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!
The hollow ricochet of snapping branches was partially drowned out by the low moan of the afternoon breeze, but the same couldn't be said for the string of expletives that followed. "YOUGODSDAMNSONOVABITCH—" and other such words which wouldn't win you any points on a standard scrabble board followed in the wake of rhythmic hoof beats upon the soft sand.
Splattered in mud and water, Morgan picked himself out of the stream he'd been bucked off into with an exasperated huff. Glancing around, it was for his hat that the wrangler looked, seeming to care more about locating it than the strange apparition hovering on the far side of the bank.
Having to wade back into the stream to get his hat, the man reached for it before immediately spinning around to pin the spirit in place with a piercing denim glare. Like some game of red light green light, with his back turned, the thing had edged closer. "I don't care just who the fuck you was in life, but I'm tellin' you right now I ain't having none of it." He called out, pointing his hat accusingly at the thing as water poured out of it.
During Leafchange, when Ronin gets big feelings, Ronin runs. And given the fact that it's Leafchange, every day, whether he likes it or not, he does a lot of running. Sometimes it takes him from the shoreline and into the tangle of undergrowth of the Oerwoud, and on this particular occasion, the Nova has found a tangle of little streams worth following.
At least, he was quite enjoying it until the thunder of hoofbeats made the ground vibrate beneath his feet; a vibration which grew all the stronger until, out of nowhere, he's forced to jump back out of the way of a fleeing unicorn. His stranged "Oh fuck--" might well be audible to Morgen in the near distance, but of course by the time Ronin wades out to the bank, there's more than a soggy cowboy to be found.
"Er," he says, glancing between man and spirit (the spirit is waggling appendages in a gesture not unlike a toddler going ner-ner-ner) as if he's interrupted something. "Not a friend of yours, I take?"
'Well,' Morgan calls back thoughtfully, not taking his eyes off the spirit. Shaking the remainder of the water from his hat, the wrangler shoved it back on his head and placed his hands on his hips. "Might be. With how these things look, who can really say?" Hazarding a glance toward Ronin, the creature shivered itself a few feet closer before Morgen's gaze snapped back and held it in place.
"But I tell you what, any friend of mine comes out of the bushes, spooks my mare, and gets me thrown into the water is gonna get a fuck you from me no matter how friendly we is."
The thing was, fuck you didn't seem to do much in the way of gettin' the creature gone. "Y'ever seen one of these before?" Morgan wondered, turning his head slightly but keeping his eyes on the spirit. "Not just a ghost, but one like this I'mean. Specifically, how to get it to git."
"You've got a point there," Ronin says, straightening up and swiping a hand across his brow - the run, the humidity, and the near trampling has left him more than a little sweaty for his trouble. "Oh, your mare--" he begins, before his own gaze locks back on the spirit as if just realising it's using their distraction to an advantage. Shaking his head slowly, the Nova nonetheless wades into the water to draw up beside Morgen, because at least they're both facing the thing head on this way.
"Never seen one like this, no," he mutters. "I did hear that they were all over the place this season, though. I suppose we should put it to rest, or something. Know any prayers?" Scoffing - because even if he did, he'd not pray right now - Ronin rolls his shoulders. "If not, could always try blasting it back into death where it belongs." It's not the nicest solution, but then it doesn't seem like the nicest spirit.
"Lemme guess, nearly trampled you?" Morgen wonders, chuckling under his breath, though not at Ronin's expense. "Mares." He says with a shrug, in the same tone with which another man might have said, women. It amounted to more or less the same thing.
"Not any good ones, no. Just the sort that go if I die in my sleep, don't let bobby from school take my toys." It had been years since Morgen was the sort of man to pray, if ever he was.
"I dunno if it spooked us or we spooked it, but we came ridin' 'round this corner and there it was. Mayhap its got a grave or somethin' nearby? I ain't got much in the way of sendin' dead things back, but if you do, I'm all ears." Morgen, who'd likely have been able to pick Ronin out of a reasonable lineup, hadn't been able to get a good look at the demigod for fear of letting the spirit get too close.
"Oh, you know," Ronin says airily with a shrug that means yes, nearly trampled me, and I fell into a bush, though he can't give Morgen the benefit of a smile, however brief, because they're busy having a staring contest with a wayward spirit. (Gods, would Caido ever stop making weird shit sound mundane? He doesn't think so).
"Well here's hoping this isn't Bobby and he hasn't come for your toys," he mutters, raking a hand back through his hair to keep it out of his face and seeming fully prepared to blast the spirit into smithereens before he's reminded that, well, other than being lurky, it hasn't actually shown hostility towards them just yet.
"Not really my ballpark," he apologises. "But if you can keep its eyes on you, I'll have a look around behind it? Maybe its grave got disturbed."
"Jokes on him, I ain't got any toys on more." Morgen says with a laugh. "Is that what this is? You lookin' for somethin' to do? Cause I can promise you anythin' I got ain't gonna be to yer like'n." He added, nodding emphatically at the spirit with his eyebrows raised.
"Fuck knows if it even understands." He grumbles, before nodding. "Sure. Not really what I had on my to-do list, but when needs must." So saying, the wrangler licked at his lips as if meaning to really keep an eye on it now that he'd committed to it out loud.
"We came out right around over there." Pointing vaguely towards the mouth of the stream, Ronin would be able to see where the rocks and shale had been upset by Morgen's unicorn spooking and lunging forward.
"Maybe it wants to play a game instead," Ronin says with a chuckle, slowly wading around to where Morgen had indicated he'd come from. "Hide and seek, or something. At the moment if it's playing musical statues, it's winning." This he calls out hopefully, as if it might encourage the spirit to stay put even with his moving about. Slowly, he clambers back onto the bank and down towards the evidence of where Morgen's mare had spooked.
"Ronin," he calls back in introduction, before briefly disappearing into the undergrowth. "Ah," he says to himself, soon coming across what looks like a small cairn that's been knocked over. "I think I've found it, hang on!"
Doing his best to rebuild the intentionally stacked stones and pebbles, Ronin adds a small water lily to the top once he's done. "Sorry you got disturbed," he mumbles.
'Uh huh.' The wrangler calls back sounding doubtful, but eyeing the spirit just the same. "Is that it? You want to play?" No response. "Y'know the mirror game? So if I do this—" Moving one of his hands in a circle, he waited for the spirit to copy him. It didn't of course, leaving the wrangler looking all the more a fool.
"Oh, no shit." Sounding impressed but perhaps not all that surprised, the wrangler hmmphs under his breath. "Good to meet you." Wasn't every day you damn near trample a demigod.
"Hey, whatever you're doin—" Morgen calls out as the spirit begins to waver. As the flower is placed on top and the words mumbled, the spirit disappears entirely leaving the wrangler free to heave out a breath of relief and drop his eyes.
Splashing out of the stream with, the man sits down on the bank and peels his boots off to empty them back into the water. "Worked, whatever you did!" He hollers into the treeline where Ronin had disappeared before wrestling his boots back on.
It's a shame that Ronin isn't there to marvel at the one-sided mirror game Morgen is playing; thankfully, he's at least working on ensuring the spirit is laid to rest once more. "Oh?" he calls back, standing back from the cairn and waiting for a beat or two before deciding that, with no further disturbance from out in the stream, he must have Done The Thing. "Yeah, it's good to meet you too," he continues as he steps back out onto the banks to see it free of ghosties and ghoulies, and with his new acqaintance trying to empty his boots.
"There was a little grave marker just back from the water. Something must have knocked it over - probably before you even came through. Thing must have just been standing there this whole time..." He has the decency to sound a little sad about it now, at least, especially given that no small part of him would have starbolted it into oblivion given the chance.
"Anyway. Your mare bolted through there." He points through the thicket of foliage where he'd come from. "I'm headed back towards Torchline, so you're welcome to walk with me. Might be you'll find her along the way."
Without further ado - and feeling cooled off from the splash about in the river, if nothing else - Ronin leads the way back through the maze of streams, in search of a unicorn but without really actively looking for it. He feels as though the unicorns probably prefer it that way.
