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!
One thing about projectiles is that it's best to shoot towards something that can serve as a berm to absorb the ricochet if there is any. At least...Flora was fairly certain her dad had said something like that at some point; she couldn't really recall because she hadn't actually been listening because at that point in her life she always sort of thought she'd marry a prince or live at her mother's spa or something such that throwing feathery daggers wasn't a thing she'd have to consider.
But, you know, here she was, feather daggers and all.
Clearing her throat and rolling her shoulders, Flora looked at the target she'd crudely set up against what she judged was a formidable enough tree. Exhaling (Sunjata had taught her that one), Flora raised one of her new weapons to her ear, focused, and flung it towards the target.
Where it missed.
Entirely.
Fuck.
We need love, But all we want is danger We team up, Then switch sides like a record changer
Amanda was out traveling the beaches once more, searching for salvage. It had been a slow couple of days, without much of anything of value. She was looking forward to getting some bigger scores in the near future--the war in particular was looking to be rather profitable, if she continued to play her cards right. But there was some time left before she could milk that particular opportunity, and in the meanwhile, she still needed to eat. So that meant scrounging for goods along the beaches in the hopes of finding something worth a decent trade.
Having no luck down at the beaches, she wandered further inland along the slopes of the volcano. If nothing else, she might be able to find some volcanic glass or rocks churned up from the depths of the world. She'd had some success finding such things before, and it was a fairly safe bet she could find something to trade, even if it wasn't something of immense value.
She was wandering along, eyes on the ground, when something suddenly nicked her arm with a sharp gouge of pain. She cried out, grabbing her arm where the pain flared. When she looked at her fingers, she saw blood dripping between her fingers.
"What the mother fucking fuck?" she screamed. On reflex, she reached out her telekinesis and grabbed the strange looking weapon that had nicked her. Without looking, she hurled it with her magic back through the air where it had come from, flying even faster with the telekinetic force propelling it.
'Oh my gods." Flora's hands immediately went to her mouth as she heard the cry of pain, eyes going wide. "No, I didn't, I—" Which is when her own feather came shooting back at her. Having 10 dexterity very little in the way of natural instinct, her feather struck one of her thighs dead on. Luckily despite Amanda's additional telekinetic boost, the abandoned's range wasn't that far and so what might have crippled her would likely only leave a scar.
Wait. A scar? On her beautiful legs?!
"OWWWuhhh!" Flora called back, sounding both childish and young and caring not at all. Unable to see just who (or what) was currently attacking her with her own feathers, Flora opted simply to throw another. Why not.
Picking one up by the vein—the white one, as it happened—she threw it back towards where the first projectile had come.
We need love, But all we want is danger We team up, Then switch sides like a record changer
Amanda turned to face the source of the scream. She was actually about to apologize for throwing the weird weapon at whoever it was, realizing that this had probably been an accident.
Instead, however, she turned to find another of the strange feathery weapons flying right at her face.
"Who the hell!?" She threw up her hands in front of her face, throwing up a burst of telekinetic energy to deflect the weapon before it could draw blood from her once more. The feather flew to the side and embedded itself in a tree.
Now acting on pure instinct, Amanda yanked it back out with her telekinesis, holding the feather in front of her, floating menacingly in the air. Her other hand reached for her belt knife, before she remembered what had happened to it. That little item was tucked away at home under her pillow, and she hadn't found a new knife yet.
It took her a moment to get clear sight of her assailant. When she saw who it was, she frowned. Moving closer, she kept the feather floating ahead of her, then threw out her other hand, using her telekinesis to yank the first feather back towards her as well. The twin feathers floated before her in a circular motion, both ready to strike the moment the other girl made a wrong move.
"What the hell!?" she screamed. "Why are you trying to kill me?"
It all happens quite quickly, and really, flustered as she was, Flora hadn't been tracking everything that was going on because she was still ruffled from having her training session go from embarrassingly bad to accidental murder.
"What?" Flora called, her teeth clicking together once she saw who it was she'd inadvertently attacked. This bitch. "No, I was trying to practice." Flora counters with a huff. "Those are mine." So saying Flora snaps her wrist and, though there's a brief flicker of hesitation because of the abandoned's magic, are stronger than the telekinetic force such that they sing back to the Kaliesin girl's waiting hand.
"What are you doing skulking around near a target anyways!?" Flora wants to know with a dramatic sigh, because really, this doesn't strike her as being her fault.
We need love, But all we want is danger We team up, Then switch sides like a record changer
"Skulking?" Amanda clenched her fists. "I wasn't skulking. I was scavenging. You know, trying to do my job?"
Her eyes widened when the weird feather daggers flew back to the other girl. Amanda's eyes narrowed. She reached out with her mind again and yanked them away once more, but was surprised when they once again floated straight back to the other girl's hand. Yet it wasn't telekinesis--she knew that magic well enough to recognize it when someone else was using it. This was something else.
She crossed her arms. "Neat trick." She scowled at the other girl for a long moment.
Refusing to give an unweighted compliment, she added, "Your aim sucks though."
Making the paradigmatic entitled rich girl sound of disgust, Flora runs her tongue over her teeth as she huffs out a breath. 'Okay, well it isn't a trick, for one." She snaps, still flustered and unhappy about Amanda's sudden and near-death appearance.
"And I know that, thanks. That's why I'm practicing." Widening her aqua eyes towards the target as evidence, Flora folds her arms across her chest. "Might be a good idea for you to avoid targets while you're scAvEnGiNg." Flora adds. "So if you could just.." Releasing one hand from under her arm, Flora gestures that Amanda should move the fuck aside. Please and thanks.
We need love, But all we want is danger We team up, Then switch sides like a record changer
"Oh, yeah, sure, no problem," Amanda said, stepping to the side. "Far be it for me to stop you. Matter of fact, I could use some practice myself."
Amanda stood a bit to the side, just far enough that she wasn't in immediate danger of getting hit, but close enough that she could do what she had in mind. She waited until Flora got ready again, watching from the side as the other girl began throwing her feathers again.
Once Flora threw one of the feather daggers, Amanda immediately reached out her telekinesis and knocked it from the air. She made no physical motion, using the magic purely with her mind, so there was no clear indication that she had done anything. "Oops," she said. "You missed."
She continued knocking the feathers aside whenever she managed to react quickly enough, though sometimes Flora's throws were too fast. She kept at it, though, deflecting about half of the throws. "Oops," she said each time, trying and failing to keep a smirk from her lips.
Here's the thing though. While Flora might not have street smarts, what she did have was a twin. And a witch for a grandmother. She'd grown up with Enzo bothering her with his telekinesis and Vai using it around the house in exactly the same ways Amanda had when last she'd met the other girl. It took only a few diverted feathers for her to catch onto what was happening before she folded her arms across her chest.
'You aren't half as clever as you think.' With an eyebrow arched, Flora moved her gaze slowly away from where Amanda stood to a position, oh say, 7ft from the target she was aiming for. "How much do you want to bet my aim dramatically improves once you're more than 5ft away."
We need love, But all we want is danger We team up, Then switch sides like a record changer
"Hey now," Amanda said, putting her hands on her hips. "I'm at least three quarters as clever as I think."
She considered the other girl's challenge. She knew, as did Flora apparently, that her telekinesis had a very limited range. That didn't, however, mean she couldn't find a way to be clever about it.
"Fine," she said, moving all the way back fifteen feet from the target, five feet behind Flora herself and a bit to the side. "Way back here. No way I can reach, and you'd feel it if I tried to grab them out of your hands, right? So no way I could interfere with the feathers, and I promise I will not touch the feathers in any way shape or form, okay?"
Amanda waited until Flora was ready to start again. Keeping her promise, Amanda did nothing to touch the daggers. However, just as Flora was about to throw one, Amanda flicked her hand and sent out a small burst of telekinetic force, like a gust of wind against Flora's hair. The burst of force flung Flora's hair right into her face just as she was about to throw the feather.
Again, having had a twin made Flora exceptionally skeptical about Amanda's sudden willingness to absolutely not touch her feathers. So when a bit of her hair wavered in front of her eyes, Flora wasn't surprised though she was no less annoyed for it. Luckily having grown up with wild and tangled hair that was almost always in her face, the fact that neither she nor the target was moving and she'd been at this for a few throws now, and the fact that her luck stat is maxed out, she was still able to throw the feather in a relatively clean line, hitting the target.
Spinning around to face Amanda, Flora placed her hands dramatically on her hips and tried to fix the older girl with what she hoped was a withering look. "Why are you like this? Why don't you just..you know, go. Do your scavenging or whatever." Combing her fingers roughly through her hair as if to say I see what you did, she lets her hands flop to her sides.
We need love, But all we want is danger We team up, Then switch sides like a record changer
"Because it's funny," Amanda said with a chuckle. "Besides, I need the practice. Messing with you is a nice challenge. I have to keep thinking up new ways to use my magic."
Amanda stepped over to Flora, spreading her hands out apologetically. "Look, it's all in good fun, right? A few minutes ago we almost killed each other, now we're laughing. Well, I'm laughing. You might need to work on your sense of humor."
Amanda smirked, stepping closer still. "Besides, you're kind of cute when you get all flustered..."
She reached out with her telekinesis and gave Flora's cute butt a little pinch.
Amanda might have been 3/4 as clever as she thought, but definitely she was not as funny. Not to Flora anyways.
'Ugh!' Flora groaned loudly, feeling her cheeks heat and a wild warble of adrenaline-fueled rage lodge itself in the back of her throat. "Excuse me, I'm cute all the time, I'll have you kn-HEY!" Feeling the invisible fingers of telekinesis suddenly turned against her instead of her feathers or her hair had Flora's teeth clicking together. Never had she been so...so.. so bullied like this before.
"Seriously what is wrong with you? You can't just go around touching people like that." Flora admonished, feeling a strange mixture of adrenaline and hate mixing in her belly that had her feeling a touch dizzy. Stepping back a few steps (read: trying to stay 5ft from Amanda), Flora narrowed her eyes warily as she recalled all of her feathers.
We need love, But all we want is danger We team up, Then switch sides like a record changer
"Technically," Amanda said, holding her hands up, palms out, to show her innocence, "I didn't 'touch' you. But you're right. I'm sorry. Here, let me make it up to you."
She pulled off her backpack and set it on the ground, crouching down to dig through it. She pulled out a small, long wooden box. Standing back up, she opened the box, revealing several carefully collected feathers from several uncommon tropical birds. The feathers were a variety of bright, vibrant colors, all in pristine condition.
She floated the box over with her telekinesis, until it was hovering just outside of Flora's reach, which was as close as Amanda could get it without invading Flora's personal space.
"As an apology," she said. "You seem to like feathers."
