#AND !!!!!!! these prompts fuckin ruled so i hope you enjoy sdhfjskhfjk <333333333

[sockablock]

for the prompt giveaway: something with time travel! bonus points for whump. extra bonus points for caleb + beau or nott or molly. tysm. i love you.

fresh off the presses of final exams, @inkedinserendipity and @kaladins-angst, this one goes out to you

—  — —

His eyes snap open, and for a second it feels like waking from a dream.

Golden light streams in through the windows. The sound of busy streets drifts up past his ears.

He throws the covers off. He scrambles to tug his boots on.

The rest are already downstairs, eating breakfast. He swears loudly at this. He combs his hair down. He reaches the table just as Beau lifts her glass, just as Fjord goes to smile and say:

“Hey! Look who’s final—”

“—ly awake.”

There’s a pause. Fjord blinks.

“Uh…ex—”

“—cuse me. Ja, you are excused.”

The silence stretches on a bit longer, this time. Caleb sits down. He wolfs down a biscuit. He looks almost more ravenous than Nott and only stops to drink some water and add:

“Jester, you are about to comment on my manners.”

She hesitates. 

“…was not.”

The corner of his lip twitches up, then he nods. “Of course. But it is deserved, I supp—”

“What the fuck?” says Beau, then she swears and points at Caleb, “stop doing that—”

“—at already.” When her glare intensifies, he finally relents.

“Sorry, sorry,” he inhales half a muffin. “Sorry, but do you understand what is happening?”

“You’re being annoying.”

“Oh! Is this a new prank?!”

Nott rises in her chair and slaps her palms to the table.

“Dunamancy?” she asks. “Did something go wrong?”

Caleb nods. He looks proud, but mostly he just looks tired.

“Ja, in essence, that is what happened The long version is that later today, in this version of today, our mission is going to go poorly and all of us will die, and then I will wake up again.”

The group watches him down the rest of his mug.

“That is…the long version?” Yasha asks.

Caduceus hands him a napkin. He takes it. He nods.

“It has felt pretty long to me, anyway. This is the…götter, the twelfth time I have come back.”

“You must be really feeling the whiplash, then,” says Fjord.

Caleb gives him a look. It’s answered with a shrug.

“I mean…weirder things have happened to us before,” tries Nott. Caleb smiles; this is the eighth time she’s been the first one to agree. “What, uh…what exactly is going to happen, did you say?”

“We need all the details,” Beau nods. Her expression is stony now, all traces of snark gone. “Especially if it involves us…dying.”

“The even-longer version,” Yasha supplies helpfully.

Caleb slides his plate aside. He takes a deep breath.

“In an hour, we are going to go on that mission to uncover the final Beacon for the dynasty. The ruins will be difficult to navigate, but we manage. Jester is going to graffiti the walls and Fjord is going to nearly trip into a pit.”

“Oh, er…that’s…good to know, I suppose.”

“Indeed. Sometimes we take a short rest after that, sometimes we forge on ahead. Regardless, once we have moved past that point, when we reach the third level of the temple—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” says Beau, “these ruins are a temple? To who?”

Caleb shakes his head. “We never quite make it far enough to find out. Your working theory is that it is some god divorced from the the pantheon, connected to the Luxon if it is not the Luxon itself.”

She whistles. “I came up with that, huh?”

“Ja, and I am inclined to believe you. However, whatever this…diety was, it left behind something very powerful. In the final room that we stumble into, there is always the Beacon, sitting on a pedestal, surrounded by ancient iconography. And there is always also something else in that room, like a…like a shadowy force…almost alive, made of a strange grey mist. And it always kills us, in the end.”

He reaches out blindly and Nott provides a mug. He drinks it. The group mulls this over.

“Well,” says Fjord eventually, “that sucks.”

“So then…have we tried just not doing the mission?” Nott asks.

Caleb nods miserably. “My second time back, we tried that. A day went past, and after I went to sleep, I just woke up at the start of today.” He gestures to himself. “Like I did now.”

“Did we try to fight in the last cycle?” Caduceus asks.

“Ja. A number of you fell before I finally died.”

The weight of that “finally” leaves a chill in the air. Jester hands him a pastry.

“Have we…oh! Have we asked the Dynasty for help? Surely they would know how to fix this?” she says.

“We tried during cycle ten,” Caleb sighs. “Essik teleported over and everything. He…gave a theory and I believe he may be right.”

“Which is?” Fjord asks.

Caleb grimaces. “He believes that the spell I tried got disrupted by the presence of a Beacon so close to it. He thinks that the only way to undo this is to cast it in reverse, once again, before the Beacon.”

“Oh, well that does not seem so bad,” Yasha leans back and crosses her arms. “We can just do that then, yes?”

“Yes, only the spell takes a minute to cast. It was a miracle I got it off the first time, I have no idea if I can do it again. We just failed, trying to do it again.”

“You just failed,” Beau points out helpfully. “We’re fresh off the failure scale.”

Caleb shifts his stare towards her.

“I’m just saying. That attitude isn’t going to help.”

“It’s nice to see you being positive,” Caduceus rumbles. “I like it.”

Beau grins. “Thanks! You know, I’m tryin’ something new.”

“Anyway,” Nott pointedly interjects, as Caleb begins to massage his temples, “anyway, it doesn’t hurt to try again, does it? I mean, how many times have we died?”

“Nine times.”

“Nine?”

“Is it all of us?”

Caleb shrugs. “I, ah…admittedly, go down rather early, so I do not know if all of us are defeated each time. But I have watched each individual one of you die. At least once.”

“Yikes,” says Fjord.

He closes his eyes. He can hear Beau tapping her chin at his side.

“So…hang on, what if this is like…a dream, then, or something? What if you’re still dead right now and this is just some kind of vision? Or maybe you’re having a mental break?”

“I would prefer that not to be the case,” he mutters. “I have…done that once before, I would not like to again.”

“—shit. Sorry—”

He waves a hand. “It is alright. I do understand your hesitation, however, and I assure you that…as far as I am aware, admittedly with my grip on reality a bit tense—”

“We believe you.”    

He looks up, and his friends are all gazing back at him.

Jester hands him another pastry. It’s some kind of sugary fruit tart.

“I’m sorry you’re…stuck in time,” she says. “But I’m glad that you tried to come back for us. And I’m really happy that…well, at least for now, that we aren’t dead.”

“Yeah,” says Nott, nodding fervently. “Time loop or not, we’ll figure this out!”

“Time loop or…” Fjord pinches the bridge of his nose. “When did our lives get so weird?”

“Sometime just after the sword-swallowing, I think.” Beau claps a hand over Caleb’s shoulder. “Alright, let’s…do this, I guess. Do you have a plan for how we’ll keep you alive during your little ritual?”

Swept up in their wave of intent, he manages, “Ah…er…not yet, we tried the Hut once, but the mist can go through floors—”

“Then we create a new plan,” says Yasha.

“Whatever you think might work best, Mister Caleb. Are you…feeling alright, by the way?” Caduceus lifts an eyebrow. “If you say this is the twelfth time you’ve come back, the thirteenth time we’ve repeated today, then I imagine that’s a bit of a strain on the mind.”

“It is…certainly not pleasant,” Caleb mutters, then blinks and rubs his face, looks up.

“You all…I am worried that this is a…well, I am afraid that in telling you of our failures, I have discouraged you all.”

Beau tilts her chair back, puts a foot on the table. She is instantly chastised by Fjord, and scowls.

“Nah,” she says, setting her chair back on the ground, “nah. Failure is like…our thing. It’s…how we learn, anyway,” she eventually amends.

“And what other option do we have?” Yasha asks. “To sit back and do nothing? That is not what we do.”

“Let’s give it another shot,” Jester says, thumping Caleb on the arm. “You said you got it once before, that means it’s not impossible to do! We just have to keep trying!”

“It’s easier for us, I suppose, since we don’t…actually remember, but…” Fjord gives Caleb a nod. “It looks like, so far, you haven’t given up on us. The least we can do is not give up on you.”

“I…cannot make any promises,” he begins—  

“You don’t need to,” Nott says. “Come on, not for us.”

“What is it that they say about the number thirteen? It’s lucky or something, right?” Yasha asks.

“Actually,” says Beau, “depending on where you’re from, it can be, like, wicked unluck—”

Jester elbows her in the ribs.

“Ow, wha—oh. I mean, it’s super lucky, duh.”

Caleb glances down at the pastry in his hands.

He takes a bite.

“Well,” he manages, slowly, steadily. “I suppose that is something we will find out, ja?”    

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