "And no your blade isn't sacred anything, it's just an extension of you destroying everything in your path! If you've nothing else to do here just leave already!"
i'll let you into my soul but wipe your feet at the door
Amanda rolled her eyes at the woman. "You said the peaches were your offering, not the flowers!" Really, there was just no pleasing this woman.
Growing irritated now, Amanda refused to budge. She tucked her sacred knife back in its sheath and crossed her arms, staring the woman down. "Okay, but how do you know that's not how it works? You came here to give the sex god peaches so you could have them protect you during the war. You're going to tell me that I'm the ridiculous one for hoping to get sacred energy on my knife, but you think peaches will protect you from getting killed when the gods start going to town on each other? Suuuuure." She rolled her eyes again.
"Let's ask Frey, hmm? I'm sure they have an opinion on this."
Amanda turned to the shrine and held her hands out mockingly, mimicking a position of prayer. "Oh, great Gender Neutral God of Sex but also Other Things and Not Just Sex. Hear our prayer! Will you bless my knife with your sacred power, or will you accept peaches as payment for your bodyguard services?"
The knife in question shifts and changes. Engorged and no longer made of metal nor wood, Amanda will suddenly find herself in possession of quite the ornate (and anatomically pleasing) dildo.
"The flowers were from someone else! I'm not the only person leaving offerings here!" Phoebe said in exasperation. How dense could a person be?
"I know because as Frey's demigoddess I have spent considerable time around these shrines, certainly more than you!" she said dryly. She couldn't grasp the concept of offerings though so why would she grasp a more complex topic like why sharpening a knife on a shrine doesn't make it sacred?
Then of all things she turned and called on Frey themselves. For the love of the gods why would Frey answer her after all she had done? She didn't deserve any of Frey's precious time! But then the knife began to wibble and wobble and suddenly the woman held the most ridiculously ornate dildo - was that filigree on the shaft? - she had ever seen.
The Nightingale couldn't help it. She burst out laughing, doubling over.
i'll let you into my soul but wipe your feet at the door
