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- Bookmarks:
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Bookmarked by Balk
01 Jul 2026
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“Beauregard – you said she is outside?” Essek half-turns in the direction of the front door. “Should we invite her in?”
It feels like there is something stuck in his throat. “In a moment. She is, ah – giving us some space.”
Essek turns back to stare at him. Repeats quietly, dangerously, “Space.”
Caleb forces himself to swallow. “Yes.”
Essek’s attention is a palpable thing now, sharp like a knife’s edge against his cheek. “Explain.”
One moment makes all the difference during the battle at Blumenthal. In the aftermath, the Nein grapple with what comes next.
Bookmarked by Balk
28 Jun 2026
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It used to be if you don't like it you could leave by thought
Fandoms: Critical Role (Web Series)
19 Oct 2021
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In which the humans do a politics, the Xhorhasians learn about potato's, and everyone decides five hundred years of living in disguise and on the run isn't actually a great life plan, Essek.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 24,252
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Comments:
- 101
- Kudos:
- 1,193
- Bookmarks:
- 394
- Hits:
- 13,394
Bookmarked by Balk
21 Jun 2026
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Essek is shaking once he’s sat there for twenty minutes. He’s thirsty. He wants to walk over to the jug of cold water on the table by the door. He needs to get up. He can’t.
He won't cry. It’s stupid to cry over this.
Verin gurgles.
“I hate you.” Essek curls his fingers around his elbows. “I hate you. I hate you.”For as long as Essek can remember, he has been cursed to obey. He has managed, in his own way, to mitigate the consequences of the curse while pursuing his academic and personal desires. It is only after being commanded to act as a guide for the Mighty Nein that it becomes a true complication.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 20,751
- Chapters:
- 4/4
- Comments:
- 130
- Kudos:
- 1,228
- Bookmarks:
- 213
- Hits:
- 12,441
Bookmarked by Balk
15 Jun 2026
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(your face in my hands is) everything good i need by mllekurtz (TheKnittingJedi)
Fandoms: Critical Role (Web Series)
04 May 2021
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The last person Caleb Widogast, Professor of Modern History, expects to find as he walks in a random pub in a foreign city at the end of a long conference is Dr. Essek Thelyss, eminent Latinist and his sort-of intellectual crush.
Things rapidly evolve from there, in rather unexpected ways.
(Written for Essek Week 2021)
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 25,884
- Chapters:
- 8/8
- Comments:
- 354
- Kudos:
- 1,237
- Bookmarks:
- 242
- Hits:
- 16,164
Bookmarked by Balk
14 Jun 2026
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the other things that make us by saturdaysky for LadyOrpheus
Fandoms: Critical Role (Web Series)
22 Aug 2021
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Summary
Essek returns, when he can, to the sanctuary of Caleb's home. The peace of it is a balm against the tedious peril of the road, which has more misery to share than Essek had ever thought. It's nice to have a place where he can lose himself: in a book, in arcane study, in the confusing allure of Caleb's smile.
It's nice. And the cats miss him, Caleb says.
Series
- Part 1 of the other things that make us
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 13,642
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Collections:
- 1
- Comments:
- 139
- Kudos:
- 1,249
- Bookmarks:
- 287
- Hits:
- 13,162
Bookmarked by Balk
14 Jun 2026
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“Oh, ah. Hallo.”
Essek startles so badly he drops his levitation. He whips around, a hand thrown reflexively out to defend himself, a spell ready on his lips. He has to blink. And blink again. But no, he is not imagining this. Here is Caleb Widogast in the flesh, standing in Jester and Fjord's sitting room.
“Hello,” Essek manages, his throat very dry.
[Or: Four times Dynasty fugitive Essek Thelyss sought refuge with Jester Lavorre, and one time he found Caleb Widogast instead.]
Bookmarked by Balk
14 Jun 2026
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Summary
||COMPLETE||
The Mighty Nein come together for a new mission- hunt down a renegade dunamancer who’s been kidnapping children in the Dynasty.
As with most things they do, it doesn’t go as planned.
(Or “How the Mighty Nein Saved The Dynasty Again On Sheer Accident While Being Level 16 Amnesiac Teenagers Who Have No Idea What They’re Doing.”)
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 30,457
- Chapters:
- 7/7
- Comments:
- 215
- Kudos:
- 1,296
- Bookmarks:
- 226
- Hits:
- 15,123
Bookmarked by Balk
14 Jun 2026
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Summary
“You accused me of treating this like a game. I am sorry if I’ve led you to believe that it is only a game—though I won't deny that part of it is.” Bren gives a disarming smile. “My life is either games or murder, after all.”
“Or mail fraud,” Thelyss says dryly, not even a little disarmed.
“The mail fraud is a sort of game as well.”
A sigh. “Is this your way of telling me that you intend to continue playing?”
Bren smiles again, sharper. “If you would let me.”(In which Bren Aldric Ermendrud decides to seduce the Shadowhand and finds that the best way to convince someone to be vulnerable with you is to be vulnerable in turn.)
Series
- Part 1 of aBiA
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 103,603
- Chapters:
- 20/20
- Comments:
- 897
- Kudos:
- 1,453
- Bookmarks:
- 407
- Hits:
- 33,733
Bookmarked by Balk
08 Jun 2026
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Summary
This is a great honor, Essek reminds himself, trying not to recoil as fingers run through his hair, working through the tangles. A braid is made of three strands, symbolizing the inextricable bond between the soul, the den, and the Luxon. A recognition of an achievement by the drow who bears it. With each braid, the soul is bound ever closer to its den and to the Luxon.
It is a lesson Essek learned long ago, but one he is never permitted to forget.
[Or: the story of why the Shadowhand wears his hair cropped short.]
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 20,605
- Chapters:
- 4/4
- Comments:
- 246
- Kudos:
- 1,409
- Bookmarks:
- 317
- Hits:
- 11,722
Bookmarked by Balk
08 Jun 2026
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Summary
Caleb Widogast wakes up from the first good night of sleep in far too long.
It takes him a moment to realise it's because he's not in his bed.
Is it the better mattress (lump-free and like a cloud), or the fact he drunkenly slept with Essek Thelyss, the colleague he's been secretly crushing on for the last six months?
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 62,274
- Chapters:
- 12/12
- Comments:
- 591
- Kudos:
- 1,371
- Bookmarks:
- 273
- Hits:
- 27,126
Bookmarked by Balk
07 Jun 2026
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Summary
Linear prompt fills for Shadowgast Week.
*
They are resting when it happens. Pathetically, Essek is so absorbed in his little fantasy that it takes him a handful of seconds to notice when a few of the Mighty Nein sit up suddenly, alert.
*
The Mighty Nein and their wizard guest get a surprise visitor after entering Aeor. It changes some things along the way.- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 15,903
- Chapters:
- 8/8
- Comments:
- 131
- Kudos:
- 1,378
- Bookmarks:
- 244
- Hits:
- 14,074
Bookmarked by Balk
05 Jun 2026
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Summary
Essek uses more high-level dunamancy in battle, and Caleb tries to reverse-engineer it when he can't sleep.
AKA What if we were both wizards and I cast Tether Essence on us to save your life?Bookmarked by Balk
05 Jun 2026
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Summary
After they explore Aeor together, Caleb asks Essek to move in. It takes Essek ... A while to figure out exactly what he means.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 51,812
- Chapters:
- 8/8
- Collections:
- 1
- Comments:
- 294
- Kudos:
- 1,511
- Bookmarks:
- 427
- Hits:
- 18,850
Bookmarked by Balk
05 Jun 2026
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Summary
In an unhealthy pursuit of answers about his missing years in Vergesson, Caleb asks Essek to do something terrible. Essek, well practiced at doing terrible things, agrees.
Bookmarked by Balk
05 Jun 2026
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Summary
“You have been a thorn in my side for too long,” Trent snapped. He raised his hand.
Caleb countered immediately, but then Wulf countered him. The spell landed.
Essek fell back, a shriek caught in his throat.
---
During the final fight, Trent lands a particularly nasty spell on Essek.
Bookmarked by Balk
05 Jun 2026
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Summary
"Unfortunately, our progress has stalled out somewhat," Ikithon says, slowly circling the beacon on its stand. Under any other circumstances, that would be the thing that drew Essek's eye.
Instead, his gaze is fixed on the man sitting in a chair at the circle's center. A picture of misery, he is bound hand and foot to the chair with thick iron cuffs. His face is mottled with bruising, his rust colored hair hangs in limp, tangled clumps, and his clothes are torn and burnt. Wide, frightened eyes the color of daylight sky whip frantically back and forth between them.
Essek knows that face. He knows it all too well. Not two months ago, that face kissed him on the forehead and told him that he was still capable of good.
The bottom drops out of Essek's stomach. Please not him.
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After the peace talks at sea, Ikithon approaches Essek with an offer he can't refuse... But dearly wishes he could.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 27,347
- Chapters:
- 8/8
- Comments:
- 261
- Kudos:
- 1,515
- Bookmarks:
- 312
- Hits:
- 16,157
Bookmarked by Balk
01 Jun 2026
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Summary
Experts can find no discernable cycle, only that drow who experience heats can expect to do so every decade or so, provided they are in the right environment. Roughly, this means adequate nutrition, lowered levels of stress hormones, and mildly increased levels of sex hormones. Food, calm, and attraction.
It should really be no surprise then that Essek went through exactly one heat at the peak of puberty and never again. A fact that never bothered him much until recently.
Or Essek has finally found someone he wants to share a heat with. Now if only his heat would get the memo.
Bookmarked by Balk
01 Jun 2026
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- Words:
- 18,657
- Works:
- 4
- Bookmarks:
- 74
Bookmarked by Balk
27 May 2026
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Summary
There is a gravity that has pulled them together many times. It pulled Caleb’s lips to Essek’s forehead, and Essek’s hands to Caleb’s arms when a tower collapsed upon him. It pulled Caleb to Eiselcross, now, to be at Essek’s side as his life as the Shadowhand dies.
Now, it could pull them together into Aeor.
(Two wizards venture into Aeor - and find that something has woken in the dead city's depths. Something dangerous. Something that will force them to decide what their pasts mean to them, and what they mean to each other.)
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 163,598
- Chapters:
- 18/18
- Collections:
- 1
- Comments:
- 751
- Kudos:
- 1,603
- Bookmarks:
- 420
- Hits:
- 46,682
Bookmarked by Balk
27 May 2026