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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!
Jack hadn't been able to stop his bout of laughter to hear Flora's insistence of a nice sex dungeon, though he'd nodded easily enough and led them through the lanes and alleyways towards Mother Molly's. Spotting the silks fluttering from the windows and the red lamps outside the establishment, even in the daytime, he knows they've reached their destination well before they are propositoned by a number of pretty, silk-clad boys and girls.
Now, the captain is a well known and well respected face at the Halenani in Torchline, but here is a much different ballgame, and it's quietly thrilling, in fact, to have to use his magic in the sort of way he'd done as a much younger man. Speaking in hushed tones to their greeter and then their receptionist, it takes a good deal of bribery, charisma, lies and yes, straight up telepathy to get them what they're after for the evening. Eventually, though, he's offering his hand to Flora and accepting the key to their afternoon's recreation.
"No rats, no mould, as ordered," he assures her, leading their way down the corridor to the room in question.
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
"I mean..." Flora raises an eyebrow as no shortage of lingering gazes and flirtatious fingers come to rest upon the pair of them. They both knew she was absolutely the jealous type, but that didn't mean the Doubletake wasn't keen to see Jack's reaction were someone else to have their hands all over her. She might even let someone else touch him in her presence, so long as there was no doubt in her mind about who he really wanted.
Letting Jack do his thing, Flora shifts from his side to speak to a few of the staff, asking in vague tones about her brother. Once it became clear that he was highly sought after in the brothel for any number of his skills, the queen was much more confident in revealing their relationship. Of course she couldn't hold it against him when the majority of his colleagues said they never knew he had a sister. Even so, as Jack flashed her the room key, Flora was able to flash him a bottle of rum that she'd procured while he was occupied.
"I mean...at what point does it stop being a sex dungeon if it doesn't have those things." Flora teases, anticipation lightening her steps and making all of her thoughts a touch more buoyant and transparent than they normally were.
i scream for whatever it's worth "i love you" ain't that the worst thing you've ever heard?
Very much approving of Flora's procurement of some liquid courage, Jack flashes her a smirk over his shoulder and shakes his head, coming to a stop at a - yes - red velvet door at the end of one of the corridors. "You'll have to be the one to tell me, I'm afraid," he drawls, fitting the key into the lock and turning, before letting the door swing open and gesturing for Flora to go ahead and explore it at will.
Within, whilst the Doubletake might be inexperienced in the idea of a sex dungeon, the room that opens up (lit with red tinted lamps, of course) isn't all that big, but it's full to the brim with surprises. From the large bed against one wall, fit with any number of restraints, to what Jack recognises as a swing and some spreader bars hanging from the ceiling, all the way to the high backed throne and the shelves and hooks laden with all sorts of tricks and toys and manacles, he tilts his head and waits for her opinion.
"If this instantly turns you off, I suggest we leave before everyone has a bad time," he says, leaning against the doorframe.
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
"I thought you were the (s)expert." Flora trills as they come to stop at the door. Eyeing it for a moment, adrenaline and nervous energy washing over her in waves, the queen slips through the doorway, not at all prepared for what the room held. Expecting to see a few iron grates, maybe a table with some shackles on it—he had said sex dungeon, alright—the wealth of options had the Doubletake's mind temporarily shorting out as her mind struggled to comprehend the wealth of objects on offer.
Walking toward the swing and running a hand along the strap fastening it to the ceiling, Flora's eyes trailed to a vase filled with frilly whips in the corner, the various types of shackles on the bed, a bench that looked like there was just a cock jutting out of it, and a couch that seemed modelled after the female body. Turning, her cheeks flushed and her mind still woefully overwhelmed, Flora laughed self-consciously, gesturing a touch helplessly around her. They both knew that while she liked a bit of tension and possessiveness, that actual pain was not up Flora's alley and while she was certain Jack could probably expertly walk that line with the items in the room, she did wonder if that wasn't sort of missing the point of it all.
Turning toward him, her nose crinkling ever so slightly, the queen sips in a breath. "I feel like I don't even know what half of it's for."
i scream for whatever it's worth "i love you" ain't that the worst thing you've ever heard?
Saying nothing to that, sexpert or otherwise, while Flora examines the room, Jack of course takes his sweet time examining her. He lifts the coppery flecks of curiosity from her thoughts, tracing where they grow hot with intrigue or frost over with dislike, and by the time she's turning to glance around at him, the captain is already stepping into the dungeon to click the door shut behind them. He doesn't lock it, not yet, because of course she might still decide to call all of this to a halt.
"Maybe that's a good start, then," he says, nodding for the bottle in her hands and a few goblets in the shape of various parts of the human anatomy nearby. "And maybe have a strong drink."
Winking and crossing the room to the bed, he tugs at the restraints there - some are shackles (both friendly looking fluffy ones and otherwise), but there's also rope and buckles and chains - and tilts his head to her. "You've used these before and enjoyed 'em," he points out, though they'd taken the form of strips of her dress around his wrists at the time. "So that's a good start."
Leaving the bed to approach the whips, Jack fingers one that looks more like a riding crop, before withdrawing one with soft suede tassles. "C'mere."
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
Laughing, the sound fluttery and a touch too bright for the crimson flush on Flora's cheeks, nevertheless the queen nods. Pulling at the tab of wax to free the lid, she uncorks the rum. Of the offered goblets—the majority were predictably breast or penis-shaped—Flora opted for one that looked like an anatomical heart and one resembling a skull, filling them both nearly to the brim. "Cheers?" Crinkling her nose again, Flora carefully knocks the heart against the skull before slurping at it until she can sip normally.
Watching him slyly out of the corner of her eye like some skiddish mare who's vaguely spooked but also curious, Flora chuckles under her breath and nods. "Yeah but unfortunately you're the kind of man who can only be tricked by the same thing once." She huffs, combing her fingers back through her curls and taking another (large) sip of rum. The various whips don't have her thoughts frosting over at all, though none of the damage or trauma the Doubletake had ever sustained in her life had ever resulted from any sort of beating. "Is this where you tell me I've been a bad girl?" She teases, sauntering over, her mind presently more filled with laughter than arousal.
i scream for whatever it's worth "i love you" ain't that the worst thing you've ever heard?
09-27-2024, 12:33 PM (This post was last modified: 09-27-2024, 12:35 PM by Jack.)
JACK
"Cheers," Jack intones, smirking and accepting the skull glass, even if he eyes the sheer amount of liquor within it with a mix of consideration and approval. Taking a sip before setting it down, he rolls his shoulder in a shrug. "Tricks and surprises don't do it for me. Since we're in a safe space in this dungeon, maybe it makes more sense that way. Besides, I never said I'd not willingly be tied up." Whatever gets Flora off, after all.
But she approaches and he's weighing the whip in his hand, glancing sidelong at the Doubletake as she arrives at his side. "Of course not," he drawls, leaning in close as if he's going to whisper a secret into her ear. Which may or may not be true, as it happens. "We both know you much prefer it when I tell you you're a good girl."
Anyway, back to the whip. "Obviously if you want to hurt someone with this, you can," he says, and for demonstration he cracks it across the leather of the nearby sofa, where the sound echoes softly. "But you don't have to." Reaching out with it, he brushes the tassels against the back of her leg, twirling the handle between his fingers. "Some people like this when they're blindfolded, especially. It's the idea of givin' up control, not knowin' where the next touch will be, or what it will feel like."
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
"I dunno, seemed like I was able to do it for you the other night." Flora hums, raising an eyebrow as if to dare the captain to tell her that she was wrong. Certainly that had seemed like a bit of surprise, if she did say so herself.
Turning into him as he approaches, the captain's words have a ripple of fire shooting down Flora's spine, and it's all she can do to twist her lips into a smirk instead of parting them in a moan. "Shut up." She huffs even as heat floods her cheeks and her mouth goes suddenly quite dry. Swallowing and nudging him with her shoulder, Flora flinches at the crack"Oh." Shivering at the surprisingly delicate touch of it, Flora relaxes somewhat, trying to imagine what it would be like with a blindfold. "Well, it'd have to be me then, wouldn't it? Even with a blindfold, you'd still know exactly what I was planning to do." She whispers before her thoughts solidify for just a moment, shifting from billowing silken colours into something with form.
"Does it ever feel like..I don't know, just really complex masturbation for you when it's like that?" That, being Jack causing pleasure in someone else if only to have it echoed back through his magic. If he tied her up and blindfolded her, he'd feel everything he did to her, sure, but if there really was no additional element he brought to it, then wouldn't he be just as well served by his own hand?
i scream for whatever it's worth "i love you" ain't that the worst thing you've ever heard?
"I never said you weren't able to do it for me," Jack points out with a slow roll of his shoulder, leaving it to Flora to decide whether it was the surprise of it all or just her sheer sexual magnetism that had brought him to the point of begging. Something he finds it only fair to return in kind, if the fire that coats her thoughts and her bones has anything to say for it, the captain laughing to find himself told in no uncertain terms to be quiet. Which he does, if only for now, and only on that particular point.
"Mm, not necessarily," Jack considers of it having to be her, and he flicks the suede tassels over the back of her leg just enough to add a tantalising sting along with the brush of leather, before withdrawing it again. "It goes both ways - the person being blindfolded might get off on bein' submissive. But the one with the whip might get off on the control. I get off on whatever they like best." Convoluted and hardly a simple explanation, but such is the nature of Jack's magic.
Having paused to take another sip of whiskey, Flora does manage to surprise him with her next comment, and he scoffs and hands her the whip to play with while he considers his answer.
"You know, probably?" he admits, never having thought about it before. "It ain't like I've got normal masturbation to compare it against." Which might be a surprise to the Doubletake, that Jack doesn't spend as much time with his hand down his pants as the average guy. "Call it a lack of imagination, but my own thoughts don't really compare with other people's."
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
Though the breath Flora hisses over her lips sounds pained and the way her fingers greedily grasp at Jack in response might suggest that the tassels had hurt, her mind flared with electric light as her skin tingled in response. "I mean.." Pausing to catch her breath, surprised to find her lungs suddenly empty of air, Flora loosened her hold on the captain as if the tiniest bit of pressure from the whip hadn't just immediately sent fire down the backs of her thighs. "..it seems like it'd be way hotter if it was real, though, you know? Like if you made someone who didn't necessarily want to submit do it." Whereas if submission was what she wanted from Jack, no doubt he'd be on his knees in a second. But if there was someelse...someone the captain could work his magic on, someone who might properly try to resist over whom Flora might actually try and assert some measure of control...
Reaching for the whip, Flora's first instinct is to hold it like one of her daggers, so when she slashed it against the footboard, the resounding thwack is the sort which would definitely have left bruises had it been against skin. "I guess if you've got mental porno going on all around you there's no need to come up with your own." The queen reasons with a small shrug, though the idea of it was still somewhat strange. Knowing it wasn't the sort of thing someone prone to jealousy should dwell on—if Flora thought too hard about her BoyFriEnD having constant access to the sexual fantasies of everyone around him she'd probably get a bit prickly about it—instead, she sauntered toward one of the couches which had seemingly been designed with the human body in mind based on the way it arched and rolled to accommodate curves and hips.
i scream for whatever it's worth "i love you" ain't that the worst thing you've ever heard?
"Mm, maybe for you," Jack reasons, having strolled over to one of the spreader bars suspended from the ceiling, giving it an experimental tug. "People don't generally enjoy bein' made to do things they actually don't want to, so I tend to keep that to business rather than pleasure," he says.
For Flora it might well be enjoyable, but having access to the no, don't side of the equation once it goes beyond a consensual game makes it a little more difficult for the captain to get off. "I s'pose there's a balance to be had there, though," he adds - suffice to say, Flora is making him much more cerebral about BDSM and fetishes than he's ever had to be before.
Wincing a bit at the sound of the abused footboard, Jack releases the bar and flashes her a crooked smile. "It offend you or somethin'?" he asks, following her over to the couch. "No different to a stack of dirty romance novels on someone's bedside table," he reasons, of her mental porno opinion, his hands ghosting over her curves as if imagining how they might fit and press against the couch before them. "Lay down if you like it so much," he invites.
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
"Mmmm." Maybe it was because it wasn't the sort of thing that Flora had ever been properly exposed to or simply because she was thinking about it too much, but in her mind if there wasn't some element of resistance—of reality—then it was all just for pretend. Then again, given who she was currently dating, perhaps it wasn't so surprising at all that her penchant for pretend was rapidly dwindling.
"It might surprise you to learn that I've never used a whip before." Flora sasses over one shoulder before adjusting her grip and holding it as one might the bow of an instrument. "Well, if the dirty romance novels had images of people you knew." She counters. It was one thing to know members of his crew were having an affair, for example. It's another to walk by them and be all but swamped with the images of it.
Twisting as Jack's hands softly contour over her curves, Flora tosses the whip onto the bed. Casually unfastening the two buttons holding up her overalls, the top falls down to her waist, the remaining portion still snug around her hips. The lacy black bralette she'd chosen was intentionally revealing, the spiderwork pattern of lace barely disguising the dusky jut of her nipples beneath. She'd worn it for Jack of course, but also in the hopes that as they strolled around the city, more than a few would find themselves frustrated by the sight of her bare waist but barely covered breasts. Smiling at him, Flora turns, considering the couch for a moment. No doubt it was made with someone like her mind, whose curves, flexibility, and long legs could take full advantage of its shape.
Sinking down into the middle of it and fitting her back against one of the larger portions, as she leans her head back, it's likely no coincidence at all that it places her mouth almost exactly at waist height.
i scream for whatever it's worth "i love you" ain't that the worst thing you've ever heard?
"Practice makes perfect, so they say," Jack purrs, though he is far from complaining as she tosses the whip away onto the bed so they might focus instead on the couch and its provocative curves. He chooses not to get into the specifics of the things his telepathy does and doesn't do - not only does Flora tend to think about it more than he ever has (and oh boy is that saying something), but it has a tendency to take all the fun out of it if he spends too long over-analysing.
So instead he supports the way her overalls slip down to gather at her waist and hips, fingers gliding over the fabric that still hugs her figure before whispering against the flawless bronze of her skin. "More than a few were very frustrated," he assures her. "A couple of 'em considered askin' if you wouldn't prefer to spend the afternoon with them." His touch barely grazes the black lace of her bralette before she's stepping away, Jack watching with slow, expectant patience as she fits herself beautifully against the sweeping arcs of the couch.
With her breasts pushed out as a focal point and her back and hips moulding effortlessly against the plush fabric, it's enough to make any man's mouth water, especially as the position finds her lips so conveniently placed before him. "I think you might need to consider one of these for your place," Jack says, reaching out to trickle his index finger down her throat, across her collarbones and to the lace stretched tightly across her nipples. "Well? I can tell you that you look good enough to eat, but how'd you feel?"
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
Delight colours her thoughts, streaking through in ribbons of gold that eventually give way to ochre and finally crimson. "I almost wish they would have." Flora hums under her breath. One of her eyebrows raises as she imagines what Jack's reaction might have been, how long he'd let someone mewl and drool over something he considered his before stepping in.
"Oh?" Stretching out her arms to try and coax him closer, her nails softly stroke up the sides of his legs as she gazes up at him. Though her eyes remained locked upon him, her thoughts immediately grow hazy with his touch as lines of blue lightning flash in the wake of his finger. Arching herself up even more, her chin stretching back to offer up more of herself to his eyes and his hands, Flora huffs breathlessly as a flush of heat extends from her cheeks and down to her neck. "I feel like for all of the things in this room, nothing could ever feel as good as having your eyes on me." She whispers in a low voice, her aqua eyes darkening as her eyelashes flutter softly over them. The whips, the cuffs, the swings and gags...maybe it was because she was still so caught up in the newness of being with Jack, but they all seemed like gimmicks; ones meant for people who'd already grown bored of their lover's body.
A sparkle of mischief whisks its way through Flora's mind as she raises a brow, stretching herself up slightly to position her head against Jack's legs. "Do you think you can make me cum before I can make you?" She wonders before holding up a finger. "And no, before you get cocky about it, you have to do it without touching me."
i scream for whatever it's worth "i love you" ain't that the worst thing you've ever heard?
