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Caleb Widogast—if that is his real name, which Nott doubts, but then it's not like she told him her real name either, so that's a wash—has a confidence in the countryside that she hadn't expected. Nott's learned her way around all the between-places and edges in the last few years, but she can see that it looks different to him. Not just the space between towns but a place of its own.
He turns them away from the road, following marker stones that Nott only recognizes as markers when they pass the third one, uphill through what seems like a lot of nothing until suddenly there's a meadow of short grass, and a dark little hut on one edge of it. Caleb keeps walking toward the hut like there's nothing to worry about—like he's a law-abiding citizen walking up to his own home.
Nott fades back along the track, not eager to be in the middle of whatever is going to erupt. Dark is falling, and she'll need to find a safe place, and—
Caleb turns back toward her. "Come on. It's all right. It's a summer pasture, they've already taken the sheep down to the farm. This is just a shepherd's hut, they won't have left anything valuable, but sometimes there is a blanket or wood for a fire."
In fact there is neither, and lighting a fire in this lonely place would be putting out a welcome mat for trouble anyway, but the walls of the hut stop the wind, and it doesn't seem like a place where anyone will bother them. They can rest, at least, and go looking for the circus tomorrow.
Nott settles down in the sturdiest corner, curling up and tugging her tattered rags down so they nearly cover her feet.
Caleb stands for a last moment looking around, and then chooses a different corner and curls up much the same. Watching from under her hood, eyes slitted, Nott can see that for all he's bigfolk, and a man, he folds his hands in to hide against his chest, ducks his head and curls his shoulder, warding off the blow he can't help bracing for.
He shivers for a while, then goes still, and just when Nott figures he's asleep and it's safe to let her guard down a little further, he jerks awake, eyes wide in the darkness. His hands come out, grasping after something, and she can't help remembering him on his knees, reaching after that glowing blue cat that slipped away after he'd hugged it close, whispered so fervently to it.
She's gonna have to talk to him tomorrow about what exactly that spell requires—he's clearly not a good judge of purity or quality. He'd had a pocketful of what smelled like guano, from that pet store, but she could have told him the good stuff comes from wild bats, and if he's such a clever country boy he ought to be able to find that, or else she can figure out how to purify it. Maybe it's something she can distill from the guano?
Nott has almost drifted off to sleep without realizing it when she hears his breath go rough and shaky again.
He woke up missing his cat—from dreaming of his cat?—and now he's crying.
There's no reason at all to care. His feelings aren't her problem. They're traveling together, helping look out for each other, because two are a tougher target than one. And, all right, because he's got skills and she needs somebody with skills. And it's a long road from halfway summoning a shiny cat to what she really needs—and it will probably be a pretty big job of magic when they get there, probably need who knows what sort of materials. Not bat guano, she's pretty sure.
So maybe she has to care about his feelings, then. Not because she actually does care, just because... she needs him to care about her when the time comes. To want to help her. So this is nothing to do with hearing a cold and hungry boy crying in the night and needing, to the pit of her soul, to make it better. This is just what she has to do.
Nott gets up, quietly but not so quietly that she'll startle him when she's within arm's reach.
Caleb goes silent, holding his breath.
"Don't bother, I can hear you shivering from over here," Nott grumps. "If you're that cold I guess we better share body heat. No help to me if I have to bury you in the woods in the morning."
"Just leave me here, no one will be surprised by a vagrant freezing to death in a shepherd's hut," Caleb murmurs, but he uncurls, opening his arms and waiting to see how she wants to go about sharing body heat, not grabbing at her or telling her what to do.
She might almost like him, a little, if he keeps this up.
For now, she plops herself right into his lap, right where he had held that kitty cat of his for the handful of seconds before it disappeared. She grabs his coat sleeves and tugs his arms in around her, and he still holds perfectly still, not even breathing until she lets herself sag a little against his chest.
Then he settles his arms around her, gingerly, and takes a long deep breath of his own, his whole body softening around her as he relaxes.
It actually is a lot warmer this way; her feet are tucked inside his coat, so cozy it almost hurts. Definitely neither of them will freeze to death now, and if someone else comes into the hut they'll see a man and a child—they'll be off guard, and then she can...
Nott is once again almost asleep when Caleb startles her awake, but this time he sounds drowsy himself, like he was also thinking through plans until they led him into dreams. "I could probably teach you a spell or two, if you are so interested in magic. There are some that are not so hard to learn."
"I'm a goblin," Nott points out, in case his half-dream had swapped in someone else, some little human child or something. Someone a bigfolk wizard would be willing to share even a scrap of a magical secret with.
"Ja, ja," he mutters. "A goblin, but you have a warm heart, Nott the Brave."
"Shut up," Nott mutters, curling in on herself to ward off the feeling that he's seen past her mask far further than she meant to let him. "I'm just making sure we don't freeze, that's all."
"Mm," Caleb sighs, and his arms go a little tighter around her, but... it doesn't feel bad, being held close. Nott tips her head against his chest so she can hear his heart beating in those big slow thumps, and this time she really does fall asleep.