Chapter Text
This cell is far too moist.
First of all, the floor is spattered with thin pools of liquid-- which are either a result of the poorly sealed roof or, worse, remnants of whatever the guards give prisoners here to drink. They could even be from water seeping up through cracks, somehow an even less comforting thought. The hay scattered unevenly around the cell does little to remedy this.
Second of all, this same hay is mixed with unidentifiable bits of scrap, either tossed in to make prisoners more comfortable (doubtful) or left behind by criminals and vagrants that passed though. Either way, they give everything an awful smell and soak up the moisture, making it worse. The barred window does practically nothing to help, and is too far up the wall to see anything out of.
At least the room is empty of any other detainees-- one benefit of being arrested in the morning, though the few sips of good stuff she’d stolen are rapidly fading from her system and her mind is beginning to break through the haze, demanding she get out of here as fast as possible before the guards bring anyone else in or come with retribution for her violent struggle against them.
The problem, however, is that unlike the first three times, she was actually patted down, and they found and confiscated all the lockpicks she had that might be useful here, along with her treasures. She gave the blond one an extra scratch for that. Fuck him.
Nott sighs. Just for something to do as sobriety bears down upon her, she picks a few lengthy pieces of hay up (the least damp she can find--nothing approaching water is getting on her hands right now, thanks) and begins to braid them. It’s almost a mindless process, but having something to do with her fingers is calming. Now that her hair is so short, and greasy, and wrong-- she can’t get it to look nice in braids, not that she has regular access to mirrors anymore, or that she’d look in one if possible to avoid it. Seeing her reflection in water is bad enough.
As she gets to the end of the braid, something shifts in the corner of the cell.
Nott jumps as the shape of a person comes into focus against what she had assumed was merely a pile of hay, and claps her claws over her mouth to muffle her short scream. She should have felt the way the moisture was different over there, should have sensed him-- but maybe it’s a good sign she didn’t. Maybe it’s going away.
As she tries not to try now, though, she can still feel the damp air and ground with oppressive clarity. However, the stranger, who she can now see is a human with extremely dirty red hair and a scruffy but hard face, doesn’t feel… wet. Their hands came up to their ears when she screamed, but now lower slowly as she stares.
“Ah,” the human says, apparently just getting a good look at her in return. “You are… a goblin.” Nott scrunches her nose automatically, the mystery of his dry-ness leaving her mind. He has a quiet but strong zemnian accent. The soft way he pronounces the word almost makes her forget how terrible it is.
“Yeah, I’m a goblin. Nice to meet you.”
The human brushes hay off his coat, revealing his chest and legs. Nott watches him carefully for signs he’s about to spring up and dash across the room to hit her, but he seems strangely unconcerned. “My name is--ah, Caleb,” he offers. “Caleb Widogast. Nice to meet you as well, though circumstances could be better, I suppose.”
“That’s a cool name,” she says. “Mine’s Nott.”
Caleb tilts his head. “I am sure it’s perfectly fine.”
Nott’s mouth curls into a small smile, despite everything. This conversation is going uncommonly well. He hasn’t even shouted for the guards yet to ask for a cell re-assignment, though there are clearly plenty of empty ones around. Maybe they forgot he was in here by the time she was thrown in.
“No, it’s-- it is Nott,” she explains. “N-O-T-T.”
“Oh, my apologies. That is funny,” Caleb says.
She squints, trying to figure out if he’s serious. The clan sure thought it was funny, but he doesn’t seem to be laughing at her. “What’re you in for?”
He shrugs, looking anxious and perhaps even a little sadder than the moment before. “A bit of petty theft, though you wouldn’t know it from my sentence. I’ll be here for another week, maybe longer if the guards forget about me.”
Nott cracks a smile. “Shouldn’t be a crime to satisfy an itch every once in a while, if you ask me.” It’s strangely comforting that they’re here for the same offense.
Her mouth is dry, and her hands have been sweating for a while now despite the chill air. She reaches for her braided hay again, but aborts the motion when she sees that it slipped into a puddle during their conversation. Shit. She needs a drink.
With nothing else to distract them, Nott and Caleb exchange small talk as the day stretches into afternoon. She waves off his brief concern about the way she shakes a bit from the hangover, and doesn’t mention the way he’s constantly fiddling with something looped around his neck. It works. Caleb seems like a very smart man, and Nott wonders how he came to be a dirty grifter like her when he confesses to a passion for books.
They fall silent for a few hours as the light from the window creeps across the floor and gets dimmer. It’s not uncomfortable.
When moonlight starts drifting in, Caleb breathes a noticeable sigh. Nott glances over and tries resolutely to ignore his highlighted jaw and wistful, dreamy eyes. Not the time. Not the place. Not the man.
“This is usually when I would escape, but my things have never been taken before,” he admits.
Nott glances at the cell door. “I could try the lock,” she offers.
“Could you pick it?”
“Maybe,” she says, and gets to her feet to see.
It’s not a hard lock to pick, if you have the right tools. Which is a big “if” when she does not, in fact, have anything approaching the right tools. Nott tries wedging a claw into it, but the angle from reaching around the bars is awkward, and she can’t see what she's doing. Usually she’s breaking into, not out of, closed doors.
She turns back to Caleb, letting him see her expression and figure it out for himself. “If I had my picks or even a bit of wire…”
He frowns. “I could try to get you something.”
Nott cocks her head, ears twisting. Caleb looks a bit sheepish when he says, “My cat was not caught. He’s waiting outside. I could persuade him to find some wire for you. I would have offered earlier, but I--”
“How are you going to ‘persuade’ him?” Nott asks, narrowing her eyes.
Caleb… doesn’t smile, but something in his expression lifts even as his eyes start to cloud over and stare past her. “You’ll see,” he replies cryptically.
They grab their things and make a break for it, ducking past the corner and into the trees to lose the guard. The prison is on the outside of this small town, so it’s not long before they feel safe enough to stop and look back. There’s enough shouting to indicate it won’t be long before they’re pursued.
Nott curses under her breath and turns to keep going, but Caleb pulls on her sleeve to keep her in place for a moment. He takes a deep breath as she opens her mouth to ask him what he thinks he’s doing.
“I need-- I’d like it if you could trust me,” he says, staring into Nott’s eyes so intently she feels her cheeks flush.
“Okay,” she says, questions forgotten. Caleb takes a deep breath, and she feels the strangest sensation of heat gathering around him, hovering like a cloud of summer weather before all at once it vanishes, and a corner of the prison, just visible through the trees, erupts in bright flame.
Nott stares in awe for a moment before he tugs on her sleeve again, looking anxious. “We should go now.”
“Yeah,” she echoes, tearing her gaze away from the spreading fire with more than a little difficulty. That’s sure to keep the guards busy long enough to forget about two petty criminals escaping. "I need a drink."
They join hands and hurry farther into the trees, Frumpkin trotting along at their feet.