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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!
Wearing so little that Asta could likely still talk around the fabric even if Flora shoved her entire bikini into his mouth, the splay of his fingers had her stifling a needy gasp that she forced herself to silently (if not shakily) breathe around. Lifting one of her hands to gently comb away a strand of dark hair which had fallen out of place, the Doubletake smiles slowly in recognition and understanding. "Always so measured." His attire, his manners, his words. "Always so thoughtful, because thinking ahead means you know what's coming." She reasons softly as her eyes slide back to his, a brow raised in silent confirmation.
"We all have histories." She replies, and perhaps it's a touch dismissive, but if they wanted to get into a discussion of their pasts, Flora, perhaps naively, was fairly confident her ability to survive would surpass Asta's ability to harm. Not that that was the point. "Besides, I called down a goddess to heal you. Whatever manner of beast you are, has it ever been with someone capable of doing that..?" Again her nose brushes against his, delicate and teasing just as the side of her hand presses down against a scar near his collarbone.
"Is that a nickname you've given yourself?" Tilting her head to the side, Flora's tone seems to suggest she's placing a rather disproportionate amount of weight on this question, and indeed, she seems to pull back a fraction if only to allow herself to view the full measure of his answer.
Head tilting slightly as she brushes back the hair that had fallen out of place, Astaroth watches her with that same dark gaze as she takes his words, measuring them curiously up against the way he’s told others before. “I prefer to not be taken by surprise, most days.” So yes, he always tries to plan. Always tries to be on top of everything. Always tries to make sure he’s got all of his ducks in a row.
Snorting at her response and confidence, though, his tail tightens around her again, exhaling a soft sigh. “No, I cannot say that I have.” He admits honestly, leaning into the touch against his nose and the scar at his neck. But then she’s asking her own question, appraising him for his answer, and he flashes her a small shark toothed smirk for the question itself. “It is and isn’t. I was given it at first, but I grew into it and began to call myself the full length of it.” Because he hadn’t told her the full term, just the butcher portion, because that got the point across.
A point that has her distinctly playing with fire with the potential of her burning. But depending on her answer, if she’s sure, who is he to deny her? She saved his life, after all.
Trying to get the measure of him, not entirely trusting that his hesitation came from a place of true concern for her wellbeing (honestly, she'd been just about to ask him if he was gay before they'd stumbled down this particular path), Flora pays as much attention to the butcher's words themselves as to the lips that form them, or to his predator's gaze. "In the interest of not wanting you to be surprised you should know that I can tell when I'm being lied to." The words weren't meant as any sort of dig at the information he'd already told her, and while Flora didn't necessarily think Asta was the sort of man to lie (to bend the truth, certainly, or leave out certain details), still, she thought it the sort of thing he might appreciate knowing. If nothing else, it was simply another reminder that wearing almost nothing though she was, Flora was still ever so capable.
Unlike with his scars, the stories of which had been told without any thought for the truth of them, named for crimes or deeds or horrors that might have had nothing at all to do with Asta, if he had accepted the moniker that did mean something, then. Something she could appreciate and respect, even if she was still playing with fire capable of burning only one of them.
"There's a reason I'm called what I am, too." Flora points out softly. Her title might have been more widely known than Asta's, and yet even so, how many really did as they were told? How many bothered to look twice? To see that blue eyes, curls and curves was not all Flora had to offer? Asta had watched her nearly take down the wicker woman herself, to call down a goddess with the snap of her fingers, and still he worried about her?
It was either considerate, or it was condescending.
"So.." Flora muses, shivering slightly as beads of sweat began to drip down her spine thanks to the immense heat of the springs and the touch of the man to whom she was debating her safety. "Is the blood what starts it for you, or what finishes it?" She wants to know, her voice low and eyes ocean-dark.
It’s true, he hadn’t lied to her, but the information is more than welcome for the butcher to know. So much so that the twist of his lips in that sharp smirk has him inclining his head to agree. “It is a good thing that I have not lied to you, then.” A playfulness blossoms in his dark gaze, tongue darting out for a moment to run along his lower lip especially as she comments on her own moniker.
As widely known as it is, his lips and teeth wrap around her nickname easily, a purred and sharp “the Doubletake” escaping him where his too sharp teeth click in a delightful way along the consonants. She seems to have made up her mind, though, and Astaroth is already mentally preparing to make sure he cuts himself off at a certain point, a point that is still far away despite how she straddles his lap in absolutely nothing but her thin bikini.
She shivers, though, and the bead of sweat is felt by his warm fingers as they slide up her spine, to the tie of her bikini top, deftly undoing the bow with a distinct precision. “Finishes it, darling. But it does help the mood spark quicker for me.” While it was necessary for the butcher to climax, it wasn't necessary to get his arousal started. It simply just helps to speed it up, which may or may not be the play right now.
She watches him with dark eyes of desire and with all of his points squashed in her confidence that she would manage, Astaroth supposes there’s nothing more to be done other than to indulge her. Surging forward, he claims her painted lips with his own, this time allowing the heat of their kiss to be shared and his lips parting to let her tongue explore the sharp tines of all of his teeth. His hands slide the bikini top off, before pressing her against him harder, so that her breasts press against his scarred chest and her hips press down against his own.
"Just so," the queen purrs in response, flushing prettily at the way his accent wrapped around the syllables of her moniker as he emphasized it in a way seldom done.
Exhaling more sharply than she would have liked--if only for the sake of appearances--Flora's body utterly melts into the pressure of the butcher's fingers, her back arching away and then into the release of the undone strings of her bikini. That he wasn't Koa, whose desire of the queen had never been up for debate but whose boyish mistakes had yielded a rather complicated past between the two, nor Jack, who knew what Flora wanted better than anyone and yet never had wanted her in a way which was separate from what she could offer him, made Flora all the more susceptible to Asta's charms whether he meant them or not. So it was that as she moulded herself around him, she refused to entertain the idea that he didn't want her despite the way she'd have certainly expected to feel confirmation of that want by now.
Perhaps that's what explained what the queen did next: As Asta's mouth pressed against hers and his lips parted, Flora wrote the briefest prelude to an apology against his tongue before her own wandered against his sharpened teeth and pressed. It wasn't hard to draw blood, not against teeth as sharp as his were, and quickly beads of blood began to bloom on her tongue. Flexing it for a moment to encourage the flow of blood, the queen pressed her hands against his scars at the same time as she felt herself pulled down against him.
Moaning a small sound of encouragement, though it would require the sacrifice of his hands on her body, Flora slipped her fingers beneath the partially removed fabric of his shirt in the hopes he'd allow it to fall away, leaving her fingers more room to roam and grasp.
He is not any of those things – certainly not boyish nor craving of giving affection only so he might take advantage of the position it would place him. He’s, at his base, a man that has tried desperately to be valuable and left alone. It isn’t so much of a what can you do for me, as it is a I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine. This entire encounter so far, though, is different than any of that – leaving the butcher on the backfoot, now that he actually understands what Flora wants out of it.
His biggest struggle is to try and not let go of the careful restraint he has on himself. A restraint that grows thinner and thinner as his warm hands pull her in, as she dives into the kiss with a certain determination that does give the result she’s hoping for. Like a shark that’s scented blood in the water, the second that he can taste the iron tang and the pressure of her hands against his scars, Astaroth shivers, hard, pressing into the kiss harder with a low rumble of a keening growl escaping him and pouring right into her mouth.
As she encourages the fabric to fall from his shoulders, the butcher’s hands do leave her, but momentarily. Enough that he can shrug out of the red and white floral shirt, before those hands return, one hand cupping her cheek and tangling into the blonde curls at the nape of her neck, his other hand moves to her thigh, a possessive grip that may or may not leave little fingerprint bruises with the pressure he wars with himself on. And she would be rewarded with the efforts made, with the blood and the eagerness, the sounds that leave her throat; because with the pressure he applies to her thigh, he keeps her precisely in his lap where she would be able to feel his growing arousal. He breaks the kiss with a slight pant, dark gaze somehow both sharp and hazy as his thumb strokes along her jaw, flashing a cocky and arrogant sharp smirk. “You must tell me if it becomes too much.” Astaroth pauses, his voice a deep grittier purr. “Deal?”
The vibration of his lips against hers as his moan shivered against her mouth, has Flora blazing just as surely as if he'd thrown her into the bonfire in the center of the Grounds in order to bring them here. Had she thought the moment would allow it, Flora might have paused in order to carefully fold the garment he'd been wearing, alas, as soon as his skin was bared to her wandering fingers, Flora was helpless against the exploration of her hands against his back. Tracing new lines of torture that she could feel but not see, The queen relentlessly worked against the horrors once done to the butcher, that their presence might now bring him pleasure instead of the agony once inflicted upon him.
Moaning sharply against his lips as he grasped her thigh, possessiveness surely doing to her what a few drops of blood did for him, the queen tensed her thighs around him before parting with whine cut off in the back of her throat. Panting harder than he was, or perhaps just not trying to restrain it, Flora's eyes, while not the near black of Asta's had darkened to the sort of blue that heralded freezing waters and sudden riptides. In another place and time she might have bantered with him, playfully asked what he'd do if she didn't or otherwise imply that perhaps he should worry about her. Instead, the Doubletake did a quick mental calculus, pairing the danger she thought she was in against the danger she could do with a blade held to the butcher's throat and found herself in the black. "Deal," she replied, her voice soft but confident as she tilted her head to the side where his thumb was pressed against her jaw and smiled against it.
Letting her nails scratch up his back until she could fit her palms against his shoulders, Flora would try to press him back against the stone, softly at first but her touch would grow insistent if he tried to resist. Letting herself shift to the side slightly but with one leg tangled over his that she might not lose the insistent press of his fingers, Flora let one arm curl beneath Asta's neck so that her thumb could stray toward his lower lip as the other hand slunk down the length of his torso before slipping beneath his waistband. "Let me make you hard," She whispered, pressing against his mouth with her thumb rather than her own lips in order to grate the pad of her finger against his bottom teeth at the same time as her fingers grasped his arousal.
He might have been more inclined to allow her to fold the shirt, had there not been the iron crimson involved with her tongue against his teeth. It had done a great job of completely zeroing in his focus to her and nothing else, not even the flickering candles nearby, nor the way the hot springs lap against the edge of the water they sit beside, nor the sweat that has already beaded up on the Doubletake’s body from the heat.
Instead, he suggests a deal, and as she meets his gaze and he succumbs to the cut off whine in her throat and the dark shadows of desire in her own gaze, his smirk blooms even brighter to hear her soft and confident voice, to watch as she tilts her beautiful face into where his thumb presses against her jaw. Her hands map along the scar tissue to his back in well-practiced motions, despite this being the first time she’s ever seen them crisscross his skin, and it’s enough of a distraction that he can unwind his tail around her and allow her to press him back against the stone. It does take her some work to get him to concede, however, losing a semblance of control in this situation was not one that the butcher took to easily.
The butcher props up on an elbow, his other hand still pressing against those marks left against her strong thigh, and with the combination of both of her hands moving to offer him pleasure in more than one way, gods it feels like a lightning strike blooms through his spine. A sharp inhale of a sound passes through his lips, parting them for Flora’s thumb as she rakes the pad of it against those too sharp teeth, sparking more blood that paints pale teeth and his bottom lip, that causes his cock to twitch within her grasp. The hand at her thigh twitches in turn, before it rises to her hip, untying the last bit of her bikini to remove anything else between them, all while his lips wrap around her thumb, teeth somewhat careful (leaving small number of scrapes on the other side of her thumb and not just the pad), sucking away the blood and darkening his gaze.
He lets her get away with this for a few moments, before his tail shifts to wind around her arm, legs shifting and hand moving so that he can swap their positions, dark hair falling from where it had otherwise been carefully kept behind his horns. “Allow me to help, darling.” The discarded shirt is bunched and slipped up under her to offer some comfort against the stone, planting both hands on either side of her, before he decides to help her out. Biting at the inside of his cheek, sharp teeth slice and pool dark red into his mouth, a huff of a shivery sound escaping his nose paired with the slow blink, one hand lifting to collect what’s already trying to drip from his mouth, before immediately dragging his thumb down the hollow of her throat, spreading a thin coat of dark red.
Tutting softly as the butcher initially refuses to acquiesce to the request of her hands, as Asta finally does allow himself to be pressed onto his back, the Doubletake's eyes shine with silent laughter as she winks approvingly down at him.
This is certainly the most bold the queen has ever been when it came to sexual experimentation, but so far the equivalent of a nasty paper cut and a sore tongue are prices she's happy to pay for the way the butcher's body responds. Perhaps she's fooling herself in thinking he wants her and not simply the crimson in her veins, but so long as she doesn't ask, the ring on her finger won't betray either of them his response. Instead, she loses herself in the unconscious shivers of his body, grinning with dark delight to feel his cock twitch between her fingers. In response she's more than happy to let his tongue bar the ability of her flesh to clot that the small puncture marks in her thumb might continue to bloom just for him as her hand strokes up and down the length of his erection with poignant slowness and concentrated pressure.
Finding their positions reversed, with his shirt tucked beneath her no less, Flora flutters her lashes softly up at him as the finger previously between his teeth combs the hair from his eyes. "Now who has thought of everything?" The queen wonders in a silken voice, and while she's certainly had things spread across her body for her lovers to enjoy in the past, blood is definitely a new one. She doesn't mind, and in fact once he's painted his mark upon her throat, the queen grasps his hand and tugs it down the length of her body, making sure to allow his fingers ample opportunity to feel the soft curves shed worked so hard to sculpt, before spreading her thighs slightly. Directing only his middle finger, the Queen presses it inside of herself that he might feel for the first time the effects of his actions so far. Having to stifle a moan against his shoulder but being able to do nothing about the shiver that ran the entire length of her body, Flora redirects his finger back towards his mouth, now that it's sufficiently coated with both of them.
That’s a question even he hasn’t thought of — whether it’s the act itself or the blood. And thankful for the fact that she doesn’t ask, he simply indulges, which is the point isn’t it? And indulge, he does, with the feel of her hand on his cock and the iron tang in the air and in his mouth, it hits all of the checkmarks the butcher needs.
He reverses their position, ensuring that she doesn’t find herself uncomfortable against the rock, listening to her silken voice as a dark huff of a laugh slips from his throat. “I improvise well, darling.” He drawls as he lets her take his hand once the mark is placed, and explore her curves he does — swooping his calloused fingers along her chest, along the swell of her breasts and the perked nipples there, down along her soft stomach in a path down to her core. Propped up as he is, his other hand dives into her hair as she moans into his shoulder, feeling her shiver that matches his own with the anticipation, Astaroth hums a sound of content as she redirects his finger to his own, sharp mouth.
He gives her a show for the trouble, of course, tongue winding around his finger, the taste of her intermixed with the blood still tainting his mouth, it’s his turn to shiver and try to stifle it, though he doesn’t stifle the moan that escapes his bearded lips. It has him reorienting himself, shifting to settle between her legs, bent over her to run his tongue from her sternum up to the hollow of her throat, slowly swiping away at the blood he’d left there. He places an iron tainted kiss to the corner of her lips, before he peers down at her with a playful gaze. “It makes me wonder if you have thought of this before.” Comes his heavy purr. “And whether you’d thought about whether you wanted my dangerous maw up here,” His free hand cups her jaw in a delicate touch, before sliding down her body in a recreation of where she’d guided him moments before. “Or down here.” Two of his fingertips ghost along her clit in a teasing touch, before he slips a finger into her again, to feel just how much she wanted him.
Internally at war with wanting her body to appear long and lean beneath the butcher's dark gaze with the primitive instinct to tense her muscles and curl herself close around him, Flora finds herself a touch breathless with a wonderful sort of frustration long before Asta positions himself over top of her.
Thinking how wonderfully cruel he was for the path his mouth took, Flora let her fingers tangle into his dark hair and around his horns that she might silently express her frustration with the selective placement of his mouth. Indeed he'd have felt her body rise to meet his tongue as if trying to delay him from moving any higher. That he concludes at arguably the wrong set of lips has Flora twisting beneath him and biting back inarticulate pleas.
His questions give her mind something to latch onto such that she's able to still somewhat beneath him, though the slight tremble in her limbs suggests she's coiling rather than settling. "And if I said I had?" She wonders innocently, before combing her fingers through his hair to neaten it behind one antler before letting her nails claw down toward his neck. "If I said that I--" A man like Asta who has known pain in nearly every form will no doubt be able to differentiate genuine discomfort from the way Flora's expression seems to crumple into a muted scream as his fingers tease against her clit. Lifting her hips slightly as if gravity might somehow trick his finger into sliding farther inside of her, the queen is able to feel her own wetness if only by the ease he's able to press into her. "--that I--" She tries again just as another crimson wave of arousal tugs her under and drowns any semblance of coherent thought.
"Gods I want you in so many ways." She pleads finally, her toes curling as her breaths came in hot, shallow bursts. She wanted him between her thighs that she might use his antlers to guide his ministrations, she wanted him to pin her against the rock wall with his hand over her mouth, wanted to make him cum in the hotspring where the water would make it feel like they were floating, wanted to fuck him on top where he was held hostage to whatever rhythm she wanted to set.
He notices the way she tries to twist and change his course, from both the way her body twists and the way her hand in his hair against his sharp antlers to the back of his neck. He just doesn’t care to do any of it until her voice can reach him and he can taunt and tease her to his hearts content. “If I said that I had?” Comes her voice, innocent despite them both knowing otherwise.
“I may ask for how long.” Comes his thoughtful and arrogant response. “I may ask which you chose.” He supplies in answer to her broken up comments, as he truly does feel just how worked up he’s getting her. His finger presses in deeper, curling slightly before he picks a slow and languid pace to match the path his mouth takes as it dives down her body, along her throat, between her full breasts, deviating here to run his tongue along a perked nipple, to suck a mark against her chest where the bikini wouldn’t hide the bruise left behind.
He trails lower and lower, his free hand lifting her legs above his shoulders, where his mouth presses almost too hot kisses to the insides of her thighs, leaving a mark or two that he’s careful to not use his teeth for (but one may scrape a small scratch in the process), before he presses his finger in as deep as he can into her and pairs it with the hot swipe of his tongue against her clit, groaning at the taste and just how wet she is. Withdrawing slightly with a panting breath, dark eyes peer up at her from between her thighs. “I think we should start here, darling, don’t you?” His words are punctuated with the rhythm his finger picks, before he’s adding in a second finger, slowly trying to loosen her up as he watches her while returning his tongue to her clit, swirling and flicking.
Gods, that this is a game she knows so well makes the fact she's losing all the more frustrating. Gone is her breezy arrogance and confidence, her youthful determination, replaced with a wreckless arousal that would have her opening an artery for the butcher if he wanted it of her. "And if I said it was from the first time we met?" The hitch in her breath belies the mirrored confidence she's trying to affect, but gods even if she'd managed to make the words sound the way she wanted them to, the rest of her body would have given her away just as quickly. "You were so polished and smooth it made me imagine what it might be like to see that mask slip. To see what was really beneath." And now that she had, fuck if she wasn't greedy for more.
As for choosing? Moaning a touch too loud given that they were, technically in public, the queen immediately pressed her lips against the sound even as her thighs trembled with his touch. Keeping her fingers tangled in his dark hair, the queen lifts her head as he begins a far too slow descent down the length of her body, watching with dark eyes and parted lips that kept silently pleading for more. As the butcher's mouth sucked a mark against her golden skin, Flora's first thought was what will Jack think? before her inner smile turned devilish; I hope he hates it.
Only then the butcher is moving her legs, her thighs willingly part as thoughts of anyone else disappear. Trying to keep herself from pleading, instead Flora swallows thickly as she peers at him down the length of her own body. "I'm going to fuck you so hard for this." It's a threat, a promise, a vow she intends to faithfully keep, though the second his tongue flicks against her clit, her mind blooms with red flowers that she's willing to be buried beneath if only he gave her more.
Most people don’t like what they see underneath. Most people don’t tend to appreciate a finely polished man, careful in words and choices, become a feral beast where it takes a good amount of active thought and choice to not just devour her, and not in the way that she would like.
It’s a remarkably delicate balance, as her voice and body betray the words that leave her, especially as he settles between her thighs. “You still have not fully seen it, my dear.” He purrs arrogantly in between breaths of drawing that vibrant haze of pleasure over her mind, smirking despite himself hearing her little threat.
And maybe it’s his arrogance and the fact that she’d sparked the mood within him, because he withdraws to drag his lips against her inner thigh again, purring a “I hope you do” that’s met with another mark left on her thigh, his fingers pumping in and out of her as he pants through his nose. This time, the mark is left with a sharp nip of teeth, not enough to take a chunk out of her thigh, despite how he really really wants to. It is enough, however, to leave teeth marks in the soft flesh of her thigh, to let blood bubble up and well that he drags his tongue along in a shivering growl of his own appreciation. It guides him back to her center, still fucking her with his fingers as his now bloodied lips lightly suck on her clit, trying to draw as much overstimulation as he can.
