Chapter Text
“No Nott, we cannot afford it.”
“But Caleb, it says here it’s going to be aw-awarded to the winners of the Locke festival tomorrow.”
Caleb held back a small smile as Nott looked up at him from under her hood with equal measures of pride and avarice in her yellow eyes. Caleb was constantly impressed at how quickly his little goblin shadow picked things up. Whether reading common, the small cantrips or grifts that he’d shown her, or whatever various trinkets or shinnies, as she called them, happened into her view.
“Caleb, your face is doing that that weird thing again." Nott said, her ears visibly drawing back in distress.
“Ahh, apologies, mein schatten, I was just thinking that you are a truly unique individual.” Caleb tried to keep his face impassive, as Nott was still unfamiliar with human expressions indicating anything other than fear or disgust and sometimes interpreted them wrongly.
“But if it’s on display until tomorrow, we could steal it?” Nott asked thoughtfully. “Maybe ‘A Lost Soul’? Or ‘The Count’?"
“I think it’s likely that there are more protections on that piece than merely an old distractible shopkeeper, my friend.” Caleb said, ignoring the itch in his palms as he stared at the diamond on the other side of the glass. Not wishing to waste a spell - who knew when they might next get a full 8 hours sleep - he cautiously reached out and stroked a finger across the glass, feeling a telltale tingle of magics across his skin. “No, Nott. For all that it would be quite a prize, it is not worth the risk.”
“But Caleb,” Nott turned to argue.
Caleb sighed, although he could deny himself much, he was harder pressed to say no to Nott when she asked. For all that such a diamond would be a powerful tool for him, he’d happily place it into her claws as just one more, perhaps particularly large, shiny bauble, for all that she’d done and risked for him. Best to get them moving along before he could no longer distract her.
“Come, we should focus our endeavours on some food and a location to sleep tonight. With the festival tomorrow as you read” Caleb slowly reached down to rest a hand on Nott’s head, holding back another smile when she pressed up into it, rather like his old familiar Frumpkin. “Well, I have previously found that large crowds tend to be much less cautious when it comes to an individual’s purse...”
“You are so smart Caleb. How did you get so smart?” Nott asked as they moved away from the window, an innocent question that nonetheless spread icy coldness through Caleb’s veins.
“I - ah - I went to school for a time.” Caleb heard himself respond as he stumbled forward, his feet catching on the rough road.
“A school? Is that expensive?” Nott asked as she eyed the passersby with interest from under her hood, almost instinctively reaching out for his hand as he’d showed her. Although he knew it was to better situate themselves in the crowd’s eyes as just another father and daughter wandering the streets on an errand, he could almost imagine that there was a measure of comfort in the gesture as well. “Is that why you don’t have any money or shinies? Before I met you, I always thought that humans had so many things.”
“Yes. My school was rather more... expensive than most in the end.” He gave her hand a brief squeeze. “Now, assuming we can find it, what would you like for breakfast? And please, mein schatz, do not say rat.”