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There was one thing that Caleb was pretty certain of: this was all Jester's fault somehow. 

The mission they had received from the Gentleman seemed simple enough. Infiltrate a fancy party, get close enough to one of the guests to retrieve a few hairs from him, keep the target distracted while the others rifled through his room upstairs. Nothing they hadn't pulled off before. 

The only problem was that the party wasn't their usual venue by a long shot. It was held in the oldest and most gentrified parts of Bladegarden, populated by people who valued their bloodlines above all (largely because the most significant accomplishment most of them had ever achieved in their lives was being born.) The party was closed, invitations strictly limited to a close circle of socialites, so the only way for outsiders to get in was as part of the 'entertainment.' In other words, one of them would have to be an escort. 

That wasn't the problem. The problem  was that the guests at this party were such rich, racist fucks that the only escorts allowed inside were humans. Specifically human women. Jester would have been willing to use a Disguise Self and go anyway, but Caleb's scouting with Frumpkin had revealed strict anti-magic security at the doors. So that was out. 

In short, their options were down to Yasha (who wasn't human, but at least mostly looked like one) and Beau. In light of Yasha's track record at any kind of social situations, let alone deception, they quietly scratched her off the list as well. 

It was going to have to be Beau. And getting Beau to pass as a courtesan was like trying to get a tiger to to pull a carriage -- going nowhere fast, and sooner or later somebody was going to get mauled. 

For the last week the party had worked to prepare for the mission, camped out on a wooded ridge that rose above the south edge of the town. Jester had been trying to drill Beau on the fancy manners and upper-crust mannerisms she would have to learn to get past the door. It had not been going well. Beau stumbled over the lines she was supposed to memorize, presented a rigid rictus as Jester tried to coach her to smile, and stood stiff as a Bonfire Night doll when Jester tried to assemble an outfit for her from her own wardrobe. Jester had complimented her profusely, but privately the rest of the Mighty Nein agreed that she just looked far too tense and miserable to possibly pull it off. 

Beau had been getting more and more stressed through the process, snapping and snarling to the point where most of the Mighty Nein were tiptoeing around her. Nott excelled at staying out of sight; Molly was avoiding her like the plague; Fjord kept finding errands that took him elsewhere; Caleb chose to conduct his reading on the far side of the camp; even Caduceus' zen-like aura was failing to have its usual calming effect. Only Jester had pressed on, either oblivious or choosing to ignore Beau's brittleness until the inevitable explosion finally happened. 

But instead of Beau snapping and biting Jester's head off, she burst into tears instead. 

Beau didn't cry pretty by any means. Her face was blotched and red, tears leaked out of her nose as well as her eyes, and her voice was broken into ugly, racking sobs. "Stop it! Just -- stop!  I can't -- be  who you want me to be, okay?! I can't!" 

And she'd stormed off into the forest beyond their campground, barely pausing to lash out at a small tree so hard that it toppled over in two as she rampaged into the undergrowth. 

Nobody else had moved except Yasha, who had risen from her seat on a log-chair with the inevitable grace of a glacier. Without looking at any of the rest of them, head held high, she followed Beau out into the forest. 

Fjord broke the silence behind them. "I think we're gonna need a change of plans," he said. "Jester, I know you only mean the best, but I don't think tryin' to turn Beau into a society woman is going to work out." 

"No, I guess you're right," Jester said. She looked unusually subdued, a little abashed but mostly just sorrowful as she stared off after Beau. Then she shook her head sharply and forced a cheery smile to her face. She clapped her hands together and said, "Don't worry! I'll think of something that will fix everything, just you wait!" 

"I am sure you will, Jester," Caleb said. "But keep in mind, we do not have a lot of time to train anyone new. The party is tomorrow." 

"Leave it to me, guys!" Jester said cheerily. "I'll take care of everything." 

And he had left her to it. That, Caleb realized later, was where things had started going wrong. 

"Okay!" Jester said brightly once Beau had returned to camp, had a chance to wash her face, and sparred with Fjord to prove to everybody that she was still tough enough to kick all their asses. "New plan! I think we all know and accept by now that Beau really just is not the right person for this mission. So, I will go instead! I know all about fancy parties and flirting and I know I can pull it off!" 

"Uh, Jess? The party is really  strict about 'human only' entertainment," Fjord said nervously. "I mean, if you were a half-elf or somethin' we might sneak you in, but…" 

"Not to worry!" Jester said. "Because it won't look  like me, you see. They will think that I am Beau, but in fact it will actually be me!" 

Caleb coughed. "Er, I do not mean to rain on the parade here," he said. "But the door security is very  strict, and they will be looking for Disguise Self especially. I do not think you will be able to get by with an illusion spell." 

"Nope!" A mischievous smile spread over Jester's face. "Because it will not be an illusion spell at all. This is a very special, very rare spell that the Traveler taught me recently and nobody will know to look out for it because it is super new!" 

Thought of new magic caught Caleb's interest like a fish on a line, of course, and that was probably why he didn't think to protest as Jester rattled blithely on. "Beau, you and I are super good friends  so I know you trust me, right?" 

"Uh… sure," Beau said, awkward but willing to try pretty much anything if it didn't mean being forced into another dress. "What do I have to do?" 

"Just stand there," Jester beamed. She beckoned them over to a space she'd cleared on the forest floor and a sigil she'd drawn in the dirt with a burned stick from the fire. It looked solid to Caleb's eye, even and smooth in the shape of a double loop connected by several lines. She directed Beau into one half of the figure-eight and hopped into the other one herself. "Now hold still, and try to clear your mind and think really peaceful thoughts, and when you open your eyes again I will be you and you will be me!" 

Caleb made a surprised noise and Molly jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow. "Can she do that?" he hissed. "I mean, is that even possible?" 

"There is some precedent," Caleb said slowly. "It is not entirely unlike the magic I use to commune with Frumpkin, but at a much higher level. I can see no reason why it should not work, although I have no idea how to do it myself. It must be a Cleric thing. Caduceus?" 

"It's no magic I've ever heard of," Caduceus said frankly and readily. "Doesn't sound like something the Wildmother would be interested in. But from what I've heard of this Traveler, it seems way up that guy's alley." 

Caleb thought about Jester's Duplicity spell, and thought he was probably right. 

"You can reverse this, right?" Beau said uneasily. 

"I still have Dispel Magic," Caduceus reassured her, tapping his long fingers against his gnarled staff. Beau looked slightly reassured. 

"Of course! But even if I couldn't, it only lasts for forty-eight hours anyway," Jester said confidently. 

"Maybe we should be nearby, just in case something goes wrong?" Nott said, edging around him nervously. "In case we have to grab them to drag them out of a fire or something." 

Caleb caught her shoulder. "No, Nott, it is better to stay over here," he said. "Those lines define the boundary of who will be affected by the spell. Unless we want to be caught in it, we must stay outside." 

"Don't have to tell me twice," Molly said fervently as Nott retreated to a safe distance with all due haste. 

"Okay!" Jester yelled once she was happy with her and Beau's placement. "Let's get this done! Traveler? Are you there? Hold on tight, we're gonna --" 

And that was the last thing Caleb heard before a spark of brilliant white light jumped from Jester to the edge of the sigil, racing along the drawn lines like a flame consuming a piece of kindling.  The white fire completed its circuit, the rune-lined sigil glowing bright as noon. 

Then a wall of white fire flashed upwards, and a wave of light traveled outwards  from the sigil -- exactly the opposite direction it had been meant -- and consumed them all. 

The last thing Caleb saw before things went black was a skirting swirl of green, and the last thing he heard was the sound of a man's voice laughing.

"Did it work?" Jester yelled excitedly. 

Beau looked around. She was in one half of the sigil, Jester still in the other, and the rest of their party was slumped over on the ground outside of it. She checked her hands. Yep. Definitely still hers. 

"I'm gonna say no?"  she tried. 

Jester pouted. "But I felt the magic go!" she protested. "Something happened… are you sure  you're not me, Beau?" 

"Positive," Beau drawled. She looked over at the charcoal-dark lines of the sigil, hesitantly lifting a foot to step over it before she put it back down. "But I think you may have kinda… blown up in the wrong direction?" 

"What? No way!" Jester scoffed, then paused as she surveyed the carnage. "Hey Beau, what's wrong with them?" 

There was a groan as the first of the pile began to stir. Nott rolled over, shaking her head groggily like she was recovering from one of her adventure benders. She paused, looked down at herself (not a far road to go,) and raised one hand. She took the edge of her tunic delicately between two claws and tugged at it. "Oh wow," she said. "Will you look at that? Now that sure is something." 

Beside Nott, Caduceus rolled over with an exaggerated moan. He raised his head, squinted at the late afternoon slanting down into the clearing, looked down at himself, and shrieked. 

Beau clapped her hands over her ears as Caduceus executed what could only be described as a crab-jump sideways, ending up edging away from the circle on hands and knees. "What did you do?!" he screamed. 

Molly groaned and stirred, not surprising given the volume of that last shout. "Nott, ruhig, bitte, ist zu früh…"  he mumbled as he sat up, then blinked, red eyes widening as he looked around the field. They widened further as he caught sight of his own hands and held them out in front of him, turning them over to examine the claws at the end of his fingers. "Ah. This… is new." 

Their attention was next captured by Caleb, who had gotten up to his hands and knees and was now issuing the most vile string of profanity Jester had ever heard, and she grew up in a brothel. He whipped his head back and bared his teeth at the sky, glaring up at an uncaring heaven. "Why me?" he shouted to the clouds. "Why this fucking shit again?!" 

"Well." They all looked over at Yasha, climbing shakily to her feet and surveying the clearing around her. Her voice had modulated to a deep drawl, which in Yasha's burly chest resonated like thunder.  "This sure is an interestin' development." 

"So, um," Jester said. The eight of them had calmed down enough to pick themselves up and relocate back to the fire, and hot (or alcoholic) drinks had been shared all around. "That wasn't quiiiite  how I meant that to go! So it looks like my spell sort of backfired a little bit, and everybody but  me and Beau got switched around." 

"This is bullshit!" Caduceus -- or rather, Nott, in Caduceus' body -- said shrilly. "I don't want to be Caduceus! If I have to be in somebody else's body, I wanna be Beau!" 

"Hey!" Beau objected. "I never said you could have my body." 

"No-one is getting Beau's body," Fjord -- or rather Yasha -- murmured from the other side of the fire. 

Nott continued. "Everything is all long and stringy and weird  and I think there's lichen  growing on my legs!" 

"Nott, be nice," Molly -- or rather Caleb in Molly's body -- chastised from beside her. His opposite number, Molly-in-Caleb, was huddled next to the cart refusing to talk to anyone. 

Caduceus-in-Nott chuckled in a way that showed he took no offense. "No, she's right," he commented. 

Caleb eyed him sideways. "…more than I ever wanted to know," he said. "At any rate --" 

"It ain't all bad, Nott," Fjord said from Yasha's body, leaning over towards Nott. "Just think of all the top-shelf shinies that will be within your reach now!" 

Nott's expression turned thoughtful, a look much more naturally suited to the firbolg's normally calm features than the anxious distress from before. "That's true…" 

"Can we please focus?" Caleb said wearily. He rubbed at Molly's eyes. "Jester? Can you fix this?" 

"Uhm, well," Jester said, then continued quickly as six pairs of eyes glared at her. "I definitely can fix it! But, um, maybe not right away? Because casting that spell took all the magic I had left. It was only supposed to be a much littler spell, but I guess it kind of ran away from me and, and took all my magic with it. I'm beat, I need to sleep!" 

"So we're just going to be stuck like this?"  Nott asked in dismay. 

"Not necessarily," Caleb said thoughtfully. "Jester may be out of spells, but we have several other magic users in the group that might be able to do things. Mister Clay, can you dispel the magic?" 

"Well I guess that depends," Caduceus answered. "Did our magic go with us when we changed bodies, or did it stay with the original body? This is actually a pretty cool question, you know. How much of us is us,  and how much is the body we live in?" 

"I don't normally think of them as bein' two separate things," Fjord commented. 

Caduceus nodded. "When you deal with dead people enough, this sort of question comes up a lot," he said. 

That proclamation threw a wet blanket over the conversation for a moment. At last Caleb sighed, raised Molly's hands, and made a familiar gesture in the air. Nothing happened. He frowned, then tried again, carefully and more deliberate. A pair of dancing lights appeared at his fingertips, swirling around his hand like miniature moons. "Ah," he said. "It appears as though our powers go with us, to some extent at least. I am finding the casting to be much more difficult than it usually would be, though. This is only a cantrip, I should be able to cast it almost effortlessly." 

Caduceus nodded again, still unfazed by absolutely any of the weirdness of the day. "That makes sense," he said. "Memories aren't only in the mind, you know. They're written in the body as well. Everything we think, everything we remember, everything we are helps shape our bodies as well as our minds. It leaves a mark, like a river carving its way through clay. Change the water in a river to beer, change it to blood; the water is gone, it's a new river now, but it still follows the same path. 

"A lot of people like to think that our soul is the 'real us,' the place our thoughts and memories are kept, and that's not wrong. But the soul is only part of what makes us truly us. The things we live through, they change us, written in our hands and our muscles and our hearts." 

The conversation paused again following this speech. Caduceus really had a way of doing that, Caleb reflected. 

"Wow," Jester said, sounding impressed. "That was, um, really cool and profound, Mister Clay! But that being said, could you please please please  cast Dispel Magic and put everybody back?!" 

"Oh!" Caduceus blinked, then nodded. "Right, that." 

He stood up and dusted down Nott's tunic and cloak. He looked up at his old body, eyes shining yellow in the fading daylight. "Nott, can you hand me my staff?" he said, nodding towards the grey length of twisted wood that lay discarded in the grass. 

Nott handed it over, and Caduceus had to wrestle with the staff a bit to get it to stand up straight; it was top-heavy and far too tall for the goblin's frame. Finally he managed to get it stabilized, closed his eyes as he clasped the grey wood tightly, then lifted it a few inches and slammed the staff against the ground. 

Nothing happened. 

"Huh," Caduceus said. He tried again, with the same slow careful deliberation Caleb had had to use to cast the cantrip earlier. This time green light flared from the end of his staff where it struck the earth, and Caleb's dancing lights went out. But that was all -- they all remained stubbornly stuck in their new bodies. 

Caduceus shrugged and set the staff carefully down against a tree. "Sorry guys," he said. "Doesn't look like it worked." 

"There could be two explanations for that," Caleb said thoughtfully. "One is that now that we are, ehm, settled in our new bodies, the spell is no longer ongoing, and there is nothing to dispel -- it would take another spell to switch us back again. The other possibility is that -- Jester, did you not say that the Traveler taught you this new spell himself?" 

"Yes!" Jester said, perking up as she always did when discussing her god. "I asked him if there was anything he could do to help and he said he could do this for us!" 

"Hm," Caleb said in a tone that threw doubts on the selflessness of the trickster god's actions, but he did not say so directly to said god's cleric. "Then if it is indeed the Traveler who is maintaining this spell, then it may be beyond the ability of any mere mortal to dispel." 

"Okay, this magical theory's all very interesting, but when do we get back in our own bodies?" Molly said impatiently, cutting into the conversation for the first time. "I fucking hate this, I want to go back to normal. I've spent enough time in a stranger's body for a lifetime." 

"Caleb's not a stranger, I don't see why you're objecting, he's very handsome and doesn't have lichen," Nott said huffily, but Caleb laid a hand on his friend's shoulder to hush her. He had to reach up a fair way to reach a shoulder now, but the easy, close fondness in the gesture was the same. 

"I think Jester is going to have to do it," Caleb concluded. "Assuming you think you have found the flaw in the spell, Jester?" 

"Of course!" Jester said. Her nose wrinkled up uncertainty. "But like I said, I'm all out of spells for the day. Tomorrow morning, first thing, I'll get everybody fixed up!" 

"Then I s'pose that's all we can do for tonight," Fjord said, easily stepping forward to call an end to the debate. "It's been a rough day, everybody's shaken. Let's get some food in people and set up a watch, and worry about tomorrow as it comes." 

Since Day One of this whole mess Molly had been firm in his insistence that his past, his memories, were things he wanted no part of. He'd been more than happy, determined  even, to leave them dead and buried and let them color his present no more. 

Right now, Molly was feeling pretty fucking vindicated  in that choice. 

There were memories. He tried desperately not to look at them, not to think of them, but they kept sticking their fucking faces in  where they weren't wanted. Nighttime, always nighttime. Dirty alleys, dirty forests, dirty caves. Fighting things so ugly and so wrong  that just a glimpse in passing made him want to throw up. Stabbing down into people, their faces pale and blurred, sometimes twisted in angry snarls, sometimes -- frightened. 

Worse even, a distinct and powerful memory of a silver chalice, the inside stained and corroded with seething black liquid -- lifting it to his lips, and drinking it down. The taste-memory flooded him so strongly that he had to clench his teeth and lock his throat not to lose his last meal. Caleb's  last meal. It wasn't fair, why should he get that guy's  memories when he was in Caleb's  head? 

The most frustrating part was that the memories came with no context, no sudden rush of familiarity or understanding. He remembered things he'd done -- things Lucien  had done -- but he had no memory as to why.  No helpful flashbacks of him sitting down with that Tabaxi woman and considerately laying out all his motivations and plans for his future-self to peep in on. Just blood and rot and horror and death, death and more death,  enough death to leave anyone sick of it. 

"Mollymauk, are you okay?"

He startled, the voice intruding on a playback loop of some kind of multi-limbed slime creature screaming as it stretched and twisted. The vision popped and vanished and he was so fucking grateful   to whoever had come over to check on him. 

It was Caleb. Wearing his body right now, and a brow-furrowed expression on his face that looked extremely weird. "What?" he said intelligently. 

Caleb lowered himself onto the bundle of gear and packs that Molly had made his seat for the team meeting. It was less cold than rocks, and less splintery than logs, but Jester tended to complain if he squashed any of her pastries. 

"You were not saying much, during that discussion," Caleb explained. "It was not like you. I just wondered if you were feeling all right." 

He managed a laugh, gallows humor substituting well enough for the real thing. "I'm not quite feeling myself at the moment," he said, and snickered. 

"Ja, well, this is unnerving for all of us," Caleb said. He studied Molly closely. "Is there something else bothering you?" 

This put Molly in a bind. As much as he would have liked to unload his woes on someone, he very much did not want  to get anyone else talking about or speculating on the origin of these memories. He just wanted them to vanish, go away, or at least shut up long enough for him to think. But they kept replaying in his brain no matter how hard he tried not to think of them. 

"Your head has a lot going on, Caleb," Molly said at last, sidestepping the real issue. "I just -- how can you stand it? There's so much. Everything is so bright and so sharp. I feel like I can, like I can see everything at once, and I keep remembering things I just saw, and it just -- it interferes with what I'm trying to see now,  and I can feel the minutes going by like there's a clock always ticking in the back of my head and I just --" 

"Ah," Caleb said, and his face fell slightly. "I was hoping that was not the case. I… I get overwhelmed easily, as you know. It can be hard to deal with sometimes, especially if you are not used to it." 

"I don't really want to get used to it," Molly moaned faintly. "No offense Caleb, but your brain  hurts." 

"Sorry." Caleb swiped a hand down his -- Molly's -- face. "You do not deserve this. If -- it would help, I can try to teach you some things I have learned, to block out some of the things you see, to focus on calm and boring things. Instead of other thoughts that might get in the way. It might help you get to sleep at least, and then tomorrow we can fix this." 

"Can you?" he said gratefully. "I'll try anything." 

"Try this." Caleb stared at the ground for a moment, long enough that Molly involuntarily followed his glance, wondering if there was something down there he was supposed to be focusing on. But at last, Caleb stirred and spoke. "Imagine that you are sitting at a desk. A wide, wooden desk with a nice grain. Maybe a few books and other pleasant things around the edges, but the main space in front of you is clear." 

Molly rolled his eyes. "Of course  your imaginary desk has books on it." 

"Please. I am trying to help." Caleb sounded so sincere that Molly flushed, feeling sheepish. 

"Sorry. Go ahead. Okay, there's a desk. What else?" 

"Ja, and on the desk in front of you there are four rows of four cups. Sixteen in all, laid out in perfect rows. Small plain brown cups, sitting upside down on the desk. Can you see them?" 

Somewhat to his surprise, he could. He wasn't usually one to sit around daydreaming, especially not about such mundane stuff, but he found he could see it crystal clear. "Yes." 

"You pick up the first cup, and imagine something is under it. It can be anything, a pen, a button, maybe one of your tarot cards. Then you put it back down, pick up the next cup and look under it. Something else is there. You do this for each cup, and each time there is something else under it, something new." 

It sounded pointless and silly to Molly but he gave it a try, and quickly became drawn into the scene, absorbed in the details of coming up with all the various objects, each one different. "Okay." 

"Once you have put a different object under all sixteen cups, go back to the beginning and try to remember what each one is. Jump around, see if you can correctly place each item on the first try. There is nothing else outside of the desk. There is nothing dangerous or hurtful in any of the cups. It is just you, and the world you have created, and the only thing you need to do is remember where you put each thing." 

It was harder than it sounded. Before long Molly found himself captivated by the mental exercise, trying to remember which item he had placed in each location. The cups rose and fell, the motion simple and soothing, and it seemed to shut out the other, darker images of blood and swords and snarling fangs. He found that his breathing had deepened, his heart rate slowed, and he no longer felt so sick to his stomach. He let out a long breath and opened his eyes, seeing Caleb's worried furrowed frown in his vision again. Molly smiled. "Better," he said. "Thank you, Caleb." 

Caleb smiled back in relief. "I am glad," he said. "It usually works for me, but I did not know, not everyone is the same. Maybe it wouldn't have helped you." 

"It does help," he said softly, but his mind wasn't on the focusing technique. It was much easier to focus on Caleb, who was sitting so close. 

Was it weird to want to kiss someone, when that someone was also yourself at the time? It felt weird. Also, if he was being completely honest with himself, kinda hot. But weird. 

"Sleep will help," Caleb said with great conviction, as though by saying it he could make it so. "Perhaps Jester or Clay will be able to fix us in the morning." 

"A nice thought," Molly said. "But if I were a betting man, I wouldn't put my money on that." 

"You are a betting man, Mollymauk," Caleb said with a laugh. 

"Not right now I'm not," Molly quipped, and he got the laugh he was going for. Always leave them laughing, that was the trick. It kept their minds off the less savory parts of the performance. 

It had been a long day and a strange one even by their weird, chaotic standards. All of them, even Jester and Beau, were shaken by the new tangle that their group had been caught in. So perhaps it was not too surprising that the adventurers gladly embraced sleep, one by one around the campfire dropping off into sodden exhaustion, without any thought to their usual nighttime routine.

Dawn the next day came with a rude awakening -- a bucket of filthy water dumped over their campfire coals and a gleeful voice shouting "Look at this, boys! We got ourselves a hole full of varmints!" 

One by one the Mighty Nein snapped awake to find themselves faced with a far from appetizing sight: nearly a dozen ratty, trail-muddied humans in an assortment of worn-out leather gear, invading their campsite. 

"Bandits!" Nott blurted out, hands groping for her crossbow and shortsword before realizing that they were across the campfire with Caduceus, who was still in her body. Her hands closed on the gray staff instead, which she dug into the ground and struggled to get to her feet. 

"Well, ain't that the rudest thing you ever did hear," one of the intruders drawled, spitting to the side. The glob landed, much to Jester's outrage, right on top of her bedroll. "Who you callin' a bandit? These're our  lands, worked by my father 'n' his father 'n' his father before them, and you're  a passel of trespassin' beasts." 

"What the fuck is going on," Beau said, still not awake enough to have put together the context clues. "Who are these people. What are they doing here. How'd they sneak up on us." 

Fjord, his eyes closed as if fighting off a hangover, gritted out: "They snuck up on us  on account o' how we didn't set a watch last night." 

"Shit!" Beau said, then a moment later, "But there was no alarm. Caleb always sets his alarm!" 

"Oh," Caleb said, sounding vaguely apologetic. "I guess I forgot." 

Nott, Beau and Fjord all stared at him in disbelief. "You forgot?"  Beau squawked. "Motherfucker! You never  forget that shit, not even when we're all staying in town!" 

"Guys, is this really the time?" Molly interrupted, eyeing the band of toughs that had taken up residence in their firepit. They had the numbers, the muscle and the weapons to inspire a healthy… well, not respect,  but they were definitely going to have to approach this cautiously. "Is there anything we can do for you gentlemen?" 

"Maybe not with you,"  the leader drawled, eyeing Molly's travel-worn face and gear with, if not respect, at least a lack of outright hostility. The hostility that clearly darkened his face and voice when he turned to look at the other members -- the non-human  members of the party. "Me 'n' the boys thought it would be a fine morning for a hunt, and ain't we lucky -- here's a whole pack of animals just waitin' here for the hunt to begin!" 

It was interesting, Molly reflected, to see who got it right away and who didn't. Nott obviously did, her features falling as she clutched tighter to the staff.  Caduceus just looked lost -- not an uncommon expression for him as he ventured out into the wide unknown world -- and Jester, who'd spent most of her life sheltered in her mother's house in Nicodranas, only looked uneasy. Caleb and Beau, the two humans, looked confused. Fjord's expression darkened and tightened, and Yasha just stayed stone-faced. 

"Well, we hate to be bad hosts, but there are no animals here!" Jester tried to rally. "Except for the horses, but no offense but you can't --"

One of the toughs who had circled around behind her interrupted her then by grabbing her horn and yanking her head to the side, her words trailing off into an offended squawk. "Lookee here, boss!" the hunter said, grinning. "A goat that talks!" 

"Two  goats," another of the toughs said, grinning as she reached for Molly's horns. Caleb managed to slap her away before she made contact, and returned a glare that made her pause before trying again. "And a cow, and a boar, and a rat.  A pretty good haul, all told."

 Caduceus blinked, looking around before pointing to himself. "Oh, me?" he said. "That's, uh, kind of rude, don't you think?" 

"Sorry to have to inconvenience you fine ladies --" the leader gave Fjord and Beau an elaborate, mocking bow and a nod towards Molly -- "and you fine gentleman, but I suggest you clear off. It's a messy business, slaughterin' some pigs." 

"And I suggest --" Fjord stood up slowly, the kohl around his eyes giving extra heavy weight to his stare as he pinned the leader with his glare -- "that you unhand the lady,  make your apologies, and leave while you still have feet to walk on." 

"Oh, I see,"  Caleb said suddenly, and then the leader was on fire. 

The campsite very quickly devolved into a shouting melee. Fights with the Mighty Nein always tended to be chaotic, swinging back and forth between triumph and calamity on a knife's edge, but their current disordered state made it even more so than usual. They were not too badly outnumbered -- six toughs in the campsite with four more in the trees around -- and had the edge in surprise. But six of them were also struggling with unfamiliar bodies and unfamiliar skillsets, and so what under normal circumstances should have been a cakewalk turned into a knock-down, drag-out struggle. 

Fjord as Yasha were surprisingly unhindered; they were at least both competent with swords. As soon as the fight began Fjord summoned his hexblade to Yasha's hand and tossed her greatsword over to her, and the two of them quickly began carving out space for themselves. Beau readily leapt in to cover their flanks and deal with anyone who tried to get in close, snatching an arrow out of the air before it could connect with Fjord. 

Jester was of course fine. As soon as the fire had gone off Jester summoned her lollipop, rounded on the guy who grabbed her horn and bashed him into a tree. "How do you like them apples?" she yelled, as she twirled the spiritual weapon around behind her dramatically. "OK, let's go!" 

Caduceus in Nott's body quickly made for the clear spot the swordsmen had established, and spent most of the fight hiding behind them and pumping crossbow bolts into the trees where those hunters with bows were trying to encircle them. Judging from the cries that came from the trees, he was at least managing to score a few hits. 

Nott, on the other hand, clearly had no idea what to do with Caduceus' set of skills; she was reduced to flailing around with his staff. "How do I make the bugs come out?" she yelled shrilly, shaking the staff like it was a stuck bottle of ketchup. 

"You have to relax, and let your senses extend into the wood of the staff," Caduceus replies, his voice surprisingly calm despite the chaos surrounding them. "Make it part of yourself, as the beetles are also a part of yourself, as you and your brothers and sisters  are part of a greater whole --" 

"Nevermind!" Nott shrieked as another enemy came towards her, and used her staff in a distinctly less sisterly manner as she belted the woman over the head with it. As the hunter toppled over Nott used Caduceus' long arms to pick her up by the neck, swing her around and crack her head into a tree; she slid to the ground and lay there twitching mindlessly. 

"That works," Caduceus said. 

Molly's swords stayed sheathed as Caleb mostly concentrated on spells; aside from the first one he'd used to take out the leader, he wasn't getting in many hits. He was retreating slowly towards the circle that Fjord and Yasha had cleared, shooting off bolts of fire that went wide of their mark, mumbling what were probably swear words in Zemnian with every miss. 

And Molly himself, well, he was fucked.  He didn't have his swords, so he never even got the chance to test out whether Caleb's blood would work for his rites as long as Molly was in it. He didn't know how to do any of Caleb's spell stuff, he didn't have any weapons, and he was in the body of the squishiest member of the party. 

So fucked. 

One of the huntsmen grabbed at him, a nasty-looking dagger in one hand and a curse frothing on his lips; in a last-ditch effort, Molly tried a Rebuke. "Your presence is a stain on this world!"  he snarled, and the words came out in Infernal and made the man stagger back, blood trickling from his nose. At least that still worked, thank the Moonweaver,  but -- 

"That guy's a wizard!" a shrill voice called from the trees where the archers had dispersed. "The one with the books, get him! Get him before he casts any more spells!" 

There was a thunk  that sent him reeling back into the cart, numb for a moment to anything except the impact. He looked down to see an arrow buried in his stomach, and ow,  actually that hurt a lot. "Really?"  he demanded of the world at large and their enemies in particular. "Really? He's  the one throwing fireballs around, come on!" 

Another thunk jolted into his leg, another arrow whistled shrilly by his ears, and Molly dropped flat and crawl-scrambled for the shelter of the cart. "Caleb!" Nott called out shrilly. "I mean, shit! Molly! Where's the knife I gave you? I mean gave Caleb!" 

"This is really confusing," Beau complained between punches. 

"You're telling me,"  Molly said, hands scrabbling at his clothing. "Fucking shit Caleb how many pockets does one man need --" 

A filthy hand grabbed at his leg and started to drag him out from the shelter of the cart, right onto a waiting dagger, just as Molly's hand closed on the familiar-feeling shape of a hilt and yanked it around. There was a scream of pain as the point of the blade buried into the back of the huntsman's hand, pinning it against the wood of the cart. Molly scrambled backwards and a moment later a wave of heat washed over him as his assailant was engulfed in flame. 

And with that it seemed to be over. A sudden quiet fell on the campsite, the only sounds their own harsh breathing, the faint moans of a few of their assailants who weren't dead yet, and the fading crashing through the woods as the smart ones fled. The Mighty Nein carefully lowered their weapons, looked around, and began to laugh and smile with the relief of having come out of another battle alive. 

"Congratulations, Molly," Beau said as she helped him stand up, groaning with pain as the arrows shifted. "You've been in Caleb's body less than a day and you've already made better use of that knife than he ever has!" 

"Hey," Caleb objected, but not very heatedly. He came over to take Molly's other arm and between them they helped him stagger over to the campfire to sit. He looked over the arrow wounds and Molly was prepared for a sarcastic quip about his managing to fuck up Caleb's body, but instead that alien brow-furrowed expression appeared on his face again. "You're hurt. Do you need Jester? Or Caduceus?" 

"Wouldn't go amiss," Molly said, teeth gritted as he slowly sat down in front of the fire. The one in his leg hurt the worst but the one in his stomach worried him more, it hardly felt like anything through the deep numbness. 

Beau went off to get the clerics, leaving Caleb and Molly alone. Caleb looked down at him, the expression on his face so sad and guilty that Molly wanted to erase it. "I am sorry," Caleb said softly. "I should not have left you undefended. I know quite well how useless my body is for most fights." 

Molly summoned a smile. "It's not your job to babysit me, darling," he assured him. "Don't feel guilty. We weren't expecting to have to fight, we weren't expecting trouble. It's not your fault." 

Caleb's mouth turned downwards. "Apparently it is," he said. "I forgot to set the alarm last night… I cannot believe I forgot." 

"Nobody else thought to set a watch either," Molly reminded him sharply. He reached up to pat Caleb on the cheek; it was still strange, not having to watch his claws when he touched someone. "It's fine, Caleb. We're alive, and everything else can be put right." 

Caleb's eyes dropped to the forest floor. "I just do not like seeing you hurt," he mumbled. 

And that, well, it did make Molly's heart melt a little in his chest, but there was sadness mixed in with the warm glow. "Well, I don't like seeing you flog yourself over things that aren't your fault, so I guess we're both one down," he said. Caleb glanced up at him and Molly gave him a tiny smile. "Not everything is your responsibility, you know. Don't worry so much."

Caleb nodded slowly. "Yes," he said. "Yes of course." 

Beau came back with the clerics then, and volunteered to hold him down while they pulled out the arrows and healed the wounds. Caleb took a step back and was nearly assaulted by Nott. "Caleb!" she screeched, throwing her long pale arms around his chest and lifting him in her arms in a hug, boots dangling above the ground. "Are you okay?" 

Caleb hugged her back. "Ja, I was not even hit," he said. "Molly --"

Nott interrupted him. "Yes I know, Jester is fixing it, I didn't mean that.  I mean, you killed that guy -- both of those guys! -- and they burned, so you --" 

Caleb looked confused. "They were attacking us, Nott," he said. "They said horrible things, degrading things to you and the others, and they meant to --" 

"I'm not worried about them! I'm worried about you."  She set him firmly back on the ground and held his shoulders at arms length, squinting at him. "Aren't you a little… you know…" 

"A little what?" 

Nott stared. "Aren't you… upset?" 

"Why would I be upset?" Caleb said. 

Nott and for some reason Beau exchanged a long, meaningful look. "Oh no reason," Nott said, proving that she was just as bad a liar in Caduceus' body as in her own. "I just thought… you know… you get these… flashbacks?" 

Caleb's confusion didn't clear. "To what?" 

Beau cleared her throat. "To… you know… your…" She cleared her throat and made a vague gesture, then leaned in and lowered her voice. "Graduation night?" 

"Did I have one?" Caleb said thoughtfully. His expression turned inwards. "I suppose I must have. Huh… that's strange." 

"What's strange?" Nott said nervously. 

"I cannot remember graduating at all..." He paused. "Or being in school." Another pause. "Actually, I remember nothing of my childhood at all."

A lengthy interrogation ensued, although this time around at least nobody broke out Zone of Truth. It was a meandering conversation frequently interrupted by practical concerns -- Fjord leaving and coming back with the horses, Jester making sure that everyone was healed up as much as they should be, Yasha wandering through to cook up some meat and fresh mushrooms for breakfast. It was mostly Beau and Jester asking the questions, Fjord occasionally dropping in to throw a few piercing insights and Molly kibitzing. 

Caleb could name all of them and recalled the first time they'd met back in Trostenwald, knew each of them and their specializations and pretty much everything they'd been public with. He definitely remembered Nott, which was just as well since she'd been almost inconsolable at the thought that he might have forgotten her. He'd given her a comforting hug and she hadn't left it, staying cuddled up against his side as the inquisition continued. Since she was now several feet taller than him, it looked more like a mama bear fussing over her cub than anything else. 

Caleb remembered meeting Nott in prison the first time, and his eyes dimmed and voice faltered as he recalled that. He remembered being alone before that, the recollections dragged out of him with some reluctance. He remembered being on the road alone, running semi-successful cons to keep himself fed. And that was all. 

Nothing about his past before that. Nothing about where he had learned all his magic, or from whom. Nothing about his home or childhood or family at all. 

The dates were somewhat vague -- he'd only known Nott for a few months before meeting the rest of them, and the days alone on the road all ran together, but Molly could figure it. Caleb's memories went back no more than two years. 

Molly listened to the timeline unfold with a sour twisting feeling in his gut, and tried to figure out whether or not he felt guilty. It was clear to him, if not the others, that this was some weird side effect of Caleb's mind now being housed in his  skull. His horned, addled, amnesiac skull had taken Caleb's perfect memory away from him. 

But on the other hand -- looking at the changes in Caleb's attitude since the day before, how open and easy he was with all of them, how clear-eyed and relaxed he was -- Molly wasn't at all sure that he hadn't done the other man a favor. Moonweaver knew, he  hadn't wanted any of these memories back. 

Beau and Nott kept exchanging grim, distressed looks with each other as the chasm in Caleb's memory was revealed. It was clear that they knew something about Caleb's past that the man himself had forgotten. Nott made sense, but why Beau  was part of this exclusive little club Molly had no idea (and he was totally not jealous that Caleb had apparently chosen to share with her  before him.) Whatever it was those two knew that the rest of them didn't, it must have been dire to produce such a response of significant looks and hissed, whispered conferences. 

The debate broke up with Beau marching over to Jester and demanding, "Can you cast your Locate Person spell now?" 

"Um --" Jester, taken aback. "I could, I mean I guess I could, but why? We're all here, aren't we?" 

"Yeah, but I wanna know which here," Beau said, which didn't clarify the matter any better. "Cast it on Caleb." 

Jester tilted her head to the side. "Uh, Beau, are you sure?" she said. "I've already used a lot of spells today -- seems like kind of a waste when he's right there." 

"Can you do it, Jester?" Nott said, sidling up behind Beau and peeking down over her shoulder. "It would mean a lot to me. And Caleb too, even if he doesn't remember why right now." 

Jester looked bewildered, but finally agreed to cast the spell. She scrounged around and came up with a burned splinter of wood which she laid flat on her open palm, and said the incantation. "Caleb Widogast,"  she muttered as the final words. 

As a breath of magic drifted from her lips to the splinter it shivered and wriggled around on her palm, spinning like the needle on a compass. The splinter came to rest facing towards Caleb, in Molly's body, blinking bemusedly at all this theater. 

"Right," Beau huffed. She then marched over to Molly, held out her hand and snapped her fingers. "Necklace," she said. 

"What?" Molly said, still in the dark about all of this. Beau wiggled her fingers commandingly and he fumbled at his neck, and his hands -- so soft, with only human nails, no claws at all -- found the edge of a leather cord. He tugged it over his neck, feeling oddly naked as it left his sternum, and held it out. "This necklace?" he said. 

"That's the one," Beau said briskly, and snatched it out of his hand. She loped back over to Caleb, collared him roughly and looped the necklace over his head. "Don't lose that," she told him, her hand still fisted in his collar and her face inches from his. "Don't take it off." 

"Er… sure," Caleb said, sounding stunned. "Whatever you say, Beauregard." 

"Please, Caleb," Nott said softly, making sad eyes that were really unfairly effective in Caduceus' face. "It's important." 

"Alright," Caleb said, capitulating easily enough. "If it is important to you, Nott, then I will wear the necklace." 

Molly's eyebrows lifted in surprise at this easy acquiescence. He  was suspicious as hell over this whole song and dance, and he wasn't even the person being manhandled. "What, just like that?" he said. "You're just gonna do what they tell you, and not even ask any questions?" 

"Why should I?" Caleb said, and smiled. The smile on his face looked like the sun coming out from behind the trees. "You are my friends, ja? I trust you." 

Molly stared at that smile and felt a strange, hollowed out sensation in his middle. 

So. Fucked.

Nott had entirely by now gotten over her displeasure at her abrupt transformation and was making the most of her new body, getting accustomed to a world no longer out of her reach. "You're all just so small,"  Nott declared, Caduceus dangling from her  arms like a living stuffie. "How do you keep from just, you know, picking everybody up all the time?" 

"It's, uh, it's a temptation sometimes," Caduceus replied with a chuckle, seeming perfectly at ease with his current situation. 

"All right," Fjord said, calling everyone's attention to him. "Guys, I know we've all got a lot to deal with at the moment, but we need to focus on the mission." 

"Oh, well, I was just going to try my spell again --" Jester started, but Fjord shook his head. 

"I understand that was our original plan," he said, "but now I think you'd better not." 

"What?" Jester's nose scrunched up with confusion. "Why not? Don't you want to get back to your proper body ay-ess-ay-pee?" 

"There's other considerations," Fjord said. "We still don't know if you're even gonna be able to swap us back that easily, but what you might  do is burn up all your magic tryin'. We already had one fight that you had to heal people up from, and we don't know what we're going to need for the mission tonight. No, Jester, I think you'd be better off sittin' on those spell slots for now." 

"Then what are  we going to do for the mission?" Molly said. "We still need somebody to play the part of the escort to get in the door. If Beau can't do it --" 

"I absolutely  cannot," Beau put in hastily. 

Molly continued. " -- and now Jester's plan to do it won't work either, then who's going to be the hooker?" 

"I'll do it," Fjord said. 

Everyone stared at him. 

"Don't give me that look," he said, sounding annoyed. "I've been listenin' to most of Jester's lessons to Beau this past week, and I think I got most of the essentials. Yasha here can pass for a human well enough, and I think I can bluff my way past the guards and into the party. Jester, I need you to drill me to make sure I've got it all down, and then we've got seven hours to give me one helluva makeover." 

Jester's eyes went wide and dewy. She clasped her hands in front of her and sighed dreamily. "This is the best day ever,"  she breathed. 

Operation Makeover didn't require all of their supervision, of course. In fact Jester chased away everyone in the party except for Fjord, who of course was the subject, Yasha who deserved a chance to sit in and make sure nothing untoward happened, and Beau who had managed to get herself appointed Jester's assistant (and who probably couldn't have been moved by a team of wild horses.) 

That left the four of them to their own devices.   

Once Nott finally put him down, Caduceus found himself at loose ends. He felt a peculiar itch in his hands and a craving for beautiful and shiny things to hold, which he managed to appease by wandering out of the campsite into the forest beyond and gathering flowers. It helped, anyway. A few curious rabbits popped up to see what he was doing, and he managed to coax them in to take a few pieces of food from his hands. 

"Hey!"  Nott called out, delighted with the realization that she was now tall enough to reach the chestnuts still on the tree branches. She had one already stuffed into her mouth as she juggled half a dozen more in her clutching armful. "THE FOREST IS FULL OF FREE FOOD!" 

"It definitely is that," Caduceus said. "Hey, why don't you see if you can make the trees bend down for you, that would make it even easier." 

"Make the trees bend?" Nott cast a dubious eye at the branches arching overhead. 

"Yeah, you know some magic already, don't you? I think there's probably still enough of the Wildmother in you to make some trees listen." Caduceus stood up and brushed off Nott's leggings, making his way over to her. He looked up the length of the tree, searching out a cluster of chestnut burrs nestled near the top fork of the trunk. "If you can get that branch to bend down, we should have enough to share with everybody. Tell you what, we'll do it together." 

"Worth a try," Nott said, and the two of them set to trying to coax the stiff tree branches to be a little more pliant. 

Nott cast a sideways glance down at the cleric now inhabiting her body. He didn't have the knack of keeping her wrappings fastened, and they trailed and waved in the air behind him. Another bird flew down and perched on one long green goblin ear, and he tipped the ear carefully to the side so as not to scare off his new passenger. All in all, he was probably the single most unfazed member of their party over this whole body-switching bullshit, even though he had arguably gotten the worst-off deal. 

"I don't get it," Nott said softly, her voice barely carrying over the sighing of the breeze. "Why aren't you... upset?"

Caduceus didn't pretend not to understand what she was talking about. "We've been some rough times with this group," he pointed out. "One a scale from one to upsetting, honestly, this doesn't even register."

"Yeah, but..." Nott's hands plucked restlessly at the splintery bark of the tree, peeling it back in flakes. "You didn't choose this body. You didn't... want to be a goblin." An unhappy frown turned her mouth. "Nobody would."

Caduceus shrugged slightly. "A lot of the things I've seen and felt and done aren't things I would have chosen on my own, but they were necessary for me to experience in order to learn and grow," he said. "This is much the same, I think. It's teaching me a lot about how small people see the world. Maybe that's something the Wildmother thought was important for me to know. Maybe how goblins see the world is something I'll need to understand, later on."

Nott's shoulders hunched defensively. "Other goblins aren't like me, though."

"No they're not," Caduceus agreed, much to her surprise. "But they could be. They've all got the potential to be you, they just don't choose it.

"It all comes down to the choices we make. Every day you've got the choice to go back and live like other goblins do, and you choose not to. Every day they wake up they've got the choice to walk the same path as you, and they choose not to. We're all the sum of the choices we make, there's no inevitable force that makes any of us into something we're not."

Nott pondered that, found herself wishing she had her flask to hand to take a drink. Caduceus had that effect on a lot of people, she'd noticed. "Except Jester's magic, apparently."

Caduceus chuckled in rueful agreement. "Well, except for that." 

They returned to the camp, Caduceus' pockets and Nott's apron full of spiky chestnut burrs. 

Caleb, of course, had parked himself on the cart and dove into a book. Molly reclaimed his swords from Caleb and spent a good half an hour trying to practice with them while the girlish murmuring and giggling from the far side of the campsite rose and fell. At last he broke it off with a sigh and turned back to Caleb. "Okay, this just isn't working," he said. "Caleb, I need my clothes back." 

"Was?"  Red eyes blinked at him from over the top of the book. 

"My clothes." Molly waved his hand down Caleb's body. "This just -- this doesn't work for what I do, okay? It's too binding, the books get in the way every time I try to move my arms. Let's swap." 

"Oh -- of course," Caleb said, and he put the book aside and stood up. "Do you -- that is, do you think you will have to do much fighting in that body?" 

Molly shrugged. "I wasn't planning on it, but we never do plan  on it, do we?" he said. "I mean yes, sure, sometimes we do actually go in intending to kick ass or get our own kicked, but most of the time it just sort of happens will-we, nil-we, doesn't it?" 

"Like this morning," Caleb nodded. "It is no problem, we can trade clothes for the time being." 

"Thank  you," Molly said fervently. 

"I will just, move away so you can have some privacy…" Caleb said, gesturing nervously to the far side of the cart. Molly stopped him in his tracks. 

"Caleb,” he said, just enough amusement in his drawl to make the wizard look back at him. He gestured down towards Caleb's body, over towards his own looking back at him. "You do realize there is absolutely no  point in privacy now, don't you?" 

"Ah." Tiefling blushes could be hard to discern, but Molly had seen his own in the mirror enough  time to recognize the flush of darker color that stained Caleb's cheeks. "Yes, I suppose you are right." 

"Besides, I think I'll need your help with this harness thing," Molly said, throwing a teasing wink. Caleb laughed softly in return. 

"Ja, and I doubt I could get these boots off without your guidance," he joked, and Molly grinned with delight. 

He even felt bold enough to take it a step further as they moved in closer and began tugging at buckles and laces, adding a dash of flirting to the banter. "Hey, it can't hurt to know the ins and outs of these clothes too," he said. "Especially the outs. Never know when it could come in handy." 

The blush deepened, but Caleb didn't break contact. "Maybe," was all he said, keeping his eyes averted. 

Molly kept up the soothing stream of jokes and innuendo while they both stripped down to their drawers -- try as he might, Molly couldn't come up with an excuse to swap those  around -- and redressed in the outfits that were more familiar to each of them. 

They were of similar height, so nothing dragged on the ground or dangled past his hands, but Molly still found himself a little disturbed by how loose his own clothes were on Caleb's frame. They really needed to get the man to eat more. Maybe do some pull-ups, build up some muscle on those shoulders. 

But Caleb had been traveling with them for almost two months, Molly couldn't help but think, and while they hadn't exactly been rich  for all that time they'd always had enough money to buy food for everyone. Why was he still  so thin? Wasn't he eating? He plucked at his coat a bit, nervously feeling the ribs under the cloth, and wondered if this could possibly be normal. 

Molly wished fervently he'd been paying any particular attention to Caleb during mealtimes in the past few weeks, because for the life of him he couldn't remember seeing Caleb eat or not. Why not? Was he slipping his food to Nott, or what? They should have been paying more attention. What if Caleb got weaker, what if he got sick because he wasn't strong enough, what if he collapsed? They might be in the middle of the wilderness in the cold and rain and no way to help him -- 

About then Molly recognized the spiral his thoughts had entered, a well-worn groove of obsessive overthinking, and threw on the brakes. Shaking his head sharply he closed his eyes and breathed in slowly, trying to call up the image of the desk with the brown cups to distract himself. Hells. He'd never had the chance to appreciate the difference in sensation between a panic attack in somebody else's body versus his own, and it was a comparison he could well have done without. 

"Molly, are you all right?" He opened his eyes to see Caleb peering at him with earnest worry. 

"I'll be alright, darling." He managed to summon a smile. "Just doing some of those visualization exercises." 

Caleb nodded. "Ja, okay, I am glad they help," he said. "But you must let me know if there is anything else I can do for you." 

Oh, what a straight line, and he didn't even seem to realize he'd said it. Molly had to struggle to keep from throwing himself on Caleb right in that moment, but the other man was still talking. 

" -- this magic is very distressing to all of us," Caleb was continuing. "I want to help you all in any way I can. You are my friends." 

That just slipped out so easily now. Fuck.  It gave Molly a twinge in his chest every time he heard it because Caleb was so open now, so unguarded. He'd been sure for a long time now that Caleb cared more than he let on, that he liked them as more than teammates or allies of convenience or useful resources. He'd been sure but it was something else to hear him admit it,  to spin it off his tongue so easily with an affectionate smile on his face. 

It was still a little unnerving, this New Caleb. New Caleb was still smart, still inward and shy and bookish, still with that dry sense of humor, but now he smiled.  He smiled and made easy, open conversation with everyone and he held nothing back when conversing with them. He seemed to have no reservations about sharing and trusting any of them with anything of himself; as far as Caleb was now concerned, they were all his very dear friends and there was no reason to hold anything back. 

In the few months they'd been adventuring together, Molly had not been blind to Caleb. He'd fought beside him, drunk together with him, sat across from him in the bathhouse on more than one occasion and admired the view on the sly. He'd been aware of Caleb's admitted attractiveness in the same way he'd been aware of Fjord's handsome ruggedness, Yasha's primal beauty, Beau's leonine grace, Jester's vivacious charm. They were a blasted attractive lot of technicolored supermodels that he'd been saddled with, this group. 

He'd been aware of Caleb's looks, he'd been impressed by his mind, he'd been touched by the kindness he showed to Nott even as he'd remained wary of the rest of them. He liked Caleb, he felt the attraction and under other circumstances he might have tried to act on it. But Caleb's deep, wary reserve, the tension of fear and anguish that always seemed to run under his skin like an electric current, his closed hostility that screamed don't touch  had all warned Molly off. There were other partners in the world who would be more receptive, he'd figured, there was no point smashing himself against the rocky shores of Caleb Widogast. 

So he'd let his feelings sleep. But oh, they had never really gone. And now they were back stronger than ever. 

Caleb Widogast when he was drawn and haunted was a pitiable thing, like a cat caught in the rain that you might feel sorry for. Caleb Widogast with his nose buried in a book, wearing that ridiculous coat and holster with a cat for a scarf, was kind of cute in a puppyish way. Caleb Widogast in the throes of combat, calling fire to his will, was a dangerously seductive thing -- bright like molten metal, entrancing to watch, deadly to touch.

Caleb Widogast when he was happy,  open and smiling and trusting, was stunningly beautiful. He was so beautiful that Molly ached. 

Distraction, fortunately, came in the form of the makeover party breaking up. "All right, we're all done!" Jester announced to the campsite, causing Caleb to look up from his book and Molly from his cards. "Everybody come and see!" 

With a showman's flourish she stepped aside and gestured behind her as Fjord, walking gingerly, stepped forward to display the results of the afternoon's work. 

The first thing to notice was that they had dyed Yasha's hair.  Washed and brushed, it was done in an elaborate updo with fascinating dark red braids coiling in a knot that seemed to have no ends, trailing down into loose waves that covered her shoulders.  Molly had no idea what they'd used for the dye, but it was a dark blood-red at the top which faded to a light copper at the ends. It could never be mistaken for natural any more than her real hair color, but now it looked cosmetic -- an affectation rather than an omen.

Yasha's majestic, bushy eyebrows had either been plucked down or covered with makeup, leaving smooth slim lines of black arcing across her brows. The eye makeup alone must have taken nearly an hour, Molly estimated from his own knowledge of makeup, and silently commended Fjord for being able to sit still through it. They -- almost certainly Jester, he was sure -- had painted a wildly elaborate swirling pattern of blues and purples between her eyelashes and her eyebrows that managed to highlight and compliment both the blue eye and the violet one while remaining perfectly symmetrical. Next to the eye makeup the rest of the cosmetics almost faded into invisibility -- but then, that was the mark of makeup well-done. The only really obvious paint aside from the eyes was her lips, which had been shaded in the same blood-and-copper hues as her hair.

She was dressed in what Molly barely recognized as one of Jester's dresses, a rose-colored strapless gown which had been hastily altered -- luckily Jester was quite generous in the chest area to start with. They'd had to let out quite a few seams but mostly those could be disguised as coyly revealing, plunging cuts, and the hems had been trimmed over with shining blue cloth that looked like it had once been part of Beau's outfit. A thin cloth shawl of blue was draped around the whole ensemble, setting off the reds and obscuring just how thick the muscles on her shoulders and upper arms really were.

Jester was beaming with well-earned pride. Fjord had an expression of intense concentration on his face as he practiced his walk, long pale legs flashing in and out of the cuts in the skirt as he stepped. Yasha looked inscrutable, no change there. Beau... mostly looked like an ox that had had a lead weight dropped on its head, Molly couldn't help but snicker to himself.

"Fabulously done!" Molly applauded, beaming at the entire team. "All this in a few hours? Jester, you're a marvel!"

Jester wriggled at the praise. "I know!" she gloated, but her smile as she looked over at Fjord was pleased and almost shy. "Fjord was a really, really good subject."

"And it helped that you had such stunning raw material to work with," Molly said, directing his smirk towards Yasha, who only shrugged.

"Think it'll pass muster?" Fjord asked. They'd worked on his voice as well; his usual deep drawl, overpowering in Yasha's large chest, had modulated to a gentler, more breathy voice that wound lazily about the ears.

"You'd be an ornament to any party in the world, darling," Molly assured him.

Caleb was still gawking at Fjord's... Yasha's... legs.  "Are those... heels?" he said.

"Yep!" Jester said. 

"Where did you find heels that fit your feet?" he said with astonishment. 

"I had them already," Yasha said. "At the bottom of my pack, left over from the circus. I'd forgotten I had them. I never wore them much."

"As if she wasn't tall enough without them," Nott exclaimed. "You're almost as tall as, well, me!"

"Guh," Beau contributed.

"Will you be able to run in those?" Caleb asked with concern as Fjord's ankles wobbled dangerously, then stabilized.

"Will you be able to walk in those?" Molly seconded.

"Moss and dirt are tricky," Fjord admitted, reaching out a hand to catch himself on Jester's shoulder, who beamed and clung willingly back. "Too soft. Think it'll be okay once I'm on solid ground." 

He went off to practice his walk some more -- Jester assisting, the others watching with delight -- as Molly went aside with Yasha. It could be hard to tell what she was thinking even in her own body; harder with a new face, new tells. She was quiet, but was that an annoyed quiet, an embarrassed quiet, or a sad quiet? "Are you really okay with this, Yasha?" he asked in a low tone.

"It's... kind of nice," Yasha admitted, much to his surprise. "To see that I could possibly be..." 

She trailed off. He waited for her to finish, not rushing in to interrupt.

"I couldn't do something like this all the time," she said at last, looking over as Fjord finished his circuit and fetched back up near them. "Too much time, too much materials. And I couldn't fight in this get-up."

"You couldn't take your sword into the party anyway, they'd be checking for weapons," Fjord pointed out. "At least this way, if something goes wrong I can call my own sword."

"It's not me who's doing it, anyway," Yasha said at last. "If Fjord is okay with it, if he doesn't feel ashamed or humiliated, then I'm okay with it too."

"Yes I am Yasha, thank you for askin'," Fjord nodded at her. "It ain't the weirdest thing we've done for a mission by a long shot." 

"That's  true," Molly sighed, a certain hospital infiltration coming to mind. "If you're sure, dear." 

The sun was well on its way to the horizon, gleaming between the trees, as Fjord and the others set off towards the town. Their contact in the town, a man named Ruther, was supposed to meet them at the outskirts and escort whoever the infiltrator would be into the walled compound where the party was taking place. Originally Nott and Jester were supposed to follow behind and break into the house above while the inhabitants were distracted at the party, but after some debate, it was decided that Caduceus would go instead. 

"Do you think you can manage being sneaky, Mister Clay?" Caleb said. "I know it is not your usual line of work --" 

Caduceus shrugged. "Not that different, really," he said. "Nott's pretty small and unobtrusive all by herself. The rest of it, well, it's mostly just knowing how to stand still." 

Molly had to admit Caduceus had an unnerving talent at turning himself into part of the background even when he was seven feet tall. Nott clearly couldn't do the mission in her current state, so they'd just have to hope for the best. 

"Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on him," Jester promised sunnily. She giggled. "I can't wait to get to that snooty mansion. I'm gonna leave eggs in all  their gutters." 

The infiltration party headed off, leaving the rest of the Mighty Nein -- or the Mighty Five, as the case might be -- to their own devices. The sun dipped down further, and they built up the fire. 

Yasha went off into the woods, doing whatever mysterious things she usually did, and Beau and Nott busied themselves with the horses. Molly, in the tent nearest to the girls, found that he could hear their whispered conversation. Caleb's hearing was unexpectedly keen for a human, he thought. He'd have to be more careful of things he said when the wizard was in the vicinity, even if he seemed to be completely absorbed in a book at the time. Perhaps especially  then. 

"This is gonna suck," Beau muttered. 

"The mission?" Nott said. "I think it'll go all right, Fjord's smart." 

"No!" Beau lowered her voice even further. "After this is all over, when we all get to go back to normal." She jerked her head over in Caleb's direction. "He's going to remember everything again." 

"Oh," Nott said, her voice equally hushed. 

The two of them craned their heads to look over at Caleb, sitting on the cart and humming to himself as he plaited a length of leather cord. For possibly the first time Molly had ever known the man, he actually had a slight smile on his face even when someone else wasn't making an effort to put it there. 

Beau turned back around, ducking her head in a turtle hunch. "It's going to kill him," she muttered. 

And, well, wasn't that just a wonderful thought for Molly to busy himself with? The thought that getting back to normal as he desperately wanted to do, of being comfortable in his own skin again, of shutting out these loathsome, unwanted flashbacks -- 

It would make Caleb so miserable he wanted to die. Great. That was a great  thing for him to think about. 

Almost on cue dark images flashed up in his head, bloody wounds and twisted, gaping mouths. He didn't want to remember, he didn't want to remember -- he especially didn't want to meld those images of death together with Caleb in his mind, imagining Caleb lying twisted and ashen on an alley floor, in a flood of crimson on a black stone altar, his own hand holding a blade and stabbing down -- 

Molly's hands flew up to his head, clutching for horns that weren't there, settled for tangling his hands in his hair instead. Something he would much rather do in other circumstances, but -- he tried to call up the rows of cups, comfortable and boring and safe, but it wasn't cutting it this time. He lifted one cup and recoiled from the image of an eye, disembodied and bloodied and darting this way and that, searching for him -- 

Fuck.  This sucked. 

"Molly?" The voice was gentle, soft. Familiar. Molly let out a breath of laughter that was half a sob: he could have this Caleb, this happy open Caleb, or he could have his own innocent amnesia back. But he couldn't have both. "You are hurting. Can I help?" 

A body sat down next to him, too-familiar scarred purple skin under an incongruous outfit of ivory and brown, sleeves rolled up past the elbows and one hand cradling a book. Caleb's upper arm just brushed against his and on impulse Molly turned inwards and mashed his forehead against Caleb's shoulder. 

The other man swayed and stiffened, but then pushed back against Molly's weight. One hand lifted up to grip his shoulder, smoothing over the back of his neck. Caleb said nothing, just offered his presence, his silent comfort and companionship. 

"I hate this," Molly admitted, voice muffled against Caleb's shirt. "I want to get back to normal. I want to stop feeling like this. But I hate the thought that me being happy again depends on you being miserable. It's not fair." 

"Who's to say that either of us needs to stay miserable?" Caleb said reasonably. "Perhaps we can bring each other happiness, Mister Mollymauk." 

Molly gave a short, painful laugh. Dark memories swam before his eyes, retreated to lurk in clouds at the corners of his vision. "I'm not sure I'm a person who can bring anyone happiness." 

Caleb shifted, turning to look at him. His expression was bemused. "I thought you were the one who believed in second chances?" he said. 

"It's a lot easier to believe in second chances when you don't remember how you wasted your first one." 

Caleb shrugged slightly, his shoulder warm and solid under Molly's chin. "Whether it's easy to believe or hard to believe, what matters is that it's still true," he said, sounding so damn reasonable about it. Shit. Fuck. Was this how he sounded when he was dispensing profound advice? He really had to workshop that. 

But Caleb's next words drained him of all resentment. "You are a person with a lot of joy in you, Mollymauk," Caleb said quietly. "Maybe it is hard to remember now, but it is true." He turned to meet Molly's eyes, locking him in place with his gaze. "I'd like to share in that joy with you, if you'd want it. I'd like us to find happiness together." 

Molly swallowed, mouth dry. If someone had told him thirty-six hours ago that he'd find himself in this position tonight -- with Caleb more or less propositioning  him on a log in front of the fire, right out in public -- he would have laughed, or maybe wondered if he and Beau had been doing skein again. 

Caleb wasn't entirely in his right mind, Molly knew. They were both messed up from this crazy magic of Jester's, Molly's head was full of fucked-up flashbacks that he desperately needed distracting from. There was something Caleb was forgetting that was so dire that it had Beau and Nott conspiring in the night to ward against it; without that, without full knowledge of everything that was going on, how could either of them make a decision like this one? 

But at the end of it all, even with all the odds stacked against him, Molly couldn't bring himself to pass up this chance. "I'd like that," he heard himself saying. "I really, really would like that." 

Caleb smiled, that sun-out-of-the-clouds smile that transformed his whole face and took Molly's breath away. He was so distracted by the smile that he didn't even react when Caleb leaned in close and -- 

And then even the smile was a distant second to the feeling of Caleb's lips on his. 

Caleb's mouth was warm, he realized distantly, and tasted like tea. His lips parted as his tongue swiped lazily over Molly's lower lip and Molly found himself chasing that, questing forward with something like desperation as he pulled Caleb back into him. 

It wasn't the most skillful kiss he'd ever received, wasn't even the most skillful kiss he'd ever given,  but in his two years of life it was unquestionably the best. 

They leaned into one another beside the fire, Caleb holding onto Molly's shoulders as Molly's hands sought each other behind his back. He practically climbed into Caleb's lap, slotting his knee in between Caleb's legs, lining up the heat of their bodies together. Pressing closer, regretting the clothing that stood between them -- he deepened the kiss, sucking on Caleb's lower lip, wishing more than anything else that they could be closer… 

The dark campsite darkened further, something like a green curtain falling over his vision. He heard, in the back of his mind, a man's voice laughing. 

Green darkness parted with a snap  as Molly blinked, jolting a little in place, like coming out of a dream with your heels kicking in your bedroll. His eyelids fluttered open and he saw a shifting landscape of red and peach, the flash of blue… and the kiss he was still locked in had turned suddenly sharp and prickly, stiff barbs rasping against his lips and chin as he moved. 

With a gasp he pulled back, a little smack sounding as he broke the suction, but the new distance let him see what he had only suspected before: Caleb was in front of him. Red-haired and pale and blue-eyed, staring at Molly as though he'd somehow grown a second head. "Caleb?" he said breathlessly, and the voice in his throat was his own again. 

The dark memories were fading even as he cast his thoughts on them, trickling down out of the bottom of his mind like sand out the bottom of an hourglass. He remembered that he had  remembered them but could no longer call them to mind, or even recall exactly why they had been so upsetting to him. 

Even as the memories left him, he could almost see them falling back on Caleb. Saw the flinch, saw the way his face pinched, closing in wounded increments from the openness that had been there just a moment ago. Shuttering himself again. In a sudden panic Molly clutched at him, trying desperately  to keep that openness. "Caleb, no. Don't do this," he pleaded. "You said that we could bring each other happiness. You  said it." 

"I…" Caleb croaked, and he wrenched his face away, gaze falling and hovering somewhere to the side. His hand was still in Molly's though, holding tight, and Molly felt a wild hope rising in his chest as that point of contact was maintained. 

Caleb shuddered, swallowed. "I… I should not," he said, and Molly's breath caught, hanging on the next words. "I do not deserve this. But… may the Gods forgive me… I do not want to stop. I want this, Molly. I have wanted this for so long." 

"Ha!" Molly flung his arms around Caleb, realizing with a wince as he did so that Caleb's clothes were really uncomfortably tight on him. They were going to need to retire to the tent to switch back, or even better yet,  retire to the tent and remove the ill-fitting clothing and not  switch back into his own. "You have no idea, Mister Caleb. I am going to wreck you in all  the best ways --" 

Molly's active and lecherous imagination, already racing forward down a dozen newly-opened paths, was derailed from the train of thought as other realizations were beginning to sink in. "Waitaminute, why did we switch back just now?" he said. "Nobody cast anything, did they? Did you?" 

Caleb pulled back, a familiar thoughtful frown creasing his face as his eyes went abstracted. "I did not," he said. "I felt -- I did not feel -- it was not any of us, I don't think." 

"Did the spell just run out, then?" Molly said. 

"Jester did say that it was to last forty-eight hours," Caleb said. "It has not yet even been twenty-four." 

"Hey!" Beau burst in on the scene, trailed more sedately by Caduceus. "What's happening over here? Deuces says he's himself again!" 

"As are we. Mister Clay, you did not cast a spell, did you?" Caleb addressed the cleric, who shrugged. 

"I was in one of the rooms in the manor when I felt a Presence," he said slowly and thoughtfully. "And then I was back here. I don't think there's much mystery as to how  this happened. Only as to why it happened now. Did we miss something significant?" 

Molly glanced over at Caleb, whose face turned red as he ducked down behind Molly's collar. Beau caught the exchange, her eyes widened as she took in how close the two men were to each other, and a look of devilish glee began to spread over her face. "Ooh," she crooned. "Don't tell me there was a kiss of true love  that broke the curse? Or was it more of a --" 

Before she could finish the thought, there was a crash of foliage and Fjord burst into the clearing, wild-eyed. There were leaves and twigs in his hair and he was limping slightly. "We have to go in," he panted, and the familiar twang was back in his voice. "Everyone, get ready to move. Clay, get the camp all together, get ready to leave as soon as we get back." 

"Why?" Beau wanted to know, momentarily diverted from Molly who breathed a prayer of thanks to the Moonweaver. "Why in such a hurry? Jester and the others aren't back yet. The mission is still…" 

She trailed off. Molly looked from Fjord to Caleb, eyes widening with realization. "Waitaminute," he said. "If you and I changed back, and Nott and Clay changed back, then Fjord and Yasha…" 

"…Which means that Yasha is in there as herself," Caleb completed the thought. "In a dress and heels, surrounded by entitled noble fuckwits who think she is a paid escort." 

"-- And she doesn't have her sword," Molly completed the thought. The five of them exchanged a wide-eyed look of slowly dawning horror. 

"At least Jester and Nott are with her?" Caduceus offered. 

"Yeah, but that means that Jester and Nott  are with her," Fjord countered. "Remember Fluffternutter?" 

"We have to go right now,"  Beau agreed, and the Mighty Five leapt into motion, grabbing weapons and gear and supplies. Caleb thought to grab Nott's pack and knives that Caduceus had left behind, and Molly snagged Yasha's sword. They took the horses to make better time, leaving Clay behind to break camp and load up the wagons for a fast exit upon their return. It was a routine they had, unfortunately, practiced many times by now. 

From the town below there was a distant, echoing sound of an explosion, and a column of orange smoke began to rise over one of the buildings. As they got closer, they could hear raised voices in a shout, and see the main road crawling with Crownsguard hurrying towards the walled compound. 

"We have really got to stop leaving towns like this," Molly sighed. Caleb nodded agreement, but under the cover of darkness cart his hand crept into Molly's, and stayed there for the rest of the trip.

~end.