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!
Noah moved towards the antithesis of Halo. It was easy enough travel with his ability to flash across the land, but as he came to the crust, he stopped using his magic. He tread carefully, however, ready to blip out if the solid footing beneath him gave way to boiling, churning magma below. The demigod was not interested in dying today, this each step was carefully calculated.
He ventured towards the magma fields to see about the rumors, the information. An ancient race of people, stemming from such a place, a place even more inhospitable than Halo but in the opposite direction. While Noah had no interest — right now — to seek out the goddess that came, he still wanted to know what was happening. How many had awoken?
Is what Danta would have said, if the Sentinel had asked the question out loud. Alas, when Noah comes across him, it will be to the sight of a rakish, fair haired young man crouched over a deep crack in the Crust, soot on his hands as he waits patiently for... well, who knew what, honestly.
Danta, that's who, and as the lava wyrm sort of spurts out of the crack like a molten squirt of lava, the Ancient is there to try and catch it. Bare hands come to snatch about the creature until it takes a more wyrm-like form, and then he's straightening up with it. What's it for, you ask?
The Sentinel stopped when the man came into his field of vision. It was curious how the man was able to be as close to the lava as he was. Little did Noah know that was not the only curious thing about him.
When a spurt of lava emerged from the crack beneath the crouching man, Noah instinctually went to warn him. He surged a few steps forward and his hand went up, mouth open to give a verbal warning of safety -- but the demigod stopped in his tracks. His mouth hung open for a moment, the words unable to escape, before he snapped it shut. Noah's head tilted some, eyebrows coming together and wrinkling his forehead.
The creature wasn't burning the man's hands, and that was all that Noah could focus on. The fact that the fair-haired man might be different than him by all means was lost to him as he watched him with -- what he assumed -- was his prey of some sort.
Noah would be correct, though as Danta straightens up with the wyrm writhing in his grip, he doesn't expect to see the other man. With horns glinting in the ruddy light and a spaded tail thrashing at his heels, his head snaps up and his teeth bare, the little creature glooping out of his grip and disappearing back into the crack in the Crust.
And a couple of seconds pass like that, before some semblance of humanity melts back onto his features. Looking Noah up and down, and then looking again, he tilts his head and smiles. It's still toothy, but there's less of a suggestion of violence in it this time.
"A visitor to the Climb," he croons. "We don't get those all that often. Or are you lost?" Oh, please let him be lost.
'cause I'm selfish, I'm obscene
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Horns: Diamond - they look very similar to #2 in this image.
Over a year ago, Noah may have taken a step back at such a response. Or drew a weapon, primed and ready to attack. Instead, the Sentinel stood as he was, though the parts of him that had reacted to want to warn the other man -- man? -- fizzled down. His glacier eyes hardened as the stranger before him whipped around. It happened quickly, but Noah didn't miss the fangs glinting in the fiery light, nor the lashing spade tail, nor the horns atop a dusty blond head.
An eyebrow simply raised on the hunter's face, confident that what he had been looking for was standing right before him.
"I will admit I much like Halo's climate better." A more charming or charismatic man may have returned the toothy smile, but Noah was neither of those things. "I wouldn't say lost as much as I'd say exploring, though."
"Are you sure? Perhaps you just need to give the Climb a chance," Danta says, having straightened up by now to prowl forward and investigate the stranger like some street cat might; he circles him slowly, taking him in at all angles, curious but not stupid enough to get too close. "And with a face like that, this place would really like to keep you a while," he continues, dipping his chin a little as if trying to see under Noah's clothes.
"An explorer," he repeats, gasping softly, like it's exciting. (It is). "And where are you going to explore? There are hot springs, waterfalls, the Obsidian Cathedral - oh. Are you here to see my lady goddess?"
'cause I'm selfish, I'm obscene
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Horns: Diamond - they look very similar to #2 in this image.
11-30-2022, 06:23 PM (This post was last modified: 11-30-2022, 07:50 PM by Noah.)
will heaven step in?
Something at the base of Noah's neck prickled, and at the same time told him to hold his ground. He wasn't sure what this stranger was going to do, but as he drew near (yet not too near), Noah simply moved his head to watch him. "I've got enough ice in my veins that I would surely evaporate here." Noah joked, a rolling, dismissive chuckle coating his words. The Climb wasn't a place Noah foresaw himself visiting too often. He wasn't sure anyone actually came here much outside of being sent on quests from their gods.
Noah turned, though, when from the stranger's lips a compliment came. The prickling along Noah's neck ran cold despite the heat of the place. The shifting of Noah's weight opened a small crack in the lava stone and Noah needed to take a few steps to the side and back to avoid the bubbling magma beneath from lighting his boots on fire. "The last time I was at the waterfall it was red with blood." Noah relayed, implying that that was where he was headed. The mention of the goddess was stored away for future inquiries.
He doesn't answer properly, about Dygra, and Dantalion stores that away for future inquiries too. For now, though, whatever he sees in the Sentinel is enough to hold him from any further (physical) harrassment, though as the other man steps back, he of course steps forward, and his bare feet sink into the molten lava as if he's stepping into a pleasantly hot bath. "We wouldn't want that, would we," he croons, of the other man evaporating.
And then, perhaps surprising no one more than himself, the Ancient sticks his calloused hand out to shake. (Do people still shake hands?) "Danta," he introduces himself, his head lolling to the side in the vague direction of the Mountain's Roar. "It's still red," he murmurs. "Is there a time when it wasn't? Gods, we were asleep for a while."
'cause I'm selfish, I'm obscene
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Horns: Diamond - they look very similar to #2 in this image.
Noah didn't think much about Danta following him back. Every mannerism that the man had shown at this point alluded to nothing else, but what did surprise Noah was the way his bare feet stepped straight down into the exposed magma. Unable to mask his surprise with his glacial features, Noah's eyebrows lifted and he looked down at the other man's feet with little hesitation.
The movement brought Noah's attention upwards and his crystal blue eyes rested briefly on Danta's hand before his own reached up to grasp it. Finding his eyes once more, the Sentinel introduced himself. "Noah Olson." Noah's handshake was firm and steady, his large and calloused hands evidence of the home that birthed the ice in his veins. Sucking in a breath, Noah's shoulders lifted some and he took a risk, "If you don't mind me asking, how can you withstand such an element?" He gestured down to the man's feet with his chin, all talk of the falls losing priority in the wake of this scene.
His hand is larger than Danta's, though the Ancient's grip is no less firm for it. "Noah," he repeats, as if storing it away in his memory to peek at later, when it's dark and he's alone. Following the Sentinel's gaze down towards his feet, he thoughtfully wiggles his toes in the exposed magma, cocking his head as if just realising where he's stepped.
"I am a child of Dygra," he says simply, as if this ought to have been obvious. Noah is in the Climb, after all - who else ought he expect to come across up here? "All of her children are beloved by the fire. It can't harm us - we are all but a part of it." His tail lashes lazily behind him, like he's having to explain this to a child.
'cause I'm selfish, I'm obscene
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Horns: Diamond - they look very similar to #2 in this image.
Noah didn’t know any more than the rumors he had heard, other than Danta calling his goddess by name and declaring himself her child. The demigod didn’t quite understand if all Ancients were children of Durga, or if he stood before her demigod. ”Are all Ancients impervious to fire?” he asked, lifting a brow as the magma rippled thickly with the movement of Danta’s feet.
Sweat beaded on Noah’s forehead and he wiped it with the back of his hand. He wasn’t used to being in the Climb for so long, but exploration and information gathering sometimes meant the sacrifice of ones comfort. He would much rather be on the tundra, or exploring the new aspects of Halo that Rae completed.
"That is what I just said, isn't it?" Danta says with a raise of his brows, like Noah is being particularly slow about all of this. Crouching in the magma, he reaches out to run his fingers through it like it's some kind of an affectionate pet; it's always good to keep the blood hot, he finds. "Yes," he adds, just in case Noah misinterprets him somehow. "All Ancients are impervious to fire."
Gazing up at the Sentinel, he of course notices the beading of sweat on his brow, a crooked smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Struggling?" he asks. "Maybe you should scurry back off to your snowballs in Halo. Exploring the Climb can be a stuffy business." Stuffy; cooked alive; it's all the same to those who weren't Ancients, right?
'cause I'm selfish, I'm obscene
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Horns: Diamond - they look very similar to #2 in this image.
Lava popped and bubbled near the Sentinel and he shifted again, growing more and more uncomfortable surrounded by the liquid flame. As Danta spoke, again, Noah’s cheeks immediately burned red. He wasn’t sure if it would be easy to pick up on with the flush that already covered his face from merely being in the Climb, but either way Noah was now uncomfortably warm before this Ancient stranger.
“Hm.” Noah said, lips closed tightly together. Embarrassed enough at his own inability to hear and understand (or the inability of his writer to…er..read), Noah lifted his chin slightly and thumbed the compass in his pocket. Leaving Danta alone, in the lava, and Noah back in Halo without a breath full passing through him.
