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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 opens the door to the Northaven with her hip first, one hand curled carefully around the still-warm pie balanced in the crook of her arm, the other easing the handle down as if the whole houseboat might shatter into a thousand sleep-deprived little pieces if she breathes too loudly. Which, given that Carlo and Calan are somewhere inside and are both newborns and Taliesins, honestly feels less like paranoia and more like sensible risk management.
The smell of butter and baked fruit slips in with her before she does, sweet and golden and market-fresh. Her blonde curls are pinned into a loose, messy knot that’s already threatening mutiny as she nudges the door shut behind her with ridiculous care. "Helloooo?" she calls softly, the word stretched into something almost musical and immediately swallowed down into a whisper, because gods forbid she be the reason one of her new baby brothers wakes up and decides to file a formal complaint with his lungs. "I come bearing pie, emotional support, and absolutely no opinions about your parent unless specifically requested, which I think we all know is incredibly brave of me."
my broken bones are mending
Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3
"I'm up!" Ronin's call can barely be called that; it's animated but it's in the clear, groggy tone of someone who is not up, and he startles awake in his seat by the window of the houseboat. His foot resumes its gentle rocking of a bassinet where both Carlo and Calan are bundled within and, thanks to everyone's sanity, still fast asleep.
They might still be sleep deprived and their newborns still might be chaotic, but with the close of Leafchange at least that madness has released its grip on him, and the Knight offers Flora a tired and sunny smile as he spots her. "Incredibly brave," he continues, scrubbing his hands across his face and through his messy hair, rising to his feet to greet her properly.
"And beautiful, and talented, and my favourite daughter," he adds immediately, though one could argue that he's actually talking to the pie since that's what he's reaching for. "Happy Deepfrost," he adds, kissing her cheek and moving to set the pie on the counter. "I assume this is for right now?"
The bathroom door opens with all the caution of someone who has recently learned in rather brutal detail that the hinges and floorboard of the Northaven can't be trusted. Remi steps out in a pair of soft sweatpants and a shirt that has clearly been chosen for comfort, a towel draped over his head as he scrubs at his damp curls with one hand.
"I thought I heard you," he murmurs, the words warm and softened almost past the edge of sound, his smile arriving a moment later as his seaglass green eyes find Flora over the towel. There is exhaustion written plainly through him, not in sharp lines so much as in the looseness of his shoulders and the unhurried way he moves, as if his whole body has been taught by the twins to spend its energy sparingly. Still, the sight of his daughter standing there with her pie and careful theatrical bravery has something fond tugging at the corner of his mouth, boyish even beneath the sleep deprivation.
As Ronin rises to receive the offering, Remi abandons the towel around his neck and slips into the vacated chair with the silent opportunism of a raccoon stealing something shiny from an unattended table. His foot finds the rhythm of the bassinets almost immediately, taking over the gentle rocking as if the motion has been stitched into him by now, steady and familiar without needing any thought at all. "How have you been, Flora?"
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Flora nods with grave, queenly satisfaction as Ronin confirms the frankly historic bravery of her restraint, her chin lifting as if she’s accepting applause from an invisible council. The first few compliments land exactly where they’re supposed to, brightening her smile until it goes all sunshine-over-water and smugly delighted, but then her aqua eyes narrow as she clocks the trajectory of Ronin’s gaze and the unmistakable devotional pull of his hands toward the pastry rather than, you know, his actual daughter. Rolling her eyes, Flora shoves the pie out toward him with a huff. "I hope you two will be very happy together."
There’s no real bite in it, not with the way she leans into the kiss against her cheek for half a second before slipping farther inside. She flicks a quick look toward Remi as he appears, her grin already climbing back into place. "Heya," she mouths first, quieter than her actual voice, and then, because she has never in her life been accused of letting sweetness sit unprotected for too long, she adds softly, "Wow, everyone looks very alive in here. Huge win for the Taliesin household."
She plops down onto the couch near Remi with exaggerated care that is still, somehow, very much a plop, arranging herself at an angle that lets her peer down into the bassinet where Carlo and Calan sleep bundled together. "I’ve been goooooooooood," Flora says, drawing the word out as she glances from the twins back up to Remi, stretching it with the sort of careful brightness that absolutely means there are details and she has arranged them in the most dramatic order possible. "Busy, obviously." Her fingers smooth over one of her rings as she shifts before her attention cuts toward Ronin with sudden, glittering emphasis. "Oh, I channelled Safrin the other day but got Vi," she says, widening her eyes at him. "So that was interesting. Melita shot him with a cannon."
my broken bones are mending
Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3
To Ronin's credit, he doesn't audibly choke on his bite of pie as Flora tells her tale about Safrin channelling gone awry, and both of their newborns remain peacefully sleeping with Remi rocking them in the bassinet. The Knight, however, is forced to thump a fist against his chest a couple of times while raising his eyebrows incredulously at his daughter, and he thinks better of taking another bite before delivering pie slices to the rest of the family first.
"We almost weren't all alive in here just then," he rasps, grinning boyishly and smooching a kiss to Remi's still-damp curls as he hands him some of the baked treat, returning for his own plate and finally finding a place to sit himself down without interfering with either food or the delicate act of keeping the twins in dreamland. "And uh, how did that work out for you?" he asks. "Shooting my patron deity with a cannon, I mean."
Remi’s brows lift in perfect silence as Ronin’s fist thumps against his chest, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smirk that he has the decency not to let become a laugh, if only because both boys are still asleep and because, after everything their family has survived, death by pie would be apt, but ultimately untimely. His foot never loses its rhythm against the bassinet, keeping Carlo and Calan adrift in whatever newborn dreams are merciful enough to keep their lungs uninvolved, while his gaze slides from Ronin to Flora.
The kiss pressed into his damp curls has him humming softly, an instinctive little note of affection tucked beneath the hush of the room, and he accepts the plate Ronin gives him with a murmured, "Grazie," so quiet it is more breath than sound. For a moment he looks at the pie as if considering whether he too is at risk of choking, but Flora has never had the good manners to deliver chaos in digestible portions, and so Remi merely balances the plate carefully in one hand while glancing back at her, surprise sharpening through the sleep-softness of his face.
"Well," he says after a moment, pitching his voice low enough that the twins remain undisturbed, "I suppose it cannot have gone too badly if you are here telling us about it."
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Flora’s grin blooms wicked and bright as Ronin has to thump his own chest, her head tilting to one side while she watches him with all the solemn concern of someone who is absolutely going to make this worse. "But you have so much experience...?" she whispers of Ronin's long-standing expertise when it comes to eating, the corners of her mouth twitching.
Accepting her own slice with a pleased little hum of thanks, Flora settles more comfortably near Remi, careful not to jostle anything. "Well, it wasn’t nearly as dramatic as Mel and I were thinking," she admits, lifting her fork. "She shot him, he just went bang entirely deadpan and disappeared, which was honestly hilarious." With a small shrug, she bounces her eyebrows. "But it definitely got everyone to take notice of the cannon, so that was nice."
Flora takes a bite of pie, then, casual as anything, lashes lowering as if the filling requires her full and immediate attention, and for a second she lets the buttery sweetness buy her exactly enough time to make what comes next seem like an afterthought instead of something that has been fizzing beneath her skin since the moment it happened. Her engagement ring gleams as her fork dips back toward the plate, and around the mouthful she adds, "Oh, and while I was chatting with Safrin, she made me one of her demigods, so, you know, guess I won’t be channeling either of you ever again."
my broken bones are mending
Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3
"And yet, I am still learning to multitask," Ronin drawls, mostly under his breath, though he's still smiling as he takes another (hopefully safer) bite of pie. Eating is one thing, being shooketh is another, and doing both is still beyond even his knightly prowess, evidently. Settling properly in his seat and listening as Flora expands on her impromptu meeting with the God of Life, he doesn't even try to hide his grin at the results.
"No, that sounds about right," he admits freely. "Though I'm amazed that he played along. Then again, I suppose you did channel him to do it..." Which, as they are beginning to see, is not something a deity, herald or demigod can opt out of once they're called.
Flora is lucky with her next move, because her pause means Ronin has managed to chew and swallow his next bite of pie when she speaks. As a result, her first act as Safrin's demigod isn't to murder him to death, but just to have him nearly smashing his plate on the wooden floor. He doesn't do that either - thankfully - but he has certainly gone pale, the Knight blinking at her a few times.
"I'm sorry," he says, keeping his voice pitched as low and calm as he can, "but I'm sure you just said you agreed to be one of Safrin's demigods."
Remi chuckles under his breath as Flora explains the whole thing, his smile tilting crookedly as he lifts his fork again. "That sounds better than most of the times I have met the God of Life before," he murmurs, brows rising with something like approval before he takes another bite. Then Flora says the rest, and whatever amusement had been sitting loosely in his expression drains out so quickly it leaves his face very still.
Ronin will feel it before Remi says anything, that cold, sharp pang through the Attuned bond, swift as a blade slipped between ribs and just as involuntary. For one startling second Remi does not know whether Flora feels it too now, and the uncertainty makes his breath catch hard enough that his foot stills against the bassinet. Carlo and Calan remain asleep, mercifully, and it is only the sight of them that has him restarting the rocking a moment later with deliberate care, his cheeks flushing as he looks toward Ronin with eyes gone wide and bright.
Safrin’s name has not sat cleanly between them for years, no matter how much has been mended, no matter how many careful bridges have been rebuilt over the ash of old grievances. Remi has seen too much of what devotion to her can cost, has carried too many years of watching Ronin be punished for disobedience, bent beneath expectation, loved and wounded by the same radiant hand. He knows, too, how quickly disapproval becomes a wall with Flora, how little good there is in meeting a queen, a daughter, a woman newly remade by a goddess, with the sort of blunt horror that would only make her bare her teeth and dig in her heels. So, Remi swallows, the bite of pie turning heavy in his throat, and when he speaks his voice is careful enough to feel carved rather than breathed. "That," he says softly, looking back to Flora as his fingers tighten around his plate, "is quite the thing."
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Flora isn’t expecting Kaisel’s reaction, not here, not from them, because Kai had caught her joy like a spark in dry summer grass and turned the whole room gold with it, and Remi and Ronin have lived too long beneath too many divine shadows for her to imagine they’d leap up and start cheering just because Safrin’s hand has closed bright and permanent around her life. Still, there’s a difference between not cheering and the colour slipping out of Ronin’s face while Remi goes still beside the bassinet, and disappointment pricks through her before she can pretty it up into something easier to swallow, small and sharp as a thorn hidden beneath a glossy leaf.
She glances down at her pie first, because pastry is a much safer place to put her eyes than either of their faces, and then she looks pointedly at Ronin, one brow lifting with bright, brittle precision. "Well, nothing wrong with your ears."
Her fork taps lightly against the plate, engagement ring flashing as she shifts where she sits, and the tiny sleeping shapes of Carlo and Calan keep her voice low even as her expression goes dramatically wounded. Rolling her eyes, she sits up a little straighter and lifts one hand as if conducting an imaginary chorus of supportive fathers. "Wow, Flora, congratulations," she says, pitching her voice into a parody of their accents that is less cruel than it is obviously armoured, all glitter and deflection over the sting beneath. "Do you have any fun new powers? Can’t wait to have you at the demigod meetings. We’re so proud of you."
The performance cracks at the edges almost as soon as it lands, not enough to fall apart but enough that her mouth presses briefly to one side. "I mean, I know it’s Safrin, and I know everyone has their own whole complicated thing with her, which is super fair," she adds, quieter now but still too quick, still trying to keep the current moving so it can’t drag her under. "And I didn’t exactly come here thinking everyone would throw pie at the ceiling and sing about it, but maybe just a tiny bit less funeral face would be amazing, since, y'know, this is my life and not yours." And moreover, since she wasn't planning on having one of Safrin's babies and complicating her marriage about it.
my broken bones are mending
Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3
Ronin doesn't try to school his expression into anything other than what it is, disbelief stitched with the sort of concern that carries scars both long healed and still mending. He wordlessly sets down his plate and sits himself beside Remi as the bassinet ceases its rocking, his arm resting immediate and warm around his husband's waist. "I am not going to insult you by assuming you need an explanation as to why congratulations wasn't the first thing that popped into my head," he says carefully, not daring to look up in case he meets the wounded expression on Flora's face and responds with anger or, worse, placation.
"Neither was the idea of fun new powers," he continues, the last three words catching strangely in his mouth, like the idea of any part of demigodhood being fun has long vanished from his internal dictionary.
He frowns, then, as if trying to take what he wants to say - what were you thinking? do you know what you've done? how could you be so blind? - and condense it into something much, much less judgemental. And when he can't, he merely takes a slightly shaky breath and sighs it out again.
"It isn't your life any more, though," he tells her softly. Not unkindly, either, but with the weary address of one very, very seasoned demigod to one just coming into her power. "Not just yours, anyway. It's your life and Safrin's from here on out, depending on what she requires of you. I'm sorry, Flora. I know you're probably excited, but I don't want you to think that this is just about it being Safrin. It isn't. It could have been any of them, and this would still be sad for me. I can be proud of you without being happy that you're tethered to a god, like we are. I hope you understand that."
Remi sighs as Flora gives them the version of their reaction she had clearly hoped for, guilt moving softly across his face. His fingers shift around the edge of his plate, appetite tucked away somewhere beneath the sudden weight in the room, and though his foot keeps the bassinet moving in a careful, quiet rhythm, the motion has lost the easy instinct it had before.
When Ronin sits beside him, Remi leans into him without thinking, accepting the arm around his waist as if it is the only thing keeping all of the old ghosts from spilling too visibly across his expression. Usually, there would be thoughts tucked beneath his words, private things sent through the bond, but unsure as he is now if Flora can hear them, he holds everything back from Ronin, the restraint sitting awkwardly and sharp-edged in his chest.
As Ronin says it is not just her life anymore, Remi nods, his eyes lowered briefly to Carlo and Calan before lifting back to Flora with the same concern that has settled into every line of Ronin’s face. His path had not been the same as Ronin's with Safrin and Vi, but Ludo and Mort had not led him gently either; there had been death enough to fill the spaces between every prayer, grief enough to alter the shape of him, and pain braided so tightly with duty that sometimes he still could not tell where one ended and the other began.
"We have both seen the worst of what being a demigod can be," he says gently, his voice kept low for the twins even though there is nothing small about the feeling behind it. "We have both lived it. and so when you tell us Safrin has made you hers, we hear more than the title. We hear everything that can come after." Everything that will come after.
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
05-01-2026, 01:57 PM (This post was last modified: 05-01-2026, 02:01 PM by Flora.)
is this the end of all the endings?
For a moment, Flora only stares at Ronin, and it would be easier, maybe, if the hurt came prettily, if it slipped into her eyes as tears or softened her mouth into something pleading, but there’s nothing soft about the way it hits her. It goes through her like glass beneath bare feet, and then, just as quickly, it hardens into something bright and cutting, something with edges she knows how to hold. "I don’t know if you know this," she says, her voice low enough not to wake Carlo and Calan but sharp enough to leave marks, "but you don’t actually have to say the first thing that pops into your head."
Her gaze flicks between Ronin and Remi, aqua eyes glittering. When Ronin says he’d still be sad for her, something ugly twists across her mouth before she can stop it. Sad. Not proud first, not scared and proud, not worried but hey if anyone can make this work, kiddo, it's you, just sad, like Safrin’s hand on her life is already a grave they’re lowering her into while she’s still standing right in front of them. Like it's impossible for her not to make the same mistakes that they had, like they're the godsdamn blueprint.
Her lips curl into a sneer as she shoves her plate onto the couch and rises, arms folding tight across her chest. "And I definitely know you both don’t know this," she says, looking from one to the other with her eyebrows lifted in a pointed, unforgiving arch, "though I would have hoped you’d learn by now, that actually instead of sad or judgemental, or disappointed or whatever this is, you could just be supportive parents." The words scrape on the way out, too hot and too fast, but Flora doesn’t pull them back, because if she starts editing herself now, there won’t be enough left to keep her standing. "For once." What was done was done, and they both knew that from experience. The disappointment radiating off of them served only as some unhelpful I told you so, and nothing more.
Flora turns toward the door before the room can close around her, before Ronin’s pale face can make this feel like something she’s supposed to sit through politely just because everyone is tired and everyone has history and everyone has reasons. "Actually, I take back what I said about not offering parenting advice." Her eyes cut to Carlo and Calan, sleeping tiny and untouched by all of this for now, before snapping back to Remi and Ronin. "Maybe deal with your fucking trauma so it doesn’t bleed through into everything before you add chips to the shoulders of all your kids."
Marching towards the door, Flora’s hand curls near the handle, rings biting lightly against her fingers, her breath held tight behind her ribs like a wave right before it breaks, before grabbing it and stepping out. Much as she'd like to slam it and ruin the fragile peace within all the more, she does let it softly click shut behind her. Her twin brothers would have to inevitably pay for the sins of their fathers, but there was no reason to start today.
~FIN
my broken bones are mending
Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3
