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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!
How many scars could one person create? Leave behind? Scrape against the enamel of bones? Make notes and sounds of love and light, then forgo it entirely, as if they never existed? He could spend lifetimes contemplating those notions and never find the answer; only the steadfast beat of his own heart as it had mended itself. A cathartic chasm, beginnings and resolutions.
Years and years before, in the last time they’d spoken, he’d been in exile. An invaded Halo, brandished by Ascended. Broken again, but stitched together by bits of promise and plotting, as if machinations had been the only thing keeping him quietly knotted and gnarled, instead of frayed and stranded. But then, thereafter, there’d been death and deluge, wars and regrowth, a kingdom held by blades and pine, people who’d found a way to heal out of the derision. Nothing discarded and thrown away couldn’t be tethered and caught again - and it’d taken him a long, long while to discover this – he’d crawled his way out of disease and agony, misery and tragedy, with the determination of his own making. Then there was Evie. And Amhran. And Erebos. A Citadel, stretched tall, towering. A blackened, nefarious soul settled back into the framework of belonging, strong, mighty, stalwart. Altered hues. Changed beliefs. Until there were so many things to believe in that he worked perilously, day and night, to ensure they remained come sunrise.
Maybe he’d thought she’d found methods too. Disappeared, slipped into the shadows of kingdoms, carried on Vi’s plans, her own renewal, away from the particles of primordial etchings and fallen barriers. Had taken routes and courses and directions from a faded Hollowed hell and haven and christened, anointed, them in lifelong dreams. Hadn’t needed anyone or anything, save for her own motives, her god’s stratagems.
Perhaps all of that had happened, and then – luck or fortune had simply run out. He didn’t want to think of the alternatives, of those times he’d caught her willing to let sacrifice take its course again and again and again. Nor did he know what to do, what to say, in this strange refuge of ghosts. Likely why he always preferred silence, and why he couldn't let that habit linger here. “Hey,” he started instead, biting down multitudes behind his teeth and swallowing them whole. “I never expected to see you here,” came out thereafter; eternally forthright and candid. “None of us knew -,” and then he cut that line off too, shaking his head, finding difficulty in where to start when everything had long since ended.
She looks up at him through onyx eyes, a warmth suffusing the angular face that's far paler than when he'd seen her last. Despite her intention of giving him space she finds herself standing before him, inspecting him as an anxious smile plays on the edges of her lips. How easily Amalia falls into his orbit, even after all this time. He is the first and last person she wants to see, the heat of blood within her veins and the cold of a mountaintop she'd thrown herself off of when she realized too late she wasn't meant to climb.
There had been a part of her afraid to come here, terrified of the unfamiliarity she'd find in that face she'd once known so terribly well. Now, though, she can feel her fear subsiding, the old vestiges of crippling anxiety and ghostly guilt brushed like cobwebs from her mind. Death will do that to a person, it turns out: make them escape the confines of their trauma, fill in the pitfalls that once marred their path. "You look... different," Amalia murmurs, briefly pensive. And then, with a smile- "It suits you."
Ah, but then there's the heart of the matter. The smile falters; the Angel's head bows as she glances away, rubbing thin fingers over a scar that no longer lingers upon her wrist. "Nobody did," she tells him softly, her expression darkening as she remembers that time. "Not even Vi. My soul--"
But she shakes her head, golden hair falling free of her plait and into her face. It still hurts to remember that isolating darkness, the way it had felt to be so horribly alone. But Deimos deserves an explanation, so she steels herself, swallowing before looking back to the Sword's face. "I went to the Draig, to scout for Vi. The Core... I didn't know it was there until it was too late. I was... my soul was... trapped." Again she rubs her barren wrist, throat bobbing as she swallows. "By the time I found my way to Mort I was barely more than a wisp." Scarcely aware of what she was, let alone who she used to be.
Her first statement caused the stoicism to filter and flicker apart, the brief arch of his brow, habitual and residual in his endless bounty of curiosity. He hadn’t expected it at all – which was probably why he snorted, trying to filter through the sentiments on his own initially. Maybe it was all the weight borne upon his shoulders or the straightened, unyielding stature to his spine, having endured and endured and endured again ensure multitudes of Caido made it to the next day. Eventually though, out of all his lessons, he’d learned to simply ask when the notions weren’t so paramount. “What do you mean?”
But then he was watching; even in death, it seemed she still couldn’t trace away from some of the foundations of her, his eyes flickering briefly to her wrist, the way she’d always scratched at the skin. Listening too, as the story came to light, and his eyes widened, not realizing the time in which she’d breathed her last had been well before – amidst the war amongst the Ascended. “Had we of known-,” and he cut himself off, jaw clenching; if Vi hadn’t been aware, then he wasn’t certain how any of them would’ve been capable. But Deimos liked to think they would’ve tried, given everything they’d all once accomplished.
His eyes fell to the ground, pondering and churning through the circumstances, taking it all in to bring back home if Evie didn’t want to ask on her own. “I am sorry that happened to you.” Because he was – the once-Shield and the Archangel should’ve had more time. Eventually his gaze went back to hers, head tilted, trying to find something in the mess. “Is there anything you want us to do for you?”
"Older, for one." Amalia laughs then, the rich timbre of her alto voice like smoke in the evening glow. That years have passed is hard for her to quite wrap her mind around; to her, time has been still and peaceful, a warm continuum unaffected by the eddies and tides of change. Her smile softens, wistful and nostalgic, though without trace of bitterness or grief. "And... whole. Realized. Like you've found your place in the world." Leader. Husband. Father. All roles that suit him in a way that stirs gladness in her heart.
He hardens in the wake of her story, and even without the Attuned bond Amalia can feel his thoughts. "I know," she interjects, soft but firm, gazing up with an expression that carries no resentment or blame. Slender fingers reach for his, the motion too familiar and easy for her to second guess. She knows that he would have fought for her, even in those difficult days when they'd just begun to heal from fracturing apart. He had always been a bulwark, a bastion, a lighthouse without the expectation of anything in return. He had given and given so much of himself.
She can only hope he's learned to keep some pieces for himself.
"I'm sorry, too." Sorry for being foolish enough to go off by herself, for letting her pride and hurt and impatience prevent her from being smart. Sorry they never got the chance to mend their broken edges, that she had left the wound undressed and unfinished for all of this time. But there's no going back, no unwinding time, and she hasn't come here to drag him back to the past. Especially when even now here the Sword is, asking what he can do for her, and oh, if it doesn't maker her breathe a laugh of nostalgia and love.
Again she smiles up at him, squeezing gently at his calloused fingers. "Live your best life," Amalia whispers, rising up on tiptoes, she presses a chaste, adoring kiss into the side of his face. "Take care of yourself. Love yourself. Live- that's the greatest gift you can give me."
With a final press she steps away, a sly expression coming over her face. "So... you and Evie, huh?" Her nose crinkles happily, playful merriment dancing in her eyes. "You certainly have a type," she teases. And then, more earnestly: "I'm so happy for you, Dei. You and your family. You have a son! What's he like?"
07-30-2025, 11:34 AM (This post was last modified: 08-01-2025, 05:21 AM by Deimos.)
DEIMOS
“Wiser, perhaps,” he rumbled in return, a small smile beginning to form in the crook of his mouth. Amalia didn’t look as though she’d aged at all – but perhaps that could be said for all the ghosts in their vicinity – time never quite pressing the interludes of experiences upon them. In peace, rather than out amidst the rest of their encompassed multitudes, battered and bruised. That he seemed whole though caused a furrowing of his brow; he’d been running away from the hovering embodiment of leadership for so long, that when the responsibility called and carved its niche into his spine years ago, the only thing that allotted him some calm was knowing he’d be able to make a difference. That there was no choice in the matter. Halo had deserved more than that.
Maybe he had been lost initially. Most of them much the same – taken and snagged from other worlds with no framework but the bitterness of Naturals and the need to simply understand. Trying to find their footing and watching as it was pulled from underneath them time and time again. “Thank you,” he uttered instead, half-inclined to push those self-deprecating fixtures outward once more, and then choking them down. “I do enjoy it, when we do not have wars going on.” Which had happened twice in his interim.
Her own selfless accords, then punctured, pierced notions, hovered too – and he found himself bothered by how it had simply happened. So many perished in that same mannerism – there one day, gone the next – but the expectations that Amalia would have fallen victim to it, despite her prior actions of racing into battle, of being crushed by falling temples, of rampaging into libraries, seemed to nettle at him. He kept it tied and tethered for her sake, a lesson in all its multitudes, his eyes on her fingers as she reached for him. Only after a slight pause did he let his grasp interlock over hers, gaze on the ground again as the apology came through.
He'd mended those wounds on his own long ago, but gods he didn’t want to look at the primordial lacerations, their silver scars, their devastating capabilities again. Since then, he’d learned he did deserve aspects of love and devotion, that it could be received and granted in far more encompassing ways. To not be mired in the sea of ruin, only looking at the depths and ignoring how far he’d traveled. The road ahead was an unwinding, promising thing, and he wouldn’t be placing any more damaging fixtures on it. So he accepted it with a nod, of trying to forge wider, discerning paths, of not rushing headlong into decay and destruction, the emotional toil and wreckage, the bleak downfalls and collapses upon themselves.
The Sword hadn’t expected her next words though, and he grinned, tilting his head despite the bewilderment and surprise, prying for amusements first, a balm and a salve. "No statues of you in the Hollowed Grounds then?" Taking care of himself had never been the forefront – it’d always been everyone else. “I will try,” he honored. “I certainly hear it enough.” That eventually it might sink in. That maybe this hesitant little pocket of peace would stretch into something like sanctity, serenity, and sanctuary again. They’d carved little niches for themselves though, in between the terror and the trepidation.
He figured Evie would crop up eventually – a brow arching again as she teased. He did have a type – strong, passionate women with convictions at least a mile long – it’d only been a coincidence in family ties, and years in between. “We do – Erebos. He will be two in Deepfrost – but he is outgoing, bubbly, happy, mischievous – seems to like everyone.” Pondering over the peculiarities, he glanced at Kiada along the stretch of people roaming from place to place amidst the myriad of phantoms and souls. “Kiada recently married. And Evie was given a sprout from Rae that grew a demigod,” at which he laughed, because it still sounded a little out there. “So we have Amhran as well.” Even if the Raeling didn’t consider Deimos his father, he’d still raise the younger man, notch him into the lines of their family.
