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Chapter 1: Pre- Stream
When she looks back on this moment later, perhaps she will laugh about how ridiculous it actually is.
At least from the innkeeper’s point of view.
After all, a small, indescribable being slams into the front doors of the Nestled Nook Inn, proceeds to wobble back and forth screeching curses, dragging what appears to be a barely conscious body up to the bar, and then begins to climb said bar to be at eye level with you? That must be one of the funniest things they have ever seen!
But for now, Nott isn’t laughing.
She is only left gasping for breath after running through the streets of Trostenwald desperately seeking a place to take shelter for the night, and after scouting the many options available to her, and realizing just how injured her compatriot was, came to the conclusion she had no choice but to hunker down in the nearest inn and pray no one takes notice of the peculiar going ons of two random strangers in off the road.
However, that is easier said than done when you just so happen to be a goblin. Or should she say, a goblin currently pretending to be a halfling while wearing a doll mask, casually dragging an almost lifeless human man behind her who most likely has suffered more damage because of her inability to carry someone of his size.
Needless to say, things were going great.
The barkeep gives Nott a single look up and down as if trying to determine if it was worth it to consider throwing Nott out, and as she appeared to be about to speak, Nott throws down two silver onto the bar and shrinks back into her cloak, hoping to appear as small as possible.
“One room please.”
The barkeep leans over the table and gives Nott’s travel partner a hard stare. “Your friend there okay? Do I need to find someone to help ya’ out? Because if ya’ get any blood on the ground or in ya’ room I will not hesitate to up the price of ya’ stay.”
Nott shakes her head vigorously and, after serious internal debate, places another silver on the counter before hopping down once more to the floor. “No! No! That won’t be necessary. We’ll be quiet I promise. One night, in and out, you won’t hear a peep from us. Just…we need a room.” She looks to the floor where her compatriot appears to be collapsed in on himself, eyes closed, barely breathing, “Please.”
A deep sigh can be heard from behind the counter. Nott has to stand on her toes to even barely see the barkeep, but she is too scared of being discovered for what she is to dare getting up in her face again.
Just as the fear of being thrown out starts to seep its way into her mind, Nott blinks, and hears the sound of jingling in front of her face, opening her eyes to see two keys swinging back and forth, held in almost a death grip by the barkeep. “Fine. One night. If I get even an inkling of an idea that you two are trouble, you’ll be out on yer asses and I’ll gladly let the crown’s guard have their way with you. Do ya’ understand?!”
Nott gives a quick nod to the barkeep and darts her head over her shoulder to make sure no crown’s guard have been following them through town. Seeing the coast to be clear, she grabs the key out of the barkeeps hand, giving her another grateful nod before leaning down to once more struggle to pick up her traveling companion.
“Thank you, and yes, I understand. Like I said, you won’t hear anything from us. We’ll be gone before you know it.”
The barkeep gives Nott a tight-lipped grin, “You better be. But trouble or not, breakfast starts an hour after dawn and ends by noon. If you want food before yer’ off, you best make yourselves seen downstairs by our morning staff and then be on your way.”
“Of course, thank you. I’ll have to see what my…travel companion thinks about that before I make any decisions but thank you. Goodnight!” With that Nott quickly skitters over and scoops up the almost rag-doll of a human man from the floor, and semi carries/drags him up the small set of stairs to the second landing where, after a moment of inspection, she finds the room matching the keys she just received and darts inside.
The immediate smell of dirt and slightly moldy planks hits Nott’s nose, and one who might be more used to living a life of comfort may even have the nerve to complain to the owner in hopes of better lodgings. But Nott, knowing what she is, what that means for her and her partner’s safety, and how lacking she is in the charisma department, merely gives a quick sneer at the room before as carefully as she can, placing the human man down on the bed.
Nott scans the room to gain a better understanding of her surroundings, but besides the small, old bed that takes up a good portion of one wall, the simple nightstand and candle fixed atop it, and her own companion passed out on top of the covers, there doesn’t appear to be anything of interest or value in their new lodgings.
Nott takes a deep breath before sighing quietly, walking to the door and turning the lock to feel even just the tiniest bit safer in this foreign space.
She makes her way back over to the bed, and proceeds to take two attempts to jump up onto it to sit on the edge, before eventually succeeding, putting her head in her hands and letting out a groan as she falls backwards, laying her head on her partner’s calves. She licks her legs back and forth in frustration.
“Who the hell thought it was a good idea for me to ever be in charge of talking to people? Because whoever it was needs to be fired.”
She turns her head, looking up her sleeping companion’s body, taking note of the many scrapes and bruises that cover him from head to toe, including the deep gashes in his side from where their attackers dug into him amidst her attempts of keeping them both safe.
She sighs once more, “What the hell am I doing? Some help I turned out to be. Couldn’t even keep Caleb safe when he needed me most! Well, I mean our attackers did come out of nowhere…but still!”
A groan can be heard coming softly from Caleb, who rolls to the side in his sleep to face the wall.
Nott sits up, crossing her legs to stare down Caleb from a higher vantage point. “Why must you be so squishy, Caleb?! I don’t understand! Aren’t wizards supposed to be strong and powerful? Yet you go down after one hit! You have to understand that I’m not very strong myself, hell, I’m surprised I was even able to get you out of there, let alone give you a healing potion to bring you back from the brink!”
The only response Nott receives is the quiet mumblings of a man well into what would definitely be a very deep sleep, but it was enough of a response to keep Nott going in her lonesome rambles.
“Listen Caleb, you’re wonderful, truly you are! You are far too kind to me, after all, you have traveled with me for what, the past six months, with little to no complaint! That’s truly saying something, as most people would instantly choose to throw me to the wolves rather than ask me to stay with them, so either you’re insane or foolish or both.”
Unsurprisingly, Nott is met with no response to this declaration.
The quickly suffocating silence leaves Nott far more nervous than she would like to be in a place as secure as an inn. “Maybe I’m the crazy one. To even think that this could end well for the both of us. Maybe this was the wake up call we both needed. Maybe it’s time I let you go.”
She looks over Caleb’s sleeping form sadly, watching to make sure not only that he is still breathing, after witnessing his body go still in battle she still feels the choking grasp of fear that came over her after potentially losing someone she has come to care for forever, but she also inspects him to see if he is still in any way severely wounded, or if on the off chance he has bled through his bandages again.
It was difficult to say the least, to bandage Caleb’s side while he was unconscious, as he is far larger than she is and he was certainly difficult to work with when he could in no way provide her the assistance she needed to aid him properly. She was a rogue after all damn it! Not some kind of cleric that knew what to do in these situations!
But at that time, and even now, she couldn’t help but let her mind slip back into the thoughts that she dared not think for fear of growing too attached in the direst of moments.
It feels good to be needed again. To have someone that needs my help and that relies on me. Someone who treats me not as the monster I am, but as a person. I could get used to this.
And before she can shut her mind down, turn away from the thoughts that have plagued the deepest, most secretive parts of her mind from even six months prior, locked in that jail cell with no hope only to by chance be thrown in the same cell as Caleb, who, without fail, managed to secure a hold on her heart that she fears may never be released, her brain whispers the ideas she dare not speak aloud.
If merely seeing him in the moonlight one evening in that jail was enough for her to realize how handsome he actually is beneath all that dirt, she would be remiss not to consider how her affection might grow given enough time spent with him.
Given the opportunity for them to share the things they have been so reserved to speak aloud, for them to finally be safe for the time being. If she was given that chance, and if she was given a lifetime with him…
I would gladly spend the rest of my life with him.
Nott jolts herself up and off the bed and nearly slips and falls to the floor. No, no no. She can’t be thinking like this. What right does she have to think like this?
In what world would someone like him want to be with someone like her? A goblin? Hideous, vile, hated by the masses? She was nothing to him, and there was nothing she could give him.
I could protect him. I could keep him safe.
Nott shakes her head violently. No, she couldn’t. Today was a perfect example of all the ways she wasn’t capable enough to keep Caleb safe. Try as she might, she couldn’t even distract their enemies enough for them to take their eyes of Caleb. They were far too focused on him and his magical abilities to pay her the time of day, what with her darting around like crazy trying to hide in the shadows to sneak attack them.
She can’t blame Caleb for how the situation went either. Who wouldn’t find his magical abilities fascinating and worthy of admiration? She was in awe of the things he did every day! Why else would she continue working to make him more powerful and to help him grow stronger than to see what that magic could do?
You’re only with him to use him. You only want him to grow stronger so that he will change you. He means nothing to you beyond that right? Wasn’t that the plan from the start?
Nott runs her hands through her extremely tangled hair. That was the plan! What else was she supposed to think when she met such a fantastical wizard in a jail cell who could do more magic than she had seen in her entire life?! He summoned a damn cat out of thin air for crying out loud!
And yet, over time, what once started as a mere desire to use the man for his abilities and to leave him to his own devices, never to see him again, quickly turned into a joint effort of survival. One in which they continued to rely on each other, come up with cons, and sleep huddled together for warmth on the side of the road when the nights were long and rough.
Of course, she could leave him at any time.
Of course, she may be able to find someone else who could change her from this hideous form that haunts her every day.
Of course she could…
But I don’t want to.
And that’s the root of the problem isn’t it? Despite all misgivings, despite every struggle that Nott has endured while traveling with this man, she can’t bear to let him go.
He has been kind to her, treated her like an equal, let her take the reins in a large number of their cons so that they might come out on top because he knows that she is capable and able to get them both out of some very sticky situations. They’re partners in crime, they have each other’s backs, hell, in just six months of knowing each other Caleb has made her feel more alive than she’s felt in her entire life! Even before being changed into this monstrous form!
Oh.
And that is the kind of thinking that stops Nott in her tracks. Terrifies her to her very core.
Her brain can think what it may, that she could be happy with Caleb, that they could have a life together given the right circumstances. That she would love him and he would love her and they could find a way to build a life together that would be far different from the ones they are living now, wandering city to city in search of shelter, food, booze, and books.
But Nott has seen what the world can do.
And from the way Caleb’s eyes go hazy sometimes in battle, the way he wakes up screaming on rare occasions, and the way he can’t bare to look his own magic flame in the eye sometimes has led Nott to the conclusion that he knows exactly what the world is capable of as well.
Nott may be adventuring and doing more than she ever did before she became a goblin. But she had a life of her own when she was a halfling. A life with a husband and a child that she no longer knows if either of them is alive because the world is cruel, and harsh, and takes simple housewives and turns them into hideous monsters, setting them loose on the world begging to survive.
It nearly destroyed her to lose her family.
She was numb for the better part of a year trapped with the goblins living one day to the next, wondering if it would just be easier to give up. She loved her family dearly, but as far as she knew, they were gone. And no amount of gifts or letters she might send to the place she once called home out of sheer desperation will bring them back.
And if losing the man I called my husband and the child I would give my own life for nearly sent me over the edge, what the hell would I do if I eventually lose this man who I’ve come to care about so dearly after only knowing him for six months?!
This thought has been plaguing Nott ever since she and Caleb started traveling together. She rubs her hands over her eyes, giving Caleb one long, angry stare. “Why couldn’t you just hate me? Why couldn’t you show me the same level of disdain and distrust that everyone else seems to since I turned into a goblin? Why must you care for me? Why?!”
Silence.
Nott lets out a long, tired groan. Of course, she knows why.
“You are a good man, Caleb Widogast. I truly fear what this world has done to you and what it has yet to do. And in turn, because I can’t bear to leave your side, I am constantly terrified of what being with you might just do to me…”
Can he honestly help you? Will he give you what you want? Is that what you truly want? Do you even care? What do you care about?!
“I care for you,” Nott whispers into the silence of the room. “It scares me how much I care about you. I have only known you for six months, yet I already know I would give my life for you in an instant. Hell, I almost did today!”
She lets out a soft chuckle that slowly shifts into Nott fighting back tears. “You could decide to leave me tomorrow and yet I would still do anything for you. I just wish…I wish I knew what it would take for me to be brave enough to let you go.”
Nott walks to the head of the bed and looks down at Caleb’s sleeping face with a soft grin. “Maybe it would take some good booze, who knows. But compared to you, booze means nothing.”
She looks down at the holster of books still attached to his sleeping form. “Books however,” she says with a knowing look, “Some good books might just be enough for you to choose to leave me.”
She laughs quietly to herself, looking down at the injured man who has come to mean so much to her, and comes to an immediate realization. “But they might also be enough to keep you safe!”
Nott shifts back and forth around the room in excitement and jittery fear, thinking back to everything she saw on her way into town dragging Caleb alongside her. “Gaaah if only I had your keen mind, Caleb! That would really make this so much easier!”
She hits her fist against her head a few times in frustration, thinking hard.
Books, books, where did I see books? Booze? No! No time for booze! We need books! Books will help Caleb grow stronger! Books can keep him safe! Think, Nott! Think!
There was a small shop on the way into town that she vaguely remembers mentioning something about books. Or was it bindings? Framers? Well whatever it was, if there is a chance they have any magic books or scrolls that is where she needs to go! And if she can quell the itch to steal she currently has after the chaos they went through today? Well that’s a win-win in Nott’s eyes!
Nott makes her way to the door, unlocking and opening it quietly as to hopefully not wake Caleb. She lets her gaze fall onto him one more time, her face softening from its determined expression into one of great fondness once more.
“I promise I’ll find a way to keep us safe, Caleb. Whatever it takes.”
Whether it be books for new spells, more arrows for her crossbow to fire, or perhaps even a group of people to travel with to keep them safe, Nott will do what it takes to make sure the two of them can continue traveling together as long as possible.
A group of people, huh? Maybe that’s exactly what we need. People would be less focused on us if there are others to take the spotlight…I’ll have to talk with Caleb about it tomorrow…
Tomorrow…an idea so distant but right around the corner, bringing more fear and uncertainty than the day before, yet Nott knows that as long as she has Caleb by her side, and as long as they can continue getting by in this cruel, vicious world together, then everything will be alright.
After all, it can’t get any worse than its already been right? Right?
Nott lets her eyes look away from Caleb as she turns back to the door of their room. She takes one long, deep breath and prays to whatever real or fake gods that are listening that tomorrow might be the start of something new for them.
Yeah, we’ll do better tomorrow.
With a final grin over her shoulder, Nott bolts out the door and into the hall, locking the door behind her to keep her partner safe. And with that, she darts off into the night, in search of books, booze, and whatever it might take to keep the ones she cares about safe.