#firemourn

THERE'S A SPRING IN THE BOY'S STEP as he walks alongside the man, chattering away. twilight begins to give way to darkness over the road ; no doubt they'll have to stop for the night soon enough, but elmer's energy is unceasing. "i mean, okay — i think those guys are worried about nothing, but i was there for five years && i think i figured it out! i don't think burning lanterns in every corner of your camp is going to keep you safe, or drive away monsters. they don't have to be afraid of the dark, && no sun god is protecting them. but they were so superstitious — i mean, seriously, && it scares them. if believing in some 'lord of daylight' will make them feel better, make them smile, then who am i to judge them for it? i mean, i guess it doesn't really matter what they believe, if it makes them happy." finally out of breath, elmer looks up at caleb inquisitively. "don't you think?"

As she passes the next corner, the hair rises on the back of her arms. Some danger she cannot see, but feels, and so she hides behind a pillar.

Wrong pillar.

The beast above her snarls and hisses, sounding more like bacon popping in a pan than any real animal. It isn’t looking at her, though— she turns— and gasps. Jester steps out of the shadows with relief roiling through her, and catches Caleb’s eye just in time to see his expression change as the spell leaves his hands.

Spiderman Prompts // Accepting!

@firemourn asked: you and i are not so different. / essek!

For all the years he'd lived, for all he'd seen, no one had seen him quite the way the Mighty Nein had. And within their ranks, Caleb Widogast had been the one to reach out, to try to understand him more than any other. Jester had continued to Send him messages, had continued to talk to him, to wear him down with her kindness, but it was Caleb…..who had drawn him in, in a way no one else ever had.

"Is that why you didn't give up on me?" he asks, violet eyes searching blue. It was no secret that they had a special bond: Essek respected and cared for Caleb more than he ever had for anyone else. He had agreed to teach him dunamancy because of that respect, and the more he had gotten to know the other wizard, the more he began to realize there might be more to his feelings.

And that had scared him, and part of him had been glad that they had discovered his terrible secret, because that meant he didn't have to push them away, that they would simply choose not to be around him any more. It would hurt, yes, but less than if he had had to make that choice himself.

Magic is a mysterious thing to him still. It's something he knows secondhand, knowing only what it is to be on the receiving end of such a thing. ( His tongue runs along his bottom lip, where he can still taste the bitter remains of the spell of loathing. )

What was it like to wield such power? Keeping his gaze on @firemourn , he watches the other summon floating lights with a wave of their hand -- and wonders this to himself. The tavern is quiet, sparse of patrons at such an hour. It's easy for him to gather his things and sit across from this stranger.

“It’s just so hard to dooooo, Caleb!” In her passion, Jester adds an emphatic buh to the end of his name. “I mean, I’m not going to— to not use the whole spell, that’s dumb. I might be panicking a little bit at the end, maybe. Sort of.”

yasha's brow furrows in concentration, her mismatched eyes downright scrutinizing caleb's hands as they move through the air. it's a simple gesture he makes, and when paired with just a few words and a pinch of phosphorus, causes those four familiar balls of light to appear and float gently around their heads.

   " okay, okay — um, " she copies him after a moment spent psyching herself up, the movement of her hands a little clumsy and the arcane words spoken a little stilted — and... nothing. the pinch of phosphorus in her calloused palm remains there. damn. for some reason, it's easy enough to make an object light up, but she can't get this to work. weird.