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!
They had spent several days chasing a Flowerbirth storm around the northern fingers of the Draig on the first leg of their world tour. It had curved back over Hak Etme, and in the wake of the rain the arid region had blossomed, giving those in the skyboat a rare glimpse of the desert's hidden beauty as they passed overhead.
Tal had shared his quest from Ludo and his need to spend the night on the Sea of Dreams. It was just their luck that the on the evening of the fifth day as they came over the Sea it was filled with water, reflecting the fiery sunset sky like a perfect mirror. Tal kept the skyboat aloft so that as the light faded and the stars came out they could watch the points of light beneath and above them, as though they were sailing through the sky, untethered by gravity or any solid ground below.
It was beautiful but also more than a little dizzying, and he had eventually brought the Peregrine down cautiously, testing the distance with her anchor to ensure they didn't scrape the ground.
As luck would have it a spread of dark flowers were poking through the shallow water providing a point of reference and Tal aimed for them, bringing the boat down to hover just above the dark-petaled blooms so that they nearly brushed the keel.
"This should be good enough," he called quietly to Alys across the utter stillness of the night, tugging his Goggles off to hang around his neck. "Looks like we'll be eatin' rations tonight. Not much t'forage out here."
Below them, the scent of the otherworldly lotuses began to rise...
Void Lotus (infected variant - Hak Etme): Once a symbol of purity and enlightenment, the Void Lotus has been tainted by the void. Its petals, once pristine white, now shimmer with ominous shades of deep purple and black. The serene fragrance has transformed into a haunting scent that induces a sense of unease. Those who linger too close risk being drawn into a nightmarish dreamscape.
There were so many places that Alys had yet to visit, and among them all, she couldn't have imagined the beauty of the Sea of Dreams.
They'd watched the sunset from their place aboard the Peregrine, all fiery reds and oranges flaring across the sky, until darkness fell and the stars arose, surrounding them with the illusion of floating through time and space. The seer leaned against the railing, mouth agape, as she took in the dizzying beauty of sky both above and below them, until Tal brought them to moor amongst a bed of dark-petaled flowers.
As Alys left the railing to join her friend, Sascha on her heels, she caught a whiff of a dark, cloying scent that set her teeth on edge. A frown appeared on the Seer's face; she felt as though they were being watched. "Rations are fine," she called softly to Tal, discomfort evident in her voice. It was the first time in their voyage that Alys had felt so uneasy. "Are we, er... safe out here?"
gather 'round, here's how to get what you want introduce a new religion of feeling like a boss
Minor powerplay allowed without permission.
Feel free to use force/magic on Alys.
11-16-2023, 04:57 AM (This post was last modified: 11-17-2023, 02:41 AM by Talyson.)
His skin itched on the inside where he couldn't scratch it. It didn't stop him from trying, though, fingernails dragging idly over his arm as he looked over the edge of the rail again. The water was eerily still beneath them, and only the flowers he could see in the starlight gave any indication that it was only a few inches deep and not an eternity.
"Safe as we can be in Hak Etme," he tried to assure Alys, but there was a hint of doubt in his voice. He'd always hated the desert, so dry and hot and the complete opposite of Halo, but he'd so rarely felt like it hated him so... personally. "Long as we stay in the Peregrine an' off th'ground the land sharks can't find us. An' I checked for mirage crabs with my Goggles when we came down." He moved restlessly across the deck to join her, but his fingers continued to rub over his skin and his scowl had pulled his brows together. "Night flyin's no good til th'water goes down, though. No way t'tell our height. The water should be gone before mornin' an' we can get an early start then."
He shot a quick look over his shoulder, but there was nothing there and he shook his head, scowl deepening.
"It just feels... wrong," Alys insisted, wrapping her arms about herself as though catching a chill. She'd never felt anything quite like this, and she didn't need her cards to tell her that something bad was coming. Even Sascha, usually a happy-go-lucky cub, cowered at her feet, whimpering softly into her skirts. Alys bent to pat her, cuddling the little ursur in an effort to calm both her companion and herself. With Tal's recent warning ringing in her ears - everyone needs armor - she reached for her bow...
But when she looked up, there was no one.
"Tal?" she called into the darkness, her voice small and scared. She'd never felt quite so alone and vulnerable, and she gripped her bow tightly in both hands. "Boreal? Sascha?" There was no answer - only a resounding, inky blackness as far as the eye could see.
gather 'round, here's how to get what you want introduce a new religion of feeling like a boss
Minor powerplay allowed without permission.
Feel free to use force/magic on Alys.
"Yeah..." Alys was definitely right about how wrong the night felt, in spite of the smooth flying of the day and the gorgeous sunset they'd witnessed. It had all gone sideways once they'd anchored for the evening, which was the opposite of what should have happened, and Tal shook his head, shaggy hair flying as he tried to rid himself of the feeling of being watched by something malevolent. There wasn't anything. He knew there wasn't! He'd just checked and besides--
"Alys?" Lost in his thoughts, he'd gotten distracted and turned away from his friends. Now, looking back to reassure himself of their presence, he had a faint sense of someone calling his name, but... "Hey! Where'd y'go?" The ship was... empty. He knew he would have heard if they'd gone over the side, but...
And then he heard it. The splash of a body hitting water, and the courier rushed to the rail and looked over, fighting a wave of dizziness as the starry sky stretched out below him in all directions.
But of his friends and companion there was nothing to be seen but the ripples spreading out beneath the ship and bleeding into the cosmos above and around him. Ripples that were swiftly rising to brush the bottom of the Peregrine as she drifted in the night...
It had to be a dream. That was the only reasonable explanation for why Tal and Boreal and even Sascha had disappeared as though into thin air. But it was like no dream Alys had ever had. She reached out to brush her fingertips against the Peregrine's railing, and it was still there, still solid, in a way that nothing ever was in her dreams. "Tal?" she called again, real fear in her voice now. This was no dream, but it also wasn't reality, and it was in this in-between place that monsters lay dormant.
Not that they would stay dormant for long.
From somewhere in the darkness, she heard a cry that she would recognize anywhere: it was Sascha, and she was in trouble. The seer spun, trying to locate her cub, her heart beating wildly in her chest as panic overtook her. She looked this way and that, but she couldn't locate the ursur, until, suddenly, the dreamscape (if it could even be called that) shifted. Then she saw her cub, picked up by the scruff of the neck, held by a faceless hunter, balanced precariously over the edge of the hunter's knife -
And she heard the ursur scream as the blade bit deep.
gather 'round, here's how to get what you want introduce a new religion of feeling like a boss
Minor powerplay allowed without permission.
Feel free to use force/magic on Alys.
Tal stared down into the dark waters, knowing they'd only been a few inches deep when they'd landed, but now there was no sign of the flowers and the ripples slapping the bottom of the Peregrine meant that it had risen several feet. He shivered, fingers gripping the rail white-knuckled as the bottom of the ship vanished beneath the water as he watched, swallowed by darkness. Uneasiness churned in his stomach, fermenting slowly into a low, insidious terror that bubbled up through his throat, demanding release. "Fuckfuckfuck," he moaned under his breath before raising his voice again, this time risking a shout. "Alys? Boreal? Answer me!"
Silence.
And then--
He could feel it in the companion bond. Boreal's uneasiness growing into fear, the dragon nearby but unseen, unheard. Fear and anger and helplessness that wrapped around Tal's heart and squeezed until he couldn't breathe. And from Alys-- nothing.
There was only one place they could have gone if they weren't on the ship, and Tal swallowed hard as he looked down into the rising waters. They weren't that deep yet... he could touch the bottom and still keep his chin above water if he jumped down now...
He tried to master his fear as he made an abortive attempt to leap the rail and then stopped. Two shaking breaths were all he allowed himself before forcing a second attempt and this time he managed to get over, dropping into the water--
He sank like a stone, looking about wildly with his Goggles, and there below him were Boreal, Alys, and Sascha. In the nightmare he inhabited the flowers had grown vines that twined around them and pinned them to the salten earth beneath the shallow sea.
They weren't moving.
He scrambled towards them, reaching out to tear away the vines, but something jerked him to a halt just out of reach. He struggled, but with each shift the grip in his ankles tightened and then a vine twisted up to grip his wrist, pulling him down, down to join his friends beneath the cold, black waters.
Alys was frozen, trapped in a moment in time as she watched the life drain from her cub in the terrible darkness that enveloped them. She could do nothing but scream, reaching for Sascha, rooted in place by a force she couldn't identify or explain. It was only when the life had drowned from her cub that she was able to move, and she collapsed, heaving, to cradle the ursur's body in her arms, wild sobs overtaking her -
The nightmare shifted.
Sascha was nowhere to be seen, but screams echoed across the darkened desert. Alys rose slowly, shaking, tears still streaming down her face. "T-tal?" she whispered, and another scream rent the inky blackness around her. She spun around to find the same faceless figure hunched over Tal's struggling form. He was missing his armor - why was he missing his armor? - and seemed to be almost paralyzed. The faceless hunter looked up at Alys, tilted their head to the side, and smiled creepily - how could they smile without a face? - as he reached down to slit Tal's throat.
gather 'round, here's how to get what you want introduce a new religion of feeling like a boss
Minor powerplay allowed without permission.
Feel free to use force/magic on Alys.
The desert night was quiet on the Sea of Dreams. The waters from the earlier rainfall were receding slowly, absorbed by the thirsty salt flats beneath them, and the temperature was dropping more swiftly still. The stars sparkled in the cooling air, winking overhead and watching with uncaring distance as the small sky boat drifted at anchor atop the mirrored surface below.
On board the small vessel one woman and two companions stood or crouched, none of them seeing the others, each lost in their own nightmares.
Beneath the boat one man lay face down in the shallow waters amidst a patch of beautiful Void Lotuses that bobbed serenely above him as his chest grew tight and his nightmare-clouded sight grew dim. He scrabbled weakly, fingers clawing at leaves and roots and salt, reaching for something only he could see. He had failed his companion. Failed his friends. And now he was drowning and he couldn't break free--
Frey! Help us-- Please! A desperate cry, a burst of power that leapt from his heart to the divine, reaching for the god who had saved him from the water once before.
Or at least, their aspect he knew best.
Tal uses mastered channeling to call down Nature Frey against the Void Lotuses
Frey is puzzled, at first. Help, for nature being nature? Alright, it's true, this is a new brand of lotus, but they've always been interested in seeing how things evolve and turn out. Still, a call is a call, and so they descend around the little boat like a gentle, calming breeze.
Well, no. Not like a breeze. Frey is a breeze, cascading across the bow and the stern and carrying away any scent of void lotus, along with its nightmarish effects. The flowers themselves will still be present - that is not Frey's way, after all - but they shan't cause any further problems tonight. Not while the wind is still blowing the right way.
And as quickly as it had appeared, the nightmare abated.
Alys fell to her knees on the deck of the Peregrine, her senses suddenly clear. Sascha cowered beside her, crawling into Alys's arms and mewling pathetically. It seemed that the humans were not the only ones affected by the nightmares that had plagued the boat's inhabitants. The seer cuddled her cub with shaking hands, barely even noticing the scratches that the ursur raised on her arms as she tried to get even closer to her bonded.
It was then that Alys realized that they were alone.
"Tal?" she all but whimpered, looking around with fear in her eyes. "W-where are you?" She forced herself to her feet, cradling Sascha all the while, even though the cub was getting too big to be carried. The gentle breeze that caressed the boat calmed the young woman as she searched for her friend, and by the time she looked over the bow to find Tal in the water, she had more or less recovered from the nightmare's effects - for now, anyway.
"Tal!" she cried, concern lacing her words. "Are you alright?"
gather 'round, here's how to get what you want introduce a new religion of feeling like a boss
Minor powerplay allowed without permission.
Feel free to use force/magic on Alys.
One could drown very easily in only a few inches of water under the right circumstances. That thought would keep Tal awake long into the night for many days to come, but at least those days would come, thanks to Frey.
Frey, and Boreal. The dragon existed in the present, and as the breeze blew away the nightmares she snorted and shook herself off, blinking around at the Peregrine and its occupants beneath the silver moon. Alys and Sascha were beginning to move, finding each other and seeking comfort, but she could still feel her companion's panic in their bond.
Following the pull, the dragon dove overboard and splashed into the water, stalking forward to grab the back of Tal's collar and lift his head up and out of the shallow Sea. The courier gasped, choking, and she released him so he could fall to his hands knees, reaching up salty water and coughing until tears rolled down his face. It wasn't until he was able to draw a full, ragged breath that he heard Alys's concerned call and he waved up to her, not turning around.
Not yet.
The shivers that wracked him had nothing to do with the plummeting temperatures of the desert night, and he didn't yet trust his voice. He left it to Boreal to croon a reassurance up at their friends as he sat in the water and focused on breathing, all while glaring at the black flowers that bobbed and bent beneath Frey's breeze.
He had to wait until the rope ladder was unfurled before he could climb shakily back into the boat, and then he wordlessly reached for Alys and Sascha both to pull them into a tight, fierce hug while Boreal pressed tightly against their hips, wrapping around them as tightly as he bulky body would allow.
Alys had questions, but they could wait. As Boreal crooned a reassurance up at them and Tal waved from somewhere below the boat, she tossed the rope ladder down to her friend and waited somewhat impatiently for him to climb back up to the deck. When he was there, he tugged her and Sascha into a fierce hug, and Alys took the moment to bury her face in his shoulder, inhaling his unique scent. He was here. He was fine. They were all fine.
After her heart rate had calmed, the seer tugged free, settling Sascha nearby as she reached for Tal, gently cupping his face as she inspected him for injuries. "Are you okay?" she murmured, distant fear still present in her dark eyes. "I thought - I thought you were -" Sascha mewled plaintively from Alys's side, where she hovered anxiously, as though afraid to wander too far from her bonded. "What happened?"
gather 'round, here's how to get what you want introduce a new religion of feeling like a boss
Minor powerplay allowed without permission.
Feel free to use force/magic on Alys.
He definitely wasn't up for talking until he'd reassured himself on his most basic, physical level that Alys and Sascha and Boreal were all alive and unharmed. And even then he lightly resisted letting go for a few extra seconds as he buried his face in Alys's hair and felt Sascha's little heartbeat pattering between their chests and used that to try and overwrite the memories of the nightmare that had swallowed them whole.
"No. Yes. I'm not..."sure, he bit back, swallowing hard and finally letting himself believe that they were free of the darkness. He relaxed his arms as Alys stepped back, and Boreal stepped in as soon as Sascha was lowered to begin washing the little bear with her tongue, reassuring them both. Hands framed his face, gentle but cold, and he reached up to cover them with his own as he swallowed hard against the surge of memory he did not want to face just yet. "Thought you were, too," he said, voice gruff and shaking still with emotion. "Thought we all were--" He shut his mouth and swallowed again, feeling his heart only now beginning to slow from its racing.
"I don't... know. But those flowers... I called on Frey an' the breeze is blowin' those flowers down an' th'smell away, so maybe... somethin' about 'em?"
