Chapter Text
As it turned out, the bandages weren’t there solely to complete the Homeless and Broke aesthetic. Because a keen observer would notice that in fact, they weren’t always there. But if the observer was so appropriately keen, they’d have noticed the reason for this first. And Nott was a very, very keen observer.
She didn’t think much of it the first time she noticed. It didn’t matter if you were a human or a goblin or anything else; everybody had nervous, idle habits and Caleb’s happened to be picking. At anything. But mostly his hands because they were always there.
The second time Nott noticed was because there was suddenly blood. And it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen her fair share of blood, but they hadn’t been in a fight or anything. Caleb didn’t even take notice until he followed Nott’s gaze to the source of the problem. Then all he did was murmur ‘oh’ and fish around in his pockets for the roll of bandage. Nott learned that sometimes, when Caleb’s fingernails were dirty, it wasn’t always just dirt.
She’d watched him once or twice and tried to decide if he even realized what he was doing. He’d be about his day like normal, walking along or sometimes curled into a chair reading, and it would look to anyone else like he just fidgeted with his hands. Nott knew better.
These days she made a game of spotting it before Caleb could do himself any harm. Even if it was just accidental.
“Ah-ha!” Nott sprang over the front seat of the wagon and straight into Caleb’s lap. As she landed she snatched up his hand in one of her own, jerking it away from his mouth where he’d had his thumb nail between his teeth.
Her flying entrance was rather jarring, needless to say, and not only did Caleb nearly jump out of his own skin (he and several of the others did as well), but his book went flying out of his other hand and clattered noisily to the cart floor.
“What is going on, why did you—?” Caleb looked between Nott and his fallen book, struggling for a moment to get out of studying headspace and back into reality. His brow furrowed when Nott wrapped her arms around his,
“You were doing that thing again!” She declared, and seemed very happy to remain sprawled across his lap, “After you’d done so good! Not doing it for days!”
“What is this thing he does?” Jester leaned over to ask. She was riding in the cart as well, busily weaving wild flowers together into necklaces and distributing them as needed. Caleb was already sporting two or three (“He is the closest, and also the stinkiest, he needs the most.” Jester had announced).
“It is nothing,” Caleb said before Nott could open her mouth to over explain. He tugged against her for the return of his arm, “Just a nervous habit I can’t seem to kick. May I have this back now, please? You’re making it very hard for me to read.” Jester was kind enough to pluck the book from the floor and hand it back without a fuss.
“What is there to be nervous about, its a lovely day,” she said, and truly it seemed like genuine curiosity, “Its sunny and warm and there are not even any bandits or murderers at all.”
“Its just a turn of phrase,” Caleb said and fumbled his book open again to where he’d left off. It was difficult one-handed but he managed because it was much preferable to further explaining himself, “Nott, please give me my hand back.”
“No, you’ll just make yourself bleed again and you won’t even realize it!” Nott was very firm in her refusal, and if anything just held on tighter. Caleb wilted a bit in the face of such an accusation, and knew now the subject wouldn’t just be left alone. Jester was right on cue,
“Why are you making yourself bleed?” The ‘thats stupid’ was implied. Certainly everyone had heard it too, and Caleb felt it when several additional pairs of eyes were turned on him. He sank further into his book. Jester, who of course had no sense of when to let a thing die, prattled on, “Molly already does that. The position is full so maybe definitely you should not be making yourself bleed for no reason.”
“I’m not,” Caleb said insistently, in a way that also sounded quite a bit like ‘drop it, for goodness sake’, “Nobody is bleeding, nobody is hurt, everything is fine. Nott—” Glancing down to the obstinate goblin in his lap, Caleb found absolutely the biggest, most stubborn pout flung back at him. He shut his mouth,
“You already get hurt so much looking after me,” Nott said, and whether the tremble in her voice was the usual, or from doggedly stifling tears, Caleb couldn’t tell, “So if the least I can do is keep you from hurting yourself, I’m gonna do it!” With a nod to indicate that was final, Nott scrabbled herself into a marginally more dignified position, seated beside Caleb. She kept a firm hold of his hand as she continued, “And since you never even realize you’re doing it, I’m going to sit here and hold your hand so you can’t.”
Caleb’s breath whooshed out of him in a heavy sigh and he tried very hard to keep the weariness out of his voice, “That is very kind of you, but-“
“It is an excellent idea!” Jester declared before he could even fully finish having the thought. All at once she was across the cart and nestling herself in at his other side, flower necklaces wholly forgotten, “And I will help too!” So speaking she snatched up Caleb’s remaining hand, laced their fingers and placed them in her lap.
For a long second Caleb was too startled to string an intelligent sentence together. He looked helplessly between Jester and his book which had, again, wound up on the floor,
“Its going to be very difficult to read if you both do this,” he said, and it was unfortunate that neither Jester nor Nott seemed to be the slightest bit deterred,
“Nonsense! We will all just read together like a big story time, and everyone will be happy and there will be no bleeding hopefully maybe.” Jester pitched forward, quite nearly dragging Caleb off the bench in her haste, and plucked the fallen book up again. Flipping to an arbitrary page she opened her mouth to begin reading aloud and discovered... Zemnian. She made a loud sort of disappointed noise instead, pulling a face and giving Caleb a shove when he chuckled, “Alright, then mister you think you’re so clever, you read it for us, then!”
Caleb flinched and distractedly worried for the book’s wellbeing when it was unceremoniously dumped back in his lap. Jester reached over and pointed to a portion of text,
“What does this part say?”
“Its... talking about magical theory,” Caleb began, scanning a few lines for context. He’d read this part already and was quite sure it would be of little interest to either of the other two, “How the accompanying gestures and quality of components affect-“
“Yes, yes, yes, but what does it say,” Jester pressed, leaning in close like proximity to the pages would affect her ability to read it. Caleb sighed, picked a sentence not obscured by her hand, and read it aloud exactly as presented. The author was a bit stuffy, liked to toss in high brow vocabulary and made a big show of the conclusions he’d drawn. So it came as a bit of a surprise when he was interrupted by giggling,
“Is something funny?” Caleb asked, quirking a brow at Jester who’d nearly bent double to stifle her laughter in both her hands, as well as the one of his she was still holding captive.
“No, no it is a very good book.” She squeaked. A glance at Nott revealed the laughter to apparently be infectious as she had a hand clamped over her mouth as well, “Its full of all sorts of good words, keep going, we are so focused.”
Caleb didn’t even get an entire sentence out before he had to stop again for how the girls collapsed into him from giggling,
“I have missed the joke, clearly.” He said and fixed the pair with a rather unimpressed look. It went completely ignored,
“We’re sorry, Caleb, its a really good book, we promise,” Nott could hardly contain herself and hid a bright and toothy smile behind one hand, “Its just got such funny words, is all.”
“Does it.” It wasn’t a question, and Caleb had a couple of guesses as to which words in particular were the culprits. It was not the first time someone had found his native language entertaining and it would very likely not be the last.
“Yes, definitely,” Jester sat up quickly, the biggest most mischievous grin lighting up her face, “Like EEEECH!” Her rendition was enough to have both her and Nott in stitches. Caleb, on the other hand, looked rather like he’d been slapped in the face,
“What?”
“No, no,” Nott interjected, absolutely shaking trying to contain herself, “Its more like... ICKK!”
Caleb had some semblance of a retort in mind, but it was drowned out entirely by their raucous laughter. He heaved a long suffering sigh instead,
“Thats... it just means ‘I’. Of all the words, you think ich—” he gave up on finishing the thought when, amid their helpless laughter the girls breathlessly imitated him.
“It sounds like you are coughing up loogies!” Jester gasped, getting herself together for another delightful butchering of the language before the two dissolved back into uncontained hilarity.
Defeated, Caleb shook his head, “Your accents are just awful. And you,” he glanced up sharply just in time to catch Fjord pretending like he was not also shaking with repressed laughter where he sat driving the cart, “Are not helping.” The clipped, sheepish little ‘sorry!’ he got in reply was at least satisfying.
It had suddenly become quite clear that he was going to be getting little else done that afternoon. And in any case, there was a saying about what to do if one ‘can’t beat them’. Caleb smothered a smile for sake of appearances,
“Anyway, there are plenty funnier words than ich,” he gave a short pause to allot for the inevitable interruption, and once it had suitably subsided he went on, “Like for instance, mittwoch,” it had hardly left his tongue before both Jester and Nott got matching expressions of delight and exclaimed,
“Mid-fuck!?” And nearly knocked all three off them off the bench for how they fell all over each other laughing. Fjord apparently fared little better.
Perhaps he wouldn’t be getting much more reading done, and perhaps he wouldn’t have the use of either of his hands for the afternoon. But there were certainly worse ways to spend time than, as it would eventually come to be referred to, ‘teaching Zemnian.’