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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.
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07-31-2024, 03:38 PM (This post was last modified: 07-31-2024, 03:39 PM by Flora.)
marked me like a bloodstain
Reaching for the cigarette, her fingers only trembling slightly, the queen places it between her lips and inhales deeply. The woodsy burn of it makes her want to drink, a lot, to find something that would burn even brighter. Maybe something that could burn her up completely.
Flinching away from his hand slightly before she realizes what he's doing, Flora too glances down. The skin was pristine and unmarked, which likely meant that any other trace Asta had left on her was gone too. The physical ones, at least. Not quite able to hold Jack's gaze the way she normally might have, the queen shrugs stiffly. "I probably wouldn't like lots of your thoughts, either." She says distantly, not quite sure what to make of his comment. Was it concern or condescension?
Crossing one of her legs over the other to reveal an unmarked thigh, the queen took another drag before tilting her head back and blowing the smoke into the cloudless sky. Glancing at Jack again, this time her gaze was harder, darker. She thought briefly of sliding into his lap and fucking him on the bench, or of asking him to go home with her, letting him make love to her in her feather-soft bed and making him stay with her until morning. Nothing seemed like the right shape for the expanding cracks that she felt splitting through her mind because of how fucking one-sided it all was. If she didn't know what she wanted, Jack couldn't siphon away his portion of her pleasure and so what was the point?
Maybe what Flora wanted wasn't to enjoy it. Maybe she wanted someone to touch her in all the wrong ways, to not notice when she cried as she came, and to fall blissfully asleep while she lay there miserable. Miserable, but not alone.
Something neither Asta nor Jack could provide, evidently.
She could go pick someone up at the Tavern on her way home, gods knew there would still be more than a handful who weren't too far into their cups and gods knew she had to turn down their advances often enough.
"Night Jack." The queen mumbles, dropping the cigarette onto the ground and grinding it out with her bare foot before rising.
"Of that I have no doubt," Jack agrees all too easily; his thoughts are not for the faint of heart, tainted as they are by constant interference from the minds of those around him, like too many colours mixed together until the only shade left is something dull and dirty. Still, as Flora looks over her shoulder at him and he spots, not for the first time, the darkness that seems to be living and growing inside her, the captain's brow furrows and he finds himself on his feet at the same time as the Doubletake.
This time his hand does reach out to snag at her wrist, and though his touch is firm and insistent, it's nothing that Flora won't be able to break free from if she so chooses. "Don't," he says, the tone too soft, too quiet, and it's unclear whether he objects to her self-destructive decisions or merely to her walking away from their non-conversation with little to nothing resolved. "I'm headed to the Ark from here. Come with me."
romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic and recommended
Stiffening, Jack will indeed feel a righteous but petulant urge to shake off his touch as his fingers loop around her wrist. The queen ignores it, though, only turning her head over her shoulder to regard him coldly for a second. A man who could read her mind was no good if she didn't know what she wanted, and she'd fight tooth and nail if he thought he was going to tell her what was best for her.
The chill lasts only a moment before her eyes drop toward his shoulder and the firebright flare dies entirely from her thoughts, leaving them swampy and dark. "I'm not going to be good company for you, tonight." Is all she can think to murmur; not with her thoughts full of self-loathing and violent pollution, not with the need to internally combust making her belly cramp, not with the desire to be fucking held by someone who didn't care about tear-stained pillows or the unsophisticated blues of her loneliness.
"I didn't ask if you would be," Jack points out, and given that she hasn't shaken off his wrist or screamed blue murder or tried to scratch his eyes out, he takes it as a pretty good indication that she doesn't, in fact, want to walk off into the night by herself. (Which, smart choice, Flora, given how you currently look and your frame of mind, invisibility ring or not). "Besides, I can always block you out if I need to. I'd appreciate it if you didn't use the opportunity to bury a knife in my back, if it's all the same."
Tugging her close enough that he can slip his arm around her, he nods towards the back and other items she's left beside the fountain. "Do we care about those?" he wants to know. If the answer is yes, he'll collect them up before they head off - if not, Jack leads them over smooth cobbles towards the decline that will take them to the docks.
romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic and recommended
"No, I mean—" Biting at the inside of her cheek but stopping short of drawing blood, the Doubletake shakes her head. Whatever makeup she'd put on hours and hours ago had all but melted off in the Climb, leaving only a mop of slowly drying curls and mascara dripping down her cheeks. Her tears hurt, gods all the more so in front of Jack who'd she'd spent an embarrassingly long time trying to impress and who could probably have a staring contest with a sliced onion and not cry, but for once she didn't try to stop them.
Instead, Flora lifted her gaze, her aqua eyes made all the more blue in the darkness with nothing but the moonlight and the sheen of her tears to brighten them. "I don't want to be blocked out." She snaps, her tears flowing more freely and with them new shades of self-loathing and desperation. Flora didn't care for someone to UNdErStAnD her that night, and she was quite sure that some idiot at the Hanged Man would still be more than happy to follow her home bedraggled as she was. They'd still want her in a way Jack wouldn't—couldn't—not with her weepy thoughts and need for fucking basic human affection.
Shifting out of his grasp and from beneath his arm, Flora pulls Asta's shirt all the more tightly around her. She isn't wearing underwear or a bra at this point, which really, should just make her time spent picking someone up that much easier. Glancing towards her bag, her compass was still inside, so yeah, she did need it, Flora stomped across the plaza.
Trying hard not to reinact the GIF of Ryan Gosling in The Notebook (what. do you want.), Jack inhales a slow, deep breath and lets it out again as Flora ducks out from beneath his arm and stomps away across the plaza on bare feet. "You're really goin' after some sack of meat with a cock at the Hanged Man? Right now? That's the plan?" He raises his eyebrows, once again caught in the riptide of how can someone so smart be so stupid that feels inherent to the 21 year old Flora.
Following after her - and trying, truly, to understand why he's doing it as well - Jack can't exactly bar the Doubletake's way given the open space, her ability to channel and the compass she's gone to fetch, but he can at least make it slightly more difficult for her to be a fucking idiot and/or disappear. "Just stop for a second and figure yourself out, because if you don't know what you want, then I doubt you're gonna find it down at the bar," he snaps.
romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic and recommended
"Yep." Flora snaps defiantly, her eyebrows raised even as tears continue to trickle down her cheeks. "Why, jealous?" She says snippily, before her lip curls into a little snarl and she gives her head a shake; no, of course he wasn't. That wasn't their arrangement.
"You don't get to tell me what to do, Jack." Her cheeks and chest flush with enough heat that it looks like there's blood smeared on them again, and now that the captain had managed to turn the tide of her sadness into anger, the queen is a touch breathless with sudden fury. "What's this, words of wisdom from good old captain Jack? As if you've never gone looking for something between someone else's legs when you know it isn't there." She was sure she had and wouldn't have been surprised at all to find her name on just such a roster.
"Besides, it's my bar." Flora adds hotly as if somehow that was the final nail in the coffin. Reaching for her bag, the bottle of wine clinking against the other bits and bobs inside, she slings it over her arm. "And I'm the Queen of fucking Torchline. I can do what I fucking want."
Wondering - only briefly, but wondering all the same - whether someone could drown if they were held underwater in a healing fountain, Jack has to force his jaw to relax lest he accidentally bite through the inside of his own cheek. And at the end of the day, Flora is right; about it all, in fact. He can't tell her what to do, she is Queen of Torchline, and she can do whatever she wants. Not only that, but Jack can't offer her the things she's after, and he isn't going to bend over backwards to protect whatever dignity she might still have clinking around in her bag or lurking beneath that bloodstained shirt.
And so, in the face of her snapping and fury, the captain steps aside and gestures for her to go ahead and start walking. He'll follow after her, of course - because two can play at not being told what to do - at least until The Hanged Man. And then who knows; maybe he'll go home. Maybe he'll send something anonymous to Flora's fathers and see if anything comes of it. Maybe he'll lurk in the corners of the Hanged Man to make sure Flora at least doesn't take home someone likely to rob her.
romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic and recommended
No, Flora wasn't playing hard to get in a desperate bid for the captain to suddenly realize he did have deep and meaningful feelings for her, but nor did she expect to feel so summarily rejected.
Again.
Shouldering her bag all the more tightly, Flora stomped away from the fountain before having to soften her steps as the smooth ground turned to cobblestones. Reaching into her bag the queen pulls out a bottle of red she'd brought for her DAtE; one of the nicer bottles she had, actually, and one she'd been saving for a special occasion. Welllll, what could be more special than a bit of internal combusting, mm? Opening the bottle and tugging the cork out with her teeth, the queen takes a long sip caring very little about the small streams that leaked from the corners of her mouth.
Only once she was close to the Hanged Man did she stop, unaware of Jack's presence, in order to slip into the obnoxiously strappy heels she'd been wearing earlier. Lifting her chin, she breezes into her own bar, holding up her hands in greeting as she was recognized. The captain would feel Flora's thoughts turn from grimy and hostile to suddenly brightly lit, but garishly so. Like cheap string lights with multicoloured paper plastered over them instead of coloured glass, her genuine emotions were stuffed beneath a layer of sugary sweetness that now pulsed in gaudy colours.
Jack doesn't exactly disguise the fact that he's following after Flora, but neither does he make his presence obvious. This time he is a helpful 29ft back from her, just enough for her thoughts to continue to tickle against his magic, until she's pausing outside the Hanged Man, too-high heels and streaked mascara and everything, to enter the bar.
And given that the captain hadn't been lying - especially at this time of night, it really is mostly just sacks of meat with cocks about - if there's anything off about Flora then no one really notices it beyond the shirt-dress she's acquired and the lack of underwear beneath it. Sidling in a moment or so later, Jack settles himself in the corner of the bar, foot propped up on an empty chair, and waits.
romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic and recommended
Flora, who is more than aware of the type of men she might find in her tavern at this time of night, nevertheless strolls in with a smile. Calling out this round's on me! and tucking herself behind the bar, the queen surveys her options rather objectively. She knew more or less what she wanted: someone drunk enough not to notice her tears or expect too much conversation, but not so far gone that she'd have to manhandle them all the way back to her home.
Handing out shots to all who approached, the Doubletake immediately eliminated anyone who asked her if she was alright, or commented too long on the fact she wasn't as put together as normal. Of the remaining contenders, only one caught her eye, and only because he was tall and dark-haired.
Spying Jack across the bar, the queen's eyes narrow for a moment before she turns toward a rather comely if not plump girl, who was in the beginning stages of closing things up for the night. Whispering something into her ear—this particular server had once worked at the Haulani and no doubt had passed by Jack a time or two during her tenure there if not actually been with him herself—Flora tipped her wink before grabbing a bottle of dark rum and making a bee line toward the Tall Man.
Making her way towards the captain, the server had been told to try and recall every time she'd been with Jack in the past, or what the other Haulani workers said he liked. She was also told to try and settle into his lap, offering him a shot of dark rum from between her breasts.
"Another round of shots!" The queen announced, hoping that the general revelry of the remaining crowd and the server's thoughts would be enough to swamp Jack's magic long enough for Flora to slip out more or less without his seeing.
Tucked against the side of the Tall Man, Flora barely bothered to try and make conversation as she steered him along the pathways which would lead them to her door. For his part he hardly seemed to notice, though his wandering hands had certainly recognized that beneath the shirt she wore was nothing but bare skin.
No one did ask him to follow, and perhaps that's more an indication than anything of the things the captain never says, perhaps never even thinks, but that remain true regardless. Watching Flora on the prowl for a warm body for the night is impressive, that he can't deny, though she might have forgotten that he isn't one of those meat sacks in The Hanged Man tonight, and it will take a lot more than lewd thoughts and a pair of tits to put him off. The dark rum between the server's breasts and the somewhat focused nature of her thoughts (careful now, Flora) is a nice touch, granted, and it's only out of the corner of his eye that he realises the Doubletake is slipping out of the door with some dark-haired nobody.
Having abandoned his corner of the bar a moment later, it's in darkness and through relatively deserted streets that he follows after Flora and her new beau - a man whose hands only continue to wander, rough and clumsy and feeling only a dark satisfaction to be able to say he'd had a queen on the end of his cock. Jack doesn't exactly manage to get in front of the couple, but rather he appears at Flora's elbow on her other side like some ghost come to haunt her evening, raising an eyebrow at Tall Man as if wondering if that's really the best the bar had to offer.
"This is what you want?" He tilts his head at her. "Really?"
romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic and recommended
Flora doesn't mind the clumsiness of the fingers that grasp at her ass, or even the way it doesn't take a mind reader to know the sorts of lurid thoughts that have been on repeat inside of Tall Man's mind since she'd grabbed his hand and whispered her invitation against his ear. In fact, it's exactly what she wanted; the sex would be easy and good for at least one of them, and in turn, Flora would spend the night in the arms of someone who actually wanted her there even if it was only superficially.
"Yeah, it is." Flora hisses under her breath as Jack emerges catlike from the shadows. Because at the end of the day, even some drunken nobody could give the queen what the captain couldn't, and boo fucking hoo if that hurt his godsdamn ego. She knew who he was with every step that he ran to her so she wouldn't hold it against him that he was too much of a callous bastard to be capable of genuine affection, but nor was she in any sort of position that evening to be able to endure laying in the captain's curated grasp knowing that he'd have his teeth mentally clenched every second of it, blocking her out with a roll of his eyes when her thoughts turned too blue or too dark.
Despite his state of inebriation, Tall Man draws up slightly as Jack appears, his eyes flitting from the queen to the captain and then back again. "Er—" Wisely his fingers move from Flora's ass, dropping by his side as he offered the captain a little wave with his other hand. "Evenin' Jack." He murmurs, before grinning. "We was just.." Lifting his eyebrows his grin turns crooked as he inclines his head to the nearby sprawl of houses.
More on Flora in just a second - for right now, Jack has Tall Man to deal with, and much as the Doubletake will likely want to (and probably decide to) slap him right across the face for it, the captain clearly isn't going anywhere. Call it ego - because it is, at least partially - or call it something else, but as the other man straightens up and his hands retreat back towards his own body instead of Flora's, Jack has no intention of letting him just whatever the end of his sentence was about to be.
"I don't think you were, though," he says with his own crooked smile, one hand tucked in his pockets, the other not quite slipping around the Doubletake's waist, but the intention is very much there for both Tall Man and the queen to see. "Might have better luck at the Halenani tonight, I reckon," he continues, the veiled fuck off now, why don't you nevertheless obvious in his tone.
romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic and recommended
