An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Here it is, my first CR fic! It's such a me move to finish my first CR fic the week the campaign ends. I am so happy to have this finished and really excited to get it out into the world. I hope you all enjoy!
All I Want is to Trust You
Word Count: 4278
Summary:
Essek and The Mighty Nein set off for Aeor and what could be their final adventure, but encounter an old "friend" on the way... Or, Ashley Johnson rolled another dragon.
Read on Ao3 or below the cut!
Luxon, it’s bright. Essek thinks for the third time in twenty minutes. The parasol Jester gifted him several weeks ago offers some relief from the sun above them, but the reflection off the snow is relentless. Even the others, with no naturally ingrained light sensitivity, squint at the glittering landscape around them. He had been doing his best to hide his discomfort throughout their travel. They have only been on the road for a few hours; he couldn’t let them question for even a moment that he couldn’t handle this, that they had made the wrong decision.
“Sunny day,” Caduceus remarks, and not for the first time Essek wonders if firbolgs can somehow read minds. “How’s that treating you?” the cleric nods towards the spiraling configuration of lace and silk casting inappropriately-shaped shadows over Essek’s form.
“Ah, it is doing well enough.” Essek offers a smile that feels a bit more like a grimace. “The glare can get a bit irritating. But I’ll be fine.”
Jester snorts out a laugh somewhere to his left. “What did your soldiers and stuff say when you used that at the outpost?”
“I, uh, have not had the need for it until we disembarked. I do not spend much time on the walls outside of brief inspections, which I usually do when the sun sets. But it is certainly coming in handy now.”
“Not that he would use it around his people anyway. Gotta keep up appearances, right, Shadowhand?” Beauregard calls over her shoulder from her position at the front of the pack with Yasha, packing an extra note of sarcasm into his title.
His mouth begins forming a retort, but a soft Zemnian voice cuts through from somewhere close behind him, “He has to command respect from his people, Beauregard. Not all of us can punch our way through a bureaucracy.”
Beauregard mumbles something that sounds vaguely insulting and turns her gaze back on the fractured and frozen landscape ahead of them. Essek looks over his shoulder at Caleb, shooting a brief but genuine smile before quickly turning to focus again on the snow several inches below his floating feet. Gotta keep up appearances, right? sneers once again through his mind, laced with mistrust and a wound still far too fresh. Another voice creeps in: Time. It takes time. He had meant that for Essek’s change, for his growth and healing, but he supposes it’s true for the rest of them as well. Choosing him for this journey is a good step in a lengthy process, but perhaps he can speed it up a bit. Time is one of his specialties, after all.
Taking a deep breath and bracing himself for the chill Essek glides gently down until his feet rest on the snow’s surface. It is much softer than he thought, and he sinks several inches further down with each step. He glances at some of the Mighty Nein around him, hoping he looks as though he is scanning the surroundings rather than watching for their reactions. Jester brightens and Fjord’s mouth quirks up at the edges. Caduceus’ easy smile widens for a moment. He will not turn around to look at Veth and Caleb, that would be far too obvious, and Beauregard and Yasha are too far ahead to have noticed so he is unsure of their reactions. But for a moment he allows himself to imagine Caleb’s eyes crinkling at the edges, some of the ice crusted in his beard shifting and falling into his scarf as he smiles.
He starts to imagine brushing the crystals from his scarf, resting a hand on his shoulder, then the side of his face, leaning in slowly… when Caduceus stiffens beside him, squinting at something in the distance. He motions for the others to stop and calls a low warning to the fighters in the front. “South.”
Essek turns and looks southward and struggles for a moment to see what has Caduceus worried. When he does, though, the chill beginning to seep into his feet and legs travels directly to his heart. A white dragon, and a big one from the looks of it, is swooping low over the tundra. Beauregard’s voice momentarily breaks him out of his panic as she and Yasha rejoin the group.
“Aw, this bitch again? She doesn’t know when to let up. Are we hiding or fighting?”
Again? Light, they’ve fought an Ancient dragon before?
“She certainly wasn’t pleasant to encounter last time, and we had Lucien and his group with us then. Perhaps we hide and continue making our way towards the ruins when it’s safe.” Fjord replies.
“But we have Essek with us now! He’s super powerful and the Tomb Takers didn’t care if we died in that fight. Essek does!” Jester pipes up.
“U-um,” Essek stammers. Coward.
“I am also sure he cares if he dies in that fight, Jester.” Caleb comes to his rescue once again. “Perhaps we take cover for now and prepare for the worst?”
The Mighty Nein begin scanning their surroundings for something large enough to offer all of them enough cover. The ice spires have been increasingly sparse as they moved closer to Aeor, but Yasha manages to spot a few groupings of broken spires and large sheets of ice that may be able to offer some cover. Essek stows away his small globe of warmth and Jester’s parasol and follows the group as they attempt to silently make their way to cover.
Upon further inspection they will have to split the party between two clusters of spires and fragmented ice sheets roughly 35 feet apart. It will make for good cover but will also make it difficult to plan in case of an attack.
After a few moments of tense bickering about what to do next Beauregard grabs Caleb and Caduceus by the elbow. “There’s no use fighting over a plan we’re going to abandon anyway. Separate the clerics and wizards, stay hidden until you can’t anymore, and fuck that dragon up if we need to. Everyone good with that?”
Everyone nods their agreement and Beauregard drags Caleb and Caduceus over to the farthest ice cluster with Yasha close at their heels, leaving Fjord, Veth, Jester, and Essek to take cover at the closest.
They spend a few moments crowding closely underneath the ice, Essek readying some components in case things turn sour. Luxon, he hopes they are hidden well. He will not run from this fight, and has complete faith in the Mighty Nein’s combat abilities, but an ancient dragon? This is not exactly what he bargained for when he signed up for an adventure with this group.
Veth perks up for a moment and glances quickly at Essek and the others before whispering “Yeah Cay, we’re ready. Does Deucy see anything? I can’t see around Fjord’s skinny ass.”
“Thank you?” Fjord comments, his blade shimmering faintly in one hand and the other firmly grasping Jester’s.
Veth shoots a lingering look at Essek in the silence, presumably listening to another message. She whispers again to thin air, “Yeah, he looks scared shitless but I’m sure he’ll be fine. Right, Essek?”
Essek Thelyss, Shadowhand of the Bright Queen, Traitor of the Dynasty, is confident he has never been described as ‘scared shitless’. And it has never been more accurate. “I’ll manage,” he replies through gritted teeth.
She pulls out a wire and whispers into cupped hands, “He said he’ll be fine, but baby boy Fjord needed Jester to hold his hand,” she chuckles into her gloves before muttering “youcanreplytothismessage” and shoving the wire back into a pocket of her pastel-hued winter garb. Essek has a moment to briefly wonder if she ever gets the wire tangled in those peculiar antlers before there is a soft whooshing of wings nearby.
Jester and Fjord, who had been softly talking strategy, fall immediately silent. Everyone huddles impossibly closer in an attempt to stay hidden, and Veth manages to disappear completely in the center of their clump. They all hold their breath as the dragon, called Gelidon as someone mentioned, flies closer to the hidden party.
The beating of leathery draconic wings grows louder with each passing moment, Gelidon releasing a thundering roar that sounds far too close for Essek’s comfort. He can’t help glancing in Fjord’s direction out of fear. The half-orc has always had a calm, steadying nature in the face of the Nein’s dangerous brand of chaos. Now he looks towards the direction of Gelidon’s fury, his hand shifting to Jester’s waist while she gathers spell components.
Fjord catches Essek looking at him and gives a tusk-filled grin. “We like to take all of our friends dragon-fighting on their first adventure. Really gets the blood moving.”
“Yeah Twiggy really seemed to enjoy it,” Jester chuckled lightly, twisting the ruby at her throat with a nervous tremor in her voice.
“You are some very interesting people,” Essek returns Jester’s nervous chuckle before his focus is pulled once again to the dragon-shaped shadow racing across the tundra. The hulking beast lands with a crash about a hundred feet away from the group’s hiding spot, kicking up a wave of snow around her taloned feet.
She crouches low towards the snow and moves a few feet in their direction, nostrils flaring as she breathes deeply. Her breath escapes in a low laugh that reverberates directly into Essek’s nerves.
“I have not forgotten your scent, you little cretins.” She breathes deeply once again. “There are fewer of you, now. Split off from your little friends, did you? And hiding too. Cowardly without their protection-“ Gelidon roars the last word, whipping her tail through a pile of ice and snow nearby. It explodes in a shower of shimmering crystals and frozen rubble around her.
“I suppose that’s our cue,” Fjord mumbles before whispering a few arcane words, the runes along his blade lighting up as he flies through the air towards Gelidon. Jester holds out her hand and a bubblegum pink light gathers in her palm before streaking off, striking the dragon in the side, and surrounding her with a faint pink glow.
“Thanks, Jessie!” Veth calls as she darts out from behind Jester’s back and runs towards Gelidon, taking a shot with her crossbow that sinks deep into the joint where shoulder meets torso. The dragon roars in pain and begins flying towards the now-revealed party members, far faster than Essek had anticipated. She meets Fjord mid-air and snaps at him with her jaws. He manages to fly out of the way before they close around him, but the motion leaves him open for her claws to rake across his chest sending him spinning through the air.
Seeing the bleeding gash in Fjord’s coat Essek immediately begins searching his components for a black marble, deciding that he would like to stay as far away as he can from the ancient fucking dragon his friends had somehow angered. He brings his hand forward with the marble sitting in his palm and mutters a few arcane words before closing his fingers around the marble so tightly his knuckles turn white. A black sphere of dunamantic energy appears just behind and beneath the dragon, attempting to pull her towards the earth without catching Fjord in its crushing radius. Essek growls in frustration as Gelidon manages to wrench herself out of the gravity sinkhole’s grasp, still harming her slightly but not pulling her to the ground.
Out of the corner of his eye Essek catches Beauregard running with frightening speed across the snow, barely even leaving a footprint as she sprints towards the dragon. Yasha runs behind her, also unnaturally fast. Essek has a moment to catch the faint shimmer of transmutative energy indicating a haste spell before Yasha is running up an ice spire that has fallen at a slight angle. When she reaches the top she leaps, and Essek lets out a small gasp of surprise as pure white wings erupt from her shoulders and spread into the air. She goes into a steep dive and scoops Beauregard off of the ground. Essek hears a faint “Remember me?” and laughter as Beauregard is deposited on Gelidon’s back.
Essek glances around the edge of the ice cave he continues to hide in, looking for Caleb and Caduceus. The cleric is slowly making his way towards the fray with Caleb close behind, tucking some licorice root into a coat pocket.
The next few moments are a blur of battle, everyone trading blows with Gelidon as she roars and thrashes through the air. Fjord and Yasha strike out at her with steel and she returns with tooth and claw. Beauregard runs up and down her spine, managing to find weak points in her scales and driving both staff and fists into her body. Veth shoots bolt after bolt, some of them crackling with arcane energy. Jester and Caduceus weave divine energy to help their friends and cause further harm to their draconic foe. Essek sends a variety of ranged spells her way, still determined to keep out of range of her ice breath and teeth.
Caleb does the same, weaving combat spells and slinging fire with such ease that Essek has to force his own attention back to the battle at hand. Every time a bolt of fire or magic missile hits true on their foe Essek glances back at the other wizard as he ducks back into his own icy hiding place, his blue eyes as cold and determined as their surroundings.
His gaze returns to the battle as the dragon roars once again, thrashing violently in the air after a strike from Beauregard. She throws the monk’s body into the air, smashing her with her tail as she falls. Beauregard gets up and appears more annoyed than injured, shaking some snow out of her coat.
“Can someone take this bitch down? Or get me back up?” she calls to the others.
Essek searches his mental catalogue of the spells he prepared for the journey and brightens as he remembers the magnify gravity spell currently at his disposal. He can help, he can be useful and prove that it was worthwhile to bring him on this journey. He begins to weave the incantation for the spell before he stops short. The range on this is much shorter than gravity sinkhole. In order to be useful, he must get closer and risk being frozen, or worse, by an ancient white dragon. Essek spends another moment watching his friends throw themselves at this creature with little regard for their own safety and remembers why he came on this adventure in the first place.
I am on borrowed time, he had said at the outpost. The world is in danger, they had told him after a battle that had almost taken them from him before he had a chance to offer his aid. I will do what I can, he has told them so many times. I can do this, he thinks to himself, for them, I can do this. Essek takes a deep breath and steps into the blinding sun, towards an ancient white dragon.
He runs as far as he can and throws his arms forward, drawing his hands together then pulling them towards his body and yelling the incantation for magnify gravity at the top of his lungs. Gelidon roars once more, attempting to fly out of the pull of the spell before being yanked into the snow, unable to fight the additional arcane strength that Essek had funneled into it.
“Ha!” Essek cheers as Gelidon attempts to stand and fly once more, but is held firmly to the ground for the moment.
Beauregard gives him a thumbs-up and a “Thanks, man!” before running towards her to lay more blows into the dragon’s thick hide. The rest of the Mighty Nein take advantage of Gelidon’s momentary stationary position and attack with renewed force before she is able to right herself.
Which, much to Essek’s displeasure, she manages to do. He knew it would not keep her down for long, but he was hoping to give everyone a bit more of an edge. Now she rises on her hind legs, screaming into the sky and thrashing with her claws. As she lands back on all fours she beats her wings and takes flight once more, rearing her head back as ice gathers at the corners of her mouth. Realizing what she is about to do, everyone attempts to brace themselves for the incoming ice breath.
Essek has never had much need for a sturdy physical form. His weapon was his mind, and that was the muscle he chose to focus his energies strengthening. It has been the correct path for most of his 120-odd years of existence, only truly irking him when Verin would wrestle him to the ground while playing “ambush” or when an experiment went awry and he suffered some physical malady because of it. Now, however, when completely encased by the frozen hell of a dragon’s breath, he finds himself briefly regretting a few of his life choices as he takes the full force of the impact.
It chills him to his very core. His white cloak and mantle are immediately stiff with ice and it takes great effort to move his hands out from under the frozen material. He can feel frostbite beginning to encase the tips of his ears, turning them a deeper purple than his drow skin. As hard as he tries he cannot control the shivering while the pain nearly brings him to his knees. Beauregard appears to be having a similar reaction, while the others either did not take the full force of the blow or were outside of its range.
“Scheiße!” Essek turns his head to see Caleb coming towards them. No, turn back, he wants to yell. You cannot take a hit like this any better than I can. But all that comes out of his mouth is a strained whimper as he tries to recover from the pain.
“Essek, I need you to trust me!” Caleb calls as he pulls something from his coat. Essek almost laughs. You are not the untrustworthy one in this equation, he thinks bitterly. But he only nods and allows the warmth of Caleb’s magic to wash over him. It is only as he begins to feel his form shift that he notices the cocoon in Caleb’s hand. Shit-
He is…tall. Far taller than he has ever been while floating. He has used levitate spells to reach high shelves in places before, but this is different. He is tall, and his feet are firmly on the ground. As he looks down he is caught even further off guard by the presence of ivory tusks and a long, furred trunk. And his fur is…purple?
Before he has another moment to consider this strange new anatomy, he is caught by the sounds of a dragon roaring in front of him. Oh, that’s right. He’s fighting a dragon with his friends. The realization jars him almost as much as his new physical form did.
In the time it took Essek to ponder his new mammoth form the Mighty Nein had managed to ground the dragon once more. She is bleeding from several wounds and appears to be staggering a bit in place. In her desperate frenzy she begins striking out at anything and anyone around her, trying to escape the adventurers who now have her surrounded. Essek charges into the fray, trumpeting a sort of battle cry as he digs his tusks into the exposed side of the dragon attacking his friends.
A burst of flaming magic erupts into her from the snow beneath her. She turns toward its source, and Essek spins his gaze with her to see Caleb standing a short way away, a cat’s cradle of yarn in his hands. Wind whips stray strands of hair around his head and into his face as he stands firm. Gelidon begins to crawl towards him in a rage and he immediately blanches, realizing that he has now drawn the ire of this creature. Essek attempts to strike out with his tusks once again but they scrape uselessly against her armor-like scales. A few of the others get a hit in, but she takes the blows and charges onward toward her quarry.
Caleb looks up at the dragon, fear in his eyes as she unleashes a flurry of frenzied strikes into him. Blood blooms across his chest, arms, and face as her teeth and claws all hit home. Caleb throws an arm up with a magical shield beginning to form around his body, but it is shattered against Gelidon’s fury. With a final slash of her claws Caleb is thrown across the snow and lays motionless.
Essek is shunted back into his elven form and the pain of his previous injuries screams through his nerves before something else overtakes him. His heart pounds and cheeks heat with a terrified rage at seeing Caleb lying in the snow. One arm is bent awkwardly under his body, legs curled to the side as the snow blossoms a stomach-churning pink around his unconscious form. Essek cannot see his face at this angle and is briefly thankful to avoid seeing the wizard’s freckles shrouded in specks of blood and gore.
As his fear and fury build Essek feels gravity begin to coalesce around him, the magic sparking through his nerves like the beginning of a lightning bolt. Instead of electricity, Essek summons the rest of his strength to draw on the dunamancy around him. He brings out a shard of onyx from his components and slashes it across his palm. The drops of blood are frozen in space in front of him, and as he waves his hands they create a small circle in the air. A black void of deep nothingness appears around Gelidon’s torso as she licks her lips, turning back towards the others now that Caleb is down. She rears up on her hind legs and unleashes a roar that quickly turns into an ear-splitting scream as Essek crashes his hands together, pulling the blood into a tight sphere no bigger than a marble. The sound that emanates from Gelidon’s ribs is reminiscent of a tree being struck by lightning. The cracks echo over the tundra before Gelidon’s body turns a deep gray and falls away to dust.
They all stand in silence for a heartbeat before Jester and Caduceus are running to Caleb’s aid. Essek nearly stumbles to his knees as he follows close behind while trying to stay out of their way. Caduceus places his hands over Caleb’s chest and pink lichen spreads over his coat. A deep, verdant green light glows beneath it before the lichen shrivels and crumbles off the wounds. Caleb lets out a low groan and rubs at his forehead.
“Hey there, good to see you back with us.” Caduceus smiles and leans back on his heels.
“Is she dead or did she run?” Caleb attempts to sit up and look around before wincing and laying back down in the snow.
“Essek took care of her actually, and quite handily,” Fjord answers over Caduceus’ shoulder.
“It was so cool Caleb! He did some sort of awesome fucked-up gravity magic and she turned to dust! To dust, Caleb! Oh my gosh, I really wish you were conscious for that because you would’ve thought it was so cool.” Jester bounces on her toes and looks between the wizards with a half-cocked smile.
“Perhaps you will have to show me that one some other time,” Caleb says as he turns to Essek. “Are you alright, mein freund?”
Essek’s laugh comes out a little more breathless than he would have liked. “Which one of us is lying in the snow right now?”
“Good point,” Caleb’s eyes crinkle at the edges and Essek desperately hopes his blush is mistaken for post-battle adrenaline. “Shall we sit for a moment, catch our breath?”
“Good plan, you wizards are looking pretty fucked up,” Beauregard calls from where she leans heavily on Yasha, clutching a gash in her side. “Good shot though, Essek. Although I would’ve liked some of those dragon teeth to put with the T-Rex.”
“I will try to kill the next ancient dragon a little less thoroughly next time,” Essek retorts. Beauregard smirks and begins limping her way back to the fallen ice spires to take cover while they rest.
As the rest of the Nein follow her Essek falls into step with Caleb at the back of the group.
“You turned me into a mammoth.”
“I did. Squishy wizards need to stay in the back.” Caleb gestures to the partially-healed gash in his side.
“It was a bit, ah, strange. Is that a strategy you employ often?”
“Only when things get bad. Couldn’t have you getting knocked down in front of a dragon like that. We protect our friends, here in the Mighty Nein. Seems like you’re catching on to that.” He gives Essek a tight smile.
Friends. Essek feels the ice from the dragon’s breath melt slightly from the warmth spreading through his chest. “I am unsure that I can protect all of you all of the time, but I want to try. I cannot undo everything that I have done, but that much I can do.”
Caleb doesn’t reply, just smiles a bit wider and gives Essek’s shoulder a squeeze. And maybe it’s because he was injured, or perhaps it was Essek’s imagination, but he swears that Caleb lets his hand linger for just a moment longer than usual.
