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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!
to share the space with simple living things, infinitely suffering
It has been raining all morning, the warm ground wet and the smell of salt and jasmine filling the air as Isla approaches the healing fountain, juggling a crate full of empty bottles in her arms. A few of the medics from her clinic are with her, some carrying further crates, others with lids and labels, but they'll be headed back to work once they've helped to reach their destination - which they do only a short time later.
"Hopefully the weather will hold until this is done," she says softly, shielding her eyes as she gazes up at the sun breaking through the clouds. "I'll be back this afternoon one way or another." Smiling and waving off her fellow medics, once they're gone Isla begins to set out everything to ensure she hasn't missed any supplies. She's also set out a large jug of iced tea, because even though it might be raining, it can still be hot in Torchline.
Welcome to the PQ to bottle the new and improved healing fountain water! Please post your characters arriving and help yourself to some iced tea!
Informed simply to meet Isla at the fountain at this time in order to proceed with the fountain's efforts, Kaisel does just that for the continuation of this mission, which is going to be actual work this time instead of fucking around in the mud with Flora. If all government work included mud wrestling, maybe they'd get more willing participants more often.
He is pretty stoked about the idea of bottling this new and improved juice up and shipping it out Pitbull style (worldwide, that is) because this idea is genius for the sake of everyone in need and he's more than happy to see it spread. "Hi Isla!" he greets with a cheerful lack of familiarity that doesn't diminish the energy in the slightest. "You know, your name is like one of the cooler ones out there," he informs her with a casual ease while arranging a glass of tea for himself. "I mean, The Remedy? Like, c'mon, that's sick af." His 'brows pitch up as he glances over at her while tilting back a sip. "I'm Kaisel by the way. No special name, I'm afraid, but I'm always open to suggestions."
Kai says hello and drinks tea
Kai
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
Everest straightens so quickly it almost looks like someone tugged a string between his shoulder blades. The bottles he’d been sorting click neatly into place—small to large, corked to uncorked—his hands retreating automatically to the safer territory of his sleeves. He doesn’t step forward, because that would put him between Isla and a stranger, and he doesn’t step back, because that would mean abandoning Isla, so he ends up hovering in the exact same position with the exact same careful posture.
"Ashborn," he supplies quietly, the name offered with the tone of someone submitting a fact for record rather than participating in small talk. "Kaisel Ashborn. Previous resident of Stormbreak. Before the Tower fell." He doesn’t blink as he says it, though there’s a faint tightening around his eyes. Only after the information has been correctly filed into the conversation does he allow himself to look directly at Kaisel. His gaze is direct but not confrontational; more observational, like he’s checking a hypothesis against the person standing in front of him.
"I hear that you’re able to speak now," Everest adds, the words even and matter-of-fact, entirely literal. His fingers flex once against the inside of his sleeve, grounding himself. "I take it that means you completed your quest?"
Even if I had to lose you to know you I'd still be that temporary phase that you grow through
12-09-2025, 01:04 PM (This post was last modified: 12-09-2025, 01:05 PM by Isla.)
Isla
to share the space with simple living things, infinitely suffering
Having also helped herself to a glass of iced tea, Isla smiles a greeting to Kaisel as he arrives. "Hello," she chimes, eyebrows raising a little as she's called cool - or at least her moniker is - for perhaps one of the first times in her adult life. Isla is called a lot of things by a lot of people; cool is rarely one of them. "Ah, thank you. It isn't very often that I need to use it," she says with a warm laugh, glancing towards Everest as he straightens up abruptly beside her.
Unable to tell whether the aviator has certain feelings or reservations towards Kai or if this is just the flavour of Ever they're getting today, Isla nevertheless lays a gentle hand on his arm and glances between them. "We should start bottling the water before it starts raining again," she says, gesturing to the bottles and the fountain just behind them. "Let's start by filling them all up." And now that they've been nudged somewhat in the right direction, Isla tilts her head at Kai.
"You couldn't speak?"
Let's grab some bottles and start filling them with fountain water!
fighting off like all creation, the absence of itself
”Oh hey, mountain man!” he greets just as brightly to Everest, hand lifting to provide a celebratory slap of palms for familiarity's sake. With the supply of facts about himself, Kaisel’s gaze pitches up in surprise. ”Ah, yeah, Ashborn’s my last name. I guess that’s a little special.” He’s figuring Everest has provided it like a correction, rather than a necessary relay of information for Isla, or himself.
Wholly unbothered by it all though, his smile sweeps in easy at Everest’s joke. ”You heard, eh?” Chuckling faintly, he nods, the answer seeming to be for the both of them as he settles into the flow of the work. Exchanging his tea for an empty bottle from one of the nearby crates, Kaisel dips it into the fountain, waiting until the last bubbles stop before lifting the full container back above water. ”Yeah! I was doing a quest for Frey and one of the times I had to communicate without speaking. I was meditating on a beach and Everest found me,” he explains, applying the lid and setting the full bottle into the open spot he’d taken it from. Reaching for another empty bottle and swinging back to the fountain, he affords a glance towards the aviator before continuing.
”So we chat with some pen and paper. Makes sense because I asked Frey for some two-way parchment, although funny enough, the paper she made for me does talk. Gods and irony, right?” He shrugs, finding that particular task much easier than the last one he’d put off, even if it had led to a friendship with Charlie. In comparison, Everest has never once offered for Kaisel to ride on his back.
Bottles some water
Kai
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
Everest freezes at mountain man like someone just unplugged him. Kaisel's palm will stay resolutely un-slapped in the airless void between them, as Ever's expression flattens into a long, silent stare that isn’t hostile so much as utterly baffled by the nickname’s existence. His brain goes through the motions of understanding before Isla’s hand touches his arm. The contact draws his gaze down immediately. Not because he’s startled—he’s used to Isla grounding him—but because Isla only touches him mid-conversation when he has potentially misstepped. The pattern is well-established enough that his posture softens at the edges, shoulders lowering from tension he hadn’t noticed climbing. Her presence reorients him, quiet as a compass needle snapping back north.
He mimics her movement to the work without comment, kneeling beside the fountain and selecting empty bottles in strict ascending order of volume. Each one is dipped the same way: straight down, held steady until the bubbles stop, lifted with minimal dripping. He matches the angle of Isla’s hands more than Kaisel’s enthusiasm, keeping everything precise, controlled, and predictable. But as Kaisel speaks—specifically as he keeps saying she—Everest’s fingers pause on the cork he’s lining up. His eyes flick upward, not judgmental, just factual in the way a scientist corrects a mislabeled sample.
"Frey does not have a fixed gender," he says quietly.
Ever bottles!
Even if I had to lose you to know you I'd still be that temporary phase that you grow through
to share the space with simple living things, infinitely suffering
Unlike Everest, Isla has to bite back her smile to hear the nickname Kaisel gives to him. She doesn't plan on using it in the future, especially based on the aviator's knee-jerk bafflement at it, but she won't deny thatshe likes the sound of it. "Do you meditate often, or was it just for the sake of the quest?" she asks Kai with a curious tilt of her head, busy filling and corking her own share of the fountain water as they talk. "I only usually deal with physical ailments, but I know taking care of one's mind is just as important."
Once the bottles have been filled to the medic's satisfaction, Isla grabs a stack of pre-written labels declaring them as being from the Torchline Healing Fountain, dividing them out between them. "Next we need to make sure they're labelled - we wouldn't want someone mistaking it for ordinary water and not being able to heal when they need to," she says, before glancing towards Ever as he speaks.
"Ah, that's right," she says, her tone suggesting that she's used to being a conversational buffer. "I've also heard that, depending on which version of Frey you pray to, they can appear as what you find most attractive."
Time to label the Special Torchline Water!
fighting off like all creation, the absence of itself
That his hand remains ungraced by Everest's palm doesn't seem to ruffle Kaisel in the least, as if accustomed to being left hanging, so after enough pause to give Everest the opportunity he just sweeps the movement into his conversation as though always intending it to be that way. "Oh, gods no," he returns to Isla's question as if the very idea affronts him. "Meditating is super boring. I was just trying to sort some shit out, back then during the quest, so I figured to give it a try." He shrugs, still unclear himself on whether it helped or not. He'd tried so many things at that time, hard to pinpoint what worked.
Wiping off the wet from his hands onto his pants now that they're done bottling, with mostly dry hands he takes a pack of the labels. Doing as Isla bids, a sensible part of the package process, it's easy work to fulfill and talk through, falling into a rather thoughtless repetition that definitely leaves some of his labels askew on the bottles. "Oh, yeah," he says with a faint rise and fall of his shoulders at the correction. "Sh—they, always appear as a woman to me, so sometimes it's hard to remember." With a faint pause in his motions, a thought striking him, gaze momentarily skyward like clarity could be found there, he murmurs, "I've never actually gone to nature Frey." He glances over at each of them. "What god do you guys normally talk to?"
Kaisel labels~
Kai
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
Everest accepts the stack of labels with both hands, as if they’re fragile instruments rather than thin slips of paper. He lines them up beside the bottles first—edges squared, corners matched—before beginning at all. Where Kaisel’s bottles are already marching off in slightly crooked confidence and Isla’s are neat but efficient, Everest’s progress is deliberate. Each label is measured by eye, peeled slowly, set down, lifted again if the alignment is even a millimetre off. He smooths from the centre outward with two fingers, twice, every time. The repetition helps.
At the question about gods, he gives a small shake of his head without looking up, curls falling forward as his attention stays fixed on a label he’s nudging into perfect symmetry. "I don’t normally speak to any gods," he says, voice even, factual. Not defensive, just true. He preferred predictive systems and deities were certainly not that. He presses the label down, checks it, then moves to the next bottle. "The only time I did was when I was infected by the void," he continues, quieter now, though not emotional in tone, just more careful, as if handling a volatile compound. "I asked Frey about it. About what was happening to me."
Ever labels (slowly) !
Even if I had to lose you to know you I'd still be that temporary phase that you grow through
to share the space with simple living things, infinitely suffering
Isla is unsurprised to hear that Kaisel didn't find meditation to his liking - don't ask her what gave her that impression, she'll never tell - and merely offers him a smile at his explanation. "Well, boring or not, I hope it helped you through whatever was bothering you at the time. Or if not, that something else ended up helping." As they talk she also settles into the easy rhythm of labelling, and between them their share of the bottles are soon cheerfully declaring their magical origin.
"I haven't visited either aspect of Frey," she admits as talk turns to the gods, smiling across to Ever and noticing the slow and meticulous progress with his own labels. "I remember," she says of his visit while infected. "When I was Ascended I would meet with the Voice quite often. Now I suppose it would be Dygra, but I haven't found cause to see her just yet." Not out of reluctance - she just doesn't feel the need to bother the deity for a chat when she likely has a thousand other things on her mythical to-do list.
"I think most of these are ready to be delivered," she says of the bottles. "There are stations set up in Kaiholo, Haulani and at the Aumakua for citizens to collect it and to get the word out. If Kai and I take Kaiholo and the Aumakua, we can take yours to my clinic when you're finished?" she suggests to Everest.
Time to take the bottles to their stations!
Isla suggests she and Kai take theirs while Ever finishes labelling.
fighting off like all creation, the absence of itself
Everest pauses mid-label, the corner of the paper hovering just above the bottle as Isla speaks. He looks up at her then, and the look he gives her is brief but unmistakable; quiet gratitude, relief threaded through it. She hasn’t rushed him, she hasn’t commented on the pace, she’s simply folded his way of working into the plan without friction, and that matters more than he knows how to articulate. He finishes pressing the label into place before nodding, once, precise.
"That sounds good," he says. The agreement is immediate, uncomplicated. His fingers smooth the label again, just to be sure, then he adds, already mentally inventorying the space around them, "I’ll also clean up our supplies here."
He resumes his careful work without prompting, attention narrowing back down to bottle and paper and alignment.
Ever finishes bottling and then will clean up!
Even if I had to lose you to know you I'd still be that temporary phase that you grow through
He lifts his head briefly from the work to offer a flash of a smile to Isla for her kind words. ”Yeah, something did. Thanks.” Maybe he’d try it again some other time, meditating, just to see.
When neither of them seem to favor any of the gods much, he finds the brief hope of polling for their opinion deflating from him with an, ”oh.” Maybe he could meditate about that. ”Being infected sounds horrible, I’m glad the Family is gone,” he says firmly, pressing the label in firmer to the bottle. ”I’m also guessing it’s difficult to go from a god you liked, to a new one,” he murmurs of Isla once going to the Voice. Kinda like losing your favorite doctor to retirement.
The idle talk falls away though as their labeled bottles run out, the last one in Kaisel’s hands tinkling against the other as he sets it in the crate. Closing up the lid over it, Kaisel hoists one up in his arms, ready to deliver it as assigned. ”Let’s do it!” he says cheerfully, letting Isla lead before stepping in beside her with the rattle of ready bottles in his hands.
Kai picks up a crate and helps carry it to the new delivery spot
Kai
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
to share the space with simple living things, infinitely suffering
"Thank you," Isla says with an affectionate smile towards Ever as he offers to clean up the rest of the supplies, already knowing that they will be meticulously put away on her return, and that the remaining crate of water will be ready to take to the clinic. With the agreement given, she and Kai grab their supplies and head off towards Kaiholo, the sea breeze brisk enough to keep them cool without being too biting, though rain is starting to threaten again overhead.
"I think perhaps it would have been, had it not been for all that happened with the Voice," she says of her former patron deity, the Remedy smiling a bit sadly down at the sand as they walk. "Besides, she woke Dygra to make sure we had a place with her, so I can't feel anything but grateful, I suppose."
Gesturing to a little medical stall set up along the port, Isla smiles across to Kai. "You can take yours there if you like, and then you're all done! Thanks for your help today," she trills. And upon saying goodbye to the soldier, Isla loops around to get to the Aumakua, depositing the water at a small stand on the lighthouse's ground floor.
With that done, she finally takes herself back to the healing fountain where Everest will be waiting. "Come on," she says. "We did a good job here - let's take the last of this and go home."
We are ALL DONE! Thanks everyone!
~FIN
fighting off like all creation, the absence of itself
