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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!
The attuned carried the weight of unfinished vows like frost in his bones. Noah knelt, letting out a breath that formed a white, puffy cloud before him. ”Safrin, if you have time for me, I’d like to speak with you.” He prayed aloud, head lowered over his offering. He was dressed in the same brilliant green cloak embroidered with a herd of luxere running down the back, and a fox over his chest in silver from his wedding.
At the foot of the shrine lay a delicately woven, deep emerald shawl. He had traded two luxere for it. The materials were rare—at least, that’s what Noah had been told for its steep price. He had purchased it for Cordelia for their anniversary. The anniversary they didn’t get to. Noah had pulled it out from the cedar box each night, turning it over and over again in his hands.
He hoped Safrin would like it as much as he knew Cordelia would have treasured it. Safrin had given him a quest to strengthen his shield and extend it to another, and though he had taken up the quest, the path had unraveled, left incomplete beneath the press of war and grief.
Regional Score bonus: +13 in all shrine visits, drops, PQ+s, KQs, etc. (You must post this at the bottom of any post where a +13 should be included). Residents cannot be cursed at shrines in this region.
Attuned roll with +10 at all shrines. Include this at the bottom of all shrine posts.
Snow hushes the world like reverence incarnate, the cold wrapping tightly around silence as though the Citadel itself holds its breath. The emerald shawl lies delicate and luminous in the white, and when the air stirs—not with wind, but with divinity—it's starlight that pools in the hollows of the shrine. Safrin appears without fanfare, as though she’s always been there, watching with eyes that see far beyond the gift at her feet.
She kneels gracefully beside the shawl, fingers trailing through the fine weave with a reverence that makes even the moonlight hesitate. "She would’ve loved this," the goddess says softly, the words tinged not with sorrow, but with knowing. "But I think you should keep it." Her fingers still against the fabric, then lift, her gaze sweeping toward Noah with a gentle certainty. "You may yet have the chance to give it to her." There’s no cruelty in the promise. No riddles or impossible bargains. Just the faintest shimmer of hope, threaded with something eternal.
Then, rising in one smooth motion, she regards him fully. Not as the demigod he once was, but as the man who knelt anyway. The man who still came. "It has been a long time, Noah," Safrin says warmly.
The breath in his chest snagged at her words, the smallest fissure breaking open in the place where grief had hardened him. His gaze lingered on the shawl, luminous now beneath her touch, and the sting of memory pressed sharp against his heart. He held on to those words like a lifeline as snow clung to the hem of his cloak. While he knew that his discharge brought back with him mortality, the weight of it set in his bones at Safrin's words -- at, perhaps, her promise.
He then lifted his eyes to the herald, reverent but steady. “It has,” he breathed, voice tinged achingly with all the time of silence between them. "and I am sorry for that." Truly, he was. The regret of it was like a shard of ice in his chest, cold and tight. The words left him like a confession, like hearth smoke curling into the cold night. His shield, that celestial gift she had once entrusted to him, remained unfinished—its strength dampened by his own faltering. War, loss, and the hollow weight of Cordelia’s absence had drawn him away, but excuses sounded brittle against the reverence of her presence. He knew that she knew. He trusted her.
Noah searched her star-bright eyes for the trace of acceptance, of possibility. “I came because I don’t want the silence to be all that remains between us. I want to honor you, with a new shrine. I want people to know that, even with faults as big as mine, you and Vi still remain.” The words trembled, not from uncertainty, but from the force of conviction long dammed within him--because it was still there, a respect and admiration for the god and the herald that had chosen him. Even when he failed, over and over and over, their kindness and mercy was still there. Still here, now.
She was still there. He swalloweed the lump in his throat, the emotion so raw and tender within him he thought he might break if he lingered on it.
Safrin watches him with the kind of expression that makes stars turn in their constellations. For all her splendour, for all the light in her skin and the galaxies braided into her hair, she does not tower above him now. Instead, she sits beside him on the stairs like a queen lowering herself to the altar of a single prayer.
"You kept me in your thoughts," she says softly, her gaze drifting down to the shawl once more. She brushes her fingers across its edge—tender, reverent—as if Cordelia’s memory still lingers in the fibres even if she hadn't been alive to receive the gift. "Even when your voice could not reach me, your heart did. And that—" she turns her head, and her smile is luminous with understanding— "made the silence easier to bear."
Safrin’s smile deepens into something uncontainable, delight flickering across her like starlight scattered on water as he makes his offer. "A shrine," she echoes, and her voice is all warmth and wonder now, "A new shrine for me?" A laugh, rich and pleased, spills from her lips like champagne poured over crystal. "And where would you build me such a thing? At the edge of the city, for all to see? Or tucked in the wilds, where silence and stars might keep it company?"
Noah let her laughter wash over him like warmth against the frozen air. For a moment, he wasn't broken anymore, in the light of her laughter. In the way she looked at him. It loosened something inside his chest, the weight he’d been holding since he first knelt before the shrine. Her delight was its own relief, radiant and unshakable, and for the first time in many seasons he felt the faint stir of belonging return.
Glacier eyes lifted, meeting the cascade of galaxies braided into her hair before dropping again to the shawl she cradled as though it were still Cordelia’s. “The Citadel already has its altars, and the Sea of Glass. My lodge, its a waypoint for the hunters and a safe haven for any in the tundra. To have the presence of the gods of life right there for them, that would mean so much to me.”
He drew in a breath, letting the name of that wild expanse summon its image--towering evergreens rimmed with frost, the cut of green across the frozen hellscape deep and alive. "It has always been my refuge, a place where the noise of the world cannot follow. I would build your shrine near it—not hidden, but ssafe."
“I want your presence woven into the place I call home. Not just for me, but for all who might come seeking you—hunters, travelers, the lost. I'd have it be a shrine you didn't have to share." His eyes moved from her to the other offerings left at this altar, for all of the old gods and not for her and Vi alone. He swallowed, the weight of both grief and hope balanced in his throat.
Safrin listens in that ineffable way she always does—quiet as snowfall, bright as moonrise. Every word he speaks paints the world in richer hues, and by the time he’s done, her smile is nothing short of incandescent. It fills the space around them like a starburst, radiant and warm despite the Halo chill. "I think that’s a perfect place," she says, her voice aglow with approval. "A waypoint. A haven."
Beaming now, she leans in slightly, conspiratorial. "If you clear the space and build the altar, I’ll do the rest." Her delight flickers through the air like constellations blooming—genuine, unrestrained. "Let all who walk beneath the evergreens feel the hush of falling snow, and know they are not alone."
And then she’s reaching for him, soft and sure, her fingers curling over his cheeks like light wrapping around shadow. Her palms are warm, and when she draws him forward, there’s no grandeur in the gesture—only a rare and quiet grace. Safrin presses her lips to his brow. It is not heat, nor flame, but something lighter. Like fresh air pulled into lungs long starved. Like waking after a long, deep sleep and remembering what it is to feel. For a heartbeat, the weight of grief thaws just enough to let breath pass easier through his chest.
When she draws back, the starlight in her gaze is gentler now.
"Return to me when it is done," she murmurs, a promise coiled in every syllable. And then she tips him a wink—flirtatious, fond, and teasing in the way that only she can be—before vanishing in a slow, shimmering breath of perfumed starlight, her laughter trailing behind like the tail of a comet.
Noah has been given a quest! To build a shrine he must
1. Complete a thread attaining Safrin-related raw materials for the shrine
2. Complete a thread attaining Vi-related raw materials for the shrine
3. Complete a thread constructing the shrine in your chosen location
4. Complete a PQ with fellow Safrin followers preparing the ground and assembling the shrine
