#cinderstorm

A white sky bears down on him. Half-lost snowflakes drift across the cloud-covered sun. His head pounds. The cold air bites his lungs as he takes a deep and steadying breath, and braces himself on both elbows.

They’re by the road. Beau lies face-down in the snow not five feet from him, groaning as she rolls herself over. A sparse forest opens around them, and for miles until the mountainous horizon the trees grow thicker and darker. Caleb closes his eyes. There’s something familiar about this scene, if he could only-

“What. The fuck.”

Caleb’s eyes fly open this time to find Beau’s hand fisted around his scarf, yanking his face close to hers.

“Did you do?”

Caleb moves to bat her hand away, but her grip holds fast. He lets out a frustrated huff, and glares back.

“That device,” he begins. “It manipulates time and space.”

“And you thought it would be a great fuckin’ idea to try it out with no warning and no idea how it works?”

She lets her grip go lax and uses the same hand to shove him back to the ground. Caleb pushes himself back up to his elbows and takes a breath.

“I am aware of how it works.” He brushes the snow from his jacket. The cold has begun to seep through. He should have had the foresight to pick a warmer time of year. “I did not plan on having you along for the ride, that is all.”

“Yeah? Neither did I.”

Caleb squeezes his eyes shut, letting the chill calm his frayed nerves. With a deep breath, he wills his voice steady.

“Poof, I’m gone. The three of you are none the wiser, and then poof, again, I am back with my family. I did not intend to endanger anyone but myself. Would you help me up, please?”

Caleb watches Beau’s back as she turns to make for the road. He sighs, and tugs his boots free of the swiftly-piling snow.

“Well, we are here now, are we not?” He gives a quick look down each direction of the road as he trots up beside her. He remembers this place, but not well enough. They will have to find a local to get their bearings. “I intend to do what I set out to do. If you are willing, I would be grateful for your help. If not, I will meet you in this place when I am finished.”

“So, are you hearing yourself? Like, when you talk?” Beau asks. “Because it sounded to me like you just asked me for help with fixing the bullshit mess you made for us, and then implied you’re perfectly fine with leaving me behind here with no fuckin’ way to get back.”

“It appears it is in your best interests to help me.”

Beau watches him darkly for a long moment, and Caleb begins to wonder whether she’s angry enough to truly fight him. Then, she gives a short nod, and turns back toward the road.

“Fine,” she says. “But you’ve changed, Caleb, and it sucks.”

“Perhaps you did not know me as well as you imagined,” Caleb returns, and he pulls his scarf up over his nose as the two of them set off down the road.

“So,” Beau begins after a long walk in silence. “You kinda disappeared.”

Caleb keeps his eyes on the road ahead. It’s coming back to him, bit by bit. They’re not far from Shady Creek Run, he thinks - he has never seen it in winter, but the paths and the mountains are the same.

“Ja, well, we went our separate ways.”

“Yeah, but nobody else dropped off the face of Exandria.”

He catches her sneaking a glance from the corner of her eye, and then: “What happened with Nott?”

Caleb’s throat tightens.

“We had a disagreement.”

It isn’t a lie, exactly.

“Was it about how you’ve turned into a dick?”

“More or less.”

Not a lie, either.

“You think she’d be happy to know you’re putting everyone at risk for the sake of--”

“You know, I did not mind waking in silence, Beauregard.”

She doesn’t bother hiding the glare she shoots him this time. Caleb dutifully watches the road ahead.

As the sun begins to ease toward the mountains, finally, a tiny, wagon-shaped dot appears on the road ahead. The two of them exchange a look. Caleb straightens his coat.

“I will do the talking,” he says.

Beau raises an eyebrow, but lets him take the lead as they continue on. The wagon wobbles slowly closer until Caleb can make out the couple at the reigns. He raises a hand and smoothes down his hair. With any luck, the snow has helped a bit with the matting.

“Guten abend,” he calls when they’re close enough.

With a careful smile, the woman pulls at the reigns until the horses ease to a stop. The man gives him a skeptical once-over, then does the same to Beau. Caleb gives them a polite nod.

“May we trouble you to point us toward the nearest place to rest for a night?”

The two of them exchange a look, then the woman gives him an apologetic smile.

“Sorry, lad. It’s an half day’s ride to the nearest inn. It’ll have to be by the road for you tonight.”

Caleb ignores Beau’s heavy sigh beside him, and dips his head in thanks.

“We have been traveling for quite a while; it won’t be a problem. But, you know, a lot of time has passed - would you be so kind as to inform us of the date?”

“Eighteenth,” the man calls back.

“Of Duscar?”

The woman lets out a hesitant laugh.

“Quite a while, indeed. We’re well into Horisal, dear.”

“What year?” Beau asks before he can stop her.

The two travelers exchange a confused look. Caleb shoots Beau a withering look, and she glares back.

“833,” the woman says at last, and Caleb’s stomach drops.

Eight-thirty-three. Years too late. His mind races. He had concentrated so painfully on the memory of the loss, taken such care to picture their faces in his mind… Beauregard. It must have been her. The only anomaly present in a perfect equation. He takes in a shaky breath of the frigid air, and realizes as the ringing in his ears subsides that the conversation has continued around him.

“The left down the road,” the man is saying. His eyes dart between the two of them nervously, and he’s taken the reins in his hands again.

“Thanks.” Beau tips an imaginary hat. “Safe travels.”

The man nods, and shakes the reins. The wagon lurches to a start again, and Beau pulls her robe tighter around her.

“At least we know where we are, now,” she says. “Kind of.”

She turns back toward Caleb, and stops when she catches sight of his face. Her brows knit in concern.

“What’s up?”

“We are not in the right place.”

“No shit.”

At a sudden thought, Caleb digs into his coat pocket. He comes back up with the device in hand. The heat of his coat has fogged the smooth sides, and he wipes it clear with his sleeve. The same two lights shine back at him.

“This thing,” he says, turning it in his hands, “was meant to bring me back to save my parents. This is too late. They are already…”

He trails off, running a finger along the edge between the two lit sides. Faintly, he feels Beau come up behind him to look over his shoulder.

“So, how did you think it worked?”

“I did not think,” he snaps, taking a step away and turning to face her. “I spent the time focusing on this thing. I am well aware of how it works.”

“And you still fucked it up, huh?”

“Well, you know, I was concentrating pretty well until I was grabbed by a very intrusive asshole.”

Beau squints at him.

“I’m gonna go ahead and ignore the wording you just used there, and just ask if you know how to get us back properly.”

Caleb looks down at the device. The dark sides seem to make the lit ones shine brighter.

“If I am allowed to concentrate,” he says pointedly. "But I came here for a reason, Beauregard. I am not ready to go back, yet."

He slips the device back into his pocket, wishing in the back of his mind that he had thought to commandeer Jester’s bag of holding for the journey.

The road winds them in silence through a long, flat stretch of snow. By dusk, small hills have begun to sprout up on either side, dotted with barren trees. Sunlight gives way to moonlight in a valley of sorts. A perfect place for an ambush. It makes the back of his neck itch.

Beside him, Beau frowns at the trees.

“There’s something about this place that seems…”

She trails off, but Caleb doesn’t need her to finish. He feels it, too. There is something strikingly familiar about the road and its surroundings, though he can’t quite place the reason. They have been in the area before, certainly, but not precisely here. It almost feels as though they have wandered into a place out of a story, heard about but never seen.

“Ja,” he says, and motions for her to keep walking. “We should probably keep moving.”

She gives him a begrudging nod, and the two of them continue down the road. Before they’ve made it five steps, Beau throws up a hand. Caleb stops in his tracks, and Beau cranes her neck toward the side of the road, listening.

“What is it?” he hisses.

She waves a hand for him to be quiet. Caleb slips his hands into his pockets, warming them in case they will need to cast quickly.

The night around them is still. No birds call this deep into winter in this part of Wildemount. The light snowfall around them holds the forest in a muted quiet, and the creaking of the leafless branches in the breeze is the only sound Caleb finds.

And then, the rustling comes again.

Beau points toward the top of the hill off the road to their left. Caleb eases his hands from his pockets and dips two fingers into the pouch of salt at his belt.

Beau points at him, then at the ground where they stand. She jerks a thumb at herself, then points toward the hill. Caleb nods.

Beauregard drops to a crouch and begins to inch off the road. Caleb makes a show of checking the ground around him, in the hopes that anyone who might be watching will see only a man searching for something he's dropped.

Beau is halfway up the hill when the ground at the crest splits open.

Caleb flings the salt in front of him, mage armor springing up around him. Beau stops in her tracks as the snow settles again. They wait. The snowy heap sits ominously as the only evidence of any change.

And then, another shift. Clumps of packed-in snow fly upwards and outwards as something breaks the surface. Caleb makes one cautious step towards tree cover before it dawns on him what he's seeing.

A hand, splayed desperately open, lavender and clawing.

His heart tugs seven different ways at once.

Snow kicks up at her heels as Beauregard breaks into a run. Humbly, Caleb is half aware of his feet carrying him forward, one slow and dragging step at a time.

It cannot be. The odds… Caleb doesn't have to know them to know how astronomically improbable it would be to end up there, on that night of all nights. This is a trick of the light. Some undead thing clawing its way from the ground cast purple in the moonlight.

“Caleb!”

Beau is on her hands and knees - when did she kneel down? - scrabbling at the dirt beneath the snow, face equal parts shock and fear and anger. The ground beneath her tosses up dirt in ripples.

“Caleb, he’s getting in the way. Grab his hand.”

Caleb stares.

Beau gives him an angry grunt, and keeps digging.

“He's gonna fucking suffocate, grab his hand and pull.”

He can't feel his hands.

A second hand breaches the surface, and Beau takes it with a firm squeeze. The hand grasps at hers, pulling until the back of her hand catches against the dirt.

“Caleb, fucking dig!”

“This,” he hears himself say, “is not right.”

Beau reaches up with her free hand and yanks him down by the wrist.

“Grab a hand or grab some dirt, or I'm actually going to kill you, Caleb.”

He looks down. This close, he can see the dip in the ground where the dirt is loose below. He can see the red eye staring back at him from a dark lavender palm. And it is no trick of the light.

Caleb digs both hands into the dirt and shovels.

“I think that’s enough. Grab his other hand. We have to pull him up.”

“You are much stronger--”

“Caleb, grab his hand.”

Together, they haul him from the ground. Naked, wild-eyed, and panting, their quarry sinks to the ground beside them. Beside Caleb, Beau braces herself on her knees and catches her breath.

“What the fuck?” she breathes.

On the ground, haunted red eyes dart frantically around. Caleb looks at anything and everything else, insides twisted into knots.