Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There were many strange things that happened on the regular in Barovia, so Toby wasn’t necessarily shocked to find himself waking up in total darkness, even if it was a bit disorienting. The last thing he remembered was being so damn frustrated with the fact that he couldn’t remember anything, and the way it made everyone who seemingly cared about him keep their distance for fear of hurting him further.

He started to make up his own memories to fill in the blanks. It hurt, at first, but then he got used to the pain, and settled for having a constant dull ache in his head if it meant that he could substitute the emptiness in his mind with something, even if it didn’t actually happen. He would pretend like he was improving; he taught himself how to shove down impulsive reactions to pain by getting better at predicting when a headache would come along.

He learned to hide it well enough that it convinced the others to start talking to him again, like he figured they used to. None of the memories stuck, of course, because the terms of his curse made sure of that, but it didn’t matter. They weren’t tiptoeing around him anymore, weren’t treating him like he would combust if they blinked at him the wrong way, and that’s all he cared about. He pretended to remember what they had told him before, swallowed the pain in their presence, and then found some reason to go off on his own so he could attend to the ever-worsening ache in his head.

Every morning, it would seem to reset. He would take in as much information as he could manage, usually during evening talks around a small campfire, and then turn in early so he could try and sleep through the pain. It didn’t work, most of the time, as he spent what felt like hours waiting for it to subside enough so he could close his eyes without feeling like he was going to pass out, and by the time he actually did manage to sleep, it would be time to get up again.

Bailey had noticed Toby’s increasing exhaustion, but the druid reassured him that he was okay -- just a side effect of starting to remember more than he was used to. Bailey let it go the first few times, not wanting to ruin what seemed like improvement for his friend, who could use any shred of positivity he was able to find. But he found himself regarding the man with more worry than relief as of late. Toby would doze off during the day, barely be able to stay awake, stumble into things, and struggle to hold a conversation.

So Bailey had confronted him about it. He knew that his role in their group was likely the most protective -- even paternal, if he allowed himself enough grace to think he deserved that title -- and he’d had enough of being lied to if someone he was supposed to look after was truly not feeling well. He didn’t want to stress Toby out, lord knows he’s been through enough, but the man looked like he hadn’t slept properly in weeks.

At first, Toby had insisted that he was fine, and nothing was wrong, that Bailey was being too paranoid. But then Pip joined in, noting with frightening accuracy the exact symptoms he was likely feeling and how they would persistently get worse if Toby didn’t start sleeping properly. He pushed back against them, starting to lose his temper over how they wouldn’t just take his word for it. But Pip would not be swayed as easily as Bailey, and matched his rising irritation with more stern demands that he tell them what was going on.

Toby didn’t want to, because if he did, he was convinced they would pity him again, that they would start avoiding him again. They’d distance themselves, covered in a layer of guilt and caution he’d never be able to penetrate. If he told them that he’d cried nearly every night with how badly his head hurt after faking his condition, told them that every time they told him longer and longer stories about what had happened prior to his amnesia, it would trigger a feeling like lightning shooting through his skull? They would never tell him anything again, not until they made sure he was able to get his memories back.

But at this point, he wasn’t convinced he could get them back. He had deemed it a lost cause after months and months of no progress towards anything of the sort, sacrificing every opportunity to get them back in favor of saving Ireena or helping them get out of here. There was always a cost -- if he was able to remember things again, he would be haunted by the hag they couldn’t kill, which would end up in the loss of his life anyway. Or, if he got his memories back, something awful would happen to Ireena or Olive. Or Strahd would do something worse than what he’d already done, which usually meant targeting Bailey in some fucked up way -- the trade off was too damn risky, and he wasn’t selfish enough to agree to have them returned to him if it meant putting someone else in danger.

By the time Cobalt returned from . . . wherever he wandered off to, the genuine concern for Toby’s well-being had turned into a shouting match between both nature magic-adept members of the party, a heated argument that Bailey was unsuccessfully trying to calm down. Cobalt had promptly pulled the two apart, his arms on his six-foot-something body easily being long enough to keep both of his much shorter friends from getting anywhere near each other. He carefully surveyed the two of them, letting Pip flap gently to the ground and hop a small distance away when he noted that he was just fine, but keeping a firm grip on Toby’s arm. The druid was surrounded by vibrant red nerve plants and flytraps in the angriest shade of green Cobalt had ever seen. He didn’t even know green could be angry.

Toby was shaking, the combination of his misplaced frustration and exhaustion making his entire body quake with the effort of keeping himself upright. He hadn’t changed his focus from Pip, who had quickly started to calm down and was just looking worried and guarded, hopping back and forth a bit to get his nerves to settle. Cobalt couldn’t blame him. Even he hadn’t seen Toby like this before.

He turned to Bailey for an explanation. The cat was watching him, hands flexed and hovering near his axe in case it came down to a situation where he needed to use more force than he anticipated to get the druid to calm down. Olive clung to his arm, her eyes wide as they darted between the party members. Bailey explained, as carefully as he could, that he was trying to get Toby to tell them what was going on, since he hadn’t looked well lately. 

“And that resulted in . . . well, this,” Bailey said, voice low as his attention slid to Toby and the way the plants around him seemed to only be getting larger and more dense.

Cobalt looked back at Toby, whose breathing had slowed, but only marginally. His heart was slamming in his chest, and Cobalt could feel his pulse racing where he held his wrist. He crouched down slowly, getting in front of Toby’s line of sight so he would have no choice but to redirect his attention to the half-elf’s face. “What’s going on, Toby?”

Toby’s eyes indeed snapped to him almost immediately. He regarded Cobalt for a moment, his eyes frantically darting over his face as he registered that the situation had changed. It took some time for him to speak. “I . . . I keep telling them that I’m fine, but they won’t listen to me.”

Cobalt didn’t look away, ensuring that he kept Toby’s attention even as his eyes occasionally darted up to look at the other two. He moved his head a little to get the druid’s focus back on him. “You’re upset.”

“Of course I’m upset,” he snapped, his hand clenching into a fist. Cobalt felt the tension increase in his wrist, and he reflexively held on a little tighter. “They’re. Not. Listening .”

“What are you trying to tell them?” Cobalt asked, his voice a practiced level of calm that he mainly used in defusing situations like this.

“That I don’t need -- I don’t need help, I don’t need to rest, I don’t need to be babied . I’m fine, but they won’t fucking listen to me. There is nothing wrong with me.”

Cobalt noted his gritted teeth, his inability to keep his gaze from darting around frantically. He looked down for a second to check the progress of the plants, and as he thought, they had nearly consumed the man’s lower half, and were starting to creep up onto his own shoes.

He lifted his head again. “Could there be a reason why they’re worried about you?”

Toby’s exhaustion started to kick in, and the man was unsteady for a second. Cobalt’s other hand darted out to hold his other arm, which he noticed a little too late was littered with thorns. He felt a bit of blood slide down his hand, but ignored it. “They’re always worried about me. You all are. Treating me like I -- like I can’t do anything on my own.” His eyes refocused, and flicked back to Cobalt’s own. “I can handle myself just fine.”

The rogue noted two things: Toby’s breathing had slowed, and the place where he was holding his wrist didn’t have any thorns on it. They covered the rest of his arm, but stopped short of where Cobalt’s hand interrupted their growth. He also realized that the ones that had initially pricked him when he’d kept Toby from falling over had disappeared back into his body, and he was only touching his sleeve. “I can see that,” he said pointedly, nodding at the plants around the man, “but look at what’s going on right now.”

Toby blinked, slower than he should’ve, and glanced around at the mess he was in. The fittonias had reached Cobalt’s calf, and completely consumed the lower half of Toby’s body. The flytraps, growing out of random parts of his body instead of the ground, were poised to strike at anyone, and at the moment, it was those he considered his friends. There was even one snapping at Olive, who kept swiping at it with her knife.

“You’re not well, Toby,” Cobalt pressed, giving his arm a squeeze. “You need to r-”

“Don’t tell me to rest, I swear to god,” Toby interrupted, squeezing his eyes shut. “Were you not listening to me? Does no one here fucking listen to me?!”

Cobalt’s mouth pressed into a line. Normally, he’d just let someone who had completely lost it blow off steam somewhere and come back when they were okay. But this wasn’t a normal argument -- Toby had already lost his mind, and leaving him to resolve this on his own could mean that things got infinitely worse. Cobalt didn’t know if he’d come back okay, more insane than before, or if he wouldn’t come back at all.

He tried again. “You have to, Toby. You’ve been so exhausted lately.”

“I told you, it’s a side effect of-”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t need sleep,” Cobalt interjected, not letting him finish. Toby flinched a little, as if the words had a physical impact. Cobalt kept going. “Pip and Bailey are only trying to make sure you’re okay. You need to listen to them.”

Toby was silent for long enough that Cobalt thought he was finally getting through, but then he shook his head. “Not you too.”

Cobalt’s brow furrowed. “What do you m-”

Toby yanked his hand out of Cobalt’s grasp so suddenly that it caught the rogue off guard, which wasn’t a normal occurrence. His eyes blazed with anger as he glared at Cobalt with a fury that he was wholly unfamiliar with. “It’s you who needs to listen to me .”

Cobalt’s eyes widened, and he tried reaching for the druid again, but Toby moved away from him with a reflexive speed that wasn’t entirely human. “ Toby -”

But he’d lost him. Toby grabbed his head and let out an overwhelmed, frustrated groan that turned into a scream, and the last thing Cobalt saw was the open mouth of a flytrap aiming straight for his head before everything went black.

xxx

Toby sat on his knees in the total darkness, idly twisting the ring on his finger as he always did when he was anxious. He looked around, though it was pointless to do so. Pure nothingness greeted him on all sides, a darkness so all-consuming that he could barely see his hands in front of his own face.

He tried to summon a little fire. He flicked his fingers once, twice. Nothing. He tried a Starry Wisp spell, attempting to make a ball of light appear in his hands, but he got the same result. He figured maybe he’d try and walk around a bit.

He pushed himself up off of some sort of floor, and turned in a full circle, surveying the void that surrounded him. He tried again to cast a spell, but his magic simply decided not to work here. He also had no belongings: only the clothes on his back, the glasses on his face, and the ring on his finger.

Toby sighed. He figured he would start walking in a direction, but before he could do so, he heard something. It sounded like . . . footsteps, maybe? They were quiet, the kind that would’ve been silent in any other situation, but in a space that was devoid entirely of light and sound, even his breathing was much louder to his own ears than normal.

He turned in the direction he thought they were coming from, then stood incredibly still and listened intently. The footsteps got closer, got louder, and Toby ventured a small, “hello?”

The footsteps stopped. Waited.

“Yes, you,” Toby said, his fingers twisting the ring more insistently. “Who are you?”

There wasn’t a sound for a moment, then the footsteps raced towards him. Toby nearly screamed before a strangely familiar pair of arms wrapped around him and nearly knocked him over.

“What --” Toby, completely caught off guard, had his arms hovering uncertainly over the body of the person that he hoped was hugging him.

They pulled away just as quickly as they had enveloped him, and Toby barely made out a pair of red lenses. Cobalt’s body sagged with relief for a moment with a soft “oh thank god ” before he frantically scanned Toby’s body, the intense darkness making it more difficult than usual despite his darkvision. The druid was certain the blood flow to his arms had stopped with how hard Cobalt’s grip was on them. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Toby shook his head. “No, I’m okay. Where . . . where did you come from? How are you here?”

Cobalt pointed behind him. “I woke up somewhere over there,” he said, then immediately returned his hand to Toby’s arm. “Have you seen the others?”

He shook his head again. “I don’t think they’re here.”

Cobalt’s hands loosened a bit, after confirming that Toby was in fact okay and not going to pass out on him or something. “Do you know exactly where ‘here’ is?”

This time, the druid nodded. “We’re inside my mind.”

Cobalt blinked. “Inside your --” He shook his head. This was Barovia, he shouldn’t be surprised at anything at this point. “Can you turn a light on or something?” He would feel a lot better if he could see the man in front of him more clearly, but he didn’t say that.

Toby shook his head. “I don’t think I’m in control right now.” He looked somewhere past Cobalt, into the endless dark. “I can’t dictate anything that happens here.”

Cobalt released a breath, then stood. “We’d better figure something out,” he said, shifting immediately back into the careful, hyper-attentive assassin Toby was a little familiar with. “This is your mind, yeah?”

Toby nodded.

“But you’re not in control of it.”

Toby shook his head.

Cobalt pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I suppose that makes sense,” he mused, “considering . . . everything.”

Cobalt turned, one of his hands idly flipping a knife as he no doubt formulated some sort of plan for where to start. Toby watched him, wondering what he saw, what he could possibly be thinking when he was supplied with little to no information. He stared longer than he probably should have, and his eyes darted up to Cobalt’s face when the elf looked over his shoulder. “Any idea of what direction we should start in?”

Toby blinked. “Huh? Oh, um . . .” He tore his gaze away and forced himself to concentrate. This was his mind, after all. Even if he wasn’t at the wheel, he could at least know where things were. He turned, slowly, staring intently into the darkness. Then, he stopped, facing in a certain direction without saying a word.

After a long moment of nothing, Cobalt spoke up. “. . . did you figure it out, or --”

“That way,” Toby said quietly, not turning back around. “The way out is somewhere over there, I think.”

Cobalt raised an eyebrow, only a little unnerved. Toby could be odd and unsettling sometimes. He was used to it. “You think ?”

Toby scowled, looking back at him. He was faint, the darkness obscuring a lot of him, but Toby could feel the bastard smirking at him. “Do you have anything better to go off of?”

Cobalt fully grinned then. “Nah,” he said, then looked in the direction Toby was facing. “Lead the way.”

xxx

They walked in silence, Cobalt not risking being more than a few steps behind the druid. He was tall, which made the journey a bit slow considering he was following a much shorter man, but he would rather take longer than put too much distance between the two of them and lose him somehow. A step or two further away from each other meant that he’d no longer be able to see Toby, and he was not keen on allowing that to happen.

The druid was a bit faint, walking with mostly certain steps towards what he thought was the exit. He made no conversation, and Cobalt could easily keep track of him due to his oddly loud footsteps. Cobalt was used to not even being able to hear his own, so their shoes making this much noise in the soundless space set him a little bit on edge.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Cobalt asked, if only to distract himself a bit.

Toby sighed. “That’s the third time you’ve asked me that in five minutes,” he said, not looking back. “What are you really asking?”

Cobalt frowned. “Well, before we got here, you were decidedly not.”

Toby didn’t respond for a second. Then, “yeah, I’m sure.”

Cobalt wasn’t one to pry. He really wasn’t. “You’re not lying to me, are you?”

Toby slowed to a stop, and Cobalt followed suit. He turned to look up at the half-elf. “Why would I lie right now?”

Because you don’t have control over your own thoughts or actions, Cobalt thought. He feigned nonchalance with a shrug. “Just making sure.”

Toby watched him for a moment, eyes narrowed. Cobalt stared right back, which was decidedly easier to do when he knew the man couldn’t clearly see much of anything. Sometimes the looks Toby gave him were too pointed, too intense. This time, he could hide behind more than just the lenses. “I’m . . . calmer than I was before we got here.”

Cobalt nodded slowly. “That’s good,” he started, “I haven’t seen anything try and attack me for asking, so I’d say that’s an improvement.”

Toby frowned, looking down at his hands. He’d taken them out of his pockets, and Cobalt had the sudden and unwelcome desire to hold on to one of them. Just so they didn’t lose each other. Yeah, that was it. “My powers don’t work in here, for some reason,” Toby said, brow furrowed in thought, “so I’d say that probably wouldn’t happen no matter how angry I got.”

The rogue’s gaze also went to Toby’s hands. They were capable of a violence that seemed to scare its user at times, a wild and untempered style of harm that contrasted greatly with the kind that Cobalt’s hands usually produced. He was a skilled assassin -- years of practice made him who he was, whether he wanted it to or not. Toby, though . . . a couple months of being in a strange place and he’d already been able to muster up a level of power that was completely unexplainable. He had no idea where his powers came from, only that they were there, and he couldn’t really ever tell them what to do unless they allowed him to. Cobalt redirected his gaze to the emptiness in front of them. “Probably a good thing.”

Toby was quiet for a moment, unmoving as he looked off somewhere else. “What . . . happened? After I blacked out?”

Cobalt looked back at him. “When did you black out?”

Toby wrapped his arms around himself, keeping his eyes away from the elf’s face. “You were telling me to listen, I think. That Pip and Bailey were just worried about me, trying to make sure I was okay, and I needed sleep. And then . . . nothing. I woke up here.”

Cobalt hummed, looking back towards the darkness. “Well . . . you kinda lost it. I was trying to get you to calm down, and then you got away from me. And before I could do anything . . .” Cobalt’s face shifted, the memory vivid in his mind. Toby had made a sound that was an agonizing mix of crying and screaming, and everything -- everything -- around them had gone haywire. Tree roots ripped from the ground, knocking everything off balance, their leaves shuddering with the force of his frustration. Cobalt’s thoughts had flashed back to the inn, then, when Toby had returned from being out all night, his distress causing branches and vines to thrash into the sides of the building and slice through the roof. Minutes later, their room was practically a jungle, and the poor man was buried beneath all of it. But this . . . Cobalt watched in alarm as Bailey, Pip, and Olive fought frantically against more and more plants rising from everywhere and attacking all at once. He tried to go for his knives, but found that his arms and the lower half of his legs were completely covered, rendering him immobile. When he looked back in Toby’s direction, he was met with the flytrap’s mouth. And then, he was here. 

“. . . you started attacking everyone. The entire forest was at your will, it seemed,” he continued, “and I couldn’t do anything about it. Maybe the others aren’t here because they were able to keep themselves from getting bitten.”

Toby’s hands had gone back down to his sides, and they slipped into the pocket of his hoodie again. “Christ,” he muttered, and Cobalt could sense the way he was probably berating himself for losing control again. “Maybe I shouldn’t wake up from this, then,” he said, only half-joking.

“If you don’t, that means I’m stuck here too,” Cobalt pointed out, “and I think you’re great and all, but I’m not trying to overstay my welcome.”

Toby shrugged. “Fair enough.” He must’ve determined that there was nothing more to say, since he simply continued walking in the direction they had started going in.

Cobalt walked beside him this time. The urge to reach out and take his hand was still there, but he dutifully ignored it. This wasn’t some stroll in a park, or some shitty romcom with an airheaded girl and her mediocre love interest, so there was no reason to --

“This way,” Toby said suddenly, and pivoted in a different direction. Cobalt started, shaking away his thoughts, and turned to follow, but the darkness had swallowed him whole. The rogue froze, his head darting left and right as he tried to pinpoint where Toby’s footsteps were. He had no idea how on earth he moved so quickly. A moment later, he heard them coming back his way, and barely had time to react before Toby grabbed his hand and pulled him along. “It’s too easy to get lost in here,” he said, his fingers tightening around Cobalt’s own. Cobalt blinked, briefly reminded of a very similar excursion in a certain dungeon in a certain town that he hoped they’d never have to go back to. He refused to think about it any more than was absolutely necessary, which was proving difficult considering that he was currently holding Toby’s hand.

It wasn’t a big deal, not really. Who cared if two friends -- yeah, that’s what they were -- held hands? It was normal. Nothing more to it. The same thing had happened in the dungeon, and he was fine . Totally normal about it. Hadn’t thought about it at all afterwards.

They stopped and randomly changed directions a few more times as this journey through Toby’s mind continued, the druid apparently being guided by some invisible force that was telling him where to go. Cobalt was about to bring up the fact that this didn’t seem to be getting them anywhere when Toby stopped suddenly, and Cobalt nearly bowled him over.

The druid didn’t seem to notice. He just kept his hand in Cobalt’s as he pointed towards something in the distance. “There, look.”

Cobalt did, and he saw what looked like a pillar of light. He squinted at it. “Looks suspicious.”

Toby rolled his eyes. “When have you ever cared about that? Come on.”

His hand moved up to holding Cobalt’s forearm, his pace speeding up as he excitedly led them both towards whatever the hell that light was. Cobalt’s general stride easily matched Toby’s sped-up one, and they reached the light in no time at all.

Toby slowed just before walking into it, the glow it was emitting finally illuminating him enough for Cobalt to be able to see him clearly. He looked okay, to Cobalt’s immense relief. Being inside his own mind hadn’t seemed to alter his appearance in any way -- the only difference was that his expression was one of awe instead of melancholy contemplation, as was his usual.

Cobalt looked at the light as well, eyes narrowing as the pillar just . . . sat there. It didn’t seem responsive to them, and there wasn’t anything inside of it, at least not that he could see from out here. He frowned at it, unable to immediately decipher if it was something that would harm or help them.

Toby looked over at him, then, as his focus was caught on the strangeness of this random light. He could see Cobalt’s eyes from this position, assessing the new information he was receiving with an unparalleled sharpness. It was funny how things had switched between them since the amnesia had happened -- Toby of course didn’t remember it very well, but he’d gathered that he used to be the kind of person that would stay behind or watch as everyone else dove headfirst into apparent danger. But Cobalt had adopted a sort of sentinel-like persona around the druid, who was now keen on getting himself into all kinds of shit while Cobalt tried desperately to keep the both of them alive.

Now was a prime example of one of those moments. “Welp, no time like the present,” Toby said, and made to step right into the light.

Immediately upon feeling Toby’s grip loosen on his arm, Cobalt grabbed his hoodie and yanked him backwards. “Absolutely not.”

Toby huffed. “What? Why?”

Cobalt narrowed his eyes. “Because we don’t know what that is . What if it fucks something up?”

Toby’s eyes slid from him to the light, then back to him. “By my guess, I’d say that it’s some sort of light, and things are already fucked up. We’re inside my head , remember? This is the only thing we’ve seen for several minutes that isn’t complete fucking darkness.”

Cobalt grunted. Truthfully he was less worried about the light itself, and more about the fact that Toby had no sense of self-preservation. “Maybe don’t just go launching yourself into the nearest new thing and hope for the best, hm?”

“We’ll go together, then.” Toby said, crossing his arms. “Would that make you feel better?”

To his immense annoyance, Cobalt’s face tinged a little pink. He didn’t have to say it like that . “Fine,” he grumbled, letting go of his hoodie. “But just don’t --”

“One-two-three-go!” Toby said, then launched himself forward.

Cobalt yelped, unable to react in time to catch him. “I just said -- oh for the LOVE of --” Cobalt dragged a hand down his face, grumbled a few profane things, and then darted after him.

Chapter Text

Trees. There were so many fucking trees here.

Cobalt smacked the third branch in the past minute out of his face and yelled out for Toby again. He felt like he was going in circles -- the forest he was stuck in seemed endless, and there was no evidence of any sort of disturbance so he could track where he’d already been. Every single tree he’d seen so far was in some state of decay: rot made the trunks squishy and soft, leaves curled up and fell limply off their branches, ivy choked the life out of what was left while fungus took advantage of every dying piece of wood it was able to reach. Frankly, it was a mess.

He’d tried making a mark on one of the trees, but rot had rapidly overtaken the scar until it was a gaping hole. It killed itself to hide what he tried to change. Cobalt made a face at the tree. He didn’t like that at all.

“Toby!” He called out again, getting more frustrated and worried by the minute. He stopped, tilted his head back, and let out a bone-weary sigh. He told him not to just go in without a second thought, and what had he done?

Cobalt put his hands on his hips, tapped his foot. He needed a strategy, some sort of plan that would actually get him somewhere that wasn’t just yet another mess of foliage. He could . . . leave something behind, maybe. He knew he couldn’t change what was here, but perhaps he could add to it, create a marker with some sort of item on his person that would let him know where he’d already been.

He checked his pockets. A knife, another knife, a switchblade, a lockpick, another knife . . . Cobalt sighed. Did he have anything on him that wasn’t used for murder or burglary?

Likely not, he thought. He only carried the essentials, and he tended to get everything he needed by taking it from someone else. They deserved it. Usually.

He huffed. He needed something, anything else that he could leave that wouldn’t decrease his number of useful items by one. He checked yet another pocket, and pulled out the tiger’s eye. It was warm, even here, and when he opened his hand to look at it, the stone warped in shape until it became yet another knife. He spun it on his finger, then held it up to the light filtering through the trees. It was translucent in some places, opaque in most others. Pretty , he thought, then slid it back into his pocket. It shifted back into a rock, the patron responsible for its transformation recognizing that she was not needed right now.

That wouldn’t do, but what else did he have? Other than the things in his pocket, all he had were the clothes on his back. Cobalt touched the bandana tied loosely around his neck, fingers tightening around the hem of it as he considered tying it to one of these branches. He really didn’t want to leave that behind either. He wasn’t sure if the forest was going to give it back.

His thumb brushed his ring, and he almost flinched. Absolutely not. It didn’t work here -- he’d tried locating Toby almost immediately after realizing he wasn’t anywhere near him when he’d stepped through, but the ring stayed dull and dormant. His stone was the only thing that showed even a bit of magic, but not the kind that would help in this situation. All it would do is probably make him accidentally commit arson again, and he did not want to think about the kind of damage that would cause inside of someone’s psyche.

After another minute of deliberation, Cobalt finally made a decision and untied the bandana from around his neck. He slipped it off, and ran his thumb over the embroidered name along the edge. He wondered briefly if anyone else knew what Toby’s last name was.

Just get it over with , he thought, leaning over to tie the bandana around a broken log jutting out of the ground.

He froze, his ears perking up at the sound of something nearby. It moved slowly, clumsily as it tried to make its way through the tangled mess of rotten forest foliage. Cobalt turned his head ever so slightly. It could be Toby, or it could be some warped freak of nature conjured up by whatever was controlling his body right now. He remained very still, not wanting to alert whatever it was of his presence, and waited.

A familiar-sounding “there you are” answered his unasked question after a few moments.

Cobalt let out a breath. He was glad the druid was okay, but he had also been more worried than he’d cared to admit and it had worked his nerves. The combination of feeling lost in this overgrown hellscape, not having a clear way out, and losing his impromptu tour guide had frayed the edges of his composure ever so slightly. Instead of responding right away, he focused on untying the bandana from around the tree as patiently as he could.

The man of the hour craned his head to look around at what was keeping his rogue occupied. “What are you doing?”

He didn’t respond to that either. At least, he didn’t answer the question. Cobalt slipped the bandana back around his neck, his movements deliberately slow. “Didn’t I say to not just go jumping into things?” He asked as he pulled the knot tight, glancing at Toby out of the corner of his eye.

Toby frowned, leaning back a little bit. Cobalt had a particularly lethal stare of disapproval sometimes, and Toby never liked being caught at the receiving end of it. Arguably, it was ridiculous to feel that way about someone who was (probably, he didn’t know) younger than him, but the half-elf had a way of carrying himself that was, at the very least, pretty damn terrifying. “I thought you were behind me,” he said, his voice a little quieter.

“I was,” Cobalt said coolly, then turned his head so he could look directly at the other man. “But when I stepped through, you’d already gone off somewhere.”

Toby’s brow furrowed. “No, I didn’t. As soon as I crossed, I stood there and waited for you.” He found a small mushroom to poke at a couple times while he continued. “After a bit, I thought you’d psyched yourself out or just decided you didn’t want to come with me, so I tried to go back and see where you were. But it wouldn’t let me out.”

Cobalt crossed his arms, his eyes shifting to some other subject while Toby kept talking. “I pushed against it, tried to pry it open, threw things at it . . . nothing. Once I was inside, I couldn’t get out. I decided to just wait, but after a few minutes, maybe, of sitting there and not seeing you, I decided to see what the hell I’d gotten myself into.”

Cobalt’s expression soured -- he didn’t enjoy the idea that this place might intentionally be trying to separate them. They could be wandering around in here for who knows how long if they were on their own. He’d figure something out so they didn’t risk that happening. “And?” He asked rather than voicing that concern, “do you know what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into?”

Toby’s mouth pursed in thought. “I believe we are in the only part of my mind that retains memories. This area feels oddly familiar, like I’ve been here before, but I of course have no idea why. The darkness, out there,” he replied, pointing in the direction of where the trees supposedly ended, “is where the rest of my years of memories should have been, I think.”

Cobalt nodded slowly. “And the reason you can’t get out is . . .?”

Toby shrugged. “I don’t know that yet. Could you get out?”

He admittedly hadn’t even tried. “I immediately started looking for you, so I didn’t exactly get around to it.”

“Well,” Toby said, his gaze sliding from Cobalt back in the direction of where the trees might end, “I did figure something else out. The . . . bad news, more or less.”

Cobalt raised an eyebrow. When was there ever good news?

“This circle of light is shrinking,” Toby said, the expression on his face much more serious than it was a second ago. Cobalt suppressed a twinge of fondness at his scientist side making an appearance. “When I was trying to break through to find you, I noticed that the light wasn’t stable. It was . . . frayed in some areas, like it was falling apart a little. And it was ever so slowly creeping in on the plants here, and I realized after a moment that the entire thing was slowly collapsing.” He turned his brown eyes back to the half-elf, whose skeptical expression had shifted, now mirroring Toby’s serious one. “If it’s been shrinking the entire time we’ve been wandering around here, and it was just pure nothingness on the outside of the circle . . . then that means whatever passed through that light didn’t make it to the other side. I don’t want to know what would happen to us if we didn’t find a way out of here.”

Cobalt hummed. “We might disintegrate, or be crushed to death, or simply cease to exist, or-”

“ Or we can make it out alive and not worry about any of that,” Toby interrupted.

“-get strangled by a plant monster, or become part of this fucked up forest, that would be fun, or-”

Toby huffed. “Weren’t you grouchy like a minute ago? What happened?”

Cobalt took his shades off, cleaning them with the hem of his shirt. “I can go back to being grouchy if you’d like.”

Toby grumbled something under his breath that Cobalt pretended he didn’t catch, and turned away. It made him smile a little. “I’m going this way,” Toby announced, starting to walk in another direction with a lot more ease than Cobalt had.

Said rogue, usually adept at navigating over uneven terrain, swore as yet another branch nearly slapped him in the face. He grabbed it, intending to snap it in half, but stopped himself with a sigh. “Why does this damn forest keep attacking me?”

Toby glanced over his shoulder and smirked. “Maybe because you’re not being very nice to it.”

Cobalt made a small, offended sound. “The trees hit me first!”

The druid snorted, making Cobalt frown when he realized how ridiculous that sounded. “I think they just believe you’re intruding,” Toby said as he faced forward again. “That would explain why we got separated almost immediately -- you’re not supposed to be here.”

Cobalt ducked before his forward progress could be interrupted by something else. “Could you maybe tell it that I didn’t decide to come here? That I’d actually love to leave?”

Toby’s expression changed a little. Was it really that bad? He supposed that to anyone that wasn’t him, the answer was probably yes. “I would, but I’m not in control right now.”

The half-elf had been preoccupied with pulling his foot out of an unfortunately placed hole -- he had stepped directly onto the softest part of a rotten log. It had seemed solid at first, but his foot had gone right through with the most sickening wet sound. His face twisted in disgust, and he’d started tugging against whatever sticky substance had his shoe almost glued to the ground before he heard the shift in Toby’s tone. He sounded . . . sad, almost. Cobalt’s brow furrowed, and he tilted his head. He gave his foot one last tug, and the log released him so quickly that he nearly fell over. He caught his balance, then hurried after the druid.

He opened his mouth to ask him if he’d said something wrong, but Toby continued before he could. “Look,” he said, pointing ahead of him.

Cobalt did. Ahead of them was some sort of clearing, a strange but welcome respite for the rogue in this seemingly endless dying forest. They made their way towards it, both of them visibly relaxing as they were free to walk on more even ground. Toby closed his eyes and stretched his arms & neck, rubbing the back of it as if sore. Cobalt straightened, his back hurting somewhat from ducking and crouching to avoid getting bombarded by random branches and vines.

Toby opened his eyes with a grateful sigh, then paused. “What the . . .”

Cobalt came up behind him, taking in their new surroundings. He spun in a slow circle, brow furrowed in confusion as he assessed the area warily. “. . . where did these buildings come from?”

Toby shook his head, slowly approaching one of them. “I’m not sure,” he said quietly, coming to a stop. “Why is there a church here?”

Cobalt looked at the other structures around them. A crumbling church, then something that looked like an oversized birdhouse, an inn, perhaps, and gates that usually led to a garden of some kind. Cobalt couldn’t see clearly past those gates, as there was a dense fog spooling out of the bars, dissipating into nothing before it could travel very far. “These are your remaining memories, right? So . . . maybe you were religious at some point?” It was very hard for Cobalt to picture this being a reality, though.

The druid frowned. “I doubt it,” he muttered, thinking back on the few churches he’d seen post-memory wipe. Some level of revulsion deep in his gut always stirred whenever he was near one, though he had no idea why. He turned on his heel and faced Cobalt again, hands on his hips. “We should look around. I can look in here, and you can look in another one. We’d probably get answers faster that way.”

The half-elf considered this for only a second before he remembered what Toby had mentioned offhand about this place trying to intentionally separate them. He shook his head. “Nope.”

After he didn’t elaborate, Toby lifted an eyebrow. “That’s it? Just ‘no’?”

Cobalt nodded once.

Toby sighed, though he was a little amused. “Alright.”

He waited for Cobalt to approach the building before turning back to face it. His eyes scanned the looming, decrepit steeples and cracked window panes before landing on the pair of doors, one of them forcefully broken off its hinges. “Should we . . . go inside?”

Cobalt pursed his lips, then shook his head again. “I’m gonna look around first.” He stepped around the smaller man and started to wander around the outside of the church. It really was falling apart -- bricks and stones that were supposed to be holding walls up had fallen off into piles on the ground, leaving small holes and gaps in the walls. There wasn’t a single steeple left completely intact, and all of the stained glass was dusty, broken, or a mix of both. They were way too dirty to clearly make out what the panes were trying to depict, but Cobalt decided to shelf that mystery for now.

One of the panes was more broken than the others, with gaping holes much larger than the other three of a similar shape and size. Cobalt lifted his glasses, squinting at it a little. His eyes trailed down to the grassy floor below it, noting that some of the shards were scattered and wedged in the dirt. The panes themselves were red, and if he hadn’t been paying enough attention, he might’ve missed the darker red stains around the edges of the glass. Small specks of it littering the grass and stones nearby confirmed his suspicion: there was blood on these. Whose blood, he didn’t know.

He put his shades on and turned slowly, scanning the area for any other sign of life that may have left this here. The blood had already dried, so whatever happened here occurred a while ago, but there wasn’t any sign that something had taken place out here. Either the culprit (culprits?) cleaned up really well, or . . . it happened inside. Cobalt frowned. He didn’t like the thought that there was something or someone else here, but it would make sense. He took one last look, and then continued walking.

Tucked away along one of the corners, hidden well enough that if you weren’t looking for anything you wouldn’t see it, was a small chisel and hammer. Cobalt squinted a little at it, then scanned the stones to see if there was any evidence of carving or making some sort of mark with the chisel. There wasn’t. He wondered why it was here -- this wasn’t a set of tools used for destruction, especially not on this level. He’d expected to see a sledgehammer or something of that nature, but these were the only tools around. He thought it wise to leave them be.

He hadn't seen anything else that he would semi-professionally deem suspicious, so he came back around the other side to where Toby was. Or, where he should've been.

Cobalt froze, his eyes widening as he scanned the area to try and spot the druid. He saw him sticking his little head into the gap made by the broken door, and let out a quiet, frustrated sound that was both exasperation and relief.

Toby jumped a little when Cobalt grabbed his arm, pulling him away from the door. “What are you doing?”

Toby looked down at his arm, then back up at the half-elf’s mildly irritated expression. “Nothing now,” he mumbled.

Cobalt scanned his face, trying to interpret the expression there. His thoughts flashed back to the argument that had landed them here in the first place, and he exhaled slowly, carefully choosing his next words: “I know you don’t need a chaperone. But I don’t want something to happen and I lose track of you, alright? So please, do me a favor and be a little more careful.”

Toby stared at him silently for a moment, then nodded, looking back at the broken door again. Cobalt wasn’t sure he’d completely gotten through, but he’d take that for now. “Did you find anything?”

Cobalt wasn’t sure if Toby would somehow know if he was lying, since this was all technically happening inside his own head. He risked it. “Nah, nothing worth worrying about.”

The druid nodded, and didn’t ask anything further, so either he bought the lie or figured the truth would come out eventually. He reached out and brushed a hand along the fractured wood on the broken door. “There’s some really violent gashes on these doors. Mainly this one, so whomever was trying to get in had more success with this door than the other.”

So Cobalt didn’t need to tell him that something else was here with them. Good. “Think they’re still around here?”

Toby shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

Cobalt realized he was still holding Toby’s arm, though a lot looser than before. He let his hand drop, but before it could land by his side again, Toby caught it in his own and held on to it. Cobalt’s eyes widened a little, and even more so when the man intertwined their fingers. He looked up, but Toby’s back was still turned.

“So you don’t lose me,” he said quietly.

Cobalt blinked, then let his grip tighten around the other man’s hand. So he had gotten through. He stepped over the destroyed wood, following the druid into the dimly lit church.

xxx

Outside of his head, Toby’s body twitched. He was lying as if crumpled on the ground, his face contorting slightly in a bit of pain. Vines protruded from his body like extra appendages, their dried brown color making it unclear at first where they ended and his skin started. They warped and twisted around his body and neck, loosening and tightening as his mostly-unconscious body breathed.

Four of the aforementioned vines were much thicker than the others, and one of them snaked over the ground and led directly to a sleeping cat several feet away. The vine split into dozens of much smaller tendrils upon reaching his figure, weaving themselves around and over him and forming a green, leafy cage. Bailey’s face was a lot more peaceful than the plants’ host as he slept dreamlessly, completely unaware as tiny mushrooms sprouted from the ground and latched to his fur and skin like suction cups, slowly pulling him down into the dirt. One of his arms was lazily outstretched in the direction of his axe, which was lying discarded just out of reach. The plants ignored this, focusing all of their energy on consuming the paladin with as many of themselves as they could. He sank just a little further as poppies and lavender sprouted quietly around his figure to keep him under, the vibrant red and purple providing jarring contrast against the mostly green landscape around them. They bloomed and spread the further he went down, as if being directly fed by him. The cat’s breathing grew shallower, but still, he slept.

xxx

It was uncomfortably warm in the church, like it was trying too hard to be welcoming. Toby stopped pulling Cobalt along when he reached the first pew. The gashes he’d seen on the door were scattered along these as well, not leaving a single one unscathed. There were eight pews here, and two of them were split in half, the jagged edges of the broken wood sharply contrasting with the suggested peacefulness of the church. Toby noticed more of the gashes along the walls and on the platform, where a podium had been knocked over, the book atop it torn to shreds and its papers scattered carelessly all over the floor. An altar sat behind the podium, the once imposing structure covered in dust and several red stains that Toby didn’t want to think too much about. He let his gaze drift up to the walls around the platform, where four tall stained glass windows sat. They were all dirty, all broken in some places, but the sunlight coming through them -- from what sun, Toby wasn’t sure -- helped illuminate their subjects more clearly. One of them, a red one, was more severely broken, the figure in the center of it almost completely shattered.

Toby wanted to look at them a little closer, but he turned to Cobalt instead. The elf was looking at the other panes, his face a little paler than before. Toby’s eyes went to those, and his mouth opened just slightly as he stared.

The figures in the panes of glass were moving . It wasn’t as natural or fluid as a typical creature’s movements, but they were in fact walking or talking or something of the sort. There was no sound as the figures moved, and it was like watching a zoetrope: the motions were stiff and stilted, and they weren’t very detailed. That didn’t stop Toby from recognizing the subjects in them.

“Bailey . . .?” He asked quietly, though there was no need for an answer. Every single one of the panes had the cat in it in some fashion, and each one of them was from Toby’s point of view: Bailey spoke to him very seriously about not trusting Strahd, though there were interruptions in the playback for when Toby’s attention lapsed due to exhaustion; watching Olive yell at him before she walked off, leaving him sitting solemnly in the snow before getting up and walking out of frame; swinging his axe at Doru, an otherworldly light radiating from him as he did so; and others that were just snippets of Bailey looking at him to make sure he was okay, or extending a paw for him to use as support or stability.

Toby turned away from them and back to the platform. Why was Bailey in all of these windows? They were the only memories he had of the cat so far, but why here?

Cobalt looked down at Toby when he turned away, watching him struggle to figure out what was going on. The rogue was mostly certain that he knew what was happening, but he wasn't sure if he should interfere. He let Toby pull him in the direction of the platform, stopping short of going up the stairs. Cobalt studied the altar, the blood stains littering it. He wasn't certain what happened here, but he thought he knew whose fault it was.

Toby was looking at each of the stained glass windows, these four much taller than the others in the rest of the church. Their frames were identical: massive pointed arches with fractured, colorful images inside, each one once again depicting Bailey in some way. The only difference was that these weren't memories Toby had, at least, not ones that he recognized. He carefully stepped up onto the platform to get a closer look, trampling the book’s ripped out pages, stopping when he was standing right in front of the altar.

Cobalt trailed behind him, deftly stepping around the pages and eyeing the altar warily. He did not like how much blood was on it, but Toby seemed to be dutifully ignoring it.

“Bailey’s in all of these,” Toby was saying, and Cobalt’s attention snapped to him, then to the windows. There was a purple one, a blue one, a green one, and a red one, which was definitely the one that Cobalt had seen from the outside. He thought about the bloodstained shards he’d seen on the ground, and his eyes went to the pile of broken glass underneath the window. The others were mostly intact, but that one . . .

Toby continued speaking. “In that one, he’s a king,” he said, facing the purple window. Bailey was indeed depicted in fine robes, if he was interpreting the glass correctly. Bailey wore a crown and held a staff in front of him, the sun forming a sort of halo around his head as it bowed in humility. “And there, a . . . knight? Or a soldier?” he said, pointing to the blue window. Bailey had armor in the same gold color as the sun halo from the king’s image. Instead of a staff, he held an axe, his head held up with more pride than the previous window’s depiction. Something about that armor felt oddly familiar to Toby, but he couldn’t quite place it.

Cobalt’s ears perked up, and he turned his head slightly to listen. He didn’t say a word, letting Toby’s mumbling fade into the background as he focused his attention on the sound he thought he heard behind him. It was subtle, and gone now, but Cobalt could’ve sworn he heard a chain-like clink .

Toby was looking at the green window now. Unlike the others, this one wasn’t symmetrical -- Bailey’s head was tilted to the side, arms and legs bent awkwardly and fractured in a way that made him look more like a doll than a person. “Is . . . that a puppet?” Toby asked.

Cobalt took another moment to listen for any other sounds, then looked back at the window. “Seems like it,” he said, some deep-seated worry stirring in his gut. They weren’t moving like the other ones. There was no way Toby could remember these versions of Bailey, since he didn’t know about Bailey’s life prior to meeting him now. That was something only Cobalt and Olive knew, and even they didn’t have all of the information.

Clink.

Cobalt’s head whipped around, eyes scanning the pews and seemingly empty space behind them. Someone, or something, was here. His fingers instinctively tightened around Toby’s own, but the druid remained completely oblivious, too focused on trying to figure out what he was looking at. Cobalt tensed, his hand hovering over where his dagger rested on his hip. He would prefer to use both hands, but if letting the other man go was the reason they got separated again or worse, he’d never forgive himself.

Toby’s gaze slid over to the last, most damaged window. Angry red glass jutted out of the frame and lay in ruined pieces on the floor. “I . . . don’t know what that one is,” he said, his brain trying desperately to fit the last piece of the puzzle together with limited information. He stepped forward, placing his hand on the altar to guide himself around it as he zeroed in on the broken image on the floor. “It looks like a-”

“Watch out!” Cobalt yanked Toby out of the way just in time as another figure leapt past them, aiming straight for where Toby just was. They landed in a pile, Cobalt recovering faster and going into a defensive crouch, putting himself between the smaller man and whatever had just tried to attack them. He narrowed his eyes at the figure, even as he didn’t quite understand what he was looking at.

Toby watched from behind him as it stood. It was . . . flat , Toby’s mind suggested, and it took him a second but he eventually agreed. The figure wasn’t three-dimensional in the way that he and Cobalt and everything else was, instead seemingly made of large panes of glass in varying shades of red. Toby swallowed thickly, trying to calm his racing heart as he watched the figure straighten, turning towards them with an obscene amount of rage in its eyes.

Cobalt faltered. “ Bailey? ”

It was indeed Bailey, or at least, the stained glass version of him. Toby’s eyes darted between him and the pile of red glass, quickly finishing the puzzle he was trying so hard to put together earlier. His eyes widened, trailing back to the cat, who looked more terrifying this way than he’d ever seen him. While his entire figure was fragmented due to the nature of stained glass’s construction, parts of his panes were fractured, distorting the light he was reflecting onto the walls and floor. It bathed everything around them in a deep red, and his eyes were glowing a deeply unsettling white. Toby looked at his paws, where his claws were unsheathed and much longer than he’d remembered, and dripping blood endlessly onto the floor. Toby couldn’t spot where the blood was coming from, but there was so much of it, and it started to make little puddles around his glass feet. A realization hit him -- the gashes he saw everywhere were claw marks. “Is he -- is he a monster ?”

Cobalt narrowed his eyes and straightened, both hands holding daggers that he would use at a moment’s notice. “No,” he said, quiet but clear, “a prisoner.”

As if in response, glass-Bailey rolled his shoulders and neck, the movement as broken as his body was, making the shackles on his wrists and neck clink in that sound Cobalt could now place. His paws flexed, making his claws gleam in the light, and his eyes zeroed in on the half-elf in the way of his target.

Shit was the only thing Cobalt was able to think before Bailey lunged at him, and Cobalt barely dodged out of the way in time before Bailey landed on one of the pews, using that as another launching point to throw himself at the rogue again. Cobalt gritted his teeth and stayed out of the way as best he could, but Bailey was much faster and more agile than the one Cobalt was used to dealing with. This version of him wasn’t worn down a bit by age, and moved truly like a young, lithe cat would. He swiped and bit, catching air each time, but only by millimeters. Cobalt jumped and ducked out of the way, trying not to get caught by either one of those and also by the sharp edges of the glass jutting out of random parts of Bailey’s body.

He only caught a glimpse of Toby, who had wisely moved into the shadows, and was doing . . . something? He didn’t know, and couldn’t figure it out in time before Bailey was in his view again, teeth bared as he snarled. Cobalt glared right back, changing tactics mid-dodge to figure out what he could use to smash the glass cat into pieces. He leapt out of the way again and towards one of the walls, ducking to avoid a swipe aimed for his face, and grabbed one of the cobblestones that had broken off of the wall. He hurled it at Bailey’s head before he had time to recover, and the rock smashed right through his face.

Bailey stopped moving. Cobalt’s breath came in wild pants, but he kept his eyes trained on the cat as he slowly crept backwards. Bailey hadn’t exactly fallen over, as he expected. Bailey was just standing there, perfectly still, only half his face intact. His eyes still glowed, and they focused on Cobalt as he put distance between the two of them.

Then, to his complete horror, Bailey bent over, picking up some of the glass off the floor. He lifted it to his broken head, and after a moment, the glass fused back into place as if Cobalt hadn’t hit him at all. He was jarringly reminded, then, of the tree he’d tried to leave a cut on in the forest. He couldn’t truly change anything here. 

Bailey looked at Cobalt again -- it was his turn to freeze in place -- and then his attention pivoted to something else. Cobalt didn’t have enough time to register what he was looking at before Bailey hurled himself in Toby’s direction.

“No!” Cobalt cried out, scrambling off the floor to chase after Bailey, before he saw Toby come out of the darkness with what looked like a stone statue in his hands. The druid swung it with all his might at the paladin, who had too much forward momentum to react in any other way than his eyes widening in shock before he was a pile of much smaller, glittering shards.

Toby let the statue fall from his hands -- a figure of Pelor, Cobalt realized -- and coughed, blood shooting from his mouth and trailing down his chin. Toby touched his stomach and pulled away, staring at his stained hands with unfocused eyes, and barely heard his name come from Cobalt’s mouth before he collapsed.

Chapter Text

It wasn't like Cobalt hadn't seen someone get stabbed before. His line of work, if you could call it that, meant watching people he'd grown to care about, however marginally, die in front of him at any given moment. He'd learned to expect it, brace himself for it every time he got an assignment that wasn't solo, and though it didn't hurt any less when it happened, the frequency of it made it easier for him to move on relatively quickly.

He remembered all of them. The names of everyone who'd died or simply disappeared during all those years of working for Heron against his will were burned into his memory, as permanent as the scar on the left side of his face. His mind was a cruel thing sometimes -- he could list the names as easily as counting backwards, but he couldn't remember the name of his own mother. It was as if it was predisposed to memories that caused him pain.

So when he watched Toby fall, his eyes widening as he finally caught up to what was happening, he half expected the usual, slightly jaded feeling of loss to make itself known. When that feeling didn't come, and he truly panicked for the first time in several years, it threw everything the rogue had taught himself off course.

Cobalt's earlier relief left him immediately, and he lunged forward in an effort to catch Toby before his body hit the floor.

Don't panic don't panic don't panic-

He caught him, eyes scanning his face frantically as he tried to compose himself enough to know what the hell he was supposed to do now. Cobalt wasn't a healer -- the only one he had on hand was currently bleeding out profusely from a wound in his stomach that Cobalt hadn't even known was there.

Don't panic don't panic don't-

Cobalt pulled him away enough to look at his wound, assess how bad it was, and nearly choked. Toby had three deep slash marks across his torso, as if Bailey had managed to reach him and try to gut him in one fell swoop. But how? Bailey was occupied with Cobalt the entire time. Cobalt hadn't let the cat out of his sight long enough for him to even attempt something like that. So how did this happen?

Don't panic don't panic-

He had to stop the bleeding. Toby's breathing was so shallow, so weak , and Cobalt was running out of time. He needed to get him out of here, needed to wrap him somehow, needed to find a fucking healer-

Don't panic don't-

Cobalt took his own shirt off, because gods what else was he supposed to do, and pressed it down onto Toby's stomach. The blood soaked his shirt so quickly that it became useless. His breathing was too weak, his chest wasn't rising high enough, his eyes weren't opening what was he supposed to do -

Don't panic don't panic panic pANIC-

Cobalt lifted him up -- thank the gods druids came in size small -- and carried him out of the church as fast as he could, apologizing profusely every time his body jostled due to him clumsily traversing the wreckage and debris. He burst through the doors, which was relatively simple since they were already mostly broken, and landed roughly on the ground outside. He begged the gods or whomever was fucking listening, if anyone was, to not do this to him right now.

Cobalt released Toby enough to pull his hoodie up and reveal his scar so he could --

He faltered, his hands shakily hovering over completely intact, wound-free skin. He blinked, gingerly putting his fingers to the man's stomach, not believing what he was seeing.

He sat back on his haunches, then plopped to the ground. There was nothing there. There was nothing there .

He replaced Toby's hoodie and checked his face. His eyes were still closed, but he looked like he was asleep instead of on the brink of death, and his breathing was slow, but otherwise back to normal.

Baffled, Cobalt picked up his shirt: it was clean and dry. A little scuffed from falling on the ground, but other than that, no one would’ve ever suspected he’d just used it to stop a man from bleeding out. He put it in his lap, a sudden weariness overcoming him, and let his head bow.

Elves are not known for being an emotional race. They don't lose their tempers often, they aren't that excitable, and they certainly don't cry. But Cobalt was only half of an elf. The other half was . . . he looked up at Toby again, who was still sleeping. The other half felt things more strongly than he'd like to admit. The other half made him care about people no matter how hard he tried to distance himself. The other half hurt .

Cobalt used the last of his emotional energy to pull his shirt over his head and take his glasses off. He set them aside, the lenses being a little too red for his liking at the moment, and pulled the collar of his shirt up to his face. He pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes, and after releasing a shaky breath, went quiet.

xxx

By the time Toby woke up, Cobalt had taken the time to check around the outsides of the other buildings and the garden gates. He tried to pretend that it was more of a precaution than a distraction, but didn’t manage to fully convince himself. His mind kept providing him with glimpses of blood, torn skin, and pallid flesh rather than the reassurance he should’ve been getting by remembering that the druid was in fact not dead.

He’d hoped to find something to pique his interest, similar to the chisel and hammer by the church, but he had no such luck this time around. The birdhouse was about as plainly cozy as any oversized birdhouse might’ve been, and the inn seemed as dingy and rundown as one would expect. He’d tried looking around the gates, but dense fog curled around all sides of it, making it hard to investigate as well as he’d liked.

Now, he had his back pressed up against a tree trunk, one of the only stable ones around, and idly made his tiger's eye shift from a rock to a dagger and back again as he waited for the druid to wake up.

After a couple of minutes, Toby sat up with a gasp, grabbing at his stomach and being the same amount of confused as Cobalt when he realized there was nothing there. He looked around, believing for one alarming moment that he’d been left alone.

The rogue watched him from where he stood several feet away. “I’m right here,” he said after a moment.

Toby did his best to hide his relief. He gingerly touched his stomach again, lifting his hoodie just to be sure, and turned around. “What happened? I could've sworn I was . . .?”

Cobalt nodded, forcing calm into his voice. “Yeah, it was pretty bad. I brought you out here to see if I could do something about it, and it was just gone. You've been asleep for 15 minutes.”

Toby pursed his lips thoughtfully, and Cobalt could see the gears turning in his head. He watched him try, and fail, to figure out what happened on his own.

Cobalt stepped in, then. “How did you get hurt? Did something else attack you?”

Toby shook his head. “I noticed statues in little nooks when we were first walking around, and some were much larger than others. So while you were getting your ass kicked --”

He still had so much sass for someone whose subscription to life almost expired. “I was not -- ”

“-- I went to go pick one of the larger ones up and see if I could break him with it. I managed to drag it with me, but I didn't know I was bleeding until you bashed Bailey's face in. I looked down and saw the cuts in my stomach, felt them getting deeper, and then I looked up, and he was lunging towards me.” Toby's hand subconsciously went around his throat, holding it gingerly. “And then . . . I was choking, and cold, and . . .” He shook his head. And then he was gone.

Cobalt's shades were folded and hanging on the collar of his shirt, the tiny water stains on it from earlier having dried completely by now. He crossed his arms, the motion making the glasses shine in the largely unexplained sunlight for a second, and furrowed his brow as he looked at the ground. “So there wasn't anyone else there,” he said after a moment.

Toby shook his head. “Not that I could see. The wound just . . . appeared.”

Cobalt pushed himself off of the tree and wandered back in the direction of the church. He kept his distance, his eyes assessing it warily, but he still had so many questions. Why was there an angry version of Bailey here? Was it protecting something? How did he get hurt? Why were there depictions of Bailey here that Toby wouldn't have ever met or remembered?

He looked over at the druid, who was watching him, head tilted to the side in a silent question. Cobalt walked back over to him and decided he'd also sit. “I'm just . . . trying to figure this out. I don't know what's going on, or how to help, or even if I can.” He looked around, then decided to dig a small hole in the ground with his fingers. Almost immediately, soil filled the hole again and grass grew back, erasing any evidence that he had done anything at all.

Toby's eyes widened. He did the same: dug his fingers into the dirt, uprooting a bit of grass and the smallest, half-blown dandelion. He blew the rest of it away before placing his pile of dirt down. They waited for a moment, but nothing happened. Toby put the dirt and weed back into the hole, patting it into place. “Huh.”

“I can't really make much of a difference here,” Cobalt continued, “I guess because I'm not supposed to be here, like you said. Your consciousness doesn't want me around.” He was trying for something more lighthearted than it sounded.

Toby waved a hand dismissively. “I like having you around. The plants can just be selfish sometimes.” He put his hand back in his lap, his gaze focusing elsewhere as his voice changed octaves. “It's kinda nice having someone else here this time.”

After Cobalt didn't respond, Toby looked up at him, faltering at his raised eyebrow. “Did you say something?”

He hadn't, but he didn't address that right away. “I never actually asked how you knew where we were.”

Toby blinked. “What?”

Cobalt narrowed his eyes at him a little, and Toby realized that he wasn't used to fully seeing Cobalt's face for this length of time. He was pretty in a beaten-up-and-sad kind of way. Like an abandoned pair of shoes that you know once belonged to a young boy before he was forced to grow up too soon. Or a glass of whiskey only half finished because the person drinking it left it behind in favor of something more alluring, however fleeting. 

He shoved that thought aside for now and focused on what was coming out of the rogue's mouth. “When I first found you, you said we were in your mind. You didn't even have to think about it. How did you know that?”

Toby let out a soft “oh”. “I've um . . . been here before.” He calculated how much he should say before continuing. “When I get overwhelmed or upset, and I can't calm down, I end up here. Not here , here,” Toby said, gesturing to the buildings, “but like, out there, in the darkness. I sort of shut down, I guess, and my body goes on autopilot when the plants take over.”

Cobalt let him finish, then, “how often does that happen?”

Toby made a sound like he was going to say something that he knew he probably should've mentioned earlier but didn't, and was now getting caught in the midst of it. “A . . . couple times a week?”

Cobalt's eyes narrowed further. “ What? ”

Toby winced. “Is that . . . often?” He knew it was.

Cobalt pinched the bridge of his nose. “You've just been randomly dissociating around us? We've been overwhelming you to the point where you have to let mother nature control your body for a while?”

“It's only a minute or two!” Toby protested, “and it only happens when I'm alone! Usually after we go through something stressful or . . .” He trailed off. Or after I pretend like the memories don't hurt.

Cobalt leaned forward on his elbows. “Toby.”

“Okay, no, it's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault but my own. Things can just be a lot, alright? But it's not . . . you , or Pip, or Bailey, or anyone else. It's me.” It's always ever been him.

Cobalt studied him for a moment longer, not taking his eyes off his face even as he leaned back. “There's something you're not telling me, isn't there?”

Toby took his hat off and ran a hand through his hair. He let out a breath, then nodded. He wasn't going to tell him that the memories still hurt. He wasn't going to tell that to anyone.

“Are you going to tell me?”

Toby's mouth pressed into a thin line. The fear that Cobalt would start pushing him away again for safety reasons, or whatever he wanted to call it, stirred in his gut. He'd come so far, gotten so much closer to feeling somewhat normal again. He wasn't going to lose that. “No.”

Cobalt watched him, watched the war taking place on his face. Watched him fight with himself, wrestle with the truth versus his personal feelings, and watched the truth lose. He wanted to know. He wanted to feel like he deserved to know. But maybe he didn't. “Okay.”

Toby found another dandelion. This one was still yellow, not yet in the form to make wishes with. He wasn't even sure if they were granted here.

He stood abruptly. “We're running out of time,” he reminded the both of them. “We gotta get out before that light destroys everything in here.”

Cobalt watched him stand, studying him with an intensity that made Toby feel like squirming, but he forced himself not to. When he couldn't handle being stared at any longer, Toby walked around him and in the direction of the birdhouse. “This one next?” He asked, but he'd already decided. It was intact, and looked cozier than the church with the Murderous Glass Cat.

Cobalt watched him walk away for a second before getting up to follow. He slowed to a stop next to him, looking over the largely unassuming birdhouse in front of them.

Much like a traditional one, it hung from a rope secured to its roof, though what it hung off of was too high for either of them to see. The rope disappeared into the trees, and the house rocked just slightly with nothing at its base to secure it.

It had the appearance of being some wood carver’s labor of love, and skillful brushstrokes colored the entire house shades of yellow and orange. Painted window boxes held small blue flowers, which Toby guessed were forget-me-nots, and an inoffensive “home sweet home” was painted in an arch above the circular door. A white picket fence was attached to the outside, with blades of bright green grass painted between its posts.

It was simple, kind of cute, and quite safe looking. Cobalt immediately hated it.

“Alright, let's go,” Toby said, heading towards it.

“No, wait,” Cobalt said, making Toby halt mid-step and turn on his heel. “I want to make sure no one else is here.”

Toby nodded in the direction of the church. “You think he got out?”

Cobalt shook his head. “If he left that church, he probably would've come after us already. I don't think he'll be a problem.” Cobalt stepped around the other man and headed towards the door first. “Stay close to me, but let me take a look.”

Toby obeyed, walking within an arm's reach and letting Cobalt inspect the space more thoroughly before he stepped inside. There were no strange noises, random attackers, or stained glass windows with Toby's limited memories playing on them. After Cobalt's assent, he stepped in, shutting the door behind them.

xxx

On the surface, Bailey’s body slowly came to a stop, his body half-buried in the dirt. The mushrooms latched to his fur let go all at once with a gentle pop , and sank into the ground. Poppies and lavender surrounding his body paused as well, some freezing mid-bloom and others wilting just a little as his body stopped descending. The vine connecting his cocoon to Toby’s body dulled as the life drained out of it all at once. Bailey remained motionless, his chest rising and falling gently as he remained unconscious.

The sky continued to brighten as early morning turned into afternoon. A few feet away from where Bailey’s body lay, the smallest buds poked up through the dirt amidst glyphs and runes burned into the ground. They disregarded the scorched earth completely as their rapid growth broke the inactive divination circle, outlining yet another unconscious body lying on the ground. Mushrooms, the same ones that attached themselves to the paladin, found a new source of life to pull from as they stuck all over their new victim’s feathers and bone.

As even more poppies and lavender grew at the expense of the bird they surrounded, Pip’s body twitched, feathers ruffling just slightly as the mushrooms found it difficult to secure themselves to something much lighter than a dense, furry creature. The flowers started and stopped blooming over and over again as the mushrooms struggled to get Pip’s wings underground; vines instead taking their place and wrapping themselves vice-like around each wing, pulling them slowly under the dirt along with the rest of his scarf-covered body.

xxx

At first, the birdhouse was just that: the floor was covered in straw, twine, and bits of other things to form a makeshift nest; the walls were secured together with slightly visible lines of glue, and painted over in bright colors with random figures; nuts and birdseed were in a neat pile off to the side, as if the intended animal had yet to land and pick at it. It was so wildly unassuming that Toby wondered if the house was in the wrong psyche.

Cobalt seemed to have the same thought. He wandered back over to Toby’s side, eyeing the painted walls like the subjects would jump out and attack them if he let his gaze wander elsewhere. They stood there for a moment, very still as they listened and watched for something, anything to happen.

Nothing did. Toby huffed impatiently, and walked up to one of the walls. As he got closer, he could see a bit of the wood grain peeking out from the thin layer of paint, adding to the overall charm of the space. He took a step back, looking over the paintings on the walls again. They were childlike in nature: stick figure people, disproportionate birds with simple v’s for wings, their appearance close to oversized chicks, a sun in the corner. Clearly a different artist than whomever did the outside. Toby tilted his head to the side and blinked at it -- Cobalt’s mind offered an image of a sparrow -- and then slowly looked over his shoulder.

It alarmed him, just a tad. “What is it?”

“These feel familiar, somehow,” the druid said, and Cobalt felt a bit relieved that it wasn’t something worse than that. Toby faced the wall again, reaching out a hand to brush his fingertips over the lines of one of the awkwardly drawn birds.

It chirped. Toby yelped, yanking his hand away, and Cobalt was at his side in an instant. “What happened?”

Toby stared incredulously at the wall for a moment, then carefully reached his hand out again. He touched one of the birds again with a bit more intention this time, placing his hand flat against its side. The bird chirped again, then shook itself a little, ruffling its feathers. Toby glanced at Cobalt to check if the rogue could also see and hear what he was seeing, and Cobalt’s expression of confusion and wariness confirmed that for him without him having to say a word. The bird hopped about a bit before going over to a pile of random objects, the lines too messy to interpret anything clearly, and closed its eyes as it sat down.

“What’s it doing?” Cobalt asked.

Toby shook his head. “I don’t . . .” he watched as, after a moment, the bird jumped up again, looking around for a second before making its way over to two odd-looking shapes. Toby frowned. Whomever painted these was not very good at it.

The bird stretched one of its wings out and picked up the smaller of the two shapes, placing it atop its head. It then wrapped the second shape, which unfurled loosely into a long rectangle when picked up, around its neck.

Toby blinked. “Oh. Oh shit.”

Cobalt looked at him, then back at the bird as it moved across the wall towards a group of stick figures. “What?”

Toby looked from the stick figures, then back at the bird. “That’s Pip,” Toby said softly, feeling at least 80% sure of his deduction. Pip, in poorly-painted-2D-bird form, came to a stop in front of the other figures. Toby stood up, letting his hand slip from the wall as he followed in the direction that Pip went. The bird was mid-chirp, and stopped, the entire scene coming to an abrupt halt and the paint slightly dulling as a result.

Cobalt looked between Toby and the now-frozen paintings. The absurdly tall figure that he was certain was him had started to turn towards the other two much shorter figures, one of which had comically oversized glasses, and the other sharp ears and a crudely shaped bandana. He bit back a smirk, then moved over to the wall, placing a gloved hand on it.

The paintings remained still. He figured that would happen. “You gotta keep your hand on it,” he said to Toby, who had watched his hand make contact with the wall with an expression the rogue couldn’t quite read.

Upon its lack of response to Cobalt’s touch, Toby moved towards the wall again, a bit behind Pip, and touched his fingers to it again. The paintings brightened, springing to life as Pip chirped rapidly at the other three stick figures. Toby smiled a little, guessing that he was probably chastising them for not getting enough sleep. He kept his eyes on the paintings, dragging his fingers lightly along the walls as he trailed behind Pip, who had taken the Toby-esque stick figure with him to a building that was painted on another wall, the words “ADVENTURER’S COVE” sitting atop it. The (real) druid’s brow arched, and the edge of his mouth quirked up at the artist’s oversight. The sign painted wasn’t nearly large enough to house both words, so the last few letters of “ADVENTURER’S” were smushed together to try and squeeze them into the frame, while “COVE” was infinitely smaller than its counterpart and tucked between the space left by the larger word and the bottom of the frame.

His eyes drifted back down to the two of them. They walked into the Cove, and the painting continued across the wall, showing a very simplified rendition of the interior. Toby’s smile grew as the actual memory played in his own mind while watching the house attempt to recreate it on its walls. Toby watched the figure that probably represented Jeremy tiredly speak to Pip, who, in drastic contrast, hopped and chirped excitedly as he attempted to convince the minimum-wage waiter to give them a discount on the reservation rate. He found himself grinning when Jeremy’s demeanor started to become more animated as Pip’s impromptu inspirational speech struck a chord, and Jeremy brought the final price down. Painting Pip turned to Toby, who was leaning against one of the booths and watching the scene play out. His next chirp sounded more unsure than the previous ones, which Toby chalked up to the bird asking him for money, since Pip notoriously had none.

Cobalt’s eyes drifted away from the paintings as they moved across the walls to Toby’s expression. He hadn’t seen the druid smile that widely in a while, and although he was a little lost as to what was happening, didn’t dare interrupt the moment for fear of erasing that smile off his face. The smallest smile crept onto his own face when Toby’s grin turned into a laugh, and Cobalt felt his cheeks start to warm up a bit. He tore his gaze away from the man and looked back at the walls.

Pip was in a position that suggested the bird had his wings planted on his hips, one foot tapping impatiently on the ground as getting Toby to give him money proved a tad more difficult than he was anticipating. The stick-figure druid held his hand out after a moment, and Pip took the coins to pay for the reservation. Toby’s laugh faded into a fond smile as they walked out of the Cove, the figures bending as they moved onto the last wall.

Admittedly, and maybe a little selfishly, he enjoyed bothering the cleric from time to time. Pip had a somewhat parental feel about him -- despite being the second-youngest person in their group at the moment -- with his constant insistence that they take care of themselves and his level of responsibility that easily outranked the rest of the party. Toby wasn’t sure why he was so concerned about them when it seemed evident to everyone else they met that they were a lost cause, but he was grateful for it. Something about that struck him in his chest, as if it was suggesting that there was something crucial about Pip that would answer something he’d been wanting to know about himself. The feeling was at once sad and comforting, tugging a bit at his heart, and his smile slipped a little as his mind attempted to come up with some sort of explanation.

Cobalt’s eyes had, somewhat against his desires, moved back to the druid. He watched the laugh fade into a smile, and then the smile shift into something else as Toby’s brow furrowed. From behind the relative safety of his red lenses, he kept his attention on the man’s face as a myriad of emotions played across it. Toby had turned slightly more towards him as the paintings moved across the walls, but his focus was clearly elsewhere. A new memory perhaps? Could he recall things safely in here? Would he still get a headache while inside of his own head?

The rogue had no idea. He also didn’t really have any idea of what to do now, since there was no clear danger for him to address, no one for him to save, no bullet to step in front of. It was strange seeing the man in front of him have a private battle with himself and his mind, while inside of said mind. Cobalt, oddly, had the smallest feeling like he wanted Toby to confide in him. It puzzled him -- Toby was never that open with anyone, and he didn’t think that it’d bothered him before now. He realized that he hadn’t ever seen the man truly express his feelings in the way that he and Bailey tended to with each other. A slightly sharper pang told him that he might want him to.

Toby looked up, then, erasing whatever was going on in his head off his face as he met the rogue’s eyes. Well, mostly. Cobalt hadn’t taken his shades off, but even so, the sudden and direct stare at him made him flinch. Okay, so he may have lied -- he wasn’t as used to Toby’s unpredictable little movements as he originally thought. Toby’s eyes flicked from him to the wall, which was playing a different scene. Cobalt gratefully turned away to watch.

Sometime between Pip and Toby leaving the Cove and what was happening now, Pip had found a spot to sit with a bunch of little tools and plants, in front of a small, round figure as they watched him grind some leaves into a mortar and pestle. Even with how simple the drawings were, it was easy for Toby to pick up on what memory this was. The painting seemed to glow a little -- or maybe it was his eyes playing tricks? -- as Pip put a wing to the round figure’s forehead. Olive , he guessed. Pip chirped a little, probably asking her about how she was feeling, and she shifted uncomfortably a bit in her new winter coat. The bird then took a cup, little swirls drifting from the top to indicate steam, and poured a bit of the powdered leaves into it. He stirred it, chanting something as he did so, and the painting started glowing more visibly. Toby could’ve sworn a sort of halo appeared around Pip’s head as he watched the scene, captivated by the way Pip so easily figured out how to care for the little girl.

Olive’s tiny arms reached for the cup, lifting it to her lips, but just as she was about to tilt her head back and drink it, everything stopped. The glowing dimmed until the paintings were once again dull and unresponsive, and Toby blinked. He looked back at his hand. It was still touching the wall, but maybe he needed to . . . he pressed his hand flat against the wall, looking back at the unfinished memory. Nothing. The cup hadn’t been tilted, and she didn’t drink it. Toby pressed his other hand against the wall, his face quickly shifting into confusion and mild panic. Why wasn’t it working?

He lifted his hands from the wall, pausing for a moment to look down at them.  Nothing looked wrong or felt off. He touched his hand to the wall again, hope swelling in his chest when he heard the familiar chirp, but realized that it was coming from a different part of the wall. He turned to look at where he started, and his shoulders dropped when he saw the memories replaying from the beginning.

Cobalt kept his eyes carefully trained on Toby the minute he started moving more erratically. He wasn’t exactly sure what was happening, so he slowly stood, and tried to see if he could help. “Toby? What’s the m--”

“He was going to heal her. He was supposed to heal her,” Toby was mumbling, his hand balling into a fist as he pressed it against the wall. “I watched it happen, I remember it. He was right there, and she drank it in the caravan, and she was getting better -- why didn’t it play? Why didn’t he help her?”

Cobalt approached him, hands lifted in a placating gesture, and spoke softly. “Are you talking about the memory?”

“Yes,” Toby gritted out, his frustration rising as he struggled to dampen it, “he didn’t heal her. That’s not right, that’s not how it goes. I saw him do it right, I saw him heal her.”

Cobalt also wasn’t sure why the memories stopped so abruptly. But Toby was freaking out, and Cobalt knew he needed to tread so very carefully. “We can try again, alright? We’ll figure it out.”

Toby suddenly reached out, grabbing for Cobalt’s wrist, but the rogue jerked it out of his reach. “Give me your hand.”

Cobalt did not. “Why?”

“Just --” Toby let out a breath, trying to calm himself down. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, but all he could think was that he needed this memory to finish playing. “Please. Give me your hand.”

Cobalt hesitated for a moment longer before allowing Toby to take it. The druid looked at his hand briefly before pressing it to the wall. He waited, staring intently at the painting, but nothing happened. He dropped Cobalt’s hand, and tried his own hand again. The memories started up again, but it wasn’t the one he wanted.

“Son of a --” Toby’s hand balled into a fist again and he hit the wall with the side of it. “Why? Why won’t it play? I remember it, dammit! I remember this!”

Cobalt’s eyes widened a bit as Toby’s anger spiked, and he pulled his hand back as if he was going to punch a hole in the already thin wooden wall. “Woah, hold on,” Cobalt said, grabbing his arm and stopping it short of making contact. “If you break it, you might not get to play the memory at all.”

Toby’s breathing was so labored. Cobalt had watched the transition from calm to furious happen, but he still couldn’t accurately decipher why. He was so upset about this memory in particular, so fixated on the idea that Pip hadn’t healed Olive. Was it because of Olive? He knew the man was a bit attached to the girl, but not to this extent. Plus, he was right -- Pip had helped her. It happened in real life, so why was a slightly inaccurate painting making him lose his shit?

Cobalt didn’t have time to process it further before Toby reared his other arm back and slammed his fist into the wall, producing a small crack. Cobalt jumped, then grabbed that arm too before yanking him away from the wall. He decided that patience and pacifism could go to hell as he let his alarm and concern take over. “Get it together! What is wrong with you right now?”

Toby glared at him over his shoulder, his voice rising and becoming more frantic as his anger took over. “He didn’t help her! He didn’t help her, he didn’t heal her, she’s going to die, he couldn’t save her, I couldn’t --”

Cobalt half-carried, half-dragged the smaller man out of the birdhouse as Toby writhed and screamed in his arms. The rogue kicked the door open and nearly tossed Toby out before slamming the door shut behind them, whirling to face him and preparing to tell him to calm the fuck down -- and stopped short. Toby just stood there, patiently waiting for him to shut the door, as if he hadn’t just exploded out of nowhere just a few seconds before. Cobalt went a little limp, releasing an exhausted sigh. “What the hell, man . . .”

Toby tilted his head at him. “Cobalt? You okay?”

Cobalt nearly snapped at him, but sighed again instead. “Yeah. I’m fine.” This was the second time something unpredictable and extreme happened to the druid, and completely disappeared the minute he stepped outside of whatever building they went into. Cobalt narrowed his eyes in the direction of the rundown inn that was probably their next stop. He did not want to know what that would turn Toby into.

Toby reached out a hand and touched his arm. “You sure?”

Cobalt’s eyes shifted to him, the worry so plain on his face and the stark contrast it presented to the intense fury that was just there not even a minute before. He watched as Toby’s eyes tried to figure out what was wrong for himself, but he didn’t even seem to remember what had happened at all.

Cobalt straightened.”Yeah. We need to get out of here.” He brushed past the man, leaving Toby slightly puzzled before he hurried after him.

xxx

Pip’s sleeping body wasn’t as far down as Bailey’s was. His descent was much slower, and by the time the mushrooms stopped dragging him downwards, his body had only made a small indentation in the ground. But just like Bailey, the flowers around him stopped blooming and growing as soon as his body froze in place, wilting and curling into themselves as they were no longer being fed. Pip’s body twitched, his face scrunching slightly before it relaxed back into peaceful unconsciousness.

Chapter Text

The first thing Cobalt noticed about the inn was the noise: music and voices seeped through the doors and windows, as if the inn was bustling with activity. Light glowed faintly behind the glass, which was so thickly frosted that it was impossible to see anything inside. Occasionally, raucous laughter and people dancing would make the wooden door rattle just slightly on its hinges, and the banging of their shoes on the stone floor and mugs on the tables added to the heady mix of exuberance.

Cobalt blinked. He was certain he had caught on to what might be happening here, but the amount of carefree joy emanating from this building bewildered him completely. He had checked this building earlier, and it was just as quiet as the others. There was nothing around the outside, and certainly no lights, no laughter, no music. The entire time that he was waiting for Toby to wake up, this place had been the kind of quiet that resonated with abandonment.

He looked back at the druid, who was already watching him carefully, as if he was waiting for him to do something. Cobalt stared at him a moment, trying once again to decipher what Toby wasn’t telling him. His face was wary, cautious, like he was gravely unsure of what the half-elf would do next, and whether or not that would mean he’d need to react within a moment’s notice. Cobalt supposed he knew why -- though the walk from the birdhouse to the inn was brief, Toby’s earlier concern had disappeared so quickly when he figured out that Cobalt was in fact upset with him, though he could not figure out why. Cobalt didn’t explain it, didn’t want to. So he just kept his mouth shut.

That wasn’t his focus for right now, though -- the inn was still strangely energetic, contrasting so wildly with the other two buildings that it was almost upsetting. Cobalt walked over to one of the windows and rubbed a palm over its panes, trying to clear it a bit in order to see inside, but the glass remained stubbornly cloudy. He could just barely make out indistinguishable blobs that suggested movement in the inn, which served to unsettle him even further. The possibility of there being this many other people wandering around in Toby’s empty mind threw everything he thought might be happening completely off-course. And . . . there was no way this could be for who he thought it might be for.

The conclusion made him a little sad, but he immediately shoved it aside. He kept having these ridiculous little feelings bleed into the rest of his demeanor and it was starting to piss him off. He needed to get out of here.

He went back to the door, where Toby was waiting, hands resting in his pockets as he kept his eyes trained on the half-elf. Cobalt jerked a thumb, indicating the space behind him. “Stand over there.”

Toby looked at the area he pointed to, then back at Cobalt, and strolled over, coming to an abrupt stop once he decided that he’d gone far enough. Cobalt kept his eyes on the inn, and they narrowed as the light started to dim, and the music began to fade. He wasn’t sure if it was just a pause in the activity inside, or . . . “keep going.”

He did. Cobalt frowned as the light and music continued to decrease the further away Toby walked, eventually winking out completely once Toby reached the crumbled steps of the church. Cobalt didn’t have to tell him when to stop walking, and the druid waited a moment before he returned, watching for himself as the inn revived itself as he closed the distance.

The rogue closed his eyes and sighed, his expression softening just a little. Toby’s presence brought this place to life, which he supposed was something he could understand.

As expected, he was still being watched, and he could see the question on Toby’s face warring with the desire to give him space. Cobalt decided to intentionally decline both options. “Ready?”

Toby only allowed his silence to last a few seconds. “Are you?”

Cobalt slid his gaze back to the door, back to the noise and the cheer and the headache that was waiting for them behind it. Every single truthful answer that rolled around in his mind ultimately resulted in a ‘no’, regardless of how cleverly he tried to phrase it.

Toby must’ve noticed. “You don’t have to come with me,” he said, interrupting Cobalt’s attempt to forge an answer that was the exact opposite of how he was currently feeling.

The rogue glanced at him before looking back at the door. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because you don’t want to,” Toby said, and Cobalt failed to detect any sort of hurt -- any feeling at all -- behind it. “You shouldn’t feel like you have to if you don’t want to. I can figure this out myself and get you out of here.”

Cobalt believed him. He did. But . . . “I do want to.”

Toby snorted. It was quiet, probably only meant for himself, and Cobalt wouldn’t have caught it if he hadn’t let his gaze wander back to the druid’s face. “No, you don’t,” he said, and once again, Cobalt’s eyes narrowed at the distinct lack of anything in how he said it, “no one wants to be here. And why would you?” Toby’s attention went to the wall of light lingering at the edge of this limited part of his mind, the ever-present reminder that they in fact were on a time limit. He let his silence hang, the rest of his words dying on his tongue as he let the implications behind exactly why no one would want to be in his mind linger.

Cobalt studied him, took advantage of Toby’s focus on something other than his less-than-willing travel companion to really look the man over. If he was being honest with himself, he had no idea how he ended up in this position. Sure, he knew that he had stumbled upon his house after running for his life on a low battery and an empty stomach, and whatever merciless gods were watching decided that from then on he’d have the task of making sure this specific man didn’t suddenly keel over. He knew that after one embroidered bandana that smelled faintly of cookies -- a smell that has since then mingled with dozens of others, he needed to wash it -- and a couple of clearly adopted family members, he had stored that brief moment in Toby’s house somewhere in his heart. It was the same place he kept memories of people he thought he’d never see again.

He looked down at his boots, his arms crossed over his chest as he let his mind wander. He hadn’t realized it then, or maybe he just didn’t want to, but the damn druid had done some irreversible damage, and those same gods that put him here in the first place enjoyed watching him slowly conclude that he would willingly suffer more if it meant he could keep him around. Cobalt smiled to himself. When did he get so soft?

Toby looked over at him. “What?”

Cobalt paused, letting the thoughts corral themselves back into the small part of his heart that he usually kept them tucked away in, then shook his head. “The plants here hate me, you nearly got mauled by a cat made from a window, paintings can come to life, you lose your shit at the most random times . . .” he counted off on his fingers as he continued his list, then nodded once. “You’re right. This place does suck.”

Toby rolled his eyes, though he couldn’t exactly remember some of the things Cobalt referenced. That was annoying. “I never said that.”

The rogue ignored him. “Regardless, I want to help you. I don’t know if getting out of here means that it helps restore your memories, but either way, I’m not going to leave you to do this by yourself. And even if you don’t need me at the moment . . . I can at least be there when you do.”

Cobalt caught a flash of something on Toby’s face before it disappeared behind his usual contemplation. He could’ve sworn Toby truly recognized him for a moment. “What if we can’t get out?”

Laughter burst from the inn, then dissolved into dozens of excited conversations. Cobalt squinted at the door. He did not like this fucking building. “We will.”

Toby pursed his lips. He didn’t argue. Instead, he pushed himself up from where he was leaning and walked towards the door. His hand landed on the doorknob, but he paused before twisting it when he felt Cobalt’s hand on his shoulder.

The rogue found, in the amount of time that they’d been here, that he was oddly okay with random contact with the man. The rings didn’t seem to have any effect here, and without the dramatic and overwhelming surge of affection it forced out of him, usually met with shock by his counterpart, he was more comfortable with exploring touch just a bit. “We’ll get out,” he insisted, and he was grateful that the statement sounded convincing enough to solidify his own resolve a little more.

Toby’s pause lasted a bit longer before his other hand moved, hesitating as it hovered over Cobalt’s own for just a moment, before he brushed the tips of his fingers over the half-elf’s hand and let it fall back to his side. “Okay,” was all he offered before he twisted the knob.

xxx

The vines were dormant for a while, changing from vibrant green to a faded brown once they decided to stop attempting to consume Pip. For a moment, they were without a source of food, and stayed dull as they relied on the life force of their creator. It was quiet, save for the occasional sound of a traveler or two passing in the distance, as they waited for instructions for what to do next.

By now, the sky was switching from bright blue to a mix of orange and yellow, washing everything in a soft gold as Barovia prepared for the evening. Had anyone passed by then, they would’ve seen a few different creatures lying in odd positions on the grass, connected to a figure that could be mistaken for a half-consumed corpse by vines that were way too thick to be explained outside of magical means. They might have caught a cage of thinner vines encompassing a large bird surrounded by wilted flowers, and should they have decided to stick around, they may have seen vines of a similar constitution poke out of the ground around a much taller elf.

No one passed them, however, and so no one saw as the vines slowly intertwined to create yet another cage. No one saw hundreds of tiny mushrooms pop out of the ground around and underneath their new target, preparing to latch onto him and drag him into the dirt. And no one saw flowers start to push towards the sky, their leaves unfurling and stems lengthening as they grew taller.

xxx

Toby and Cobalt braced themselves for drunk, happy people parading and singing inside of a bright and lively tavern, a scenario that neither of them were particularly fond of, as the music swelled in response to Toby getting closer. He pulled the door open, and the light brightened so much so that neither of them could see anything for a moment. The laughing and singing grew into a deafening cacophony, and the smell of booze wafted in dangerous amounts out of the door, as if opening it unleashed years of pent-up patron energy that this inn had come to know.

Toby blinked and let his hands slide from his ears as his senses started functioning properly again. He looked up, bracing himself to not recognize a single person inside the building, but found that it wouldn’t be necessary.

He looked behind him. Cobalt shook his head, kind of like a puppy, before putting his palms to his eyes. “Fucking Christ,” he mumbled before attempting to use his eyes again.

Toby turned back around when Cobalt’s eyes widened in surprise. Toby’s mouth turned into a small frown as he stared at a completely empty inn. There wasn’t a single sign of life in the building -- it was dark, covered in dust and cobwebs, and dead silent. Toby cocked his head, and closed the door again.

The inn immediately sprung back to life. The music returned at an uncomfortably loud volume, the sounds of people conversing inside resumed, and light immediately illuminated every window.

Toby opened the door. Flashbang, deafening noise, and then . . . nothing. Cobalt once again reeled from the assault on his senses, as did the druid, but the latter resolved to try a third time before the half-elf grabbed his arm and offered a weary “ please don’t”. Toby frowned deeper, but didn’t close the door again. Instead, he stepped inside and looked around.

The furniture arranged throughout the inn suggested that it had at some point been a place bustling with regular tavern activity. There were wooden chairs arranged around several round tables, each of them adorned with a simple tablecloth and centerpiece. There was maybe a menu or two sitting around: worn yellow paper listed a few food options that were common to places like these, like beer, stew, and bread. Along the walls, booths with faded cushions faced each other across rectangular tables, with humble lanterns stationed above. There was a bar, and a glimpse of a kitchen behind, though the alcohol that might have crowded the shelves was long gone. Instead, only a few remained, their labels too worn to know what was inside of them, if anything.

The strangest thing about this place was that the emptiness of it was more of a draining feeling, similar to dread or exhaustion, than just a simple adjective. This emptiness had a color, a weight, and Toby felt as if it might swallow him whole if he wasn’t careful. Despite the setup of the inn implying that people had been here before, it was almost as if it was a ruse. Everything was coated in lifelessness: the wood on the chairs was closer to gray instead of a warm brown, and many of them were missing legs or had toppled over. The tablecloths were a shade of canvas beige that seemed like someone had planned to give them color or a pattern, and had decided against it. The lanterns, Toby noticed, had never been used -- in fact, there were no candles inside of them, nor any melted wax remains that would suggest that one had ever been lit. The menus had no prices, no quantities, no details, and looked more like shopping lists.

He stepped over a discarded chair leg -- when he looked at it again, he realized the chair had just never been fully assembled, instead of his original conclusion that it had broken off -- and walked over to the bar. Upon closer inspection of the bottles sparsely littering the shelves, he noticed that the labels weren’t worn -- they never had anything on them in the first place. Worn labels usually held a ghost of their previous wording or imagery, and even if it faded to the point of being unrecognizable, the labels were forever tainted by whatever had been printed on them before. These labels were just . . . blank.

Toby looked away from the bottles, and down at his hands, his mind trying to make sense of what he was feeling and seeing. He wasn’t too sure what was going on, but if he had to guess who these memories were supposed to depict  . . . he didn’t know if he liked his conclusion.

He turned and looked at his much taller companion. Cobalt’s eyes were fixed on something off to the side, and he stared at it, unmoving. At first, Toby thought he might have been under some spell. But then he shifted in a way that told the druid that he was just lost in thought. Toby looked him over, tried to guess how he might be feeling, but came up short. Aside from determining that he wasn’t tense, and didn’t look scared, the druid had no idea what was going on inside of Cobalt’s head. He knew better than to ask.

Toby decided to look behind the bar, maybe check out the kitchen. He crept quietly around the side of it, careful not to disturb whatever thought process the half-elf was going through, and kept his hands to himself as he looked at everything else. It was just as he thought: spaces for glasses, and there were none. Piles of dust everywhere , and though Toby never saw a spider, cobwebs long abandoned by their creators stuck to every possible crevice. A notepad for taking orders and calculations, but its pencil was nowhere to be found. The kitchen was much the same -- Toby didn’t stay long in there. It was small, dark, and it reeked of mold.

When he came back, Cobalt hadn’t moved. Toby looked over a couple times to see if he could spot what had caught the rogue’s eye, but there was nothing of particular significance in that direction. Eventually, he gave up, and managed to find a way to sit on the bar counter after brushing away most of the dust. He wiped his hands on his pants, and let his feet swing as he waited.

xxx

Quite some time passed, and still no one happened upon the completely unconscious party. And there was no one to witness the plants’ growth halting all at once as the mushrooms tried and failed to latch on to the half-elf. Every time one of them attempted to shoot forward and attach to Cobalt’s body, it would hit some sort of shield that rippled faintly with the contact, glowing a little blue before the effect disappeared completely.

Once again, the vines tried to do the work themselves and wrap around their new source of food and forcefully drag him underground, but they too were met with the same shield, and slid right off. Each attempt was futile, and whatever was keeping Cobalt from being affected by their efforts was making each subsequent attempt more and more aggressive.

Eventually, they wore themselves out, and everything -- the vines, mushrooms, and flowers -- sunk back into the dirt. For a moment, it was peaceful again, and the only thing that moved after a while were two largely unassuming plants poking out of the ground on either side of the rogue’s sleeping body. They bloomed once they reached an average flower’s height, and two deep red roses made themselves known. Their leaves kept sprouting in pairs as their stems grew in height and width, and the heads swelled to the size of dinner plates as their stems arched up and over Cobalt’s form. There were a few seconds of silence as the roses seemed to study the half-elf and assess their situation, hovering quietly and casting long shadows as the remaining light from the sky faded into a dim sunset. Golden hour disappeared, taking the serene metallic glow with it, as the roses suddenly sprouted two extra arm-like stems, each with a massive rose of their own. The roses bloomed, red as fresh blood, and with a sound like fabric being ripped apart, thorns broke through their stems as they settled on how exactly they would solve this problem.

xxx

It was at least another minute before Cobalt snapped himself out of whatever trance he was in. Toby watched a myriad of emotions play out on his face, his eyes widening occasionally when he would see an expression he wasn’t familiar with. Cobalt blinked, slowly at first, before turning his head in Toby’s direction.

The druid cocked his head, his question obvious but unspoken.

Cobalt nodded, and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah. I’m okay.” He slid his glasses off and wiped them down on his shirt, then considered replacing them, but decided instead to fold them and let them hang on his collar. “I just . . . remembered something that I hadn’t thought about in a while.”

Toby watched him as he wandered over to the bar, bracing his elbows on the counter as he leaned against it. “Was it something good?”

Cobalt pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I’m . . . not sure, actually.”

He didn’t elaborate further. Toby didn’t expect him to. He wondered what people typically did in moments like these, when there wasn't an ever-present threat of death or harm. The only times he’d known that could even marginally compare were peaceful moments around campfires, and even those were painfully rare. There would be a few days sprinkled throughout their time together where no one was upset, or tense, or bleeding out, and it was just the five of them talking and laughing like they weren’t on a mission that would likely end up costing them everything. Of course, after those moments passed, Toby frequently went straight to bed, as his head would hurt something awful every single time, but he was not keen on the idea of ruining those moments as there weren’t many of them to have.

He could try saying something, but he didn’t know what. He figured people would recall something amusing that happened as a way to lighten the mood, or share something private that would make the other feel less alone. But he didn’t have either of those to offer. His mind was generally as empty as this inn felt -- every memory that might make him feel more human was ripped away from him instantly, making him numb and exhausted. If he allowed himself to admit it, he felt like maybe there was something he was doing that wasn’t quite right, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Every choice he’d ever made since he could last remember being able to make choices was one that he did for someone else. Sure, it would put him in harm’s way most of the time, but it meant that someone else would benefit. He was doing the right thing. He wasn’t hurting anyone.

His brow furrowed. Why did that feel like a lie?

“Were those stairs always there?”

Toby blinked, startled out of his thoughts, and looked in the direction Cobalt indicated. “Uh . . .”

Cobalt pushed himself off of the counter and strolled over to the short flight of stairs that was suddenly at the back of the inn. Toby joined him, and after a single brief look at one another, started to ascend the stairs. There was no handrail, and each step creaked at a volume that wouldn’t have been a problem if there was any other sound in the inn, but they quickly reached the top. There was a short hallway that may have intended to have multiple rooms on either side, but there weren’t any other doors besides the one that greeted them at the very top of the stairs.

Toby realized then what it was that was bothering him so much. This entire inn was abandoned, but not in the sense that there were people here once and it had been neglected for some time. It was abandoned because it was never finished -- every single thing in this inn felt like someone had come along with the intention to make something of the place, and never cared enough to complete the job. He looked over his shoulder and back down the stairs, his eyes landing on one of the chairs that was balancing precariously on three legs. The fourth leg just sat there underneath it, completely intact but not attached to its chair. He looked around at everything else -- those bottles behind the bar had never been labeled because no one had bothered to fill them. The lanterns were never lit because there weren’t any candles inside to light, and there never had been. The tablecloths, the booths, even the floors felt like whomever had built this place just didn’t fucking care.

Toby turned around, slowly, and faced the door again, his head slightly bowed as he tried to come to terms with what he was being presented with. The church, the birdhouse, this inn, even that foggy garden area they had yet to explore . . . this was all him. This was his mind. He made this. He didn’t know how, or why, but it was here.

He shook his head. That didn’t make any sense . He cared about Cobalt. It was one of the only things he was absolutely certain about, even if his mind tried to play tricks on him and his powers fucked with his sense of self. He frowned. That’s probably what it was: another game, another trick, another lie created by whatever this damn curse was doing to him. He could never think properly in the first place, so why should he trust that all of these places were accurately representing how he truly felt? Even if it was the only place with anything substantial inside of this endless void, there was no reason to believe that it was telling the truth. His mind was lying to him. That was the only thing that made sense.

It pissed him off.

Cobalt watched him come to some sort of realization, turn and come to another realization, and his eyebrow quirked when surprise melted into outright anger. He didn’t want another birdhouse situation, so he started to interrupt his train of thought. “Before we start punching things --”

“I’m going in by myself,” Toby said curtly.

The rogue made a face that implied that he thought Toby was joking. The face didn’t last long. “What? No.”

Toby sighed through his nose, his impatience clear on his face. “Cobalt --”

“No.” He crossed his arms, meeting the man’s impatient stare with a somewhat cold one of his own. “You asked me before, and my answer is the same.”

“This is an entirely different situation.”

“Not to me it’s not,” Cobalt said, tapping a gloved finger lightly on his arm, “I’m not letting you do this alone.”

Toby was silent for a moment, and Cobalt started to uncross his arms and say something else, but then Toby said, “You don’t trust me, right?”

The elf’s brow arched again. “I don’t trust you to not get yourself hurt or lost while we’re here, no.”

Toby might have smiled a little at that. It was hard to tell. He didn’t say anything for another moment, and then, “that probably won’t change.”

Cobalt gave him a puzzled look. “What do you m-”

Toby flung the door open and darted inside. Cobalt jumped and reached out to grab him, his hand catching on the sleeve of his hoodie, and pulled him backwards -- but the only thing he ended up with was the hoodie. Somehow he’d managed to slip entirely out of it, leaving Cobalt alone in the hallway, the bright blue clothing hanging uselessly from his hand. He got over his surprise in a second, chucking the hoodie aside and going for the door. He twisted the knob, but it didn’t budge, like it was stuck. There was no lock to pick on the door, and no matter how many times he tried throwing his weight against it, the deceptively flimsy-looking thing stayed firmly in place. When he thought he’d maybe made a splinter in its wood, it would fuse back with the rest of the door, undoing any damage he tried to inflict. And, of course, his fist banging on the door and repeated calls were unanswered, left to echo throughout the rest of the inn.

“Son of a --” Cobalt plopped down on the stairs, grabbed a fistful of his shirt, and brought it to his face. He let out a frustrated groan that crescendoed until he stopped abruptly, letting the sound disappear into the undisturbed gray of the inn, before he sighed, and allowed the shirt to fall. He folded his hands and braced his forehead against it, closing his eyes and letting out another forcefully patient breath. He kept attaching himself to the most frustrating people.

At this point, he had no idea what to do. He was at just as much of a loss as he was in the birdhouse, but at least that didn’t have another room that he wasn’t allowed to enter. He could keep the man in his line of sight, at least know where he was and what he was doing, just in case he needed to intervene. Here, he wasn’t in control of anything. His actions had no effect, he couldn’t prevent Toby from getting hurt, he couldn’t do a damn thing. And now, Toby was somewhere inside that room doing gods knows what, and there was no guarantee he’d come out. Hell, there wasn’t a guarantee that what was behind that door was actually a room. What if it just swallowed him whole? What if there was something waiting to attack him? What if --

Cobalt forced the thoughts away. He knew he’d drive himself crazy if he kept thinking like that, but he couldn’t help it. The last time Toby was alone, truly alone, Strahd nearly killed him. Cobalt didn’t know what he would’ve done if he had followed through with it.

He found himself wishing Bailey was here, a voice of reason and relative calm for situations like these. The cat had an incredible amount of level-headedness, despite the circumstances. Hell, he’d even take Pip at this point, though he wasn’t entirely sure what the bird’s whole “Sylvanus’s chosen ones” deal was. Thinking about them allowed him to relax a bit, and he silently hoped that they were okay.

xxx

Cobalt might have gotten his answer had he not been under the sleep spell that currently had his real body rooted to the ground, but he was still fast asleep, as were the others. Normally, the half-elf slept lightly, since his body and mind were always at least semi-alert in case he needed to address sudden dangers. Under those conditions, the giant roses above his prone form relentlessly tearing at the shield protecting him would’ve woken him up instantly.

But these were not normal conditions, and so, while aforementioned roses used their dagger-like thorns to slowly but successfully break down Cobalt’s protection, he stayed peacefully unconscious. The roses sunk their thorns into the shield, having a much easier time penetrating it than the vines or mushrooms had, and pulled. It glowed blue and rippled with the initial contact, then started to fracture, like sheets of ice splitting apart.

The vines and mushrooms took the opportunity, sprouting and growing through the holes created by the roses, and began to tug Cobalt down into the dirt.

xxx

Toby could not believe that worked. He hadn’t had a time to confirm if this would be successful, but he’d considered silently requesting that whatever magic was holding onto his mind separate the two of them, if only for a moment, just to see what would happen. He couldn’t really control anything here, but he wondered if requesting something the magic was already trying to do would make it happen more efficiently. He had thought that there would be a point where he’d need to do something by himself in order to get the answers he wanted, and here he was.

Cobalt would be pissed with him.

Toby sighed. What else was new, really? He was impulsive and a pain in the ass, and he knew he should give the rogue a break. But he needed to figure this out, and he had a feeling that he needed to do one of these on his own so he could really understand what was going on.

Cobalt would be really upset, though. Toby resolved to beg for his forgiveness later, and maybe find a new shiny stabby thing to give him. There was an overpriced one he noticed Cobalt sneaking glances at in a suspicious-looking shop they passed earlier, run by an equally untrustworthy manager. Toby considered it for a moment. That wouldn’t be too hard to steal.

Toby forced his attention to go back to the situation at hand. He pushed himself off the door and took a step into the room. It looked exactly like an inn bedroom would: a chair, small table, a lantern, a dresser, and a bed for maybe two people. But this room . . . Toby walked over to the bed, pressed a hand down into the mattress. His eyes widened. It was so soft. “Holy shit,” he breathed, pressing both hands down and marvelling at the unexpected comfort the mattress provided. He lifted his hands, and his jaw slackened when the dent he made took a minute to go back to normal. He lifted the sheet off of it -- also incredibly soft, almost like one of Cobalt’s shirts -- and pressed a hand into the bare mattress. He grinned at the way the foam remembered the shape of his hand for several seconds before it inflated and disappeared.

He sat on the bed, letting out a content sigh at how comfortable it was, and looked at the other things on it. He grabbed the pillow, gasping at how cool it felt, and how it rivaled the comfort of the mattress itself. The blanket, tossed casually across the foot of the bed, was knit with yarn that Toby was certain was made of a cotton he had never seen before. He pulled it up and around his shoulders, like a cape, and flopped down onto the bed. It smelled like a mix of honey and vanilla, and he took a second to marvel at how drastically different this was from the cold, unwelcoming feel of the inn downstairs.

His mind once again flashed to Cobalt, left outside to sit in the dreadful emptiness beyond this room with no idea if he was okay or not. He frowned. He was certain Cobalt wouldn’t have let him do this by himself, even though he felt like he needed to, but maybe he should’ve . . . he sighed. Cobalt was right. They needed to get the hell out of here.

Toby pushed himself off of the bed, immediately missing its comfort, and assessed the room again. There was a chair -- upholstered in what Toby could only guess was the softest fabric he’d ever have the chance of feeling -- and a small table. Toby squinted, and went over to the table. There was a piece of paper on top of it, and an envelope. The paper had writing on it, but there was no pencil, and it was just scribbled gibberish. Toby frowned. That was weird.

He did run his hand over the fabric of the chair, just to confirm his suspicion, before going to the dresser. He opened all of the drawers: there were folded clothes, all way too big for him, and extra blankets and sheets for the bed. His entire exploration of the room left him endlessly stunned: everything in here was so soft, so warm, so strangely welcoming that Toby momentarily forgot where he was. A room like this shouldn’t be inside of a place so inhospitable, and yet, here it was.

Toby turned, looking at the chair, and then the bed again. He blinked, walking over and picking up a teddy bear that had suddenly appeared. He was sure it hadn’t been there before. The bear was plush, but clearly well-loved. It felt like it had been re-stuffed in some places, and stitching that contrasted with its original thread confirmed that someone had carefully sewn stuffing back into the bear where it started to sag. One of its button eyes was loose, and there was a patterned patch on its stomach. The bear’s stitched nose and upturned mouth smiled quietly at him. Toby smiled back.

The bear felt familiar somehow, like he had seen it before, but he placed it down, and decided to focus on getting out of here. He should at least tell Cobalt he’s okay, even though he still wanted to sort things out on his own. He went over to the door and twisted the knob -- nothing. Toby twisted it with all his might, yanked on it, and tried breaking it off, but everything in here was way too soft to cause any damage and the door remained stubbornly shut. He put his hands on his hips with a huff. That just wouldn’t do.

He tried knocking on the door and seeing if Cobalt could hear him on the other side, but either the rogue had left, was ignoring him, or couldn’t hear a thing. He left all three as possibilities in his mind, justifying any of the options considering how much he felt like an asshole for what he did, and turned on his heel to find something else that would get him out of this room.

He walked over to the table again, trying and failing to ignore how plush the rug on the floor was, and looked it over to see if there were any drawers. There was one, and he slid it open. “Huh,” he said quietly. There were paints in here, and a small paintbrush.

He picked up the paints. There was green, white, yellow, and red. He looked around for more paper to paint on, or a canvas, but there was none. Strangely enough, they were all used, and the brush tip was stained with pigment. Toby shrugged, and put them in his pocket.

He heard a voice behind him, and his head whipped around. Three figures stood behind him, all talking to each other. Toby stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over the chair in his shock. “Co . . . balt . . .?” He stared at them for a moment, though they didn’t seem to notice him. “Bailey?” He whispered, completely bewildered. “Pip?”

They were here. They were here . He didn’t know how, or when it happened, but somehow they were here and the relief and happiness that swelled in his chest was unfamiliar but not unwelcome. He scrambled off the floor, crossing the room in seconds so he could reach out and --

He stopped, his hand hovering hesitantly in front of him. He could have sworn that it only took that many steps to get from where he was to the other side of the small bedroom, but they hovered just out of reach. And they still didn’t seem to notice he was there. He stretched his arm forward, and the figures that he was so certain were his friends seemed to back away from him. He took another step, reaching further, but the faster he moved towards them, the faster they moved away, until it seemed like he was walking down an endless hallway trying to catch up with them.

It was like they were avoiding him.

And they were talking about something, something he couldn’t quite catch. He put his hand down, and just watched, the earlier feeling of joy quickly dissolving into confusion. He stared at them, the way they stood, the way they spoke to each other, and he racked his brain for where he’d seen this exact scene before. Cobalt’s back was against the door, hands curled protectively over one another and held to his chest. Bailey was trying to get him to do something, trying to reassure him with his outstretched, clawless paws. Pip had a wing out in a similar fashion, and would occasionally pipe up with something else comforting as they both carefully urged Cobalt to come towards them.

Or . . . no, that wasn’t quite right. Toby moved towards the bed, bracing a hand against it as he watched the scene intently. His heart raced, the pounding of it loud in his own ears as the feeling of this memory took hold, even though he couldn’t quite place exactly what it was. He didn’t know what they were saying, but gods, he knew he saw this happen firsthand. He didn’t know what it was though, his mind was so clouded, so jumbled with fractured memories and pain that he never found it easy to recall anything.

And then, Cobalt reached out his hand.

Oh. Oh.

The grief hit Toby all at once, slamming into him like he ran straight into a brick wall, and he grabbed his chest, struggling to hold himself upright against the bed. His breathing came in ragged, hoarse gasps as he fought back the violent urge to sob and forced himself to look up. Tears pricked his eyes as Pip waved his little wings over Cobalt’s hand, and then carefully slid his ring off.

There it was again, that feeling like he could do nothing but watch as someone he cared about died. He had suppressed this memory, this feeling for so long that he thought he had successfully buried it deep enough that he wouldn’t have to feel it ever again. And here it was, tucked so carefully inside the recesses of his mind, just waiting for him to remember it.

He’s dead, his mind screamed at him. He’s dead he’s dead he’s dead he’s --

Toby clamped his hands over his mouth as tears flowed freely down his face. He tried to breathe, tried to calm himself down because this wasn’t real, this wasn’t real , but it was too strong, too sudden, and he had done the stupid thing of coming in here by himself so he didn’t have anyone or anything to hold on to. He was all alone, they had left him, he had left him --

When he could finally lift his head again, he saw Pip giving the ring back to Cobalt, who held it tightly in his hand for a moment before turning to look directly at Toby.

The man gasped, scrambling backwards on the floor as his heart thudded in his chest. He couldn’t clearly see Cobalt’s face before, but when he turned, his face was gone, and only a skull remained. Toby was so overcome with grief and horror that he couldn’t move, even as the now-deceased Cobalt slowly walked over to him. This one didn’t avoid him, didn’t back away from him as the others had, and crouched down in front of his shaking, panicked body.

Toby’s eyes darted to the space behind the skeleton, but Bailey and Pip were gone, leaving him alone with . . . he looked at the skeleton’s eyeless sockets again, the way its teeth were spread in a permanent, lifeless grin. It reached out a bony hand towards Toby’s face, and Toby could do nothing but watch as it gently placed its hand on his cheek. The hand didn’t feel solid, more like a cold breeze, and only now did Toby realize that the skeleton was slightly transparent. It ran a freezing thumb over the bottom of the druid’s lip and across his cheek and whispered in a voice as chilling as the rest of its body, “I will never leave you.”

Somehow that snapped him out of it. Toby gritted his teeth, and despite the tears staining his face and pricking at his eyes, he launched himself off of the wall and through the skeleton’s ghostly form. The feeling that overcame him was like he was kissed by death itself, but he only gasped and stumbled for a second before he darted for the door.

xxx

Cobalt paced back and forth for maybe half a minute before he decided that he was bored. Waiting out here would do absolutely nothing to quiet his mind, and he couldn’t get into that room no matter how hard he tried, so he needed something else.

He stopped. Was he going to rip that little man to shreds if -- when , he chastised himself -- he came out? Absolutely. Did this kind of impulsive decision make sense, based on everything he’d learned about Toby’s amnesiac version? Also yes. Did it still hurt?

He didn’t answer that, instead going down the stairs to see if he could figure anything else out. Maybe there was another door he could use, and that one was just for Toby. Maybe he didn’t do it intentionally, and this place had taken his request literally and surprised the both of them. Cobalt frowned. That wasn’t likely. Toby wasn’t stupid.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped short, his eyes darting around at the new sight that greeted him. He suddenly wasn’t alone. There were dozens of . . . him? Walking around the inn.

Cobalt slowly looked around, his shoulders relaxing a bit when he quickly realized that this was just how Toby’s memories manifested. They weren’t solid: every single version of him was slightly transparent, walking through tables like they weren’t even there. One of them even walked right through him, and he shuddered.

He wandered around a bit, looking at all of the different things Toby remembered about him. He let out a low whistle. This place was crowded . He could barely differentiate which memory was which, so he found a place in a corner to sit and watch.

Even though they tended to overlap, he could recognize a few of the memories that played out. There he was, sitting backwards on a chair, fast asleep. And across the room, he was dragging Toby away from that nasty old woman who had caused this mess in the first place. Cobalt snorted, a small smile tugging at his lips at the way Toby seemed to fixate on the way he told him no. In another area was the time when Cobalt had held on to him to keep him from running away after he made the short-sighted decision to get his letter from Bly. The rogue’s teeth were a little bared as he snapped at both Bly and Bailey, a reaction that had scared him, but seemed to . . . have an opposite effect on Toby. Cobalt’s head tilted as he watched, the memory somehow feeling safer and much kinder than he remembered it.

Huh. He got up, then, wandering around the edges of the room to watch some of the other memories. A lot of them weren’t any significant things, just things that Toby had noticed. Cobalt’s eyes widened as his face reddened. Toby noticed a lot more than the half-elf gave him credit for. There were numerous moments where it was just Cobalt doing little things: brushing his hair out of his face, taking his gloves off and flexing his fingers, cleaning his glasses, smiling -- that one was rare, but even the slight smirks were stored somewhere in here -- tying his little ponytail, fidgeting with a knife. There were so many of him in here.

Despite that, though, he realized just how many memories were missing. Toby of course didn’t remember the first time they put the rings on, or when Cobalt passed out in front of his door, or the bandana he gave him, or when Cobalt hugged him -- gods, he missed the version of Toby that missed him just as much -- or the time he tried to calm the druid down after Strahd nearly ripped him apart, or when Oz stabbed him, or . . .

Cobalt sighed. He wasn’t sure if Toby even wanted to remember it. He seemed to be making an effort to remember things slowly when they were around fires, or on walks and reminiscing, but any time there was a chance for him to get them all back, he’d sacrifice it for the sake of something like saving Ireena or helping Olive or getting more information on how to kill Heron or whatever other noble and valiant effort he was attempting to make to help his friends. He supposed he should be grateful, in some sense, that someone was willing to endure that pain and give up that much in order to help other people, but Cobalt wished he’d just be fucking selfish for once.

He wandered back towards the base of the stairs, looking up at the still-closed bedroom door. Next time they got an opportunity like that, he wasn’t allowing Toby to turn it down, no matter what the circumstances were. He was going to get his damn druid back.

As if he summoned the man, Toby burst through the doors and nearly flew down the stairs, barreling into Cobalt and knocking both of them to the ground. Toby’s glasses had flown off his face, and all Cobalt could see was his tear-streaked and terrified face before the man shoved him down and stumbled towards the door.

Cobalt only glanced at the open bedroom door for a moment before immediately running after Toby. He caught him just before he got to the door, holding him in place. “What happened? Are you okay, what’s going on?”

Toby looked so, so scared, and Christ, he couldn’t seem to stop the tears from falling from his face. He kept whispering “no” over and over again, and nothing Cobalt said got him to stop. Cobalt reached towards him to try and wipe his face so he could calm him down, but Toby flinched violently away from him, and his frightened eyes darted around the room. Whatever he saw behind Cobalt seemed to make the situation infinitely worse, and he wrenched himself away from Cobalt and threw himself out the door.

Cobalt turned, looking at all of the other Cobalts. They had all stopped and turned to look at the two of them, which the rogue supposed was freaky enough, but . . . Cobalt straightened. If he guessed right, Toby would be back to normal as soon as he opened that door. He wanted to know what happened, but probably wouldn’t get that answer anytime soon. He let out a breath, then walked out of the inn.

xxx

Cobalt’s body was much further under the dirt than both Bailey and Pip’s had been. His body was more than half buried as the roses used their thorny stems to hold off the barrier that had been cast around Cobalt’s body. Mushrooms and vines worked in tandem to pull Cobalt under, his body descending quickly. Poppies and lavender crowded around his body, the area looking more like a mini garden than just a random smattering of wildflowers, as they added to the spell keeping him asleep.

And then, the barrier rippled and slammed back together, cutting off one of the rose’s heads with the force of it. The roses reeled back violently, stunned by the sudden and violent disturbance to their progress, and flung their arms down towards the shield with renewed vengeance. The mushrooms and vines inside of the shield shriveled into brown corpses, crumbling into a dust indistinguishable from the dirt they sprouted from. The roses brought their thorns down over and over, hitting the shield with everything they had, but it stayed completely intact. Ripping sounds resonated as the roses forced double the amount of thorns to explode from their stems, and scratched in a frenzy at the shield, which didn’t do so much as crack.

And then, the vine connecting Cobalt to Toby faded as life drained from it, and the roses stopped, like animatronics that ran out of power. They wilted, shriveling and dulling to a faded red and green, before flopping flat on the ground. Everything went quiet again, and the sky turned completely black.

Chapter Text

Honestly, he should’ve known better. This place was unpredictable, and had yet to reveal any sort of pattern or logic as to how things worked so they could figure out how they were going to leave. Every time he thought he knew what was happening, whatever was in control of Toby’s mind threw him a massive curveball that knocked him so far off-kilter that he had no idea what to do next. It was disorienting and disarming, which frightened him the most -- the temptation to just let things run its course, to simply let things happen without interference, was incredibly strong here. Cobalt didn’t realize it before, but there was a part of him that was actively and consciously fighting to keep his wits about him, to not succumb to the will of the entity in charge.

He had a feeling that that’s what was happening to Toby -- the man was exploring this part of his mind completely unguarded, wandering through every scenario as if he’s a passive observer in a museum. There were only glimpses of when he would remember that he was still in control of himself, but by those times he was already overreacting, unable to tamper the violent outbursts of emotions that he’s had in every building they entered.

Cobalt looked over at the birdhouse from where he stood, just inside of the inn’s front door. The other Cobalts had disappeared, fading the same way the music and laughter had when Toby rushed out of the building. The birdhouse was still the same shade of cheerful orange and yellow that it had been this entire time, but now that cheer seemed unrealistic. No one would look at a house like that and accurately picture the kind of emotion it wrenched out of the man. Cobalt frowned at it, and let his eyes slide over to the church.

This building, at least, didn’t hide a thing. The church was continuing to crumble, and Cobalt watched as a small piece of stone slid off of a badly angled part of the roof and fell to the ground. The church was a haphazard mix of reverence and ruin, with some of its more recognizable parts still mostly intact, while other parts of the building were only skeletons of what they once were. Metal bars jutted out of stone, the supports rusted over so badly that they cracked and split in ways metal never should. The stone was dirty and covered in lichen, discoloring the rock that Cobalt guessed was a light gray before, and slathering it with varying shades of green and brown. The place was, quite frankly, a mess. And yet, something about its stature remained in place -- it still took up so much space on the ground around it, looming over anyone who stood in front of it in a way that demanded attention, despite its gradual decay and eventual demise. The church forced anyone beholding it to watch as it fell apart, and at the moment, its only audience seemed to be the druid kneeling in the dirt.

Cobalt let himself look at Toby, then. It had only been a couple of months, and yet, he had been through an impossible number of things with the man. Granted, that was generally the case when you traveled on a journey to who-knows-what end with a party of four, but he’d had unimaginable scenarios with each of them. And now, by some bizarre twist of magic, he was currently stuck inside of said man’s mind.

The half-elf looked away from him. He wasn’t sure he was ready to go up to Toby and see an expression completely devoid of anything he had just felt, instead only showing a general happiness to see his friend. Cobalt shook himself out of his thoughts. He didn’t like the way his mind stumbled over that word.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, if even to physically force some level of composure to remain as he approached Toby from behind. The druid was slouched a bit as he faced the church, nothing about him moving besides his shoulders, which rose and fell just slightly as he breathed. He didn’t seem to register Cobalt coming to a stop, even though he was intentionally being loud enough to hear so he didn’t risk scaring the man.

Cobalt cocked his head. “Hey.”

He braced himself for the quick turn of Toby’s head, followed by the slightest smile and the silent “yes?” that he usually communicated with his eyes rather than words. He confirmed that he definitely wasn't prepared to not see anything left of the man's frightened, tear-stained face, as if it had never happened, but he found that he didn’t need to prepare for anything. Toby didn’t react at all.

Cobalt tried again, a little louder this time, but when that was met without even the slightest bit of acknowledgement, he crouched down, putting a hand on Toby’s shoulder and shaking him a little. He came around to position himself in front of him, ask him why the hell he was ignoring him all of the sudden, and froze.

Toby was completely unresponsive -- it looked like someone had found a switch somewhere on him and turned it off. His head was bowed, lips parted just slightly as if he didn’t have enough consciousness to close them. Cobalt’s mouth tightened, and he placed two of his fingers under Toby’s chin, pushing his head up so he could get a better look at his face.

The druid’s eyes were unfocused, as if the dismal gray from the inn had seeped into his bones and begun to pilot his body. Cobalt searched them for anything familiar: the warm brown that was always just a little sad, like the last few leaves to fall from a tree right before winter hit; or the tiny gleam that popped up whenever he was looking at something or someone he liked. He let out a slow breath. Zero for two on that one.

Something Cobalt couldn’t quite place nagged at him as he tore his gaze from the man’s face and looked around. This one was different. It was always something different , something odd or out of place when Cobalt was involved, and he never knew why. His eyes narrowed as he studied each of the buildings in turn: the church made Toby fearful, the birdhouse made him angry, and the inn made him cry. But the other two places reset him once he exited, forcing his mood to shift back to an unbothered calm that Cobalt had expected to see here.

But this . . . the rogue looked at him again. He hadn’t let go of his chin, refused to let it fall, but Toby was still somewhere he couldn’t reach. There was nothing on his face, and it was the strangest feeling, like Cobalt had seen this somewhere before. Toby’s vacant expression left a yawning pit of dread in his gut, and he knew for a fact that his heart recognized something his head had not yet come to terms with.

Toby made the smallest sound, so small that if this place hadn’t been as quiet as it was, Cobalt might’ve missed it. The rogue would’ve bet everything he had that he’d just heard the man ask for help.

It hit him then, why this was so familiar -- this was the exact same look Toby had for just a moment right after his memory was wiped for the first time. Cobalt had been the first to check if he was okay, followed seconds after by a very worried Bailey, but only he had seen the complete emptiness on the druid’s face before he blinked, and it morphed into confusion. It disappeared so quickly, but Cobalt would never, ever forget that look.

His eyes narrowed as he flexed his jaw, irritation rising as he repositioned himself so he was sitting instead of crouching. Something about the way Toby’s head drooped without support unnerved him -- too close to death, he supposed -- so Cobalt slid his fingers over to his cheek so he was cradling his face instead of just lifting his chin.

The rogue redirected his gaze towards the decaying mess of a forest surrounding them, and the light that was creeping ever closer. He didn’t even bother hiding his resentment as he scanned the trees, puzzle pieces fitting together in his mind as he figured out one thing that was happening here. Cobalt made sure he was loud enough to be heard by anything and everything that he knew was listening: “give him back.”

Silence. It was not unlike the quiet that had been around them this entire time, but Cobalt kept his eyes on the trees. He was more than certain that something about the forest stilled.

He spoke again, keeping his tone even and firm. “You took too much. Give him back .”

Cobalt waited, and watched, as the forest quieted even further. Wood stopped rotting, and leaves didn’t so much as twitch as the two of them played a game of who could hold out the longest. The forest, even inside of Toby’s mind, was a patient thing. Nature herself was patient, allowing decades or even centuries to pass as change gradually took hold.

But Cobalt had trained patience. He had the kind of patience that let him forget about everything except the target he was waiting for: there was no regard for any pain he felt from holding a single position for too long, no thought about food or water regardless of how badly he may need it, no consideration for any external distractions that would take him away from the one thing he was assigned to do. He’d waited through hours, even days, of torture by Heron, before he was allowed to see sunlight again. He’d stayed up almost an entire night waiting for this one particular man to come back to their shared room after there was no sign of him for hours, and he’d been waiting weeks at this point for a way to restore the memories he decided to give up in an effort to keep his friends from getting killed. He knew it wasn’t the same as the amount of time a bunch of centuries-old trees could wait, but if Toby’s life was on the line, and if it was just a matter of staring down a damn forest to change that, then Cobalt wouldn’t even blink .

He had no idea how much time had passed. He didn’t care. All he knew was that the forest relented, as if somewhat impressed by the half-elf’s tenacity. It started moving again all at once, like it was releasing a soft exhale, and the light resumed its gradual pace. Cobalt kept his eyes on it. He would make this forest give him what he wanted, even if he had to --

Toby’s head shifted in his hand, and the rogue’s attention snapped to him like a whip. Toby blinked once, slowly, and lifted his eyes to Cobalt’s face. Cobalt nearly sagged with relief when he noted the color had returned to them, and that spark of recognition returned, though it was much more faint than usual.

Cobalt didn’t move his hand until he was certain Toby could hold his head up on his own. And then . . . he still didn’t move it. “You okay?”

Toby just stared at him for a moment, as if he was still piecing together where he was and what was happening. “I’m . . . I’m so tired . . .”

His eyes softened -- it felt good to do so, since he’d held the vexed expression on his face for so long -- and he finally let his hand fall to his lap. “I bet.” Cobalt studied him, waiting patiently for him to regain his bearings and sit up straight again, before continuing: “do you remember where you are?”

Toby’s face scrunched in mild pain for a second before it disappeared. “Yes.”

Cobalt frowned a bit, and asked him another question. “Do you remember what happened?”

No pain this time. “I was . . . running.” He was silent for several beats, and then his eyes found Cobalt’s again. “And . . . now I’m here.”

That’s a no, then, Cobalt thought. At least that was consistent. He decided not to ask anything else, and stood up before extending a hand to help the druid up. Toby took it after a second and stood with much less grace than Cobalt had, which made him smirk.

He watched Toby’s awareness slowly return to him, and then slid his gaze down to their hands. They were holding hands. Again. Cobalt had no idea why that seemed to be a pattern with them, but he wasn’t complaining. He did, however, gradually loosen his grip on Toby’s hand as a subtle implication that the druid could let go whenever he wanted. Cobalt completely shoved down the unwarranted feeling in his chest when Toby didn’t, and tightened his grip again. They were going to get out of here somehow.

The two of them slowed to a stop upon reaching the outside of the gate. Dense fog continued to curl around the iron bars, pooling at their feet with a slight chill they could feel through their clothes. The metal was black as tar, and twisted around each other as if someone had forced the gate to exist by bending the bars with their bare hands. They were oddly asymmetrical, though it was clear the gate doors were a pair. The fence posts were straight as arrows, though, jutting up out of the ground with sharpened fleur-de-lis points on the ends. The iron here wasn’t old -- in fact, it looked like someone could’ve crafted these recently, no more than a week or so ago.

Cobalt noticed with no small amount of displeasure that the light had already eaten away at the back end of the fence. There was no sign of the light interfering with the other buildings, and he noticed that this area was further back than the others, so the light would’ve reached it first anyway.

He looked at Toby, whose attention was set firmly on the shape of the gates. He wondered what was going on in that little analytical mind of his, if anything at all considering what he’d just been through, but then Toby spoke.

“It’s a graveyard,” he said quietly, his head finally moving to look around at the fence posts and the dense fog. “I wasn’t . . . sure of it before, but . . .” he frowned as he tightened his grip on Cobalt’s hand, “I can . . . feel it, somehow.”

The half-elf reflexively gave his hand a brief squeeze. When Toby didn’t say anything more, Cobalt led him forward and pushed the gates open.

xxx

Nighttime in Barovia was indicated solely by the pitch-black sky, completely devoid of a moon or stars. The endless darkness stretched over the entire plane, only interrupted by campfires, lanterns, or magic sources of illumination. Light in Barovia during the evening served two purposes: it made it easier to keep watch and make out the surrounding area, and it reduced the chances of being attacked at random by creatures that preferred the cover of darkness to hunt.

The sleeping party had no light.

It didn’t take long for them to be found by something that saw four prone, defenseless bodies lying together, and decided that it wouldn’t have to try very hard to get dinner tonight. It stalked towards the group, its body causing nearby foliage to rustle only slightly as it carefully picked its way through the brush, and kept sharpened yellow eyes on every sleeping target that it had claimed as today’s prey.

The creature tiptoed closer, pausing momentarily to scan the trees lining this small clearing and ensure that it too was not being watched. When it found nothing of concern, the creature stepped into the open space and took its place in the center of it, looking at all of its options.

It had been alive for quite some time, and was used to the occasional oddity in a place like this, but this . . . this was new. The creature cocked its head as it stared, taking in the tangled mess of vines that enveloped each one of them. The vines looked old: they were dull and brown, and there were gaps in whatever shell it was trying to make over its captors that allowed the creature to easily see what was inside. It peered into one of the gaps, eyes narrowing slightly when it saw an Aaracokra. Like it thought, the bird was fast asleep, seemingly completely unaware of its surroundings or the present danger it was in. The creature appreciated an easy target from time to time.

It looked down at the ground surrounding these vines, raising a furry eyebrow at how many other dying plants there were. Poppies, lavender, and dozens of mushrooms were wilted and drooping around every single one of these cage-like structures. It leaned its massive head forward and took a precautionary sniff of the vines. They smelled like regular plants.

It walked over to another one, stifling a yelp when it stepped on a thorn. It lifted its paw, shaking the thorn free before poking its head inside of the vines to see what kind of creature waited for it in here. It blinked, taking in the much taller form of an elf, also completely unconscious as his chest softly rose and fell. Strange , it thought, before redirecting its attention to what exactly it had stepped on that had so easily impaled the hard-worn pads on its paw. It nudged the oversized stem of a massive dead rose, careful not to cut itself again on any of its thorns, which were easily the size of one of its own claws.

The creature stepped back with a frown. It looked around again, checking periodically to ensure that it was alone, and when satisfied, moved to the last two cages. The next one it inspected was similar to the one with the bird, except there was no bird in this one. Instead, it housed a very large -- though rather short -- cat. The creature’s eyes glinted with delight. It hadn’t had a feline meal in a long time: they were notoriously difficult to catch and put up such a fight that it wasn’t worth it most of the time. But on the few occasions it was able to enjoy one, it savored every last bite. The creature’s mouth split into a satisfied grin, one that was crooked and had one or two teeth missing, and turned to the cage next to the cat. It would definitely start with that one.

The first thing it noticed was that this last cage was much smaller than the others, and completely intact. This one, though just as brown and old as the others, wrapped around its subject more like a blanket. It didn’t take long for it to realize why: this one held on to a girl, so small that she couldn’t have been older than . . . 10? Maybe? It could only see her back from where it was standing, so it stepped over her to get a better look at her face.

It blinked. It was wrong, the girl was small, but her face depicted an experience beyond what a little girl should’ve had to go through. Her hair was unevenly cut, there were bags forming under her eyes, and her skin was a little pale. No, this girl had to be at least 15 by the appearance of her face alone. The creature straightened and studied the girl: the blanket of vines wrapping around her were definitely more protective than restrictive, compared to the way the other vines were clearly attempting to completely overwhelm those inside, and she seemed to be in the kind of sleep that the creature could only guess someone of her age desperately needed.

But the creature had no reason to care about that. It smiled widely, the milky whites of its eyes practically shining in the darkness. That would only make her easier to eat.

xxx

Unlike the other buildings, the graveyard was completely open to the rest of the space, and when they turned, the other three were still visible. The fog was heavy and cold, and they could feel the dampness of it seep through their clothes, but it barely reached past the lower half of Cobalt’s body. Though the ground was obscured, it was easy for both of them to see everything else.

The graveyard was small, and awkwardly close to the inn. Cobalt had found it strange when he first entered the space: the birdhouse, inn, and church were equally spaced apart around them. But instead of the last structure being directly across from the birdhouse, the logical conclusion, the graveyard was several feet to the right of where it should have been. It was as if it had been shoved over to make way for something else . . . but there was nothing in its place. The lot was just a completely vacant area that had a darker square of dirt implying that the graveyard probably sat there at some point.

Cobalt looked at the back end of the fence, which was slowly disappearing as the ring of light crept closer. He’d also noted that it was moved back, its entrance significantly further away from the other buildings. It almost felt like whatever was controlling this part of Toby’s mind was trying to force the graveyard out, and hadn’t been successful before they’d arrived.

He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

The man of the hour was still holding his hand, though his attention was focused on the ground. He kicked at the air occasionally, making the fog dissipate briefly before it covered the ground again. Cobalt turned when Toby pulled his hand away for a moment to remove his hoodie. Before he could ask what he was doing, Toby fanned the air a few times, and the fog around them disappeared for several moments before curling back in on itself.

It mostly revealed unkempt, weed-ridden grass and dirt, but Cobalt noticed the edge of something wooden before it disappeared again. He turned and started towards it. “What’s th-”

Toby blinked several times when Cobalt tripped over something in the fog and nearly toppled the both of them over. He held his hands up to attempt to brace the equally startled elf, who apologized profusely as he tried to right himself as quickly as he could. The entire thing was so unlike Cobalt and yet so like him at the same time, and Toby tried to bite back a grin. It was unsuccessful immediately upon realizing that the tips of Cobalt’s ears had reddened significantly, even as he tried to keep a straight face.

Cobalt’s eyes narrowed as he caught Toby’s grin as it slipped onto his face, but the mild annoyance on the rogue’s face only made Toby bite his lip as he tried not to laugh. Cobalt sighed and rolled his eyes, trying to keep up with the irritation he wanted to feel, but he felt a smirk tug at the corners of his mouth. “ Anyway ,” Cobalt said loudly, grinning helplessly when Toby couldn’t hold back his laughter anymore, “what I was trying to say was that there was something over there.”

Toby’s face was still filled with amusement, but he relented and looked in the direction Cobalt indicated. He fanned his hoodie again, revealing more of the edge of what looked to be some sort of wooden box. The druid was about to walk towards it, but paused and turned to Cobalt, holding out a hand.

He considered taking it, but only for a second before he realized Toby was smirking at him. Cobalt crossed his arms with a huff. “Fuck off,” he muttered.

They -- carefully -- made their way over to the box, Toby fanning the area occasionally to clear more and more of the fog. He stopped in front of it, frowning when the fog revealed more of the box they saw.

He was so certain this was some sort of grave, he could feel it. But what he stood in front of was, “. . . a flower bed?”

Cobalt stood next to him, eyebrow lifted as he looked down at what was once probably someone’s labor of love. There was a rectangular wooden box with posts supporting weathered slats on all four sides, and it was nearly completely filled with dirt. There was evidence of a recent attempt at a garden of some kind here, but it was quite dead now. Carcasses of all kinds of flowers littered the top of the dirt; browned and blackened leaves and petals stuck up out of the ground and hung limply off of sagging stems. He couldn’t even begin to tell what kinds of flowers were here, and from the looks of it, the druid couldn’t either.

Toby’s expression was completely puzzled, and he knelt down to get a better look at the dead foliage. He resorted to fanning the air with one hand while he poked around at the flowers, but that limited what he was able to see pretty significantly. Cobalt shook his head, and tugged the hoodie free from Toby’s grip, fanning the air himself so the man could see better.

“It’s so strange,” he was muttering, as if he didn’t realize what Cobalt was doing as he pulled one of the flowers free, “these . . . didn’t die naturally. It’s like . . . something poisoned them. And they . . . collapsed all at once.”

Cobalt didn’t respond, but the way that Toby’s senses were steadily coming back to him was not missed. He considered doing something foolish like silently thanking the forest, but reminded himself that the damn thing was the whole reason Toby was like this in the first place. He kept his sentiments to himself.

The rogue watched as Toby held one of the stems between his fingers. His attention moved to some sort of dark substance that seeped from the end of the stem where Toby had disconnected it from the ground. The stem had ripped apart from its roots, leaving a rough tear instead of a cleaner cut like a healthy stem might. 

Toby watched the substance coat his fingers, then rubbed it between them. “That’s definitely . . . a disease of some kind,” he said quietly, clearly trying to pull information from his fractured memory to figure out what could’ve happened here.

Cobalt let his arms relax. “Might be something that only happens in here,” he suggested.

Toby only hummed, then looked around for something to wipe his hands on. When he didn’t find anything, he quickly swiped his hands on his pants before placing them on his hips. “There was something over there, too,” he said, nodding in the direction that Cobalt’s theatrical display had occurred.

He fanned a couple of times. Another flower bed, though the corpses here looked different. Cobalt wondered if the “dead” Toby had sensed was simply more dead plants, ones that were clearly affected by something separate from the rotting forest on the outside. He looked up. The light had completely eaten away at the back of the fence, and was starting to enter the yard.

Toby shook his head. “I could’ve sworn . . .” he whispered, running gentle fingers over the soil as his brow furrowed. He looked to the side, where there was plenty more of the fog’s secrets to uncover, and continued walking. He paused when Cobalt’s fanning revealed a third flower bed, and then the edge of the yard. It was the same situation here with yet another kind of diseased plant, and Toby drummed his fingers on the edge of the wood as he mulled something over.

Cobalt let the fog fill the space again as he tossed Toby’s hoodie over his shoulder. “What is it?”

The druid’s eyes widened as he seemed to remember that he wasn’t alone. “It’s just . . .” he looked back down at the bed, his hand hovering over the dirt as if he was debating whether or not to touch it again, “I think . . . I’m missing something.”

Before Cobalt could say anything, Toby knelt down again, his much shorter body practically disappearing below the fog. By the time he was able to begin dispersing it, the druid had plunged his forearm into the soil, and rummaged around for . . . actually, Cobalt had no idea what he was looking for, but when Toby’s eyes widened and he yanked his arm up, Cobalt guessed that he’d found it.

There was a momentary look of horror on the man’s face before he let out a long, slow breath, and pushed dirt back into the hole he’d made. He brushed the remaining dirt off of his arm before standing up, and holding his hand out for his hoodie.

Cobalt handed it to him, and watched as Toby walked along the edge of the bed, blowing fog out of the way as he did so, and stopped once he reached the other end. Cobalt eventually followed on the other side.

When he approached, Toby fanned his hoodie again, and the fog revealed a mossy, unmarked headstone. “It was a grave after all,” he said. He made his way over to where he figured the other beds were, and confirmed that all three of them had headstones devoid of names at the opposite end of where they had initially inspected.

Cobalt waited for him to return, deducing for himself that Toby had likely made contact with whomever was buried down there. He wasn’t sure if Toby knew they’d be there or not, but he decided against asking.

Toby came to a stop in front of him, trying to tie his hoodie around his waist, but his hands were still sticky and dirty from the dead plants and soil, so his clothing refused to cooperate. “All of them -- oh my god -- have these tombstones, but -- jesus christ why won’t this damn thing --”

Cobalt watched him struggle with no small amount of entertainment before silently taking it from him again. Toby lifted his arms and continued speaking while Cobalt looped the arms of the hoodie around his waist.

“But they have these little figures on top of them,” Toby finished.

Cobalt tied the knot around his waist before straightening again.

“Thank you. See, look,” Toby directed him to the tombstone that had initially confirmed his suspicion, “there’s a bird on this one.”

Cobalt peered at it as the man fanned some of the fog out of the way. He let out a small “huh” as a tiny stone bird was revealed. In a similar fashion, he was also shown a dragon and an armored knight sitting peacefully atop their respective headstones. All three of them were missing names, though, and Cobalt couldn’t figure out who they might belong to. He thought he knew who the dragon’s headstone was for, but then the bird didn’t make sense. Bly and Pip were still alive, and he didn’t know of any knights. Unless it was Bailey, but he refused to believe the cat had passed on while he was stuck in here. He glanced back at the church and birdhouse, still visible even at this distance, and frowned. No. There was no way.

Before any amount of doubt could sneak into his thoughts, Toby was speaking again. “I guess it makes sense that I can’t really remember who they’re for,” he said, and Cobalt was relieved that he seemed to be back to normal, “but . . .”

A million alarms went off in Cobalt’s head when Toby turned hopeful eyes up to him. As if he had all the answers, could at least make this one area less of a complicated mess like the others were. But Cobalt didn’t have an answer that he was mentally prepared to be right about, should that be the case, so he shook his head. “Sorry, man,” he said, “I don’t know who these belong to either.”

Toby wiped the disappointment off his face as quickly as it had revealed itself. “It’s fine, I’m sure we’ll figure it out eventually.”

Cobalt agreed, though he was more relieved that he didn’t have to think about the dead any more than he usually did.

“I don’t think there’s any more we’ll find in here, so maybe we can . . . start at the church again? Or, I don’t know . . . go over what we already know?” Toby suggested.

Cobalt eyed the light gradually pushing its way into the graveyard. This entire place felt like an escape room, except that if they didn’t figure out how to leave, there was no one outside who could unlock the door, and no button to press for a hint. They could be stuck in here forever, or straight up cease to exist, or have some other horrible permanent end to their time in the real world. He nodded. “Let’s see if there’s anything we can start with based on what we’ve figured out so far.”

They turned towards the gate, and Cobalt put a hand on it to push it open and let Toby through, but the druid stopped. Cobalt looked at him, then up at what his attention had caught on. His eyes widened for a second before narrowing into an irritated glare.

xxx

The creature confirmed for the umpteenth time that it would not be disturbed as it prepared to enjoy a feast that would last it at least several weeks, slowly scanning the surrounding trees and using its superior senses to detect anything that might be watching. Years and years of hunts and fights to keep itself alive had sharpened its hearing, smell, and sight to a fine point, and virtually nothing escaped its careful attention. Its inspection had also revealed a fifth potential prey across from the sleeping ones in front of it, but decided against that one since it was more than certain it was already dead. It had no desire to go after something claimed by nature herself when there were fresher options right here.

It looked over said options before stalking over to the cage with the cat inside. It would thoroughly enjoy devouring this one.

The creature took a large paw and easily tore through the dried vines surrounding its meal. The vines cracked and snapped with one quick swipe, and the creature stuck its head into the gaping hole it created in the tangle of vines. It noticed that the cat was somewhat buried under the soil, but its steady breathing meant that it had not yet died.

Perfect. The creature bit the back of the cat’s shirt, dragging it more into the open with some effort. The creature was large, but the cat was solid . There was plenty of meat on this one, so different from the much slimmer felines the creature was used to encountering, and its eyes gleamed with excitement once it was finally able to pull Bailey’s unconscious body to a spot in the clearing where it could kill him and take its easily won dinner home.

Just as it positioned two sets of jagged teeth around Bailey’s throat, it froze, ears perking up as it felt something disturb its peace. There was only a split second to react, but the creature leapt aside just before something slammed into the ground where it was just crouched. The creature whirled around, braced to attack as it assessed its new and sudden threat.

The massive head of a flytrap shook the dirt off itself as it rose, its eyeless face using some other sense to detect exactly where the creature was poised. While it was not unfamiliar with strange magic and nature acting unpredictably in Barovia, the creature was not used to anything slipping under its radar. Its eyes flicked from the flytrap’s head to its stem, quickly following it to its host, who was not as dead as it had originally thought.

Its eyes narrowed as it assessed the situation. It could have sworn that the figure surrounded by all those plants was an unfortunate body left to become one with nature again, since he was so deeply intertwined with all kinds of roots and branches and showed no signs of breathing or consciousness, but it had no problems admitting that it was wrong every once in a while. The more important thing was that a giant plant had interrupted its dinner.

Its gaze flicked down to the cat. He was still fast asleep, despite the commotion, and the creature noticed him slowly being guided back to where he was originally as the flytrap prepared to strike again. It repeatedly slammed into the ground and snapped needle-like teeth in the air as it attacked, somehow avoiding causing too much damage to the other sleeping figures or their cages. The creature dodged, quickly coming up with a way to get behind the flytrap and go straight for the host. Take that dying human out, and it was certain that it would be able to have its meal in peace.

Seconds later, it was headed straight for the man, and it heard the flytrap scream -- scream? Plants don’t scream -- as it opened its mouth and extended its claws for the kill. And then, another second later, it was stumbling and disoriented, its jaw in intense pain as its vision swam.

The creature lifted its head slowly, forcing itself to focus so it could begin to understand what the hell just happened. Its eyes widened as it saw the man, who was certainly prone just moments before, standing before it with fists clenched at his sides. The creature tasted blood in its mouth a second before clocking the blood on the man’s hand, and it reflexively jumped aside to put some distance between them. Or, it tried to. It was completely tangled in vines, which made its first attempt at freedom futile, but it thrashed violently enough to rip itself free for only a second before it was overwhelmed again and forced to its knees. The creature let out a sound of alarm and rage as the man crouched down, putting his pathetic human hand near its mouth.

Idiot , the creature thought as it snapped its teeth down on the man’s hand. His hand tensed, and the creature was about to yank it off completely before it froze, eyes watering with tears as a noxious gas filled its throat. It yelped, freeing the man’s hand as it coughed and gagged desperately against the sudden poison forced into its body. The man’s wrist dripped with blood, splattering on the creature’s face and neck as it writhed against its green prison.

The man swayed a bit, and the last thing the creature saw was his body slump to the ground before its breath hitched, and everything went black.

xxx

Cobalt wished he was wrong. He wanted to be wrong so damn badly. But they were unmistakably looking at an exact replica of Toby’s childhood home.

They left the graveyard and slowed to a stop in front of it. The townhome looked a lot more lonely than usual without its neighboring houses, but Cobalt was absolutely certain that this was the house that he thought he wouldn’t see again for many more months.

He looked over at Toby after a moment, but the druid didn’t seem to recognize it. Of course he wouldn’t. Cobalt debated over whether or not to tell him, and decided to hold that information for a later time. Maybe the house would tell Toby itself, if given the chance.

“I knew something was supposed to be here,” Toby said decisively, taking a few steps closer to it, “but I thought the graveyard . . . moved or something, not that there was a completely different one that wasn’t here before.” He turned to Cobalt. “This wasn’t here before, was it?”

Cobalt frowned, and shook his head. “Nope,” he said, his voice quieter than normal as he stared up at the house, feeling uneasy. “There wasn’t anything there until we left the graveyard.”

Toby turned back to the house, approaching the front steps. “Hmm. I wonder who this one belongs to? I thought Olive would be with Bailey’s or something, but . . .”

The man’s voice faded away as Cobalt’s heartbeat grew louder and louder in his ears. This was Toby’s house. This was Toby’s house . He’d only been here once, but it didn’t matter -- this house had changed the course of his life almost immediately, and he hadn’t even spent an hour inside. He didn’t need to. It had been so long since someone felt that amount of genuine concern for his well-being that Cobalt didn’t think he would ever forget it, and from strangers no less. He remembered the cookies, the damn things were so large they took up an entire plate, and he remembered refusing one because he was so baffled by how warm everything was. The fireplace, the blanket they put on top of him, the hands of the older woman who insisted on checking his temperature, the eyes of the man who brought him inside -- it was all so overwhelmingly kind that he desperately needed to leave immediately. And then, to make matters worse, that same man had offered to help him get home and had given him a replacement bandana after he’d lost his in an attempt to run for his life.

Cobalt’s hand drifted up to the edge of the bandana, tied loosely around his neck. His thumb ran over the embroidery on its edge, tracing the letters with a familiarity of doing it dozens of times when he was anxious. He had promised to bring Toby back here someday, to get him home even if it killed Cobalt in the process. And now it was here, and it was so jarring and sudden and wrong that it made Cobalt feel wildly unsteady.

“Cobalt!”

He jumped, eyes darting to Toby’s own. The man was calling his name from the porch, face filled with concern, the same damn expression Cobalt had seen on him the very first time they’d met, and it disarmed him completely. Cobalt tried to hold it together as his fingers tightened around the edge of the bandana, but he was breathing too hard, his heart was beating too fast, the house was right there--

Toby watched in alarm as Cobalt seemed to crack, and then completely fall apart. The man looked terrified and unsteady, like he wasn’t able to keep up with how quickly he was crumbling. Toby hesitated, unsure for several seconds as to what to do, since he’d never seen Cobalt like this. A tiny, tiny part of him said that it felt familiar, but there was no way. The rogue he knew had never done anything like this before.

Cobalt made the mistake of looking up at Toby then, and the entire scene struck him as the exact same one they’d gone through all those months ago: Toby’s startled and worried expression as he held onto the railing, watching as this half-elf he barely knew was about to collapse in front of his steps, and Cobalt being caught off guard by a level of familiarity with him, even though he’d never met the man in his life.

Toby’s heart hammered in his chest as he forced his brain and body to communicate so he could fucking do something. Truthfully, he had zero idea what would help someone like Cobalt since he’d never been in this position with him before, but he gave up on thinking about it, and just moved. He practically flew down the steps, running towards Cobalt and catching him rather clumsily just as the rogue’s body gave up on standing upright.

Chapter Text

Toby’s legs hurt.

Granted, that was much less of a problem compared to the six-foot-something half-elf passed out on his lap, but still. He needed to get up before they turned numb and made the entire situation much worse than it already was.

He looked at his hands. His magic didn’t work here. He’d tried over and over again when his initial panic set in, but it ultimately resulted in him plopping down, exasperated, then panicking again because Cobalt’s head was on the ground and his hair would get dirty and that couldn’t be comfortable and . . . and it took him a minute to conclude that freaking out over the relative cleanliness of an unconscious rogue was futile, and he should probably focus on something else. He needed to think more clearly, calm himself down so he could logically figure out what to do.

He’d checked the rogue’s pulse. He knew he wasn’t dead dead, but it made him feel better to do so. He found it easier to keep Cobalt’s head on his lap and two fingers to his neck so he didn’t have to keep coming back to it. This was how he ended up in the situation where his legs were completely immobile and starting to feel like jelly, but the steady thrum of Cobalt’s heartbeat kept Toby from losing his cool, so he stayed put.

He still, however, did not know what he should do. Toby considered what Cobalt had done when he’d been completely out of it, but frowned. He had only been aware of the end of it, when he was regaining consciousness and realizing that Cobalt had somehow released him from whatever trance he was stuck in, without knowing exactly what he did for it to work. Also . . . he looked down, studying Cobalt’s face. Toby doubted the effectiveness of moving his hand, and wasn’t sure what sort of reaction Cobalt would have if he suddenly woke up to someone having their hand on his cheek. The poor man was so incredibly sensitive when it came to touch, and Toby did not want to venture too far. Trust was a fickle thing, and the druid wasn’t entirely sure how much Cobalt had in him.

He would need to do something else. Toby looked over his shoulder at the birdhouse, but it seemed so much further away than it was before, and he knew he couldn’t drag him over there on the chance that what he needed wasn’t inside. He also did not feel like risking leaving the elf alone while he went looking for an answer, for fear of what sort of bullshit this place might pull while his back was turned.

He briefly -- only briefly -- considered the inn or the church. Something told him that he would end up in a bigger mess than when he started if he went back in there now. The only other option, then, was . . . he looked up at the house, at the way its dull, lifeless structure sat somewhat ominously in front of him. He hadn’t been in there yet, but there were no other answers out here. And that damn light was still creeping towards them, so he needed to make a decision quickly.

“I’m sorry about this,” Toby said, and guided Cobalt’s head back to the ground. He stood up, and nearly fell over on legs that were not yet ready to walk, before forcing them to work the way he wanted. He looped his arms under Cobalt’s and tugged.

Good lord he was weak. After only a few heaves with all of his might, he felt himself desperately wishing that Bailey was here to do this for him. “Now would be a wonderful time for you to wake up,” Toby grumbled, and pulled one more time before both of them were back on the ground. He groaned. The stairs were right there, and yet he could not manage to get this god damned giraffe over to them.

After a moment, he tried something else. “I could use a little help,” he said to seemingly no one in particular. Nothing happened. He tried again. “Can you help me, please? I can’t move him by myself.”

He waited. Waited some more. Still, nothing. He sighed. “I know you don’t want him here, and I know you can hear me. But he helped me -- hell, that’s all he’s been doing.” Toby absently brushed his fingers over the ends of Cobalt’s hair as he pored over what to say next. He only came up with, “so . . . just this once. Please.”

There was a subtle shift in the air, like he was being watched. No, not quite -- more like he had piqued the forest’s interest. He was close, but he needed to give them something more. His fingers stilled, and he considered for a moment before taking a deep breath, and making his final request.

The grass around them started to quiver, and he felt the tremors in the ground through his legs and hands. His brow furrowed as he looked around for the source of the quaking, but it made itself known soon enough: Toby gasped as roots ripped through the ground in waves, barreling towards them at an impossible speed. He grabbed as much of Cobalt as he could and squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for impact. The roots crashed into them, sending them flying towards the house’s porch and making Toby’s back collide painfully with the door. The wind was immediately knocked out of him and he fell to the floor in a heap, gasping for air.

His vision swam as his head throbbed with pain, and he was just barely able to glance at Cobalt and make sure he was in one piece before he clutched his chest and forced himself to breathe. It came in wheezes and even more painful gasps as he felt something work its way up his throat with every breath he took. He grabbed onto the railing and coughed, hearing something clink on the ground before he collapsed onto his back and allowed himself to close his eyes for a moment. “Damn you,” he whispered in place of a thank you to a forest that did not deserve it.

xxx

Once his breathing was even again, he pushed himself up onto his elbows and immediately looked for Cobalt. He flopped back down when he realized the rogue was sitting upright, massaging and rolling his shoulder as he grunted through its soreness. At least the forest had kept up its end of the bargain.

“Toby?”

The man didn’t bother sitting up or opening his eyes. “Yeah?”

Cobalt didn’t say anything more. Toby supposed his check to make sure the both of them were still alive was complete.

Reluctantly, he sat up. He had to remember that they didn’t exactly have all the time in the world, but man he was tired. He felt the weariness in his body as he kept pushing himself forward, but it was hard to get any sense of time when there was only daylight -- no dusk, evening, or night. He desperately wanted a nap, but didn’t want that to mean they woke up to significantly less time than they started with.

His hand brushed a small, metal object. He turned tired eyes to it, and his brow furrowed as he picked up a small key. Must’ve been the thing that somehow made its way into his body.

The key was a cheap gold color, some of the paint on its grooves chipping off and revealing the true silvery steel color underneath. In other places, it was flecked with blood from scratching its way up to Toby’s mouth. He frowned at it, and gingerly put a hand to his neck. He tried swallowing, bracing himself for some sort of sharp pain, but he didn’t feel anything.

He stood up and walked over to Cobalt, who was still seated and puzzling over how the hell he ended up in so much pain. Cobalt looked up at him when he stopped. “. . . why does everything hurt?”

Toby looked out past the porch, then back to him. “Because this forest loves making my life more difficult than it needs to be.”

Cobalt squinted at him. “What did you do?”

Toby rolled his eyes. “Why do you think I did something?”

“Because I know you well enough,” Cobalt quipped. “What was it? What’d you do?”

“I saved your life, that’s what I did.” Toby turned towards the door, but Cobalt grabbed his arm.

He tugged Toby backwards, turning him around to face him again. His eyes scanned his shirt, then shot back up to Toby’s face, clearly wanting an explanation.

Toby looked down, suppressing an impatient sigh when he noticed the small spots of blood littering his shirt. “Don’t worry about it, I’m fine.”

Cobalt opened his mouth to protest, but Toby stopped him with a single pointed finger. “I am fine , Cobalt. I’m not hurt.” It was true -- he’d had some pain in his throat for a moment, but it had subsided completely while he was laying down. He stared back at him for as long as the elf needed to reassure himself that he wasn’t lying, and when he gave a resigned “if you say so”, Toby turned back towards the door. He wiped his mouth with his thumb, just in case, and then twisted the knob.

It didn’t budge. Duh. He tried the key.

The absence of any kind of shock wasn’t a surprise to him when the door slid open on creaky hinges, revealing an empty living room. Unlike the inn, though, this emptiness felt different. Instead of the heavy feeling of a space abandoned prior to completion, this one felt like it was whole once. Like there was life here, at some point, so much so that it stained every inch of the place. But that liveliness disappeared long ago, and left this vacant house in its stead.

Toby stepped through, glancing over his shoulder to ensure Cobalt was still with him. The rogue was, though he looked minorly spooked by something that Toby had yet to understand. Toby faced forward again, letting himself be satisfied with the fact that he was upright.

The living room was about as ordinary as a living room could be: there was a sofa, two chairs, a coffee table, an oil lamp, and a fireplace. All of them were arranged neatly in the space, and if it wasn’t for the abundance of dust and cobwebs, it would be easy to assume that someone was actively living here. Toby stepped onto the rug. His shoe left a print in the dust.

Cobalt walked in behind him, glancing warily at the sofa for a moment before turning his attention to the adjacent room. It was a dining room, politely set up as if its occupants would return at any moment. The table was long: it had space for at least ten people. Each chair had its own place setting, and there was a humble plaid runner going down the length of it, with a candelabra centerpiece made of severely tarnished silver. The candles in it were clearly well-loved, as copious amounts of their wax dripped down the sides and even onto the table itself. Even with the settled layers of time thickly piled on top of everything, the house still felt cozy and inviting.

Cobalt’s brow furrowed as he looked at one of the plates. He brushed some of the dust away, and his mouth quirked up just a tad at the monogrammed “F” in the center, and watched as more dust settled back into its place, covering the plate again as if he’d never touched it at all.

Toby ran a hand over the arm of one of the chairs, his fingers leaving trails in the dust as he brushed it away. The chair, while worn, was still sturdy, and he was tempted to just sit in it for a moment and not think about anything else. He considered it very strongly: the chair looked so comfortable, so inviting, and he wouldn’t need to sit for very long, just a minute to rest his legs . . .

He moved to sit in it, but just before he did so, his eye caught on something small and black draped on the seat of the sofa. He paused, straightening again. The space was arranged so neatly and in such warm tones that this random cloth seemed incongruous. He didn’t notice the arms of the chair settle back into place as he moved away from it to pick up the cloth instead.

Toby recognized it immediately when he picked it up. It looked just like Cobalt’s bandana, though he had no idea when he’d managed to drop it here, or why. He turned it over upon feeling the embroidery on the other side, and his brows lifted. He’d never seen any sort of adornment on Cobalt’s bandana: the way he wore it made it seem like a plain black square. He pursed his lips. Farner . The brand name, maybe, or its maker? He checked the tag. No, the brand was completely different. Maybe it was just one of those things Toby wasn’t privy to and shouldn’t be, or he was just reading too much into things again.

He figured he should just give it back. When he called out for him, Cobalt’s head popped out from behind a doorway into the kitchen. “I think you left your --” Toby paused. No, his bandana was still on his neck.

Cobalt’s eyes darted down to what was in the druid’s hand, and he stiffened.

Toby walked over to him, and held out a hand. “Let me see.”

Cobalt hesitated, then untied the bandana and slid it from around his neck. It felt so harshly exposed without it that Cobalt nearly snatched the bandana back when Toby reached for it.

Toby held it, but made no move to take the bandana away. He flipped the corner of it over, glancing between the one he was holding and the one Cobalt wore on a daily basis. When he looked back up at him, Cobalt was watching him with an expression he wouldn’t even attempt to name. “Why is your bandana in my house?”

The rogue didn’t say anything for a moment, and Toby watched him calculate what the appropriate amount of information to share would be. “I first met you here,” was all he decided to say.

Toby looked down at it again. “And . . . you brought this with you?”

Cobalt didn’t see him flinch in pain. He ventured forward. “You gave it to me.”

Oh. “This is mine.” He frowned a bit, and then, “So who’s ‘Farner’?”

Cobalt’s eyes didn’t leave him, even when the man wasn’t looking. “You are. That’s your last name.”

Toby looked back up at him, a mixture of mild surprise and delight on his face. Cobalt had thought that maybe the news would be upsetting somehow, that he’d feel some type of way about Cobalt wearing something of his this entire time, but he had nothing to worry about.

And then, just as quickly as it appeared, the expression fell, and the druid was confused again. “Why are there two of these?”

Cobalt’s mouth tightened, and he pulled it away. “The house is playing tricks on you,” he said, tying the bandana around his neck again. He watched Toby mumble “hm, weird,” and turned back to the kitchen.

It smelled faintly of stew, which made sense. The house seemed to try and provide comfort where it could, despite its apparent age, and smelling warm food in a kitchen was only common sense. Toby moved towards the fridge, which hummed faintly as if it had been left on. “I wonder if there’s any -- oh, that’s disgusting.”

The fridge was on, and did indeed have food inside. But the fridge also had more mold than recognizable food, and the first signs of insect life that they’d seen in any of the buildings. Toby shut the door hard to trap a few errant flies inside, and gagged a little. Cobalt was equally repulsed, and simultaneously entertained that the unwelcome surprise hadn’t happened to him.

“Good thing I’m not hungry,” Toby muttered, before coming to a stop in the middle of the kitchen. The smell of stew disappeared, replaced by the slight stench from the fridge and the dull scent of old furniture. While the other rooms still retained some level of comfort, the kitchen had run its course and given up on the illusion.

They wandered from room to room on that floor, and Toby hoped Cobalt didn’t notice the way he paused for half a second each time they entered. Once they left a room, he immediately forgot what it looked like until he walked back into it. It unsettled him, but he didn’t want to make a big deal about it.

Once they stepped back into the living room, and Toby forced himself to keep going as if he recognized the space he was in, he decided to try the stairs next. There hadn’t been anything out of the ordinary here, and nothing to directly address as far as either of them could tell, so he started his ascent.

Toby walked slowly up the stairs, dragging a hand gently along the wallpaper as he studied each of the framed photos in turn. Every single one of them was at least a little blurry; Toby knew that in order for the pictures to come out clearly, you had to sit perfectly still. Apparently, no one in these photos cared. And none of the frames matched -- it was as if whomever framed them chose whichever one they felt fit the subject of the image the best, without regard as to how they looked as a set. Perhaps that’s what made the gallery so charming: each of them had personality, and although they didn’t match, they looked right at home together on this wall.

Toby reached the top of the stairs, then frowned and went all the way back down. Cobalt leaned out of the way as Toby rushed past, an extremely puzzled look on his face.

“Did’ja realize something?” Cobalt asked, resting an elbow on the railing.

Toby took one of the pictures down, studying it intensely for a second before going up a few stairs, scanning the wall again, and taking another frame down. By the time he was done, he had several frames lined up on the landing, and plopped himself down in front of them.

Cobalt followed him up the stairs, leaning over him a bit to see what he’d discovered.

“There’s so many different people in these photos,” he was saying, “like, a bunch of friends or something. None of them look remotely alike, except for these two.” He pointed to twin girls sitting next to each other in one of the photos. They were seated on a bench, back to the camera and sandwiched in between himself and another girl with long black hair and elf ears poking out from the side of her head. It had to have been many years ago -- no one in the photo could’ve been any older than 18.

Cobalt nodded slowly, mainly looking at each of the people in turn. He’d noticed almost immediately that there wasn’t a single clear face in any of the photos. They were all either facing away from the camera or obscured by something that purposefully kept their features hidden. Hair blew in their face just as the shutter clicked, or they walked just out of frame, or their head was mid-turn, making their faces a mess of blurred sepia tones. It was as if whomever was pressing the shutter button just missed their subject every single time.

Because everyone in Toby’s family was a completely different species, it was easy to decipher who was who despite the poor quality of the photos. Cobalt could even determine which ones were Toby’s moms, and could pick out the difference between the girls and the boys. He’d admittedly looked for the druid in all of the pictures, feeling a touch satisfied when he was able to find him. He also concluded, with a slight lift of his eyebrows, that Toby was in fact a natural blonde.

“I’m in all of these, I think,” Toby said, and Cobalt confirmed with a single nod, “but I’m never alone, see?” He pointed to where he was sitting or standing or otherwise, and every time, there was someone right beside him.

Cobalt’s eyes darted over the photos again. It wasn’t just “someone”, actually, it was the same person in every photo. He remembered her -- the memory was vague and brief, but he remembered the dark haired elf girl that was also in Toby’s house the day he was dragged in and chaotically nursed back to a semblance of health. He was pretty sure that was his sister, though he hadn’t realized how close they’d apparently been in childhood. Toby never really talked about her, or any of his siblings, really. Cobalt wondered if he ever would.

Toby picked up one of the frames. In it, the elf girl was trying to show him how to fly a kite. The both of them were very young, and one of her tiny arms was pointing towards the sky, where her diamond-shaped kite floated far in the distance. Toby was seated on the grass next to her, staring up at where she pointed while his own little hands held a kite that was easily the same size as his entire body. Similar to some of the other photos, they were both facing away from the camera, but their mostly static figures made it much easier to notice the two pointed ears poking out from the sides of her head.

“It’s almost like . . .” Toby’s hands tightened around the frame as a poignant sadness tightened in his chest just then. He was mostly talking to himself, though he knew Cobalt was there. He wasn’t certain about the words he was going to say next, but he felt somewhere deep down that he was right, even though he’d never known a relationship like this in his entire life. He’d seen it, sure, but the concept of having one for himself was completely foreign, so to be so sure that this girl filled that role was comforting and depressing all at once. “. . . I thought she was a best friend, or something? At first? But I don’t know Cobalt,” he said quietly, “I . . . I think that’s my sister.”

The second the words left his mouth, he screamed.

xxx

Above ground, the sun peeked over the horizon, announcing early dawn. Or, it would’ve, if there was a sun. In either case, Barovia was waking up.

That did not include anyone in the party, though. They were all still fast asleep on the ground, surrounded by an absolute catastrophe of trampled plants, tufts of fur, and drops of blood here and there.

The blood made a trail which, if you were to follow it, would direct you to a pile of rot: browned and blackened foliage that was soft to the touch and smelled absolutely rancid. It would show you slash marks and stems ripped apart in a frenzy, and it would show you that the blood pools a bit here, then continues into the forest in the same small drops. It would allow you to see a single ivory claw caught in the tangled web of plants, and bits of dark hair everywhere. It would let you conclude that something was here and fought with everything it had to get out, and didn't intend on returning.

xxx

Toby was still screaming. He grabbed both sides of his head as his breath came in labored pants, interrupted every so often by another ear-piercing scream as pain ripped through his skull. Tears blurred his vision as he silently begged for it to stop, that he was sorry, that he would forget it all again if it would just stop hurting--

He sat up, slowly, as his breath came back to him and the pain ebbed before disappearing entirely. He blinked, and a few tears fell down his face. He wiped them away, and gave his hand a puzzled look before noticing the frames laid out in front of him. He frowned at them, and then looked up at Cobalt, shrinking a little at the completely horrified expression on the half-elf’s face. “What?”

Cobalt’s hands were outstretched and shaking, as if he was getting ready to grab the man but stopped himself. Toby heard the forced steadiness in his voice when he asked if he was okay.

Toby wiped his face again, sniffing a little. “I think so, yeah. What happened?” He turned back to the frames. “Why are these on the ground?”

Cobalt let out a breath. “They got knocked off the wall,” he lied, only answering half of the question. “We were trying to put them back in the right places.”

Toby didn’t notice that his other question was left unanswered, and immediately shifted his focus to the pictures again. “The house probably didn’t like that very much, huh?” He picked up some of them and used the faint marks left on the wallpaper to determine where each of them fit. Cobalt followed suit, deigning to answer that question as well.

“There,” Toby said, hanging the last frame and taking a cautious step back to make sure everything was in place. He looked over at Cobalt, brow furrowing at the pained expression on his face. He could’ve sworn the rogue kept glancing at him while they were hanging the frames, but he wasn’t sure. Then, Cobalt did look over at him, and the amount of genuine worry on it nearly made him stumble. Cobalt looked away, but Toby wasn’t having it. “Cobalt?”

It took him a second, but eventually he looked back.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Cobalt’s mouth tightened, and Toby wondered what was going through his mind. He wondered if he would be told the truth. He wondered if he’d earned it.

“You’ve been . . . forgetting, again,” Cobalt said finally, and his voice was quieter and more unsteady than Toby had heard it since they’d been here. “And . . . every time, I don’t . . . I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help.” Cobalt wasn’t looking at him, instead keeping his gaze fixed on the photo directly in front of him. “The pain you must be feeling,” he paused, then shook his head, “it’s excruciating to watch . . . but I can’t do anything about it. I can’t . . . take any of it away.”

Toby’s eyes darted down to his hands, arguably Cobalt’s most expressive part of his body, and noticed that they had tightened into fists. He felt a surge of guilt, then, but the rogue kept talking.

“You don’t remember anything after. The pain, I mean,” he said, and his hands relaxed. “And it’s like . . .” he fumbled for words, but gave up after a moment with a sigh. “I feel just as lost as the first time it happened.”

Toby had his hand braced on the railing as he kept his eyes trained on Cobalt’s face. He loosened his grip, wanting to . . . what? Reach out to him? And then what? What would -- could -- he even say?

His hand stayed where it was. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said, hardening his voice as his annoyance with this entire bullshit situation grew, “you don’t need to be a witness to all of this. Come on, I’ll get us out of here.” He turned and started back up the stairs.

Cobalt didn’t move.

Toby looked back down at him, reconsidered, then sat on the landing and braced his elbows on his knees. He waited for Cobalt to look over at him -- which he did, after a second -- before speaking. “I don’t know why you’re here,” he said, relaxing the ironclad grip he had on his tone a moment ago, “though I’m grateful you are. Believe me when I say I’m thrilled I don’t have to do this on my own.” He felt like he should apologize. That’s what Bailey would do. But he wasn’t Bailey, and he didn’t see the point. A sappy apology wouldn’t warm the forest’s heart and let them leave, and it sure as hell wouldn’t mend any wounds. “But you shouldn’t be here. You don’t deserve to go through this again. So when we find a way to wake you up, you need to do so.”

Cobalt studied him, and crossed his arms. “What about you?”

Toby shrugged. He knew it was a little infuriating. “It’s my mind. I’ll figure it out.”

Cobalt didn’t look convinced. He tore his gaze away from the man and glared down at the floor.

“Hey.”

The half-elf closed his eyes with a sigh, then reluctantly looked back over at Toby again.

“Promise me,” he said, holding out a pinkie finger. He’d seen some kids do it once. It seemed solid enough. “When we find out how to wake you up, you will wake up. Okay?”

Cobalt narrowed his eyes. He knew what that implied. “I’m not leaving you here.”

“You are, if it means you get out of here in one piece.”

“No, I’m not,” Cobalt said, turning to face him. “We’re getting out of here together .”

Toby shook his head. He’d already made sure that wouldn’t happen. “We’re both getting out, yes,” he said calmly, his finger still outstretched, “but if we figure out a way for you to get out first, you’re going. I’ll get out too, I promise.”

Cobalt quickly ascended the rest of the stairs between the two of them, crouching on the one right in front of Toby’s feet. The druid’s eyes widened as he leaned back. “Swear it.”

Toby blinked, then smiled a little. “I promise, Cobalt. I’ll find a way out after you if I can’t come with you.”

Cobalt’s eyes narrowed when Toby smiled. “I’m serious, Toby.”

The druid felt his face warm, even as his smile grew. He couldn’t help it. “I swear I will.”

Cobalt studied him, and the tiny carnations that bloomed on his face, then stretched his pinkie out. But when Toby went for it, he snatched it back, his eyes narrowing further.

Toby grinned fully, laughing quietly. “Cobalt, I can’t promise you anything if you won’t let me.” His laughter faded into a soft smile, and then he said, “you have to trust me.”

It took several beats, in which Toby could see the wariness literally melt off of Cobalt’s face, but he put his finger out again and Toby grabbed it before he could change his mind. He held it until Cobalt squeezed back, and Toby felt like he was trying to break his finger off with how hard he squeezed. “Okay.”

“You promise too, right?” Toby’s finger hurt. He ignored it.

Cobalt nodded. Despite the ache, Toby didn’t pull away until Cobalt did.

Toby stood, ignoring how awkwardly close the two of them were when he did so, and turned to go up the stairs again. “Will you come with me this time?”

Cobalt huffed, but he followed behind him.

xxx

In its wake, the creature had left a substantial amount of carnage. The cages the plants had so painstakingly woven together were ripped apart, and the surrounding mushrooms and flowers were trampled and smashed into the dirt. Though everyone was still fast asleep, the plants would have to completely start over if they were going to keep them that way.

They got to work immediately. It was much easier growing and sustaining things during the daytime, as the plants moved significantly faster than they had while the sun was setting, and in only minutes they had restored all four connections between Toby and the rest of his party. New mushrooms and flowers grew amongst the corpses of the ones that were too destroyed to be resurrected, using the decay of the old plants as food to make themselves grow larger and stronger; and vines intertwined, creating tightly woven grids that solidified as they surrounded each body one by one.

Pip had stirred in his sleep, his little bird eyes barely blinking open before a poppy larger than Bailey’s paw soothed him back into unconsciousness. As soon as his eyes closed, it straightened, and the vines continued criss-crossing each other until his cage was complete, and it quietly hissed shut as the ends of the vines sunk into the dirt, rooting the cage in place.

An unnatural stillness settled over them when the last of the cages was set in place. The sky brightened to the soft blue of an early morning, and the plants went back to waiting patiently.

xxx

The top floor was not as warm as the main level had been. The lights on this floor were dim, and all three of the doors were closed. There was one directly in front, and two on the sides; after a brief glance at one another, they went in opposite directions for the doors on either side.

Toby twisted the knob and pushed the door open, peeking cautiously inside. This was most certainly a girl’s room, if the paper “girls only” sign on the far wall had anything to say about it. Toby was not a girl. He stepped into the room.

Other than the sign, the room had a bunk bed with faded quilts. Each square looked like it came from a different piece of clothing, maybe ones the girls in here no longer wanted, as indicated by the random pockets or sewn edges on each patch. There was a desk littered with colored paper and crayons: half-finished drawings of the most random things were all over it and on the floor. Two chairs, one upright and the other overturned, were made of sturdy but cracked wood. Finally, a low dresser sat on the opposite wall from the bed, with some of the drawings pinned above it. A threadbare circular rug shifted slightly under his feet as he slowly turned in a circle to take everything in. Two girls stayed here. Could he have had more than one-

A sharp jolt shot through his head in warning. He dismissed the thought, and left the room.

Cobalt was standing outside of the room he investigated, ankles crossed as he leaned against the door. He looked up when he heard Toby’s door click shut.

“Anything in there?” Toby asked.

Cobalt shook his head. “Don’t go in there.”

Toby was about to ask why, but the look on Cobalt’s face stopped him.

The rogue’s chin jutted towards the door behind Toby. “What’d you see in there?”

Toby looked over his shoulder at it. He’d already forgotten. “Nothing of consequence.”

Cobalt nodded. “Only one door left, then.”

They approached the last door, coming to a stop when it was clear that this door would not be opened any time soon. Toby frowned at it. The door was surrounded by plants and broken completely off of its hinges: it was as if the plants had yanked it off, then regretted it, and tried wedging themselves between the gaps and the door in order to seal it shut. It worked well enough -- there was no apparent way to get in without destroying the entire thing.

Toby poked the stem of a monstera leaf. It glowed where he touched it, pulsing faintly before dulling again. He followed the stem down to its base, where it was unnaturally connected to a few other plants that were not of the same species, and tugged gently at it. He yanked his hand away.

Cobalt raised an eyebrow. “Did it burn you?”

Toby shook his head. “No. But that’s definitely not what we should do.” As soon as the plants realized where his thought process was going, he got such a vivid picture in his mind of the consequence: rip any of these off of the door, and neither of them were making it out of here.

Cobalt piped up again as he straightened. “What kinds of plants are they? Any sort of common thread between them?”

Toby frowned. “Not that I can tell. Monsteras, bromeliads, basil, peace lilies, and bleeding hearts don’t share any properties,” he mused, “. . . other than being plants.” They didn’t share growing conditions, preferred climates, colors, leaf shapes, germination times, growth speeds, anything. The only one he’d even remembered seeing before was the bleeding heart, when he’d unintentionally grown it once a while back. He didn’t want to think about that, though.

“And if we just . . . forced our way through . . .” Cobalt started, letting the unasked question hang.

Toby frowned. “We'd die.” He wasn’t in the business of intentionally harming plants, as it was.

Cobalt nodded. “Sounds about right.”

Toby put his hands on his hips. “Now that we’ve seen all of the buildings -- provided that one doesn’t randomly pop up when we leave -- we can figure out where to start.” He’d suggested the same in the graveyard, and the idea still seemed like a reasonable one.

Cobalt didn’t disagree, and they left the house. Toby felt so reluctant to leave once he stepped outside, and nearly changed his mind, but then Cobalt shut the door, and the feeling disappeared.

The druid shook it off, and descended the steps, standing in the middle of the clearing. He spun around in a slow circle. The house, a church, a birdhouse, an inn, and a graveyard. All of them, except the graveyard, perhaps, held memories of people he cared about.

He frowned. Bly isn’t here , he thought. He liked Bly, as cryptic and stern as he was. But Bly also wasn’t nearby when he lost his shit, so that explained that. But . . . Olive isn’t here, either. Well, she was. She wasn’t here by herself, though -- he’d seen her in the church and in the birdhouse. She didn’t get a building of her own. He wondered why that was.

He turned to the graveyard. Out of all of them, that one didn’t leave a gap in his memory when they left, or when he was inside. He remembered the most while he was there -- in fact, he still remembered everything that had happened. The other buildings . . . his memory of what had occurred while he was inside was fuzzy at best. And the graveyard was odd -- it was in such an awkward place, and Toby felt like the most obvious answers could be found within its gates.

Plus, the light had eaten half of the fence by now. With any more time spent deliberating, it could swallow the graves themselves, and they’d be left with nothing.

“Alrighty,” Toby said, pointing towards the graveyard. “That’s our first stop.”

Cobalt side eyed it, then did the same to him. “Any . . . particular reason?”

Toby hesitated. “Did I . . . have any lapses in memory when I left?” He didn’t think so, but maybe he shouldn’t be as sure as he just felt.

Cobalt shook his head. “None while you were in there, either. Starting there would probably be best, actually.”

Toby nodded, confidence in his impulsive decision-making renewed. “Exactly. See, I’ve got this.”

Cobalt rolled his eyes, but kept his thoughts to himself as they walked back to the graveyard.

Chapter Text

There it was again: that feeling of someone dragging needle-sharp fingernails down his spine, making his entire body shiver with an unwelcome chill and his hair stand on end.

Death . It was how Toby had known that this wasn’t just a garden, or something else rather unassuming. As he pushed through the gates again, and the fog welcomed them with damp and cold curls around their legs, he remembered that underneath each of these flowerbeds was likely the reason their flowers were all dead in the first place. It was blight. It had to be -- that was the only explanation for sudden and rapid decay of plant life without an insect or other disease afflicting them.

But the form it took was like nothing he’d ever seen. He hadn’t seen much, but even in Barovia where everything natural was somehow slightly or completely off, blight looked nothing like this. It usually browned and blackened leaves and stems, causing them to shrivel and harden and crumble to dust, but this was like tar. He frowned, thinking of the wholly unpleasant way it made his fingers stick to one another until he was able to rub most of it off in the dirt. He figured he’d have to touch it again if he was going to figure out what they needed to do here.

Toby looked up at Cobalt. He’d seemed on edge ever since they reached the top floor of the house. Cobalt refused to say anything about the room he entered, and had quickly shut down Toby’s insistent prying with a sharp look. Toby was a little annoyed that he couldn’t know about something that was in his own mind, but he decided to revisit it later.

Cobalt’s eyes were fixed firmly on the middle of the graveyard, about the spot where they’d uncovered the headstone with a dragon on top. Toby wanted to give him time to process, since his expression told the man that he was battling something fiercely personal, but the light was not kind enough to give him space to do so.

Toby put a hand on his arm -- he was mildly alarmed at how tense his bicep was -- and shook him a little. Cobalt blinked, then looked down.

“You know who it is, don’t you?” Toby asked, his tone soft so he could avoid sounding accusatory.

Cobalt hesitated for a second too long. Toby looked back over at where the grave would be, and sighed. Cobalt nodded, and said quietly, “I just don’t know what difference it would make.”

Toby squeezed his arm, much easier to do now that the elf was more relaxed, then let his hand fall as he untied his hoodie and fanned some of the fog away. There was something about the fog that nagged at him, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. “Maybe it’s as simple as acknowledging it?” He walked over to the headstone as fog filled the empty space again, running a hand over its blank face. “Perhaps that would . . . help, somehow. What if you just need to help me remember?”

Cobalt’s gaze shifted to him. “I can’t do that, though. Nothing I do affects what happens here.”

Toby shrugged. “Maybe not, but I can use what you tell me to change things, and help you leave.”

Cobalt lifted an eyebrow. “‘Us’, you mean.”

Toby looked back at him. “What?”

“You said, ‘to help you leave’. You mean ‘to help us leave.”

Toby’s eyes widened a fraction, and he nodded quickly. “Right, yes. Us.”

Cobalt’s suspicion could not have been more clearly defined on his face. “You promised, Toby,” he reminded him in a voice laced with a warning.

He nodded again, more insistently this time. “I know. I intend to keep it.” Toby ran a finger over the carving of the dragon. It was detailed, which struck him as odd -- like the headstone was trying its best to remember who was buried here, but could only remember through images without recalling the actual name. That wasn’t too far off from how his memory worked now.

Toby was too lost in thought to notice Cobalt watching him. The rogue looked as if he was trying to solve a problem before he was given the answer, as if it would prevent him from getting hurt, or let him brace for impact before the blows hit. He flexed his jaw, frustrated that nothing solid was coming together.

This man confused the hell out of him. Every time he thought maybe he’d taken a step forward, gotten a little closer to figuring him out, he’d throw him a curveball out of fucking nowhere that would send the elf reeling. Maybe that was why he found himself sticking around so much -- he wanted to be the one to know this man like the back of his own hand. Toby mostly resided within his own mind: he was a solitary, violently introverted individual, and despite the complete memory wipe, that side of him remained completely intact.

Perhaps that was the most baffling thing -- eventually, everyone in Cobalt’s life had revealed something about themselves that he could quickly pin down, categorize into an adjective or personality trait of some kind. He could easily describe Oz, Bailey, Bly, Pip, even Heron to anyone who asked. Sure, sometimes he couldn’t predict what they’d do, or where their loyalties lied. But he could tell you right off the bat that Bailey was a strong, dependable Tabaxi whose genuinely good heart led him to do everything in his power to protect people, and rectify any mistakes he’d made towards them in the past. And he could just as easily tell you that Heron was an untrustworthy bitch who got off on making children miserable killing machines just so she didn’t have to get her own hands dirty. Eventually, they all showed their true colors.

But . . . he looked back at Toby, who seemed to have come to a decision and was standing up. What did he actually know about him? He thought he knew, and easily assumed the role of a protector, offering up his own life as a sacrifice for making sure the man could get home to his plants and his family, where he was certain he belonged. He’d seen how frightened he was, how little he knew about keeping himself alive, and had simply concluded that he didn’t belong here and would need someone bigger and stronger to make sure he didn’t kick the bucket too soon.

And then, he’d helped kill that bear, and shot lightning through a grown man, ending his life instantly. Cobalt knew firsthand what people’s reactions were when they took a life of any kind for the first time. There was usually a downward spiral of questioning their own morals, shaking -- lots of shaking -- and a healthy amount of fear. The shock took some time to wear off, and then you had to do it again, and it got a little easier until it was just something you did.

Toby . . . didn’t do that. Didn’t do any of that. He’d just stared at his hands, and he looked so tired. He always looked like something had caught up with him: time, exhaustion, whatever it was, and that day was no different. Then everything else disastrous had happened, and here they were.

It wasn’t as if Toby was leading him on or intentionally lying to him. Cobalt had been through that enough times -- he shoved the thought of Maddie away -- to know what that looked like. No, it was more like no one had really ever stuck around long enough to put all the pieces together, and maybe he hadn’t done that for himself either. Maybe . . . maybe Cobalt was witnessing a man finally being given space outside of what he was always told he was supposed to be, and really understand who he wanted to be. All of this was new for Toby, so who’s to say he wasn’t making something new out of himself as well?

Or maybe that was just another assumption.

You have to trust me.

Cobalt frowned. That warred quite decisively against “you don’t trust me, right?” And being told it wouldn’t change. He put his hand on his face and groaned.

“Cobalt.”

He froze, peeking with wide eyes through his fingers. “Hm?”

The druid had an arm draped over the top of the stone, and he tapped it idly. “Who’s this?”

Cobalt’s eyes darted to the headstone, then to the dirt, and back at Toby. He dropped his hand, and his glasses fell back into place. “Badger.”

Toby tilted his head. It didn’t ring a bell. He’d secretly hoped it would. He looked back down at the headstone, and opened his mouth to say something, but his mind drew a blank. “Who’d you say it was?”

Cobalt crossed his arms. “Badger.”

Toby looked at the headstone again, tilted his head, and gave the same confused look to Cobalt. “Wh-”

“Okay, enough,” Cobalt interrupted, pulling him away from the stone. This would get them nowhere, and that stupid light was about to start eating the graves. Or . . . whatever it was that light did when something touched it. “This isn’t working. We need a more permanent way to make his name stick.”

Toby blinked, a little startled by how forcefully he was yanked aside. Cobalt’s grip on his arm was much tighter than usual. “Permanent . . . like if we could carve it?”

Cobalt paused, then nodded. “Yeah. But where are we gonna get something like that?”

Toby slowly looked up at him, wildly unsure of the answer. And then, he was being pulled again as Cobalt threw the gates open and half-dragged, half-carried the druid behind him. He made a beeline for the church, not stopping until they got to the back of the damaged building. Toby stumbled to a stop, holding on to Cobalt for dear life as he attempted to get his wits about him. “Cobalt, what in the world --”

Cobalt shushed him, pointing to a pile of rubble by the wall. “Chisel.”

Toby looked at where he was pointing, and sure enough, there was a chisel and hammer discarded amongst the broken stones and glass. “Oh, shit. Wait, how did you know --”

Cobalt grabbed the chisel and hammer before Toby could finish his question. “Come on.”

xxx

Immediately upon making back to the graveyard, Toby hopped up on one of the graves, sitting on it as he braced his hands against the stone. He ignored the fact that he was sitting on the mess that he had trouble getting off his hands in the first place -- there were more pressing matters at the moment. “Spell it.”

Cobalt gave a short, startled laugh at the baffling image of him abruptly planting himself atop this flower bed, straddling the grave as if it was nothing more than a strangely shaped chair. He cleared his throat at the annoyed look Toby gave him. “Badger. B-A-D-G-E-R.”

Toby turned back to the stone, chisel poised to carve into it. Nothing. He gave an exasperated sigh. “For fuck’s sake -- one at a time. ”

“It’s not that hard --” Cobalt stopped. Took a breath. “Fine. B.”

Toby glanced at him sideways. “. . . B.” He angled the chisel on the stone and gave it a solid thwack with the hammer, as was expected when carving into solid rock. The chisel shot down, nearly slicing through his thigh and leaving a violently angled vertical gash in the headstone. He yelped, jumping back as his heart raced at the near-miss. “Uh -- that was easier than I thought it would be. Next letter?”

The next letter faltered and died in Cobalt’s mouth. “Be more careful , dammit. A.”

“I’m trying,” Toby muttered through gritted teeth, and carved the letter with shaky hands. “What’s the next one?”

“D.” As he watched, Cobalt realized that he never knew just how bad Toby’s handwriting was. Scientists, he thought. They continued like that until Badger’s name was fully spelled out.

As soon as the tail of the “R” was finished, and Toby lifted the chisel away, the light slowed to a stop. It had cut through half of the headstone, and when Toby looked up at it, it was mere inches away from his face. He stared into it, hearing his heartbeat pounding in his ears as he realized just how close it came to him while he wasn’t paying attention.

The light made no sound, not that Toby had expected it to, but the overwhelming silence of it had just as much of a presence as the entity itself. The light was not so bright that you couldn’t look directly at it, nor was it as opaque as he had originally thought. As he stared at it, the light brightened and faded ever so slightly in waves, giving him momentary glimpses of what lay right behind it. Bright, and it was a solid wall of warm white light, and then it faded, becoming just transparent enough for Toby to be reminded that beyond here was an endless void of darkness. The light’s dimness lingered, letting the druid really see it for the first time, and allowing him to understand that there was nothing -- nothing -- outside of where they were, and should they fail to preserve what’s here, the light would simply take it all.

Toby’s body sagged as he peered at the light. The possibilities of what would happen to them disappeared one by one until he was left with only one answer. There would be no horrible, painful ending, or anything like that. If they didn't restore what they could here, or really make an effort to bring back what’s been lost, then . . . they’d simply be forgotten.

Toby knew with certainty that their only way out was in here somewhere, but he didn’t know exactly where, or how they were meant to reach it. Everything they’d seen so far, outside of this graveyard, had left them with more questions than answers. He lifted a hand to the light, and tiny wisps of it reached for him as he gently touched his fingers to its surface. It was . . . warm. He’d made contact with it before, when he was trying to get out and find Cobalt, but it was nothing like this. There was a confused, slight panic before, the purpose being to understand whether he’d been left behind by or simply separated from his rogue, but now, he just wanted to see the light as it was.

It danced around his fingers, giving a little under the weight of his touch, but ultimately holding his hand in place. Toby wondered for a moment if it would be so bad to let this light consume everything here. He wasn’t even sure if anything was worth remembering, if it was that important for him to remember anything at all. He would be alone, sure, but wasn’t that how he started? Wasn’t that how everyone started? When you’re first born, first created, first made . . . you don’t have memories. You start with nothing, and it's only when you begin to retain information that those things hold weight, and manifest some level of pain. But what if he just . . . let all of that go? Truly let it go? What if he made no attempt to get it back, let the nothingness consume him completely and allow his body to rot? Would that not make things easier, on him, on everyone? He knew instinctively that it wouldn’t hurt, not nearly as badly as trying to remember things did. It would be virtually painless, and he’d just stay here until this body no longer needed a conscience.

His hand sank further in. Why was he doing this? All of this fighting, all of this pain, all of this back and forth with his own mind, when the easiest solution was right here. Why was he even trying? What was the p-

That thought process was sharply cut short when his arm was yanked away, a print of his hand fading as the contact between it and the light was severed. Tiny sparks appeared as the light made minimal effort to try and keep the druid’s hand there, and they disappeared just as quickly as his handprint had. Toby’s eyes darted around for a minute before he remembered where he was and that there was someone else here.

Cobalt didn’t remember to speak until Toby’s eyes finally landed on him. “What are you doing?”

Toby attempted to answer, but his mind was blank. “I . . . uh . . .”

Cobalt’s mouth flattened to a thin line as he turned Toby’s hand over, inspecting it for any signs of change or injury. He didn’t find any, but he redirected his wariness to Toby’s arm. “What do these mean?”

Toby looked at his arm. Button mushrooms were scattered all over it, and while most of them only had their tiny heads just above the surface of his skin, some were continuing to grow, their stems pointing straight up like his hair was standing on end. He knew immediately. Fear.

He looked back up at Cobalt, whose stare was harshly intensified by the darkness of his shades. Toby’s mouth went dry. Even though he was crouching, Toby realized he could see him much more clearly, and that didn’t help at all. “I’m . . . nervous, I guess . . .?”

Cobalt shook his head, his grip on Toby’s hand tightening. “Nervousness grows here,” he said, pointing towards Toby’s stomach. “Not here,” he pointed to his arm.

Toby looked back down at it. The mushrooms had stopped growing, but there were still so many of them, and he felt so cold . He knew he owed the rogue honesty, but it was so hard to speak. “I . . . I’m terrified.”

Cobalt’s piercing stare was thankfully redirected, and his hold loosened a bit. He watched the mushrooms that were once sticking straight up out of his skin go limp and fall off one by one. The ones that were just heads shriveled and joined the other dying fungi as they littered Toby’s lap and the dirt around him. “They’re goosebumps,” Cobalt said.

Toby didn’t feel like trying to speak again, but that seemed accurate. Toby nodded.

They waited as the remaining mushrooms died, and Toby pulled up his sleeve to check the rest of his arm. Cobalt spoke when both of his arms were clear. “Are you okay?” When Toby didn’t verbally confirm, he asked again. “You sure?”

No. Another nod.

The rogue relented, though he didn’t seem satisfied with the answer, and let Toby’s hand go. “Well, it looks like it worked,” he said, gesturing towards the beds.

Toby looked behind him, and his mouth opened into a small “o”. Though he was sitting in front of a mess of dead leaves and disgusting black goop just seconds ago, there were now bright, colorful bursts of snapdragons and sweet peas. They bloomed in such abundance that the bed seemed much too small to hold all of them. Toby scrambled off of the bed, hyper-aware of the fact that he was probably crushing about a third of them by sitting on top of the dirt, but as soon as he lifted his weight, more exploded from the soil to join the others.

Toby marveled at them. He ran his hands through them, admiring how soft their petals were. There was an emptiness in his chest, coupled with a small amount of regret, that felt very similar to his usual reaction when meeting or talking about someone he used to know. As if his heart missed the feeling of knowing what it was like when their memories took up space. Toby’s wonder softened, but it was a feeling he’d grown used to, so he didn’t dwell on it long.

It took him a minute to realize that he had been admiring these flowers for quite some time, and yanked his hand back as if burned. They did not have time for this. He looked around for the chisel and hammer, standing abruptly as he did so. “Sorry, wasting time. Where are the --” he stopped when he realized that Cobalt had his arms crossed, watching him with a small smile on his face. “What?”

Cobalt shook his head. “Nothing. Take your time.”

Toby frowned. “We don’t have time, remember?”

Cobalt nodded towards the light, which hadn’t moved an inch since he’d finished carving Badger’s name. “Seems like your mind is willing to wait a little bit.”

Toby looked at it, then at the flowers. Under other circumstances, maybe if he didn’t have a spectator, he would indeed go right back to looking at each individual flower and studying all of the little things about them. Instead, “no, it’s fine. Let’s keep going.”

Cobalt pointed a thumb at the next flower bed, where he’d stuck the chisel and hammer upright in the dirt. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Toby nodded curtly, and Cobalt noticed the rose petals peeking out of his collar as he breezed past. Toby planted (ha) himself on top of the second bed in a similar fashion to the first, and tapped the carved knight with the handle of the chisel. “Alright, who’s this one?” When Cobalt didn’t answer, Toby turned to look at him, then immediately rolled his eyes at the knowing look on his face. “Leave me alone.”

Cobalt did not do that. “Are you embarrassed?”

Toby sighed. “No.”

Cobalt’s eyes traced the petals as they crept further up his neck. He flicked a finger at one of them before looking back at the man. “Are you sure?”

If Toby could have turned redder, he would have. Since that wasn’t an appearance his skin could take on, the plants did it for him: petals rapidly sprang out from his collar, growing faster than he could swat them away. By the time he got them down to a reasonable level and could see again, Cobalt’s expression had changed to amusement. His eyebrow lifted, and Toby pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “Absolutely ridiculous.”

Cobalt was holding one of the petals between his fingers. “Mushrooms for fear, and roses for embarrassment. Noted.”

Toby grumbled several profanities under his breath, and when the petals threatened to come back, he whispered even more at them until they shrunk back into his skin. Cobalt dropped his petal on Toby’s head. He shook it off, and glared at the headstone in front of him. “Tell me the damn letters.”

Cobalt looked at the knight again, racking his brain for who that could be. He’d been certain about Badger, but the others . . .? He mentally scrolled through the list of people that Toby had witnessed the death of and whether or not it was important enough to warrant a name, but he couldn’t think of any soldiers or knights. A . . . guard? Maybe? Someone protective, at least.

Cobalt smacked his forehead. Duh . “J.”

Toby carved it.

“O.”

Toby carved that too.

Cobalt opened his mouth to say “N”, when both letters vanished. He faltered. “Wait, what? It’s not him?”

Toby looked between the stone and his friend. “Uh . . . I guess not . . .?”

Cobalt went through the list again. There was literally no one else that made sense, and the only other plausible option was definitely still alive. Cobalt refused to consider otherwise. Then he remembered: “He had some weird ass spelling to his name, but I can’t remember what it was.” Cobalt tried to think of anywhere he might have seen it before, as opposed to it just being told to him, and then he remembered the notebook. “Oh! It’s J-H-O-N-A,” he said, supplying the letters individually like before.

Toby carved that, but right before ending the “A”, he frowned. “What kind of name is that?”

Cobalt smirked, then shrugged, watching him finish carving a horizontal line. “It’s a dead guy’s name.”

Just like the other grave, the fog dispersed, and flowers sprouted out of the dirt. Toby jumped off of it, and inspected the new plants. “I saw these in Pip’s book . . . Yarrow, I think. Used in protection spells.” He poked at the tops of the flowers -- instead of being multicolored, fragrant blooms, yarrow tended to have one color at a time, and these were white. Their flowers were tiny, but grew in clusters that made them look like large, round masses.

He expected the familiar emptiness to take root, but this feeling was entirely different. He was . . . annoyed. So annoyed. He had no idea what this guy did, but he guessed that they didn’t get along for some reason.

Toby took his hand away. “Last one,” he said, picking up the chisel and hammer and repositioning himself atop the remaining flower bed. “Who’s in here?”

“I’m . . . actually not sure,” Cobalt admitted, his focus lingering on the carved bird atop the headstone before letting his gaze drift to the ground as he tried to make sense of it. “There’s only two bird-related people I can think of and I really hope it’s neither of them.”

Toby was still for a moment as he stared at the stone. Then, quietly, uncertainly, “Should we make sure?”

Cobalt frowned. He did not want this to be the way that either of them found out that one of the two died. If they did, though, they were in for a rude awakening -- whether it was inside or outside of Toby’s mind was up to them. He sighed. “Might as well.”

Toby held the chisel up, and after a moment’s hesitation, carved a very poorly done “B”. Only a few seconds passed before the letter disappeared entirely. Toby let out a breath. “That’s one.” He held the chisel up again, and carved an equally messy “P”.

He could’ve sworn the letter lingered for much longer than the “B” had. His heart started to hammer dangerously in his chest, shock and grief threatening to take hold, before that letter also disappeared.

Both he and Cobalt sagged with relief. “Neither of them, then,” Toby said, resting the chisel and hammer in his lap while he allowed his nerves to settle. He looked over his shoulder. “Anyone else?”

Cobalt crossed his arms, tapping a finger on his arm as he went back through the long list of dead people they’d encountered in only a few months. Maybe not birds, then, but someone with wings? The Abbot certainly wasn’t important enough to be remembered here, and besides, none of them knew what his actual name was. There was . . . that one unfortunate bystander in the attack they were definitely not the cause of recently, but other than that, Cobalt couldn’t think of anyone else that fit the criteria.

He froze as one possible person popped into his mind. No, that couldn’t be right.

Toby’s brow furrowed as he watched a strained look cross the half-elf’s face before he strode over and held out a hand for the tools. “Did you figure it out . . . ?”

Cobalt repeated the gesture for him to hand the chisel over. “Let me do it.”

Toby hesitated. “But you can’t-”

“Let me do it , Toby,” he said through gritted teeth.

The druid stared at him for a second, then relinquished the hammer and chisel. He slid off of the bed and watched as Cobalt assumed the same position he was just in, angling the tools over the stone. Toby winced at the ringing sound the chisel’s metal made against solid rock, which didn’t allow even the smallest dent no matter how hard Cobalt hit it. Toby had a feeling that Cobalt knew he couldn’t do this, and his eyes trailed up from the stone to the rogue’s face, which was creased with intense focus and frustration. He wondered what Cobalt was trying to protect him from this time.

At this point, the chisel had dulled somewhat, chips of its metal splintering off as it made contact again and again. Cobalt’s grunting turned into swearing as he tried threatening an inanimate object, and it wasn’t until he accidentally hit his finger that he gave up, tossing a final few choice words into the air. He grabbed both tools and threw them to the side, his trained precision making them fly directly into Jhona’s flower bed, uprooting some of the yarrow and scattering the dirt. Toby’s widened eyes darted to it, then flicked back to Cobalt, whose pale skin had reddened from the effort.

“This is fucking stupid. We don’t need to do this one anyway. Let’s go.” He got off of the bed and turned on a heel, storming towards the gates.

Toby stared after him, but didn’t move. He ran a hand gingerly over the stone, which didn’t have so much as a scratch, and said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Cobalt stopped, but didn’t turn. “And why not?” He asked, his voice clipped. “The light isn’t fucking going anywhere.”

The druid had no idea why this particular grave made him so upset, but he ventured ahead nonetheless: “Because if we don’t figure this out now, it will start moving again. And . . . if this grave is gone, I’ll forget everything about whomever is buried here.”

Cobalt turned back after a long moment and a clearly upset sigh. Dammit. Damn it. Toby was right, that would be considerably worse. Cobalt wasn’t sure he could live with being the only one with this knowledge, and certainly wasn’t prepared for the possibility of telling Toby about it, only to be met with a completely confused “. . . who?”

Toby watched him approach with a small, grateful smile. He strolled over to the discarded tools, eyeing the deep gash they made in the once tidy flower bed. He picked them up, and silently packed the dirt back together, righting the fallen flowers. After repositioning himself atop the last grave, he said, “First letter?”

The rogue’s jaw worked as he thought through every possible loophole he could exploit so Toby wouldn’t have to be the one to do this, but came up short every time. Toby was the only one who could do this, who could fix any of this. Cobalt was only here to help, and even that had its limits. But this? This was just straight up cruel. And there was nothing he could do about it.

Toby glanced back at him when he didn’t hear a response. “There’s only 26 to choose from,” he said lightly, earning an eye roll. He turned, grateful to at least get that incredibly stormy look off Cobalt’s face.

A few more seconds passed before Cobalt sighed. “O.”

xxx

It was quite some time before Toby’s stomach settled. He was hunched over, panting like a dog as he forced himself to breathe. There was nothing inside of him, not here, so he was just dry heaving over and over, unable to get himself to stop.

The nausea had hit him like a ton of bricks, and he had no time to brace himself before he felt like his body was trying to expel its own insides, given that there was nothing in his stomach. He had carved the last letter on the headstone, and at first, felt nothing. The birds-of-paradise sprouted around him, the fog dissipated, and other than a general fascination for plants he’d never seen before, there was no emotional reaction like the ones he’d had around the other graves. Cobalt was watching him carefully, body tensed and prepared to react at the slightest change in the man’s composure, but . . . nothing happened.

Toby had read the name a few times, but he didn’t remember a thing about them. He’d shrugged it off, and slid off of the bed. And then, as soon as he was about to stand up -- his chest hurt. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think as an overwhelming sense of remorse barrelled into him, and forced him to his knees. He heard Cobalt calling him, felt hands on his arm and back, but he couldn’t answer. He cried, hand flying to his mouth as tears streamed down his face so quickly that it soaked his fingers and neck, and if there was no one else there to support him, he might’ve just crumpled to the floor.

The only thing Toby knew was what he was feeling, but not why: he felt grief, of course, as indicated by his relentless sobs, but there was an undercurrent of regret and guilt that was impossible for him to shake. Almost as if this death had been his fault. He couldn’t wrap his head around it, or rationalize how he’d figure out exactly where this feeling was coming from, but something in his gut insisted that he was involved in a way that he would never, ever forgive himself for.

That was how the heaving started -- his lungs couldn’t keep up with how much he was crying. It was choking him, and in an effort to fight against suffocation due to his own distress, his body violently pivoted to another involuntary reaction that forced him to breathe. His hands went from his mouth to his stomach and he doubled over, forehead pressed into the dirt as he squeezed his eyes shut and fought for some sort of control.

He won, eventually. The retching stopped, and his breathing slowed until he let his shoulders relax. He kept his eyes closed, breathing through his nose and mouth until he was okay enough to speak again.

“What . . . the hell, man,” he said, voice wispy and strained.

Cobalt was sitting a few feet away from him, repeatedly clenching his hands into fists and releasing them. He wanted to help. He’d been reminded many times that he couldn’t. “You alright?”

Toby nodded, but didn’t move. “Gimme a minute,” he whispered. He waited until his muscles stopped trembling, and forced himself up, taking a slow breath as he did so. He pushed some of his hair back, leaving his hand there for a moment as he checked for the umpteenth time that he was actually okay, then let it go, his curls stubbornly bouncing back into place and dancing just in front of his eyes.

He slid those tired eyes to Cobalt, and offered an equally exhausted smile at his troubled expression. “Hi.”

The rogue did not return it. Naturally. “That was a rough one.”

Toby only sighed in agreement, then wiped his face with his sleeve. He looked back at the grave with a frown. “If my memories come back, I’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

Cobalt considered asking him to elaborate, but Toby’s expression told him that maybe he needed some time before he was ready to do so. He stood up instead, and offered a hand.

Toby took it and held on tightly until he was sure he could stand on his own, then brushed the dirt off his pants. He looked down at them, and noticed that his pants -- all of his clothes, in fact -- were completely clean. He glanced at Cobalt, noticing the same on him, and then looked up at his face. It was back to the tense wariness that he’d entered the graveyard with, which Toby decided not to comment on. They silently agreed to leave the graveyard, and wandered back in the direction of the clearing.

Now that the fog was gone, it was easier to see, and Toby paused, pointing at the ground. “Look,” he said, crouching down to brush a hand over the disturbed earth. There were deep gouges in the ground, starting at the clearing and leading all the way to the graveyard itself. He looked back at its fences: “I think something was trying to drag the graveyard out of here. That’s why it’s so far away from the others, and in such a weird spot.”

Cobalt turned and looked at it again, and nodded. He’d had a much similar thought when they’d first come across it. “Almost like it wasn’t supposed to be here, originally.”

Toby cocked his head at it. “I wonder if . . . maybe that’s what the fog was for. Every other building is easy to see, but you could barely tell that it was a graveyard in the first place. It’s like . . . I wonder if this was its attempt at remembering important people that aren’t around anymore. And it couldn’t think of any of them clearly, since they’d died, so it covered the entire thing in fog.” He looked back at the ground. “And when it wasn’t able to remember any of them like I remember all of you, it tried to get rid of it entirely.”

He stood up again, kicking some of the upturned dirt back into place. “But, now that we’ve helped determine who those people are . . .” Toby started walking backwards, keeping his eyes on the graveyard as it began to shake. Cobalt watched him do so, then stepped out of the way as it slowly slid forward.

All of the buildings, except for the house, gradually shifted to the right as they made space for the graveyard to sit amongst them. There were lots of hollow creaks and groans as vacant structures unnaturally moved on their own, and a sonorous boom as they each settled into their new spots. “. . . It can take up space like everything else,” he finished. Toby turned in a slow circle, nodding at the way they were all equidistant now, instead of each building having awkwardly large gaps on either side. He stopped turning when he was facing Cobalt again, who had wandered back over to Toby’s side while silently watching everything move.

“Poetic,” Cobalt said.

Toby snorted. “You sound less than impressed.”

Cobalt shrugged. “It could’ve done all of that with significantly less discomfort and confusion, in my opinion,” he muttered.

The druid smirked. “Remember whose mind this is,” he said, crossing his arms, “there was no way this was going to be any sort of paradise.”

“If this happens again -- I hope it doesn’t, but if it does -- I’d rather be in Pip’s mind.”

Toby raised an eyebrow. “It would probably just be a bunch of birds at church. And everything’s vegan.”

Cobalt’s nose wrinkled. “I can’t tell whether that would be better or worse.”

Toby tilted his head, considering. “Church might do you some good, now that I think about it.”

Cobalt side eyed him, which made Toby grin. “Pick another building so we can get out of here.”

“Touchy,” Toby muttered jokingly. Cobalt ignored him. “Well . . . I remember most of what happened in there,” he said, turning and pointing to the church. “We could try that one next.”

Cobalt narrowed his eyes at the building. A stone fell off and thudded quietly on the ground. “Maybe. Assuming that there isn’t something else in there that wants to kill us.”

The man pursed his lips, looking over at the birdhouse. “What about Pip’s? That one doesn’t seem that bad.”

Cobalt glanced at him, then the birdhouse, remembering after a second that Toby had no recollection of what had happened in there. Or in the inn, for that matter. He was just about to voice this when Toby spoke up.

“Actually, maybe not. You were pretty pissed at me after that.”

Toby didn’t look back at him, so Cobalt couldn’t see his face when he said that. God damn this man. “It’s up to you,” he replied, forcing his voice to fall flat.

The druid did look back at him then, no doubt trying to interpret what he might not be saying, the same way Cobalt was doing to him. Toby shook his head, not willing to open that can of worms right now, and glanced at the house. He wasn’t ready to go back there yet. Besides, they hadn’t really gotten much out of it, as far as he could remember. Which . . . arguably wasn’t much, but either way, he didn’t feel like trying again so soon.

He looked at the church. Despite it sliding around earlier, it didn’t look any worse than before. But, then again, it was in such a state of ruin that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to tell if anything had changed. He watched as a piece of one of the metal posts dangled precariously, hanging on to the rest of the structure by a single piece of badly rusted metal, and then snapped off, spearing into the ground with its jagged end sticking straight into the air.

Ominous. He suppressed an exasperated sigh, and said, “church it is.”

Chapter Text

Most of his memory was splintered, and what he could remember was strictly limited, especially here. But he figured that because there was very little clutter taking up the recesses of his mind, he was easily able to recall Cobalt's quiet insistence that he be more careful.

Toby heeded this when he stepped into the church, stopping just inside the doorway and surveying his surroundings again with a more critical eye. He found that he was naturally drawn towards wonder: where his friends typically looked at things in a guarded manner due to their years of experience in less-than-trustworthy circumstances, he simply observed what was presented to him as it was. He touched things he maybe shouldn't, stared too long at people who didn't want him to, absorbed the dull palette of the world like a sponge. He'd heard someone consider it “childlike”, once. He found that, despite the term rubbing him the wrong way, he'd probably agree with the kids on this one, oddly enough. Toby wondered how far people would've gotten without children questioning and meddling with everything.

The shards sat in a scattered pile on the floor, untouched. Toby took note of this just as Cobalt stepped through and stood beside him. The memory of seeing Bailey made of glass, blood dripping from his claws while glaring at them with white, pinhole eyes filled his mind again. Not that he'd really forgotten it the first time -- which struck him as strange, considering that he completely forgot what happened in every other building.

Cobalt's eyes flicked to Toby's arms. His hoodie was securely wrapped around his waist, same place where Cobalt had tied it for him, and the dingy t-shirt he had on underneath left his forearms visible. They were crossed, and those little mushrooms that the rogue was now quite familiar with started to sprout in place of Toby's hair standing on end. When the man brushed them away and stepped around the pile of shards, Cobalt wondered if he'd missed them before. If maybe there were other ways Toby was trying to tell them something and no one quite caught it before he pretended like it hadn’t happened.

He shook himself out of that train of thought and looked up at the windows lining the walls of the church. They were all still there: Bailey's consistently supportive paw; the failed attempt to talk to Olive; his tail swishing back and forth as he sat by himself, lost in thought; a very dad-like rundown of the ups and downs of their inconvenient portal to hell.

But this time, they were completely still. Initially, their colorful panes had stilted movements, replaying Toby's memories of Bailey as if his subconscious was also somewhat unsure if its recollection was correct. No matter how long Cobalt watched them, however, they didn't move. The memories had dulled over and frozen in place, now more reminiscent of actual old stained glass windows.

Toby nodded when Cobalt pointed it out to him. “Figured it was because we got rid of him,” the druid said, pointing a thumb towards the pile of glass. He looked back at the altar, still stained with what he could no longer tell himself was anything but blood, and frowned. “Doesn't seem to have done much of anything else, though.”

"Maybe there's nothing else to do," Cobalt suggested, though he didn't completely believe that.

Toby's frown stayed where it was. "I think we have to . . . fix something. There's something wrong here and we have to make it right. Like in the graveyard."

Cobalt crossed his arms. "I'm pretty sure the 'wrong' was corrected already," he said, indicating towards the pile.

Toby shook his head. "But nothing happened when I did it. I was still bleeding, right? And the church didn't change . . ." He turned in a slow circle, taking everything in while Cobalt watched him. "The windows aren't moving, but nothing's really changed. It still doesn't feel right."

Cobalt briefly considered asking him what "right" felt like and how he'd know, but he decided against it. He was more of a strategist: if they needed a plan of attack, a means of escape, the best way to get information -- Cobalt's your guy. But a building that's falling apart with no patterns to decipher, no exits that would truly let them leave, and an uncertain time limit? He was just a little bit out of his depth. "Then what do we do?"

"I . . ." Toby stopped turning. "I don't know. I hate that I think I should." He looked off to the side. "I can't figure out what the problem is."

Cobalt looked in the direction that caught Toby's attention. The Pelor statue that Toby used to -- “kill” left a bitter taste in his mouth, maybe “stop” was better -- stop Bailey was still on the floor, a crack in the god's face and a chunk of his scalp broken off. The crack ran through his eye and down towards the opposite side of his mouth, stopping at the collarbone. Cobalt absently touched his own scar before speaking again. "And you're sure that glass cat wasn't the problem?"

Toby nudged the broken idol with his foot. "I'm only sure that he wasn't the entire problem. There's more to this place than just breaking a fake version of Bailey." He'd be secretly disappointed if it was that easy.

His eye caught on the red sprinkled on some parts of the statue, and his brow furrowed until he noticed the puddle of blood near the statue. He was conveniently reminded of the second after he realized he'd broken the paladin, when his body finally caught up with the fact that he was somehow bleeding profusely, and immediately gave out on him.

The image of Bailey lunging at him replayed over and over in his mind: the jagged, sharpened teeth aimed straight for his skin; the glowing white eyes that promised something no less than brutal; claws sharpened to easily rip him apart . . . Toby placed a hand gingerly to his stomach when he felt a stinging pinch there. It was damp, and he didn't have to look down to realize that he'd started to sweat.

He'd seen Bailey in action before. He'd witnessed firsthand the carnage that Bailey could cause with a single swing of his axe, the incredible amount of damage he left in his wake by simply being a walking powerhouse. Bailey fought with a ferocity that both scared and impressed him, and Toby was always grateful that he wasn't ever at the other end of the paladin's rage.

But even if he was . . . Bailey would snap out of it. Sure, he'd lost his temper on occasion, which one of them hadn't? But Bailey would never attack him. He'd surely never eat him. Right?

×××

Bailey's real body was sinking.

It wasn't sinking any faster than before, but still, he was low enough that dirt had started to roll onto his torso, and the paw that was once reaching for his axe was completely buried. Said axe stayed above ground: the plants were unconcerned with something inanimate that posed them no harm when its user was completely unconscious.

Not even the dirt that rolled into his open, snoring mouth woke him up as he quietly and gradually slid deeper and deeper underground. The sun motif on his clothes, mostly hidden from view on a regular basis, was slowly being overtaken by dirt, like an eclipse in a cloudless sky.

The plants liked this one. He didn't struggle, hardly squirmed or twitched even as they tightened around his legs and arms to keep him still as he sank lower and lower. The cat was stocky and heavy, with plenty of life they could borrow to keep themselves fed.

×××

The pinching pain in his stomach had subsided soon after he put his hand to it and moved away from the broken Pelor statue. He decided instead to go back to the middle aisle and the pile of glass.

Both he and Cobalt stared at a notably empty floor. There were several beats of silence as they blinked at the spot where at least a single piece of glass should’ve been, but it was as if someone had come along with a broom and neither of them had noticed.

Toby spoke up first. "There . . . there was something there, right?"

It was Cobalt's turn to frown. His eyes narrowed as he did a full visual sweep of the church, frowning deeper when he found no other evidence of someone else being in the space with them. He didn't like that they'd have to revisit this scenario as a possibility. "Would it be at all possible for someone else to make their way in here without you realizing it?"

Toby looked back at the door. "I had no idea you were here until I heard your footsteps, so . . . yes, I imagine so."

"How the hell would anyone else have access to your subconscious?" Cobalt asked, voice quiet as he kept trained eyes on every possible hiding place in the room. "Unless you accidentally attacked someone passing by that wasn't one of us."

"A random person wouldn't be sneaking around my mind like this," the druid murmured as he looked back at the floor. "It would definitely be someone who knows me. And . . . doesn't like that." The pain in his stomach sharpened.

Cobalt let out a displeased hum. That would mean they were being watched before this all happened. He ran through a list of potential names, not a single one of them doing anything to ease the dread growing in his gut. "Someone with ulterior motives towards you is now wandering around your conscience?"

"Apparently."

"That's not good."

"Mm-mm." Toby looked up at the windows. They still hadn't moved. He looked back in the direction of the altar. "I'm gonna go check something."

At Cobalt's nod, he took one last look at the floor before walking down the middle of the pews. He brushed a few more stray mushrooms off of his arms before slowing to a stop.

The pictures in the windows by the altar were always static, but Toby noticed that there was something more . . . somber about them. Initially, Bailey had looked like a ruler steeped in humility, head bowed in reference to a fair and benevolent king. But now, the crown and robes looked heavy, like burdens placed upon him whether he wanted them or not. His posture sagged, and Toby could've sworn that the crown was tipped, as if it would slide off of his head at any moment.

He looked at the knight, and it was more of the same: the expression on his face changed from pride to distress, brow furrowed as he kept a firm grip on the hilt of his axe. Toby squinted at it. The axe was split in two, straight down the middle, and there was some sort of mound or heap it was sitting on. Toby couldn't quite tell what it was, but the shape of it unnerved him, so he moved on.

The puppet followed suit in a predictable way. It had been upsetting to look at Bailey in this state before, arms and legs strung up in such a fashion that it proved that he had no control over his actions, but now it was as if he had been tossed aside, discarded and forgotten by the entity pulling his strings. The puppet was slumped against the window frame, limbs folded limply in a way that was eerily close to death. The rest of the frame was the same sickly green as before.

And then, there was the last window. He wondered if fixing it would be the answer, but he had yet to come across anything that would allow him to do that. And besides, if he was right about Feral Bailey being its subject, well . . . he couldn't imagine how he'd even approach repairing it now.

There was a more pressing matter to attend to first, though. He hesitated, glancing behind him before giving another wary look at the altar. Cobalt was preoccupied with searching for more evidence of the person creeping around without their knowledge. Toby closed his eyes with a tired sigh. He wasn't sure why he was feeling like this -- it was as if this place took hold of any tiny amount of fear he had and magnified it to the point where he felt sick.

The druid forced it down, and made himself walk closer to the altar until he was standing right in front of it. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to avoid it, but if it was part of figuring out this place, then . . . might as well get it over with. He ignored the ache in his stomach as best he could as he crouched down to look at it better.

Cobalt, meanwhile, didn't find a thing. Whomever had taken the broken pieces of Bailey left without a trace. Cobalt considered that perhaps some part of Toby's mind had gotten rid of it after the man destroyed it, but that didn’t explain why it happened now .

The elf turned to tell Toby that he didn't find anything, but paused. The druid was staring intently at something on the side of the altar. Sunlight filtered in through the broken pieces of the church walls and windows, casting a warm, colorful glow that only illuminated the platform upon which Toby and the altar rested. It was . . . pretty, but in an incongruous way that made an unfamiliar feeling stir as he stared.

Toby didn't notice the light on or around him as he shifted into a sitting position. He'd found an inscription on its side, and his expression soured as he read:

May the w who witness your radiance

know the divine Sun and banish their darkness for eternity.

Toby begrudgingly accepted that the dried red substance on the altar was days-old blood, and it seeped into the stone, grotesquely highlighting the words and the violent slash mark across them.

There was one word smudged with dirt that Toby couldn't quite make out. He reached out to wipe it off.

Clink.

Cobalt froze for only a moment before he darted towards Toby, understanding immediately dawning on him. There wasn’t anyone else here, after all.

Bailey was still alive.

Toby wiped the dirt off of the word, and gasped as pain shot through his stomach. He grabbed at it, pressing down hard before pulling his hand away. It was stained a deep, dark red, and it trembled as he lifted his eyes to read the word he was missing.

Wretched.

Cobalt yanked him out of the way just before Bailey slammed into the side of the altar, the deceptively light tinkle of shattering glass belying the cat’s stocky build. Toby didn't give himself time to process what was happening before he was on his feet and stumbling after Cobalt, clutching desperately at his abdomen as pain tore through his body and blood soaked his shirt. Bailey caught up with him easily, grabbing the back of his hoodie around his waist and making him come to a sudden stop, sending him crashing to the floor.

Bailey grabbed Toby’s ankle. The man turned, then, with the intention of kicking Bailey's paw, but what he saw made him freeze.

Bailey was a wreck . Toby had indeed shattered him -- he'd seen the cat turn from a two-dimensional lunging threat into a pile of jagged glass right before his own lights went out. That pile had haphazardly welded itself back together, black lines of molten metal splitting Bailey's panes into hundreds of much smaller pieces. His mouth and nose were crooked and off-center, and there were more holes in his frame than before. Pieces of glass hung off of him as they were improperly fastened to the rest of his body, and he made a haunting shh sound as the broken glass dragged across the floor when he walked. Bailey's claws dug into Toby's ankle, and tore into his skin as the glass shards raked across his leg. It made Bailey's already blood-crusted paws become slick with more of the substance, but the paladin didn't seem to care.

The burning pain in his leg made him snap back to reality, and Toby kicked at Bailey's paw with all of his might, loosening bits of glass and sending them skittering across the floor. The cat's answering frustrated growl was mixed with a tinny whistle, like strong wind blowing through cracks in a window, as his hold loosened.

Toby didn't even have the strength to cry out when Bailey shook off the weakened kick and grabbed hold of both of his legs. His vision went black before he saw Cobalt swing at Bailey with a broken plank of wood, catching the side of his head and disorienting the cat long enough for the rogue to snatch Toby up and dart out of the door.

×××

The day continued to stretch on as Bailey's body came to a stop. He'd only roused once, mouth curling into a snarl and claws shooting out from once-docile paws as his sleep turned restless. The plants had no problem soothing him after a few seconds, and once he settled down, they resumed their slow, steady progress of burying him alive.

Only the tips of his ears and a corner or two of his clothes could be seen peeking above the thin layer of dirt once they were no longer able to drag him under. The plants around him halted their unnatural growth and quietly began to fade and droop.

×××

It took about the same amount of time as before for Toby to wake up. Cobalt had unceremoniously dumped the man on the ground when they made it out, immediately turning on his heel to prepare to hold Bailey off for as long as was necessary. But when he looked back, Bailey was gone.

When Cobalt had grabbed Toby, holding him with one arm as he used his other hand to help propel them forward, Bailey was on his heels. The speed and agility that the glass version of the paladin had still alarmed Cobalt to some degree, and he found himself once again grateful that the Bailey he knew was on their side. Cobalt had only looked back once, meeting glowing white eyes on a horribly distorted face, mouth open as if attempting to take the elf's entire head in one bite, and hadn't turned around again until he made it outside.

Cobalt couldn't decide whether or not it was reassuring that Bailey was no longer there. He certainly hadn't come out -- everywhere Bailey went since he'd appeared, he'd left a trail of those damned red glass shards. There wasn't a single one outside of the church, and Cobalt had checked countless times while waiting for his friend to wake up.

The rogue found his Emotional Support Tree to sit against as he waited. It had been several long minutes, and it was enough for Cobalt to conclude that Bailey did not permit himself -- or perhaps Toby's mind didn't allow him -- to go beyond the limits of the church walls.

Cobalt's own mind drifted as the seconds ticked by. A lot about this place still confused the hell out of him, but he couldn't get one recurring question to leave his mind.

Where did that Bailey come from?

In fact, where did any of them come from? As far as Cobalt knew, Bailey had never lost his shit to that degree, and if it had happened while he wasn't there, Toby would've mentioned it. Eventually. Wouldn't he?

Cobalt blew a stray lock of hair out of his face as he huffed in annoyance. The best answer he could give himself to that question was a solid "maybe".

Bailey would've told him, though. The paladin's conscience was too high strung to hide something like that from someone he trusted. He was sure of it, and he was sure Bailey trusted him, no matter what irritating, self-deprecating voice in his head told him otherwise.

Okay, so the batshit version was still somewhat of a mystery, but what about the others? Cobalt had noticed a king, knight, and a puppet. Cobalt knew about the way Strahd toyed with Bailey day in and day out, but he hadn't been around nearly enough for Toby to put those pieces together. The knight was more obvious, sure, but Bailey didn't really open up too much about his personal history in that department.

Maybe he talked to Toby more than Cobalt realized. Maybe it was another thing that he just failed to notice about those around him, despite needing to be incredibly observant to keep himself alive.

Or . . . maybe he just felt okay enough to let his guard down around them, and so he didn't need to have eyes and ears everywhere all of the time. They were allowed to have secrets too. Little inside things that only they shared with each other, things he didn't have to be privy to.

Cobalt felt a small pang in his chest at that, one he didn't quite recognize at first. He . . . wanted to know. He'd kind of liked being That Person that everyone could share things with, the one that held everyone's random stories close to the heart, where he could be relied on to keep them safe. He was grateful that they were getting along as well as they were -- he'd been in plenty of situations where the groups he was stuck in had people with completely different temperaments -- but . . .

He let his head roll back against the tree. Secretly, deep down, he wanted Toby to know more about him. The most, perhaps, even though he spoke mostly with Bailey. But it was hard to confide in someone whose memory was flaky at best, and revealing too much could send him into a pain-induced spiral.

Despite that, somehow Bailey had found a workaround. And now there were memories here and versions of Bailey that even Cobalt was unfamiliar with. He wondered, with no small amount of envy, if the reverse held true.

Not that Toby would have much to share, really, as his entire life as he knew it was the weeks he'd spent in their company, but . . . still. Why didn't Toby talk to him about things? He was here, wasn't he? Wandering around his literal subconscious, chosen by Toby's weird abilities to be the one that helps him figure all this shit out, and yet, he was the one left out?

His eyes closed. He really shouldn't care that much. This place was doing strange things to his feelings and he didn't like it.

He wondered how much longer he'd believe that.

×××

Cobalt jolted awake, realizing with a start that he'd nodded off at some point. He sat up, frantic that in his sleep, something might’ve come along and --

Toby was sitting cross-legged in front of him, blowing the heads of dandelions and watching them drift to the ground. His hair had turned into dandelion seeds, and they waved gently every time he moved his head. He looked up at Cobalt's alarm, and blew the rest of the seeds off before placing the stem on the ground.

Cobalt watched the seeds slowly turn back into blonde curls. He'd put his hoodie back on, for some reason. "How long was I asleep?"

Toby didn't seem to notice. "Like, five minutes, maybe?"

The elf grunted something and pushed himself up. He looked back at the church. "Shit."

"What?"

Cobalt sighed, starting towards the church again. "Light's moving."

Toby stood up, hurrying behind him as he started rambling about the conclusions he drew. "I'm pretty sure that the fear I feel is directly connected to -- ow -- the wound on my stomach that just seems to -- ow, Jesus -- appear out of nowhere --"

Cobalt stopped, turning. "What's wrong?"

Toby also stopped, craning his neck a little to look up at him. He pointed to his ankles. "Hurts to walk."

Cobalt looked down at them. Toby had wrapped what he could in cloth from god knows where, but it was largely insufficient and the elf could see the angry dark scars underneath. "Wait, your cuts didn't heal?"

"This one did," Toby said, pointing to his stomach. "But those didn't. I don't think they're the same kind of cut, though."

Cobalt shrugged as if to imply that it was obvious, but Toby shook his head. "No, listen. This one," he said, indicating towards the larger of them, "only comes up when I'm nervous. I'm sure of it. It just happens. I thought it was sweat at first, and then it didn't stop, and then --" he waved his hands. "Nevermind. Doesn't matter. These ones on my leg though were a direct attack from Bailey, and my skin didn't forget them, but I'm not sure why --"

Toby went on and on, and Cobalt wasn't exactly sure where the energy to talk this much suddenly came from. Maybe the universe was playing games with his silent wish. Then Toby mentioned the windows, and Cobalt stopped him, remembering his question. "How do you know those things about Bailey?"

Toby's words stumbled to a stop. "What things?"

Cobalt nodded towards the entrance of the church. "The big windows in there. The knight, the king, the puppet -- did he tell you about all of that?"

Toby's eyes widened a little as his train of thought had to suddenly pivot. "Um . . . no."

Cobalt cocked his head. "They're not memories, then?" When Toby shook his head, he frowned. "So, the Bailey in there . . . he didn't ever attack you outright, did he? Did he threaten to?"

Toby went a little quiet. ". . . No."

Cobalt stared at him. How the hell does someone have memories of things that never happened? "What aren't you saying?"

Toby's mouth shut as he considered. When he took too long to answer, Cobalt sighed. "Tobes --" he stopped, a possible answer dawning on him. "Wait a second. Are you making things up?"

The druid considered denying it, but he didn't see the point now.

Cobalt's jaw flexed as he tried to keep his emotions level. He opened his eyes after a moment. "How much of this is real?"

All of the air seemed to leave Toby's body as he realized that this line of questioning would undoubtedly continue in a direction he did not like. His own voice hardened as he felt himself growing defensive. "Why does that matter?"

"Because," Cobalt said evenly, "dealing with your memories is different from dealing with your imagination ."

Toby felt the urge to deliberately be more difficult than he needed to be, so he shrugged. "I don't see what the issue is," he replied in a tone that suggested the opposite, "the monsters will still be there regardless of whether it's real or fake."

Cobalt's eyes narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

At first, Toby didn't respond. He crossed his arms, eyes leaving Cobalt's face as he considered how to phrase his response. Then he shook his head. "Forget it. It doesn't matter."

Cobalt stopped him before he could try and walk away from another mildly uncomfortable conversation. "Bailey's not a monster."

"I never said he was."

"You didn't have to," Cobalt snapped, pointing to the church doors. They were still broken off their hinges and covered in claw marks. "It's pretty obvious that you think so."

"If it's so obvious, then what are we having this conversation for?"

"Because this is Bailey we're talking about. We've fought actual monsters Toby -- Bailey isn't one of them."

The druid threw his arms up. "I don't know what you want me to do. Just un-imagine him? Wish for him to go away? Close my eyes and pretend like there's nothing hiding under the bed?"

"I want you not to think of the damn guy as a threat when he's been saving your ass for months ." Cobalt snapped his fingers in the most sarcastic way he could, pretending like a fantastic idea suddenly came to mind. "Why don't we have a little storytime, hm?"

Toby sighed, rolling his eyes. "Cobalt, we do not have time for that."

"Sure we do!" The rogue's voice spiked in volume as his composure slipped easily through hands that were half-heartedly holding on at best. Ominous moving light be damned. "Because it's going to help you remember what Bailey is actually like, and you won't think of him like that ," he said, the words burning as he just about spat them in Toby's direction.

Toby froze, recognizing a situation that was quickly getting out of hand and one that was entirely his doing. He lifted his hands placatingly, trying to interrupt before Cobalt could catch on the fire unintentionally lit beneath him. "Okay, you don't have to --"

The elf would not be stopped. “When Badger died -- remember him? You just carved his fucking headstone? -- Bailey was devastated . He held him, cried over him for hours .”

Toby had heard that one before, but of course he wasn't allowed to remember the details. A warning twinge of sharp pain cut through Toby's skull and he winced, but days of practice in shoving the feeling down surfaced and triumphed instead. "You don't have to remind me about that --"

“No? Not that one?" Cobalt jabbed a finger in his direction, though it didn't go so far as to actually reach the man. "Well what about every single time Bailey fought to keep you alive? When you lost your mind and he was the first to remind you of your own fucking name? Do you just conveniently forget about that too? Replace him with this thing instead?”

Toby knew that a finger to his sternum would hurt significantly more with the commentary supporting it, so it was somewhat of a mercy that Cobalt still restrained from touching him directly unless he found it absolutely necessary. That hurt more, somehow.

His voice lost all desire to have any sort of presence in the conversation. ". . . I am afraid of him."

"We damn well established that."

"I can't fucking help it," Toby bit out, his teeth gritted as he absurdly wished for there to be a physical blow that buffered the emotional ones. He supposed there was a level of cowardice in that, but couldn't figure out how to care. "I've seen . . . I know what he can do. And so do you."

Cobalt didn't reply, but his expression was dangerously stormy as he stared down at the man in front of him.

Toby let himself meet it, even though it was harder than usual to do so. "Sometimes I get things wrong about all of you, and my imagination fills in the blanks. Sometimes it sticks, and sometimes it doesn't. This," he said, gesturing towards the church, "is the version of Bailey that stuck."

Cobalt crossed his arms. He seemed to be done with sharing his thoughts on the matter, though his expression shifted slightly into something Toby couldn't name.

The druid pressed on, his voice quieter than Cobalt's had been, even now, and much colder: a natural response to the searing heat that was present just a second ago. "You can't guarantee that one of us won't be next."

Okay, maybe he wasn't done. "Bailey would never hurt you."

Toby didn't say anything, but his gaze flicked away from Cobalt's face until the rogue spoke up again.

"Tell me you believe that."

"So you can yell at me for lying?"

Cobalt closed his eyes with a sigh. Bailey was a good person. Well . . . as good as any of them could be, really. He was certainly the most honest, which counted for something.

"I . . . don't think that Bailey is . . . I don't think he'd ever intentionally try and hurt any of us," Toby continued carefully, "but I also can't entirely rule out the thought that it won't happen. And that I won't be able to . . ." He gestured vaguely.

"Stop him."

"Yeah."

For a second, Cobalt considered asking Toby what that meant for him. Sure, Cobalt wasn't prone to fits of primal rage, but he also wasn't the most mentally sound, and he did know a good deal more about ending a life than the average person should. He did not ask. "So, you're able to remember what happened because it's all made up, then," Cobalt said instead.

Toby gradually caught up with the change in topic. "Maybe."

"But your body doesn't remember it all."

Toby's arms uncrossed, and his hands found their way into his pockets. "Seems like it."

Cobalt shook his head. "I don't know how much longer I can do this, Tobes. You lose your shit everywhere else, and it's . . . it's some freaky shit, man. And then you just forget about it. But I can't -- I have to remember everything for both of us."

Toby stared at him, and the incredibly rare confession felt delicate, fragile. He knew he'd hold on to it too tightly, as he did with most things, and so they cut into his palms, but he would hold it regardless. The deal he'd struck with the forest was solidified ten times over in that moment. "Remind me, then."

Cobalt blinked. "That would hurt."

"It would. Remind me anyway."

"Toby --"

He held up a hand. "You're not even supposed to be here, remember? You shouldn’t have to deal with that on your own. If something happens and I forget it, tell me."

He did not give Toby a response for a long moment, and then turned on his heel. "We should figure that damn church out before the light does whatever it's gonna do."

Toby counted down the seconds -- a smirk found its way onto his face -- until Cobalt realized that he was not, in fact, being followed into the church to figure it out before the light did whatever it was going to do, and let out a very rogue-like groan.

"If it hurts, I'm going to stop talking," he called out over his shoulder.

Toby waited for him to turn back around. "I'm not fragile. I can handle it."

"I don't want you to."

Toby's answering smile felt strangely fond. "That's not up to you."

They needed to hurry, but Cobalt did not feel like being agreeable in this situation. He mulled over the possibility of going back on this particular promise -- after all, if he didn't remember anything when he exited, would he know that there was something he missed?

Probably not. He could work with that. "Gods, you're stubborn. Come on."

Toby caught up with him, and they picked their way over the crumbling rubble of the church until they reached the entrance. "Is that your way of relenting?"

Cobalt grunted. "I'll tell you whatever you want if it gets us out of here," he lied, but it was smooth as butter if Toby's answering grin was anything to go by.