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!
Darkeye had dedicated himself to his forge again after the buildings were standing again. It had been a year since Deimos had split the great tooth of the land shark. So long he had been untouched. But now it was time to get back to work. He cleaned up his forge and said a short prayer to Kor. After that he put on the protector again and started to slowly shape the bone with a mixture of water and heat, but he didn't know yet how exactly he should continue. Maybe he should saw it into pieces or rather roll it. But what if the bone breaks. No matter he needed help but where from. He would have to start now he had to be ready because now Sunjata could come back at any time and make his claim in dne ground valid. So he put up a sign in front of the forge so that the people passing by could ask for help and advice with the tooth.
Trinket strolled through the city streets, looking this way and that. People walked past her, going about their daily lives. Boring. She looked across at the vacant eyes of the other children, those who appeared to be her age. They cringed back from her gaze. Boring.
An unexpected sense of warmth touched her pale skin. She turned to see the blacksmith's forge, radiating heat and energy. Curious. She knew of blacksmiths, of their tools, but she had never seen one before.
Her black glassy eyes took in the scene, spotting the unexpected sign. Someone inside wanted help. She didn't quite understand why, and that made her curious.
She stepped inside.
Her bare feet strode across the floor. Her doll dragged along behind her, held by one hand. The doll's black glass eyes stared outward from its pale porcelain face. The face was turned up towards the blacksmith. The flames of the forge reflected in the eyes of doll and girl alike, lighting each with a tinge of red.
Two pairs of red-tinged eyes studied the blacksmith.
11-29-2022, 05:47 PM (This post was last modified: 11-29-2022, 05:47 PM by Darkeye.)
DARKEYE
Darkeye didn't bother to look up from the tooth, he was too busy with his work. But when he heard the voice of the little girl, he looked up.
"Hello to you too, young lady," he said clearly to remind the lady of her manners. "Why I need help with a tooth. Because it is a task that I cannot do alone. It was very big and I have to get it into a certain shape and that is very difficult with bones. If you know something, I'm open to your thoughts."He cleared his throat. He was too strict, he realized afterward.
"I'll introduce myself first. My name is Darkeye and may I offer you some tea or water?" His gaze fell on the doll, he had seen worse, but there was something about this girl that made him uncomfortable, he just couldn't put it into words.
"My name is Trinket," the little girl replied, since the man had offered his name first. "I'm not thirsty."
She stepped closer, looking at the tooth. It was rather large. "What shape does it need to be?"
She touched the tooth with her mind, giving it a simple command. It moved this way and that, rolling itself one way, then the other, so that Trinket could view it better. She had never seen a tooth like this before. It was interesting.
Very little held her interest. So this was worth investigating further.
The girl looked back from the tooth up towards the man. She pulled the doll up to her chest. Its head swiveled around to continue piercing Darkeye with its gaze. Both doll and child held perfectly still while Trinket awaited the man's response.
He wondered how Trinket did it, but it was probably magic or something like that, "I'm very pleased to meet you."
He briefly thought about how to explain it to the little girl. "It was a giant shark that could only be killed with a lot of effort. This tooth was part of my reward for killing the prey," he said calmly and tried to show her the outside mass from his books.
Then he put down the axes he had made. "Frey gave me the task of cutting the tooth into a shape that would fit the axe blade, but since I have two of them, it has already been divided. Now getting it into shape is more difficult." He explained. Carving bones was all well and good, but shaping them was something else.
Trinket looked down at the tooth. She tilted her head one way, then the other. Her doll, held against her chest, mimicked the movements.
"Axes are for cutting things. What do you need to cut with a tooth axe?"
She studied the tooth carefully. It was not shaped like an axe. She knew, quite generally, what an axe looked like. But not specifically. Not the way a smith would know it.
Still, she decided to try. She commanded the tooth: bend.
The tooth flexed into a curved, half-moon shape. Perhaps not the shape of an axe blade. But as close as she could picture it in her mind.
His gaze fell on the doll the girl was still creepy in but he didn't know how to describe it. Was it her magic or something else? Almost like a too-playful god. But why shouldn't Ludo even father a child after the war?
"An axe is versatile. Whether it's for carving, felling trees, making a spark for a campfire, or just splitting an enemy's head. If you know how to do it, you can also throw it well and it flies amazingly well if you work it out properly." he tried to explain. But he liked them a lot, in his home, it counted as a test of maturity to forge his axe.
His eyes grew wide when he saw what she was doing. It took a moment for Darkeye to realize what she was doing. Then he hurried away and picked up the axes for which the blades were meant. "I don't know how you do it, but that's what they're for." He tried to explain calmly.
Trinket considered the blacksmith's words carefully. Her definition of an axe, the knowledge she had been born with, only told her what an axe was. Never had she considered the wide range of uses such as the man described.
There was, it seemed, still much more of the world that she did not understand.
She watched with a blank expression as the man brought over the axes. She tilted her head to the side, studying them. Seeing one in person was different than simply having the knowledge of one. The shape, the detail, was more clear now.
Giving the slightest of nods, she gave another command to the shark tooth, telling it to mimic the shape before it. The tooth flexed and moved, creaking a bit as it did its best to conform to the shape of the axe. There were limits to how flexible an object under her control could be--she could never have the tooth twist itself into a knot, or bend into a complete circle. But the simple curve of the axe blade was close enough that the tooth could be coaxed into that shape without breaking.
She studied her work carefully, commanding the tooth to bend a little more this way, a little less that way. She was inexpert in such work, and the result was far from perfect, but surely the blacksmith would be able to use his tools to make the necessary adjustments.
Once she was satisfied with the shape of the tooth, she released it from her command. The tooth fell still, retaining its new shape, but moving no more.
Trinket looked up at the blacksmith, meeting his eyes. The doll's eyes had never once strayed from his, even while the girl worked.
The girl waited silently, voicing no need for approval, simply curious as to what the man would do next.
Darkeye first watched what Trinket was doing. He was bright with excitement. He did not think that there was such a kind of magic. But at the same time he was disappointed. He wanted to do it with his craftsmanship. Of course, he still had to grind it and rework runes here and there. But what she did seemed strange.
He took out a small book with a black panther on the front and tried to write everything down. Every move she made. The tooth that had refused to listen to him for so long. She apparently spoke the language of bones.
But when he noticed the doll that started in pauselessly. He threw the doll a look back with his one black eye, as he normally threw it only to beings who deserved to die. The doll made him nervous. After that, the look disappeared - it was a matter of fractions of a second. But then Darkeye's smile returned. "Thank you Trinket, you have helped me a lot. I can finally visit Frey again and meet her again after a year, I thank you from the bottom of my heart," he said kindly.
Trinket showed no signs of response to either the thanks or the praise. But she did look up at the mention of the nature god. "You know Frey?" she asked. She herself had not yet met any other god besides Ludo.
She recalled that he had mentioned this was a task for Frey. Curious. She tilted her head to the side, considering this information. For a long moment, she was silent. She pondered the meaning of the gods. There were many questions regarding them. Many things to learn.
The question she finally settled on, for now, was, "Why did Frey want you to make an axe?"
She pondered again the uses of an axe, as the blacksmith had described them. Cutting trees. Carving. Killing. The last use was the one that most intrigued her.
Not having moved a single muscle for a long moment, not even to blink, she finally added, "Does Frey want you to kill someone?"
Darkeye smiled and rubbed the back of her head with one hand. "Know is too much. I asked her to help me. Just like I asked other gods. Voice as well as Ludo but Frey was one of the few who understood what I was about." He said honestly.
At that, he was now shaking his head. "I begged her for instructions on how to build it. So I can do the work I swore to do. An oath from my time before Caido. To my god Kor, the god of war, peace, and blood. Even though I am here in Caido my oath still counts and Frey understood that" he said kindly and hoped that his words would make it more understandable.
At these words, he became very calm. "No, I don't think she wants that. But I want to protect people who are important to me. Sometimes you have to kill for that. Like I had to kill that giant shark because otherwise, it would have caused too much damage. The dead one had a lot to do a year ago. But the times are troubled and I prefer to be ready before something bad happens Trinket. There are things that not many should worry about. But someone has to do it. I try to solve crimes. To find out what happened so that it can't happen again, and that can be dangerous sometimes," that was one aspect of Kor explained to him briefly.
Trinket gave the smallest of nods. "You have to kill to win the game. I know that." The mershark had taught her about the killing game. "You need the axe to kill so that you can win. I understand."
"I like games," she said, holding her doll against her chest. "But I don't have an axe. Should I get one?"
She looked around at the various tools of the forge. She didn't know how to use them. She understood their purpose, the design behind each. But to know is not the same as being able to do. But the tools were interesting. Many types, many designs, many uses. Variety was always curious.
She gave another tiny, almost imperceptible nod. And it was possible, though hard to see, that the doll might have mimicked the movement with its tiny porcelain head.
His look now became very very serious."Killing is not a game. It is something that haunts you forever. It's not something you should do lightly, and anyone who thinks this is a game doesn't understand life. Taking a life changes you forever. It can't be undone," he said with unfortunately too much experience.
He took a breath and tried to calm down a bit. "You just try to learn things that don't necessarily have to do with killing, they're much more interesting. Making things. Making plants grow is way more awesome than destroying things and also more exhausting and no one likes it too easy." he said with a friendlier tone.
He puffed once. "for what purpose do you need an axe?" he said in a serious voice.
"Why does killing change you forever?" Trinket asked, her tone flat and emotionless, except perhaps for a tinge of curiosity. "I would think it would change the other person. Forever."
She stared deep into his eyes with these words. The flames of the forge reflected in her dark eyes, giving them a slight tinge of red.
She stared at him silently. Silent. Silent. She moved not a muscle, waiting quietly as thoughts churned around in her head. As she waited and thought, the doll's head turned completely around, watching for a moment as a passerby walked past the doorway to the forge. When the passerby was gone, the doll's head completed its turn, once again staring up at the blacksmith with the same black, glassy eyes as the girl.
Finally, Trinket said, "I need an axe to carve, fell trees, or split an enemy's head."
She awaited his response, her gaze never wavering, her black eyes never blinking.
