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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!
He shifted, landing in the snow in the shadow of a large tree, and pulled the paper from his pocket. His fingers traced the edges of the parchment, smudged where he’d been turning it over and over before he left, the list of items meant to please Safrin that his father had shared with him. He squinted at the words under the flickering moonlight.
The Frostfields were shadowed and silver under the moonlight, and he imagined the mushrooms lining the ice like stars made tangible. It didn’t feel impossible, and that alone made his chest lift a little. That would be his goal tonight, finding the small lanterns of the ice carrying a fragment of the sky to Safrin.
Glancing up at the sky, Marcus folded the list once more, and tucked it back in his pocket, waiting for his partner at their designated spot.
The nice thing about having a fire elemental as a companion, Nina had found, was that she very rarely needed to bring a torch. The downside, she supposed, was that she had a torch that she could never turn off.
Where others could probably see a beautiful, silver wonderland beneath the midnight moon, Nina’s eyes never quite adjusted to the dark. Instead, she navigated from memory and mental maps and the light from Ember’s flames, stretching only so far into the inky darkness surrounding her as she crossed the Frostfields. She could have left the elemental home, she supposed, but Ember was her other half. The little elemental often made conversing with strangers easier; Nina was not what one might call a people person, but Ember? It was all about people.
So when they approached the designated meeting spot, Ember crackled happily and rushed up to the stranger beneath the tree. ”Ember,” Nina growled into the darkness. ”Flames.” Sure enough, the fire sprite’s flickering light had grown brighter and hotter in its excitement, and it made a visible effort to rein in its fire before it grew into something that might cause irreparable damage to the tree.
”I am sorry about the fireball,” she said as she arrived. ”It is a little… excitable.”
Despite the unseasonably warm Longheat they were having, it was still biting cold on the Frostfields at night. The Olson looked up to the sky, watching the stars dance across the great expanse of the blue black. Clouds barely touched the sky these days, and when they did they were but mere whispered puffs of strung cotton candy. With little cloud cover, the moon sat bright and huge on its throne, casting its silver brilliance over the snow and making it glitter.
With the light the way it was, it was easy to see the shadows instantly cast by his frame from the light coming behind him. Startled, Marcus turned sharply to see a flame coming straight for his face. He stepped back, heel catching on a root and sending him back-flat against the tree. The air escaped his lungs with an oompf and his hand immediately went for the blade at his hip -- but he stopped short, when a voice called out to him.
With wide cerulean eyes he looked behind the flame, now dancing bright before him rather than trying to attack him, and he cleared his throat. Pushing himself off the tree trunk, Marcus smoothed down his coat and shook his head just enough to make his hair trickle out from beneath his hood. "Oh, no, it's fine." Marcus said, trying to pull all of the friendliness to his smile that he could.
The young man she was meant to be meeting was only a few inches taller than Nina, an hood covering his hair and eyes that she couldn’t quite make out the color of in the firelight. What she did see was the way he leapt away from the fire elemental, hand going to the blade at his hip. Nina, used to her companion’s antics, was unbothered, offering only a withering glance at the fire sprite, who was quit unrepentant in turn.
At least the stranger seemed friendly enough, despite the rude introduction. ”I am Nina,” she said, holding out a hand politely. ”That is Ember. We are here to look for celestial materials for Safrin.” She paused then, looking around. In truth, she knew little of Safrin and what the goddess might like, so she was quite hopeful that her partner in this task would have some ideas. ”Are we looking for anything in particular?”
Marcus blinked at her hand for a moment, then reached forward, trying to muster some semblance of confidence. "Marcus Olson," he said, voice a little too quick, and he immediately wished he could take it back. He cleared his throat, hoping it would sound less awkward than it felt. He didn't know Nina, but knew who she was and what she did. It felt awkward meeting someone like that for the first time.
He shifted his weight, brushing a layer of snow off his coat, and tried to focus on the task at hand rather than the small heat of embarrassment creeping up his neck. "Nice to meet you, Nina," he added a small smile. "thanks for coming to help. I am hoping it won't take too long." He gestured vaguely toward the sprawling, glittering tundra beyond the tree they stood beneath.
"My dad wrote me a list of things Safrin might like, or things that could represent her, and he said moonshrooms." he said, watching for any reaction. "Since at night, they glow." Marcus took a careful step away from the tree. "If you’re up for it, we can head out now. I’ve got a few spots in mind where they might be peeking out of the ice."
If it felt awkward for Marcus, it was no less so for Nina, who was never more aware of her status than she was in moments like this. She was supposed to be a dignified, regal presence in Halo - not the kind of person who chased after an errant fireball in the middle of the night. At this rate, she would never live up to her grandmother’s legacy, and she felt the loss so keenly at that moment that she suddenly wasn’t quite sure what to do or say.
Fortunately, Marcus filled the silence for her, and she listened with no small amount of relief as he directed their efforts. ”I see,” she said when he had finished. ”I do not know Safrin well. Your father is Noah, yes?” The man who had once been Vi’s demigod, if she recalled correctly, and therefore someone who would know better than she what might appeal to Vi’s herald. ”I will gladly defer to his suggestions - and your directions. I do not venture out of the Citadel as often as I should.” In other words, she wasn’t quite sure where to look.
Marcus nodded, a reflexive dip of his chin at the mention of his father’s name. “Yeah,” he confirmed. “Noah’s my dad.” He wasn't surprised that Nina would know him. Marcus knew that she was the current fire keeper, so he was confident that she grew up watching his father come to the flame before hunts. Confident that it was one of the places he visited when he returned to Halo from his exile. Confident he sought wisdom from her grandmother when he was Warden.
“I don’t know Safrin as well as he does,” Marcus added, honest to a fault. He followeed Frey, but he knew his father was well acquainted with Safrin as Vi's herald. "but he’s always said she notices intention more than grandeur." But he would add that she liked nice things, beautiful things too, but only if there was truly heart behind them. Noah thought the moonshrooms were like that -- beautiful, stars scattered over the tundra, and the intention would be there.
He stepped out from beneath the tree at last, boots crunching softly into the snow. With the moon so bright, the tundra stretched wide and silvered, shadows long and clean against the ice. He made sure to keep pace with Nina, shifting eyes from tundra to her, to companion, back to tundra. He wasn’t a guide by trade, but Halo was in his bones. “If we’re lucky,” he went on, a touch of warmth creeping into his voice, “we’ll see them soon."
What Nina knew of Safrin was limited to what she'd heard secondhand, although she supposed that, were she to appeal to one of the gods, Safrin might be among her top choices as the God of Life's herald. After all, what was fire if not the source of all life? What information Marcus offered was filed away for future reference. Intention over grandeur - it seemed the goddess was not so very different from Nina herself.
She followed along as Marcus led the way, boots crunching in the snow and ice. The moonlight streamed down, lighting the tundra; Ember strayed from the humans, far enough that its flames did not mar the brilliance of the moonlit tundra, but not so far that it could not be easily called back to Nina's side. For once, the little fire sprite seemed content to follow along so long as it could explore along the way, and Nina began to relax once it became clear that Ember wasn't going to run off.
"Wonderful," she said. "How are we to harvest these moonshrooms? Is digging them up required, or will cutting them be sufficient?"
"I think cutting will be fine." he said, glancing back to Nina. "When I've harvested other mushrooms in the Greenwing, I've found the best way is to cut them clean at the stem." He adjusted course slightly, angling toward a low shelf of wind-carved drifts where the tundra broke into ripples and frozen folds. The ground here was more fractured. Perfect places for stubborn life to hide.
Marcus lifted a hand, signaling a quiet pause as he scanned ahead. At first there was only moonlight. Silver on white, glare and shadow playing tricks with depth, little evidence of what they were searching for. It was in times like these that he wished he had the ability to partially shift, knwoing his eagle eyes would help him.
Then something different caught his eye. Nestled in a long, thin fissure no wider than his hand, a cluster of tiny lights glowed up from the ice. Blue-white and gentle, like breath against glass. From a distance they looked exactly like he’d imagined. His grin came quick. "Moonshrooms."
He closed the distance. Up close they were delicate. Marcus reached into his pack for a small knife and a wrap of cloth, then looked up at Nina, eyes bright in the reflected glow. "Good sign," Marcus almost chirped, "where there’s one cluster, there’re usually more nearby." At least that was true of other mushrooms in the Greenwing.
Nina followed along in relative silence, content to allow Marcus to take the lead. While proud, she knew better than to allow her ego to take precedence while out on the tundra. That mentality had gotten many people killed, and she was not about to be one of them. So when Marcus lifted a hand, signaling a halt, Nina paused immediately, reaching for her magic instinctively, just in case it was danger and not moonshrooms that drew the young man's attention.
Fortunately, her caution proved unnecessary. Marcus seemed to find whatever he was looking for, and they closed the distance to a spot that glowed faintly from between cracked ice. The moonshrooms, when she saw them, were delicate and pretty. Hopefully Safrin would like them. "I will look this way," she said before wandering towards the west, peering at the ground as she walked. It was only a few steps later that she saw the telltale glow and knelt, drawing a knife from her boot and beginning to cut the stems.
Marcus worked with careful hands, blade sliding clean through each slender stem, laying the glowing caps gently into the cloth so they didn't bruise. Up close, their light painted his fingers in pale blue, tracing the lines of old calluses and faint scars. He left the base intact, just like he’d said, nodding and agreeing with Nina as she headed to find another cluster.
He finished his small cluster and straightened, rolling his shoulders against the cold, then stepped carefully across the fractured crust toward where Nina had gone. He was aware of Ember’s distant flicker and the soft hush of wind over ice, but mostly he listened for trouble: shifting snow, cracking crust, anything out of place. Halo at night didn’t forgive distraction.
"How many did you get?" Marcus asked once back at her side, not wanting to carry his voice too far across the open tundra. His boots crunched as he closed the last few steps, breath fogging between them. He crouched near her find but didn’t interfere, just counted by eye and compared it to his bundle.
He glanced back to Nina. "Do you think it’s enough to call it a success and head back to the safety of the Citadel?" His tone was steady, practical—not fearful, just honest about the risk. His father had taught him well.
Nina worked as quickly and efficiently as she was able, cutting each mushroom cleanly close to its base. She gathered the mushrooms in the basket that she'd brought along with her, admiring their subtle blue glow. It wasn't quite enough to outshine Ember's flames, but it was pretty all the same. There was something to be said for appreciating more than just fire. Perhaps she should find ways to do so more often.
Marcus appeared alongside her, appraising her harvest. Nina held out her basket, allowing the young man to count for himself. Together, their clusters glowed like a small, blue-tinged lantern. But whether or not it was enough... well, that was something else entirely. "I believe there is another cluster nearby, if more would be helpful."
When she held out his basket to him to inspect her harvest further, he placed his own group of mushrooms within. ”Let’s grab those last ones together.” Marcus said, tone easy but decisive. ”Then we head home.” He glanced once more across the open expanse, unable to remove the protective habit drilled into him by his father, then looked back to Nina and nodded.
Marcus moved with Nina toward the final fissure, letting her lead the way to where she said they were. The moonshrooms glowed brighter up close, blue-white lanterns tucked into the ice seam. ”I’ll cut the stems if you want to put them in the basket. Tell me once we have enough.” He knelt again, steadying one gloved hand on the frozen ridge while the other guided his knife. Each stem parted with a soft, fibrous give, and he moved down the line until he got Nina’s word.
They moved towards the final crack in the ice, kneeling in the snow simultaneously. Ember bounced around nearby, perhaps having found some nocturnal creature or other to terrorize play with, and Nina quickly shushed the companion. "Ember, come." All they needed was for the little fire sprite to draw the attention of some predatory beast. "And, by the Flame, be still."
Marcus began to gather the remaining moonshrooms, cutting them quickly and precisely before handing them to Nina, who tucked them away in the basket. When she thought they had enough, she cleared her throat. "I believe this will be sufficient." Once she had Marcus's agreement, they could leave and return to the Citadel, their task complete.
