"What fortunate timing on my part," Caleb replied wryly. "If you just show me where my key goes then you should go to the fair. I don't suppose I'll be going anywhere. I can give you a run down and then we can talk properly later." He was absolutely not worth her missing out on something fun for. He'd be fine once he knew where he was going, and he could message anyone he needed to.
And Caleb's own love life might have been one disaster after another, but he knew the look on Beau's face. He knew he'd worn that look enough times himself.
"It doesn't sound too far from what we used to live with." Complete chaos, tragedy following death following loss and pain. Gods, he was so tired.
He reached for his glass, but then paused at her prompt, his own cheeks starting to flush. And at the mercy of his pale skin, even the slightest warmth made him glow bright red.
"He is...our Molly?" Caleb had already asked that, and he'd been met with Beau's confusion, which helped. "He used to be part of someone else. Part of someone else. Called Lucien. And Lucien took his body back. He needed it to continue his pursuit to bring back a city from the Astral Sea, a city he was in control of-" he paused, because he didn't have the words to describe Aeor right now. The horrors of it hadn't left his mind, he still dreamt of it. "-it would have destroyed everything if he had succeeded. And we had to defeat him. This thing that looked like Molly."
Finally he brought his drink to his lips and swallowed down a big mouthful, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Molly was still in there. He helped us win. And afterwards we tried so, so hard to bring him back, to get him back into his body. To get our Molly back after so long." Oh, he really wasn't ready to unpack this. He'd thought he was but he really, really wasn't.
"Melora did it, in the end. We got Molly back, Beau. He was there. He was confused but he was there and we had won. But then he changed again. And I lost him again-"
Rubbing his hands over his face, Caleb turned his eyes up to the ceiling. "I just wanted to be sure, because I cannot keep going through that. I don't want to be happy to have him back if he is just going to be taken from me. So- there's that. Um, yeah. Jester and Fjord are together. Trent is in prison. Veth and I are maybe setting up a school soon. Astrid is in charge of the Academy. It's good. Everyone's good. That's it. That is all."
Not used to speaking so much in one go, Caleb reached for his drink once more and huddled around his glass, sipping it with a terrible attempt at nonchalance.