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“Caleb Widogast.”
“Ja?” Caleb looks up from his perch on the centuries-old table, scattered amidst the records they’ve been sorting through. Around them, the world creaks and settles with the weight of the history it bears, the weight they displace under careful footsteps through the layers of sediment that build up Aeor.
Like clockwork, the caught sight of Essek sends its familiar pulsing burst through his chest. Every time now, every single time, he has to catch his breath, re-orient himself from the tumbler wave over his head, swim to the light in the brine of the burst of feelings that provides itself at the slightest of promptings. And , oh , how Essek is the light right now, in this dusty storage room. Loosely shaped bits of light bob gently up and down, halo around his head, tracing in amber the iridescence to his hair, the line of his nose, the glint of the piercing in his lip.
Essek pauses, studying Caleb up and down, taking in the sight of him. Nothing less. Maybe something more.
“What is it, my friend?”
“I have been thinking.”
“Ah, an interesting pastime indeed, especially where you’re concerned.” Caleb cracks a grin, sets down his book.
Essek has done this before, on occasion. Something catches his attention, turns itself around to settle down in his mind, and Essek mulls it over, often for days on end, treading well-worn paths though the library of his mind. Whatever has been winding itself must have come to a finish now, the end of its weave waiting to be tied off.
“I have been Essek Thelyss, Shadowhand, for years now. Well- returning to that post does not call me, as it were. But the name , the name… it weighs.”
Caleb does not have to ask him to clarify, not when he knows the weight so well. “I believe I understand.”
Essek nods, ducking his head slightly. “You would.”
A pause. Then another. “Bren.”
“ Ja. Bren.”
“How did you- or, ah, did you? Choose, that is.”
“Early. Several years before school. My parents would have named me Bren had I been born differently. It was not a difficult choice. Aldric was a family name, chosen to replace another.” Caleb leans back with a sigh-sad smile, quietly observing the hummingbird expressions on Essek’s face.
Across the room, Essek fusses with the papers in his hand, flipping through as though contained within will be the answer to whatever he’s working up to.
“Family names.”
Not a question. Not interrogating Caleb, not judging. Not a question, but an introspection.
He looks up, locks eyes with Caleb, white lashes dewdrop in the light. Caleb’s heart catches a breeze, soars upwards for a moment. Gods, he’s gorgeous.
“Essek or Thelyss?”
“Thelyss.”
Caleb ducks his head with a nod. Essek continues after a pensive moment.
“I am… fond of Essek. I-” a glance to Caleb again. “It was not drawn from any pre-existing Undercommon words or phrases - many, ah, upper-class Kryn names are rather overtly religious in nature, drawing from meaningful texts, qualities of personality, old Undercommon and Elvish names of past heroes and religious figures, and the like. Essek was not.”
Essek offers a longer look this time. “The fourth-brightest star visible from Rosohna is a binary star system. In Undercommon, the system is called ‘Ezaanyu’ and the two stars within are the brighter, ‘Aaneyu’ and the dimmer, ‘Ezsak’. The name of the system is a combination of the two, in a rather old Undercommon method of pulling two words together. My parents adjusted the spelling to suit the naming conventions of Den Thelyss.”
Caleb’s caged bird of a heart makes another desperate attempt to emerge from his mouth in place of the memory pulled to the top of his chest.
“ Essek. ” Again, his heart. Again, the vivid memories. Again, the love.
Essek just looks at him, violet eyes wide.
“Essek, oh, Essek .” Gods, how adoring he sounds in this moment.
“Is something- what is- Caleb?” Essek hurries over, one hand lifting up to just brush Caleb’s cheek.
“I-” Caleb has to grapple with the reins to keep his face in check, to keep himself from melting into the barest of touches. “ Essek . Essek, perle , you can see that star from home.”
The barest movement of Essek’s hand sends electricity through every nerve tracing through the points of contact.
“You could see that star from the attic window of my home.” He gulps, blinks back a sudden wetness in his eyes. “One of the books we owned, one of the few, was an almanac- everyone in Blumenthal had something of the sort, farmer’s almanacs like that one, and within was a section detailing the stars.”
He raises his hand to match Essek’s, tracing the pattern of freckles on his cheek with his thumb. They hold like that for a moment, cold settling around them, kept at bay by enchantments older than any history both of them have made.
“I knew every star in that book, Essek. I learned about star systems, learned about how the dimmer star could eclipse the brighter, learned about that system’s use as a timekeeper. Essek, when that star comes onto the horizon, things start to bloom. We’d have more food, more money. That star marks spring, Essek. That star marks hope.”
Caleb hears Essek’s breath catch, watches the flit of expressions, not measured, not contained. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just looks and looks and looks and then-
“ Oh. ” He’s close to tears, all the sudden. “ Hope .”
Caleb offers another hand, and Essek takes a moment, then another, and then, ever so slowly, lets go of the float cantrip, lets himself lean into Caleb’s arms.
“Hope.” A whisper into the top of Essek’s hair.
Essek shakes, ever so slightly.
“I want to be Essek, Caleb.” Whispered, barely. More so, a confession. “Just Essek.”
“You are Essek, perle .”
The quietest sob, and Essek curls into Caleb’s scarf.
“I want to be Essek, and-” a quick breath, steadying. “There’s a little more to that.”
Caleb offers the most brief of kisses to Essek’s curls. “ Ja? ”
“I think. Ah, I think you might understand.”
“I think I do, liebling .”
A soft murmur from Essek again after a brief pause. “Gender is a- ah, complex beast.”
“That it is.” He offers a kind chuckle, an understanding one. Essek doesn’t pull back, as he might once have.
“This is more difficult than I thought.” Essek sounds almost embarrassed through the muffling of Caleb’s thick scarf and coat.
“Mm. Take your time.” Palm of his hand, soft circles against the tension in Essek’s shoulders. He relaxes a little into the touch, just barely sighs. “It is difficult to ask for a change that solely serves to benefit yourself.”
Another soft sob.
“I do not deserve it, Caleb.”
“I cannot change your perception of yourself, perle , but I can try, I can try . For you to be happy, Essek, I will try.”
“Caleb.” Just his name, whispered. Just his name, said with care. Just his name. “ Caleb .”
His throat closes up a bit. “Would you like to know something about me? Would that help?”
“Even if it did not help, Caleb, I would treasure the information regardless.”
Oh gods , he’s in love.
“I consider my full name to be Caleb Bren Widogast.”
Essek pulls his head up a touch, reaches up a hand to trace the line of Caleb’s cheekbone. He thinks he might combust under the touch.
“It suits you, lezndaane .”
Here he is, alight.
“Would you like to know something about me?” quiet again, as he looks up at Caleb. Traces his cheek still, leans a palm against his chin.
“I will treasure the information, regardless.”
“When we were in the Blooming Grove, after Lucien, after Ikithon, Caduceus and I had a, a talk. He was… ah, uniquely helpful? I learned much about firbolg constructs of gender - which is to say, they have very little in the way of such. And, um, that talk helped guide me to a realisation, a, an epiphany? Of sorts. In that- In that I do not seem to find myself fully a man. Or, ah, much of anything really. Sort of… abstract? Inconsequential? There is not an exact word for it, I don’t think. And, and, spending time with the Nein was… quite enlightening in that aspect. Caduceus, Fjord, and Beau, in particular, all offered such unique insights on the concept of masculinity…” Essek begins to trail off, hands moving to flit about his face.
Caleb sits back up on the table to level their eyeline, pulling Essek a bit closer as he does. Ever so gently, he leans in to press a kiss to his forehead, feeling Essek’s eyelashes flutter against his own face. Essek makes some soft sound, resting between a murmur and a sigh, and moves just barely to where Caleb catches the remnants of exhaled air against his own lips, before pulling back and catching Caleb’s face in one hand.
For a moment, every single thought leaves Caleb’s head as Essek holds him there, just looking. Everything he is, in that moment, is there in Essek’s hand, in the faint smile gracing his face. Candlewax and ink, liquid and soft, and oh, how he wants. Here in amber light is trust, and here is hope, and here is a moment of such vulnerability. But not the time, he tells himself. He will not sour this moment for Essek.
“Caleb? If you will?”
“ Ja , anything.”
“I think that ‘they’ seems to suit rather well.”
“That it does, Essek. That it does.”