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!
"...Sure," Fox says with a slow nod, figuring that it was a more concise explanation than anything he had come up with, even if it didn't entirely cover what he was getting at. With any luck Tal would never meet any of the old-guard Ancients to find out the nuances of their hangry moments.
Awkward it might be, but at least Tal does steer away from the subject of murder and feasting, even if he doesn't lead them anywhere productive. Luckily, Fox has the sense to pick up on his cues. "Did you want to head back into town together?" he asks, nodding at their respective allogator trophies. "We can prove our hunt was successful, at least."
And he'd very much like to get out of his cold, wet clothes.
"Are you from the Grounds as well?" he asks, happy to carry the conversation where needed.
Thank goodness one of them had the sense Rae gave little green apples. Tal nodded in relief at the suggestion and looked back at Boreal, who had clamped onto the allogator's tail with no intention of letting go. "Bring it along, then," he told her with a grin, and she began to dutifully tug at the monster, though she didn't get very far.
She'd find him when she got tired of the game, however, and Tal turned back to Fox with a shake of his head as they began the long walk back to civilization. "Nah. I'm Halovian," he answered proudly. "Born an' bred. But I'm a courier, so I move around a lot." His mouth pulled into a faint grimace of thought. "Actually, I'm thinkin' of expandin' my business into Torchline soon. Things've been pretty busy since the War ended, an' all." He glanced over to the other man curiously. "Y'ever been outside o' the Grounds?"
Smiling over his shoulder at Boreal, Fox watches the dragon at work for a few moments before he concentrates on navigating the (still relatively swampy) riverbank back to solid ground. "Have you had your companion long?" he wonders, and perhaps there's a hint of something close to loneliness in his expression before he squashes it down to pay attention to his acquaintance and the way home.
"Oh, damn," he says with a raise of his eyebrows. "You're a bit far out even for a courier, aren't you?" Fox has never been to Halo, naturally, and now that he's an Ancient he doubts he ever will. "Is it as cold as people say?"
But then it's away from the frigid continent and down to Torchline, and he shakes his head gently. "I haven't," he confesses. "I found a shrine to Dygra here, so I've not even been to the Climb."
Tal ambled slowly along the higher, drier ground until Fox could catch up with him, and he glanced back towards the stubborn dragon fondly at the question. He had to scratch his nose in thought for a moment (leaving a small smear of dirt behind) as he tallied up years and life events before he finally nodded. "Eight years or so, yeah. Found an abandoned nest out on the Sea o' Glass durin' my first solo run with th'dogs. Hers was the only egg still warm so... I took her with me. We've been t'gether ever since."
Which included quite a bit of travel around the world in recent years, and Tal grinned. "What with th'portals bein' down an' all, I got a skyboat t'help me move deliveries all over Caido." He looked proud as dog with a bone at that, and nodded confirmation at Fox's next question. "Sure is! Mebbe not so much, since the War... there's actually some green places for the first time in... I dunno. Centuries, at least? But it still doesn't really thaw much, even in Longheat."
He wrinkled his nose thoughtfully at hearing that the new?old? mysterious goddess had a shrine this far from the Climb, then shrugged philosophically. "Think you'll ever leave?" he asked curiously instead.
"It doesn't seem to have done either of you any harm," Fox says with a wry smile, of Boreal and Tal having been together for so long. Finally stepping up and onto the dirt track which doubles as solid ground, the hunter takes a second to check himself over and stamp the worst of the muck from his (completely ruined but oh well) boots, before picking up his pace to catch up with the courier.
His brow furrows at the mention of the portals - he hadn't been sad to see them go - before the expression morphs into something more like curiosity. "A skyboat? I see them going over towards the Greatwood sometimes," he says. "Never been on one, though." But who knows - maybe that will change, as long as the Ancients don't find a way to make pariahs of themselves.
"I think I'd like to one day," he says slowly, of leaving the Grounds. "There's a whole world out there I haven't seen. But things can still be dangerous here, so it would feel wrong to leave the people one hunter down."
Tal snorted in appreciation of the little joke and paused while Fox stamped his boots clean... ish. Cleaner, at least, even if the bar for that was practically underground. Boreal stubbornly continued to try and drag the allogator behind them while the men talked and the courier slanted a curious glance at the Ancient beside him.
"Well, I don't run a pleasure cruise, but I could prob'ly take a passenger where he wanted t'go, for a reasonable price." He scratched his nose, flaking off some of the mud that had gotten splashed there earlier as he looked at the sky instead of at the man he was possibly offering a ride to. "The Peregrine can take y'about anywhere, really, when y'feel you can get away." Though a Halovian could appreciate duty and the desire to protect one's home. "Still dealin' with leftover monsters? Or is it more..." He waved vaguely back towards the allogator, "just regular toothy critters?"
"That's good, because I'm not sure how well I'd do on a pleasure cruise anyway," Fox admits with something of a self-deprecating grin tugging at his lips. The kindest of folks would refer to him as a workaholic, but obsessive is probably more apt when it comes to doing anything but taking a break. "Thanks for the offer - I'll certainly think on it, if I ever feel like it's time to branch out. Do you come to the Grounds often on the... the Peregrine, did you call it?"
And is Fox imagining a small, sleek skyship with sails in the tawny colour of a falcon's wings? Perhaps. Listen, he doesn't get out much.
"Mm? Oh, I think it's just regular toothy critters these days," he remarks of the subject of his hunts. "And I hope it stays that way. Granted, a wicker woman or a banshee are no joke, even if they're regular." But there have been no weird and horrific occurrences at Longnight, if that's what Tal means.
Tal couldn't help but grin back in understanding. He wasn't really a 'pleasure cruise' kind of guy, either, but since the Peregrine was designed more for speed than luxury they were both in luck! "I mean, the drink with li'l umbrellas in 'em are okay, but the rest..." He shrugged eloquently. It turned into an awkward nod as his roundabout offer was accepted, and he turned to Fox's question with relief.
"Not 'til recently," he admitted. "Shit was kinda, uh, tense before th'War an' all. But now that you've got your skyport up an' runnin' there'll probably be more people movin' to an' from, an' wantin' stuff delivered to friends an' family who've moved here or away." Peace was definitely better for business than War had been, at least in his line of work!
The mention of Banshees was all it took for Tal to shudder in spite of the Flowerbirth warmth of anywhere that wasn't Halo the Grounds, rubbing his arms in reflex. "Fuckin' Banshees," he said with great fervor. "Never seen a Wicker Lady, but I never wanna see another Banshee again." He looked to Fox with new, grudging respect in his pale eyes. "Have y'hunted 'em before?"
04-05-2023, 08:08 PM (This post was last modified: 04-05-2023, 08:14 PM by Fox.)
FOX
"The little drink with the what?" Fox blinks, because of course the Hollowed Grounds doesn't have anything like those sorts of cocktails. Or perhaps they did, once upon a time, but he'd been Ascended back then and still wouldn't have understood. Go figure. "Does it rain a lot on pleasure cruises, then?" That would explain the little umbrellas, at least.
Ahem. Anyway.
"You don't have to tell me," he agrees of shit being tense, casting his gaze back out across the islands, as if remembering when the Grounds was one large land mass. "It's a nice thought, though. That people might move here, instead of away." Most Grounders, himself included, were just here out of habit, he thought.
Glancing back across at Tal - the shudder is a bit difficult to miss - he raises his eyebrows. "I didn't realise banshees got as far as Halo," he says, before softly shaking his head. "Never personally, no. You see them and hear them a lot at night though, especially towards Leafchange."
Tal was brought up short at the mention of rain and his nose wrinkled in thought. "Y'know I... I dunno? I never asked what the li'l umbrellas were for. Y'know, the ones that go in the really colorful, fruity boozy drinks? Like peanut colliders." Yeah, that was definitely the name of the drink, and Tal said it with confidence.
He'd never laid out on a beach before, so the concept of lounging under a cabana was almost as foreign to him as it was to Fox, and he didn't quite manage to connect the concepts.
War was sadly easier for them both to comprehend and Tal shrugged at how things had changed. "I mean, why wouldn't they? No reason not to anymore." The Barrier was fallen, the land was healing, the Voice was--
Hm. Maybe don't mention that last one out loud.
Especially not when there were Banshees to offer the worst kind of distraction and Tal scowled. "Yeah. Once. Durin' the War. Big ol' Banshee Queenie an' her fuckin' friends showed up at the Citadel. Killed some guards afore we could put 'em down." The courier didn't like thinking about it, and at the news that they hung around the Grounds during Leafchange he gruffly said: "Noted."
Fox is familiar with neither fruity, boozy drinks nor peanut colliders, but he's not one to make himself look more foolish than he already does, and so he merely nods along as if he's fully aware of what Tal's talking about. As for the reasons why people wouldn't come to the Grounds, it's with a small wince that the hunter shrugs his shoulders.
"Old, bad blood?" he suggests a touch quietly. "We didn't exactly make many allies before the war. I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of Caido still has us tarred with the same brush." It's something he supposes he could try to work on changing, especially if couriers like Tal were going to be at least semi-frequent visitors.
"Maybe you can put a good word in for the place back in Halo," he suggests with a wry smile. "You know - Hollowed Grounds - now with less allogators!"
Chuckling and glancing up as they approach a crossroads with a rickety sign, Fox's good mood is sobered considerably to hear about the banshee trouble the Citadel had suffered. "I'm sorry to hear that," he says softly. "Did you manage to take care of them though, in the end?" Queenie and her buddies, he means.
Fox was clearly a man of taste, much as Tal himself was, and was familiar with some of the more worldly temptations even if he'd never left the Grounds. Which,
Come to think of it, yeah, Tal knew some folks who held on to grudges stupid hard and he grimaced, rubbing the back of his neck. "Um. Yeah. Point." He took a deep breath and then felt his lips kick up into a wry grin at Fox's attempt at humor. "Sure, or y'could... I dunno. Rename the place? What's so hollow about it now anyways?"
He squinted at the sign as they came upon it and took the path that lead back to the city. "Yeah, we got 'em," he growled, remembering that day with uncomfortable clarity. "They bleed out like anythin' else if y'stab 'em enough times."
Humming a soft grumble of agreement as Tal realises the unfortunate reality the Grounds exists in, Fox follows in the direction of the Inner Quarter, hazarding a brief glance over his shoulder as if to check whether Boreal has had any luck dragging the rest of the carcass with them.
"Oh?" The laugh that huffs out of him is a surprise even to the hunter, and he acquiesces with a gentle nod. "I guess we could. Perhaps I'll throw up a notice with a poll. We could be... the Inflated Grounds?" Was that the opposite of Hollowed?
Rubbing absently at a streak of drying mud on the back of his hand, Fox finds himself with a renewed respect for the man beside him, to care so much for his home and to defend it so thoroughly. "Halo is lucky to have you," he says.
04-10-2023, 12:23 AM (This post was last modified: 04-10-2023, 12:23 AM by Talyson.)
Boreal had not had any luck in dragging the entire carcass after them. Boreal had, however, somehow managed to chew through the base of the allogator's tail, and was now trotting after them with her broad, boxy jaws clamped happily around the middle of the tail while the thin, pointy end and the bloody, meaty end dragged along on either side of her, proud as a dragon could be.
"The Inflated Grounds? I dunno about that... Maybe the. Uh..." He looked around for inspiration. "The Wet Grounds?" The suggestion was made weakly and he grimaced and shook his head. "Alright, so, it'll be a work in progress. When y'figure it out lemme know an' I'll spread the word," he offered, his grin returning for a moment before Fox's praise heated his ears and he scuffed his feet along the path awkwardly, pleased and embarrassed and taking it out on the innocent roadway. "Yeah, well. Same for th'Grounds an' you."
