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This motherfucking shit wizard and his motherfucking goblin.
Beau's fists were clenched tightly, her jaw aching from said clenching as she grumbled with frustration and anger. She cursed the dense woods and the late hour. It was next to impossible to see where she was going, but she knew she would find these fucking assholes!
Perhaps she should have thanked the darkness, because it made it very easy to spot the towering inferno that burst out of the canopy towards the South.
Yup, definitely the trash wizard.
She broke out into a run, her instincts having her run and jump off the base of the trees, trunk to trunk to avoid the tripping hazards of the forest floor.
First, there was the smell charcoal.
Then the sound of Nott's voice, muttering in concern.
When Beau finally got eyes on the scene, her frustration momentarily swelled at the sight of the Volstrucker bitch's charred skeleton, pinned to an ancient and fire-scarred tree by an earthen claw.
So much for getting answers out of her.
Which left the other giant ass question mark in this fucking mystery: the Volstrucker dirt wizard she had been working with for the last couple days.
His body was limp on the ground, unconscious. Nott had her arms wrapped around his head, holding him tightly as she whispered reassurances, even rocking him a little.
Some of the tension in Beau's body inadvertently drained at the sight. If the wizard was unconscious, he wasn't exactly a threat. Of course, the frustration remained. This meant she had to wait even longer for answers.
Although, while she would never admit it out loud, the way the goblin cared for and protected him was... endearing.
With no rush necessary, she began to walk towards them. Nott's ear twitched at her footsteps before she looked up at Beau. "I-I'm not sure what's wrong..." she said. "We need to get him back to the house. While I can technically drag him there, I'd rather not." She gave the wizard's head one last squeeze before gently placing it on the ground and brushing his hair back.
Beau would normally expect someone in Caleb's state to be sweaty, but his skin and hair looked to be bone dry.
Beau looked back at the Volstrucker's charred remains, small embers still glowing in the stone and wood in a nearly fifteen foot radius around her.
Talk about overkill.
Nott stood and uselessly brushed the dirt off her clothes before narrowing her eyes at Beau. "So you carry him while I go and make sure there's a bed ready for him. And make sure that Fjord isn't dead."
Beau stepped around to stand on the other side of the wizard's body, crossing her arms as she looked down at the goblin. It was harder to be intimidating when she couldn't see much beyond the goblin's eyes gleaming even with the scant light of the embers. "You do realized he just murdered a woman, right?"
Nott briefly glanced at the corpse before returning her gaze to Beau. "You mean the woman who tried to kill us this morning? The woman you spent like an hour torturing in the basement?"
"That woman had information...!"
"And if you didn't get it already, you probably weren't going to get it at all!" Nott stamped her foot on the ground and pointed at Caleb. "Now pick him up!"
Beau clenched her jaw, every instinct telling her to refuse out of sheer fucking principle.
"You want answers?" Nott went on. "Well, you're not going to get them while he's in this state. And if I could take him somewhere safe myself, I would, but I can't." Her expression softened. "Please."
Beau growled and groaned, hating how stupidly expressive the kid was with her eyes. "Okay, okay, I'll carry the trash wizard."
"Great," Nott said dryly, turning to walk back towards the house. "Try to keep up. If you're anything like Caleb, I know you can't see shit at night."
Beau cursed under her breath. "Fucking... cheeky ass goblin..." Although she had to admit there was logic to what Nott was saying. So she reached for Caleb's arm to haul him over her shoulders.
As she knelt down, the embers were still just bright enough that Beau could see the marks on Caleb's forearm. Earlier when she had ripped the bandages away, the sight had sent her into a frenzy of anger and self-preservation. Caleb was one of them, and she had felt like an idiot for not realizing it sooner. She had to know, needed to know, what Caleb's intentions were.
She had spent hours replaying her fight with the Volstrucker in her head, going through the motions. The blur of her glowing green arms, the ebb and flow of energy that enhanced the woman's speed and fighting maneuvers...
The glow faded when Beau had stunned her back in Trostenwald. Fading into ordinary looking black tattoos. Geometric and otherwise mundane.
Caleb's arm... was nothing like that. They looked as if they had been burned. And the layers of scar tissue implied repeated exposure. As if someone had taken a hot poker and pressed it into the flesh over and over and over again.
Beau glanced at Caleb's unconscious face. Tear streaks cut through the near-permanent layer of grime down his cheeks.
This guy was seriously messed up.
But at the sight of him, the tears, the scars... she begrudgingly had to admit that she kind of felt bad for the guy as well. Lying bastard that he was.
"Hey Muscles!" Nott cried out to her. "Let's get moving!"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming!" Beau shouted back, pulling Caleb's arm over her back before rolling and hoisting him up over her shoulders. Despite his height, he was actually stupidly lightweight. Not much more than bag of bones.
"And you smell like shit," she grumbled to herself as she began to follow Nott. "You've got some serious issues, dude."
Nott kept a keen eye on Beau as she carried Caleb. The monk had some serious issues, but her intentions seemed to be in the right place. She was just an asshole.
By the time they got to the abandoned house, it was filled with the bitter smell of stewing basilisk tongue. Jester had taken it upon herself to make sure Fjord was taken care of.
So Nott was going to focus on Caleb.
On a spare bed, Nott made it as comfortable as possible before Beau dumped Caleb onto it. It wasn't much, but it was more than they were accustomed to.
Beau had a strange look on her face before she left, glancing at Nott with a faux casual shrug. "Give a shout if you need anything."
"Yeah, yeah," Nott said, waving her off. She's taken care of Caleb for weeks now. They'd be fine.
She grabbed a fresh bucket of water and a clean rag. There was no real way to get him clean, but at the least she could wipe away the salty tear tracks and other signs of distress. It might be superficial, but it might help him feel a bit more like himself when he woke up.
At least, the version of Caleb that she knew. The good and intelligent man she's gotten to kn.
Once his face had the normal amount of grime, she shifted her attention to his exposed arm. Delicately, she traced her fingers along the markings.
Neither of them had ever bathed while they had been on the road, so they've never had any reason to take their clothes off really. Nott had obvious reasons to wrap herself up: as a disgusting goblin, people treated her like shit after a mere glance. The wraps on Caleb's arms... she had never questioned it. People wrapped their arms for plenty of reasons. That he was hiding these horrific scars...
She didn't know what happened in the basement, what went on between Caleb and Beau as they had interrogated the bug-eating, magic-wielding halfling assassin woman...
But she saw the look on his face as he had reached out to the fire. Eyes filled with devastation, lost in some horrible memory. Calling out his name had thankfully been enough to get him to turn away, but then those eyes were directed toward her... and there was just a brief moment of resigned defeat before he had collapsed onto the ground.
There was a twinge of guilt in the center of her chest. The only reason she hadn't knocked him out and turn him in for gold had been because of his magic. If he had the ability to summon a creature out of nothing, even for a short period of time, than whose to say he couldn't help her?
He had said he had once been much more powerful. That he just needed to get his hands on better quality components. Well, she could help with that. Especially if it meant near constant access to alcohol.
But their relationship has evolved since then. Caleb was the first person to treat her like a person in years. Their first tense encounter had been because she stole from him, not because she was a goblin. Even afterward, his biting remarks had nothing to do with her looks beyond a presumptive youth. A deception that has proven to be invaluable for their schemes.
The inferno had been a display of power the likes of which she had never seen before. It was awe-inspiring and terrifying. And not too long ago, it would have sent a thrill of excitement to see what he was truly capable of. Hope that he really could help her.
But now? That had been pushed to the back of her mind. For now, Caleb needed her more than she needed him.
She ran her fingers over his scars again, very gently pulling at the skin to inspect them. They weren't from the fire. Even in the dim light, she could tell that they were old. She wasn't exactly a practiced healer, but she had seen her fair share of burns of varying degrees of severity, including chemical burns. These were different. She had no idea why they were different. All she could tell was that the flesh had been repeatedly traumatized. More than half a dozen large ovals seemed to be the source of the damage, with veins of layered trauma radiating out from them.
"Don't worry, Caycay..." she said softly, beginning to pull away the remnants of the torn bandages. "I'll take care of you." The remnants were basically useless now. Even the longest scrap wasn't long enough to wrap around her arm. Thankfully, she had some spares stowed away.
She pushed up his sleeve to see the extent of the scarring stopped just below his elbow. Once more, she ran her fingers down his forearms, feeling the differing textures.
Who could have done this to Caleb? Who made him suffer like this?
Because she was going to make fucking sure she put a bolt through their skull.
She pulled out her longest bandage and lined up it up below Caleb's elbow before slowly and meticulously beginning to wrap his forearm. Crossing one end over the other, she made sure that the interval of overlap was even and not too tight.
Nott wondered if Caleb kept them wrapped just to keep them hidden... or if he had any lingering pain and that pressure of the bandages gave him some relief.
Either way, he had his reasons for keeping them wrapped, so she would oblige.
Once she tied off the bandage and made sure it would hold, she gave him one last look over. No signs of injury. Just a young man wrung out from stress.
Nott knelt next to him as she leaned over to look down at his face. This was the only time Caleb was ever relaxed: when he was sleeping. Like this, it was obvious how handsome he was. If not for the burden that he carried (and the ever present smell of shit), he would be quite a catch.
She certainly didn't mind the smell. And as far as what he carried... she promised herself that she would help him bear it. However long it took, she was going to help him banish whatever it was that haunted him.
"You're going to be a great man some day," Nott promised. "And I'm going to make sure I'm there to see it."