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!
With the birth of Longheat came the warmth of summer, and Alys, for one, was glad of the change. She wandered from Halo at her first opportunity, determined to find some sunshine to enjoy for a few days before she had to return to the Academy. She found it in King's End, in a place called Mourn - quiet, peaceful, and still, it was the perfect place to retire for a period of reflection.
On this particular day, she was dressed in a loose, white blouse tucked into a deep green skirt that swirled around her ankles as she walked, searching for the perfect spot. She'd brought a journal in which to sketch; she was partway through the design of a new tarot deck, and she hoped that the landscape here might inspire some of her cards. Finding a stone bench, Alys settled on it, setting aside the pack slung across her torso, the quiver carried at her waist, and the bow in her hand. It was a beautiful day for rest and relaxation, and she was determined to make the most of it.
Some things y'learned early on just weren't worth the hassle. Others though? Other things you'd damn near kill yer'self to do, and so it was that on this afternoon near'on the high end of the season, Morgen was out without his herd.
In a chambray shirt unbuttoned to his sternum and his hat pulled low to shade his eyes, the wrangler walked through a field of flowers that seemed like they'd be just as content to be plucked and made into a bouquet than to suffer out in the heat any longer. Doing just that, the man gathered flower after flower, paying careful attention to which ones he did or didn't pull in a way that seemed ill-fitting a man as rough around the edges as he seemed to be.
Somewhere out here his ma was buried, and though he was rather shit at remembering where (near the well, but that fuckin' thing always seemed to move about), and he always made the trek up on the anniversary of her passing.
Alys would not be able to relate to Morgen in this instance, as her parents were (last time she checked, which was admittedly a while ago) still alive. They weren't on good terms, and she hadn't given them much thought since she'd left home, determined to make it as a Seer and get away from the family business, which she despised. Truthfully, they had never been a particularly close family, so the parting had been a surprise to absolutely no one.
She sat on her stone bench and looked out across the flowers, her sketchbook in her hands. She'd never been particularly good at capturing "pretty" scenes, always drawn more to the dark and cryptic world of her imagination, but today was just so lovely that she couldn't help herself. Her sketch wasn't the most realistic drawing, she was sure, but she was happy with it, and that was all that mattered.
As she glanced up from her sketch, she noticed a lone figure picking its way through the flowers and she frowned for a moment, her sketching interrupted. But then she thought of the cards, and specifically the Hermit, and she figured that she could use the interruption to her advantage. So she added in the lone figure in the field of wildflowers, and was content to let the person pass on their merry way.
Had Morgen known his presence here would potentially serve as the muse for a tarot card, he'd likely have planned his afternoon differently. Not that the wrangler had anything against the unseen arts, but his wasn't really a face that needed any immortalizin', in his humble opinion. However, knowing none of this, when he spied the dark-haired woman sat upon the bench, he reached up and touched the brim of his hat in polite greeting.
"Ma'am." He called out. Not a terribly big talker, but if the ghost of his ma' was still lingering around these parts, she'd whoop his ass if he just went about his merry way without so much as a hello. "Nice weather." Morgen added, knowing it was a ridiculous thing to say, but being utterly incompetent when it came to small talk. Besides, it was nice weather, if you liked excruciating heat and cloudless days.
Whatever Alys had expected of her day, it was certainly not to run into another living soul among the vast expanse of King's End. She was so engrossed in her drawing that she didn't notice the person - a man, as it turned out - moving closer and closer, picking wildflowers as he went. When he appeared before her with a tip of his hat and a word of greeting, she couldn't help but make a face at the polite ma'am that fell from his lips. She'd never been called 'ma'am' before in her life, and she hadn't thought to start today.
"Hello," she said cautiously, closing her sketchbook gently and setting it aside. The man commented on the weather, which Alys supposed was fairly nice, though it was a bit warm for her tastes. It was strange to think of, since she'd hated the cold when she'd first arrived in Halo, but between the Academy's blessing and the new clothes she'd purchased in her time there, she'd grown comfortable in the cooler climes of the north. Instead of delving into her opinions on the weather, however, she admired the flowers held in the man's hands. "Those are pretty," she told him. "Are they for anything special?" Though, when she'd become so curious about other's lives was anyone's guess.
Glancing down at the bouquet of flowers in one hand, the wrangler chews on the inside of his lip for a moment as his denim gaze seems to see through the flowers he was holding. "Fer my ma'." He answers on the heels of a sigh, before tugging his gaze up from the flowers and toward Alys. "Well, her grave anyway. I ain't so sentimental to think that her body is still anything more than dirt by now, but.." He shrugs, and it's the shrug of a man who had loved his mother so dearly, that he'd set aside his rather linear and straightforward dealings with the world, that he might remember his mother in this one boyishly naive way.
"Didn't mean t'bother you. I just didn't want you to think I was one of them spooks. They don't tend to talk or say hello, so.." Again that shrug. Morgen seemed to be the sort of man who relied more on body language than his words for communicating his meanings. But then, he did spend a good deal of time around animals who couldn't talk, so perhaps we might forgive him that.
Alys immediately regretted her question when the man's gaze misted over, as though he were looking far away, into another place and time. She couldn't really relate to his loss, given that her own parents were still alive (and on poor terms with her, but that was another story), but she murmured condolences all the same. "I'm sorry for your loss." It was sweet, really, for the man to honor his mother in this way. For a moment, Alys longed for the kind of relationship with her own mother that she imagined that this man must have had with his.
Alys frowned slightly, tilting her head in confusion. "What spooks?" she asked. Having never been to the area before, the young woman was unfamiliar with its flora and fauna, as well as its more metaphysical happenings. Her gaze held a combination of confusion and curiosity. She found such things intriguing, and she hoped to hear perhaps a bit more before the stranger went on his way.
Immediately the wrangler gives his head a little shake. "She's been gone a while now, but thanks." He says with another of those little shrugs. Then again, what else was someone s'posed to say when you told them your ma was dead, no matter how long gone she was?
Raising his eyebrows slightly, Morgen pushes up the brim of his hat with one finger and nods his head towards where the Mourn became more heavily dotted with tombs. 'Well, there's the daemon. They're like ghosts of companions that just...kinda lurk. Don't usually cause too much fuss. It's the enera and the villi y'gotta worry about." He adds with a sigh. "The enera are like the bitchy older siblings of a banshee, if you'd pardon my language. They're rare enough, but pray you never see one.
The villi are a sad sort of thing. Mostly the ghosts of those with unrequited love or suicides or whatnot. They call out for help and then take their sadness out on whoever comes to their aid."
With the man's thanks, Alys simply nodded, and the conversation moved on to other things. In truth, she was relieved that time had passed since his mother's death; she would have felt worse if the wound had been fresh and raw, and her unable to offer any semblance of comfort. Some Seers claimed to speak with the dead, but she was not among them; and besides, her newfound companion didn't seem like the type to take part in such activities (although you know what they say about assumptions, and Alys had been wrong plenty of times before).
She listened carefully as the man described his 'spooks,' peering out over the landscape as though, if she tried hard enough, she might see them for herself. The daemon didn't much bother her; harmless ghosts of companions might be inspiration for her artwork, after all. But the thought of encountering an enera or a villi... she wasn't afraid of the concepts, but of running into one? Let's just say she'd rather not test out her newfound skill with a bow on the undead.
"It must be difficult, to be trapped in such a form," she mused aloud. "I believe I'd take a clean death over such an existence."
"Same here." The wrangler agrees, the words coming out on the heels of a laugh as he nods. "Guess that's the risk of lovin' that much. Or hatin', I'spose." Morgen continues, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully for a moment before shaking off the expression. Such things were far, far above his pay grade anyhow.
"Well, I'll let you get back to it." Nodding toward Alys' notebook, he gives his bouquet of flowers a gentle little shake to suggest that he too had things to get back to. "Y'know ma's. They don't much like to be kept waiting." Chuckling slightly in a self-deprecating gesture, the wrangler gave the brim of his hat another tug before turning back to try and suss out just where in the great blue fuck his ma's grave was. With so many damned flowers this time of year it wasn't the easiest thing to find, but nevermind. Morgen wasn't no quitter.
