(a small Episode 135 divergence where sparrow!Caleb lands on Essek, 1,113 words)
Once, while teleporting off-mark on his way back to Eiselcross, Essek had been thrown into an avalanche and sustained injuries as he was buffeted around by the snow. The cleric at Vurmas Outpost had called the injury "whiplash", and it had taken a week and multiple healing potions for his neck to feel normal again.
What Essek has experienced since joining the Mighty Nein feels a bit like whiplash. Constant, jarring, emotional whiplash. One moment, they are in dire peril. Seconds later, everyone is all jokes and smiles. Essek is a creature of quiet patience and careful planning. He is used to peril, yes - the chilling fear of being caught for his theft of the beacons, and mishaps during teleportation - but not to such sudden and easy relief on the other side. And he’s certainly not used to so many instances of peril and relief all sandwiched together, like a tall stack of pancakes in Jester’s feast of heroes.
On the edge of the abyss, a rope snaps.
Caleb falls towards dark empty nothingness.
Essek feels a kind of fear he has come to know only in the last six months: fear for someone other than himself.
The moment is over almost as soon as it starts; Essek barely has a nightingale pinion in his hand to cast Feather Fall before Caleb himself is a sparrow, flitting around with playful good spirits. Caleb lands on Jester’s shoulder, far too close to the Aeor-maton for comfort. A sparrow’s body is fragile, and the arcane machine could crush it. A human shape probably wouldn’t be much of a challenge either. It’s far too easy to envision gilded metal hands around that pale, freckled throat.
Essek looks down and finds he has accidentally snapped the pinion in his fingers. Sloppy of him. He has many more, feathers being negligible weight among his components, but… it is a testament to how strained his reflexes have become.
He keeps half an eye on the Aeor-maton while Yasha descends next. She also falls, but doesn’t need Essek’s help either. Aasimar, Essek registers distantly, watching her sail back to the group on luminous wings. Formidable indeed. Yet another reason to be glad the barbarian is on the same side.
As Yasha ferries the group to the next level one embrace at a time, Essek still can’t quite get a full breath back in his lungs. He instinctively hides this. He tells himself it’s because Aeor is not the place to broadcast weakness, but in truth, he’s still very discomfited by showing his soft underbelly to anyone at all. This is despite the fact that the Mighty Nein have already seen him in an embarrassingly panicked state more than once. Old habits are hard to break. A century of patterns cannot be wholly rewritten in just six months - can they?
Just breathe.
Caleb’s words float into his mind, and Essek focuses on doing just that. In, out. Again. Just breathe. The Mighty Nein are laughing, trading quips, unconcerned. They are accustomed to each other’s near-misses.
Essek stands at the ledge for a moment too long before he remembers sluggishly that there is no point in unmooring the snapped rope, and there is nothing to bring down to the Might Nein. He drifts to join them, feeling his Shadowhand court mask wanting to slip into place to protect him. He tries it on: attempts to step back from the situation, from his own body, to a cool and distant seat of calculation, where the Mighty Nein are simply game pieces on a board. Very quickly he realizes this approach is far, far worse. His stomach lurches with nausea, like he is contemplating severing a limb. The Mighty Nein are… undeniable, in every way. A part of Essek is theirs now, and he cannot separate himself from it any easier than he can remove his own lungs.
He pulls himself back to the present.
I should be angry, Essek thinks, looking at his friends, at how thoroughly you have unmade me.
But he is not angry. That in itself is deeply disquieting.
Caduceus asks him to identify a magical bracelet, and he does. Caleb, still a sparrow, sits on Fjord’s head, drawing jokes about the paladin’s illusory hair. The situation pulls a thread of humor from Essek like a spindle taking the first twisting draw from a cloud of spider silk.
His next breath is a little fuller than the last.
As they venture into the hallway, he takes another breath - this time in quiet surprise as a tawny sparrow alights on his shoulder with a quicksilver flicker of wings.
“Oh-- hello,” Essek greets, continuing to walk but otherwise staying as still as possible. As an ape, Caleb had picked Essek up off the ground and carried him, an impulse Essek is still too wary to fully parse. What will he do as a tiny bird?
Caleb tilts his little sparrow head, and hops closer to Essek’s face. Essek’s eyes instinctively blink closed, though he’s sure Caleb wouldn’t scratch him, but--
Tink, tink.
There’s a tickle at Essek’s earlobe as the sparrow pecks at the many-faceted crystal drop that hangs there.
Tink-tink-tink.
“If you need crystal for a spellcasting, you need only ask,” Essek says mildly, suppressing a laugh as Caleb tugs gently at the delicate chain connecting the drop earring to a silver cuff. His ear twitches reflexively, startling Caleb to flutter. The feathers tickle, and to preserve his dignity, Essek coaxes the sparrow to sit on his fingers instead. “I suppose at least you cannot get sidetracked by libraries when you are in this shape,” he tells Caleb, holding him at eye level.
This close, Essek can see a daub of bright crimson red on the sparrow’s foot, the shoulder of one wing, and the tip of one of his flight feathers. Eye-shaped markings, present even in this shape. Markings of the astral abomination.
A shiver runs through Essek’s frame, and the humor of the moment dims.
Oblivious to this scrutiny, and the reminder of doom, Caleb occupies himself with plucking at the fur lining of Essek’s sleeve. Then he takes flight to investigate Veth’s button necklace. Caleb is insatiably curious in any shape, it seems.
It had taken a week for Essek to recover from the whiplash of the avalanche. He doesn’t know how long it will take to get used to the Mighty Nein’s style of whiplash, or if he even has that much time… but he finds himself wanting to learn. If this mission all ends in blood, it would be nice to enjoy some levity along the way.
Maybe, if he sees his own opportunity soon, he'll take it.
There is a basket of sleeping cats on the sunny windowsill of the Brenattos' Nicodranas home. One is fluffy white, one is dappled amber, and one is the sleek color of midnight. They curl around each other as though poured into the vessel like honey.
Jester looms over this triskelion of cats with mischief crinkling her eyes. “So cute,” she coos.
Then, tongue peeping out in concentration, she delicately touches just a single whisker.
“Mrrrp-?”
“MRrrrrpp--?”
“Mrroppp?”
Like fuzzy intuit charges, the waking of one cat promptly activates the rest.
“The CUTEST!!” Jester bemoans, sounding almost distressed. “HOW ARE YOU SO CUTE?”
The cats blink at her, sleepily. The midnight one yawns.
“Aghh!” Jester exclaims, then throws her hands in the air and leaves the room as though the cats have offended her.
