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!
Kaiden's eyes increasingly widened as the brat worked to kill the fish. At the same time, a grin continued to grow as well. She learned, adapted, and improvised until she overcame her own limits. As such, the fish soon met its end. When Trinket eventually looked up, she found the mer watching her with pride and satisfaction. "Yes. Yes, you did. Well done." The praise was nearly a croon.
"You beat the fish, and now you must continue to beat any and all that try to make you lose. Every second of everyday. Survive, not just by hunting and killing for food. But by killing all that try to kill you." The mer leaned slightly out of the water, their own eyes meeting the unblinking stare of the demigod.
Trinket listened, staring unblinking up at the merfolk. She took a long, silent moment to absorb his words. Her doll remained tucked under her arm. For just a moment, it wriggled just as the fish had, then went limp just like the dead fish.
Finally, after too long of a silence, she asked the merfolk, "Why would someone try to kill me?"
She reached up and wiped the blood from her face with the back of her hand. She let her hand dangle at her side, a few drops of blood dripping down into the wet sand at her feet.
The doll continued to weird Kaiden out, but they were starting to get used to the thing. The blood on the child didn't make the mershark blink, especially given the blood they still had on themselves. But the question? Well, that was a tough one.
Kaiden fell silent for a moment, trying to determine how to explain this. "In the game of life, where survival is how you win. Some people kill for no reason. Killing should be hunting for food or defending yourself. But there are people out there who kill just to kill. They enjoy it too much to limit themselves to necessity."
The mershark paused before adding, "And if it comes to competing for food or space, then you might have to fight someone for them. And fights can be to the death sometimes. Someone might also just be really angry at you and lash out. Or they might just not like you on an extreme level." Kaiden nodded in approval of their explanation. "Those are some of the reasons why a person might try to kill you."
Kaiden glanced at the doll before refocusing on the brat, "That's why you must become strong. Strong enough to hunt, to fight and to kill. So that you survive and win."
"If they kill to enjoy it," Trinket said, "then they don't kill for no reason."
She paused to consider their words, her unblinking stare never leaving their face. The reasons they listed were...curious.
She set the doll down. It stood on its own, unmoving, staying where she commanded it to stay. But it continued to stare up at the merfolk.
Trinket crossed her arms. "Why would someone not like me enough to want to kill me?" she asked. She had met very few people in her short life. They had all had curious reactions to her, but none had tried to kill her. Not yet, at least.
Kaiden shrugged, "For fun isn't a valid reason. And people are... annoying." They scowled, "They decide who they like or who is worthy of basic decency off of a whim. You can't trust them or their judgment. They might not like you for some stupid reason like how you look or who you know. It's just... stupid."
The merkshark made a grumbling noise. "Someone once tried to kill me because I have a shark tail and not a fish one like so many other mermaids. Idiotic son of a..." They bit their tongue so as not to curse in front of a brat. "Just ridiculous."
Trinket continued to stare at the merfolk, her frown deepening. Following her command the doll crossed its tiny porcelain arms as well. The two of them stared in silence while the merfolk spoke.
Many questions popped into her mind. She filed them away, one after one. But of the questions, one thing the merfolk said brought her mind back to another question. A question that hadn't been answered yet.
"Why do you have a tail, half-person?" she asked, pointing at the shark tail. "I asked you before."
She glanced behind herself again, as if to confirm that she still did not have a tail. The doll mimicked the movement, looking behind itself. Then two pairs of glossy back eyes turned back towards the merfolk, waiting silently for their response.
Kaiden tsked. "I'm a mer, brat. It's my species. We have fish or other aquatic creature parts. I have a tiger shark tail so I'm a mershark. I can also turn into one. All mers can turn into the creature whose traits they share." They once more sent the question back, "And you should tell me why you don't have a tail when you figure out why."
Rude brat. But not a bad brat. The girl seemed to understand the basics of life that so many failed to grasp. It was satisfying. Though one thing weighed on the mer's mind. Kaiden glanced down at the doll as it moved again, "What's up with the moving doll? How are you making it move?"
Mershark. The word was familiar to her, as most words were. But that didn't truly explain why.
At the merfolk's question, Trinket glanced down at her doll. It glanced up at her. She had commanded it, for now, to mimic her movements. For now.
Two pairs of eyes looked back at the mershark. "She's my friend. She likes to play, too."
Not to be deterred from her line of inquiry, Trinket pointed at the tail again. "Why do you have a tail? Why do 'mers' have tails? Why is yours a tiger shark tail instead of another kind of tail? Why can you turn into a shark?"
She knew the "what" of these things. Merfolk had fish parts, they could transform, these things she knew. But to know was not to understand.
She stared at the mershark, holding all the patience in the world in her tiny hands. She needed understanding. This, too, was a game. And she intended to win.
Kaiden just nodded, getting the impression that no matter how many 'why's the brat asked, she had very few answers. Wait, no. Fuck that. "Why?" Why was a doll her friend and how the fuck did the doll enjoy playing?
The mershark blinked at the rapid-fire questions before scowling as their patience began to wear thin. "I don't have all the answers, brat. I know what I am and what I can do. You'll have to ask a God as to why and how they created mers in the first place. And why they made it so that each mer could transform like an Attuned can." The fuck did they care about the 'why's to all that. It wasn't relevant to their survival most days.
The earnestness in the kid's questions though did drive them to elaborate, despite themselves. "Big 'why's aren't something most people can answer. You can spend your entire life trying to get the answers to them and still have more questions than answers."
Trinket frowned at the mershark. It appeared they didn't have more answers. They thought she was supposed to ask a god for answers, but really, it was the reverse of that.
But still, she considered their words for a long moment. Finally, she said, "If you stop asking 'why,' you lose the game."
She scooped her doll up into her arms, holding it against her side. The doll's head turned completely around the back to continue staring at the mershark with its glassy eyes.
She looked the mershark up and down. "You're fun to play with, but you're bad at the game. You think you know things you don't, and you don't try to find answers to the things you don't know. You're never going to get good at the game like that."
She paused for a long moment, thinking through her next words, never taking her eyes from the mershark's.
Eventually, she spoke again, her voice soft. "You said you need to win every day by killing the things that try to kill you. But you can't kill something you don't understand. The fish didn't understand you." She pointed at the dead fish on the sand at her feet. "The fish didn't understand how to survive. If you don't understand, you won't know how to survive either."
She turned and started walking away. The doll's head turned completely around again, watching the mershark for every step Trinket took. For a moment, just a moment, it seemed there was the sound of a child's laughter. But the mershark couldn't tell who it came from...the girl, or the doll.
Kaiden tsked in disappointment, "No brat. You've got it twisted. If you never ask 'why', you die. If you ask too many 'why's you die. It's a balancing act." The mer shook their head the more the brat talked, "People kill what they don't understand all the time. Hell, some people kill things and others simply because they don't understand them." Ridiculous, prejudiced, and incompetent fools.
Clearly this brat was a lost cause. Shame really. She showed such promise. As Trinket turned to leave, Kaiden did the same. Rolling their shoulders, they dove into the water with these last words, "You're not ready to win yet, Brat."
