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!
Alys was not one for hard work, as her display on the climbing wall had shown. It wasn't out of a lack of wilingness, precisely, but rather a lack of knowledge and need. She'd never had a reason to build her endurance and strength - magical or otherwise - and it was strange to find that she wanted to now. But want to, she did, and so she swallowed her injured pride and stayed to listen to Deimos.
When he asked her to demonstrate how long she could use her magic, she gulped, a light blush mantling her cheeks. It wasn't very long, and she knew that showing him would only serve to make her more embarrassed. Still, he had offered to help, and he didn't seem the sort to play tricks on her. He wouldn't ask her to do something unless it was going to help - right?
So she focused her intention, called upon her magic, and summoned a mouse. It was clearly an illusion, patchy and flickering, but it was there all the same. She'd even managed to get it to look and move fairly accurately, and so it skittered from here to there along the top of the wall, as though looking for crumbs of food. It was one of the few illusions she could do well; that and a cardinal, and sometimes a butterfly, although she couldn't quite get the butterfly's movement right.
Her mouse never went far - after all, Deimos had asked for longevity, not distance - and, after just a few minutes, petered out.
Deimos, through choices, decisions, and lifestyles, had worked hard throughout each life. On defiance, on determination, on strength, on healing, on heartbreak, on loss and grief and anguish – sometimes each lesson more difficult than the last. But he also knew how to churn every ounce of resolution and ambition into something tangible; goals in the backbones of stubbornness and tenacity. The world didn’t hand anything over readily and easily – so he measured the coils and contortions of his prowess with machinations and schemes, puzzled through messes, stayed still in the throngs of chaos.
And even now, aimed to provide those semblances to others, no matter how grand or small.
Calm, patient, features reserved without judgment, the Warden simply waited. Most mages he’d met within Caido walls had all begun with the same predicaments: the magic there, but never for long. A basic starting point, whether it be little flames, droplets descending from miniature clouds, or in Alys’s case, an illusion skittering here and there, brief and finite, a bout of prey and nothing more. After a few minutes, it dispersed into the ether, and he nodded. “Good start,” he rumbled, before pondering further. “You will only be able to enhance its longevity through practice and time,” when she advanced, when she prospered, when she found roots and holds. “But today we should work on focusing.” Maintaining it amidst distractions, unease, and discord.
By notes of warning, and impending instruction, he advanced, though still a yard or so away from her. “I am going to attempt at diverting your attention.” The crook of an impish grin curled in the corner of his mouth. “You will not be harmed.” But from there, he permitted the slightest edge of his water incantations to unfurl, gathering portions of snow and molding them into ice, beacons of shards meant to wile around her as she contemplated and strived. “Try again.”
Alys flushed with pleasure at the praise, however small, unused to such allowances from others. Her magic had always been something to be ashamed of or simply to ignore; never before had she had someone tell her she'd made a good start with it - except for Talyson, who had simply wanted to observe her creations with some strange goggles. He'd been quite kind about her magic, even if he had been confused by her divination.
Practice, at least, was something that Alys understood well. It had taken her some time - years, in fact - to master the Tarot, and it occurred to her now that magic couldn't be that different. In that sense, perhaps hard work was not so out of the realm of possibility for her. It would take dedication and intention to improve her magic, just as it had taken dedication and intention to improve her Sight. That was an interesting thought. She believed firmly in the power of setting intentions. Could she make her magic stronger through intention and the subsequent follow through?
Too focused now to be embarrassed or shy, she focused on bringing her mouse back into existence. It shimmered into view just long enough for the shape to form before Alys realized that Deimos had summoned icy shards that danced around her. The shape of her mouse flickered, its edges becoming fuzzy and undefined as her attention drifted. It was difficult to keep her focus on both the mouse and her surroundings. As she eyed the ice shards warily, her mouse faded from view; as she returned her attention to the mouse, she lost sight of the ice shards.
Drawn back into silence for observation, scrutiny, and his own focusing efforts, he watched with meticulous, investigative qualities in his piercing gaze. As he might’ve predicted, even with a warning of his impending ambush, the mouse flickered; not given the adequate attention it deserved. Whether or not Alys would be the sort of individual (like many of them) who strode straight into danger, she wouldn’t be able to cast her wares or enchantments in any sort of chaos. Not with this level of concentration – haphazard at best.
Simplicity had been best – and he was content to remain in those realms for the moment. “What will you tend to most,” he countered along her stalwart, but weakened mouse, purposefully altering his incantations to see if he could draw her attention away – increasing the difficulty. “Your magic, or your surroundings?” Because eventually, it had to be both. Or the former became so fluid, so natural, that the latter would fall into place.
The shards changed rapidly, settling into more elemental facets, churning from icy enchantments into pebbles of varying size. From there, they encircled, never touching, never aiming, but swarming around her figure.
Alys's focus was so split between the two tasks at hand - maintaining her spell and keeping an eye on the ever-changing ice shards - that she wasn't performing either particularly well. She gulped as the ice pellets swirled around her figure. They never touched her, but they were distracting. What if Deimos changed his mind and decided to pelt her with ice? She was somewhat confident that he wouldn't hurt her - after all, he'd given no indication thus far that that was his intention - but she wasn't confident that he wouldn't try to distract her by any means necessary. And while she was sure that ice could be fatal if wielded the right way, it seemed far more likely to her that Deimos would use it as an annoyance, just to see how she handled the new stress.
"What should I be more focused on?" she managed to choke out, but the added task was too much for the young woman to tend to, and her mouse flickered out. She pursed her lips and called it back into existence. It was strong for a moment, scurrying hither and thither across the floor, but then her attention shifted to the swirling ice, and the mouse faded once more.
Frustrated, Alys nearly gave up, but she didn't want to give Deimos the satisfaction of making her quit. So she held on, almost panting with the effort, and forced her little mouse to stay.
Considering Deimos could easily decimate multitudes in his wake and power, and never had, spoke to reason that he wouldn’t be doing the same here either. But where Alys didn’t know him, the presumption was free to linger, even if he’d just promised she wouldn’t be coming to harm.
An occasional cretin and mischief maker, yes, but loyal and veracious to a fault.
Spiraling the makeshift pebbles around, and beginning to coordinate them into purposeful movements (sometimes outlining images; like a dragon) with a brazen ease, he arched a brow, kindling a slight grin at her words. “Your magic.” Not pausing in his incantations, he persisted in education, eyes catching the way the mouse flickered. “When they are fluid, easy, and readily available to you, then you can concentrate on other things.” But until then, he’d push, be insistent, steady, and firm with his teaching. “When you can hold it for more than a minute, you can take a break.” A light, perhaps, at the end of the tunnel.
Alys may not have known Deimos well, but she was beginning to get a grasp of his personality. Thus far he had proven to be capable and strong, while maintaining a certain mischievousness that lingered beneath the surface. That rogueishness left Alys more wary than nervous as the ice flurried around her form like so many dancing insects. Would her hurt her? Perhaps not. Would he go to great lengths to distract her? Perhaps.
She focused on her magic when he gave the command, and for a few seconds, her mouse strengthened in form. But then the ice shards changed, again, and her mouse stuttered and flared as her attention shifted. It wasn't even wariness now - it was admiration for the way the shards flitted through the air, forming shapes and images. Would she ever be good enough to do something similar with her magic?
Not without focus and practice. She renewed her energy, forcing herself to ignore the ice pellets dancing around her. Her mouse appeared and skittered across the floor, crawling over her shoe to huddle beside her skirts. It was easier to focus with her eyes cast down toward the mouse, and though she knew it was likely a mistake, she shut out all thought of the ice in favor of strengthening her illusion. Somehow, she managed to hold her focus for just over a minute, until, panting with exertion, she looked up at Deimos for permission to stop.
Contorting the pebbles and stones away from their draconic formation, and now into luxere, complete with glowing antlers, he watched as her determination and spirit renewed. Galvanized and goaded enough, the mouse hastened into more than fragments and distortions, whole and almost tangible as it huddled, and from his vantage point, he could count out the seconds.
Eventually, the minute mark came and went, and so his grin softened to less mischief, and more distinction. “Good. You can stop.” With the permission granted, he ceased the unrelenting torrent of his own incantations, reeling them back below the surface; the stones stilled, then fell back to the earth. “Give yourself a break.” He knew the moments of fatigue well – even if it’d been years since he felt the warning signs, the instinctual urge of limitations, the dangerous threshold of reliance and then overwhelming tangents. Pausing momentarily, the grin threatened to return with its impish air. “Then you can try again.”
Glancing downward, and permitting her space to take her rest without him looming nearby, his eyes wandered along the rest of his constituents, brandishing their own skirmishes. “When you first start, it will be difficult to not tire. The limitation will be a burden.” His shoulders shrugged. “But it will pass.”
Alys gasped for air, surprised at the physical exertion required by her use of magic. She hadn't been prepared for such palpable exhaustion to overtake her at maintaining even the smallest of illusions for so short a time. And yet, somehow, she dug down deep into reserves of stubbornness, and she applied that same dogged determination that she had once used to master the Tarot to the use of her magic. Her mouse caught and held at her feet, and after a minute, Deimos's approving rumble released her from her exertions.
When he suggested that she do it again, she offered a silent, half-hearted glare in his general direction. Of course she would have to keep trying. Practice, as she remembered from her occult studies, was the only way to improve. As she caught her breath, she studied her new mentor from beneath her lashes. "What was your magic like, when you first started?" she asked, still somewhat out of breath, but improving with each new intake of oxygen into her lungs.
Quick and casual surveys of his warriors skirmishing below ensured everything was well; not too rowdy, and certainly disciplined. It gave him a moment of clarity, to breathe too, before turning his attention back to the matters at hand – ignoring the glare – restlessly toying with the rocks again. “Weak. Ineffectual. Could not do much to help my friends.” Caught between earnestly wanting to assist in matters of danger, but finding himself so inept, so tired, so drained, that it was a wonder he’d survived the multitudes of experiences at all. From LongNights, caverns wrought with perils, to Spires crawling with infestations of poison, toxins, and being incapable of doing much at all – to where he was now.
A thousand journeys, perhaps, stark and unobliging; mentorships of tragedy, determination, and fortitude. Something every land he’d traversed upon seemed to have in common.
But it was what they did with the knowledge that mattered. He turned his gaze back upon her, purposeful and impish, the slight half-grin forming in the corner of his mouth once more, varnishing away the scarring of the past. “Which is why I train, and push others to do the same.”
The way that Deimos described his magic when he'd first started sounded very much like how Alys felt about her own, and she relaxed almost in spite of herself at the similarity, her brow smoothing and her frown easing. She had to wonder what had happened to Deimos, for him to mention being unable to help his friends. What must that be like? To have friends to want to help, and to be unable to do so?
Alys's life had been relatively easy, thus far; at the very least, she'd never feared for her life. And she had few friends, so worrying about others was something she could only imagine. Even her family was a hazy memory, something so distant in the past that it was hardly recognizable. For a moment, she felt jealousy well up in her chest, but she tamped it down, dismissing it as a foolish notion that did not merit further analysis.
Her breath now caught, she caught Deimos's eye and nodded. It made sense, then, why he would push others to train; and, she had to admit, he was being quite helpful to her, no matter his motivations. "Shall we go again?" she asked, preparing herself with a mental sigh for another arduous minute of focus and willpower.
Delving further would be reliving a whole manner of catastrophe, chaos, and heartache he’d since recovered from. He’d become far stronger, far better, far more capable, conspiring efforts every day – to extend his assistance and power when he could. To be useful, while not simultaneously self-sacrificing was still a work in progress, but he’d learned how to settle boundaries into his bones too.
So once Alys caught her breath, he permitted the wake of all those notions to slide away, back into silence and furtive cloaks; nodding, stepping back into the smoother portions of the wall’s grand height. “Another minute,” he declared – because she’d shown herself capable. “And maybe another animal or illusion.” To truly push the boundaries; though for his impish nature, he gave her a slight wrinkle of his nose.
And then conducted bright, brilliant flames, unfurling and unwinding them from his palm, until they lingered along thresholds; orbs of fire, intentionally meant to distract and deter.
She'd been expecting ice to burst forth, and so when flames appeared, she bit back a yelp of surprise. Deimos's promise that she would not be harmed rang in her ears; she was altogether more nervous about fire than she had been about ice pellets. Ice can be just as dangerous as fire, she chided herself as she prepared to call up a new illusion. Don't be so ridiculous!
Still, it was harder now to conjure anything at all, and she struggled to bring so much as a flicker to life for a few seconds, eyeing the flames nervously. After a moment, though, a new illusion sprang into place: a cardinal, which appeared at first on her shoulder, peering around with interest at its surroundings. She realized that if she focused on the bird, on making its movements realistic, it was easier to keep her nerve; unfortunately, a realistic bird would probably be afraid of the flames as well, and so she eventually ended up back to square one.
And so again began the struggle: her cardinal would flicker in and out of existence as her focus improved and then waned again in the face of Deimos's conjured fire. She had learned, though, from the last time, and it took her less time - but no less effort - now to hold her cardinal in place for a full minute.
A healthy respect for such an element was to be expected; even if Deimos himself always held a penchant for the infernal flames. Perhaps due to its power, renewing properties, or the ties to his father, but it ran inherent amidst his blood just as rapidly and natural as life drain – a promise of disaster or mayhem. But he wielded it now as if they were harmless orbs, arching back and forth in radiant contortions of light; bending and swaying to the ease of his control. Where his previous notions had conducted dragons and luxeres, these formed foxes with nine tails, and unicorns hastening across open space.
Enough of a distraction for anyone, unless they were purposeful and ready.
He glanced over to see Alys’s reaction – if she could prevail again, or be swindled away by purposeful interruptions and diversions. At first, he expected some mild subversion and defiance, for the mouse to make another appearance, skittering across the snow before dissipating. So he was pleasantly amused and surprised, by way of the crook of his grin, as a cardinal reigned along her shoulder, head tilting in the way all birds watched for predators. “All right,” he offered after another minute. “You can stop.”
From there, the embers were doused immediately, and his gaze returned to her. “You did well. Continue doing that each day, and you will find your magic and endurance greatly improved.”
