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Caleb had been staring at her for the last ten minutes. She was valiantly trying to ignore it and look down at her dinner but it was finally too much. “What?” she snapped, looking up at him and meeting his eyes. “What do you want?”
He blinked at her and opened his mouth to speak, but paused and blinked again. He tried to start speaking a few more times but kept cutting himself off and looking away. She rolled her eyes and shoved some food into her mouth while she waited for him to get his thoughts together. Most of the others had wandered off. Fjord was playing cards at a table across the way and Jester and Nott were dancing together as the bards played an unbeat, playful tune. Reani had fallen asleep at the other end of the table, leaning and snoring quietly against the wall, and Caduceus was humming quietly to himself across the table from her while he brewed up a cup of tea. It was their last night in Uthadern before it was time to move on and they had decided to spend it celebrating but none of them had slept much at all in the last seventy-two hours. Beau was honestly surprised that more of them weren’t asleep. She, herself, was mostly running on fumes and the need to eat something other than rations after two weeks in the frozen wastes.
“You…” Caleb started, then he paused again. “You were correct.”
Beau raised an eyebrow and frowned at him. Of all the things she was expecting from him tonight, that wasn’t one of them. “About what now?”
“I never did ask. About your name. I have not… I have not asked you much of anything, have I? Not just your last name. I realize...” He sighed heavily through his nose. “I realize how little I actually know about you.”
Beau shrugged and leaned against the back of her chair. “I’m an open book, man.”
“That has not been true in the past or for others.”
Beau looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’m an open book for certain people. There are spells like that, right? The text only shows up for the right people or people who know the right words to unlock it? I’m like that.”
He seemed to appreciate the metaphor and nodded shortly. “Am I one of the right people?”
Beau thought about saying something sassy or even passive aggressive, but instead she just sighed. “Course you are, Caleb. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.” She paused and then cleared her throat. “Within reason.”
Caleb nodded and crossed his arms over his chest. “Naturally. Even close friends, even family, do keep some secrets from one another.”
Beau nodded and grinned. “Exactly.” She scooped up the last of her meal and stuffed it into her mouth, pushing crumbs off her lap and onto the floor. “So,” she said through the food in her mouth. “What did you wanna know?”
Caleb was avoiding looking at her face, partly because the way she was eating was severely off putting and partly because he felt a little embarrassed about this. After everything they had been through together, he had never even asked her what her last name was. “How do you spell it?”
She chuckled, her lip curled up in a smirk. “That’s your pressing question?” But she didn’t rib him too much and cleared her throat. “L-I-O-N-E-double T.”
Caleb nodded. “Spelled like the animal, ja? Fitting.”
She raised an eyebrow. “How so?”
“Lions are fierce, you are fierce. It…” he cleared his throat again. “It fits.”
Beau snorted. “All that build up and you just wanted to know how to spell my last name?”
“Do you… What do you enjoy? What are your hobbies?”
“With all my copious free time, you mean?”
“Then, if you could be doing anything right now, what would you want to be doing?”
“Honestly?” This time it was her who paused and looked away from him. “Probably exactly this. Adventuring with you guys, kicking ass, taking names, it’s my favorite thing I’ve ever done.” She looked thoughtful and smirked. “Maybe I’d add a cute lady to flirt with, but otherwise…” She let it drift off and shrugged. “See, that’s the difference between me and the rest of you. You’re all doing this because you’ve got goals and… I don’t know, dreams? Desires? I’m doing this because I have literally nothing better to do. Someday, when you all leave and go back to your lives, I’m still gonna be doing exactly this shit until it kills me.” She took a sip of her ale. “But, obviously, ideally with a cute lady to flirt with.”
“Obviously,” Caleb agreed, his eyes a little distant. “What about your past?”
Beau’s shoulders tensed up but her open expression didn’t close off. “What about it? Something specific you wanna know?”
“You have history with, uh, shady shit, correct? You were a criminal of some caliber?”
Beau chuckled. “Yeah, I was. Extortion, trafficking, smuggling, your standard run of the mill burglary and assault.”
“Standard for whom?”
“Just your average disaffected, maligned, angry, rebellious rich girl, that’s whom, you ass.”
He didn’t look judgmental, which she appreciated, not that he was in any real position to judge her. It was just nice to talk about what she did without having someone look at her like she wasn’t worth their respect.
“Tell me about this smuggling,” he said, and Beau glanced over really quick to make sure that Reani wasn’t listening. She liked Reani, she really didn’t want her to try and kill her today.
Beau laughed out loud and nearly spilled her cup into her own lap, but caught herself. “You wanna know if I ever shoved contraband up my ass to get it through customs?”
“That is not what I said, but now that you mention it…”
Beau grinned. “Nah, that wasn’t my job. I wasn’t really in it like that. I was the go between. I forged the documents, I greased the palms, I changed the labels, stored things until the next link in the chain could be found to move it forward, that kind of shit.” She finished off her mug and it clanged on the table when she sat it down. “That was the main part of all my jobs. I was rarely in the thick of things, particularly when I really got into it. At the beginning I had to do all my own stealing and lying but after I got in with a bigger group in the region I was able to go, sort of, in the background. I did less of the nitty gritty and I was more of a…” she paused, trying to sort through her vocabulary to find the right word.
“A mastermind.”
Beau shrugged. “It’s a little overblown, but sure. I won’t say no to that. I did the things that made sure the more hands-on people got away with it, you know? Broke a couple people out of jail. Not physically, I didn’t pick the locks or anything. I moved some paperwork around, bribed some guards. Well, actually, it was mostly one person I had to break out a couple times.” She smirked and plucked a fry off of Caleb’s plate. Caleb slid his plate towards her and relaxed into his chair, settling in for a story. “Her name was Tori. The first time she and a few friends got caught breaking into a local nobleman’s house and I had to break them all out. She was so cool.” She sighed. “She had these arms and I… just… she was really cool.” Her cheeks were tinged a little pink and it wasn’t from the ale. She picked up another fry and waved it around as she spoke. “The next few times I was pretty sure she got caught on purpose so that I would have to go get her. She denied it but she gave me a kiss as a ‘reward’ every time I did it.” She threw the fry up into the air and caught it in her mouth, grinning widely.
“And who was Tori to you?”
“My… I don’t know, girlfriend maybe? We didn’t really call each other that but that’s how I think of her now. After I got tired of breaking her out and kind of told her off about she was gonna get me caught, she asked me out on a date.”
“So you broke her out of jail and she took you to a romantic dinner?”
“Well, no. Tori’s idea of a date was walking all night to and from Deastok to see her fence. It was pretty romantic though.”
Caleb blinked at her. “That explains so much about you.”
She flipped him off idly and stole another fry. “That was the first of many dates that were technically crimes. It lasted about… four months before we got caught and all that shit went down with my father. Haven’t seen or heard from her since.” She cleared her throat and started pushing the fries around on Caleb’s plate. “Anything else you wanna know?”
He hesitated, worried that this question might be going too far. “This Tori… she was your first love?”
Beau didn’t seem bothered and just nodded. “Yep. My first love, my first kiss, my first everything.”
“I… I am sorry that you have to be away from her.”
Beau shrugged. “It wasn’t going to last. Me and her, we weren’t really made for long relationships. At best, we were looking at an explosive, angry breakup after, at most, a few more months. Then, in a year, we’d run into each other on the street and have super hot hate sex behind a bar.”
Caleb frowned. “If that was the best case scenario, what was the worst case?”
“Prison for life. Execution probably. All the best love stories end in pain and death, right? It’s not just me?” She was deflecting and not really looking for an answer so Caleb didn’t give her one.
Caleb was thoughtful for a moment, crossing his arms over his chest and watching her as she plucked fries from his plate one by one. “Do you want to go back to your parents’ house again? Ever? We could possibly make a trip after this is done.”
She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again, giving him a curious look. “How much do you know about my parental situation?”
He scratched his cheek sheepishly. “Just what you have told us and… Nott told me what you told her about it in Hupperduke. I am sorry.”
“It’s fine. I wasn’t keeping it totally secret.” Beau licked her teeth nervously and refused to meet his eyes, pushing the last fry that was left on his plate around in the leftover salt. “I should tell you,” she started. “I have… a new brother.”
Caleb blinked. “New? How new?”
“Well, at least since I went to the Cobalt Soul, I’ve never met the kid. I told Fjord about it and he told me that I should at least consider going back for him.” She sighed and smushed the fry between her fingers instead of eating it. “He’s an innocent and he’s family but the thought…” she cleared her throat. “The thought of stepping foot in that house again scares the shit out of me. I would rather face down an army of white dragons and pit fiends and hydra and pirates and shit than look my father in the face again.”
“W-Why?” Caleb asked after a few seconds of silence.
“An army, I can punch. My father makes me feel… worthless. Useless, a mistake, a… a spare. You can’t punch the feeling of worthlessness.” She shrugged. “I mean, I could punch him and that’s pretty great, but I would still feel like shit again. Just thinking about it makes me feel like I’m eight years old again and he’s telling me to go fetch the fucking belt.” She shifted in her chair and looked up to meet his eyes.
“Beau,” he said, her name punching out of him like a stutter. “Of course you don’t have to go back. You should feel no obligation to put yourself in that situation again.”
Her shoulders relaxed slightly but she didn’t respond, just scraping the fry guts off her fingers and onto the table. She nearly jumped out of her skin when Caduceus put a kind hand on her arm and when she looked over at him he was still humming and stirring his tea. She had forgotten that he was there and could hear them. Reani was still asleep and Beau was beginning to think that she had the right idea.
She sat up straight and cleared her throat. “Well, whatever. You got any more questions or you done?”
“Is this my only chance to ask?”
“No, dude, I told you. I’m an open book for you guys. You just gotta ask.” She got to her feet with her mug in her hand and almost left to go to the counter for a refill. “Within reason,” she said again with a raised eyebrow. He nodded and she left.
Caleb watched as jester noticed her walk by and excitedly offered to let her join the dance but Beau gave her a soft, slightly sad refusal before disappearing in the crowd.