#regards: caleb sent me (you are not in danger) he is worried (about you and what you are capable of) and then the Poast is that +

[wizardnuke]

yalls tags on the caleb astrid post are all SO spot on thank you for understanding the uh. canon that was given to us. not saying that anyone doesnt. but i am.

[dent-de-leon]

Do you happen to remember what was Cali's present to Molly? Thanks!

ohhh i was curious about this myself! I double checked Cali's wiki, and ended up finding a reddit post of Mark's where he posted the letter Cali sent to Jester. It includes presents for everyone in the Nein and a little message for each of them. Mollymauk gets a charm of the Platinum Dragon, which on its own is very sweet, but the letter itself is just...it's both so heartwarming and heartbreaking to me.

Given that Molly already had the Platinum Dragon necklace and the tapestry, I love that he’s just amassing a whole little shrine for a god he doesn’t even follow, particularly one known for being so lawful good. I’m sure the Moonweaver gets a kick out of that. I wish he eventually met some more worshippers of the Platinum Dragon, because it would just be great to watch him try and con his way out of trouble.

Also, the sad way Caleb quietly says, “Oh dear. Oh dear...There’s something for Mollymauk,” when opening up Cali’s presents just breaks my heart. 

Caleb: “This was for Mollymauk. You should hold onto it as well.” 

Beau: “Cool. I get a bow and a dead friend’s gifts...I take both the Yasha and the Molly gift, and I tuck them away with my circus pamphlet, and Molly’s belt, and all the other trinkets I’ve kept.” 

As for the letter: I'm tagging this with a trigger warning for self harm mention because of how Calianna talks about Molly's Bloodhunter abilities, which is something I wanted to go into more. I've definitely always felt for Molly’s character in regards to that. I don't think anyone else really addresses his blood magic in this kind of way, and it's painful how earnest and kind Cali tries to be about it, how she worries that he's letting himself get hurt for the sake of others.

I know Taliesin makes it clear that Molly never sees it as self harm, and views it more as a conduit for the give and take of magic like any other--the giving of his own life to protect the people he loves. I think a lot of people see Molly as selfish or not quite as “heroic” as the Nein remembered, which I never really understood. Even from just looking at Molly’s class, this is a person who, in Taliesin’s own words, was willing to sacrifice himself if it meant he could protect the people he cared about: 

“‘Percy was not a healthy human being and was very destructive. I would consider Percy to be not a very good person, not worth my time. But he had the veneer of a very good and moral person’....Molly, in contrast, [was based on friends] ‘who had the veneer of uncivility and danger and negativity, but who managed to honestly be some of the best people I’ve ever known in my life: the most caring and the most careful, willing to defend what was theirs and stand up for others.’”

“‘Molly was never a character of self-harm...It was never about self-harm; it was about sacrifice.’”

“But he distills Molly into more nonviolent terms: ‘It’s the giving of himself to give to others. Giving of himself to be a protector. Giving of himself to maintain.’” 

“‘His power looks one way--it looks damaging and looks broken and looks unhealthy--but, in the end, it’s all about a desire to be useful and a desire to be a good friend and a good family member. And the understanding that especially when you’re living in a world the way they are, that you sacrifice a bit of yourself for the people who are going to sacrifice a bit of themselves for you.’” 

The quotes from Taliesin are pulled from The World of Critical Role, and it certainly gives more insight to Molly’s magic and how he wields it. So there’s certainly more going on than the black and white picture Calianna paints--I think he’d find her message kind and well meaning, but perhaps a bit presumptuous, naive, and more of a misunderstanding. To him, the blood magic is no more painful or dangerous than anyone else risking their neck in a fight for their friends. 

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other implications to his Bloodhunter abilities on a meta level, regardless of how it’s written. And in that context, there's something that really gets me about Cali’s compassion for Molly. There’s something very sweet about the notion that Mollymauk shouldn’t have to use blood magic at all, because he has friends with magic who will take care of him. 

I think there’s actually a lot of truth to that--immediately after Molly’s resurrection, when he’s vulnerable and grappling with his trauma, struggling to get his bearings--everyone becomes very protective of him. Jester promises to take him home and gives him new clothes, Beau and Yasha look after him through the night. They all ensure he’s cared for and supported until he’s ready to move on. If Greater Restoration was never cast, I think the Nein would have stayed with him and helped him adjust for as long as he needed. Molly’s so much more than just a fighter to the Nein, than what Lucien’s blood has made him. And Calianna sees that from just one day with them. 

Sorry, I know this was just a quick question and this got so long and a bit heavy, but I just got so excited reading Cali’s whole letter. And now I want her to inexplicably join King Molly’s pirate crew. “Please keep everyone smiling for me,” is just about one of the sweetest things I’ve ever heard.

[sockablock]

happy Winter’s Crest, y’all! And an especially happy winter’s crest to @devilessyeet, my @winterscrestgiftexchange partner! I hope you enjoy this piece, and have a great holiday!!

• • • • • • • •

It was midnight in Zadash, long hours past sundown. Mist hung low off the cobbled roads, and the only source of light came from a handful of guarded torches winding through distant alleys and streets. A few clouds drifted slow across the moon and somewhere in the night, a single raven alighted on a rooftop and gently shook its feathers.

In the candlelit interior of his own inn room, Caleb Widogast briefly set down his notebook. His hair was unkempt as always and his coat sat folded next to him, neatly on the bed. He had a rumpled quill between his fingers, and sported a thin smudge of ink at the corner of his mouth from where he would chew at the nib in frustration.

His gaze was glued to a peculiar cannonball-sized object resting on the covers before him. Its twelve-sided form glowed softly in the darkness, and every once in a while, he would see a tiny grey spark break from its surface, then vanish from reality. It undulated faintly with a strange and unknowable energy, and despite his best efforts, he still had barely any idea what it meant.

He glanced back down at his sparse notes. Over the course of the last few hours, he had only managed to rewrite what he already knew: this beacon was connected somehow to the Krynn, had presumably originated in Xhorhas, held some sort of sway over fate and all chance. Caleb himself had felt its power course through his veins a number of times now, and while its influence was immeasurable and its possibilities endless, there was something off-putting about accepting the gifts of an artifact so alien and strange.

He scratched his chin, and tapped the pages once more. Then he looked back up to run a few more tests, and saw.

He instantly lunged out, snatched the beacon into his arms, threw himself up off the bed and set both hands aflame.

And then he hesitated, because the intruder hadn’t even moved.

Sitting on the mattress of his simple low bed, leaning back and posture calm, was a strange young man in dark leather armor. His skin was so pale as to almost glow, and he had a thick cloak of midnight feathers draped across his shoulders. His long black hair was tied up behind his head, and upon further inspection, Caleb could see that the man’s ears were slightly pointed—the tell-tale sign of elven heritage.

He was also tossing a dagger into the air, watching it spiral a moment before catching it lazily. Even more worrying, was the broad smirk across his face. The way his eyes glinted with mischief in the moonlight.

Caleb made his fire burn brighter. To his disappointment, the man’s grin only widened.

“Easy there, friend,” he chuckled. “I’m not here for a fight.”

Caleb raised an eyebrow. His flames crackled on. “You broke into my room,” he said slowly. “You are armed.”

“What, this?”

The young man flipped the dagger up one more time, winked grandly, and then suddenly, in mid-air, the weapon vanished into a thin wisp of shadow.

“Is that better?” he asked.

Caleb stared. He took a small step back.

“Somehow that is even worse.”

The young man sighed. “Look,” he said, and raised his palms in a calming gesture, “look, I really am not here to fight you. If I wanted to, y’know, fuck your shit up, I would’ve done it while you were busy with your pretty little ball. I mean, I got in here without you noticing, yes?”

Very guardedly, very gradually, Caleb nodded his head.

“Exactly,” the man said. “So, please, won’t you sit down? I just wanted to talk. You can even hold onto the beacon, if you’d like, though I imagine you’d rather put it back into its box, so no one can find it during our little conversation.”

A thousand more questions swam through Caleb’s mind. He gingerly retrieved the lead safe from under the bed and dropped the beacon inside. He leaned over, and put his book and inkwell onto the nightstand.

Then he sat down.

“There we go,” the stranger beamed. “Isn’t that better?”

“I am not so certain, yet,” he muttered. “That depends on who you are, and what you wish to speak of.”

The half-elf threw his hands into the air. “Right, right!” he said. “Of course you’d want an introduction. You can, er, you can call me ‘Vax.’”

“Er…ja, okay, I am Caleb Widogast. Though I somehow feel you may know that already.”

Vax grinned. “Too true, Mister Widogast. I know quite a bit about you. And one of those things, if my hunch is correct, is that you and your gang of friends have been messing with something you aren’t supposed to.”

Caleb raised an eyebrow. “Such as…?”

“Come on, come on,” Vax sighed. “I need you to work with me here. Isn’t it obvious?”

“Ja, well, if I am being honest, we have messed with many things over the years, and I am fairy certain a large majority of them were supposed to be off-limits.”

Vax chuckled at that. “Okay, fair.” He pointed at the ground. “I’m talking specifically about that fancy little dodecahedron. The Beacon. And what it represents.”

“What it represents?” Caleb echoed. “You mean Xhorhas?”

Vax sighed again. “No, Mister Widogast. What I represent. Or, should I say, who I represent: Fate, and the goddess of.”

Caleb stared at him. He opened his mouth. He closed it. He opened it again.

“You are a follower of the Raven Queen?”

The corners of Vax’s lips quirked upwards. “Sure,” he nodded. “Let’s go with that. She’s, er, she’s sent me on a bit of an errand, different than my usual duties, to poke into you lot. The long version’s a bit more complicated than that, but mostly I’m just here to ask questions.”

“And…if you do not like the answers?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your goddess is also the patron of death,” Caleb murmured. “Will you kill me?”

Vax blinked. For a long, long silence, Caleb got the impression that he was trying not to laugh.

Eventually, the half-elf shook his head and offered up a wry smile. “Death doesn’t kill people,” he said gently. “She doesn’t need to.”

“You know, you really make me anxious when you answer my questions that way.”

Vax’s grin widened. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s been a while since I’ve held a proper conversation.”

Before Caleb could comment on that, the man waved a hand around and gestured towards the lead box. “So what exactly are your intentions with that, anyways? Feel free to lie at first, if it makes you feel better, but I’ve got all the time in the world.”

Caleb remembered a shadow where there hadn’t been one before. He remembered a dagger that had turned into smoke. He could feel, though he wasn’t entirely sure how, a tremendous amount of barely-contained power swirling throughout his bedroom.

He swallowed. He shrugged.

“If I am being entirely honest, Herr Vax, the truth is that we have no intentions. We stumbled across this object mostly by accident, and we have been carrying it around in a sparkly pink haversack ever since.”

There was a beat of silence.

“You had it in lead, though,” Vax said, slightly reproachfully. “You knew people were going to be looking for it. Took me bloody months to get a proper pin on you lot.”

“Verzeihung.”

“I get the feeling that you aren’t really sorry.”

Caleb couldn’t help but grin at that. “No, not really,” he said. “Can you blame me?”

Vax chuckled. “No, I can’t. But why keep it?” he asked. “If you say you didn’t want it in the first place, why hang on to something so dangerous?”

Caleb considered this, and then sighed. “We did not want it falling into the wrong hands. And I am not saying we are the right hands, but…we know where this object came from. And it…it was a point of heavy contention between our Empire and the…the neighboring one.”

“Your empire,” Vax noted. “But you didn’t give it to them?”

“Oh, not at all,” Caleb said. “They are not trustworthy. Who knows what they could do with something this powerful?”

“And what do you want to do, with something this powerful?”

Caleb glanced at the box on the bedsheets before him.

“We are going to keep it safe.”

Vax shook his head, leaned in. “You misunderstand me. What do you want to do with it?”

Caleb’s eyebrows went up. “Me?” he asked. “Me?”

“Yes, you, like I’ve said, I’ve done my homework. I know a fair bit about who you are, and who you used to be.” Vax sat back and crossed his arms. “Tell me, Caleb Widogast, why are you keeping the Beacon?”

Caleb restrained himself from answering immediately. He sighed inwardly and shrugged.

“I want to change the past,” he said. “I want to shift reality back into a direction that it never took.”

“Why?”

Caleb glanced up. He met a pair of calm, steady eyes.

“Have you never felt regret, o Follower of the Raven Queen?”

Vax’s expression glimmered in the candlelight. “More times than you can count,” he chuckled softly. “But I will say this: I never once thought about going back on fate.”

Caleb shrugged. “Then you are thinking too small.”

“Perhaps. But what makes you think you can do it?” Vax asked, narrowing his eyes. “What makes you think that you’ll succeed, where nobody else has? What makes you think you’ve got even the slightest possibility of getting what you want?”

There was a second of silence, punctuated by the distant plodding footsteps of a night watchman far below.

“Will you kill me, tonight?” Caleb asked.

Vax shook his head.

“Then I still have a chance.”

The half-elf’s stare cracked, and a smile crept forward. “You’ve got balls, I’ll tell you that.”

“Thank you for reminding me.”

Vax rolled his eyes, and thrust a finger under Caleb’s nose. “I’m not going to kill you, that’s for certain,” he said. “And as far as we know, which is pretty damn much, you haven’t broken any laws regarding life and death. Your meddling with destiny hasn’t led you anywhere too dangerous yet, and it certainly isn’t worth staining my daggers. For now.”

He waved his finger around a little too sarcastically to be menacing. “I am here to give you a warning, though. It’s easy to get sucked into regret. If you aren’t careful, you’ll find your life slipping through your fingers faster than you can bring it back. We all die eventually, Mister Widogast, and we’ve got to use every second that we have.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Herr Vax?”

“Yes?”

“What comes after this? After life, what is next?”

The half-elf gave him a very faint smile.

“I told you already,” he said. “I’m not here to kill you, tonight. In fact,” he added, standing up and stretching his arms, “I should probably head out now. I’ve got things to see and people to do, you know how it is.”

“I do not think that is how the saying goes.”

Vax grinned. “I like to improvise. I imagine you and your friends understand that, pretty well.”

“We think on our feet,” Caleb admitted with a shrug.

Vax nodded his head enthusiastically. “Good!” he declared. “That’s the right way to be. And this part isn’t really a message from my Lady, or anything like that, but…do me a favor, alright? Don’t worry about changing what’s already happened. Focus on keeping what you have now.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your friends,” Vax said. “Hold them close. They’re the best kind of family you can have.”

Caleb’s gaze fell to the ground, and Vax chuckled softly. “Just think on it,” he said. “For me.”

“No promises.”

“None required.”

And then, as Vax crossed the room, as he walked over to the window and reached a hand outside and pressed his foot to the sill and prepared to leap through the night, he paused.

He looked back.

“This is going to sound a little odd,” he said slowly, tone much less serious than it had been so far, “but…there is something very familiar about you.”

Caleb shrugged. “I am no stranger to death.”

Vax threw his head back and laughed. “Good answer, slick. Nobody is.”

And then he nodded one last time to the wizard framed in moonlight, turned back around and slid his shoulders past the frame, kicked up off the hardwood floors, and was gone.

A rush of feathers blew through the room and vanished just as quickly as they’d come. Caleb couldn’t help but rise from the bed, hurry over to the window, stick his face into the cool night air and scan the starry horizon for any sign of where his visitor had gone.

Nothing. Not even a shadow over the moon.

Eventually, he sank back into his mattress. He stared at the lead box. He brushed his fingers to the lid, considered opening it again and taking one last look.

He didn’t.

And from somewhere in the night, somewhere high above the city, over moon-swept rooftops and the distant, shimmering sky, a raven called out to the breeze.

And flew home.

[ladedanixie]

ok so apparently im not done talking, cause I lied, something else bothered me about what went down, so more under the cut again.  

 Ok, and don’t get me wrong here, I adore Beau, but there was something else that bothered me about what went down, and that is the way Beau went about curbing Caleb’s tendency to be controlling. I just, I guess it just felt like she was using language that was super invalidating of Caleb’s trauma. It felt very much like an adult snapping and scolding a child to me. 

(which I doubt is what Beau was trying to do, again very in character, and I feel is reflective of her own backstory, and issues with authority, Beau seems very aware of the dangers of wielding too much power, and of being too controlling. Perhaps because she spent a lot of time of being controlled, I mean her parents sent her to be a monk for political or societal reasons in order to further their own social standing, did not sound like she had too much say in that. Nor in her upbringing considering the implication that her parents raised her like a boy, because she was not the boy they wanted, i.e. the childhood thing, I’m digressing, and I realize I probably need to make another post speculating more on Beau’s past, cause I really do love Beau. She’s got some trauma of her own). But yeah. 

What she did reminded me a lot of how some people in my life would be dismissive of my feelings, or how I approached the world. Telling me just because this is something you deal with, or something that happened to you, doesn’t mean I get to do this or that. Which is vague, so let me clarify that I am not saying that your trauma gives you a free pass to be a dick, or decide that you are the one authority on what is right and wrong, and who gets what (speaking about Caleb in this instance, and sorry if that is worded poorly, I hope that the way I worded this causes no harm, and if it does I am sorry, and if asked I shall reword.) 

Like just cause someone in my life hurt me, does not mean I get to take that out on others, or make decisions for other people. 

And like I said in my other post, Caleb does need to have someone around to keep him honest, to curb his more manipulative and controlling tendencies, or at least nudge him in the right direction. (and I think him being with group is beginning to do just that, nudging him in the right direction I mean) But, it just felt callous to me the way she went about it. Honestly it’s probably just the aggression she put into it, which is just Beau, but it brings up a lot of negative feelings and memories for me. 

Though let me clarify, she has no obligation to make herself softer for Caleb, or to become that person for Caleb, none at all. But, it just made me feel bad how she said it. Like the dude was brainwashed and made to believe he was killing for “righteous” reasons, and then lost more than a decade of his life before finding out that the person he thought the world of was in reality a despicable person. His trauma is more than enough reason to be distrustful, paranoid, and cautious. Also, he gave them a way to help him trust Cali, which was asking Jester to do Zone of Truth in the morning before entrusting an extremely powerful and dangerous to someone whose intentions they did not completely know. 

Yes Cali was a very earnest and forthcoming person, but Caleb knows first hand that someone can seem like they are good and well meaning, and really be terrible underneath it all. (They all, save for Nott, refused to do that, Jester in particular, though that was probably in part because she saw this as Caleb being irrationally mean to someone who has proven to be very kind to her, that and that whole “for you Fjord, I will turn frumpkin into a bird thing, and assuming that jester would just do zone of truth at his say so, but that is another post. So that made it kinda worse. But once again, I digress.)

Thing is that Beau has done this before, curbing Caleb’s controlling tendencies in regards to him keeping loot and information from the group. But, she still did it in a way that felt like she was belittling his trauma. For example, the whole thing with the glove, and how she said his trauma is not an excuse for him to decide who gets to keep it. And I think she is right, that Caleb does not get to decide whose hands are the right hands, for reasons that I go into in my other post. But, now, it makes worse that she knows full well why he does those things, and instead of maybe considering that, instead she tells him that his trauma is no reason to do those things. She was making it sound like he was irrational for that, you know. I don’t know. Someone else can possibly say this better, but yeah. 

They both had their reasons for doing what they did, and saying what they said. But, it kinda made me felt kinda icky in that Beau was too similar to what I’ve heard others say to me and to other people I know, and that Caleb’s tendency to do shit like that is worrying cause of his desire to bend reality, plus the only person he really trusts and who supports him a lot is also enabling a lot of his more negative traits. Point is, partially, they both suck real fucking hard at communication.

[justicewinged]

The mustering ground is already teeming with both new recruits and older rangers, eagles and falcons and hounds shrilling and barking to their counterparts as their masters hold them. Quinn comes dressed in the clothes she had been given by the general himself, and glances around the mustering ground for his familiar grizzled face. The ground below her feet is sand and rock, the noise from the surrounding courtyards and training fields overwhelming to both her and to Valor both, even with his hood swaddling his ears of sound and danger.

Once she finally finds the general, he already focuses on the other recruits around him, not one of them much older than her. One of them isn't much older than twelve or thirteen, the age Quinn had been when her mother took her out into the woods for her first major hunting excursion, with eager eyes and a ready posture. He reminds her so much of Caleb, but he's cleaner, tidier, as if his parents had just sent him off to his first day as a ranger as simply as it had been a school where he might learn to read or write. Quinn looks around her, and counts five recruits, counting herself. There is the eager child, a lanky and solemn-faced female youth roughly her age with a deer hound at her heel, a burly lad who she suspects will not fare kindly to ranging, and a fair-faced lad with hair like straw.

General Montagne regards all five of them with a serious regard for a long moment, taking a second to drink in all their presences at attention in their fatigues, and as soon as he finishes, he straightens, passing his gaze over the lot once more before he speaks in a boom Quinn hadn't expected of him.

"Recruits!" he begins, tipping his chin up slightly to be heard over the clamoring courtyard. "Today is your first day, and it is today you will be tested to ensure your ability in your fields, given your base knowledge. Rangers are elites. We train daily with no exceptions and there is no mountain too broad, no river too deep, no castle wall too steep for this is what we spend our lives training for. The enemy does not outrun the king's wolves."

His voice drops, and his gaze meets Quinn's for a long moment. She finds herself holding her breath for what it's worth, then he passes his gaze on through the group.

"Selby, Wilde, Lestrade, Hewn, Charenne. The five of you -- light bidding -- will be our newest addition to the rangers' newest patrol. Until you are no longer recruits, you will share a barrack with the rest of them, and your animals will be kept in kennels. Worry not of them not being exercised or fed, we will treat them as you, offering three square meals and daily drill. You will be responsible for your own animal. For a portion, we will split off into specialist group drills daily. Selby, you will be with the falconry division, of course, and Lestrade, you will be with the hounds. The rest of you will need to spend extra time with some of my top officers to find the specialization that suits you."

"As for testing..." He pauses, pacing his step between the five new recruits, stopping before Quinn. "I have an eager volunteer here, do I not, Selby?"

"Yes, sir," she replies, standing up proudly with a hand thumped to her chest in salute.

One of his brows quirks slightly with the bowing of his lip. "Come now, then," he says. "Clear some space, everyone, and show me what you might do, Selby. First, let us test your skill with your eagle, for this is why we're bringing you on, is it not?"

"Yes, sir."

Quinn removes Valor's hood and jesses -- she doesn't need them, they're more for formality sake -- and the eagle looks amongst the circled recruits, then tips his head at the dog slightly. She strokes back his crest, tickles a bit at his downy breast feathers, then releases him to the sky. She needs no lure to dance with him, to show his tricks.

He lets out his first call, just as trained, and she responds in kind.

"Tell us about what is happening here," requests the general. Someone has gotten him a chair, so he can watch these goings on in comfort.

"Valor and I have a call and response, so he has no need for bells that may distract from whatever it is I have him do. It is one intermittent whistle. Should I not whistle back, he will rush to my aid, and I will do the same. That's how birds communicate in the wild. I've heard them."

General Montagne nods slowly. "Show us more."

She whistles once more, a three toned note, barely under her breath, and he begins circling straight above her head. "Circle me."

A couple more tricks, her calling him to the glove and sending him off, hop from surface to surface, all the normal falconry tricks are shared, and the general seems mildly impressed.

"I see your skill, Selby. Have you anything else you'd like to share?"

Wordlessly, she pulls out the meat, and does something her mother would never dare do. Valor sees the treat on her glove and dives for it, but just in the nick of time, Quinn pulls it away. He leads off with a trill of play, and she ducks and spins, with grace taking the eagle's attention to food and making dance of it. On the ground, she flies, matching her avian companion in grace, and from the sides of the mustering point, men and women-at-arms watch this new recruit, who looks every bit like her Azurite companion as she moves. She's smiling, and his crest is up. People watch them with wide eyes, but her heavy breathing is of no consequence, and when he comes to the glove at long last, she holds him closely and nuzzles his face with her nose. Bird and girl, for a short time, become one, with his wings lazily draping over his food as he eats, thus shrouding her face and shoulders like the darkness of a mother's shawl.