Chapter Text
Summer’s just begun to get into full swing when Fabian receives an unexpected visitor.
Someone arriving unannounced isn’t the unusual part. Fabian knows people, of course he knows people — some of them from dance agencies, some of them with requests for solving mysteries that he just dumps in a box for Riz to sort through, and some occasional nemeses that have managed to track the Bad Kids down.
Instead, it's the manner of arrival that's unusual; namely, the tiefling crashing through his bedroom window at two in the morning with a shout of, "Fabian, holy fuck!"
Immediately, Fabian jumps into fight mode. Alarm bells ringing in his head, he doesn't hesitate to pull his dance sheet out from where it hangs just over his bed—
And tangles it around a familiar red bass, though at the moment, he’s still too exhausted for recognition to flick on in his brain.
"—What the hell, dude?”
"I could ask the same of you— Fig ?" His eyes finally fall on the figure in front of him, realisation coming to him in a flood.
Figueroth Faeth, archdevil, rockstar, paladin of Ankarna and, unfortunately, one of Fabian's best friends, brushes herself off with a sigh. "No shit, man. Also, why would you go for the bass first? We both know that thing’s practically indestructible."
He mutters a quick apology, then pauses. "Why did you break through my window? Also, scratch that, why are you here?"
“Rude.”
“That’s not what I meant.” After double checking that Fabian's not hallucinating and yes, this is the real Fig, hair messy as ever and dressed like she's ready for a heist in all-black, a bunch of questions crop up. "It’s just — Weren't you supposed to still be in Sylvaire with Ayda?”
The minute Fabian mentions Ayda by name, Fig’s eyes light up, gleaming almost as brightly as the reflection of the streetlamps in the (now-broken) window pieces. For four months now, give or take, Fig has been touring across Spyre with Ayda. As most tours tend to end up with Fig, she’s clearly had another impulsive hair crisis, since it's been cut into a choppy mullet. And, knowing her, it was probably done in the mirror with a pair of scissors.
Still, she looks happier than she did when they last left off — and that’s when Fabian pieces it together.
He grips her by the shoulders. "She said yes?"
Fig gives a wordless nod, though her grin is evidence enough. It’s no surprise — out of all his friends and their… tumultuous love lives, Fig and Ayda were the two most likely to last.
"You're getting married?"
"I'm getting married!" She pumps a fist in the air — and visibly flinches as a full-body tremor shakes her, and her legs shake until Fabian jumps to steady her.
"Woah there — you alright?”
"Peachy," Fig says, though then she goes to sit down and releases a set of expletives that convince him that it is not, in fact, peachy.
Still, the broken-window matter is left in the dust for a moment as Fig takes a moment to collect herself through some heavy breathing. It's her apartment too, though she rarely uses it — a slightly shabby Bastion City flat that might not be the best quality (and yes, Fabian's still bitter that they lost a potential penthouse to that elderly couple with the eight dogs), but is one of the few buildings that can house all six of them and keep them near enough to their jobs-slash-universities to be convenient.
And compared to Kristen, when they have a baking crisis and manage to spill flour, somehow, on the ceiling for the second time in a week? This is stuff he can get over.
"You have a key, you know,” he comments. “Why break in here?"
Fig shrugs. "I have a flair for the dramatics. Are the others around?” she asks, head turning from side-to-side as she examines Fabian’s room. Compared to the rest of them, it’s still the most empty — a far cry from the size of his bedroom at Seacaster Manor, sure, but he’s kept decoration limited.
“They’re all here," he says. “And you didn’t answer my question. Why are you here, now? And without Ayda?”
Fig crosses her arms and leans back against the wall. It's now that Fabian can see, as the light hits her, that Fig's eyes gleam with excitement and vigour, yes, but also with a gauntness to her face, like she’s fighting the effects of an illness. "Well, Ayda and I sort of ditched the last stop in Sylvaire to go off to Leviathan. It was… great. I think she was missing the Compass Points, and who was I not to indulge her?” she said with a grin. “It just… turns out things changed more than I expected.”
The word Leviathan can't help but dredge up some old, sick feeling in the pit of his chest, even though his enemy there has been dead for three years now (and counting), and he’s long over any sophomore year bullshit. Fabian raises an eyebrow, says nothing, and gestures forwards. “Continue.”
Fig opens her mouth — just as a crash, followed by a not-discreet hiss of "Really, Kristen?" sounds from outside Fabian’s room.
"Ah, shit — well, looks like my entrance got the others’ attention,” she says, jumping off the edge of the desk. “Group meeting?”
Fabian rubs sleep from his eyes as his friends pull themselves out of a similar daze. They're all sat around the kitchen counter, having finally settled after the tackle hugs and shouts of "Where the hell have you been?" into an easier, sleep-deprived sort of energy that hums between all of them as Fig taps her fingers rhythmically on the table and finishes a rambling tangent. "—So that's when the bastard stabs me, and you know what Ayda and I did?" She puffs out her chest in pride. "Dropkicked his ass into a timeloop. You should have seen her, it was—" Another wince, and Fig stifles a hiss. "Son of a bitch!"
"And that's when you decided to propose?" Unlike the rest of them, Adaine looks the least tired — well, with the exception of Riz, that is. The Ball still hasn't learnt to sleep properly, and Fabian's sure that Riz spends more nights investigating than he admits. At least it's gotten easier to drag him away from these things; they used to form a tag team which mostly consisted of hiding his coffee in spots that he would always, without question, find in about three seconds flat, until Fabian decided more drastic measures were in order and Adaine cast Banishment on every cup she found until Riz settled down.
Now, Riz’s glasses rest slightly askew on his nose, and his tail curls on the chair in a ball ( the Ball) as he looks up at Fig. "Fig, you know I'm happy for you, but everything I've heard has been —" he makes a vague gesture in the air, as though trying to capture whatever Fig's permanent state of disaster is. "Winding around the point without actually getting to it."
“That’s the problem," Fig mutters, her hand stopping tapping and reflexively curling into a fist. She sighs, placing it flat. "So I might have been cursed."
"Again?" Kristen shouts just as Adaine asks, "By who?"
Fig throws up her hands in self-defence. "I didn't do it on purpose!"
There’s silence, then Kristen speaks up. "If it's a curse, I can probably restore it."
"...We tried." Fig bites her lip. "Ayda cast Greater and Lesser, the minute she could. It didn’t work." Everyone stares, wide-eyed, especially
"Right." Riz pinches the bridge of his nose; he's already started to develop stress lines around his brows, despite the many, many times Fabian has tried to convince him to take a rest day.
Unfortunately, the one time he managed to arrange a spa day for them all, it ended with Riz jumping an employee the moment she tried to massage his shoulders and Adaine running into at least five elves that asked her to predict their futures. And though her losing her cool by the fifth time had been valid, it had certainly ruined Fabian's reputation there until he'd slid a few bills under the counter, along with a promise to not bring any of his friends back there any time soon. "How did this happen?" Riz asks, as though every word is costing him another gray streak in his hair.
(They had to get that one checked out; between goblin lifespans being as short as they are and the possibility of an aging spell being thrown at one of them in combat, it was a damn relief to find out that Riz’s hair greying early was just a side effect of chronic stress.)
Fig, clearly sensing the tension in the air, sighs and settles in her chair. Her platform boots, still on, make her tall enough that the bottoms of the platforms drag on the wood floor as she swings her legs idly, and begins to explain.
"Well, Ayda and I were in Leviathan. And not just because I was scoping it out for potential wedding venues—" she says with a wink — "but also because we were investigating something a local had said about a new pirate rising in infamy in the city. And from what we could gather from them… it was rough."
Kristen frowns. "Rough? Even for Leviathan?" They're still in their gym clothes from the day, having made a habit of only working out in the late evenings and crashing hard, this last year. She, along with the other Bad Kids studying at BCU, were granted the opportunity to take a year of leave from university to go questing, as permitted for those in an established, successful adventuring party. It’s only been a month, though, and the largest quest they’ve tackled has been solving the mystery of who let a full takeout pizza fester in the back of the fridge for an ungodly amount of time.
Fabian’s grateful for the gap year, though. Sure, he's twenty-two now, he's in a great place with both his academics and his dance career, but even he finds himself wondering sometimes if he needs to slow down.
"Maybe rough is the wrong word," says Fig. "Because we got there, and it was already being cleared out by a bunch of folks — the entire damn Compass Points library. Somehow, this new, self-appointed Lieutenant of Leviathan not only got the clearance to ransack the place, but also to gain control of half the bloody city. They’re not from an established pirate crew, either, but… Ayda and I got into an altercation with one of their men. And then, well, this happened." At that, she pulls up her sleeve, revealing a gash going from forearm to the fingertips not covered by Fig's fingerless gloves, or the dark ink swirling up her arm — and surrounding where the skin is raw and open, a faint, red glow pulses, not too dissimilar from the one the shatter stars used to produce.
There's an inhale of breath from Adaine. "That's... certainly something. Mind if I take a look?"
Fig nods, her face stoic as Adaine's hands pass over Fig's arm. Above them, the Identify spell flickers into existence — only this time, it seems to look utterly stumped. While I can usually help with arcane matters, this curse seems to be different from any I have records of. While Figueroth there’s clear enchantment magic at work, it shows properties of similar curses such as the Spy's Tongue Curse — in this case, it seems to cause direct injury to prevent the expressing of strong emotions. This has been another use of the Identify spell!" Far too cheerily, it snaps out of existence.
Fig shivers again, far too intensely considering it’s the middle of June. "See? Told you," she says, though her voice has lost most of its usual energy. “Ayda wanted to come with me, but I don’t trust them not to raid Compass Points while we’re both gone, so… I went alone.”
Adaine opens her mouth as though to remind Fig of the dangers of making that journey while sick, but Gorgug finally speaks up, looking up from the gears he’s tinkering with. “Ayda was unharmed, though?”
"Thank the gods, yes," Fig says, pressing her hands into her face. "I'm just — so sick of this already, damn it! And I know Ayda already knows how much I— y'know, but I don't exactly wear my heart on my sleeve, and—”
"Hang on." Fabian cuts Fig off from that age-old tangent, instead focusing on trying to get all the information out. He glances over at Riz's notes, and he's already compiling everything Fig is saying into a clueboard. "You said Leviathan had any semblance of organisation now?" There's a chorus of agreed mutterings; they've been to Leviathan plenty of times, and saying there’d be someone with enough power to shut down the Compass Points, especially someone who wasn’t an established pirate, would be like suggesting that the city could be tied down instead of floating on the water.
She shrugs. "Hey, I was hoping you would know. Ayda and I tried to do some research, and the only person who seemed to know anything was Garthy — all they managed to tell us was that they're some kind of old-money enchanter who's been trying to climb the ranks through their magical prowess. They’re hardly a classic pirate, but again, that’s because no one knows anything about them.”
"No proper duels, no challenges for territory — what the hell?" mutters Fabian. This… goes against every rule his papa had laid out for him as a child when it came to explaining piracy.
Riz exhales, leaning out and examining the paper he’s been taking notes on. "Did Garthy or anyone we know ever see them?" he asks, and Fig shakes her head.
"They’ve heard them mentioned as primarily operating on the other side of the city, but no-one even knows their real name. Hell, other than the fact that the fucker cursed me, I've never heard of them.”
"And they cursed you just after your proposal?" Kristen says, tossing Fig a pack of hot chips she's made a grab for as she nods solemnly. “Now, that’s homophobic.”
"You need to infiltrate this Lieutenant's ranks, then," Riz murmurs. "Maybe get close to them, see how the system works now, get to the root of this curse—" Already, he's moving over to the corkboard on the wall, tearing out scraps of the notebook and tacking them up. "If we can speak to Garthy, maybe we can see if there are any key places, hubs for attention."
Fig nods. Fabian almost opens his mouth to question if this is a good idea, if they’ll be recognised — but something stops him, looking at Fig hiding the shakiness of her hands.
"We'll go to Leviathan with you.”
It’s Gorgug who voices it, surprisingly. He sits on the edge of his seat, his hair tied out of his face into a loose ponytail, the white streaks beginning to fade slightly. Gorgug speaks with his hands more than he used to, now — they’re almost always gloved these days. “I mean, I don't want to speak for everyone here, but… if someone curses you, they’re going down," he says, offering Fig a smile.
Fabian nods in agreement. Maybe it’s just because it’s late and he’s delirious, or maybe it’s because he’s slowly starting to lose it as he watches Gorgug speak with so much more confidence than he used to, a steady presence around the table. But for a moment, Fabian’s stomach drops with anticipation, the same sort of rush he gets just before a fight.
“Hells, I'll challenge whoever this Lieutenant is to a duel if I can,” he says. “Leviathan may be... well, it may be strange to go back, but I'd be willing to go back there and show off some of those old pirate skills. Provided none of us almost-die this time," he says with a grimace.
"So it’s settled,” Riz says. “We’re making a clueboard?”
And while there’s a universal groan from the others, the minute Riz actually starts attaching the clues to the board, the others are quick to join in.