#eauregard

somebody convince me to reblog some new memes so @eauregard isn’t forced to send me ancient character prompts

alice doesn’t get scared of a lot of the things people should be afraid of, but she never feels safe. her fears come in a range from heights and flying (which she’s mostly gotten over, by necessity), to drowning (which she hasn’t), to losing loved ones, all the way to the top, which is the reach and losing herself. it’s almost constant. and alice is acutely aware that if she can’t find ways to deal with it, she won’t ever do any good.

bravery is one alice’s highest ideals, which to her means a lot of not letting fear choke her out. as a philosophy it’s not terrible, and alice does a lot of good because of it, i think. but she depends on it to the point of recklessness and to exclusion of actually sitting with her emotions and working through them. let alone talking about them with other people. (fun fact: that kind of intimacy is another deep fear! what the fuck is intimacy!)

( red dead redemption 2 / meme. ) | @eauregard

caleb was nott’s first true friend. it’s a hard pill to swallow but it’s the whole truth. in all of her not-so-glorious nine goblin years of life, she hadn’t had one friend, until the wizard showed up in her life. it’s not that hard to believe, really, considering the creature that she is and the kind of person that she is. no one in her clan had any reason to like her and no one outside her clan had one, either. until caleb, that is.

(she doesn’t really think that caleb has any reason to like her either. she doesn’t understand what makes them click so well. what makes him stick to her but she wouldn’t trade it for anything. their friendship is the most valuable thing in the world to her.)

nott trusts him whole-heartedly. not because he’s smarter then her (even though he is) and not because he is way more capable then her (even though he is). but because he follows through (he doesn’t think so, thinks his word isn’t worth anything (thinks that he isn’t worth anything) but he has proven different every single time). because he’s done so much for her and she’d do everything for him.

there wasn’t much that tethered caleb and nott to the nein in the early days of the group. it’s weird to remember it, now that they’ve spent so much time together and gone through so much. again, it’s a hard pill to swallow but it’s the truth. the only things that connected them to the group was the promise of protection, of shelter, of company (even if it’s bad company). nothing stopped them from leaving other then the burning curiosity to see where this endeavor would take them.

nothing, ever, stops caleb from leaving at the drop of that. of one night being there and the following morning not. nott knows him. she knows he has done that before. in fact, he has asked it of her before, but has never followed through with it in the end. but he always asks. he always makes sure. 

if he ever left, she thought he’d at least ask. that they’d discuss it rationally (or at least try to), like they always do about everything. because she absolutely would join him. she’s loyal to him, before anyone else. she care about him, before anyone else.

caleb’s absence is like a missing limb. in the months spent with the mighty nein, she’d gotten used to not having him by her side all day every day. she learnt not to mind it. she learnt to have her own space and o let him have his. they are not the same person. she had to realize that. but not having him there for an indefinite amount of time (forever?) makes her ache.

(him leaving the mighty nein behind comes as a surprise but it isn’t exactly a shock. the worst of all is him leaving her without a single goodbye. not even a letter left behind.)

(maybe he didn’t want her with him anymore. maybe he decided she was a burden. maybe he decided that her goblin-like tendencies were too much. or maybe she just wasn’t enough. she doesn’t know.)

“he wouldn’t leave. not like that.” beau says, from the edge of nott’s bed.

then where is he?, she thinks but doesn’t say.

you don’t know him, she wants to say but doesn’t. beau doesn’t know caleb, it’s true. not like nott does. not deeply, not intrinsically, not instinctively. she doesn’t care the same way that nott does, like her heart has been ripped out of her chest. but caleb did tell beau about his past. and she did take care of him multiple times before. beau doesn’t like it but she cares, one way or another. beau is the last person nott would expect comfort from, though.

  She’s got the itch again. Which wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, thanksforyourkeensenseofdirectionFjord. Desperate times, desperate measures --- but she’s not really gonna steal from Beau, just because she’s rummaging through her belongings now. Borrowing! Just borrowing. She can give the stuff back any time. Nobody will even notice. Probably.

( shitty horoscopes. / @eauregard. )

          there are nothing but loose ends in caleb’s life. 

          he thinks of astrid and eodwulf, unaware of their fate after clouds and smoke blurred his vision for a number of years. they could be dead, for all he knows, or (even worse) in higher positions of power. maybe they’re rotting in an asylum far, far away. maybe they tried to run, and trent killed them. he doesn’t know. he doesn’t want to know. 

          he thinks of his parents, and how they’re going to be not-dead very soon. how he killed them, the most permanent end to anything, and how he’s going to change it. pluck the fire from their bodies and return them to the life they deserve. 

          he thinks of running, from trent, from what he’s done, from himself. touches the necklace dangling against his collarbone, always hiding him, always making sure nobody can find him. he thinks of trent, alive. of yasha and beau talking to him, right there, right in front of him. of beau’s accusatory ‘ why didn’t you say anything? ‘ 

          he thinks of his powers and how they’re only a means to an end, his friends and how he’s doomed to lose them, and he looks at beau, reaching out a hand. there’s a promise here, he knows that. she wants to help - she wants to murder his demons the way she surely wishes she could kill her own. she’s his friend. somebody to trust.

( dark places / meme. ) | @eauregard

beau is nosy, nott knows now. at first, she‘d assumed she was picking for a fight. that she just couldn’t help herself from it, that it was the only thing she knew, that she was always hunting for it. sniffing for trouble like a bad dog (and beau is, in a way. but she is not nearly as mean as she likes to think or nott herself thought at the beginning). but that’s not it.

beau is inquisitive, is all. curious about everything (as the great detective that she is, nott can relate). the problem is that she gets surmountably upset when she doesn’t get an answer to her questions. nott still doesn’t know how to deal with that, other than let her have it until she gets tired of it. “nothing good, i’d assume.”

          the longer caleb spends time conversing with beauregard, the more he’s sure that she has no idea what basic social skills are. or that they even exist. unfazed by her immediate defensiveness to his understandable question, the wizard reaches for his coat while she’s still throwing words around like fists, and once she’s done, he’s looking at her again.

          ‘ are you planning to break in? ‘ because, if so, he’s definitely going to steal at least one of the many books in that library. he still remembers looking up at the towers of knowledge right in front of his nose the last time they left, and he read through, what, three of them? he doubts beauregard noticed his frustration as she made him leave, but if she did, she’s doing a damn good job of redeeming herself. ‘ i doubt people are allowed inside this time of the day. ‘

@eauregard

( a million little things. / @eauregard. ) 

           ‘ … okay. ‘ caleb is … confused. he’s not sure if that carries across in his speech. even if it would, beauregard recognizing it is a completely different story - sometimes, he’s sure that she doesn’t listen to what people have to say and focuses on the reply she’d pictured in her mind before the conversation even began. she says she can’t not care like it’s something she feels regretful of. and he wouldn’t blame her for it, but why say it to his face?

          she’s refused his attempts to call her a friend in the past, she doesn’t seem to like or understand him a whole lot, there’s threats and light punches at every opportunity, but … there’s clarity in that kind of behaviour. he can handle people not liking him. but people liking him and failing at rejecting those emotions? that doesn’t make sense. why would she care? 

          ‘ you … ‘ he hesitates. there’s no logic in her apologizing, no logic in her admitting those things, and it’s all too muddy for him to understand. the defensiveness bubbles up inside of his chest and caleb averts his gaze, frowns at a spot next to her head.