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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!
Flora tries not to to think how domestic Jack suddenly looks, but of course once the idea has sparked in her thoughts it's impossible for it not to take root. She does him the courtesy of not giving voice to it though, even if she does smirk at him as he rather politely hangs his clothes over a chair.
The bed is large enough that the queen could stretch out an arm without being able to brush against the captain, which she assumes is to his liking. Rolling onto her side and nuzzling her cheek against her pillow, Flora listens to his explanation. "I mean..I guess that's to be expected?" She reasons; they were all creatures of habit, so why shouldn't the melody of their thoughts be similarly patterned?
So why wasn't hers like that? "I bet Mel has some fairly explosive thoughts." She titters.
His question catches her off-guard, and though heated rocks and flickering flames try and realize themselves in her mind, her exhaustion and the rum keeps them more or less at bay. Still, it has her biting at the inside of her lip against the cold prickle of tears. Splaying out her fingers across her sheets, enjoying the static-y smoothing tactile feel of it against her palm, the queen gives her head a little shake. "Because..." Fresh tears spill down her cheeks and onto her lips and nose.
"Because I think it was my fault." She whispers.
Her fault for pushing him. For not being enough for him. For not being stronger.
"Fuck you very much," Jack snarks, because of course Flora doesn't need to give voice to her thoughts for the captain to know where they're going. If it weren't for the lengthy battle to even get here, perhaps he'd have acted even more like a stray cat and started to nudge some of her trinkets towards the ends of shelves or tables. "Mm, it is," he agrees - he'd never said it was a particularly bad thing, after all, to be predictable. It certainly helps Jack stay sane.
As for why Flora's aren't like that? He can't say. He can comment on Mel, though, and it's with a bark of a laugh that he nods his agreement. "Mel's thoughts are psychotic," he corrects, and gods, even before the Honeybee had decided to skip off and become Ludo's trickster plaything, the captain had given her a respectful sort of distance.
Alas, this somewhat buoyant pillow talk between them isn't built to last, and the stormclouds of Flora's mood soon roll in and threaten their downpours. With furrowed brows, Jack rolls over, snaking an arm out as if to catch her hand as it feathers across her sheets, intending to draw her back against him - he'd said he'd try, after all. "So you think you need to punish yourself for it?" It's a question rather than a statement; Flora has proven more than once tonight that her thoughts can spin and change on a dime, and Jack isn't keen to get it wrong again.
romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic and recommended
Laughing at that, Flora quite liked the Honeybee even before the pair realized that they were well on their way to being cousins, but she could certainly understand Jack's choice of words. "Why'd you never tell her?" She asks quietly. Jack and Mel had been shipmates for a good deal longer than the Doubletake had known him for, and he'd given her a fucking ship to keep her in Torchline rather than going off to King's End.
Having to swim across the bed to reach him, Flora silently tries to wipe the tears on her shoulder before slipping herself against the captain's side. It's as familiar as it isn't, and while her hands have certainly pawed over almost the entirety of his body, now she wasn't sure where they ought to go, or what they ought to do.
Why, because that's your job? The words are held back if not the thought, and against the thorns that feel like they're pressing behind her eyes, the queen gives her head a little shake. "I'm just...feeling it.." She wasn't punishing herself (yet), it was still too early for that. For now she was lost at sea after having capsized; there wasn't time to think about what she could or should have done when she still had to swim toward shore. For now there was only time for how it had all felt: how it felt to see the sudden predatory shift in Asta's gaze, the way it felt to swallow down a cry of pain only to have it lodge in her throat, to have arousal mixed with panic until the two were nearly indistinguishable. To want to beg for pain if only to keep him close. How it felt to have him pushing her away, telling her to go, telling her he was sorry and having it feel like a dismissal.
"I'm just...hurt." She admits as silent tears trickle onto his chest. "Don't you ever get hurt?"
Raising his eyebrows at that as if his first comment hasn't made it quite obvious, Jack nonetheless feels as though perhaps repeating himself will drive the point home. "Because Mel's thoughts are psychotic," he tells her dryly. "She's reliable on the ship, don't get me wrong, but I still ain't sure if I'm gonna turn around to find her firin' that pumpkin out of a cannon." In short - great for a laugh, less so for potentially life destroying secrets.
Still considering the Honeybee, her fiery temper and penchant for strange amounts of chaos, perhaps that's why Jack is a little more comfortable this time as Flora finds herself pressed against his side, the captain's arms automatically moving around her even as his mind's eye sees Mel swinging from his main mast like it's her fucking job. (It isn't). Blinking away the image and gazing down into the Doubletake's hair, the captain scowls, feeling her thoughts crash over him like a particularly vicious wave.
"Not for a while," he mutters in response to her question. "Typically people need to get close to you to hurt you." And those who get close to Jack tend to go missing or die, whether because of him directly or just part of the hazard of knowing him. Raza, Zeph, even Eloise all those years ago. Jack shakes his head away from that thought, his fingers flinching a fraction more tightly around Flora whether he realises it or not. "Hurt for as long as you want," he says. "Apparently it's good for you." Or so say wise old women or healers or other bullshit merchants.
romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic and recommended
"Mmmmmm." Perhaps it was good Flora didn't have any life-threatening secrets, because she certainly didn't see things the way Jack did. But as she didn't, she was content to let the issue go.
Tilting her head in order to peer up at him for a moment, her eyes like pools of deep still water without the trappings of cosmetics ringing them and altering their colour, Flora's lips flinch into a frown. "Do you want anyone to be close to you?" Not even asking as it pertained to her, the queen genuinely had no idea whether or not the captain did and in fact, assumed he probably didn't. No doubt his answer would be some days yes, most days no or something else suitably vague that wouldn't answer her question but also wouldn't have her ring flaring on her finger.
Not a mind reader, the queen interprets Jack's flinch as one of repulsion due to the nature of her thoughts, and it has her rolling away from him slightly with a muttered, "Just block out my thoughts, then." As she tries to throw some sort of protective layer of superficial nonsense over the current dark sheen of her thoughts.
"It never seems to end well for anyone," Jack responds to Flora, which, while still very much a non answer in terms of directness, isn't actually a no. It's only very recently that Jack has even considered what close means beyond a surface or transactional sense, and he has welcomed Flora into the murky waters of his reality (whether she liked it or not, as it happens, and see how well it's working out for her).
Indeed, as the spike of her misinterpretation prickles across his magic, Jack is already trying to draw her back against him. "Difficult as it might be to imagine, I wasn't actually thinkin' about you just then," he informs her quietly. "I was thinkin' about someone I killed who got too close." Not someone who died, because if nothing else, the captain owns his murders, and he'd very much been the cause of Eloise's death.
romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic and recommended
"Right" Flora says with a hint of a smile as she lobs his words back at him. "But that isn't what I asked." True, maybe he didn't even know, but just in case he needed the encouragement, she'd happily hear him out. More than happily, in fact.
Moved like a boneless doll, the queen softens as he clarifies, before her eyes shoot abruptly open. Instinct has her keeping still, but the way ice seems to settle across the darkening landscape of her thoughts will speak far louder than her lack of movement. Initially, her mind interprets his words as a warning, except he'd only told her when she'd (silently) commented on the way he'd twitched. Exhaling, it was a moot point as to whether the queen should have felt afraid, because she simply didn't; curious, maybe. Jealous, even, but not afraid.
Rolling onto her belly, Flora's eyes search the captain's face for any outward signs of what he might be thinking. As ever his blue eyes were impossibly hard to read and she found no more information in the lines around them than she did the words he'd said. "Why?" She wonders softly and unfairly, because the answer is 'Odd didn't want to write her anymore'.
Narrowing his eyes - touche for that, he supposes - Jack stares over the top of Flora's head to consider the matter again, frowning off into the darkness of the room. "I s'pose I'd not keep people around if the answer was no," he mutters, as if the realisation is a new thing for him as well in the moment. "I didn't grow up to be all that trusting of a person, though, so..." So it's hard. Frightening, even, which for a man who the world assumes does not feel fear (a bald faced lie) seems impossible.
"Good," he mutters in response to the thoughts ricocheting around her head. "You've got nothin' to be afraid of." Not at this point. Not with a dozen demigods in her pocket and Torchline at her feet. As for the why of it all, Jack raises an eyebrow to find himself peering up at Flora as she rolls over, and he wrinkles his nose at the memory. "I don't take well to bein' blackmailed," he says.
"She found out about me and gave a note to Raza - told her to open it if anythin' ever happened to her." The note, as Flora can probably surmise, contained Jack's secret in ink and parchment for anyone to accidentally discover.
"I don't think she ever realised I got it back." Not until he was drowning her, maybe. Shaking his head - it's hardly his favourite memory - Jack blinks back at the Doubletake.
romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic and recommended
"You don't keep them around." Flora interjects, and maybe it's just a slip of his tongue, but if Jack does mean to try and change his ways at all, the first step was realizing it wasn't something he could just control. "They stay."
Raising a brow at him, Flora shrugs. No Jack, Flora has plenty of things to be afraid of with you, being murdered just isn't one of them. Having her heart consistently toyed with, broken and then put back together until its shape was something even she couldn't recognize? That seemed an occupational hazard of being around the captain at this point.
The ahh of understanding in Flora's mind is crisp and water-like, cleansing her thoughts of initial assumptions as she nods. She'd found out; so it hadn't been some reverse black widow moment wherein spider-minded Jack decided to kill his lover simply for being too close. 'Well that was stupid.' Not needing to clarify if she meant Eloise's letter or Jack's murder (it was the former), Flora gently bumps her shoulder against the captain's thigh as she gazes up at him.
"I'm not going to tell anyone about you, Jack." The queen's voice is feather soft, not unlike the blankets and pillows currently sprawled around them both. Though he'd handed her the leash, there'd never once been any tension on it, no need to have ever tugged at him with it. Even when they'd fought, even when he was being a bastard, it never occurred to Flora to ever try and actually bring him to heel. The only thing that might see her anger burn that brightly was if he hurt some member of her family, but honestly these days he'd likely need her help just to accomplish something like that. While Jack might think it foolish of her to shrug off such a powerful option, don't worry: Flora can still ruin your life in other ways.
While Jack disagrees, he certainly doesn't say as much to Flora, especially given that she's kind enough to almost make it sound as though people would want to be around the captain for reasons that aren't transactional. (And that, he knows, is absolutely not true for the vast majority of the people he interacts with on a daily basis). So he lets her have that one, even as he wrinkles his nose in response to her raised brow, her casual shrug. Come on now, Flora - what's life without a few occupational hazards?
Anyway.
Not disliking the imagery of a reverse black widow, even if it's nonetheless not how things had panned out with Eloise, Jack nods his slow confirmation about her succinct overview of what had happened. "It really was," he agrees, before raising a brow as he's nudged and glancing up to give the Doubletake his full attention.
Were it even a few weeks ago, her admission, soft and sincere though it might be, would have brought a cynical laugh to the captain's lips. Now, though, he can run his fingers through the layers of thought and feeling and find nothing but truth between them. And even as it's his turn to find a question - why? - burning on his tongue, Jack's hands are drawing Flora down to meet him.
His kiss is not the sort Flora might have been expecting from her evening - it's not the sloppy, impassioned sort of thing stolen from against walls or in the doorway of taverns - and its slow sweetness is something even the captain doesn't fully understand. Nevertheless, it's the sort of quiet thanks that needs no grand speeches or gestures to interpret.
romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic and recommended
It's the sort of kiss that feels more like an embrace, like arms drawing her near and holding her close. The sort of kiss that warms her to her core; not with unsatiable heat, but instead the warmth of a fireplace merrily burning on a cold evening. Flora hums softly against Jack's mouth, the sound gentle before fracturing a touch at the end as her emotions get the best of her. She had told him there was going to be crying that evening, and as the kisses she'd been expecting to receive were to be the sort so hungry that they wouldn't notice the dampness on her cheeks, Flora wasn't sure if she had anything to apologize for.
"I've never wanted to own you, Jack." Flora whispers as if answering the question he hadn't asked. Having braced one of her arms on his chest for balance and leverage, the queen's fingers splay across his bare chest as she gazes at him. "Just to have you for a little while." And, before he can say something truly heartbreaking like you do, she presses her mouth against his. Trying to focus on the heat of it and the nearness of not just someone, but Jack, that she might curl up in front of the fireplace of his kiss and let the flames banish the shadows in her mind.
Neither asking for nor expecting an apology, Flora's thoughts unfurl like fiery blooms in his mind; slow to kindle and at risk of roaring too high or blowing out entirely should someone handle them in the wrong way. His hands skate across her body, ruffling silk between his fingers and pressing against the soft curves of her hips as if to coax her closer, and as she parts from him to speak, Jack doesn't need a truth ring to believe her - the honesty is written out in her mind for him to examine at will.
His lips part to speak - perhaps the heartbreaking words she longs to avoid, or maybe something else entirely - but either way he's silenced by the press of her mouth against his own. He lets one of his hands find the hem of her robe, slipping beneath it to sample to soft skin beneath, and though instinctively he wants to roll, to reverse their positions and pin her beneath him, if she wants to have him for a little while, it seems only fair that Flora decides in what way before he can simply pluck it out of her head.
romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic and recommended
Flora kisses him softly and slowly. They're the sort of kisses that don't herald wildfires or exploration. She kisses him the way she hadn't been able to with Asta, in that her mind isn't calculating how best to please him nor are the kisses something wholly new to her. Similarly, she kisses him in a way she hadn't yet managed with Koa, in that her tongue isn't writing promises her hands intend to keep and the press of her lips doesn't have her fingertips wanting to clutch him closer. Instead, she kisses him like she knows him, because for once, and gods now it's Flora's turn for a revelation, she does. Moreso than anyone else she's been with, anyway.
"Jack—" She whispers pleadingly against his mouth, sipping in the air as it leaves his lips. How he's meant to fulfill her request even Flora isn't really sure, but as his fingers find their way against her skin, the queen presses herself against him, sliding to partially blanket him with her body. The captain will feel the droplets of her tears against his cheeks just as surely as he'll be drenched by the downpour of her thoughts. Don't make me fall in love with you, Jack, Flora thinks as rays of golden light force their way through the stormclouds of her emotions, warming the rain and filing Flora's damp cheeks with a heated flush.
The captain knows enough to know exactly what to do in order to fulfil Flora's soft insistence - not to make her fall in love with him - but given how unsure she is even of her own thoughts, he stays put right where he is. His hands are surprisingly gentle if not thorough as they sample her body; not for the first time, no, but with enough quiet reverence that it might as well be, and he helps to guide her over him, fingers pressed insistently against the back of her thigh.
Her tears and the streaks of indigo that splash into her thoughts alongside them colour her emotions with a refreshing new palette, and though his name hits the air with little understanding of what Flora wants, Jack kisses her long and hard as if to taste the syllables of it on her tongue. He draws back only enough to decorate her throat with further affections, inviting the same decadent touch that he delivers, warm hands seeking to draw the silk robe over her head, to cup her breasts and to pin her as close as he can have her.
romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic and recommended
