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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!
your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand
Jack—!
Having been carried to the fountain by her dads, it hadn't taken much time at all for the very worst of Flora's injuries to be mended and for the majority of the purple blood to be washed from her skin. By that point the Doubletake had grown antsy and angry, wondering why no one had gone after Jack to make sure he was okay. She'd accused both demigods of nepotism, saying they were shit at their roles, and once she felt confident she could do so, Flora hauled herself out of the fountain with a bucket of healing water, storming towards the Ark.
Having removed her shoes ages ago on the beach—it felt like a lifetime, honestly—it took a bit longer for Flora to tip-toe her way to the port, not least of all because she hadn't remained in the water long enough to fully restore her missing health, but also because of the heat. But she was fine, and Jack...
..what if he wasn't?
Barging her way onboard the Ark with little thought given to the looks the crew gave her, Flora staggered breathlessly toward the captain's quarters, her running attire stained purple and red and her feet threatening to blister from the walk. Shifting the bucket of water she carried, the queen banged steadily on the captain's door, though if he was inside she was certain that the kaleidoscope of her concern would herald her arrival long before her fist did.
For the first time in a long, long while, even the crew are aware that their captain is very much Not Fine. Jack had been able to down enough healing water to slouch down into the deep, cool depths where the Ark has been brought into harbour, so he isn't plastered in red and purple and grime any longer. But fuck if he isn't still a state to behold, even after the second vial of water, which was just about enough to get him to his cabin.
And he's been there since, peeling the wet clothes from his body and sitting, for a time, at the edge of his bunk to simply breathe, as if all might right itself with enough air in his lungs. He couldn't summon even a wisp of it himself, not if his life depended on it; all the magic that lurks in his blood feels distant and out of reach, such that when someone taps at his door, it's a complete shock.
His head snaps up quick enough to make him dizzy, Jack pinching at the bridge of his nose and rising uneasily to his feet. "I'm busy," he grates out, recognising nothing of Flora's thoughts in the shellshock of pain (and the majority of his HP disappearing). Just in case it's someone who doesn't take no for an answer, the captain gets a towel around his waist and a knife in his hand, ready for a scuffle.
...Well. Ready for something.
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand
"No you aren't." Comes the reply from outside the door, and had Flora been wearing shoes, she'd have given it a kick for good measure if only to try and gesture at the normalcy she so craved just now. Instead, she nudges the door with both her hip and her elbow, finally managing to jostle it open only to see Jack standing with a knife in one hand, and holding a towel around his waist with the other.
Stumbling inside, Flora sets the water heavily down on the floor of Jack's cabin—as Amhran recently once said, anything can get quite heavy if you hold it for long enough, especially when you've gone for a run, gotten into a weird argument with your not-boyfriend, fought for your life beneath the hot fucking sun, were exploded on by a giant cat and then had to walk halfway across the city. "Jack" Flora's voice breaks around his name, the healing water having removed whatever remaining dregs of mascara she'd once been wearing leaving her eyes impossibly round and blue as she drank him in, her panic and concern bleeding into relief.
"I..." She'd have stayed with the captain, had it been her choice. Would have limped to the fountain with him were it not for her father's carrying her off (and yes, she knew that she was the one who called them and they were the ones who ultimately saved their asses, but never mind). "I was so worried about you—" The words are out before she realizes that—"I'm busy"—he might not want her around, not if he'd tried to head her off before she was even in the room.
Stiffening further at the sound of an answering voice, it's only as he realises it's Flora though the haze around his mind that the captain relaxes perhaps a small fraction. He's already setting the knife down as she opens the door and ambles inside, a bucket in tow, and even without his ailing magic he can take a wild guess and say it's from the fountain. "I didn't know it was you," he says, the apology low and honest, his throat still raw from whatever disgusting fumes he'd inhaled in the aftermath of the explosion.
"I'll live," he tells her, because it's true, and a fleeting glance over her through eyes that are somewhat glassy shows him that the same is true for her. "You got to the fountain?" he asks anyway - see above for malfunctioning magic - and totters the few steps back towards his bunk, slouching down onto the edge of it. "You didn't have to do that," he tells her of the bucket of fountain water. "But I appreciate it."
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand
Oh...oh? How had he not known it was her? Frowning but not saying anything, Flora turns and pushes Jack's door closed before making sure that it was locked.
It isn't the sort of reunion she might have hoped for, where the door opens and they run into each other's arms and profess how worried each had been and blah blah blah. Where Jack was concerned, at least, Flora had all but set aside her girlishly romantic notions of how their encounters might go, aiming for familiarity and settling for realism. "Yeah, my dads brought me. As soon as I could get out, I did." She murmurs, feeling the need to explain why she hadn't come around sooner.
Picking up the bucket and walking it toward him, Flora sets it down in front of his bunk before glancing around for a glass or something similar she could grab for him to drink from. "Shut up, of course I did." She huffs dismissively even though he was right. She didn't have to, but she'd wanted to, and so she had.
Snagging a glass that had probably contained whiskey or rum from his desk, Flora dumps the few remaining amber drops into his garbage before sinking down onto her knees in front of the bucket and scooping it into the water. "Here."
You didn't have to do that either, Jack wants to say - to get up from the fountain mid-healing session and swamp out to the Port to where he is. But she has, he realises, and she's fucking here now whether or not he expects or deserves it. Again. Something twists low in the pit of the captain's stomach, but before he can part his lips to give it a voice, she's walking the bucket over to his bunk. And collecting a glass. And kneeling down as if she's some nurse sent just for him.
"Flora," he begins, and it's unclear whether there's a soft warning or something quite different in his voice, before he reconsiders. "...Thanks." Reaching out to accept the glass as she offers it up, Jack drains it in seconds before leaning down himself to refill it - only to offer it to the Doubletake this time with a raise of his eyebrows. "It's been a long day," he says, "an' I don't want to drink alone."
An excuse, and a poor one, but it will get the water into both of them this way.
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand
"I figured you were going to come back here." The queen murmurs, not trusting the silence that stretched between them. "I knew you had some water onboard the Ark and figured that if it had been enough, you could use this to replenish, and if it wasn't..." She shrugs, eyeing the bottom hem of one of his bedsheets before lifting her eyes and accepting the glass with a tired smile.
"It has been a long day." The Doubletake agrees with a humourless laugh, feeling as though she could sleep for about a week after all the tension and nonsense she'd experienced already. Dipping the glass into the water, Flora downs half of it, before sitting properly back and bending her legs out in front of her. Walking across the pathways and sand hadn't just been hard, it had burned, and with a small hiss Flora pours the remaining bit of water onto the already-blistering bottoms of her feet.
"And to think, some people haven't even woken up yet." She adds with a weary sigh, before dipping the glass back into the water and handing it to Jack.
"I live here," Jack points out to Flora, and already the healing water must be having something of an effect on the captain, because he graces her with a wry smile for her trouble as he speaks. Humming his agreement with her logic and reaching out to accept the second glass, he drinks only half, this time. The second half he lets pour over his head and face, a weary flicker of magic preventing it from dripping any further than intended.
And then Flora's thoughts begin to melt back in against the low tide of his telepathy, Jack's shoulders slumping as if its return has soothed some deep-rooted anxiety holding his body hostage. "Ugh, don't say that," he complains of some people still being lucky enough to be asleep, the captain reaching down to dunk the glass into the water and hand it back to Flora. "You fought hard, out there," he adds. "We wouldn't have walked away from that without you."
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
09-07-2024, 04:47 PM (This post was last modified: 09-07-2024, 04:51 PM by Flora.)
your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand
Watching as Jack douses himself with water, Flora is quick to hide her girlish grin once he straightens, instead offering him a measured smile as she tries to push down the colourful plumes of relief that explode in her mind to see him back to his usual nonsense.
Accepting the cup once more, the queen's smile falters as she stares down into the bucket of water, and then the bloodstains on her leggings. "Well, not without my dads, yeah." She agrees, both aware that they wouldn't have shown up without her without wanting to take the credit for anything they'd done. She had gotten in a few lucky shots before nearly dying, and—
—swallowing hard, Flora forces the thoughts from her mind. It had been bad enough to feel swamped by the purple haze that had come from the panther's presence, and the last thing she wanted to do was subject Jack to it (again?) now, while he was still recovering. Instead, as she holds the glass up above her head, she raises her eyebrows in a please do the same for me gesture before letting it trickle onto her scalp where it hopefully wouldn't splash all over Jack's floor.
"That...sucked out there." She adds softly, drawing her knees up to her chest now that her feet weren't still on fire. "I don't think I've ever felt quite so useless.."
"It isn't nonsense," Jack sasses her under his breath, though there's the smallest hint of a smile playing across his face as he speaks. "Mm, they wouldn't have come for anyone else though," he says honestly. Perhaps they'd have come for another Accepted, given how Channelling worked, but they'd never have stayed. That was all Flora.
He does wince as her thoughts become tainted with violet hues, but it's a very personal sort of backing away; he doesn't want to be reminded of the past half a day either, not yet. And so, sending a pulse of water magic her way to suspend the droplets as they trickle across her scalp and soak into her hair, Jack heaves a deep sigh and nods.
"It really fuckin' did," he agrees, the words almost grated out, his brows deeply furrowed. "Ain't ever been quite so close to lookin' death in the eye, either. Not for a long time." And it has left its marks on both of them, based on the way Jack raises his eyebrows at Flora. "You're staying?" A question? A plea? "I was gonna pass out for a while, to be honest."
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand
"Mmmmm." Closing her eyes once she's sure that Jack isn't going to let the water just drench her—it's only a glass, and if it goes everywhere, she supposes that's his problem anyway—the queen massages it into her knotted curls where her scalp feels like its been rubbed with sandpaper.
"First timer over here." Flora says on the heels of a sigh, forcing herself not to rub at the blood stains on her clothes. It wasn't the sort of experience she was keen to repeat, even if she was no longer naive enough to think she could keep skating through life unharmed.
You're staying? When she was younger it was all she could do to try and contrive a situation for Jack to ask her that question in this particular room. For all the times she'd barged onto the Ark, all the times she'd found his door locked, or hadn't found or said the right words in order to have their evening end this way, and in the end, all it took was nearly dying together. Much to the disappointment of her younger self, rather than making Jack ask her properly or otherwise playing hard to get about it, the queen instead just smiled gently and nodded. "Passing out sounds good."
Standing with a groan, Flora glances down at the state of herself: her dark leggings were splattered with red and purple, her running bra frayed from having been thrown around in the sand. Swallowing, it takes only a moment's consideration before the queen wordlessly shimmies out of her clothes, too tired to think about what a mess she looked and thinking only of wanting to keep Jack's sheets clean so they could both sleep comfortably.
"Ah, you never forget your first time," Jack mutters, and were either of them in any sort of a position to properly play a battle of wits with one another, this might have been an interesting if not thoroughly macabre conversation. Leaning towards the bucket to scoop some more water into his hands and splash his face, both to ease whatever lingering ache is gathering there and to clean himself off, something about the captain unknots itself to hear her agreement.
And evidently he's still not entirely on the ball, because the culmination of her thoughts leading up to her response buzz into meaningless static in his mind; with one last sip of healing water, Jack gingerly rises to his feet, removing the towel from around his waist to hastily dry off.
"It'd take more'n this for you to look like a mess," he assures her, apparently having caught that much, and he nods towards the trunk tucked in the corner of the room as he slings the towel on the back of his chair and returns to the bed. "The clothes in there are clean," he tells her - if she wants to throw something on, that is. For his part the captain is going to bed in just his bare skin and his remaining bruises, slouching onto the bunk with a relieved huff of breath as he can finally lay himself down.
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand
Indeed, in response all Flora can do is roll her eyes. Jack isn't wrong, of course, there were certain things you absolutely don't forget—many of which the captain had been present for in her life—but even she was too tired to give a response more than a soft huff of amusement, her thoughts watercolour splashes of the sorts of firsts he was talking about.
"Sounds like you need your eyes checked, old man." She sasses softly, not needing a mirror to tell that she looked far from her best, but gods, what of it. They were both alive and now that he'd mentioned passing out Flora could think of little else.
But then there they are, standing naked in Jack's cabin with him waiting for her to get into his bed, and rather than thinking about all the ways he might fuck her or WHaT ThIs MeAnS, instead the queen just glances tiredly over one shoulder toward his trunk and shrugs. "It's too hot." She murmurs, before reaching for the bucket to drag it away from his bed. Hesitating only a moment before climbing gently over Jack to get to the far side of the bunk, Flora sinks down onto the mattress, surprised by just how comfortable it was. Why she thought the captain's bed would be all starchy sheets and plywood she couldn't really say, and maybe it was because of what she'd endured the past few hours, but gods had she ever been more comfortable?
Wriggling beneath the sheets, Flora rests her head against her arm, keeping a comfortable amount of space between them, since, you know, Jack hated cuddling on a good day and probably ever moreso with how shit he likely felt. "I'm glad you're okay." Flora whispers softly, her thoughts golden-edged and pillowy soft.
"Maybe. I think I could pull off a pair of glasses," Jack rumbles, his eyes already closed from his position sprawled on his back in bed, arms tucked under his head against the pillows. It's less a choice and more because he couldn't keep his eyes open if he tried, and only the soft paintstrokes of Flora's thoughts let him pinpoint her vague location in his room.
He hums his agreement about the temperature - in Longheat, in Torchline, it's fucking stifling in the room already, and where it's usually a matter of little more than a thought for the captain to keep a soft, ambient breeze going, for right now, sweat is already starting to bead on his forehead. Even so, there's no objection at all as Flora sinks onto the bed and clambers over him; Jack barely even stirs.
"Did you think I'd just be uncomfortable on purpose?" he asks with a faint smirk; plywood and starchy sheets indeed.
They'll never know how the captain feels about cuddling in this exact moment, alas - see above about the heat. But he's certainly not averse to the Doubletake beside him, and as her voice parts the air once more, he blinks open his eyes to glance across at her. "I'm glad you are too," he mutters. "Not that it's any thanks to me." Gods, if Team Taliesin hadn't turned up, they'd have all been fucking dead. It's a reminder that has something cold and steely growing in the pit of Jack's gut; a quiet vow not to find himself caught in such a position again.
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
