Camp is set up for the Nein; Caleb's wire spans the amassed pile of bedrolls. In the centre of their roadside clearing, Beau has set a circle of rocks for the campfire. Outside the dim glow of Caleb's slowly circling dancing lights, the evening light has faded to the deep blue of twilight and the evening cool is setting in.
Returning with an armful of firewood, Fjord notices that Caleb himself is sitting on a fallen tree, book open in his lap. Nott and Jester are still out gathering kindling in the thicket, although if Fjord is honest, he thinks they're probably chatting. Beau is making the horses secure for the night, making sure they are fed and settling them around a tree.
The camp is quiet. Fjord stacks his wood to be sorted into the graded wood pile that the group has decided they favour on their shared evenings. The wood is sorted from kindling up to proper logs. Jester likes building the wood pile because it gives her an excuse to hit things with her axe. Caleb likes being in charge of lighting the fire, Fjord has noticed. Well, as much as Caleb likes anything.
The camp is almost ready. So Fjord sits himself down by Caleb's tree and waits for the others to return. Attention turned from the business of camp, he tunes in to what Molly is doing.
It appears Molly is stretching. The tiefling runs through a series of postures that Fjord could never hope to mimic. He rolls forward until his face is pressed into his calves, forearms laid casually on the floor as the tops of his horns touch his boots. Fjord checks and Molly's legs are still unbent, all of his body compacted impossibly but the tail waving freely for balance.
Molly shifts his weight from his feet to his hands, it seems, as he slips into a long lunge and bends his back further than Fjord would have thought was possible to do.
Fjord turns to Caleb as Molly slips into the splits. The wizard has his book open, yes, but he's not reading, he is very clearly watching Molly, Frumpkin sits at his feet as a faint pink flush spreads up his neck.
Molly rolls forward on his arms, snakelike, arching back his head and touching the tip of his tail to his nose. The tiefling moves automatically, as if he's done these postures a thousand times. His movements are fluid as he rolls between positions. His weight floods back to his feet as he stands up in a long fluid movement, rolling back from a balance on his toes.
Beau sits beside Fjord as Molly slips back into the splits on the other leg, leaning forward to touch his forehead to his toes as his tail stretches back to the heel of the other foot. She leans back and mutters to Fjord, 'how the fuck has he not ripped his pants doing that?'
Fjord barks a quick laugh, prompting a look of deep disdain from a startled Frumpkin. The orange cat slopes across the grass to Molly's side, flopping down to have a bath.
The cat kicks a leg behind his head as Molly comes to the end of his sequence. There's a moment of consideration, where Molly looks at the cat, and the cat looks back, tongue out. Then Molly flops onto the floor, watching Frumpkin as he pulls a leg up behind his back to mirror the cat.
Behind him, Fjord hears Caleb chuckle, and turns to see the flash of blue fade from the wizard's eyes. Over on the grass, Frumpkin moves slowly into another impossible position, paws extended and tail out. Behind him, Molly copies, flicking out his tail to match.
It becomes a dance between cat and tiefling, rolling around in the grass. Frumpkin leads and Molly follows, with the end of a forked tongue peeking out of his mouth in concentration.
Jester and Nott return as Molly follows Frumpkin to curl tightly into a ball with his head tilted upsidedown. Jester has her arms full of kindling but she squeals with excitement when she sees what's happening and drops it all in the pile that Fjord had made and runs to join in, flopping down to join Molly as he sticks his legs out straight in a very silly position.
Nott finds her way to Caleb's side, happily using Fjord as a ladder onto the tree trunk. He turns around to glare at her swinging her legs at Caleb's side as Caleb's eyes glow blue once more and Frumpkin begins the dance again.
Jester is less flexible than Molly, it turns out, and her horns give her more trouble moving her head around on the floor. It's very funny to watch the two tieflings. The party gets nothing done until night has fully fallen and Frumpkin refuses to play anymore. Both tieflings are breathless and giggly.
'Molly,' Jester asks, 'how are you so good at that? You're so good at that, Molly, holy shit.'
Fjord watches as Molly leans forward to her, shit-eating grin on his face as he straightens one of her horn charms and says, 'you see, Jester, I was a cat in a past life. But you mustn't tell Mr Caleb, you know, I don't think he could handle the excitement.'
Jester squeaks excitedly as she tackles Molly, and Fjord sees nothing but a blur of brightly coloured tiefling and fabric as the pair of them roll across the grass. 'Oh yeah, Molly,' she begins, matching his teasing tone, 'Caleb's so old, the excitement might kill him. And his body might be even more stinky.'
Molly pats at her horns as she tucks her face into his neck to giggle. 'Well, we don't want that, do we, dearest?'
The pair of them giggle with each other for a while longer, and Fjord marvels with how close they seem, only days after their first meeting. He's not even this comfortable with Jester, and he's been travelling with her much longer. He watches a pair of tails twine together as he wonders if this ease is a tiefling thing, but he's not familiar with enough tieflings to be sure.
She pulls her face away from Molly's neck to look him in the eyes. 'No but, seriously, Molly. How are you so fucking stretchy? Is it a circus thing?'
Fjord is also curious on this point. Molly is almost as unnaturally flexible as Frumpkin, and as bendy as Jester is, she cannot equal him.
Molly nods, and Fjord thinks he catches the briefest glimmer of sorrow trip across their travelling companion's face as the circus is mentioned. If there is anything there, it is gone in an instant as he grins and nods.
'Do you remember the twins?' he asks. And Fjord remembers the pair of halflings from the circus, who'd moved and contorted their bodies beyond anything he'd thought possible.
Jester, too, remembers, nodding her enthusiasm. 'They were really cool. Were you joining them? I thought you didn't have an act.'
He grins. 'I didn't. I was on card duty, usually. Or juggling for the crowd. But we all learned each other's tricks, when we were bored and there was nothing else to do'
Jester's eyes are so wide that Fjord thinks he might be able to survey the land behind him reflected in them. 'Molly, that's so cool! Will you teach me? What can you do? Do you sing too, like Toya did? Ooh, did you eat fire? Did you-' She asks questions faster than Fjord can follow. Definitely faster than Molly could answer.
The purple tiefling takes the interrogation in his stride as he delights in Jester's questioning. When she eventually pauses for breath, he starts his story, telling her of carnival Iife as she watches, eyes wide.
The evening rituals of the newly formed travelling party continue around the pair as they talk, both sprawled in ridiculous positions that Fjord notices that Frumpkin, too, adopts.
Fjord usually doesn't like cats. But he thinks he'll make an exception for these three. He notices Caleb watching, too, and wonders if the awkward, cat-loving wizard has come to the same conclusion. The tieflings are cats, and he rather likes them.