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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!
It's a storm that has chased them from the Arclight into the chillier waters of the Eurybia, and no amount of magic in Jack's arsenal can stand a chance against an honest-to-gods maelstrom. The Ark isn't adrift at the moment, not necessarily, but she has taken to the skies to readjust and to ensure that all is in working order. As such, there's no destination for her in mind other than not getting closer to Halo, where her sails are likely to frost over and the cold is likely to become far too much.
The crew is hard at work, checking rigging and cargo and the integrity of the sails, ensuring that nothing has broken or spoiled or been tipped overboard by the vicious gales and enormous waves that had nipped at their heels on the way here. And Jack is up at the helm, Murphy nearby to steady the Ark at the wheel while the captain weighs down a map with a glass of whiskey working to figure out their position relative to where they're meant to be.
"Shouldn't be much work to turn us 'round," he mutters around the pencil in his teeth, charting their position and squinting, briefly, up at the sky, before nodding and rolling the map back up. "Here - you go check in with the crew. Let me know when we've accounted for everythin' an' I'll get us the fuck outta here."
The Ark holds steady against the pale throat of the sky, her wings clipped but not cowed, as Murphy scans the cloud-thick horizon with sharp, practiced eyes. A flicker catches his attention—something small, glinting unnaturally in the fractured light. He leans forward, squinting harder. Far off, bucking through the jagged currents of air like a drunken hel, the Sugartide stutters in her descent. Her once-stained glass sails are stiff with ice, crystallised and shimmering like they’ve been dipped in starlight—beautiful, yes, but wholly unfit for flight in this cold-blooded stretch of ocean. The rigging groans audibly, taut with frost, and the hull lists as Flora tries—furiously—to right her course.
Aboard the ship, Flora is all motion and muttered curses, hair pinned back messily as her hands fly across the controls. The wheel bites at her palms, a banked turn slips into a wobble. The Sugartide isn’t meant for this kind of weather—she’s light, sleek, tropical. Built for heat and charm, not for wrestling gales and biting cold.
"Come on, baby, not like this," Flora hisses, knuckles red from the cold. Spice gives a frantic chirp from her perch, wings flared and eyes wide as the wind howls against the hull. Below them, the Eurybia yawns open like a beast with cracked-ice teeth, dark water roiling and gleaming with the kind of danger that doesn’t forgive mistakes.
It's Bassian who notices the Sugartide first - and rightly so, probably, given that he's actually spent some time aboard - and though his whistle echoes sharp enough through the air that every crew member on deck can hear, Jack is already well aware. The spike of panic in the big man's thoughts is all he needs to know that the smaller skyship is in trouble, and that's even before he sees her start to list dangerously lower.
Whistling back, Jack's hands (gloved, of course) find the wheel to give it a sharp yank before his mind has ever agreed to it, and he starts to bank The Ark in the Sugartide's direction. He barks out a few orders, and with a combination of air and water magic, the captain strips the lingering frost from the galleon's sails and fills them with a strong gale - enough to get her to Flora in time.
"Take over - get as close as you can," he snaps to Murphy as his first mate returns, before running towards the Ark's rail. "Flora!" he shouts, summoning a breeze in her direction to let his voice carry. "Turn her broadside to us!"
If he can get the Sugartide parallel to them - and close enough for him to jump across, hilariously - Jack is confident he can thaw her out and get her airborne again. If that wasn't enough, though, it's about now that he hears it; a bellowing roar from the pack ice below. Beneath the ships, a voidshade ursur has stopped in its tracks, head tilted up to eagerly await any falling snacks.
Relief doesn’t hit—it crashes, cresting over Flora like a wave breaking too fast, too high. One blink, and she’s caught in it. The Ark’s crimson sails slice through the storm-heavy sky like a bloody banner, like salvation dressed in salt and smoke and smug inevitability. It doesn’t matter that she’d meant to be alone. It doesn’t matter that she’d come all the way out here to not see him. The second that glint of red cuts through the clouds, Flora’s chest folds open like a sail snapped taut in the wind.
To Jack, it’s all vivid. Blinding, even. A flash of orchid-pink emotion blooming wild in her mind’s garden, the panic-weeds burning away under the sudden sunbeam of him. She doesn’t think it in words. It’s instinct, salt-bright and raw—thank fuck. Her mind stings with wind and cold and the undeniable tug of safety, like fingers laced in hers from across the storm.
"Okay!" she calls back, already moving. Her voice strains against the shriek of the wind, but it carries, sharp with adrenaline. "Spice, hold it steady!" Flora shouts. The little dragon scrambles to perch with wings outstretched, tail coiled tight for balance. The Sugartide groans in protest, her body shivering beneath them, but obeys.
Flora sprints toward the edge, boots slipping once on the frost-slick deck, one hand out as if she could catch Jack from here. Her curls whip into her mouth, tears stinging her eyes from the wind, but her expression is nothing but fierce determination—until the roar. The sound splinters through the storm like a jagged fang. Below, the ice yawns open, a throat full of void and hunger. Her thoughts go quiet—too quiet—for a breathless moment. The flower-strewn mindscape of Flora's thoughts ice over, petals flash-freezing in place. Even her bravado stills under the bone-deep knowledge of what that roar belongs to. "Jack," she says, barely audible now, eyes trained on the water below. Her grip tightens on the railing. "There’s something down there."
A half-smile forms on Jack's face before he realises the expression has crept in; bold and vivid, Flora's thoughts flood down the line of his magic like a memory of something warm worth holding onto, even if he'd only managed it for a brief time. But he can wax lyrical later (or never) - for now, the Sugartide is still going down fast, and the Ark is just close enough for him to do something stupid.
Hauling himself atop the rail, his Kingmaker Coat billowing out behind him like a living shadow, the captain doesn't think - he just jumps, a blast of concentrated air magic from beneath aiding in his leap of faith. And Flora's hand is there already, outstretched and ready, Jack catching hold of it in gloved fingers as his boots thud and briefly slide on the frost-slick deck.
"A'right, back in the air with you," he says - presumably to the ship - his voice roughened by the wind-chill and his magic already snaking up to strip the ice from the Sugartide's sails, to fill them with a gust of wind, to buffet her from below to help even her out. "You got the wheel?" he's asking as he heads for the rigging, only for Flora's petal-soft thoughts to frost over like sweet, shaved ice.
Fuck.
"Not for long," Jack growls, throwing the ice he'd taken from the Sugartide's sails directly down towards the void ursur, spraying it with cold, jagged projectiles. "Don't s'pose you've commissioned a cannon or two for her lately?" he calls over his shoulder.
Flora catches Jack with both arms as if she’s any kind of net at all, tugging him sharply toward her with the wild-eyed, breathless momentum of someone who absolutely would have gone overboard trying to catch him if he missed. "Gods am I glad to see you," she says under her breath, the words stitched from stormwinds and instinct, from the pure, ragged relief that crashes through her as soon as his boots hit her deck.
"Spice has the wheel," she shouts over the shrieking wind, and right on cue the little white dragon chirps defiantly from her perch, claws dug in, wings splayed for balance. "This wasn’t...this wasn’t on purpose, I swear," Flora adds quickly, words spilling out like they’ve been threatening to all along. Not like before. Not some feigned stumble or staged detour just to get his attention. "I didn’t mean to see you." It sounds unconvincing even to her own ears.
But the threat lurches back to the forefront as Jack’s magic flares again and Flora’s focus sharpens. "Cannons?" she echoes a brittle, too-bright laugh leaving her as she strides toward the edge of the ship. "No, I opted for a magical kitchen upgrade. Figured that was the priority." She quips, though tension laces tight beneath her quip, voice cracking like frost across stone.
In one smooth motion, she draws two feathered daggers, poison-laced and gleaming despite the cold. Flinging both with deadly accuracy toward the void ursur below, they arc through the air like angry stars before vanishing into the dark shape beneath them. "There’s an island—" she shouts again, bracing one hand against the railing, her curls whipped half loose in the gale. "Small one. South-southwest. Not big enough for the Ark, but I might be able to land long enough to thaw her out." She doesn’t look at him when she says it. Doesn’t want to see what opinion might be etched across his face now that she’s dragged him into this mess. "If you could help me get her there?"
Casting an incredulous look over his shoulder where his hands are adjusting the rigging for the sails, Jack's meaning is written all over his face: what the fuck do you mean, Spice has the wheel? He'd have glanced to the little dragon at the helm, too, were it not for the still frostbitten Sugartide and the void ursur hungrily waiting below, the captain instead shaking his head, tightening his part of the rigging and leaving it so they can deal with the thread.
"Love, if this was on purpose I'd say your deathwishin' has gotten wildly out of hand," he tells her through the huff of a laugh, melting the frost he's been lancing at the ursur to thoroughly soak it instead. Following it up with - yep, you know it - a concentrated bolt of lightning, together with Flora's feather blades, the Sugartide pulls up and just grazes the shadowy now-carcass of the bear as a result.
Already back on the move, Jack turns in the direction she indicates, giving a curt nod. "Get us there," he agrees. "You an' your magical kitchen upgrade can make somethin' to warm us up while we deal with the rest."
As for the Ark, Jack approaches the Sugartide's stern, puts his fingers to his lips and lets out three short, sharp whistles - an indicator for his ship to tail them to the island. "Got caught in a storm," he explains, "a nasty one; we were blown right from the Arclight. Lucky for you though, I guess."
Flora lifts both hands, summoning the feathered daggers back with a flick of thought. They settle neatly into her waiting palms, blades still faintly steaming from contact with the ursur’s corpse below. With a little twirl of her wrists, she tucks them back into her belt like the whole thing had been practice.
"Deal," she calls back, her voice still bright despite the chill, glancing once toward Jack with a grin that’s more real than she intends. The Sugartide is rising beneath them, evening out, and for just a breath it feels like she might have control again—not just of the ship, but herself.
Crossing the deck with long, sure strides, Flora swaps places with Spice at the helm. The little dragon puffs proudly, her tail giving a triumphant flick before she leaps up to perch on the brass rail behind them, ready to supervise. Hands gripping the wheel, Flora leans into the turn and angles them downward, the sails catching what they can of the air Jack’s given them. Below, a sliver of rock and frozen moss begins to take shape amidst the ice floes—a crooked, jagged little island, but it’ll do.
