Work Text:
It all began when he stumbled.
Things were going great until then - they had just come out of an ice-coated chamber most curious, which may have been an Arcane Observatory. They had packed and secured the remains of books they’d found, and had, after a brief rest, followed through a heavy metal door into a long, slightly sloped hallway to continue their daily exploration.
The door had then closed behind them.
They shrugged, decided to deal with it on the way back, and continued walking. Well, Caleb continued walking. Essek continued gliding smoothly a few inches off of the floor, as was his fashion.
...Until he wasn’t.
He felt the drop suddenly, his stomach coming up to meet his throat, his arms flailing outwards in an instinctual attempt to catch something - anything - before the ground said hello.
He did catch something. It was Caleb’s shoulder, and Caleb thankfully (embarrassingly) did not suffer the same surprise flirtation with gravity, and was therefore fully equipped to catch an entire drow in an awkward half-hug before he met an early demise.
It wasn’t as if Essek wasn’t grateful.
It was just frustrating, that’s all.
And it just so happened that it was only the beginning of his extended dance with shame.
🙙
“Anti-magic field?”
“Most likely.”
“Power source at the top?”
“That would make the most sense.”
“And of course, Dispel doesn’t work because--”
“Dispelling requires a magical component of energy to disable the--”
“--the power source, which we are nowhere near.”
“Precisely.”
It’s... the stupidest thing, thinks Essek.
Stairs.
They sigh in tandem, standing side by side, looking up. Looking back at them is a staircase - simple, made of stone, wrapping around a column that presumably stretches the length of what must have at one point been a tower. There are only a dozen steps they can see from here, and the rest spiral out of view. Still, one needs only a smidgen of imagination to guess at how many there may be in total. Thousands, perhaps.
For a moment Essek interrupts his forlorn gaze skyward (stairward) and shifts his attention to the wizard beside him. Caleb is in what Beau would lovingly refer to as his ‘math brain state’. His eyes are unseeing and his lips are moving just a bit, the ghosts of whatever calculations he must be doing to estimate the amount they’d have to climb.
A similar exercise could be undertaken by Essek himself, but he is far more adept at ignoring uncomfortable problems than he is at facing them head on. He knows, of course, that whoever made this tower must have meant for them to go upwards. But beyond that - well, what’s the point of entertaining the possibilities?
It could be any manner of traps - all of them would have to be mechanical of course. Or there could be monsters lurking in the shadows of the stairwell. Given their predicament, things they wouldn’t even know how to identify could be involved...
“No point in guessing,” says Caleb finally, startling Essek out of the downward spiral he didn’t even mean to (but wished he could instead) embark on. “The door behind us is a dead end without magic to unlock it. May as well see what is up there.”
Hesitantly, they begin their ascent.
🙙
The staircase is not wide - each step is no more than 4 feet across. They are longer, wider at the outer rim and narrower closer to the central column. The stone they are carved from is simple, dark gray. There is a hint of moss - not mold, thankfully - growing on the edges, though not much. It is not wet, and there is little chance of slipping.
Because two people cannot fit comfortably side by side they instead make a two-person line. Caleb leads the way; there are two reasons for it.
The first is that he is more sensible and experienced when it comes to non-magical traps. He has worked with Veth long enough, and has seen her fail often enough to know what to look for. He stops often and checks the walls, bends his head down in an attempt to spot wires, and carefully nudges each odd step with his toe to test for movement.
The second reason is that the narrow staircase is not as cold as the wider halls they’d explored before this, and he very quickly decides to remove his coat, revealing his simple burgundy tunic and trousers underneath. The leather on said trousers is dark, worn down into a softness that clings to the contours of his thighs with each succeeding step. It’s a distracting view for the one following, and distractions are all the rage on his monotonous hike up an endless, anti-magic tower.
🙙
There are three reasons.
The third is that with Caleb looking up ahead he hardly has the time to turn around and glance behind him. This means he cannot see the things Essek does not want him to - the beads of sweat collecting on the nape of his neck, the flush on his cheeks, the way he is working to hold back any visible sign of being winded.
And still, even without an audience, Essek grits his teeth. It’s a trained habit - a way to redirect some of the pain without showing any symptoms. A subtle, silent suffering that only weathers his molars as he grinds them together inside his mouth, jaw tense, absorbing every single twinge of pain, discomfort, disapproval, and hiding them away for safekeeping. A Shadowhand never shows his hand and it is this he excels at - a poker face, a well-concealed illusion of poise and grandeur and tolerance.
But today he is unlucky, because there is little that escapes the keen mind of Widogast.
“Are you alright?”
When the question accosts him from above, Essek does not raise his head. He doesn’t want to risk it - doesn’t trust his facial expression as much as he trusts his voice.
“Perfectly. Yourself?”
There’s a brief pause, and Essek curses his earlier decision. He wants to look up, analyze what the wizard is thinking. Instead he chooses to wait for the other to grace him with verbal confirmation. It does come eventually: “I’m fine.”
He does look up at that. And sure enough - Caleb is pristine. Well, as pristine as he typically is, which by Essek’s standards is just a bit rugged. He hasn’t shaved for a few nights, and there is stubble shading his jaw. His scarf is draped only loosely around his shoulders, and his neck is exposed. Essek searches desperately for glints of moisture like a thirsty man crossing the desert - and finds none.
“Great,” he chokes out with far more conviction than he means to. “No traps so far?”
“Seems to be just a very long staircase.”
“Fantastic.”
Caleb eyes him again. It has a measuring quality to it, the kind that would make a lesser elf squirm, but Essek is better than that. He holds himself with poise and grace, and not a hint of strain - his hand braced on the wall notwithstanding.
“Should we keep going, then?”
“Of course.”
“Right,” says Caleb, and turns slowly back to their climb. His gaze catches like a door on a spring, slowing down right before he finally takes his attention away from the drow. “Right...”
He does not look entirely convinced but he does not press, and for that small kindness Essek is grateful.
🙙
“I keep wondering,” Caleb says what feels like eons later, but must only be a few minutes. “What this was originally built for.”
“Hm?” intones Essek mildly in between carefully masked inhales.
“I see no traps,” Caleb elaborates. “No signs of wear or heavy use. This tower seems to be relatively untouched, with hardly any purpose to it at all.”
“Indeed,” mutters Essek, as loudly as he dares without giving away the wheeze of his voice.
“The addition of the anti-magic field would suggest a sort of utility... perhaps something having to do with arcane experiments. An insulation or...” Caleb trails off for a moment, and then clears his throat. “What do you think?”
Essek bows his head, fighting the burning in his ribcage. “Torture,” he bites out.
“Sorry?”
“I said--” Essek catches himself gasping too harshly to finish the sentence. His foot lifts for what must be the millionth time, heaving his laden body another degree up in latitude. “--Torture.”
Caleb stops again, and Essek nearly runs into him - well, into one part of him - but catches himself at the last moment, swaying dangerously forward and then back before grabbing for the wall again.
He keeps his eyes closed, concentrating on his breathing - concentrating on keeping it at a feigned, deep rhythm that would not betray the thrumming horse-race tempo of his heart. He is afraid for a moment that Caleb might hear it and see right through him, and that thought is enough to force him to look at the human again.
Widogast stares back, facial expression a curious mix of concern and bemusement.
“Maybe we should rest,” he offers. “We’ve been going up for... a while.”
“Hours, it seems like,” Essek says.
“It has been 23 minutes, my friend.”
Essek’s eyes narrow. Embarrassment and anger in equal measure pour into the spaces between his ears and he squares his shoulders, stands up straight again. “In that case we should keep going,” he announces.
“You’re not tired?”
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Essek reaches up to adjust his coat, which has been falling askew. He flips his hair out of his face and strides forward, brushing past Caleb and taking the lead.
He hopes the spite alone will be enough to carry him through to the end of this.
🙙
It isn’t.
🙙
It isn’t even enough to carry him through the next five minutes, in fact. He tries to mitigate the slow and inevitable demise of the brave pace he’d set to prove a point - sometimes he pauses, and pantomimes checking for traps. Sometimes, when his body feels like it’s about to careen forward, he takes a knee and makes a show of inspecting the stones beneath them, as if he had noticed something amiss.
It’s a useless charade and he knows it, but he has committed to the bit now and it seems more humiliating to stop.
At the six minute mark his ankle gives out and he almost topples forward. There’s a brief moment of panic and an instinct to snap himself into the air using magic. Instead, he does neither and manages to re-balance his lanky elf body into an upright position and focuses the remainder of his energy on making a show of looking down, as if he’d tripped on something.
It is then that Caleb speaks:
“Can we take a break? I think I need a rest.”
Essek pauses, collects himself a bit, and replies in his best imitation of not-panting-for-air: “If you insist.”
He doesn’t bother masking the voracity with which he collapses on the nearest available step. A few feet below him Caleb does the same, sitting down on his coat and pulling out a water skin. He drinks from it, and then offers it to Essek who gratefully takes a sip without even once thinking of the strange casualness with which humans treat these intimate gestures. Sharing drink would be something only a couple would do in Rosohna, and yet here he is--
Well, anyway. He doesn’t think about it.
“How much longer to the top, do you think?” Caleb asks. There is not a hint of breathlessness in his tone, and his chest isn’t rising and falling as fast as Essek’s own. The drow tries to school it into behaving, but finds his rib cage tightening painfully instead as it fights for its right to oxygen.
“It can’t be... much longer,” he chokes out. He feels himself flush in shame again - surely his windedness was obvious this time - but the wizard seems to not have noticed, or is at least pretending to be politely oblivious. “How many feet have we gone up?”
“Two hundred, nearing three.” Caleb glances down, brows pulled down with some sort of heavy thought Essek is not privy to. “Even in all our travels with the Nein, I have never seen such a stubborn tower.”
“Surely you’ve faced worse,” Essek counters. “The Barbed Fields?”
“We crossed it atop Moorbounder; it was hardly a bother to us. And it was not at an incline. Rather comfortable travel, comparatively.”
“I watched you trek into the jungle on more than one occasion,” Essek argues. “And that terrain certainly rivaled the safety of a staircase. You are... strong.” He stares intensely at the moss-painted wall across the way, careful not to let his gaze wander.
“ Ja ,” Caleb chuckles. “For a mage. Compared to Yasha or Beau or Jester, or any of them, I am a beanpole... but I suppose I can see your point.” He laughs again quietly to himself. “Among our stock I imagine I must come off as a bit of a brute.”
“A barbarian among wizards,” Essek confirms. “Not many of us can boast such feats of strength as... being able to climb stairs unassisted,” A smile now tugs at the corner of his mouth as well. “I am... equally guilty of this, I admit.”
When he looks down, Caleb is watching him. It’s piercing - or maybe that’s just Essek’s imagination. He always feels pinned by the human’s gaze in a way that feels too intimate to be ascribed intent. He is simply observant, but there is an intensity to the way his eyes zero in on a spot - the folds of Essek’s cloak, the knee where his hands are folded - his boots.
He’s still staring at his boots when he speaks.
“On that note, I am surprised that you are able to walk at all. With how much you float around, I mean.”
The drow’s dark skin hides most of the color, but some blood still rushes to his cheeks, heating his face up. “I know how to walk. And I do walk. It’s just... less comfortable.”
“I cannot imagine why.”
“Floating over uneven terrain frees up my concentration for tasks that would otherwise be interrupted by steps or--”
“Not that,” Caleb says. “I am talking about these. They barely look functional.” And with that, he reaches out and taps the toe of Essek’s boot playfully, like a cat batting at a toy.
Essek is too surprised by the motion to properly school his wince into a neutral expression in time. More shamefully, a poorly-suppressed grunt of pain escapes him half a second later.
They both freeze. The staircase is silent, save for a distant echo of Essek’s own shame.
“ Natürlich ,” Caleb mutters to himself, and glances up to meet the other’s gaze again, this time with disapproval. “These are very fancy, but they are not for walking, are they? I imagine there is very little support or padding.”
“They were... very expensive,” Essek defends, and then deflates under the other’s scrutiny. “And may not have been properly worn in yet.”
“And let me guess - your feet are not calloused enough to hold their own against brand new shoes,” Caleb continues, reaching up further and frowning so deeply his eyebrows scrunch down for accent. “Take them off, please.”
“I assure you, that is not necessary,” Essek protests, but his denial crumbles under the other’s troubled gaze. Some ghost of pride attempts to resurrect itself and he actually reaches forward, beginning to undo the laces, holding off on the thought that he can fake his way through this as well. “Look, I’ll show you, I’m perfectly f-- Ah-ahhh, fuck--” His fingers clench as another wave of the pain he’s been trying to keep at bay rushes up his calf. “Alright, they may have gotten a little sore--”
Before he can return to his feigning of bravery, the human’s rougher hands take over the task, undoing the rest of the boot with deft movements that somehow manage to hurt a bit less. There’s a moment - several of them in fact - when Essek attempts to start another sentence and abandons it for lack of anything to say to remedy this awkward moment between the two of them.
He has a hunch that Caleb would ignore him anyway given how intensely he gazes down at the blood-stained foot now pillowed on his knee. The socks - once a light grey with embroidered diamond patterns - are splotched with a dark, wet red. Essek finds himself worrying about the presentation first and the wounds second, and then realizes that keeping his socks clean is probably a very strange priority given their current situation.
In spite of everything, a nervous laugh bubbles out of him, an instinct to smooth things over. “That is, ah, how do you say it-.... Shy-zeh?”
Caleb does not look up. “Yes, precisely.” He huffs out a deep breath and eyes Essek’s other foot, already knowing what he will find there. “You’re in no state to keep walking.”
“A healing potion will fix it,” Essek tries to say, before deflating in realization. “... If it will even work here.”
“I do not think we should risk it,” Caleb replies. He sets Essek’s foot down onto his folded coat a bit too gently for Essek’s liking, and then turns around to his bag, only to realize that their things are now trapped on an inaccessible demiplane thanks to the antimagic field.
A round of quiet Zemnian swearing follows this discovery. Essek watches as the wizard calms, then begins to pat himself down, reaching into various mundane pockets, grabbing whatever he can find and cataloging it. It’s a switch of tracks that is impossible to not appreciate. Caleb is resilient - in more ways than one. Even without magic, he finds resources to use, things to do.
It’s a short lived admiration - as soon as he finds his bandages and begins to try to grab for Essek’s bloodied foot again, a need for dignity returns to the drow twofold.
“That is unnecessary--”
“You have open sores on your foot. If they are not tended to, they can fester and fill with disease--”
“They will not do that immediately. When we get out of here, I can simply take a potion--”
“Your reliance on magic items in the face of a tower designed to bring attention to exactly that befuddles me--”
“It has been brought to my attention,” Essek cuts in, face darkening once more. “But any further light on the subject is unnecessary, I assure you. I am simply thinking ahead. There is pain, yes, but I can push through that, and we have no need to waste our resources. I will simply take care of it once we arrive... wherever it is we’re going.”
Caleb leans back for a moment, his countenance once again shifting in hue. What was once the concerned anger of a parental figure turns into something that almost resembles haughtiness. Essek recognizes each expression like a palette of flavors from a home-cooked meal. All of their friends are reflected in the shine of Caleb’s eyes as he cycles through things he has learned from them - the way Beau quirks her eyebrow, the way Yasha crosses her arms over her chest... and just the hint of a mischievous twinkle in his eye which was most certainly gotten from Jester.
“I am stronger than you.”
It is not a question.
“Very astute,” Essek says, still on edge, knowing that something is coming. “I will not argue, given that I’ve said the very same thing but minutes ago.”
“I trust that you will not. Then you will not argue that I can, if the need arises, simply use force to do what needs to be done.”
Essek feels his heart stutter and begin a new gallop in his chest. This feels wholly unfair - he’s no longer out of breath, he’s not even on his feet. While the betrayal of his own body wrecks him, he tries to think of something to say instead of staring at Caleb like a fool, mouth slightly parted in wait for a witty reply that never comes to fruition. It takes a few moments of effort to close it and remask himself.
“Widogast,” he says finally, holding up a finger in threat. It’s a childish gesture at best - there’s nothing he can do here, not without his spells.
“You know I am right, my friend,” Caleb says, and his next smile is absolutely catlike. “Now, I think short of testing this out the hard way, we should assume I will win any scruffle you attempt, and move on to the next logical thing - wrapping up your feet before they get any worse.”
It’s difficult to convince himself to surrender, although not for the usual reasons. His pride has long left him at this point, its seldom presence purged by the imagery of Caleb holding him down - what were the words? - ah yes. By force.
“Fine,” he mutters, and reaches over to begin undoing the other boot while Caleb works the bandages. “Fine, if that is your ultimatum, I appear to have no choice.”
“You do not,” Caleb agrees far too cheerfully. “And no choice in what happens thereafter which means - I hope - you will follow this logical staircase to its conclusion and allow yourself to be carried.”
Essek’s fingers pause on the laces, and he has to close his eyes and take a deep breath and steady himself. “And why, pray tell, would that be necessary?”
“To not inflict any further damage,” Caleb informs him. It is around this time that he ties off the first bandage - Essek bites back a hiss of pain again - and begins to work on the second foot. “We have no other means of transportation, so I think it would be wise of us to use what little we do have to our advantage.” He is still looking down, fingers working effortlessly at wrapping the back of the ankle, which is seeping blood from being rubbed raw. “You will get a chance to rest while I carry you on my back, and we can continue moving.”
“That is ridiculous,” Essek mutters.
“I have still not heard a ‘no’. Do you have any counter offers? Would you perhaps like to walk barefoot?”
“You’re a fiend, Caleb Widogast.”
“I have learned from the best,” Caleb confirms, and has the audacity to grin at him once more before patting the thoroughly-bandaged foot. “Now, would the esteemed Shadowhand please climb on my back, or do I need to send a special invitation?”
“What if I’m too heavy?” In spite of himself, Essek stands, toes curling lightly against the freezing cold of the stone beneath them.
“I have a strange suspicion you weigh less than Nott did,” Caleb counters. He picks up his coat, ties it back around his waist and turns to the side, reaching his hands down and taking a knee. “Come on.”
“And what if we topple backwards?”
“What a delightful picture that would be.”
“If you get tired? If you twist your ankle--”
“ Eins ,” says Caleb. “ Zwei... ”
Essek chooses a few swearwords in Undercommon that he suspects Caleb has already memorized and takes care to hiss them under his breath to maximize his display of disapproval. His whole body burns with invisible fire that he knows he cannot blame on the man as he leans his upper body onto the other’s back, and gently hikes his legs up over the hips. It is not bad at first - in fact, it is a bit too comfortable.
Then Caleb curls his palms, wide and warm, under his thighs, and stands.
“For fuck’s sake,” Essek mutters, a reproval aimed directly at himself.
“Are you alright?” The wizard’s playful demeanor falls away and his head pivots - not enough to look at Essek straight on (a small blessing) but still enough to convey real concern. “If you are uncomfortable--”
Essek breathes in, forcing himself to relax. “No, no,” he mutters. “It’s fine.”
And it is - because if he had actually been against this, he knows Caleb would have seen that and rescinded his offer. He knows that this is a strange game they have been playing - a game that he began back when he had first visited the Xhorhaus and asked the other to show off his arcane skills.
It’s better than fine, he thinks but does not say.
For a brief moment he allows himself to be selfish, and thanks the tower.
🙙
All this time spent learning the ancient ways of magic, all this time memorizing scrolls deep within the Marble Tomes conservatory, inventing new formulas, breaking ground on ancient secrets of the arcane, researching and rising to the top of the top in Rosohna using any means necessary... and here he is, reduced by an anti-magic staircase to riding like a child on his friend’s back.
He tries to convince himself it’s temporary, but his own hands clinging to Caleb’s wide shoulders seem to not have gotten the memo. There is warmth radiating from the other’s body in ways that he suspects is not normal, even for a human. Perhaps it’s something that innately ties Caleb to the fire magic he seems to have such a knack for. Perhaps it’s something that’s entirely Zemnian in nature, a necessity of living in cold climates, an evolutionary reaction to the chilling winds of the north.
Regardless, it’s welcome now, though Essek would never think to put such words out into the world. Instead he clings, feigning unease and wrestling with his inner beast of an ego.
“You alright?” Caleb asks out of the blue, and the act of the vibrations from the voice alone are enough to startle.
“Yes,” Essek replies. “Yes, perfectly. Why? Is something the matter?”
“You seem...” Caleb pauses - it’s difficult to ascertain why when his face is hidden from view. “...Tense.”
Essek tenses more, and then does his best to appear to be nonchalant before realizing that it’s not something one can accomplish while in his position. “I’m perfectly fine,” he mutters, unafraid of the blush now that at least he’s not at a risk of being seen. “It’s simply not how I expected our day to go, that’s all.”
“Is this...” Another pause. “...setup...” Essek tries to think of what could possibly make the other parse his words so much. Nothing comes to mind. “...Uncomfortable?”
“If you are asking me whether I’m accustomed to being carried like a backpack, the answer is no,” Essek says. After a beat, he adds: “I’m accustomed to carrying myself with magic, but that’s different.”
Caleb barks a laugh, and for a brief moment they sway precariously in a way that forces Essek to tighten the grip of his knees around the other’s waist. He tries hard not to think about it.
“More bumpy, for one,” he adds, just as Caleb hoists them up another step.
There’s a suspicious pause, and then: “I imagine it is... a rougher ride, ja .”
“I’m not complaining.”
Maybe this is the wrong thing to say - Caleb’s hands tighten their grip on his thighs for a brief second, and Essek has to fight to keep his mind from delving into purely hypothetical situations in which a similar sensation might be involved.
“Careful with your phrasing,” Widogast warns, and the fact that his voice is at least an octave lower isn’t helping things. “If... Jester catches you saying such things... she’ll never let you live it down.”
“Thankfully she isn’t here.”
“You underestimate her,” Caleb chuckles, and it sounds strange - almost as if he’s holding something back. “She’s everywhere... everywhere trouble is, really.”
“Oh I believe that much.” Essek smiles despite himself. “That is indeed her specialty, but I daresay that for once, we are safe from her Sendings. This might be the only place in the world where that is true.”
“True,” Caleb says, and takes his time up another two steps before clearing his throat. “Never did learn that spell.”
“What, Sending?” Essek replies. “Oh, it’s trivial, really. I’m actually quite surprised you managed to pass it by. Most wizarding garb sold in Rosohna even comes with the wire that’s required for the material components sewn into the hem of the sleeve. And the somatic parts I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of times.”
“Jester ah... smears them,” Caleb admits.
Essek holds back a disappointed tisk - but really, what could he expect of a Trickster Cleric? Not attention to detail, surely. “It’s the same ones as for Message,” he says, and takes his hand off of the other’s shoulder, stretching it out in front of them, into the periphery. “But when you form the Distance glyph with your forefinger, you stretch it like so--”
Caleb pauses his step, head tilted towards the demonstration.
“-- and then it’s the Verbal to establish the link,” Essek continues, “And last, you push the Focus... Some people prefer to do it two-handed, but if you’re accustomed to it, you can simply do this...” He flourishes his hand a bit, as gracefully as he can under the circumstances. “And then mentally specify a target - think of Jester for example - and then speak.”
The wizard hums. “Describe your current situation in twenty five words or less,” he says. “I do not think it is possible in our circumstance, though,” he adds, and there’s an odd intonation to his voice, a knowing, mischievous lilt. “Not even for the infamous Essek Thelyss.”
It’s a challenge, Essek knows it. And he can rise to it - after all, they’ve already been poking fun at each other all night. And surely Caleb knows he’s humiliated by his weakness, and surely some retribution, however harmless, is deserved.
He clears his throat.
“Hello Jester,” he begins, counting ahead already. “Having a great time in Aeor, currently on top of Caleb.” He ignores the choked sound the other makes, and continues, as casually as possible: “Quite tiring to do these physical activities without magic. Learning a lot.”
He feels shaking, and it takes him a bit to realize that it’s Caleb himself - and his shoulders are trembling with what is clearly barely-contained laughter. His face feels hot - but only a little. After all, it comes on the tailcoats of winning.
“I believe that was twenty five words exactly,” he says, flipping his hair back from his face. “And I don’t know why you’re so surprised. Did you really think you could embarrass me? I’ve spent enough time with all of you, and it takes much more than that to--”
Before he can finish, he’s interrupted - a bit rudely.
“Oh. My. Gosh.”
On instinct, he looks back over his shoulder, because it sounds so close - but by the time his eyes search the empty staircase behind them, he already knows it’s not that.
The voice isn’t out there - it’s coming from his own head.
And it sounds like Jester.
A wave of hot and cold realization hits him all at once. He feels his world tipping, and several things happen simultaneously:
The first is that Jester continues to reply, but he doesn’t hear a single word she says.
The second is that he realizes that he had cast a spell, and it had apparently gone through.
The third is that somewhere beneath him, Caleb gasps out “ Schei --...!” and topples forward as the weight distribution of their arrangement is abruptly upset.
There’s a clatter. Swearing - not in Zemnian this time, but in Undercommon. It takes him a few seconds to realize it’s coming from himself, because it’s mixed in with Jester’s voice in the back of his head half-yelling something to the effect of ‘ --and use protection be saaaafe !’
The first wave of shock recedes, only to be replaced with a secondary wave of embarrassment as his mind races to put all the pieces together. He had been mimicking the spell for Caleb, but he HAD provided every single required component for it to become fully active. He hadn’t felt the strum of magic, but it had clearly worked. Why had it worked ?!
And then he looks to his left, and realizes that Caleb is still laughing.
Essek Thelyss is many things - but a fool he is not. And it doesn’t take him long to grab the pieces of the puzzle and snap them together into a cohesive scene.
“You!” he hisses, finger extended accusingly, face burning.
Caleb rolls over. He’s clutching his side - it’s uncertain if it’s from the chortles wrecking his body or if he has bumped his ribs on the way down - and his face is flushed in what can only be described as absolute delight. With his hair tossed back and his smile supported by that strong jawline, he has never been more handsome.
And Essek has never felt more murderous.
“You knew!!” he chokes out. “You knew the spell would work...! You set me up!”
“I suspected,” Caleb defends, but there’s a twinkle in his eye that makes Essek question that write-off. “I thought... I thought I felt it come back a little while back.”
“A little while back?!” Essek echoes scathingly, sitting up. He lifts his chin, and begins bustling to adjust his coat, which has fallen off of one shoulder. “And you didn’t bother to let me know?”
“We were in the middle of a conversation.”
“And YOU were carrying me!”
Caleb pauses chuckling and sucks in a deep breath. “Ah, yes. I was.”
Maybe it’s the flush of his cheeks, or the sweat on his brow, or maybe it’s the primal, egotistical desperation, but for a brief moment, Essek forgets the humiliation he himself feels and instead grabs at the evidence like a starving man grabbing at bread. “You’re tired !” he says triumphantly.
At this, the wizard does give pause. “Of course,” he replies, and reaches up to run his hand through his hair. “Exhausted, actually. I was struggling to talk because of how hard I was breathing, I thought you had noticed.”
It’s more humiliating to admit that it hadn’t even crossed his mind, so he doesn’t - but the recollection of how much pausing Caleb was doing in between words seems too obvious of a clue in retrospect. And yet Caleb doesn’t seem the least bit concerned to have confessed to this. In fact, he’s casual about it, and still chuckling to himself a bit (the bastard) as he sits up and shakes out his scarf in order to wind it closer to his neck.
As the adrenaline drains, so does Essek’s white-hot energy. It is instead replaced with something much slower and tensile, like the crust forming on top of magma even as heat still courses underneath, just out of sight.
“Why didn’t you set me down?” he asks.
“Hm?” Caleb spares a small glance in his direction, and then returns to his scarf. “What do you mean?”
“I could have floated.”
Caleb huffs a breath - it could be a laugh, or something else. “Ah, well,” he begins, and then stops the sentence altogether. Perhaps it’s a trick of the light, but Essek swears he can see the color of his face darken incrementally. There’s a second for all the options to flit across the drow’s mind in quick succession - all the possibilities, fracturing out into the void. A mirrored desire for closeness? A brief gamble to give an innocent purpose to far less innocent proximity?
The glimpse behind the curtain is brief, because a moment later, the wizard summons back that familiar spark of mischief.
“To tell the truth I... I was always taught to take care of the elderly,” he says.
For a moment their eyes meet, and Essek considers keeping his cool.
Instead, he lifts his hand and casts Hold Person.
Revenge, after all, is much sweeter.
🙙
“Essek, is this really necessary?”
“Isn’t it?” Essek replies, quirking an eyebrow upward. There, the magically-restrained form of one Caleb Widogast is slowly rotating in space as he levitates up through the shaft of the staircase a little ways ahead of Essek. This time, the elf’s feet do not touch the steps as he goes, but instead merely ghost over them. The raw wounds on his heel and toes still smart, and the tight grip of the bandages placed there so carefully by stronger hands is not a memory that will leave him soon - but that is something he has compartmentalized away to consider at a later date.
“I feel as though you have made your point,” Caleb grunts.
“Have I?” Essek asks lightly. “You misunderstand. I merely want to repay the favor. You so valiantly carried me up several flights of stairs--”
“--Only 26 steps, really--”
“A whole twenty six !” Essek smiles serenely and observes as Caleb’s coat, tugged by gravity into an unfortunate angle, flops down over Caleb’s face when he tilts upside down. “It’s an effort worth praising, and I intend to make sure you feel the full extent of my gratitude.”
“I believe I already do,” says the muffled voice. Essek gently flips him back right-side-up. “I feel it intimately.”
“A fascinating choice of words.”
“I choose all my words carefully.” Caleb is briefly sideways, and he blows a strand of copper hair out of his face and flashes a smile.
Essek narrows his eyes and floats, just for a moment, closer. “I trust that you do, Widogast,” he says in a low tone. Caleb’s face blanks for a moment, and the drow celebrates a small victory. There is power here, power in the fact that he can affect the other in the same way the human can affect him. Not all hope is lost for him, at least. He can still take the upper hand, if only in these circumstances. He allows himself a soft smirk and continues: “Because while I acknowledge that your raw strength may well win you some games, there are others where I intend to remain victorious eternally. It is therefore my professional recommendation that you consider all your decisions carefully. Verbal and somatic.”
Caleb is still staring. For a moment, Essek wonders if he’s perhaps gone too far. Their eyes lock - and the human’s lips part, almost as if he is considering something. They are closer now, closer than they have been in a long time.
“I am sorry--” Caleb intones quietly.
Essek’s heart skips a beat, but before he can feel true disappointment, he realizes that the wizard is grinning again, and he can almost see the dominoes falling.
“--Jester,” Caleb continues, talking not to him, but to someone else - someone who had, apparently, messaged him only a few seconds ago. “But I cannot help you right now. Essek is not letting me move. I will let you know when we’re done.”
Two seconds later, when Caleb’s head bonks solidly on the ceiling of the staircase, Essek does not feel a hint of guilt.