#I CANNOT WAIT FOR THE REUNION | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dent-de-leon · 1 year

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I’m not sure if you wanted prompts from that kiss list or it was just inspiration, but if you want writing prompts….. maybe 3 and/or 10 for widomauk? 🥺

Hi!! uhh sorry I took too long on this I got like a couple paragraphs in and then it just kept going. Anyway, here's some Moonweaver festival widomauk. Thanks for the prompt!

“Caleb! You have to come see this! There’s lights dancing in the sky!”

The Moonweaver’s ribbons wind between the mountain peaks cresting high above, snow capped summit scintillating and shimmering like diamond dust, brilliant beams of neon green cascading into electric blue, opalescent radiance shining brighter than every star. Time slowing to the golden halcyon haze of a lucid dream.

Heavy wingbeats echo overhead to the chorus of distant roars, wyverns soaring across the sky in dark streaks against the glowing night, their riders threading gossamer rays of light through a sea of stars. Thundering applause and uproarious cheers ring out in all of Lyrengorn, the crowd merry with song and dance as the Moonweaver’s radiance wove through a crystal clear solstice night.

The sight steals Molly’s breath away, leaves him starry-eyed and moonstruck, entranced by the ethereal night above. He throws his hands up in the air and twirls around in the whirling snow, flurrying powdery flakes alighting on his horns and crusting his long dark eyelashes. For just a moment, Caleb can imagine him catching a falling star, winding ribbons of light passing through his claws.

If anyone could catch a shooting star, it would be Mollymauk. He burned with a light all his own, eclipsing even Catha’s pearly glow. Caleb always loved watching comets blaze across the horizon like a fireball called down by the gods, burning hotter than the Nine Hells. Incandescent. But how fast they faded as they fell to earth, their light snuffed out in a heartbeat. Too good to last.

Warm, bubbling laughter escapes Mollymauk until he collapses in the snow still reeling with giggles, breathlessly giddy and delighted and so vibrantly full of life.

“Oh. That’s lovely,” he sighs. And then, tail swinging excitedly at the thought, “Ya think they’d let me ride one of those?”

This is the side of Mollymauk that always brings a smile to Caleb’s eyes. The wide-eyed, easily dazzled wonder; his boundless curiosity and love for every little mystery and simple pleasure this world had to offer. Savoring the taste of fine wines and summer strawberries. Luxuriating in the soothing steam and perfumed bath salts of a lavish bathhouse. Threading wildflowers through tousled dark curls, horns jingling with chains of gold and silver and shiny little trinkets.

Caleb wants to see Molly catch a glimpse of an airship as it lights up and takes flight, the fanged grin when he stands before a volcano for the first time. Bask in that patch of winter sun Mollymauk always carried with him.

The Moonweaver herself must have cast her radiant glow upon Mollymauk when he first woke, bathed him in a pool of glimmering moonlight and washed Lucien’s bloody past away. Even now he was haloed in her celestial glow, soft pearlescent rays shining down upon him.

Caleb was born and raised under Empire rule, burned and bled for it. And for all his life, worship of the Moonweaver was strictly forbidden. But of course Molly would flirt with the temptingly forbidden and mystifying, ingratiate himself to a god who was themself an outsider. It did not hurt that her domain was the easy allure of play and dance, trickery and passion. The keeper of midnight trysts.

Even among the sanctioned deities, every temple in the Dwendalian Empire was government-owned and run, clerics and priests meticulously vetted to suit their needs—always kept on a tight leash. Religious practice in itself was a social taboo; the empire highly discouraged divine magics, fearing any earnestness in prayer that might turn to treasonous fervor. And yet, Mollymauk had still believed. And hid. Kneeling down under a full moon and carefully tucking his idols of Sehanine away.

Caleb had never seen Mollymauk Tealeaf worship so freely, lost in a crowd where everyone was so warmly welcoming and happy. The crisp night air was alight with music and laughter and cheer. Dancers twirling their partners as glistening auroras rippled and swirled above. Children chasing after each other howling with laughter. Merchants passing out hot drinks and fresh baked sweets, the scent of gingerbread wafting in the air.

He’d gone to festivals like this once. Long ago, in the flowering fields of Blumenthal. Wulf sharing a sip of his drink as Astrid grabs him by the arm, steals him away. Leads him off into the crowd of merry dancers and lets her hands fall to his waist—

He can’t linger too long on those stolen moments, the rare smiles and tender touches, gentle kisses in a hidden alcove after the clock strikes midnight. Every shred of cold comfort desperately scoured in the darkness. It bleeds together with all the rest, the gnawing pit of shame and guilt and grief hollowing him inside out. That life and name he can never return to.

But he isn’t there, buried in the ruins of it. He’s here. He’s Caleb. And beside him, Mollymauk’s joy is infectiously radiant.

Molly revels in the beauty of the Moonweaver’s star-woven tapestry, the bleeding crescent sliver of Ruidus merely a distant gleam, like a half-forgotten dream. On nights when the faraway moon flared a bright, blazing vermillion, it was far too reminiscent of the Somnovum’s burning red Eyes gazing down upon them.

“You see that cluster of stars that look like a weird duck? Just there?” Mollymauk asks, pointing up at a shimmery haze of blue as dark as the midnight sea. Pinpoints of starlight sparkled in the mist, drawing Caleb’s eye farther north, to a beacon of breathtaking light. “Has different names,” Molly adds, “but Gustav says lots of elves call that the Mollymawk. It’s…a seabird. Or something. Big bloody thing, so don’t fuck with ‘em. Some say they’re a sign. An omen. Or maybe they’re just oversized seagulls that love to go for a swim. But I always thought they’re a pretty sight.”

He tilts his head up to the light of full moon, basks in Catha’s glow and tries to glean the pattern of stars nestled by her side, tracing imaginary lines between half remembered constellations, seeing stories come alive in the winter sky. His hand falls, unbidden, to the pocket where he kept his tarot cards. You should ask him for a reading, Caleb admonishes himself, Molly would like that. Except, he’s still too afraid to take that step.

He can’t bear the thought of what Mollymauk might see.

A memory flits back to him in the soft snowfall and prismatic patterns of ambient light. Molly’s dextrous claws carding through the deck, deftly shuffling. “I saw her again,” he confesses, a quiet chuckle escaping him, eyes shining bright with mischief. “Beautiful and eccentric as ever. Read my fortune. It was a good card. Well, there are no bad cards—sort of. But this, aye, this was a good one.” He flips the card on the top of the stack, revealing a stunning portrait of Yasha wreathed in a sunlit halo. Shimmering wings unfurled to frame her imposing frame, a bouquet of blooming flowers cradled in her arms. Shackles shattering into ash and dust. Her soul breaking free.

“Do you know what this means?” Molly asks, leaning in conspiratorially.

The card is titled Love, and it makes his traitorous heart nearly stop.

Caleb catches a flash of something out of the corner of his eye, coasting along on the late night breeze, fluttering away in the moonlight.

A long white satin ribbon streams from one of Molly’s horns, tied on for good luck. Molly had fastened a matching one to Caleb’s own wrist, tying it in a neat bow despite his protests, frantic pulse beating against the whisper of soft sheer fabric. Hands sweating as Molly traced the delicate trimming with careful claws, thumb brushing over his lifeline. “Oh come on, Mr. Caleb. It’s festive.”

Although baffled and a bit flustered, Caleb was honored to be included. Mollymauk’s worship had always been such a personal matter; a quiet, private moment. An unspoken intimacy between him and the moon that always lit his steps through darkness.

Swathed in silvery moonlight and whispering over his shimmering glass swords—how much of that was for show? A play, a performance, cloaking himself in the rich mantle of superstition and ceremony. They say Sehanine shelters her followers in the shadows, secreting them away under the cover of darkness. But Mollymauk, ever the flashy peacock, had mastered the delicate art of masquerading in a veil of prismatic color and glittering light.

An ornate coat embroidered in the symbols of every god permitted in the Empire’s pantheon, the sign of the Platinum Dragon hanging from his neck. Idols of Sehanine safely tucked away in hidden pockets. Crescent moons subtly stitched into the lining of his coat. His love for the Moonweaver woven into the elaborate ornamentation of his tarot cards, inked into his very skin among blooming flowers and winding snakes. A secret covenant between him and his moonlit goddess.

Molly’s worship is a declaration of love.

Moonlit prayers and pleas whispered into warm skin at the witching hour, reverent and desperate and strung out with the sweetest sighs. A drunken song dissolving into bursts of giddy laughter. Lingering touches that echo for lifetimes after. Mollymauk worships the way he fights, scrappy and passionate and fiercely protective, bleeding his own heart dry. A sacrificial knife glinting in the last rays of twilight. His blood spilling down the alter, giving up all that he is. A body rent in two with the last gasping breath and trembling hands of a life tangled up in too many loose threads.

Caleb worships no one. Bows before no god, not even the savior whose idol hangs heavy around his throat. The simple comfort of a stranger’s kind touch and gentle words; a favor from a faceless god he could never return. And still, Caleb had never sworn himself to any Prime Deity in the pantheon. Never cared for the paltry promises of faith and salvation, not when he could bend reality to his will with his own mortal hands, manifest anything his broken heart desired.

And what his heart ached and longed for more than anything was for Mollymauk Tealeaf to rise from the grave, laugh in the Raven Queen’s face just one last time. Finally open his eyes. Mollymauk lies naked, bloodied, broken, his ruined body torn from mangled flesh and bone and rot, painstakingly pried from Lucien’s decaying husk like some grisly, mocking pantomime of birth. Stripped bare and caked in blood and all curled up, tail wrapped around himself. He looks…young. Vulnerable. Caleb is seized by the sudden, fiercely protective urge to cover Molly’s still form with his own coat, to somehow shield his prone body from all the lifeless eyes of this horrific place.

They don’t have any time for that. Caleb traces his fingertips along the wicked scar bisecting Molly’s torso, the one he dug his own claws into. His hand comes away drenched in blood—Molly’s blood, once so warm, but going cold—and he scrambles for the little lucky stone in his pocket, trembling as seven pairs of eyes all fall to him.

He can do this. He has to.

But it’s Caleb’s first time unravelling the Matron’s thread, and he is no cleric. He has no prayers or offering to lay at Molly’s feet. He has only his own magic, a lifetime of study and discipline and desperation coursing through his veins in burning clarity. He kneels and begs for Mollymauk’s soul to hear them. And when the spell fails, when the light dies and Molly’s body is still and lifeless and—empty. He’s empty. Even though Caleb promised, gave his word, swore he’d be Empty no longer—

When it all falls apart, Caleb has only himself to blame.

If only he had something—anything—to contribute to the ritual. A worthy offering.

But he had nothing. Only a letter left unread, still buried in the grave, that Mollymauk would never see. “Your name is Mollymauk. Mollymauk Tealeaf.” Only a memory encased in stained glass, a rainbow of brilliant color glistening in the warm candlelight, the centerpiece of hearth and home. “Come and find us.” Only a broken goodbye as he gently brushes the sweaty hair from Molly’s eyes, leaves him with a kiss that tastes only of regret.

Caleb is godless, faithless. And more than that, he is already damned; death and grief and guilt sink their claws into him still, every spark of flame conjuring shadows of his old home. He has no illusions of the weight his own sins carry, understands far too intimately that he may be beyond redemption. Too little too late. Maybe. For him. But if he can save another soul, pull someone else back from the brink, again and again, spare them from his own doomed fate—

Astrid. Wulf. Essek. And then Mollymauk, caged and screaming, rattling at the bars and spitting in Lucien’s face, prying away pieces of himself in clawing agony.

Caleb has no god to pray to. But when Mollymauk’s body glows, bathed in the light of a Magician’s spell, and his skin is warmed as it was in life, and Caleb swears he can hear the faintest echo of a heartbeat, he desperately believes. In Mollymauk, in the Nein, in some raw aching hope for salvation and second chances.

For this falling star that brought a gleam of light to all their lives, Caleb can kneel in supplication, and lay bare his own heart upon the alter.

“He’s religious, you know,” Fjord divulged once, even as Beau balked and Nott nearly spat out the drink she just downed. “No, really. I see him praying over his swords every night.”

“Every night?” Beau adamantly shakes her head, nose scrunching up as she snorted into her cup.

“And every morning!” Molly adds brightly, slamming two more tankards down on their crammed little table.

“Oh, Molly! You have a god too!” Jester squealed, jumping up to her feet and practically bursting with excitement. “Who is it? You think maybe they’re friends with the Traveler?”

“Huh. That’s a good question, I hadn’t really thought of that. Could be…She reminds me a bit of you, actually. The playing tricks. The blue.”

“She’s blue!?”

“Just your shade, I’d think. Could be your sister.”

“What is it you believe in, Mr. Mollymauk?” Caleb asks carefully, eyeing the glint of mischief in Molly’s twinkling eyes.

Mollymauk swings his leg over the chair and falls down with a vibrant jingle of gold and jewels and clamoring trinkets all tinkling like a handful of coins. He sprawls across the table and shoves one of the tankards in front of Caleb, almost as an afterthought. Spiced sweetness; cloves, cinnamon, pumpkin. Sharp burn of whiskey. Caleb cradles it in his hands and greedily gulps it down, warmed to his core by the drink and something else he dare not say.

Mollymauk turns to him with a rakish grin, claws idly circling his tankard’s rim.

“What do I believe in? Mm, let’s see.” He dragged the words out thoughtfully, savoring the taste of every one. “Pleasure.” Caleb doesn’t wet his lip as his throat goes desperately dry. He definitely does not. “Joy. Chaos. Leavin’ this ridiculous world a bit better off. Making some folks a little happier, doin’ a good turn. Havin’ fun while ya’ still can. Love. The finer things in life, Mr. Caleb.”

The finer things. Caleb was anything but; haggard face smeared in dirt and grime, dark circles rimmed under his sunken eyes. Threadbare clothes falling apart at the seams, sagging on his bone thin frame. Too many months since he’d had a shave, since he’d taken a pair of shears to his overgrown, matted auburn hair.

And yet, he can remember bits and pieces of that other life so clearly. Fine silk robes bearing the seal of the Solstryce Academy. Sunlight dappling golden halls, shining on stained glass. Condensation glistening on marble arches and columns, clouds of steam wafting over crystal clear bathwater. A ripple, a splash. His hands dipping into the water in a bloody stream, blotted streaks of bright crimson blooming at his touch, a stain he could never wash away.

He gingerly scrubs the blood from Astrid and Wulf as his own dyes the world around them a deep, murky red. Fearful awe and aching reverence in every touch, trembling hands tentatively exploring the expanse of pale, bony skin laid bare before him. He can't remember if it was devotion he chased or merely desperation. If the distinction even mattered. If he wanted this or just wanted and wanted and wanted—aching to feel anything other than the ceaseless violence and searing pain.

He still cannot fathom why Mollymauk cast those disarming smiles his way, looking past the decade mired in wallowing filth and decay, staring through to Caleb’s core and truly seeing him. For years, he hung his head and skulked in the shadows, roaming the streets alone and destitute, a nameless shade haunting the country he once called home. All in the faint, desperate hope that discerning eyes would glaze over him in sheer revulsion. No one would ever look too close and actually see him. Just another lonely hermit, not worth anyone’s attention.

But Mollymauk had seen. Again and again, as Caleb ducked his head and raised his hood, darted past and fearfully tried to steer out of his way, he could never quite shake the tiefling’s piercing gaze.

He squirmed at the attention at first. The playful teasing and too sharp smiles and barest brush of soft lips on fever warm skin.

Caleb’s keen mind recalls that the Moonweaver favors kind souls and tricksters, Catha’s grace shining upon star-crossed lovers. The allure of forbidden romance. Clandestine trysts. Caretaker of all the bleeding hearts doomed to a tragic end.

As Caleb reluctantly trails after Mollymauk in the mirthful crowd, he can’t help but notice parents lifting children up on their shoulders to admire the wondrous winter lights. Circles of elves timidly exchanging flower crowns. Young couples holding hands in the moonlight.

Why had Molly even asked him to come?

“...hey, Caleb. You still with me?”

It takes a moment for him to realize the tiefling had been speaking, chatting away animatedly as lights painted the night in bleeding watercolors; Molly’s face illuminated by the auroras’ soft glow flickering above, dappled in iridescent shades of glacial blue melting into molten gold.

“Ja. I was just—” Mollymauk is walking closer now, advancing on him until he’s stepping right into his space, leaning in until he’s mere inches away, “—distracted.”

“Magician.”

Caleb loves the way he says that. The light lilt of his accent and soothing cadence. Fond, teasing. Charming. The Magician—flashy tricks, sleight of hand, a magic that’s only real if you believe it. A gracious bow as the curtain drops.

Molly bites his lip and Caleb desperately tries not to mirror him. But his gaze still falls to the pretty shape of his mouth and that glint of fang sinking in.

Of course Molly catches him staring.

Mollymauk watches him with the quiet intensity of a wizard unravelling a spell, deeply invested and singularly focused, tearing loose the fabric of the universe to lay it all bare—an Archmage’s blasphemous arrogance.Tampering with the gears and tugging on heartstrings to see what makes a man tick. Deft hands shuffling the deck, every card stacked in his favor. Smiling as blood streams from a split lip. Hooded red eyes gleaming in the firelight as he downs his tankard with roaring laughter. Burnished sunset gold in glistening amber globules. Turning cards and twisting truths, changing fate and fortune at the whim of his too-soft heart. Sharp tongue still ringing silver, crooning sweet nothings in his ear with a devil’s tender touch.

For all his playing at the fool, Mollymauk knew far too much.

“Close your eyes a moment,” Molly orders, eyes narrowed.

His tone brokers no room for argument.

“Was?”

“Eyes closed! No peekin’.”

Caleb relents with an exasperated sigh, surrendering himself to another of Molly’s mercurial whims. And maybe there’s just the faintest hint of a smile playing at his lips, a certain fondness for his ridiculous Circus Man.

He’s rewarded for his gracious compliance with a little pat on the cheek.

“Good boy,” Molly purrs—it warms him to his core, saccharine sweet as ambrosia spilt by the gods. Caleb can just imagine his tail swaying in glee, a coy cat who just cornered prey.

Brat.

Something changes after that. A charge in the air, exhilarating and electric. A taste of ozone before the storm. Is this what Yasha feels, when she inhales the wind and pouring rain and heeds the call of thunder roaring in her blood? Skin soaked to the bone, dark tousled hair plastered to her sweat sheened forehead as she stands and walks headlong into the raging tempest. Terrifying—thrilling—a bolt of blazing lighting that resonates with every beat of her racing heart.

Mollymauk is dangerously close. Both of them are. Dancing at the edge of the precipice, ravens circling. Caleb can feel the warmth of his breath fogging up the chilled night air between them with every gentle exhale.

"Mr. Caleb," Molly says, and he knows it's accompanied by a cheeky grin. "Tell me, how would you feel if I--"

"Kiss me." Caleb's voice is raw, breathy, the words both a demand and ardent plea.

Molly's laughter is a warm rumble that could melt all the snow in Lyrengorn.

"Well, since you asked so nicely."

Molly delicately cups his cheek in hand, drawing him in like a gravitational pull, like a pale moon caught in their brilliant star’s orbit. Warm lips pressed against his in a tender kiss, feather soft and fleeting. Molly’s every touch is gentle. Intimate. A distilled moment of sheer bliss that leaves his heart lighter than air. Molly breathing a bit of joy back into his life, sharing some of the same spark that chased away his own demons, filling up the clawing Emptiness that hollowed him out and made its home in his bones. An Emptiness that Caleb feels he’s always known.

It’s frighteningly easy to surrender at such gentle hands, acquiescing to Molly’s capricious impulses and guileless affection, an unspoken temptation he dared not indulge in. But Mollymauk, heathen, hedonist, patron of all worldly pleasures, had never once known temperance. Chalice overflowing with the heady rush of desire, every forbidden tryst and flare of passion a reverential blessing. He has always bowed before the goddess of love, and he remains ever devout in his worship.

It’s addictive, intoxicating. And over far too soon. Just as their lips brush, Molly’s hand starts to fall away—letting him go.

Caleb doesn’t want him to.

He surges forward and tangles his hands in Molly’s dark curls, drawing him in for another kiss. And another. Molly lets out a breathy laugh that Caleb gladly claims, holding him tight and reveling in the taste.

He’s enveloped in the familiar comfort of Mollymauk’s scent. Sandalwood—warm, earthy—and just a tinge of something sweeter. Kneeling in prayer over burning incense, massaging perfumed oils as they wade into the steam of a warm bath.

And curse him, but Caleb is seized by a fervent longing to mouth at the hollow of his throat and bury himself in the soothing balm of Molly’s all encompassing embrace.

He pours his heart into each kiss, the long months of loss and longing gnawing away at him. Heated gazes in quiet moments, a little pat on the cheek or comforting hand on the shoulder. Molly’s playful teasing thawing at the frost of his heart—even though the Waldhexe surely devoured it long ago. A spark of burning life that Caleb had to watch die out twice. Shine bright, Circus Man. Echoes of memories clinging to Molly, tethering back his wayward soul. Caleb’s feelings flowering into bloom just as his Circus Man finally wakes.

The last time Caleb kissed Mollymauk it was to say goodbye, tumultuous waves of grief and guilt spilling over in his last desperate attempt at comfort. Mourning a love and tenderness that would never return.

He wouldn’t stand by and suffer in silence again. Heart shattering along with the jagged shards of a Transmuter Stone, broken fragments falling from his shaking palms as it all goes dark.

The Matron’s ravens couldn’t have him. Not while Caleb still lived and breathed; he’d sever the binds of every thread if it came to that, burning away at fate’s cruel weave until Mollymauk was finally free.

“It’s good luck if you get a kiss tonight,” Molly whispers when they part, his face softening in the moonlight.

Then all too soon that rush of hearth-fire warmth is gone, Molly’s indigo curls wind tossed and fluttering in the cool night breeze as he turns away, turns to run and vanish under the cover of shadow. Molly shoots him a grin, sharp and sweet, before he turns on his heel and darts off into the crowd of revelry, that familiar laughter echoing in the night as he disappears into the dark. His mother told him fairy stories once. Tales of creatures with otherworldly beauty, dancing wild and free under the Moonweaver’s light, captivating lost mortals. But doomed to never stay. Fading back into the void black dark and winding woods, leaving behind nothing but the lingering shadow of a phantom touch.

“M-Mollymauk!”

Caleb nearly loses his footing scrambling to chase after him in the snow, a gust of biting cold wind and ghost of a chuckle leaving him breathless. But he can’t help grinning, even as his teeth chatter and every aching muscle protests the bracing, blistering chill cutting through him, knives of ice in his chest. He barely feels it as he races after Mollymauk, spurred on by the tiefling’s teasing taunts and howling laughter. Chasing a falling star.

#widomauk #mollymauk #this got too long whoops--#caleb widogast #the mighty nein #absolutely have these two on my mind with the reunion so soon I cannot wait

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