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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.
OG Skinning provided by Kaons, with functionality and many custom plugins made by Neowulf!
Every confession made, promise laid down at your bedside
Morning came pale and quiet over Halo, the strange Longheat warmth muted beneath a thin veil of cloud. The worksite no longer looked like a labor ground. Noah had cleaned up the space and put away all the tools. What remained was intentional space.
His boots marked the snow in a straight path, pace unhurried, shoulders squared beneath a fur-lined cloak. He carried a wooden crate against his chest. Breath curled from his beard as he approached, glacier eyes lifting first to the horizon, then back to the shrine itself, checking it again by instinct. Still level. Still true. He knelt and opened the crate. Inside were the rest of his collected materials, honorings of the god and his herald. The spring water came first, and he poured it from the leather waterskins and into the basin within the shrine. Next came the blossoms from the Draig. They were beautiful, resilient things, with their petals holding color despite cold and travel. He arranged them in a low arc, adjusting angles so they faced outward rather than toward him.
Noah rested back on his heels and let the silence gather. Wind brushed across the tundra, tugging lightly at his cloak. "Safrin, I have prepared a place to honor you. A waypoint of hope and safety on this tundra. For Vi, life represented in dragon eggshells and new blossoms. For you, hotsprings water littered with star and moonlight. Your followers, your daughter, have placed their hands and their labor on this project. I hope it pleases you." He closed his eyes, hoping the herald would hear him here.
Noah has been given a quest! To build a shrine he must
1. Complete a thread attaining Safrin-related raw materials for the shrine
:: send your spirit to follow Collects water from Safrin's Mirror at night when the stars are shining on it extra, with Deimos (water was collected before the springs could heal)
2. Complete a thread attaining Vi-related raw materials for the shrine
:: vitality Collects new flower buds/blossoms and dragon egg shells, with Ronin
3. Complete a thread constructing the shrine in your chosen location
:: you can hear it in the ground Constructs the shrine components, with Nova
4. Complete a PQ with fellow Safrin followers preparing the ground and assembling the shrine
:: [PQ] into the twilight Finishes prep and construction, with Flora and Deimos
Description: "Created to honor life and the gods that preside over it, this shrine to Vi and Safrin is a beacon of hope. The shrine rises from the snow like a captured sunrise near the Olson Hunting Lodge. It is carved from warm golden stone inlaid with dragon eggshells. A pointed arch frames a recessed alcove, crowned by an eight-pointed star that gleams like a promise. Within, a small tiered fountain spills clear unfreezing water in gentle ribbons. Star motifs scatter across the inner panel and base, while a radiant sun emblem is set into the pedestal, suggesting both night guidance and daybreak blessing. Vibrantly colored blossoms grow improbably at either side, vivid against the white."
The thin veil of cloud above the tundra parts just enough for light to sharpen, and the snow begins to glow faintly, each drift catching starlight as though it has been dusted with crushed crystal. The shrine answers firstl the eight-pointed star at its crown igniting softly, then steadily, until silver radiance spills down the carved stone.
Safrin’s form gathers from light and frost, dark hair spilling like a slice of night against the pale world. Constellations glimmer along her skin, shifting with lazy elegance and when her gaze settles on Noah, her smile is immediate, pleased and proud. "You have done well." Her voice carries warmth that defies Halo’s cold, even during Longheat. She turns her attention to the shrine, lifting one luminous hand toward the fountain. At her touch, the water brightens, sparkling as though filled with ground stars. The blossoms tremble and stretch, colour deepening; new buds swell along their stems despite the snow. The golden stone gleams, dragon eggshell inlays catching and holding starlight like memory.
She closes her eyes briefly, and the structure settles into itself, no longer simply built, but awakened. When she faces him again, approval shines unabashedly in her expression. "This shrine will stand as a beacon in the Greenwing. A place of safety, a reminder that even in the harshest tundra, life endures." Her gaze flicks briefly toward the lodge beyond. "Just as your home serves the same purpose. Sanctuary and strength, side by side."
A softer note enters her voice, though her pride remains undiminished. "Vi is pleased. Your devotion honours him as surely as it honours me."
Noah has completed his quest, and the Hunting Lodge Shrine can now be used to call down Safrin or Vi!
Every confession made, promise laid down at your bedside
Noah felt the stillness before the goddess stepped towards him. He felt the way the tundra seemed to pause its endless breathing, the quiet settling not of absence but of presence. The cold no longer pressed against his skin in the same way. It held, attentive, like the world itself had turned its gaze toward the shrine. He let out a breath, relief flooding up from his lungs and out his mouth.
He opened his eyes, and, for a moment, he did not move. The sight of her struck something deep and wordless in him. Awe was not unfamiliar to Noah, but this was gentler than battle-earned reverence. This was warmth laid carefully over hardship, reassurance without weakness. The undeniable pride and warmth of her smile warmed him like the spill of whiskey down his throat -- sharp, quick, then spreading until it overtook each limb.
Her praise landed heavier than he expected, and Noah bowed his head. It was not out of obligation, but because the emotion in his chest asked for somewhere to go and he couldn't move from her presence. Pride mixed with the relief of her arrival, and gratitude threaded through both. The hours, the strange heat, the labor shared with friends, all felt small compared to the confirmation that it had mattered. That it mattered to her. That he mattered, still.
"That means more than I can say." he answered, unsure of how the words would come out at first with the emotion he felt under her praise. But they were steady. His glacier gaze lifted, meeting hers without hesitation. He wanted to reach out and touch her, remembering the feel of her hands on his cheeks and the touch of her lips to his forehead from their last meeting. But he stayed still, looking to her with every earnest fiber within him. "If this place can remind even one traveler that they are not alone out here, then it was worth every step." It was what he and Cordelia wanted when they built the lodge, and now this shrine was an extenstion of that, though different in many ways. It was an extension of the fact that, though he had been Forsaken once, there was mercy. That out of all those that had left him alone, those that have died, those that have moved on from him, she never had.
He watched the water shimmer beneath her touch, the blossoms strengthening where they lay against the snow, how the sunlight beamed across the golden stone. The shrine and all of its parts was life refusing to diminish. The note of Vi’s approval settled into him like a steadying hand at his back. He exhaled slowly, a bit shaky with the raw truth of her statement.
"Thank you." Noah said at last, wholly sincere. "For seeing it. For answering." For seeing me. The last part, across the attuned bond.
At Noah's gratitude, at the quiet steadiness beneath it, she steps closer and lifts her hand. The back of her fingers brushes gently along his cheek, cool at first like frostlit marble, and then warm, starfire seeping into skin and bone alike. It is not indulgent this time, not performative, but entirely deliberate. Her smile softens, able to feel it all. The pride braided with relief, the old ache threaded through gratitude, the memory of abandonment that never quite left him. It moves through her awareness like wind across a night sky, and in answer he'll feel the fingers of her telepathy like a starlight humming through the attuned bond, not a blaze but a steady, radiant current. It sings low and constant, filling the hollow places without erasing them.
"You have built this so others would not feel alone," she says quietly, thumb brushing just beneath his eye before her hand lowers. "Make sure you find the same comfort." Her gaze brightens then, galaxies kindling within the dark of her irises. The world around them fades in significance—snow, lodge, tundra—until there is only that luminous focus held on him.
Through the bond, her voice does not speak so much as settle. I have always seen you, Noah Olsen. I will never lose sight of you.
Her fingers withdraw, but the warmth does not. It lingers beneath his skin, a quiet constellation stitched into marrow. "Walk your path without fear of being forgotten," she tells him aloud, pride threading every syllable. "You were never Forsaken to me."
Every confession made, promise laid down at your bedside
The warmth she left behind did not fade with distance. It remained, quiet and steady, threaded through him. It was not a shield against the world, not a promise that hardship would cease, but proof that the emptiness he had carried for so long was no longer the only thing waiting for him when the quiet came.
His breath left him in a slow, steady exhale. The attuned bond hummed softly with gratitude he could not compress into speech. It was raw, something relieved, something fiercely loyal.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever stop fearing that.” He admitted, th honesty feeling solidifying like the steadiness of her touch. ”But I will try.” Glacier eyes lifted again, steadying on her though he was now not untouched by emotion, but no longer overwhelmed. ”And I will remember what you said.”
Silence stretched comfortably between them before a quieter uncertainty surfaced. Within him something shifted and he felt the groaning in his soul like the ice of the Sea of Glass. Noah shifted his weight, easing himself into the vulnerability before her, laying a piece of him raw in a way that invited her in to every part of him.
”There is something else I have wondered since I saw you last.” His voice remained respectful, careful not to frame it as entitlement. ”When I became Attuned again, I made peace with much of what life looked like for me. Vi told me to live. But I haven’t reconciled all of it. I lost the healing that once came with Vi’s touch.” His gaze flicked briefly toward the shrine, then back to her. ”While I can no longer hold the same kind of magic as I could before, I was wondering if I had some of it still within me through you — a unicorn shift.”
A small pause followed, even as he let his eyes on Safrin and felt his heart beginning to hammer within his chest. “If it is something worthy of seeking, if that is truly inside me somewhere, would you guide me toward that path?”
Safrin’s smile curves gently at his admission, neither dismissing nor indulging it. Her thumb traces once along the line of his jaw before her hand lowers, expression thoughtful rather than reproachful. "Mortal lives are brief, Noah," she says softly. "Far too brief to spend them braced for abandonment." There is no sharpness in the observation, only certainty. "Fear will come. But do not build it a home."
When he speaks of what he lost—of Vi’s healing, of the absence that followed—her head tilts slightly, dark hair spilling like liquid night over one shoulder. At the mention of a unicorn shift, one elegant brow lifts. "A unicorn," she repeats, tasting the word as though it were a rare wine. Her gaze sharpens, luminous and knowing, and she studies him in a way that feels less like scrutiny and more like seeing through layers of frost to the current beneath.
"I already know what lives inside you," she says at last, a slow smile unfolding across her features. [asy]"What you are capable of. What you carry still." The smile widens; pleased, a touch mischievous. "But perhaps it is time you prove it to yourself."
She steps back just enough to give him space, though her presence does not lessen. "Go," she instructs gently. "Test yourself. Seek what calls to you and see what answers." Her eyes hold his firmly. "And when you look within, do so without judgement. Strength does not always return in the shape we expect."
Safrin reaches forward once more, fingertips brushing the Sentinel's cheek before she leans in and presses a kiss there, cool and warm all at once, starlight settling into skin. Lavender smoke curls at her feet, rising in soft spirals that catch the light. Her form dissolves into it—stars blinking out one by one—until only the faint scent of night-blooming flowers and the steady glow of the shrine remain.
Noah has been given a quest! He must
1. Hunt something without using any weapons or abilities/shifts
2. Build something without using any weapons or abilities/shifts
3. Help heal someone without using any weapons or abilities/shifts
4. Complete a training thread without using any weapons or abilities/shifts
5. Help grow something without using any weapons or abilities/shifts
Every confession made, promise laid down at your bedside
”Thank you, Safrin.” He breathed.
The place where her lips had brushed his cheek burned softly long after her form dissolved. It was a quiet brand of starlight stitched beneath his skin, subtle yet undeniable. Noah remained where he was even after the lavender smoke thinned and the tundra remembered how to breathe. The shrine glowed before him, awakened and certain, its light settled, as though it had always belonged there. Wind returned in cautious threads, tugging at his cloak and combing through his hair, testing whether the moment had truly passed.
He did not rush to fill the silence she left behind. Instead, he let her words echo and arrange themselves within him.
There had been no easy promise wrapped in comfort, no immediate gift placed in his hands. What she had offered was harder than that — and far more honest. It was not unlike how her god had released him. Another breath filled his lungs, cold and clean. His hand rose unconsciously to the place she had kissed his cheek, and though he did not smile broadly, resolve settled into his features. The ache remained, but it no longer felt like a wound left open. He stepped toward the shrine and rested his palm briefly against its stone, grounding himself in its steady glow. Gratitude moved through him one last time, directed toward the lingering thread of her presence. Then he turned toward the lodge, boots carving a sure line through the snow.
