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It takes her a little bit of effort to get into the crow’s nest, but she’s starting to worry that Caduceus hasn’t come back down in a while and maybe he fell asleep super high up. Which is bad. She hikes up her skirts a little, knotting them a little against her thigh and lashing her tail around the lot so it’s bunched up while she goes up the ladder to the uppermost part of the ship. She enters through the small hole in the floor of the wooden bucket-like space and peers around. She smells something herbal burning pleasantly. There’s a small stone censer and a small ember of pressed incense smoking gently on the floor. Caduceus is sitting with his back to the curve of the low barrier wall, his staff leaning against his shoulder, one knee drawn up, the other folded against the floor. His arm is draped over his knee and there’s a bit of something – a mushroom? Some fruit? – held lightly between his fingers.
He’s peering curiously at her, one long, fuzzy ear flipped up as though he was listening to her approach to the top.
For a moment, when he looks at her the dim light from the moon catches strange in his eyes – not like it does in Nott’s eyes, which refract the light like a cat in the dark, but a low-lit glow. Dimly pink, like a muted lantern light through drawn blinds at a distance. Then he blinks and its gone. He smiles a little at her, lopsidedly.
“Heey,” he rumbles. “How’re you, Jester?”
Jester takes that as invitation and scrambles up into the nest with him, whispering loudly, “You’ve been up here a long time. What are you doing? Are you praying? What is the Wildmother saying? The Traveler says that the Wild Mother is preeeeetty nice as far as other gods go. Not as cool as the Traveler you know, but – Oh.” She covers her mouth with two hands. “Did I interrupt?”
Caduceus is kind of shaking his head, a dim, befuddled non-comprehension on his pale face.
“I can go. Sorry if I interrupted your god-talk,” she whispers.
“Nah, I’m done doin’ what I was doin’.” He pats the wood beside him. “You can sit if you like. It’s a little chilly up here though.”
“Are you cold?”
He shakes his head, a warm little smile on his face he does. “I dunno. I can’t really feel it right now.” He pauses halfway through tucking a pale wave of pink hair behind his ear, frowning. “Oh. Wait.” He looks at her as she sits cross-legged beside him. “Is it actually cold?”
“No.”
“Oh.” He smiles again. “That’s nice.”
“Caduuuuceus. Are you hiiigh?”
He glances at the mushroom-fruit thing in his hand, then at her. “Maybe a little.”
“Are you okay? Do you want water? I have water.”
“Heh. Thank you, but I’m coming down. Don’t worry.”
“What were you doing?”
“Asking a question.”
“What question?”
“A good one, I think.” He puts the bit of mushroom away in a pouch at his hip. “This is good stuff. I thought it might be good. It smelled right.” He chuckles a little, a low tone that goes so deep Jester can feel the bass of it in her chest. “Sorry, this kind of things mutes a lot of other stuff for me. Feels weird.” He wrinkles his nose in a way that reminds her absurdly of a bunny rabbit. “Good though. Very easy going.”
Jester pokes Caduceus carefully. “Are you like drunk?”
“No. Of course not. Drunk was not a good feeling.”
Jester studies her firbolg teammate closely. He seems to feel her doing it because he flips the ear nearest her a little bit and glances sidelong in her direction. The moon’s high up enough and bright enough that it puts a faint silvery sheen across the fine gray down that lays across Cad’s face and neck, the places where it runs thinnest. She knows exclusively from hugging him a few times that it’s very, very velvety soft and almost not there. She also knows from hugging him and that one time he buried his face in her arm that the strange pad of pink rhinarium that tips his nose is a little rough and dry. Like a cat.
“Are you thinking of petting me?” Caduceus chuckles.
“What?! No! Can I?” Jester immediately realizes that last question she said out loud and also maybe Caduceus is reading her thoughts. “Ah! Shit! I mean, that would be rude.”
Caduceus just laughs again, low and slow and very eventual.
“It’s okay. I told Fjord it was okay and he got very embarrassed about it.” He kind of points at his own head and makes a loop-dee-loo with his finger. “People don’t see a lot of firbolgs. I never thought about that. Everyone I ever met was, like, expecting a firbolg. People say such weird things. Oh. A blacksmith told me I was fuzzy. Did I tell you that? Is that weird? I didn’t think it was weird at the time but Beau says I don’t pay attention sometimes and people are ‘creepy’.” He does finger quotes in a way that says he saw someone else do it and he’s guessing at how to use them correctly. “Anyway, I didn’t mind. Hugs are nice.”
Jester untangles her tail from her skirts and floofing them back out the way she likes.
Then she leans over and gives Caduceus a hug. He’s very tall and very solid despite being proportionally rather skinny, something about his build dense all the way through in a way that makes her remember that firbolg are giant-folk as well as fey. Caduceus hugs her back and squeezes a little before she settles in leaning against his shoulder a little, her tail looping naturally around their tucked feet. He’s very warm and smells rather not at all like seawater. She suspects he has a cantrip for cleaning up a bit, but no matter what he kind of smells like it smells if you stick your face in an old cushion – like something kind of dusty and a little old but with just a little bit of, like, that smell after rain falls.
“Caduceus, do you think I smell nice?”
Cad tilts his head at her.
“You said Caleb smelled better than fine. Is that because you like the smell of dirt?” She twiddles her fingers together a little, talking loudly to air overhead in generally. “That’s fine if you do, I don’t caaare or anything Caleb is kind of stinky. Do you like stinky things? You like fungus and stuff and you smell like dirt kinda. In a nice way! Do the rest of us smell weird to you? Because if I smelled bad, I would want someone to tell me I –”
“You smell fine.” Caduceus chuckles.
“Really? Are you just being nice?”
“I try to be nice. Sure. But I do mean it.”
“What do I smell like? Do I smell like ocean? I think that smells a little weird actually. Like I feel sticky after swimming in the ocean…”
Caduceus considers this. “Huh. Let me see.”
Then he leans over a little and puts his face against her hair. He does it with so little warning, she can’t stop him. She can feel his breath and the shape of his nose and mouth against her ear when he exhales then inhales, disturbing where her hair lies. She goes very, very still. Her heart is suddenly going a little fast and she holds her own breath. Cad inhales again, kind of nuzzling a little to shift her hair, which tickles so she giggles before he sits back against the wall again.
“It’s weird. You always smell like far away,” he says, kind of sleepy as he thinks on it “Like… like flowers that don’t grow here. Or anywhere. People should smell like where they are, you know? And you do, mostly, but also…” He yawns and it’s a big yawn, suddenly inhumanly big, like a big cat yawning before his face kind of comes back together normally again, sleepy and familiar. “You smell like stuff that’s not here. It’s very weird. I’d love to know how you do that.”
Jester pokes Caduceus’ shoulder a little. “Are you going to sleep up here?”
“Hmm, maybe a little?”
“I can stay if you want.”
“That would be nice, but only if you’d like.”
Jester scoots in a little closer and loops her arms around Caduceus again, leaning on him, careful not to poke him in the chest with her horns. For all his sleepy affectations, he doesn’t drift off though. He loops an arm around her shoulders and kind of leans his chin against the top of her head. It feels very nice and cozy. Caduceus left his armor somewhere, so its just that soft white tunic thing he wears, the one with the weird sleeves and she finds herself fiddling with the fabric a little. Then fiddling with a stray loop of long pink firbolg mane where it lays over his shoulder against his chest. It’s quite like that for a while. And oddly warm in the small cradle of the crows nest.
“Caduceus?”
“Mmm?”
“Are you still high?”
“Heh. No. Just a little… humming a bit. That’s all.”
“Okay. Good. Can I ask you a touchy question?”
“Ooh. What’s a ‘touchy’ question?”
“Have you ever kissed anyone before?”
He thinks about it. “Well, sure.”
“No, I mean like kiss-kiss. Like someone you like.” She rolls her eyes. “Like romaaaantically, Caduceus. Not like you kissed your little sister goodnight or something. Which is super cute! But not what I’m talking about.”
“Oh.” He shrugs. “No. I haven’t. Why?”
“Nott says first kisses can be, like, important.” She huffs. “But my mama said also that making a big deal out of it can be, like, silly. Because what if your first kiss happens by accident and was, like, maybe, not a real first kiss? Or it was weird?” She flaps her hand for emphasis. “And if you make a big deal out of it, then you get all worked up for nothing? You know?”
“I do not know.”
“Oh right. Well, I feel like I kissed someone and it was, like, a little disappointing and like maybe not a real first kiss. And I’m feeling a little weird about it maybe? But I don’t have anything to compare it to. You know?”
“No.” She can hear him smiling as he says it. “I don’t have any idea.”
“Oh right.”
Caduceus kind of laughs again, that low sound that vibrates in her chest.
“I think doing something just once makes it bigger in your mind than it maybe should be. More meaningful than it has right to be. Which can be nice, but also stressful.” He pats her shoulder a little. “Once you’ve done it a few more times, I’m sure you won’t feel so odd about it. I don’t… have any personal experience, but I feel like that’s a very small thing in the grand scheme of a relationship. And, really, the odds of having a weird first kiss are much higher than having a good one.” He chuckles. “You’re doing it for the first time, after all.”
Jester considers this for a long moment.
“Shit. That makes a lot of sense, Caduceus. Wow. Duuh.”
“Does it?” He sounds pleased. “Oh good. That’s great.”
“You’re really smart about this for someone who doesn’t know anything about, like, sex and kissing and stuff.”
“I don’t know about that, but I’m glad it helped.”
Jester leans back a little so she can turn and look at Caduceus in the face. The smoke from the incense is coiling in the air over his head, catching moonlight in slow ribbons of silver. The creak of ropes and the aching groan of the wood around them seems strangely loud. Like there’s a fog of noises to mask their conversation when, in fact, Jester is pretty sure voices carry a bit on the water. Jester squints at him. Cad doesn’t see very well in the dark, she knows, but the moon is very bright tonight and he tips his head again, like he’s waiting for whatever she’s going to do next and very curious about it.
Jester points between them. “Could I kiss you?”
Cad blinks. “To practice?”
“Yeah! And, like, because I think you are super pretty, but also, I’ve kissed someone at least once. So odds are higher now that your first kiss will be nicer because I have experience.” She preens a little, but mostly to hide the fact her heart’s going a little fast. “You want to?”
He thinks about it. “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about that.”
“We don’t have to kiss, Caduceus. I’m just saying.” She brushes her hair off her shoulder, tossing her head very showily. “I am very cute and smell nice and have kissed one other whole person. That’s prrretty good.”
Caduceus chuckles and kind of… looks at her. It’s a different look than before, like he hadn’t been focusing at all and it’s only just now, in the wake of her question and her statement that he’s really studying the whole of her presentation and again her heart gets a little fast. She has to stop herself gulping a little. Caduceus’ eyes are weirdly visible in this low light – the pale rose color almost luminous as he looks at her. She can’t really read his face just this… neutral, friendly curiousness.
He sits back.
“Okay. Sure.”
Jester gasps and claps her hands a little. “Okay! You’re sure?”
He shrugs. “Well, you made such a good argument.”
“Okay, okay.” She sits up straighter, tucking her knees under her where she sits facing her teammate. She can tell he’s amused, but that makes it easier for some reason. She floofs her skirts a little, primly. “Ready?”
Cad chuckles again. “Yeah. Go for it.”
Jester ignores the weird fluttery buzz of nervousness, a sudden thrum of it living under her palms and in her ribs. She leans forward carefully, sitting up on her knees alittle because Caduceus is tall even sitting like he is against the wall and not really helping her close the distance. Again, for some reason that makes it easier – simpler that he’s just kind of waiting expectedly for her do what she’s doing. She places her left hand against the wood over his shoulder, right beside his head and feels it like a brush of butterfly wings when his ear twitches a little, touching her forearm for a second.
Her weight safely braced, Jester leans a little closer, maintaining a determined eye contact.
Caduceus doesn’t seem alarmed by this, just watching her with rapt attention, eyes scanning her face and glancing toward her right hand when she brings it up a little between them. She does not go fast, waiting to see if he spooks at all. This close, she can see every little thing – that he straightens up just a little, that his expression relaxes very slightly, and he almost says something, but lets the word rest on his tongue and stay there, parting his lips just a little. Her curled fingers make gentle contact along the line of his jaw, following the soft line of his cheekbone back to the place where his jaw meets the soft deer-like shape of his ear.
Her fingers curl a little into a thickness of pink hair, tucking a little at the nape of his neck and spreading slightly along the base of his skull. Yes. That seems right. She holds his gaze except to glance down when she feels the warm heat of his breath. She angles her head a little, so her nose doesn’t bump his, and uses her hand at the nape of his neck to tug him forward just a little. Guiding. She feels him inhale a little shakily and she stops.
“Okay?” she whispers, so close to him she thinks her lips brush his.
“Okay,” he murmurs.
The bass in the syllables hum in her throat even before she closes that tiny distance and presses her mouth carefully to his. He’s warm. His mouth is soft against hers, tickling a little where his upper lip converges into the rougher texture of his nose. Her fingers sink a little deeper into the tangled silk at the back of Clay’s head, an instinct curling her nails just a little against the back of his skull. When she does it, Cad makes a kind of… humming sound. Almost curious and surprised. She does it again, just enough to pull his hair a little, and feels him smile against her mouth. She giggles, breaking immediately. Then the only thing to do seems to kiss him three times, rapidly, until he’s laughing against her lips and they pull apart.
“How was that?” Jester beams, fixing Caduceus’ hair a bit and sitting back on her heels.
“Nice,” says Caduceus. “Weird.” He’s smiling fondly at her. “I liked it.”
“Good first time?” Jester says, excited.
“Yeah. Definitely.”
She punches the air with two fists. “Oh my gosh! I am the best!”
Caduceus immediately busts up laughing, a little louder and longer than he might otherwise allow if he weren’t so relaxed and sleepy-like. He folds both arms across his middle and smiles at her. “You shouldn’t worry about kissing. It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. It’s nice, but probably not worth stressing over.” His smile deepens. “Thank you though. I get to say my first kiss was a really good one. How about that?”
“How about that?” Jester enthuses.
“You feel better?”
“So much better. Do you feel okay?”
“Very okay." Caduceus gestures. "Want to sit together for a bit then head down? I probably shouldn’t sleep up here.”
“No, yeah, you probably shouldn’t. Actually, don’t do drugs in high places, Caduceus. That’s pretty dumb.”
“Oh. Yeah, good point.”
They settle in together and wait for the incense to burn down.