#just like the dang line-length peer-pressure experiment

[freosan]

I did not expect jury duty to fuck me up so intensely, goddamn.

[unicyclehippo]

Beau! And! Caleb! Being! Protective! Over! Each! Other! In! Their! Hometowns!

all things of kamordah are harsh, it seems. the cloudless sky offers no sanctuary from a blistering red-hazed sun and the landscape quickly turns from lush greens to brown grasses and baked hard ground. it isn’t what caleb expected of a wine county, but maybe he should have.

it reminds him very much of beauregard.

it’s apparent now that all they had discovered of the hag was correct; beau is a child of kamordah, beyond simply the place of her birth, and though it had seemed so strange before, now caleb sees her in all the land around them. the ruddy tones of the earth. the brilliant blue of the sky. the tenacity, the stubbornness of those grasses that claw and cling into the cracked earth and refuse, very simply, to die. and when they crest the last hill that spills into the valley surrounding the long sleeping volcano, caleb can see the lengths of vines like veins curling down and around the staggered cliffs of that mountainside, and it’s incredible. no less harsh, no less stark and rough, but incredible nonetheless.

they stop there a moment. the horses are happy for the rest and they crop optimistically at sparse grasses.

‘what’s the play, beau?’

she doesn’t so much as look at fjord, wanders a short way away to a small boulder—large for a stone, small for a boulder, a medium sized rock—where she pulls herself up onto it and sits, legs kicked out to dang off the slight overhang.

she sits, and she stares.

‘okay,’ fjord nods, salutes. ‘you keep lookout and we’ll—she’s not listening,’ he shrugs and turns back to the rest of them, clustered as they are on the rise. ‘let’s get the horses off the road—‘

‘it’s basically all road here,’ nott points out. she waves a long-fingered hand about them and no one can find a way to disagree—the whole world seems to be on hard-packed dirt road, flat and bare and dusted over with red dust as far as the eye can see.

‘reminds me of that spire garden in xhorhas,’ caduceus says. scratches at his chin and his curling pink-and-silver goatee.

‘garden?’ fjord grins. ‘you mean the giant field of death and sorrowfucks that tried to hug me to death?’

‘that’s the one,’ cad nods. ‘this is healthier, though. it’s right.’

fjord’s teasing expression drops and he scans the place as well, a faint expression of confusion and interest washing his eyes out nearly to blue themselves. he nods slowly. ‘i think, i think i feel it. nothing much life here but...it’s meant to be like this?’

‘there is plenty of life,’ caduceus disagrees, but he’s smiling. ‘you just gotta know where to look. but yeah. that’s real good, fjord.’

‘thanks. i think i’m getting the hang of it,’ he nudges nott, who shrugs.

‘are you? or are you just saying the buzz words? watch—barren land, secret growth, supporting life, nature, wildmother creates,’ nott trails off, pointing to the nodding caduceus as if to say you see?

fjord sulks.

‘do you think she’s okay?’ jester interrupts. her tail curls miserably around her ankle, occasionally dragging lines into the dirt, and she peers between fjord and caduceus to watch beau where she’s still sat on the rock, a still and solitary figure. ‘i mean, she says she’s fine, she says it a lot like all the time like, yah jester i’m fine we are just going to see my parents i mean how fucked up could that be, at least i’m pretty sure they’re not evil cultists,’ jester says all in a rush in an actually not terrible mimicry of beau’s voice, if somewhat accented. ‘and yah i’m fine i’m just drinking for fun.’

nott winces. ‘uh oh.’

‘and—‘

‘perhaps,’ caleb suggests gently, ‘you keep the things she has said to you in confidence.’

‘right. good call.’

‘she will tell us what to do,’ caleb says. of that, he has no doubt. whether she will tell them what she needs, on the other hand...

//

it is strange, sometimes, to look at beauregard. they are nothing alike, should be nothing alike: he is pale, she is brown, he is weedy and weak, she takes the brunt of their encounters so often, his skills are expansive and require materials and books and constant instruction, and hers are as intrinsic to her as breathing. in so many ways, more than just these few, they are remarkably dissimilar. and yet there are times when beauregard will speak of herself and there is a familiar, if well buried, note of loathing. for herself. something with which caleb is intimately familiar.

it—he is not so out of touch with his own mind and heart to know that he is connected to her, that he loves her as he would a sister. to know that this feeling belongs to her as well, it breaks his heart. and it makes him angry.

it is an hour or more of this thinking that leads him to her room. her room alone, jester sharing tonight with nott and with yasha when beau had requested some time on her own.

the inn where they are staying, within the town of kamordah itself, is small and well-kept. his booted feet make a quiet shush of movement over the woven grass mat that covers the floor, the dried and twisted material dyed into a handsome pattern of reds and brown and pale bleached white. caleb follows the pattern down the hall. stops outside of beau’s room.

she won’t be pleased to be questioned, he thinks. she might view it as interrogation. and yet,

he knocks.

there is no answer, and so he knocks again, a crisp two-rap knock.

‘beauregard, this is caleb. i have been examining some of our old notes and came across some minor difficulty with this code,’ he lies. ‘may i come in?’

the answer is muffled only by the thin door; she must be standing directly on the other side of it. ‘what code?’

‘avantika’s. do you perhaps recall—‘

‘i have the key to it,’ she tells him, pulling the door open.

if she had been sleeping properly, if she weren’t mightily distracted, he would not have made it into the room but the moment the door opens, caleb steps inside and crosses to the far side so that she will have some, if minor, difficulty removing him.

beau sighs. ‘you’re not holding a book, caleb.’

‘ja, that is correct.’

the door closes with a click.

beau turns. leans back against the frame, arms crossed. her expression doesn’t shift from her now constant frown and as caleb looks at her—really looks, not dropping his eyes—he cannot, even with his near perfect memory, recall the last time he had seen her smile.

‘what d’you wa—‘

‘we are going to see your parents tomorrow,’ he says.

she is very good at keeping her expressions controlled. he is not so good at reading people as caduceus is, but he had spent a long time with her. she can look as calm as she wants; he knows from experience that a past, particularly one that fills you with such desperate self-loathing, does not a calm heart make.

his own heart stutters in his chest, palms slicking with sweat as he recalls that day in the throne room, even before that point, the moment they had arrived in rexxentrum. he had not expected it to take him so fast, but there had always been something about the city. the heaviness of air in the northern vale, of city smog and the pressure of powerful magics that pushed against those senses keen to such things. he had been scattered by the sudden arrival of the memory, and squashed small beneath it all at once, and he remembers of all things that he can remember of that time, a firm hand on his shoulder. not pulling or gripping or hurting, nor brushing lightly, but a familiar and reassuring weight.

he doesn’t know what kamordah, what these people are to her—hasn’t asked, which he had thought of as respecting her privacy but may now seem to have been uncaring to other minds. but if he can, he would like to be that hand for her.

‘your family is—‘

‘they’re not my family.’

‘but they are, though,’ caleb says, and knows it is the wrong thing to have said when beau steps forward, picks up a cup from the table in the middle of the room, and turns to hurl it against the far wall where it breaks with the loud of shattering glass. he can see the way her shoulder and elbow extend, the way her arm turns—it is not graceful, it is not practised, it isn’t even a particularly good throw. it’s just mad.

panting a ragged breath that she struggles to bring under control, beau brings a hand up, sweeps her hair back into a semblance of order. it looks like she has done so many times, her hair mussed now, and strands falling out from the bun—top knot, she calls it—to frame her face.

‘they’re not my family, caleb,’ she says very carefully, very precisely. her tone doesn’t shift from even, controlled.

caleb lifts his hands in a surrender. braces himself to say it again and hopes that he can say it right, in a way that doesn’t hurt her.

‘there are...meanings to these words,’ he begins. beau breathes out. brings a hand up to cover her face. ‘the meanings of family-‘ she doesn’t react poorly to that, yet. he continues. ‘- ought to be safety, and of home, as much as they are of the people belonging to that famlly.’

‘exactly,’ beau surprises him, agreeing. ‘it’s you. you guys.’ she’s still covering her face but he is endeared to watch her hunch, shake her head. ‘don’t be weird about it.’

‘it is not...weird. you are my family too. all of them—and you.’

‘i said don’t be weird.’

caleb ignores her. ‘the exact meaning of family is not this...connotation. it is those people who are related to you by blood or legality.’ she doesn’t say anything, just hunches her shoulders further and turns away slightly. so he continues. ‘in this way, they are your family still and i do not say this to be cruel. i hope i do not. i simply say it because it is something to remember—‘

‘remembering they’re my parents isn’t the fucking problem, caleb!’ she whirls on him and takes a few quick steps backwards, away. there is an odd set to her shoulders that caleb doesn’t recognise but seems familiar. ‘i don’t need you to tell me they’re my parents, believe me, i can remember that perfectly well. i’m not jester, i’m not nott—i don’t need to be sat down and coddled and for you to look at me with big sad eyes and - and lament all the things you wish you could do with your parents and tell me i should take this opportunity, try t-to make amends or confront them or forgive them, i really, really don’t,’ she says, voice cracking.

‘that was never my intention,’ he tries to assure her, but the mask she tried so hard to keep up is breaking now, shattering and falling away before him and behind it he does not see his friend, he does not see an expositor, he sees—oh.

he sees a girl. very young, and very very scared. the set to her shoulders is one he recognises now as an addition to his own posture—not quite a flinch, but a hunch to keep him out of sight, to let certain eyes slide right away from him.

caleb’s gut begins to burn.

‘we are speaking away from each other again,’ he says, simply. ‘i did not come here to tell you to forgive your parents.’

beau stares at him, wide-eyed. ‘you didn’t?’

‘no. never. i do not know what they did to you—‘ she shakes her head dismissively, like it’s nothing.

the burning in his gut turns into an inferno; he wants to kill them, wants to set them aflame. fix her trauma with the aid of his own, the cleverer and sly portion of his mind laughs at himself. as much as he wants to do that, he also wants to reach out, wants very badly to hug her. he doesn’t know how. there is six paces between them; she will move away before he can get there. she will not want that from him, surely. he doesn’t move. he speaks.

‘i will listen, whenever you wish to talk. but... family is officially those people. parents. siblings. there should be another word for - for the family that cares for you, tries to care for you the way you deserve. it should be earned. honesty and forgiveness is something for nott and jester, for their families, because - because it is there. that love. that desire to have those people in their lives.’

beau nods. she looks wan, drained. she looks like he did, he is sure, after the events in rexxentrum. and when he starts to panic somewhat, he recalls that she had been there for him; he can do this for her.

‘regardless of what was lacking in them,’ he is careful to add, lest she think he would for one moment entertain the thougt that a child—no matter how precocious, how vibrant, how energetic they might be could deserve to be unloved, ‘they are your parents. that is undeniable.’

‘yeah.’

‘it is complicated. it will be...complicated, meeting them again. fraught.’

beau snorts. ‘yeah.’

‘what do you need from me?’ he asks.

it is all that he had wanted to ask this entire time, but though caleb is a very clever man, he can sometimes be effusive, complicated, and stupid. trying to get his friend to hear him seems to bring out the worst of that in him, and he is never more aware of the barrier of their languages than in such times.

‘i don’t need anything,’ she says. looks him in the eyes, still looking young and—and scared. lost. hurt. angry.

‘beau,’

‘i don’t. we go there, talk to them, get out.’

‘beauregard,’ he sighs, and follows the compulsion to step forward, boots tapping on the wooden floor—one, two, three, four, five steps—and she doesn’t move away when he pulls her into a hug, somewhat awkward and unhelped by the way she just stands there in the hold. he ignores his own discomfort and sets his chin on the top of her head. ‘you do not have to hurt yourself while we do this. we don’t want you to be hurt.’

her hands come up to rest on his back. no coat, just his cotton shirt. her fingers grip hard into it and she presses her face into his shoulder. she doesn’t cry; he would be surprised if she does before they leave. she holds herself too tightly, too controlled, to cry now. like he does.

‘you are not the person they knew,’ he says. ‘and you are not alone. we will not let them hurt you. tell me what you need.’

//

much later when they are sitting together at the small table in her room, she tells him, ‘i don’t want—i can’t be a kid. i don’t want them to see me as a kid. for them to see that when they look at me.’ she won’t meet his eyes as she says it. ‘and—i’m not gonna ask fjord or nott to look different, i know they were talking about it but,’ her anger is burning hot and caleb knows how good it feels, to be angry instead of scared. ‘fuck ‘em, y’know? the fucking king can stand to have them in his throne room, my p-parents can have them in their living room.’

neither of them comment on the way she had faltered on the word.

‘what can i do?’ she shakes her head but caleb insists. ‘nothing is too much. anything i can do, i will do.’

beau leans back in her chair. scrapes a nail over the lines of wood in the table, swirls around a smoothed knot in the grains.

‘i’m gonna wear my expositor’s robes. i’m—i earned those,’ she tells him. ‘i don’t want the others to change and, no, fuck it—‘

‘tell me, beau. they’ll be happy to do it.’

‘i—‘ beau cuts a glance out to the window, the dark of night. she sighs. ‘i want them to see that i’m not a fuck up. not a—a waste, not thrown in with the bad crowd.’ she snorts, shakes her head. ‘it’s stupid, i feel like i’ve almost made them proud and i hate it. like somehow they’ve won and i don’t know if i want to act like a fuckin’ murderer in there or show them that i’m an expositor or—‘ she trails off. shakes her head again.

‘you do not want them to take credit for your success.’

beau blinks. ‘yeah. i guess so.’

‘well. i can certainly prepare seeming for us,’ he tells her. ‘and whichever you decide—if you wish to—‘

‘no.’ her voice is certain, absolute. ‘no disguises. i don’t want to hide you guys—i’m not ashamed of you.’

caleb nods. plans to prepare it regardless.

‘i’ll think about it,’ she tells him, and it is tired and quiet and a little bit sad, but it is a dismissal nonetheless.

caleb leaves. stands in front of her door when it closes behind him, and finds that he isn’t quite ready to go back to his own room. he makes it to jester’s and, knocking on the door, finds when it opens that the remainder of his friends are sat within the room—at the table, on the bed—and waiting.

‘we heard something break,’ fjord says with a sad smile.

‘a glass,’ caleb nods.

‘ah.’

‘how is she?’ that is jester, sounding very worried, looking as though any moment now she’ll slip out and go and see for herself.

‘tired.’ jester nods. wraps her arms around herself. ‘this is hard for beauregard,’ caleb says carefully. he recalls in perfect clarity his friend standing like a personal guard in front of him, snatching bolts out of the air, sending coursing lightning through the air at anyone who dared to try and fucking touch him one more time, ikithon, just you fuckin dare to touch him! and he cannot keep her from terrible harm in the same manner, but he will do all that he can for her. ‘her parents, from what i can gather, are proud. demanding. i believe that beauregard will attend to them as an expositor. not as a daughter.’ hesitantly, he suggests, ‘if we could make ourselves look...’

‘respectable?’ nott suggests.

‘ja.’

‘kinda makes sense, the way she is. doesn’t it? fighting back against The Man. being rude and messy and kick ass.’ nott grins too sharp, but she can’t help the way her teeth are. he makes a mental note to research what arid grasses might do for a polymorph spell. sets that question aside to focus. ‘i’ll be halfling—‘

‘no. beau was very firm on that. she doesn’t want you,’ caleb looks to fjord, to jester, to caduceus, ‘to be what you are not.’

‘she never wants people to be what they aren’t,’ jester agrees.

‘ja. if we are the best versions of ourselves, however...’

a nod ripples around the room, and for a little time as the hot night air settles in the too-full room, they plan.

//

they are waiting for her when she steps down into the common room. her expositors robes are pristine, and the bags under her eyes deep and dark. both signs of how she had spent her night.

beau stops cold, has to steady herself with her bo staff—which carries, too, a new coat of polish and a neatly wound blue bow upon it.

jester she sees first by merit of who she searches for first, but as her gaze trawls the rest of them for any sign of blemish or fault, she finds none. their armour lovingly buffed, weapons and leathers polished, boots mended and clean.

and caleb.

he stands when he sees her and moves to the front of their little party, and watches as first shock and then horror and then muddled Hope bleeds through what had been such a good solid mask of indifference.

‘caleb, you don’t have to—‘

‘you are not alone,’ he says. he smoothes down the front of blood red and gold robes, the gifted raiment of the assembly. the shoulders and chest heavy with almost military designed brocade, and a heavy ruby brooch to close the short brown cape to his shoulders. ‘you are an expositor of the cobalt soul. accompanied by the mighty nein—two devout clerics, a paladin, an angel,’

‘we don’t know that,’ yasha mutters, as always.

‘a highly respected alchemist—‘

‘nice dress,’ beau tells nott, of her pretty yellow dress. earnest. kind.

nott nods.

‘—and a highly decorated mage of the cerberus assembly, who has no qualms,’ he adds, with a hint of a smile, ‘in drawing on his scourger past and killing parents.’

beau stares at him for a moment before she breaks, throws her head back and laughs. she’ll have to redo her makeup, smearing it a little when she wipes away a tear of what is probably only a little bit from laughing.

‘fuck!’ she says. ‘i guess i’m set.’