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!
Tal caught the movement of Thalassa's hand, even if he didn't quite connect the dots with his own tendency to rub at his neck. It was enough of a cue to make it clear that she'd heard the annoyingly cheerful voice as well, so at least she couldn't accuse him of being crazy/ He'd talked to enough other people who'd experienced it to know he wasn't, but it was nice to not have to try and prove it.
Tal snorted in reluctant agreement at her disgust. "Yeah, well, Caido's had enough o' that sorta thing, between the ol' Voice goddess an' now... whatever this shit is." This 'Family' weirdness, to say nothing of the void crap it was connected with. He scowled as she drew a comparison that was definitely not reassuring. "I don't think they're makin' many friends, spreadin' all this... this void infection everywhere. Not t'mention forcin' their way into people's heads without permission!" And if they were willing to inflict that violation on people they were trying to coax to their side, he didn't want to see what they'd do to anyone already stuck under their big, purple thumbs. He glanced out over the calm waters of the oasis, deceptively peaceful and pretty in the Leafchange sunshine. "'Least we've been able t'burn out a lot o' th' plants an' animals that've been fucked up by 'em. If Maea can figure out how t'stop th'spread, or even just slow it down... we'll have a better shot."
Nodding her head in agreement, Thal could acknowledge that the invasion of their minds was concerning. It also made her wonder if this being could read their minds. If they could insert things, could they extract them as well? She refused to linger on that thought for too long, focusing on Tal's guarded optimism for their situation.
Thal stretched her arms up into the blue sky, giving a strained sound of effort before rolling her shoulders and neck in a loosening manner. "I suppose there is only one way to find out. We will have to place our trust in Maea." The passing daylight only brought them closer to the scheduled events for the evening. A depressing idea entered her mind and she mumbled it under her breath. "I just hope we don't have to burn the world to the ground in the process." Although she loved the warmth of flames and their beauty, there would be little to look at if the world was nothing but ashes. Only the Ancients would really thrive, if there were enough animals (or people) to continue quenching their blood thirst.
Looking to Tal, she brought back her feral fanged grin. "At least the future won't be boring."
Tal looked up to the dragon high overhead, squinting up into the blue sky as he watched her circle. She waggled her wings in her flight to acknowledge him and he snorted before looking back to Thalassa. "Well, there's worse people t'trust," he stated with a confidence he maybe didn't entirely feel, but hail if he'd let this stranger know that. Sure, Maea had a ton of brains and was probably a lot smarter than him, but he wasn't entirely sure if the same could be said for her common sense. There was maybe a bit of a self-destructive streak in her, after all she'd been through...
Not all of which she'd survived.
"An' I mean, burnin's just th'easy way t'get rid of an infestation. All th'plants an' beasties I've run into so far have been just as stabbable as anythin' normal," he assured her with a slight shrug. Though his nose wrinkled as she bared her fangs in a grin that might have been a tad unsettling. "So, uh, I've been meanin' t'ask... what kind o' ship are you captain of, anyways?" Now that it didn't look like she was going to attack him, his professional curiosity rose to the fore. It was always nice to talk shop with a fellow sailor of sea or sky.
She noted the special relationship Tal seemed to have with the dragon flying above their heads. There remained a possibility that the creature would decide to descend upon her although she had no doubt that if she stayed close enough to the man, the threat of harm would be too great to risk. As a reminder, she shifted imperceptibly closer to him.
The implication of Maea's reliability had Thal wondering what she may be missing about the Ancient's history, but she quickly turned her attention back to the topic of ships. "The Marauder is a sea-fairing frigate. She was entrusted to me when the previous captain became incapacitated." Her suggestion was vague enough to let Tal make his own assumptions and she smiled at him deceptively. It wouldn't help her reputation for people to know that she had won the ship in a cheated game of cards while the man was drunk out of his wits. She preferred people think she murdered the man and stole his ship along with its crew.
Spinning the curiosity back on him, Thal asked, "What about The Peregrine?"
The joke was on Thalassa when she shifted closer to Tal. Her threat might have been implicit to the dragon, though the courier didn't look particularly concerned. He'd dealt with enough bullies his entire life to recognize one now, and though his initial reaction was hard to overcome and made him jumpy, he'd faced down enough dangers and fights in recent years that once he had a chance to recover he felt confident in his ability to deal with her. On the other hand, Boreal had never hesitated to include her human in a little light mauling before, and she wasn't about to start now.
Sometimes she acted like including Tal in the 'fun' was a bonus.
Since she was behaving for the moment, however, he turned his attention back to the Ancient, dark brows rising at hearing the frigate's name. Her implication as to the fate of its captain hung heavy in the air between them and Tal wrinkled his nose in thought. "What, y'mean like... they got sick?" he hazarded a guess as to just how the previous captain had lost their capacity to helm their vessel. Their very colorfully named vessel, at that.
He was more than pleased to talk about his own ship, however, chest puffing back up with pride as confidence settled around his shoulders. "My Peregrine's a skyboat," he explained. "Nimble an' quick as her namesake. She c'n race th'sun an' outrun a storm an' there's hardly anywhere in Caido she can't go. Enchanted for me by th'gods themselves, back before th'War," he added, a touch smug and not bothering to hide it. "How long've you been sailin' your Marauder, then?" It was hard to tell with some of the Ancients, but he thought Thalassa looked younger than he did.
His request for further information about the previous captain had her smiling and she simply shrugged her shoulders in response. Words would only shatter the illusion. It was best to leave things vague. "Something like that..."
Thal let him brag about his ship, gathering ideas that she may apply later to her own ship. Would Dygra be willing to make The Marauder a hybrid sky-sea ship? It was worth filing in the back of her mind. In the mean time, she waved her hand in dismissal at his question. "As long as I can remember." It wasn't a lie considering she didn't remember much before waking as an Ancient. It didn't give her a lot of credit, but it also didn't make her seem as inexperienced as she truly was. She had only been captain for a few months after all. Had it been a year at this point? How time truly flies.
Focusing back on Tal, she pointed up at the dragon circling above them. "Why don't you tell me more about your friend?" Thal wouldn't admit that she found dragons fascinating, but she secretly wanted to see one up close.
"That sucks," Tal commiserated with the Marauder's former captain, blissfully oblivious to the alternatives. Maybe it was one of those curses that sometimes happened to people at shrines? He'd heard about some pretty grim stuff over the years, though it had never stopped him from praying. So far it had worked out pretty well for him! ... More or less. Depending on your definition of 'well.'
The Captain's airy wave-off of how long she'd held the rank raised both of Tal's dark brows before they swooped down to beetle together over his pale eyes. The answer was all sorts of suspicious and didn't make any sense to him. He started to scowl, but before he could draw a breath to protest about it, Thalassa neatly distracted him with his second favorite subject.
Not that he'd admit it where the dragon could hear him.
"Y'mean Boreal? She's a Halovian dragon," he said, not quite back to boasting and still wary, but the wind had been taken out of his indignant sails for the moment. "I found her nest out on th'Tundra. Seemed like it'd been abandoned, an' hers was th'only egg that was still warm, so I took it with me. Guess that was... what, eleven years ago now?" He glanced up at the circling shape, reaching up to scratch his nose uncertainly. "Um. Y'got any food on you?" Which might have seemed to be a strange question since he still had half a (rather squashed) sandwich in one hand.
Thal listened attentively to his description on where he found Boreal. Whether it was for her own desire to have a companion or for the certainly lucrative possibilities of dragon eggs, was yet to be determined. Either way, she cocked her head in amusement and raised her eyebrow in surprise at his implied capabilities to procure an egg in such an austere environment. Although the curiosity had her wanting to question him further, Tal quickly moved them on to the topic of food.
Lifting her cloak, she showed that she had no bags on her. The only item was her blade on her hip. Otherwise, it was all black clothes and silver accents glinting out of the shadows. Starting to grow tired of his lack of reactivity, Thal chuckled. "Obviously not. I usually catch my food." She flashed her teeth again for emphasis, but it surprisingly bordered on a genuine smile.
It wasn't quite the segue away from dragons that it seemed at first, but Tal definitely had a wary look on his face as Thal reached for her cloak to display what was beneath it. Luckily it was just clothes and weapons, though, and Tal relaxed a little as her display ended with a fanged grin. "...Oh. Well. I guess I wasn't gonna finish this anyways..." He looked down at his sandwich a little glumly and sighed.
He took a final bite of it and then looked up. Catching his silent mental signal, the dragon tilted her wings and dove, gaining size with every heartbeat that timed her approach. She thumped to a landing on the soft ground, deep-chested and heavy muscled, with a thick neck and broad, blunt-muzzled horned head. She was built like a mastiff and her shoulders came up to Tal's hips as she padded towards them, long tail snaking behind her as she approached with an intelligent and inquisitive light in her pale eyes. "Right, say 'hi,' girl," Tal told her, slanting Thalassa a wry glance before he tossed the remains of his sandwich to the dragon. She snapped it out of the air and swallowed it whole with a rumble of approval before she stalked forward to sniff at the Ancient's cloak.
The approaching dragon had Thal's heart racing in excitement. When she thumped to the ground, her size was larger than expected. Her head came to Thal's shoulder, their eyes nearly meeting. The rippling strength of the beast was intimidating but she held her ground and met the intelligent eyes, nodding her head slightly in a show of respect.
As her snout huffed against the fabric of her cloak, Thal exposed her open palm. She couldn't keep the genuine smile off her face in the presence of such a powerful and majestic beast. Chuckling lightly, she said to the dragon, "Next time I'll remember to bring you something extra tasty. Do you like sweets?" Her partiality to sweets influenced her question, but she was also very curious if dragons liked desserts or anything other than meat. Based on her inhalation of Tal's sandwich, she had no doubt that her diet was varied. The desire to befriend her was strong though and she wanted to make a good impression. "Or would you prefer meat?"
Turning back to Tal, Thal reassessed the man. Although he had initially appeared easily manipulated and naive, he had more depth to him than she's realized. His connection with the dragon was admirable and he wasn't intimidated by her. She'd developed a level of respect for him. Even if it wasn't enough to stop her from teasing him. "We better get going before Maea thinks I sabotaged the experiment by taking out a participant." Her grin reverted back to a steely glistening of teeth as she prepared to find the rendezvous spot for their science activities.
Powerful might be true, even if she was pint-sized compared to most of her kind, but Tal would definitely protest the word 'majestic' being applied to the companion who ruled his life like a scaly tyrant lizard. He watched Thal hold a hand out to his dragon, still a little wary of her, but Boreal was fearless in leaning forward to sniff politely at the extended hand. After a moment's contemplation her thick slimy tongue bestowed a slurp of approval and her scaly tail snaked behind her in approval at the mentions of food.
"She likes jerky," Tal confided in the Ancient with a rueful snort for how easily the dragon made another friend. "Though honestly she eats just about anythin'. Sweets, bread... a weird obsession with eatin' flowers..." He wasn't sure if that was the taste so much as the colors appealed to her, but it was a constant fight to prevent her from stealing bites out of shrine offerings sometimes.
Thal's reminder drew his attention up to the position of the sun and he blinked in surprise at how far it had moved. "Ah, fuck! Yeah, let's get goin'. We can spar later, if y'want," he offered gamely as Thal's parting shot flew cleanly over his head.
