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Caleb is waiting for him beside the furthest stall, hands tucked into the folds of his scarf looking unseasonably wrapped up for the warming spring morning. The stall owner is eyeing him cautiously but doesn’t appear to want to bat him away with it yet, hands settled on a slate sign tucked beneath the mounds of cloth and scrap fabrics that make up the stalls’ trade
He had a bath the evening before. Countered and encouraged by Beau and Fjord with a relentless pitch for cleanliness. Caduceus bets the clean shave and soft hair is a major factory in Caleb’s allowed loitering.
Curiously, Nott isn’t with him. A quick scan of the surrounding stalls show she hasn’t made off to one of them either. There were a few pawn stalls a little ways back, a second hand book shop right at the other end of the street too, and he wouldn’t be surprised to know she’d scurried off to them.
Caleb’s gaze flickers towards him. Something settles over his shoulders, slopping them downwards with relief as he untucks his hands and shakes them out.
They had started the little trip together, the three of them, rounding up supplies for the next leg of travel. But Nott had gotten nervous surrounded by the sudden influx of townspeople and Caleb had begun to attract wary looks from the more well-off market stalls. So, once they’d picked up their essentials, Caduceus had offered to collect the more random bits on the list; paintbrushes for Jester, a set of wraps for Beau and a new water skein for Fjord, whose last one had made a concussive sacrifice against some gnolls.
Their odd pair made their way back to the quieter streets of the market whilst Caduceus had gone on the hunt. And quickly found he disliked the bustling, rowdy crowds of the inner market. He towered well over most of the other folk in the streets, but that only bothered him more, as he became suddenly far to used to seeing his destination with no path through the throng of bodies between them.
Eventually, nearly an hour later, he had battled his way back and only tripped one particularly irritating man up with a twitch of his staff against his thick heeled boots.
There’s a sweet smell to the air now too, the kind of smothering bakery heat that settles right under his nose and itches it. Early lunch stalls have begun to open, bringing with them a new stifling crowd of late risers and early breakers. It’s followed him back from the bakery stall, a bag in his hands going greasy the longer the warm buns sit inside.
Caleb leans towards it as he approaches.
Caduceus shakes it lightly at him. ‘I bought some treats.’
‘Ah, how exciting.’ Caleb enthuses dully. Though Caduceus found himself finding the genuine nuances in Caleb’s dry words more often these day. ‘Did you get everything else?’
He nods. Caleb’s eyes drift from the bag over his shoulder, concern creasing the stress lines at his eyes. Caduceus follows his gaze to the thick crowd he’s left behind, mingling like a great dark cloud at the very end of their quiet street.
He imagines Nott amongst the stumbling boots and sharp heeled shoes. Imagines the poor shins she’s sure to have kicked getting through them.
‘I had to fight to get out. It took quite some time.’ He hums out loud. ‘But I am big, I suppose.’
Caleb hums, pulling a bun from the bag and squinting at it. ‘Is it sweet?’
Caduceus frowns. The top of the bun is glittering with a sprinkle of something but when he comes to think of it he can’t remember if it’s salt or sugar. A look into the rest of the bag doesn’t provide much more insight. ‘I’m not sure.’
Caleb scrutinises it closer, and if he weren’t in Caduceus’ polite company the cleric is sure he’d lick it to try. ‘Did you not buy them?’
‘I did. The vendor was very distracted.’ He had asked for sweet, one of the fruity ones he remembers, though with all the bustling and elbowing at the time he could have ended up with anything vaguely bun shaped.
‘Ah.’ Caleb’s brows twitch in quiet amusement, the understanding accompanied by an experimental nibble off the top of the bun. His face betrays none of the flavour and Caduceus finds himself folded forwards over his hands to ask for what exactly it is he seems to have bought.
Finally, after a long moment of contemplation, Caleb says ‘sweet.’
‘What sort?’
‘Die Apfel.’ Caleb says confidently, taking another hesitant bite from the same spot. ‘Spiced. Warm. Lecker.’
‘I should have bought cider.’ Caduceus mourns. There had been a brilliant red and orange monstrosity of a market stall just opposite the bakery. The vendor had been obnoxiously loud about his fine fresh cider, thick glass bottles stacked in rows around him.
‘Ah,’ Caleb says, waving sugar dusted fingers at him, ‘they are just as good without. Nott will like them.’
Caduceus knows the man well enough by now to recognise the less than subtle subject change. The wizard’s gaze is still behind him, glazed distantly as he squints where the street bends and dips.
He pulls a bun of his own from the bag. They’re still a little warm. When he bites into it sweet apple spills across his tongue and sends tingling spice down his throat. It would go well with a black tea. He hasn’t had the infusions for a good black tea in weeks.
Caleb’s gone quiet. When Caduceus blinks back down at him, he’s tucked his hands nervously back into his scarf, the fingers weaving loose threads relentlessly. With a sigh he puts his bun back. ‘Where is she then?’
‘She found a stall selling paints. Thought Jester might like some.’
Caduceus racks his brain for where that store had been. Comes up empty, though he has a vague recollection of a pretty banner garnished with all manner of garden weeds belonging to a large man with a colourfully stained apron.
He settles a hand on Caleb’s shoulder, tries not to flinch when the man startles away from it. ‘She’ll be alright.’
‘It’s been a long time.’ Caleb tells him evenly, still eyeing the street though he doesn’t dislodge the hand.
‘She can handle herself.’
‘She should not have to.’
‘But she does. Very well I believe. With sharp things usually, Caleb she will be fine.’
Caleb frowns.
Caduceus takes another bite of his bun. Savours the flavour as it bursts on his tongue again, this time a much less surprising flurry. Caleb remains sullenly still as he finishes the rest of it, and Caduceus even manages to lick the dusty sugar from his fingers before the wizard opens his mouth again.
And closes it. His eyes dart briefly to Caduceus before settling back on the crowd.
He sighs. Gently folding the last bun in the paper bag and tucking it into his side bag, he rocks his head back to the crowd less than subtly, ‘but I suppose we can find her, if it would ease your thoughts?’
‘My thoughts are eased.’ Caleb says absently. ‘I am very eased.’
‘Hmm. I couldn’t tell. Perhaps, we have different definitions of the word.’
Caleb scowls at him, though he sees the quirked amusement that tilts the corners of his mouth.
Caleb and Nott was a dynamic Caduceus hadn’t taken long to get used to, but a little longer to understand. The others said the same thing when asked, Caleb was protective, but Nott was the protector. When it came down it strategy wise in a fight, it was best to keep more of an eye on Caleb over Nott.
Nott tended to do her best work alone. Caleb tended to do his knowing Nott wasn’t in the way of it. Plus, Nott was far better at dodging fatal strikes than her much slower, much less agile partner.
‘But if Nott does ever go down,’ Fjord had added quietly over an evening of bitter teas Caduceus just couldn’t seem to brew right, ‘get her up. Caleb doesn’t handle it well.’
So Cad understood to an extent what it was Caleb and Nott seemed to be, though he’d never ask to clarify. It seemed a little of an open secret that where Nott went, Caleb followed, and vice versa. Where one got into trouble, the other was already there with both hands elbow deep in the aftermath of it.
So it was not a surprise to see the worry the rippled through Caleb’s thin limbs and settled heavy in the lines of his face.
And to say he himself wasn’t concerned about the goblin was an unnecessary lie. Caduceus hadn’t cared much for the tricky politics of race in the world outside of his home, but travelling with the Nein proved that goblins were yet to reach any semblance of welcome in most communities still.
And no was more aware of this than Nott herself. Though it rarely dissuaded her from much anymore, she still twittered nervously at their sides when crowd got a little too close for comfort. Caleb was the first, typically, to offer the ragged shelter of his coat to her.
Cad cocks his head at the street behind him. ‘If it’ll settle your nerves, let’s find her.’
Caleb blinks at him, straightening from his perch. ‘Ya, it would. It would.’
Caleb leads the charge, quick darting steps that have the Firbolg feeling like a great looping deer behind him to keep pace. Where Caduceus had struggled to part the crowds with manners and shuffling apologies, Caleb struck a path through with a single-minded ease that pissed off far more market goers than Caduceus ever intended to.
They try and keep to the centre of the street, Caleb looking one way and himself looking the other. There’s not sign of their rogue however, and with every empty stall Caleb’s shoulders shudder closer to his ears.
Eventually they reach an open area, to one side filled with a large pen of cows and sheep on display, farmers calling their prices to passersby. On the other a crowd is gathered around several of the more artistic stalls, jewellery and pottery and one seller who Caduceus had seen selling a range of ornamental drinking horns.
He guides Caleb that way, pointedly ignoring the way his eyes seem to linger on the stocks set on their raised platform at the other end of the large centre. They’re empty now, the jolliness of the market swallowing the atmosphere around them so they appear almost decorative in their harmlessness.
Caleb never mentioned experience with a stockade. Caduceus supposes it’s not a question one tends to ask.
‘You said she was after paint?’ He hums, weaving around a young group of chattering dwarven girls with matching dark braids down their backs. ‘I believe the seller is here.’
‘Aquarell. She thought Jester might like some.’ Caleb recalls, coming to a bumbling halt as the dwarves make their sudden move to leave and rush past him in a flurry of bows and braids and the sweet sickly scent of pastries.
Caduceus tries not to laugh at him out loud.
There’s an upheaval of oohing in the crowd to their left, followed by a rippling shove that knocks against Caduceus’ knees and sends him stumbling back into Caleb. Caduceus barely glimpses a burly looking man in a bright yellow striped apron roar out something, spitting words to the pavement, before the crowd swallows him up.
Shouting erupts. The whole market seems to come to an almost comical freeze as an argument rises from the closed ranks of the distant crowd. Two guards can be seen pushing their way through, grubby uniforms and polished spears in hand as they use the blunt wooden ends to bash their way through to the culprits.
‘You think…’ He trails off, glancing down at Caleb, whose face has gone a concerning white most comparable to the pallid dead. ‘Yep.’
‘Scheiße.’ Caleb swears tightly.
In the next second, he’s thrown himself into the throng of the crowd, now come to life with the certainty of immoral entertainment.
Caduceus blesses his height for the first time, following the shock of red that weaves between bodies with an unusual adeptness. Perhaps Caleb was not so much of a heavy-handed man as he let others believe him to be.
The shouting doesn’t get much clearer as they get closer, instead voices mingle in a din of rage and indignation and a desperate attempt to keep peace. They’ve just pushed through the first thick wall of spectators close enough to know what’s really happening, when all voices cut themselves off with a sudden tension.
Caduceus doesn’t want to know why.
Then the yelling is back, this filled with a new fury. One of the voices has dropped from the rest, a high scratchy keen replacing it instead.
Somewhere in front of them a child screams. The crowd gasps.
One guard straightens, and with all his self-importance, hollers ‘goblin!’ as one might cry ‘rat!’ in a castle hall.
Beside him Caleb all but throws someone out of the way. Caduceus surges forward with a new urgency as half the crowd scurries back in a tangled, panicked mass as the other half presses forward to admire the spectacle.
A hand raises. Caduceus’ heart thuds sharply against his ribs.
‘Sir!’ Caleb hollers.
The crowd parts.
And Caduceus sees, with sudden, stark clarity, why Caleb’s tongue has become sharp with anger.
Nott is on her knees, one arm scrabbling at the man holding her there, the other caught in his great bruising hands. Her hood is pulled back, and despite the porcelain mask still clinging to her jaw the green skin and long twitching ears are more a giveaway than any of them like. Her pupils are thinned to slits, though, he notes with mild interest that they widen not unlike a cats at the sight of Caleb bouldering his way through the straggling crowd towards her.
The guard holding her has his fist raised in a way that can only swing down onto Nott.
‘Let mein freund go!’ Caleb demands before he’s even come to a stop. ‘You are hurting her.’
‘Her?’ the guard repeats incredulously, scoffs the word like it’s the dirt clung to the heel of his boot. ‘Her. Sir, this creature isn’t permitted in the town walls. There is no her here. Get gone with you, we’ll deal with it.’
Nott snarls, twisting so she’s flat on her back and kicking at the man’s stiff arm, the other drooped from its poised position to punch. His elbow gives out, a wretched cracking sound follows the limb as it buckles beneath Nott’s force.
‘Ah!’ The man cries, high and surprised. ‘Shit!’
Nott scrambles back, her own movements unsteady in a way Caduceus rarely sees from her. Nervous sure, jittery and twitching often, but never has the little rogue looked so unsure of her body as it moves.
She’s nearly at Caleb’s feet, clearly intending to use the flap of his coat to shield some part of her, when the other guard roars out something indecipherable. In a second he’s got a hold of her dragging tail and yanked, sending Nott sprawling on her back a second time.
Nott shrieks, flailing madly at the viciousness of the move. She kicks back again, twisting her body so that she’s on her knees even as the guard attempts to pull her towards him with a stubborn yank.
‘Get. The Fuck. Off me.’ She snarls, loosing grip on the worn cobbles and crashing down again with a muffled gasp.
Nott told them before her tail is sensitive, something she likes to keep tucked away both for vanity and for safety.
Caleb had quietly informed the rest of them after she’d nodded off from the large beers on tap, that a curious child had pulled it as they passed in the street one night, and Nott had nearly bitten her lip through trying to keep quiet at the painful consequences.
Caduceus’s own tail is less of a sensitive thing. It moves with him like a limb, long and furred and adorned with all manner of odd bits and beads collected over years. It would hurt the same way a twisted arm or bruised knee might, but it’s not so sensitive as Nott’s thin, scraggly thing.
Seeing her now, the shock of the pull rendering her suddenly still as she’s dragged over the dusty street, has an unpleasant heat rising in his veins.
Caleb’s rage is written all over his face, the worn lines of life darker still as he marches forward and bodily shoves the guard. He loses his grip on the tail with a surprised huff, staggering back.
Nott’s tail curls towards her like a fern. Her chest rises and falls rapidly and long crooked fingers fumble to pull all of herself upright once more.
As she stands, Caduceus brushes the dust up behind her so she’s got him at her back, and Caleb at her front. She makes a noise of surprise at the sudden protective round, and he catches a glimpse of wide yellow eyes before she turns back to the man in front of them.
’Are you alright?’ He murmurs.
Nott shakes her head. Caduceus doesn’t think she meant to, but all her attention seems to be taken up by the stand-off Caleb’s put himself in. She moves to pull at the dagger in her belt, fingers slowly closing around the hilt.
Caduceus weighs how likely it is they’ll get out of this without it being thrown. He’d like to think they could. He’s not quite so optimistic as he feels like he should be about it though.
‘What the fuck?’ The guard spits, uniform askew where Caleb seems to have put his entire body weight behind the shove. ‘What is your fucking issue, man?’
‘You were hurting her, man.’ Caleb says, voice low and dangerous and crackling like a flushed log on the fire.
‘She was stealing.’
’I was not!’ Nott snaps suddenly, her voice wrought with indignation. ‘I have coin. I was going to pay.’
‘Shut it.’ The guard snarls, aiming another kick her way. He’s too far away for it to be a real threat to her, but she still flinches back with a sharp breath caught in her throat.
Caleb’s hands begin to shake, warm light sparking from the creases in his palms. ‘What did she ‘steal’.’ He says the word long and slow, offending in its syllables.
The guard blinks. Shrugs. Looks over at the man in the bright apron, whose face is interesting shade of beetroot as he watches them all. His eyes lock on Nott, brow creased so low in disgust Caduceus considers that they must always be settled in their misery like that.
’Paints.’ The man spits. ‘Expensive stuff.’
’I was going to pay.’ Nott reiterates. ‘I have coin. I can show it right now, I can give it to you right now.’
‘I don’t take coin from vermin.’ The stall owner says.
’Hey,’ Caleb barks, and his palms warm with dangerously yellowing light, ‘don’t call her that.’
’The fuck is your problem.’ The guard interrupts.
’Could ask you the same thing.’ Caduceus cocks his head, nodding at the guard and shop keeper in turn. Then, after a pause where no one seems to know quite what to say to him specifically, nods at the first guard. ‘Do you make a habit of arresting market customers? Can’t make for a very good business strategy.’
’She’s a little thief.’
‘Fuck you.’ Nott bites, tail lashing behind her with a shaky adrenaline.
And though he’s not wrong, and Nott is rarely one to dismiss her thieving prowess, Caduceus suspects that a gift for Jester would have been an honest purchase considering their freshly filled pouches from the gnoll extermination a few days prior.
‘Right,’ He says loudly, when it appears no one is getting any less hostile about the whole thing. ‘We’ll be on our way.’
‘What—No?’ The aproned man balks, marching forward a couple of determined steps before faltering as Caleb turns is spitting hands to him. ‘I want payment. I want her arrested. Punished.’
‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’ Nott protests, and her blade has made it into her hand. ‘I picked up paints. I looked at them. I thought about buying them. That’s what people do at markets you know, think about buying shit.’
’You were gonna steal them.’
Nott’s whole body seems to shudder with frustration, knuckles white with her clenched fists. She doesn’t argue this time, instead seeming to share a lock of incredulousness with Caleb, who shrugs back at her with an equally tense stance.
Caduceus thinks they look ready for a battle. A battle he really doesn’t want to have to have in a market.
‘Nott, do you still have the paints?’
Nott turns to him, eyes narrowed. Theres a sliver of hurt that startles him as she says, much lower and quieter, ‘I didn’t steal nothing.’
’I know,’ Caduceus rephrases, ‘I mean do you still have the ones you planned to buy?’
Nott’s eyes go wide and startled, lamp like even in the bright morning. She twitches her head back and forth before words catch up and she admits, ‘No.’
Caduceus doesn’t actually believe her. But he also finds, this once, he doesn’t really care.
’You believe the thing?’ The guard grunts. His spear is lowered no, the pointed end directed at Nott’s midriff, and Caleb shuffles a little further in front of her. ‘They lie. They all do. If she’s got money, she’s gotta pay up.’
‘And you’ll arrest her anyway.’ Caleb adds, a drilling sharpness to the words that puts even Caduceus’ fur on end at the threat.
‘Goblin’s aren’t permitted in the town.’ The man echoes. ‘It’ll be disposed of.’
‘I’ll dispose you.’ Nott grumbles lowly. ‘See how you like it, dick.’
‘Excuse me.’
‘Right!’ Caduceus calls, and with one swooping move he’s picked the goblin up in one hand and settled the other on Caleb’s shoulder.
Caleb’s hands dim slightly, but the threat in his eyes does not abet in the slightest. If anything, Caduceus’ removal of the physical reminder that Nott is safe at his side has only served to make Caleb more of a live wire of a fireball.
‘We’ll be off.’ Caduceus continues, and begins marching backwards.
The shopkeeper splutters.
The guard’s sputter into a flourish of movements, batting once more at the crowd to let get to Caduceus.
But Caduceus is tall, and he’s intimating when he wants to be, and he has a great big glowing crystal on his staff that he can be convinced to wave mysteriously in stranger’s directions to persuade them to move away from him.
Where Caleb’s surprising brute force had got them to the scene, Caduceus barely needs to waft his mildly off-putting self in the crowd’s direction to wage a path through the market and away from the struggling guards and their cruel stall holder.
They pass by an alleyway, darkened towards the exit by piles of planks and barrels stained with building pastes and thick iron beams. They duck beneath them, the crowd disappearing behind them as they make their way to the town outskirts where the pub they’d stayed at the night before was. Where the rest of the party was waiting, bags packed, for their trio to return.
They are terribly late.
Nott, suddenly aware she’s been held against Caduceus’ shoulder not unlike Caleb holds Frumpkin to his own, squirms her sharp joints until one of them nails the cleric in the sternum and she drops down to skitter away from him.
Caleb swoops in, and the goblin promptly disappears into the frayed folds of his coat. Caduceus, a hand cradling his freshly bruised skin, finds a fondness bubbling up from the ache at the sight. ‘Are you alright there, Nott?’
‘M’ fine.’ Nott says, muffled by Caleb’s shuffling walk. ‘Thanks for that. I mean—I could have stabbed him. He would have deserved it.’
’Ah, but how would you give Jester her present from jail.’ Caleb titters, amusement smothering the still heaving layer of fear and anger in his words.
Nott’s steps barely stumble. She ducks out from the coat and clambers her way up a thick stack of planks, warped by rain and left out to rot. Her claws nick light marks in the wood as she makes her way up. Caleb watches her, a calm seeping across his shoulders that Caduceus is all too glad to see return.
‘How did you know?’ Nott rasps down at them. Her voice doesn’t shake, almost. A less familiar person might think she had already forgotten the whole ordeal.
Caduceus though sees the tremble in her tail. See’s the way she hugs the shadows closer, closer still than Caleb in a rare show of independence. The way her sleeve is still scruffed where one of the guards had held her.
Nott is very good at appearing braver than she wants to be, he supposes. For someone determined to make sure people knew she was anything but, she had a quiet, startling way of bravery that Caduceus could liken to a mouse or bird caught in the paws of a cat.
Caleb chuckles low in his throat. ‘I know you, liebling.’
Nott huffs, but there’s a smile on her lips that softens the rough sound. ‘I wasn’t planning to steal them. Really. Then he did—all of that. And I already had them in my hand you know.’
Caduceus blinks at her. ‘You do have the paints?’
’They were already in my hands.’ She repeats. Shows her now empty hands at them with a lazy jazz wave. The palms are reddish and scuffed.
Caleb winces.
’I just slid them into my pockets. No one saw. I knew Jester would like them.’
Cad wouldn’t argue against it if people did. Nott wanted to pay. Nott was going to. The man and his prejudice was the reason the exchange never happened after all.
‘Jester will like them.’ Caduceus nods, and the collective breath held in the alley releases at his detached approval of the theft seems to settle. A wind passes through, a chilly thing that ruffles through his fur and he closes his eyes against it for a moment. He feels he’s passed some accidental test, some trust passed to him by the weary hands of this unusual pair.
He's growing really very fond of the Nein now.
When he opens his eyes, Nott is still staring at him with a cautious earnestness. ‘You think so?’
Caduceus nods. ‘Of course. Are they bright colours?’
‘Very.’ She nods, a sudden vibrancy to her as she turns to him and says, ‘The seller, piece of shit, he had a bunch of these really rare pigments. Paint’s are always kinda earthy you know, and Jester likes the bright stuff but that’s usually magically altered and expensive. But there was such a bright blue, they use cobalts for that, like Beau’s monk shit. And Jester’s blue is nearly out so it was perfect, and then this purple that I just know she’ll love. Which was kinda expensive, but now I guess it’s free. And they had some of the earthy stuff too, they get from clay and minerals. I thought she might like to top up on. Not too much, I didn’t have a lot to spend, but we never find paint shops in towns.’
Caleb listens to her ramble on about pigments and colours with a rapt devotion. His face turned to her with an expression of deep interest. The stress etched into his face has softened lightly, and his burning palms have been cooled and tucked into the deep pockets of his coat so thoroughly that from behind he appears to have no arms at all.
They are nearing the end of the alley now, the soft light of the main road beyond telltale that it’s not been breached by the market crowds, and Caduceus can just see their inn sign at the turn of the road.
It’s here that Nott twitches away from a dangling length of forgotten rope and Caduceus catches a flash of gummy red on the shadow of her cheek.
‘You’re hurt.’ He muses out loud.
Caleb stops abruptly. ‘Wie?’
‘It’s nothing.’ Nott snaps suddenly, her brightness gone.
’Nott. It is something—are you hurt?’
‘No.’ Nott repeats emphatically, and drops from the end of the planks and disappears beyond the two men into the main street.
‘Nott.’
‘Caleb, it’s fine.’
‘I can heal it.’ Caduceus adds, a lilting question to his own statement as he and Caleb hurry to catch up with the rogue.
‘Don’t bother. It’s nothing.’
‘Nott.’ Caleb says, affronted. ‘If you are hurt, let Caduceus look at it.’
Nott turns away, so the shadows of her hood hide her expression as she grumbles, ‘it’s just a scrape. From the cobbles. It’s nothing.’
‘If it’s nothing,’ Caduceus says smartly, ‘then let us see it.’
Nott doesn’t.
Caleb and Caduceus wait, a patient distance between them and the goblin, until eventually Nott’s head bobs once stiffly, and the hood of her cloak drops back.
Caleb steps aside for Caduceus to get a better look.
It’s not nothing, but it’s not bad necessarily. Painful looking, but not dangerous.
Nott’s skin is scraped across her cheekbone, rough torn skin sticking up every way. Dark blood has welled in the deeper areas, bubbled into sticky rows where thin strands of hair have caught and tangled in. On the edges a bruise has already begun to mottle, an ugly grey green that’s sure to turn a painful blue in the coming hour.
Nott flinches away as Caduceus raises a hand to it. ‘Is it sore?’ He asks, pointlessly.
Nott shrugs.
‘What happened?’
’You saw.’ Nott shrugs again, turning her cheek away slightly as Caduceus presses his fingers to the worst of the scrape and murmurs a healing word into it. Lichen folds over the bloody mess, pulling the ripped skin together with soft, mossy growth that falls away to leave her skin clear again.
He unfolds from a crouch, letting Nott press her own fingers to the spot curiously. ‘The guy shoved me over. One of the guards tried to get me on my front to arrest me. Held me down, you know.’
‘He hurt you,’ Caleb summarises stiffly, ‘Hurensohn.’
‘It’s nothing.’ Nott presses, and folds her hood back over her healed cheek. ‘Let’s go. The others are gonna wonder where we are.’
‘Hmm.’ Caleb hesitates, but the tangled thread that keeps him and Nott threaded together seems to compel him to follow at a far more sullen pace behind her.
Caduceus keeps pace a little better, striding steps to Nott’s hurried ones.
‘Oh.’ As the inn comes into their immediate view, he remembers the bakery bag still tucked in his side. ‘Nott.’
Nott swivels as she walks, heels barely scuffing the road as she keeps pace backwards. A fresh mask of indifference has flushed across her features and left her staring intently at him as if to dare him to bring up her cheek and her paints again. ‘Mr Clay?’
Caduceus produces the last bun, slightly flatter from its vulnerable position at the top of his bag and gone quite cold in the morning air. ‘Would you like a bun? It’s been quite a morning for one.’
Nott’s whole body shudders with interest as she comes to a stop and reaches grabby hands for it. ‘Is it sweet?’