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!
On further consideration, they probably should have done this while they'd both been in Torchline.
Tal had time to think that through as he pushed the tables and chairs out of the way to make a sort of impromptu sparring ring. The Barracks might have been more convenient, but he rarely went there anymore. The Guildhall was only slightly less uncomfortable, but he'd take any port in a storm.
Besides, he liked the Guildhall, and he didn't spend nearly enough time here anymore. It was an opportunity to kill two ningo with one stone.
Oh, and that bit about Torchline? He'd heard they had a pretty sweet fountain that spouted Healing water. Probably would have been smart for what he needed, but he'd lingered there long enough what with... well, everything he'd been doing. It had been more than time to come home for a little while.
Dusting his hands off, he looked around, pleased with his work. Now he just needed a volunteer.
Whistling cheerfully to himself, he set about organizing some of the more recent records while he waited to see who would walk in the door next.
As Sah walked towards the guildhall's door, he paused. The sound of squeaking furniture and general ruckus reached him through. Glancing down at the two wolves beside him, he shrugged before pushing the door open. Whatever he'd been expecting, it hadn't been Tal rearranging the guildhall.
Lilly's ear flicked in reflected curiosity as she took in the scene. Beside her, Pad scrunched his nose and let out a rumble of disproval. The yearling wolf did not appreciate his secondary den being disturbed.
"Talyson, what are you doing?" Sah eyed the courier as he gestured towards their surroundings. "It's a little early for a Flowerbirth cleaning."
Tal's whistle fell silent immediately and he grimaced at the sound of his full name, which was definitely not what he'd been expecting from Sah, of all people. Deimos, maybe. But Sah?
And why was it always Sah? It was like the gods had it out for him, always throwing them together!
But at least he and the Jester had a good long tradition by now of training together, so maybe it wasn't all that surprising.
Straightening from where he'd pushed the last chair, Tal put his hands on his hips and surveyed his work, nodding in satisfaction. "Makin' a trainin' circle, Sah," he explained, using the other man's name and wrinkling his nose a little at how weirdly short it was. "It's a little chilly t'be doin' this outside today." Or, well, it would have been for people who didn't have items and abilities to negate that, but never you mind, Sah. Tal couldn't have predicted that the hunter would have been the first one in! "An' I was lookin' for a partner t'help me sharpen my knifework."
Sah had used the courier's full name to try and catch the man off guard. And although Tal's reaction proved his success, it was a double-edged sword. The name felt wrong in his mouth and hearing his own name echoes back made him wince. Never doing that again, nope.
Tal's explanation gained a raised brow, "So you decided to turn the guild into your own." It wasn't that cold, was it? Sah had barely noticed. He was perfectly content in his light jacket. Lilly and Pad seemed fine too. Maybe the courier was just thin blooded?
"Knifework?" Sah hummed under his breath in thought. "Well, might as well join you." He smirked before adding a customary jab, "I hardly ever use knives for combat so you're probably the safest person to try and fight one with."
"It's quiet an' no one else was usin' it today," Tal shot back, prickling up like a hedgehog at the implied criticism - or teasing, whichever it was. And several of his other potential training partners, including Hotaru (though probably not Deimos; they hadn't trained together since the breakup) were both guildmates and far more susceptible to the cold than he was. He was making an effort to be polite about his request.
And practical, as Sah was about to find out.
"Hardy har har." Tal deflected the jab with a roll of his eyes and sarcastic laughter. "Only trick is, Frey needs someone t'bleed from my blade. So I figured the fewer layers, the better. That way we're not sewin' up as much clothing afterwards." See? Practical reasons for practicing indoors today!
Sah's lips twitched as Tal continued to prickle and defend his actions. The Abandoned could see the logic in the courier's choices, not that he'd ever admit it. "Sure. Let me just go grab a knife from the armory." He couldn't remember whose idea it was to add one to the guildhall but it was a clever one.
Retrieving a dagger, Sah returned to Tal's impromptu training grounds and stepped into a fighting stance. "Well? Come on." He waited for Tal to make the first move, eyes watching ever muscle twitch the courier gave. With his novice knife skills, Sah refused to take any chances. There was no way he was making this easy for his friend rival, not even for a quest.
At least Sah stopped picking at him and Tal took that as a tentative win (even if the hunter hadn't meant it as such). He nodded and shrugged out of his own sweater so he was down to pants and his short-sleeved undershirt for the fight. It wasn't exactly fair to ask his partner to take a cut if he wasn't willing to do the same, after all.
His own knife - the one with the lucky blink hare's foot dangling from the diamond pommel; Sah would recognize the one - was already in his hand as the hunter stepped into the ring and Tal gave his friecolleague a toothy grin. "What? Got somewhere else t'be all of a sudden?" Even before he'd finished speaking Tal was darting in at an angle like Deimos had taught him, lunging to Sah's right even as the knife came around towards the hunter's chest in feint that diverted at the last second to try and nick the Sah's wrist instead of his body. His free hand hovered around the level of his chest, partially extended and ready to slap away any return blows towards his own torso.
Sah raised a brow at the familiar knife, guessing that the courier was on a quest to improve his weapon. Letting out a chuckle, the hunter shrugged, "Don't I always?" Between his job, setting up the academy, taking care of his kids, and retrieving Pad from rooftops, he was certainly busy.
Tal's made the first move, but his feint was given away by a twitch of muscle, catching on, Sah moved his wrist out of harms' way. More specifically, he moved to grab Tal's own wrist and immobilize the courier. As he attempted to do so, the hunter used his own knife to go for Tal's ribs. If he successfully grabbed the other man's wrist, Sah was banking on him twisting to try and free himself, leaving his ribs exposed.
"Yeah? Feel free to run away when you've had too much," the courier taunted back, pleased that he could, in some small way, add to Sah's list of problems alongside Pad.
Overeager, he made a rookie mistake and gave Sah time to react that the hunter turned to his own advantage with an easy dodge of his wrist from the danger zone. Before Tal could recover he found his own wrist grabbed and though he managed to twist far enough away to avoid more than a light slash against his ribs it was still deep enough to make him wince as first blood was drawn, clamping his teeth down against the instinctive yelp. "Tch! Alright, my turn--!"
He wasn't strong enough to contest Sah directly by trying to jerk his arm free, but he continued his momentum to step past and behind the hunter, attempting to put his chest to Sah's back and grab the other man's knife arm from behind in turn to prevent him from taking another stab at the courier.
"This won't take long. You just say 'yield'." Sah fired back, lying through his teeth. Talyson had grown into a good opponent over the seasons. A spar with him could take time before one of them yielded. It would certainly take more than a single cut.
As the first bout fell in his favor, Sah smirked, "First blood", he declared with satisfaction. Tal moved, trying to circle the Abandoned and while he did succeed in turning, that's where is plan fell through. Sah quickly let go of the courier's wrist and tossed his knife to his now empty right hand. He wasn't as good with is right as his dominant left, but he could still fight.
That left rm that Tal had been attempting to grab reached back in an attempt to grab the front of Tal's shirt. If Sah succeeded, he'd toss Tal forward and hopefully back in front of him.
"You first!" Tal shot back. His confidence had always been greater than his ability to follow through (insert something about his ego writing checks that his body couldn't cash here), but he'd been getting slowly better over the seasons, improving in fits and starts until he could almost live up to his own hype.
Almost.
But he wasn't quite there yet.
He scowled at Sah's smirk, his good humor fading a little as the hunter capitalized on his skill good luck. "Just givin' you a handicap," he boldly declared, lying through his own teeth as he attempted to circle around and pin his partner's arms.
He got his weapon hand back in the process, at least, though it meant his maneuver was foiled. Still, it meant that he was at Sah's back with a free blade even if his knife was still in front of the other man, and Tal wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to duck low and attempt to draw his blade back towards himself, scoring a matching line over Sah's ribs if the other man didn't twist away in time.
The funny thing was that yes, Tal had his knife back. Yet now Sah's knife was in the hand that was closest to Tal's own. Meaning, the hilt was in range. And the hunter couldn't' let the opportunity to fuck with Tal go to waste. Sah twisted, just as the courier predicted, but instead of in an effort to dodge, he made his attack.
The hilt of Sah's knife came down onto Tal's retreating wrist with force. Enough force to send Tal's knife falling to the floor. As the knife fell, the Abandoned completed his 180-turn and held his knife up to rest at Talyson' throat. Raising a brow at the courier he smirked, "Yield? Or do you want to try again?"
The hilt that came down on his hand fucking stung and hit the nerves just right so that even with his best intention to maintain his grip, his fingers spasmed and he felt the weapon fall away before he could close them again.
Which didn't mean that he was paralyzed, or that was going to stand around like a statue while Sah was still moving.
The unexpected pain had weakened his knees and when the weapon fell away Tal just went with it - down, dropping low just in time to avoid Sah's attack so that the hunter's arrogance - and knife - met empty air.
The courier, meanwhile, never stopped moving as he tucked and rolled past his opponent's legs to get behind him again and grabbed up his knife as he went over it. As he popped up out of knife range and spun around - certain Sah would be already turning to face him again in their little dance - he lashed out with a stab at the air between them that couldn't possibly have touched the hunter from several feet away except for the knife's special ability: unless Sah somehow avoided it, he'd end up with a matching cut along his ribs that was the twin to Tal's own. "Funny, was just about to ask you the same question!"
Sah heard something moved through the air and twisted, just not fast enough. The knife grazed his ribs, barely. but still undeniable. The smirk looked just wrong on Tal's face. Forced almost, and it had Sah raising a brow and letting out a snort of laughter. "Sure, sure."
The hunter's grin turned nearly diabolical as he forwent the knife and simply took a single step. A step that put him within in range to headbutt the courier at full force. Because he could. And it would make Tal drop the smirk that was likely hurting the poor courier's face. Sah was nice like that.
