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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!
Flora’s smile softens, the edges warm in a way that doesn’t need to be loud to be genuine. "Thanks," she murmurs, the word gentle enough to almost get lost under the hiss of the sea breeze. Things with Kaisel...gods, they were messier than anything with Jack, which was saying something. Both tangled up in the same thread of having slept together—a lesson there, if she ever bothered to learn it—but she still couldn’t quite pin down why his treatment of her, or the whole situation, made her so angry. Not with the kind of unflinching honesty it would take to really understand it, anyway.
She shakes it off with a grin, flicking her hand in a breezy little wave toward the necromancer. "If you haven’t noticed, checking the blueprints and all that is one of the important jobs," she says, tone playfully chiding. "Brute strength? I’ve got more than enough of that with my dads involved. But without someone keeping them in check, it all dissolves into madness pretty quick."Her brows lift knowingly, the grin widening. "You probably saw it for yourself at the beginning of the week."
I hold my breath just a little bit longer halfway out the door but it won't close
With his offer out there, Niki lets that thread of the conversation go until Flora decides to pick it up again. Besides, as she mentions the brute strength she has at her disposal and what he'd unintentionally seen of it the week before, all thoughts of Kaisel or Jack or the Cordillera vanish from his mind. "You can say that again," he says with a soft sigh. "At first I thought you were doing me a favour, sending me off with three demigods to place some perimeter wire."
But the addition of little more than a few hels had quickly proven him wrong.
"Are your fathers always like... that?" He asks, phrasing the words as delicately as possible while trying not to cause offence. Like that, of course, referring to Ronin's hideously short temper and his apparent enthusiasm towards fighting the shit out of Sunjata whenever he got too close to Remi on the shoreline.
stay your pretty eyes on course i guess i never really faced my fears before
Flora snickers, tipping her head and tapping one finger against her temple like she’d had the whole thing planned from the start. Breaking everyone up the way she had wasn’t an accident, it was strategy, and she’s not about to pretend otherwise.
At Niki's delicately phrased like that, her brows pull in briefly as she searches for what exactly he means. The sip she takes from her drink buys her just enough time for the penny to drop, and she laughs, bright with recognition. "Ah, yeah. During Leafchange, Ronin loses pretty much all of his charm and turns into a territorial monster." She shrugs, leaning back against the bench. "Even though he and Sunjata used to be besties—and they still are super close now—the Flood’s not immune when Ronin decides he’s got to stake out a twenty-foot radius around Remi." It was smaller than that, actually, but Flora, luckily, hadn't been witness to it.
Her lips purse for a moment before the shrug comes again, lighter this time. "It’s sort of sweet, in a way, y'know?" And if anyone ever wondered if Flora's daddy issues were rooted only in the past, the answer to that was a resounding no.
I hold my breath just a little bit longer halfway out the door but it won't close
Blinking his surprise, Niki evidently hasn't expected the source of the demigodly chaos on the beach to be due to seasonal hormones, and it startles a soft laugh out of him as well. "Oh, I see," he says, sounding unashamedly relieved about it. "I will be sure to keep that in mind for when we go back to work on the house some more." Already the gears in his mind are starting to turn, considering ways he might keep Remi and Ronin more together than not to allow things to go smoothly.
"Sweet?" he repeats, considering it for a moment before giving her a small nod. "You are right, I suppose it is. Not for everybody else around, but for Remi certainly." He can't deny that it must be nice to have someone so firmly on your side to the point of fierce protectiveness. "I confess, it is still strange to see Caido's demigods so casually walking around doing chores."
stay your pretty eyes on course i guess i never really faced my fears before
Flora nods knowingly, lips quirking as she toys with her straw. “"Honestly, it’s best just to leave them to it. Sunjata can more than handle himself against the pair of them." And there’s no mistaking the flicker of admiration in her voice, even if she’s not about to wax poetic on the Flood’s resilience.
As if plucking the thought straight from him, she hums her agreement. "Probably isn’t, like, super healthy," she admits with a half-smile, "but there’s something nice about having someone willing to throw down for you like that." Her mind skips, unbidden, to Jack—the black eyes and knife marks left in her name, whether she’d known about them at the time or not. Gods help her, but it makes her smile just the same, soft at the corners and gone in a flicker before it can linger.
She shifts the mood with a brighter grin. "And as for demigods doing chores—what else are they meant to be doing? There’s no looming threat right now. May as well haul lumber and argue about measurements." A chuckle slips out, light and wicked. "That’s actually why I didn’t invite my mother. Two sex demigods in one place?" She spreads her hands in mock despair. "Nothing would’ve gotten done and Ronin would absolutely have started a proper fight with her."
I hold my breath just a little bit longer halfway out the door but it won't close
"I am glad you said that, because I certainly could not." By the grace of whatever gods are watching currently, Niki hasn't managed to draw the ire of the White Knight when it comes to his husband, and he's unsure if it's because he's reacting appropriately or because Ronin simply doesn't consider him a threat. (It's the former, as it happens, given that even the mailmain gets threatened at this time of year). "I will just keep my head down and work," he decides, which suits him perfectly well anyway.
With a gentle shrug, Niki props an elbow on the picnic table. "I do not think there exists a relationship that is a hundred percent healthy," he admits, "not that I have any experience to say such things, but... it could be worse than over-protectiveness, I think." And as for what the demigods might be spending their time doing instead, he winces a bit at the idea of two of Frey's chosen swanning around, nodding his agreement. "A wise choice," he says.
"I do not suppose you want to get another drink? I feel as though I need something other than coffee to stay hydrated in this weather."
stay your pretty eyes on course i guess i never really faced my fears before
Flora’s gaze slides over him, aqua eyes raking in quiet assessment as if weighing his words against the man she’s come to know. He’s far more perceptive in the ways of relationships than she ever would have guessed, and it tugs a smile out of her before she even realises it. "You're pretty clever, you know?" she says with a nod, the words threaded with a teasing lilt before softening into something more genuine. "I’m glad I’ve got you to talk to, even if I’m pretty sure you hate hearing about my wildly dramatic love life."
Her grin widens when he asks about a drink, and she pushes up from the bench with a flick of curls over her shoulder. "Up the beach there’s a smoothie place—they use crushed ice made from fountain water."
Pausing to wait for him, she wrinkles her nose affectionately in his direction, sunlight catching on the gold at her ears and wrists. Then, with the boardwalk stretching warm and bright before them, she falls into step at his side, the two of them heading off down the beach together as the tide hums its endless song.
~FIN
I hold my breath just a little bit longer halfway out the door but it won't close
