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!
i reach out to my lifeline, the angels laugh in paradise
El's smile grew as Soh gave them the pages. This girl was so generous, and El was feeling lucky to have stumbled across her. Especially in the state they'd been not too long ago...remembering this, El took the canteen and drank some more water, making sure to leave some for Soh if she needed it.
Then, they got in a comfortable position on their belly, legs out behind them and elbows supporting their upper body as they chose a flower randomly to sketch. They wished they had more colors than black, but they were grateful enough to even have paper with which to do this. With this new focus, El fell into silence, looking from the page to the flower, then back again repeatedly as they began to draw. It was satisfying and joyful to create a replica of what they saw on a blank sheet of paper, and though El hadn't drawn in some time, they were able to remember the motions of it after a couple of minutes.
After a little while, they took a break to change positions and just watch the scenery. They held their breath when a little brown hare made itself known only 20 feet away from them, nose and ears twitching. El bit their lip to quell their grin somewhat at the sight.
Soh was nothing if not kind and generous, and she was always thrilled to make a new friend. So as the pair settled into a comfortable silence in which each turned to their respective papers, Soh smiled to herself and began to sketch. She started with loose, soft lines outlining the nearby hills, blocking in the flowers, and teasing in a hint of the clouds in the sky. When she was happy with the loose sketch, she pulled out her pastels and set them in between herself and El (just in case they wanted to use them), then began to layer in colors and more defined shapes.
It was always relaxing to create art, and she had to wonder if that was what the gods had thought when they'd created the world. Was it as therapeutic for them as it was for her? Or course, creating the very hills and flowers that formed the basis for her mortal drawings was far different and more complicated than anything Soh could do. But it was still the same concept, wasn't it?
A little brown hare appeared after a while, seemingly content with their presence. Soh glanced at El, prepared to poke them if they weren't already aware of the creature, but her new friend was already biting back a smile at the little hare's appearance. Soh continued to draw, adding in a block of brown and shaping the form of the rabbit into her drawing. For a while longer, the young woman was content with her work and her companion, focused only on the feel of the pastels in her hand and the sun on her back as she hunched over her journal.
The unicorn, when it came, had two horns stacked one on top of the other, the top longer than the bottom, and a leonine tail. Its coat shimmered a pearly white, glinting in the sun. It wasn't nearly as close as the hare - in fact, Soh had to squint against the sun's glare to make it out at all - but when she did, she gasped. "El!" she hissed in a whisper, determined to try not to frighten either of their guests. "Look!"
i reach out to my lifeline, the angels laugh in paradise
El quite literally could not believe what they were seeing. For a moment after Sohalia had called for their attention and told them to look, El could make no sense of what she was talking about. When they looked out, all they could see was the same pretty meadow, grass and flowers swaying, sunlight brightening and enhancing the color.
Then, they spotted something that they almost mistook as a trick of the light, a mirage, but when they looked again, the form had clarified, and it was that of a pearly white horse. An animal as beautiful as that was enough of a gift for El, but then, they noticed a pair of strange protrusions from its forehead. It took a second for them to realize that they were, indeed, a pair of horns, one slightly longer than the other. And the tail was no ordinary horse tail, but that of a lion, tufted at the end.
An inexplicable warmth bloomed in the middle of El's chest that they could not explain nor understand. It felt safe, however. It felt like the comfort of home, the warmth of a hearth. It filled El with such a sense of peace that they had never felt before, a stillness, as if time itself had stopped in the presence of such a magnificent creature. The ache in their limbs began to subside, and the tension in their muscles melted. The unicorn didn't seem to notice El nor Sohalia, and just bent its neck gracefully down to the ground to graze.
El blinked, and only then did they notice that their eyes had filled with water. They didn't know why; they weren't feeling sad at all, just...overwhelmed with that beautiful feeling. "I didn't know they were actually real," they said too quietly, fearing that if they spoke above a whisper, the beautiful image would dissipate.
Sohalia all but held her breath after getting El's attention, her eyes fixed on the pearlescent sheen of the unicorn's coat and the two horns protruding from its graceful head. She'd seen unicorns before, but never like this. Never in the wild. Never free. There was something about it that was almost magical, as though if she moved too suddenly or breathed too hard, she might banish the creature back into the depths of her imagination, never to be seen again.
She remembered how the unicorns had acted when she'd come across Morgen's herd, playful and excitable; she thought of how the Celestine unicorns had been, hungry and opinionated. This unicorn was nothing like that. It brought with it a sense of calm and serenity that Soh rarely felt, for all her good moods and cheer. For a blessed few moments, she felt entirely at peace.
Soh said nothing to El's revelation; what was there, after all, to say? Instead, the young woman carefully flipped to the next page in her journal, picked up her pencil, and began an new drawing. This time, her pencil flew across the paper, capturing as much as she could as quickly as she could, for who knew how long the unicorn would stay, unbothered by their presence?
i reach out to my lifeline, the angels laugh in paradise
Out of the corner of El's eye, they noticed Sohalia begin to sketch, thought about doing the same, then decided against it. Just looking was enough for them. They shifted slightly to get a better view, and as they did, noticed their hands were trembling. Not so good for a drawing at the moment.
The unicorn raised its head, and El was afraid that it had noticed them. But then it turned to look behind, and from the mist, amazingly, came another. El thought they must be doubly blessed today, if not by the Gods, then by some other entity entirely. Two unicorns in one place! The second one was slightly smaller than the first, and its coat was speckled with brown rather than completely white. The two gently bumped heads in greeting, tails flicking, and after a while went back to calmly grazing.
El couldn't stop themself from smiling hard, hugging their torso. They still couldn't quite believe what they were seeing. Shortly after, they noticed some movement in the grass, a bit closer to them but still far, and first assumed it to be the hare from earlier. After looking a bit longer, however, El could just make out a head of dark hair, barely visible amongst the grass, and in front of it, a large crossbow balanced on the ground. It was a person, they realized, and the person was just finishing placing a bolt in their crossbow, pointed right at the unicorns. There was no doubt as to what this person was going to do.
"Hey! Get out of here! Run away!" Without thinking, El had stood and started waving their arms, yelling at the unicorns to flee. They could only hope that the crossbowman wasn't yet ready to fire their shot and that the unicorns would react in time.
Soh sketched, her mind completely on the task at hand, immortalizing the unicorn in print. She glanced up every now and then to reaffirm the image in her mind, but most of her focus was downward towards her page. Imagine her surprise when she looked up to find two unicorns rather than one! Soh scribbled furiously at her page, thrilled beyond words by their luck - but then her hand jolted sideways as El jumped up and began to scream.
The unicorns, seemingly just as startled as Soh, flung their heads into the air, nostrils and eyes wide with sudden wariness; upon seeing El waving their arms wildly in the air, they snorted, the bigger unicorn ushering the smaller into a quick getaway. There was a twang as the crossbowman released their arrow, but it sailed harmlessly past the smaller unicorn's tail as the pair darted from sight. Soh was on her feet now, thunder in her eyes as she realized what had transpired. It took a great deal to make the young woman angry, but this-!
"Hey!" she shouted, unthinking and furious. "What do you think you're doing?!" She bent to scoop up her staff and glared at the intruder, suddenly in a defensive stance as though daring them to come closer to where she could beat some sense into them.
Let's just ignore that she wasn't really prepared to actually do that.
i reach out to my lifeline, the angels laugh in paradise
El felt their shoulders drop in relief as the crossbow bolt flew harmlessly past the unicorns. They were safe, at the very least. Immediately, El felt anger roil up inside them from their gut into their chest, a hot lava that jumped and bubbled. Who did this person think they were? Attacking a unicorn like that?
The crossbowman stood quickly and turned around to face the two, a man with mottled green paint on his face and a furious expression. He yelled:
"What do I think I'm doing?! What do you think you're doing?! I had the perfect shot and you ruined it!" As he screamed, he walked with purpose towards the two, pulling another large bolt from his belt and beginning to reload his weapon.
El had nothing to say because they were moving. They sprinted up to the man, a shrinking distance of 35 feet away. The crossbowman stopped walking and instead focused on reloading his weapon, moving faster because of it. In no time at all, he finished reloading and aimed point blank at El, who stretched their palm outward and kept running.
Another twang as the next bolt was released, and El went down. As they did, they reached for the man's legs and pulled, effectively tripping him. He thrashed and threw his crossbow aside, reaching down for a melee weapon. El was motionless.
For all her screaming, Soh was entirely unprepared for an actual physical altercation. The only fighting she'd ever done was learning to handle her staff in a controlled environment, and two very brief sparring sessions with Melita. Fending off a friend in the interest of training? That was one thing. Fighting for her life against someone who looked very likely to hurt her? That was something else entirely.
She quailed a little as the man shouted back, especially when he began to walk purposefully towards the pair of them, but El seemed to have no such qualms about getting into a fight. "El -!" Soh screamed as her new friend charged their opponent; not wanting to see them in a fight by themselves, Soh gulped and charged after them, staff in hand. Her heart almost stopped when the crossbowman fired and El dropped, taking the man's feet out from beneath him in the process.
"Get away!" she shrieked, her voice an octave higher than usual as she swung her staff at the man's head. It connected with a resounding crack!, and as he slumped to the ground, motionless, Soh turned to El. "Oh my gods, El!" she said, her hands fluttering over her new friend as though unsure whether or not to touch them. "El!"
05-29-2023, 02:11 AM (This post was last modified: 05-29-2023, 02:26 AM by Eleftheria.)
i reach out to my lifeline, the angels laugh in paradise
As El watched the man point his crossbow and shoot, the fire in her gut roared, and then the bolt hit. They fell the ground, satisfied with taking the man to the ground, then clutched their arm as pain bloomed from a point above their elbow. After a second of panic, El realized that the pain was much too dull to be from the bolt of a crossbow, and looked down to find the wooden shaft of a bolt pressed into their arm, not enough to truly strike, but to splinter and create small cuts from which they were bleeding. Their opposite hand clutched the wood in disbelief, but before they could do anything else they heard Sohalia screaming their name.
They snapped their head up to look at Sohalia, then at the man, who was groaning in pain and starting to move slightly. It was then that they realized what a fool they'd been to run straight at this poacher, as he was clearly more experienced in weaponry and combat than them.
Without hesitation, El stood up, still holding the remnants of the bolt in their hand, and grabbed Sohalia's arm with the other. "Let's go!" they urged, before running away and pulling Sohalia along with them.
;)
