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!
When one has done as much and seen as much as Ronin Taliesin - and his husband, for that matter - it becomes quite difficult to come up with a surprise. A lot of the time he resorts to the small and innocuous, because a diamond the size of your fist is one thing, but breakfast in bed will always be magical.
That being said, it's still a surprise that has taken him deep into the belly of the Climb, and as he skids down the hot rubble and into the Burrows, it's with only one thing on his mind. Food. Well, two things. He's hoping that he can find some samples of rock and volcanic earth deep down here, planning to take it back and create a new space in their garden to grow herbs and other produce.
And if anything else decided to fall on his head from the vast, superheated tunnels above, then it'll either give him another present to take home, or a concussion. Or both. It's usually both.
Clambering to his feet and dusting off his knees, it's by the ruddy cavelight that he begins to navigate his way around.
Deliveries to the Climb were, thankfully, rare. The heat was oppressive, the ash and smoke were omnipresent, and the burrows were narrow and constricting.
Tal hated it.
But a job was a job, and a stripey lady had a package from Torchline that he'd needed to drop off. She'd given him a ruby for his trouble and he'd taken the shiny stone with a wrinkled nose and a tentative 'thanks?'
What was he going to do with one stinkin' ruby?
Boreal chortled smokily as they retraced their path through the confusing maze of tunnels, but then the dragon went silent. Her scaly nostrils flared and her broad head came up, scenting the air. "What is it, gi--?" Tal started to ask, but bit off the last word as his companion let out a happy carol that echoed through the tunnels before she bounded off down a side branch. "Hey! Boreal, wait!"
It was the dragon who found Ronin first, almost running into him before she could bring her muscular bulk to a skidding stop. She sat back on her haunches, cocking her head at him with her best big, soft-eyed look. A few seconds later Tal jogged into view, looking hassled and sweaty in the heat. "Dammit, Boreal, y'can't-- Oh! Hey, Ronin," he called sheepishly. "Uh... Fancy meetin' you here?"
Ronin has already collected some very rich, very warm earth in a waterproof sack, and is busily knotting it to stop it from spilling everywhere when suddenly happy dragon noises. He has left Sugar at home with Remi today, so there are no answering cries for vengeance and blood (and also probably a hello in there somewhere), but the Huntsman is more than happy to give Boreal the fuss she deserves.
"Who'd have thought I'd run into you all the way up here," he croons back to the dragon, giving her boxy head a well deserved scritch as he straightens up, and it's by the eerie half-light that he spots Tal jogging up behind her. "Hey yourself," he greets with a grin that's probably the brightest thing in the tunnel. "I was just on an errand. How about you?"
Boreal was always happy to be fussed, and she leaned into the scritches with a contented rumble as her human finally deigned to join them. She slitted a look back at him that spoke eloquently to the tune of 'what took you so long?' with a side order of smug that Tal did his best to ignore.
It was hard to impress your friends when you were getting so much sass from your dragon, after all.
"Deliverin' a package to a scary lady with stripes." Tal shook his head ruefully, glancing behind him as if to make sure she hadn't followed. "She gave me this--" He held out the small ruby with a grimace. "But I dunno what t'do with just one. Figured I'd look around and try t'find a few more while I was here. Hey, how've you been? Don't think I've seen you since Deepfrost."
bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones.
You've encountered the OG random event! This allows you to skip one levelling requirement with the character in this thread. (Unfortunately does not count for characters over level 10, how sad.)
Ronin knows well the pain of being sassed by one's dragon while trying to impress one's friends, and so he gives Tal a knowing if not slightly apologetic smile while delivering adequate fuss to Boreal's scaly head. Once he's done (or she decides he's done, rather), the Huntsman turns his attention properly to the subject at hand, and he tilts his head to listen to the other man.
"A lady... with stripes?" he repeats, not knowing quite how to envision that and so literally imagining it instead. Blue eyes flick down to the ruby, then, and positively light up to hear Tal is looking for more. "I'm sure I passed a vein of them a little ways back, if you want me to show you," he invites.
But as for how he's been? Ronin's expression is one of the happily retired, and he nods to the courier. "Really well," he says. "Remi just celebrated his birthday. We camped out in the Greatwood for a few days - I can't believe how much it has changed. How have you been?"
Ronin, being something of an expert in dragon companions, knew just the right places to scratch and Boreal was perfectly happy to let him go on even after Tal gave her a look of fond exasperation. Still, she would eventually free the Huntsman from his obligations with regal dignity and a lick of her rough tongue over his hand in approval while the men chatted.
"Yeah, like... tiger stripe tattoos? Kinda? She wasn't wearin' a lotta clothes so..." Tal cleared his throat uncomfortably and hurriedly held out the ruby instead. Look! A shiny distraction! His own metaphorical ears perked up at Ronin's offer of directions and he nodded eagerly. "Yeah, that'd be great!"
Falling in beside his fellow 5'10"er he stole a glance at the look of marital bliss on that ruggedly handsome face and cocked his head to the side. "Didja need a raft? Place is soggier'n my socks after a delivery t'Hak Etme." Or the Climb, for that matter. "But I've been doin' okay. Business is boomin'. Maybe a little too much," he admitted with a rueful grimace. "I'm spendin' more time makin' deliveries than breathin', it feels like. I asked Safrin t'help with my Goggles last season an' I still haven't managed t'finish all the tasks." He heaved a heavy sigh and then blinked, looking sideways to Ronin hopefully. "I uh... I don't s'pose you've ever been tricked by an illusion, have you?"
"Ah, I see," the Huntsman says with a sage and understanding nod, despite feeling neither about the lady with the stripes. Luckily, Talyson has a distraction for them both, and Ronin seizes it more than happily enough. "Then follow me," he says, falling into step with the courier and keeping his eyes peeled for the crack of shimmering red he'd passed by not long before.
Granted, he's only really half looking, given that the rest of his attention is on their conversation, and he snorts out a laugh despite not wanting to think about how sweaty his own socks were right now. "We swam," he says by way of explanation instead, which of course seems ridiculous given the size and current of the Stone Symphony, but then again... Taliesin demigods. What were you gonna do?
"Oh? Well, it's better than business being slow, right? Perhaps you should hire an apprentice," he suggests to Tal, pausing before a sheer rock face with some twinkling crimson running through it. As for his other question, Ronin nibbles at the inside of his cheek and crouches down to go through the pack he'd brought, thinking on it for a moment.
"You know, I reckon I have," he tells him, withdrawing a small pick and a hammer. "It was when Stormbreak was attacked by the Ascended. I was trying to defend the Tower."
In truth the courier was just as happy to drop the subject of the tigrish dame who looked like she'd been considering making a meal out of him. Ronin's company offered the benefit of both protection and a good story, and Tal wrinkled his nose at the demigod's secret to camping in the Greatwood. "Y'mean, by choice?" Sure, he'd finally started taking some lessons so he wouldn't immediately drown if he ended up in the drink again, but it still baffled him that people chose to do something so crazy for fun.
He shrugged at the Huntsman's excellent point that he had an enviable problem on his hands, and nodded slowly at the suggestion as the shadows danced around them. Boreal followed behind, pausing to sniff the occasional interesting rock. "I've been thinkin' about openin' a second dropoff," he agreed. "An' hirin' some extra help. I just... dunno. Trustin' my reputation in someone else's hands... it's hard t'let go." He scowled down at his feet at such a vulnerable admission and kicked a hapless pebble that ended up in his path.
The seam wasn't as far as he'd feared and Tal dug around in his Bag of Holding, producing a hammer and a steel chisel meant for woodworking. He hadn't exactly come prepared to do any mining, but hopefully his repair tools would be close enough? Picking a spot nearby, he started to tap at the seam gently, trying to find a good fracture point.
The Tower's fall was a day that would live in infamy, and Tal sobered as Ronin brought it up. "Fuck, they had illusions in their arsenal, too? How'd y'deal with it?"
"Well, it was by choice for one of us," Ronin says through a laugh. "I may have fallen in, at first. But then, sure. We used to live along the Stonesong, so it was kind of nice to pay it a visit again." Not knowing of Tal's aversion to the water, the Huntsman would happily continue to prattle on, so it's a good thing they have other topics - and the seam of rubies - to distract them.
"Mm, it can be difficult to manage," he agrees; as a former guildmaster, not to mention the holder of too many leadership positions to count, Ronin knows it all too well. "Then again you don't want to risk your reputation suffering because you can't keep up with demands on your own," he points out, reaching up to tap at the rock as well with his pick and hammer. One could argue that Ronin is being gentle for Ronin, but it's of little surprise that a fracture appears within moments for the Huntsman.
Humming a soft confirmation regarding the Ascended and their illusions, it's a dark day in Ronin's memories as well. "I'm pretty sure it was a magic from one of Wessex's shifts," he says. "A kitsune, I think it was. She made it seem as though they were running into the Tower to get me to follow, so I ended up destroying part of the fascia hoping to block them in. Stupid of me, in retrospect, but when you're outmanned, you do strange things in the heat of the moment."
Okay, Tal felt a little better at hearing that he wasn't the only one that ended up in the river on accident. His scowl lightened to something that was almost a relieved smile as he nodded in understanding of coming 'home' again. Or at least, to something that had once been a home.
Ronin's wisdom came at the expense of a great deal of experience, and even if Tal hadn't been around for most of it there were the rumors and stories of the Huntsman's various exploits. The high-profile ones in particular tended to get shared around when the booze was flowing on a dark, cold Halo night. Tal had absolutely cashed in on the reflected glory a few times. Sure, he hadn't seen things with his own eyes, but he knew the man personally, and that was the next best thing to having seen his deeds, right? So he felt like he really should listen to the advice of his elder, especially when it made so much damn sense. "True enough," he admitted with a grimace. "Hadn't really thought about an apprentice afore, but it'd give me a chance t'train 'em up right, first... Hmmm..." Hail, he'd learned the ropes by 'prenticing to his aunt after all. It seemed a weird thing to put out a notice for, but it couldn't hurt to try!
Famous last words if ever there were any.
With the seam located and the tools out the men got to work. It actually wasn't Tal's first time mining for shiny rocks; he'd gotten the diamond pommel stone of his Dagger from a similar venture in the Fangs and he almost looked like he was doing as he tap-tapped away until he found a likely weak spot to give a good, sharp crack to. It didn't distract him from listening to Ronin, though, and the courier was subdued and sober at the old War story. "Too late t'second guess it," he offered with his usual pragmatic directness. "At least y'tried somethin'. Were her illusions pretty powerful?" He couldn't wiggle his fingers to 'demonstrate' the woo-woo magic aspect of them, but his digits twitched a little on his tools in a subconscious effort to illustrate his point.
"Mm, and if you start them early enough, you can put the fear of the gods and your reputation into them," Ronin says with a crooked smile, and it's entirely unclear as to whether he's joking about it. Together they manage to work at both parts of the seam, and although Ronin's intention was to originally collect a few pieces of volcanic rock for his husband, coming home with rubies probably isn't going to lose him points either.
Hearing Tal out as he works along the seam with his own tools, the frown that darkens the Huntsman's brow is one of unwilling acceptance; because of course the courier is right, but he'll always hold himself to a higher standard than what he's achieved, especially for things like this. "Mm, they were masterful," he says. "Enough that she could make it look as though they weren't even there if she tried hard enough. I still don't know how I got through that fight."
"Have you ever had a 'prentice?" Given Ronin's advice it certainly sounded like he had some experience with it. His aunt had done similarly with him, come to think of it...
Tap tap. Tap tap. Crack. Boreal jumped, a little lick of flame escaping as Tal gave his seam a sharp rap and knocked a few red shards free. She gave him an admonishing look and he flashed her an unrepentant grin. "Sorry girl," he murmured before turning his attention back to Ronin. He continued to tap and wiggle a good-sized chunk of raw gemstone free as they spoke of the opening volley in the War.
The interaction with his companion caused him to miss Ronin's frown, but not the words that came after. "They were good, but you were better," Tal opined confidently as he finally broke one stone free and started working on a second. "I bet the same trick didn't work on you again, yeah?"
"Mm, not exactly," Ronin says, narrowing his eyes as he knocks at a part of the seam he's working on. His crack occurs very nearly at the same time as Tal's which undoubtedly contributes to Boreal's surprise, and he offers the dragon an apologetic smile as he works some chunks of gemstone free. "Back where I came from in Northaven, I was part of the army there. Captain of Training," he explains.
"So while I didn't really have apprentices, I worked close with new recruits. Tried to do the same for Stormbreak, but with the war so close and so much happening, I'm not sure it worked." And he still feels the urge to go back to it sometimes, especially now that the world has put itself to rights (it seems), but he knows it would likely bring more responsibility than he's willing to commit any more.
Smiling to hear the praise but taking it as sheepishly as one might imagine, Ronin shrugs a shoulder. "I was certainly more paranoid about it moving forward. The Tower still fell, though, so I can't ever say it was a winning situation for me."
