for Peter (werewolfing) - Post-Folkmore Exandria AU

[ausgebrannt]

[Caleb opens his eyes back in Exandria. When he fell to sleep, he'd been safe and warm, held in Peter's arms. Where he belongs, where his heart had come to know was where he was meant to be, in any and all worlds. Now though, now he finds himself opening his eyes in a moment that is familiar, but feels distant. The last moment he'd been in Wildemount before he'd found himself snatched away by the Fox and her request that wasn't quite a request so much as a command. It's disorienting, like being dropped into a deep pool of cold water, not entirely sure which way gravity properly existed, no memory of how to breathe like this.

He takes stock almost desperately. Yes, this is his own world. There's a terrible moment where he wonders if all that time in Folkmore had been some incredibly vivid dream. But no, that's wrong. It's impossible. His imagination has never been so talented, and his heart knows all too well that it was real -- the people he'd met there, the things he'd done. Peter. Immediately Caleb reaches for that bond that has kept them in each other's minds, the comforting, warm presence of his lover. 'Peter!' But no answer comes. It feels like the connection is still there, some vague promise that somewhere, across whatever realms and worlds may be, Peter Rumancek is still alive. He looks quickly to the red string around his pinky -- and it's still there, still tied securely, but it trails off into nothing after only a few inches, connected to nothing.

No. No. The frantic sound he nearly chokes on wakes Veth, and she's quick to ask him what's wrong. He tries to explain it, he really does, to Veth, to the others. Again and again. But they don't know what to make of it. They know that Caleb has been here all this time, had he been dreaming? He tries to assure them that no, he hasn't been dreaming, he's been in another world all together, for months, longer. His friends are kind, and they humor him -- or they worry. Caleb knows they're worried. He tries to pick up and move on.

Time passes, and there's a new and somehow deeper sadness in Caleb, a new loss that is fresher than his older regrets and sorrows. He's quieter, and his friends notice him fidgeting with his fingers lost in thought, the small one where that limp invisible red string is wrapped, his ring finger that feels so empty without the simple band that Peter had placed there.

By day, he keeps going. They have important goals to accomplish, things that cannot go neglected. But oh the nights are hard. Cold and empty. Sleep barely comes, and when it does, there are dreams of beautifully blue eyes and a rakish smile, a face that he fears even with his keen mind he might be forgetting. A month passes, longer.

They've returned to Zadash to check in with the Gentleman -- Jester's father, apparently, so there's that -- a sort of returning to their roots, the place they had begun. Caleb is there, physically, but there's still a distance about him, as if his mind is elsewhere. It is, of course. It's chasing his heart, which never did make the trip back to Exandria with him.

They make their way down into the Gentleman's lair, greeted warmly by their crime-boss sometimes-patron. Caleb is silent, lingering in the back of the group as conversation spins up in cheerful catching up.

What the wizard doesn't notice is that his familiar has wandered off, Frumpkin quite certain that he's caught a very familiar scent. The small orange cat seems intent on finding something, on a feline mission with his wizard's best intentions at heart.]

Comments

[werewolfing]

[ peter had spent exactly two hours searching for caleb by every bond they had when he woke up in a shitty inn in a dank part of an unfamiliar town at far too early o'clock in the morning. at least he has his clothes on (he definitely did not fall asleep in them), his sturdy boots and all his jewelry. that, of course, he immediately takes off, tucking it safely into the pocket of his jeans before creeping down the stairs and out of the inn.

the city, he learns, is called zadash, on the continent of wildemount. he's in fucking exandria. peter's not sure whether to laugh or cry, so he spends a few minutes in a truly disgusting alley doing both before wiping his face, pulling his hair back properly, and going deeper into the dingy part of town. no point in going the other direction; he has no money, and his clothes are completely wrong for passing as any sort of upstanding citizen here.

not that peter has ever passed as any sort of upstanding citizen in the first place.

but even the slums are a place to pickpocket, especially at night when fools deep in their cups get tossed out of bars. his people have been cutting purses since time immemorial, and peter is usually kind enough to only lighten the sodden wretches' purses by half. it's enough to eat, and then to buy clothes that actually blend in. he steals a dagger out of a still-warm body - whoever put it there didn't care enough to take it back, and needs must. peter has never been squeamish, and lately he doesn't feel much of anything at all, even though he can't stop the tic of twitching his pinky finger.

this turns out to be what gets him accidentally recruited. apparently, the dagger's previous owner recognizes the hilt in peter's belt, and a week later, with the help of a few friends, beats peter about the head enough to make him amenable to being dragged into a dingy pub to meet with a exceedingly polite and well dressed shark of a man who happens to be blue and rather sweaty. even with his nose numbed from the stink of the streets, the gentleman still smells of the sea. along with the concussion, the gentleman gives peter a job.

he settles into the mercenary life as well as can be expected, following the well trod if stereotypical path of his ancestors, even if it barely feels like he's living at all. it turns out that as a human, peter is a clean killer; he like daggers and shadows. he still has his familiar abilities, and it doesn't take long for him to learn the forms of a rat and a crow, both of which are plentiful in the area and easy to use for sneaking into all sorts of places. he doesn't love being a crow--exandria seems to be fucking with him right and proper because it's his own world that names crows as seers and messengers of the dead, damn it all. it's what he gets for dying a few times, he supposes, with a vague hope that the raven queen isn't taking that too personally, since it wasn't here. most of his feelings are vague.

his senses aren't vague, though. his nose is blind to the smell of all manner of waste, but he can scent every being in any given room, and further if it's clean. this is his real value to the gentleman, the ability to change shape, to have sharp hearing and a wolf's sense of smell. it makes him good at security and stealth, though he's had to put his good boots away in favor of ones with softer soles that barely make a sound moving over stone or wood.

peter is sitting at a table toward the back of the leaky tap, the hood of his cloak up to keep his face in shadow. his hands wrap around the ale he's drinking, fingerless gloves covering his rings. after figuring out that the local water didn't particularly agree with him, peter's developed a hell of an alcohol tolerance, which means he sleeps like absolute shit. too many of his dreams are filled with caleb, and sometimes peter wakes up absolutely sure that the smell of the other man hangs on his dingy pillow.

he's on security right now, just in case the brute intimidation isn't enough. eyes aren't needed for this work, and peter just lets his mind float away until the sounds or scents in the room change. he may as well be a wolf in truth, guarding his master while napping at the hearth. the sound of a crowd of people entering doesn't make him raise his head. they're certainly loud, but they don't reek of anger or fear, and the gentleman can handle the politics of any other kind of ill intent on his own.

peter knows he hallucinates sometimes, imagining caleb's scent, so when the pack of loud travelers brings that in with them he doesn't look up. but then, a very familiar ginger cat hops straight up into his lap and begins to purr and knead his thigh, and peter's pinky finger tics.

this time, the thread pulls taut, and he looks up, frozen. ]

Iubit?

[werewolfing]

[ there's a squeaking floorboard in front of the door to their room in the inn, and the sound wakes peter a half second before someone bangs on the door. or maybe they're just knocking, but peter's newly-hewn instincts have already kicked in and there's a dagger in his hand by the time the sound stops.

positioning himself to the side of the threshold with his dagger at the ready, he unlocks the door and opens it just enough to peer out with one eye. ]

What.

[ chatty guy, peter. ]