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Nikolai Ail’thar
Appearance:
Nikolai’s beauty is cold and dangerous, with a presence that demands both fear and awe. He is tall and lean, his sinewy strength carrying the graceful bearing of a natural predator. His skin is a ghostly pallor, almost translucent under moonlight, emphasising his ethereal, unnervingly smooth appearance. Dark hair falls in waves in a sharp contrast that frames his piercing, violet eyes. These eyes, his most defining feature, glow with a supernatural light that shifts between violet and crimson, depending on the blood and magick he has recently consumed. His elongated, razor-sharp canines glint with subtle menace, marking him as a creature both beautiful and deadly.
Shifting Abilities:
In his shadowed, animalistic forms, Nikolai is a void—so dark he seems to swallow the light around him. Whether he shifts into a wolf, a raven, or another creature, his form remains indistinguishable from the night itself, a silhouette of the void. Yet, his eyes always betray his true self, glowing faintly with the same eerie hue, an ever-present reminder of the predator within.
Role and Purpose:
Nikolai exists as the guardian of the Ail’thain’s darkest secrets, maintaining their legacy by erasing any trace of their existence. As one of the last of his kind, his duty is not only preservation but annihilation. No record, document, or whisper of their existence is permitted to survive, and any fae daring to seek knowledge of the Ail’thain meets a swift and final end. To fae society, they are merely a myth, and Nikolai is the myth’s keeper, ensuring it remains so by any means necessary.
Backstory:
Once among the Duanaan, Nikolai’s ancestors were marked by a fateful encounter with the Impostors, dark forces that irrevocably changed their kind. This curse instilled in them an unquenchable thirst for magickal blood, severing them from fae society and driving them into the shadows. Born into isolation, Nikolai learned early that his existence was tied to secrecy and ruthlessness.
Now, he serves as the favoured agent of an ancient and formidable Ail’thain, of a female far older and far more powerful than he. She is both his mentor and his handler, guiding him with a calculated mix of control and disdain. Her power eclipses his own, and she treats him like a prized blade—well-honed, beautiful, and lethal, yet still only a tool. Under her tutelage, he has become her most efficient killer, tasked with obliterating any evidence of their kind’s existence. Though she holds him in her thrall, he respects her command and recognises her as the only constant in his fractured life.
Traits and Abilities:
Nikolai’s hunger is a controlled but ever-present force, his bloodlust simmering just below his composed exterior. A master of shadow-walking, he moves through darkness as though he were part of it, concealing himself and ambushing with a silence only the oldest hunters possess. His shape-shifting forms are darker than night, a quality he uses to blend seamlessly into his surroundings, becoming an extension of the void itself.
Nikolai's powers extend beyond his physical prowess, having absorbed magick from numerous fae victims. These temporary boons make him a fearsome opponent, difficult to predict and devastatingly efficient. Sunlight, however, is his greatest weakness, weakening him considerably and diminishing his ability to wield magick. He works exclusively by night, preferring the cloak of shadows that offers him both safety and supremacy.
Personality:
Patient and calculating, Nikolai views the world through a lens of cold detachment, seeing others as pawns in his larger duty. He holds loyalty and self-preservation as paramount, and any attachment he might form is only in service to his own survival. Though he possesses a deceptive charm, it is a mere tool for manipulation, employed to beguile his prey. Beneath this poised exterior is a creature whose sole purpose is preservation through destruction, driven by his relentless thirst for magickal blood.
Ambitions:
While he serves his ancient mistress with respect, Nikolai privately questions the nature of his existence and the curse that binds him. Somewhere beneath the layers of duty, a desire for freedom simmers, a dream of breaking the curse that chains him to his hunger. He harbours a quiet but insistent ambition to find the relics of the old gods or enough power to defy them, but until then, he remains his mistress’s perfect weapon, executing his deadly work without question.
