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“You know,” Caleb said after a pause, not long or short but a normal Caleb pause (and she had been so relieved that the seconds hadn’t added up to a “stressed Caleb pause” or worse an “upset Caleb pause” that she almost missed what he said next) – “It makes a sort of sense I hadn’t seen before.”
“Does it? I mean I thought so but eh goblins and children you know, I just thought – well, maybe I got it wrong.”
Nott wrung her hands. She disliked lying to Caleb but it was true enough that while she may have had past experience with children said children did not include a thirty something human man.
“Well, you know, I had always sort of marveled at the intensity of your care,” Caleb said with a small smile. He seemed to grow awkward once their eyes met and shrugged slightly at Nott’s most recent comment. “I wouldn’t worry about technicalities. I’ve never had a little sister but I indeed once described you as one for lack of any better analogy.”
Nott tugged at one of her bandages as Veth might have a ribbon. She remembered him saying that, of course, it was one of her proudest moments with the Might Nein at the time; for them to hear that Caleb thought of her as close enough to compare to family.
Maybe that was where she had gotten the idea. When the others had started talking of trust and protection as if she owed them something she had wanted to lash out but they hadn’t been entirely wrong. Caleb and she were separate – distinguished from the rest of the Nein (and how quickly they had forgotten the origin of that name) and she wanted trust, yes, but mostly she did not want them to forget that.
Still it wouldn’t do to cause Caleb trouble just because of her poor people skills.
“Hey,” she said suddenly with a small cackle meant to lighten the mood, “that’s funny isn’t it? I can’t be both your parent and your little sister! No wonder Fjord looked so confused.”
“I suppose not.” Caleb shut the book he had been failing to pay attention to all conversation and gestured for Frumpkin to join him. The fey cat rolled over playfully in response but stayed curled up on the floor so that Caleb had to reach over in order and pull him into his lap.
Nott kicked her legs over the side of the bed as Caleb looked up at her, considering, hands in Frumpkin’s scruff.
“But it isn’t as if we really expected these people to understand us, ja? A little confusion can be good, really, keeps people from making assumptions.”
Nott drew her legs up onto the bed once one of Frumpkin’s paws (those claws could come out faster than any crossbow bolt, mark her words) got alarmingly close and thought about that. Caleb was right as usual. It was enough they were considered part of the Mighty Nein and the group had grudgingly started to accept them eccentricities and all. True, they did not always see eye to eye but if anything maybe the idea that Nott was trying to provide for her child would let them get away with more.
And the longer she thought about it Nott thought that it really wasn’t wrong. From the moment the two of them had gotten out of that cell and she had looked up into Caleb’s grime-smeared face she had thought “this one needs keeping”. It was only later that Nott realized Caleb could do more than keep her in return – that he could really, truly help her.
(But even then, even with all the power at his disposal, Caleb continued to be alarmingly vulnerable at times. Like he was still that same boy trapped in a cell and nonspeaking for days on end).
They had the group now, and it was a comfort that there were enough people here to keep Caleb both preoccupied and safe. As thankful as she was to Molly for taking care of Caleb in the chaos of the Manticore fight her chest still burned with anger that he had forced her to voice the thoughts she hadn’t even managed to speak to Caleb yet.
(Maybe now, she thought, remembering Jester’s cry of delight as Nott had called Caleb her boy. Maybe now the questions would stop.)
Looking back at Caleb who was still cradling Frumpkin, awaiting her answer, she wondered for a moment if maybe he knew what she wanted or at least suspected. Her gaze shifted to his spell book laid out before him on the ground and then back to his face. He’d kept it too clean lately, she thought absentmindedly.
“Yeah, sure. I guess I just don’t want there to be any confusion between us.”
Caleb stopped scratching under Frumpkin’s chin at that. The cat pawed at his face in return, and not receiving the immediate response he wanted, dug his claws into Caleb’s shoulder and wrapping himself around the wizard’s neck settled down for sleep.
“What do you mean?”
(She didn’t know what she meant).
“I mean – just, you know, if they think we’re family, yeah, cool. But we’re also… I mean we’re more partners, right? Or something.”
“Or something,” Caleb agreed, moving closer so that his back now rested against the bed, neck craned so his face was still turned in her direction.
The problem was they had been Caleb-and-Nott for so long. Just Caleb-and-Nott that she had never really given herself leave to think what that meant in the wider world. At first, when their heist planning only went as far as one town to the next, she had wondered how long she would be useful to him or when he would leave.
She still wondered those things. After all, she was a goblin, and he was a talented man growing more and more talented by the day. Sooner or later he would leave for bigger and better things and she just had to hope she could extract a promise from him before then.
But his recent trust and confidence in her had tempered such thoughts, and she had started thinking of it again; what they meant, if anything.
“You know,” Nott said, chin resting on one hand as she looked down to meet Caleb’s gaze, “when we first got out of that prison, when you first started teaching me magic, I had half a mind you were, er, interested in me.”
(That was when being in the company of a talented human man, when eating and sleeping and living once more had briefly led her to forget what she really was. Each time she mastered a spell and Caleb spun her around in his excitement, uttering bright words in a foreign but human language she felt a little like Veth again).
(But she wasn’t Veth and each time she looked down at her hands, capable of making small illusions or not, she remembered and it hurt).
Caleb blinked. “You are quite interesting.”
Nott rolled her eyes and risked giving his head a nudge with one of her feet. Frumpkin flicked a yellow eye open in annoyance and she stared right back. One point to her.
“Caleb! You know that’s not what I mean.”
Caleb gave a chuckle and cracked his shoulders, further disrupting Frumpkin. “I do,” he said, face so open and expectant she could no longer ignore it for her petty games with his feline companion; “what of it?”
And there was the problem. Anyone else would have seen what she was getting at – the ludicrousness of what she had said. She knew for certain Fjord would have laughed, but Caleb just smiled a small but comfortable smile and waited for her to continue.
“It’s ridiculous, is what I’m saying. You were supposed to laugh. I know I did when I finally saw what you were like when actually interacting with a girl who could be interested in you.”
Caleb looked away at that and Nott could just make out the red climbing up his neck. It was a lighter version of the flushed complexion he had developed when Jester had barged into their room at the Leaky Tap declaring it date night with a “special package”.
“Well, ja, it’s been a while since – I mean when we were together we were only ever ducking into alleys, trying to make ends meet. Besides that wasn’t –“ he looked to the door as if one their travelling companions might be behind it right now and sighed, running a hand through his hair before continuing.
“I am not… what I am after does not leave room for such frivolities. I mean, they are all people enjoyable enough to be with but that is all.”
“I was taking the piss,” Nott clarified because she had been mostly; well, that and trying to prove a point that had obviously gotten very lost along the way. She tried again.
“Look, it’s like what you said about making ends meet and all. When I first met you I was expecting a death sentence not because I was a thief but because I was a goblin, and then suddenly there was you talking up how talented I was. And then you and me working together. And well, it was all a bit of a culture shock.”
Frumpkin at this point had had enough of Caleb’s gesturing and stepped up onto the bed, effortlessly brushing past Nott and making a mess of the sheets in order to create a more satisfactory nest.
Caleb turned fully toward Nott then and while still sitting cross legged on the floor put one arm under the other and rested them, head on top, upon the bed. Nott huddled further into herself so that they were roughly eye level.
“I… hmmm, I believe I understand. Culture shock is a good way of putting it, friend. You were not the only one.”
It was an odd thought, being understood – it would have been even as Veth, but sitting here beside Caleb as no one but Nott made it stand out even more sharply as so many things in this life did.
Still, she could tell by the slightly scrunched look to Caleb’s face that he meant it. He was making an effort here and it seemed only fair to do the same so she continued.
“I wondered what you wanted from me for a long time, besides the obvious protection and all. But then I realized – oh probably around the second time I eat Frumpkin that I was, I don’t know, an exception?”
There were quite a few emotions that seemed to come over her friend then but Nott hardly had the time to catalog them all. When he made to open his mouth Nott held out a finger, and self-conscious suddenly, used it to pull on another bandage.
“Look it’s… it’s imperfect but it’s the best way I can put it okay? I guess son or partner works too depending but mostly we’re a couple of oddballs.”
The words ran out around that point. She thought she had covered everything at least, although she had been pretty confident about that before the Jester aside as well.
Caleb’s human face was continuing to make multiple alarming human expressions and she thought maybe just once more she would have to shoot at the heart of it.
“All I’m saying is… you wouldn’t let just anyone eat your cat would you?”
Caleb’s previous scrunchiness went a bit slack at that and he blinked. Nott noticed from her peripheral vision one yellow eye open in her direction but screw the staring contests this was more important.
“I would, uh,” he began, seemingly at a loss. Nott wriggled her eyebrows and he finally huffed an amused laugh, “I would not let just anyway eat Frumkpin, no.”
Nott spread her arms out in excitement, ignoring Frumpkin’s startled meow of protest. “There you go,” she said triumphantly, “exception confirmed!”
“It’s… mmm,” Caleb trailed off again in the way he had when he was thinking in probabilities of twos and threes and more. Nott had appreciated that in their previous exploits and continued to in this new life of theirs just as the rest of the group did but she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it in this instance.
He seemed to be struggling with something, but what, as usual, Nott was unable to ascertain.
“It’s not a bad way of putting it.” He had murmured at the same time Nott jumped back in with the declaration that it wasn’t just an exception on his part either.
Caleb tilted his head, still cradled in his arms. Frumpkin sniffed at the sudden increase in noise in the room and jumped off the bed. Nott took advantage of the lack of fey creature in her presence and crawled down to the end of the bed for her pack.
Caleb was still looking at her when she crawled back up to her prior place.
“Er… what was that?”
“I said,” Nott repeated, gesticulating with her flask, “that staying alongside a squishy human man is an exception on my part too. But I don’t regret it.”
Caleb laughed, and it was less strained this time. Nott continued to wiggle the flask at him and after a final look at his spellbook that Frumpkin had taken up new residence upon he relented and joined her on the bed.
“To exceptions, then,” he said, taking the flask and examining the special filigree she’d asked the Pumats to make for it.
“You know you’re supposed to actually take a drink when you make a toast, Caleb.”
Caleb grimaced but took a larger than average swig despite his hesitance. Nott cackled at the look on his face and the “scheiße” that came with it as he came up for air, choking. Caleb was laughing too then and for the first time Nott thought perhaps she didn’t hate the sound of her own voice so much.
This was alright still. They were alright.