Chapter Text
5th Unndilar, 838 PD
“Will you do it?” Essek asks, and there’s no judgement in his voice, if only Caleb could hear it past the rushing in his own ears. He’s staring at the circle, at the books, at the potential, and it feels like standing at the top of a waterfall deciding whether to jump, not knowing what’s at the bottom, only that he’s going to hit it hard.
There’s so much potential in this room. Potential. Power. Are the two the same? He could save his parents. He knows it would work. He knows.
Would it be selfish of him? If no one got hurt in the process, would it matter?
“I will help you.”
Essek’s voice breaks through the crescendo of Caleb’s thoughts, and Caleb’s mind grinds to a halt, pivoting in a heartbeat as he remembers that he’s not here alone. No, he’s not alone, as much as he might deserve to be. He thought his road to redemption would be a lonely path of thorns that he would crawl along, even as he knew he could never reach his destination. Instead, Essek plummeted from his high pedestal onto this same road, bruised but not broken by the fall, and in spite of all odds, he and Caleb have picked each other up and continued to trudge onwards, bloodied from their toils and leaning heavily on one another, but making solid progress.
If Caleb throws himself off this cliff, he will drag Essek along with him.
Is he willing to risk Essek’s life, for the sake of pursuing an arcane impossibility to save two people who have been dead for nineteen years? And if he’s not, how can he even consider betraying all his friends by risking himself?
There’s still so much that they don’t know. So much still to learn. It would be the height of hypocrisy to rush the process of altering history, and worse to do it badly and undermine any of the good things that have come about. They can’t rush this. Caleb can’t let his longing for his parents to be his or Essek’s downfall; he has to let them go, for now. He has to accept that, even if they dedicate every waking hour to this research, the necessary breakthroughs may come long after his lifetime. This knowledge is dangerous, after all.
Caleb stares at T-dock. Hugs his arms to his body, and realises that, once again, his parents are going to have to wait.
“No,” he says quietly. “No, not now, maybe not ever. There’s…there’s so much that could go wrong. We should take what research we can and destroy what remains.”
Essek breathes out, revealing that he’d been holding his breath, and his ears dip in relief. “Yes, yes we should. There is a lot here to learn that may be useful for other, less dangerous purposes, but we should not leave it lying around for others to find.”
“Ja, well, if the Cerberus Assembly were willing to go to war for a couple of Beacons, think what they’d do for this,” muses Caleb as he starts picking his way further into the room.
Essek stiffens. “You will recall that I too was perfectly willing to perform such a trade.”
“Of course,” replies Caleb, looking back at him and pausing. “Did you not hear yourself just now, though? Two years ago, you would have leapt at the chance to wipe your guilt from history. You have grown, Essek. Don’t sell yourself short. I trust you not to use this research for ill, just as I hope you trust me.”
Closing his eyes, Essek nods, then meets Caleb’s gaze again. “I hope you are not wrong about either of us, Caleb Widogast.”
22nd Unndilar, 838 PD.
Caleb tugs his scarf down from his face, uncaring about the biting snow whipping around him and Essek as they stand, five hundred feet from the entrance to the Vurmas Outpost, saying goodbye.
Visibility is poor enough that they can’t see the outpost and so far no scouts have seen them, which means they get this single moment of privacy before Caleb teleports back to Rexxentrum and Essek glides back into his post within the Dynasty as if he never left, continuing his research in the north. Neither of them want to go.
“You have everything?” Caleb asks again. “Are you sure you don’t want to take any of my spare components? I can get a lot more in Rexxentrum than you can here.”
“I am sure,” Essek smiles, frost gathering on the end of his nose and around the furred edges of his hood. “I have enough for now, and I can always send for more, or even risk teleporting home. Do not worry about me, Caleb.”
“Nothing you can say will change how much I will worry, Essek,” huffs Caleb, reaching up to pat Essek’s hooded cheek with his gloved hand. “Be safe, bitte. And keep in touch.”
“The first one I will try my best. The second one, I promise.”
“Good.” Caleb smiles. Then, feeling bold, he pulls one mitten off, and with his bare fingers that are rapidly going numb, wraps them around the clasp of Essek’s cloak and pulls the floating elf down into a kiss.
It’s chaste – Eiselcross is too cold for anything else – but Caleb can feel Essek committing this to memory, like a final breath above water before diving below once more. Essek pulls a snow-crusted mitten off to take Caleb’s bare hand and hold it above his heart beneath the cloak, where a modicum of body heat starts to thaw the snowflakes that have already stuck to his knuckles.
“Please don’t freeze your fingers on my account,” requests Essek as they part, each giving only an inch of separation until they’re just able to see each other’s eyes. “Take care as well, Caleb. Pass on my best wishes to the rest of the Mighty Nein when you see them, and…I will miss you.”
“And I you,” Caleb agrees. “This was a good trip.”
Essek chuckles, and Caleb swears the wind loses some of its chill. “Indeed. I look forward to working with you again, Mage Widogast. Now go, or the farewells will become superfluous because we will both be ice statues.”
Caleb laughs, as they both pull on their gloves and take another step back. The biting wind nips at Caleb’s nose again and he pulls his scarf back up.
“Be safe, Thelyss,” Caleb says, meeting Essek’s violet eyes which are squinting against both the snow and the daylight. Leaving feels like the hardest thing he’s done since he got here, and his heart aches so much more than he thought it would – more than he thought it ever could – but it’s now or never, he knows. If he stays for one heartbeat more…
Caleb speaks the arcane words and teleports away, taking exactly half of the T-dock research with him.
30th Sydenstar, 839 PD
(13 months later)
Essek pulls his hood further over his face, wincing away from the burning, angry Marquet sun even as his Xhorhasian clothes – under a careful disguise – do nothing to keep him cool in the blistering heat. He wishes that he could have fled to Nicodranas, or the Blooming Grove – Rexxentrum is out of the question, for obvious reasons – but the Mighty Nein are still in good standing with the Dynasty, and for his own future safety as well as for the Nein and their families, Essek can’t afford to associate himself with them right now. It has only been a week since he abandoned his post; Marquet isn’t too bad, he tells himself. He can live with this. He brought it upon himself, after all.
He’s not floating, so he doesn’t notice at first when he passes into the anti-magic field, doesn’t notice his disguise drop. When Ludinus Da’Leth steps out from around the corner, his first assumption is that he’s hallucinating from the heat.
“My, my. You’re very far from home, Essek of No Den. It seems your Queen is in quite a tizzy trying to find you, while your mother is doing her best to pretend you never existed. Or perhaps you hadn’t heard? News from Xhorhas must be terribly slow here.”
That’s when Essek’s sun-addled mind catches up to his situation and he realises the danger that he’s in. The first words out of his mouth are ancient, laced with power, but they fall flat in the humid Shamal air, and panicked adrenaline sends his heart racing like his wings the time that Caleb turned him into a hummingbird by accident. Those words should have taken him out of here, far away from Da’Leth and his lackeys, who Essek hasn’t seen but knows must be there. Instead, he’s still here, and his magic feels dead at his fingertips.
“Did you think it would be as easy as all that?” Daleth raises an eyebrow. “You have a lot to learn, boy. But I’m here because I think you have something to teach me. Now. Are you going to come quietly, or is this going to hurt?”