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She scouts ahead.
She always does. Caduceus and Jester heal, Fjord and Beau and Yasha fight, Caleb offers whatever he can, whatever is needed during a fight, and she, Nott, scouts ahead.
She’s very stealthy. A side effect of being a goblin, she supposes. Or maybe it started earlier than that, when her breath was still new and her eyes were still closed and the world had already decided it didn’t like her. When she realized that it was easier to hide from things rather than face them.
Nott lets herself close her eyes for a second and imagine the rolling plains of home. Green. Silent. Peaceful.
Then she opens them again, and she’s at the bottom of a well hunting demons with her friends, and she remembers she never actually liked Felderwin that much.
There’s a large cavern opening ahead, and Nott darts in, glancing around her for traps. Everything seems clear on the walls and floor, but she still treads gingerly, not wanting to risk another gnoll mishap.
There’s a small lake ahead, clear and stagnant, and she approaches it warily. The water is still like oil. Nott peers at it, and almost recoils as a sudden wave of sad curiosity sweeps over, as old and familiar as a pair of shoes, now outgrown. She takes a quick look around her. Left. Right. Up. And then, when she decides the place is clear, she drops her invisibility.
It’s meant to be a fleeting action. Barely more than a moment’s time. Nott scouts ahead, it’s what she does, and she would never be so stupid as to drop her invisibility permanently just so she could look into a lake at her own goblin face in some vain hope it’s changed.
But then, just as she’s gotten the bitter confirmation she was looking for and is preparing to cloak herself in the shadows once again, she spots movement. And she knows that even in those three seconds, she’s been careless.
She whips around, crossbow at the ready, and yelps. It’s that thing from earlier. One of them, at least. The male. She stumbles, and skittishly lets a bolt fly, but the incubus simply side steps it, giving her a pearly smile.
“Oh, you poor thing,” he coos. “You’re so small. So unflattering.” His grin hardens a bit, like amber in the sunlight. “But I guess you’ll do.”
Nott goes to ask what that means, or better yet just run, but finds that she can’t do either. Her tongue feels slow and heavy in her mouth. Her legs seem to have sprouted roots where they are. She can only stare as the incubus stretches out his wings and takes to the ceiling, perching on an even surface carved into a clutter of stalactites and surveying her through half closed, thick lidded scarlet eyes.
“Come here,” he beckons, a single finger curving towards him.
And Nott does.
“Why are you here?” he asks. “Why are you alone? Did the others send you ahead, into danger, to die for them? Are you nothing to them? Or was this their plan all along?”
He’s not speaking now, not moving his lips, but Nott can feel his words dancing around her anyway, creeping into her skull and smothering her brain, smothering all of her own ideas and thoughts - but wait, maybe these are her own thoughts, yes that’s it, the incubus and her are just on the same page, that’s all, and all the thoughts running through her mind like a string of Caleb’s dancing lights are just that, just hers.
“Caleb,” her mind hisses, and she feels a wave of love roll over her, of fear. “So smart. So talented. He’s such a brilliant man, isn’t he?”
Yes. Yes, he is. Such a brilliant man. Such a clever boy.
“You need to protect him. You’ve always needed to protect him. The others want to kill him. They want to kill you both. The whole world wants to kill you. Kill them before they kill you. Protect yourself. Protect him.”
A smile, burned into her eyelids.
“I’ll help.”
“Nott?” That’s Caleb’s voice now, familiar and nervous, a new intruder in her mind. “Is everything alright? You’ve been gone very long. Should we come down?”
“Yes,” says the incubus.
“Yes,” says Nott.
A pause.
“Just me? Or all of us?”
“Just you. Always you.”
Another pause.
“Are you sure everything is good?”
“It’s good.“ The incubus laughs in her mind, and Nott smiles along dazedly. "So good.”
Caleb doesn’t answer, but a few moments later appears at the chamber’s entrance anyway, tall and ratty and Caleb. Nott had never before noticed how weak he looks. His eyes have circles under them. His stick thin form is practically consumed by that dirty coat he always wears. She just wants to hug him, press his head to her chest and keep him there forever.
“You can,” the incubus tells her. “You will.”
“You dropped your invisibility,” Caleb says. Nott blinks at him.
“Yes,” she replies. “It’s all clear. Come in, Caleb. I want to show you something.”
Caleb hesitates, but follows anyway. His eyes scan the cavern warily. “What?”
“Just go over there.” She gestures towards a patch of stalagmites somewhere behind her. Her hands feel like they’re moving through syrup. “And call the others so you all can see it.”
“You know I could have always brought them along with me, ja?” he says, his voice exasperated but fond. He’s such a bright boy. So smart. But so naive to think that the others have his best interests in heart. So blind as to how cruel family can be.
She must have been staring, because Caleb hasn’t moved. His eyes are fastened on her dubiously.
“There are no traps?” he says.
“No.”
“That is good. You are good. At scouting, I mean.”
The incubus shrugs off the compliment, and Nott stays silent. Caleb persists.
“I was never as good as you, even… even at my time at the academy.” He swallows. “I was often punished for it. Nott, I know I do not talk often about my time there, but–”
“We can continue this later,” Nott says as the incubus in her mind stomps its foot impatiently. “Just call the others, Caleb.”
Caleb stays silent. His eyes have narrowed even more, his look of dubiousness scaled even higher. Nott scowls. He’s got it all wrong. All his fear and suspicion– it’s all misplaced. He should be looking at the others like that, the others who want to skin them both like cats, the others who have been trying to do so all this time, not her, who just wants to get them out of the way for him. For them. How can a man so bright be so dim witted at times?
She turns to face the opening herself. “Everyone, come in,” she calls, trying to keep the anger bubbling inside her out of her tone. “It’s clear.”
“Finally,” she can hear Jester complain. She instinctively shrinks back at the sound of her voice, loud, echoing. “That was so stupid, why did we have to wait?”
“Yeah,” Beau adds. The brash one. The strong. “What took you so long?”
“Nothing,” Nott answers automatically. “Caleb just thought now would be a good time to get personal.”
She can’t see Caleb, but she can feel his eyes burning the back of her head, unwavering and still. She tries not to think about it, and the incubus helps, smoothing out the creases in her mind like an iron on cloth.
Slowly, they all appear at the mouth of the cavern, pinpricks of various sizes and colors. A tiefling, a human, a half-orc, the rest. Nott has never been great at discerning different races from each other, but now at least she doesn’t have to. They all fall under one umbrella to her. Enemies.
She turns to Caleb. “Go wait over there. I’ll get the others.”
He doesn’t move. He’s looking at her with an unreadable look, his eyebrows furrowed but his features blank. The incubus in Nott’s mind gnashes its teeth, and she feels inclined to agree.
“Let him watch, if he wants to stay so badly,” it snaps. “Just hurry up and get them out of the way.”
Nott duly turns away, back to the party. They’re chatting among themselves, and Nott had never before really taken in how big they all were, how powerful and strong and scary. Even so far away from her, their figures seem grotesquely stretched, tall and looming. She tenses her shoulders almost reflexively.
“They’re plotting to kill you. They’re plotting to kill both of you.”
She looks at Jester’s sharp fangs, gleaming as she laughs. She looks at Beau’s and Yasha’s arms, rippling with well crafted strength. She looks at Caduceus’s height, easily able to crush her head under one foot without batting an eye.
“Kill them first, my doll.”
“Oh, Nott.”
And she looks at Fjord.
Fjord, who’s lied to her before. Fjord, who nearly drowned her once again. Fjord, who’s big and strong and had a letter that could have helped them both, both her and Caleb; Fjord, who broke Jester’s heart even if Jester was a traitor too; Fjord, who wants to kill her.
“So good to see you’re alive. You had me real worried for a se–”
The bolt fired into his forehead cuts him off.
He stares at her dumbly, blood already beginning to trickle down his face. She stares back.
“Nott!” Beau yells. The chatter of the others has stopped, the bolt that cut through the air just seconds prior cutting through their conversation just as quick. The air around them has gone cold. “What the fuck!!”
Jester is the first to unfreeze. Her hands are trembling and her eyes are wide as she fumbles around for a healing potion, but Nott knows she needs to act fast. The wound wasn’t as deep as she would have liked, and certainly not fatal. She needs to try again.
“That’s right. Just like that.”
She aims for Beau next. She’s quick to react, and catches the bolt in mid-air before flipping over a stalagmite and racing towards her, staff at the ready. Nott fires again, and catches her in the arm, but this wound is even more shallow than the first, and Beau shrugs it off with a wince.
“I don’t want to hurt you!” she yells. “Just tell me what the fuck you’re doing!”
Protecting myself. Protecting him. Protecting us.
Beau is next to her now, staff still in her hands but currently lowered. In the distance, Nott can see Jester saying something to Fjord, who still seems frozen. Caduceus and Yasha have vanished from sight.
“Okay,” Beau says. “Okay okay okay. We’re all friends here. Just put the crossbow down, and we can–”
Nott stabs her. Right down to the hilt.
“SON OF A BITCH!”
She darts out of the way as Beau falls on one knee, cradling her other in pain. Her shortsword is still buried in her left leg, but it’s too risky to go and get it, so she opts to leave it there. If Beau decides to pull it out, it’s twice the damage for her.
She scrambles behind a stalagmite, preparing to fire again, when a sudden pain flares up in her back and she’s forced up against it, crossbow clattering to the ground. She strains to look behind her, and can just barely make out Yasha, who’s holding her greatsword and appears to have pressed the hilt against her back with just enough strength to keep her in place.
“Caleb!” she can hear Beau yell. “What’s gotten into her?!”
Nott’s blood boils. Her vision blurs. For a moment, she swears she might go into a rage herself.
How dare she bring him into this? How dare she try to get him on her side, on their side, when all they’ve done is lie and try to get them both killed from day one? How dare she try to take him away from her too?
She reaches out behind her blindly, and feels the hilt of Yasha’s sword. With a few practiced, muttered words, sparks of electricity shoot through her fingers and travel up it, straight to Yasha’s fingers. She hears a sharp inhale, and the pressure on her back lightens just enough for her to squirm out and race to the other end of the cavern, grabbing her crossbow on her way there.
Above her, a giant pink lollipop is already hovering, and Nott prepares to jump in case it comes down on her. She can’t see Caleb. Have they gotten to him already? She looks behind her quickly, then nearly gets impaled diving for cover as the lollipop, as if on cue, comes crashing down mere inches from where she was crouching.
“Look at them, showing their true colors. Using magic against you. Hitting you with weapons. You knew it would come to this some day. They couldn’t pretend to care forever.”
She can hear someone screaming. Their voice sounds disfigured. Distant. Like the crash of waves against her skull.
“–supposed to just knock her out!” they cry. “It’s very hard to control things like this, you guys!”
Nott doesn’t bother to check who the voice belongs to. She fires an arrow in its general direction, and, based on a pained yelp, assumes it hit.
She needs to find Caleb. She didn’t want him to be here, caught up in the midst of battle. She needs to take him to safety.
She shrinks back behind a stalagmite. Normally during battle this would be the part where her heart is pounding and her head is reeling and her lips are crying out for a drink, but today, oddly enough, there’s nothing. Just the stillness, the determination that comes with knowing what you need to do next.
She peeks out from behind it. She can’t see anyone in her direct line of vision. They’ve all scattered off to their own corners, enemies at all ends. She tries to follow their voices, but something must be wrong with her ears, because all she can hear is a jumble of sound, a whispery warble all too close to the gushing of a nearby stream she once knew all too well.
She finally spots a pink dot a little ways off, poorly concealed behind the small slab of rock it’s chosen to hide behind. Caduceus. Pink hair plastered to the dampness of his forehead. Staff lying across the ground. He turns to glance at her, then back again thoughtfully, leisurely, like he has all the time in the world. He seems to be wrestling with an idea, turning it over and over again in his mind like a piece of candy under his tongue, but Nott doesn’t waste time trying to decipher what this idea could be. She shifts the crossbow in her arms, and nocks an arrow on its string.
On second thought, she makes it an explosive arrow.
“Good choice, my pet. Protect yourself. Protect your boy.” The creature laughs in her mind, broken glass echoing a thousand times. “Pull the trigger.”
And Nott hesitates.
And Nott thinks of Caleb, of the time she asked Caduceus to heal him, of the look the firbolg gives her sometimes when she’s half way through her flask and he thinks she won’t see him.
And Nott pulls the trigger.
Several things happen then, although to Nott’s charm addled mind they all seem to merge into one. One moment her arrow is flying, cutting through the air with knife like precision and almost certainly going to land on the rock Caduceus stupidly thought would protect him and blow both him and it up. The other a second hand is extending out from behind the rock, a smaller, more scarred hand that Nott would know anywhere, that Nott has held in good times and bad and would recognize at the end of the earth just as much as at the start of it, and fire crackles from its palm as it makes a dashing motion and casts wall of fire between the two of them, obscuring both him and Caduceus from sight and burning Nott’s arrow to ash.
She shies backwards, baring her teeth, but the sudden turn of events is not over yet. Her head bumps against something soft, and she whips around to face…
Caleb?
Jester is there too, she can see her somewhere behind him, but she might as well not even be there as far as Nott is concerned. This scene is a painting, and Jester is smudged in a corner. Caleb is the center focus.
She goes to say something. Anything. The incubus in her mind has gone awfully silent– if Nott couldn’t still feel its breath on her neck as easily as she felt her own heartbeat in her chest, she might think it was gone entirely.
“Caleb,” she finally says. There’s a ringing in her ears she strains to place. A swarm of bees in her skull.
Caleb looks at her silently. Jester is saying something, Nott thinks dimly, she can see her mouth moving, but the ringing in her ears drowns it all out. Embers dance on his finger tips. Flames are reflected in his eyes.
He has such beautiful eyes.
“Kill them,” she says. She’s not sure why she says it. She’s not sure he understands.
It’s for you, she tries to explain. It’s for you that I’m doing this. It’s for us. They’re going to kill me, Caleb, they’re going to kill both of us. Let me do this for you.
Let me do this for me.
But then Caleb is reaching over, and the words bubbling in Nott’s throat stick there like stones, and she goes to take his hand like she has so many times in the past,
and her limbs grow heavy,
and her eyelids droop,
and she totters where she stands until she no longer can do even that and the incubus is just a faint trace in her mind and she’s on her back now against the cold rocky ground, curling up into herself like a cat,
and she sleeps.
She thinks she can hear Caleb say something.
She thinks it might be “it’s okay.”