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!
Though things had been peaceful between the regions in the year since the War, Caido was not without its dangers. Its predators.
Its monsters.
A person would be wise to keep themselves in fighting trim, for one never knew when a Sea Panther, Tide Jaguar, Ghost Whale, or worse might appear.
The King of the Mer (and Torchline, more or less, depending on where things were in the timeline) had carved out a few hours to practice with his trident among the colorful geysers of the Rainbow Road. Swimming into the center of a roughly circular collection of them near the shore, the mermanta waited with eyes half-closed as he focused his other senses. When one of the geysers erupted from the waves he spun to face it and let loose a blast of starlit water from his trident to strike the eruption before it could reach its full height.
Or such was the goal. When two of the geysers erupted within heartbeats of each other the task became significantly harder, but Hadama was immersed in his task and in training his reflexes for those times when strength alone would not suffice.
Perhaps it was good for Torchline to have Melita on their side, since occasionally, she defeated monsters, and could be much of one herself. Depending on the day.
She’d stretched her limbs out against the morning gales and sea breeze, contemplating checking out some more colorful rocks to add to her ridiculous collection, with Fangorn close behind and Sila along the wind. The copper youth unfurled her wings and rode the air like the tides, and she seemed peaceful, content, rather than shy and awkward, so the Honeybee didn’t bother the angles of liberation.
Instead, her attention piqued when geysers began to erupt on the horizon. Not a completely normal experience – or at least, not one she’d seen in a while. Brows furrowed, curiosity and nosiness activated, she and her duo launched forward. Imagination peeled and experience bound, she pondered if it was some newfound cretin she could demolish and unfurl.
Until she realized who it was. “Oh, it’s you,” she announced by way of a shrug, as if nothing was amiss to see Hadama practicing amidst the pools of color. Perhaps she should’ve been calling him something else now, given the bizarre political exchanges (were they getting a new leader? What was going on anyway?), but thought better of it. “What’re you doing?”
02-08-2023, 08:05 PM (This post was last modified: 02-09-2023, 07:38 PM by Hadama.)
Melita had been his friend long before he'd been a King. If she had suddenly started calling him 'majesty' or 'highness' or anything of the sort he would have assumed there was some mischief afoot - or been concerned for her health. The familiar voice and the nonchalant greeting brought his training to a pause, webbed ears perking up as he turned to watch the Honeybee and her entourage approach along the colorful rocks of the shore.
"Melita," he called by way of greeting, inclining his head to Fangorn and Sila in turn. "I wish to improve my reflexes." His lips quirked in a rueful smile, far more relaxed around his dear friend than he usually allowed himself to be among others. "The young Mer are faster than I am. I wish to change this." The mermanta had his pride and his vanity, after all, though he tried not to let his frustrations show when the young soldiers - and Kaiden in particular - swam circles around him in the sparring waters.
Though at least when he did connect his opponents tended to feel it.
"What are you doing today?" he asked curiously in turn.
Considering Melita had never addressed any ruler she’d ever known with some special honorific, Hadama could rest easy on that front. Not a lack of respect, but maybe some mild sedition; places of power would still never be able to hold full sway over the Honeybee’s chaotic beliefs and restless spirit. She catered to her own means and measures, and whatever impulses drove them onward.
Her brow arched as she lazily crouched near the water, touching a portion of the warm pool and watching the ripple divulge from her presence. Hearing the admittance of faster Mer caused a snort; presuming some were simply smaller, and snagged at their advantages where they could. Rather than asking how he was going to achieve such motivations, her head tilted vaguely, gilded gaze roaming back to the pool, and then Fangorn and Sila settling on a nearby bank. “Oh, I saw the geysers. Thought something was around again.” To murder or maul, set her in some sort of vigilant and violent direction.
"They provide targets," Hadama explained, gesturing with his trident as another geyser launched a frothy green column towards the sky nearby. "Unpredictable ones." And he didn't need to worry about hurting anything unnecessarily with the trident's starlit energies.
He sensed something of his friend's wild spirit and kinship to chaos in her answer, however. He'd known her long enough to recognize the yearning for violence that was never far from the surface and he tilted his head at her, a slow smile cracking his stoic mien.
"I am something," he pointed out slowly, mischief in his green eyes to match her mayhem. "And you are unpredictable. And it has been a long time since we trained together." A way to while away the time with an old friend, and perhaps to gain something from it while they were at it.
She watched the geyser, arching her brow at its unpredictability – but without a corporeal, tangible form to strike against, save for some potent layers, she’d have no use for them. Only at his other response did she tilt her attention back towards him, the slightest of grins reappearing on her features. “Yeah, but I don’t feel like beating the shit out of you.” There were several others who’d snagged that honor – and unfortunately (or fortunately, she couldn’t quite decide) they weren’t in the midst right now.
But she’d indulge, because sometimes violence was violence and she merely needed to get it out of her system. “What did you have in mind?”
He tilted his head, accepting the honor with a brief flash of teeth; a rare smile for his guide into mischief and pastries. If they were not beating 'the shit' out of each other today, then they would have to find a different direction to turn their proclivities for protection and mayhem, respectively, and for once he didn't need to think too long on it.
"A pack of echo sharks," he rumbled, pointing back towards town with his trident. "I have had them chased off twice. But they continue to hunt near the shore. If they are still there, then we can make the lesson more memorable." Green eyes met gleaming green and he began to swim along the geyser-dotted shore. "This way."
It wasn't long before the cries of "Help!" and "Save me!" rang out from a rainbow-hued inlet up ahead and Hadama nodded in satisfaction to his friend. "Let us hunt," he rumbled, taking a stronger grip in his trident.
The youth, by some rarity, had yet to encounter such echo sharks, and her eyes widened briefly. “Ooh, okay,” accepting the purpose and motive automatically, unbothered and untethered by reasonable provocations. So she and her companions followed along dutifully, mind hastening to decide which weapon would be the best option (staff for up close and personal, the bow for simple obliteration).
She could hear the tell-tale sounds and nuances just ahead, and nearly snorted at the way they’d embodied strangers’ outcries and alarms. It reminded her of a lot of things; LongNight, and the way the monsters had manipulated and deceived, the wayward speaking squirrels amidst the Labyrinth, begging to escort passersby to their doom, and some other factions she couldn’t quite name. She ignored the instinctual pull to try and salvage those wrecked beneath the undulations; wrinkling her nose instead. “Lovely,” she uttered, before selecting her bow, and marching along. “Are they often below the waves?”
"At the surface," Hadama rumbled in answer, emerald eyes narrowing as he spotted the pack cutting through the crystal blue waters ahead. "So their prey can hear them." He paused, considering Melita's anklet and her ability to dance across the surface of the water with her weapons of choice.
"But I can come up from beneath and chase them back up towards you," he suggested, a calm, quiet sort of mayhem gleaming mischievously in his gaze. "If they try to escape."
He waited only long enough for her response before diving and swimming with his belly to the sea floor, a gold-shot shadow against the sand. Trusting Melita's speed and enthusiasm for the task at hand, he paused beneath the pack to make sure she was in position before swimming upwards and taking aim with his trident, letting loose a starlit blast just as the laziest shark swimming idly beneath its brothers realized he was there.
The ones letting out the loudest cries above had set their beady black eyes on Melita and had already begun to cruise towards her, missing the violence below in their own eagerness to hunt.
She didn’t need to be told plans beholden to violence twice, so she adhered with readied aplomb, snagging at a lightning marked arrow from her quiver. “Excellent,” was all the acceptance she’d grant and require, moving to a defined spot along the waves, barefoot and broadened on the surface – waiting for the opportunity to strike.
She’d never seen the creatures before, but wasn’t bothered by their appearance either. A streak of movement and motion was all she needed to hone in her attack – taking aim, narrowing her eyes, and releasing the impending tempest towards the one marking its own intended charge. Only one of them was going to succeed, and the Honeybee had every emboldened decree that it’d be her.
The sharks may have sounded human, but they were only animals. Cunning pack hunters, yes, but unfamiliar with bows and arrows and certainly unprepared for the magical variety. It never occurred to the one charging Melita that she would be able to reach it with a strike before it was in biting distance and so it made no effort to dodge or obfuscate it's line of attack. Her arrow sizzled straight along its path and took the dwarf shark right between its wide-set eyes as it skimmed just below the surface. Even if the initial impact hadn't killed it the electricity that followed surely would have finished the job.
Two more sharks had followed behind the first however, and they split away from their dying leader, curving right and left around Melita in order to catch her in a pincer movement.
Hadama had his own issues to contend with below the waves. The lazy shark had taken his starlight attack to its vulnerable belly and now floated, dazed and helpless, but two more sharks had split from the confused and milling pack to swim down towards the King. He turned to the nearest without hesitation and unleashed a second blast of starlight into its eyes, before setting himself to thrust forward with the tines of his trident at its charging partner.
She didn’t bother hiding the widened smirk engulfing her features as soon as the arrow met its target. A pulse, a snap, a crackle, and the carnivore went down, with others close behind. Unbothered, and perhaps provoked further by the impending challenge, a snarl eclipsed the rest of her face, taunting measures made by a cretin who’d, maybe, earned the right to be such a shithead. “Come on then,” she uttered as they rallied as a pair – offering a veritable confrontation.
She snagged an arrow, quickly rallying the same elemental prowess, and fired it off towards the right cretin first, before turning, twisting quickly, swiftly, not bothering to see if she’d hit the initial. From there, she persisted once more, snagging at another from her quiver, and sending it on drawn strings and persistent anarchy.
The sharks's deceitful hunting cries echoed from opposite sides of Melita but only for a moment. Her first arrow, aimed perhaps too fast, wasn't a killing blow. It stuck into the shark's dorsal fin and might have barely slowed it except that the lightning within crackled through the beast and left it dazed and floating in the water, twitching in the aftershocks but no longer a threat. The second shark had earned her fuller attention and this one, closer than its brother, was easier to hit at the range it had reached. Her arrow pierced its eye and it didn't even have time to realize it was dead as it carried forward on mindless momentum before turning belly-up.
Hadama's first starlight blast struck true, blinding its target and leaving the shark thrashing in pain and sensory overload as it veered away to recover. The mermanta had no time to follow up, however, before the second had nearly reached him. It was young and foolish and attempted a straight-on attack, jaws gaping, but the merman thrust his spear between that deadly serrated circle with a grunt of effort and let loose a second blast that seared down the shark's throat at point-blank range.
One might think the rest of the pack would have had enough but they weren't particularly bright and the fresh blood in the water was stirring them into a mindless hunger. Besides, they still had the advantage in numbers, and they instinctively split to divide the prey. Three arced towards Melita, diving below the water this time and intending to leap up from beneath her while the remaining two charged Hadama, all niceties in hunting tactics forgotten as the blood of their brethren clouded their minds into a killing frenzy.
She didn’t have time to relish the outcome before there were more – and with an irritated eyeroll, she huffed. “All right, fine, you fuckwads,” glancing at their wayward intentions. Her arrows wouldn’t be enough to smoke and fume beneath the waves, not with the way the sharks were traversing.
So instead, for she wouldn’t call it a retreat, she ran towards a larger outcropping of rocks jutting out from the shore. From there, she’d gain a vantage point. Sila, in turn, followed too, gaining confidence from her companion.
Only when the Honeybee reached a designated spot did she turn back, presuming the creatures would’ve followed on their siege, firing off another arrow charged with electricity, while Sila unfurled a modest bellowing of fire in their direction.
