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At first Caleb is unsure if he is still asleep, but the confusion only lasts a moment. He must have woken up, jostled by the cart, for his dreams are never this nice. Someone is holding him, and noticing this, Caleb makes no movement and keeps his eyes closed.
Even without looking, he can tell the arms around him are not human. He is surrounded by soft, short fur and Caduceus’ scent of dead leaves, earth and chamomile. Caduceus’ breaths are deeper and slower than any human’s, and sometimes Caleb can hear him sniff the air, unconsciously picking up on the way the wind changes as they make their way down the rough country-side road.
The two of them are laying in the back of the cart, leaning against the side as the wood creaks and all their bags rattle around. Yasha and Beau are quiet, but Nott and Jester are chatting at the reins up front. Fjord is snoring, taking his rest where he can get it in hostile territory.
“You’re awake,” Caduceus murmurs.
Of course he can tell. Caleb opens his eyes and sees gentle late-afternoon sunlight. The pinks and greens of the flowering apple trees compliment the same shades in Cad’s face and hair. He looks like spring, Caleb thinks, and draws his old brown coat tighter around himself. He decides that the fights they’ve been in - all that magic spent to keep them all safe - explains his exhaustion, and that Caduceus, ever compassionate, saw fit to keep him steady during the journey. He doesn’t know how else he could have earned this warmth.
"You are holding me," he says, a matter of fact.
“I… am. It’s kind of nice, isn’t it?” Cad shrugs, and then the weight of his arms settles around Caleb again. “You were leaning against me in your sleep, and I didn’t think to move.”
An accident, then. That works. It seems to be the way things happen for this group: accident after accident, falling, and failing into something that makes sense.
“And I imagine you needed the rest, anyway,” Caduceus continues. “Seemed like you slept well.”
From the front of the cart comes Jester’s teasing voice: "You look so cute."
Good for her to be able to find the cuteness in this. Caleb knows himself to look dirty as ever, and he dimly realizes that mud from his coat is smeared all over Cads sleeve. He should offer to do something about that later...
Cad eases up on the embrace to let Caleb move away, and in withdrawing, Caleb feels suddenly more aware of the sensations that he leaves behind. He could feel Caduceus’ bones beneath his skin, could have counted each rib with his fingers. There was something monstrous about the sheer size of him, and even now Caleb can fit easily within his shadow.
Their eyes meet, and Cad's iris are pink like a white rabbit's.
As a village comes into view, there’s a brief scramble to get the usual array of disguises up. Nott assumes the form of a gnome while Fjord hides the color of his skin. When Jester fashions an illusory sunhat, Caduceus stirs from the trance in which he’s spent the last couple of miles.
“Where is this?”
"Dunno. It's just a hamlet," Jester says, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looks ahead.
"Just passing through," Beau adds. "But I thought we might pick up some more supplies while we’re here. Then we can make camp later. Find a place in the woods somewhere."
Cad says, “I need feathers and a bit of incense. That ought to be doable here, right?"
"If we're lucky." Beau keeps a tight grip on her staff as they enter the town.
At least the place is small enough to get in and out of quickly. The streets are narrow and unguarded, letting them through to the sole inn without having to speak to a single soul. What the inside of the Red Stag looks like, none of them will ever know, but the courtyard and the stables seem like a fine enough place to park the cart for a few hours. From here, they disperse: Though Jester would have liked to stay with Fjord to watch their stuff, Beau ends up tempting her with the promise of pastries, and Nott comes with them to carry the rations.
"I need some reagents as well," Caleb says, though the way Caduceus has yet to leave the courtyard tells him that this was expected. Caleb's boots hit the sawdust, and his back hurts a bit from leaning against the cart's side at an odd angle.
“Sure," Caduceus replies, already turning towards the street.
"…Aren’t you going to disguise yourself?
"We’re passing through, right? Let’s just tell people not to mind.”
"I'd rather we don’t talk to anybody at all."
At least most of the townspeople seem to share Caleb’s sentiment. As Cad steps into the street, people step around him, staring mutely and leaving Caleb unnoticed in his wake. And apart from a gnome or two, the people here are human. It takes half an hour of wandering before Caleb ducks into the shadows of the nearby alley, fixated on a sign swinging in the wind. An apothecary. He had not expected to find a real enchanter's shop this far out in the countryside anyway - even this is a blessing. The window full of jars and the blue door is open. When Caleb enters, a bell rings somewhere amidst the bundles of leafy plants hanging from the low ceiling, and on the wooden floorboards, his shadow melts into Caduceus’.
Caleb's hopes of avoiding a conversation are immediately dashed. Despite taking a sharp right turn towards the shelves packed with ingredients, he finds himself noticed by an older man with a short-cropped beard and one eyebrow perpetually raised. The shop's owner clears his throat and leans forward on the counter with a quizzical expression on his face. Probably wondering what he did to deserve a visit from a dirty vagrant and a seven foot tall firbolg. Something other and slightly monstrous.
Jester would probably find it funny. (Molly definitely would).
“Can I help you?” the man asks.
“I... “ Caleb begins, wondering how to explain his need for bat guano, but to his surprise, Caduceus cuts him off, physically stepping in between Caleb and the counter.
"There are a couple of things I’m looking for," Cad begins. Then he describes the flowers and herbs he'd like, speaking slowly, and getting distracted half-way through by a need to offer remarks about the species hanging above - all very nice, apparently. He draws the shopkeep’s eyes off of Caleb, who gratefully takes to searching for incense and liquorice root and all the rest on his own.
The jars are covered in a thin layer of dust, hard to get a grip on. One by one, he lifts each container gently from the shelf, gathers what he needs - then he pauses, a finger drawing circles on the cool glass as he listens to the conversation behind him.
"I don’t usually see your kind around," the shop owner says.
"I don't usually get away from home," is Cad's reply.
“But no trouble on the road, I imagine? Most people - staring up at all of that –“ the man gestures towards Cad, head to toe – “well, they'd put away the club and knife, wouldn't they? I imagine you're capable of a lot."
What makes him say that? The body in itself or something in Cad's eyes? The fact that he’s purchasing herbs with certain properties or saying certain things - ? Caleb tears himself away from the thoughts and the glass jars, from his reflection there, reagents in one hand while the other searches for coins in his coat. Underneath the coat, in his chest, something is building. A mood he doesn’t know the name for. A tightness, not quite fear. He pushes coins across the counter with two fingers, not making eye contact all the while.
“Ah,” Cad says, “I believe my friend here is trying to pay for some stuff."
The man offhandedly collects his payment, and Caleb stuffs the liquorice into his bag. He keeps his hand there, counting the things he carries with him, focusing on the sensations. There is coarse parchment, soft paper and metal thread. A sleek mirror Nott stole and gave him last time he bathed. The question: What are you capable of? A playing card Beau dropped. A cookie from Jester. The memory of a similar question asked to Molly when a superstitious stranger cornered them in an alley and the tiefling stepped into the light, all sharp teeth shining as he refused to answer what kind of curses those red eyes could call down. Well, Caleb thinks, the better question would have been: What kind of love could there be in them, and with what kindness could they look at someone - even someone like Caleb himself?
He knows he must look dumb, frozen as he is, but he can’t help it.
He saw himself reflected in those red eyes. He didn’t look quite human then; there was some similar edge, an unspoken threat, a tinge to his skin. He remembers thinking that he’d found a true mirror.
Now, Caleb’s hand rests on the cool glass surface of the mirror Nott gave him. Nott who is most endearing to him when she drops her disguise in his presence, and who shared his relief the first time they locked the door to a shared tavern room.
"- And these as well," Caduceus says, dropping an armful of plants on the counter for the shopkeep to divide into bunches. The smell of dried herbs fills the room each time the leaves rustle, and it follows Cad even outside. He holds the plants in the crook of his arm as they make their way along the merchant’s road. These small villages always have things in common: The shape of certain streets, the chatter by the wells, the smell of animals. The dark alleys are familiar, too, and they wander through them unafraid. Caleb knows that just a few embers in his palm will scare most people off - not necessarily because of the magic itself, but he's been told he gets a certain look that people shy away from.
All gathered in the cart again, the Nein drive towards the in-between land of low trees and fields left by peasants fleeing the war. The quiet are quieter - Yasha sits with her arms crossed, looking at the horizon like a guard - and the loud are louder - Nott and Jester disagree on the best way to eat a cake called a Cat's Paw (of which Caleb has no opinion apart from the fact that the name is pretty cute). Suddenly Jester looks back and asks him, "Can you do that magic shelter thing tonight?"
“It’ll be a little small for all of us, won’t it?” Beau asks, glancing towards Caduceus.
“It’s bigger than it looks,” Caleb replies. “… Jester, please stop snickering."
"We should find a place to set up camp first anyway,” Beau continues.
“That shouldn’t be too difficult when we get into the woods.”
The trees grow denser as they speak. A line of rocks marks the place where farmers stopped clearing for their fields and the pines were allowed to remain gently swaying in the evening breeze. No bushes grow between the trunks, but the branches cast deep shadows.
Jester lowers her voice to a whisper. "Ooh! I think I heard something!”
Beau shakes her head. "I don’t think so. I don't think there’s people around here anymore."
"Wildlife," Caleb suggests. But whatever Jester heard must have been her imagination, for nothing shows itself, no other noise is heard even when the road becomes a pine-needle-covered path.
The sky, when visible through the trees, is red.
The cart stops.
Fjord says, “Here,” and here is a clearing where a few green plants find light enough to grow around a small stream carving a way between gnarled roots. There is no discussion, only action; a last bit of energy to expend before they can rest. Bedrolls are found and unfurled. Caduceus stands a little ways off, staff in hand.
“I was thinking that I might go ask the Wildmother for advice,” he says. “Just while you get a fire going.”
He gets a half-distracted thumbs up from Nott, who’s making herself useful gathering firewood. Nobody else seems to hear him, all busy. Only Caleb hangs back by the cart, searching through his bag for the silver thread he needs to set up an alarm spell.
"Good luck,” he offers. “If that is what you need."
"Not really luck, no. But maybe she’ll be kind and tell me a thing or two. I’ll just go over there, find some quiet…” Cad gestures away from the clearing, into the shadows.
“…Are you sure you want to head into that on your own?” Caleb asks.
“Do you want to come?”
"I should set up the alarms – “
"It might do you good.”
“I can’t speak to your god.”
“It might do you good to sit in the dark out there. Just a little while."
"You wouldn't mind someone looking?"
Cad shakes his head slowly and looks up – “She doesn’t mind at all.”
A couple of breaths later, Caleb packs away the silver thread and agrees wordlessly. They go between ferns that reach to his knees, curled-up and brown. He doesn't know if this means that they are dying. It might just be how they are. It is easy to trample them, making a path back to the camp. Pine-cones hang like baubles, but so far up that Cad passes below without trouble. They tremble when a bird lands somewhere in the tree, sending a tremor along the bough.
A storm must have come through some time ago, Caleb decides, as they come upon a hole in the cover above, leaving the now darkened sky abruptly visible. All that remains of what must have been a giant tree is a trunk halfway decomposed and the exposed roots jutting up from the moss. A bird perches on a patch of upturned black earth, and Caduceus sounds like an echo of Fjord, but with more confidence:
“Here.”
Here, Caduceus crouches down, laying his staff in the grass. Again he sniffs the air, but this time with full awareness judging by the way his eyelids flutter as he takes everything in. With nothing better to do, Caleb sits down on the fallen tree, hands in his lap, just watching.
To him this place is dead pine needles and rotten wood, but he imagines that Cad feels all manner of life around them – the insects scuttling away from Caleb’s leg, the bird taking flight above. Caleb can't follow Caduceus into the vision-world of the divine magic, only call for Frumpkin to come quietly and keep him company in his waiting. The cat appears soundlessly. He'd hate to be a distraction.
The moon is rising, but it isn't night just yet.
Caduceus furrows his brow, staring straight ahead at nothing.
Caleb knows both sides of this situation well. The Mighty Nein have stood waiting many times while his mind was with Frumpkin, or when he stared into the dodecahedron – while he in turn experiences the same powerlessness thinking about Yasha's visions, Fjord’s dreams, and now Caduceus’ wordless meetings with his god. All he knows is that you want is someone waiting on the other side of the visions. Preferably someone who can show you what’s real, who and where you are.
Caduceus becomes a black shape in the night, one that the birds do not fear as a few more emerge, landing beside him. He seems to listen intently, whatever it is that speaks to him. Birds or trees. The ground, maybe. He has access to different stories. His eyes, widening, perceives things Caleb can’t until a sigh leaves him, signalling the end of the communion.
“Welcome back,” Caleb calls out.
“Thank you,” is Cad’s reply, and he looks around like someone else also whispered his name. He gets to his feet slowly. He has never looked less human. His robes hang so loosely around his gaunt body, and his slow steps make no sound as he approaches. His pink eyes glint.
Rabbit, Caleb thinks again, and grips the wet bark tight. They used to have rabbits at the Academy, and he's grateful Cad's fur feels nothing like rabbit fur because he knows how rabbit fur smells when it burns and how it feels when it slides off the flesh underneath. Red flesh, not pink. That smell of singed hair. His face reflected in the eye of the dead animal.
There was something other, something monstrous there.
They weren’t even learning about rabbits or anatomy or even any kind of magic. They were just learning how to hurt.
So this night, he takes Caduceus’ hand and relies on his friend’s dark vision instead of Frumpkin’s, finding their path through the ferns again. Here it is quiet; there are no eyes on them but perhaps the Wildmother’s. A good kind of shiver runs down his spine. Where the village people from earlier would be deathly afraid in the dark, he trusts in Caduceus and the promised campfire.
“I don’t want to pry,” he says, keeping his voice as low as the sound of parting fern-leaves, “but what did the Wildmother tell you?”
The grip on his hand tightens just a bit.
“There’ll be trouble,” comes the reply, ”but it’s two days down the road.”
“…Not tonight, then.”
“Not tonight.”
Behind the trees is a yellow light reaching for his feet, and Caleb sees it shine gold around the hand covering his own and the myriad of pine needles stuck in Caduceus’ hair. Despite the warning, he feels safe. Safe in the knowledge that he can have this again, the dark and quiet, if he needs it. The way Cad smiles at him tells him that. And so, Caleb can let go of his hand as they come back to the clearing.
They rejoin the others by the fire where dinner is cooking and a familiar ease sets sin. Later they will brew the herbs into potions, Fjord will take first watch, and Nott will place her porcelain mask beside her bedroll. Habits.
Beau yells “Get your old mug over here. We’ve got stew!”
Sitting on the other side of the flames from Caduceus, he realises how much he wants to ask, though he knows he never will, “That thing earlier, in the cart, when you held me - did it mean anything to you?"
What sort of love could Caduceus show?
What sort of curse – oh, curse on my heart, Caleb thinks, making a fist of his hand hidden beneath his coat.
Caduceus’ love is a gentle, platonic kindness freely given, a calm spreading around the campfire, a believer’s certainty that there’s something above – or in the earth and the trees – looking out for them. It’s more than Caleb deserves already. He can’t demand anything more, can he?
What he can do is sit in a circle with a firbolg, a goblin and an orc with filed-down teeth, a tiefling singing bawdy songs and a woman who sometimes has bone-and-thunder wings. Beau ladles stew into a bowl and offers it to him. Leans in. Whispers.
“You’re staring at him, just so you know.”
Caleb turns his attention to the bowl. Suddenly all he craves is chamomile tea. He lets Beau see his smile, that brief admission, guilty.
“What?” Beau asks, but Caleb doesn’t answer.
No words. Not yet. He’s somewhere Beau can’t follow for now with a nameless feeling that is hard to sit still with.
The shelter-spell comes easily to him this evening, and the shimmering dome feels different than the other times he’s summoned it. It looks the same, but Caleb can tell that it is somehow more alive. It is not merely camouflaged to look like the rest of the forest, but taking on some of its nature. The magic is tinged a different color.
Pretending not to be quite done casting yet, Caleb remains on the outskirts of the camp. The playing card in his pocket is a king, a lucky draw with edges worn from use. Not the tarot, but rather Molly’s games played by candlelight in shabby inns. Echoes of laughter. His hand wanders past that.
The mirror reflects a thin moon before it catches the firelight. He angles it towards his face, studies the lines and wonders how it looks so plain when he feels more like -
Something monstrous?
In passing, Caduceus pulls him from his thoughts.
"I think it might be better if you put that away," he says. "It's not doing you any good, is it?"
Caleb shakes his head. The mirror slips back into the pocket. He misses that other mirror he had in Molly. Hindsight let him see it clearly: He was attracted to red eyes and sharp teeth and everything other.
He can't look Caduceus in the eye right now.
At dawn, Caleb emerges into a dew-covered world of grey and brown. Only one splash of color draws his eyes in the middle of it. Caduceus is sitting on Fjord’s cloak, a leftover form the half-orc’s late-night vigil, staring at the sky which has now become every shade of orange. It carries the promise of a day without rain. There is no sound at all, not even birds, not even wind.
Then Caleb yawns, and Caduceus turns halfway towards him, a gentle smile on his lips. Caleb reaches into his pocket, but not for the mirror this time. He offers his friend the somewhat dry, but still edible cookie, saying, “You look like you need it.”
“That’s kind of you.”
“If you say so. Can I sit here?”
Cad moves aside with a smile like a breeze clearing away the dead leaves in Caleb's head. “I’m fine, really,” he says, but Caleb keeps holding out the cookie until Caduceus relents and takes it. “Do you want half?”
“It’s for you. A bit old, but…” Caleb begins.
“It’s good,” Cad interrupts before taking another bite. He’s got crumbs on his face, but Caleb decides not to mention it. He’d rather just sit in silence for a bit while Caduceus eats as he tries to figure out how he feels about the inch of Fjord’s cloak between their hands. Caduceus tilts his head. “You seem to have something on your mind.”
“Maybe I do,” Caleb sighs.
“…It’s nice here. It’s a nice morning.” A small sigh. Then: “You tend to make time for me. I appreciate that a lot.”
“Well, you’re easier to talk to than certain others. And… I have learned not to think that there will always be time later. Not to take that for granted.” He looks back, but nobody else has come out from their shelter. Then he leans in, rests his weight against Caduceus’, and hears his own voice muffled by the collar of his coat. “I liked being close to you. I... I would like to be close to you, if it’s fine by you.”
He knows logically that Caduceus isn’t the kind of person to push him back, but some small part of him still expects it.
“Well,” Caduceus says instead. “I can’t say I’m much used to it…“
“Me neither.”
“Right.” Caduceus looks briefly surprised, but then he reaches around Caleb’s shoulders and pulls him close - closer, even, than last time. As he exhales, a morning breeze makes it way through the wood, and the ferns rustle, shaking off dewdrops that sink into the moss below. “I don’t know if I can give you all that you want, Mr. Caleb, if you’re asking what I think you might be asking.”
“All I want is this,” Caleb replies, and he feels light and transparent in the early sunlight, like he couldn’t have said anything but simple, honest words if he had tried.
Caduceus shifts, settles. He takes a deep breath, shoulders rising under Caleb’s weight. “Well. Whatever this is, it’s wonderful. Much better to watch the sunrise with someone... With you.”
The sunrise doesn’t matter to Caleb. He closes his eyes. He sees himself and Caduceus as they must appear to some poor stranger wandering through the woods, two strange shapes set so far apart from villages and ordinary worries. The matter of deserving this peace recedes from his mind, because he knows Caduceus doesn’t think that way, not when he can hold him like this.
And Caleb sinks into the embrace, deeper, like he would sink into shelter by a moss-covered tree after fleeing through rain, finding a calm place that hides him from the rest of the world. For all that he has felt monstrous wandering the spaces between villages, this moment promises him an equivalent calm can be found there. For all the years spent feeling like living dead in the asylum – or feeling like he should have been dead anyway – Caduceus’ hand strokes along his spine and promises that flowers grow from corpses all the time.
Of course no ordinary people would appreciate those flowers and enjoy the tea. It’s just for their kind. The questions flock to him like the birds to the breadcrumbs left by the cold remains of last night's fire: What kind of blessings could there be, what kind of love?
And when Caleb dares to look again, he sees them both reflected in the river.
He sees something beautiful.