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[sockablock]

for your consideration: au where beau and caleb went to school together (they're same age now, i guess? soltryce has a gen ed program???), and were unlikely best friends. maybe caleb was beau's only friend, really, since she's such a nerdy antisocial punk. then caleb gets plucked out for ikithon's program and disappears? except a rumor that his house burned down or something? anyway, years later expositor beau is rooting out corruption in the CA and guess which vollstrecker she has to fight....

this is an INSPIRED PROMPT

—

For all their strictness and self-righteous frippery, Beau really had to hand it to the Expositors.

Their intel was genuinely second to none. And thanks to the notebook she had memorized days ago, now she knew exactly what corners to duck into, knew where the arcane eyes were placed, knew which doorways were trip-wired and knew, with pinpoint accuracy, exactly which floorboards to avoid.

This place was like an acrobat’s dream. Beau even felt her heart start to flutter with the excitement, adrenaline, the fun of it all—

Right up until one of the shadows moved.

She threw herself back around the hallway, pressed her spine to the wall and held her breath.

A moment passed.

And then another.

Her lungs ached against her chest. Blood rushed towards her ears and just through the pounding, she could hear…footsteps.

Damn. She’d been told the sixth floor would be clear. Weren’t all the mages away, tonight? Wasn’t there some kind of meeting, or something?

“Almost right,” a soft voice murmured. “However, that would be foolish, would it not? To leave our tower, our home, unguarded?”

A lesser individual would’ve flinched. Lucky for Beau, she was far from that, and could recognize magic like this in only seconds.

She thought, with all her Cobalt might:

Oh, fuck you.

There was an audible sigh. Now she could hear, that whoever this person was, he was standing much too close for comfort.

Very, very slowly, Beau began to move. Inching further down the hall and towards the nearest, moonlit window.

“I can’t hear you,” the voice admitted, “but I know that you are there. I can tell you are not ordinary, either? Are you a spy, perhaps? Though you are thinking in Common, so…possibly not.”

Beau stopped herself from rolling her eyes. Then she thought better of that, and did it anyway.

Outside, the starry sky glimmered far above the roofs of Zadash.

“Why not just come out?” the voice murmured. “You are trapped up here, are you not? I can even promise to not hurt you. Though, in all fairness, such a promise might be foolish…”

Beau could hear his footsteps now, near-silent, but still making a faint shuffling sound. It was oddly…disjointed, she realized, a little bit uncertain in its direction.

He didn’t actually know where she was.

Thank the gods. And with one final breath, she reached deep within herself and bolted towards the open window, the breeze beckoning her, freedom a step away—

And then a small, furred shape leapt up onto the windowsill. She skidded to a halt, arms half-flailing, as an orange tabby cat took a seat, and stared right back at her.

Its eyes glowed a soft, pale blue.

“What in the—”

“Ah. I see you’ve found my cat.”

Beau whipped around, and now she was cornered. She could hear the cat, behind her now, begin to growl, but that was nothing compared to the shape approaching, the distant silhouette moving slowly closer, illuminated in the darkness by two globes of fire, burning, glowing, crackling off his fingertips, his eyes just losing an otherworldly glow, his smile wide and crooked and then—

And then he paused. His arms fell to his side. And his expression faltered slightly, and then greatly, and then froze.

He blinked.

He said:

“Beauregard?”

There was a moment, as Beau squinted back. The distant light of the world outside hummed.

She scratched the back of her neck.

“No, uh…sorry. No, I got nothing.”

The figure took another step closer. This individual seemed visibly less confident than before.

“N—nothing?” he repeated. “Really?”

Beau was very aware of the staff strapped to her back. The throwing stars carefully concealed at her waist.

She shrugged. “Sorry, dude. I meet a lot of people. I…don’t think I know you.”

He took one last step forward. And now the moonlight shone around his face, pale and framed with short auburn hair.

Beau swore. Her posture sagged.

“Wait, wait, wait. Wait. But I thought—”

“You recognize me now, right?”

“Well…yeah, but…holy shit!” She threw her arms into the air. “Holy shit, I mean…Bren, they told me you were dead!”

He leaned back.

“Oh. They, ah…they did? Er…when?”

“When? Years ago!” She pointed an accusing finger at his face. “I asked for weeks where you’d gone, and…they told me you died in an accident! That your whole family had died—”

She stopped when he visibly flinched. She felt her eyes start to narrow.

“Bren…what happened to you? And—wait, wait a minute. Why are you here?”

He stopped. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Oh, that is…this is…scheisse, this is complicated—wait.” He looked up. He locked gazes with Beau.

“Wait a second, Beauregard, why are you here? Are you—are you breaking into the Zauber Spire?”

Beau stared at him. Her gaze flickered across the distance, across ten feet of hardwood floor.

“Bren, I…gods above, this is stupid. I can’t believe I’m about to do this.”

He tensed up immediately. She could see his fingers spark.

“Do…do what?” he asked. “Beauregard, you still did not ans—”

She cleared the distance in less than a second, leapt up into the air, staff arched to strike.

— 

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