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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 know that we're technically here to look for lilies, but I really do enjoy this place," Isla is telling Ever as they duck through the caverns and make their way to Frey's Breath. "Besides, you showed me the Eye of the Storm, so it only seems fair that I show you my hotsprings." My in an Ancient sense of the word, anyway.
Having received the news about Rae's Lilies and their importance to the exploration of Starfall, perhaps Isla should have been a little more careful in sharing such things with Everest given that he's, y'know, infected and all that. But he's also her boyfriend and she's head over heels for him, and other than the void creatures kind of being in love with him a little bit (something she can relate to), he hasn't seemed villainous or evil.
Having taken one of the larger, commercial skyships rather than La Verbena, they've had to pack light, but Isla still has a bag with her for drinks and a picnic, as well as a container for a potential lily, a change of clothes, and some towels. As they drift into the hot steam of the springs, too, she lets out a long and satisfied breath, every bit of tension leaving her body. "Perhaps I will suggest to Flora that we ask the gods for one of these in Torchline. It's meant to do wonders for your health, you know."
"You know how much I like when things are fair and balanced." The aviator agrees with a laugh, and while normally he can't pull his eyes away from the Remedy, as they enter into the cavern that houses the hot spring, Everest marvels at just how expansive it was. "I will say this puts the Eye to shame." He murmurs, narrowing his eyes as if he might see through the mists that shroud the majority of the cavern in order to gauge just how large it truly was.
Making sure that their things are placed just so, Ever peels his shirt off and folds it neatly before placing it on top of their bag as if to protect the things inside from growing damp. "Perhaps near Apopo? I'm sure there have to be veins of heat beneath the ground still, although...that might be more dangerous than it's worth." Certainly they could always just go the magical route and place it wherever they liked if the gods were going to be involved.
Ruffling a hand through his curls and already feeling moisture from the mist clinging to his skin, Ever stretches out a hand for the Remedy. "So if we find one of these flowers we're meant to just give it to the nearest demigod? Is that the plan?"
They say the odds are stacked against us, babe
We're a cactus waiting for our desert rain
"Mm, I do know that," Isla says with a soft chuckle, allowing Ever to take their things and place them to his satisfaction. In the meantime, she's also pulling her sundress over her head, revealing a swimsuit that this time she has picked out; white with splashes of cobalt and orange flowers, she should at least be easy to spot in the mist.
"Only dangerous if you aren't an Ancient." Winking and setting her dress with Ever's clothes, Isla can nonetheless see his point, and she stretches her arms languidly above her head before stepping back to join him at the edges of the hotsprings. "Well, nearest demigod technically, yes. I was just going to give it to Remi." For obvious reasons.
Taking the aviator's hand and stepping down into the warm water, she's already trying to tug him along with her so she might pull him close into the heat and the steam. "And even if we don't, I won't consider this a wasted journey in the slightest."
"Well that's easy enough to fix. We can just go by Dygra's shrine on the way back and I'll make the switch." Dusting his hands off as if to suggest that was that, Ever curls his fingers around Isla's opting to bask in the blue of her eyes rather than concern himself with flowers and ex-lovers.
"Well that makes one of us." Trying not to splash as he's tugged into the warm water, Ever nevertheless inhales stiffly through his nose as heat engulfs him. Not an ancient (yet?), he isn't as readily acclimatized to the temperature as the Remedy though by no means is he complaining.
"I will absolutely consider this an utter waste of an afternoon." He adds, grinning boyishly. With a lopsided smile he presses off against the bottom of the pool in order to bring himself quickly to Isla's side before sliding a hand against her lower back to draw her back to him.
They say the odds are stacked against us, babe
We're a cactus waiting for our desert rain
Isla's laughter chimes off the walls of the caverns, the Remedy raising her eyebrows at Ever and immediately drifting against his side, more than content to bask in the heat of the hotsprings and his body. "Do you think you've got what it takes?" she asks, an air of challenge in her voice and amusement in her eyes. "There isn't much room for fair and balanced in Dygra's halls, I don't think," she points out.
As for their wasted afternoon, Isla turns to glance about for any sign of Rae's Lilies (there are none) and lets out a soft sigh. "I suppose I'll have to find a way to make it up to you then, won't I?" she says with all the solemnity of a doctor delivering a bad diagnosis. "I could give you a tour of the rest of The Climb while you're here? Or we could scout out any good places for La Verbena to be able to dock, if you ever made her fireproof enough to get close to this place?"
"Come now, there must be." The aviator answers smoothly as his free hand combs a few strands of blonde away from Isla's face, tucking them behind her ear. "After all, things are meant to move from order to disorder, right? So just think of me as the starting place for the rest of you."
Tilting his chin in a silent indication of his skepticism, the aviator presses his lips together. "Listen, so long as I can confidently say that I did more with my afternoon than admiring you in a bathing suit, I'll be happy." Pulsing his fingertips against her lower back to draw her flush against him, Ever lowers his mouth toward her ear.
"But actually I'd quite like to keep ogling you for a little longer if you don't mind." He hums softly, his words curved by the shape of his lips as they twist into a mischievous smile.
They say the odds are stacked against us, babe
We're a cactus waiting for our desert rain
"Oho, very clever, Mr. Hart," Isla purrs, booping a wet finger against Ever's nose as if in appreciation of his logic and intelligence. In fairness, as far as Ancients go, the Remedy isn't exactly the most disordered of them, whilst she does have her moments. So perhaps Ever would make a perfect addition to the ranks.
Drawn flush against his body and looping her arms around his neck so she might hold herself buoyant in the warm water, Isla pretends to look a touch offended, as if his admiring her in a bathing suit ought to be plenty enough for him to do with his afternoon. "Well, what kind of girlfriend would I be to deny such a reasonable request?" she concedes, of him ogling her for a bit longer.
Turning her head in order to capture his lips in a kiss, Isla suddenly doesn't care how many other people might be present in Frey's Breath. Standing like this with Everest reminds her very much of their date in the Eye of the Storm - in particular how it had ended - and it isn't as though they much cared who was around then.
"They call me Cleverest Hart for a reason." No one called him that of course, but it rolls easily enough off of his tongue anyway as he grins smugly at the Remedy.
Ever's fingers spread against Isla's lower back as the other very politely fits itself around the peach of her ass. "What kind indeed." He agrees emphatically as if Isla and her sundress had been letting him down for most of the morning. Inhaling through his nose as her lips find his that he might not have to pull away for a breath, Isla isn't the only one reminded of their time in the Eye, though in addition to the flush of heat that memory inspired was also the overbright thrill of love.
"See?" He hums against her lips, his teeth softly finding her bottom one and tugging. "I can be disorderly. It's what, nearly the afternoon and I haven't even told you that I love you today." Ever lifts his eyebrows: careful Isla, you've got a real loose cannon on your hands.
They say the odds are stacked against us, babe
We're a cactus waiting for our desert rain
08-10-2024, 07:25 AM (This post was last modified: 08-10-2024, 07:32 AM by Honey.)
Isla
one bright morning goes so easy
Unable to stop the peal of laughter from escaping her lips - there was a time where she'd have sworn that (Cl)Everest Hart couldn't have told her a pun even if his life depended on it - Isla is absolutely charmed by him, even if she does push playfully at his shoulder. Luckily she's soon distracted by his silver tongue in much different ways, the Remedy letting her fingers comb through the back of his curls, leaning against the strong line of his body as if she might fit herself all the better against it.
"Mm, are you sure about that?" she murmurs against his lips. "I'm certain you told me over breakfast." Or perhaps when they were boarding the skyship. Or maybe when they first set foot in The Climb. Anyway.
"I love you too," she replies on a whisper, the words spilling out almost without her notice, bringing a smile to her lips and a flush of heat to her cheeks. It doesn't escape her notice that it's taken a lot for both of them to get here, the Remedy moreso than Ever, but gods if it hasn't been true for a while now.
"Sorry it took a trip to the other side of the world for me to tell you."
Ever wasn't sure, and probably had now that she mentioned it, but that didn't stop him from grinning smugly down at her before glancing innocently up toward the ceiling as he defiantly frowned and shook his head. But before he could emphasize his brazen and reckless personality anymore, she was whispering there little words he certainly hadn't been expecting to hear from the Remedy today, much less at all.
Wh— Silently his lips form the question as his eyes immediately fall back toward hers. Surely he'd heard that wrong? She'd been saying it about something else? Blinking at her, his blue eyes can't seem to find any particular feature of hers to land upon, and so instead dart from the cupid's bow of her mouth to the flush on her cheeks, the whisper of freckles across the bridge of her nose and finally to the bright pebble blue of her eyes.
Hitching in a breath the aviator's shoulders round forward as his hands pull her against him (not that there was any space between them anymore). "I'd have gone anywhere to hear you say that." He mumbles, his voice shaky with joy and boyish nervousness. "And even if you hadn't—" Pressing his lips against hers in a gesture far too quick and chaste for how he was truly feeling, Ever laughs against her mouth. "—I'd never have loved you any less."
They say the odds are stacked against us, babe
We're a cactus waiting for our desert rain
Grinning properly as she realises exactly what she's said and what it means for the both of them, Ever will find Isla utterly pliant in his arms as he tries to draw her closer, and though his kiss is a quick and chaste thing, she's already imagining the dozens more she plans to leave against his lips.
"I'll make sure I say it everywhere we go," she whispers back to him, planting another kiss against the corner of his mouth, and yet another against his bearded cheek. "That way you can at least say you've made the most of the afternoon."
Winking at him and letting out a soft laugh, her arms loop around his neck as she leans in for a proper kiss, one that has her wanting to draw him deeper into the springs or to have him carry her out and into some quiet alcove where she can really express how she feels with her body rather than just with flimsy words.
Lifting his eyes for a moment Ever's laugh is as joyful as it is helpless. Every part of him feels suddenly alive, and gods if he'd thought Dahlia's kiss had been a paradigm shift hearing Isla Lockwood say she loved him was the sort of thing that would leave him forever changed.
Drawn back into the here and now by her arms around his neck and her lips against his mouth, the sudden hot press of her had his boundless exhilaration shoved to the side by an emotion no less powerful despite how readily and easily Isla was able to draw it out of him. Moaning softly against her lips, his hands drop to her thighs in order to encourage them around his waist before his fingertips traced the bottom of her bathing suit with idle frustration.
Fervently writing curses with his lips and tongue about just how much he hated how her bathing suit was like a second skin against a body he suddenly wanted to feel beneath his palms, the Ever parts from the Remedy as his breath hiccuped past his parted lips. Forcing his tense fingers to relax from where they'd grasped possessively against her thighs, the aviator made himself exhale slowly before offering Isla a look that was as apologetic as needy.
They say the odds are stacked against us, babe
We're a cactus waiting for our desert rain
Isla needs very little encouragement to wrap her legs around his waist; their search for the lilies forgotten (and more than over, thanks RNG), there's suddenly all of Everest to explore again as if for the first time. Smiling against his lips and humming a soft note of unabashed need, when they finally do part for breath, none of her that feels he has anything to apologise for. Her fingers tease through the back of his curls and around to his jaw, and the blue of his eyes seems suddenly so boundless that she might drown in it.
"I love you," she whispers again, the words for his ears alone even in the relative emptiness (she hopes) of the hotsprings. "And we are going to have to be very quiet." Quiet for what, Ever might ask, but even knowing all that she does about him, Isla is confident that he can put two and two together.
But if he needs a hint, the way her smile turns vulpine and one of her hands tickles down his chest and beneath the water should do it.
Even though his lungs feel fit to burst still the aviator tries to sip in more air. Nothing stills the dizziness that Isla's words inspire in him, against which he can do little more than try and catch his breath and clutch her tighter. Despite the way his mind is filled with pebble-blue static the aviator is still very good at math, such that he's more than able to do some quick mental arithmetic: two and two equals sex, Isla.
Glancing around the springs the aviator's jaw feathers as he considers. He'd yell fire to clear the place out for them if he didn't think a small portion of ancients would enjoy that sort of thing, and that the rest would jump into the water for safety. The trickle of Isla's fingers down his chest has the blue of the aviator's eyes darkening slightly as his expression changes from one of shaky frustration to a feral sort of need that has him losing whatever tenuous hold he'd had on coming up with something clever.
Sliding one arm fully beneath her so that the other could aid him in swimming them closer to the ledge as quickly as possible where it was at least a little shallower, Ever tries to find Isla's mouth again as his fingertips grope blindly for the stone.
They say the odds are stacked against us, babe
We're a cactus waiting for our desert rain
