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He doesn’t speak, the man Fjord found sitting in a grave that was not his own. He might be able to, Fjord isn’t sure, but he certainly hasn’t in the week he has been living at the Blooming Grove.
The night Fjord had found him it had been raining, he had looked out the window, having been woken by the Wildmothers voice in his ear, and had been surprised to see the figure among the graves. Too small to be a Clay, to solid to be a spirit, highlighted by flashes of lightning. He had stepped into the storm, unbothered by the rain and wind, and found that the figure was a man. Pale, covered in mud and drenched to the bone, auburn hair plastered to his face and sitting in an indent he had clearly dug into the fresh soil of the grave. Fjord hadn’t buried this particular body, Caduceus had, before he left to explore again. A tiefling, if he remembered correctly, with a large group of companions who had arrived with Caduceus, looking beaten and miserable. A difficult death, sudden. He gets an image of a glave, blood-splattered flowers, and he frowns.
He had led the trembling man inside, showing him to the bathroom and handing over clean towels and clothes. Caduceus always said that grief could do strange things to a person.
The man had come out soon after, clean now but still with that haunted look around his eyes. Fjord had taken his hands gently, leading him to the spare room and settling him on the bed. Blue eyes, the colour of the deepest parts of the ocean, looked up at him then. Somewhere deep in Fjord’s chest he knew what the man was saying, thank you-I'm sorry-please stay all played out as if he had spoken aloud. So, Fjord had sat on the bed, green hand wrapped around the pale one, and they had slept.
The week had passed, he hadn’t spoken, but he had lost some of the grey pallor around him. The storm had passed, and Fjord had gone back to tidying the graves as he usually did when the Clays were away. To his surprise, the man had appeared outside, pointed to a small trowel and tilted his head curiously.
“You want to help?” Fjord asked, trying not to stare at how bright his eyes were in the sun “you don’t have to”
He nodded, the corner of his lip quirking up slightly. So, they worked. Halfway through his second week, Caduceus returned, seeming utterly unsurprised to find the newcomer there.
“Has he said anything yet?” Cad asked that night, as the man slept on the spare bed.
“Not a word, he seems… Calmer though”
“Well, the Grove will do that”
“True” he sighed “I dunno Cad, I’m not sure how to help him”
“Well, the Wildmother wouldn’t have sent him here if there was nothing you could do”
“We, you mean we , right?” He asked, startled “I’m still new at all this”
“Sometimes you have to figure these things out for yourself Fjord, she thinks you’ll be good for each other, so here you are”
“Good for each other how? I don’t even know his name”
Caduceus just smiled his usual calm smile and shrugged. Incredibly unhelpful.
---
A few days into their third week, they had made it to the grave that started it all. Fjord watched the man’s hands shake as he ran a finger over the top of the stone.
“You don’t have to help with this one darlin’, if it’s too much” he offered softly, reaching out to lay a hand over the trembling one instinctually. The pet names had started the day he woke wrapped in pale, freckled arms with red hair that still smelled faintly of grave soil pressed to his nose. He hadn’t meant for it to happen, but what else was Fjord supposed to call him?
Blue eyes, so so blue, met his with a grateful smile, but he shook his head.
“You want to help? You sure?”
He nodded and Fjord smiled back encouragingly. After all, trembling hands are just as useful as steady ones. They work in comfortable silence for a while before Fjord breaks it. It’s a habit he’d fallen into while the man had been there, chatting to him while they work. He doesn’t speak, but Fjord has found he doesn’t need to. His expressions are so clear, Fjord can hear him without ever having heard his voice.
“You know” he muses softly, the thought popping into his mind “I don’t even know your name darlin’, feels odd after all this time”
The man looks at him curiously, as if to say “ do you want to?” and Fjord smiles.
“If you can’t say it yet that’s fine, but why not write it down for me?”
He hums, and Fjord watches curiously as he reaches over and flips Fjords hand palm up. One long, clever finger sticks out, and he starts to trace. Fjord has to focus but he catches it on the second try
C-A-L-E-B
“Caleb?” Fjord clarifies, earning himself an almost bashful smile “alright then darlin’, Caleb it is”
He, Caleb , looks up at him, tilting his head just so and Fjord feels his expression soften into something new and undeniably fond.
“You don’t mind darlin’?”
A little shake of the head, and colour rising in his cheeks, Fjord chuckles.
“Alright, we’ll just keep both then”
----
Another week goes by and they’re sitting in the garden, watching the sunset through the trees with a steaming pot of tea between them. The palm writing has become commonplace now, an easy way to communicate when shared glances aren’t enough. Fjord has learned a lot about Caleb now, he’s a wizard, he’s from outside of Rexxentrum, he loves books more than most people... and his friend died battling a slaver. They haven’t talked about what he and his friends were doing before they showed up here, beaten and bloody and looking lost. They haven’t talked about why Fjord, with his coastal accent and sailors' hands, is living in the quiet northern forest and tending to graves. They don’t need to, and Fjord knows somewhere deep in his core that this unspoken agreement is the first of many. They understand each other.
T-H-E-Y / C-A-M-E / B-A-C-K Caleb scrawled idly on Fjords palm that night T-H-A-T / F-I-R-S-T / T-I-M-E
“Is that why you were here? Waiting to see if they would come back again?”
Caleb shrugs and then shakes his head sadly as if to say “yes, but not anymore”
“Think they’re at peace now?”
Caleb nods, a slow smile uncurling across his lips. He takes Fjords hand again.
W-O-U-L-D / H-A-V-E / L-I-K-E-D / Y-O-U
“You think?” Fjord chuckled
Caleb nods again, blue eyes intense and serious, sending a little thrill down Fjord's spine.
K-I-N-D
He traces it softly, pausing before lacing his fingers with Fjords and giving his hand a squeeze. Fjord watches, cheeks warm as Caleb looks away again… But doesn’t take back his hand.
---
Fjord dreams that night, a swirling dream full of soft colourful light and the sound of the ocean. Melora is there, he can feel her as surely as he can feel his own heartbeat. As surely as he can see the silhouette of the tiefling sitting on their own gravestone. He walks through the dream Grove, awash in suncatcher light, and stops in front of them.
“You’re Fjord then?” they have a lilting accent, tinged with mischief even as scarlet eyes smile kindly at him “you must be”
“I am, but I’m afraid no one’s told me your name yet”
“Mollymauk Tealeaf, Molly to my friends” they say it like it’s a habit, pausing before adding “and to the people looking after my friends”
“You mean Caleb” it’s not a question, but Molly nods, sadness clouding their expression for a moment.
“He... I was hoping you could pass a message for me”
“Sure, I can”
“Tell him I’m alright, tell him... tell him I’m sorry, that I won’t be back”
“He knows”
That seems to startle them a bit, but then a fond smile softens their sharp features.
“Well, he was always the smart one” they roll their shoulders, standing with a stretch “tell him anyway?”
“I will”
The dream fades, and Fjord pulls himself out of his bed, walking in the moonlight to the spare room and pushing the door open the rest of the way. Caleb is sitting up in bed, staring out the window in a way that is so reminiscent of those first few days that it steals Fjprd’s breath. But then he turns, blue eyes dark in the light of the full moon, and he smiles a sad little smile, holding out his hand. Fjord crosses the room, sits up in the space that Caleb makes for him on the bed and takes his hand.
T-H-E-Y / A-R-E / G-O-N-E-?
“ I’m sorry darlin’” he says gently by way of answer “they said they’re sorry too”
Caleb takes a slow, deep breath, eyes flicking out over the graves before coming back to lock on Fjord’s, stealing his breath all over again. He smiles, it’s sad, but it’s warm too and shakes his head.
“They deserve peace” the smile says
Fjord follows as Caleb lays down, pulling him in close without thinking of it, and pressing his nose into the now-familiar hair. Parchment, ash and a little bit of grave soil.
They sleep.
---
When the Mighty Nein show up, Fjord is not really surprised. They’re loud and brash and they pull Caleb into what looks like an almost suffocating group hug. Before several of them start to chew him out for disappearing on them. It’s been six weeks, nearly seven, since the stormy night that Caleb arrived. He has the good sense to look bashful, apologetic as he holds the hands of a halfling woman with warm brown eyes and a worried set to her expression. His not speaking confuses them at first, and that solidifies the fact that it’s a new trait in Fjord’s mind. Eventually, they seem to just accept it, and one (the only other human in the group, he notes) takes over speaking with him. She can read him, Fjord realizes, the way that he himself had been able to. He stays back, letting their conversation wash over him as he sweeps the first fallen leaves off the path.
“Come home Cay, we’ve been staying at the Chateau, it’ll be good for you to be back... get some sun”
Fjord pauses briefly in his sweeping, a little rush of sadness passing through him at the idea of Caleb leaving. But of course, he would have to eventually, he didn’t really belong here, not the way the Clays did... or the way Fjord was trying to. He knew that, logically, despite the way they had been since almost the beginning. He can feel eyes on him, familiar and soft, and he feels a smile pull at his lips when he catches the warm blue. He tilts his head, studying Caleb’s expression and moving forward without thinking as he recognizes the “ I need you” written there. An unseasonably warm breeze follows him, pushing lightly from behind and swirling around them as he steps into Caleb’s space and holds out a hand.
S-T-A-Y-?
“Course you can, if you want to” he replies automatically, before adding (though it pains him to do so) “but--well... don’t you want to go back with your family?”
Caleb chews his bottom lip, clever eyes studying his face in a way that felt far too close to the way Caduceus did when he was looking through you. The breeze picks up again, scented with salt and sun rather than fall rot and flowers, and Fjord furrows his brow.
“Where are you from anyway?” the woman interrupts, pulling his attention from where Caleb is still studying him “you don’t sound like Caduceus”
“I’m from the coast, moved up here a few years back”
“Where on the coast?”
“Port Damali, technically, but I haven’t been back there in a while” he raises an eyebrow “I’m Fjord, by the way”
“Shit--right, Beau”
He nods, looking around as they all introduce themselves, the breeze is still rolling, the smell of the ocean growing stronger with each soft brush against his cheeks.
“Fjord?” He startles, eyes snapping back to Caleb “come with us?”
The accent is surprising in the fact that it doesn’t surprise him. His voice is low and soft, if a little scratchy around the edges with disuse. The way it catches on Fjord’s name makes his chest constrict in a way he’s come to associate with Caleb’s touch. Warmth rushes through his veins as Caleb blinks slowly at him, expression open and inviting. And certain, like he already knows Fjord’s answer before Fjord has even thought of it.
“Where?”
It’s not a “no”, and he can see that Caleb knows it.
“Nicodranas”
“I...” he falters, even as the ocean breeze picks up around him, eyes flicking to the temple that he has called home for the last three years. He is once again unsurprised to find Caduceus smiling at him from the doorway “I can’t just...”
Caduceus steps forward, sliding the broom he had forgotten he was holding out of his grasp gently.
“The Grove isn’t going anywhere,” he says in his slow, thoughtful way “and it seems like she is calling you away, you can feel it too”
The sound of waves crashing and gulls calling hums on the breeze now, and Fjord watches the others look around curiously. All but Caleb, who is staring at him with that same hopeful certainty in his eyes.
“ Come with me,” his expression says “stay with me”
They’ve never needed words, the two of them, not since that first stormy night. Fjord looks down at where their hands are still joined, heart stuttering in his chest again before his eyes are drawn back up to Caleb’s face.
He nods.