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!
who are these people? I just woke up in my underwear
Listen, okay? Listen.
Mateo went to sleep on his own schooner, under his own blankets, and he'll swear it to anyone around. (Except there's no one around, so he's telling the birds and budding flowers and the rush of water through the Stone Symphony instead).
"Somebody must have kidnapped me from my bed, and placed me on a skyship to the Greatwood. That is the only logical explanation." The fact that his voice is husky with a hangover and he's still a bit unsteady on his knees in the mud feet is mere coincidence.
"But it is fine," he is explaining to some fragrant smelling grass sprouting along the riverbank. "I will sit here until the next ship comes along, and you will keep me company, and then I will fly home again. Affare?"
no liquor left on the shelf I should probably introduce myself
Delivering packages to the Greatwood was usually a pain in the ass for the Halovian native. At least, delivering anything to anyone who didn't live in a major city and who also lived in a tree in a forest full of trees was a pain in the ass. Finding the damn places always took forever, and Tal usually got lost a half-dozen times or so along the way.
Like today.
The Peregrine wasn't the best method for traversing a forest but at least it got Tal over the numerous streams and rivers that wanted to drown him in unfrozen water. He was sailing a little above the tree tops when he spotted someone down below on the bank of the river, visible through the still partly-bare branches and quickly went to work the sail and bring the trim little boat down to bob above the riverbank. The ground anchor went over the edge first, followed by a rope ladder over the side, and finally a scruffy young man with dark hair and pale eyes who peered warily at the fellow sitting on the ground. "Hey! D'you know where Mrs. Tanglewicky's house is?"
The man seemed fascinated with some sort of grass and Tal edged a little closer, surreptitiously trying to see what was so special about it.
who are these people? I just woke up in my underwear
"Now, then, there is no need for you to be trying to climb into the river," Mateo is telling the sweetgrass, blissfully unaware of the small ship passing overhead. He's already reaching out to carefully extract a few of the plants that are a bit too close to the churning waters when Tal appears (Mateo plans to transplant them to a more stable part of the bank, and also to perhaps take a sample for himself).
The sound of a voice has him jumping a bit and glancing up, only to instantly squint against the blue of the sky. "Nnn? Oh, hello Tal," he says smoothly - because of course the mind inside the young man's body remembers the courier and his mischievous walking palm, even if he had been much more of an actual child at the time.
"Mrs. Who?" He shakes his head slowly. "I am just visiting these days, sorry. I live full time in Stormbreak now."
no liquor left on the shelf I should probably introduce myself
Tal blinked at being recognized and opened his mouth, then snapped it closed again as he tried to wrack his brains for who this man was. He was shit at remembering names, sure, but he was usually really good at faces. But this face wasn't ringing any bells. There was a hint of something - someone? - almost familiar about him but nothing that the courier could put his thumb on.
"Uh. Hi," he said instead, trying to buy himself time. Surely he could figure it out if he had a few minutes to really think about it!
At the mention of Stormbreak he perked up, coming a little closer and crouching down to tickle the grass with his fingers distractedly. "Oh, hey, d'you know Finn Rosand... uh... Rosan'plants? He's an investigator in Stormbreak!" Maybe he was even famous by now!
who are these people? I just woke up in my underwear
Excuse you, Tal, but it has not been scientifically proven in Stormbreak that talking to plants is beneficial for the human as well as the flora. And besides, wasn't someone chatting to his walking palm, once upon a time? Harrumph, and so on.
Sitting back on his heels and then instantly regretting it and shifting to slouch on the riverbank instead, Mateo sets his little unearthed treasures to one side while he scoops away some soft earth to make their new homes. "Mm?" Squinting across at Tal this time since they're at least near enough both at ground level, he thinks for a second before it dawns on him.
"Oh, Rosencrantz. Yeah, he is my best friend's father," he says, as cheerfully as a stranded and hungover man can sound. "So what have you been up to? What are you delivering to Mrs. Tinglebutt?"
no liquor left on the shelf I should probably introduce myself
Tal didn't know much about any fancy science, but he would remind Mateo to put some respect on Petunia's name. She wasn't just any walking palm. She was Queen Petunia I, first of her name and her kind, and way cooler than any dumb grass. It was completely different!
But since he was already crouching down, and since the stranger seemed to like the weird grass, Tal figured it couldn't hurt to pull away some of the weeds that were trying to crowd the little clumps out.
Mateo's correction was met with a roll of the courier's eyes but an agreeable nod. "Yeah, that's r--wait, what? He..." Oh yeah. Finn had mentioned something about a kid back during his short-lived stay in Halo. Tal wrinkled his nose. "Huh. Thought his kid was younger. Unless he's got more." With a shrug he pulled another tenacious little nettle and tried to figure out where the hail this guy knew him from.
"Mm. Doin' the job, mostly. Dunno what's in the package. It's none o' my business." Discretion was part of the job, too, after all. "What about you? Who're you visitin' in the Greatwood?" ...Out here on the riverbank in the middle of nowhere.
who are these people? I just woke up in my underwear
Smiling to see that he has enticed Tal, for whatever reason, into tending to the sweetgrass with him, Mateo carefully pats the struggling plants into place with hands that are skilled even when they're a little shaky from the hangover. "Hm? Oh no, it is just Everest. He and I were young up until the war ended. Then we just..." Letting out an upward inflecting whistle to indicate the trajectory of their growth, he sits back and wipes his dirty hands on a brightly coloured handkerchief he produces from his pocket.
"Oh, that sounds boring. You ought to take at least a little peek," he chastises with a playful grin. "And I am not visiting anyone in particular. I fell asleep on the wrong boat, so I have to wait for the next one to take me back home." Shrugging as if this is a regular occurrence (it is) or just one of those things (again, it is), he lets his fingers flutter over the newly planted sweetgrass. Hopefully it's happy in its new home.
no liquor left on the shelf I should probably introduce myself
Tal paused as the story ran its course, narrowing his eyes at the man beside him and peeeering intently at the mention of another surprise!adulthood. He didn't know many kids, and most of those were back in Halo. In fact, the only other children who might know his name were, uh... no one and that one kid from the Oerwoud...
"Holy shit! You're Matthew!" he blurted out, totally getting the name right this time. "Frey's balls, no wonder y'look familiar." He could see it now: the curl of Remi's hair above Ronin's straight nose, though the dreamy, distracted look was all the kid's own.
Or maybe that was just the hangover.
Tal shook his head in wonder and pulled out another weed, tossing it over his shoulder into the Symphony and distractedly patting the dirt more firmly back down around the grass clump he'd been saving from the intruder. Awkwardly ignoring the mischief Matthew tried to tempt him into he instead snorted at the tale and grinned in spite of himself. "You're lucky they're not makin' y'work for your passage back'n forth. Stormbreak's a long sail from here, kid." ...Could he still call him 'kid' when he was almost as old as the courier? Fuck. All this aging up made his head hurt. "Say, don't s'pose your dad - the Remi one - still lives around here, huh?" Actually... he hadn't heard a peep about the Lullaby since the War ended. Just Ronin - who could be counted on for a good snowball fight!
who are these people? I just woke up in my underwear
Holy shit, he really isn't Matthew(!) but in all honestly, the young Taliesin has been called so many different names - usually while inebriated - that he takes it with a sunny, dimpled smile and a nod. "I am," he confirms, "but you can call me Mateo. Everybody else does."
Shifting to scoot a little further up the riverbank now that he has saved some sweetgrass and he has a real life person to talk to and pass the time, Mateo's grin turns just a touch self-deprecating and he rubs at his forehead. "Don't I know it," he agrees. "I suppose I am still riding on the coat tails of my father being Commander, even though he hasn't been for over a year now."
But hey, nobody has questioned it, and so neither will he.
As for his Remi dad, the boy shakes his head in response to Tal's question. "He and my pa moved up into the Cordillera after what happened with Caido," he explains. "They lifted their entire houseboat out of the Symphony and took it with them. How come? Did you think he would know where Mrs. Tumblewonky lives?"
no liquor left on the shelf I should probably introduce myself
"Oh, yeah. Mateo. Isn't that what I--?" He wrinkled his nose and then shrugged, determined that this time he'd remember the kid(??)'s name properly. He was almost cute in a 'holy fuck your dads are scary' kind of way, like Flora, and Tal made sure to keep a respectful distance between them because there was a misunderstanding he wouldn't survive.
Continuing to poke at the sweetgrass patch while Mateo revealed the secret of his success, the courier just snorted and flashed him a wry grin. "Work that angle while y'can, I guess." It wouldn't work on Tal, but-
"Well, fuck." The courier sat back on his heels, flummoxed. "The fuckin' Draig?" Exhaling sharply, he reached up to rub the back of his neck (leaving a streak of dirt) and scowled down at the grass. "Yeah, thought he might know her, since I kept runnin' into him out in th'woods." The first place he'd met him, at the edge of the Greatwood, he'd been scared half out of his wits by the demigod appearing out of the shadows like a ghost.
...
Oh. Oh! Tal straightened, eyes bright with new energy as he looked at Mateo again. "So you need a ride back t'Stormbreak, yeah? An' I need to talk t'your dad about some magic stuff. Don't suppose y'can put in a good word with 'im an' ask 'im to meet me somewhere less dragon-y? I dunno if he'll remember me but..." Tal shrugged, his grin going lopsided. "Whaddya say? Can we deal?"
who are these people? I just woke up in my underwear
It's a shame, because Tal is cute in a your skyboat is bigger than mine and I don't know how to feel about it kind of way. Alas, those waters will have to remain uncharted for now, mostly by virtue of Mateo having no clue that there's a potential for chemistry beyond the ones still burning through his system.
Crossing his legs and nodding emphatically in response to Tal's very, very reasonable reaction to his fathers deciding to live up at god-dragon-war-mountain, Mateo leans back on his hands. "Sorry to disappoint. If you are really stuck, perhaps I could channel a spirit to see if they know the way?" he suggests.
But then there's an excitable courier making him an offer he can't and won't refuse in his state, even if he's not sure Remi will be in the mood to see anyone, dragony or not. "I will do my best," he says with a nod. "If he has met you before and he did not threaten to kill you, he might consider a meeting."
no liquor left on the shelf I should probably introduce myself
Tal thought about the offer seriously for a moment, but in the end he shook his head morosely. "Nah. Thanks, though. I'll keep lookin' a while longer." Worst case scenario, he'd head back to Sidhe Village and hire a guide. He'd been hoping to avoid the expense, but he had a reputation to maintain and sometimes that meant taking one on the chin.
Or the tradegoods. Whatever.
Which suddenly seemed less of a loss when Mattheweo agreed without further haggling. Sure, there was the lack of guarantee that a meeting would happen, but it was the best Tal could hope for and he knew it. "Great!" He grinned and bounced to his feet, managing to avoid stepping on the sweetgrass they'd been carefully tending to. He stretched out a hand to help the other man up, nodding back towards the skyboat floating at anchor nearby. "Welcome aboard the Peregrine, ki--uh, Mateo. Soon as I get Mrs. Tumblewicky's package to 'er, we can head for Stormbreak!"
And Mateo could send a raven to his dad with, hopefully, a good word for the courier and a request for a consultation.
who are these people? I just woke up in my underwear
Right in the tradegoods, Tal.
"Suit yourself," Mateo says sunnily, and in all honesty he's a little glad for the other man's refusal; he's not sure whether channelling will result in him throwing up, and he'd rather remain ignorant to that knowledge.
Still, his stomach does churn a bit to watch Tal bounce to his feet (did the ground move and sway when he did that? Surely not), and he gladly accepts the help. Stretching slowly and purposefully once all 5'7 of him is upright, he fills his lungs with fresh air and pastes on a smile for the trip.
"Grazie, Tal. I do not think my ship has a name." Or an anchor, for that matter.
Welp.
~FIN
no liquor left on the shelf I should probably introduce myself
