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Still The Same
It was cold.
It was cold, and more than that, it was awkward.
They knew now – they all knew – that Nott (No, Veth) was a mother. A wife.
It didn’t matter that Luc was what would be considered a teen pregnancy. It didn’t matter that she and Yeza, though madly in love, were only just out of childhood when they married.
It didn’t matter that, even now, Nott was still a very, very young halfling.
Jester, after explaining that half-orcs age faster than humans (in order to tease Fjord about how much of an old geezer he was) and with much concentration and prayer to the Traveler, had once even calculated how old they would be if they were all human – figuring to human ages due to the fact that Caleb had acted quite offended that she might be calling him, a human aging thirty-three years, elderly as well.
Figuring that humans live about ninety years at their best, Jester would be twenty-two, as compared to her twenty-five in Tiefling years. Fjord, nearing forty—though his age chronologically was only thirty-two. Caduceous, though the absolute oldest in the party, was actually only eighteen in his human equivalent, and Yasha, after much deliberation about her life expectancy, was just about twenty.
Nott would be barely fifteen.
Now, things got a little iffy depending on their races’ ages of maturity – the math was not an exact science – especially when it came to Caduceous, who was quite obviously not in the same mental space as a human just out of childhood, and for Nott – Veth – as there was a bit of confusion on whether to assume her lifespan as a goblin or as a halfling.
But even so, it still proved true that Nott was not well into adulthood by Halfling standards. She and Yeza had had sort of a whirlwind romance, becoming pregnant at eighteen and married at nineteen, both before reaching halfling adulthood at twenty-one. Yes, they were in love. Yes, Veth still loved him dearly. Yes, halflings did tend to marry and reproduce young in order to have many, many offspring. But they were only nineteen.
Now, Veth was twenty-five.
(Nott was twenty-five. She didn’t – couldn’t – think of herself as Veth like this.)
Twenty-five was so, so young in Halfling years – and, yet…She was a mother. A wife.
And now, with that knowledge, the Nein were treating her different.
More than that, Caleb was treating her different. It was subtle, but still – after living in such close quarters for so long, Nott definitely noticed.
She noticed how he no longer opted to share a bed with his small companion.
She noticed how she no longer received head pats or hair ruffles at a job well done.
She noticed how his smile wasn’t quite as bright as it was before when he was around her.
She noticed how it just wasn’t the way it used to be.
And, now, it was dark, it was cold, and it was so, so awkward.
Caleb slept soundly to her right – not touching. The two were still separated slightly from the rest of the group in their own little pod, but Caleb and Nott were not touching.
There had not been a night since they escaped prison together that they slept without at least a tiny touch of skin-to-skin. Especially not on a cold night like this one.
Nott missed being warm-blooded. She got extra sleepy in the cold now, and got cold and stiff extra fast. Caleb used to hold her close to prevent her from going into a temporary hibernation.
Caleb used to hold her close to prevent her from breaking down.
Nott needed a drink.
As she unfastened her flask, she pondered – what had changed? Did knowing her past really make her that untouchable?
But then…. Of course it did. It was obvious.
She took a long sip.
Before, she was unattached. Now, she was married. And a mother.
Married Mothers aren’t….desirable.
She took another swig of whiskey, angry with herself for even thinking that about Caleb. And then another, because…. It wasn’t an unlikely scenario.
Had that been their relationship this whole time? She had to admit, at first…At first, there was definitely a smidge of attraction on her part. He was ruggedly handsome, his ginger hair soft even at its greasiest, and his voice was gentle and comforting.
But then she met him. That isn’t to say that his personality ruined the idea that he could be desired, just that…. To her, knowing him made him into something more. Something not crush, not lover, not friend. He was just...hers. He was her child; she was his. They cared for each other, and, for Nott, there wasn’t really a touch of sexuality playing into it. She loved him and Yeza the same, but differently.
She really, truly thought he felt the same. Especially due to the fact that she was green and ugly and had teeth larger than her own pinky finger and eyes that took up ninety percent of her head. But had it all been… not platonic?
She felt disgusting thinking it, and took another long, large sip of alcohol.
If she was honest, she could definitely see their relationship being not-platonic. In another life, it could have possibly ended up with her and Caleb married and living a domestic life in Felderwin.
But in this life? In this life she was married and a mother, and Caleb wasn’t her lover, he was just hers.
She used to be his, too.
She tipped her flask up to her lips again, feeling silly and ashamed to have ever thought that she could have someone be hers like Caleb and someone be hers like Yeza. That was selfish, she now realized. Caleb deserved the freedom to give all of his his-ness to someone else, who gave all of their theirs-ness to him instead of to two people at once. It didn’t matter that they were hers in different ways; it was still selfish and silly to think she was right to want both.
In all this thinking – all of this ashamed pondering of selfishness and belonging, Nott had lost track of her sips. Now, as she tilted the flask one last time to her parched lips, she had a horrifying discovery.
It was empty.
She was sure that it had been full when they set up camp. Could she have drained it that fast?
Honestly?
Yeah. She could have.
Without her normal shackles up to tell her to hide herself and stay silent, she let out a groan of frustration.
She was tingly, a little, and irritable, and all of a sudden just overwhelmed with emotion that she couldn’t place.
Actually, she could place it – it was mourning.
It felt silly, realizing what it was, and even sillier that she felt her eyes well up and start to drip down her hot, intoxicated cheeks.
It felt the silliest that she was mourning someone that wasn’t even dead.
She had mourned before, many, many times.
For her husband and her son, when she thought they were dead. For Molly. For herself, even, back a long, long time ago while she sat, cold and alone, in her newfound clan’s caves.
Caleb, however, was quite alive. She turned in her drunken state, crawling over someone’s feet, and stuck her spindly little fingers in front of Caleb’s nose, just to check.
Yep. Very alive.
She slumped back to her own space and stared at her hands.
She wasn’t mourning Caleb.
She was mourning being his.
She turned her ragged hands over in her lap, eyes trained on how disgusting they were, and let herself cry. She wouldn’t have if she was sober – she would have not only realized but would have accepted that her grief was stupid and uncalled for, that she was being selfish (or at least, she told herself that sober-Nott would have).
She cried for a while (she didn’t know for how long), first over missing how things were, then over missing her old self, then over missing the liquor in her flask and then over the fact that a very small lady bug fell off a blade of grass and onto its back right in front of her bare feet.
By the time she was done crying, she noticed something.
Her hazy brain, while not becoming clearer, was starting to ache.
In fact, so were her muscles.
She was, officially, entering a hangover.
Normally, Nott the Brave was able to avoid this part of drunkenness. With a high liquor tolerance (for a goblin), healers as friends, and a penchant for avoiding things that scared her unless absolutely unavoidable, Nott could generally come out unscathed – a little under the weather, maybe. A little bit nauseous, a little sensitive to sound, but nothing bad.
Tonight, she wasn’t so lucky. Call it the combination of the stronger alcohol of Felderwin, her exhausted brain, and the painful, throbbing sadness in her chest, but she was thoroughly, undoubtedly, hungover.
She gave a little groan and flopped back, her head hitting the same somebody’s boots that she had crawled over earlier. From above her in the dome, she heard Fjord’s rough, sleepy “Hmmph” rumble out from his chest as he shifted a little, and Jester’s purr of contentment as she was jostled by him.
Nott looked over to them from her spot on the ground and was able to just make out Jester’s plump, rosy form, snuggling close to the sturdy half-orc.
The sight of them nestled together made Nott sick.
Or maybe that was the hangover.
The small goblin stood abruptly, wobbly in her ascent but deliberate and quick with her steps, and drunkenly clambered out of the dome. She tried desperately to get far enough away as to not disturb anyone else, but she couldn’t have been more than six feet away before she felt her mouth begin to salivate.
She made it seven and a half before she couldn’t hold out any longer. Nott dropped to her knees, not noticing the way her skin scraped against rock as she went, and before she could even get all the way to the ground her stomach lurched, acid burning its way up her throat. Vomit escaped her lips and splattered onto the dirt before her and she choked back a sob. She gagged again, tears burning her cheeks as much as the stomach acid burned her throat.
She was so stupid. So extremely fucking stupid to think that she –
Her thoughts were punctuated by another bout of liquid projecting from her insides. It lasted a moment, she took a breath, and then she gagged once more as soon as she finished. She moaned from quivering lips.
– a stupid, cowardly goblin, barely –
She gagged again, this time projecting the viscous liquid farther with an unintentional twitch of her shoulders as she sobbed openly.
– barely old enough to be on her own, a married mother, could –
A cough. A splatter. Breathe.
– possibly, feasibly, have two people to call her own, have two people –
A gag, harsher and more painful than the last.
– love her, who –
A hand was on her back, and familiar calloused fingers were pulling her long, tangled hair away from her sweaty forehead.
“Shhh, shhh, mein liebling. Let it out.”
She lurched again, whining loud and shameful as the mess splashed back onto her hands.
More shameful than vomiting in front Caleb (she had done that many, many times before, whether it be from hangovers, concussions, swift kicks to the gut or good old fashioned illness) was the fact that as soon as she felt his hands in her hair, her immediate thought was please don’t go.
One hundred thousand times more shameful still was the fact that she said this out loud.
She knew she couldn’t have him and Yeza both to be hers.
It didn’t matter that the love was of two different types. It didn’t matter that she and Caleb, though not denying that there could have been something in another life, had the strongest familial bond that romance was not a part of.
It didn’t matter that Nott was still a very, very young halfling. She still had very childish wants and this was very, very childish but shit it didn’t make her want it any less.
“What’s that?”
Caleb’s voice, thick with sleep and his natural accent, broke the last bit of pride Nott had left in her. She choked on both vomit and tears and sat back on her heels, her clawed hands pawing at her cheeks.
“Why d’n we, we get to be howw we us-used to be, Cay?” She slurred, yellow eyes unfocused as they gazed up in Caleb’s general direction. Tears pooled in her eyes again and spilled over without hesitation.
“What?” Caleb’s voice wasn’t as… sure as usual. It was shaky, a little. Rushed. “What ever could you mean, my little friend?”
Maybe it was the late hour. Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was just the pure desperation Nott was feeling for the old times.
Whatever it was, she threw herself backwards, her head landing in Caleb’s lap, and scowled.
“W’t th’fuck d’you MEAN, ‘what’. Is OBVIOUS, Caleb, y-you’re not mine ‘n’ ‘m not yours. I b-broke us, ‘cause ‘m stupid and –”
She choked as vomit tried to make its way up her throat, not able to fight gravity and splashing back into her face and windpipe.
“Woah, woah!”
Caleb immediately flipped his small friend over, supporting her body as she retched and using the other hand to pull her long hair from her eyes.
He didn’t care that his pants were now messy with stomach acid and half-digested dinner and whiskey-remnants – its not like they were spotless to begin with. And he didn’t care that Nott had turned to drinking without trying to find someone to help her stay well first. He didn’t even care that he had been sleeping deeply when he sensed the disappearance of her presence and sprung awake.
No.
What he cared about was that she was right.
He knew exactly what she meant, and as he tried to coach her through her first hangover since Felderwin, he knew that she had hit the nail right on the head.
He wasn’t hers.
And, to follow, he was trying very hard to maintain that she wasn’t his.
She was a married woman – a married woman with a son, who had a full life far, far away from him.
In love.
That’s what Jester had asked him once.
Was he in love with Nott?
Briefly, he thought maybe that was the case. His heart was full of love for her, that was crystal clear, and he felt most comfortable with the tiny goblin nearby. And he definitely felt different about her than he did about the rest of the Nein. That was what being in love was, right?
But, when Caleb had first met Mollymauk, then Essek, that was a different feeling all together. It wasn’t love, they hadn’t known each other that well – but there was definitely a different feeling for him. His heart fluttered. His hands grew clammy. His face went red.
No, with Nott that was never the case. With Nott, it was always warm, and comfortable, and cared for. There was an aspect of his feelings for Essek or Molly that were not present in his feelings for Nott – no, he was not in love with Nott.
He simply loved her.
He took care of her.
She took care of him.
Nott was pretty – even if not many would agree, he would recognize this as a fact within himself. He found her to be beautiful like a precious gem. But there wasn’t that feeling he had gotten in his chest when he saw Mollymauk or Essek.
There was never a sexual aspect. There was never a level of physical attraction. There was never a nervous, blushy, flustered stage of their time together.
No. He was not in love with Nott. But, gods, he loved her.
It wasn’t a romantic relationship. It wasn’t a simple friendship. She was just his.
Or, she had been. Now it was complicated.
She belonged to Yeza, and Luc – not to some smelly hobo who had a weak stomach and a knack for getting into trouble.
Compared to them, he was simply inferior.
And, from what he knew, it was improper to share a bed with a married woman.
Before she was Veth – back when she was simply Nott the little goblin girl who escaped prison with him – sleeping beside her was normal. It wasn’t sexual or romantic, and no one thought of it as such. And, if they did, what did it matter?
Now she was Veth, and Veth was married. He could get her into some great trouble if he continued to be selfish enough to keep sharing a bed with her despite knowing this.
What would Yeza think?
Caleb, though having barely met the man, respected Yeza. He was gentle and calm, a grounding force for nervous, flighty Nott.
For Veth.
Caleb would never want to intrude on their relationship – he would never want to make Yeza doubt himself, or make Nott feel like she was being unfaithful, or put her into a position where she would have to choose between her travelling companion and her husband.
(Part of the reasoning for this could possibly, maybe, be because he was sure that Nott, if faced with that choice, would surely choose her spouse to him. Why would she – or anyone – choose him?)
These feelings had caused him to withdraw himself from Nott…almost entirely. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t romantic between them. It didn’t matter that, in ways, he was Nott’s child and she was his. She wasn’t truly his anymore, and he couldn’t treat her as such.
(And, if he were being honest with himself, cutting her out hurt a lot less than the idea of her rejection.)
Nott’s body stopped convulsing, leaving her breathless and shaky in Caleb’s arms. She roughly pushed her way out of them, crawling just barely around the mess on the ground, and sat to face him.
“N- …Veth,” Caleb began, his voice hoarse. He was fully awake now, but that didn’t mean he was prepared for this conversation. The drunken girl before him cut him off.
“NO,” She demanded. “No, ‘m not Veth. Not really. ‘m just…not.”
“Nott,” Caleb started again. “I know…things feel different…”
“Underst-“ She hiccupped and restarted, raising a clawed finger to point in accusation. “Understatem’nt of the century, asshole. You won’t even look ‘t me normal.”
Caleb was trying to think of a response, an excuse, when Nott began to cry.
“I want it to be normal, again, Cay,” She whined. “I w’nt’a be yours AND yez’s. W-why’s it gotta change?”
A pause with no sound other than Nott’s tiny sniffling. Caleb twiddled his thumbs. Did he know the answer?
When Nott’s voice came again, it was tiny and broken, so much weaker than her voice was known to be.
“D-d’you not want me ‘nymore? Cause I lied?”
Caleb didn’t think before his next action; he simply acted on impulse.
Reaching forward he grabbed Nott’s cheeks, snot and spit and vomit and all, and forced her to look at him.
“Nein. Never, mein liebling. You are my friend, Nott. Always.”
He large eyes blinked once, twice, before she pulled away from his grasp and curled in on herself.
Was she always this small?
“It’s just…”
He had to answer. Looking at her, cold, and drunk, and covered in her own sick, he couldn’t just leave her hanging.
He couldn’t leave himself hanging.
“Nott, you are a married woman. You and Yeza… you are in love, no?”
The girl paused, then nodded.
“Then… what would you call us?”
Nott furrowed her eyebrows, and her eyes started to well again.
“Do…d’you think y’re in love with me?”
“No! I mean, kind of, I -- no, I mean—” He took a deep breath. “It’s not that kind of love. But yes, Nott, I do love you. It’s….different, than how you love Yeza, or how I was, ah… attracted to Molly. But it is also different to how I feel about the rest of our group…Do you understand? I love you, Nott, in a way that is unique to you. And before, we were just… us. Now there are husbands and children and friends involved, and I…. What would Yeza think, Veth? Would he be angry with me? Would…would he be angry with you?”
Caleb was close to tears himself, saying this aloud.
And Nott had the audacity to laugh.
“Yeza?!” She burst, “Y-you’re worried ab’t m’husband?”
“This is no laughing matter, Veth Brenatto.” Caleb shushed, his brow furrowed in frustration and confusion. “What if he thought you were being unfaithful? Or if someone else did? Your reputation, Nott, as this new – this old you – is important. Your husband is important.”
Nott’s laughter was quieting, a rogue giggle here and there as she gruffly scrubbed tears from her cheeks.
“Cay-Cay,” She giggled. “Y’za is not a jealous man. Yezzza doesn’t ha-have a problem with a-any of this.”
A pause, and her face grew serious. Worried.
“C-caleb….do you th’nk I’m…you’re romantical t’ords me?”
He took her cheeks in his hands once more.
“No, Nott.”
And he meant it. He had pondered the idea; had considered it. But ultimately…. Nott was simply his. And that wasn’t romantic. Her loving Yeza didn’t make Caleb mourn what could have been.
No, her loving Yeza made him fear that maybe the idea that she felt romantically towards him, or that he felt romantically towards her, would make Yeza want him to stay away from his wife, or would make the party see Nott as unfaithful or see him as a knowing and willing homewrecker.
Nott was a strong and independent woman – he wasn’t worried that Yeza would or could force her to do anything – But he knew that Nott loved and respected him, and if she thought that something would hurt him…. It was possible that she would choose his comfort over Caleb entirely. And Caleb couldn’t blame her. She had a child with the man; that trumped their brief stint as comrades many times over.
He didn’t want to lose her.
She was tearing up now, her lip quivering and her clawed hands coming up to rest on Caleb’s, still on her cheeks.
“Then….th’n why can’t we be us again, Caleb?” A tear slipped from her eye and her brow furrowed. “I d’nt wan’ta fuck ‘er marry you, ‘n you dn’t wan’ta fuck ‘er marry me, so why?”
Caleb sighed. She was… right, really.
If neither of them loved each other in that way, why couldn’t they still be each other’s? More than that, regardless of what type of love they shared, if Yeza was comfortable with it… why did they have to become strangers again?
Instead of responding right away, Caleb simply reached over and scooped Nott up into his arms as if she were a tiny child. Like she was his tiny child.
“We can be, Liebstuck.”
He pressed a kiss onto the top of her head, and she nestled into his chest.
“’Missed you,” She mumbled, still in a drunken haze.
“I missed you too, little one.”
And with that, Nott made a tiny noise in the back of her throat – a murmur of content, and love. Of repaired relationships.
And then she threw up down Caleb’s arm.
--
With the sunrise came warmth, and dew, and Jester, waking with a stretch and a smile and a hum of contentment. Fjord grunted as Jester’s elbow made contact with his ribs, but didn’t stir much.
The dome was intact, the night had been uneventful, and Jester was starving. As she moved to wake Caleb to start a fire, she stopped short.
The past few weeks had been…odd. The entire group had noticed the awkward air that had come over Caleb and Nott, and it hadn’t been exactly pleasant. It was worrisome, really, especially to Jester – she hated for anyone to be unhappy, and those two definitely looked unhappy.
But this morning, lying at Fjord’s feet, were Caleb and Nott – curled up together as close as could be, Nott on top of Caleb’s chest like a kitten and Caleb’s hand covering the entirety of her back. Jester’s face broke into a grin.
All was right with the world.