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!
12-30-2023, 10:40 PM (This post was last modified: 12-30-2023, 10:40 PM by Sohalia.)
Sohalia
To absolutely no one's surprise, Sohalia was spending her evening in her office in the Tower. She leaned over her desk, head braced on one hand, as she scribbled notes on a piece of paper. It was her to-do list for the next day, and it was growing. The Heart paused in her transcription, setting down her pen and rubbing her eyes. Gods, she was tired. But it was better to be tired than to spend yet another sleepless night thinking about all the things she couldn't change.
The girl rose from her desk and crossed to the window, looking out at her city. Lights twinkled above and below: the lights of shops and restaurants on the streets of Stormbreak, and the many stars hung in the night sky. One of these lights caught her eye, and she felt her heart sink as she realized that there were two moons, something she'd never thought to see in the velvety blackness of Caido's night. She stared for a few minutes, dread settling in her chest.
They'd been warned, but they weren't prepared for whatever it was that came their way. And Sohalia knew, in her heart of hearts, that the unnamed threat was coming for them all.
Tal had always been a light sleeper. Out on the Tundra he'd had little choice. The faintest of whines from one of the sled dogs might be the crucial seconds needed to get the harnesses on and the team running from ursur or cannibals or any one of a dozen threats.
So when Alys slipped out of bed he blinked sleepily at her retreating form before dropping his head back to his pillow and falling asleep once more, thinking it was only the usual reason for getting up in the middle of the night. And no one wanted an audience for that.
His name a few minutes later drew him bolt upright and out of the bed before his eyes were even open, bare feet hitting the Peregrine's sanded planks as he hitched his sweatpants up a little higher and grabbed his Dagger out from under his pillow. Staggering out onto the deck, he saw first that Alys wasn't hurt, and only then did he follow her gaze as he came to stand beside her.
Up. Up and into the sky, where the stars sparkled bright and clear beneath the moons...
Moons?
"Oh... fuck," he swore softly, Dagger dropping uselessly to his side. His other hand groped for Alys's, squeezing it with what little comfort he could give her.
The news from Halo's wardens had come as an ill tide, indeed. Safrin, defeated and brought low by the mysterious threat, was a state of affairs that the mermanta could barely comprehend, and certainly did not want to believe.
It had taken time to wrap both head and heart around the report. Time that, perhaps, they did not have. Nevertheless, Hadama had needed to come to terms with it before he could share it with his people. There were notices to post, but first...
First a visit to the shrine at Aumakua, to pray for Safrin's healing and her swift recovery.
Surfacing with his offering in hand, the mermanta swam towards shore to place the glittering object on the flat rock he used as an altar upon the beach. It wasn't until he lifted his head in prayer that he saw the second moon.
He stared it, unblinking, for a long time. A muscle jumped occasionally in his jaw.
Then he bowed his head in prayer, a steely veil falling forward to hide his face and the moon from his view.
The Hanged Man was open late, and Zefira surely appreciated the courtesy. She had a man under one arm - cute, lots of muscles, not too bright - and a martini (dirty and on the rocks) in the other, and she'd decided that both were coming home with her tonight.
"Ta, darlin's," she called to the rest of the bar, blowing them all a sharp-toothed kiss as she sauntered towards the door with her desserts, just or otherwise. Out they went into the night. A much brighter night than usual, as a matter of fact, and Zefira squinted up into the sky where two moons shone down upon them.
"Hmmm? Looks like the fun'll be starting soon," she purred. Her companion for the evening, who was on the outside of more than a few hard drinks already and working on another, blinked blearily up into the sky and then shrugged, beaming an eager smile at the golden-eyed woman at his side. "Atta boy." With a possessive pat on his prodigious bicep she led them off down the street.
A howl from Pad was what alerted Sah. Instantly awake he followed his companion's mental shoving and opened his front door. The Wild Thunder's eyes widened instantly as he spotted the second moon. Breathless, he stepped off of his porch and into the street. Lilly paced beside him as her darker brother sprinted out of the shadows to guard the house.
"Gods, this is going to be a mess." Taking a deep breath to steal himself, he woke the twins to let them know he was heading to the Citadel. A new moon appearing so rapidly meant there was little time to prepare. They needed to act now. Sah was sure that others would be thinking the same and would congregate at the Citadel to plan. Leaving the wolves to protect the house and those sleeping within he made his way there.
Returning from a late-night hunt, Edmund looked up and spotted the new moon. Fur bristling, the molten tiger snarled through bloodstained fangs. Caido's followers certainly would have their hands full with whatever this moon. Yet it loomed over Torchline just as it did every other region. His childhood home and territory.
Letting out a deep breath of embers, Edmund stalked closer to the city. The Ancients, his family, his friends. What was his and whom he loved. If that moon posed a threat to them, he'd find a way to burn it down from the sky himself. It may be the responsibility of Caido's followers to right wrongs as Mother says, but the Ancient could practically taste the destructive chaos in the air. His conscience screamed out to help but a more primal part crooned at the thought of such bloodshed. Perhaps he could indulge once he'd ensured his people were taken care of?
Kaiden popped their head out of the waves of Arclight Ocean when they noticed a shift in the lights above the water. The mershark blinked, rubbing their eyes. Had they eaten something bad? They didn't feel sick. Why were they seeing double?
It dawned on them that they were sane when the fish around them began to flee into deeper waters. "Two moons now. Got it." That was enough of the surface world for one day. It was always a fucking mess anyway.
Diving back beneath the waves, the mershark continued to swim towards Torchline proper. If they were lucky, some drunkard would be out panicking, and they could swipe something from their pockets.
Out in the Citadel on a late night snack run with her brother, the two turn in tandem as whispers take hold down the streets, vendors and shoppers alike pausing in their tasks to turn their eyes to the sky. Soleil reaches for Luka's hand instinctively, shrinking slightly behind his shoulder. She logically knows he can't protect her from something this huge, but the urge is there all the same as she stares up at the incomprehensible sight of two moons.
In the distance she hears Pad howling, and Diana rumbles a tiny growl, clearly uneasy. "Let's get home," she urges, abandoning their prior plans in favor of getting the pack all in one place and into a more defensible area.
kiss me like I'm a conviction, beg for divinity in my grasp
Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade
Luka - less easily distracted by fun baubles or strangers who might become fun conversationalists - takes note of the sudden tide of anxious murmurs in the crowd a little faster, and when he turns his eyes to the sky his face goes rigid as he steps closer toward Soleil. Blindly, he reaches out his hand and holds tight when she slips her own into his immediately. If she hides, it is also because he guides her slightly behind himself, just as predisposed to protecting her as she is to hide behind him.
Nodding in sharp agreement, he waits for Sol to pick up Diana - the crowd around them is already swelling with sudden movement, and the likelihood of a small stampede is growing by the second - and uses their connected hands to keep her tethered to his side as he cuts a line through the other citizens back toward their house.
And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid
here I am again, bad news from a bad friend they call me an omen - only here to torment
Riya wakes her from her slumber with undeniable urgency. Anju is already halfway out of bed and reaching for her bow neatly hung beside it when consciousness clicks in and her sister's more pointed directions find purchase in her sluggish mind. There is no current attack, no moth creature or change in the vertical state of Stormbreak, but something is still wrong.
Riya urges her to the window by her bed, and Anju has to brace her hands on the wooden frame as she stares out into the sky and the undeniable secondary moon hanging there. She lingers there, watching, waiting. When nothing immediately happens, she turns away briskly and begins pulling on her Dragoon uniform, snagging her bow and heading for the front door. She needs to get to the Nest - there's bound to be panic in the city, and she needs to get a handle on it now.
It was Mateo who'd awoken him. The botanist had been coming back from somewhere that smelled of fruity wine and chocolate (or perhaps that's merely the scent he'd chosen to leave the boat with), and had nudged the black puddle of fur awake and beckoned him outside.
Padding softly at Mateo's heel, the shepherd had immediately noticed what it was his friend was staring up at. Whining softly before sitting down and curling his tail tightly around his paws, the canine looked from the moon—the real one—to the second one, and then back again.
not good, he thought to himself, before nudging his nose into the botanist's hand and huffing softly under his breath.
Your eyes they take no prisoners But I'd love to be your visitor
The fruity and chocolatey botanist stands beside his friend in the dark, brow furrowed and mind muddled by booze and other more injectable hobbies. "I was hoping I had imagined it," he confesses as Ever nudges at his hand, Mateo smoothing his fingers across the aviator's sleek, dark fur. Not so, evidently.
Stepping closer to the canine that he might draw comfort from the patch of furry warmth pressed against his leg, Mateo sighs and gives Ever a gentle scritch behind his ear. "Maybe it will not be all that bad," he ventures, though he knows far too well that it's a feeble hope at best.
Letting his free hand tease through his curls, eventually the botanist turns to slouch back on the small rocking chair on the deck of La Verbena. There's nothing much else to do, after all.
I wanna wake up Can't even tell if this is a dream
Tucked away in Flora's home while the Doubletake is out, Isla is busy with her nose in a book when, quite by chance, she glances up and spots the strange phenomenon outside. With furrowed brows and tension creeping along her spine despite her efforts to stay calm, the Remedy rises to her feet and heads to the window.
Peeping out, it's no illusion - two moons hanging in the sky, like a pair of eyes gazing down upon their little patch of earth. Biting her lower lip, Isla straightens up and brushes a lock of hair out of her face. "Fuck," she says eloquently (she is a lady, after all), and perches on the windowsill as if the celestial bodies will do much more than twinkle at her.
No better version of me I could pretend to be tonight
Like everyone else, Koa sees the second moon.
And like every one else, he decides it can only mean no good very bad things.
From the balcony of his office Koa stares, dumbfounded, as another moon winks into existence over Caido's skies. No amount of blinking or rubbing his eyes will make it go away: the thing is there to stay, it seems, lovely and innocuous and sinister as fuck. For a long couple minutes the Dragoon can only gaze upon it while feelings of helplessness creep claws down his back. He, his city - it all seems so small. How can he stand against a moon?
A shake of his head, a roll of his shoulders. There isn't time for this. And with the abrupt onset of a soldier's composure Koa turns smartly around, snatching up his weaponry and coat before marching out to start preparing his Nest.
