Okay, but when he was young, Caleb was afraid of storms. Not the general spring rains that sent him running from chores to chores, or when he was younger and the dark clouds had him uneasily watching the sky from the windows while his mother hummed familiar lullabies and distracted him with stirring pots and sorting rags.
But there were big storms, where the rumble of thunder shoot their home to the stone foundation and rattled the shutters. There were large storms where the rain fell in grey curtains and the crack of lightning sounded too close for comfort– where the start or a red glow in the orchard would be smothered by the rain and the wreckage of a tree would still be smouldering in the morning. There were storms where his father would tut and muse out the window at the roving darkness and have stories about other soldiers in Bladegarden and Nogvurot who were struck down in full plate armour because they couldn’t get inside fast enough.
Storms where Caleb– then Bren– would huddle in his bed with some well-worn book they couldn’t really afford and feel the threatening growls of the sky rumble through the bones of the little house.
“You don’t really like storms, do you?” Yasha asked softly years later. The storm had rolled in overnight and Mollymauk’s startled shout at being drenched had woken him before the thunder could.
“Ah, nein, no. Not really.”
“Molly,” the tiefling said from the safety of the tent he had darted into– which happened to be Caleb’s for the night; “does not like getting wet unless it’s on my terms and not going to ruin my clothes.”
Caleb felt Mollymauk crowd behind him rather than twist himself between them. The tiefling’s warmth and persistent affection leading him to rest his chin on Caleb’s shoulder as he turned red eyes upward to the starless sky and the irregular flashes of lightning. “Yasha thinks I get spooked because I do the counting thing.”
“He counts,” Yasha offered as she shifted to close the space at the mouth of the tent; “the seconds between the lightning and the thunder. It’s supposed to tell you how far the storm is? But it’s raining right on top of us, so I would say it’s here.”
“Try it, magic man. You’ll be less jumpy.”
“Is this for my sake, circus man? Or because you want a pillow?”
