Seeing Ghosts
The mighty nein are in the Empire, but barely, nowhere near Rexxentrum. Closer to Bladegarden, walking down something of a market. Their guard is, all things considered, down. Nobody’s looking for danger; it’s a nice day, a nice town.
Nobody’s ready for the way Caleb suddenly draws up to a tight halt, reaching out blindly, gripping onto Beau’s shoulder.
A bit down the road, two people are also walking down the street. One shorter than the other, both smiling, apparently haggling with the stall owner. One of them smiles and the tilt of it strikes at him. Not haggling then, asking questions.
“What--who are they?” Beau asks, squeezing his hand. He must be holding on too hard.
He lets go, but only to turn away. His eyes catch on Nott, who’s gone from cheery to defensive, moving to stand in front of Jester rather than behind. “My people.” He chokes out, looking away when she looks at him. “We need to go, now.”
He can’t run. Running is suspicious, it draws attention. There’s a certain pace you go, moving just quickly enough to put off someone who might be following. He goes a touch above that, going tight as a wire until they get back to the place they had planned to stay the night.
Maybe it’s not them. It’s been years, it could be any two people, a man and a woman, a half-elf and a human, wearing local clothes but asking disarming questions nobody local would ask. Could be any two people with dark hair and handsome faces and eyes trained to catalog not just individuals but crowds, to seek out details and patterns, any two people with soft smiles and that little flick in his fingers when he gestured and the way she had learned to tilt her head like--
He finds himself hovering over the chamberpot in their room, too shaken to cry, too afraid to start moving again.
It was them. They were looking for him. They had found him.
It was them. They were looking for somebody else. They didn’t know he was alive.
It wasn’t them. He was seeing ghosts. Who knew if they were alive.
Each option was as bad as the last and he didn’t know what else to do, so he would run. If he was very lucky, the mighty nein would run with him. They had been through enough together, hadn’t they? Would they trust him on this? What would the rest of his trio be like, with another 10 years of experience ahead of him and access to all of Rexxentrum’s knowledge and more besides? No, running was the safest option. They couldn’t risk the likely outcomes, much less his fears.
He had left them and their possibilities behind once, he could do it again.