#stop trying to kill Caduceus with bombs Nott

[chiaroscurosun]

Nott: We'll just have Caduceus open it

Me: Godammit Sam 😂

[sparxwrites]

(once upon a time, i watched this video, fell in love with everything about it, and ended up enthusiastically discussing the mighty mein going noodling with @ladyofrosefire. when i outlined the fic below to her, she then very ill-advisedly encouraged me to write it. so. here we are. in advance: i’m so sorry, and also you’re welcome.

[ao3]

“So– how does this work, again?” asked Fjord, with more than a little hesitation, watching Yasha strip off her armour and shirt until she was left standing in her breastband and trousers under the midday sun. “I mean, obviously, I’ve done this before, but, um, it’s been a while. Little rusty, you know? Just wondering if your technique is any different to mine…”

He himself was already down to just trousers, and Caduceus – ever unashamed – was already buck naked and floating in the creek, straw hat over his face as he let the lazy current tug him gradually further downstream.

Yasha gave Fjord an odd look. “There’s catfish in the holes along the bank,” she said, lowering herself carefully into the creek from the high bank and shivering at the cold of the water on bare skin. The sun was high in the sky, the day hot and bright – Jester was sunning herself on the bank, as a matter of fact – but apparently little of that heat had leeched into the river. “Other creatures build them, and then the catfish take them. So when you find a hole, you put your legs in it, and just sort of… kick around, until the catfish tries to come out. And then you grab it and pull it out of the water.”

“And then you eat it!” cried Nott, triumphantly. “Far away from the river, hopefully.”

“And then you eat it,” agreed Yasha, absently, wading her way into the centre of the creek and submerging herself up to the neck. The look on her face was nothing short of blissful, her hair fanning out behind her atop the water like tendrils of smoke. “Oh, and Fjord? Be careful grabbing the bank. There might be snakes in the grass. Or spiders. Big spiders.”

Fjord swallowed, hard. “Right. Yes! Big spiders. And snakes. Of course. Pretty, um, pretty standard noodling dangers. You know.”

“…You’ve never done this before, have you?” asked Yasha, as Fjord slid gingerly into the water after her.

Hissing at the toe-curling crispness of the creek, Fjord cast a brief, furtive look at the others on the bank. Caleb was engrossed in his book, Beau was busy stripping off, and Nott was arguing with Jester about something or another. They were safe from prying ears.

“Nope!” he said, quietly, and the forcible chirpiness in his own voice made him wince. “Not a clue what I’m doing. Complete beginner.”

Yasha’s face softened a little, as much as it ever did – a slight easing of the tension around her eyes, the barest un-furrowing of her brow. “It’s not that hard,” she offered, tilting her head back to wet the back of her head. The heat and high sun had not agreed with her, the past few days, and it was nice to be cold again. “I’m sure you’ll do–”

“Cannonball!” yelled Beau, which was all the warning any of them got before a monk-shaped blur bombed into the water. Her impressively powerful impact threw up enough of a splash to sprinkle Jester, and nearly enough to spatter Caleb’s book with water. Nott hissed, baring her teeth, and hid herself a little more carefully behind Caleb’s back.

“There go all the fish,” said Fjord, idly, as Beau resurfaced, pink-cheeked and gasping with her hair slicked back against her head.

“Oh, fuck, that’s cold!” she yelped, frantically treading water with half-numb limbs and no breath in her lungs. “Shit.”

“Beau, the fish!” yelled Jester, from the bank.

“Oh, fuck, the fish– oh shit, sorry, my bad–”

Yasha sighed, and submerged herself entirely, letting the water close slowly over her head and silence the noise.

When she re-emerged, Beau was treading water in a slightly more sedate manner, and Jester had stopped shouting quite so loudly. Fjord had made his way over to the bank, a little ways downstream, eyeing the dirt and water in front of him with both determination and trepidation as he began awkwardly hunting for catfish holes.

“Why’s it called noodling, Yasha?” called Jester from her place in the scrub grass, kicking her bare toes idly in the air. She too had stripped down, to just bloomers and a breastband – even Caleb, sat beside her with his nose in a book, had shed his customary coat and undone the front of his shirt. Only Nott was still fully dressed, and glaring at the water like it might bite her. “It’s such a weird name, you, know, like you could call it, oh, catfishing, or fish tickling, or just, like, grabbing fish in holes and wrestling them, or-”

“In my tribe, we always used to say it was because you had to use your noodle,” said Yasha, absently, rapping her knuckles lightly against her skull. She was already combing the opposite bank to Fjord for likely fish-spots, moving this way and that in the water, occasionally pausing to prod at the bank with one leg. She looked focused, but at ease, the tension gone out of her shoulders in a way none of them had seen in a while. “But you’re right. It’s a pretty funny name, when you think about it. I–”

Her words, however, were cut short by a blood-curdling howl.

Every member of the Mighty Nein turned, in unison, towards the source of the noise. Those on the bank who had weapons drew them, and those in the water immediately regretted voluntarily disarming themselves when it seemed clear they would need to fight– something. Some awful, unseen monster, that was apparently attempting to drag Fjord underwater and into the bank, as he clung white-knuckled to an exposed tree-root in an attempt to resist. His screaming was terrible, full-throated and pained, his face twisted in a rictus of agony.

“Oh, oh gods!” he yelled, voice a full octave higher than usual. “I- I found a catfish! And it’s– got my testicle– Oh god, oh dear lord– dear Wildmother, please let it let go, oh-hhhho fuck–”

There was a long moment’s frozen silence, broken only by Fjord’s continued, hollered curses.

“Your… testicle?” repeated Beau, lowering her fists slowly. The look of shock on her face was sliding away, replaced by a twitch at the corner of her mouth that curled into a slow, incredulous grin. “Holy shit, wait, a catfish bit your balls?”

Over on the bank, Nott began to cackle.

With a final, strangled noise of pain, Fjord shot free from whatever hole he’d half sunk into, kicking frantically away from the bank and towards the shallow slope where he could exit the water. His swimming was made distinctly ungainly by the hand dipped low between his legs, cupped over the fork of them in a meagre effort to protect his balls from any other hungry catfish that might be lurking nearby.

“Over here, Fjord!” called Jester, from the bank, helpfully waving her arms above her head in case he had forgotten where they were. “Over here, I can heal you! I will save your balls, don’t worry!”

“No, it’s- I’m fine!” managed Fjord, as he hauled himself out of the creek. As he staggered to his feet and towards their little encampment, there was a distinct limp to his walk. “You really don’t have to– I’ve got it, it’s fine, really! No cleric needed!”

There was the faint, familiar glow of the Wildmother’s healing magic around his fingertips, and the painful stumble of his steps got a little more relaxed.

That didn’t deter Jester, though, from immediately reaching for Fjord’s pants when he flopped down next to them all on the bank. He batted her hands away, flushing a dark copper, his own palm still cupped tenderly between his legs – to protect himself not only from any catfish that might attempt to brave dry land, but from the overly enthusiastic cleric in front of him.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Fjord?” asked Nott, managing to control her laughter for long enough to form words, wiping tears from her eyes. “Maybe Jester should take a look. I mean, it’s not like you can afford to lose a nut, when you’ve barely got a pair to begin with–” She broke off into howls of amusement once more, doubled over with the force of it.

If looks could kill, Fjord’s glare would have dropped Nott dead on the spot.

“Leave the poor man’s testicles alone, the pair of you,” said Caleb, idly, though there was a certain sparkle to his eye as he watched the indignant half-orc drip onto the grass, rubbing at the crease of his thigh. “They have suffered enough already. Bad enough they were used as catfish bait – they do not need you bothering them too.”

In the water, Beau was laughing so hard she was struggling to stay afloat, forced to stop treading water and actually put her feet down to avoid drowning.

Fjord, for some reason, didn’t seem to find the situation quite as funny. “Look, it’s– I’m fine, yes, ha ha, Fjord got his testicles bitten by a fish, can we move on…?” he said, testily, one hand still cupped half-protectively by his crotch. “It’s really not that amusing, Nott, you really don’t have to laugh–”

“The fish only bit one ball, though,” Jester interrupted, ignoring him completely. “…Oh my gosh, Fjord, do you have a ball that’s, like, your juicy ball? Is that a thing? Caleb, is having one really big ball a thing?”

Caleb, his nose back in his book to hide his own amusement, wisely chose not to answer.

“Where’s Caduceus?!” demanded Jester. “I feel like he should, you know, be an expert on this. Since he’s a cleric, and he also has balls, and everything.”

“Ah, Caduceus is– gone, I think.” Caleb didn’t look up from his book, flipping a page as he spoke – more for show than anything, still trying to stifle his own chuckles. “He left a while ago.”

Jester blinked, looking around frantically as though Caduceus might materialise from one of the scrubby bushes around them if she looked at it hard enough. “Gone? What do you mean, gone? Why would he leave? When is he coming back?! Oh my gosh, is he gone forever, I never even-”

“Nein,” said Caleb, finally glancing at her for a second in fond exasperation, “not forever. He just went off downstream. I’m sure he will be back in his own time.”

It took Fjord, distracted by his still faintly throbbing testicle, a moment to parse that particular comment. “Off down… you mean, Caduceus just drifted off?” he asked, slow and incredulous. “And no one thought to, I don’t know, go after him, or stop him? You just let him go. Down the river. That’s full of vicious catfish. And we have no idea where it goes.”

“He looked so peaceful in the water.” Jester pouted, clearly offended at the implication that losing Caduceus was even partially her fault. “Like he was asleep, or something! I didn’t want to wake him up or, you know, disturb him, or…”

“He was asleep?! That makes it worse!”

“I didn’t think he would just drift off, Fjord, oh my gosh–”

There was a distant splash from the river, some soft cursing, and some more splashing. “I got one!” called Yasha, a moment later, mild delight colouring her usually flat voice. “A catfish, for dinner. A big one.”

The others turned, as one, to the creek. There stood Yasha, chest-deep in water, sopping wet, and holding a catfish over her head. An enormous catfish. It was easily longer than Nott was tall, thrashing indignantly in Yasha’s grip with an alarming amount of power in its fat, slippery body. Her fingers, hooked into its mouth and wrapped around its tail, were grazed bloody from the same powerful jaws and sandpapery teeth that had menaced Fjord’s testicle.

“Holy shit, Yasha!” yelled Jester, delightedly. “It’s huge! I didn’t know fish even got that big!”

Beau whistled low and long in the water, drifting to one side to let Yasha pass. “Maybe even as big as Fjord’s ball!” she called, grinning as Fjord flipped her an obscene gesture from the catfish-free safety of dry land.

Yasha waded her way through the creek to the bank, Beau trailing a few feet behind. Exiting the water was something of an adventure, with both hands full of squirming catfish – but, between her and Beau, they managed it, Yasha scrambling out with her fingers hooked in the creature’s gills as Beau supported the tail.

“It was a good fight. This is going to make beautiful food,” said Yasha, quiet pride in her voice, as she heaved her prize down onto the blanket next to Caleb, much to Caleb’s visible displeasure. It gave a single, deeply half-hearted flop, and then fell still, one beady eye staring balefully at the wizard as he shuffled over to put a good foot-and-a-half between him and the fish. “I hope Caduceus will cook it for us, even if he doesn’t–”

She paused, mid sentence, looking over at Beau clambering out of the otherwise-empty creek. Her gaze slid back to group clustered on the bank, counting over them, marking the absence of a certain, conspicuous, pink firbolg. “Hey,” she asked, frowning, as Beau flopped down next to the fish, dripping wet and pink with the cold of the creek. “Has anyone seen Caduceus…?”