the brave!

ITS HARD TO KEEP LAUGHTER FROM BETRAYING HIS PRANK as satisfaction dawns terror on nott’s face.        her cry of panic?    it rings sweet in his ears with victory.     luckily, the choked sort of muffled noise that does escape adds well to the charade, her skinny goblin arms braced around his middle with desperation. 

he lets her get a few panicked pushes in    —     fjord may actually bruise a little from the force she uses, and he’ll never let her live it down    —   before gasping, lolling his head     (    and most of his body weight      )     back onto her dramatically,  and opening his mouth wide to show the button securely on his tongue.  he blows it deftly onto the floor.

“     nott, you did it, you saved me. and all through the power of friendship.    ”

nott’s skinny, bony arms don’t carry much strength in them, her tiny form not exactly ideal for brute work, but her burning determination and her sense of responsibility for her friend more then makes up for it. she’s not sure what she’s doing wrong, can’t figure out why he hasn’t come to yet, can’t think of anything else to do, and oh gods, when...

not quite a family secret,  he’s often shown visitors of the blooming grove how he makes tea;  the habitual aspects proved calming to an extent.  ‘  i mean,  you just  —  ’  he motions how his hands would be when grinding leaves,  ‘  and then,  ’  drops the pretend leaves into the cupped palm of one hand.  ‘  and then,  add hot water.  then you wait.  ’  he looks over and  smiles,  here.  as though that was explanation enough,  as though the temperature of the water doesn’t matter and some leaves turned more bitter at hotter water temperatures.  how  —  as though the length of time doesn’t matter and it’s often not just something someone feels out.  

‘  if you’d like.  you could watch me next time?  and then i could watch you.  ’

nott carefully watches caduceus’ hand motions, devoutly focuses on them, determined not to miss any secret that might be divulged through all of it. by the end, of course, she realizes that there’s nothing to be found out. like most things involving caduceus: it’s all honesty, as simple as anything else in life (and that’s to say, not at all). 

          he looks down at his nails a little sheepishly. it’s not that he dislikes the idea of painting them, just that— nervous habits are nervous habits. ‘ can you not … paint them like this? ‘ sure, they’re a bit short, but it’s not like he’s eaten them off his fingers.

PERFECTLY STILL, FJORD WATCHES FROM UPSIDE DOWN as the goblin bustles to position herself just right across the room, sizes up her target.    only the barest shake of his shoulders betrays the laughter which sits in his belly. 

as the button is launched, arcs through the air,    somehow impossibly,  perfectly thrown,    fjord     (     through his being deeply impressed      )     has only a split second to react as his mouth clamps shut. his body jolts in his chair as he slips the button under his tongue and clutches his throat, eyes bulging with a choked yelp.

he’s completely fine   ,    but how else to best teach nott a lesson about throwing shit at him   ?

she barely has any time to be proud of herself, of her perfect and diligently practiced aim, barely has a moment to celebrate her victory before everything comes crashing down. her eyes widen as she realizes what’s happening, the wet sounds coming from fjord’s throat, his bulging eyes. 

IT’S EVEN MORE SATISFYING THAN FJORD HAD THOUGHT IT WOULD BE    ,    ignoring nott so entirely.     plink…    a pause.    plink… plink…   a noise of confusion from somewhere else in the tavern as a button goes wide.     plink-plink-plink-plink.

it’s been about a good fifteen buttons hitting the back of his neck and arms with near perfect accuracy and fjord has barely twitched, nott’s eventual screech cutting through the hush and, in his mind, equalling his win this round.

a moment’s consideration passes before fjord tips his head back where he sits, mouth wide open and a smirk playing around the corners of his lips:     “     ari’ght.      s’go.     ”

she’s so surprised to have him addressing her that it takes her a few moments to react, to scramble around for the best possible resting place, considering the angle and their height difference and how fjord will not make this any easier then her already has.

dark places / meme. | @circusglass

even before she was like this, green and spiky and undesirable and not herself, nott-veth got picked on. she was never very special, never too good at anything, other than collecting things that are worthless. collecting baubles and trinkets that are as worthless as she is is not big talent, not something you can make money out of, not something you can make your life about.

no amount of bullying ever got a big reaction from her: when she was teenager, she’d just turn around and try her best at ignoring it, learn to make up her own white noise, go to her happy place (there was no happy place, not even inside her own mind). the other kids thought she was stupid for listening to it instead of running away (maybe she was, maybe she is). at the goblin camp, as a prisoner, there wasn’t much she could do besides bear it.

she knows she carries the insults and the shaming around like an invisible burden, knows that it’s been internalized, knows that having all that shit hurled at her all the time made it true inside her own head. knows that it was true even before everyone around her made it their personal responsibility telling her how no good at all she is. people don’t just make this stuff up for entertainment’s sake; there’s a starting point that is as true as the sky is blue.

she’d like to think that all paths would’ve lead to the same conclusion: that’s she not particularly smart, not particularly charismatic, not particularly dexterous, not particularly brave, not particularly anything.  she doesn’t think that’s made her particularly bitter, or particularly insensitive. she never had many social skills before all the terrible things that happened to her made her. she was always this: the not any good at anything girl. 

the last person she’d expect to defend beau from nott’s good-natured ribbing is molly, but she should’ve seen it coming, she guesses, what with the way he sees her and treats her like a child. you’d think that at some point he’d realize she’s older than beau and older than him, too, probably. that he’d learn that there’s no ill in her heart when she says beau is rude; she knows how mean people can be, she’s suffered it, and she never wants to be on that side of the equation.

shitty horoscopes / meme. | @watrlog

nott doesn’t keep most of the things that she does a secret. not because she likes to be open with others (she doesn’t) but more because she’s no good at keeping secrets. it’s a problem, she knows, and she’s conscious of it even though if she isn’t working that hard to remedy it (the mighty nein have, surprisingly, arrived at a stage of their friendship where not sharing does more harm then good).

nott knows she isn’t a particularly hard mystery to solve even if she isn’t an open book. every secret she’s ever kept either wasn’t hers or was kept out of necessity (even if the necessity was keeping her shame and other people’s judgment at bay). all that’s needed is a bit of curiosity, a bit of interest, a bit of kindness, to make nott spill all of her beans.

               Her eyebrows raise, bottom lip quickly puckering up in a small pout. “Yes, I do!” Sometimes. Not a lot. She’s aware of that, but right now being surrounded by people wounded and bruised is quite possibly not the right time to joke. Still, Jester can’t stay mad for too long, especially not at Nott, so her knuckles crack as she finishes her spell on Yasha, and rushing towards the smaller woman she kneels next to them and takes a deep breath. “Is it just this thing? You didn’t get poisoned or anything else, right? Are you bleeding?”

she deigns to staying quiet this time, yielding to jester’s pout, as she often does (as most people do). she knows how hard the tiefling tries and knows how much she cares and decides to be settled and reassured by that (it’s nice to poke fun at jester, considering how often she does the same to those around her, but some subjects are... touchy, nott knows). she raises her arm, slowly, when the cleric finally comes to her aid. ‘ i don’t think there’s anything else. ’ other then the heavy bruising on her left side, that is. ‘ are you hurt? ’