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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!
"I can’t wait to find out," Calan murmurs, eyes briefly going unfocused with the future shape of the pretzel already forming in his mind. Big, warm, probably salted, possibly magical if Fern’s advertising voice is anything to go by. His mouth starts watering at once, which feels reasonable, given that getting a pretzel had been the whole point of the plan before it became window fraud and bird management.
Aa Fern disappears, Calan stares blankly at the osprey now occupying her place in the window, his expression going very still while his thoughts shuffle themselves into a new order. Fern is a girl. Fern is also a bird. Fern ha(s)(d) scissors and also maybe a medical degree. Most importantly, Fern knows where the pretzels are. Luckily, Carlo sounds very professional about helping her down, so Calan makes his own face arrange itself into something equally businesslike. "Be with you shortly," he calls up, as if the delay is standard procedure and not because he is halfway up his brother with a Hel sitting on him like a strange mascot.
Getting down is not graceful, but it is effective. Calan shimmies carefully down Carlo’s body, one hand grabbing the crate, the other catching at Carlo’s shoulder, his feet searching until they find the ground again. The Hel rides the whole way down on his shoulder, claws tucked in, looking extremely pleased with the promotion from nuisance to staff member.
Once he is beside Carlo again, Calan lifts his arms and lays them across his brother’s at perpendicular angles, making the best net two boys can make without rope, practice, or any understanding of how to catch a falling bird-girl. He looks up at Fern with a bright, steady confidence that has survived every previous part of the plan and has no intention of stopping now. "When you’re ready," he says, nodding firmly. "We do this all the time."
Stairs, unfortunately, would have alerted Isla too quickly to Fern's departure. She's made up her mind that she can scuttle down to Pretzel Planet with this very trustworthy pair of boys, after all they already work (how proactive of them), see out the game and get a treat (it is lunch time), and be back before she's even missed. This all from someone still learning how to properly tell time.
Watching the pair assemble themselves with what appears like practiced ease, she's struck for the first time by how identical they are. Well, almost, only one of them has a bird. Carlo's shout of preparedness and Calan's reassurance that they've practiced things like this, which just makes sense and doesn't require any deeper thought into why they might have, or how, all serves to embolden her that the distance is fine. Clicking her beak, which is essentially an avian thumbs up in this context, Fern hunkers down further. Her wings reach out wider, tips wavering as she strains for just one moment before decidedly plummeting off the ledge.
Having very little room to either hop or gain speed, she mostly just, tilts forward and closes her eyes. The result is the start of a deadweight summersault. Her tail flares behind her on instinct, and the rush of wind around her as she drops catches beneath her spread wings, tipping her more onto one side rather than forward now and evening out some of the descent into a forward glide. Her eyes flick open, thrilled, although it's by no means graceful and the innate design of her to find lift only helps so much without any other part of her doing more or adding a firmer breeze to the mix. She ends in a gangly crash right towards both boys and their awaiting arms, a brief screech lifting from her chest before she snaps back into a girl and arrives like a bowling ball into the pins of twins, her avian scream swapping into the small shriek of a child who can't decide if they're terrified or excited.
06-12-2026, 06:32 AM (This post was last modified: 06-12-2026, 06:44 AM by Carlo.)
Carlo
It isn't the first time and nor will it be the last that Calan uses him as a climbing frame, and Carlo accepts it with the expected good-nature of a boy who will inevitably return the favour at some point in the near future. There's much more exciting matters afoot now besides, and he forgets the imprint of Calan's shoe on his shoulder to assist with their combined net of arms and the osprey about to fling herself from a window to definite safety. "Do you think maybe we should--"
Get off these crates is what he'd been about to suggest, but by then the bird has taken... er, flap? and she's wheeling unsteadily down towards them. Eyes widening, because Carlo hasn't forgotten that there's a girl in those feathers somewhere and also two sets of grown-ups who will be really mad at them if any of her bones break, what he doesn't account for is that she'll become said girl again at the point of landing.
In retrospect, probably a conversation that ought to have been had when she was still on the window sill.
In practice, a full-sized Fern collides with the Taliesin twins - who, Carlo will point out forever-more, did succeed in catching her in the basket made out of their limbs - and all three of them promptly fall from the crates, nevertheless providing a soft landing for the girl and a much bumpier landing for the twins.
Carlo's breath leaves him in an ungraceful oooof, his head bouncing off the cobbles hard enough that his vision clouds at the edges, but before he can give himself permission to decide if he's hurt enough to cry, he's laughing about it. "Ow," he wheezes, blinking up at Fern. "Hello," he adds helpfully. "I'm Carlo, and that's Calan. Our parents know each other."
Whatever else Calan might have done, suggested, or bravely reconsidered is taken from him the moment Fern tips out of the window. At first, he is not worried. Not really. There is a bird sitting on his shoulder, after all, and the main thing Calan has learned about birds so far is that they are mostly feathers and outrage, which makes them very light. Catching one should be easy. Catching one with Carlo should be even easier, because that is twice as many arms and therefore twice as much success. Then Fern turns back into a girl.
Calan’s eyes go wide, and in the blink before impact, a very quick list of all the ways he has miscalculated flashes through his mind. Birds are small. Girls are bigger than birds. Windows are high. Crates are not the ground. Their arm-net does not come with instructions. Then Fern hits them like a launched sack of elbows and knees, and all three of them go down in a crash of boxes, limbs, and breath knocked hard out of bodies.
The back of Calan’s head hits the pavement just as Carlo's does, and for a second, everything pops bright and strange behind his eyes. Years later, because it sounds much better, he will tell people how both he and his brother saw stars the first time they met Fern. In actuality, what he sees are great blotches of white that make him blink fast and stupidly up at the sky while his mouth hangs open. The Hel, meanwhile, gives one furious screech from somewhere near his shoulder, deeply offended by the working conditions, and launches itself back into the air in a storm of wings.
Calan drags in a breath, decides that his bones are probably still where they started, and turns his head enough to look at Fern, who, they did catch, technically, which means the plan has worked. Nodding, he adds, "We heard your only friend was in Halo, which is really far away." He blinks once more, clearing the last of the bright spots from his vision, and gives her the serious look of someone explaining something obvious and generous. "So we aged up so you wouldn’t have to play alone."
Maybe she miscalculated the momentum of her bird mass turning into child mass. The sudden urge to have hands to grab hold of something as she started to feel herself slip to the side, combined with the realization that her talons would score more than bruises on the boys, meant she wanted back in the shape she knew best. Unfortunately, that shape was bigger and heavier and completely saved by the net of arms and bodies that fumble beneath her arrival. Turned out perfectly well for her, which is why she breathlessly pops up from the tangle of twins with a cheerful exclamation of, "that was so fun!"
Twisting about, only to realize it's a knee she's talking to instead of a head, Fern wriggles out of the moshpit of bodies and backs up onto her own legs, the length of the doctor's coat fighting the process every step of the way. "Oh!" she gasps, the splay of her hair matching the surprise, ruffled into something like bedhead after all of that. "I've heard of you two! Mother and father have mentioned you once in a while." This explanation is offered as she tries to file away which twin is which, her eyes darting back and forth in search of something besides a bird to mark them, especially when said bird has fled back into the air. "What's that one's name?" she wonders, assuming it to be Calan's (or was that Carlo? She's already started to forget.) companion.
Offering out a hand to each of them to help pull them up beside her, the coat sleeves promptly vanish them beneath a droop of white. "That makes sense," she decides, of choosing to age themselves up to play with her, because it does, but also because, "last I heard you were just babies. I only aged up a little while ago too, so that our house wouldn't be so." She lowers her voice suddenly, as if the word she's about to utter is taboo. "Crazy."
Fun is not the first word that springs to mind when it comes to what has just happened, but neither is it the last one. And when he considers it from Fern's perspective, it does seem like it would be quite the rush to plummet from a height and be caught by their fine selves, and so rather than bemusement, Carlo is filled with a clean dose of respect for the young Attuned and their new friend/scissor wielding doctor. While Fern gets herself clumsily to her feet, he focuses on being sat upright without the world swimming, mouthing the words mother and father as if it has never occurred to him that children call their parents things other than dad, or dads, or tentacle dad or dragon dad.
Glancing at Calan as though to make sure his twin has also come out of this alive and well, he nods his agreement with his brother's point and glances fleetingly to the departing shape of the hel that has finally opted not to be part of Calan's haircut. "Bird," he says helpfully, because that's what he'd call a bird, adding, "probably," if only to allow the creature some agency in its own naming.
He reaches out to clap his hand into Fern's, grateful for the assistance to leave the cobblestones behind, and peers around now to make sure their acrobatics haven't been noticed by any grown-ups. "Why would your house be crazy?" he wonders. "Ohhh, is that what type of doctor you are?"
Calan tilts his head at Mother and Father in almost the same moment Carlo does, because somehow Fern says the words like they are wearing nicer clothes than usual. Capital letters at the front, proper shoes, clothes without wrinkles. It does not fit neatly with dad, or dads, or the many other more useful names one might shout across a room depending on who is closest and what has just been broken, but Fern has also turned from a girl into a bird and back again, so Calan is willing to accept that her house might simply have different rules.
He glances after the departing Hel when Fern asks about it, still blinking away the last little sparks from the back of his eyes, and nods solemnly when Carlo provides the important answer. "Bird," he confirms, because that is a perfectly good name for a bird and also difficult to forget in an emergency. "Bird is an independent contractor for certain jobs." This seems generous, really. Bird has not been hired, paid, or helpful, but it did arrive with confidence, and Calan respects that.
When Fern offers both hands, Calan reaches for one at nearly the same time as his brother reaches for the other, accepting the help up with as much dignity as he can manage after being part of a landing pad. Once on his feet, he brushes both palms down the front of his pants, then gives one knee an experimental bend to make sure it still works. It does, mostly, so he decides not to worry about the rest. There are pretzels nearby, Fern is successfully acquired, and no adults have yet appeared to ask the wrong kind of questions, which means the plan is still in excellent condition.
At the mention of her house being crazy, Calan’s attention sharpens at once. His head tips to the side, curiosity bright across his face "Our house has ghosts in it sometimes," he offers helpfully, because maybe that will make her feel less awkward about sharing. "Mostly our nonna when she comes to babysit." He says it very plainly, as though babysitting ghosts are a normal household feature.
Bird is the resounding answer, and she takes this just as much in stride, because after all, she is a girl named after a plant so a bird being named bird feels plenty sufficient. "Sorry bird!" she calls up to the retreating hel, expecting that the proper use of his name will give the apology the proper weight and attention it deserves. "Such a well trained companion," she admires as attention falls back to bird-twin and all the claims of bird related jobs. "I can do bird jobs too!" As they've clearly seen. "Well, except fly." Which is unfortunately the one and only job a bird is usually hired for, which could explain her lack of employment.
Having both twins hang off her arms at the same time is a miscalculation of the weight and the drag, and for a brief moment it appears they'll be helping her down instead of her helping them up. One foot lurches forward and then plants on the ground though, and she tilts back, angling into the effort with a scrunch to all her features and a faint grunt. When they finally haul themselves back to their feet, she stumbles back a bit, white coat flapping out in front with a dramatic flare.
Quick to set the improper assumption of her medical expertise to rest, Fern swiftly and sternly says "no," alongside a vigorous shake of her head. "I am a surgeon. I also diagnose the rarest cases, help deliver babies, and give casts to broken limbs. I don't make people crazy." A moment of hesitation, as if considering something new, thoughts biting into it the way one might a gold coin to test for authenticity. She seems on the fence, mostly because she doesn't know what an authentic coin is supposed to taste like. "I mean, I don't think it was me anyway. But the sky was yelling all the time and father thought I was a cabbage." A faint giggle rises up at the notion that she could be mistaken for such a thing.
Shifting attention from one twin to the other almost feels like when she makes faces in the mirror with another mirror. She can see the repeating reflections, knows they're separate, but it's also so much the same that it feels easy to lose track and get lost in which is which. She feels her eyes slide off one boy to the other, but so little changes, that it's enough to wonder if her eyes moved at all. Fortunately, she's not concentrating as hard as she does with the mirrors, least of all when there's ghosts at hand.
She gasps the same way she's learned to do when seeing a particularly bad stitch has popped, both hands flying up to her mouth, white sleeves drooping down past her chin where they bend over her fingers. "Your babysitter is haunted!?" Her eyes widen with the proper respect of facing people so brave. "Woooooow. How did you survive?"
Tipping his head back and shielding his eyes against the sun, Carlo is disappointed to find that Bird has not stuck around to receive Fern's apology, which may lead to a letter of unemployment just as swift as its entry into service had been. There is no need for rudeness, after all.
"Oh, you can?" He smiles brightly as he glances back to their new friend. "And was that not what you did just now? Flying?" It had certainly looked like it, all wings and fluttering and feathers like birds do. "Don't be so hard on yourself. It looked very majestic." Right up until he couldn't watch any more due to his eyeballs being introduced to the back of his skull by virtue of concussive force.
The stern correction has Carlo straightening up instinctively - that sort of voice and tone is reserved for when they are in real trouble instead of haha trouble - and he nods gravely as he's properly educated on the nature of Fern's medical expertise. "Oh, I didn't mean you made people crazy, more that you might have fixed their crazy," he's quick to add, though. "Which feels about right, unless your dad... still? thinks you're a cabbage?"
While Fern is appropriately aghast at their haunting (something that prompts a grin that Carlo doesn't try to hide), he shuffles behind her so he can pick up the trailing hem of her doctor's coat, much like a bridesmaid carrying a train. "So you don't get it dirty while we get pretzels," he says. "And it's a good haunted. Our nonna is the best."
"We could teach you, you know," Calan says of flying, with the complete confidence of someone who has never done it on purpose and therefore hasn’t yet discovered any reason it should be hard. He glances up after Bird as if the Hel might circle back around and demonstrate, but with the independent contractor having abandoned the job site, Calan only gives a small shrug and looks back to Fern. "Probably you just need better instructions."
The sky yelling and her father thinking she was a cabbage should maybe be more alarming, but Calan accepts it with a thoughtful nod. "We’ve heard of that happening," he says solemnly. "You definitely did the right thing by getting aged up and becoming a surgeon."
As Carlo takes charge of Fern’s coat train, Calan is quick to step neatly into place at her side. If his brother is going to carry the back of the coat, then obviously someone ought to manage the front half, and Calan offers Fern his arm so that at least her sleeve is as supported as her coat tails are.
"So who do your parents leave you with?" he asks, grinning up at her as though this is the regular sort of small talk one makes before pretzels. It does not occur to him that they might not leave her with anyone, or that other houses might run differently than theirs. Parents are busy. Children are interesting. Therefore, in Calan’s experience, somebody else is usually in charge eventually.
Not inclined towards an abundance of confidence on the best day, Fern's trepidation about things is usually much more practical than anything akin to self-doubt. What she trusts tends to be rooted in knowledge, however true or not it turns out to be at her age, and the fact remains she has not flown before, so saying she can't fly feels rather correct. It leaves her a bit stunned then when Carlo informs her she did something she's no recollection of having learned, much less mastering. "Do you really think so?" she begs at once of him, her voice teetering on the edge of wonder. She had her eyes closed for most of it, so she hadn't properly seen if she'd been flying or not after all. Majestic isn't something you just say though, and so far he's always told the truth, so there's no reason to doubt him now. Backed up by Calan's apparent expertise in the matter, which qualifies him to educate others, she's entirely sold on the idea that they know quite a lot about flying. "That would be great! I want to be able to go up next time."
She might have demanded they try it right now, such is the bubbling excitement at being better at birding than originally believed, but with doctoring and pretzels abound, it swiftly files itself away as something to be tried again later. "Oh," she considers as Carlo offers a clarifying point, and her head tilts with the consideration. "I didn't study that, but...everyone knows I'm Fern now, the girl, so maybe I did fix him after all?" Another thing she's good at without meaning to be! "I'm like a doctor prodigal." She declares then, meaning of course prodigy, but close enough.
Which is clearly why she needs attendants for her doctor's coat, an addition met with a small turn of her head and a curious eye as Carlo gathers it behind her and Calan settles beside her. Her hands fall away from her face as the terrors of ghosts fade with their reassurances, although her features stay bright with a fresh wariness and respect. The medical procession feels appropriately reverent, and all notions of cunty window owning disperse instead to the royalty of being the prodigal. "Thank you," she says to Carlo, lifting her chin a bit before stepping properly onto the path towards Pretzel Planet with both boys in tow, knees pulling a bit higher than normal in a semblance of a march that seems proper. "Good haunted would be the best kind," she decides, not wanting to make it obvious she never knew there were types until now.
"Leave me?" she wonders, trying it on herself as if that might give her better understanding of what Calan means as they parade onward. Her lips quirk to one side of her face, brows furrowing. "With you guys, I guess?" She hasn't been left before, and while she had been the leaver in this case, the root of it is the same either way, her parents aren't here for perhaps the first time. She seems to notice that the boys are parent-less, and ghost-less, then too, which seems fine since they had a job to do. "Is this how you spend most of your days?"
