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Caleb is sitting and looking at that wand again, Jester notices as she goes below deck.
He’s probably thinking about something. Well, Caleb is always thinking about something, isn’t he? But he’s probably thinking real hard about something, and he’s thinking about it a lot because she’s seen him take out Cali’s wand at least one other time since they got on Rumblecusp, probably more. At the very least, she was pretty sure she saw him stick it in the ground when she was doing caricature art of those islanders (but that might have been a regular stick or like a pencil or something, she was kind of far away) and she was definitely sure he was fiddling with it before he fell asleep one night, they were in the dome and she could definitely see.
So it’s gotta be the same thing, and it’s gotta be pretty important if Caleb is making a point of taking out Cali’s wand and sitting and looking at it, and knowing Caleb he’s probably thinking about it, like, all the time, like when they’re walking, or planning, because he’s pretty smart and also he worries about everything, ever. And he must be really really focused if he didn’t hear her when she came in, he’s facing towards her ( well , facing towards the entrance, same difference) and he’s frowning at the wand and flipping it over in his hand methodically.
He’s probably thinking about Essek. Or his memory going poof . Or both of them. Which makes sense. Jester thinks about both of those things a lot, too. Mostly Essek. Caleb is probably the closest of the Nein to Essek, and they said some real interesting stuff to each other at that party. After that party. During that party? Whatever. Jester knows that Caleb is keeping some of his past shit from her because of course he is. She assumes that all of the Nein are keeping past shit from her, after that day in Felderwin with Caleb and Veth (Nott, at the time). She knows most of it. Not the details. Like how the Nein knows most of her past shit. (And not about how lonely it felt when the Traveller didn’t show up, or of her Mama telling her stories of her Dad and trying not to cry, or--)
But she knows that Caleb did something real bad, and that he thinks he’s a real bad person because of it, or at least as bad as Essek and all the stuff he did, and that he’s damned, and Jester thinks that’s bullshit, because Caleb is a good person and Essek is-- Essek. But anyway. Caleb has to be worried about Essek, and thinking about his past shit because Essek reminded him of it. (The memory thing, she thinks, is somehow a little less complicated. Of course Caleb-whose-memories-got-fucked-with-and-yet-has-perfect-memory is thinking about not wanting his memory wiped thanks to Guacamole).
And even though her friends helped her ( Caleb helped her first, her mind supplies--) and what Caleb is thinking about is probably not happy, it’s kind of great to be thinking about something that’s not the Traveller. So she just watches him, for a little bit, completely forgetting what she had come down into the hull of the ship-whose-name-she-forgets to do.
And she’s probably been watching for too long when she must have made a noise or something because Caleb looks up at her.
Shitshitshitshitshit, her mind goes, because yeah staring at someone that long is pretty weird, and the fact that he came all the way down here means that he probably didn’t want to be disturbed, and she should really just leave him alone now, but for some reason, she decides to waggle her eyebrows up and down and grin at him. Diffuse the tension.
It works. She watches Caleb’s mouth curl upwards into an almost-smile, so close , she thinks, and before he can tell her to go draw dicks in someone else’s spellbook she sits down cross-legged in front of him. Too bad for him if he wants to have some peace and quiet for himself, she decides. He’s traveling with Jester Lavorre. Peace and quiet was never an option.
She’s watching his face, now. “Hi, Jester,” he says slowly. He’s clearly still embarrassed, and she clearly needs to diffuse even more.
“Hi, Caleb.” She leans forward and waggles her eyebrows some more. “What are you thinking about, Caleb, all alone in the dark~ ?” It’s not really dark, Widogast’s Pretty Lights are up, but it’s still a pretty good joke.
“Just-- a spell,” he manages, and he looks down (still embarrassed, but as un-embarrassed as Caleb can get, she thinks) at the glass. The glass? Oh. So that’s what he was messing with. In front of Caleb is a small pile of stained glass shards. Jester guesses he picked them up from that fight in that temple when Yasha shattered all that glass when she was un-mind-controlled.
“A spell,” she mimics. “Must be a pretty crazy spell if you’re spending all this time thinking about it.”
Caleb looks at her funny. She picks up so many emotions mixed into one. Like he’s incredulous, but he finds her amusing, and also like something she said resonated. “I’m not just thinking about a spell.”
“I know,” she grins.
Caleb sighs, and she grins more. Too bad for him, wanting to keep his secrets. He tucks the wand into some pocket and pushes the pile of stained glass so that it’s in the center in between them. “I am not nearly powerful enough to try it yet,” he tells her, and she can tell already he’s speaking slower like he’s tip-toeing around a tricky subject and picking his words carefully and a wave of frustration crashes over her. “It will be a while. A long while. I am just… thinking about it. More.”
“What else are you thinking about?” she asks, hoping he will answer.
He takes a second to choose his words. Of course, of course, he’s still walking a tightrope. Hiding his past shit. “For a long time, I thought that there was something I had to do. But I don’t really know, anymore. I don’t…” He looks like he’s in pain, she thinks. He’s grimacing, and he can’t look her in the eyes, and he’s closed himself off more, and he’s rubbing at his arms again. Past shit. “I don’t think that I can do it. I don’t know. It wasn’t the right option. And now I’m not sure what to do next.”
They sit in silence for a moment. He still won’t look at her. He just sits there scratching his arms. Jester feels like she’s walking a tightrope, too. He hasn’t talked to anyone about this, she realizes. He’s probably this close to getting up and leaving and not talking to her anymore. “What made you…” she starts, and she hopes this isn’t too hard for him to answer, “decide not to do it?”
He smiles, and it’s a happy smile, a fond one, and (finally) he looks right at her. “A lot of things, Jester. I… could not help Essek if I did this.” So it was Essek. Of course he’s thinking about him. “And…” He pauses to choose his words again. “I would hurt the Nein. I do not want to hurt any of you.”
“And this--” she gestures to the pile of stained glass sitting between them, “is your replacement? Or something?”
“Or something,” he agrees.
Jester scoots closer. “You’re mysterious, Caleb. You know that?”
“ Ja, I know that.” He pauses. “You want to know what I would have done, I’m sure.”
Yesyesyes, her mind goes. Yesyesyesyes, please tell me, I want to know what you’re thinking, I want to know everything, let me help you like you helped me. But she shouldn’t tell him that, should she? And if he wanted to talk about past shit right now he would have already. So she goes, “You don’t have to tell me if you’re not comfortable.”
“I… I owe you the full story. Someday. Not today.” So he owes her. I’ll make sure of that , she thinks. But now is not the time to tease him.
She reaches out and grabs his hands, holding them above the stained glass. “I’m always here for you,” she says, hoping Caleb will remember what she told him the other time she told him that. “And hey,” he can’t look her in the eyes again, she notices painfully, “looks like we both need to figure out what we’ll land on.”
“ Ja, ja we do.” He pulls his hands away, and she tries to hide her frown. “Thank you for talking to me.”
“Anytime, Caleb.”
He considers for a second, looking at the exit. Please don’t leave, she thinks, and he looks back at her and says, “Although, once I figure out this spell I will be part of the way there, I hope.”
Jester crinkles her nose. “What is that spell, anyway?” She looks back down at the components on the floor. It’s just the stained glass from the Yasha-shattering. Yasha-freeing? Of course Caleb would take something associated with bad memories and make something good out of it. That’s what he does, isn’t it?
“It’s called Feeblemind. It makes you…” and she delights in watching his face as he searches for better wording and gives up, “really dumb. For thirty days, until you dispel it. You can’t cast spells.”
It clicks in her head immediately. “You want to Feeblemind Icky-thong.”
He doesn’t react to her tasteful nickname, instead just nodding. “Though, it will be hard. I am nowhere near capable of casting it, and he might resist it or Dispel it or Counterspell it, and he is very powerful--”
Nope, she thinks, no spiraling for you today . So she says, “Not if I cut that fucker in half with a serrated lollipop first.”
He laughs halfheartedly at that. A success in her book. “I don’t doubt you will.”