The other wizard’s eyes narrowed. “And what is it that you’ll be handling, mm?” he asked, in a bored voice that carried the promise of a threat beneath. His body language didn’t visibly change – he kept his languid posture, resting his chin in one hand, the fingers of the other tracing idle patterns along the top of the bar. But Caleb could see the tension in his shoulders and the tightness in his jaws. People were so difficult in so many ways, so inexplicable and so hard to read, but the tells of a predator on the hunt would never not be obvious to him.
And indeed, the smile the other human painted onto his face had far too many teeth and absolutely no warmth. “We were only talking. Having some fun.” He reached over to squeeze Molly’s knee, then actually reached out to trace a lazy, possessive pattern down along the peacock feather on Molly’s cheek. Caleb tasted bile in the back of his throat as he saw Molly lean into the touch, smiling with the air of one concussed. “I’m sorry if you feel like you missed your chance at this one, but if you’ll excuse us—”
Arrogant bastard. Had he even considered that he might be dealing with another wizard? He clearly hadn’t, because otherwise, he would have noticed Caleb’s hand withdraw quick as a cat’s paw from his component pouch before it was too late.
The phosphorescent moss smeared across his palm as he clenched his fist, then uncurled it to reveal a glowing orb of light. The bright light it shed in a ten foot radiance around them, combined with the sudden nature of its appearance, was enough to get a few eyes turned curiously towards them. Normally the very idea made Caleb break out in a cold sweat, but he wasn’t the one wearing his real face in this moment and he knew that the other wizard absolutely was.
Sure enough, he saw the man’s eyes dart about, brief but nervous. Caleb pressed the momentary weakness mercilessly. “I know what you’re about. I know the game you’re playing. It’s one so many of us play, mm? Especially fresh out of the academy.” The man’s robes were too bright for him to still be a student and too new for him to have been graduated long. “You go to the parts of town where you won’t be recognized by the people who matter. You go to the places full of crowds of noisy people, people who aren’t as smart as you, people who are only passing through and so the Crownsguard will not care about them. And then you have your fun with them. Because you’re strong, and they aren’t, and if they fall for your tricks then that proves it to you and then that means they deserve it, doesn’t it? That’s what they teach you. I know. I remember.”
Damn it all. He’d meant to stay calm and cold, he’d meant to approach this bastard on his own level. But Caleb’s eyes were starting to sting – not enough to be visible past the disguise, but it was a warning sign to him all the same. His voice had risen enough for them to be overheard, bolstered by too many bad memories and too much godsdamned emotion.
Then again, maybe that much hadn’t been a bad thing. He could just barely see Wessek out of the corner of his eye, back behind the bar watching them both intently and close enough that he must have heard some of that. Wessek had seemed a decent enough man from their limited interactions so far. So Caleb felt he could at least hope that Wessek was a decent enough man to not willfully let a predator keep patronizing his and Claudia’s establishment.
Almost as if in answer to that desperate prayer, he saw Wessek slowly reach down behind the bar and come up holding a club with some nails hammered into it. He stood behind the other wizard, unnoticed by him in that moment, but clearly ready to intervene.
Knowing that this encounter was about to end one way or another gave Caleb enough steel in his spine to carry on the façade a moment longer. Squeezing Molly’s shoulder in a deliberately possessive fashion, he leaned in close until he was practically nose-to-nose with the plain man. He forced his voice steady, forced his voice low, and didn’t have to force the growl into it at all. “So I say this, one academy graduate to another. Leave this place and let me continue to have my fun without having to worry about you getting underfoot. Find your own hunting grounds, arschloch.”
He hadn’t meant that last to slip out. Fighting to keep his accent from getting too obvious had been enough of an effort during this encounter so far, because an obvious Zemnian accent would be a potential giveaway if this man wanted to retaliate against him or cause difficulty for him later. But it was done, and even seemed to have done the job of punctuating his point. What mattered most was that he seemed to have put enough real power into his voice, soft as it was now, to leave the other man convinced that he was dealing with an equal or perhaps even a superior in power.
And he hadn’t come here for that. Caleb knew he hadn’t come here for that. The point wasn’t to cause a fuss or draw attention. The point was to pick his target, have his fun with them, and leave.
And there were still plenty of places he could do that, here in this part of Zadash. Fighting over one tiefling, even one as striking as Molly, wouldn’t be worth that to this man, not when he didn’t see Molly as a person anyway. Even if he’d thought he could take Caleb – and Caleb saw in his eyes that he wasn’t – the effort wasn’t the point.
So he wasn’t at all surprised when the other wizard broke their intently locked gazes first, even if he was absolutely, indescribably relieved in the same breath. “Keep him, then,” the other human muttered bitterly, getting up from his seat and making a play of dusting himself off, adjusting his robes. “I can do better than your used-up rubbish.”
He spat at both their feet, then turned and left with his head held high, and Caleb was entirely unable to tear his gaze from the man’s retreating back until he’d walked out the door and turned the corner. In the instant before he looked away, he registered that a couple of other dragonborn following close behind.
Then he let out a long, shuddering sigh, and finally let his knees start shaking. “Oh,” he whispered. “Okay. Oh, dear. That was…that was a lot.”
“Caleb?” Molly was staring at him now, or trying to. His eyes were still desperately unfocused and he was still swaying but this time recognition warred with the confusion on his face. Caleb’s heart lurched, wondering wildly if he’d somehow let the disguise spell drop at some point during that confrontation, but after staring hastily down at himself and checking his appearance through Frumpkin’s eyes, he saw that he still appeared as he’d intended to. Molly must have finally been able to latch on to the sound of Caleb’s voice now that he was no longer fighting to mask his accent.
“It’s all right, Molly,” he said. Relief bubbled a little higher in his chest as he started trying to help Molly up from his seat. It was more of an effort than it should have been, with Caleb trembling from the aftershocks of adrenaline and Molly desperately weak and uncoordinated from whatever enchantment had been laid on him. Caleb cursed himself for his weakness in physical strength and magic power. Dispelling magic was still beyond him. The best he could do would be to get Molly somewhere safe and stay with him until the enchantment ran its course. “Let’s go, let’s just, um, let’s just get you upstairs.”
Eventually, he got Molly upright and reasonably stable, with an arm around Caleb’s shoulder so that they could lean against each other. The stairs would be tricky, but if that was the worst obstacle they faced for the remainder of the night, Caleb would count it a blessing.
“Mm, upstairs,” Molly murmured, still wearing the sort of glassy smile that made Caleb feel faintly nauseous. “Sounds good.”
He walked where Caleb led him, and Caleb simply focused on putting one foot in front of the other and trying not to let himself shake apart.
His efforts were suddenly in vain when a heavy hand closed around his shoulder and yanked him forcibly down the step and away from the stairwell. Molly only just managed to recover and brace himself against a wall. Caleb entirely failed to muffle a startled yelp and knew he would have collapsed entirely from fright if not for the hand’s ironclad grip. He was suddenly, forcibly spun round to face his new assailant.
“And just where do you think you’re going with that tiefling?” Wessek growled in his face. His free hand still held the bat with nails in its, resting with casual promise over one shoulder.
For a long, bad moment, Caleb’s brain entirely shut down from too much stress piling on at once, leaving his tongue to stammer and stumble apparently of its own desperate accord. “I, I-I don’t, I mean, what are—”
At what he would recognize later to have been the last possible second, his wits caught up with him enough to let him hold up a hand and stammer “W-Wait.” Then he hastily dropped the illusion so that the image of the severe, dark-haired man faded and he was left standing before the dragonborn as himself, filthy and shabby but recognizably one of Molly’s own companions.
He turned out to have guessed right. All at once, the hostile energy vibrating through Wessek dissipated. He simply blinked at Caleb in surprise for a moment before uttering a soft, understanding: “…ah.”
“I’m not going to hurt him,” Caleb whispered desperately, almost pleading and hating himself for it. “I’m sorry for the commotion I caused. I just, please, I only want to get him out of sight until this passes. Please.” He fumbled in his pocket but only came up with a handful of coppers. He pressed them into Wessek’s hand anyway. “Don’t let anyone follow us or, or ask after us. If that isn’t enough, my friend will pay you more when she returns, I swear it. Please.”
Wessek stared from the coins to Caleb. Then he sighed, passed the coins back to Caleb, and stepped back. “I’ll bring up some water in a while,” he said, jerking his chin towards the stairs. “Go.”
Nodding gratefully, Caleb went to Molly and together they did just that.
Re: Entitlement (2/?) cw attempted date rape
And indeed, the smile the other human painted onto his face had far too many teeth and absolutely no warmth. “We were only talking. Having some fun.” He reached over to squeeze Molly’s knee, then actually reached out to trace a lazy, possessive pattern down along the peacock feather on Molly’s cheek. Caleb tasted bile in the back of his throat as he saw Molly lean into the touch, smiling with the air of one concussed. “I’m sorry if you feel like you missed your chance at this one, but if you’ll excuse us—”
Arrogant bastard. Had he even considered that he might be dealing with another wizard? He clearly hadn’t, because otherwise, he would have noticed Caleb’s hand withdraw quick as a cat’s paw from his component pouch before it was too late.
The phosphorescent moss smeared across his palm as he clenched his fist, then uncurled it to reveal a glowing orb of light. The bright light it shed in a ten foot radiance around them, combined with the sudden nature of its appearance, was enough to get a few eyes turned curiously towards them. Normally the very idea made Caleb break out in a cold sweat, but he wasn’t the one wearing his real face in this moment and he knew that the other wizard absolutely was.
Sure enough, he saw the man’s eyes dart about, brief but nervous. Caleb pressed the momentary weakness mercilessly. “I know what you’re about. I know the game you’re playing. It’s one so many of us play, mm? Especially fresh out of the academy.” The man’s robes were too bright for him to still be a student and too new for him to have been graduated long. “You go to the parts of town where you won’t be recognized by the people who matter. You go to the places full of crowds of noisy people, people who aren’t as smart as you, people who are only passing through and so the Crownsguard will not care about them. And then you have your fun with them. Because you’re strong, and they aren’t, and if they fall for your tricks then that proves it to you and then that means they deserve it, doesn’t it? That’s what they teach you. I know. I remember.”
Damn it all. He’d meant to stay calm and cold, he’d meant to approach this bastard on his own level. But Caleb’s eyes were starting to sting – not enough to be visible past the disguise, but it was a warning sign to him all the same. His voice had risen enough for them to be overheard, bolstered by too many bad memories and too much godsdamned emotion.
Then again, maybe that much hadn’t been a bad thing. He could just barely see Wessek out of the corner of his eye, back behind the bar watching them both intently and close enough that he must have heard some of that. Wessek had seemed a decent enough man from their limited interactions so far. So Caleb felt he could at least hope that Wessek was a decent enough man to not willfully let a predator keep patronizing his and Claudia’s establishment.
Almost as if in answer to that desperate prayer, he saw Wessek slowly reach down behind the bar and come up holding a club with some nails hammered into it. He stood behind the other wizard, unnoticed by him in that moment, but clearly ready to intervene.
Knowing that this encounter was about to end one way or another gave Caleb enough steel in his spine to carry on the façade a moment longer. Squeezing Molly’s shoulder in a deliberately possessive fashion, he leaned in close until he was practically nose-to-nose with the plain man. He forced his voice steady, forced his voice low, and didn’t have to force the growl into it at all. “So I say this, one academy graduate to another. Leave this place and let me continue to have my fun without having to worry about you getting underfoot. Find your own hunting grounds, arschloch.”
He hadn’t meant that last to slip out. Fighting to keep his accent from getting too obvious had been enough of an effort during this encounter so far, because an obvious Zemnian accent would be a potential giveaway if this man wanted to retaliate against him or cause difficulty for him later. But it was done, and even seemed to have done the job of punctuating his point. What mattered most was that he seemed to have put enough real power into his voice, soft as it was now, to leave the other man convinced that he was dealing with an equal or perhaps even a superior in power.
And he hadn’t come here for that. Caleb knew he hadn’t come here for that. The point wasn’t to cause a fuss or draw attention. The point was to pick his target, have his fun with them, and leave.
And there were still plenty of places he could do that, here in this part of Zadash. Fighting over one tiefling, even one as striking as Molly, wouldn’t be worth that to this man, not when he didn’t see Molly as a person anyway. Even if he’d thought he could take Caleb – and Caleb saw in his eyes that he wasn’t – the effort wasn’t the point.
So he wasn’t at all surprised when the other wizard broke their intently locked gazes first, even if he was absolutely, indescribably relieved in the same breath. “Keep him, then,” the other human muttered bitterly, getting up from his seat and making a play of dusting himself off, adjusting his robes. “I can do better than your used-up rubbish.”
He spat at both their feet, then turned and left with his head held high, and Caleb was entirely unable to tear his gaze from the man’s retreating back until he’d walked out the door and turned the corner. In the instant before he looked away, he registered that a couple of other dragonborn following close behind.
Then he let out a long, shuddering sigh, and finally let his knees start shaking. “Oh,” he whispered. “Okay. Oh, dear. That was…that was a lot.”
“Caleb?” Molly was staring at him now, or trying to. His eyes were still desperately unfocused and he was still swaying but this time recognition warred with the confusion on his face. Caleb’s heart lurched, wondering wildly if he’d somehow let the disguise spell drop at some point during that confrontation, but after staring hastily down at himself and checking his appearance through Frumpkin’s eyes, he saw that he still appeared as he’d intended to. Molly must have finally been able to latch on to the sound of Caleb’s voice now that he was no longer fighting to mask his accent.
“It’s all right, Molly,” he said. Relief bubbled a little higher in his chest as he started trying to help Molly up from his seat. It was more of an effort than it should have been, with Caleb trembling from the aftershocks of adrenaline and Molly desperately weak and uncoordinated from whatever enchantment had been laid on him. Caleb cursed himself for his weakness in physical strength and magic power. Dispelling magic was still beyond him. The best he could do would be to get Molly somewhere safe and stay with him until the enchantment ran its course. “Let’s go, let’s just, um, let’s just get you upstairs.”
Eventually, he got Molly upright and reasonably stable, with an arm around Caleb’s shoulder so that they could lean against each other. The stairs would be tricky, but if that was the worst obstacle they faced for the remainder of the night, Caleb would count it a blessing.
“Mm, upstairs,” Molly murmured, still wearing the sort of glassy smile that made Caleb feel faintly nauseous. “Sounds good.”
He walked where Caleb led him, and Caleb simply focused on putting one foot in front of the other and trying not to let himself shake apart.
His efforts were suddenly in vain when a heavy hand closed around his shoulder and yanked him forcibly down the step and away from the stairwell. Molly only just managed to recover and brace himself against a wall. Caleb entirely failed to muffle a startled yelp and knew he would have collapsed entirely from fright if not for the hand’s ironclad grip. He was suddenly, forcibly spun round to face his new assailant.
“And just where do you think you’re going with that tiefling?” Wessek growled in his face. His free hand still held the bat with nails in its, resting with casual promise over one shoulder.
For a long, bad moment, Caleb’s brain entirely shut down from too much stress piling on at once, leaving his tongue to stammer and stumble apparently of its own desperate accord. “I, I-I don’t, I mean, what are—”
At what he would recognize later to have been the last possible second, his wits caught up with him enough to let him hold up a hand and stammer “W-Wait.” Then he hastily dropped the illusion so that the image of the severe, dark-haired man faded and he was left standing before the dragonborn as himself, filthy and shabby but recognizably one of Molly’s own companions.
He turned out to have guessed right. All at once, the hostile energy vibrating through Wessek dissipated. He simply blinked at Caleb in surprise for a moment before uttering a soft, understanding: “…ah.”
“I’m not going to hurt him,” Caleb whispered desperately, almost pleading and hating himself for it. “I’m sorry for the commotion I caused. I just, please, I only want to get him out of sight until this passes. Please.” He fumbled in his pocket but only came up with a handful of coppers. He pressed them into Wessek’s hand anyway. “Don’t let anyone follow us or, or ask after us. If that isn’t enough, my friend will pay you more when she returns, I swear it. Please.”
Wessek stared from the coins to Caleb. Then he sighed, passed the coins back to Caleb, and stepped back. “I’ll bring up some water in a while,” he said, jerking his chin towards the stairs. “Go.”
Nodding gratefully, Caleb went to Molly and together they did just that.