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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 far too late in the day for me to let my mind wander with all the shit I know you could make 'em feel," Jack says, his voice a low, sly thing slipping out into the night. "I don't even reckon it's all you can do. Maybe we can go ashore tomorrow and test you out." He can't tell exactly, because he's not sure even she is aware, but the budding potential in her mind and body are things his magic wants to wrap itself around and understand.
Her presence beside him feels... right, is the only way he can put it. Right in that he feels exactly how he would if he were standing alone; just as comfortable, just as at ease. No pressure, no suspicion, no wondering at intention or needing to perform a role to keep the charade going. It's just Jack and The Ark, as it had been for as long as ambition had pushed itself like splinters beneath his skin and set him on course to find her.
Scoffing, he dips his chin in concession at that; she would be able to feel him, every toss and turn in his bunk, every tap of his foot on the boards or his finger against the desk. "Yeah," he mutters to the open night air. "I like this too." It's the sort of statement most often dragged from the Captain under duress, but there's nothing difficult in this. In fact, it's the easiest he's been with someone since...
Since bootprints scorched into the back of The Ark's neck, put it that way.
"If you make things go awry, now that he knows you're almost definitely doin' it on purpose, you might hurt his feelings," he says through a bark of laughter, turning away from the rail now and letting his arm curl casually around her waist, the movement easy in a way it hadn't been before. "C'mon, let's go, 'fore someone blames you for not bein' able to concentrate on their cards."
fight so dirty but you love so sweet talk so pretty but your heart got teeth
The Ark tips her head, considering Jack with that slow, tide-measured curiosity of hers. "Oh?" The sound slips out light and intrigued, like a wave testing a shoreline it hasn’t mapped yet. Introspection isn’t something she’s ever needed before—currents told her what she was, pressure told her where she stood—and the idea of new strings waiting to be found isn't something she can wrap her thoughts around. Still, she fixes him with an eager grin, eyes bright and hungry in a way that has nothing to do with food. "Not since you taught me to fly," she says, greedy anticipation sparking there, "have you had the chance to put me through my paces with something new." If not for the way she knew that, restless or not, Jack would need to sleep, she'd have suggested that they go right then and there.
At Jack's quip, the Ark lifts her chin, dismissive and amused all at once. "You all and your feelings," she says, but the humour softens as it passes. A thought drifts in behind it, quieter, and she glances back at him with something more searching in her gaze. "Do you think I’ll feel everything you all do?" The question isn’t fearful, just curious, as if she’s sighting a distant horizon and wondering what sort of weather waits there.
When he moves, she moves with him, her long stride falling into his without effort, matching him beat for beat, the rhythm familiar because it was his to begin with; the cadence of boots on deck she’s known so well she learned to walk by it. She mirrors him instinctively, looping her arm around his waist as his curls around her, the fit immediate and unremarkable in the way only long practice can make it.
A gust sweeps the deck then, playful and sudden, scattering cards from sticky tables and ruffling Murphy’s hair at the helm as if in fond approval. The Ark laughs softly and leans into Jack as the wind runs through her, sails snapping overhead, body and ship answering together as they always have, already moving away before anyone can decide to blame her for the trouble she leaves in her wake.
Her touch is like a tempest, her whisper is a breeze, but when she has a temper, she'll bring you to your knees
Code stolen from Queen Sky
Siren's Wake | After she leaves a space, traces of her presence linger briefly: a faint scent of salt, the sound of distant water, a restless feeling in the chest. People rarely notice it consciously.
"Then it sounds as though you'll be in for quite a mornin'," Jack quips in reply, a crooked smile on his lips as they start to make their way across the deck together. They both will, if the little taster of her siren's call up here is anything to go by, and for the first time in a long time, the Captain feels as though tomorrow is something he's looking forward to meeting, to seeing what might fall out of its pockets if he shakes it hard enough.
Glancing sidelong towards the helm at Murphy and his feelings (because of course she couldn't possibly be referring to Jack's emotions, how silly bombastic side-eye), the sound of her voice draws him back without it needing a drop of magic to get his attention, the Captain raising an eyebrow down at her. "Well," he says reasonably, "you get hungry. You clearly know how to enjoy things. Sounds like the whole human experience is there for the takin', if you ask me."
Not that the negatives are anything to shout home about, but even so, the short answer is yes, he does think she will feel everything they all do.
The breeze is so sudden that it might have been cast by an Abandoned, and for a second after bracing against it Jack does shoot a curious frown at The Ark, just in case she is responsible for said trouble. But Bassian is already chasing his cards and the crew are already swearing and laughing, and with little more than a wave over his shoulder to Murphy, Jack leads them back belowdecks.
The warmth envelops them immediately, along with the silence - physical silence, if not mental, and that goes for both of them he realises, if not in markedly different ways. "You're not hungry anymore?" he assumes - only because if she is, she already knows her way down towards the kitchens, though he imagines Lazarus will swallow his own tongue at the sight of her.
Providing that isn't the case, it's the same short walk back to his cabin, Jack slipping inside with a long sigh that strips away a layer of that usual arrogance; just enough to change his footfalls as he heads back to his deck to put away the liquor they'd almost finished. "We should touch down in the Spillwave tomorrow," he decides. "Borin' or not, it's a good place to drop anchor while we're gone."
fight so dirty but you love so sweet talk so pretty but your heart got teeth
The Ark walks with Jack in thoughtful quiet for a few steps, the deck answering under her feet the way it always has, until the question finds its way out of her. "Will you help me?" It isn’t dressed up or weighted with expectation. She looks at him as she asks it, open and unguarded, not quite knowing the shape of what she’s reaching for, if only because she has no real context for it. "Feel the things worth feeling?"
When the wind snaps across the deck and he glances at her, she meets his look without flinching, innocent and a little bemused. She hadn't consciously done it, but magic, like weather, doesn’t always wait to be named before it moves, and if something in her had stretched or flexed in delight, well, she lets it pass without apology.
At his question, she shakes her head. "No." She pauses, searching, then settles on the word with a small nod. "I feel...full." Not in the way a belly feels bloated, but the way her hold does when it’s stacked right, balanced, weighted, complete.
The Captain’s cabin, with or without her presence, has always been thought of as the brains of the ship if not necessarily her heart, where plans are made and worries set down, and though she is everywhere at once she feels here in a way that surprises her. When he mentions the Spillwave, she nods without hesitation. "I’d rather water over anything else," she says. "The air underneath me still feels wrong, and the trees—" Her mouth twists as the image of treetops brushing her underside flashes through her mind, and she shudders, the sensation sharp and unpleasant, like a touch in a place too sensitive to bear it.
As Jack moves about the cabin, familiar motions unfolding, her attention drifts downward. She looks at herself then—at pearls and canvas and rope gathered into something that passes for clothing—and lifts her hands with quiet determination. Awkward fingers begin to test knots and ties, mimicking what she’s watched him do a hundred times before; kick off his boots and let his clothes puddle on the ground before falling into bed.
Her touch is like a tempest, her whisper is a breeze, but when she has a temper, she'll bring you to your knees
Code stolen from Queen Sky
Siren's Wake | After she leaves a space, traces of her presence linger briefly: a faint scent of salt, the sound of distant water, a restless feeling in the chest. People rarely notice it consciously.
The question is surprising not because of its contents, Jack will realise later, but because of the gentle honesty in her tone, the sort of vulnerability that the world will grind its heel into given half a chance. It makes the Captain's fingers flex a little tighter around her waist, a combination of affection and something murderiously overprotective crackling through him like an electric current. "I ain't great at it myself," he tells her quietly. "But I'll do the best I can."
Nodding almost stiffly, then, to hear that she isn't hungry at least, once they pass properly into the cabin, Jack twists the key in the lock like it's the last step in a ritual that will finally allow him to relax. Not that a door will do much against enough violent intent, but the barrier has proved multiple times to be enough to give him a chance to get prepared.
"The trees threw me off as well," he admits readily, frowning through his cabin window out into the black. "Dunno if you remember the first time we landed in the Observatory skyport, but I ain't been that nervous since we took on our first storm that one Flowerbirth." Back when monsoons had been a real fucking problem for Torchline, back when Jack had learned to sail far out from the islands during that season to find calmer waters.
As he straightens and turns it's to see her awkwardly tugging at her excuse for clothing, and the Captain is caught - a rarity, yes - entirely on the back foot. "Are you..." He shakes it off as his magic fills in the blanks; habit rather than desire, he realises, and he finds himself smirking. "Maybe we can get you a few more things to wear tomorrow, too," he suggests, crossing the room so his clever fingers can take over to loosen the knots holding the canvas and net in place. "Bodies get too hot but they also get too cold." Not in this season certainly, but soon enough.
fight so dirty but you love so sweet talk so pretty but your heart got teeth
The Ark looks up at Jack as he answers, and whatever weight he’s carrying in his voice passes over her like weather she hasn’t learned to name yet. She feels the way his fingers tighten at her waist, though, the same instinct she’s known when his hands brace at her rails and the horizon looks wrong, and she answers it simply, without digging or doubt. "That’s all you’ve ever done," she says, mouth curving as she meets his eyes. His best. It’s not consolation or reassurance, it’s fact, settled as ballast, and more than good enough for her.
Her fingers worry at a knot and then still as a memory catches. A soft, displeased sound slips out of her—half breath, half moan—as the image rises unbidden. "The air doesn’t move right," she says, frustration threading through it. "It has currents, but they don’t hold you." Her brow furrows faintly. "Nothing in the sea can just...gust without warning the way trees can. Never from below like that." The thought skims her mind like wind over dark water, restless and uneasy, and it only eases when Jack steps closer and takes over, his touch sure, practiced.
She sighs then, the tension loosening, and goes still for him. To her, the untying is familiar, no different than his hands at her rigging, easing lines free, knowing which knots can be trusted and which need coaxing. Canvas loosens, netting falls away, pearls scatter on the floor. Her breasts are bared to the warm cabin air, the last of the cloth slipping from her hips to reveal the red curl of hair there, unapologetic and natural. Her body tells its story openly: the scars she’s shown him already, and dozens more besides; pale seams and darker patches where repairs were once made, where she’d been mended and strengthened and sent back out again.
When he’s finished, she stands naked before him without self-consciousness, hair spilling down her back and over her shoulders like loose sailcloth. She looks down at herself, then back up at him, curious rather than shy. "I wonder if it’ll feel the same," she says thoughtfully, brushing a hand over her ribs, fingertips tracing the rise and fall there. "The cold." She presses lightly, as if listening inward. "Like when my boards groan in the cold, or the way everything went stiff when we were up above the Euribya."
Her touch is like a tempest, her whisper is a breeze, but when she has a temper, she'll bring you to your knees
Code stolen from Queen Sky
Siren's Wake | After she leaves a space, traces of her presence linger briefly: a faint scent of salt, the sound of distant water, a restless feeling in the chest. People rarely notice it consciously.
To be enough and to have it so easily accepted will one day, he suspects, start to stitch together the wound left over from Flora's departure; a wound that feels close to healing some days and torn wide open again on others. Jack bites the inside of his cheek not to say anything out loud, because if there is anything that stirs within him for it, it's regret not to have realised that all of this this - that she - had slumbered within his ship all along, waiting only for the touch of his hands and the cunning of his mind.
"That may be the case," he says of the air and the trees and the wayward currents that weave between them, "but you command 'em all the same. Still, I ain't ever gonna choose the sky over the sea given the chance." The freedom gained from being able to take his ship wherever he pleased in Caido can't be discounted, no, but preference is another thing entirely, and Jack has always been a man of the water.
The canvas pools against the boards, then, and pearls go skittering into corners and beneath his bunk and his desk, and whilst the Captain might be unique in that his own pleasure finds itself best when echoed in someone else, he's still got eyes in his fucking head. The Ark is wild and breathtaking in a way that would bring men and women to their knees, Jack forcing his eyes not to linger enough for his body to risk betraying him.
"Worse, probably," he hazards, his fingers skimming across her bare shoulder to brush a curl of red behind one of her ears. A whisper of magic has his fingertips frosting over to demonstrate, Jack smirking and making himself step back and away from her. "For everything you might gain with a body, you're also real fragile." So saying, Jack steps over to a trunk and flips it open, reaching in to drag out one of his shirts; soft, sunbleached linen, oversized for her but comfortable, and offers it out.
fight so dirty but you love so sweet talk so pretty but your heart got teeth
Her brows lift at that, a sharp, incredulous little arc as if he’s just suggested the sea might bruise easily. When his fingers brush her shoulder and the cold blooms there, frost whispering across her skin, she inhales sharply and shivers, not from chill so much as information. Her hand follows the sensation instinctively, fingertips gliding over the rise of goosebumps stippling her arm, her skin answering itself like wood creaking in a sudden temperature drop.
She looks up at Jack then, blue eyes bright with curiosity, and then she skewers him with a playfully withering look. "I am not," she says of being fragile, the words snapping with amused offence, like a sail cracking in a stiff breeze.
The shirt earns a puzzled glance, but she takes it anyway, turning it over in her hands as if expecting it to explain itself. She'd just taken her clothes off, after all. What was the point of putting more on? After a moment, she tugs it over her head—backward—linen sliding down her hair and catching awkwardly at her shoulders. She turns once, then twice, arms flailing slightly as she searches for openings that aren’t where she expects them to be, if only because her expectations about getting dressed are wildly incorrect.
Her touch is like a tempest, her whisper is a breeze, but when she has a temper, she'll bring you to your knees
Code stolen from Queen Sky
Siren's Wake | After she leaves a space, traces of her presence linger briefly: a faint scent of salt, the sound of distant water, a restless feeling in the chest. People rarely notice it consciously.
"No?" Jack scoffs at that, his own expression as amused as hers is playfully withering. "I look forward to you provin' me wrong." Which, based on how she takes his shirt and utterly fails to pull it over her head, is not a good start. The Captain can't stop himself from doing nothing but watching for a few moments - he's still a bastard, after all - before smirking and stepping forward to assist at last.
"The point," he replies to her thoughts as he draws the garment back over her head and turns it the right way, "is that even though you ain't naive to the world an' the people in it, you're still new to all this. And it'd be a lot easier for me to sleep if I didn't wanna put my hands all over you every second."
It won't be, even with her clothed, but it's a start, and once she's found her arms into the sleeves the Captain is satisfied, stepping back to lean against the side of his desk in a half-sit. "I ain't a good man, but I'm a patient one. And you're the most important thing in my life, so I ain't gonna risk fuckin' anythin' up for you."
fight so dirty but you love so sweet talk so pretty but your heart got teeth
The Ark stills as he reaches for the fabric, the way she always has when he knows better than to fight the line himself. She lets him draw the shirt back over her head, lets him turn it true, and as the linen snags on her thick hair, the maroon waves caught and mussed, a soft disapleased sound escapes her as she tosses her head sharply, like sails hauled in when there's wind still worth catching, before lifting her hands to free and fluff it back into place. "You’ve always had your hands all over me," she points out, chin lifting with faint defiance, as if daring him to argue with decades of proof.
But then he moves away, and it isn’t the words that hold her attention so much as the way he does it; the softened stride, the care with which he sets himself against the desk instead of dropping there. No irritation. No edge. Measured. Considered, and that matters to her. It lands deeper than the promise itself, even as that registers too. She remembers storms he took her into that she shouldn’t have weathered, gambits that scraped her raw, but never once did he set her on a course she couldn’t survive. That he thinks this might be different makes something in her resist instinctively, her mind pressing against the notion like a wheel refusing a new bearing, and then, just as instinctively, she respects it.
Not easily, though. She steps closer and stops in front of him, the shirt—his shirt—the only thing between her skin and the room, blue eyes lifting to meet his. "You’ve always been a man willing to take some risks," she says, unable to leave it untouched, the challenge there but softened by a crooked hint of a smile.
Then she turns away from him and crosses to the bed. She’s felt this enough times to know the shape of it, the way bodies fold themselves down at the end of the night, and she lowers herself with a loose, unpracticed sprawl. Pillows mean nothing to her so she lands wrong, head where feet should be, the mattress giving beneath her weight in a way that makes her blink. She peers back up at him from the wrong end of the bed, hair spilling, shirt riding up her thighs, eyes bright and catlike with curiosity.
Her touch is like a tempest, her whisper is a breeze, but when she has a temper, she'll bring you to your knees
Code stolen from Queen Sky
Siren's Wake | After she leaves a space, traces of her presence linger briefly: a faint scent of salt, the sound of distant water, a restless feeling in the chest. People rarely notice it consciously.
"I have," Jack agrees easily, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips that turns ever so slightly apologetic for the crime against her fiery hair, "but you ain't ever looked quite like this, love." She's never been able to feel quite like this either, and though he doesn't doubt that if they were to get up to the sort of thing he'd do at the House of Midnight that she'd enjoy it, there's something to be said for not rushing things. Not with this, not with her.
And yet despite all that, his knees spread a bit as she slinks forward to stand before him, all wild blue eyes and voluptuous curves hugging the linen of his shirt, smelling like the night breeze and the sea and his cologne. Jack's eyes narrow a fraction, taking the challenge in her words and considering it for a moment, before hissing out a laugh and letting it go with quiet reluctance. "I took plenty of risks to get you here like this," he reminds her; racing to breaking point up at the Cordillera, baiting a banshee into a fight, murdering a soldier in cold blood.
"Give a guy a break for a night." Smirking, Jack straightens up again as she leaves for his bunk, kicking off his boots and tugging his shirt over his head. Despite heat and habit, though, he wisely opts to keep his pants on, especially when he glances over to see her at the tail end of the bed like every temptation known to man. "I feel like you're doin' this on purpose now," he says, pinching the bridge of his nose and moving to sink down onto the side of the bunk, scoffing under his breath. "Your head goes where the pillows are - your neck will thank you in the mornin'."
fight so dirty but you love so sweet talk so pretty but your heart got teeth
She tilts her head at that, slow and curious, the question rising in her eyes before it ever reaches her mouth. "Did you choose for me to look like this?" The Ark asks, genuinely interested, not accusing. He’d shaped her lines once with hammer and hand and vision, with his own blood and tears; it would make sense if this body, too, bore his mark and intentions.
When he mentions the risks, the words slide past her without weight, because all of it happened away from her deck, beyond the reach of her knowing. What catches instead is the way he says it. The restraint in it, the way his body remembers even if he doesn’t dwell. Her eyes darken, intent, fixed on him rather than the fall of his shirt or the bare stretch of skin beneath. "Tell me," she purrs softly, wanting the story from his mouth more than any strip of fabric leaving his body.
And then he’s there on the edge of the bunk, accusing her lightly, and something bright and feral sparks to life in her grin. Every inch of her seems to answer it, as if Jack hadn't just placed the soul of the ship into this body, but that of the sea as well; a creature with the confidence of something built not for safety, but for daring. Jack hadn’t assembled her plank by plank with caution in mind; he’d made her fast, sharp, beautiful, meant to cut through trouble and invite it in equal measure. This body carries that truth as easily as the wood all around them. She lifts her shoulders in a small, unapologetic shrug, eyes gleaming. "I’m exactly how you made me," she counters, feline and pleased.
Her touch is like a tempest, her whisper is a breeze, but when she has a temper, she'll bring you to your knees
Code stolen from Queen Sky
Siren's Wake | After she leaves a space, traces of her presence linger briefly: a faint scent of salt, the sound of distant water, a restless feeling in the chest. People rarely notice it consciously.
It's a good question, honestly, Jack frowning as he considers, leaning back on one hand on the bunk. "Maybe?" he says slowly. "Safrin first planted the idea in my head, an' I thought I saw you then. Ain't sure if that's how you always looked beyond boards an' sails, or if it's somethin' I did. Maybe a bit of both." He smirks over his shoulder at her. "Take it from me an' every other person aboard, though - you look exactly right." And he's sure she knows it, too.
But tell me, she says, and the Captain angles himself a little towards her on the bunk, itching at the scruff on his jaw. "Well, you were there for the trip up to the Cordillera for the fire. Chased by dragons, nearly rippin' at nail and canvas to move quick enough to get away. An' you were there for after, too." When he'd gotten back to his cabin with the torch in hand, mind more bruised than his body, and it had taken a lot of hard liquor for days after that to bring any real sleep.
"We flew over to Halo after that. I had to take a life to give you yours, so I found some seedy bar in the Citadel. Gambled, cheated, started a fight. Some soldier got in the way, so I put some ice between her ribs." He says it the way he'd say anything else - quiet, frank, exacting. "Memory mud was easy, but then it was either killin' a banshee or a mirage crab. Banshee seemed the quicker option." And it had been, but he hadn't accounted for being choked with something cold and necrotic; Jack's hand strays to his throat instinctively at the memory.
"An' now here you are, love. Exactly as I made you," he echoes with a crooked grin.
fight so dirty but you love so sweet talk so pretty but your heart got teeth
The Ark considers it quietly, the way she’s always considered things that mattered; by feel. The idea settles into her like ballast finding its place, because of course her shape is his. It always has been, long before gods and coins and fire. He’d laid her lines with his hands from the start, built beauty into her bones even when the world around him was ugly. The long sweep of her curves, the handfuls of breast that would match the shape of his palm, the easy balance of her height, all of it made to answer him. Just like her wheel worn smooth where his hands always pressed, the boards dipped where he paced, the scars where he’d asked too much and she’d given it anyway. The maroon of his sails lives in her hair now, thick and unruly as canvas in a good wind. Her skin carries the pale gold of her deck before varnish, warm and honest and marked by use. She smiles at him then—a smile with teeth, but softened by something that’s always been there between them—and says, simply, "Your opinion’s the only one I’ve ever cared about."
At the mention of the Cordillera, her gaze drifts, memory stirring. She remembers the thinness of that air, how it felt to cut through it—sharp and clean and exhilarating—the way dragons tore across the sky like living storms and how she’d thrilled at the chase. She remembers him coming back afterward, too. The heat clinging to him, banked low and controlled, the way it bled through her timbers despite his effort to keep it contained, and how he'd been sullen, quiet, heavy.
Halo draws nothing like concern from her. When he speaks of the soldier, her shoulders lift in an easy, unbothered shrug, her smile unchanged. "Wouldn’t be the first blood you spilled for me," she says softly, matching his tone as if they’re speaking of weather or distance sailed. Very likely, it wouldn't be the last, either.
But as he mentions a banshee, her brow furrows. She’s heard the word passed between crew in low voices, knows enough to know it wouldn’t have been simple, and the way his hand drifts to his throat tells her more than any story could. She reaches out then, fingers sliding around his wrist, guiding his hand away from that old memory. She brings his knuckles to her mouth and brushes them with her lips, wine-dark and warm, letting the touch linger just long enough to give something back, wanting for him to feel that same smooth, radiant warmth he'd woke in her when he'd touch her this way earlier. The Ark's voice drops to a whisper when she speaks again, sincere and unadorned. "Thank you, Jack."
Her touch is like a tempest, her whisper is a breeze, but when she has a temper, she'll bring you to your knees
Code stolen from Queen Sky
Siren's Wake | After she leaves a space, traces of her presence linger briefly: a faint scent of salt, the sound of distant water, a restless feeling in the chest. People rarely notice it consciously.
