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!
Soh's time in Torchline was rapidly nearing an end, and she had never been so reluctant to leave.
She wandered along the beach, alone but for her thoughts, and before she realized it, she had ended up at Aumakua. She'd been before, briefly, but she hadn't spent any great amount of time there, and as she looked around, she realized that it was actually quite an interesting place. A pale stone lighthouse stood upon an island, lit by magic and shining day and night. The sands around the island glittered and gleamed, catching the young woman's eye each time she turned her head.
But even the beauty of the landscape was not enough to distract her from her moping for long. It seemed that life was just better in Torchline, and she was loathe to leave it - and her new boyfriend (because let's be honest, that's what this is really about) - behind.
What she hadn't realized about Aumakua was that there was a shrine there, and as she wandered along, she caught sight of it and curiosity took hold. She meandered closer, stopping to gaze at it with her head tilted to one side. She'd never been to a shrine before, other than when she Attuned, and she was very young then. She wasn't really sure how to tell which god a shrine belonged to. So for a moment, she simply stared at it, contemplating the gods and her life and the world at large (yes, we're feeling edgy today).
Having spent all of her adult life in Torchline, Flora had grown so used to its natural beauty that she hardly gave the poetic vista of surf and sand a second glance as she sashayed her way toward the lighthouse. Yes, yes, the bioluminescence on the water was pretty, yes the sand itself seemed to sparkle with sunlight, and yes Torchline was coastal and gorgeous. But when you had a life with all the complexities that brought with it, a stunning bit of coastline was hardly enough to just magically steal your thoughts away forever.
Or, so it was in Flora's experience.
Wearing a black bathing suit with a plunging neckline and sarong wrapped low on her waist to reveal her figure, Flora strolled along the sand with her shoes in one hand and a few trinkets for Safrin in the other. Ahead of her was a little slip of a woman. If Flora recognized her it was only in passing, but with as large as Torchline was that was hardly a surprise. Not wanting to wait in line for the shrine—she'd come back if that was the case—Flora raised one ringed hand up to shade her eyes. "Hey!" She called brightly. "You coming or going?"
Soh was so lost in her thoughts that the voice behind her made her jump; turning quickly towards the source, she found an absolutely gorgeous young woman dressed in a bathing suit-sarong combination that had Soh blushing. She was far too modest for such a revealing outfit (although she had to admit that Flora pulled it off with aplomb). Today's clothing included a sleeveless white blouse with an open 'v' at the neckline - just enough to reveal absolutely nothing - and a yellow skirt that hung to mid-calf. She wore her hair pinned up in her usual way, twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck. Of course, the wind had picked and pulled until little tendrils were free to frame her face, and she tucked these behind an ear as she recovered her composure.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, her voice as friendly and warm as it usually was. "I was just - lost in thought, I guess." She offered an apologetic smile. "I'll get out of your way." And she moved to do just that, stepping to the side and starting to walk away from the shrine, before she stopped and turned back. "Actually - whose shrine is this, anyway?"
06-12-2023, 10:36 PM (This post was last modified: 06-12-2023, 10:36 PM by Flora.)
flora
Not minding one little bit the way Sohalia's eyes drank her in, if Flora subtly shifted her shoulders and hips to better bare her assets, what of it? Flora had never been accused of being shy. "No apology needed." The Doubletake replies, coming to stand close enough to the cartographer that she was able to see the dusting of freckles across her nose that surely had come from the sun if not genetics. Watching Soh begin to depart with a twist of her hips and a rather disappointed smile, it was with a catlike grin that she welcomed the blonde's question.
"Girl," Flora admonished playfully. "How are you going to be in Torchline and not know where Safrin's shrine is?" Tutting playfully under her breath and tossing a tangle of curls over her shoulder, Flora takes a moment to look Sohalia up and down—to properly look her up and down. "You aren't from around here, are you?" That much was clear enough if she hadn't known whose shrine she was at. "My guess is..." Narrowing her gaze and biting at her lip, Flora crinkles her nose slightly as she debates for just a moment. "Stormbreak. Am I right?"
So, the shrine belonged to Safrin. The one god that Soh had been explicitly warned away from.
To hide her sudden discomfort, she laughed at Flora's playful admonishment. She wasn't used to anyone quite like Flora, and as the girl looked her up and down, her cheeks tinged a faint pink that could have just been the sun. It was indeed quite obvious that Soh wasn't from around here - she'd never really fit into the Torchline, shall we say, culture. So as Flora asked, she giggled again. "Is it that obvious?" she asked, her tone implying that she knew exactly how obvious it was.
That Flora was able to correctly guess her origins, however, had Soh raising her brows. "How did you know?" she asked, genuinely curious. Being from the Grounds originally, and then traveling before settling only fairly recently in Stormbreak, she wouldn't have anticipated a correct guess. But then, just because she was bad at gleaning such information from people didn't mean that everyone was.
"I don't actually know much about Safrin," she admitted, curious in spite of her unease.
"It's not..not obvious." Flora answers, nose crinkling and aqua eyes full of laughter as she takes yet another step closer. "Well...You aren't covered in leaves or weird jewelry, so probably not the Greatwood. And you're not a ghost, so that rules out the Hollowed Grounds." This latter deduction is said with a roll of her eyes. "So it was either Stormbreak or Halo, and since you're not gaping at the sun or wearing anything fur-lined, I guessed Stormbreak." The girl shrugs and grins again.
At the mention of Safrin, Flora looks over Soh's shoulder toward the shrine before her gaze flits back to the blonde. "I do." She says with a slightly weary huff as if the knowledge was a burden. "My stepdad is Safrin's demigod." Flora adds by way of explanation. "Growing up I hated her on principle, and also because my actual dad hates her, but after living here and meeting her for myself, I guess you could say I've changed my tune."
Soh may be a tourist, and she may not be dressed for the beach, but she did know better than to wear something fur-lined in Torchline, of all places. She laughed as Flora explained her reasoning, wrinkling her nose at the thought of furs in this heat. "Do they really wear furs? Here?" she asked, trying to wrap her mind around it. How would they not die of heat stroke? Of course, she was hardly one to talk, with her blouse-and-long-skirt-on-the-beach combination, but at least what she had on was built for warmer weather!
As Flora described her family ties and her deity alignment in one fell swoop, Soh couldn't help but be impressed. The girl couldn't be much older than Soh, and yet she had already interacted with a god - which Soh herself had yet to do. "Wow," she said, taking it in. "That's... impressive." Because it was. Powerful connections, and suddenly it made sense why Flora seemed to be such a force of nature, even upon such a brief meeting. "So... what's she like?"
Flora grins rather conspiratorily as she widens her eyes and nods. "More than you'd think. They just..show up like that. I think their understanding of warm is seriously messed up because of all the snow." Had her mother shown up in fur gowns before to visit? Absolutely she had. But had she immediately stripped almost everything off...? Well, yes to that too.
Shrugging modestly, Flora can only give Soh a coy little smile. "It just runs in the family. I'm closer to Frey I guess, but I really have come around to Safrin. Especially being here, since it's a very...Safrin town, you know?" Or well, no, Sohalia didn't know. Not if she hadn't known this was her shrine.
"I mean, I won't mince words. She can be a bitch." Glancing toward the shrine as if daring Safrin to strike her down (she'd just channel Ronin to save her, it's fine), Flora grins. "But like, the sort you want on your team, y'know? Of all the gods I think she'd like...do the most for you, so long as you like...pledge yourself fully to her. It's why she hates my dad, because he's married to her demigod." Again Flora shrugs as if all this divine drama was the sort of thing found in every family.
"You always have to show up with some sort of offering, even if she tells you that you don't. She's super vain, but knows it? So don't be shy with the compliments."
As Flora had guessed, Soh didn't know. In fact, she knew very little about Torchline other than what she'd picked up from Jude and Harper, and what information was available for tourists. She tilted her head, humming thoughtfully at the revelation that one could call gods bitches and get away with it, even right in front of their shrine. That seemed like the sort of thing that might get one smited, but hey - Soh was no deity. What did she know?
She listened carefully to Flora's description of the goddess, her brow creased as she compared her mental notes with the information Flora had shared. Sunjata had been less kind in his descriptions of Safrin, but although Flora was being complimentary, she was also being... rather blunt. Soh still wasn't sure that Safrin was the kind of deity she wanted to serve. "I heard that she could be a little, um... possessive?" Soh mused, gently pressing for information. "How do you work with Frey and Safrin?"
"Yeah, that's a good word for it." Flora agrees, though she doesn't seem too off-put by it. "I mean, if you're on her side it isn't a big deal. Like I said, she's one you don't want to get on the wrong side of." Setting down the basket of items that she'd brought, Flora runs a hand over the grooves the wicker had put into her arm before stretching in a gesture that was both cat-like and somehow just as elegant.
"If you follow Safrin, she'll give you everything. You just...like, have to follow her." As for how Flora walked the current line she was on? Grinning, the girl waggles her eyebrows. "Being an accepted helps." She says. "Mostly I just...I mean, Frey doesn't care, and when it comes to Safrin I just don't really mention anyone else. Other than Ronin maybe. Name-dropping him goes pretty far."
Lowering her voice considerably now, as if what she's about to say is much worse than calling Safrin a bitch, and it is, Flora continues. "I think if I were going to follow someone, it would be Safrin. I mean, pledging yourself to her doesn't seem like that big of a deal, not when the choices are Ludo who will steal your soul, or Frey who...I dunno, just doesn't seem to care? But for now, I guess I'm playing the field. No sense in making a choice before I have to, y'know?"
Soh listened and nodded, her mind running through her previous conversation with Sunjata once more in comparison to the account she was receiving from Flora. Now, many in Caido would say that Sunjata was lying in a bed of his own making, but Soh hadn't seen that side of him. She could only reconcile his warning with the man she'd seen - someone who had been kind to her. Helped her, even. Who was she to trust more? Jata, who was a demigod in his own right, or some random stranger on the beach?
But now that her thoughts had been muddled, she had to admit that maybe there were two sides to every story. By Flora's own admission, Safrin was a possessive bitch. Maybe that just meant different things to different people. Maybe people just had different tolerance levels to Safrin, like one might have to alcohol.
A breeze blew hair into Soh's face, and she swept it aside impatiently. "I guess that makes sense," she agreed, if only because she didn't have a reason not to. "I haven't actually seen any of the gods yet - unless you count when I was Attuned, I guess, but I was really young, so I don't really remember..." She trailed off thoughtfully, trying to recall anything from that encounter and failing. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she offered a bright smile. "Anyway, thanks!" she said. "Oh - I'm Sohalia, by the way! Or just Soh, for short."
Nodding, Flora smiles. "Oh! Well, you totally should!" Unlike her brother, the Doubletake absolutely advocated for seeing the gods. "Remember what I said, always bring something for Safrin. Frey too, both aspects of them, and if you go to see the sex-one, you should probably be naked. Actually..I think Ludo likes offerings too...games mostly." So said her father, anyway. Shrugging again, more than happy to help when the request was so easy, Flora blinked in surprise for a moment as Soh introduced herself, before tipping her head back and laughing brightly.
"Hey!" She giggled, tousling her hair away from her face. "I'm Flora! Super nice to meet you." Quite how they got this far into their conversation without bothering to introduce themselves was beyond Flora, though the girl found she didn't much mind.
"I was actually thinking about going to see Frey soon," Soh admitted with a shy smile. "The, um, nature aspect. Not the sex one." Not that she had anything against the sex-Frey, or even sex itself, but, as we all know, Soh was a prude shy little thing when it came to, you know, touch, or seeing bare skin, or anything else that might be remotely swoon-worthy. Besides, she had no experience to speak of with anything more than kissing, and that only recently. "Someone told me they like peaches." Jata again; she really needed to talk to more people about the gods.
Introductions aside, Soh smiled a little sadly. "I go back tomorrow," she said with a small sigh. "But I don't really want to yet." She thought of her budding relationship with Jude. She was so selfish for wanting him to come with her, or for wanting to stay longer, now that Maeve had just been found and their family had so much to sort out... but she couldn't help it. She wasn't ready to leave.
It wasn't hard to draw certain conclusions about Sohalia based on her clothing, much the same way Flora had about her citizenship; her mid-calf skirt, for example. So it was that the Doubletake wasn't surprised to hear that Soh would be seeing the nature aspect of Frey, but a preach? Smiling widely, her eyes crinkling with amusement, Flora waits for what she assumes is a joke.
Surely she can't be serious?
"A..peach." She repeats, her smile growing crooked and then going quite soft and adoring. "Well..yeah, cause you know. Eating a peach when it's really juicy is like eating a..." One of Flora's lips tugs to the side that her smile might grow even more crooked, as her gaze descended near Sohalia's waist and then back up again. "You know." She adds, eyes widening for emphasis. "I doubt nature Frey would turn one down, but..uhm that's definitely a sex thing." Chuckling under her breath, Flora shrugs. "I'd go with some seeds. Maybe fresh water? You know, nature stuff. Just no flowers or whatever, since you know..plucking them is killing them, blah blah."
As the conversation switches gears, Flora finds her head tilting slightly to the side as she trades amusement for understanding. "Aww. I mean, I get it. Stormbreak is...blah." All gray stone and rocks and rules as far as Flora was concerned. "Why not stay? At least until the end of the summer."
