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!
11-18-2022, 12:21 AM (This post was last modified: 11-18-2022, 01:07 AM by Kaiden.)
kaiden
There is no shame in survival
Only strength
IN THE BOONDOCKS
Once the Sanctuary had gotten too damn crowded with all the cheerful reuniting families and lovers, Kaiden had left. The crying of those mourning was even worse, but the joy still grated on their nerves. It was too damn loud. The Boondocks were quiet except for the sound of moving water and the hum of nature.
Lazily swimming Kaiden noticed someone near the shore. Gritting their teeth, they approached, backfin visible above the water line. Once they got close enough, they rose their head out of the water and glared at the intruder. "Can you fuck off? I came here to be alone and you're getting in the way of that."
The thing about war was that y'couldn't just press a button and put the whole damn world on pause while y'sorted your shit out. So it was that despite all the fucking fanfare and fighting, Morgen had remained in King's End. Shit had gotten pretty hairy for a while there, but in the end it had worked out fine.
Funny that. When you stayed outta other folks' way, they tended to stay outta yours.
Sitting tall on his buckskin mare while the herd of unicorns watered nearby, Morgen ran a hand down the back of his neck to wipe a bit of the chill away. The lack of sunlight had unnerved the herd at first, but unicorns were clever critters. Skittish, sure, but with Sweets to help him relay messages back and forth they did okay.
Well, until the shark anyhow.
Not used to smelling anything at all like that, the unicorns went right on drinking until Kaiden popped his head above the waves. The majority of his words were lost in the scramble of hooves and wary snorts as the herd moved as one big clusterfuck of flailing legs. "Fucking-" Morgen managed to get out as Sweets half-reared, pawing at the mershark before landing and flaring her nostrils in his direction.
"You what?" Morgen demands, glaring at the mershark from beneath the brow of his hat.
Kaiden's glare sharpened. "I said, fuck off." The mer waved a flippant hand at the herd of unicorns, "Take your fancy horses and leave. This is my spot right now. And I want to be alone." It was an easy enough request to comprehend. It wasn't the mer's fault if the man was daft.
At Sweets' display, Kaiden merely bared their teeth at the unicorn, unimpressed. "Get in the water and we'll see how far that attitude takes you." They'd never tried to eat a unicorn before. But there was a first time for everything. Maybe they could keep the horn and make a knife later?
The wave of the Mer's hand has a few of the unicorns shying away nervously. One, a younger colt, cautiously edges forward, all perked ears and big adorable eyes.
"Yeah?" Morgen asks once he thinks he has the situation sized up. Resting one of his hands on the horn of his saddle, he smirks down at the mershark. "And just what'ya gonna do about it? Far as I know of your kind, you're stuck right there in that water. Can't do more than splishy-splash around."
And hell, if this mer was just gonna smack his gums around, the herd could get used to it. Already they were becoming more bold to his movements and the sound of his voice.
"Splishy splash?" Kaiden was enraged at this man's audacity. They eyed Morgen challengingly, "And what if I stop each of your fancy horses from drinking water? I can't leave but I can sure as hell make sure that they can't come in."
The creatures seemed skittish. If the mer swiped at them everytime they got close, surely, they'd back off. And if that were the case, surely this man would leave. And then Kaiden could finally relax and maybe hunt a bit. They hadn't eaten in a few hours now that they thought about it. Those fancy horses were looking more and more tasty, and they couldn't help eyeing the colt with predatory interest.
As the mer shark's rage o'meter steadily climbs, Morgen seems to relax in equal measure. "Hell of a lot more o' them than you. Besides, all I got to do is tell 'em that you ain't nothin' more than an oversized toad and chances are they'll settle down about it."
Morgen can't help but grin. No, he didn't really have a mean streak in him, but gods, it really was just too tempting not to keep fucking with what looked to him to be a kid who was so openly mouthy.
"Thing is, if they keep to the shallows, I reckon you'd have to be on your belly to get to 'em. And if that's the case, I really do think all you can do is splash around. In the deeper water, I bet you're a real menace, but here? Nah."
Kaiden hated that the man was right. "Well, fuck you and your pretentious ass." The mer sunk deeper into the water in what was Definity not a sulk. But then one of the unicorns when it stepped closer to the water and the mer rose up quickly to snap their teeth at the creature. It made the unicorn hesitate just a bit. Yet nowhere near as much as the mer had wanted the equine too. Sure enough, the same unicorn tried again not even a minute later.
As the unicorn bent down and began to drink, Kaiden rolled their eyes. "Pretention fancy horses too." Letting out a heavy sigh to let go of at least a fraction of their rage, the mer returned their glare to the Abandoned, "Just fucking leave already." Kaiden was running out of ideas on how to drive the man and his herd away and it was starting to wear on them a bit.
Rubbing a dirt-coated thumb against the bridge of his nose, Morgen pushed up the brim of his hat with said thumb before sighing. "Up here we like to call 'em unicorns." He advises the mer with a lop-sided shrug.
It was an interesting tactic this creature had, of trying the same thing over and over again. Morgen wasn't terribly sure it was going to work out the way the mer wanted, but that wasn't really his problem. "Yep. Will do, just as soon as we're done here." Raising his eye line slightly, the cowboy gazes out over the horizon. "Big fuckin' ocean though. Y'ever considered that maybe you could be the one to fuckin' leave already?" He asks, trying to mirror the way the mer had phrased the demand to him.
Kaiden blinked, "Unicorns." The word processed and their expression turned disbelieving. "Someone named horses with horns, one-horns? Really?" They assumed the 'corns' bit referred to horns in some capacity. Because if it meant the plant and someone named a horse species one-corns, Kaiden was going to give up on society. Again.
Letting out a grumbling noise of displeasure, Kaiden sunk down to their shoulders in the waves. "Yah, well, I don't want to go into the ocean at the moment." Glancing at the unicorns briefly they huffed at Morgen. "Fine. I suppose you and your on-horns can stay here for the moment."
They fell silent, intent to simply glare at the man until the unicorns finished up. But the silene was boring. Kaiden was used to being alone with the sounds of the ocean life around them. The Boondocks weren't quiet per say. They just weren't filled with the same noises that the mer was used to.
As such, they found themselves breaking the brief silence. "Why do you have so many one-horns anyway?"
The mer's disbelief just has the cowboy chuckling under his breath. "Yep. Makes sense though, don't it?" He adds with a sly tilt of his head and a shrug. 'Dunno about you, but so many of the critters 'round here got names I can't even begin to remember.' One horn was the sort of nomenclature that suited a man like Morgen just fine.
'Mm. Much obliged.' Nodding his appreciation, sarcastic or otherwise, the man swings a leg over the side of his mare, dismounting with such ease as to suggest this was far from his first time. Giving the mare a pat and letting her cinch out a bit so she could relax, Kaiden's question had Morgen pausing in his motions for a moment before he gave his head a shake.
"Don't have 'em." He explains, turning. "Just take care of 'em." And then, because it was the polite thing to do, Morgen walked towards the edges of the water and extended his hand. "Name's Morgen."
"Uncreative bitch." Kaiden mumbled under their breath. Easy to remember, sure. But if someone had named their species half-fish, they would have thrown hands. And tail. How the pretentious fancy horses were ok with such an uninspired name was beyond them.
Morgen's sarcastic thanks made the mershark tilt their head up and with all the false authority in their body respond with a firm, "You're welcome." They watched silently as the now named Morgen dismounted and approached. "So, you just follow them around and tend to their every need without any gain? That's stupid." There was no boon to the man's survival, no profit, no nothing. It didn't make sense.
As Morgen held out a hand, Kaiden reached out with reluctance to shake it. "Kaiden." The entire time that Morgen was vaguely in their space, the mershark watched every muscle twitch, ready to retaliate if the near stranger made a move.
"Well, you're welcome to think so." Morgen replies with an easy shrug. It was a good life, if a simple one, but it wasn't the sort of thing you could convince another of.
Chuckling to himself to see tension streaking across the mer like hackles on a dog, Morgen released their hand and backed up a few steps. Really, it wasn't much different to a skittish colt that acted out because it didn't know any other way to be.
"Pleasure t'meet you, Kaiden. So tell me, what do you do when you ain't judging the names of the land-critters?" Morgen asks, shoving his hands into his pockets.
It was a relief when the man backed up, though Kaiden still eyed him cautiously until he was well and truly out of the mer's space. "Then don't name them weird shit", they huffed. Crazy land people would have probably named manta rays, 'sea flip flaps' or something. Good thing a mer got to it first, if they recalled correctly.
The pry into their personal life is unexpected and Kaiden raised their chin before responding, "If you must know, I hunt. I survive. What else is there?" They asked rhetorically, as if daring Morgen to challenge them. Survival was all that mattered, only a fool would thing otherwise.
Morgen shrugs easily enough despite the mer's continued hostility. "You're the one who said movin' the unicorns around without any gain was stupid, so I figured you must have some high-reward type of job or whatever." He replies. Fishing into his pocket, Morgen pulls out a piece of peppermint bark that he sticks between his teeth.
"You're a bit of an asshole, know that?" Morgen asks almost kindly, as if he were merely asking where Kaiden got a particular piece of jewelery, or if he knew the time. "Why is that?" He adds in a tone of voice that suggests he's asking sincerely, rather than sarcastically.
