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Frost blearily kicked his feet, trying in vain to untangle the blanket wound between his legs. His half-conscious attempts proved futile. With a tired sigh, he brought himself back to the waking world.
The blanket issue was quickly resolved, and he turned over to drift back to sleep. Frost smiled at Hootsie’s sleeping form in the dark, chest rising and falling with each open-beaked breath she took. Frost thought it sounded suspiciously like snoring, but Gricko insisted that wasn’t the case.
With a fond shake of his head, he leaned over to pull Hootsie’s blanket back over her torso, just how she liked it. As he tucked her in, he noticed something.
Or rather, the distinct lack of something.
Where Frost had expected to see Gricko on the other side of their daughter was merely a pile of blankets. Panic shot through his spine like ice, and he sat up as quickly as he could without waking Hootsie.
Frost swallowed down his overwhelming feelings of dread. There were hundreds of reasons why Gricko might leave their tent during the night, but, just to be safe—
He extended the boundaries of his mind, prodding their campsite for a most familiar mind. When that proved fruitless, he extended even further to the surrounding forest. Small and inconsequential minds floated through his: thoughts of shelter, starvation, and fear.
Grimacing, he pushed the unsavory feelings out of his mind and continued his search.
Just as he was about to stand to look for the goblin physically, he caught on to a mind. It was filled with fear, like the smaller ones had been, but this time it was far more complex. This fear was heavy and interlaced with so many other emotions that it was hard to fully grasp its boundaries.
Relief flooded his system and was quickly replaced by sadness; he knew this mind.
He quietly extricated himself from his blankets and left the tent. The night was warm, and even without his darkvision, the moon was full and bright enough for anyone to see by.
Frost followed the connection he had to Gricko’s mind out of the camp and a little ways into the forest. Finally, he made it to a point where the connection felt the strongest, but when he looked around, there was no one in sight.
Befuddled, he tuned back into Gricko’s mind but found the same thing; this was, in fact, the strongest point. It was almost like…
The tabaxi shook his head, disappointed in himself. Had he really forgotten who he was dealing with?
Scanning the treetops proved his theory correct. The goblin was sitting among the branches, his form obscured by leaves and branches, aside from his tail, which was curled around a thicker branch for support. He prepared himself to misty-step onto said branch.
“...don’t come up ere.”
The quiet, shaky voice stopped him in his tracks.
“Gricko, I’m not going to leave you alone out here. What’s wrong?”
He was met with tense silence.
It was clear to him that the goblin had many things to say, but verbalizing them would be no easy task. Frost took a breath to center himself and sat cross-legged at the base of the tree.
“I’ll be here when you are ready.”
Yet again, no response. Frost had expected as much.
When Gricko has a lot on his mind, he tends to hide away. Frost believes it to be a side effect of all the years he and Hootsie lived out in the wilderness. It was an important skill to have, knowing when to run away. But it blended in with the rest of his life as well, and even when he didn’t have to scamper and hide, he would.
The goblin had been improving and expressing himself more instead of hiding things away. This was clearly a situation that Frost had to handle delicately.
He let the relative silence of the forest wash over him, breathing in and out with the gentle sway of the leaves. His mind narrowed in on a tiny woodmouse, not too far from where he was sitting. The small creature worked tirelessly to burrow out a home for itself, and Frost observed with mild interest as it planned out where a nest would go, then food storage and so on.
It really was quite fascinating. Even if it was only for survival, the mouse planned through details that would provide the most comfort and safety. Were they born with that drive? Or did they find these things out on their own? Was there someone to teach them?
Frost let these questions roll around in his mind, thinking of various different experiments that could prove or disprove his theories. Really, the only difference between animals and humanoids was the capacity of their brains. Such a small mind could only think about a few things.
Contrary to the belief of many, Gricko’s mind was large, and there were millions of things running through it on a daily basis. Even when communicating through the mind link, Frost could still sense the background chatter that Gricko was working with every day. He had tried some of his centering exercises with him before, but he said sitting still and clearing his mind was like “tryin’ ta take a heap of wasps out of a jar, wifout eva takin’ the lid off! ”.
Frost couldn’t even fathom something like that. Though, he supposed it was almost akin to how he felt in overcrowded cities. Those experiences could certainly be considered 'wasp-like.'
He pondered looking for the mind of a wasp briefly but gave up on the idea, seeing as it was nighttime and insect minds were hard to parse out anyway.
Faint shuffling from above broke him from his thoughts, but he remained still. Slowly, Gricko made his way down the tall tree, having no trouble navigating in the darkness.
The goblin landed with a thump beside him, kicking up leaf litter as his feet made contact with the forest floor. Frost kept his eyes closed as the goblin awkwardly shifted his weight next to him, not wanting to startle the man by staring too long. The tabaxi only opened his arms wider, a clear invitation so long as Gricko was willing to take it.
After a few more beats, Frost was met with the familiar weight of Gricko in his lap. Once the goblin was comfortably situated with his cheek against Frost’s chest and his tail encircling his leg, he took the taller man's hands from where they were still hovering and did his best to wrap himself up further.
Frost took that as his sign to envelop the goblin in his embrace, tucking his head under his chin and breathing in the familiar scent of his hair. The tension in Gricko’s shoulders seemed to ease by a fraction, but he was still very on edge.
They sat in silence for a while, simply breathing in the safety of the others' presence. When the silence continued to stretch on, Frost reached out to Hootsie to ensure she was still safe and sound.
She was still fast asleep, her dreams happy and light as ever. He saw brief flashes of water and sand and something along the lines of ending the day with a nice, big melon all to herself. Frost made a mental note to find a beach soon.
With those worries eased, he tuned back into the current moment.
Gricko was picking at a loose thread on Frost’s nightshirt, and his jaw worked back and forth in short, quick motions; no doubt he was grinding his teeth. He allowed the goblin to continue his bad habit only because they had yet to find a better alternative.
“I-”
His voice broke, and he turned further into Frost’s chest in embarrassment. He cleared his throat before continuing.
“I saw… I saw that thing in me dreams again. From—from the Feywild."
It took Frost a moment to understand what he meant. They had seen many things in the Feywild that could live in your nightmares for the rest of your life, but the way Gricko’s shoulders shook told him it was more terrifying than any of the hags had been.
The Jabberwock.
That battle had scarred them all, and Frost did his best to keep those memories at the back of his mind. Gricko had mentioned these nightmares in passing, but clearly they affected him more than Frost had first realized.
“It came back for all of us… But—"
Gricko shuddered, and the tension came back to his shoulders.
“But it left me, Frost.”
His hand gripped the soft fabric of Frost’s nightshirt like a lifeline, his knuckles going white as he tried to fight past his fear.
“It—it killed the guys, an’—an’ you, an’ Hootsie—!"
He took a watery breath in, his voice trembling and shoulders beginning to shake.
“In front of me.”
Frost's heart broke at the helplessness he heard in Gricko’s voice. The usually so upbeat and resilient man was reduced to a crying heap in his lap.
“It took me whole family away, but it wouldn’t take me. It just stood there, watching. I was so alone Frost…”
His grip on the goblin’s shoulders tightened, and he did his best to soothe the tension in his back with gentle and repetitive movements. Anger welled up inside of him at the beast. It was irrational; they had been out of the Feywild for some time now, and the Jabberwock was long dead. Still, the fact that this creature could haunt the man he held so dear even in its absence enraged him.
However, his rage was not what Gricko needed. He took a deep and fortifying breath to calm himself, setting aside his unruly emotions to be dealt with later.
“That must have been horrible, Gricko. But you must remember that you are safe now. We aren’t leaving you anytime soon.”
The words barely seemed to register with the goblin, still shaking and holding onto Frost like he might float away. What words could he possibly say to make this better? Everything he could think of seemed hollow and flat, like he was reading lines out of a bad self-help book. It pained him to the core that his words only did so much.
An idea came to him.
“Gricko, I’d like to show you something. I think it will make you feel better.”
He shifted ever so slightly and peered up at Frost through damp lashes before nodding and sitting up straighter.
“Okay, close your eyes.”
Gricko did as he was told, and Frost followed suit soon after. He reached out for what felt like the hundredth time that night and searched for Gricko’s mind. Being so close, it was incredibly easy to find.
Carefully, he reached out psionically and cradled the swirling blue essence of Gricko’s consciousness in his own. With gentle reassurances, he guided his and Gricko’s minds back to their tent, where Hootsie lay sound asleep.
Together, they peek into her sleeping world. This dream was different from the one before.
The entire Krew was present in this dream, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves. Kremy was working diligently in the kitchen at The Inn At The End Of The Road, and Gideon was chatting away at him when he wasn’t trying to steal morsels of food. Twig was sitting in a comfortable-looking armchair that was twice her size with a picture book facing out to her captive audience. The captive audience in question was Torbek, who seemed to be incredibly invested in the well-being of whatever character had taken center stage on the page in front of him. Gricko, Frost, and Hootsie sat in a heap on the spacious sofa, all partially asleep and only half hearing what the protagonist did next.
She looked peaceful; both Frost and Gricko could feel the contentment rolling off her in waves.
Satisfied, Frost brought them back to their bodies.
“She’s real, Gricko. She’s right over there, and not a single feather on her head is out of place.”
Frost laid his hand over Gricko’s where it rested on his chest.
“I’m real, and I am not leaving you. Not for a long, long time.”
All the tension that had built up over the night seemed to drain from his body, leaving him to fall limp and boneless against Frost’s shoulder.
“M’ tired, Frosty…”
Without another word, Frost scooped up his goblin and brought him back to their comfortable tent.
A second round of goodnight kisses was dealt to Frost and Hootsie before he settled down between them, his blankets snug around his form.
“Thank you, Frost. I love you.”
His voice was quiet, but the words held just as much weight as they ever had.
“I love you too, Gricko.”
Everyone slept in the next morning; they deserved a little comfort, after all.