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“I really, really am glad this is happening; I don’t like you.”
Wulf only barely manages to remove his longsword from the target’s side in time to spin and parry the half-orc’s blade. As it is, it’s just enough to take only a stinging cut on his arm, and then it’s followed up by a second strike, this one overhand and too strong to parry, so instead he catches it on the flat of his sword, but he’s still thinking about blue eyes saying ‘you could come with us’ and he feels a stabbing pain in his shoulder — fuck!
The man (‘Fjord,’ he remembers, though he does not want to use their names) takes his small victory and steps back. Decent footwork, talented if untrained, but there is something about him — this green-blue divine energy — that seems to guide his steps in a preternatural manner. A holy man. Fuck.
“Well done,” he quips, trying to brush off the thought of blue eyes telling him ‘now’s your chance’ as if ‘chance’ was anything other than a lie devised by powerful men to cast pearls of hope before the common swine.
“You excited?” responds the half-orc with a smirk that is far too charming, lifting his hand and the blue-green energy turns a sickly almost yellow and…
That energy… he recognizes it, but it is neither divine, nor is it arcane in the traditional sense. But he has seen this before, power wielded by dangerous and untrained and desperate: this is eldritch magic. What in the Matron’s name has Bren been consorting with? He feels this foul, alien magic tear something in him open. Not in any damaging sense, no, it doesn’t hurt but it he feels the vulnerability eat through him. Like this man can suddenly see through his armor, can find just where to strike to make it hurt the most. Eadwulf has encountered warlocks before, though rarely, but this sensation always unnerves him. Has the man learned something about him, or has he simply amplified his attacks in some way? Has he weakened his defenses in a way he cannot quite tell? Scheiße, this is too fucking distracting when he needs to focus—
Lightning courses through his opponent’s body, coming from the right, coming from — Bren?
No, no it is arcing over from where Bren’s own form is lying on the ground, twitching from the bolts of electricity that are coursing through him and for a moment, just a moment, he is worried for him. Worried for that clever boy with the red hair and the knowing smirk and the blue eyes. Worried for the man that had walked into the dragon’s lair and said ‘why don’t we get out of here’ as though he were still suggesting skipping Divination or Pre-Divergence History…
I have no choice, he reminds himself. He has never been a leader like Bren or a tactician like Astrid. He is a weapon. A weapon does not have a choice. Bren stops twitching and breathes. The wound is not so bad, it seems.
“I’m starting to feel ignored, here,” says the warlock, and Eadwulf is thankful for the distraction.
His arms pulse and ache with light and it feels good to be a weapon. Good not to choose.
“Caleb. I’m scared.”
“Ja, think how I fucking feel.”
Wulf hears this response, muffled by distance, sees the two wizards glance at each other for half a second and it is barely a heartbeat, but it is enough. Enough to recognize that look. That trapped “I love you and I’m terrified and I don’t know how to protect you and please please stay with me anyway” look all three of them used to get in training.
And all Wulf can do as his blade is crossed with the half-orc brat’s is look between Bren and the drow — a crick, a heathen, a traitor with no true allegiance even to his own country — and murmur in his native tongue:
“Him? Seriously? ”
That fucking half-orc has the gall to laugh at Wulf's outburst (whether he understands Zemnian or not), which is obviously an error as it draws Wulf’s attention once again, allowing him to make another strike. This “Fjord” does not seem to care, hopping deftly backwards out of the arc of the blade.
“Jealous, are you?” Oh he’s one of those sorts. He will use his mockery and charm (and the fact that he looks good with that blade and he clearly fucking knows it) to distract his enemy — just like He used to — and even as Wulf respects it he also feels himself hate him a little more for it. He’s not even certain why.
He doesn’t respond to the jibe. There’s no use in that.
It’s only a moment later that he sees Master Trent Ikithon with the Cobalt Soul woman on his back, her hands clasping some sort of horrid metal collar around his neck. He claws at it, growling something before she grapples with his hands, holding them still…
And Eadwulf sees it.
Fear.
He sees Master Ikithon close his eyes and mumble the verbal components to a spell (Dimension Door, he is casting Dimension Door, the coward is trying to flee) and his fingers twitch as he watches this Fjord person counterspell it with some kind of fucking joke, and he feels eyes on him. Multiple sets.
He does nothing. There is nothing to do.
Ikithon is afraid. Ikithon is fleeing.
Eadwulf does not believe he has ever seen Master Ikithon start a fight he was not absolutely certain he could win. Not in the 17 years he’s known him. Those fights are for his underlings, for the expendable, not for generals and tacticians. Eadwulf himself was lucky to have survived most of his (he had died twice on such missions, but not for too long, thankfully), but he never came to this place thinking that in any way there was a possibility that his teacher — the man who seemed to chart the destiny of the Empire — might not be successful.
It doesn’t make sense.
Ikithon throws another bolt of radiant light from his Crown of Stars and Bren collapses, he falls, seemingly dead, and all Eadwulf can think is that he died so long ago, but maybe he can bring him back, he can call a priest, he can have them resurrect him. But less than two seconds later he is on his hands and knees, just barely conscious, hand outstretched towards their teacher with a snarling grimace.
“It’s time you're knocked off your high horse, old man,” Wulf hears Bren’s voice, the arrogance and humor of it from so long ago but deeper, angrier, older, and he watches as Bren twitches his hand and snaps.
He does nothing. There is nothing to do.
Wulf watches Master Ikithon fall to the ground like a small, mortal creature, the Lionett woman perched atop him like a bird of prey while the others approach like wolves, like sharks, like justice and this… this is… this is real, this is real and it does not make sense.
“Choose wisely,” Fjord sing-songs right next to him. It baffles him how calm this man is. Joking, laughing, smiling, when every immutable fact of the world had just been upended. The universe could collapse any minute, does he not know? An avalanche could appear in the middle of this flat forest, the ground could erupt with the fury of the Betrayer Gods, the seas could fly upward and replace the sky. Everything has changed. Everything.
Eadwulf sheathes his sword. A weapon without a hand to wield it.
He burned a temple.
This should not horrify him. He has done worse things, to be honest. Abominable things, and to people he loves as well. This should not be so upsetting to him.
But the Matron of Ravens had always been his. His one small refuge, the one thing he chose. Who chose him. Even Master Ikithon had respected this, allowed him to spend time at the Temple when there was no pressing mission, and any targets among her clergy were handled by other Volstrucker.
He had done his research before they came here. They had looked into every possible hiding spot they knew of related to the target’s… Bren’s friends, after their flight from Nicodranas: all of the Cobalt Reserves, of course, as well as a winery in Kamordah. An orphanage in Port Damali operated by the Myriad. An Assembly-affiliated shop in Zadash. They had a ship as well, apparently, though it had not been seen in port since the peace talks. The apothecary in Felderwin, though that was already under watch, as was the Lavish Chateau; none of them thought these people would be so foolish as to return, but perhaps their families might. Darktow, was a thought, but that had been something the monk had said in a public space, so they all thought it unlikely. Blumenthal.
He is still very thankful they hadn’t gone to Blumenthal.
The firbolg, Caduceus Clay was known to a few in Shadycreek Run and the surrounding areas, and there were certainly rumors about the temple where he made his home: a garden, flourishing amidst a dying forest, dedicated to a heathen goddess… but also to the Raven Queen… and to another god as well? Too vague. Not enough to even scry on.
Upon realizing the garden was, in truth, a graveyard, it became harder and harder to lie to himself. The Matron’s presence was strong here, even in this place of abundance.
And he had defiled it. Betrayed one of the few parts of himself he had left. All to hurt the targ— to hurt Bren.
He thinks of the shining blue-green color of Fjord’s magic, fading to a darker, unearthly hue. A sick green like infection and bruises and stagnant water turned foul. He thinks of the confidence that shone in the man’s eyes, helping his friends bring down Master Ikithon, helping them put out the fire, helping them…
Offering him the chance to switch sides, even when they had him trapped.
Looking at his friends with such open adoration.
Kissing the tiefling girl even as Trent was there, was right there.
“I think, perhaps, the laws of nature changed while we slept last night,” he whispers to Astrid in the dark that night. He knows she has not found sleep yet.
“Of nature?”
“I don’t know what else it could be.”
“That we were wrong, maybe?”
“Opinions can be wrong, not truths of the world, Astrid. Not facts.”
Eadwulf hears her shuffle behind him, crawling to where he sits on watch. Feels her head press against the nape of his neck. Her small hands on his shoulders. Trent once broke those hands, every bone in them, as a punishment for Wulf’s failure in interrogation training. So he had simply taught himself to not care about her, and Trent found other means of punishment. Eventually he learned to not fail at all. But he still swears he can almost feel the crooked places in those fingers, though they have been healed for over a decade.
“I don’t think there is such a thing as truth. Not in the ‘why’s of things, anyway.”
Eadwulf doesn't understand, but he was never the tactician. Never the leader. He was the weapon. And so he nods, tired. He is so tired. He wonders if this is how Bren feels all the time, if that’s why he looks so exhausted.
“Perhaps I should take the first watch,” she offers, and he shrugs, switching places with her. He did burn a temple today. That sort of blasphemy must take it out of you. And she knows best. She’s used to making choices. He doesn’t do that kind of thing
But as he lies down, Wulf is surprised to hear himself say:
“We should go back to them tomorrow.”
Lionett records their statements individually in private. Astrid goes first. Eadwulf sits outside, gardening. It’s fucking hot out, and at one point he ends up just ladeling water over his head instead of into his mouth, feeling the muscles in his arm stretch oddly as he does so. He does not usually feel these things, does not often notice his body other than to catalog injuries after a fight or to detect poison after he eats or drinks. His whole body feels strange.
He’s in the middle of this when the half… when Fjord approaches.
“We should spar,” he says. He doesn’t look happy about it.
“Hoping you can kill me and call it an accident?” Wulf deadpans.
“We don’t do that sort of thing.”
Eadwulf can tell he isn’t lying, which is extremely frustrating. Still, he takes off his gloves, doffs his jerkin and picks up his sword, moving to a more open area. He paces it, getting a sense for the ground, for the loose stones, for the texture of the dirt. He says a silent prayer to the Matron, respect for the bodies he knows are under his feet, and raises his sword as Fjord approaches, bare-handed.
“If you are not trying to kill me, why then? You could just as well fight your barbarian woman, she’s pretty fucking good, from what I have seen.”
“Caleb said we should.”
Eadwulf doesn’t like that answer. But what he does like is the sight of this half-orc summoning his blade from thin air like a divine gift (and Scheiße that’s attractive, but that is neither here nor there).
“You do what he tells you, then,” Wulf says, half taunt and half question as he settles into stance. “Always was the leader, ja?” Eadwulf brings his blade down for an easy first strike, which Fjord parries before striking back, which Eadwulf knocks away.
“Not really,” Fjord replies, striking out in a only-just-barely telegraphed thrust. “He certainly doesn’t want to be. We all listen to him, of course; he’s brilliant. But I’m sure you know that.”
“Know a lot more than that about him.” Eadwulf smirks, side-stepping the blow.
“Hmmm, have to wonder if you do,” Fjord snarks back at him, voice calm and pensive even as he grips his sword tighter and starts to go in for a stronger attack. “You haven’t really known him for, what, fifteen years? After you abandoned him in an asylum for however long?”
Fucker.
Do not get angry, Eadwulf. Do not.
“And what do you know of him?” Wulf channels his anger into mockery, tongue sweeping across his teeth as he kicks out, sending Fjord off balance before he comes down with an overhand blow that the man only just barely catches. They are face to face now, like in the battle when Fjord fucked up his shoulder, but this time Eadwulf will make him bleed.
“Do you know what his mother was like,” he asks. “Or when he was born? Do you know what his favorite food is? What he sounds like when he screams? Do you know what he looks like when he comes?”
Two shades of green skin both turn a pink-tinged brown and that is just delightful.
“I, uh… urgh, I have a girlfriend,” Fjord says with a grunt as he struggles to hold position against Eadwulf’s blade.
“Yeah, so did we,” he responds, the ‘and?’ left unsaid. His eyes flick down to handsome lips framed by two short tusks — more to bother the man than anything else, but he can admit that those memories do certainly… stir something in him. They always did. That’s why he tried not to think of them.
“Eyes up here, arschloch,” Fjord growls in awkward (but clearly practiced) Zemnian, and Wulf can’t help it: he smiles.
“You know he used to say the same thing when we sparred,” he manages to quip before Fjord finally pushes him back (the man is clearly more dexterous than he is strong, but he’s getting there). “Usually right before he had me fuck him in any nearby closet.”
“Woah woah woah woah,” Fjord puts his hands up at that, sword in the air, and that… is a little unexpected. The backing down so readily. “Look, I think you’re getting the wrong idea here.”
“I have no ideas,” Eadwulf denies. “I am simply telling you truths.”
“Sure, ‘truths’ that are between you and Caleb, man, I don’t want to… you know, invade his privacy like that. I’m not interested.”
Eadwulf suspects that the reaction is more about the flirting than the invasion of privacy, but the man does seem to be earnest in that as well. Still…
“You are this easily distracted from a fight by a little talk?” Eadwulf smirks, shouldering his blade.
“From sparring, yes. Caleb clearly cares about you, this isn’t exactly a high-stakes fight to the death or anything.” Fjord looks almost concerned. Eadwulf doesn’t know what to make of that. “Look, Caleb just wanted me to spar with you for some reason, but if all you’re going to do is try to make me uncomfortable—“
“What else am I supposed to do?”
They’re both standing there, awkward and confused. What is he supposed to do? No one will tell him…
“WHY’D YOU STOP,” they both hear called out from across the garden. “YOU KNOW, IT WAS GETTING REAL HOT, YOU GUYS!”
Eadwulf finds the source of the noise is the blue tiefling (Jester, her name is Jester) from before. Fjord’s partner, the one Bren kept looking at all soft before. She is standing with the other tiefling (who, according to reports, has not been seen in nearly a year), as well as the halfling woman and her husband (DeRogna’s pet alchemist, he remembers), all four of them looking wildly entertained and a little bit aroused. Bren is standing a little ways behind them, trying to look like he’s not watching.
Wulf is more than a little tempted to take off his shirt.
This is all so overwhelmingly familiar that it hurts.
But Bren wanted them to spar. He can do that. Eadwulf tunes out the noise and focuses on his opponent: “Better give your woman what she wants, yes?”
There’s a funny look on Fjord’s face. Like he’s looking at two different Eadwulfs. Wulf doesn’t like it.
He feels his body in this strange way, today. Feels the effort his blood pulsing, his muscles working, his lungs expanding and contracting as though he has to tell them to do it himself, can’t rely on them doing the fucking work alone as it is. He feels his forearms ache in a way he hasn’t in years. Or maybe they’ve always ached. Maybe he just didn’t think about it. Maybe this is what life is like for everyone, for anyone who isn’t an object, a weapon simply lying in wait to be used by someone else.
Breathing in, willing oxygen into his blood, Eadwulf chooses to attack.
He is sitting against a log the next afternoon. Astrid spoke to Lionett for hours yesterday, and most of today as well, barring a two hour break (“for my own fuckin’ sanity, please, this shit is too depressing”) after lunch. He does not know what he expected; of course it is taking a long time. They spent seventeen years learning from and working for Ikithon (crushed beneath Ikithon’s boot, trapped under his thumb, strapped to a chair in his laboratory in the tower, used like a tool to-), of course it’s going to take a while to record all the relevant details of his crimes. There’s a lot to get through, and the Expositor no doubt has her own follow-up questions. And she’s still prying for more information on the other Assembly members. He and Astrid had discussed this. They know this. This will take time.
But he doesn’t like her being so close to Ikithon after what they did. Even if the man is asleep from those enchanted manacles, he could wake up, he could dissolve the glue affixing his hands together, he could will the silencing collar out of existence and send them back to the tower or the lab or—
Eadwulf feels his heart beating and reminds it of the rhythm it is supposed to maintain, that it is meant to pump oxygenated blood out to his limbs, and to send the fatigued, drained blood of his body to his lungs. He feels out of practice. Is it possible for a heart to be out of practice? That does not make sense.
He shakes his head. He is just dehydrated.
Wulf stands (send blood to your legs, electrical impulses to your muscles, move your left foot, move your right foot) and goes to the water bucket, drinking from the ladle again.
Br… Caleb (fuck that’s going to take a while to get used to in his head) is talking to Fjord about thirty-five feet away. They both keep their posture relaxed, their eyes never go towards him. But their faces are turned ever so slightly away, just enough that he can only read from the occasional glimpse of their lips as they speak.
“…Yeah I get … not the same … come on …”
“… you have been … remember when … please, Fjord.”
“…oh for f- … don’t give me that look.”
“…am not giving…”
“…duceus, or Jest…”
“…why I am…”
“…fuck, fine … kill each other.”
“ Ja, well, you know, I appreciate that very much, Fjord.”
The corner of Eadwulf’s lips quirks at the dry humor he knows is in that voice. He drinks his water. Pours some over his head. Drinks some more. Puts the ladle down and hears unstealthy footsteps in the muddy ground. Well, this will be interesting at least.
“So… Caleb says you follow the Matron. Yes?”
Wulf doesn’t know what he was expecting from Fjord, but that wasn’t it. A bemused smirk on his face, he stands up straight and cocks his head.
“That is correct, yes.”
“Great.”
Silence. Fjord pauses for a few seconds, closes his eyes, and sighs.
“Fuck. Alright, let’s… let’s try this again, I suppose. What do you know about this place?” He gestures towards the remains of the fallen tree Wulf had been sitting against before and they make their way over there. It is painfully awkward, and Wulf just tries to feel amused at it. It’s a little difficult when he knows that B… verdammte scheißen Götter oben, he knows that Caleb keeps wanting them to talk for some reason.
He wonders if perhaps Fjord was his replacement, and quickly steps away from the thought.
“A bit,” Wulf responds, sitting back down on the log. “Temple to the Wildmother, rumored to have connections to the Matron and the Archheart. I would assume the former, given the graveyard.”
“Huh. Did your research.”
“On all of you, yes. Your Caduceus was the most difficult, actually… well, him and the halfling. Did she once disguise herself as a goblin?”
Fjord’s head pulls back in surprise before he lets out a chuckle.
“It was a curse, or something — a hag switched her body years ago. Caleb and Essek had to develop a whole new spell to fix it, actually.” There’s a sense of genuine pride and admiration in Fjord’s voice and that… he…
A transmutation spell to change an entire body. To destroy a curse. That. That’s…
Wulf reaches into his wristpocket plane and pulls a bottle out of thin air, uncorking it and taking a large gulp. He’s trying not to be too impressed, but finding it exceedingly difficult. That boy was in an asylum just a few years ago, his mind shattered, the genius and brilliance that he and Astrid had loved so much snuffed out, and… Wulf’s going to have to look into this.
“I… was zum Tuefel, that is… a lot. He is a transmutation wizard now, correct?”
“Was he not always?”
“No, no, no, he started as an evocation specialist, before everything happened.” He takes another swig and offers the bottle to Fjord. Fuck it, Caleb wants them to talk, they’ll talk. Fjord looks nervous, but takes the bottle and drinks from it anyway. “I’m not surprised he avoids fire now. How involved were you in the crafting of this spell?”
He wasn't involved at all, Wulf is sure. Innate and divine casters don’t often go in for that sort of thing.
“Me? Oh, barely at all,” Fjord responds. Unsurprising. “I mean, you should ask him about Halas and his weird pocket dimension, apparently that’s where he got most of the ideas.”
The Folding Halls of Halas? The near-mythical demiplane of Zeidel’s most infamous pre-Divergence arcanist? Fucking hells, Bren, that was a little much. Wulf, who had always been the history buff between the three of them, nearly he had to physically restrain himself from jumping up, marching over to his oldest (former?) friend and interrogating him about everything he could possibly know regarding the fall of Zeidel and the disappearance of Halas and if the Folding Halls were real and…
He didn’t have to physically restrain himself at all.
In fact he didn’t even have to contain his surprise. He hadn’t told his face to show it, after all. Hadn’t told his feet to move, his legs to lift himself up. He was still seated, barely moving, waiting for his heart to beat or—
“You alright?”
When had he last breathed?
“Look, we can talk about all that later, I wanted…”
Eadwulf breathes in deep, loud, startlingly so, unsure when he last breathed or if he has to keep reminding himself. His face is still. His hands are still. He just reminds himself to breathe. Every few seconds. Breathe in. Ein. Zwei. Drei. Breathe out. Ein. Zwei. Drei. Vier. Fünf. Repeat.
Fjord is staring at him. On the next exhale Wulf nods and says “Go on,” his face still a mask as he teaches his body to breathe.
“Alright. Caduceus tells this story better than me, but, er… well, he’s not exactly thrilled with you two at the moment. Not to rub it in, but…” Fjord shrugs and rubs the back of his neck. The man does a good job of acting casual and confident. Eadwulf wouldn’t be able to see through it if he hadn’t been trained to do just that. But Fjord continues nevertheless:
“When the Raven Queen, you know, ascended, she tasked three of her champions to take the body of a hero of… I think he said ‘a hero of the war,’ but he didn’t say what war—“
“The war on the Tyrant God of Death,” Eadwulf says. Breathes in. “The world unified to allow her to defeat him.”
“Right! Right. That, uh, that makes sense,” Fjord nods. Wulf tries to be patient. “Well a great hero of the war had died, and for some reason his body couldn’t be maintained. Probably some prophecy thing or they wanted to avoid creepy necromancers or the like,” he continues. His voice is strangely soothing for one so thoroughly lacking in gravitas. He is nothing like Caduceus Clay. More casual but less relaxed. More lively.
“So the Matron tasked three of her champions to take his body, as she’d already claimed his soul, but they didn’t know what to do with it. So they went into the forest and prayed until they heard their answer. The Wildmother answered them and told Dust — oh, that was the first champion — she told Dust to take the heart of the hero into the mountains, to a cavern in a volcano, and burn them. This would be the Kiln, and it was a gift to the Allhammer to remind him that nature is the source of all material.”
“The second one, Stone—”
Eadwulf looks up carefully, remembering the last name he found in the records, though Fjord doesn’t seem to notice. It had been an orphanage-given name, he knew. Surely a coincidence, but his Lady did not believe in coincidence. She was the Mistress of Fate. Perhaps.
“Melora told Stone that he had to take the hero’s limbs and seek out an oasis in the jungle with a red cave with lines of gold, and feed those limbs to the animals that came there. And that would create the Menagerie for Avandra the Changebringer, to remind her that the gifts of nature are infinite.”
“And the Matron’s last champion?” Eadwulf interrupts, eyes narrowed on the ground, trying to figure out what this meant. If this was a trick. If this was a message. If this was a manipulation, or if this was the Matron. “I am to assume his name was Clay, yes?”
“Hey, smarter than you look,” Fjord grins. Wulf glares. “Sorry. Right. Fuck, I feel like Beau. So, the Wildmother told Clay to take the head of the hero into the forest until he found a pool of water surrounded by… a circle of crystals, I think it was,” he winced apologetically. “And to bury the head beneath earth and water. And then a garden would grow there, and the flowers and,” he trails off, waving to the surrounding grove. “That would be her gift to the Archeart, to remind him that nature is beautiful.”
It’s a nice story.
Eadwulf breathes in. Breathes out. Reminds his heart to beat. Looks around.
“Or as a reminder that everything dies.”
The words leave Wulf’s lips before he can wonder who willed him to say it. Fjord doesn’t look offended, or even amused. Just curious. He tilts his head and nods.
“Could be. S’possible, I suppose. They don’t…. They don’t really cancel each other out, I think. Death is part of nature. Caduceus kind of helped me understand that, what with the whole… weird… death-cleric-of-a-nature-goddess thing he has going. Death isn’t exactly a happy subject, but it doesn’t stop things from being beautiful while they last. Or even after. We can fear death, obviously, that’s natural—”
“We don’t,” Wulf says, and wonders again who told him to speak.
“We?”
“You know. Us. Volstrucker. They train that out of us.”
Fjord is looking at him now. Wulf is just drinking. Occasionally passing the bottle to Fjord, but more often just taking continuous sips of the brown liquor, feeling it burn, willing his throat to swallow, willing himself not to breathe it in and choke like an infant. Fjord is still staring. He can feel the sixteen-year-old boy still hiding in his spine blush. He wonders if Fjord and Caleb ever fucked. He wonders if he breathed recently. He wonders who told him to wonder that.
“What are you afraid of, then?” Fjord asks, voice softer than it has been previously.
He passes the bottle back. Thinks. Waits for someone to tell him what to say. Silently prays to the Matron and lets his lips move without thought. Amidst the noise of his internal prayers, he can just barely hear his own voice aloud:
“Mist. Uselessness, I suppose.”
Fjord nods.
“It’s funny, I thought you were going to say Caleb for a minute. Or Trent.”
“It is the same thing. I was not useful enough to help either of them, it seems, ja?”
“Hmm. You really think Caleb wants you to be useful?”
“It’s not about what he wants,” he hears himself speak. Breathes in. “I could not help him. Not then.” Breathes in. “Not later. Not now. Why am I fucking talking to you, scheißen göttverdammt… fick.”
Fjord lets out a huff of laughter though his nose. Eadwulf lets himself do the same. Breathes in. Breathes out. Breathes in. Breathes out.
“Fuck I think I see what Caleb meant now,” mutters Fjord. “You know, I didn’t always follow the Wildmother.”
“I know, warlock. You belonged to something else first, yes?” Wulf doesn’t will himself to smirk and so he doesn’t! but can just barely see Fjord stifle his surprise.
“Yes. I… I was in a shipwreck,” Wulf has read about this as well, but listens anyway. “Something saved my life that night, Gave me abilities that made me feel… I don’t know, powerful. Capable. Like I could actually make a change in this world. Not gonna lie, it felt amazing.”
Wulf nods. Wonders why he’s nodding. What it is he feels. He’s not sure. His forearms ache.
“But it was a lie. The power wasn’t mine, even though I’d almost died for it. And the fucking bastard monster demigod thing that gave them to me… well he went out of his way to prove time and again that he could take it away whenever he wanted to. Did take them away, once. Just for a day. Scared the bloody life out of me. But eventually… actually, it was after Caduceus told us that story.”
“It’s a nice story.”
“It’s a true story.”
Wulf doesn’t look over, just raises an eyebrow.
“No, seriously, we went there. To the Kiln. We met the Dusts. And the Stones, later, at the Menagerie — eclectic bunch, them.”
Fjord seems certain of what he’s saying, at least. Of that, Eadwulf has no doubt: Fjord believes he is telling the truth. It sounds… well, strange. Faith in the Matron came easily to Eadwulf: death was all around him, and many times he had felt the presence of something coming to collect the souls of those he saw to their deaths. But this was a little… a lot. This was old. Ancient. And possibly real.
“And while we were at the Kiln, I sort of… well he took my powers away again. And I had enough of it. When he wouldn’t give them back, I realized that the power wasn’t ever really… real. It was an illusion, just something to keep me tied to him. Keep me acting like his little fucking puppet. So, y’know, I threw my pact weapon in the lava and severed my connection with my patron.”
Eadwulf doesn’t will his eyes to go wide but feels them do so anyway.
“Yeah, it was kinda crazy,” Fjord laughs sheepishly. “I was completely without powers for a little while. Felt utterly useless. Felt awful. But then the others…”
Eadwulf can feel Fjord’s eyes boring into the side of his head, practically begging him for eye contact. Fucking dramatic bastards, him and Bren both, fuck. He gives in. Looks up. Meets Fjord’s eyes. Breathes in. Breathes out.
“They didn’t care about me being useful. They were happy. Thrilled, even. Because it meant I was safe from an evil fucking demigod sea monster. Caleb gave me this relic, this gauntlet that shot fire bolts? That was terrific, but that wasn’t even the point. The point was I was free. I didn’t have to listen to that shit-arse eyeball monster anymore. I got to make my own choices.”
Shit-arse eyeball sea monster demigod. Wulf would have to look this up.
The story isn’t a particularly subtle parallel.
Breathe in. Ein. Zwei. Drei. Breathe out. Ein. Zwei. Drei. Vier. Fünf. Breathe in. Ein. Zwei. Drei. Breathe out. Ein. Zwei. Drei. Vier. Fünf. Breathe in. Ein. Zwei. Drei. Breathe out. Ein. Zwei. Drei. Vier. Fünf. Repeat.
“I,” Wulf wills the air past his vocal chords, wills his lips to move, wills his blood to keep pumping. Wills Astrid to appear and rest her head between his shoulder blades. Wills Bren to never have gone mad. “I don’t know how to do anything without being told to anymore.”
“Shit takes time, man.”
“No, I mean anything.” Everything is a choice now. Breathing. Blinking. Thinking.
“Look, we practically had to force Caleb to fucking bathe himself when we met him, we are no strangers to dysfunctional traumatized wizards here.”
“I don’t want to go to Vergesson.”
“Dude, fuck that place, why would you go back there.”
“To learn how to make my blood work,” he admits, even though he didn’t will himself to say anything at all. Fjord looks confused. “Nevermind. I… you really think that story is real, yes? With the Matron’s champions creating gifts from the Wildmother and everything.”
“I mean, look around you! We’re in the middle of the fucking Savalirwood, a haunted, corrupted, forest, and here sits this wellspring of life and beauty and all this… great stuff. Look at this place and tell me it’s not real.”
Wulf does what he’s told, which is easy. But then his eye catches something.
A snowdrop. The tiniest flower next to a gravestone broken in half from the fight. Eadwulf sees the singular bloom leads to a larger cluster of snowdrops farther beyond. It doesn’t seem the right climate for them. It doesn’t seem to make sense at all. Nothing in this place really does. A reminder that nature is beautiful, he thinks. That death is part of that.
He closes his eyes and hears the flapping of wings.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
It feels true.
“Are you two having a nice chat then?”
Eadwulf jumps a little bit, startled in a way he has not been in ages by the silent approach of Bren Ermendrud Caleb Widogast, looking at the both of them with such fondness that it makes Wulf want to cry. He does not will himself to cry, so he does not.
“Well, we haven’t killed each other yet,” Fjord jokes next to him.
“Yet,” affirms Eadwulf.
Caleb laughs. Bren always knew when Wulf was joking. Always understood him. He’s glad Caleb does too, at least a little. At least so far.
“I’d call that progress,” nods Fjord, going along with the jest. He claps Wulf on the shoulder in a way that is awkward and overly familiar and… a little appreciated. “Good talk.”
Fjord stands up and walks away. Both Wulf and Caleb watch.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
“You fuck him?” Wulf asks, switching to Zemnian for the sake of his friend’s dignity.
“Hah! No, not even close,” Caleb laughs.
“You wanted to though, didn’t you, Hero,” Wulf raises an eyebrow and eyes Caleb up and down knowingly. Bren had shown interest in many types of people as a young man, but all of them were charming and talented as a rule. It seems that hadn’t changed with his name.
“Well can you blame me?”
“Hell no, I blame him. The fool doesn’t know what he’s missing.”
They grin at each other. Wulf realizes he did not will himself to. Perhaps it was an order he forgot. Perhaps. Caleb’s fingertips push playfully against his face and Wulf feels the teenage boy hiding in his spine sigh. He breathes.