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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!
Having yet to let go of her mom's hand, Knell picks her way over a particularly tall root, the soft skin of her palm splitting as she clambers awkwardly over it. Only a small flicker of a grimace reveals the injury, quickly dismissed by the girl as she gawks at the forest around them. The last few days have been a constant blaze of information as her mind adjusts and flexes to the increased awareness of the world around her. Every experience is an opportunity, an adventure, a puzzle to reverse engineer, a chance to absorb as much knowledge as she can digest.
The glowing blue of her eyes skim across the new environment they traverse, cataloguing the number of trees, their angles and distribution, the fading color and texture of what leaves remain, the bushes and brambles bundled beneath. She thinks about where she suspects the sunlight usually hits, how the density of the foliage affects what lies under it, where the prey might hide, what the best path through is. All the while, she's aware of the sting of her palm, the hazy ache in her stomach, the way her limbs feel too big, the cold that tingles along her fingertips.
Knell buries her face into the orange scarf she wears, the coarseness of her red curls pressing against the bright flush of her cheeks to frame the vibrant curiosity that lands on Charlie. "Mama, how will we find the food?" Her white and red tail sways awkwardly behind her, steadying her as she stumbles over her own feet, her grasp on the priestess's hand tightening until she regains her balance on the next step, failing to distract her from the answers that she intends to discover today.
when I walk in a room, I can still make the whole place shimmer
Charlie lets Knell wander ahead with the sort of delighted indulgence that, in another mother, might have looked like negligence, but in Charlie wears brighter and warmer than that, all glittering eyes and a tail that curls lazily behind her as if ready to catch, trip, or applaud depending on what the moment calls for. There’s no gasp when Knell’s palm splits against the root, no panicked little flutter of hands or mother-hen clucking, because blood is blood and pain is information and Charlie has always found that the world explains itself so much better when it’s allowed to have teeth. Besides, her clever little miracle is already looking at everything as if the forest is a puzzle box with all its locks begging to be sweet-talked open, and gods if that doesn’t make something in Charlie’s chest go molten and syrupy.
When Knell returns to her side, small hand gripping back into hers with that too-new strength and too-young awkwardness, Charlie takes it without complaint, her fingers closing easily around her daughter’s while she picks through the brambles with practiced little steps that seem far too graceful for someone who looks like she should be tripping over her own theatrics at any given moment. "We’ve got to hunt for it, baby girl," she says brightly, squeezing Knell’s hand as her tail flicks once behind her, pleased as a ribbon in a breeze.
Lifting her free hand, Charlie presses one finger to her lips as if they’re about to commit a delicious crime, before her eyes skim over the brambles with theatrical seriousness. "To do that, we rely on our senses and look for clues. Right now, when you aren’t shifted, your biggest advantage is that you’re tall enough to see over things and clever enough to move them around, like this." She pauses beside a snag of thorny branches, her grin sharpening as she reaches out and carefully lifts one aside to reveal a pale little clump of rabbit hair caught where something had squeezed through too quickly. "See that? That means at least a few blink hares have come through here."
With a pleased hum, Charlie lets the branch ease back without snapping it into place, because teaching is all about drama but maiming your own audience is generally bad form unless everyone has agreed on it first. "Now, our noses aren’t very good like this, but our eyes aren't too bad." Her smile curves wider as she glances down at Knell, all mischief and pride, her thumb brushing once across the back of her daughter’s hand. "So what should we do?"
.
Hella golden retriever energy. Small unrefined horns made of ruby. Regular spade-shaped tail.
Hunt. It's a word that resonates with her, like a mystery with a delicious prize at the end. She smiles around her scarf, eyes brightening when her mom raises a slender finger to her lips, leaning closer so she can catch every syllable. When she nearly stumbling over another root, Knell divides her attention to the easy, elegant stride her mom uses. There's a confidence to each step, one that knows exactly where and how it will land whether the world knows it or not.
Tilting her head, she tries to copy the movement, but she misjudges the length of her leg. It hits the ground before she's ready for it, making the step less of the floating grace her mom uses and more of a jolting thud that rattles up her bones.
Before she can try again, they stop beside a complicated network of branches, drawing her full focus back to the lesson at hand, and the small clump of fur knotted around a thorn. Knell crouches, tail swaying behind her to keep her from toppling over as she takes in the first clue in their mystery. Theories and suspicions begin to form, wondering at its size, the direction it went, whether it was being chased.
She reaches out a hand to touch the soft tuft, marveling at the texture. If she had to guess at what clouds felt like, it would be this, somehow exuding a warmth while being thin enough to collapse under the press of her fingers. The yarn of her sweater and scarf feel scratchy in comparison, and she pulls it off the thorn to hold in her hand as the branch is lowered gently back into place.
Standing again, Knell meets her mom's expectant gaze. Although she hesitates at the question, the solution comes to her quickly, a twinkle forming in her eyes as she gives a full-body answer. "Look for more clues!" But despite the hints she's already been given, the young girl still not sure where to start and her brows furrow when she looks to the plants and trees, overwhelmed by the vast area they still have to search, the puzzle she hasn't found all the pieces to.
Knell rubs a hand against her ivory horn while scanning the foliage for more signs of the hares. When nothing appears out of place, she looks back to her mom for guidance. "I don't see any more fur and I don't hear anything... How do we tell which way they went?"
when I walk in a room, I can still make the whole place shimmer
Charlie’s smile flashes open at once, bright and sharp, all white teeth and fangs and utterly shameless delight as Knell lands on the answer with her whole body. "Exactly," she croons, giving Knell’s hand a squeeze that’s less congratulation than celebration, her tail curling in an approving little flourish behind her.
Her gaze follows Knell’s toward the crowded tangle of plants and trees, but Charlie doesn’t hurry to fill the silence, letting the uncertainty stretch just long enough for her daughter to feel the edges of it without being swallowed by it. There’s a difference, after all, between being lost and simply not having found the next clue yet, and if Charlie knows anything about worship, motherhood, or survival, it’s that most things worth learning arrive better when they’re discovered with one’s own teeth.
"Well," she says at last, lifting one shoulder in a little shrug as though the Outer Brambles have presented them with a menu and she is merely choosing between courses, "we’ve got a few options now, and since we aren’t starving, if we make the wrong choice it isn’t really a big deal." Her smile softens without losing any of its mischief, her thumb brushing once over Knell’s knuckles. "That’s important, by the way. Some choices are sharp and hungry, but this one’s more like trying on shoes; if it pinches, we take it off and try something else."
With her free hand, Charlie ticks the choices off on her fingers, each one given the proper little sparkle of a performance. "I could shift into something really big and try to flush the hares out from wherever they’re hiding and you could see which way they go and chase them down. Or we could keep walking along like this and see what else the brambles give us." Then her grin turns sly, her eyes glittering down at Knell. "Or we could both shift and use our noses."
.
Hella golden retriever energy. Small unrefined horns made of ruby. Regular spade-shaped tail.
Lifting her head from the overlarge scarf, she brandishes a bright smile, basking in the approval like the warmth of a candle illuminating the answer she's found to a complicated puzzle. A seed of inquisitive bravery is planted deep in her chest, cultivated and nurtured by the affirming and encouraging environment her mom creates with a simple smile and squeeze of her hand. It gives her curious nature room to grow and blossom like a field of flowers, rising to absorb the new information like sunlight from the sky.
The words process in her mind, unfamiliar but labeled as truth simply because of the woman who says them. Knell tilts her head up to look at her mom more fully, brows pinching as she tries to understand the complexity of it all. She's not sure she quite grasps the concepts, puzzling over how choices could have teeth or why she would try on shoes when hers fit perfectly well, but if her mom says it's important, she's determined to remember it. Nodding her head, she subconsciously tightens her hold on her mom's hand as if she can grasp the words tighter in her mind. "Sharp, hungry, shoes," she confirms, repeating them in her head so she won't forget.
Then the conversation moves to plans and action, and Knell perks up. Her eyes shimmer at the mention of a 'really big' shift, an excited grin spreading across her face as she pulls in a breath, the answer poised on the tip of her tongue before she even hears the other choices. After all, what could be more fun than watching her mom wreak havoc for her to chase after? Certainly not walking through the brambles aimlessly looking for more clues.
But with an intentional display of drama that she marvels at, the third option is laid out and Knell pauses, wonder pressing her eyes wide as she feels something stir beneath her skin. For a moment, she's breathless, unable to explain the sensation rushing through her veins. Awe colors her voice, the corners of her mouth barely tilting up as she realizes "I wanna shift." She doesn't know the shape of it or how she knows that it's a shift, but the thought resonates like when the outer edges of a puzzle have fallen into place, framing the final picture without giving it away, a step towards understanding, just enough of an idea to hook her in.
Charlie’s grin goes bright and proud enough to put the sun to shame, her tail giving an eager little lash behind her as Knell makes her choice. "Excellent choice," she purrs, the praise spilling warm and delighted from her lips as she gives an approving nod.
Still holding Knell’s hand, she gives it a final squeeze before gently letting go, stepping back just enough to give them both room. "Now, very important shifting lesson," she says, lifting one finger with exaggerated seriousness, though the sparkle in her eyes makes it nearly impossible for the lecture to look stern. "When we’re shifted, we won’t be able to communicate with words, so if you want to tell me something, you’ll either have to shift back, or be clever about it, alright?" Her brows bounce, mischief threading itself through the instruction like ribbon around a blade.
Then Charlie takes another step back, her smile sharpening with anticipation as fire seems to catch beneath her skin. The change rolls through her quickly, all heat and motion and wicked delight, until the woman is gone and a fyrhund stands in her place, canine and volcanic, her molten cracks glowing beneath dark, plated hide as warmth shimmers faintly around her. She gives Knell a wolfish grin, all playful teeth and bright encouragement, before dropping her nose dramatically to the ground. Snuffling once, twice, Charlie begins to cast about through the underbrush, making a grand, exaggerated display of catching the blink hares’ scent.
so hey, let's be friends I'm dying to see how this one ends
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Hella golden retriever energy. Small unrefined horns made of ruby. Regular spade-shaped tail.
The praise brings the smile fully into existence, excitement shining in her eyes as she pulls in a breath. Squeezing her mom's hand back, she releases it to ready herself as she listens to the pertinent lesson. Knell nods her head, biting at her lip to contain the bit of nerves that rise when she thinks of not being able to communicate. "Be clever." It's just another puzzle, another game for her to figure.
Shuffling her feet, she watches her mom shift. It's fluid and easy, a seamless transition from woman to fyrhund in a blistering pulse of heat and energy that elicits another bright smile from Knell. Will her shift be the same? Or maybe different? Will she look as impressive when she shifts? What will it feel like? A thousand more questions arise, curiosity twitching along the tip of her red tail, fingers wiggling as if trying to feel the shape of it.
Pulling her gaze from the fyrhund, she looks down at herself, similarly searching inward with her awareness. Eyes scan red hair, tiny fingers, flicking tail, and booted toes while her mind brushes against the edge of something wild and crackling with fire. It presses back, a pressure beneath her skin, a heat starting behind her ears, a fluttering in her chest. Knell sucks in a tiny breath before leaning into the space she's found, opening the flimsy gate that contains it.
Fire licks along her skin just as she gasps, a strange sensation of being compressed and molded into something else spreading over the awkwardness of her body. She tumbles forward into a heap on the ground as reddish fur sprouts, ears rising above her head as her nose lengthens to sit foreign in front of her eyes. Knell lifts a hand to poke at it, only to find a black paw to bat at it. Blinking, she inspects the appendage as well as all the others, sensing that the shift has finished and finding that she feels... great.
A small bark comes from her mouth as she jumps to her paws to spin in a tight circle, catching sight of the fluffy fur that now covers her body. It crackles and flickers like fire, the strong smell of smoke entering her nose as she suddenly realizes her heightened senses. She turns to look at the surrounding forest, blue eyes widening to take in the sharp contrast of the colors and shapes, her mom only a few steps away.
Knell gives a lupine smile as she hops forward, boundless energy coursing through her, so much different than the clumsiness of her growing form. She nuzzles momentarily against her mom's larger leg, beaming up at her before jumping ahead to put her new nose to use, flitting from one smell to another with childish wonder.
Charlie waits as her daughter shifts, her fyrhund body still but not stiff, heat shimmering faintly from the dark red-black of her fur while her ears tip forward and her bright blue eyes stay fixed on Knell. There’s no rush in her, no nudge of correction, no worried yip to hurry the shape along, because this is Knell’s gate to open and Charlie would rather chew off her own tail than rob her daughter of the first glorious, ridiculous tumble through it.
When Knell lands in a heap and comes up all crackling fur, bright eyes, and astonished little paws, Charlie’s mouth parts into a toothy, wolfish grin that shows every fang she has to offer, pride rolling through her so hot and honey-thick that it almost feels like another kind of fire beneath her skin. Her tail gives one pleased wag, then another, sweeping loose leaves and bramble-debris behind her in a lazy arc as she lowers her head when Knell bounds close, accepting the nuzzle against her larger leg with the extravagant dignity of a queen receiving tribute from the cutest possible disaster. Bending down, she gives the kitsune an experimental sniff from ear to shoulder, nose twitching at the new-hot scent of smoke, child, demigoddess, and something wonderfully, wickedly wild threaded through it all.
A low woof rumbles under Charlie’s breath, warm and approving, and though the sound doesn’t have words in it, it has plenty of meaning as she turns her head to watch Knell bounce ahead with all that new animal grace rushing through her limbs like she’s finally found a body that knows how to keep up with her mind. Charlie lets her go a few paces, because what is the point of having paws and a nose and a whole world full of secrets if someone keeps you pressed neatly to their side like a decoration?
Then the fyrhund drops her muzzle to the ground, ears angling as she sorts through the storm of scent that had been invisible a moment before: damp bark, old leaves, cold earth, the sharp green bite of snapped stems, Knell’s smoky little trail blazing everywhere at once, and beneath it all, thin but present, the warm, nervous trace of blink hares where they’d slipped through the brambles. Charlie sniffs slowly along the path, circling once where the smell tangles around roots and thorn, then noses toward the direction where the scent pulls clearer, her tail lifting in a confident curve as she glances back with glittering blue eyes to make sure Knell is watching before she starts forward, quiet now, letting the trail teach what her mouth can’t.
so hey, let's be friends I'm dying to see how this one ends
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Hella golden retriever energy. Small unrefined horns made of ruby. Regular spade-shaped tail.
Heat rubs against heat as she presses her side along her mom's leg like two fires teasing each other, exchanging warmth and love simultaneously. The huff of breath on her head and neck makes her ears twitch, a giggle-like chitter rumbling in her throat from the air that tickles through strands of fur. The twitch runs down her spin all the way to her tail, spurring her body back into motion as she hops forward on limber legs.
Smells call to her from every direction, each seeming to carry their own color and texture. Something sweet is bubbly and bright while the earthier tones are a rich brown, steady and firm. Her breaths are fast, sucking down air in an attempt to take it all in: various leaves, animal trails, the salty ocean, the crisp breeze. It rushes in, swelling in her head with such force that it might float away on the next gust of wind.
Her glittering blue eyes flutter shut as she halts suddenly in place, her body forced to take a single, deep breath that rattles through her. Knell senses the bit of white saltiness that scrapes the edges of everything, the fresh green of foliage that hides the musky fuzziness of something new. She opens her eyes to spot the tuft of fur, pressing her nose experimentally forward to catch the scent of the rabbit, huffing a deep breath before lifting her gaze to the undergrowth around them. Her mom stands nearby, gaze landing on her with an implied meaning that immediately has her bouncing forwards. There's an excitement in every inch of her, from the high wave of her tail to the curve of her mouth and light in her gaze, Knell basks in her mom's attention, eager to proceed with their lesson.
The fyrhund moves with an impressive carefulness that reminds her of how the priestess had moved on her feet. Paws glide confidently over the ground without a single sound, the low hang of her nose deliberate and attentive, the alert angle of her ears never missing a thing. Knell cocks her head, adjusting her smaller body into a mirror image before she moves along the path where she can scent the deep gray of the blink hares. Her eyes dart between the trail ahead and her mom, watching and listening for any changes, soaking up each piece of information with fervent intensity. She slinks below a branch, fur brushing gently against the wood with a quiet scorch that has her nose twitching from the blackened scent. She pauses for a second to regain her bearings before following again at the fyrhund's side.
A sudden snap echoes in the forest. Knell nearly jumps at just how loud it is, heart racing as her head twists from side to side to find the source.
Charlie keeps herself half a step behind and just to the side, close enough that her heat brushes Knell’s whenever the kitsune veers too near, but not so close that she steals the shape of the trail from her daughter’s nose. It would be easy, almost insultingly easy, to surge ahead and turn the lesson into a hunt performed for an audience of one, but where would the fun be in that? Knell has the scent now, or at least the first delicious thread of it, and Charlie lets her carry it, her own ears forward and tail held in a quiet, approving curve as the little thing pieces the world together one breath at a time.
When the snap cracks through the brambles, Charlie’s head lifts sharply, though she doesn’t lunge. Her blue eyes cut toward the sound, bright and alert, and there it is: a fat little flicker of piebald fur half-hidden beneath the thorny undergrowth, its body frozen in that deeply hilarious way prey has when it seems to believe stillness is the same thing as invisibility. Fear blooms from it a heartbeat later, sharp and hot and unmistakable, the scent spilling into the air like something sour-sweet as its hind legs hammer against the ground in a frantic thump, thump, thump that turns the quiet around them suddenly electric.
Charlie’s lips peel back from her teeth in a grin that is all predator and pride, but she stays where she is, letting the alarm do what alarms are made to do. The hare vanishes in a twitch of startled magic, reappearing several feet away only to blink again before its new position can fully settle in the eye. Around them, the undergrowth answers in scattered bursts: here a pale flank disappears behind a root, there a dark ear flashes and is gone, further off a round little body blinks out from beneath brambles and reappears at the wrong angle entirely before vanishing again, the whole hidden colony suddenly betraying itself in panicked little sparks of motion.
so hey, let's be friends I'm dying to see how this one ends
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Hella golden retriever energy. Small unrefined horns made of ruby. Regular spade-shaped tail.
The snap shocks Knell out of the stupor of tracking, her black-tipped ears twisting forward to locate the source ahead of them, her eyes following close behind to correlate the information. Despite not hearing the sound again, it echoes in her ears, guiding her gaze to the small bundle of fur frozen off their path.
Knell holds her breath, heart beating against her chest as she analyzes what to do. A flick of her ears, a fidget of her tail, a twitch of her nose. She takes in everything but ultimately looks to her mom for an example on how to proceed with the instincts coursing through her system: the urge to spring and chase and bite. However, as her eyes sweep towards the fyrhund, a thumping sound rips her focus back to the blink hare and the strange smell that's now filtering through the air.
Before she has a chance to wonder at the pink scent of sour sweetness, their prey - and apparently its entire family - are blinking in and out of existence. Knell abandons her crouch, paws spread as her head whips from side to side, trying and failing to track the teleporting hares. She can't even tell which one of the grey fuzzballs was their original target, but as her heart races and the adrenaline pings at her from every side, the thrill drowns out any concerns for control or logistics in favor of action.
She springs forward, bounding on light paws in a zigzag attempt to intercept the hares. Her divided attention makes each leap fall on open air, claws sinking into dirt and brush rather than soft fur, but the childish glee of the chase keeps any frustrations or annoyances at bay, her eyes bright and darting amongst the underbrush in search of her next target.
