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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!
Despite having been thoroughly devoured the night before, that didn't stop Flora's bed-warmed hands from slowly teasing the captain awake just as dawn was beginning to paint the sky in warm shades of peach. When Jack stayed over the Doubletake didn't usually wake up at her normal time to go for a run, so surely he could understand her desire to get in her morning workout somehow. Short-lived though it was—it being early and all—the queen nevertheless collapsed happily back down beneath her sheets, pleading for just a little more sleep before they got up to properly start their day.
Startled from sleep by the sound of her mailslot being opened, annoyance immediately gave way to excitement as Flora flung her duvet to the side and slid out of the bed. It's here! her mind seemed to sing as she darted from the room. Jack would hear the soft patter of her feet on the stairs followed by the tearing of an envelope, and while what appeared in Flora's thoughts seemed to just be two pieces of paper, she nevertheless seemed pretty fucking excited about it.
My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you
Luckily for Flora, both Jack and his assets are early risers, and whilst her morning exercise might not be as extensive as usual, he hears no complaints from her thoughts (or the rest of her, for that matter). Unaccustomed to dozing, Jack is half awake to hear the mailslot, though the Doubletake's shock, irritation and delight in quick succession would have brought him around even if he wasn't.
Her mind goes off like a firework, the captain huffing a long sigh and stretching out beneath the remainder of the blankets that haven't been thrown aside. When her excitement only grows rather than simmering down, it's with a sleepy groan that Jack rolls onto his back and rubs at his face, peeling himself out of bed a moment later. Taking just enough time to drag on the pants he'd discarded the night before, he leaves them unbuttoned to go and linger at the bottom of the stairs.
"Letter from Mom?" He yawns into the back of his hand, leaning one shoulder against the wall and raising his eyebrows. Thoroughly sleep-tousled and still warm from bed with the morning light playing across his body, Jack doesn't usually cast a domestic figure, but there's no other word for it here.
when I look at something, I see it for what it could be
when I look at something, I see how it ends
Flora might have said sorry, did I wake you? had Jack not been a telepath who'd have immediately been able to call her out for her blatant lie. In fact, had he not snoozily stumbled down her stairs, the queen would have raced right back up to her bedroom and forced him awake with a series of unrelenting kisses.
"Not quite." Biting at her bottom lip to keep her smile somewhat contained, Flora spins, holding up the two blank pieces of parchment like a magician beginning a trick. See? Nothing up my sleeves. Nothing on the paper. "Do me a favour and block me out for a minute, okay? Take this and turn around." Affection and arousal at seeing the captain sun-streaked and sleepy hiccup in the back of Flora's throat and briefly eclipse the excitement in her mind, but thanks to their morning escapades already, the queen is able to swallow them down.
Handing Jack one piece of parchment, she turns away from him, waiting a few seconds for him to block out her mind before reaching for a pencil and scrawling something on her piece of the parchment.
Flora and Jack now have:
Type: Grey | Style: Other | Level: Basic
Two-way parchment | This parchment will replicate whatever is written upon it to its partner-parchment, regardless of distance.
My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you
Vaguely pleased not to have been harrassed into proper wakefulness by kisses, Jack raises his eyebrows at Flora's antics, his gaze flicking from one blank bit of paper to the other. "...A'right," he rumbles, reaching out to accept one of the pieces of parchment and turning his back, forcing the sleepy spiderwebs of his magic to snip Flora out of the equation for a few moments.
Waiting expectantly for he doesn't really know what, Jack raises his eyebrows to see the familiar loops and curls of Flora's handwriting bleed to life on his parchment. Scoffing and glancing at her over his shouder, he holds the paper aloft and waves it a little. "Very clever," he purrs; he has no pencil to write anything in return, of course, but the message has been received loud and clear at least.
"Both of us'll be in the kitchen; I dunno if that helps your choice or makes it more difficult," he informs her - that's both him and the coffee. "I'll keep an eye out for any rambling love letters as I go, shall I?"
when I look at something, I see it for what it could be
when I look at something, I see how it ends
"Maybe it means I can have you both at the same time?" Flora says thoughtfully, setting down her piece of parchment and stretching out her hands toward Jack, keen to feel his still bed-warmed skin beneath her palms. Having already set the kettle to boil water for coffee, there's nothing to do but wait—and harass Jack of course—such that it's with mischief blooming in her mind that the queen snakes her arms around the captain's waist.
"Rambling?" Scoffing under her breath—not that he was wrong, Flora would be the sort to just go on and on about it, especially if she had nothing better to do than wax poetic about her feelings for the captain—then queen rolls her eyes. "How dare you. Besides," shrugging against him, her smile turns a touch knowing. "I figure it'll come in handy, us being able to talk across distances." Sure the pair were now together more than they used to be, but duties and obligations on both sides still kept them apart a fair amount. "And now you can tell me just how much you're thinking about me when we're apart." Her smile blooms in tandem with her thoughts; for however playfully said it might have been, she did actually want the captain to write to her when they weren't together.
"And don't think I won't know if you give it to Bassian to write to me instead." Flora warns, peeling herself away from Jack as the kettle begins to whistle.
My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you
"You are quite skilled at multitaskin'," Jack admits with a catlike smile, carefully slipping his own scrap of parchment into his back pocket where he wont forget to take it with him back to the ship. It's as he turns - having still left up his block for Flora - that her arms come sneaking around him, taking him a touch by surprise. Lowering his guard again to feel the warble of affection and enjoyment that rolls out of her, the captain teases his fingers through her sleep tousled curls, leeching her emotions as payment.
"You would call it somethin' else?" he challenges with a raise of his eyebrows, mischief dancing in blue eyes made all the lighter by the morning sun. He'll concede Flora's second point, at least - it would be useful, Jack's fingers dancing down the back of her neck before his arm comes to rest around her shoulders. "I don't know if there's enough parchment there for me to tell you that," he drawls, and though his reply is just as playful, he makes a mental note to keep it in easy reach.
Letting her go and padding after her to the kitchen, Jack perches himself in his now usual seat on the window sill, opening her kitchen window to grab his cigarettes and smoke out of it. "If you ever mistake my letters for Bassian's, we're through," he quips to her. "The man can barely spell four letter words."
when I look at something, I see it for what it could be
when I look at something, I see how it ends
Flora would call it incredibly flattering and adorable, Jack. Rather than arguing with him—she was sure he knew what he was doing, positioning himself so that the morning sun cut right across his face and touching her with such casual affection as if it hadn't taken years to get to this point—Flora just rolls her eyes. "That sounds like a very charming way of trying to get out of doing it." She points out, nudging him with her hip. Of all the excuses she'd reasonably accept for why the captain wasn't utilizing his piece of parchment, sorry my feelings wouldn't fit on it didn't rank high among them in terms of believability.
Reaching for a jar of coffee, Flora doesn't need to turn her head in order for Jack to feel the way her lips curl into a smirk. "You say that, but there's plenty of four-letter words that I like hearing." Turning around, she waggles the spoon in her hand at him to ward off what he likely thinks she's trying to imply. Love was a four-letter word, sure, but she'd equally take words like come here, or have me now, or I miss you; all well within Bassian's spelling capabilities. Chuckling under her breath as she spoons coffee into two mugs and fills them with water, Flora sets Jack's on the counter within reach before lifting hers to her lips and blowing.
"I thought for training today maybe we could head back into the trees?" It'd provide a bit of shade and privacy, but given how a fair number of Flora's recent encounters as of late had been in jungles or forests, it seemed a reasonable place to want to practice.
My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you
11-26-2024, 11:44 AM (This post was last modified: 11-26-2024, 11:44 AM by Jack.)
JACK
"Guilty as charged," Jack says, smirking at her around the cigarette he places between his lips. "It was pretty charmin' though, wasn't it?" Drawing up one leg so he might rest his forearm across his knee, the captain grabs for his matchbook and strikes one, lighting the cigarette in a smooth motion where the first whorls of smoke are carried away on the sea breeze.
Naturally the captain's eyebrows raise at Flora's love of certain four letter words, and though the waggle of her spoon and the thoughts that lash behind it soon put his assumptions to rest, the sly expression on his face remains. "I thought your argument was for Bassian not to be the one writin' to you on the parchment?" he drawls; if she wants I miss yous and love poems (and various four letter words for the fish that swim in the shallows of the Arclight), Jack will happily arrange it.
As for the training, Jack nods easily enough, grabbing his coffee with a grumble of thanks and letting a pulse of cold emanate from his hand to cool it down. "Works for me. I just gotta wear that coat and get pummelled while wearin' it, so y'know. Think angry thoughts and throw rocks instead of daggers."
when I look at something, I see it for what it could be
when I look at something, I see how it ends
"You are impossibly charming when you want to be." Flora agrees as if it's some filthy character trait of Jack's and not the sort of thing that more often than not results in her breath catching in the back of her throat or her toes curling in her shoes. "It is, I was just pointing out that I'm not expecting this parchment to be filled with $5 words." Honestly, despite the heart-to-heart they'd had not long ago, Flora was still both young and filled with abandonment issues such that her need for reassurance was likely a good deal higher than even Jack might be aware of; having some actual evidence, however brief, that he really did think about her when they weren't together would go a long way to soothing her insecurities, irrational though they might be.
"Wait, really?" Smirking at that, Flora takes a sip of her coffee before wrinkling her nose at the temperature and holding it out expectantly for Jack to work his (literal) magic on. "Wow, you're really going to hate this." She decides, her smile growing ever more crooked. Being subjected to angry Flora thoughtswhile being punched or stoned? Sucking on her teeth, the Doubletake shakes her head, eyeing Jack playfully. "You sure you didn't piss Safrin off when you went to ask for this quest?"
My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you
"Mm, don't tell my crew or they'll expect it all the time," Jack says, flicking the ash from his cigarette out the window and lifting his cooled coffee to sip at it. "And I see, noted. I'll be sure to only write the best words I can find." Despite feeling the cold slosh of insecurity that warbles just beneath Flora's consciousness, he can't help but jest when they're talking about it so obviously. Besides, if you think about it, actively looking for words to write to her, however stupid, is still thinking about her when she's not around, no?
"Really," he drawls, glancing towards her cup as she holds it out and letting a pulse of magic send a fine layer of frost creeping around it, careful to avoid her fingers. "Y'know, I might've. I can never really tell with Safrin. Then again, she also wanted someone else to wear it and get beat up, and I had Vesper do that, so..." Maybe not?
when I look at something, I see it for what it could be
when I look at something, I see how it ends
Yeah if you think about it like that, that's probably the conclusion you'd come to. However if all Jack does is overthink what words to send to Flora instead of actually sending them, that blank piece of parchment is going to communicate a whole lot more than the prettiest of words ever could.
Humming a note of thanks, Flora takes a long sip of her coffee. She's no snob about it like her dad is, and while the Bastion would likely groan at the thought of instant coffee, the queen is happy to drain almost half her mug in a single go now that it's cool enough to do so. "Jack." Lifting her eyebrows in a look of tell me you did not beat up Safrin's son, the queen gives her head a disbelieving shake. "You're going to end up cursed one of these days."
Pushing away from the counter, Flora drags her nails gently up Jack's arm before leaning forward and pressing a kiss against his shoulder. "Come on, let's get dressed so I can beat you up."
My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you
"Flora," Jack snipes playfully in return, smirking at her over the rim of his coffee mug and taking a final drag of his cigarette before flicking the butt out the window. "First of all, he agreed, and he also got to hit me back. Call it bonding or somethin'." Shrugging and snagging an arm around her, it's absolutely in a protest at getting dressed and going to get beat up that he draws her closer for a lingering kiss, as if the silver in his tongue might persuade her to go a little easier with the throwing rocks.
"Joke's on you, I've already been cursed once." Is it a joke? Doesn't seem that way, Jack. Anyway. "Fine." Draining the rest of his coffee and setting the mug down, he rolls to his feet and releases Flora so they might go upstairs and get ready. Grumbling at the way the morning sun is nowhere near as balmy and warm as it was in Longheat, the captain nonetheless buttons his shirt (and his pants) and shrugs into his coat, gesturing for Flora to lead the way to whatever forest she'd like to smack him down in.
when I look at something, I see it for what it could be
when I look at something, I see how it ends
Incredulous and adamant in thinking Jack was lying despite the lack of heat on her finger, Flora continued shaking her head at him before melting into his touch and kiss. "Mmm, cigarette smoke and coffee breath." She laughs against his mouth, and the way she rises onto her toes to steal a second kiss very much suggests she doesn't mind the taste of it one bit.
Sinking back to her heels and softly sighing as she's released, Flora shoots a surprised look over her shoulder as she heads toward the stairs. "You have? When?"
Opting for a stretchier pair of pants and a tight fighting sweater, the Doubletake watches Jack in one of her mirrors as he dresses with no shortage of amusement or affection lacing her thoughts. Of course she has to resist the urge to delay his efforts by trying to coax him back to bed, a feat she only just manages, if only because of how fresh the string still was of how things had gone in the Greatwood.
Winding back through the lower half of the city and toward the dusting of the jungle which once properly belonged to the Oerwoud, while Flora has her daggers with her, she's already decided to try and hit Jack with her fists instead of stones. "One of the dragoons was teaching me a bit about it last season." She explains, thinking of Zavien and how he'd helped her work on the placement of her hips as well as the proper way to throw a punch.
My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you
"The alternative is no kissing," Jack points out, knowing all too well that the flavour of Flora's thoughts often run towards smoke and coffee in the morning, hence why he has no qualms in delivering. Giving her a pat on the butt for good measure as they go to get ready, he raises an eyebrow at her getting ready in the reflection of her mirror, as if to ask what she's looking at despite knowing all too well what the answer is.
"Oh, years ago now," he says of the curse, scrunching his nose at the memory and strolling at Flora's heels to head towards the scattering of trees where they'll be training. "Back when there was a Voice shrine here. Some spirit cursed me not to feel anythin', as if it was a punishment." Sure, it had gotten old in the end, but a criminal not feeling pain for a while? Nice.
Unsure that he particularly wants to be pummelled by Flora's now-I-know-how-to-throw-a-punch fists, but equally knowing it's all part of the qUeSt, the captain offers a reluctant nod. "Alright. I'll keep to magic, since you quite liked dodgin' that last time." And she had said not to pull punches.
when I look at something, I see it for what it could be
when I look at something, I see how it ends
