Chapter Text
Caduceus first saw the butterfly two days after leaving the Grove. He noticed it because it was striking, mostly red with vibrant contrasting eye patterns, and because he had never seen one like it before. He figured he was going to be seeing a lot of things he had never seen before, now that he was out beyond the forest. It was frightening to think about, a little, but if at least some of them were as lovely as this strange creature, he thought, then leaving was a good thing overall.
When he had seen it three times, however, he began to think of the butterfly as his. The same butterfly, or others of the same species, would come back often, hovering around Beau's bright blue cloak or the flowers in Yasha's hair. Caduceus chose to believe that this was a good omen, a message from the Wildmother that he had done the right thing by following these people. Gods, he hoped he had done the right thing. He smeared a dab of honey onto a rock and watched the butterfly float down to sip at it. It may be an omen, but it was also a living insect, and if it kept coming back, well. That could only be good luck.
Bounding across the vast dry barrenness of the Shattered Plains, there was plenty of time to talk, but the Mighty Nein were not taking much advantage of it. Yasha sat behind Caduceus on Clarabelle, clinging tight and saying nothing. She hadn't spoken in hours, not when they had stopped to rest, nor last night, nor much at all since they left to chase after this mysterious drow. And her expression, when she faced him, was unreadable.
"Yasha?" he said. "Are you sure you want to do this?" He felt her muscles stiffen, almost a flinch. "It's not too late to turn around."
"No." He almost didn't hear her through the wind. "No, I have to face... this." Then she was silent.
Well, all right. It wasn't his business to push. If the group thought this was the best plan, he would go along with it. He still felt vaguely nervous about the whole thing, but he had felt that way lots of times since leaving his home, and everything had always turned out all right. Well, more or less.
"Wait. Caduceus?" Again, Yasha's soft voice was almost whipped away by the wind. "Do you think this is the right thing to do? Going after Obann, I mean?" Caduceus nudged Clarabelle into a slightly slower gait. This was important. "Like, has your goddess said anything about it, or given you a message? I would ask the Stormlord, but he doesn't really... do... that," she trailed off. "I mean, there have been storms, but..."
Caduceus waited a moment in case she had anything else to say, and to consider how he should reply. “I don’t think this is my decision to make,” he said finally. “And messages and omens are tricky things. It might be the thunder is your sign that you’re doing the right thing. But if it makes you feel better, I did see the butterfly this morning.”
“The butterfly? What’s that?”
“Oh, haven’t you noticed? It seems to really like you and your flowers.”
“I don’t know, bugs are just bugs. Why would one be important?”
“Well, maybe it’s not. But I saw this one a lot right after I started travelling with you all, and I thought of it as a little message. Meant I made the right choice. And it flies around you a lot, maybe that means you made the right choice too.”
Yasha paused. “That’s nice,” she said. “What does it look like?”
“Oh, it’s very pretty. Red with little blue and green and purple spots. I’ll point it to you out next time I see it.” Caduceus said.
“Hm.” He couldn’t see her face, and the wind whistled in his ears, and he was trying to steer Clarabelle and talk at the same time, but despite all that he thought he could sense the tiniest hint of a smile in her voice. “Thanks, Caduceus. That does make me feel better, a little.”
“We can’t do that, are you insane?”
“Well what do you –“
“Need to tell the Bright Queen -“
“If you hadn’t –“
“Maybe, but if Yasha were –“
Caduceus flattened his ears. The tense atmosphere made all voices seem harsh and grating, and he didn’t think there was anything he could say that would help. And, even more, he doubted his own judgement. He had reassured Yasha, told her she was making the right choice. If he had told her something else, mentioned the bad feeling instead of the butterfly, would she have changed her mind? Could he have prevented this?
He shook the thought out of his head. He had done everything he could. They all had. Although… he hadn’t seen the butterfly since they had entered the temple. Even now, under the sky again, there was no sign of it. He hadn’t even been able to point it out to Yasha before she had been taken from them. His heart sunk. Where were the encouraging omens now? The signs of the Wildmother’s favor, the contentment of being on the right path? Caduceus felt a clawing in his throat. He missed the Grove. He missed his family. He missed Yasha.
Caduceus took a few deep breaths, unwilling to cry again in front of these people, and focused his attention outward. He’d be able to do more at least listening than he would wallowing in his own fear and doubt.
“Everybody calm down!” Beau was yelling. “We’re in a safe place right now, we’re exhausted, we’ll decide what to do in the morning. It can fucking wait, ok?”
“Beau’s right,” said Fjord. “None of us are thinking clearly tonight anyhow. Caleb, if you wouldn’t mind casting your little bubble?”
Caleb began casting, his face as stony and emotionless as Caduceus hoped his own looked. Jester had broken off in the middle of a heated argument with Fjord when Beau started yelling. She looked like she wanted to continue arguing, but then her lip turned wobbly. She threw herself into Beau’s arms and started to cry.
“This sucks so much, Beau,” she said, voice shaking. “I miss Yasha already.”
The two women sank to the ground together. Nott crept up to pat Jester on the back.
“Why did we have to come to this stupid temple? I wish – I wish Molly were here!”
“Are you kidding? For once, I don’t! He’d fucking kill us.” Beau said. Her voice was raw and scratchy. “He never would have let us leave Yasha behind.”
Jester sobbed even louder into her shoulder.
“Ah, shit. Look, I’m sorry. That was the wrong thing to say.”
“I wished he were here, too,” Nott said softly. “In the temple. I was thinking about him. I bet those glowy swords would have really helped against all that.” She was sniffling too.
Beau hugged Jester. “I miss him too. I miss both of them,” she said. “And you’re right, this sucks, everything sucks, and there’s nothing we can do about it for now. But we’re going to be all right.”
Jester didn’t appear comforted. “Why is everything so hard?” she sobbed. “Why do we have to do this all again?”
“Ag-?” Nott began, but Jester wasn’t stopping.
“This is just like when we were taken, and they tor-tortured Yasha, and put her in chains, and used her as a slave, and now it’s happening all over again, and even worse, and this time Molly’s not even here to save her, because he d-died trying to do it the first time, and now it’s like it’s all for nothing, because she’s a slave again and we couldn’t even protect her, we couldn’t do anything to stop it!” Jester shuddered and sobbed in Beau’s arms. Nott clung to her, stroking her hair. Fjord approached from where he had been standing guard and crouched down beside them.
“Not for nothing, Jessie,” he said. “Because we’re free, and alive, and we are going to save her. Understand?”
It wasn’t often that Caduceus felt like an outsider watching a family he wasn’t part of, not anymore. But he did now. As he watched his friends weep, sharing a grief that wasn’t fully his, he felt small and helpless and very, very alone. Then, strangely, he felt some of his own fear and grief slip away. They need me.
Beau hugged Jester hard and then released her to take something out of her pocket. It was a rectangular pouch from which she pulled a deck of cards.
“Are those Molly’s cards?” Jester sniffed.
“Yeah. I haven’t looked at them in a while, but you reminded me,” Beau said. “Here, pick one. Maybe it’ll tell us how to save Yasha. I know it’s not the same, but…”
Jester smiled sadly. “That’s a good idea, Beau. I think he would like that.” She picked a card from the middle and looked at it, and the smile dropped. She held it up for Beau and Nott to see.
“Oh, fuck off!” Beau shouted. She grabbed the card and threw it. “Absolutely fuck off!” Caduceus caught a glimpse of it as it fluttered to the ground next to her – a stylized icon of the Raven Queen. Death.
“Son of a bitch fucking cards,” Beau muttered.
They need me. Caduceus walked over and picked up the card. He brushed the dirt off and handed it back to Beau.
“It doesn’t usually mean actual death, you know,” he said. “It’s supposed to stand for change and renewal. It’s a good card, a lucky card.”
Beau took the card back with a raised eyebrow. “Lucky, huh. It says ‘death’ right there on the card.”
“No, really. In divination it’s almost always a good sign, especially to someone in bad circumstances. That might have been the luckiest card you could pick, right now.”
“If you say so,” said Beau.
“One of my sisters was into tarot for a while.” He shrugged. “I picked up some things.” The cards were not generally very useful divination tools, except in the hands of a trained seer or knowledge cleric, but Caduceus didn’t say that. If a lucky draw could give some hope, he would take it.
“I like it,” Jester said. “Like… a new start. That’s what we need now, right?” A tiny attempt at a smile peeked through her tears.
Caduceus nodded. “And some food. Everyone get into the bubble and I’ll make dinner.”
The Mighty Nein huddled together in Caleb’s hut. They didn’t speak much until everyone began to fall asleep, with Jester in the middle, held from all sides. As the light faded from the sky, Caduceus looked around one last time for the butterfly that had been his good-luck card. He didn’t see it, but still, his heart felt a little lighter than before as he settled in to watch.
It was morning. They decided to go after Yasha.
It had taken an hour of furious argument. Fjord wanted to head back to Baxxozzan and form a defense to stop the Laughing Hand. Caleb and Nott argued for telling the Bright Queen and securing their alliance with her. Caduceus had brought up the Kiln – he thought they might need help a little more powerful than mortal rulers. And Jester wanted to save Yasha. Finally, it was Beau who mediated. These were all good ideas, she said, and they would probably want to do all of them – but right now they needed to decide which one to do first. Caduceus looked around, hoping to see the little butterfly, or any sign of which option would be right. But none appeared.
Yasha, Jester had said. Because we can’t leave her like this any longer than possible. Fjord, don’t you remember what it feels like to be a prisoner? A slave ? And then Nott had switched sides and then Fjord and soon enough it was only a matter of planning. Jester’s scrying revealed that Yasha was alone, and travelling along the mountain range in a place they recognized.
And then they were off. Caduceus sat on his moorbounder by himself, and it felt lonely.
"Wait wait wait, stop! I think we're getting close," said Jester. "That peak looks familiar."
The other moorbounders pulled up beside her, panting. "Jester, you know I support your plan," Caleb said, "but I must ask, what are we going to do when we find her? I do not think we can simply talk her down from this."
"I know." Jester looked down at her hands. "Well... we think it's some kind of mind control, like a charm, right? So if we can get close enough to get and I can cast Greater Restoration, it should break it and she'll be back to herself. Right?"
"Perhaps. But have we considered what we will do if it does not? If how she is now... is her true self?"
Jester's lip began to tremble. "I... I don't know."
"It's not," Caduceus said. He slid off of Clarabelle's back and walked closer to touch Jester gently on the shoulder. "Our Yasha is in there. She's a good person. She isn't this."
Nott nodded. "Caduceus is right. We can get her back."
"And if the spell doesn't work, we'll think if something else," said Caduceus. "Plans have gone wrong before. We always work it out."
Caleb sighed. "Not always." A silence fell over the little group.
Caduceus lowered his head. How could he have forgotten? This wasn't the first time they had lost a friend. "Of course. I'm sorry."
"Well, this time we will!" declared Jester, breaking the solemn silence. "It's going to work." Her voice wavered, but just barely.
"Jester, you said she was close. Can you try to Locate something she has, like her sword or something? Maybe we'll even be able to sneak up on her." said Beau.
"Of course, that's such a good idea!" She fumbled for her holy symbol and closed her eyes. The green light of her god's power sparkled around her clenched hands. Then she gasped and her eyes flew open. "This way!" she shouted, pointing west. "Hurry, she's almost out of range!"
Caduceus scrambled back into his beast and they raced off. She was so close.
They crested a hill and suddenly Caduceus could see her, a hundred yards off and standing next to a red figure. As he watched, the demon turned around and Caduceus felt a chill run down the back of his neck. They were spotted.
"Obann!" said Fjord. "Damn it, I thought we killed that bastard already."
"We did it once, we can do it again," Beau said. "Now go go go!" Caduceus kicked at Clarabelle's sides and they went tearing down the hill, racing toward their friend and their enemy, faster and faster - and what was that Yasha was holding? Some kind of large disk? Obann turned to her and gestured, maybe instructions, but they had almost closed the gap, soon they would be able to attack. Caduceus fired a sacred flame at Obann - just missed - readied another one.
Yasha dropped the disk to the ground and pressed her hand to it. Oh no .
The air behind Yasha and Obann split, revealing a dark forest scattered with glittering red eyes. Another rift.
“Okay, this is bad, but we can still win,” Fjord yelled. “Jester, pop over there and dispel that gate before anything gets through!”
“On it!” Jester said, and vanished. She reappeared next to the rift, but as she stretched out her hands to cast the spell, an unearthly screech split the air. Then several things happened all at once.
A demon with a vulture’s head flew through the rift, and tore into Jester with a wicked hooked beak.
The moorbounders’ charge reached their enemies and Beau leaped off, reaching Obann in a flurry of fists.
Yasha drew the Skingorger and swung at Jannik’s leg, sending the moorbounder, Caleb, and Nott all tumbling to the earth.
Yarnball charged yowling toward the demon attacking Jester and raked it with its claws while Fjord struggled just to hold on.
With a short prayer, Caduceus gave as many of his friends a Blessing as he could. His eyes darted from the fight to the area around them, uncomfortably aware that there was nowhere to retreat to if their luck turned. There was nothing but rolling hills and wasteland, the mountain range close by, the open sky above them. Obann took flight, frustrating Beau and reminding Caduceus that he would almost certainly be faster than them if it came to running. He shot a bolt of divine energy at the hovering fiend. Wildmother protect us.
“You fools really think a rematch will do you any good?” laughed Obann. “Kill them all, Orphanmaker.”
“Yes, my lord,” said Yasha. Caduceus looked into her eyes for the first time. They were cold and furious, and a wide, snarling grin spread across her face. She hefted her sword and turned toward Caleb as he struggled to his feet. He raised his hand to defend himself, but it was too late, and the sword slammed into his back, throwing him down to land broken on the ground. Nott screamed.
A mortal wound in one blow, and no hesitation, thought Caduceus. We might be in deep trouble. “On your feet, Mr. Caleb,” he said, and a healing glow surrounded the wizard. He hoped it would be enough.
He turned back to the battle to assess the situation just in time to see a double handful of quasits and imps jump through the rift, cackling, to swarm Fjord and Yarnball. “Jessie, we really gotta get that thing shut!” Fjord shouted.
“I’m trying!” she said, duplicate selves flickering and falling beneath the demon’s beak and talons.
A wall of fire roared through the middle of the fight, incinerating half the imps and causing the vulture-headed demon to roar with pain. Caleb gave Caduceus a weary thumbs up.
“Let’s take ‘im down!” called Fjord, carving into it with his sword. Arrows thudded into its chest from Nott’s crossbow. Caduceus unleashed another bolt into the demon, and it screeched with a sound that felt like it was scraping down his very bones. He shuddered and shook it off, but Fjord clapped his hands to his ears and froze, doubled over from the pain.
The creature savaged his unmoving form with its beak, and Jester, screaming, grabbed at its head and tried to pull it away, wounds opening under her hands until it finally fell. She pushed it into the fire and helped Fjord up. He looked half-dead, but Caduceus couldn’t reach him without going right through Obann’s path. He was swooping and harrying Beau, taunting her and lunging to attack, but she looked all right for now. Around her, the moorbounders pounced and tore at the remaining imps.
Caduceus caught his breath. In taking down the demon, he had lost track of Yasha. He looked frantically - there! She had pushed Caleb and Nott away from the main fight and was hacking at them with a wild snarl. Caleb held his arcane shield in front of him but he was swaying and bloody. Nott thrust herself between them, arms wide.
“Yasha, stop! We know you’re in there!” she cried. “Look, you kept my flower! Why would you do that if you didn’t remember us? Just snap out of it! Yasha!” Yes, there was the flower Nott had given her in the temple, braided into her hair. Why had she kept that?
Was that hesitation? A slight flicker in her eyes - but it was gone in an instant. “That’s not my name,” she spat, and swung again. Nott just barely managed to dodge, but made no move to attack.
Caduceus moved in from behind and placed a hand on Yasha’s shoulder. “Hold still,” he said, and she froze. She managed to turn her head a fraction, and screamed wordlessly at him. “Jester, we need you over here!” he called.
“But the rift!” Jester said.
“Not yet, I have an idea,” Beau shouted, and took another fruitless swing at Obann. Then she turned in his direction. “Caduceus, throw me!” and sprinted towards him.
Startled, Caduceus figured out what she was going to do a fraction of a second before she reached him. He held his shield near his head and thrust upward as she jumped off it, toward the airborne Obann. She soared a seemingly impossible distance into the air, and just managed to grab his feet, dragging him back down to earth.
“We know you’re controlling her! Let her go and we’ll let you live,” she said.
“Oh no, you’ll kill me?” sneered Obann. “That worked so well for you last time.”
Meanwhile, Jester rushed over. Yasha was still struggling against Caduceus’s spell. Blood vessels in her head bulged and her eyes rolled with rage, but she was powerless. Jester took her face between her hands.
“Yasha, it’s going to be okay,” she said, and cast the spell.
Jester’s eyes and hands began to glow. A wind no one else felt lifted her hair and swirled around Yasha. The divine radiance was almost painful to the eyes, but so beautiful. Caduceus felt his heart lift - maybe they were going to win this after all.
Yasha roared, and Caduceus felt his spell break. She slashed Jester across the chest, and the little tiefling stumbled backwards.
“No,” she said, voice breaking. “It didn’t work.” Tears filled her eyes and she clutched her wound. “I thought it would work.”
Behind them, Beau and Obann struggled on the ground.
“I told you to let her go! Last warning,” Beau said, and Obann laughed. “Your funeral,” she said, and rolled both of them straight through the open rift.
“Beau! What are you doing?” Jester screamed.
“Can’t kill him out there, can kill him in here,” Beau grunted, pummeling the fiend with everything she had. “Anyone wanna help me out?”
At this, Obann’s demeanor shifted. Was that… fear? “Orphanmaker, close the rift!” he ordered.
“No!” Jester shrieked, and snatched the rift device before Yasha could get to it. “Everyone else help Beau, I’ll handle Yasha.”
Fjord and Nott darted into the rift. Caleb and Caduceus stood outside and blasted magic through at Obann. Caduceus felt a bone-deep weariness. He would be out of spells soon, and from the percentage of Caleb’s spells that were cantrips, so would he. Still, Caduceus was keeping one big one in reserve. He had a strange feeling he would need it. He kept an eye on Jester and Yasha.
“Yasha, you’re our friend,” he heard her pleading. “Were you really faking the whole time? You can’t have been.” She cried out as she took a deep cut to her arm. Still she wouldn’t attack Yasha - the barbarian was practically unhurt, and all the rest of them were in very bad shape. Caduceus sent a healing word to Jester.
Inside the rift there was a sharp crunch as Beau’s fist went straight through Obann’s eye socket. He sent up a dying scream that echoed through the abyssal forest. Several pairs of eyes glinted open in the shadows, and in the distance the trees shook.
Beau and Nott darted back through the gate, with Fjord scrambling after. “That should take care of that son of a bitch,” Beau said, shaking the gore off her hand. She was bloodied but smiling. “Kill a fiend on their home plane and they stay dead.”
“That’s great, really, super awesome, but we really should close that thing, I think something big is coming through!” Fjord said, voice rising in panic.
“I don’t know how!” said Jester, holding the disk.
“Just smash it!”
But before she could, it was yanked out of her hands.
“Yasha!” she gasped. “But… Obann’s dead, for real this time. The charm should be broken. You should be free!”
Yasha grinned that awful, terrifying grin. “I am free,” she said, and attacked.
Caleb crumpled under her strike.
Another handful of imps poured through the rift, and the ground shook with footsteps. We were fools, Caduceus thought. We never should have come here. I was wrong. She’s lost.
“NO!” screamed Nott. She fired a crossbow bolt and amazingly, miraculously, it struck the rift device directly in the crystal center. It shattered, with a pulse of magical energy. The edges of the rift fizzled, then shrank. A thunderous roar sounded from the other side just before it shrivelled up and was gone.
“It doesn’t matter,” the Orphanmaker sneered and threw aside the broken device. “Look at you. Half-dead weaklings. I could kill you with my bare hands.” And she rushed toward them and swung, catching Nott across the face. She fell.
“Yasha!” Jester was sobbing. Fjord took out a healing potion and crept towards his fallen friends. “Why? We tried everything, why didn’t it work?”
“Jessie, I think it may be time to uh, jump ship,” Fjord said, helping a barely conscious Caleb to his feet. “We’ve done all we could. She’s gone.”
“No!” Jester cried, but not at Fjord. “What else can we do? I don’t know how to save you!”
The Orphanmaker grinned, and attacked again. Jester raised her shield just in time, but still didn’t fight back.
“How to save her…” breathed Beau. “The card!” Jester turned to look at her, and something passed between them. An understanding.
Caduceus did not understand. He looked back at Yasha, and saw a bloody demon with almost no resemblance to his former friend. But then - he saw something else.
The butterfly.
Not a real creature, but a vision - a red blur of motion that circled her head once and then was gone.
Every time he had seen the butterfly suddenly came flooding into his memory, flitting around Yasha, reminding him of his path and his choices, and he thought of every meaning and symbol he had ever heard for a butterfly - freedom change transformation death rebirth life joy - and he realized what Beau and Jester intended to do.
And he knew, inexplicably and unquestionably, that it was the right choice.
“Do you have the spell?” Beau asked, and Jester nodded, resolute.
“I’ll hold her,” said Caduceus, and stretched out his hands to cast.
Yasha froze mid-strike, and screamed with rage.
Jester and Beau took up positions on either side of her, and began to attack.
Beau landed blow after brutal blow to the side of Yasha’s head, and Jester kept up a solid stream of divine fire.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Nott cried. “We could tie her up, take her to a temple or something…” She trailed off.
“I don’t think that’s gonna be possible,” Fjord said sadly. “This might be for the best.” But he didn’t move to attack.
“Cowards! Let me go!” screamed Yasha. Caduceus felt her struggle against the spell, but it held strong.
Jester and Beau continued to pour everything they had into hurting their former friend. Yasha screamed again, this time in pain. Beau gritted her teeth and continued. Tears poured down Jester’s face.
Yasha’s eyes rolled back in her head and her breathing became ragged. Eyes screwed closed, Jester cast a final flame, the divine radiance surrounding Yasha’s head like a halo. Caduceus felt his spell end - not broken, but with nothing left to hold.
Yasha fell to the ground.
“Oh my gods,” Nott said. “Did you… kill her?” She was crying too.
Jester wiped tears out of her own eyes. “Just a little,” she said, and smiled weakly.
“Are you ready?” asked Beau. “Do you think we should tie her up?”
Jester shook her head firmly. “It works or it doesn’t… and if it does, I don’t want her to wake up in chains.”
“Wait, you’re going to bring her back? Are you sure that’s a good idea?” said Fjord.
“It doesn’t matter if it is or not,” said Jester. “We have to try. One last time.”
She took a deep breath and took out her handful of diamonds. She placed them on Yasha’s chest and knelt beside her. “Please, Traveler,” she said. “Please. Please please please please. We love her so much. We need her. The real Yasha. Please.”
She began to glow. The diamonds shattered, glittering like faraway stars. “Please, Yasha,” Jester begged. “Please come back to us.”
Yasha’s eyes snapped open, blazing with light, unreadable. She clasped her hands together in front of her, like she was praying, and Jester jumped back at the sudden movement. “Yasha? Are you okay?” she said.
The light faded from Yasha’s eyes, and Caduceus stared deeply into them. They were soft, gentle - dazed, but undeniably Yasha. Ahh! He sighed and smiled in relief.
“Jester?” The wild edge was gone from Yasha’s voice. “You brought me back?”
“Yasha!” Jester sobbed with gratitude now, and threw her arms around Yasha. Nott hugged her leg fiercely.
Yasha gently but quickly removed herself from Jester’s arms, her hands still clasped in front of her. “You brought me back?”
“Yes, Yasha, you’re back! You’re back!” And she tried to hug her again.
“Could you cast it again?”
Jester pulled up. “What?”
“The spell, could you cast it again?” There was a note of urgency in her voice now. She unfolded her hands.
And sitting in the middle of Yasha’s cupped hands was a butterfly, slowly fanning its wings. It was identical to the one Caduceus had seen so many times before, except for a faint glow. He couldn’t be sure if it was a physical creature or not. “Please, hurry. I don’t know how long the connection will last.”
“Cast it… on the butterfly?” Jester asked, confused. “But it’s alive. I mean, it’s moving, at least. What is it?” She leaned in to look at it. “It’s really pretty… but I can’t cast anything right now anyway. I used a lot of spells today. Why did you want me to do that again?” Yasha looked stricken. “Yasha, what’s wrong, are you okay?”
“Wait,” said Caduceus. “I can.” He stepped forward and smiled at Yasha. “See? It looks like you made the right choice after all.”
She smiled back. “Yes.”
He pried a diamond from where he had hidden it on his staff. It was the biggest one - he had a feeling this was going to take a little more power than Jester’s spell. He placed it on Yasha’s outstretched palms, and the butterfly crawled onto it. And he readied his last, most powerful spell, the one he had been saving for he didn’t know what, but he knew that certainly, this was it.
“Wildmother,” he said, “do what You will.”
At first he thought nothing was going to happen. One moment, another, and the form of the butterfly flickered - and disappeared. Yasha gasped, but then the diamond started to glow. It shattered, and she flinched away from the sudden explosion in power. The glittering dust moved, floating up, shaping itself.
The radiant form flared, almost the brightness of the sun, and it was too much - he had to look away -
When he could see again, what he saw was a thin tiefling man, purple skin, long hair, vibrant red eyes the exact shade of the butterfly’s wings; grinning, beautiful, and completely naked.
Caduceus looked around. All mouths hung open, speechless. Caleb slowly raised both hands to his mouth. Beau burst into tears.
“Huh,” said Caduceus. “Who are you?”