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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!
"Well if it helps, you make sipping through a straw look very menacing," Danta purrs, tipping a wink to the other man. "Though you do make a good point about the cherries. What's that they say about thinks being sweeter if you have to wait for them?" All bullshit if you ask the Maverick, but if the alternative is shoving cherries through the gaps in a metal cage around his lover's face, so be it.
He settles at Astaroth's side, able to feel the gentle caress of his fingers and allowing his mind to wander, briefly, into that unique brand of creativity, when he hears a half-familiar voice from just beyond the butcher. Thalassa hasn't come out into the open entirely, tucked into folds of darkness and secrecy, and Danta's brow furrows beneath his mask, a muscle feathering in his jaw without his permission.
"Saving from who?" he asks, loud enough for them both to hear despite having been purposely snipped out of this particular conversation. "Because I know you aren't implying it's from me. C'mon, Thal. Give being edgy a break for a night and grow some wallflowers out in the open."
Dantalion
// get them drunk on rose water //
Horns: Diamond - they look very similar to #2 in this image.
"Cowgirl," Jack greets, lifting the glass of dark spiced rum he's procured as he spots Colt cutting decisively through the party to get to the drinks table. He'd been quietly observing the attendees as they filter in, breaking off into groups or otherwise finding trees to lean against and people to pine over, watching in particular as another familiar blonde breaks off from her little private crowd to approach Bassian.
"You're too kind, but I reckon you can agree that it wasn't a difficult thing to fare better'n them." Scoffing and lifting his glass for another sip, he relishes the burn and the spice with a satisfied sort of grimace, leaning casually against the table. "Yours ended up more'n a bit of folded gauze, too. We can both be proud of our efforts."
Nodding out at the rest of the masquerade, he can't help but gesture vaguely towards Calypso and Nova and, inevitably, where Vesper is also sure to be lurking around. "Sure you've found the fight face to come an' talk to, though?"
it's not your fault that you're always wrong the weak ones are there to justify the strong
"Well, if that ain't the kindest way someone's ever told me to fuck off before," she chuckles into the rim of the cider as she takes a drink. Unfortunately it hits her in all the wrong ways, face pulled to the side in displeasure as she pulls the cup away, forcing down the sip. Her gaze does follow where he gestures, and it doesn't take long to identify the golden shine and the iridescent glitter that belong to Vesper's siblings. He's not directly with them though, and the crowd's grown thick enough she probably couldn't pick him out even if everyone wasn't dressed nearly identical. Though she'll keep her eyes peeled for someone tall, dark, and handsome, might have some shadows flitting about at his feet and a terribly handsome pair of eyes behind a mask. The night's young though, and she doesn't plan on waiting by a wall for him to show up or weaving through the thick of it all just to stare into every mask until she finds the right one. They'll find each other, the gravity of him wouldn't allow anything less.
"Don't worry Jack, you were just a familiar cloak by the drinks, I mean to hit the dance floor as soon as I grab some better shit than this... and find wherever my dancing partner ran off to." There's a sigh with no heart to it as she scans the crowd for Hawthorn, not entirely sure how she lost him in the span of five minutes they've been here. Although his is an outfit she does recognize, she gives up the search in favor of setting down the apple swill she picked up. Every time she thinks she'll like it, because regular apple cider is delicious, and every time she's reminded that she can't actually stand most drinks. Well, worth a shot.
"Enjoy your people watching, captain," she murmurs in farewell as she slips into the line for the bartender, a margarita the only palette cleanser that'll do.
Colt
Don't be a bitch, come take it to the floor now
Received a Gilded Market wig from Remi that resembles her usual hair and is enchanted to stay on better than most wigs | has a reverse centaur tattoo on her left hand with the legs going down her pointer and middle fingers that looks like this.
Flora weaves her way back through the masquerade crowd like someone walking out of a dream—or maybe a storm—with scratches blooming in faint red curves along her spine, the back of her gown tugged askew and just beginning to fray, her curls a tousled halo. Her lipstick had long since abandoned ship, smudged and fading like the memory of a kiss too good to be redone.
Still, Flora’s grin is bright and crooked and undeniably pleased as she slips up beside her friends, her chest still rising just a little too quickly to pass for casual. "Heeyyyyy," she breathes, as if she hadn’t just been thoroughly ruined against a tree not ten minutes ago. Without missing a beat, she tosses Nikandr a smirk. "I need our makeup bag, and you’re holding the mirror," she declares, flicking a piece of bark from her shoulder like it’s glitter and not proof of her sins.
Only then does she glance up—way up—to find Sunjata standing there, all ocean-warm and storm-shadow and unmistakably him. And okay, maybe walking up to your stepdad while clearly freshly fucked should be awkward, but Flora only has the grace to blink once at him before her grin deepens. He was the sex demigod, after all. If anyone got it, it was Sunny.
"Oh!" she gasps theatrically, catching sight of a discarded cup perched precariously on the edge of a barrel nearby. She grabs it, holds it up toward him with both hands like an offering. "Gods, please can I have some water." Her lashes flutter up at him, all faux-innocence and sweat-slick delight, even as her gaze sparkles with the last embers of something far more wicked.
some real big things I still gotta figure out
Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3
If someone had told Deimos coming to the masquerade would be akin to a mini vacation on its own, he wouldn’t have believed them. But for whatever reason – his lack of social graces, his menacing aura, his introverted essence, or for anything else – everyone left him alone.
Content, perhaps even elated with this turn of events, he still watched from behind his mask; always alert, eyes flickering over people moving about. Some came from the shadows, at which he snorted, and others maneuvered back and forth, conversing and chatting.
Thereafter, he shrugged, helped himself to some portions of sausages and biscuits, then pondered over taking home leftovers to the rest of the Ignatius clan – before moving away from the table, walking along the outer edges and pathways while he munched.
She half-wondered if Iskra was being purposefully irritating, or she was just easily riled tonight. “Oh, great, so now that they’re gone, we just don’t get to stab anyone anymore?” She huffed, throwing her hands in the air, knife still held tightly, as if this was the most bothersome topic and she’d been handed an ultimatum. Pointedly, she ignored the last bit, saving her response to just glowering from behind her mask.
But then there were other potential victims, and she turned to where Iskra had selected a candidate. “Eh, I’ve bullied him twice already,” she shrugged, glancing over to Hawthorn and recalling the pants pulling incident, and then the Fangorn terror within King’s End. She supposed there weren't limitations - especially with the number of moments she'd made Koa's life hell, but she wasn't in the mood to select an old haunt. “I’ll find someone,” was already a ridiculous promise, but then she was invisible, wandering and wondering, passing through portions to start another crime.
“Not yet,” she winked from behind the mask, snagging at his elbow as they walked through the crowd – she took a couple moments to wave at their friends, though it seemed Koa was already enticing a miniature crowd.
But then she was wholly distracted by Zavien anyway, laughing at the statement, but enamored by the prospects of it. He wouldn’t be able to see the blush from under the layers of black cloth and ornamental designs, but nonetheless, it was there, amidst her wide grin. “Is this a secret you’ve been keeping from me?” A tease and a taunt, but she selected cups of cider, passing his over to him, mind already roaming over the semblances of this incoming and endless dancing. Thoroughly charmed, she giggled again, light and airy. “Please do. I’m all yours.”
“Eww.” The butcher laughs, a warm sound escaping him as he rolls his eyes playfully to the mention that it would be sweeter if he waited. Its up there with the saying that good things come to those who wait, which in the butcher’s experience had never quite been true either. Pursuit was important. It’s what got results.
Either way, the butcher realizes and lets his fingers draw simple designs against his lover’s skin, settling in against the tree where he’s supposed to stay put. At the moment, everything is bearable, Dantalion is within reach and he can watch the party unfold from a safe distance away. And that’s precisely when he hears the flit of Thalassa’s voice as it airs into the quiet shadow on his side. Her tone is tired, though he can hear the jest she attempts in there, and before he has a chance to respond to her, his lover’s voice rings out loud enough for them both to hear.
He can’t help the soft laugh that leaves him in the hopes that it might soothe both her and Danta’s ruffled feathers. “If I had to guess, I would assume it is everyone else who should be blinking for saving. At this present moment, I am perfectly content.” He muses playfully, giving Danta a squeeze, even as he tilts his head over to Thalassa with a knowing smirk that seems to suggest that if she isn’t careful, Danta might surprisingly be the one to start a fight.
And what a shame that would be. That’s his reputation, after all.
Astaroth
// and i still feel the edge of this cold knife //
Content and comfortable in his skin enough to notice and also let Ashetta get a good long look, the courtesan’s smile he sends her way is gentle as it is playful. They don’t know each other, and that makes this interaction that much easier for the distraction of it. And while he doesn’t notice the scent of ozone immediately, there’d be no judgement from him, given how he himself is abandoned.
So, rather than make it all about those potentials of magic and whatever else might be lingering under the pretty stranger’s skin, he tilts his masked face toward her as she lifts her glass in return. “That’s the hope.” He admits with a playful grin, a twist that’s a bit more playful before he sips from his drink again, relishing the burn the flute of blackberry champagne has as it slips down his throat.
At her question, he chuckles a little. “Last minute invite, actually. That and I don’t really go an’ see the gods. Figured I’d do my best attempt.” He lifts a hand that sparkles with the few rings that sit on his fingers, the bones of his wrist shifting as hew wiggles his fingers to craft a little sparkle in the air above his hand from his illusion magic as if to explain just why he didn’t go and see the gods.
“What about you? Wait, lemme guess.” He turns more fully toward her, twisting in a way that has his posture quite flexible, giving her a good long and appreciative look up and down before he straightens and the smile he flashes her way is all confidence, suave, charisma. “Knives in the shadows?” He suggests, seeming relatively confident in her choice of dark blues with gold streaks, a flare of colors and sheerness that makes it so when she moves it seems like smoke trails behind her. It’s brilliant and beautiful, and Thorn has admired it long enough to notice the brief flash of knives strapped to her.
And if he didn’t know any better, he’d have zero qualms with calling her a wolf in the night.
His magic’s little burst of light draws something warm out of me—fondness, maybe, or just that quiet fascination I always have when I see someone’s abilities manifest. I’d spent so long not even knowing I had magic, that it still feels like a rare kind of wonder to witness it in others.
A spark of lightning answers his sparkles on instinct, a quick silver-blue flicker that runs down my arm before I brush it away, pairing it with a slow, easy wink. Hawthorn is easy to talk to, easier still to let my guard down with—at least a little.
When he twists toward me, his eyes tracing their path down and back up, I don’t stop him. It’s… almost novel again, the way that long-buried part of me perks at the attention, at being seen in this way. I’ve hidden in the shadows for so long I’d almost forgotten what it was like to enjoy it.
“Knives,” I allow with a small tilt of my head, then add, “And teeth.” The wicked grin that follows is deliberate, flashing a hint of wolf fangs before I tip my glass back.
The cider’s nearly gone by the time I lower it again. I’ll definitely be getting another drink. “Do you often attend parties like these?” I ask, my gaze drifting past him to the swell of music and bodies twirling in the lanternlight. The masks, the costumes, the little flashes of magic and laughter. My mouth quirks as I correct myself. “Then again… maybe not like this. It’s not often a Herald calls for a masquerade.”
Vesper doesn’t follow his sisters immediately. Nova ’s laughter is already dancing ahead of him, Calypso ’s gold flashing like a dare against the dark, and though his mask hides the flicker in his expression, his eyes narrow slightly beneath it. The girls vanish into the crowd with the kind of grace that comes from never having had to fear being followed, even if they nearly always are, by Vesper at least. Not in body—he stays near the edge of the clearing, posted like a shadow cast by the lanterns—but his mind threads through the crowd in subtle filaments, drifting lightly across thought after thought. Most are innocuous: hunger, heat, flirtation, vanity. Some are sharp enough to snag, though. He exhales slowly through his nose, jaw tightening behind the porcelain mask. There's a pressure building at the base of his skull, a mental static rising with every careless desire that hums toward his sisters like moths to gold and glitter.
Koa ’s voice breaks through the din, bright and charming, and Vesper’s gaze snaps to him even before Nova does. The man’s thoughts are familiar now, blurred around the edges but threaded with just enough boldness to make him stand out. Vesper doesn’t trust him, not after his behaviour at the bar or the way he'd given Nova drugs, but for the moment he lets them all be.
Still, his eyes don’t leave them as he moves, drifting like the smoke curling up from a nearby cookfire until he’s found a place near one of the drink tables. The light here is warmer, the buzz a little softer. Easier to breathe, if not quite enough to settle the edges of him. A flash of copper-blue catches his eye across the crowd, sea-toned and shredded in all the right places, and for a moment the tension twists differently. He clocks Jack ’s presence with a lift of his brow and a sip of blackberry champagne—too sweet, but it cuts through the mental noise like citrus through wine. Jack's mind is a locked box, sealed and scarred and comfortably unreadable.
Then comes a different sort of pressure. A flash of gold-blonde, or was it? A thought half-recognized—not yet, he’ll find me—that stirs something sharp before it slips away again, drowned in the chorus of other minds. Vesper had half expected Colt to say fuck the rules and show up in a cowbot hat, but he hadn't seen one yet and gods but the noise, both mental and otherwise, keeps the young demigod from being able to hone in on the rancher the way he otherwise might.
The tide of the masquerade presses in on all sides—costumes brushing against him, words too loud, thoughts louder still. His temples pulse with it, not pain exactly but something like it, stretched thin by the sheer weight of all the wanting. It drips from the air like sugar and smoke, and Vesper sips again from his flute as if it might burn the buzz away.
wake me when it's over like a bad dream
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
☆ has a pale star tattoo beneath his left eye, and freckle-sized constellations move across his skin
☽ hair changes from bleached blonde to brown
☆ telepathic: Sunlit Shadows | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 60ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Soh meandered amongst the trees, walking from stall to cookfire to food table, reaching to snag a new drink when her first ran out. Maybe getting drunk at Ludo's masquerade wasn't on her bucket list, but it seemed like as good an idea as any, really, given that everyone else seemed to have found someone to latch onto. It wasn't exactly that she wanted company - in fact, tonight she was craving solitude - but there was a loneliness in her anyway, an ache in her chest that she couldn't rid herself of no matter how much she tried.
Someone bumped into her with a muttered apology, and Soh was about to let them go on their merry way when she heard her name. In a very familiar voice. From someone with whom she was extraordinarily unhappy with right now.
Turning to face Kaisel, the Luminary was exceedingly grateful for her mask. While she could normally control her emotions fairly well, she wasn't sure she could hide the distaste on her face. "Oh, hey Kai," she said coolly, her voice carefully neutral. "Sorry, I haven't seen Flora." It wasn't even a lie. Although Soh was sure she could hunt down the Doubletake, she wasn't going to do so on Kai's behalf. "But last time I talked to her, she was fine." That was a bit more of a lie. The last time she'd seen Flora, her best friend had not been fine, and it had been almost entirely Kai's fault.
And you kiss me in a way that's gonna screw me up forever
Sohalia
Minor powerplay allowed without permission.
Feel free to use force/magic on Sohalia.
08-04-2025, 09:48 PM (This post was last modified: 08-04-2025, 09:49 PM by Kaisel.)
He's expecting some sort of wild tale that will perfectly explain everything. Something, anything to rationalize the chaos of her letters. He'd read them over and over since receiving them, trying to find meanings tucked between the lines, answers not so clearly spelled out. It'd proven as useful as trying to decode a secret message without some baseline knowledge of the key though, and after a while it just made his head hurt and weirdly his heart too.
He knows a few things for certain:
1. Flora is mad at him.
This seems to be because she thinks he's spent too much time with Caly and therefore ditched their friendship, despite being told he had not seen Caly in weeks. Also making wishes pisses her off. And trying to play tic-tac-toe when she forgot how. She says he made assumptions and hurt her.
2. Flora has been pretty shit.
Something about fake friends and putting herself first. She also talked to her dead twin????
3. Flora gave the bar to Caly and her siblings.
Is she alright with this? No clue. She did it... so, yeah?
4. Flora is moving.
Still in Torchline, presumably, since she has to rule her kingdom and that's why she can't stay an extra day or two to heal up at King's End.
5. Flora gave him the best gift, in secret.
She has yet to explain why the secret...
So with this in mind, he is completely surprised when Sohalia says that last she talked to Flora, the Doubletake had been fine. Which, maybe meant the letters happened after the last time Soh talked to Flora. Maybe if he knew her better he'd pick up on the ways she's not quite so welcoming, or maybe if he had his thoughts anywhere other than trying to understand what is coming across as insanity to him. "Oh, so not recently then. I see. Well, she sent me all these letters that don't make sense. She said she gave up the bar, and she's moving, and she's not been good, and she's clearly upset Soh." Out of habit he goes to run his hand through his hair, frustration and energy needing to be spent, but all he does is pull off his hood instead and feeling it, drops his hand.
He pauses then, a new idea sparking among the clues. "She did say she was gonna stop letting assholes who are all talk make her feel bad about herself. Did fucking Jack do something again?" Because as far as he knows, everything he's told her has been true, and the last page they'd been on was the one that read, we can't do this again. So the first and only asshole that jumps to mind, is the captain.
Kaisel
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
He barely noticed his fellow Dragoon making possibly poor decisions. Lena had his full, undivided, and enthralled attention. "Secrets from you? Never." His hand released hers so she could grab the drinks, falling gently to her back as he accepted his glass of cider. "We just haven't had many chances for me to show you. If you haven't noticed, our parties have a habit of being interrupted." Either by side conversations, daggers, or deities, there's always some other focus, and Zavien flashed her a grin that was so full of hope it eclipsed all else - the hope that there would be many more opportunities in the future.
But for now, he was taking advantage of every second, savoring the cider - and company - for a few moments as they walked the around the party. Once his glass was empty, he set it aside and looked to Lena with a decidedly eager expression. "Do you need food too? Or am I free to lead you to the dance floor now?" There was a twinkle in his eyes, his hand offered forward, although if she needed another moment, he'd try to contain himself.
