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It’s during their second meeting with the Queen- and what a thing, to be able to say with utter truth, that you have met the Umavi, the Bright Queen, ruler of the Dynasty, twice- when the Beacon seems to glow brighter. The Empress pauses in her words, and her gaze turns piercing. She runs her eyes over them all, stopping on Caleb.
They all tense. Caleb is the wizard, the squishy, and as Beau and Nott already know, has been taken advantage of once. Not again.
She steps forward, intent in every step, although the guards do not rush forward like last time. She presses a hand to his chin and stares into his eyes.
“What-?” he stops when her grip tightens.
“Impossible,” she breathes, and the Beacon pulses again. Her eyes go wider. This time, she whirls, looking almost desperately among them, before stopping on Nott, small, hiding in the shadows.
“Skysibil-,” the aged goblin is walking before the Queen even finishes. Mirimm raises a snow-white eyebrow at whatever she sees in Nott, before turning to the Queen. They seem to speak without words, and the Queen pulls herself together in a breath. She waves a hand towards the group, and begins walking towards a door on the side of the chamber, that none of them had noticed.
Mirimm follows sedately. The chamber is small, but it holds them all, plus a fair amount of guards, well enough.
As soon as privacy is ensured, Empress Leylas Kryn turns to the Mighty Nein, her voice firm, though carrying an undercurrent of- discomfit? “How did you come to have two Consecuted among you?”
The shocked silence is palpable. Fjord is the first to rally.
“Consecuted? Ma’am, with all respect, that isn’t possible. I’m afraid none of us have ever come into contact with a Beacon.”
Her brow furrows, and she turns back to the human and the goblin. “How…,” she murmurs, before Mirimm steps forward.
“Neither of you have any memories of your lives, then?”
The two friends are frozen. Caleb is visibly tense, blue eyes wide and breathing quickening. When he answers, his accent is unusually thick. “I am sorry, but I am not-, this could not be possible, I have never- No. I do not.”
Nott’s eyes are blown out as well, and her hands are itching for her flask. She swallows roughly when the elderly goblin’s eyes turn to her. “Well, I- I do? But, I don’t think, I don’t- I’m from Felderwin? But I have- I wasn’t, always, a goblin?”
Leylas thinks, and decides the whole story is needed. It does not make sense- that one past the age of remembrance would not, that the other would have the memories of only one life, and that they are from the Empire at all- none of it makes sense.
“Sit,” she says, and they scramble for the marble benches.
“Tell me what has happened to you both, so we may seek to understand this… unusual situation.”
She listens as the goblin tells the story of a halfling, of a kidnapping, drowning, a hooded woman. It is wrong. A Consecution twisted, malformed. A sacred ritual intended for infinite possibility made to cause harm. It angers her, that such a thing could happen, but she sets it aside, for now.
Anger will not help her here, not yet, and so she listens.
The human tells his tale next, and he speaks in vague terms. Vaguer than she would like, but she does not need the intricacies of the situation (yet) to understand his memory has been altered. If done before the Remembrance, there is no telling what it could have done.
She consults with Aubrianna, and others in her Counsel, and there is a possible solution. A way for these souls to reconnect with their lost lives. It requires time, a difficult and deep meditation. She can see, when one of her Den explains it, that they do not wish to do it.
But she will not stand for these Consecuted to be unfinished. It would be blasphemous, a spit in the face to everything she believes in, to everything the Dynasty believes in.
One of her Den, a talented mage-scholar, on his third life, walks them through the spell. They relocate in a more isolated chamber, although the others in their group insist on staying, however politely they disguise their pushing.
She allows it.
The process is long, and Leylas consults with others, who may be know more. She needs to know how this happened- the Empire should not have had access to any sort of this magic, as it was years before the theft.
She hears word that the ritual worked, and allows them to be sent back to their inn. She has work to do, now
Caleb is sitting on a cool marble floor, magic more familiar than it should be wrapping around him, trying very hard not to have a panic attack. It is not working. Memories of lives he has- hasn’t- has lived are flowing through him.
Caleb does not know what to do with this. His perfect memory, it seems, is something that follows him through lives- lives- and sensations are flooding him. He is brought back when a rough, clawed hand takes his.
Nott’s bright yellow eyes are peering at him in concern, and he can see his roiling feelings reflected in them. How must she feel, having not two, but dozens of other lives to contend with?
How will they deal with this? What- what can they possibly do? They have the attention of the Queen, now, of the Dynasty, somehow even more than what his last actions caused. What is the group even going to do?
Caleb pushes these thoughts, and others, he does not acknowledge, to a dusty corner in his mind, and turns to his friend, instead. He sees her, a goblin, but he also sees a halfling with brown braids and buttons in her hair, a drow woman, white hair hanging just past her ears, smiling roguishly at him, another drow, brandishing a sword, overlapping and intersecting.
All of them, his best friend, Nott, Veth, Taavi, and Malek, and Chiik, numerous others. He squeezes her hand.
After the onslaught of memories and the panic and the other enormous pile of feelings she isn’t touching right now, Nott thinks, What am I going to tell Yeza?
How do you explain to your husband that you’re actually a citizen of the Dynasty that starved him? That you didn’t just used to be a halfling, but also dozens of other people? Already, he’s stuck with a goblin, but- now? This?
She reaches out for Caleb’s hand, and looks over to him- his breathing is louder than it should be, and it’s easier to worry for Caleb than it is to think about- about other things, except if she looks too long at him, she doesn’t just see red hair, but black, with long ears and sometimes it’s white, sometimes he’s taller or wider, and it’s weird but not wrong, and everything feels familiar in ways it shouldn’t.
She looks at Caleb and feels the certainty of years and years and years of friendship, of meeting each other life after life, seeing a familiar spark in those eyes are are blue and green and brown and purple. It’s overwhelming and yet a comfort, and she clings to it despite herself. Caleb is Caleb, her best friend, no matter what. It’s somewhat reassuring, in a weird, weird, way, that they’ve always been friends.
She’s grateful it’s just them, the others, and some guards in the room, the mage having left once the ritual was completed to let them regain some balance. She can feel the stares of the others, can only imagine what the spell looked like, if it was anything like it felt.
She opens her mouth, unsure of what to say but speaking anyway. “Well, we’ve really gotten into it now."