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There is something wrong with Caleb's daemon, and it freaks Beau the fuck out.
The first, glaring hint, only overshadowed by the fucking goblin right next to him, was when the man's daemon had changed shape. No matter the usefulness of a bird compared to a cat when finding an evil toad on an island in the middle of a lake, daemons are not supposed to change.
She had caught Fjord's gaze, reading the same discomfort in his expression. Yeah, she thought, as Eleanor growled softly next to her, it was freaky as hell.
The other thing was, Frumpkin didn't talk. He seemed to be aware enough, and was always sitting at Caleb's feet or curled around his neck, but whenever Eleanor tried to approach, he shied away, hissing. Even Nott's Magpie daemon Yonah just talked to Caleb directly.
---
She doesn't figure it out until she, Nott and Caleb are huddled together in a small room in an inn in Zadash.
Yonah is hopping back and forth, as if unsure whether to comfort Caleb or Nott herself. Eleanor is pressed against Beau's leg, her ears flattened against her head, teeth bared into a snarl.
Frumpkin, back in the form of a cat, is sitting calmly next to Caleb, showing no signs of distress. Unlike Caleb, who's shoulders are hunched, and who is carefully avoiding looking at either of them.
Beau grits her teeth.
"Is that why you don't have a daemon?"
Caleb flinches.
"Partly. Ja."
The answer is strained, and Beau has to fight the urge to be sick. Her fingers tighten in Eleanor's fur. Even the concept of separating rises bile in her throat.
"But, you must have one, right?" Nott pipes in, tone even higher than usual. "Or you would be dead..."
"She lives." Caleb grimaces. "But she is gone. She ran away."
Frumpkin's tail swishes back and forth.
"Frumpkin is a Fey cat," Caleb whispers, running an almost desperate hand through his fur. "But he is a good boy. A good cat."
Eleanor growls softly, and Beau's muscles tense. They need to move. They need to do something. Preferably punch Ikithon in his creepy ass face.
Caleb takes a deep breath, physically steeling himself.
"Nott and I will retire now," he says pointedly, and if nothing else, Beau recognizes a dismissal when she gets one. She storms into the hall a little bit later, where she leans against the wall, her heart pounding as Caleb closes the door behind her.
"Fuck," she whispers into the quiet hallway.
Eleanor presses her nose in her palm.
---
"Hey. So. That scourger didn't have a daemon either."
Caleb startles as Beau crashes next to him into the couch, focus snapping back from whatever place his brain had taken him after the whole ordeal in the prison. They are alone for now, all of the Nein having sought their own solitude.
"No, ehm, not with her, no," Caleb starts, when it is clear she expects a reaction. "Better keep them where it is safe. Back in the Empire."
Beau narrows her eyes and Caleb looks away, shoulders creeping up.
"So what, Ikithon forced you to separate?"
Caleb grimaces.
"We did it gladly. It made us stronger."
Eleanor growls.
"That's bullshit," she hisses.
"Ja, well." He swallows. "Is there a point to this?"
He turns even further away from her, and Beau takes a deep, measured breath, forcing down her anger.
She stands abruptly. She needs something to punch.
"Good night, Caleb."
"Good night, Beauregard."
---
Daemon's and resurrection rituals are strange.
"I could ask The Traveller, if you want," Jester suggests, after she brought it up some time after Caduceus died. She raises her voice. "Hey Traveller, what happens to a daemon when you die?"
There is no response and Jester shrugs. "I'll ask him next time I see him."
What Beau had seen was this: when Caduceus had died, truly died, his beetle daemon had disappeared in a cloud of Dust, just like Molly's. But during Jester's ritual, the diamond dust had sparkled brightly, and they had reformed on his chest.
Caduceus himself hadn't been much help either.
"That's part of the Raven Queen's domain," he says over a cup of dead people tea. "I'm there for the part that gets left behind."
"So what, the cleric's god goes knocking on the Raven Queen's door? Hey, can I have the daemon back, we still kinda need it?"
Caduceus smiles.
"I suppose."
"What if the daemon has been separated?"
"Ah," Caduceus says, catching on. "Well, we'll keep Mr. Caleb alive."
"He's awfully squishy."
"Hmm, that he is."
---
Later, Beau blames her lack of reaction to the fucking bobcat appearing on Caleb's chest on the immense relief that he was breathing again.
But the bobcat is still pressed against the back of his legs when they teleport back to the Grove, even if she sprints into the forest the second they arrive. Caleb stares after her, but doesn't follow, and all Beau can do is give him an exhausted shoulder bump.
The bobcat doesn't appear again, not during their short reprieve and not during the fight against Ikithon. But as they slowly draft the first part of Caleb's testimony, Beau swears she sees a pair of eyes watching them all work in the garden. So when they reach that part of Caleb's story, she suggests sitting beneath the calm of the trees a little away from the Grove. Caleb agrees without fighting.
"What happened to your daemon?" Beau asks, pencil at the ready to take notes. Caleb swallows, eyes taking on that familiar glassy stare. Beau hates that look on him, but they had figured out that blunt, pointed questions helped more than letting Caleb meander on his own.
"He, uhm, he didn't ask us to do it. Not directly. He said it would make us stronger, and we gladly did it on our own."
Beau nods. Her fingers curl into Eleanor's fur, but this isn't about her.
"We did it separately. Eadwulf and Astrid, they were somewhere else. It was a competition - who could do it first."
He shudders, and his fingers clench, as if reaching for a fey cat who is no longer at his side.
"I let her walk away. And when she reached the furthest she could go, she took one more step. And then another step. Until I could not feel her anymore."
Caleb grimaces, his gaze trained on something behind her.
"And we were so proud."
Beau swallows. "Is that when she left you for good?"
Caleb shakes his head sharply, gaze flying back to her. "No, no. That was... later."
Beau can guess what he means by later, so she just dots down what he said.
"And Ikithon?" she prompts.
"He was very proud too. We celebrated, Astrid, Wulf and I."
He fingers are dancing restlessly over his forearms, but he isn't scratching yet, so Beau waits for him to continue.
"That was the strangest part," he says. "We, we, ehm, touched each other's daemons, to stay warm, mostly, but also... Anyway, I couldn't feel them anymore."
He laughs weakly, as if it is just a funny joke in hindsight, like stubbing your toe or dropping a glass. Beau doesn't write it down. Some of it is too personal, and Caleb had given her permission to omit parts that she thought would not be relevant to the case.
"But she stayed with you?"
Caleb nods, his eyes returning to the spot behind her. Beau suppresses her instinct to look as well. Caleb would warn her if there was anything wrong.
"She left when I murdered my parents," he says. "When I broke."
"What was that like for her?" Eleanor whispers, unable to keep silent. Her ears are pressed back, and Beau realizes that she has turned around to watch the bushes. A quick confirmation travels across their bond, and Beau stills, whole body tense.
Caleb swallows. He opens his mouth and closes it again, breath harsh. "I don't know," he manages eventually.
"I went a little crazy too."
The voice is raspy from disuse, with a heavy Zemnian accent, and in the periphery of her vision, Beau sees a dark shadow circle the edge of the treeline. The bobcat's body is pressed close to the ground.
"I ran," she continues. "Far, far away."
She halts, her eyes trained on Caleb, who has almost stopped breathing.
"You killed my parents."
Caleb lets out a choked sob. He nods and curls into himself, eyes closed. The bobcat presses herself down, ears turned back.
"I should have stopped you. I am sorry."
The bobcat slinks closer, keeping careful watch on Beau and Eleanor. Slowly, every movement tentative, she reaches Caleb and brushes her nose against his hands. Caleb shudders. His fingers flex, catching a bit of her fur, and inch by inch, he reaches out to her, until her head is cupped in his palm.
Beau stands, but the two don't notice her slip away, too enraptured with each other. Beau halts to brace herself for the jarring liveliness that is the Mighty Nein before briskly making her way towards Veth.
"Caleb needs you," she says without preamble. "He's in the clearing nearby. He's trying to reconnect to his daemon."
Veth nods sharply. Yonah is already flying towards the trees.
---
Veth returns a bit later with Caleb's hand clutched in hers. She doesn't leave his side for the rest of the evening or the next day.
The bobcat doesn't join them in the Grove, but whenever Beau and Caleb sit together, she appears next to them and listens to Caleb's story, sometimes far away, sometimes within reach of Caleb's hands.
Eleanor talks to her, but refuses to tell Beau what about, even though Beau can feel the sadness and anger radiating from her.
When Astrid and Eadwulf arrive, their daemons slink away into the woods and don't reappear for the remainder of their sessions. Both Astrid and Eadwulf independently give a similar account of the separation. Having a soul is a weakness the Volstrucker are not allowed to have.
Neither of them knows where Ikithon's daemon had disappeared to.
---
Years later, whenever Beau sees an owl, she is reminded of Professor Thaddeus and Ikithon's daemon. She has never seen either of them again.
Briefly, Beau had wondered if Ikithon missed his daemon. But then she was reminded of Caduceus' failed attempt to make him feel empathy.
His owl had never been there when he'd instructed Caleb and the others, Caleb had said.
Maybe Ikithon's daemon was better off now that she was free.
---
"Yo, Caleb, move it!"
Beau crashes down on the couch between him and Yasha, butting his hips to the side and snuggling in between them with a content sigh.
Caleb's bobcat swats lazily at Eleanor, who has done the same to the cuddle pile of daemons on the floor, but then rests her head on Eleanor's back and closes her eyes, content in her new position.
Beau smiles and lets herself drift away on the soft murmur of Yasha's and Caleb's voices.
Tomorrow, they'll meet up with the rest of the Nein on Rumblecusp. It will be a week filled with excitement and shenanigans and probably a fight or two.
She can't wait.