Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Caleb did not like the dwarven woman. He did not trust her. Beauregard seemed to be taking a shine to her at least. Beau usually had a good sense for these things. Sometimes. Either way, he couldn’t seem to concentrate, to think clearly. All he could feel was the tightness of his ribs and the fire at his back. 

Jester, Fjord, Yasha… they were gone, taken not by Ikithon, but by a group referred to as the Iron Shepherds- a group of slavers out of all things. At least, according to their new “friend.” He, Molly, Beau, and Nott had all exchanged glances. Maybe they were destined for slavery now, but as soon as the Iron Shepherds came upon one of the Mighty Nein’s many wanted posters… Well, they would be on their way to somewhere much worse. It was paramount that they retrieve them. 

Caleb couldn’t do that if he was indisposed. 

Ever since the panic had overtaken him at the absence of Jester, Fjord, and Yasha, he’d felt ablaze. There was something within him, something growing. Something strange. The mist and smoke, something that normally would’ve only grown in such circumstances, was faded and absent. He could feel it, feel the monster there within him, so strangely accessible. He didn’t know how or why, how he could be so aware of it. He didn’t want to think about it. But he’d had nothing but time these past few days, bolting through the wilderness on their remaining horses, pushing themselves and their animals to the brink. 

Taking watch, alone save for Frumpkin on his lap, he studied the sleeping bodies of his compatriots. It felt wrong. It was wrong- without their familiar blue tiefling and her soft dreamy mumbles to herself, without Fjord’s loud snoring, and without Yasha’s quiet but reassuring presence. When had he become so close to them all? 

His mind hurts. All he can think about is a soft touch from a large hand, a quiet word of reassurance in a beautiful language he both knew and didn’t know. Safe. Being pulled close, behind, gently held and protected as lights flashed and flared. Warm. Blue hands carding through his hair, accompanied by happy humming. Home. Caleb sucked in a breath, fingers curling as he pressed a hand to his forehead. 

Remembering his time without his mind often gave him headaches and made little sense. But he cannot deny this. He had lost himself and they had all sacrificed much to keep him by their side, to care for him, instead of abandoning him and Nott by the side of the road. Instead of turning them into Ikithon, as they could’ve and probably should’ve done, the Mighty Nein had sacrificed everything for them. For him. That in and of itself made his chest hurt, his mind ache, and his belly sick with nausea. The warmth in his bones seemed somehow the most terrible thing. 

He could not leave them, not now. 

He could not help them either. He was only a dirty stinky wizard, still trying to grasp knowledge he’d long forgotten. He had nothing, could give nothing, was nothing. 

Tch, you forget what you have. 

He hadn’t spoken. No one had. The forest is eerie around them. He wants to ignore it- to shy away as he always has. But he can’t. He can’t afford to ignore it any longer. Caleb lightly scratched Frumpkin’s ears, voice soft and trembling slightly, “I have catalogued everything I can.” 

Nein, you lack sense. I have forgotten nothing. 

Caleb looked at Nott’s sleeping body. None of them speak, but he knows whose voice he hears nevertheless. The smoke has become too dim. Their lines blur. It’s unacceptable, “I won’t. This- this charade has gone on long enough. Monster. You- you are a monster. Du bist böse. We both are.” 

And here I thought you were starting to see sense. 

Caleb clenches his eyes shut, fingers curling deeper into Frumpkin’s fur, “You cannot speak to me. You cannot. Be quiet.” He wants the smoke back. He needs it. He’d forgotten that it was for his own protection. It kept him safe. It kept him from being able to breathe, but the monster at least, could not see him there. 

You are a coward, as you’ve always ever been. 

“Better a coward than to become that- that thing again.” 

Your friends, they mean that little to you? You know I could do it. All you need is me.

“Halten Sie den Mund-“

It’s Nott’s sleepy question that brings silence to his fragmented thoughts, “M’Caleb…? Who’re you talking to…?” 

Caleb swallows his panic, Frumpkin staring at him with glossy eyes. His voice is quiet and choked when he speaks again, “Nothing. Myself. Sorry for waking you liebling, go back to sleep.” He hears her murmur again, not truly awake, soft snores returning. 

He wants to run. 

We don’t leave people behind. 

The voice this time is something softer, different, more childish, echoing the sentiments of the Mighty Nein. He buries his face in Frumpkin’s soft orange fur and tries to remember how to breathe. 

Chapter Text

When Keg blinks her eyes, they all know that the suggestion spell has worn off, she snarls, “What the fuck? You guys are assholes.” 

He doesn’t even look at her, blue eyes impassive, almost completely altered from the dirty weird ‘Bush Man’ she’d first encountered in the wizard. When he speaks, it’s purposeful, firm, and entirely unfeeling, “You were holding back. We needed all the information we could get. Next time, it would be wise to speak only the truth.” 

She can’t help her laugh, without an ounce of amusement, “Wow. You’re a piece of shit-“ 

“I,” said Molly, cool, “Think he has a point. Besides, we told you we were assholes. We were very upfront.” 

Nott clings to Caleb’s hand, nodding decisively, “Caleb was just being smart. He’s always smart, actually. Unlike certain other people present.” She fixes a beady yellow eye on Keg. 

Beau shoots a glance at Nott and shakes her head, lips twisted with something not quite pleased, “Not Caleb, actually.” 

Nott waves a claw, lips pursed, “Whatever. I’m still right. My boy is always right. Except when he’s not.” 

Keg stares, confused, “What are you all on about now?”

Beauregard turns to Molly with only a backwards glare at Caleb, “Moving on…” Keg knew her questions would not be answered as Nott also turned away. It was strange though, watching the wizard turn his eyes to the sky, where the owl soared away, towards the Iron Shepherds. He blinks, once, twice, and then melts, almost, shoulders hunching and brows furrowing. He stares, fingers squeezing Nott’s hand lightly before he lets go. 

Nott looks strangely worried, an emotion Keg recognized was saved mostly for the dirty wizard. 

The conversation wasn’t the weirdest she’d had with the Mighty Nein so in that moment, she took a breath, shook her head with a scowl, and let it go. 

Keg catches Caleb staring at the site of their morning ambush, strange like before when his hands had flickered and that unnerving spell had spilled from his lips. She hadn’t noticed it before but he stands tall, rigid, in something almost like a military stance, like a solider ready for the end. She swallows, coming up to stand beside him, “Morning will come before we know it. It’s time to rest.” 

Caleb doesn’t move but his head turns, the movement almost eerie, lips thin and eyes hard, voice short and clipped, “This plan will fail.” 

“Well it’s nice to see how much faith you have in us.” Keg lifts a brow, “I thought you’d been traveling together with your merry band for awhile now. Surely they’re not that terrible.” 

Caleb’s lips turn downwards, “It’s nothing to do with them. It’s merely a simple fact. We are not prepared. The plan will fail.” 

Keg folds her arms, “Okay tough shit, what do you think we should do?” 

Caleb turns and Keg realizes what is wrong. He meets her eyes for the first time since they’d met, blue against brown. He lifts his chin, almost looking down at her. This man would never have hidden, would never have called himself by that ridiculous name a few days ago. 

In fact, she is certain that if she had proved a threat, he would’ve killed her where she stood. 

He is commanding, convicted, voice harsh, “Leave them to die.” 

Keg stares as he turns away, back towards camp, steady and sure, never once looking back. 

It’s on that eerie note that they all bed down for the night in the pitch darkness. The tension that the morning will bring seems to linger in the air- thick as smoke. 

Caleb seems the same as ever once again, timid and unsure, clinging to Nott in a manner that betrayed their closeness. He made no mention of their earlier conversation. 

For some reason, though, as she lays there entangled with this strange group, the pit of her stomach bottoms out and uneasiness consumes her. Perhaps even fear. For some reason the certainty echoes in her mind.  

The plan will fail. 

Chapter Text

He dreams of green spring leaves, made golden and glittering by the evening sun. Stretching into the horizon are endless wheat fields and lowing cows, grazing on new grass. The sky is orange and blue, vast overhead, clouds like lambs darkening slowly. 

Before him there is a small boy with bright blue eyes and orange flame-bright hair. He stares up at Caleb, eyes crystal clear- without a trace of smoke within them, “You no longer need the smoke anymore.” 

Caleb shakes his head, “No, I need it,” he retreats to white walls and dull floors, dirty hands and nails, he hears screams, feels nothing, skin numb, “No, no-“ The water closes over his head, “Stop! Leave me be!” 

The boy stares at him, covered in blood, tears in his eyes, “You know what you did to me. You know what you need to do to fix it.” 

“I don’t know. I won’t know.” Caleb presses his scarred hands to his eyes, “Do not give me back my teeth.” 

Another voice, one he knows well, deeper, older, a weight on the tongue, a harshness in his tone, “Without teeth, how can you expect to fight?” 

Caleb shakes his head, voice watery, fear lancing through his heart, fear of what he had done, what he might do, “I hide. I run. I do not fight.” 

There are soft hands on his wrists and he whines as he lets himself be pulled, dirty calloused fingers held within a child’s palms. The boy looks up at him, brows furrowing, “You cannot save Mutter and Vater.” Caleb clenches his eyes shut. He can hear the someone screaming louder, “But you must save them.” 

That voice again, snarling, “You must let them die.” 

Caleb’s voice is stretched thin, “I cannot save anyone. I cannot do anything. I am the monster. Ich bin böse.” 

The boy’s voice is soft and Caleb realizes, he’s spoken in Zeminan this whole time, “We are the monster in our own story. But you are not the monster in theirs. Do not let it end with us.” 

He opens his eyes, staring at the man standing in the distance, hair shaven short, arms scarred like his own. He glares as he turns away, toward the blazing sun and the crimson fire, the screaming loud and clear, full of fear and pain. 

The boy with ruffled orange hair and familiar blue eyes looks up and up at him, “Let it end with you.” 

When Caleb wakes, he knows that the screaming is his own. 

Chapter Text

The fight is turning out to be a total shitshow. 

Keg runs. 

Caleb wants to curse her, but he knows such cowardice. He knows what he would have done were he in her place. 

But the most damning thing is Molly. He throws himself onwards, reckless, headless. There is blood in the air, on his tongue. Magic flares, burns, freezes. Arrows fly. Beau is wounded, Nott is hurt. They all are. Only he remains unscathed, just as cowardly as Keg. 

Caleb can see it suddenly, from where he stands. 

Molly is drawing his sword across his wrist, eyes flashing with power- and weakness. It’s too much. Molly has reached too far within him. And Lorenzo is up against him, that powerful glaive raised, sharp and deadly. He is so much more powerful than they’d initially thought- fools that they were- and he was going to win. Caleb was too little and they were too much. The Mighty Nein would lose more than they had feared, and never gain back what they lost. 

The plan had already failed. 

What the Mighty Nein needed, right now, was teeth. The one thing he did not have. But the smoke was so little and the dreams were so much. Could he? Did he dare? 

Were they worth it? 

Molly falls, his own hand spending his life, sending him to his knees before the grinning slaver. Lorenzo’s fingers twist about the glaive, he brings it down.

Caleb’s coat glimmers, every shade of color. Nott screams. 

We don’t leave people behind. 

Molly, Fjord, Yasha, Beau, Jester, Nott.

And he calls upon the fire in the back of his mind. 

He remembers many things. 

He remembers Mutter, with her soft hair and bright eyes, sewing while she hummed. His father, gentle and kind. He remembers playing with the lambs in the pastures and with his childhood friends, Astrid and Eadwulf. He remembers his parent’s pride as he was accepted into Soltryce Academy. He remembers how his mother smiles and kisses his forehead. He remembers his father congratulating him with a firm handshake. 

He remembers the hurt in his skin, the ache in his bones, the blood on his hands. He remembers Ikithon. He remembers his own screams and cries, the blood on his hands, the crystals growing from his skin, giving him power, pride, and pain. He remembers how he killed. How he murdered. He remembers beating hearts held in his palm with sullied fingertips and magic meant only to hurt- only to burn in his hands. He remembers his house ablaze as his own parents screamed within. He remembers setting the fire himself. He remembers the smoke. 

He remembers Bren, the little boy that he was, and Bren- the monster that he had turned into. 

He remembers it all. Every crime, every beautiful moment, every murder, and, most importantly, every spell he had learned as a scourger of the empire, every ounce of power and knowledge poured into the magical components sewn into his arms, dormant reservoirs of might and power. 

Caleb Widogast stands before the Iron Shepherds and, whole and without hesitation, he reaches out. His hands twist and light flares, bright, sharp. Fire burns, blooming in red and orange and yellow. 

Bren Aldric Ermendrud had destroyed his family with the same fire he held now in his hands. This time, Caleb Widogast will save this family with that same heat. 

The world explodes into flame. 

Lightning cracks, sizzling, thunder booming. Fire licks up his arms, bandages burning away, skin glowing, scars alight. The sky is a burning conflagration.

It takes very little from there. 

Lorenzo is a smoking blackened husk. 

Beauregard is scrabbling to Mollymauk, forcing a healing potion past slack lips. Who the hells knew where Keg was. He smells burnt flesh. It makes him cry. He knows exactly why now. 

There is a ringing in his ears. 

The sky is cloudy, snow drifting lazily downwards. 

It’s bitter on his tongue. 

Ash drifts downwards. 

He stares up at the clouds, unseeing, the ground cold at his back. His head hurts, his chest is tight, lips numb. The world blurs, shakes and Nott is screeching, loud, calling his name. Her claws dig into his shoulders. 

He blinks and then grins at her, slow and soft. 

His tongue is clumsy, his voice hoarse, “My name is Caleb.”