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givemethesleep · 6 months ago

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Kay, I read the post about your DnD OC's and I am SO INVESTED! That is one HECK of a traumatic backstory! I guess my biggest question is, what's kind of the endgame in your head for these characters? Because they are SO COOL and SO FULL of potential!

Do you want them to reconcile? To physically fight it out? To become an immovable object and unstoppable force, doomed to constantly butt heads?

Is there any sort of plan for either of them to address their trauma and/or get themselves in a healthier environment? Will Boreal ever find someone who loves him just for him and not for what he can do? Will he ever be able to conquer his constant need for validation? Will Australis ever find someone who isn't afraid of her and cares about her, even past her rude and snappy defense mechanisms?

Or are we going for more of a negative character development angle where they go in increasingly darker paths, with Australis eventually succumbing to her patron or Boreal's savior complex becoming much larger scale?

And please tell me anything else about them too, because holy heck, this is juicy!

I ADORE YOU. THIS IS THE BEST ASK EVER. YOU'RE INCREDIBLE MWAH<333

Answering these questions and more + some random picrews and images I have for them under the cut (when I add the cut tomorrow because idk how to do it from the web browser) <3 And grab some popcorn because this is probably gonna get long AND juicier.

SO as far as their endgames, I'm not entirely sure. I use them in a variety of contexts (D&D with my friends from highschool, Australis is my Tav for BG3, discord rp ect.) So their endings are sort of fluid but.

They don't reconcile. They miss each other terribly. Australis offends Boreal's desperate attempts to be "good" and "pure" in spite of the magic that made him the way that he is. Australis cannot forgive him for driving her into exile and building his reputation by painting her a ghastly villain. Every time they meet, they tear each other apart. More often than not, though, Boreal is the antagonist in these meetings. More on this later!

Australis gets a lot of comfort from her pact, drawing her magic and knowledge from the pool of those that came before her. Even if it's confronting, she grows a better understanding of who she is, and why she is how she is. And that, at least, is a comfort. It doesn't change the fact that a 9 year old child was tortured as she was, it doesn't change the fact that she was forcefully stripped of both her human and elven heritage in exchange for crystal-coated horns and otherworldly blue skin. But she understands it, and understanding is the first step to accepting it. Her patron is careless in how knowledge is accrued, so long as Australis contributes it's happy

I think, be it platonic, familial or romantic, Australis does have the capacity to love and be loved. How this will come about is up for debate - I'm using her in an upcoming campaign with friends, and (when I get the hardware to properly play) she's my Tav in BG3, so she has the companions from that game to play into this idea too. I'm also super keen in mushing my ocs together with friends and mutuals so. if you see this. hit me up if you like fucked up and mildly unnerving undead tieflings that turn into a creature of nightmares and explodes sometimes. She does have a pretty big heart, under that spiky exterior.

But, naturally, her story/ies are unfinished, so whether she finds a proper support system in one of her parties (or even one or more partners) is something that is still to come!

Boreal is the one that has the negative arc, with the help of @waffles5588. And his need for validation and the steps he takes to achieve it aren't specifically combatted. He does chance across an adventurer. An orc, looking for work in the more rural towns to help build his portfolio for bigger jobs. The two hit it off right away, and Boreal tags along on one or two jobs as the local guide and emergency healer should Mal take too much damage. They kind of end up in a sort of fwb bordering on romantic relationship. Mal adores Boreal. He's funny, he's someone who sees Mal as something more than a weapon, and who cares about his safety. He's also illiterate and not particularly bright, so he doesn't really pick up on the fact that most of the incidents in the general vicinity Mal and Boreal are asked to help with were incidents that Boreal himself setup. He's open to the idea of sharing his fame with Mal. It's a sort of intimacy, and he doesn't feel like Mal is a threat to him and his persona.

Though we haven't really gone into specifics, it's probably not going to be a happy ending for a long time, if at all. Boreal has to do some introspection and fix himself, which is going to be an unpleasant experience, but losing Mal due to his conniving nature would probably hurt just as much, if not more. Boreal's kind of dug himself into a lose lose situation that nothing short of a full rehaul of his entire person can fix. Sucks to be him, I guess. (All jokes aside, Boreal has two major forces that would force him to change for the better. One would be Mal threatening to leave or leaving him and ruining his reputation, the other being Helm directly stepping in and stripping Boreal of his divine power. Both of these would destroy him, but it'd be the wakeup call he needs)

That should answer your questions re: arcs, so now for some more fun facts (mostly about Australis she's the girl ever)

- Australis is an undead warlock with the pact of the tome, meaning she has her Book of Shadows to learn spells from, does not need to eat, sleep, or breathe, and can turn herself into her form of dread - with a grotesquely twisted face, distended limbs and cold sharp crystals covering her body. When she hits 0 HP, she explodes into a fine powder littered with small shards of crystal, dealing considerable necrotic damage to those in her vicinity. From the dust, she regenerates with 1 HP and 1 level of exhaustion.

- Australis' pact has had a noticeable impact on her appearance. Her sclera are a very dark blue and her irises a startling pink. Her horns, once barely ridged, are slowly being encased in the same crystals that encase and hold her patron and it's vast knowledge. Her and her brother both had faint purple markings where they had once had normal birthmarks, but Australis' grew and wove elaborate patterns that darkened and pulsated.

- Every time she uses her warlock skill set, it widens her connection to her patron and the souls that make up it. Often, the voices of her patron question her actions and bombard her with alternate actions, sometimes even downright berating her. It's very very overwhelming, and she can't make it stop. Most of the time, after battles or fights where she has to take the lead, she has to shut herself in her tent and just completely shut down and endure it. She'll often emerge exhausted and with bloodied fingers from trying to claw the crystals growing on her horns off. Hence why she may come off a tad cowardly, insisting others try and carry the brunt of a fight.

- To flex his righteousness, Boreal sends Mal and some other mercenaries up the mountain to find Australis, claiming she's a witch spreading misfortune to the communities on the mountainside. Boreal helps as Mal and the crew attack and destroy the crystals in the cavern. Attacking Australis' Archivist and, indirectly, her. It's agonizing for her, her patron screaming at her in its thousands of voices to protect it, her mind and her vision swimming. She can't fight off her brother, the other half of her, and the pain Boreal and his friends are inflicting make focusing a spell nearly impossible. Her patron channels its power through her and drives the mercenaries from the cave injured, and nearly kills Australis a second time. Boreal tells the others that they must have killed the witch, or at least deterred her from attacking the villages again. They are hailed as heroes. Australis is almost fried from the inside out, lying half-dead in her damaged cavern with so many of the souls that made up her patron just... gone.

Besides, Australis had not once attacked the villages.

- Boreal is a bartender at the town he and Australis spent their late teens and early 20s in. People come to him for comfort and support, for healing and advice. That's where his people skills come from, and how his network and influence became what it is. He's a gossip and a busybody, sure, but he uses it to his advantage! The more he knows, the more damage he can cause and then ultimately fix!

Images are from picrew + a photo from BG3

#long post #sleeptalks #sleep answers #oc: boreal #oc: australis #TYSM MWAH MWAH MWAH

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mollymauk-teafleak · 6 years ago

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come home with me (chapter three)

Caleb settles into circus life, drawing further and further away from who he used to be.

(Huuuuge thank you to my beta readers, @minky-for-short and @spiky-lesbian. please leave a comment on Ao3 or donate to my ko-fi if you enjoyed this!)

Caleb had come up with a new game.

He sat on top of Mollymauk’s wagon, legs swinging over the side, Frumpkin on his lap and watched a world he’d always read about but never seen unfold before him. Every time the large, gilded wheels would strike a dip in the road, he’d repeat his new name in his head.

Caleb…Caleb Widogast…I’m Caleb…

He was starting to get used to it, the way a pair of new boots would eventually start to soften and yield and accept him. The syllables felt kinder in his mouth, he liked the swing and slide of the soft plosive. Sitting there atop his new home, feeling a rare burst of autumn sunshine on his skin, his cat purring loudly at not having to be hidden away, Caleb could almost forget he’d ever had another name.

True to his word, Mollymauk had roused his sleepy and rather hungover crew in the early, clinging, dark hours of the morning, walking through the little village of caravans, banging his baton against a large bucket and hollering for them to get their arses up and moving. Caleb had stayed firmly in the wagon with the blanket pulled up over his head, wondering if it would have been possible to make a worse impression on his new colleagues.

But as soon as they were on their feet and had their fill of cursing Molly out, the circus was so neatly and quickly folded away it had to be magically assisted, all the floating lanterns recalled with a single whistle, the huge hall of purple silk brought down and shrunk until it was a hundredth of its initial size, all the trinkets and trappings swept safely away to sleep until their next stop. Still with his very unpopular bucket and baton, standing on top of the tallest wagon- made to house and transport the large tent, Caleb learnt- Molly had announced they were heading south, asking his troupe how they fancied a warmer clime for their next show, to general agreeable cheers.

And so they’d set off, only dozing crownsguard in the midst of their watches and a few farmers and fishermen heading out to field and lake to see them go. Caleb’s chest had been tight, almost unbearably so, until the landscape outside became unfamiliar. He’d lived in Rexxantrum and never left since he was three years old, he knew every single cobblestone of its streets. If he couldn’t recognise what was past the gauzy silk of Molly’s curtains, he was safe.

Eventually, once the day had well and truly broken, Mollymauk had returned after making a round of the whole troupe, helping with odds and ends, trading jokes back and forth, hailing travellers on the road, telling them to look out for the Fletching and Moondrop Travelling Carnival of Curiosities in his booming stage voice. He was a very hands on leader, Caleb was realising, always in the thick of things. He tried to imagine him running things the way Father did, from behind a desk, dealing only with a carefully managed stream of constituents in and out of his office. Something about that image was oddly funny, just for how ridiculous it was.

Caleb ran his hand down Frumpkin’s back, from between his flat little ears right to the tip of his tail. Thinking of Father still sparked old instincts, nerves that hadn’t quite gone dormant yet. He wondered how far they would have to travel, how many new types of flower he’d have to spy along the roadside, how many strange tongues he’d have to hear in passing before he’d feel safe.

He didn’t think he’d like the answer to that.

The wheel hit another rut in the road and he sank back into his game, letting the repetition of it soothe him.

Caleb Widogast…I’m Caleb…I’m-

“Caleb!”

He opened his eyes and looked down. Molly was waving to him from the ground, smiling up at him. His travelling clothes were about as plain as the tiefling got, tight black leggings and an overtunic of forest green, still with the fantastical embroidery Caleb suspected was Molly’s own doing, high boots made for function rather than fashion.

“The Whitestone lot are leaving, come say hi! And then goodbye in very quick succession!”

Though he climbed down from the roof, using the large wheel as a step, and followed Molly into the thick of the rolling encampment, Caleb was nervous. His run ins with the rest of the troupe had been very few and far between, as he hoped to limit the number of them who realised they were being labelled as aiding and abetting a kidnapping just by being in his presence.

Molly was standing a little ways away with the half elf siblings and the tall, white haired gentleman, all of them in the midst of a conversation that Caleb caught the end of as he approached, Frumpkin wound around him like a scarf.

“You’re so good to keep indulging us like this, darling,” the female elf was saying as she kissed both of Molly’s cheeks, “We had a wonderful time.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” Molly waved her thanks away, “The show’s always that much brighter for having you in it,” he shot a grin at the white haired man, “All of you.”

The man stroked a close cropped beard, chuckling ruefully, “I keep telling my wife, I only come along to help with mechanical repairs and she keeps press ganging me into her performance…”

“Oh, you love being part of it, Perce,” she swiped a loving hand over his hair, “And no one can say you’re not well rewarded.” The way her hooded eyes grew warm and teasing made the nature of such rewards very clear.

“Please don’t,” her brother groaned, “I had to hear enough of that last night. I keep begging for my wagon not to be next to yours but every damn time…”

The group dissolved into good natured laughter which gave Molly the chance to draw back and pull Caleb into the conversation, “Sweetling, may I introduce the not so venerable and supposedly sophisticated Baron and Baroness of Whitestone, Vex'ahlia and Percival. And her brother, Vax’ildan, a mere mortal like the rest of us.”

Caleb’s heart dropped to his shoes, “Wait…what? I…I thought…”

Vax’ildan chuckled, “A shock I know. My sister and lover boy over here keep skipping out on their baronly duties to come slum it with us humble performers. Because they know we have more fun, even if they do get to live in a ginormous, fancy castle.”

“Says the man whose about to get married and live rent free in our ginormous castle,” Vex’ahlia shot back, flicking his ear.

“My future husband is an honourable working man,” he returned huffily, “No one ever said I had to be.”

Molly gave Caleb a look of fond exasperation, one that made him feel included and part of something in a way he’d never felt before. It was a welcome respite from the hammering of his heart. The only nobles Caleb had ever met- back before he changed his name- were cold, sneering people much like Father who all looked at him like he was a particularly amusing pet Father kept trotting out to entertain them all whenever they’d visit Rexxantrum, a charity case and nothing more. Though it was clear that the de Rolo’s were nothing like this, he still would have appreciated a heads up that he was about to be face to face with some of the most important people outside of the empire.

“Well, we’d best get going, Gilmore’s transportation spell will only hold for so long,” Percy said firmly, in the practised tones of someone who’d had a lot of experience breaking up tussles between the two siblings.

“Of course, of course,” Vex’ahlia nodded, turning back to Molly and giving him another set of kisses, “Until next time, darling. Happy travels.”

“Don’t let it be too long,” Molly nodded, smiling.

Caleb watched them go, still a little dizzy from the shock.

“Vax’s fiancé was our previous arcanist,” Molly explained softly as their companions walked off, “Shaun Gilmore, a real good guy. They’re settling down in Whitestone, opening up a store. Means I’m out two performers which is rotten luck but, hey, it means I get to work with you.” He smiled at that, squeezing Caleb’s hand fondly , perhaps recognising the worn look on his lover’s face.

“They’re…not like other nobles I’ve met,” Caleb took a deep breath, “It’s strange…”

Molly laughed, teeth flashing, “Oh sweetling, we’re all strange here. Didn’t you know?”

Caleb was surprised by how quickly the carnival could move. It seemed at first like a lumbering beast, made up of far too many parts, parts that were old and splintering and listing on their wheels. The great cartloads of supplies to keep them all fed, pulled by motheaten donkeys that seemed to dislike Caleb upon first glance so he steered well away from, the wagons that held all the equipment for the show itself, ready to unfurl at a moment’s notice like a butterfly straining at the walls of its cocoon. And of course the caravans, all done up in chipping paint, such seemingly small and unwieldy containers for people’s entire lives, looking like squat insects on frighteningly delicate legs. Most of these ran on spells, the wood enchanted to roll along of its own accord until halted by a knocking on its door frame though some preferred the relative reliability of a horse. Fortunately for Caleb and his newly developed equinophobia, Molly preferred the latter.

But for all its patchwork nature, the way it ran on mismatched spell work and machinery, no part of it still with all its original components, the carnival and its occupants knew their business. Each part was like a limb or a digit of a whole organism, all somehow knowing how to move and work together, probably from simple experience. If that was the case then Mollymauk’s purple caravan, always right at the front, was the brain.

When he saw a tree in their path, he sent orders down the line and everyone obeyed. When he saw dusk falling and a suitable field up ahead, he called a halt for the night and everyone obeyed. When he saw a group of merchants or traders or farm folk travelling in the opposite direction, he sent down the familiar cry of ‘game faces on’ and everyone obeyed, usually resulting in their coffers being a few coins richer once the other party had continued on their way.

Though he’d spoken of getting Caleb his own wagon once they’d passed through a large enough village, that had happened a good few times and nothing had been said of it, both men realising silently that they liked their current arrangement a little too much to break it. So Caleb got to lounge on Mollymauk’s comfortable bed, his back against the wall, light coming in through the windows as he pretended to read but instead listened to Mollymauk command his circus with a smile and a joke. He got to watch their lumbering beast break from forest into moorland, got to watch the air grow warmer and the flowers grow brighter, he got to feel part of it all.

Routine had been how he’d survived under Ikithon and the loss of it had made some still scared, still anxious part of his mind fret. But he’d soon found another one, one that made him much happier than anyone ever had.

Caleb would wake in Molly’s arms, not to a shrill alarm but whenever his body felt like it, catching up on years’ worth of hard days on four hours of sleep, five on a Sunday. He’d stay wrapped in the warmth of the blankets, lying on his front as Frumpkin curled up between his shoulder blades, watching and listening as Mollymauk washed and dressed, telling him stories and chatting about his plans for the day. The tiefling never seemed to run out of words and he wasn’t shy about sharing his thoughts. Caleb loved that about him, he loved being confided in. It didn’t matter if it was the smallest, silliest thing, he wanted to know what Molly thought about their route, about the Empire, about the idea of eggs for breakfast.

But then Molly would leave to do a quick round of the carnival, talking with those who’d drawn the night watch, checking everything was in working order, ready for the off. In the silence, Caleb would wash and dress. Of course he’d not had the time to bring many amenities with him on his sudden flight from the city but several small merchants chance met on the road or operating out of their own front rooms in small farming villages had been very pleased by his custom as they’d travelled along. He had himself a fine few sets of travelling clothes now, soft trousers fit for working in, loose shirts and simple jackets for colder weather. Nothing like the restricting uniform he’d been used to wearing. In this, Caleb could run, he could kneel, he could stretch and move.

Once ready, he’d start preparing breakfast. He felt it was the least he could do, seeing as Mollymauk had given him so much, and the arm length lists of chores he’d always been required to do back in Rexxantrum had given him the necessary skills. After Mollymauk returned, usually splattered in mud from helping shove a caravan out of a too deep rut in the road or with his hair full of twigs after chasing down an escaped tarpaulin snatched by the wind, they’d sit together on the bed and eat. Molly would be effusive with his praise, kissing Caleb’s forehead and joking that he knew there was a reason this one night stand had turned into thirty nights, that he’d never eaten half so well.

The rest of the day would be full of travelling. Caleb liked this time best of all, sitting on top of the caravan or inside, watching from the window, if one of the sudden rain storms that apparently came on with no warning in this part of the country was moving in. Molly had quickly realised that the part of Caleb’s brain that had been completely devoted to study and combing through old books on magic, many of them in entirely different languages with nearly unreadable, ancient pages was very well suited to deciphering maps and navigating a safe route, as they passed out of the Empire and the roads grew less clear and less maintained. So he’d sit at the small table with a cup of steaming tea, Frumpkin pawing at his compass and sextant and any stray curling edge of a page, and see them safely to wherever Molly decided to go next.

Slowly, surely, they eased themselves free of the grip of the Empire, not stopping for far longer than they ever had before, wanting to avoid any word of them getting back to Rexxantrum. If the rest of the circus wondered why they were passing up so many opportunities to put on their show, so many holdfasts and towns and villages that were usually on their schedule, they didn’t say anything. When Caleb sat there and watched the faint pencil line that marked their path grow longer and longer, stretching off into other maps, other futures, it would get easier to breathe.

The evenings would be given over to finding a good spot to spend the night, a field or a sheltered grove if it was raining. Then the cook fires would spring to life throughout the camp like bright flowers, the groups that gathered around them shifting from night to night depending on what was on offer, who had booze, who had brought their instrument out with them and had it laid temptingly across their lap. Caleb found himself following Molly like a lost puppy on these nights, though he always insisted he was free to go wherever he wanted. It was just easier to sit close to him whatever fire they decided to eat at that night, letting him lead conversations, only mumbling short answers to the questions he was asked directly, alongside thank you’s for the food pressed upon him.

Not that the rest of the carnival weren’t good people, they obviously were and the conversation was always bright and sparkling, full of life as only people who’d dedicated their lives to entertaining others could be. Caleb was just content to stay on the fringes of it all, audience rather than participant, at least until he’d fully decided quite who he was going to be now.

But then the fires would turn to embers, the pots would be taken in and cleaned by whoever hadn’t helped cook the meal, the musicians would grow tired and play their last few requests. And Molly’s eyes would find Caleb’s and his hand would creep across the ground for their fingers to entwine. A part of Caleb would get its own little rapid heartbeat and instincts he was only just developing would prickle. Molly would grin at that and pull him to his feet, leading him back to the caravan, the good natured laughter of their friends fading behind them.

Moly wouldn’t bother to light the lanterns in his caravan. They wouldn’t bother to put their clothes away as they were abandoned on the floor. The bed would always be there to catch them when they inevitably tumbled back, too lost in their kissing to see where they placed their feet.

And every night would pass by much the same as the others did, with moans and gasps and tongues scraping. Caleb could never see himself tiring of it.

Until one morning when instead of a load of maps and his usual compass, there was a pile of unfamiliar papers waiting to greet him on the kitchen table.

“What’s this?” he wondered aloud, taking the edge of the stack and thumbing through it, listening to the thump and crack of it.

“This is your job for the foreseeable future.”

Caleb hadn’t even realised Molly was sitting behind him on the bed and the shock nearly sent the cup of Caduceus’ finest green cherry blend crashing to the floor.

“Sorry, sorry!” the tiefling laughed, jumping up and steadying his shoulders.

“You can’t keep doing that to me,” Caleb huffed, setting the mug down, “Wear a bell or something…”

“Oh sweetling, if you want to see me in a collar, all you have to do is ask,” Molly chucked, stretching his legs out to nudge Caleb’s teasingly.

The blush that erupted on his freckled face was more of a glow than a full conflagration, it was hard to maintain any prudishness after spending nearly a month as Molly’s lover. And he didn’t doubt the truth of his words; the purple velvet lined oak chest under the bed that held a frankly incredible array of sex toys undoubtedly held a few collars. That box had led to a number of very interesting nights for the two of them.

“What do you mean this is my job?” Caleb said quickly before his thoughts could stray any further and force him to write the rest of the afternoon off completely for the both of them.

Molly stood and stretched like a lounging cat, “This is our show script. It’s still got all of Gilmore’s notes in it where he used to put his little touches but you’re more than welcome to put your own spin on it.”

“Oh…” something in Caleb’s chest grew taut.

“So I thought we could go through it together and see where you come in so you can get all your cues down,” the tiefling continued, not noticing the tension in Caleb’s shoulders, coming over and patting the sheaf of papers, “Outside of course. I tell you, once I was having a pretty solid night in here with this warlock fellow from up Hupperdook way, cute guy, nice ass and he was showing me his little tricks and he set my damn curtains on fire. Last time I mix magic and confined spaces, you can still see the scorch marks…”

Caleb tried to laugh the way he usually did at Molly’s stories but there was a hard to ignore prickling in his fingertips, like the blood wasn’t getting to them.

“Okay, so, outside?” the words burst from him with a false brightness as he seized the papers and made for the door, “Let’s do it.”

Molly paused, looking surprised but he smiled and nodded, following him towards the door.

Just do it. Just get through it.

They found themselves a little sheltered space in a nearby grove of trees. Molly settled himself on a rock, folding his legs underneath him, the sun coming in behind him and dappling him in soft pools of golden light. He looked almost fae and, despite the uncomfortably hot anxiety bubbling inside him, Caleb couldn’t help pausing to cup his face and kiss him then and there.

Molly giggled brightly against his lips, returning the kiss for a few long seconds before pulling back, “Okay, big guy, we’re on the clock. Work for an hour or so then I’ll see if we can find the little brook nearby and go skinny dipping, huh?”

The thought was enough for Caleb to forget that anything had even been wrong. He let Molly have the script and stood a little ways away in the middle of the grove, trying to relax, searching for the space inside him that made his magic possible. The calmness, the levelness, the sensation that he had a place in the universe.

“Okay,” Molly’s voice found his ears, “So the curtain lift, that all works on a permanent enchantment in the cloth itself so no problems there…so your first cue is when I say ‘that’s exactly what we do’, that’s when I need the dancing lights…”

Calen nodded. Dancing lights. An almost painfully simple evocation cantrip. He could do that in his sleep.

But the grass under his bare feet kept shifting into concrete. The trees around him turned to high, cavernous stone walls in the corner of his eye. The warm air, redolent with pine and bark, became cold and dead in his throat.

Are you just going to stand there, boy?

He tried to say the incantation but they caught in his throat.

“Caleb?” Molly sounded confused and his nerves jangled in response. He couldn’t mess this up, he couldn’t…

“I’m sorry!” he choked out, “I…I can do it, I just…it’s been a while…”

Caleb held his palms out, searching for a focus. But now the words themselves had fled, after they’d been fixed in his mind just a second before. He knew it, he had to know it, this was the most basic stuff…

Useless. Clumsy. Sloppy.

“Caleb, hold on…”

“No!” he cried, terror hitting him over the back of the head as he heard his own voice crack, “I can do it, I swear!”

You are nothing, boy.

You are disobedient. Disloyal. Ungrateful. A waste of magical potential.

A true wizard would not flinch from his punishment. Stand there and take it like a man. Do that much at least or I’ll turn you out onto the streets. Where I should have left you.

What erupted from his mouth and his palms half a heartbeat later was not dancing lights. Fire filled the space between him and Mollymauk, a sudden, sharp roar of not anger, not power but fear, lashing out at the imagined threat, at the memory of hundreds of strikes, punches, kicks, nights without food or water.

Fortunately, the blaze spouted upwards, up above the treeline. Left hollow by the sudden rush of energy, Caleb pitched forward, knees and palms scraping in the dirt as he began to cry, apologies gasping out between heaving sobs.

He didn’t know who he was apologising to at first. Ikithon or Mollymauk. Himself?

Either way he coughed and spat into the dirt, trying to get the horrible taste out of his mouth, rusty and burnt, the taste of misfired magic. He couldn’t do a simple spell. He’d come so close to hurting Mollymauk, seriously hurting him.

A new life had been so close within his reach that his fingertips had brushed it, he’d started to get his mouth around the word happiness. And he’d ruined it. In a single gout of flame and the inability to perform even the simplest, most basic spell, he’d ruined everything.

“Caleb? Are you okay to be touched right now?”

Caleb’s head snapped up. Mollymauk was bent over him, now entirely framed in the sunlight, so much so that there was barely anything to him but a silhouette.

He hadn’t run.

Swallowing hard, he nodded and two strong hands came to rest on his own, helping him to his feet.

“Come on now, there we are…there we go…”

The forest clearing came into focus now he was upright though he also became aware of the painful scrapes on his palms and the rawness of his throat, “I…I don’t understand…”

“Well, I’m no expert…” Molly brushed some ash from Caleb’s shirt, “And I really do think you should see an expert, if we ever come across one? But I think you’ve got some trauma surrounding magic from that Ikithon asshole and-“

“No, I…I know that,” Caleb shook his head, managing to find some odd scrap of humour in amongst all this, “I nearly burnt down half a fucking forest, of course I have trauma.”

And then, simple as that, the two of them were laughing. Laughing so hard they couldn’t be sure who was supporting who as they barely kept from tumbling down into the dirt. It was an odd kind of laughter, slightly manic, slightly unhinged. But it burnt away that taste in Caleb’s mouth and the shaking in his hands and knees and left him empty.

Caleb felt a little giddy with the shock of survival. He was still standing.

“What I meant…what I meant was,” he gasped, still catching his breath, “I don’t understand how you’re still here. How…how you’re not scared…”

He didn’t want to jinx it, make Mollymauk suddenly jolt to his senses and realise he was stood perilously close to a man who’d nearly roasted him alive, but it needed to be said.

“I am a little scared but it’s more scared for you than of you,” Molly said after a little thought, still fussing idly with the clinging foliage on his shirt, “I don’t like knowing you’ve got all these bad thoughts inside you all the time. I don’t like that I can’t help.”

“You do help,” Caleb murmured softly, “You…you actually try. You have no idea how much that means to me, Molly. To see someone actually try.”

Molly seemed to process that for a few moments more before smiling gently, a little sadly, and pressing a kiss to Caleb’s forehead.

“Come on, we’re done with work. Just…hold the idea of doing magic in the back of your mind, doing it for yourself, not for Ikithon, not even really for me. For yourself. And hopefully it’ll just settle there and we’ll find our way to it. Sound good?”

Caleb’s heart thumped hard in his chest, “And if I never get there?”

“Well…then I’ll stick you on the cotton candy cart,” Mollymauk winked, elbowing him gently, “Now let’s go find that brook.”

Caleb toyed with that idea as he shed his clothes by the edge of the brook that was really more of a hot spring, gently steaming in the afternoon light. The idea of magic for himself. Magic for the fun of it. Enjoying the talents he’d been given, no matter where they’d come from. Disengaging it somehow from everything that had come before.

Then Mollymauk was in his arms, pulling him into the water, pressing his blissfully naked body against his own and he didn’t think much of anything else for a while.

But then, much later, he was lying in the darkness, Molly using his chest as a pillow, snoring soundly and leaving his lover counting the divine aches in his body, staring up at the stars that had been enchanted to glow in the dark, cut out and stuck on the caravan ceiling in a perfect recreation of the constellations.

It occurred to him then that the equations he’d learned, the diagrams and runes he’d so carefully studied, they didn’t belong to anyone. They just were, no matter whose books he’d originally read them in, no matter who’d inked them onto the paper. Truths that were simply true, no matter what they were used for.

They didn’t belong to Ikithon. So he couldn’t take them away from away from Caleb, police when he could and couldn’t use them.

They didn’t belong to anyone. So they could belong to everyone.

Caleb reached up, doing his best not to jostle Mollymauk. He put his palm out towards the softly glowing paper stars and sank into the state of mind, felt energy pulse inside him and spread out through his veins, branching right down into his capillaries.

The stars began to fade as a new source of light took root in his palm, nothing too bright, just a single orb of the softest, gentlest milky white light. It budded, swelled and broke free, hanging over the bed, the moon to the stars behind it.

And Caleb smiled.

#widomauk #caleb widogast #mollymauk tealeaf #trans mollymauk #cr: caleb #cr: mollymauk #critical role #cr fic #cr: campaign 2 #vaxilmore #vaxmore #perc'ahlia #perchalia #vox machina

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