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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 storm pressed softly at the edges of Deimos’s magic while the bay churned on, indifferent and cold. His gaze drifted across the black sand and scattered ice, taking in the harsh familiarity of it al, taking it in for the kind of danger Halo offered so plainly. It was brutal, yes, but it was honest. You knew when you were at risk. You knew when to stay inside, when to brace, when to fight. "I’m glad Halo’s the way it is." he said after a moment, voice quieter but steadier now. "It’s hard, but it’s straightforward. You don’t have to guess if something’s trying to kill you. You know when you’re in danger, and when you’re not." He shifted slightly, folding his arms loosely against the chill that still lingered despite the shield overhead.
For a moment, he hesitated, jaw tightening faintly as if debating whether to continue. Then he exhaled. "The worst things I’ve seen—or, well, dreamed about—aren’t like that," Marcus admitted, gaze lowering to the black sands, "it’s always the same. White dragons." Despite the shield that kept the rain off of them, a rip of screaming thunder rattled the young hybrid's chest. "That’s what killed my mom." he added, almost as if Deimos didn't know. And, even though those dragon's teeth were in a jar on his father's bedside, there was still a terror in Marcus's bones. "But...I've heard some pretty scary stories too of when there were cannibals in Whitebrim."
When Marcus asked no more, Deimos figured he’d uttered enough. Further descriptions would only lend themselves to a secondary trauma or some blunt-edged nightmares, and there were already a plethora of those to go around. But the younger hybrid was correct; Halo had never been a furtive beast. It showed its abilities, and they stayed anyway, taming portions they could control, and intermingling where they could not. The world taught them just how far they could push until it snapped back. “That is fair.”
His dreams of white dragons though caused an inward grimace. Of his mother, of so many others who’d met the same and similar fate. Deimos had his own stories there too, of facing one down and managing to escape, but not without four left behind, gone and done in a matter of seconds. Or the cannibals, of which the Sword had helped eradicate and investigate some, but the rest had been done in amidst invasions, and what little remained had probably died off in the interim. “Halo does have a way of conveying its threats,” he mentioned, taking in a long breath, remembering Cordelia for who and what she’d been, and not as a victim of the beasts. Straying cautiously, he tilted his head instead, a mirror of the peryton above. “What did you hear of Whitebrim?”
Now, Marcus had never been to or even seen Whitebrim. It had been destroyed long before his conception and birth, reduced to nothing more than stories and warnings passed between those who still remembered. For that, the young Halovian was quietly, deeply thankful. Some places, he thought, were better left as echoes. Taking in a slow breath, he steadied himself by looking up through the faint shimmer of Deimos’s magic toward the peryton still carving restless arcs through the sky, as if the creature alone refused to be weighed down by any of it.
"Some hunters swear, when the wind howls just right through the tundra, you can still hear voices out there. Not monsters. Not spirits." The men he’d heard it from hadn’t been the type to spin tales for amusement. Weathered, quiet, the sort who measured their words carefully and didn’t waste breath on things they didn’t believe. Once Noah had trusted to keep Marcus safe on the tundra while teaching him what they knew. Marcus had been younger then, sitting close to the fire as it snapped and hissed against the cold, the Hollow Forest looming dark and watchful beyond the reach of the light. He could still remember the way one of them had gone quiet after saying it, staring out into the trees like he expected something to answer back.
"Just people… still hungry." Marcus exhaled softly, gaze drifting back toward the horizon. "They didn’t laugh after they said it," he added, "didn’t try to scare me more. Just…left it there."
His brow arched at the tale; eyes flickering in the direction of the Tundra again. Deimos often saw ghosts, in his head, in his memories, in the wake of past lives gone and merged. But he hadn’t heard the whispers across the midnight howls; only tasted freedom, liberation, amongst their roaring manifests. Maybe he wasn’t listening for them either. “There will always be hungry people,” he started, a grin at first, though made to quirk in mischief, rather than horror. “For what, remains ever a possibility.” Power and glory, pillaging and plundering, for peace and prosperity, or nothing more than food – the preferences wide and uncertain.
Glancing back at Marcus, the brow still lifted in either jest or fellow conspiracy, purposefully, intentionally enigmatic. “Have you heard any?”
Marcus huffed a quiet breath at the question, the faintest hint of a smile touching his mouth before it faded again. His gaze shifted back toward the open stretch of tundra beyond the bay, as if half-expecting the wind to carry something with it now that the idea had been spoken aloud. For a moment, he simply listened—to the distant crash of the ocean, to the muted hiss of rain against the invisible barrier, to the low murmur of wind threading through ice and stone, to the faint screams of the storm above the ocean now.
”No.” he admitted, tone even but softer than before. ”Just the stories.”
But saying it didn’t quite settle the feeling that had crept in under his ribs. The kind that didn’t come from anything you could see, but from the suggestion of something just out of reach. From the stories and the ghosts that lingered within them. Marcus shifted his stance, rolling his shoulders slightly as if to shake it off, though his eyes drifted instinctively toward where the Citadel lay far in the distance. ”I think that’s enough for me,” he added, a little wry now, though there was an honesty beneath it. He glanced back at Deimos, expression steadier again. ”Probably time I head back.”
With enough ghost stories to fuel more than a few nightmares.
