Chapter Text
Caleb’s chest felt like it was full of ash and sparks by the time they had found a place they had exhaustedly deemed suitable to camp, and he could taste cold iron buzzing in the back of his mouth. The sun had just set on the horizon, the world painted that blue-grey color of fading light as everyone shuffled into a shaky halt to their mad dash. Caleb tried to say that it might be a good idea to keep going, but the words were having trouble getting out of his throat for the moment, and before he knew it, Jester had already sat down to start casting Prayer of Healing on them all.
Caleb was going to wait until she was done to suggest that as soon as she was finished they should start moving again, but the moment he sat down on the ground, it was like all the panicked energy that had accumulated in his body was sucked out by the ground beneath him.
He felt like a bottle of wine that had just been dropped on the floor, shattering on impact, everything he kept inside the past two hours coming to rush out and pool in a jagged mess all around him.
Appropriate, given how close they were to Kamordah.
The world blurred out just slightly at the edges, his ribs aching in protest to his breath. The clearing they had found stayed quiet except for the small sounds of his teammates existing around him. The low mumble of conversation and Jester’s prayer. Caduceus checking a gash on Fjord’s head. Beau checking in on Yasha even though it was quite obvious she was fine. He did not miss the slight berth they gave him, nor the careful glances in his direction that ate away at his skin, with the sheer weight of the knowledge .
The long shadows of the forest clearing pulled at him from every angle. He could feel the spotlight of the universe beating down on his body, singed by the heat of the lamplight to match the fresh electrical burns.
He couldn’t hide anymore.
Astrid had nearly killed all of them. She’d called him Bren , she’d said they trained together-- even something about faking having gone mad. No amulet would ever protect him from this. Not now, and not that it ever did. It was always a placebo. The security blanket of a confused, idiotic man-child who woke up in a body that had aged over a decade in the blink of an eye and a swirl of hazy visions who needed something to cling to to feel safe.
And the magic she’d thrown at them--Astrid had always been so in favor of the empire, even if she often saw rules as somewhat flexible, but he’d never thought she would resort to necromancy. Did she have some sort of special permission to--? She’d used some spell he’d never seen her cast before to bring back several guards they’d had to kill in their confused stumbling into the midst some Krynn plot, and used her natural skill at shaping magic to keep her own spells from striking her new minions, and that was all so new, how much further had she changed since he’d seen her last?
She had looked well, though, aside from the increasing fury stitched across his features as their brief, ill-fated conversation had stretched on. It had seemed that life was treating her well. A small, traitorous, sentimental piece of him was happy about that.
There was a small pressure against his arm. He blinked, and looked down at it. A small green hand was curled lightly along the sleeve of his jacket. He followed the hand along it’s arm until he found himself staring into Nott’s wide eyes, face plastered with that sickeningly genuine brand of concern that always made his stomach turn just so. Every damned time she looked at him like that, he marveled at just how many lies and half-truths he must have spilled to make her believe he deserved it.
“Caleb.” Nott said, her fingers squeezing his arm just slightly. “Are-- Are you okay?”
No. He suddenly realized his breathing was labored. He felt dizzy, and the ground swayed beneath him even as he sat.
Caleb nodded, because it was the answer she would prefer. Judging from her look, he must have done a very poor job at being convincing.
It was… extremely unfortunate that Frumpkin had strayed into the crossfire during their battle with Astrid. He had the materials to cast Find Familiar again, but that would take time, and that he absolutely didn’t have. He wasn’t sure he could pull the focus needed to cast it now anyways.
“Do you… ” Nott spoke again, this time in a slightly more hushed tone. Her eyes darted slightly to the side before she spoke again. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Caleb shook his head.
“Then you don’t have to.” Nott affirmed, her grip tightening just slightly, “Not until you’re ready, I mean.”
Caleb shook his head again. He’d never be ready for this conversation. He wasn’t ready when he told Nott and Beau, no matter how much the answer pushed and screamed from the back of his throat, begging for confession after five long years of silence. But the world had never cared what he had wanted--what he was prepared for--not since childhood, and especially not now.
He was a liability now.
He couldn’t stay with them anymore, and Gods, that thought shouldn’t send such a sickening tear through his gut, not when he’d known from the start that this was only a temporary alliance of convenience. At some point he’d mixed pleasure and business, and in spite of himself, he’d let these people find purchase in some small, crooked corner he kept inside of his heart. He let the stupid idea get into his head that maybe, just maybe, with these people and borrowed time, he might just find a splinter of happiness, even as he kept them at arm’s length for fear of being burned yet again . He’d known he should have cut his losses and run ages ago, but he gave in, again and again, to that part of him that had always been there who had never been able to let go of anything. But now that it was too late, he felt the overwhelming need to scramble to hold everything together, even if that would only bring him and everyone else pain, because Caleb Widogast had never been anything but an appalling, selfish wreck of a man.
But he couldn’t. There were no more half-truths or misleading technicalities he could hide behind anymore, because after half a decade of running, his past had finally hunted him down.
Just then, a gentle wave of warm air passed through him, mending the worst of his cuts, bruises and burnt raw flesh as Jester’s prayer came to an end.
And now there was an immaculate silence, and the full weight of reality laid upon his shoulders. Jester caught his eye and opened her mouth, like she wanted to say something, but instead just pursed her lips a moment later, and looked away, conflicted. Nott’s gaze was firmly pointed at the ground, but her grip on his arm remained. He could sense the others waiting as well, but before he could meet their face, he closed his eyes and bowed his head just slightly, waiting for the body blow. Tried to pretend he was still as he was over a year ago--utterly alone and lost in the woods with the other shadows.
Fjord was the one to break the heavy silence. Always the one to jump in headfirst.
“Caleb, uh,” he said, and Caleb could just imagine him awkwardly palming the back of his neck. “Who… was that?”
A pointless question, really. He’d said her name. Maybe Fjord hadn’t heard. To some of them, it meant something, a collection of preconceptions of all variety of true and untrue, and some Caleb couldn’t say what they were. A once-girlfriend. An old friend. Co-conspirator to patricide. A threat. A new enemy. An ending.
He could run.
A wheezy chuckle pulled itself from his throat at the thought. No, that option was long gone on a number of levels, and he knew it.
He looked back up, opened his eyes, and took in the expressions of his friends. The bold-faced confusion. The cautious uncertainty. The ineffable searching stare. The stung sympathy. The fatal concern. Something entirely unreadable and knowing. Each one strung along a needle that pierced his gut and stitched his stomach into knots.
He clamped his mouth silent with a hand, and shook his head.
“That was Astrid, wasn’t it?” Beau finally spoke, her tone, somehow, not accusatory. Caleb met her eyes for just a moment, but he still couldn’t get a read on her. He looked away, and she waited just a moment before she continued. “You said her name.”
He wiped his hand away from his mouth roughly, and, whisper quiet, started the end.
“ Ja .” Caleb said. “I did.”
He could feel Nott look away at his side.
“Astrid?” Fjord echoed, sounding genuinely mystified. Perhaps he hadn’t caught him saying her name after all. He had been a bit further away. His focus suddenly switched from Caleb to Beau, giving him the briefest of reprieves. “Beau, do you know who that woman was?”
Caleb readied himself. He did not resent Beauregard for what she was about to do. They had crossed a line, now. His secret could no longer be kept innocuously in the hopes that it wouldn’t pose a danger. If anything, he had already asked quite a lot for her silence, and it had lasted far far longer than he had initially thought it might.
“Not my story to tell.” She said with a twinging, thin smile that probably would have passed muster for apologetic on someone else. Fjord blinked in surprise. Which was.
Something.
Something… he didn’t know what he felt about. He was already feeling a number of confusing and conflicting things. He just threw that on the ongoing pile he had burning at the moment.
“But Caleb,” Beau said, “I think that now might be a good time to tell it.”
Caleb wasn’t sure if she was trying to be punishing or kind. Possibly both. Possibly neither. But in spite of that, he found himself nodding.
“You are right.” He admitted, his voice still reedy.
A number of looks was shared among his friends who didn’t know. Only Caduceus’ eyes stayed locked on Caleb, his expression ponderous.
“L-look, it’s been a long day.” Nott said, her words seeming to come out in a rush. “We fought guards, and then zombie guards, and then we all got a electrocuted, and then we ran for like an hour! While still a little electrocuted! Why don’t we wait until--until...”
Caleb raised a hand and she settled down, and she gave him a wide eyed look filled with so much panic and anguish for his sake he felt slightly ill.
“This has been a long time coming.” He said quietly. “Best to tear off the bandage in one go, you know.”
Nott studied the ground.
“Mr. Caleb, If I may,” Caduceus spoke up, taking a step forward, his expression gone from ponderous to one of nearly unsettling clarity, and just a tinge of soft pity, “This story you’re talking about, well, I’m not really sure what it’s about exactly, but I can figure that it’s something important to you. I’ve found that the important conversations are better had when people aren’t as rattled as I’m sure all of us are feeling right now. Why don’t I see if I can’t fix us all up something to calm our nerves first, warm us back up, and then we can listen to your story?”
There was a mumble of agreement among the group. Caleb found himself nodding along.
“Besides,” Caduceus continued, smiling softly “Bandages shouldn’t be ‘torn’ off anything. They’ve gotta be removed one strip at a time, or else you’ll put unneeded pressure on the wound. Though I can see the temptation.”
Caleb didn’t quite know what to make of that, so he didn’t comment.
The others were quick to rustle together a quick and messy campground. They had left the majority of their supplies at a tavern, now by Caleb’s count a good ten or so miles away from them, at Beau’s insistence to not go back to Kamordah. Perhaps that was lucky. If Astrid was in the area, that is likely where she would be searching first for them. This way they were much less likely to run into her at the random tavern they had left the cart in.
Nott stayed by his side while the others worked, offering some grounding when he threatened to fall out of sync with the world.
“You don’t need to tell them.” Nott whispered after a few minutes, when she seemed sure everyone else was out of earshot. Caleb saw Caduceus’ ear twitch as she spoke, though he didn’t seem seem to react otherwise. “Not everything at least, if you’re not comfortable.”
Caleb considered it, for a moment. Trying to tell a sanitized version of the events that lead to their encounter with Astrid today going the way it did. Somehow, the way he imagined it, that seemed far more dishonest than just lying, and far more irresponsible than not saying anything at all.
These people, in their time together, had more than earned the truth. They deserved to know who it was they were traveling with. What sort of monster they had put their lives in the hands of countless times. He could use a little more brutal honesty.
“I want to.” He told her simply, because it was easier to swallow than the alternating truth, and she gave his arm a little squeeze.
They assembled a campfire. Unsurprisingly, Caduceus began to set up his teapot, and in short order began seeping some of his special teas. Before he knew it, a warm cup was being pressed into his open hand, steam still wafting from the amber-brown brew. It smelled faintly of honeysuckle.
He would miss this.
The others settled into the places around the fire, as Caduceus handed off the last cup to Beau, who simply raised it to him in lieu of thanks. The mood had shifted slightly, Caleb would admit. The apprehension in the air wasn’t quite so oppressive anymore, instead just a patient feeling of waiting. Every once in a while someone would offer up a fragment of a conversation--a compliment to Caduceus on the tea, a thank you to Yasha for healing Fjord while Caduceus and Jester were too far away, a simple question with a simple answer as they waited for Caleb to gather his thoughts.
As the pale wash of dusk faded into the deep dark blue hue of night, and the stars twinkled back into being overhead, the flickering dance of the fire painted them all in alternations of orange and shadow as it sparked and crackled. Before long, without even realizing it, he had drained his cup of tea, though if he was being honest, he didn’t feel any less rattled.
For a few more seconds, he stared into the empty cup, and came to terms with the fact he had run out of time to stall. He placed the cup down on the ground, and he felt the weight of everyone’s attention fall back on him.
He would truly, truly, miss this.
“The woman that we encountered today is named Astrid Volkmaler.” He started with the obvious and easiest. “We ah… We grew up together.”
Silence. He continued.
“Some of you,” He said, and his voice shook just slightly. “Already know what that means, more or less. Nott. Beauregard.”
Nott shifted uncomfortably at his side. Beau simply nodded once in confirmation. He could sense the shifting of eyes along the campfire--wondering why and what they knew.
“But I will admit that I may have, um, left a detail or two out when I told the two of you, for simplicity’s sake.” Caleb forced himself to stay still, instead of fold himself inward like he oh-so desperately wanted to, the weight of his words immediately piling onto his back as the fell from his mouth. “You all probably heard Astrid call me Bren.”
It was largely a rhetorical question, but he let it hang in the open air, in case anyone wanted to ask before he told.
“Did--” Jester started, her tone careful as could be, like dealing with something impossibly fragile with a gentle lie she didn’t quite believe “Do you think she didn’t recognize you, or…?”
“No.” Caleb shook his head. “Bren is--That is, was, my name. Caleb Widogast is a name I took to calling myself a number of months ago, but I was born Bren Aldric Ermendrud.”
The surprise was universal. Though some more subdued than others, others laced with suspicion, Nott and Beau notably with realization as the why clicked into their heads at nearly the same time, and he saw them lock eyes.
Caleb swallowed thickly, his nerve suddenly faltering. This was it.
“Nott,” he said, his voice crumbling at the edges, as he gave in to some of the cowardice that lurked inside him. As he turned to face her, her expression clouded with concern. “Just as before, ja? The same question I asked you before I told you the first time.”
She stared blankly at him for just a moment. But as she connected the dots behind her eyes and the gears all clicked into place, he watched her hesitate for just a moment, before nodding, just once.
A wave of nausea pushed through him, and something in the back of his mind spit a curse on his name. Like a drowning man he’d gladly drag her down into the inky dark once again and somehow she would just let him , and he felt relief uncoil in his gut as she did. He was repulsive.
The others were still staring, still waiting. He took one last deep breath and failed to contain the tremor in his voice as the confession beat down the door of his mouth.
“I am going to tell you all the story of how I murdered my mother and father.”
The looks on their faces as his words sunk in were… indescribably horrible. All the emotions he most expected and worst feared painted in landscape across the faces of the little group he had stupidly started to care so much about. Caleb couldn’t bare to look at their faces for more than just a moment, so he locked his eyes with the glow of the campfire, stared into the flames, and remembered.
“When I was younger…”
Watching Bren Ermendrud was like staring into the sun on a clear summer’s day.
With his orange sunset hair, and his faintly freckled skin, and bright blue eyes, and smile. The way his fingers curled just so along the pages of the hand-me-down books he got on loan from anyone who would bend an ear. How far he would wander into the fields before finally sitting down to read when he was all alone (or at least, he thought he was). How he would sit there for hours, senses blind to anything but the book in his lap.
Eodwulf felt a lot of things about Bren, and none of them quite alike. He held jealousy hand in hand with admiration, tangled together with a bitter longing in his gut and a crushing sadness in his chest.
He really wanted to be Bren’s friend. Maybe then he could see why Bren succeeded in all the ways Eodwulf failed--to set himself apart from the crowd--but Eodwulf could think of no reason someone as radiant and special as Bren would want to be his friend.
Eodwulf was quite sure he was nothing special at all. The evidence of this was insurmountable. Gustav was only seven, two years his junior, and he was already better at math. Morgan was articulate and well read--though not as much as Bren--and their father was already bringing him to the market to learn from other merchants about ledger keeping. Andre could draw beautiful, intricate circles around Eodwulf, and his artistic talent at Eodwulf’s age was already far beyond Eodwulf’s reach, much less now. Annie was powerful--naturally more so than Eodwulf, being nearly 8 years older than him, but when she was nine she was already pulling the occasional swordplay lessons out from off-duty guards who could see her potential with the blade. All of his siblings were excellent in their own unique and wonderful ways, but he was just… Eodwulf. Lost in the crowd.
So, it came as a bit of the shock when the sun looked back at him on that warm summer day, after Eodwulf had made too much noise for even Bren’s singular focus to ignore him, and for the first time, Bren's head snapped up from his book.
“Oh. Hallo!” Bren blinked, and raised his book up just slightly. “Did you want to read it too? It’s in Common, but it’s really good.” He asked with a slight smile, and the warmth of the sun beat down on Eodwulf's face for what felt like the first time ever.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Eodwulf said, half to himself, half to the still-corked bottles of Thistle Branch Dark Blood wine as it sat oh-so-innocently on the cocktail table before him.
Vintage 827 PD . People have killed for less.
The Ivy Hammock, which aside from being a horrible tale of lost potential in the fact that none of the rooms actually appeared to have hammocks in them, was not the nicest inn Eodwulf had stayed at. The decor--white marble with an excess of red-purple draperies and golden vine patterns curling into every nook and cranny--was on the nose for a vineyard country inn, the balcony was on the small side for a two bed suite and, yes, the pillows absolutely could have been fluffier. But what they did have was a fine selection of foods, wines, and they sold bottles of some of the more famous Kamordah vintage directly from the front desk.
Buying a bottle of Thistle Branch was was never a question of would he, it was a question of when would he. Honestly, he should get a medal for the self control he'd displayed insofar.
Astrid… might not agree. He figured that waiting until she got back to open them would probably make her a bit more forgiving about his little impulse buy.
His... 500 gold impulse buy. He’s lucky he brought those platinums with him.
Eodwulf was financially comfortable enough that dropping that amount of money didn’t really bother him. But there was this little part of him, the small part of him who was raised in Blumenthal and had never seen more than 100 gold pieces in one place until he was at Soltryce, that whimpered a little at the cost.
But, really, their actual mission was all said and done at this point--they deserved a little reward! Sure, they had to stay a few more days to finish up some of the official nonsense they’d been here for as a cover, but that little cult of dragon-mask-wearing yahoos they’d been sent to handle had all either unfortunately scampered off or were in varying states of decay at this point. Eodwulf had investigated the paper trail on whoever was financing the group, and found the man who was funneling money into them--some fresh-to-power, wealthy moron who let it get to his head--snuck in, stole his poorly falsified ledgers, put down an illusory script in their place, and left with him none the wiser. His only regret was that he wouldn't get to see the look on the man’s bumbling face when his entire ledger would turn into blank pages of paper overnight in ten days, but by then they’d be long gone back to Rexentrum.
Before then, though, he’d have to wiggle his way out of this little conversation with Astrid. Technically, he had agreed that he was done drinking on missions--pleasure drinking, at least. Some missions simply required him to drink a bit to keep cover, so she couldn’t exactly get on his case over those.
Hopefully the fact that he had bought them to share would make her more agreeable, and that way she could see for herself that he didn’t buy them to get sauced.
He tapped a finger idly against his lips as a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Only Astrid would ever think anyone would buy Thistle Branch to get shitfaced. She just had no appreciation for the finer things in life. At least she could enjoy the cheese board he had gotten from room service--Taleggio was her favorite.
Or, well, she would, if she wasn’t late.
He took another slice off the half-wheel of camembert he still had left, and ate it straight from the serving knife like a man who has long lost control of his life. At this rate, he’d have gone through the entire wheel before she got back and have none left for the Thistle Branch.
He set the serving knife back down and made a silent promise to himself-- no more until Astrid came back. He grabbed the misshapen pile of royal blue fabric he had balled up on the table and haphazardly tossed it to the bed he had claimed, only for it to uncurl midair and flop uselessly to the ground about a foot shy of the bed.
He rolled his eyes, feeling a bone-deep apathy, and made the executive decision to ignore his Assembly Robe for the indefinite future. The thing looked like shit on him anyways.
Something probably came up. Or maybe she caught wind of a new lead to follow--mustn’t be a terribly interesting nor pressing one if that was the case, or she would have found him right away.
But it was giving him more than enough time to stew in his bad decisions. Hopefully she’d see that as punishment enough alone and stow the lecture.
Terribly unlikely, but he could hope.
Or maybe the little errand she’d run had left her in one of her more agreeable moods. Trent wanted her to investigate a possible entrance to the underdark, and if possible, collapse it before they had a repeat of the attack on Felderwin. Sounded like a fairly simple job that would have her either feeling good about her work, or perhaps too tired from blasting a tunnel into smithereens to argue. That happened. Sometimes.
Soft, muffled music carried up from below, where a few B-list bards had been hired to perform for the lounge. Even muffled, he was sure that halfling he saw earlier playing the viol was still off-key. He made a face, slumping in his chair, half wishing that he had brought his own so he could at least passive-aggressively perform in his room to drown out the offending music. Alas.
Eodwulf sighed, throwing his head back to rest along the back of the lounge chair, the base of his ponytail digging uncomfortably into the base of his skull and letting his eyes slip shut. His fingers idly tracing somatic gestures in the air with no power behind them. Minor illusion, Mage hand, Minor illusion, Mage hand, Minor Illusion...
“C’mon Astrid,” He groaned, sitting back up and cutting yet another slice from the camembert, “You’re supposed to be the one giving me shit for being late.”
He paused, looking at the slice of cheese on the serving knife as he brought it to his mouth. He slowly grabbed one of the little toasted bread slices from the cheese plate to spread the cheese on. Technically, that was different from just eating the cheese on it’s own, so it didn’t count, he decided.
The door clicked open.
“Pelor’s balls, finally.” He groused around a mouthful of soft cheese. “Did you forget the room number or something? I’ve been waiting for hours , really.”
He grabbed one of the bottles of Thistle Branch from the table by the neck, a guilty sort of smile finding its way to his face. He heard her approach as he fondly regarded the label on the bottle. “Now, before you say anything, I haven’t even opened them yet, and, Astrid, c’mon, it’s Thistle Branch Dark Blood 827 vintage !”
“Eodwulf.” Astrid said, but he held up a hand.
“Now, I know, I know what you’re going to say, and yeah, I promised that I wouldn’t do anymore fun drinking during missions-- but technically our mission was that cult nonsense, and the political shit is just a cover mission, so we’re kind of basically done here. Besides, I’m hardly going to be drinking--”
“Eodwulf--”
“ And I ordered a cheese platter to go with it!” He set down the bottle of wine and picked up the cheese platter to present to her, “It even has Taleggio, which I’ve heard is just excellent with--”
He stopped short, taking a good look at her face for the first time, and realized the air in the room had cracked into life with the tang of ozone--probably ever since she had entered the room. Her eyes were just a bit wide, and her mouth parted just barely like it did when she was struggling to find her words. There was a smudge of ash across her brow, and her blonde hair was frizzled and sticking out in places like it might on a dry summer’s day. He glanced down and realized her clothes were slightly singed. One of the sleeves of her robes was stained plum with blood.
She’d gotten into a fight.
“What happened?” He asked, feeling suddenly tense, and a bit grateful he had the good judgement to not start drinking without her. “Are you okay?”
Her mouth opened just a bit wider, as she continued to stare at him, wide eyed for just a moment longer, before blinking and shaking her head, looking lost and messy. He felt tension coil in his gut.
“I saw Bren.” She said, and brought the world to a lurching halt.
The tension in his body broke, everything suddenly going slack. The cheese platter slipped through his fingers and fell to the floor with a dull, hollow sounding clatter as an old, half buried icy void was excavated in his chest.
It should almost seem like a joke. If it were anyone else, he’d think it was a joke. But Astrid never joked about Bren. They had barely talked about Bren for the past few years, and when they did it was never anything less than somber--though sometimes nostalgic and fond--and never, ever would she ever joke about something so cruel.
Just his name could sting sometimes, even after all these years. It brought to mind so many things for the both of them. Scraped knees leaning over the most basic of magical training books. Tiny tongues of fire sprouting from a child’s fingertips to the sound of gasps and pearls of laughter. A brilliant young man in apprentice robes, just the smallest bit frightening and enviable in his ease with training both magical and practical. The cries of someone breaking down out in confused, heartbreaking agony as embers rained down around them in the Zemni Fields, and the unintelligible shell of a man that was left behind. All the memories, wrapped in brambles and dragged carelessly out of the dark, raking across their hearts as each one came to mind.
A painfully undignified noise was strangled from his throat in an attempt to form words. He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry as a bone, and painfully unwieldy, and tried to speak again. What came out was no more dignified in how painfully pathetic it sounded, but at least it was a word.
“Wh... What?” he asked, his voice quivering as his stomach twisted and his chest tightened and squeezed with sickening alternation of hope and dread. “You--you saw him?”
Astrid took a deep breath, as if bracing herself to say something, but after a moment of dead air, her mouth clamped shut, teeth grinding, and she simply nodded.
Eodwulf made another choking noise, and then all but launched himself out of the lounge chair and onto his feet.
“Where--how--what did--when--” A hundred questions all tried to scramble out of his throat at once and he rushed up to meet Astrid, who took a careful half step backwards and raised a hand to bring Eodwulf to a screeching halt just a few feet away, his arms gesticulating helplessly in the air in front of him in lieu of contact, and all of his questions crashing into each other, and forcing him to choose just one to pull from the wreckage.
“Is he okay?” He asked, which was a woefully inadequate question in so many ways.
Astrid opened her mouth to speak again, but once again, no noise came out. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, only to open again moments later a few times.
“Astrid, Is he okay?” He repeated in Zemnian. The frustration on her face cleared, but only slightly.
She snorted, shaking her head. " That's a fucking question, alright, " she spat back in Zemnian, tension coiling tighter as she started to pace. " I don't know . It's. He's--I don't know , " she said, " It's bad and I--fuck! "
“ Okay, ah, ” Eodwulf winced, his chest tightening. Pacing was never a good sign with Astrid, especially when she was having trouble getting her words across. “ Okay is--Is he safe? Or is he lucid or still…? ”
“ No, he--” She shook her head, and then lifted a hand to tug just lightly at a loose lock of hair and pulled her arms close to her chest as possible. “ Wulf he’s--just look ! ” she sighed roughly in frustration once, gesturing at her robes, where the burn marks and the blood stains.
The cold feeling in his chest spread like frost along a window pane into his gut.
“ I--” Eodwulf shook his head, swallowing the heavy sensation in his throat, “ were the two of you attacked, was he taken? Astrid please tell me just what--”
“He fucking attacked me Eodwulf!” she snapped, her voice jumping up to a shout and her arm lashing out in rebuke.
Eodwulf blinked, and slowly, his hands fell slack to his sides. Astrid’s eyes were shining and he could feel something cold reaching up his throat as the gears in his head slipped out of sync, catching on each other as they tried and failed to process what she just said.
“ No, ” He said, shaking his head just slightly, straightening. “ No, no, Astrid, no, Bren would never-- ”
“ What-- What the fuck would you call this then?” She pointed at the smear of soot along her face, which upon closer inspection had red, raw skin just underneath it. “ Or this, or these or any of these shitty burns on my shitty robe--” she pointed at various burn marks along the sleeves and one particular one near her midsection that had been nearly burned through “if it wasn’t enchanted it would be a hell lot fucking more than singed.”
“There must be… ” Eodwulf started to say, but then glanced away, trying to crush the surge of overprotectiveness in his chest, “Astrid, you know he’s not well, he might not have recognized you... ”
Astrid scoffed venomously. “He called me Astrid! Gods, he tried to weasel his fucking way out-- out of-- ”
“You must have misunderstood--” Eodwulf said, shaking his head, and raised his hands up to her just slightly.
“Misunder--!” Astrid made a cut-off, choking sort of noise in the back of her throat, and glared at him, eyes wide. “He’s a--he’s--I found him just… standing there around half a dozen crownsguard corpses, and some dead crick, with a bunch of his new fucking friends--who shot at me! ” She flicked a hand towards her blood stained sleeve, which he now realized was not even dried, but instead still wet with blood. “ What’s there to not get? If he hadn’t gotten away he’d be under--”
“You let him get away ?! ” Eodwulf said, his voice straining just slightly as he took a step closer.
“ I was outnumbered, he--“ Astrid tensed, but stood her ground, fisting balling at her side and her lip curled halfway into a snarl. “ He, he put up a wall of fire between us and then everything went dark and… It was seven on fucking one Eodwulf, did you want me to--”
“No! No, I…” Eodwulf started to say but his voice died out in a grunt and he ran a hand roughly through his hair, looking down at the ground, his head pounding and swirling.
This couldn’t be happening. Something had to be wrong here. Astrid had to have misunderstood, Bren would--the Bren he remembered would never do something like that without a reason, there had to be some sort of explanation.
He glanced back up at Astrid, who was still tensed like a wound coil ready to spring, the air around her feeling like it was charged with static and her face screwed up uncomfortably. Her clothing was singed and her hair in unnatural tangles. He glanced back at the ground where a few drops of blood from her injured arm had fallen.
He wasn’t exactly being fair. He sighed, and took a step back out of her space.
“ I’m sorry, I…” He started to say, but the words died somewhere in his throat, and he rubbed his hand roughly down his face. “You’re hurt. I’m… “ His hands padded at his pockets, turning up empty. “ I think I have a healing elixir leftover from yesterday that’s still good for a while longer , let me just… ”
Numbly, he stumbled away from her and bent down to grab his his robe, fumbling with the fabric until his fingers found the smooth surface of the vial in an interior pocket. He gave it a slight shake and the red liquid inside glimmered slightly.
He sighed heavily, closing his eyes. He could feel something sharp and diseased and awful blooming in his lungs, pushing out the room for air like weeds pushing out flowers in a garden.
He glanced back at Astrid, who had returned to her pacing vigil, looking somehow even more ruffled than she did when she first walked in.
“Here.” He said, holding the vial out to her. “I didn’t prep the spell this morning, so this is all I’ve got. Probably only good for another few minutes, so drink up.”
She nodded, snatching the vial from his hand, and slugging it down. “... Thanks. ” She mumbled, as the raw skin on her face slowly started to fade.
He threw his robe over his shoulder, and folded his arms, backing off for just a moment to lean up against the end of the bed he had claimed for his own. He had already pushed pretty hard when it was clear Astrid was already struggling to find the words--she probably needed a minute to think. That was fine, though--so did he, frankly.
He tried to focus on his breathing and anything but the subject of Bren, which was a stupendous failure. No matter what mental path he tried to lead himself along, they all looped back to memories of him. Happier memories like casting their first cantrips together in the Zemni fields, studying together at the academy, or training under Trent, and worse memories, like visits to the asylum and the faraway look in his eyes, uncaring, unknowing, and constantly terrified.
Killing crownsguard ? Bren would never--no, he always respected the them, and he certainly wasn’t in a state where he could actually kill a trained member of the crownsguard. It had been years now, sure, but… No. Out of the question. Bren would never risk the empire like that, especially not now with the cricks trying to beat down their door.
He didn’t doubt what Astrid saw; she’d always been the most perceptive between the three of them, but that didn’t mean what she saw was the full situation. Bren wouldn’t kill crownsguard-- unless he was either out of his mind, had an extremely good reason, or someone else was forcing his hand.
Each option made him feel a different, brand new, but all utterly intolerable type of sick to his stomach. He pinched the bridge of his nose and screwed his eyes shut. He needed to know more.
“Where did you see him?” He asked with a sigh, dragging his hand roughly down his face.
“Mission.”
“Your mission ?” He asked with a grimace. “ He was in an underdark cave? ”
He could barely make out a nod as she continued her pacing, her eyes distant as she crossed an arm over her chest and brought the other to her mouth to bite at her thumbnail. He scoffed.
“So, what, are we supposed to believe he’s been fucking around in the underdark this entire time or something? Oh, Trent will just adore that one. Maybe he defected to the Krynn?” He laughed under his breath, shaking his head.
Astrid, however, stopped in place and fixed him with a look, her lips pursed like she was holding her tongue over something that neither of them wanted to hear. Eodwulf balked.
“Astrid, no.” He said warningly.
Astrid opened her mouth to speak, only to take in a breath and close it again. Her eyes never left his.
“ Astrid! ”
“Eodwulf he’s a--” She flinched, shaking her head. “He’s dangerous!”
“Astrid that’s absolutely ridiculous, Bren couldn’t possibly hope to do that in his state, he’s not well, and even if he did --”
“Would you--”
“Which he didn’t, he isn’t at fault because he’s--”
Astrid interrupted him with a wordless snarl, and rushed up into his space, grabbing ahold of his arm roughly by his sleeve.
“Eodwulf, it’s been five, fuck, nearly six years?” Astrid snapped between grit teeth, “He killed one of Ikithon’s men when he ran, he attacked me, he’s thrown his lot in with a bunch of fucking traitors ! We’ve--any one of--it’s taken way less for us to, to act when dealing with others! How much more do we fucking need?”
Eodwulf sucked in a harsh breath of air, only for it to sigh back out silently as if someone had reached a hand into his chest and crushed his lungs until they crumpled and withered, because she was right . And one look at her wrought expression told him that she hated it too. As the room grew colder at the thought, and the air filled with the buzz of static leaving him feeling unsteady, he looked away, slumping just slightly.
Bren should never… could never be on the opposite side of the two of them. That’s not how any of this was supposed to be. That’s not why they agreed to take Trent’s private lessons. It felt like a deep, fundamental wrong of the universe--the possibility that he might be staring Bren down on a mission one day--it was like watching the sun sinking back down over the horizon at dawn.
“ Eodwulf .” Astrid said, and her grip on his arm slackened into an apologetic hand on his arm, sliding down towards his hand but ne ver quite making it there, and he realized her eyes were shining, just a bit. "I loved him too, Eodwulf, you know that, but he's a--he's too dangerous, and if he--when he--the next time he crosses our paths, we need to be ready to take him out."
Eodwulf blinked at her, feeling suddenly unsteady as the void that had crawled out of his chest seemed to leech into his limbs and left him feeling numb all over. He swallowed the thick, confused words on his tongue, and ducked his head down.
“ Yeah. ” He mumbled, pulling his arm just out of her reach. “You’re right. ”
She gave him an odd look. Wiith a slight heave of his body, he stood straight, walking away from the bed. Astrid moved aside as he marched straight towards the door like a sleepwalker, pulling his robe from his shoulder, and painfully, deliberately, pulling it on.
“Eodwulf?” He heard her ask from behind him, but he ignored her, continuing his death march to the door until his hand rested gently on the handle. “ Wulf where are you--”
“I’ll be back.” He said simply, easily, schooling his words to sound neutral, like he was just going to pop down to the market to grab some food . “In a few days, maybe. I just… need to do a little thinking.”
“... Please don’t do anything stupid.”
He plastered his best, easiest smile on his face as he turned back to face her, with just the right amount of crinkling along the eyes. “When have I ever done anything stupid?”
She just gave him a look that cut through his words like lightning through the sky, but stayed silent.
He turned back to the door, opened it, and walked away.
He needed to find Bren.
That was the one thought that tugged Eodwulf along the darkening streets of Kamordah as the twilight settled in and the the streetlamps began to light up.
A part of Eodwulf hated to leave Astrid alone like that; but he desperately needed to think, and he’d always been a better thinker while he was on the move. He walked about the thinning crowd of the day; A near even mix of Halflings and Humans in this area, spare the odd elf or dwarf, all dressed in finery as they settled into either home, or tavern or inn for the night. The people gave him a small breath of berth.
There was a slight bonus to his awful Cerberus Assembly robes: People left him well enough alone when he wore them and put on a scowl.
It also kept certain unsavory types in line. Only an idiot pickpocketed a wizard recognized by the assembly.
Focus, Eodwulf. Bren.
Astrid had given him a fair few useful clues about Bren. First, she had seen him at the site of her mission--she’d pointed it out to him earlier in the week when they were moving outside of the city; a fairly obvious cave hewn into the first foothills of the bulk of the Cyrios mountains, just about a mile west from Kamordah’s city limits. He’d have to start there. A part of him itched to head there immediately, but he suppressed it, instead taking a sharp turn down a thin alleyway and away from the main crowd of people, where he continued to walk along the path less traveled.
Second: Bren was with people. Six people to be exact, plus Bren made seven. Not a large group, but not a particularly small one either.
Lastly, whatever little group had Bren in their possession likely didn’t know if they were being pursued; based on what Astrid had said, he’d bet anything they cast a darkness spell on her and then ran before she saw them make their escape. And if they were smart, which he could at least vouch was the case for Bren, they would have to assume that they were still being pursued.
With a group of seven, they’d only have a few options.
The first one was the underdark. Mildly suicidal. Bren would never run from Astrid towards the underdark in his right mind, but Eodwulf wasn’t sure about that. No matter what Astrid said, no matter how lucid he might have seemed , Eodwulf didn’t believe it. Him calling Astrid by her name was hardly an insurmountable piece of evidence to his sanity, especially not when he was attacking Astrid.
The second was Kamordah itself; hoping to be lost in the crowd. But if Astrid was correct in saying this group who had Bren had killed a half-dozen crownsguard, it would be similarly suicidal to go to the city. If Astrid hadn’t already reported the incident with the crownsguard, she would certainly have to soon, so that they could get some more men to hold the possible infiltration point until Astrid can get another look at it.
The third was to push further into the Cyrios mountains, which, while they could be certain Astrid would be unable to pursue, was unlikely without the necessary equipment or magic needed to safely traverse the mountains and all of their perils.
The fourth, and final, was to head south, into the beginning patches of wood that marked the loosest edges of the Cyrengreen forest that hugged along the border of the Cyrios mountains. It was the path of least resistance, for sure. Far easier to scramble a fleeing party into the direction of the nearby woods and get lost in the thicket than it would be to organize impromptu mountaineering or underdark delving.
He stopped. He had wandered through enough alleyways to be considered well outside of the nicer part of the city, where everyone had prying eyes and too much time on their hands. Now was the time he could make his move. He had a scene of a scuffle and a likely direction. He’d worked with less before and came out on top, and that was just for work.
This was personal.
He gripped his arcane focus--a silver ring, inlaid with a deep purple gemstone, and started to mutter a few arcane words, only for them to catch in his throat and tumble to a halt.
Bren was so excited when he learned about this spell from Trent. He went on and on about the possibilities for days whenever they had spare time. Stealth, combat, turning a problem into nothing. He couldn’t wait to be strong enough to cast it.
Eodwulf shook his head. He could be nostalgic later.
With a flick of his wrist and a few arcane words, he cast Polymorph on himself, and felt his whole body shift and twist, until he had taken the form of a giant eagle, and took to the sky.
In his new form, the world widened, his eyes growing sharp as his talons, but his thoughts narrowed. Everything became very simple--though not as much so as it could with other beasts. He just needed to get to the cave Astrid had pointed out, before night fell and his sharp eyes failed him.
Soaring high, feeling the wind catch under his wings, he set off, high above the ground, scanning the city and fields below, just in case he saw any large groups that could be the ones Bren was with, but along the way, he saw no such things.
By the time he spotted the cave, he still had just enough light to spare a quick look around the perimeter for any signs of anything unusual, but nothing caught his eyes. So he descended towards the mouth of the cave, and just before he fluttered to a halt just above the ground, released this spell, and fell the last foot back to the ground back in human form.
He briefly considered starting by going into the cave, but… no, there was nothing there he needed or wanted to see. If Bren had gone into the underdark he would need to change his approach. Eodwulf was many things, but a survivalist was not one of them.
He tried, briefly, to check for any signs of a fleeing party. Footprints leading away from the cave in the dirt perhaps, but there was nothing he could say for certain. Really, everything just looked like compacted dirt, with the occasional indent that might have been a footprint; but hell if he knew.
This was where polymorph got a bit tricky.
The eagle was one thing. Eagles were fairly intelligent animals; he could still do basic reasoning while in their form, understand speech as well, but the animal he needed for this was… not quite so bright. He would need a clear directive in his mind as he cast the spell, or else he was liable to not know what to do and waste the spell slot.
“Follow the freshest, largest collection of scents.” He muttered to himself, trying to impress the directive into his mind. “Stop if you see or hear any humans, and avoid being seen.”
He repeated his directive a few more times aloud before he felt satisfied, and cast Polymorph once again, and the world drained of color and his formed crumpled down, and world of smell erupted into his senses as he took the form of a bloodhound.
He could smell several things.
The stench of rot was coming from the dark cave. It was bad and he didn’t like it. He needed to find more smells.
He caught the trail of one smell. It was fresh but it was only one smell the lead away from the cave. Not what he needed. He kept looking.
Then he found a new smell. It was sour, painful, and dusty, but it mingled together with other smells. Salt, and blood, and wheat, and must, and metal. It lead down into the forest, and he knew that was the path he needed to follow, and so, nose to the ground, treading carefully, he did.
He followed, and followed, and followed, nearly losing trace of the scent more than once, but from how they all tangled together he could always trust one to lead back to the others. The forest grew darker, ever so slightly, but he barely noticed.
Treading the brush took a long time because he had to be quiet, but he didn’t want to lose the scent. He didn’t know how much time had passed by the time the sting of smoke assaulted his nose, and his ears perked up at the sound of quiet murmuring. Human voices. He stopped.
He could still smell the scent coming from the direction of the voices, even under the smoke. It was strong here.
Eodwulf dropped his concentration on the spell, and the world darkened, the scent faded, and the voices slipped from his ears. Instead he was met with only the sound of his own heart hammering in his chest, and the quiet sounds of the forest around him.
He strained his eyes and craned his neck, but the best he could make out was the dull glow of a campfire reflecting on some trees in the distance. He waved his fingers and muttered a few quiet arcane words, and cast Invisibility on himself, before he made his slow, methodical approach.
Creeping along the wood, careful to try his best to avoid stamping among the thickets, he crept a careful path towards the glow of the campfire. This had to be Bren. He had to be here. The little group that was keeping him much have set up camp for the night here, finally satisfied that they weren’t being followed or that they had shaken their trail enough that they couldn’t be found.
As he grew closer, he started to see the silhouettes of several figures along the campfire, huddled together, some of them quite large at that. He could make out a few features of some of them, skin of blue and green, a shock of hair that looked almost… pink. But from what he could see only five of them sat along the campfire and none of them especially looked like Bren. For a moment, defeat started to sprout in his chest, until from the corner of his eye, he saw two more figures, half obscured by shadow that he couldn’t really make out.
So, seven in total then. Hope was quick to uproot the defeat that had tried to bloom in his chest. He let out a careful sigh of relief, and casting one last look at the main group of strangers before quietly circling back off to the other two.
The other two were a bit closer to the edge of the clearing. One was sitting down on a rock while the other stood beside them, a smaller race, but as he crept closer and closer, he realized that it, too, had olive green skin, along with huge ears and bulging yellow eyes. A Goblin.
The other one was harder to get a good look at, as their back was to to the campfire. They were holding their head in their hands, hunched over, their features lost to shadow.
He longed to move closer to try to get a better look-- to confirm the sinking feeling in his gut as fact or fiction, but he couldn’t get much closer without rustling some bushes and giving himself away. He grit his teeth as he watched, the goblin’s hands gripping onto the final person’s arm and a few quiet words being exchanged, followed by something that looked like a nod of agreement from the person.
The goblin scampered back to the main group, and as it did so, the person--the man--lifted his head to watch it go, and half of his face was illuminated by firelight. Tangled orange hair, dirt across his face, a scruffy, unkept beard, eyes so blue he could see them even at this distance in the firelight, and a lost, confused look on his face.
Bren.
Fury swirled in his gut. His eyes flicked back to the goblin as it approached the rest of the camp, and Bren returned to his silent, lonely vigil apart from the rest of the group. Eodwulf forced himself to steady his breathing.
Oh, this ? This, he could work with.