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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!
Evie comes home and the first thing she does is shower every inch of her body with water as hot as she can draw it. It helps steam out the giant ball of twisted, agonizing frustration and hurt that presses at the inside of her skin like barbed wire, and ensures any chance of infection or void that might have gotten flung around during the fight can't find its way deeper. Evie doesn't normally take luxuriously long showers but today she lingers long enough that she has to turn the water hotter twice more before she feels ready to emerge.
Micah sits on the bath mat and ignores the wetness of her legs as she emerges to instead help comfort her by pressing against her steaming skin the moment she steps out. He remains glued to her like that the entire walk to the bedroom, where she snags one of Deimos' shirts out of the hamper in a bid to settle the remaining jagged edges of her nerves with the scent of him and the way the fabric swallows her whole.
Still unable to calm, she leaves a note inside directing her husband to where she'll be when he returns home, and takes her old throwing knives out to the simple targets in their backyard to sink them over and over into the painted rings. Her body will complain tomorrow (until she magically silences it) but right now Evie wants to indulge in destruction as an outlet, no matter how unlike her it may be.
Knowledge and news passed swiftly, quickly, the moment he had passed through borders and lines. Stalwart soldiers that had stayed on the fringes of the Citadel, waiting to see if the ursur had come through. The sounds of fighting and the trumpets of familiar souls gathering to strive and try, and the one name resounding that made his heart lurch.
But they’d come through, in perhaps not the greatest example of teamwork, and he hadn’t been needed. Whether or not that stung too scarcely seemed to matter, and he threaded through the streets with Erebos in tow on his chest, wondering how long one would be able to keep their children blissfully unaware, before coming into their home, and listening to the sound of the water running nearby. Silent and stoic but suddenly grateful, he took another loop, giving her time and space while settling the infant down for a nap, and ensuring Belial was watchful and guarding in the nursery.
Then the attention was only for Evie, strolling towards where she unfurled knives into targets, consumed in his shirt, and for a moment he merely leaned against another effigy. An instant of open admiration, watching as she reveled in some destruction, in painted fixtures and alterations of first meetings, his smile curling in fondness, love, and relief, before uttering any deep, rumbling accords. “You all right?”
Micah alerts her quietly when Deimos arrives. Already focused in on another throw, she doesn't turn her attention away until her knife lands, and by then his voice reaches her. The delicate bubble of distraction and composure pops the moment she turns to see him smiling her way.
Blinking back sudden wetness in her eyes that is born more from upset than sorrow, Evie exhales shakily. It's difficult sometimes to find a middle ground between woman and Warden. What is worthy of levelheaded, objective reporting, and what is worthy of hot cheeks and ranting admissions of inadequacy? Where does Evie find her place within The Evergreen?
"No," she spits emphatically, voice cracking traitorously. Her knuckles bleed white around one of her knives. "That was some of the worst cooperation I've ever seen, and it could have killed any of us." Her free hand bunches in the hem of his shirt that she's wearing, and though the knife in her other hand doesn't waver, this one trembles. "I was on the front lines of the war, Deimos. I'm their fucking Warden. And I was relegated to medic while trying to give orders." The forwardness of her venom is a flimsy distraction from the hurt beneath it.
Evie knows healers have never been and will never be appreciated enough. That magic rings and magic shields wielded by fighters who can't even gauge the severity of wounds in themself or others will always be seen as a perfect solution. How many have died because combatants didn't realize one wounded man would die faster than another? How many could have died today if she hadn't? "What's the use of power if you can't wield it effectively? What's the use of pride if it fucking kills you?!" A garbled shriek of frustration tears out from grit teeth, and she whirls and throws her knife violently. Unsurprisingly, it half-sticks at an insufficient angle and then clatters to the ground, and Evie drops her head into her hands as a sob sticks in her throat with a choked sound and burns there.
The reaction wasn’t what he expected – a sharpened turn, bright and brilliant composure fading away to shakily consternations and a crackling voice. The report he’d received was minimal, and certainly nothing like this. His eyes widened in accord, arms instantly open in an endeavor, in an effort, to either sweep her away from the sudden tides or embrace her while she coasted in the midst of them. A comfort amongst the predilections; because it always took monumental orchestrations to move her into such tempestuous lines. He’d implore and want nothing more than to tuck her underneath his chin and embark into the waging storm – or simply simmer in the shallows, waiting for it to all unfurl.
At the reasons why, his jaw clenched – for none of those sentiments were the Halovian way – the methods he’d drilled into his soldiers, his compatriots, his citizens, day in and day out. When the other circumstances rallied, his machinations were already in an affront, trying to wage away the frustrations welling for her, and their region as a whole. “Who caused it?” He started, a quiet rumble around her, should she allow it, to blend and bend, to start shifting into a plan. Understandably, however, it was not his to make; but the backdrop was beginning to fill in and linger in his mind regardless –
Because Evie was right. She’d been on the front lines while he and the others were off fighting for Caido on the Draig. There should’ve been respect for her as a sovereign and experienced in the trappings of battle. The conducted mannerisms thereafter meant someone was likely going to have to toe the line for misdeeds, and the frustration made him meander towards a few select names.
Wobbling knives made his hands draw into hers, trying to curl his own in there for support in the deluge – and uncertain if she’d yearn to fling more barrages and vexations, or begin to come up with something new. “What do you want to do about it?”
Evie has never been ashamed to display how she feels, but as Deimos opens his arms and she stumbles into them there’s a moment of guilt. She so rarely ever breaks like this, and it feels like a dramatic response when held up against the outcome. They had all survived. The Ursur had been slain. Cleanup is already underway. Why can’t she focus on those successes instead? She had taken all of Talyson’s abuse with a professional smile for years, so why can’t she shove her feelings back in the box now?
Yet when Deimos poses his own questions, they are instantaneous validations of her distress. Her heart aches around the hurting edges with a fierce, abiding love for him that eases her back to some semblance of control. At least enough to speak instead of sob.
“Noah caught Sah and Talyson in his attack more than once. Sah was…invisible at first? There was no coordination.” As for fault, that’s a harder thing to judge. Stupidity abound did not necessarily imply guilt, and they had succeeded. Eventually. “All of them were wounded badly in intervals, but Talyson went down hard early on and I had to stay with him.” Recounting it step-by-step helps to quell the shake of her voice and the tangle of emotions in her chest. She can’t conceive of wishing she hadn’t healed someone, but the simple bitterness over the luckless pairing thrives in its place. “Noah and Sah responded when ordered, and Noah stepped between multiple times. But Talyson was giving orders too, and being demeaning, and had the gall to say they needed to meet up together to work on teamwork -” The composure she’d gained flies right back out of her hands, jaw clenching and tongue pressing painfully behind her teeth to stem the flow of anger.
Oh, but she has no intention of leaving that last question unanswered. Evie knows he won’t fight battles for her, but she won’t tempt him with the chance either. Not when she’s so certain about her own plan. “I told him to meet me in my office. I’m mailing him my open days. I can’t stand it anymore.” Her hands clench in the back of Deimos’ shirt, strangling the weave. “He’s not a Halovian now so I’m not taking his shit anymore!”
Considering the amount of they’d both endured over lifetimes, Deimos snagged at the freedom, the liberation, they had, to simply be. If she needed to unravel for a few moments in time, she was free to do so, safe in the solace, in the warmth, in the protection of shelters they’d built. No shame, no bitterness, no interludes of guilt; he wrapped himself around her and extended the shields of strength and fortitude when the might seemed distant; listening, waiting for the threads to unwind.
And when it was Noah, above all others, his jaw clenched and a mulish conjecture ground against his teeth. How many times would it take for the Forsaken to understand? What had gotten into him? What had made him stray so far down a path of mindlessness, from the man they’d known to be righteous, caring, and principled, to someone dangerous to their own allies, kin, and country? “Noah has hurt more than he has protected lately.” He managed at first – remembering the roar that had affected so many at the meeting, including Amhran. “I do not understand what is going on with him.”
Then there was Talyson, and he fought the incessant urgency to roll his eyes. While he lacked healing skills, the Sword wouldn’t have bothered tending to him regardless. A seed sown for all his actions and peevishness, for his horrid lies and outright blasphemy. “You are a better person for mending him at all,” and the ex-Halovian likely knew it. Holding her a little tighter, if only to ward off his own bitterness and cold, malevolent anger beginning to run through, he listened and scoffed. “I had to set up a training for him years ago to do the very same thing.” Hypocrite. “And no, you should not have to put up with him any longer. You endured more than enough.” With her head held high, with respect and diplomacy, with all the platitude and fortitude of a ruler who couldn’t stoop to another’s level, despite every lie mounted upon her. “So with that taken care of, what do we want to do about Noah?” If anything could be done.
Evie shakes her head slightly against his chest, hands unclenching knuckle by knuckle from the now wrinkled fabric at his spine. "I don't know. But he tried to keep its attention from us, and took my directions immediately." That's significantly more than she can say about some people also present. "Do you think he just hasn't practiced with it enough?" Call her soft, but Noah's heart had so clearly been in the right place that she can't help but think up explanations on his behalf. This time.
Besides, her vitriol is far better suited for a different target. Vacillating between anger and fragile composure makes her feel lightheaded, but she can't stop it from happening. But it isn't done, not yet. "No, wait." Evie pulls away enough to turn red-rimmed eyes up at Deimos, expression grim but unrelenting. "I need to know what extremes you agree to. I mean it, I'm done. If Talyson forces my hand, I will exile him." He has already sworn allegiance to a different region, and Evie is well beyond caring if that means he won't see his family or ruins his business. If he manages to make it out of her office without triggering the nuclear option then all the better. Evie values justice more than revenge. But considering what she plans to say to the courier and the man's infamously foot-shaped mouth, she needs to know that her husband - her fellow Warden - agrees with the finality of it all.
He kept her tucked within, however tightly or wound or unfurled she wanted to be, while still trying to wrap his head around the circumstances. Noah might’ve taken her directions, and protected her, but there were hordes of other things corresponding into such foolishness and unnecessary barrages that he couldn’t quite get past. “At least he listened to you.” And maybe that was part of it – the whole of how many times he’d put in the effort and felt nothing but a wall between them. Perhaps he missed his friend. But the Forsaken was a different individual now, and the Sword had to reconcile with the alterations and changes butchered and pieced together with a shake of his head and frustration in his bones. “He used the same assault at Seren’s meeting. Remi absorbed the damage, but it would have done enormous amounts and likely killed the newer demigods.” Amhran being blown backwards had been quite enough in the Warden’s eyes.
So while he waited for her to parse through that information, he did the same with the motions upon Talyson. His eyes shifted to glance into hers, and some ultimatums seemed to be passing, warring through. In another time and place, years and years before, the mere idea of it wouldn’t have been a thought at all. They’d both taken the high road – ignored the nasty remarks, the rampant lies, the unnecessary peevishness of it all – Deimos often didn’t even bother acknowledging the cretin. But now it had all come to other fruitions and terms, and he didn’t feel like encouraging her to endure it any longer. Why should she? “Then if you feel the need to do so, I agree.” His hands came to wrap around her cheeks, thumbs gently snagging at any tears remaining. “He has never faced a consequence for all the slights thrown. Perhaps now is the time.”
It doesn't take much to make her subside, her defense of Noah only as long as the leash of logic. Deimos' addition makes her insides sour immediately, withering with terror and dread. The recollection - still fresh and bright in her memory - of the damage that had been done to Sah and Talyson, superimposed onto Amhran? Her hands shake anew, though with the flush of emotion in her cheeks it's unclear to her if it's rage or horror that causes it. "Then he should have known," she chokes, anger winning out as it melds with the embers that still burn against Talyson.
Deimos' hands are gentle as they cradle her, wiping away the remnants of tears and slowing the rush of blood pounding in her ears. The breath she takes next is tremulous, but slow, and continues to slow with each consecutive inhale. Except this time as the adrenaline fades and emotion withdraws there is only steely certainty instead of doubt and concession.
"He has one chance to save face then. Anything else will be his own doing." And, like the final nail in a coffin, that is all there is to be said. Lifting her hands to wrap over Deimos', Evie tilts her face into one of his palms and closes her eyes as she tries to find that same clarity regarding Noah. "Noah...I don't know. We have to do something formally this time." To call it a reprimand feels too personal, like displeased parents, but what other name is there for the strike he's incurred against himself? "If he hurts someone else with that attack because we didn't intervene, it's on our heads." Stepping closer with hands still cupped over his, Evie thunks her forehead onto her husband's chest and ignores the growing void of exhaustion in her chest for a few moments longer. "And we need to increase our training for all, even if we can't force Sah or Noah to attend since they're not Shields." At least they'll be more prepared as a whole.
“And he did,” he concurred; that a decision had been made and passed through the Forsaken’s mind despite the allies around him. It hadn’t been worth such desecration and violence – not for an ursur, not for the state of Halo – and Deimos couldn’t even accurately depict a scenario in his mind where it was necessary at all.
Stalwart and patient as her breath slowed, as the emotion became less searing and heightened, he gave her the barest inkling of a smile. Decisions made and centered, with clarity and self-possession, only made his own lungs unfurl further, a long sigh willowing and withering its way out into their expansive yard. “Good.” Settled then – and Evie could pass the justice as she saw fit and necessary, as the idiotic courier found his own noose.
Her hands were over his then, and it was back to Noah and his trials and tribulations. As her brow leaned into his chest, his eyes flickered upwards, glancing along weapons and knives, at newly fallen snow, at the justifications of what they might have to do. And he didn’t like it – discomfited by it all, but the demigod had persisted in the strangest measures. “Despite not wanting to agree with me, it seems he has made himself scarce at the Grounds.” Or he hadn’t heard anything untoward, at the very least. Danta would’ve certainly informed him. “What do you want as a consequence then?” To deliver with the warning and admonishment, wondering if he'd have to be the one to do it again, and sever even more of their broken bombardments.
As for everything else, he nodded, beginning to steer them away from the targets and towards one of the stone benches he’d had laden along the back of the house. “Training for all soldiers, and I can offer another round of team building.” And as much as he’d like to make it mandatory for some, it probably wouldn’t work, given parameters, semantics, and attitudes. “So we cannot say we did not try.” With Noah, with Sah, or anyone else.
As her heart slows and the weight of all that today has wrought settles heavy in her bones, Evie slowly releases the white-knuckled grip she has on both Deimos’ shirt and her own volatile emotions. She won’t allow them more power over her than they deserve, or it will be the same as giving Talyson and Noah that power.
“There’s not much we can do aside from a verbal reprimand. He has no rank, and he hasn’t stirred anything more with the Grounds.” They’ll have to record it this time, be it on paper or some other communication, but Evie feels rather at a loss for anything more concrete. “If he does it again, declaring he can’t use it within Halo’s borders? Or with any friendlies around?” That, at least, they could then pair with a consequence with the understanding that it had been communicated to him preemptively. “From there…reparations to the injured party, or temporary banishment from a region if he hurts someone non-Halovian? Gods, what a mess.” She can hide behind the comfort of political phrasing, but she can’t ignore how difficult and frustrating this has all become.
As he leads them to the bench she takes his hand and sinks onto it, as graceless as she is boneless. But this time she can lean sideways into Deimos instead of sinking her head into her hands. Evie’s eyes close immediately, shutting out what she can of the world and its nonsense. “Agreed. And I don’t want to address anything non-emergent for the rest of the damn evening. Maybe even the week. Ask me tomorrow.” The petulance of her youth bleeds through, sharp and churlish. It’s likely she won’t enforce it after a good night’s sleep, but it feels good to say it.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place was not Deimos’s ideal management with anything; political or otherwise. Noah’s lack of scruples, thought, or foresight made it even more difficult, but at the very least they had some ideas. “A note then, if neither of us see him anytime soon?” They couldn’t assure he’d read it, but that would be on his conscience then – the reprimand there. Then they could document on their end as well, and cultivate enough of a paper trail to ensure the Forsaken had been told and scolded for the act. “I wonder what Vi would have to say about the ferocity against his own allies,” by way of a shrug and musing; nothing more. “I think those are all good ideas, and we have something in place in case of any future mishaps.” As frustrating and ridiculous as it was; they couldn’t rely simply on logic and hope with more void instances likely to come, and Noah potentially out there amidst the mess.
But he remained stalwart and steadfast as they sat upon the bench and she leaned in. Placing his arm over her shoulder and snagging her inward, tucking her against his ribs and muscles, he snorted at her distinction. “Certainly worth a try.” An evening free of any more political endeavors was a lofty one – but he’d do his best to make it happen.
