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Character of the Season
Frail in body but dangerously quick of mind, Nikandr is the sort of character who proves that curiosity can be just as perilous as any weapon. A necromancer, inventor, and problem-solver with more ambition than self-preservation, Niki approaches the world like a puzzle box begging to be opened, even when what’s inside has teeth. Blunt, dry-witted, fiercely independent, and carrying a history best left partially buried, he has a knack for making even failure feel fascinating. Whether he’s raising the dead, moving across Caido to King's End, or experiencing a hangover for the first time, Nikandr brings a wonderfully strange spark to Caido, and we can’t wait to see what trouble his brilliant mind wanders into next.
Congratulations, Niki!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
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02-26-2025, 10:16 AM (This post was last modified: 02-26-2025, 10:24 AM by Safrin.)
The horizon shuddered with the first rays of light after LongNight, a trembling promise of daybreak. Amid the quiet sorrow of the lighthouse, a burst of radiance shattered the darkness—a shriek of celestial brilliance announcing her return. Safrin emerged in a blaze of grief and incandescent fury, her form dissolving the lingering shadows like a tide of starlight reclaiming its domain.
Her eyes, usually alight with mischievous cunning, were now deep wells of maternal anguish, and her voice—when it came—rang out like a lamentation written in the language of the cosmos. The moment her gaze fell upon Ronin, hunched over the silent, still form of Seren, something within her snapped. Without a word, she swept forward, her gown of cosmic silk swirling as she closed the distance in an instant.
In one heart-wrenching motion, Safrin gathered the little body in her arms, as if to shield it from a universe that had failed them both. Her touch, usually so aloof and playful, was now trembling with raw, unfiltered grief; a mother's desperate embrace as she knelt on the stone floor next to Ronin. The air around her shimmered with unshed tears and starlight, a bittersweet symphony of sorrow and incandescent love that the White Knight likely knew all too well.
"Seren..." she breathed, her voice breaking the quiet like the softest cry of a dying star. In that moment, Safrin was both a celestial goddess and a grieving mother—a divine paradox wrought from cosmic tragedy. The light that spilled from her eyes were no ordinary tears and yet moisture glistened on her cheeks just the same. For all the healing and love that poured from her, Seren remained as cold and lifeless as she had been when Ronin had first come upon her.
Ronin had cried until he'd run out of tears to shed, and it's only that he knows Safrin will arrive that prevents him from taking out his feelings on the lighthouse around him. It feels simultaneously like years and seconds since he'd knelt down before the shrine, Seren wrapped in the coat he'd been wearing, still and pale and perfect as if she might awaken at any moment. And he'd stayed, not eating, not sleeping, barely letting water pass his lips, for the moment when the goddess would appear.
And when she does, the Knight lets her light burn his eyes, lets her whole presence burn right through him, and he shifts back on his knees to allow her the space to gather up her daughter in her arms. "There's really nothing we can do?" His voice is a rough thing, unused to being used, and when he glances up towards mother and child it feels as if his chest might cave in all over again. Despite knowing otherwise, he'd thought, perhaps desperately, that Safrin's light and warmth would be enough to reverse even this. "...I'm sorry. I couldn't-- I tried--"
The light around the shrine shimmered as if in mourning itself as Safrin trembled, her eyes fixed on the lifeless form of Seren cradled in her arms. Tears, both divine and heartbreakingly human, blurred her vision. Her throat tightened, and the sorrow that had simmered beneath the veneer of cosmic grandeur now burst forth in silent, sobs of anguish. In that moment, the old anger she had harboured against Ronin—bitterness born of betrayal and distance and of course, love—melted into a shared grief so profound it rendered her mute. Unable to speak, she only allowed her trembling fingers to trace the contours of Seren's pale cheeks.
Her healing starlight continued to wash over Seren, doing utterly nothing despite the cascade of power. "Vi...he.." The goddess began, before another sob drowned the words, leaving Safrin helpless to do anything but look towards Ronin as if she had been the one to fail.
Everything that had once connected her and Ronin—the fragile intimacy preserved in Seren—felt shattered now. With the starchild lost to Mort's realm, the goddess felt the loss of everything she'd once shared with the Knight nearly as keenly. Safrin's eyes, darkened with the weight of loss yet glistening with a tender, painfully mortal sorrow, slowly found Ronin’s. In that moment, the goddess’s usual celestial detachment softened into an almost human vulnerability—one that betrayed her divine facade. With deliberate grace, she stretched out a hand, her fingers trembling like delicate strands of stardust, urging him closer as if to bridge the unbearable distance between the cosmos and a shattered heart. "I never wanted us to be like this," the goddess sobbed. Not mourning the death of their daughter, not worlds away from one another. "It was never supposed to be like this."
Feeling his throat close and his eyes sting afresh, Ronin swallows hard and swipes a hand across his face, fingers raking back through dark, messy hair. "I could ask...?" he whispers, the apology already hidden in the words. If Safrin couldn't convince Vi to restore life to their daughter - and he wouldn't, Ronin knows that already, knows that all life is sent to Mort as a gift, a love letter - than he doesn't stand a chance.
Shuddering out a breath, the Knight surprises himself by the willingness with which he shifts forward, his fingers closing around Safrin's, calloused and cold with a brittleness to the touch rather than the usual warmth and strength. "I know," he says, shutting his eyes against the sight of their daughter's still and perfect face, unable to look at her knowing he'll never again see the way her eyes light up when she smiles, the wonder on her face when she sees something new.
"How did this happen?" Ronin grates out suddenly. "What did this?"
Safrin shook her head, her sorrow mingling with a bitter sort of resignation. "I asked him," she managed between sobs, her voice laced with both grief and a dark, ironic humour that sounded like shattering glass. "But he said no.." A brittle laugh escaped her, hollow and trembling. "And yet for all the times Mort is cheated...when I brought you back from the dead, and twice in the past year you've done the same..." Her lip quivered against a snarl that had her grief contorting into something ugly and furious. "So why do the rules apply now?" She demanded before another sob had her shoulders rounding forward.
As the goddess touched Ronin, warmth and light flowed into him—a fleeting comfort against the soul-deep cold that likely only time would be able to thaw. Though her healing presence could not mend all, her fingers grasped his tightly, an unspoken embrace that spoke of what she could not offer with Seren still cradled in her arms. With a tentative motion, she shifted and leaned against his side, as if seeking to share his burden.
Her tears continued unabated as she shook her head once more, her vision still veiled by the endless darkness of LongNight. "I cannot see through the dark," she murmured. "But there is no trace of anything to explain how she..." died is not a word Safrin can manage just now, and the way she tripped over her words was searingly human.
Ronin has come far since he first met the starlit goddess out in the Glade, and he's stepped through more than one shadow to get there. Still, as Safrin confesses her plea to Vi and his response, some of those shadows start to rear their ugly heads, and though the light that fractures out of the Knight is radiant and golden, there's nothing warm in it, and his expression is one of hard grief and a bitter lack of understanding. "If I hadn't... if I'd still been able to--" Cutting himself off lest the words warp into something unintelligible, his fingers squeeze around the goddess's, and his free arm slips around her readily as she leans into him.
"I won't ask you to forgive me, because I'll never forgive myself," he mumbles, despite the way her mere presence cascades a healing balm through his bones. "But when I find out what happened here..." He glances, only fleetingly, at Seren, his chest growing tight and his blue eyes turning cold. "I'll make it pay."
But for here and now, there's nothing they can do or say to change things. Goddess and demigod, they are still two broken souls mourning a loss that will carve through them forever, however much time may claim to heal.
"Vi could have just given you the power to bring back a third one a year." Safrin spat bitterly, ignoring the fact that the God of Life was not in the habit of simply casually handing out the ability to withhold souls from his beloved. Her eyes, still dark with sorrow, shifted downward to the still, beautiful form of Seren. Tears streamed down her cheeks in silent rivulets as she continued, "Look at her—" Her tone softened, mingling bitterness gave way to a maternal tenderness that belied her divine nature.
"Beautiful as this shell is...her soul is not here." Glancing to the Knight, Safrin's gaze held his for a long, aching moment before she lowered her eyes again. "If you would send her off the way you did with Aoife, then I will leave her here with you."
Ronin bites the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste copper, because he'd be lying if he said he hadn't also considered the same thing. And perhaps in the future, should the rarest of his abilities ever develop that far, he doesn't know if he'll ever be able to use it without thinking of what could have been. Sniffing and glancing down at Seren as Safrin bids him to look at their daughter, his smile is a brief and sorrowful thing, soon overtaken by the grief that clutches like a fist around his heart.
Not expecting Aoife's name to leave her lips - or for the thought of his other daughter, dead and long gone, to hit as hard as it does, Ronin does his best to keep his voice mostly steady when he speaks. "What if I can't do it?" he whispers, his fingers flinching in her own. "What if I'm not--" Not strong enough to do this again? Not brave enough to keep going after losing another child? Not good enough to do Seren proud this one last time?
Safrin shifted fully, leaning her head against Ronin's shoulder as she gently combed her fingers through the dark curls of Seren's lifeless hair. The goddess's expression was soft now—bereft of the earlier bitterness—and in its place, a quiet resolve mingled with profound sadness. "There is no ‘it’ you must do, Ronin," she murmured, her voice low and soothing as if whispering a secret meant only for the two of them. "There is no path you are bound to follow, no destiny you must complete." Her eyes, heavy with both grief and something indefinably wild, met his for a long, aching moment. "You can go and tear down another temple if you choose, to let your fury and your sorrow burn as fiercely as you did before."
A sad, tender smile flickered at the corners of her lips—a smile that spoke of memories long past and the very things that had first drawn her to him. "That was one of the reasons I loved you, my Dark Star," she said softly, her tone a blend of admiration and heartache. "Even in your grief, even in your destruction and violence, you were unyielding—true to something utterly wild and genuine within yourself."
Turning automatically, Ronin's head tilts to rest against Safrin's, his nose buried in her dark hair, his gaze unable to tear away from the sweet affection with which she continues to fuss over the daughter who lays in a sleep from which she'll never wake. Huffing out a breath that might have been a laugh when it started, only to give up halfway through, he draws back enough to meet her eyes, and the darkness that threatens to swallow him now as it had back them seems very, very tempting indeed.
Glancing away guiltily, both at the ease with which he knows he'd succumb to that part of himself and for all the things he hadn't been for the goddess, Ronin reaches out to brush the back of his fingers across Seren's cold cheek. "I'm sorry I failed you," he whispers, to both of them but for vastly different reasons. "I never thought... of all the things I'd ever do, this isn't one of them." Burying one child, let alone two.
"I'll make sure she's given the farewell she'd want."
Safrin’s gaze slid slowly from the stormy blue of Ronin's eyes to his mouth; a temptation so fierce that it whispered of soft, redemptive solace. For an eternal heartbeat, she seemed poised to bridge the distance between them with a kiss that might wash away salt and sorrow alike. But instead, she pulled her eyes away, nodding silently. Her fingers glided toward Seren’s shoulder, making room for Ronin to draw nearer.
Softly, almost inaudibly, she whispered, "I’m sorry… so sorry," and like the Knight, her apology held a dual meaning. Her voice trembled with grief and something else—an impossibility, a hope too fragile to be grasped. She took a moment to steady herself, as if gathering the scattered fragments of her divine resolve.
Then, with a hesitance that betrayed the weight of the unspoken truth, she spoke again, calling him the name she'd once used so often. "Sugar…" Her tone was both tender and tentative. "Without Seren… and now, with you marked as a demigod of Vi..everything is unbalanced. I'll need another demigod to stand with Vesper and Hadama." Her eyes filled with tears as she shook her head, gazing at him the way she once did when hope was as light as stardust, and they'd laughed together far more than they'd cried or yelled. "Seren was the best of them...and that was in large part because of you."
It's a terrible, horrible thing she's asking of him, but where his grief is mortal, hers is tinged with divine obligation. "The choice is entirely yours.." Unlike last time, and especially now that the Knight fell squarely under Vi's domain. So it was all the goddess could do was ask.
Ronin carefully tucks one of Seren's dark curls out of her face, as if it might tickle her awake if he isn't careful, before his fingers drift down to clasp her chill, unmoving hand. He'll awaken in a cold sweat for seasons after this and he knows it, imagining warmth where there is none, seeing her blink her eyes open and all fall into place. Dreams that become nightmares and back again; a familiar haunting made new again by this fresh pain.
Shivering out a sigh, he's about to speak again, to start to take his leave, when Safrin's voice hits the air. The affection in her words is almost jarring after so long, like a deep, still lake that would be so, so easy to sink into, even as the horror of what she's asking makes the sweetness of it turn sour. Swallowing hard, where once he might have recoiled or bristled with rage or gestured, perhaps, at the body between them, now the Knight can offer little more than a soft and apologetic smile.
"I am not the man I once was," he says with a sad finality. "I... All I want to is to say goodbye to our daughter. There's no replacing her, not for anything." Not even for divine obligation.
The sight of Ronin’s smile cut through her like a shard of starlight, with Safrin not needing to read into his mind to know what it is he's about to say. She shook her head slowly, her eyes dark with sorrow as she murmured, "There is no replacing her," she agreed, before a choked sob escaped her, mingling with the silence that hung heavy in the air. With trembling resolve, she reached out and lifted her hand to his cheek, her thumb caressing the scruff there in a tender, understanding touch.
"You are a good man, Ronin," she whispered, her voice laden with both divine regret and mortal tenderness. In that fragile moment Safrin would have offered much to mend the bridge between them that she'd so hastily scorched, but with Seren gone, it was as he'd said: there was no replacing her, and he was a different man now.
For a long, heart-wrenching moment, Safrin lingers there, not wanting to break the delicate illusion that for a brief instant, they are together again—mother, father, and child reunited beneath the returned stars. Yet the weight of reality presses in, and she knows she must depart, if only because she can feel the weight of Remi's mind at the bottom of the lighthouse, and she knows that unlike her presence, his will go far in giving Ronin what he needs.
Shifting softly to place Seren's head into her father's lap, Safrin doesn't rise so much as she begins to bleed apart in whisps of moonlight. "Be well, sugar."
