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Scales decides, somewhere between the second and third fireballs, that they might be a little out of their depth here. And not the manageable kind of out-of-depth that the three of them usually are - he already used his lightning breath, and Tanzer has started cursing a blue streak, and it doesn’t help that they’re fighting this guy on hollow, crumbling cliffs. It’s dangerous. Scales has always liked dangerous things, but not like this.
“I won’t let them take me back,” the tiefling shouts. Scales doesn’t know what his deal is, but he started going off the rails as soon as he caught sight of the three of them. He’s been yelling, although most of it has been gibberish. No, not gibberish - it’s just been noise, wordless noise.
“We’re not taking you anywhere,” Lucian says, somewhere between exasperated and afraid. “We don’t know you-”
“They won’t let me leave,” the tiefling yells. “They won’t let me leave, and I know you’re one of them, you-” he points at Scales, who takes an instinctive step back - “you look like her, and they’re going to send her for me, I won’t let them-”
The first crossbow bolt misses the tiefling, but only narrowly; it thuds into the ground at his feet. Scales only has a second to stare at it, mind racing - he looks like her? who is she, then? who is this guy running from? - before the tiefling is roaring in anger at the threat.
Scales whirls around to see a half-orc woman on one of the cliffs above them, holding a massive crossbow. “Shit,” she shouts as she grabs another arrow. “Backup, backup would be-”
“Backup,” Tanzer yells, and cracks his whip at the tiefling. “Scales-”
“I’m trying,” Scales yells back, and grabs at his lute, heart pounding. He doesn’t know what good he can do, he’s running low on spells and the ends of Lucian’s hair are burning and he can’t help, but he’ll help. He’ll be support. “Hey, lady, do you need some inspiration?”
“I need better aim,” the half-orc grouses, already lifting her crossbow.
“You can’t take me back to the fzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,” the tiefling man shouts. Scales grimaces at the white noise that comes out of his mouth, and he notices Tanzer and Lucian do the same. The half-orc doesn’t react. “I won’t let you take me, Killian, you can’t-”
“Like hell we can’t,” Killian shouts, and fires the crossbow. The bolt hits this time, landing squarely in the tiefling’s thigh, and he howls in pain. “Give it up, Thronson, and we won’t hurt you any more.”
“You’re going to make them forget,” Thronson sobs. There’s blood slowly oozing out of his leg, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “You’re going to make them forget, and then there’ll be no point, no point in running away-”
“Damn it, Thronson, there was never a point! You knew we’d have to come-”
“I thought you’d let me go!” Thronson reaches for his belt, where there’s a nasty-looking scimitar. “I thought we were friends, Killian, I just want to retire, but you’re going to take me, I can’t let you-”
“We can’t let you leave,” a voice says, and Scales gasps. That can’t be, it can’t possibly be-
From next to Killian on the cliff, a blue dragonborn woman leaps into the air, soaring over Scales. He can’t look away. The woman lands on Thronson’s shoulders and sinks two daggers into his back before springing back. She flips, soars, and lands not four feet from Scales.
Thronson takes a step back, looking dazed. “I just wanted to leave the fzzzzz,” he says, confused, and stumbles backwards off the cliff.
“I can’t see him,” Killian calls down.
The dragonborn woman turns to Killian, and Scales grips his lute a little tighter when he sees her face. It’s her. “I’m on it,” she calls up to Killian, and then looks at Scales. She must recognize him too, given the way her mouth twists ruefully. “Listen, I know-”
“Carey, what the fuck, ” Scales explodes. “Did you just kill that guy?”
Carey shifts, looking uncomfortable. “I mean, that’s what I need to go check on-”
“You run away from home six years ago, not a word to any of us-”
“You wouldn’t have wanted to hear from me,” Carey snaps, chest puffing up. “And we can talk about this later, I’m in the middle of-”
“Of murdering people!”
“You don’t understand,” Carey says exasperatedly, and suddenly Scales is a teenager again, listening to his older sister fight with their dad the night before she vanished. Except here she is, alive, looking at Scales like nothing’s changed. “Gods, come on, Jeremy-”
“Don’t call me that,” he snaps. He’s aware, almost painfully, of Tanzer and Lucian staring at them. He never told them about his sister, why would he? She’s been gone for years. “And I know that whatever is going on has to do with those staticky things that guy kept saying, and I know you owe me an explanation-”
“Jeremy,” Lucian says suddenly. “You need to move-”
That’s all the warning Scales gets before the ground beneath him shatters. He yells out before he can even register what’s going on, hears Tanzer shout his name, hears someone shout Carey’s name, and he’s falling.
Scales clutches his lute to his chest and slams his eyes shut, five seconds before he collides with the ground. It knocks the wind out of him, and he curls up as tightly as he possibly can, groaning to himself.
“Jeremy!” Carey gasps, and he hears footsteps. He opens his eyes just as she kneels beside him. “Are you all right?”
“Stop calling me Jeremy,” Scales wheezes. “How did you- land on your feet-”
“I’m good at falling,” Carey says, and makes herself more comfortable on the ground. “Why do you keep saying that?”
“Saying what?”
“Not to call you Jeremy.”
“I don’t like my name,” Scales answers. It’s not the best thing he could say, but it’s true. “I go by Scales.”
“What, like dragon scales?” Carey blinks. “Or like, you’re a bard, music scales-”
“Both.” Scales barely manages to grin - finally, someone who got it - before reality comes crashing back down. “Where are we?”
“I think we’re in a cave in one of the cliffs.” Carey looks up, and Scales follows her eyes to see the hole above them, distant sunlight. It’s definitely too far for them to climb back up. “I knew they were hollow, but I didn’t know they were unstable. Killian can find a way down to us, we’ll be fine. Are you okay?”
“Got the wind knocked out of me,” Scales admits. “But my lute’s okay.”
Carey shakes her head. “Bards,” she says in amazement. “All that matters is the music.”
“I’m at my best when I’ve got my lute.” Scales slowly manages to sit up, blinking hard. “Okay, new question, did you just kill a dude?”
Carey’s face shutters over immediately. “It’s complicated.”
“Uh, no it’s not, he’s either alive or not.”
“Well, I don’t know which he is, but I was just doing my job.”
“What is your job?”
“I’m a fzzzzzzzz.” Carey must see the confusion on Scales’s face, because she sighs. “Okay, I have this top-secret job, and there’s a lot of magical mumbo-jumbo, and you’re not going to be able to understand any of it. But I can try and explain it anyways.”
“Try,” he agrees.
“Okay, I work for this organization that works with super-powerful magic. And sometimes…” Carey bites her lip. “Sometimes people don’t want to work for us anymore, but we can’t let that happen.”
“You don’t have a retirement plan?”
Carey shakes her head. “We’re not working with just any magic, Jay. We’re - wait, is it okay if I call you Jay?”
“I don’t know,” Scales admits. “You were the only one who ever called me Jay.”
“Let me know if it is, and I won’t say it otherwise,” she decides. “Anyways, we’re working with end-the-world powerful things, and we can’t let people who know about them go back to the real world. They know what they signed up for when they fzzzzzzzzzzzz - did you understand that?” Scales shakes his head, and he sighs. “When they joined up. They knew they wouldn’t be able to leave. Some of them don’t take it too well when they realize how far those consequences go.”
“Like that guy,” Scales guesses.
“Like Thronson,” Carey agrees. “He was a nice guy, really powerful spellcaster. It’s a damn shame.”
“So you’re the bounty hunter or something?” Scales frowns. His nerdy big sister, the bounty hunter. Now, there’s a thought. “He said that I look like her. Are you her?”
“I might be.” Carey shrugs. “I probably am.”
“Family resemblance,” Scales mutters. “How long have you been doing this?”
“A few years. But when did you start adventuring?”
Scales shrugs. “Not long after Dad threw me out.”
Carey stares at him. “After Dad did what?”
“Yeah, you know him. He’s really into the whole ‘Fangbattles have to be warriors’ thing, and he already lost one opportunity for that when you left. So he told me to leave and only come back when I was willing to fight or when I had kids who were.” Scales looks away; he can’t bear to see the heartbroken way Carey is looking at him. “I haven’t been home since.”
“When I heard you were a traveling bard,” Carey starts, and then stops. “I didn’t know he did that, J- Scales, I’m sorry.”
“You weren’t home,” Scales says. “You couldn’t have known.”
“I could’ve found out.”
“Carey, there’s no point in beating yourself up over these things,” Scales sighs. “I found a good group, I’m fine.”
“Tell me about them,” Carey says. When Scales looks at her, she looks sad, but she still smiles at him. “Your friends. You guys were holding your own against Thronson.”
“No, we weren’t, but it’s nice of you to say so.”
“What’re their names?”
Scales sighs. “Tanzer’s the human, and Lucian’s the elf, and they’re the worst people I’ve ever met.”
“And your best friends?”
“And my best friends.” Scales half-smiles. “They put up with my singing.”
“Then they sound like saints to me.”
Scales laughs. “What about you? How’ve you been?”
“I don’t know how much I can say,” Carey warns him. “Literally, I don’t know how much I can say that you’ll be able to understand.”
Scales shrugs. “Anything you say is more than I knew before.”
“Yeah, that’s true.” Carey tips her head back to stare at the ceiling of the cave. “I’m pretty good? I’ve gotten better at rogue things. Met some good people.”
“Like Killian?”
Carey grins. “Yeah, especially Killian.” She lifts one of her hands up and wiggles her fingers.
Scales stares. There’s a ring on one finger. “Carey Fangbattle, are you engaged?”
“Getting married in the winter.”
“No way!” The congratulations gets stuck in Scales’s throat, but he still manages a smile. “That’s awesome.”
“I was actually going to track you down for the wedding,” Carey admits. “I don’t know if you’ll be able to come, especially if we have it on fzzzzzz- I mean, if we have it where I work, you definitely won’t be able to.”
“I’ll throw your bachelorette party,” Scales offers. “I can get you some bangin’ music.”
Carey laughs. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she says, and looks back at Scales. There are tears in the corners of her eyes. “Hey, Scales?”
“Yeah?”
“I hope you understand. Why I did what I did, I mean.”
“You mean running away?”
Carey nods and looks away. “I couldn’t be there anymore, so I left. But I’m sorry that I left you. I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” Scales says. “I’m glad you found me.”
Carey chuckles. “Yeah, me too. And I’m glad you landed on your feet.”
“I landed squarely on my ass, Carey.”
“No, not - not literally falling, I meant after getting thrown out of the house. The bard career.” She smiles faintly. “I heard about you, from time to time. The traveling bard Fangbattle. I’m sure that made Dad happy.”
“I don’t care what Dad thinks,” Scales says, and then pauses. “I mean, I sort of do, but not as much as I used to.”
Carey nods. “It happens, when you leave for a while,” she says. “Things change. You change. You’re a lot different than I remember, Scales.”
“It’s been a while,” Scales says. “You’re not how I remember you, either.”
“I hope that’s a good thing,” Carey jokes.
Scales is about to tell her that yeah, it’s actually a great thing, when he hears the rocks shift. Carey must hear it too, because she looks over at the same time that he does. “Is that-”
“Coming from the cliffside was probably safer than coming down after us,” Carey murmurs. She springs to her feet, so fast that Scales almost gets whiplash, and holds a hand out. “Ready to get out of here?”
“I never liked caves,” Scales muses, and takes his sister’s hand.
Carey pulls him upright. “I don’t know what you’re going to remember about this,” she says, a trace of regret in her voice. “We have some really weird shit in the fzzzzz, there’s a pretty good chance that you won’t remember Thornson.”
Scales stares. “You can do that?”
“We can do that.”
“But will I remember finding you?”
“I hope so,” Carey says softly. “I’ll find you, even if you don’t. I want you at my wedding, Scales. You’re the only family left that matters.”
Scales swallows. His throat is suddenly very, very tight. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Carey squeezes his hand just as one of the cave walls collapses, and light comes streaming in. “It was good seeing you, Scales.”
“You too,” Scales manages.
“Carey!” Killian’s voice shouts from outside. Carey gives Scales one last brilliant smile before letting go of his hand and running forward, out of the cave. She barely manages to dodge Tanzer and Lucian as they run in.
Scales waves. “Hey, dudes, what’s up?”
“Are you all right?” Tanzer demands, skidding to a halt in front of Scales. “That lady, Killian, she said that the cliff structure was just unstable, but we didn’t expect-”
“I’m fine,” Scales says quickly. “A little bruised, I can fix myself up no problem. You guys ready to get going? We have a job to get to.”
“That woman,” Lucian says. “A relative?”
Scales nods. “Carey, my sister. I haven’t seen her in a while.”
Tanzer blinks. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”
Scales looks out, towards the cave exit. There’s a silhouette that he assumes is Killian, getting smaller every second. He can barely make out a smaller figure next to her. He doesn’t know what they’re doing, but if he were to guess, they’re holding hands.
“I haven’t seen her in a while,” he says. “But she invited me to her wedding. That reminds me, do you guys know anything that rhymes with Fangbattle?”