ausgebrannt | IC Inbox

[ There was ridges against his fingertips, curious ridges however he attempted not to focus on it. He did not gape nor did he gawk over such things. Poised, he was poised as he remembered that no one enjoyed being stared at. Not even himself-- but the light of maybe-appreciation that came to Caleb's eyes for a brief second had registered a warmth within him. ]

You will likely not be surprised that I have never been to a tavern before.

[ a note of chagrin came to his voice. ]

Have I overdressed?

[The Zemnian wizard hummed a thoughtful sound.]

I am not shocked, no.

[A bit of a smile as he glanced over to him, eyes traveling up and down the length of him once more. That outfit is... well, Caleb will not easily forget it. But right he's looking because Essek asked a question. That's definitely why.]

Nein. Not at all. But even if you are, do not worry. You are with me, and I am scruffy enough for both of us.

You are not so scruffy as you were when we first met, Caleb Widogast.

[ Even though he did miss the Xhorhas garments on Caleb, the purple on him looked very good-- certainly he had enjoyed the wizard's metamorphosis though to be honest, Essek's eyes had been drawn long before that, to the very first moment ]

Though I could make you some clothing, some lighter weight things for this weather. [ And Essek would not even charge the wizard, of course he would not-- that was called preferential treatment and he had long since understood that he did play favorites. ] I would have to take your measurements, naturally.

That is very true.

[Caleb admits with a laugh. He was still deep in his hobo era when the Nein first arrived in Rosohna. It had been something of a turning point for him in a way, the first start of figuring out who he wanted to be.]

Oh? You would do that?

[Caleb perks right up. He's been making do, but it would be really nice to have some more seasonably appropriate options.]

Jester and Company would never let me live it down if I did not take care of you appropriately.

[ Was that a tease that came from Essek? He tilted his head to the side and glanced over at Caleb's profile, the strong zemnian nose, the freckled skin. A man very much unlike anyone he'd ever encountered in the Dynasty, but handsome for those differences. ]

And if you insist on doing something to pay me back, as I know you will-- perhaps we may investigate this place together, work as a team to infiltrate any mysteries that this Overseer throws our way. [ His palm very lightly patted against the forearm that he had taken ] There is after all no one else I would rather have on my side.

Yes well, that goes for you as well, mm? I would be severely scolded if I let you go uncared for. Of course, I would not forgive myself for it either.

[Caleb teased right back, sneaking a glance over at Essek in turn. Well, he would have insisted on paying him back, so this worked for him.]

I would like that, I... [He stills at those last words, feeling a heat rise in his cheeks. Oh.] Ja, it is the same for me.

[ The lights of the tavern started to rise up in the distance. Good thing too for Essek could feel warmth also flood the cheeks at the answer from Caleb. And how he tried not to feel self-conscious about it, the acceptance of working together as a team while they were here. He wondered if they would remember anything of this.. if they returned.

Essek knew he would like to remember these moments they were sharing. He wanted to remember that perfect afternoon with the setting sun as they exchanged pearls. The laughter and the splashing, and yes even this where they were a little more restrained but with a warm hesitancy-- he did not want to forget this either. ]

Then we shall endeavor to take care of each other so that we do not get scolded, I promise you Caleb that I will take care of you so well that no one shall find fault with it.

[ Well he just said that, didn't he; perhaps he was not aware exactly how it came out sounding. ]

[It was the right choice. Caleb knew that to begin with, but it was made even more certain by the warmth suffusing its way through him now. Even if they were not in this place, caught alone together in a strange and confusing world, well, it would be the right choice.

He hoped they remembered this too, if only for the way that Essek looked in that moment, this tentative playfulness and warmth between them.]

I am sure you will do a better job of it than I have done myself.

[As they approached the tavern, he quickened his step enough so that he could hold the door open for Essek to head inside.]

With the way that you acted in the Genesis Ward, you need someone to take care of you.

[ A faint raise of his brow in surprise at how Caleb quickened his pace to hold open the door. Though another smile, this one softer even as he brought his own hand to tuck some of his rather frizzed locks out of his eyes and started inside; if he wasn't with Caleb then likely he would have cursed his lack of magic. Right now, there was no where that he'd rather be and magic was inconsequential.

Once inside, he stepped quickly toward one of the tables in the corner, off to the side-- he certainly did not want to be at the forefront of everything. There were other people in the tavern gathered to socialize underneath the warm evening, he just did not want attention drawn to the two of them.

Without his magic, he felt ridiculously vulnerable now, he could not pull out a chair with mage hand or prestidigitate his hair back into place. Little things that he took for granted. ]

It is rather amazing how much we rely on magic, us wizards.

[Caleb's eyes widened at those words, feeling heat flush through his face once more.]

I can't imagine what you mean.

[He fully knew what Essek meant, of course. He'd been more than a little distracted at the time. Off task, and he was fortunate it hadn't been worse.

Following Essek to the back table, he was grateful that the other man had chosen a place out of the way, tucked into the back.]

It is, isn't it? It feels a bit like missing a limb, some intrinsic part of myself.

[He took a seat and admitted, quietly.] I feel a bit defenseless. It's daunting.

[ It was also placed in such a way that the two men could see who entered. It was not a defenseless position, for two men for the time being bereft of their magic and their spellbooks, it was the best that they could do. ]

It is very uncomfortable, I have not been this without magic since before the Marble Tomes Conservatory 80 years ago.

[ Once again he realized he was showing his age; he settled down in the chair, crossing one leg over the other. A barmaid was quick to come over and he quickly and quietly ordered a glass of wine, it was barely a blip in the conversation ]</small. When we are wizards, we rather make magic our 'thing' and we build ourselves around that, I suppose it puts things into perspective.

[Caleb murmured a quiet 'the same for me, please' when the barmaid appeared. His attention barely strayed from Essek though, enthralled by the drow as sure as if an enchantment had been cast on him, even if magic was beyond both of them now.

He didn't bother to hold back an amused quirk of his lips.]

And change is very hard for old men, ja, Großvater?

[More seriously, he ducked his head in a nod.] It does at that. But I have seen similar, when Fjord was abruptly cut off from his powers. In the end, I think he was a stronger man for having lived through it. And I think he lived through it by relying on his friends. Perhaps there is a lesson there for both of us.

[ Grandfather, that caused Essek to chuckle though he hid it behind the palm of his hand-- there was little doubt that he was amused, completely and thoroughly. It came in the way that the firelight caught in his eyes for the briefest of moments, illuminating all of the gold flecks there much like a cat's. ]

I am not used to relying on anyone, or I have not.. til you and the Nein.

[ He folds his hands together then, flexing perfectly manicured fingertips hesitantly ] Not even my brother whom I do care for, far more than I have ever for my family. [ Essek knew he was revealing quite a bit now to this man before him but he knew that he trusted him ]

Caleb Widogast, I am not consecuted. [ at least not that he was aware of, he had never underwent formal consecution ] I am a new soul and so I have had to use magic as a mantle of strength-- new souls are not respected, not as much as souls that have come down the line to return to the fold.

[ He thought back to Adeen ] Did you know that when I first met you and the Nein in the Bright Queen's audience chambers, I was engaged to be married?

[That chuckle, hidden or not, had been what Caleb had hoped for. He barely reasoned that he was smiling himself, the expression reaching sky blue eyes and crinkling them at the corners. It was a good look on the drow, to see him at ease enough to laugh. But the Zemnian wizard's expression softens as Essek continues speaking.

This was certainly a display of vulnerability that Caleb had not seen in the other man before. His eyes widened faintly. Even that small piece of knowledge, it explained so much about Essek, about a man who felt the need to wrap himself in power and hold himself apart as something unassailable, untouchable, to push the boundaries of what was possible.

Of choices made that had set so many things into motion.

Caleb reached out to settle his hands atop Essek's.]

I was not used to relying on anyone either, until I met them. They have that effect on people. And you are ours now, Essek Thelyss.

[Ours was safer -- and truer, Caleb conceded to himself -- than mine, so it would have to do for the moment. There was no hiding the surprise on his face at that last piece of information.]

I did not, no. Then you have a fiancé waiting for you back home?

[And why did that make his stomach twist unpleasantly?]

[ It was best to lay this on the table. The weight of Caleb's warm hands, calloused-- was comforting to Essek and he inhaled a bit; perhaps this was the last bit of secrets between them and one that he was going to lay in the palm of Caleb's hands, let him choose what to do with the information ]

My betrothal was arranged; it was to a consecuted soul. A drow whom was previously of Den Thelyss; it was their way to usher the Drow back into the fold, through a marriage. But drow alliances are always complicated.. and political. He was eager to get back to the Den and lost no time in reminding me that the Den was his rightful place and not mine.

[ The wine glasses came, were set down and he cast a single glass to it before he leveled his gaze to the other wizard ]

We are not betrothed anymore as the Den would never allow me to marry a traitor.

[ His voice halted over the next name ]

Adeen Tasithar.

[ He used the beacons to escape a betrothal; but also.. the words that Jester had spoken to Essek about Adeen being a nasty piece of work, and Essek agreeing with her-- that he was something. That made sense too ]

[Caleb was quiet, letting the other man speak. He did not want to interrupt, wanted to know all that Essek wished to tell him. It felt like he was begin given something precious here, in the telling of this piece of the other's life.

Another widening of his eyes as the story concluded with a name he recognized. The one that Essek had set up to take the fall for the missing beacons. A nasty piece of work, he did remember that discussion. Caleb's fingers hand tightened about Essek's hand, even if Caleb himself did not consciously realize he'd done it.]

I cannot pretend to understand Kryn culture. I barely manage Zemnian culture. But... for what it is worth, I believe you deserve far better than to be promised away for politics. New souls, old souls, again that is not something I know. But I do know that you are remarkable. I have never known a sharper, more brilliant mind.

[Or a more achingly flawed heart that wanted to see itself better than it had been. The part of Essek that reminded Caleb far too much of himself, his mistakes.]

[ Essek did not know what he expected however it had not been the squeeze to his hand that was offered so readily and wholly, this was a moment that would happen months later in the other timeline, fraught with burgeoning feelings from two men who were slowly understanding how to work together in a way that allowed for the each other in uncertain lives.

The fact that Caleb offered of himself so readily had the other man moved so irrecovobly; he could not draw his eyes from their hands forming a link and his mind was already tethered to the sound of those words in such a soothing accented voice. ]

I am ashamed now.. that I took advantage of the beacon to rid myself of an unwanted connection but I do not regret it-- if that makes sense, because it freed me of something distasteful, and perhaps it was the only route I could see at the time but.. in retrospect, I could never have been happy with him holding things over my head constantly. I did not love him, and I was 99 percent certain I could never learn that emotion where he was involved.

[ he did not love like he he loved the Nein, and Caleb specifically; oh, how this ginger wizard was precious to him and he lacked the words or the emotional wherewithal to convey it properly ]

There is much I do not know about the nature of love but I have been taught recently that I should expect better for myself where personal relationships are concerned.

[Caleb found he did not like the idea at all, of Essek being bound to such a man who viewed him as a means to an end, who viewed him as lesser simply for the fact of being a new soul. No, he could not begrudge Essek ridding himself of that sentence for crimes that were never crimes to begin with, the crime of simply being born anew and unencumbered by lives previously lived.

His hand remained where it was. Essek had not flinched, had not pulled away, and Caleb felt no need to put any distance between them. It had been a leap in its way. There had been momentary touches before of course, lips to a forehead, heads pressed briefly together, small pieces of something that they had only tentatively begun to build. This touch, lingering as it was, he thought might be the first stone in a foundation.

Rather than squeezing this time, a calloused thumb brushed along the back of a palm.]

You deserve better. You deserve someone who will love you for all that you are, not judge you for what you are not. And you are so many things, Essek.

[And Caleb -- he did not put enough stake in the gods to ask them to help him -- knew so many of those things, fostered those fragile first blossoms of love as they came into flower for each and every one. What a dangerous place to be, a garden growing in a heart that he had long thought was consigned to being no more than a graveyard.]

[ And Essek did not know precisely what he did not deserve because all of his value had been on things that in the long game had never truly mattered to begin with. Value in knowledge, in prestige, in his position and the facade that he carefully cultivated-- for the most part truth except there had always been a part of himself that had longed to be less lonely.

The touch, the finger brush against his palm-- coolness of his palms from the ice magic that flowed through them hit the heat from Caleb's own warmer hands.

And so the touch was comfortable, the warmth a herald to something-- and gardens often times came with the thawing of winter, for that was when the blooms started to grow. It was a thawing and a growing, for each other ]

Have you learned to take your own advice, Caleb Widogast? [ He inclined his head to the side even as he shifted his hand to settle their hands palm to palm with his fingers against a wrist, his other hand reached for his wine glass to pick it up, settling it against his lips ] I have heard stories from Jester about how you do not think you deserve nice things.

[The turn of that hand against his, so that his fingertips rested against that slender wrist, the faint flutter of a pulse beneath his touch. And Caleb knew his own pulse was likely quickened by the moment.

He couldn't hide the surprise on his face at the question. Ah. Well, yes, Jester saw through him by now. He knew that. But he would not have guessed that he would have been a topic to come up between the cleric and Essek.

Stalling, he took his own drink, a long sip before he managed a sheepish lift of his shoulders.]

It is less that I think it so much that it is the unfortunate truth. I am not a good man.

[ Jester was perceptive likely, and knew what was brewing between the two men underneath the surface. Also, she loved to run interference-- it was what she did. She would talk up Caleb because she saw the way that Essek looked at the ginger, just as she attempted to draw attention to the fact that Essek was watching Caleb.

Their cleric of chaos was a wise bean definitely.

By definition, they were holding hands and it felt nice, the weight of fingers and palms-- and Essek only barely wanted to dwell on how intimate that was for wizards; hair for drow and hands for wizards.

Instead he persued this path, setting the glass down as he licked the taste of wine from his lower lip ]

You taught me that venom can be drawn out, and I refuse to believe that no one who cares for their friends so deeply as you do, does not have a mote of goodness in themselves with which to call forth.

[ This time Essek did fix his gaze on Caleb, the wine fortifying on his lips and took another sip, eyes meeting Caleb's over crystal while he waited for what Caleb would say to that. ] You know that you are my example of how I want to start living my life.

[Another sip of his own wine and he looked back to Essek, meeting that gaze with his own. That meant that it would be impossible for Essek to miss the way blue eyes snapped wide as the drow spoke.]

If there is some bit of goodness in me, it is because of them that it is still alive.

[He could have lost himself too easily in his terror and anger and need for revenge, could have let it consume anything that was left of his soul. Instead he'd fallen in with that group of utter misfits and found the new family he knew he did not deserve but that he loved dearly, would give his life for.]

You should have better standards for your examples but... I will try to live up to that expectation. I am trying to be a better man. And I do not want to let you down.

[His fingertips trailed up along the inside of Essek's wrist, a soft but meaningful touch.]

[ Thankfully for Caleb's keen mind, he likely won't even miss the way that a flush crosses over the bridge of Essek's nose and makes the star freckles slightly more prominent; the direct result of a finger brushed casually against wrist, meaningful and he had to take a sip of his wine to clear his throat, eyes darting toward the side though his own fingers twitched ever so slightly against the wrist, inadvertently touching a slender scar there.

Fortifying indeed, the wine slid down and he could feel the warmth pool.

When he spoke, his own voice was only a trifle unsteady but that may be the wine ]

Großvater is quite capable of choosing his examples, young man. [ A tone of voice that was trying to be admonishing but instead only came out as flustered. Did nerd wizard #1 just land a winning blow against nerd wizard #2? ]

[He won't miss it and he will never forget it, because it is a tremendously pretty picture. There's an errant thought of lifting that hand to his lips and following the touch of his fingers with a kiss, but that he knew was a bridge too far. He was already overstepping himself, pushing the boundaries of what he was allowed.

A shiver raced across his skin, a thrill that set a rush through him at the mimicked touch of those lavender fingers along an old scar. With a smile pulling at his lips, he nodded.]

This is true. I should not question my elders when they clearly know better.

[He hesitated though, uncertain.] Though... it would be fairer for you to actually know the truth of me, of the evil I have done, before you did your choosing.

[There was vulnerability in blue eyes as he looked down to his drink.] Would you hear it? The story of who I was before I was Caleb Widogast?

[ The dunamancer had an idea built of little hints here and there; he knew that it involved Volstruckers, had seen it in the Dungeon of Penance. Caleb had seen him at his worst, and Essek was mindful that this was trust in all of it's beautiful simplicity, and gods to see those eyes fall down to the glass made his heart ache in such an undefinable way.

Although he did not know how to offer comfort, still he shifted his hand to twine their fingers together-- instinctively offering that in a gesture that was perhaps more intimate, but also a show of strength and of care. ]

I will hear your story.. [ But he would not be judge and juror, he knew that he was not qualified for that and likewise he did not want to pass judgement on him, and he rather thought that Caleb judged himself more harshly than anyone elee could ]

IC Inbox - Labyrinthum

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Sorry Caleb, he wrote a lot

NEVER BE SORRY

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