Click here for a list of weather descriptions, seasonal festivals, and a real time:site time conversion.
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!
Darling, you never could scare me Set me ablaze like you do
It may not be the first time he’s been bracketed between four of Ronin’s hands, but gods, it still undoes him. Every time. By the time the Knight is tugging him down into the daisies, Remi’s knees are already giving out, buckling beneath the sheer weight of the heat roiling low in his belly and springboarding up through his spine, pressure curling in tighter and tighter coils that leave no room for breath, let alone thought.
Clothes fall away like petals—no ceremony, just need—and soon enough he’s draped over his husband, his body pressed along Ronin’s with a tremble that betrays just how far gone he already is. One arm braces near Ronin’s head, his palm sinking deep into the flowers as if the earth might help anchor him. The other slides down the Knight’s body, a smooth and purposeful trail that ends at the curve of his thigh, where Remi’s fingers wrap firm and possessive around him.
He kisses Ronin like he means to consume the last breath from his lungs; slow and hungry, tinged with the quiet desperation of knowing how badly he wants this and how little control he has over it. And then, as his hips settle between the other man’s, he shifts, reaches, lifts Ronin’s leg just slightly—just enough to fit, and press, and align—"I had every intention," he murmurs against Ronin’s mouth, his voice low and shaking, "of dragging this out—" And then he’s shaking his head, helpless with the depth of it all, the need, the bond, the way everything feels so alive and riotous in his skin. "But gods, do I want you."
I'd walk over coals in my bare feet
If that gets me closer to you
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"I didn't kid myself for a second that I was going to be able to drag this out," Ronin says, though the words drip from his projection's lips, panted against the shell of Remi's ear as warm hands grasp his hips as if to keep him from collapsing down entirely. The version of him pinned beneath the Bastion is little more than a line of living fire and need, cheeks flushed high with colour and a leg lifting to hitch around his waist, tilting his hips enough to bring him almost dizzingly close to erasing the distance between them entirely.
"Fuck, I love you," he whispers, hooking an arm around Remi's shoulders to tug him down and against his mouth in a kiss that's half a moan as his projection takes matters into its own hands. The second Ronin settles behind Remi as if he was always meant to be there, and as he eases himself inexorably forward, the chorus of his pleasure hits the air in a harmony of bitten back gasps and soft curses. He enters him slow and gentle, his hand running up the length of the Bastion's spine to curl his fingers through the back of his curls.
Darling, you never could scare me Set me ablaze like you do
Remi lets out a laugh, breathless and helpless in equal measure, because of course he should have known better than to think this was going to be anything but immediate, consuming, inevitable. The sound catches in his throat halfway, cut off by the gasp that shudders from his chest as Ronin shifts beneath him, their bodies aligning with such perfect, maddening friction that his teeth clamp down against the Knight’s collarbone, not hard but sharp with the effort of restraint.
His hips pull back instinctively, chasing that edge without falling off it, and that’s when he feels the hands at his waist tighten, steadying and claiming him. The second Ronin eases into him from behind and Remi stumbles forward with a strangled, cursing sound that’s barely language at all, his spine bowing with the surge of sensation. It steals the air from his lungs, cracks something open inside him that was already straining under too much heat and pressure. A moan tears loose before he can stop it, rough and involuntary, and he thrusts back into the projection even as he pulls out of the man beneath him, caught in the impossible, glorious rhythm of being filled and filling in turn.
He sinks forward again, hips rolling, control slipping with every stroke as his mouth stutters across Ronin’s throat. "Ro—Ronin—" he gasps, the name mangled between pleasure and disbelief, his brain flaring static as sensation chokes out everything else. Being surrounded like this—held, claimed, consumed—feels like being caught in a tide he never wants to escape.
I'd walk over coals in my bare feet
If that gets me closer to you
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ronin's senses scatter into little more than immediate pleasure and touch and the effort of remembering to breathe. To be in literally two places at once but joined with Remi at the same time is both maddening and blissful, and whilst he might be the one who has caught the Bastion between two versions of himself, there's no denying who is in control here. "Fuck me," he whispers, clasping his cheek to draw him back in for a kiss he barely has the breath to give.
His hips are already rolling beneath Remi, as if to encourage that fraying of control, to inch them towards oblivion with little more than the coaxing of his body. And if that isn't enough, his projection is already taking matters into his own hands, fingers grasping hard enough to bruise, hips snapping roughly forward in a rhythm that's utterly unsustainable. "Remi - gods--"
Darling, you never could scare me Set me ablaze like you do
One of Remi’s hands shifts, claws curling out with a tremble as they plunge into the flowers and soil near Ronin’s head, tearing through stems and petals as if grounding himself in anything less than flesh were even possible right now. His other hand tightens—hard—fingers digging into Ronin’s thigh with possessive force, the bruising promise of his grip a constellation already beginning to bloom across the Knight’s skin. He’s not holding Ronin in place so much as fixing him there, needing it, craving it, the heat rolling through his body like a storm that refuses to break.
His mouth crashes back to Ronin’s in a kiss that's raw and unrefined, full of teeth and hunger and a desperate lack of finesse that speaks to the firestorm inside him, to the helpless rhythm he’s already caught in. His moan is swallowed between them, guttural and broken, and then—selfishly, breathlessly—he pleads, "harder," voice thick with need as he flicks his gaze briefly toward the projection behind him. But then he's already chasing another kiss, rough and devouring, hips slamming forward with dizzying force, locked in the rhythm of being filled and filling, owned and owning. His entire body burns with it, stretched taut between every version of Ronin like a live wire ready to snap.
I'd walk over coals in my bare feet
If that gets me closer to you
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ronin doesn't need to be told twice; his projection is already shifting behind Remi as if to anchor more readily against the other man and the earth beneath his knees. A broken gasp of pleasure mingled with pain escapes his lips as the Bastion surges forward, able to feel the grip against his thigh as if it too has claws. Then his projection is complying, hips slamming forward hard and fast and leaving no room for breath or second guessing, the hand in Remi's hair tightening considerably.
"You feel so fucking good," Ronin grates out when he finds the words for it, hands reaching above him to plunge into the flowers as if he might be able to keep himself pinned there for Remi to fuck against. "Gods, I'm close--" His climax has almost snuck up on him, ecstasy starting to crackle up the length of his spine like a lit fuse, every thrust fizzing it closer to detonation.
Darling, you never could scare me Set me ablaze like you do
Remi loses himself in the rhythm, in the unbearable perfection of being taken and taking in the same breath. Every nerve is alight, every part of him wired for sensation so acute it shreds through thought and coherence alike. His body moves on instinct alone—hungry, desperate, devoted—and his lips can form only one broken word, again and again, ragged on his tongue like a prayer on fire: Ronin.
His head bows against his husband's shoulder, breath hot and shallow against flushed skin, and he's so close, but it’s the thought of what they're doing, the sudden clarity slipping through the haze like lightning through water, that undoes him.
This is it. They’re making a baby.
Right now.
The weight of it strikes like a tidal wave, ripping his breath from him and snapping his spine into motion. The snarl that tears from him is deep and guttural, animal and agonized with how good it feels. His hips slam forward, every muscle tensing, claws gouging into the earth as his orgasm seizes him with an intensity that eclipses everything else. Toes curl, vision goes white, and for a moment he is nothing but the crackling rush of release; pure sensation and unbearable love, swelling too vast to be held in any single body. There is nothing left but Ronin—above him, beneath him, inside him—and the love that roars through him is so swollen, so incandescent, it devours the rest of the world.
I'd walk over coals in my bare feet
If that gets me closer to you
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Remi surges forward and the tidal wave of emotion that roars through him is enough to scatter Ronin's senses to the wind. He comes undone both physically and emotionally, back arching beneath the Bastion and every nerve catching fire. The breath burns in his lungs and even with demigodly endurance he feels as if he might just pass out, each thrum and pulse of his release threatening to drag him into the dark. Eventually some animal part of him remembers to gasp for air, and with that simple reminder his projection flickers out entirely, the concentration for it vanishing with Ronin's return to sanity.
"Gods," he whispers, the words whispered into damp curls, his arms clutching around Remi now that he can properly hold him close. "Gods, that was something else." Whether because of the underlying intention, the location, or something entirely separate, the Knight is lost in the honey sweet perfume of the meadow and the searing weight of his husband's body atop him. His hands run gently down Remi's shoulder blades, tracking each old scar, every perfect part of him like it's brand new.
Darling, you never could scare me Set me ablaze like you do
Remi notices the absence the moment it happens, not in his mind, not even in his body at first, but in the sudden shiver of air across his sweat-damp back where Ronin’s projection had just been. The ghost of heat is gone, and it drags a sharp breath through him, the kind that feels like it might catch on the way out. He doesn’t miss it, not with the real Ronin beneath him, still hard and trembling and wrapped around him like something holy, but the shift still makes his skin prickle and his spine tremble.
Still heaving for breath, he pulls in enough to steady himself, the barest flicker of strength returning to his limbs. Carefully and slowly he shifts, slipping out of his husband with the kind of full-body shudder that leaves no muscle untouched, before collapsing in a dishevelled sprawl at Ronin’s side, his chest still rising and falling like he’s been sprinting. "That really was.." he starts, voice shredded and exhausted, trailing off before he can even finish. Shaking his head, he abandons language entirely for a moment, pressing a kiss—spent, adoring, reverent—against Ronin’s cheek, his lips lingering there as if trying to brand the moment in skin.
It takes a few more breaths before he can glance vaguely over his shoulder, toward where the projection had vanished, and then back to the Knight again. His expression is soft but shadowed with something vulnerable now, the weight of what they just did beginning to settle somewhere behind his ribs. "Do you...think we did it right?"
I'd walk over coals in my bare feet
If that gets me closer to you
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Shuddering out a sigh as Remi parts from him, Ronin feels suddenly cold in all the places his husband isn't, and even as he slouches to the side the Knight is already curling an arm around his shoulders as if to corral him back where he belongs. The rise and fall of his chest is hard enough to make his throat feel raw, but the pain is something giddy that escapes his throat in a rough laugh, like he can't believe what they've just done despite it being a very well practiced dance between them at this point.
Closing his eyes to properly enjoy the warmth of Remi's lips against his cheek, when he blinks them back open it's to follow the Bastion's gaze out to the meadow, as if expecting something miraculous to have appeared in the wake of their passion. "Well," he says slowly, just a little amused, "if we didn't, I am more than willing to try again with you." Drawing Remi in close to kiss his forehead, for a few moments it's all Ronin can do to lay in the flowers and catch his breath, his limbs feeling heavy and uncooperative.
"Maybe we should mark this part of the field with something. A flag, or whatever. Then we can check back and see if anything has changed?"
Darling, you never could scare me Set me ablaze like you do
Not for the first time, Remi feels the quiet ache of absence; that small, strange longing for the days when he could simply unmoor himself from muscle and bone and curl directly around Ronin’s soul, pressed close in a way the physical world could never quite replicate. But those days are gone, and now all he can do is press himself as firmly against his husband as possible, chest rising in slow, uneven pulls as his breath fights to catch up with his heart. He releases a soft sigh, more content than tired, and gazes at Ronin with a crooked smile that speaks of warmth, of wonder, of everything.
His laugh is low and rumbling in his chest, the sound roughened by what they’ve just done. The eyebrow he lifts says it all—he wouldn't need convincing, not even a little to try again—and yet he melts into the press of Ronin’s lips against his forehead like he’s being blessed, a soft, adoring sigh escaping him as his eyes flutter closed for a moment. At the suggestion of a flag, though, he peeks one eye open, glancing down the length of their naked bodies, then, arching a brow with playful skepticism, he turns his head toward Ronin and murmurs, "Got any flags on you?"
Drawing in another breath, he lets his gaze wander lazily across the meadow. "We could probably make a lean-to," he says, voice thoughtful now, gesturing vaguely toward the small cluster of trees not far off. "Until we have something more permanent." Then, flicking his gaze back to Ronin, he adds, "One of us could wait and make sure the cows don’t get too close, while the other flies into New Haven for supplies?" It's probably the sort of thing they should have planned for ahead of time all things considered, so hopefully it wasn't a sign that their lapses in parental oversight were going to continue.
I'd walk over coals in my bare feet
If that gets me closer to you
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Snorting and gently swatting at Remi, able to follow his filthy line of thought without need for speech or the Attuned bond, Ronin nevertheless offers him a sheepish sort of shrug. "Give me twenty minutes laying here with you and I reckon I could make a serviceable flagpole for us," he quips, as if getting that far isn't a bad effort. Combing his fingers carefully through Remi's curls, eventually Ronin peers across the meadow as well, humming thoughtfully at the treeline.
"That might not be a bad idea," he says, though the way he clasps the Bastion closer suggests he'd quite like to avoid moving altogether. But Remi has a very good point, and whether or not they'd had it figured out right away, he doesn't intend to leave their new addition unattended for anything. "You hate people, so I can go for supplies," he reasons, grinning. "Luckily we're both used to roughing it, and it's Longheat so it's not like it'll get cold, right?"
Darling, you never could scare me Set me ablaze like you do
Remi snickers, feigning a flinch as Ronin’s hand swats at him, though it does nothing to dull the grin already carving its way across his face. "Oh sure," he drawls, stretching lazily in the flowers, "I can’t wait to see Sunjata showing up to investigate who’s raised a flag and claimed part of his land, only to find us here."
He shifts, rolling more comfortably onto his back, one arm tucked behind his head as he gazes up at the sky, the light bright enough to turn his lashes gold. A quiet sigh leaves him, his gaze wandering before it slips sidelong, catching on Ronin again. "I don’t hate people," he corrects mildly, though the phrasing is clearly up for debate. "I just don’t like being bothered by them." Another shrug. "So yes, probably better if you go."
The meadow settles around them again, warm and humming, the kind of stillness that begs reflection. After a pause, Remi swallows and speaks again, softer this time, something nervous and boyish threading beneath the words. "What do you think about Alora for a girl?" He’s still watching the sky as he says it, voice casual, but not quite light. "Or maybe Carlo, if it’s a boy?" There’s a flicker of pre-emptive bracing in his tone, like he already knows he’s going to be scolded for the travelling tongue lilt of them, but he turns his face toward Ronin anyway, eyes curious, hopeful, a little shy.
I'd walk over coals in my bare feet
If that gets me closer to you
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
01-20-2026, 02:46 PM (This post was last modified: 01-20-2026, 02:50 PM by Ronin.)
RONIN
the white knight
"If the flag is attached to my very erect flagpole, I think he'd find it funny," Ronin says with a grin. "And we aren't claiming part of his land, we're putting a marker down so we don't lose our baby." He nuzzles obnoxiously against Remi's jaw as the last words rumble out, a pulse of warm delight rushing through their bond. It's with reluctance that he lets the other man roll away at last, Ronin shifting to lay on his side in the flowers, his hand propping up his head.
"Mm, the reasoning might be slightly different but the outcome is still the same." Chuckling, he reaches out with his free hand to let his fingers gently trace along the side of Remi's cheek, relishing the way the sunlight plays across his face. He doesn't expect the soft crackle of nerves, though when the Bastion speaks, understanding dawns in Ronin's expression. He smiles, just a touch wry with it.
"Carlo is cute," he says in easy agreement. "But Flora and Alora? I feel we'd be opening ourselves up for all kinds of accusations with only one letter's difference." Chuckling, he offers up his own as a compromise. "Calan for a boy and Ciara for a girl?"
