Click here for a list of weather descriptions, seasonal festivals, and a real time:site time conversion.
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!
Is this where it mends or it breaks - between a rock and a hard place
Colt has been walking through King’s End with a finger trailing along the edge of everything, trying to commit the shape and the feel of it all to her once and for all. She’s doing it now, as she walks without real intent around the well, head cocked in though as her hand brushes over the time-worn stone lip.
It’s not often you get to know the end of something is coming. Normally, you’ve no idea you’re standing in the last moments until you’re already looking back on it, realizing it’s over. She is fortunate to have that knowledge now and use it to regard a place that’s always been home with the best farewell she can muster. It’s nothing spectacular, but it’s intimate, all hers. She holds the region, the people, and presses them into her chest like dry wildflowers between pages.
Nearby, a horse sneezes, lazily shaking its head afterwards. The sound of tack jingling is what draws Colt’s eye from the nostalgia she’s shaping, glancing over at Beans and the other horse with him. Jesse’s horse. Colt had asked the woman to come here, intending to follow up on their letters.
Colt
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.
Wren’s steps carried a quiet urgency, though she tried not to let it show. Excitement fluttered beneath her ribs. She had gotten word that Colt had returned, and she was desperate to see her. There were several reasons, but one reason lay quite heavy on the girl's heart.
The image of the ranch lingered, heavy and unrelenting in her mind. Wren knew that kind of loss. Not in the same shape, not in the same details, but in the way it hollowed something out inside you and left it echoing. Stormbreak had not burned, but it had been broken all the same.
She swallowed against the ache rising in her throat, and kept walking, holding both feelings at once, the fragile hope of what lay ahead, and the weight of what had been left behind, determined, at the very least, to bring warmth with her when she arrived.
like the sea over sand still I follow heartlines on your hand
Is this where it mends or it breaks - between a rock and a hard place
If she’d brought a dog with her, or better put, if a dog had accompanied her (she did not often choose to bring them), they likely could have alerted her sooner to Jesse’s approach. She did consider doing just that, since the girl had so adored Smooches, but with enough complications in her life at the moment, she doesn’t need the addition of another nose to keep track of out and about. So as it is, Colt is only aware of Jesse once the woman has drawn near and both horses turn to watch her.
Colt lifts up a hand in greeting, leaving the edge of the well be now. ”Hey, Jesse!” she calls out after squinting and recognizing the shape, a true miracle for Colt’s memory of human faces and names. ”Join me over here,” she urges, leaning a hip into the stone lip of the well. Curled in her other hand are a pair of particularly shiny stones that she collected just for this area.
Colt
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.
Wren lifted a hand in return the moment Colt’s voice carried across the space between them, her pace quickening despite herself as she angled toward the well. She started jogging until she closed the distance between her and the rancher, eying the horses as she approached to make sure they didn't spook. She wasn't sure what she would do if they did other than freeze, but she was sure Colt would quickly fill in the gaps. “Hey!” she called back, breathy.
Her gaze flickered briefly to the stones in Colt’s hand, catching the way they gleamed, before settling on her face. The young Breaker did not hide the way she looked the woman up and down, as if reassuring herself that Colt was whole, present, here. That she hadn’t come too late for something else to be lost.
I know I, uh, said it in my letter but, I’m… really sorry.” Wren added, quieter now, her voice gentling. “You know, about your ranch and all that.” Her eyes dipped briefly, then returned, steady despite the ache behind them. “I know it’s not the same, but --Stormbreak…” She exhaled softly. “Losing a place like that -- it --” She trailedo ff, not really knowing what else to say.
Still, she managed a small, warm smile, and shook her head slightly. “I’m glad you’re here.”
like the sea over sand still I follow heartlines on your hand
Is this where it mends or it breaks - between a rock and a hard place
You’d only catch Colt running in the most figurative sense. She tended to stroll, although her stride had a length and a purpose to it, but even on the occasions she’s been put back on her own feet unwillingly, a horse hauling ass away from her across the field, running after it usually does little good compared to strolling. So to see Jesse moving like the moment might break apart if she doesn’t hurry, sets an immediate humor into Colt’s expression.
It flickers, just barely, when the apology is handed over. Well-intended, but a knife wound all the same, one she smooths out with a lick, which is to say a glance away and a shake of her head. ”Sugar, don’t try to shoulder my weight when you got your own.” Out of context, might sound like she’s saying don’t bother helping, but with the way Jesse’s eclipsed with sentiments over something that never meant much to her, Colt means it, and says it, like a hand reaching out to pull up from a cold wave. Jesse’s looking like the way Colt’s felt plenty, slowly drowning. ”I promise, we ain’t goin’ under over any of this, crushing as it feels.” Keep your head up kid. Her stare has returned, not unkind, but not soft either.
It’s always easier to say it than to live it, but even saying it to someone else, frees up a little room inside of her to let it settle. ”In my world, there’s a saying. Cowboy up,” Her lips quirk, head tilting in thought as her thumb hooks into her pocket. ”It means, you deal with shit. You get back up, you get back on, and you keep on keeping on.” She extends her hand, holding it out with the expected motion that Wren will extend her palm to receive it.
”Always gonna be something knocking you down, whether it's a horse, or just life swinging its big ol’ ass around. It’s not the fallin’ that defines us. We all do that. It’s what we do after, and I dunno about you, but I don’t like being described as someone who settles in the dust.” Whenever Colt eventually dies, it’ll be with her boots on, going down swinging until last breath. This might not be mortal peril, but it sure feels like a match that’s pressed her up against the wall until her fists show.
”I’m glad you came. Here.”
Colt
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.
Wren stilled as Colt spoke, the words landing heavier than she expected. They were not harsh, but firm in a way that left little room for anything else. For a moment, she just stood there, caught between instinct and understanding, biting her lip from the inside. Her gaze dropped briefly to the offered hand, then lifted again to Colt’s face, searching it, not for softness, but for truth. And she found it. A small breath slipped from her, “Yeah,” she said quietly, a faint huff of something almost like a laugh following. “I’ll try,” she said, meeting Colt’s gaze, “to --” a small, uncertain smile tugged at her mouth, but she lifted her voice a little louder, “uh, cowboy up.”
Her hand came up then, a little hesitant at first before she placed it in Colt’s, grounding herself in the contact. Young, ready, and still knew to all of the world around her, Wren turned her attention to the horses. "Is that one for me to, uh, ride?" The thought of riding her own horse lit something bright and buoyant in Wren’s chest. Not clinging behind Colt, not borrowing balance or courage, but sitting tall in her own saddle, reins in her own hands. Excitement curled through her, threaded with nerves, eager.
like the sea over sand still I follow heartlines on your hand
Is this where it mends or it breaks - between a rock and a hard place
She has a habit of running around with theories and ideas that she brandishes out for others the moment she feels like someone needs a ‘pick me up’, when really she’s swinging ‘em at herself, reminders that she needs leveled at her just as fiercely. She realizes she’s doing it too late, but it’s clear when Jesse turns a touch small.
It’s in thought, more than retreat, it seems, but it’s a reminder to Colt that all Jesse tried to do was be kind. It’s considerate, even if Colt turns her nose up at sympathies. ”Good,” she asserts, concluding that session for both of them with a curt nod, her hat and hair tipping and swaying with the motion.
As Jesse offers up her palm, Colt deposits one of the shiny rocks, a smile flickering into place like a candle that’s just survived a breeze. ”Yes,” she informs Jesse with the slow stretch of satisfaction, gaze darting past the woman’s shoulders to the two horses. The stockier one, black with a blaze and four white socks, is lazily chewing on Beans’ mane while he naps—typical gelding behavior. ”The bigger’un is Burger. He’s all yours.”
She nods towards him, but her gaze refocuses back on the glittering stone in their hands. ”But first, have you ever heard of this well? It’s the dreaming well, and legends say if you toss in a shiny pebble and then drink the water, you get a night of good dreams.” She rolls her own pebble from her palm to her fingers, leaning in against the side of the well and peering down into the dark depths. She glances back at Jesse, then promptly tosses her stone in. ”I could use a nice night like that, and I figured you could too.”
Colt
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.
She wanted to follow her trail of excitement, but Colt grounded her in the here and now. Her eyes moved from Burger back to the rancher, biting at her lip. Wren’s fingers curled instinctively around the stone as Colt placed it in her palm, her attention caught first by its shine—and then by the words that followed. Her thumb brushed over the smooth surface slowly, the earlier excitement dimming just slightly as memory pressed in where she hadn’t invited it. Nights were rarely kind to her. They came fractured and jagged, filled with things she couldn’t fully remember but still felt, sharp and lingering when she woke.
Still, she stepped closer to the well, peering down into its dark, uncertain depths.
“Good dreams, huh?” she gulped. Her gaze lifted again to Colt, something quieter and more vulnerable flickering there—but she didn’t linger in it. She was "cowboying up" after all. “Yeah.” Wren decided, drawing in a small breath as she shifted the stone between her fingers. “I could use that too.” She leaned forward then, dropping the pebble into the well, listening for the faint echo below before straightening.
like the sea over sand still I follow heartlines on your hand
03-28-2026, 10:28 AM (This post was last modified: 04-07-2026, 09:18 PM by Colt.)
Is this where it mends or it breaks - between a rock and a hard place
Wren could listen all she wanted, but the echo would never come. This well, she doesn’t know what’s at the bottom, but she thinks it’s best they not try too hard to discover it. Good things can lose their appeal when stared at too hard. Better not to lean in and in searching for the cracks, set them in place. Certainly something Colt has never been guilty of before.
Reaching out for the lever now that they’ve both granted their offerings, Colt cranks the old thing steadily and draws up the pale, dark and glistening with the cool water from below the stone and the murk of distance. Tipping it into the cup of her palm, Colt quickly slurps it up, tipping her head back to get every drop she can before flicking her wet hand away and wiping it down her pantleg. ”Here, drink up,” she encourages, offering for Jesse to mimic her as she knocks the bucket with a knuckle.
Wiping away the wet feeling from her lips with a swipe of her thumb, Colt rises off the well ledge and stretches up long and limber for a moment. ”So, you end up getting settled into a place alright? I’m sure it doesn’t feel like home yet, but, I think that’s a feeling you just have to make, once you’ve lost it.” At least, she sure hopes so, for her sake as much as Jesse’s.
Colt
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.
Wren hesitated only for a moment before leaning over the well, cupping the pale, dark water in her hands and lifting it to her lips. She let the last drops slip down, tilting her head slightly, savoring the simplicity of it. Down, deep within her heart, she hoped that the water would give her good dreams and plenty of rest.
She straightened, wiping her lips with the back of her hand, and met Colt’s gaze. A small, uneven smile tugged at her lips. “Yeah,” she murmured, the word tasting bitter, so he adjusted, "Well, uh, no. Not really, actually. I mean I've got a bed, but I don't think I can stay where I am very long. It's just that, uh, I think they'll make me start paying eventually." She couldn't just be a refugee forever, with mercy cast over her. The inn where she, ando ther breakers were, had to make a living. Her fingers twisted slightly, and she dug at the corner of one nail with another.
Her eyes drifted past Colt for a moment, taking in the horses again, the soft sway of the wind through the grass, and the quiet weight of the ranch around her. "The truth is I don't really know what home feels like." She had felt a safety in Stormbreak, but it wasn't really because she loved it, but it was becase she didn't know anything else.
like the sea over sand still I follow heartlines on your hand
Is this where it mends or it breaks - between a rock and a hard place
Colt hears it as it lands, like something trying to pass as solid instead ringing hollow when it hits an unexpected angle and hums too loud with the space it’s pretending isn’t there. Colt glances back at Jesse properly, having started to walk towards their horses, and cocks a brow up in quiet challenge. One that isn’t needed, as Jesse seems to hear it too.
”Ahh,” she says with the simplicity of knowing as Jesse goes on to explain. Colt slips between the two horses, backing hers up with a soft cluck and pressure at the front to give Jesse proper room to meet hers. The horse is reluctant at first, still lazily dozing, but heeds with a slowness that borders on aggravating.
Fortunately, Colt is distracted by what more Jesse has to say, and she is here to take her time with this land, not gallop out of it. ”For me, it’s always been this.” Colt’s palm slaps on the saddle of her horse, her other arm with the reins slung over the horse’s neck, elbow hooking around the other side of the leather. She leans in a bit, the horse bearing the new weight, and smiles over at Jesse. ”Come try it,” she beckons.
”Probably won’t be the same for you… not exactly. But, to me, home is something that feels like you can fully be yourself. Even the worst parts of you.” Her horses have seen those days among her best ones too. Days when she loses her temper, her patience, her sense. When she’s too hard or too ungrateful. They remind her then, too, to stop. ”Can’t really live in a saddle though, or at least not forever. Not comfortably.” She laughs a little. ”Frey knows, I’ve tried.” Weeks she’d stay away from her house, from her husband.
”Honestly, I’m looking for it too,” she sighs a bit wistfully then. Evidence perhaps, that she doesn’t have all the answers, even when she tries to pretend she does. ”I’m hoping I can make it again, the four-walls version, in Hak Etme. Or something close enough that I feel the ache inside my chest improve.”
Colt
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.
Wren lingered where she stood for a moment, watching the easy familiarity with which Colt moved around the horses, the way her hand landed against the saddle like it belonged there. A quiet pull settled in her chest, steady and insistent, drawn to that kind of certainty. At Colt’s invitation, Wren stepped forward. She moved with controlled strides, her attention shifting between the horse and the woman beside it, trying her best not to look too eager or too excited. Her hand lifted, tentative, hovering for just a second before she let her fingers rest against Burger’s shoulder.
Her gaze flicked back to Colt as she spoke again, head tilting slightly. “Hak Etme… that’s the desert, right?” There was a note of genuine curiosity now, cutting through the uncertainty from before. “Why there?” It didn't make sense to Wren. Surely, part of that was because she was raised in a city, but the other part was because she wasn't crazy and she knew Hak Etme was dangerous.
Wren’s brows pulled together faintly as she tried to picture it. “I’ve heard it’s, uh, harsh.” she said. Her fingers shifted slightly against Burger’s coat, grounding herself as she thought it through. Colt had said that home is somewhere you can be yourself, even the worst parts, and Wren wondered how that would work for the woman in the sand.
like the sea over sand still I follow heartlines on your hand
Is this where it mends or it breaks - between a rock and a hard place
Beans shifts his weight beneath her as Colt leans in deeper. He's got her, she trusts in that, he just is working to keep them both steady. Burger would be a similar anchor for Jesse. Younger and a little more silly about things, but still a dependable gelding, which was why she'd chosen the horse for her.
"YeP," Colt says simply, popping the P. She eases up off of Beans and back onto her own heels. She takes the moment to tighten Beans' girth again, and nods towards Jesse for her to do the same. "Always check before you get on, unless you wanna be hanging under their belly. Which I can assure you that you don't." The leather doesn't budge enough to be worth it, so Colt leaves the hole where it is and folds the rest of the latigo away. "It is," Colt says after a moment, dusting off the saddle with a thump before swinging up into it. "Harsh," she confirms with a curt nod of her head and a shift in her seat. She twists around to watch Jesse. "Left foot in, hand on the reins and the saddle, and then step in and swing the other leg up and around. Careful you don't keep the other leg too low and kick the horse as you land."
Tugging her hair to one side and straightening her hat, Colt considers the why for the umpteenth time, as if explaining it to those who ask as much as herself. "There's something appealing to shaping some place largely untouched and ignored. I've been there before, and it had a certain quality to it that made me feel...excited. It's beautiful, in its own way, and it won't burn up so easily." She might boil more, but nothing else. "I kinda wanna see if it can do it...turn it into a town worth calling home, make it somewhere people wanna go." A challenge, to prove to herself that she might've been knocked down, but she is far from out.
Colt
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.
Wren turned it over in her mind, imagining wide stretches of nothing but heat and sky, nowhere to hide, nowhere to pretend. "Are you going to go, uh, alone?" She asked, head tilting back straight as she watched Colt mount from the corner of her eye. Wren scratched the horse's shoulder again.
She drew in a breath and turned back to Burger, resolve threading through her nerves. Her hand slid up to the saddle, gripping tighter this time. One foot found the stirrup with an awkward reach before she pushed up, hauling herself into the seat with a determined, uneven motion. For a second, she wobbled, catching herself with a sharp inhale, then straightened. Upright. Balanced. On her own. Bruger hardly moved beneath her, the horse standing firm beneath her as if carved from stone or rooted down deep into the earth like a great tree she was to climb. Wren smiled, excitement drowning out the disbelief in her confidence. She looked up to Colt, not searching for the woman's eyes but instead looking to see how she held her reins once she was in the saddle.
Adjusting herself by mimicking what she could make her body mirror from Colt's, Wren let out another breath. It was shallow, mosly from her throat rather than her chest, and she used her shoulder to roll her plaited hair back. "I could build a sandcastle, too." She said, turning her head to look out over the rolling green of King's End. Could she survive that? Could she be that? Her life had already been stripped down once, memory torn away, identity rebuilt from fragments. Maybe that was a kind of beginning the desert understood. Maybe she wouldn’t have to explain herself there.
like the sea over sand still I follow heartlines on your hand
