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!
For someone who dislikes the Falling and skyships in general, Finn keeps finding himself up here. Such is the life of a detective, he supposes, and though he wishes he could say it was getting easier each time, it's an absolute lie.
Still, in the darkness the sheer drop is slightly less intimidating, and the fact that he can't see the craggy teeth of the rocks below does a little (but not much) to calm him. The moon overhead is a jagged smile, partially bathing the late ships in silver, and Finn sits quietly on a bench for one of them to come in.
He has business up here to speak to one of the skyship captains. The details don't matter - what matters is that he had better arrive soon, because even in Longheat this place gives him chills. There are far too many ghosts up here.
It was a dark and humid night as the skyship ghosted into port above the ocean far below. Tal's Goggles were firmly in place but that only helped for a little distance before he was back to relying on the wan moonlight. It had an oddly cold gleam to it tonight in spite of season and the courier shifted his bag uneasily on his shoulder as he glanced up at it again, waiting for the ship to be made fast and the gangplank to be run out.
Trotting down to the sturdy, motionless ground of Stormbreak (or at least the wooden pier of the skyport), Tal stretched up on his toes and then looked around. Boreal had been right behind him a moment ago...
Ah. The dragon was padding towards some poor soul sitting on a nearby bench. She dropped onto her haunches right in front of Finn and looked mournfully at the detective with the big eyes of a dragon who had never been fed. Not once. And wouldn't the nice human like to fix that?
Tal rolled his own eyes and walked over to tug on her horns. "Boreal, stop that. We've got- oh! Hey, Finn. Are you, uh... waitin' for me?" Tal blinked at the other man, nose wrinkled in confusion. The package wasn't for him this time, but Tal had been wanting to see his... friend? acquaintance? deductive mentor? again anyways.
Finn - naturally - has brought a book with him to read, and it's only the hot breath on his knee that has him glancing up from its pages to see a familiar dragon sitting before him on her haunches. "Oh," he says, patting his pockets even though he has absolutely nothing like a snack in there. (This is Finn, not Ronin or Mateo, sorry).
Luckily the dragon's bonded comes to his rescue, and he closes his book in time to gaze up at Tal. "Good evening," he says with a small smile, not wanting to appear rude and so rising to his feet to speak with the other man. "Oh - no, no. I was waiting for the captain of a..."
A skyship, he means to say. But that is when he (naturally) realises that said skyship has just come into port - with Tal on it, conveniently - and the captain is nowhere to be found. "I... will need to go and find him." He winces. "Are you back in Stormbreak on business?" Look at you go, Finn, with your small talk.
Boreal continued her mournful stare until Tal came over and started scratching at the base of her horns. The dragon rumbled contentedly and leaned into his hip, momentarily forgetting her hustle with Finn while the two men spoke.
"Captain?" Tal looked over his shoulder, following Finn's gaze. 'Oh! I think he said he was meetin' someone in town... was that you? Just their luck if the captain had been in such a hurry to head into town to meet Finn that he'd walked right past him in the dark. Tal peered around helpfully to make sure the captain wasn't still on board or nearby, but the only activity was from the sailors getting the ship settled.
The courier shrugged and gave a nod to the return question. "Yup. Got a package for the Collegium. Wanted to find you, too. How'd the antiquity shop case turn out?"
"Ah, no. Unfortunately it wasn't." And so the captain had likely gone to sink into his cups after a long day, and even if Finn ran (which he won't, because he is now locked into this conversation until it has reached its appropriate end) his captain might not be sober enough to have a proper conversation. Another night, then.
"Hm...? Oh! It was the owner's son," he explains regarding the antique shop. "They were trying to frame a rival business. It took a while to figure out the connections, but when I was getting close, the owner confessed." And given that Finn (who had considered it briefly, of course) didn't believe the confession was coerced or made under duress, that made case closed.
"What are you..." Delivering to the Collegium, he means to ask, but at that moment a strange and ethereal stirring of the clouds beyond the Falling catches his eye. "Do you see that...?"
Tal looked up to examine the cloudy sky awkwardly, rocking back on his heels for a moment before he remembered what he'd wanted to ask Finn about the last time they'd run into each other. Pale eyes gleamed behind his Goggles as he listened to the sordid tale with fascinated curiosity.
Hearing that the owner confessed without causing a scene or taking a hostage or trying to run away was...
Well, it was entirely too plausible. The courier almost pouted at the mundanity of it, but...
"Bet he never would have sang if you hadn't been so hot on his trail," Tal decided, attributing the subtle threat of the detective's looming brilliant deduction to the criminal's breakdown. "He must've known it was only a matter of time before y'got 'im!"
He started to say more, but Finn's question started to derail him, and then his attention was drawn to where the other man indicated. Tal squinted and then, after a moment's hesitation, raised his Goggles up to his forehead and peered through the clouds with his own eyes. "...That's... weird. Never seen a wind like that before..."
Normally the type to wither awkwardly under compliments, they are both lucky that Finn is suddenly far more interested in whatever is stirring the mists out beyond the Falling, the detective furrowing his brow and taking a step closer. It's just that - a step - but even that much is big progress for him. "Nor have I," he says. "Could it be a new sort of skyship, perhaps? Or a-- oh!"
Even as he speaks, a flock of hels erupts through the fog - more than Finn has ever seen in one place - parting it enough that they can peek through and into the churning black at the bottom of the Falling.
The Ghost Whale is circling something; possibly an orca or another creature large enough to be considered prey. The night makes it impossible to discern its translucent flesh - all Finn sees is the skeleton beneath, and that alone is enough to make his heart jump into his throat.
A new sort of skyship? The possibility had Tal stepping eagerly up next to the detective and peering over the edge with him, in spite of the Hels. He wrinkled his nose at the noisy birds, but peering past them to see what they were flying from had his eyes widening in shock at the sight below.
"Son of a bitch," he breathed softly, even though they were much too far away for the ghostly whale to hear them. He had an eye for distances, and that beast had to be massive for the bones to gleam so clearly from so far away. "Never thought I'd see one of those... if there're any left in the Sea of Glass they're locked under the ice, y'know? Wow...."
It was scary as hail, but being on dry ground on top of the Falling made it a delicious, shivery kind of terror as Tal watched the legendary beastie with avid eyes.
Finn is never really one to swear, but he absolutely agrees with Talyson, swallowing hard and offering a slow nod as he peers into the black deep where the bones start to devour the orca.
"I have never seen one either," he remarks softly, speaking around the fist clenching his chest up tight. Granted, it is only in very recent times that the detective has been able to bring himself to get this close to the edge of the Falling. And (ha, ha) he's probably going to be breaking that habit quickly after tonight.
There is nothing delicious about the terror churning in his stomach, and he steps back without ever giving his legs permission to do so. "They say there are... star whales, as well," he mumbles, as if to try and get rid of the image burning into his mind. "They fly through the skies."
Tal didn't even notice Finn stepping back; not the best self-preservation instinct, perhaps, but Boreal was padding up from behind them to see what had her companion all a-goggle. The courier continued to watch the undead beastie and its unfortunate dinner with disgusted fascination and a healthy dose of fear while the dragon peered over the edge as well. A tendril of desire on a hopeful question mark floated through their bond and Tal murmured distractedly: "No, you can't eat it."
At which point the dragon lost all interest in the Ghost Whale and went back to sit by Finn.
"Star whales sound nicer than ghost whales," the courier opined distractedly. "Though the flyin' thing might be kind of dangerous around skyships. There aren't any sky sharks or moon sharks or anythin' like that around here, too, right?"
Finn is pointedly looking at the sky now precisely so he doesn't have to peep over the edge of the Falling again; it's an exercise made entirely more difficult by the mist obscuring the stars. It means that when Boreal comes to sit by him it's enough to startle the detective, and he has to take a deep breath in and let it out again to keep his nerve.
"I do not think star whales fly low enough to be an issue for skyships," he says slowly, though he isn't really sure. It's something he's sure he'll be able to find out at the Archive - and that sounds like a lovely place to be, right? Instead of, you know... here?
Sky sharks and moon sharks have a soft grumble leaving his throat, Finn turning his eyes down to the ground instead. "Gods, I certainly hope not. Is it... is it still down there?"
Boreal looked up curiously at the jumpy human and thumped her scaly tail on the dock. It was alright if he didn't have treats, but why he wasn't scratching her head she couldn't understand. Tal might usually have interjected to save his friend at this point, but he was still peering over the edge of the Falling with a blithe disregard for the height.
It was a relief to know that the skyships were safe from flying whales. The Ghost Whale down there was bad enough! Though... Tal squinted, but his Goggles were of no use that far away. "Yeah, me too," he mumbled his agreement to the lack of sharks in the sky. Bad enough they had them in the ground and the water.
With a sigh he finally stepped back and gave a shake of his head. "Can't tell. The fog's rolled in an' it's gone all grey an' black down there again." And that whale was definitely not swimming through the mist up to the top of the Falling haha that would be crazy and impossible, right?
"Say, is there someplace around here we could get a drink? I'm parched!"
If Finn knew of his accidental faux pas against companion dragons and their (well deserved) head scritches, of course he'd rectify the situation immediately. As it stands, however, he's too busy not to swallow his own heartbeat, or worse, try to reach out to tug Tal away from the edge of the Falling. Given how open the area is, the detective is actually beginning to feel rather closed in - he blames the mist - and he's visibly relieved when the courier steps back.
"Oh," he says about the ghost whale, hoping that it stays that way and that the creature is gone by the time the fog clears. He does, at least, know of somewhere they might get a drink. "There is a tea house down at the Pacifist Plaza that is open late," he says, warming somewhat at the idea of not being up here. "If that would work?" Perhaps the other man doesn't like tea.
It was going to make for a good story, Tal decided with an internal grin as he rejoined Finn. The ocean far below and its Ghost Whales were out of sight, out of mind as the mists hemmed them in, already fading to memory as the courier reached down to absent-mindedly provide Boreal with the head scratches she so richly deserved.
"I could go for a Feverlands Fog," Tal agreed easily enough. Tea was one of the great pillars of Halo after all, right after vodka and whiskey. A warm drink on a cold night - and all nights were cold there - could be a literal life saver. He was no connoisseur, but he enjoyed a freshly-brewed cup as much as the next northerner. "Maybe we'll get lucky an' find your captain there!"
Gentle reader, they did not.
But they did find a very nice pot of tea to share while they failed to make eye contact and engaged in awkward small talk for another hour.
