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!
He missed training in the Barracks, but he had decided to do his routine elsewhere these days. There was an empty lot near the Citadel walls where a house had once stood before a white dragon had crashed into it during the War. The dangerous remnants of the building had long since been cleaned away but the foundations remained and the lot had stayed empty while more desirable real estate towards the center of the city had been repaired and reused.
It suited Tal just fine. He was rarely bothered out here, and he'd been able to build a few makeshift improvements, including some targets for his distance weapons and a small rock climbing wall.
Today - a sunny late Flowerbirth afternoon in spite of the morning snow showers - he was working on agility. The remaining foundations had been built up with snow and extended to create a patchwork of cover which he dodged behind as a pale dragon the size of a mastiff stalked him through the pseudo-maze, loosing jets of flame whenever she caught sight of him. Tal moved constantly around the area, scooping up snowballs and firing them back at his companion on the run while he tried to avoid being singed!
Alys had recently taken to afternoon walks, after her training bout with Deimos. It wasn't enough to simply focus on her magic; to build endurance, she'd have to work on physical fitness as well. So this afternoon, she'd changed into a pair of breeches and a loose shirt, donned some comfortable leather boots, and topped it all off with one of the new cloaks that Hotaru had gotten her, then walked out into the Citadel as if she were on a mission. And she was, at least in her own mind.
The route she'd set herself was simple: since she didn't know the city well yet, she stuck to the Citadel walls, which gave her not only a basis for her route, but also a rough estimate of how far she'd traveled. She'd made it about halfway from her starting point when she heard a commotion inside a seemingly empty lot. As she drew closer, she peered into a maze of snow and foundations, not really sure what she expected to find.
Whatever she'd expected, Tal dodging a dragon's fireballs was decidedly not it.
Alys hesitated for a mere moment before hurrying into the lot, calling upon her magic to throw out an illusion in front of her friend. The illusion was a perfect replica of the dragon, and her hope was that facing its reflection would deter the beast long enough for Tal to make his escape. "Tal!" she hissed from her vantage point nearby, and she gestured quickly for him to join her. Her illusion would only hold for a moment, and she didn't want to wait around to find out what would happen when it faded!
Boreal saw her reflection pop into being and swallowed her next fireball in shock, letting out a smoky burp as all four taloned paws scrambled in the snow to slow her charge. Tal paused as well, startled into immobility by the sudden beastie that appeared between him and his companion, but a hissed voice a second later broke him free and he turned to see the source of his name--
"Alys?" Pale eyes brightened and he relaxed as his companion approached the doppelganger, sniffing at it warily. Notably, the courier made no move to leave the vicinity of the scaly creature and her new twin sister. Instead he crouched down to inspect the illusion, poking his finger into it with a whistle of appreciation. "Say, you've been practicin', huh? This is lookin' great! --Boreal, you can't eat it." Fond exasperation filled his voice as the real dragon, upon finding no scent, opened her jaws to try a gentle bite out of the image. She snorted smoky disappointment at this turn of events and put her head down to pad right through the intangible construct so she could lean against Tal's side, looking to Alys with friendly curiosity and a sweep of her scaly tail through the snow - and illusion - behind her.
"What're you doin' all the way out here?" the courier asked curiously, giving one of Boreal's horns a gentle tug to remind her of her manners.
The illusion had the desired effect: the dragon slid to a stop, swallowed its next fireball, and belched out smoke as it seemed, for the moment, to be entranced by the illusion. To her chagrin, however, Tal did not join her behind a nearby snow bank. She watched with dismay as the dragon tried to eat her illusion, which promptly dissipated into the air. She couldn't hold onto the larger enchantments for very long yet - which was why she had wanted Tal to hurry.
But it seemed that her concerns about the dragon were unwarranted, and it suddenly made a great deal more sense why the keening outside the tavern had drawn her friend away after their meal together recently. The dragon wasn't trying to kill him; it was his companion!
Relaxing, Alys popped out from behind her snow bank and approached Tal and his dragon. "Thanks!" she said, offering a shy smile. "I've been training to make my magic stronger. I can't do the big ones for very long, but my small ones are just about perfect!" As though to demonstrate, she called up the cardinal she'd made when they'd first met, which zipped from her shoulder to circle around the dragon's head, taunting it by staying just out of reach. "I didn't realize you had a dragon," she said. "Is that what called you away, last time?"
Tal askled what she was doing out here, and Alys shrugged. "Well, I met Hotaru and joined the Academy, like you suggested, so I thought I'd stay in Halo for a while. As for what I'm doing here, here, I was taking a walk. Deimos told me I'd get stronger faster if I worked on my physical fitness as well as my magic, so..." She trailed off, unwilling to admit that she had very little knowledge about how to actually go about training physically. Walking was the best she'd come up with so far, and she was beginning to get to the point where it no longer tired her. She'd have to come up with something new, soon.
The cardinal surprised a laugh from the courier and Boreal snorted in surprise and curiosity before rising up on her hind legs to try and bite at it. She took several snaps, missing the illusion each time, before giving the construct a wounded look and settling back down into a formal sit, pretending not to be interested anymore. Tal grinned fondly down at her and then looked back to Alys with a nod.
"Yeah, she was hungry an' wanted her dinner," he admitted sheepishly. "I hadn't realized how long we'd been talkin' til she reminded me." Could she have done so silently through their bond? Sure. But Boreal was a bit of a diva and not inclined to take the quiet way when there was one that could get her more attention and faster results. A win-win!
He beamed at hearing that Alys had joined the Academy, though his expression faltered at the mention of Deimos. Pushing it aside he took a breath and cocked his head at her at the same time that Boreal did, looking her up and down. "Well, sure, walkin's good," he agreed slowly. "But it's not very fun. Y'ever been in a snowball fight?" His last question was sly with more than a little mischief as he hefted the snowball still in his hand that had been meant for Boreal.
Alys smiled in spite of herself at the dragon's antics, dismissing her creation with a wave of her hand. It was getting easier, the more she used her magic, and her smaller creations were the easiest of all. She was actually growing to rather like her magic. Sometimes, when she was feeling lonely, her illusions could even make her smile. They weren't real, of course, and they were entirely figments of her imagination - movements and all - but they were still something to take her mind off things when she was feeling glum.
It was odd to have uses for her magic, which she'd treated with disdain for so long. But it was nice, in a way she couldn't quite put her finger on. Perhaps it was that she was finally embracing a part of herself that she had scorned. It left her lighter, freer, happier.
So when Tal asked if she'd ever been in a snowball fight, she wrinkled her nose in mock distaste. She could tell by the tone of his voice that she'd gotten herself into quite the pickle. She hadn't been a particularly sociable child and had never experienced a snowball fight - though she'd seen a fair few from afar. Still, he was right - walking wasn't very fun, and throwing snowballs at him sounded much more entertaining. "I can't say I have," she said nonchalantly, before stooping to scoop up a handful of snow, which she promptly tried to fling into Tal's face, aiming for the element of surprise.
Boreal blinked as the cardinal vanished and then looked at Tal accusingly as if it was his fault her snack/toy had disappeared. Little did the courier know that he was about to be double-teamed, oblivious to the direction that Alys's thoughts had gone. He had, of course, been planning to get the first snowball in - especially when Alys admitted that she'd never been in a snowball fight before, and the young man managed to look insufferably pleased for all of two and a half seconds before the seer's snowball hit him right in his smug face.
Boreal chortled smokily in approval, bounding away from her companion to find a vantage from which to view the match while Tal wiped the snow from his eyes and tried to regain a sliver of his lost poise. "Right. First shot was free. Cuz I'm nice like that." A wicked grin suddenly lit up his face as he threw his own snowball at Alys, since she had politely stuck around to enjoy her success.
"Next one you'll have to work for!" he called out gleefully then, already diving behind a nearby snow wall and scooping up more ammo as he rolled.
Alys let loose a rather uncharacteristic giggle as her snowball hit Tal directly in the face. She apparently wasn't one to play a clean game - but then, since that was probably the only hit she would get during their mock battle, she didn't really care that much about niceties. Her glee was indeed short-lived; her giggles turned to coughing as Tal's snowball returned the favor, hitting her directly in the face as well.
Tal dove for cover as Alys turned on her heel, running for her own snow drift. She grabbed a handful of snow and wedged it between her hands, trying to ensure that it would actually stick together long enough for her to attempt to land a hit on her friend. She popped her head up over the snow drift, trying to see where Tal had ended up, but she was afraid to stay up for too long lest she give away her position. Scooping up her one snowball, she darted to a new drift and began to build a small pile, hoping that she'd be able to surprise him with a blitz of snowballs when he finally did show his face again.
Tal wasn't polite enough to not grin triumphantly as his snowball went home, and he only stuck around long enough to make sure that Alys's coughing wasn't a sign of anything more serious before he was heading for cover.
He listened intently, crouched and waiting for her to come around the side of his wall, but after a few seconds of relative silent he popped his head up for a brief reconnoiter. He was just in time to catch a glimpse of her dark curls disappearing behind another wall and his grin widened as he rolled a second snowball and then tiptoed out from his cover. He made a dash across the open ground and cut around the end of her snowdrift, loosing one of his shots with a: "Aha!"--
But Alys was gone! He realized too late that she'd already moved position, but her footprints in the snow gave away her trail and rather than lose his momentum Tal bounded after her. This time instead of going around her snowbank he gathered himself and leapt over it with a twist, aiming his second snowball down at her while he was still in the air.
Tal whooped with triumph too soon as he vaulted over the drift that Alys had been behind previously; it alerted the young woman to his whereabouts, and she twirled to face his general direction, a snowball in each hand and a small pile at her feet. Unfortunately, she hadn't been expecting him to vault over her snow drift, instead thinking that he would come around the side, and his snowball flew into her shoulder, startling a playful shriek from the young woman.
With an almost feral grin, she flung both of her snowballs towards her friend (the one from her right hand aimed much better than that from her left) and stooped to gather more ammunition, belatedly realizing that she'd made herself a sitting target. In order to succeed, she'd need to be able to move, but her stock of snowballs kept her from being particularly mobile. So she grabbed two more, stomped on the others to prevent Tal from getting them, and flung one last snowball in the direction he'd last been before scurrying away to another snow drift.
Parkour was the name of his game, and a broad grin of wicked glee was on the courier's face as he realized his own success. He came down in a tumbling roll and was already dodging to avoid the inevitable retaliation as he bounced up again. A veteran of more than a few snowball fights, he had a good sense for where to expect a well-aimed return volley and he was already ducking to avoid it--
Unfortunately his instincts weren't nearly so good at anticipating a badly-aimed return volley! Alys's second snowball hit him squarely in the ribs and went down in a dramatic heap while the third snowball flew by harmlessly over his head. "Boreal, I'm hit!" he cried out, clearly hoping his dragon would save him.
Boreal obligingly bounded over and then let out a blast of flame across the remains of Alys's flattened snowballs, making extra sure Tal couldn't make use of the former-ammo. The courier gave his dragon a wounded look of betrayal and scooped up some snow as he stood, packing it loosely into a ball. "Whose side are you on?" he complained to his companion, who wagged her snaky tail and grinned at him toothily.
Since he'd already lost some time dealing with Boreal's antics, this time Tal tip-toed after Alys's tracks in the snow until they disappeared behind a new snowbank. He paused for several long seconds, listening, then popped around the side and lobbed his snowball at her in silence before ducking back into cover on the other side and grabbing more snow.
Alys giggled at the courier's dramatic flourish, having more fun than she'd had in ages. She'd never been a particularly playful woman, even as a child, and so this snowball fight was revealing a side of her that had never been seen before. Her dark curls tumbled about her rosy cheeks, her eyes alight with mirth. When the dragon destroyed the remnants of her snowballs, she practically howled with laughter as she scampered away.
Alys scooped up snow as she went, juggling a few snowballs in her arms as she ran. A little out of breath, she hid behind another snow bank and paused for a few moments, listening for the crunch of footsteps in the snow, but she heard nothing past her own labored breathing. Suddenly, Tal popped around the side of her snow drift and flung a snowball at her! She yelped and dodged, but not quickly enough - this one hit her on the hip before she scrambled away. Hiding behind a nearby snow bank, she had an idea. Using her illusion magic, she made it look like her footprints went towards a different drift; if Tal followed her fake prints, she hoped to have a perfect shot at his back, and prepared her next snowball for just that eventuality.
04-21-2023, 01:38 AM (This post was last modified: 04-21-2023, 07:56 PM by Talyson.)
Tal didn't know Alys well enough yet to realize how rare a sight this was, but her laughter was infectious and he was having too good of a time to let one measly lethal blow stop him! He recovered from his 'wound' and stalked Alys to her next hiding place, chuckling gleefully to himself at her yelp that let him know he'd gotten through.
He paused to see if there would be return fire and to make another snowball, but all was quiet on the northern front and he peeked around the snowdrift again suspiciously. It was empty now, his opponent having fled again, and he smirked as he continued his patient hunting. It had worked twice so far, and he had no reason to think it wouldn't work a third time so he followed the prints on silent feet and prepared to jump over the snowdrift that he was sure Alys was hiding behind--
Alys waited. She was nothing if not patient, and she was rewarded for her efforts. There was Tal, sneaking by in pursuit of her footprints - but he'd fallen for the illusion. With a grin and a yell of triumph, she flung a snowball at his back and, without waiting to see if it had hit or not, she turned and fled, half-expecting to feel the sting of a snowball on her own back as she retreated.
She still had a snowball in her other hand, and she switched it to her dominant hand as she ran, peeking over her shoulder to see if Tal was behind her. This time, she picked a drift and hid behind it, hoping that he would think twice about following her footprints now that she'd tricked him once.
