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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.
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“Ah, ah, ah!” Asta clicks toward Sicarius, loud enough to startle her but hopefully not bother the spirits and Flora – having crept out of the room relatively early, the Butcher’s down in the bar section, very evidently invested in vacation with how he’s got a glass and is pouring a knuckle or two of dark liquor within it. Nothing fancy, he wouldn’t dare to use her best spirits this early in the morning, but a little bit of day drinking sounded phenomenal when it came to warming one’s bones up. “We are guests, darling. And besides, you recall what trouble you got into back home when you tried to sneak around the bottles?” The chastise slips easily from his lips, gentle and soft toward the young but noodle-like dragonling made completely out of bones, one foot outstretched toward a bottle like she might tempt fate anyway.
It earns her a more pointed look, and with a puff of dark smoke from her lips she withdraws from the sea green bottle in question and precisely within reach of the Butcher to pluck her from the counter, lifting her to rest against his shoulders where she can finally settle. She wraps around his throat like a collar, leaving little puffs of dark hair sticking out from the back but for once the Butcher doesn’t seem to mind, not as he lifts the glass to his lips and takes a sip, settling into the bar stool with the dragonling, indulging in the sunrise that starts to fill the Wildering House.
Spice's first nudge is cold and insistent against Flora’s cheek, the second is a scrape of tiny claws against the blanket, and by the third the little white dragon has worked herself into such an offended, whisper-hissing spiral that Flora’s lashes finally flutter apart beneath the golden wash of early morning. "What," she mumbles, voice still sweetly thick with sleep as she drags one hand out from beneath the pillow and blindly pats for the source of all this icy betrayal. The answer comes in a rush of frosty breath against her ear, followed by an indignant series of chirps that have Flora blinking up at the ceiling as the nearby spirits fill in the blanks. At that, the last of her drowsiness vanishes as cleanly as if someone has thrown open every shutter in the room.
"Oh my gods." Flora sits up so fast her curls tumble wildly around her face, her mouth already curving into a bright, delighted smile as Spice skitters triumphantly over the rumpled blankets. "They’re here?"
Never mind that Kaisel is still away in Halo, leaving half the bed empty and far too neat for Flora’s liking. Never mind that she’d gone to sleep early enough to miss the arrival entirely, which is, frankly, rude of her own exhaustion. The annual LongNight invasion of her home by her favourite monsters has apparently begun, and if Danta and Asta are downstairs, then breakfast is about to become either charming, inappropriate, alcoholic, or all three. Flora does not bother making herself presentable beyond sweeping her curls back with her fingers and tugging the oversized shirt of Kai’s more securely around her shoulders. It hangs loose over her sleeping shorts, soft and familiar and almost criminally comfortable, and with Spice perched like a small snowy gargoyle against her shoulder, she slips from the bedroom and pads down the hall and then down the staircase.
The kitchen is her first stop, because if Danta is awake, there is at least a reasonable chance that he's helping himself. Finding it empty only makes her brows lift, and with Spice leaning forward eagerly enough that Flora has to brace a hand against her chilly little body, the queen turns toward the bar instead.
"Asta!" Flora squeals, the sound ringing warmly through the bar as she beams at him adoringly. Her bare feet carry her across the floor without hesitation, curls bouncing, Kai’s shirt slipping off one shoulder. "I didn’t even hear you two come in last night!" Her eyes flick almost immediately to the bone-white creature coiled around his shoulders, and Spice, who until now has been a nosy little monarch in her own right, goes very still. Flora’s delighted smile only sharpens. "And hello to you too, obviously," she adds, leaning just enough to look at Sicarius properly without crowding her. "Gods, she’s gorgeous. She was from Dygra too, I assume?"
I hope you're wetting your appetite, finding your way into someone's eyes I hope you're dreaming in black and white, and seeing in colour
He’d hoped he’d stayed quiet long enough to let Flora sleep in, but as he sips from the drink and gets it down about halfway does Asta hear her approach. He’s dressed down as he often is on vacation, but still somewhat put together. His hair is pushed back, even if Sicarius is making it a mess, and rather than his traditional attire of waistcoats and vests, the Butcher sits at the stool by the bar with a ruffled and dark shirt, a pair of black pants, and equally dark sandals.
“Flora, darling!” Asta chimes back, laughing once he’s swallowed down the sip and sets the glass down. “And with the lovely Spice, as well.” Positive Sivarius’ arrival may have the pale frosty dragon feeling some type of way, Asta’s dark gaze brightens as he focuses back over to the Queen of Torchline. “We did not wish to wake you. Danta is still sleeping, though it isn’t the first time in the past few weeks I have snuck out of bed early.” Bouncing his brow playfully, the grin crosses his face and only scrunches the branded scar of lips against his cheek, stark against the line his beard typically went through.
Nodding at the mention of Sicarius, though, Asta tilts his head to try and get a glimpse of the dragonling from his peripheral and fails miserably with it, tail flicking idly behind him as he nods. “She was. Her name is Sicarius. I like to think she was a birthday gift.” He chuckles a low and warm sound, before he’s shifting and beckoning her to join him, happy to put together a mimosa or something else for her from her own bar, seeing as he’s woken her up. And all the while, Sicarius sits on his shoulders staring back at Flora and Spice with her dark pitless eyes, and a bit of eagerness to get to meet the frosty dragon. She’s young, though, wary in a way that Asta assumes most dragons are (how would he know, honestly?). “So, I have been dying to hear all about your ascension ever since the Peepholes.. What happened?” He grins over at her, grabbing a glass and juice and champagne, putting together a sparkly mimosa for the Hot Take with a little undercurrent of orange liqueur to make it a little sweeter and more orangey. "And yes, darling, before you ask; I do want to hear all of the gritty details."
Spice puffs up the instant Asta’s attention turns properly toward her, tiny white chest swelling with all the self-importance of a dragon approximately three seconds away from declaring war on a guest she has only just noticed. "Stop it, you," Flora whispers, bouncing one shoulder just enough to jostle the little creature out of her frosty little performance. "And please, I’m normally up early for a run anyway."
Her eyes catch, as they inevitably do, on the newest mark carved across his face, the branded scar of lips stark against his cheek where his beard no longer hides it. For all that Flora’s expression remains teasing, there’s a brief flicker of something softer beneath it, not curiosity exactly, because she knows better than to offer Asta anything so badly dressed, but the quiet calculation of someone who has seen enough of the other scars silvered across his body to guess this one likely did not hurt in the same way.
Spice, meanwhile, decides that diplomacy is not entirely beneath her and slips from Flora’s shoulder with a chilly little rustle of wings, hovering in the space between them with her nose stretched out as far as it will go toward Sicarius. Flora watches her with narrowed, fond suspicion, one hand hovering near the pale dragon as if she can somehow catch bad manners before they happen. "Be niiiice," she warns, drawing the word out in a singsong murmur that is very much aimed at Spice, though her smile twitches as if she already knows how useful the advice is likely to be. Then, as Asta begins assembling her drink with the easy entitlement of a man who has already made himself at home in exactly the correct way, Flora leans her hip against the bar and lifts her brows. "Okay, I’ll go first, but then I absolutely want to hear about how yours went."
Her gaze lingers mischievously on the kiss-shaped scar at his cheek, just long enough to make it clear she is filing every single detail away for later, before she clears her throat with theatrical delicacy and reaches for the mimosa. Taking a sip, Flora lets the orange and champagne fizz across her tongue before sighing with appropriate drama and settling more comfortably against the bar. "So, originally, I called Safrin down because I wanted to ask her about some magical items to try and deal with all the backstabbing bullshit going on." She lifts the glass slightly, her mouth quirking around the rim as she thinks of Colt and how she'd nearly had Asta throw her out on her ass, before she takes another sip.
"And Safrin basically told me there weren’t enough items in the world to do what I was after." Flora rolls her eyes, though there is more fondness there now than there might once have been, the memory still glittering with the strange unreality of it. Her shoulders rise and fall beneath the oversized shirt, the motion looser than the subject probably deserves, though the bright edge of her excitement keeps breaking through no matter how casually she tries to package it.
"I thought that was just going to be the end of it," she continues, tapping one nail lightly against the glass. "Like, okay, fabulous, no miracle accessories for Flora, boohoo, the end. And then she said something about how, with Hadama gone, it was such a shame Torchline didn’t have a demigod leading it." Flora pauses there for a second as her brows lift meaningfully. "Which I thought meant she was going to appoint someone else to rule with me," she says, her nose wrinkling at the memory. "So I’m standing there thinking, great, amazing, love that for me, but then..." Her smile blooms slowly, helplessly pleased and still a little stunned by its own truth. "Nope. All me."
I hope you're wetting your appetite, finding your way into someone's eyes I hope you're dreaming in black and white, and seeing in colour
As Spice puffs up, Sicarius lowers herself – pitless eyes focused intensely on the frosty dragon as though she realizes she’s the youngest of them, and it’s enough of a back down that Asta’s appreciation and amusement flickers in his dark gaze briefly, hoping there wouldn’t be a reptilian cat-fight on their hands. It’s a similar smile that he shoots to Flora to hear that she’s usually up early for a run, conceding with an incline of his head. “Good.” He hums – not that he’s glad she’s up early and getting her exercise, but because he’s glad he hasn’t been too terrible of a house guest to have woken the host prematurely.
Sicarius starts to move as Asta does, making her way back down toward the bar to give Spice the upperhand above her, her own long nose outstretched up, body hunched down as she makes a little grating squeak up at the other companion, tail twitching back and forth as she flattens her front legs down in a very young attempt to try and get Spice to play with her. And all the while, Asta focuses on the drink with constant little glances at his own companion to make sure she’s also behaving herself.
“Deal, darling.” Asta purrs with a small crooked smile, finishing off the mimosa and handing it off to her before he takes up his own glass of dark liquor, settling into the chair to listen with rapt attention. “Ah, yes, in regard to the poacher I assume.” It’s rhetorical, because the Butcher isn’t intending on interrupting Flora too much, but he takes another sip before a low chuckle leaves him to hear Safrin’s response. It felt like a Dygra kind of answer, if he’s being honest, but he hangs on her every word as she unveils it for him, painting the picture with a nod of his head.
It’s a lot of emotions that he can imagine got all knotted up until the final unveiling, like Safrin had been wrapping this present precisely in how she knew Flora would find it most surprising and appreciative, so he can’t help but to lift his glass of liquor in a small little toast to her. “That is a whirlwind, isn’t it?” He hums, shooting a grin back at her. “I do not know Safrin well, but given what I do know of her, it is not surprising that she would see your brilliant potential.” Inclining his head, mirroring her smile in a dazzling display of happiness for his friend. “How was the change? How different did you feel?” Then, suddenly, leaning forward a touch in a way that almost startles Sicarius, he grins at Flora. “Did your veins feel like they were filled with stardust?” It was reminiscent of the feeling he’d had when Safrin had healed him with the dreadful wicker woman, only he can imagine it upped to a ten thousandth degree.
The moment Sicarius lowers herself, Spice’s entire demeanour shifts with the unbearable speed of someone who has won a war entirely in her own head. Her little chest deflates, her wings loosen, and by the time the younger dragonling creeps down toward the bar with that scraping little squeak, Spice has decided that graciousness is obviously the next most queenly option. She launches herself from the air in a flutter of white wings and lands on the bar only to throw herself dramatically onto her back, talons curled toward her chest, before exhaling a playful plume of frosty breath toward Sicarius.
"Oh, babe." Flora exhales the laugh around a smile, drawing in a breath as if she can still feel the shape of that moment beneath her skin. "It didn’t just feel like my veins were filled with stardust. It felt like all of me had been remade all at once, like every single tiny piece of me suddenly remembered it was supposed to be more than it had been." Her fingers curl around the stem of the glass, entirely unable to pretend toward modesty even for sport. "It was incredible." The word lands with all the force of her delight, bright and unabashed and glittering with the kind of satisfaction that has nothing to apologize for. Then her brows bounce, mischief immediately returning as though she has only just remembered the best part.
"And now, instead of the Doubletake, I’m the Hot Take." Flora gives this the theatrical weight it deserves. "Because I can take memories and replay them." Her grin turns fiendish, pleased in a way that is half queen and half gossip with divine backing, and she leans in slightly over the bar. "So no more he-said-she-said bullshit, no more tragic little one-sided retellings where everyone conveniently forgets the exact part where they were being the asshole, and no more pretending someone didn’t say something when I can simply pull the receipt out of their head." The smugness lingers for another second before softening, the sharp glitter of it warming into something more fond, more personal as Flora’s gaze settles on Asta. "But it also means I can do this."
Turning slightly, Flora lets the memory rise, old and alcohol-warm and preserved with the hazy intimacy of a night that had, at the time, felt ridiculous and harmless and entirely too full of feelings everyone involved had been pretending not to have. The bar around them does not vanish so much as gain another layer, the present shimmered through with the back room of the Hanged Man years ago, all low light and spilled liquor and the muffled sound of Asta’s karaoke carrying from outside. Danta is there as Flora remembers him, leaning against the wall mid-conversation, loose-limbed and sharp-edged and drunk enough that honesty has found a crack to slip through, his expression conflicted in a way he likely would have denied if he'd been given the chance.
"He’s not my friend, you know?" memory-Danta says, the words carrying with all their old, tangled uncertainty, his voice snagging slightly around feelings that had not yet learned how to stand in the open. "He’s just...mine."
Flora looks back to Asta with a grin that is softer than it has any right to be, especially given the wicked little sparkle still alive in her eyes. "It’s kind of nice," she says, swirling her mimosa, "being able to show people the parts of conversations they weren’t there for."
I hope you're wetting your appetite, finding your way into someone's eyes I hope you're dreaming in black and white, and seeing in colour
The tension between dragons begins to break as Spice zooms down to the bar where Sicarius has decided to perch and try to offer up a motion of playing – like a quiet I’m in your house but we can be friends if you’d let me, and much to the bone dragon’s surprise, it’s well received. Sicarius chitters her delight, bouncing over to Spice with the beckoned frosty breath, met with the plume of dark smoke leaking from the holes where Sicarius’ teeth close and leave gaps without having skin to keep it all neat. Immediately diving in to inspect and sniff Spice in return, she immediately descends into the quiet chaos of a younger sibling trying to mirror and mimic the eldest.
All while Asta’s captivated to hear Flora’s laugh – just as bright and as happy as she deserves to be. It makes his smile twitch a bit softer, leaning slightly to rest his elbow on top of the bar and prop his head up, taking her and her experiences in and silently comparing them to his, too. “I am so very happy for you, darling. You deserve it.” After everything that had happened, her own quiet worries he can remember her telling him in confidence, of the fact that maybe she might not be enough at times if she had to rely on her fathers to come to her rescue even if he’d known she was one of the strongest people he knew and had certainly managed to handle things on her own (whether or not other people approved or didn’t).
Now she gets to sparkle in all the glory herself, to be raised to a well-earned and deserved higher status. “The Hot Take?” He purrs, his grin sharpening as he regards her more fully, but even he can’t hide the way his brows lift in surprise and quiet charm to hear that she can replay memories. “Ahah, that is brilliant!” Reminiscent of the orb that Kaisel had produced to have a memory stored away, here she is able to do it herself. He’d known she’d have flashier, dazzling magics in comparison to him, but he hadn’t realized it would be like this.
She isn’t done, though, and as the great listener the Butcher is, he watches as she starts to show him the magic – only to sit up straighter with rapt attention when he realizes the view starts to shift just enough to reveal the back rooms of the old Hanged Man, to a night that admittedly lived rent free in his mind as a catalyst. A night that he was fairly certain wouldn’t lead to him and Flora being like this, once the culmination had occurred. And while he had gotten the gist of what was said in the back while he’d been singing – right there, the undercurrent of his voice alongside the karaoke machine, a slow back drop to how their lives would change with nine words.
For as much as Astaroth prides himself in his capabilities to be nonchalant and polite, it’s early and he’s already buzzed enough that for Flora, his face describes everything. Because this wasn’t too far after the Butcher had figured he’d overstepped his bounds, how he hadn’t known exactly what love was, but knew that he couldn’t stop thinking about the Maverick. How he might be charming and suave with his words but still unable to define the feeling that sat inside him to say it in a way that wouldn’t make his now-fiance flee into the dark.
But here, he isn’t even involved. He’s singing in the background, drunk off his ass and unaware of what went on behind the door, back when he and Flora had been together officially (even if it was hazy on the Butcher’s part), to hear that Danta said he wasn’t his friend but that he was just his. Period. Stop. That one word that encompasses everything.
His cheeks flush dark pink with the realization, the charm that settles somewhere deep in his chest as he sucks down a deep breath to try and put the fire out that blooms inside him as he looks over at Flora to see that softer smile with the wicked sparkle while his reflect nothing but appreciation and adoration for such a lovely little gift she can just pull out of nowhere. “Flora,” he starts off, clearing his throat and huffing a soft buzzed laugh that by no means can convey how lovely this is, finding himself relatively speechless for a man that could wax poetics about the mundane. “That is phenomenal.. I do not even know what else to say.” Then, because he can’t help himself, his dark gaze remains just as warm even as mischief starts to settle in them. “It does make a lot more sense why you asked the question you did when you came back.” The smile remains even as he dramatically winces, realizing how he’d been so poor at responding back to it.
In fairness, the Butcher had never really been in love before. Not how he was with Danta, at least. And there was a very vast difference between a shallow passion and the depths of divine, lethal devotion.
Spice sniffs at the dark smoke with her nose wrinkling in immediate suspicion, her pale head tilting this way and that as if trying to decide whether Sicarius is breathing, leaking, threatening, or merely being extremely strange in a way that might still be interesting. The uncertainty lasts only until the younger dragonling comes close enough to inspect her properly, and then whatever delicate calculations are happening behind Spice’s bright little eyes resolve into something far more practical. With a chirp that sounds almost gracious, she stretches one foreleg toward Sicarius and attempts to bite, harmlessly but with great concentration, at one of the exposed bones as though this is a perfectly normal way to begin a friendship.
Flora, who notices this just in time to decide she is not dealing with it unless someone starts screaming, merely lifts her brows in Spice’s direction before looking back to Asta. The repetition of her new title has her practically sparkling, and she bounces her eyebrows with an expression so proud it borders on smug. "mmhmm," she confirms, delighted down to her bare toes, before rolling her eyes with the kind of fond exasperation that has become its own little language where Kaisel is concerned. "Kai is already working on a whole new line of merch, obviously."
As the memory unfolds, Flora does not look at it. She had been there, after all, leaning against those walls and watching Danta wrestle with words that felt too large for the shape of his mouth at the time, and though back then the moment had landed differently, sharper in places where she had still wanted more from Asta than he'd even known he'd been offering, the years have done what they were supposed to do. They have softened the edges without blurring the details, leaving her with the strange, warm luxury of looking back and finding no wound waiting beneath the nostalgia. Instead, she watches Asta, her aqua eyes tracking the way the memory moves through him, the flush across his olive skin, the helpless softening around his dark gaze, the careful collapse of a man who can speak beautifully about nearly anything and still find himself outmatched by a few words spoken just out of earshot.
When he says her name as if she has handed him something too delicate to hold properly, Flora chuckles under her breath, bright and pleased, because really, what is the point of divine power if not using it to make your friends emotionally compromised before breakfast? Then, as he mentions the question she had asked when she’d come back from the room that night, Flora laughs outright, the sound spilling warmly through the bar as she drains the last of her mimosa. "Yeah, well, surprise, surprise, both of you were shit with your words that night," she says, the teasing affectionate enough to take out any sting, especially with the way her eyes remain soft on him over the rim of her glass.
With a sigh, the illusion dissolves from the room, the back of the Hanged Man slipping away until only Wildering House remains again, sunrise and barstools and the strange little court of dragons between them. Flora sets her empty glass down with a gentle click, then lifts her brows at Asta in a silent, shameless question that very clearly asks whether he intends to let the Queen of Torchline stand there tragically mimosa-less in her own home.
"So yeah, anyway," she continues, folding her arms lightly against the edge of the bar as her grin sharpens again. "That ability can either be super cute or cutting, which is very Safrin." Her gaze flicks briefly toward the space where the memory had been, warmth lingering despite the joke, before she draws in a happy little breath and turns the full force of her attention back on the Butcher. "Okay, your turn, and I don’t want you to leave out a single detail."
I hope you're wetting your appetite, finding your way into someone's eyes I hope you're dreaming in black and white, and seeing in colour
“Obviously.” Asta agrees with a soft little exhale of his own dramatics, amused in spite of himself to see what kind of monstrosity that Kaisel will craft with Flora’s face and hoping that perhaps the other man has enough sense to make it beautiful rather than something that could be construed as comedic. Or, perhaps for a Kaisel-specific-flare, something to do with Flora’s hands, given that he can recall the strange obsession the Accepted had with them that he still whole heartedly believes.
But before he can descend down the rabbit hole of what kind of merch Kai will have to come up with for the Butcher himself, he feels like he might be inwardly collapsing with the black hole of love and adoration that spirals through him with the memory, left speechless and entirely at Flora’s whim to watch as the emotions crest over his face until he’s hopeless in trying to explain how incredible this kind of magic is.
To Flora’s laugh and the draining of her mimosa, Asta’s already shifting to stand – action finding it easier to waltz into than trying to stumble over the words and the heat in his cheeks that might as well be made of his wildfire with the force of it. “In my defense I was very inebriated.” He says with a laugh that tells her he knows it isn’t an excuse in the slightest and that he’s incredibly happy to be able to laugh about it now that enough time had passed.
As the memory fades, Asta’s hands are busy as he crafts another mimosa for Flora – complete with the same orange liqueur to add the boon of sweetness as he casts Sicarius a curious glance. The dragonling lets Spice reach out to nibble on a rib bone, squealing a terrible sound akin to scratching the worst kind of plastic that has Asta only half wincing. It doesn’t bother the bone dragonling any, though, as she reaches out with her long neck to bully her bony nose into Spice’s wing in a playful and harmless game of tag before she’s trying to bolt away clumsily.
“We do love a hidden knife.” The Butcher purrs to Flora with a wink and a sharp grin, putting the ingredients together with practice from being behind the bar of the Dusklight when he and Danta would switch roles on occasion. “Well, for starters, Dygra beckoned me to her in the middle of the night, in the Climb no less.” Which, thank gods for the portal that lead to it. “I do not know how much you know about her, but, in all the years I have been Ancient, she has always been a.. Presence. I have never seen her and the only person I know of recently who has is Danta. But there she was, standing in the Soulfire Reach with all of her glittering glory. Beautiful and menacing and so much more than I could have imagined her to be.” His hands hesitate as he pours the champagne in, an almost far away glint to his gaze before he focuses back in and grins his shark-tooth grin at the Hot Take.
“With what happened in the Peepholes, she was telling me that it seemed.. Strange and it may have complications that she may require a Butcher for.” Waggling his brows as he finishes Flora’s mimosa, he hands it to her before his hand wraps around the bottle of dark whiskey he’d been drinking to add more to his glass. “And of course, before I had a chance to fully delve into the deal of it, I started to fall asleep?” He groans dramatically, sighing the end with a laugh. “And she slapped me awake.” He pauses here, watching Flora with a grin that seems to suggest can you believe that?
“Anyway, I agreed.” Who wouldn’t? “And she allowed me to seal my end of the deal with a bite that took nearly everything out of me and yet I still felt.. Stronger? Bolstered? I lost the majority of my shifts and my magics and the latter had been changed.” And it had been like a bloody rebirth. “And she sealed her end with a kiss.” Tilting his head and gesturing with his hand to the branded scar of the press of lips to his cheek, his attention turns mischievous as he lowers the hand between them. “I have no glamour anymore, but I am still fire resistant.” And as if for emphasis, flame starts to curl in the palm of his hand, only where traditional orange fire had sat before, this time it illuminates them in ghoulish green, flickering brighter and somehow more menacing than his magic had allowed him previously. “I have a new version of bloodbane, too, though I have not tested it out. I fear it may actually kill me to test it.” He winces, his smile somehow sharper in the green flame as his dark gaze lifts to scan Flora’s face for her reaction, tail twitching in a slow wag that makes it even more clear that his fyrhund is no longer in his arsenal.
