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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.
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I shouldn't laugh, but I know I'm a failure in your eyes
The sun is little more than a bloody line searing the horizon by the time Ronin heads for the water's edge, his feet bare and his footsteps slow and soft in the sand. With a bottle of wine in one hand and two glasses in the other, his smile is more bashful than anything else as he approaches Vanya, his dark hair (white around the temples, these days) tousling in the sea breeze.
"If you ever said to me that we'd be meeting next to an ocean again," he says as he draws up beside her, "I'd have called you a liar." Offering her one of the glasses so he might uncork the bottle and pour them both a glass, the Knight lets out a sigh long and heavy enough to drag something like tension down away from his shoulders. "Gods, I..." He shakes his head, barely knowing where to begin.
"I'm sorry," he settles on - it's almost become a mantra for all those he's met from Mort's halls this evening. But for Vanya, it feels especially true. "Safrin told me you were with Mort - with Aoife - for years before I found out the truth. That you were still a star in her sky. If I'd known..." A muscle feathers in his jaw before he raises his glass, almost defiantly.
There’s little that can be said about the comfort of Mort’s Halls, yet everything all at once. What words can actually encompass it? Maybe others that are better with words could figure it out, but I know that while I lack the words to conjure up what death is like...
I could say everything about this.
The surf is cold. It parts around my ankles and then tugs back, like an old friend—one I left behind without saying goodbye—begging me to play again. I never did say goodbye to the Ocean, and it’s hard not to dive in now, to taste the salt and feel the way the water can cradle like a lover. The imperfect breeze pulls my hair just the wrong way, strands whipping across my eyes no matter how many times I brush them aside. I let it happen. I let it all happen. I stand stubbornly watching the horizon as my time here ebbs away, as if I could re-memorize the way the living sky swells with fire before the dark.
The tide is going to wash out again, and with it, all these things a heart like mine could never *not* miss.
Like him.
I hear Ronin first, and I step back from the water to grin at him, and I take an offered glass. “And yet here I am, entirely unsurprised. You like meeting people on beaches.”
I let him think, maybe selfishly looking over all the new details I’d never known before. He’s aged well, and is still the man I remember. I want to interrupt his apology the moment he says it, but I don’t. I wonder how long he’s held onto it, how long he’s needed to say it with someone to actually hear it.
“Of anyone, Ronin, it would never be you that owes me an apology,” I promise him firmly. My brows pull together, and I reach out to squeeze his hand. “Not you, not Remi.” I squeeze his hand once more, then tug on it as I step back toward the gentle surf with a grin. “Now come on. Shoes off. You got the wine right, but you are sorely overdressed for a beach party. And don’t forget your socks.”
I shouldn't laugh, but I know I'm a failure in your eyes
"It's true," Ronin concedes. "All the best people I've ever met have been on beaches. Maybe that's what keeps Remi and I coming back to Torchline." Yes, the region has left as many scars as it has smiles, and their debut into the islands had been nothing short of traumatic. And yet here they are, with his daughter as Queen and no shortage of memories to draw upon; it really isn't surprising that he can call the sand and surf home.
Unashamedly glad that Vanya allows him to get his apology out in full, Ronin doesn't so much feel the tightness in his chest ease, but the years-old knots of grief and guilt do soften a bit. And it's enough, for now. It's a start. "It's my anniversary and I'll say sorry if I want to," he protests quietly, a boyish smile sneaking across his face, calloused fingers squeezing her hand in return.
Shoes off though, she says, and its with a brief, blank look of surprise on the Knight's face that he finally realises what she means. With a scoff of laughter, he deposits the wine bottle in the sand (keeping his glass, duh) and follows her instructions, rolling up his pant legs until he can splash into the surf alongside her.
"Do they not have wind and waves in Mort's halls?" he wonders, grinning as a particularly playful wave splashes against their shins.
I grin as he joins me in the water. It’s cold in that familiar way, a kiss and a nip, the kind of chill that makes you feel alive—or reminds you that you once were. I remember when he and I met so vividly it could’ve just happened. The memory is as present as the sea itself. I wish it were possible to go back to that old townhouse of his, to press open the creaking door and see if that painting of The Siren Call was still kicking around. The bird I’d added, that little m between the brushstrokes.
As for what’s in Mort’s Halls, I glance up at him, then out across the horizon stretching wide and endless. “You know better,” I chide, soft but teasing, the smile curling at my lips like seafoam at the edges of a tide. “Not these waves. Not this wind. Every ocean and shore is its own sacred beast. I’d known every ocean in Northwind. I even knew the one in Northaven as well as anyone was going to.”
I think of the Hallowed Grounds, of how hard it had been to adjust to a world without salt in the air. To live landlocked after being raised by sails and salt spray. My voice dips quieter, reverent. “We even sailed the stars.”
And gods, I cherish that time with him. That impossible second chance to love him again—no matter how fleeting—before he returned to the living to continue his story without me.
“But I never met Caido’s waters,” I murmur, before I can get too swept away. “Or Torchline’s shores.”
I link my arm around Ronin’s, solid and warm beside me, and rest my head against his shoulder. Whatever he needs from me tonight, I want to be it. After everything he’s endured—after what we both were—I want this to be what remains. Not fear. Not the last goodbyes. But this. This soft night. This peace.
“I’m so damn proud of you, you know,” I whisper. “Through everything, after everything, you’ve built this. What’ve been the best parts?”
I shouldn't laugh, but I know I'm a failure in your eyes
"I do," Ronin says with a lopsided smile, "and I said it anyway." His laughter comes more easily as they stand together in the lapping surf, the Knight watching as the light begins to die away for good beneath the glittering horizon, heralding the arrival of the night and the stars. Stars they'd sailed, as Vanya points out, and Ronin's smile softens considerably.
"It was an honour to dip a toe in that particular ocean with you," he says, his voice as quiet and sombre as her own, "even if it wasn't for very long." He shifts to stand a little closer as Vanya's arm links with his; his head turns to nose against her wild curls, her warmth and vibrancy feeling dreamlike after so many years. "You have now," he points out. "Like it always should have been."
You would have loved Torchline he nearly adds, but opts not to sour the moment into bittersweetness. And besides, Vanya is already complimenting him enough to have heat rising to his cheeks, Ronin scoffing under his breath.
"The best parts?" he repeats, truly surprised by the question. So rarely does he think of the best parts of the past decade. It has always been one crisis after another: leadership and war and conflict, trauma and betrayal and loss and weariness, bone deep and heavier than the weight of the world he'd learned to carry. But the best parts?
"Truly? It's all been him," he whispers, his head turning enough to seek out the familiar silhouette of Remi back among the festivities. "We've both been leaders of regions. We've seen children come and go. We've lived... everywhere, it feels. But he's been there though it all - he's the best part of all of it. We married each other twice, you know." Ronin's grin is boyish and overjoyed. "And we lived up in the Cordillera for a time, next to an upside down waterfall. Remi makes gin from the water - there might even be some here for you to try. That's where we lived in the sandwich boat."
He’s closer, and I allow my eyes to shut. To pretend for a moment it’s eleven years ago, and the biggest, most frightening thing was going with him to a ball where all my brothers would meet him and harass him. “Like it always should have been,” I agree.
I listen quietly to the happiest part of the last ten years, and my eyes open, wet and glassy. I remember their first wedding, watching from the stars, giving them my blessing. I follow his gaze to Remi who holds our daughter still, and gratitude floods me like golden light. ”He did exactly as I asked of him at your first wedding—to love you as much as I love you. And so much more; he loves our baby as I would have, and there had been no greater comfort. He's done so much for us both.”
I turn my face into his shoulder a bit, taking a deep breath of him, holding onto how real and alive he is. He has to stay this way for a long time. I don’t want to see him enter Mort’s halls any time soon. But I want to hang onto this.
”I’ll always love you, you know.” I half smile, face still tucked against him. ”First love, last love and all that.” It's like I'm preserved, forever young and helplessly in love and excited to be a mother, made of the sea and the sky and the freedom that comes with such adventurous things. ”I never hurt in Mort’s halls. It’s… bliss that can't be described. But I can still long, can’t I? Remember?” I don’t add that sometimes, I think I’d come back if I could. I have a feeling of the sort of pain that could cause him.
I shouldn't laugh, but I know I'm a failure in your eyes
The golden light is anything but metaphorical for Ronin, and as his gaze finds Remi and Aoife, the radiance that pulses out of him is enough to glitter against the surf beneath their feet, to catch in shimmers on seaglass and opalescent shells. "I just wish he knew it," he says quietly, smiling. "Not that I don't tell him, but I think I could always say it more." Especially now, standing on the precipice of a decade to look back upon, and the Knight sighs out a long breath; a silent vow to do better.
But then Vanya is speaking softly against his shoulder, and the surprise is enough to have that radiance flickering a touch sharper, a touch more uncertain. "I know," he whispers, glancing slowly down towards her, a sad smile touching to his lips. "The version of me that was up in those stars with you is the one you should hang onto though, Van," he tells her gently. "I'm not that man any more - I haven't been for a long time."
The iterations of him that came after were forged through scars and fire, through darkness and unspeakable acts, sometimes violent, oftentimes selfish. And whilst Vanya's love is preserved, Ronin's has grown, changed, bloomed in the places it's been allowed to take root, and he won't turn his back on it now for all the second chances in the world.
My smile doesn’t go anywhere as he speaks. It stays, quiet and sure, even as everything in me swells with love so deep it aches. I’m happy to love him—even if that love has changed its shape, even if it must live differently now. What else can I do but that? What else would I do but love Remi too, for becoming his world? For being the reason he kept going.
The emotions are big—so much bigger than any living, mortal body could hope to contain. They press at the edges of me, too vast, too tender. I take a deep breath to keep them from spilling out and nod, voice soft with feeling. “I know,” I whisper. “And I’m so proud of who you’ve become.”
That time in the stars with him… gods, what better ending could there have been to a love story cut short? Who could have asked for more than that? We sailed the stars themselves before he returned—to be a father, a friend. To learn to love again, and more deeply than ever. And getting to see all his lost children again… I couldn’t be happier for him. I couldn’t ask for more.
“You’re old now anyways,” I tease, reaching up with a smirk and brushing my fingers gently through the silver threading his hair. A familiar gesture. A tender one. I take a slow drink of my wine, trying to savor it. Then I glance back at the bottle and take a small step away to set my glass down—doing a poor job of hiding the mischievous gleam in my eye. I don’t really try to hide it. “Am I your final visit for the night?”
I shouldn't laugh, but I know I'm a failure in your eyes
Ronin's smile is a small, almost secret thing as Vanya speaks, the Knight's gaze dropping towards the gentle lapping of the waves at their feet. "It's taken a really long time," he admits, as if almost guilty to feel that way, "but for all of the mistakes and the hardship, and for all the work I still know I have to do... I'm starting to feel kind of proud as well."'
But then she's calling him old and his mouth falls open in boyish outrage, Ronin unsuccessfully trying to duck away from her fingers feathering through the visible markers of stress and time in his hair. "I am tired more than I'm old, thank you very much," he informs her with mock offence, grinning. "These days I can barely get through an evening before nodding off in a chair." Granted, maybe that is a marker of getting old, but shut up.
Taking a much more generous sip of his wine - and watching her with the sort of wariness that comes from years of mischief, regardless of the who of it - Ronin gives a carefree shrug of his shoulders. "I don't like thinking about final visits. Not tonight. You're the last person I have intentionally decided to bump into though, if that's what you mean."
At his pride in himself, I can’t help but grin and give his arm a squeeze. “You’d better,” I say, earnest and bright. “You have so much to be proud of.”
My laugh bursts out as he launches into talk of his age, the sound light and unfiltered. I’ve seen enough to know he has plenty of excuses to be damn tired, but still… well. He’s old too. I get to be forever young—something I’d already made peace with by the time I found my way to Mort’s halls. “Tell that to the mirror, silver fox,” I tease, voice curling with affection.
I nod at his shrug, my eyes softening just a little. “No, not final visits. You’re right,” I agree, quiet but certain. “I’ll see you again one day, Captain Taliesin—mark my words.”
A deep breath escapes me as I step close, a little slower now, savoring the nearness. I reach for his glass without asking and take it from his hand. “But good,” I add, the corner of my mouth lifting into a smirk before I sip from it, then set it beside my own. “Last stop then.”
I step in front of him, the surf washing higher up the beach to nip at the backs of my legs. I take both his hands in mine, hold them gently but with intent, grounding us there. I stare down at our joined hands for a moment, smiling to myself. Thrilled. Maybe it’s childish, to pretend nothing ever changed—but after everything? I think I’m allowed. It doesn’t hurt anyone. Not even me. And I’ll carry this—him—with me forever.
“Well, if that’s so…” I glance up at last, eyes warm and glimmering—
And I haul him back into the surf with me, laughter ringing out loud and full into the night as the tide crashes around us. A swim in the Ocean together for the first time since they were all in Northaven.
07-29-2025, 07:43 AM (This post was last modified: 07-29-2025, 07:47 AM by Ronin.)
I shouldn't laugh, but I know I'm a failure in your eyes
"I do - every day," Ronin snipes back, his grin successfully taking years off him even if the silver at his temples gives the game away. "I look in the mirror and say Ronin, you're only as young as the person you feel. And Remi's a good three years younger than you, so it's not all bad." Beaming, he lets the amusement fade back into something more gentle and affectionate as Vanya speaks again, the Knight nodding his stoic agreement. "Of that I have no doubt," he says softly.
Last stop might be a bit of an over-simplification, in Ronin's book - and he'd have gestured to the entire party at their backs were it not for Vanya taking his hands - but by the time he's glancing back at her, that tell-tale gleam in is in her eyes, and the Knight's expression mingles between shock and horror. "No, wait--!"
In the end, the Knight rolls his pants up enough to paddle further in the surf, but he leaves the real swimming to Vanya. After all, as a Hali, she belongs in the waves more than he ever has.
