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there is a wedding dress, jester knows, her mother would have worn had her father returned to them. tucked away behind baby clothes and dresses that won't fit quite right, behind piles of gifts left unopened. a little funny, the juxtaposition, if it were a little less sad; promises her suitors make to her now, jewels and gold and castles, and the promise broken in youth, the one that still stings.
"do you think we should get married?"
it's pleasant, you see, the we. she brandished it like a sword, like a paintbrush, like a caress; what do you think we should have for breakfast, asked in what she aims to be idle curiosity and manages more thinly veiled excitement. we should go to the park. we should dance. we.
there is a brief pause, but now, in the furnace warmth of his body against hers, it's gentle; caleb does not tense up like he would if she'd overstepped, and even then always only for a moment. but his fingers do twitch at her waist.
"i don't know, blueberry," playful, coy. the glimmer in his eyes that she loves so much, her own mirth splitting into a grin. "should we?"
morning light turns everything gold. she loves him. she loves him. she loves him.
tucked away at the outskirts of rexxentrum sits a cottage. inside this cottage there were once only books - a lonely man in a reading chair, living a life he didn't know he'd live to see. now, scattered about like only an artist could, there are paints and brushes and yes, paintings, a pink haversack hung next to a scruffy brown coat.
"they're getting pink!" jester's voice sounds from where she's crouched amongst the strawberries. her skirts fan out around her like she herself is a flower, and her touch is delicate against the fruits.
caleb looks up from his lesson plans, a smile on his lips. "they're not ripe yet," he says, soft, "but they'll be in a couple weeks."
jester stands, turns to the sun so it warms her face, stretching in a way that is reminiscent of a cat. caleb's smile grows wider.
"oh man -" excitement has replaced contentment on her face. there is a wilderness to the garden she feels at home in, the untamed truth of nature. caduceus, still on his year long mission from his goddess, had given her seeds to plant the last time they visited. the same seeds have bloomed bright and happy around them now, a new beginning.
"oh man," she says again, and suddenly is much closer to caleb, almost knocking down the watering can in her scramble to get to him. "we can make jam! and then we can make doughnuts filled with jam!!"
his laugh warms her more steadily than the sun does. their hands find each other, unclear who reached for whom first. but then he brings hers to his mouth, kissing each knuckle in turn. jester totally, absolutely, one hundred percent does not blush, like she doesn't blush every time he does it.
"crepes too," he adds, easy. "you can fill them up with jam and roll them up like little rolled up blankets, ja?"
the sun is setting. she sits next to him under the apple tree, her head on his shoulder. in a minute, they'll stand up and head inside, make lunch together, and then retire to the bedroom to read to each other. it's jester's turn and she's picked up some new smutty book from the bookshop, something light and fun about a young lady and her paramour. in a minute, the sky will grow dark and mark the end of yet another honey slow day. next week yasha and beau are coming over to help them build beehives, and the garden will be full of laughter.
in a minute.
it's been two weeks since jester has crashed into caleb's life like a comment. two weeks since the kiss, an awkward tension hanging in the air, a string pulled taut.
she finds him in the kitchen, long into the night, a steaming cup of tea in front of him. maneuvers around him with strange ease to pour herself a cup too, then sits down next to him.
"i'm a bad man," he says, seemingly out of the blue (which funny, haha, she's blue). but jester knows by now there's no such thing with him.
"caleb," she's tired, is the thing. tired of the men in her life deciding what she does or does not get to know, what she does and does not deserve. for a moment, she imagines shaking him so hard every bad thought he has about himself falls out to shatter at their feet.
"jester, please," he sounds so pained when he says this her mouth clamps shut at once. he looks at her - and she's seen this look on his face a million times before, this pained grimace that she used to think meant something in her reminded him of a long gone lover, and so she'd lied to herself, convinced herself that it's not... well. love.
her hand finds his on instinct.
"i'm not a good man," he tries again. "i've done... i've done horrible things. some of them you know, some of them you - you don't." his hand twitches in hers, and jester knows with sharp, painful clarity that he was going to scratch at his arms. her hatred for trent, for the assembly, reignates.
"i've done bad things too, caleb." a volcano on an island and a god asking for her help. the ugly, violent jealousy that lives curled up inside her, baring its teeth when she last expects it. the way she knows, deep in her soul, that she would die for the people she loves - that she would kill. has killed.
but caleb only looks sad.
"not in the way i -"
"fuck that!" suddenly she is all fire. tail lashes out behind her, free hand slamming on the table, barely noticing the way it makes him flinch. "fuck that," she says again, quieter. "you were a child when all that shit happened to you. and sure, what you did was awful and there's no excuse for that, but all you can do is do better. punishing yourself endlessly for what happened like, years ago, after saving the world a bunch of times is... it's selfish, caleb. because you're not the only one you're punishing."
"jester..." there are tears in his eyes. he looks as if she struck him, pained and terrified and something else she can't quite name. but she's not done.
"and if you can't love yourself caleb, that's - that's fine. i mean no it's not, because you should, but it's okay because i can love you for the both of us. just for a while. just until you can love yourself too."
"jester," he says again, dumbfounded. one of his hands - his free hand, the other one is still clutching at her own, clutched in her own - lifts to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. he looks at her like she's holly, like touching her should burn him.
"that's me," she replies with a tentative smile. he laughs, the sound shocked out of him, and then he starts crying.
jester gathers him in her arms, cries with him. outside, the moons are heavy and full, but they're good at keeping secrets.
it used to be midnight in the feywild but it's mid morning in the material plane. that's always enough to give her a little whiplash when she comes through the gate. her best friend's magic clings to her skin for a moment longer, then fizzles out.
ten pairs of eyes look back at her. one of them is blindingly blue.
"well," caleb says, straightening from where he'd just been showing one of the kids he tutors on the weekends something on the papers scattered all over the desk. "welcome home then."
"oh my gosh, hi, you guys!" that's all it takes for the six thirteen year olds to have her surrounded, excitement in their voices. their two cats, previously curled up on the desk as well, flee the room promptly.
"miss lavorre, did you see any unicorns?" aleena asks, her long twin braids and bright smile reminding jester of veth, halflings through and through.
she's about to answer when edwin, the half elven boy who was the first to come to caleb for advice, butts in, "forget the unicorns, lena, did you fight evil monsters, miss lavorre?"
there's warmth unfurling in her chest, affection coming to the boiling point. above the sea of little heads, she catches caleb's gaze, smiling to each other, helpless.
"das genügt, kinder," he claps his hands together; jester watches in awe as all of them fall back, some of them sending sheepish looks her way. all except for maydelin, the little tiefling girl, who takes her hand in hers with a grin. "let's give miss lavorre time to breathe, ja? the stories are still there after we're done with our lessons."
they're always so well behaved - almost makes her want to push at caleb's boundaries herself, the part of her that's always itching for a good prank or just general mischief buzzing. instead, she squeezes maydelin's purple hand once, then lets her get back to her seat.
later, after lessons are done and stories are shared, after caleb has made sure each one of the children have returned to their homes safely, jester sits curled up against his side, pretty lights strung in the air around them.
"- and you should never accept a gift from the fae, caleb," she's saying. he's reminded of hags and cupcakes, of tarot cards spelling out the future. all of that jester's, all of that more impressive than she's willing to admit, not if it's about herself.
"then i guess i'm afraid i'm doomed," his tone is serious enough it makes her turn to look at him, almost whacking him in the face with her horn. "i accepted the most precious gift, and it was from someone who grew up with a fae."
it takes a moment for his words to sink in, before, "caaaaaaayleeeeeeeb!" a long groan, face hiding against his shoulder to hide the purple flush in her cheeks, "oh my gods, that's like - so cheesy, what the fuck!"
but she's laughing. he's laughing too, warmth and comfort and gentleness melting the scenery into sepia hues already, a memory to be cherished for sure.
"you love it, admit it," he tells her. she kisses the smug grin off his lips instead.
they roll up the carpet in the living room, golden light spilling through the open window and onto the worn wood of their floorboards. evenings in autumn make everything crisp, like the satisfying crunch of a good tart apple.
she's wearing her prettiest dress, the amber one with the sheer panels of fabric where they overlap to make it look almost like water coloured by the sunset, pearls at her neck and ears, his ring on her finger.
he's not slacking off either, dressed smartly in the suit she picked for him for the day he got tenure at the academy. blacks and purples except for the midnight blue lining the inside of his coat, the golden cat paw she'd sewn on the left side, across his heart.
her heels make satisfying click clacky sounds on the hardwood. caleb twirls his fingers, the room erupting in beautiful music.
"you look very handsome," she tells him, reaching up to fuss with the hair he'd tied up in a ponytail. it's getting long again; he's due a haircut, but he looks very dashing anyway, his beard neatly trimmed, his blue eyes gleaming.
caleb takes her hand, kissing each fingertip like a little secret promise between them, then draws her into a waltz.
the one two three is familiar by now. her hand fits comfortably on his shoulder, his in the dip of her waist. the years have been gentle on them both, now that adventuring was only a thing in bedtime stories.
"you always look beautiful, blueberry," his voice is deep, just for her to hear even if the house is empty. it grants him a laugh, a kiss on the cheek. their foreheads come to rest together, his heartbeat steady under her palm.
there are plenty of things she knows about him now that she could never have guessed at during their first dance all those years ago. like the way mornings make him slow, his mind sharpest late at night. or the way he takes his coffee on the side of bitter, his eggs a little runny. astrid is a better dancer than him, as is, it turns out, eadwulf, but there's no bite to that knowledge anymore, no ghost to dispell or learn to live with, whichever comes first.
she likes dancing with him best, even if that's yet another secret just between them.
the music picks up - if she closes her eyes, she can picture the cats in his tower speeding up. he spins her around, delight spilling from her in giggling, and then she's lifting him up with ease, twirling, twirling.
then, of course, her foot catches on the rolled up carpet. they fall on the floor in a heap of limbs and laughter, and stay there, breathing, content.
"we need a bigger house," she mouths into his shoulder. his hand had slipped beneath her skirts to curl around her thigh, just resting there, warm. "with like, an actual proper ballroom for parties and stuff."
it's an old conversation; this house they've grown into, the house that grew with them, with its garden and paintings and notches in the doorframe tracking heights, is one they wouldn't trade for the world. there's the summer house in nicodranas, of course, and the huge house in zedash they all share together, but here is home.
still, he humours her like always, "of course. a ballroom big enough to fit a hundred people and the floor is marble."
she pulls back to grin at him, delighted as always to see him already smiling back. her fingers move on their own accord to trace over his cheek. he leans into her touch like one of their cats, and if his human body could purr, she knows he would be purring.
she has to kiss him; outside, the sunset swallows the valley.
their firstborn comes into this world at midnight, screaming her little lungs out. she's tiny and pale blue, ten fingers, ten toes, a tiny little tail. she's perfect.
caleb cries when he holds katharina - if jester had any energy left she'd tease him about it. as it is, she only looks on as their daughter wraps her little fingers around one of his, content and happier than she's ever been in her whole entire life.
he's murmuring to her in zemnian; jester allows herself to drift, catching a word here and there she recognises - love, obviously, but also darling and protect and bright. kat settles too, watching her papa with bright blue eyes, already so inquisitive.
they settle together soon. caleb wraps himself around jester's back, their baby on her chest, the night quiet and warm in the peak of summer.
"she's perfect," he whispers, chin hooked over her shoulder. then his head turns, pressing a kiss against jester's temple. "you're perfect. thank you."
she laughs, smoothing out the baby's adorable frown with the tip of her finger, gentle like she never is with anything. but, well. she's never had to hold something so precious before.
"i dunno, cayleb, she looks a lot like you, so i guess that's true." can feel the need for rebuttal he swallows down in his whole body. but he does swallow it down. it's an uphill battle, of course, even if jester isn't lying. kat might be tiny and blue, but the cheekbones are his, as are her nose and eyes. her hair looks reddish already, darker than his, two tiny horns poking out.
he'd been so terrified when she told him. frankly, she'd been a little scared too, but excitement had won out in the end. she's seen him around children of all ages, his students and veth's students and the kids jester teaches how to paint, patient and kind and loving above all else. she sees him with their daughter now; his worries lack any sort of ground to stand on.
she's watched him grow into himself too, more comfortable with the idea of fatherhood the farther along she got.
"we did this. we made this," there's awe and reverence in his tone, his mouth at her shoulder, his gaze fixed on their child. jester can't look away either.
"yeah," she whispers back. katharina yawns, fingers fisting in jester's chemise - and look, she falls in love easily, that's no secret, but never like this. "holy fuck, caleb, we made a baby."
their friends are waiting outside, and she really ought to send to mama to let her know that the three of them are okay. there are a thousand and one things they need to do, a thousand more things they want to do.
but for now, jester closes her eyes, surrounded on all sides by love. the future looks blindingly bright.
there is a wedding dress, jester knows, her mother would have worn had her father returned to them. she thinks about it now, tucked in caleb's arms, his sleep heavy body a hot blanket wrapped around her in the early hours. in fifty six minutes on the dot, he'll stir awake, press a kiss to her smiling mouth, and they'll start their day like that, make breakfast and dance in the kitchen, another bead in a string of many.
for now, she lets him sleep. they have time.