literature

Casting Rain -- Ch 62

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    Rowan was sitting just on the other side of the barrier Gaster was trapped behind. For now, the little human wasn’t paying him any attention. The noise they were making that had made Gaster so paranoid was simply the ruffling of pages as they rifled through one of Thistle’s many books. From the looks of it they were either an extremely fast reader, or they were just looking at the beautifully drawn runes that decorated some of the pages. Probably the latter. Rowan didn’t really seem old enough to be proficient in reading quite yet. Though… it had been awhile since Gaster had seen many human children. His ability to distinguish age had probably gotten worse than it already had been.

    What he could easily see was that they weren’t doing well. They looked pale and cold, even bundled up in furred clothes and cloak alike, and Gaster could see the slightest bit of trembling in their hands as they turned the pages. Their bright blonde hair was thinning, dull and brittle. What bits of their body Gaster could see looked withered and skeletal - a frightful thing for humans, even if Gaster didn’t find it all that frightening. It was especially bad for a child though. Granted, it was winter, so humans did tend to fare pretty badly. There was less to eat and it was harder to stay warm, and humans got sicker and thinned out a bit. But he could tell whatever was afflicting the child wasn’t only the cold. If it were, it wouldn’t just be Rowan looking thin and fragile. Thistle would’ve been wasting away too - and she definitely wasn’t.

    Gaster watched the child read somewhat distractedly. There was a word for what was wrong with them, wasn’t there? Oh gods it’d been awhile… but he’d treated this before so he knew…? Oh. Gaster let out a quick, satisfied whistle through his teeth. Marasmus. Right. That’s what that was called. It was mostly a human disease - monsters didn’t get it unless something was seriously wrong with their soul.

    Rowan’s head snapped up when they heard Gaster whistle, brilliant blue eyes flickering through surprise for a moment before they smiled, and everything about their disposition brightened as they did.

    “Oh, you’re awake!”

    Gaster frowned down at them, trying to remind himself that this was a mage and not just some happy-go-lucky child. Which was hard, since he had… a pretty big soft spot for children. They were always so lively and inquisitive, and full of questions that most adults were too busy to ask. They also tended to be empty of the judgment and cruelty of their parents - a fact Gaster was learning to appreciate more and more.

    Rowan had their staff balancing across their knees, the crystal at the end of it pulsing in flickering color. It would probably pulse like that for as long as the barrier was up. Gods that had to be tiring. Gaster couldn’t imagine holding a bone attack for more than a few hours straight, let alone keeping together a spell as consuming as a barrier. It was no wonder the child was wasting away as they were.

    “You don’t look so good,” Rowan chirped, “Is that why you were sleeping?”

    Gaster blinked at them, a bit too tired and apathetic for the moment to bother answering. It was probably best he didn’t humor them, right?

    “I know you can talk, monster,” Rowan said, frowning stubbornly at Gaster, “I’m trying to be nice. You can at least talk back.”

    Gaster blinked at them again, his expression blank and unyielding. Right. Common sense said this was a bad idea. This was probably some trick. Someone was trying to goad him into a false sense of security. He had no idea why. Any information any human could possibly want from him, they’d learned a long time ago - he didn’t know how he knew that - so doing more now was a bit pointless. Unless this was some new torment they’d concocted for him.

    It would be a bad idea to play along...

    Rowan hadn’t stopped watching him with those bright blue eyes. It was almost startling how much life they seemed to have when compared to how badly their body was wasting away. They heaved a dramatic sigh and closed the book they’d been reading with all the firm seriousness of a judge pronouncing a death sentence - something that looked almost laughably ridiculous when this child was doing it.

    “Okay, look,” Rowan said, their tone going somber, “I have a very serious question and only you can answer it.”

    Gaster had to stifle a laugh. Instead he put his chin in one of his hands, frowning inwardly at himself as he took the bait, “And what might that be?”

    Rowan grinned, all their previous facade of seriousness dropping in an instant as they asked with almost giddy excitement, “Are you a necromancer?”

    The skeleton struggled to hide his grin. What?

    They didn’t wait for him to answer, instead bubbling excitedly, “You’ve got to be, right? Bracken says necromancers aren’t real - but you’re totally a necromancer! You mess with souls! You fight with bones! You summon big dead things to fight for you - !”

    Gaster had to stifle a grin - this kid was amazing. Just watching their excitement made him want to confirm it. Sure necromancers weren’t… really real, but it would be cruel not to let the kid dream, right? Gaster let out a heavy sigh. He shouldn’t be humoring them, honestly. This would bring nothing but disappointment for them later.

    “You caught me,” Gaster hummed, an amused smile curling across his teeth as Rowan lit up with wonder, “I’m a scary necromancer.

    “Woah! That’s so cool!”

    Gaster chuckled tiredly, feigning some tone of self-importance, “Only cool? You do me a disservice. I’m awesome and powerful.”

    Rowan grinned, leaning in and positively eating up every word. Gods. Gaster had forgotten how much he loved kids. But he had to rein himself back before he said anything else. Assuming this wasn’t some kind of well-fabricated trap, he could still get in trouble just from being close to Rowan. Heaven’s knew he’d been so close to killing them last time they met. If any other mages found out the child was in here…

    Then of course, there was always the possibility that this was some sort of trap, and some new hell was waiting for him at the edge of this child’s whims. He… doubted that idea a bit. But his nervousness wouldn’t let it go.

    “You should leave you know,” Gaster said, trying to sound at least vaguely threatening, “Before I… put a hex on you or something.”

    He leaned forward a little, letting a soft flicker of magic flash up into the lights of his eyes, “Unless you want your soul to be enslaved for all of eternity.”

    Rowan laughed, smiling back at him, “You can’t hurt me! You’re in a barrier.”

    “How silly of me.” Gaster sat back and sighed with a tired, bitter smile.

    “Besides,” Rowan chirped, “If you really wanted to hurt me, wouldn’t you have done it already? You could have put a spell on me back in the circle, you know?”

    “Perhaps,” Gaster hummed, feigning a mischievous tone, “Or maybe I already put a spell on you, and you just don’t know it.”

    Rowan let out a dramatic gasp - more awed and playful than scared. Good. Gaster didn’t… really want to scare them anyway. Gaster wiggled the fingers of his free hand in their direction.

    “By my power as an all mighty necromancer,” he said with a smirk, “Come to life my foul spell!”

    Of course nothing happened. Though watching Rowan screw their eyes shut and hold their breath was the strangest mix of humorous and adorable. Gaster sighed, a strange battle of fondness and reluctance writhing around inside him. This shouldn’t be happening. Oh gods what was he doing? Was he seriously playing around with this human child – no – this child mage? He was going to regret this later, he just knew it.

    Rowan giggled, “Nothing happened.”

    “Hmm… odd,” Gaster answered noncommittally, “You must have a strong soul then, little mage.”

    Mage. That word left an awful taste in his mouth.

    “I do!” Rowan said, puffing out their chest proudly, “I have a really strong soul! That’s why I keep up the barrier.”

    Their smile dropped abruptly, and Gaster couldn’t help but frown as they said a bit more haltingly, “Which… reminds me…”

    They looked up at him, bright eyes pleading, “I actually wanted to ask… could you heal me? Please?”

    Well, he hadn’t expected that. Gaster watched the child dumbfounded, unable to think of a single thing to say. Rowan looked down at their lap, fidgeting fingers picking at the book they had, “Sorry. I… I’m a really really strong mage but… I’m also really sick. And I feel really bad today.”

    Gaster sighed out a short breath. This poor child.

    “Normally Thistle heals me,” they continued a bit falteringly, as if they were begrudgingly giving up some deep secret, “But she’s gone fighting Gehenna. But you healed me once, right? You could heal me just a little? Until she gets back?”

    Gaster shook his head, “I can’t heal you.”

    “But you healed me before!” Rowan said, indignant and disappointed.

    Gaster gave them a sympathetic sort of frown, reaching a hand forward to tap his knuckles against the barrier in front of Rowan’s face.

    “My magic can’t get through this, remember?”

    Rowan cast a hopeless glance down at their staff.

    “And besides,” Gaster hummed, looking for some way to explain, “My uh… special… necromancer… magic…? Doesn’t work like Thistle’s does. I can only heal little things, like cuts in hands and things like that. I’d need a lot more magic than I have now to fix you.”

    Rowan scowled down at their hands, twiddling their thin fingers together self-consciously, “It’s… that bad huh?”

    Gaster liked them much better when they were laughing - even if they were extremely thin, emaciated, child-mage laughs.

    “You do know,” Gaster said gently, “That the barrier is making you sick right?”

    Rowan nodded dismally. After a pause they mumbled, “... it’s a lot of magic.”

    “I know you’re scared of getting in trouble,” Gaster said as kindly as he could manage, “But if you let the barrier drop you’ll probably feel a lot better. I’m sure if you explain to the other mages that it’s hurting you they’ll understand.”

    “I can’t.”

    “Now, don’t be stubborn,” Gaster said warningly, “You’ll just get sicker.”

    “No really, I can’t,” Rowan insisted, looking up at him pleadingly, “It’s a different word to take the spell down, and I don’t know it. And Bracken’s gone too so I can’t ask.”

    Gaster blinked at them incredulously, “No one taught you how?”

    Rowan shook their head, shrinking away from Gaster just a bit, looking… ashamed. Like they were about to get into trouble for some silly thing they had done. It didn’t help that Gaster was scowling now. He knew that but he couldn’t help it - he was angry. This child was sick. They were sick and maybe even dying, and the only thing that had been sustaining them was a few jolts of healing magic every once in a while when they felt sick? Did no one notice how much they were wasting away? And all of this for the sake of keeping up some stupid barrier. Whatever was left of Gaster’s optimism prayed this was ignorance. He prayed this was some miscommunication, that this kind of cruelty thrown at a child wasn’t deliberate. And he hoped every god they had ever believed in damned them all to hell if it was.

    Gaster hissed out a tense breath, “Are there… any doctors in camp?”

    “No,” Rowan frowned at him, “I told you, Thistle left to fight-”

    “Not a healer,” Gaster interrupted, and Rowan flashed him a confused look, “A doctor. Someone who knows herbs and how to make remedies.”

    “Of course not,” Rowan said matter-of-factly, as if it were stupid that Gaster would even ask such a thing, “Magic fixes everything.”

    “Child,” Gaster snapped, “If magic fixed everything you wouldn’t be asking for help right now, would you?”

    Rowan opened their mouth to say something, paused and seemed to think better of it. They looked back down at the book in their lap. Gaster watched them, at a loss for what to do. He couldn’t heal them. Human souls were just too big for his kind of magic to help with something like this when Gaster was working alone - especially when the barrier kept sapping away the child’s strength. He’d spoon-feed them bits of magic just for it to be ripped away again. And while he could tell them how to treat the marasmus - the thing caused by the barrier - it was useless with the barrier still intact. Why bother trimming the weed if the roots were still strangling? Especially when he didn’t know how long it would take for a mage who could actually help to get here?

    The obvious - and stupid - solution would be to let Rowan walk inside his tiny barrier and just fiddle with their soul again. He’d take their barrier down, but then they’d be trapped inside his. He doubted they’d be trapped for long of course. Everyone would notice the main barrier had collapsed and would send for a mage immediately. But Gaster could only see all that ending in himself getting killed and the humans throwing the barrier back on Rowan again.

    Gaster sighed, pinching the space between his eye sockets, cycling through everything he remembered about healing humans - it’d been awhile.

    “You need to get rid of that barrier,” he muttered bitterly. That was the real problem.

    “I know, but I can’t.”

    “And there’s never been a doctor here ever?” Gaster asked again, frowning, “Nowhere you could get supplies from one or…?”

    Rowan shook their head again, and Gaster scowled at his hands. He gave a short, exasperated sign, “This would be so much easier if I could just go out and look for things myself. Well… we can at least keep you from getting sicker. You need to eat. That’s the first thing.”

    Rowan gave him a dubious look, “I do eat though.”

    “You’re not eating enough of the right things,” Gaster clarified stumbling over all he could remember. Trying to water down medical practice for a child to understand was a bit too awkward of a task for his scattered mind to handle, “It’s… complicated to explain. It’s a bit like… you’re a lamp and you’re constantly burning - and you’re running out of things to burn. Your magic is eating away more of you than you’re taking in.”

    Well, Rowan sure looked lost on that one. Gaster sighed and said, “You need three meals a day probably, and a lot of rest, preferably someplace warm and dry…”

    Gaster frowned, “There’s actually something you should be drinking too but I doubt you could make it yourself - if you even have what you need here.”

    Rowan watched on contemplatively as Gaster stumbled over his words, looking the perfect mixture of intrigued and confused, “How do you know all this?”

    “Because I’m a doctor,” Gaster said simply, “For humans and monsters, when I’m allowed.”

    “But… I thought you were a necromancer?”

    This made Gaster hesitate. There was a haunting sort of irony here that Rowan would never understand. No one could really, save for Gaster himself because he’d lived it. A strange, bitter sort of emotion wriggled through him when he answered.

    Gaster clasped his hands together in his lap, trying not to feel self-conscious, “I am. But I was a doctor first.”

    Gods he was feeling uncomfortable, like something invisible was staring at him. He felt… guilty.

    “But necromancers use death magic,” Rowan argued, still innocently confused, “How can you use death magic and heal people?”

    They paused and then added more as an indignant sort of afterthought, “And isn’t healing magic girl magic?”

    Then they gasped, “Are you a girl?”

    Gaster couldn’t help himself - he laughed. Gods he loved kids. He loved their questions and he loved their reactions.

    Gaster smiled, “Monsters don’t really care about things like that. If you can use green magic, you can be a healer. The same goes for fighting magic, actually. One of the strongest warriors I know is a girl. She’s really loud and angry, but she’s still the nicest person I’ve ever met. You’d like her.”

    Rowan grinned, recognition dawning, “She sounds like Thistle.”

    Gaster felt like someone had clenched a fist around his soul. Before he could stop himself he snapped, “Ammy is nothing like Thistle.”

    Rowan flinched at this, blinking up at Gaster, startled for a few seconds. Gaster sighed. Right, this was a child. They probably didn’t understand… They probably had no idea how cruel… they probably didn’t know what Thistle was doing to him. Gaster tried not to be bitter about that.

    “They’re just… different,” he said gentler, apologetically, and Rowan seemed content to let the subject drop.

    “Anyway, uhm… I… wanted to be a healer before any of this… necromancer… business,” Gaster continued a bit falteringly, “But something in my soul doesn’t work right for it. So I settled instead on learning how to be a doctor - because they can still heal people without using magic.”

    Gaster laughed and smiled fondly, “The master I was apprenticed to was amazing, actually. The best doctor for miles. I was surprised he took me on as an apprentice, really. He was a human like you. He’s the one that taught me about stuff like what’s making you sick. He even tried teaching me how to use healing runes? My soul wasn’t strong enough for them but… it was interesting to learn. It was while I was with him that I noticed all souls are different. And I thought if I could figure out what was different about my soul that wouldn’t let me use healing magic, maybe I could change it so I could.”

    Gaster let out a regretful laugh, “It… didn’t work.”

    He moved his hands, pulling his soul out with it. Rowan watched in amazement as the glowing, purple soul dissolved itself in the skeleton’s hands, sprawling out in a sea of cords, “I could never weave all these little cords together in a way that could let me heal things. I still don’t think I can. But I figured out how to make new magic like this -”

    Gaster summoned a pair of his ethereal hands, signing a few words for the awestruck child before letting them disappear again.

    “Of course… everyone started to get nervous when they found out I was working on souls,” Gaster flashed the child a rueful smile, “You know, you humans don’t really like it when monsters start messing with souls.”

    Rowan nodded wisely to this, “Yeah, it’s bad.”

    Well… that was debatable. But it was a debate that would be lost on a child.

    “So I ended up having to leave,” Gaster shrugged, “I went to the monster capitol, and told them about my magic and I thought maybe my magic could help.. But the capitol was talking about summoning a lot of these new monsters instead, and training them up for the war. So I left to go heal people instead.”

    Gaster felt that uncomfortable, guilty sort of feeling writhe to life in his chest again, “And then – uh – something happened there. Something… really scary.”

    He had to fight the need to fidget. Of course, Rowan didn’t need to know what happened, and Gaster had no intentions of explaining, “And it made me realize all that magic I had learned to heal people could hurt them. And I thought it was a good thing. I started making strong magics and had someone teach me how to fight. I didn’t really want to be a doctor anymore. I thought it was pointless.”

    Gaster sighed, “Now I’m wondering if being a necromancer isn’t worse.”

    Gaster tilted his head in Rowan’s direction, managing a wan smile, “What do you think?”

    Rowan looked at him thoughtfully for a few long moments, their lips pursed and eyebrows lowered in a contemplative expression that Gaster once again found himself wanting to laugh at. It was adorable in its seriousness.

    “Well,” they said finally, “You always wanted to be a healer right?”

    Gaster nodded.

    “Did you want to be a necromancer?”

    That was… actually a good question. And one that Gaster didn’t really know the answer to. One some level, he was sure he did want to use his magic this way. But only in the sense that he wanted to help people and… this was the way the world told him he had to help. Monsters and humans didn’t want doctors. They didn’t want healers. They wanted to fight. They wanted war.

    Gaster had decided if it meant helping people, he wanted that too. But… looking back on it now… he wasn’t helping anyone, was he? He was hurting people. He was killing them. And the more he’d done it the easier it became. The first human he’d killed he’d had nightmares over. His soul had stumbled over the fearsomeness of it. But the next? Not so much. Nor the one after that. They blurred together, a sea of danger that needed to vanish, and so he used his magic to vanish it. It was like an itch, recurring but never quite as bad as the first time he’d scratched it. And like an itch it was easier to scratch at again and again than to treat the disease that caused it.

    In the end it had caused him nothing but trouble, hadn’t it? It left him captured and in pain and weak. It left him alone and scared and wretched, with barely enough hope left in his soul to keep from falling down.

    Maybe… Maybe when he got out of this he would stop fighting.

    If he survived, if he lived, maybe he would go back to just being a doctor. Maybe he would go back to being nothing. He could go back to the Capitol and wait until the fighting was over and the dust had settled. He could run. He could hide. He could pretend none of it had ever existed. Maybe that was for the best.

    Maybe that was how he was supposed to be in the first place.

    After all, he wasn’t ever meant to be a healer - he wasn’t born with the gift and he’d proven again and again that he couldn’t learn it for himself. He was too weak to be a fighter, and his attempts had brought him the mess he was in now. If he ever made it out of this, maybe he should stop pretending to be something he wasn’t.

    Gaster looked up to see that Rowan had lost their interest in him, tottering to their feet somewhat weakly and moving to put away the heavy book that they’d had in their lap. They struggled a bit under its weight, something that Gaster frowned at. Goodness this child was weak.

    “Leaving me, are you?” Gaster asked with a mild smile.

    “It’s snowing,” Rowan answered with a shrug, nodding to the open tent doorway, “I should probably get back to my tent.”

    Gaster let out a long whistle through his teeth, “Yeah, the cold and wet will mess with your humors.”

    He chuckled at the questioning look the child shot him, “More doctor things. The snow will make you sicker.”

    “Oh.”

    “You remember what I said earlier about eating and resting?” Gaster asked a bit more seriously, “Make sure you do that, alright?”

    “I will!” Rowan answered back with all the enthusiasm the small child could muster. They bundled up in their cloak and furs, smiling back at him one last time, “Thanks for trying to help, monster-necromancer. I’m sorry you couldn’t learn healing stuff.”

    “I am too,” Gaster said with a forlorn sort of laugh, “Now go, before you catch a cold.”

    Rowan nodded and bounded off, but lost their momentum quickly when they stepped outside. Almost immediately they stopped, shielding their eyes and mouth and letting out a few gruesome-sounding coughs. Gaster was on his feet in a second, frowning and watching as Rowan held a hand out to the soft powder floating to the ground around them. They watched it questioningly, breathing shakily against the hand that covered their mouth.

    “Rowan?” Gaster called cautiously, “Are you alright?”

    “It’s not snow.”

    “What?”

    “It’s not snow,” they repeated, their voice pitching into something worried, “I don’t know what it is!”

    “Well get back inside, child,” Gaster commanded, trying to sound more mothering than outright worried, “Whatever it is, you probably shouldn’t be standing in it.”

    Rowan bounded back in the tent, coughing a little more as they slipped their hood off their head and the white powder that had collected there scattered across their face. As they hurriedly swatted the stuff of their clothes, some of it plumed and wafted its way through the barrier Gaster was caught behind. The skeleton held out a hand, watching as the fine grains of whatever-it-was floated to a rest on his spindly fingers. Rowan was right. It definitely wasn’t snow. It was soft and grey, with a texture that was a bit more feathery than sand. It was familiar… and it took a second for Gaster to recognize it.

    “Ash?” he asked, rolling the familiar texture around in his fingers, “It’s raining ash?”

    It was then that shouts started to break out, voices ringing to life around the camp as other people started to realize what was falling from the sky. Gaster couldn’t really make out what they were saying, but their tones didn’t sound reassuring.

    “What’s going on?” Rowan asked, concern and fear mingling in their expression, “Is it Gehenna?”

    “I don’t know.”

    Gehenna. He didn’t know much about it, but from the sounds of it, it was just fire, right? Albeit, fire that a lot of people were afraid of. But surely a single fire couldn’t cause something like this. Gaster had never heard anything about ash raining from the sky - nothing outside of religious texts anyway. Was that why Thistle had been so ragged when he’d seen her last, all covered in soot and burns? Was that why she wasn’t here now? Was the fire getting closer to them?

    Before Gaster could ask, a form came bursting into the tent - a frazzled mess of singed hair and ash and the sharp smell of smoke. It took a second for Gaster to recognize it as Thistle, looking even more exhausted than the last time he’d seen her. She took a moment to dust herself off, coughing as she did so, each of the sounds deep and rattling from the bottom of every breath. Gods she didn’t sound good. She sounded like she’d been gasping in smoke for the last hour. She probably had.

    Gaster took a cautious step away from Rowan when he saw her, nervousness and fear curling hands around his soul. She wouldn’t hurt him just for talking to the kid all day, would she? She didn’t have a reason to do something like that right?

    Thistle took a fleeting look around the tent, sighing out a breath of relief when her eyes fell on Rowan, “There you are. I didn’t find you in your tent.”

    “What’s going on?”

    “Nothing at all, Rowan,” Thistle crooned back at them, and Gaster found it hard to believe such a gentle tone from the mage was even possible, “Could you do me a favor and help me look for something?”

    She pulled a book out of the pile, flipping it open to a certain page and holding it out to Rowan, “I’m looking for an ice spell with this rune here. Help me find it, won’t you?”

    Huh… well the rune looked familiar at least, even if Gaster couldn’t place it.

    Rowan nodded, reaching for a pile of books nearby and scattering a few of them in the process. Gaster flinched back a step as a few tumbled their way towards his little cage of magic. He blinked up at the two humans as they began scouring the pages before them. Thistle was a mess of motion, thumbing through pages in a blur of motion and a flutter of sound. She was through three books before Rowan was through their first one.

    Gaster glanced back at the ash falling outside. He didn’t know too much about runes so it was hard to say, but Thistle was obviously looking for something powerful - more powerful than the ice magic she could make already, which was a feat. Was the fire really that bad? And if she couldn’t stop it… what would happen to Rowan? The child couldn’t leave, not without dispelling the barrier first. Trying to rip them away from this spell this big might kill them, especially when they were already so weak. Did Thistle know how to tear the barrier down? He… wasn’t even sure the one he was trapped behind was hers. He assumed but… he had no real proof.

    “Spell hunting?” Gaster asked finally, his voice breaking the monotony of rifling pages. He gleaned a surprised look from Rowan - the kid had probably never heard him speak the monster language before, “Wouldn’t have to do with the weird blizzard we have going on, would it?”

    “Hush,” Thistle barked back, barely looking up long enough to throw him an angry glance.

    “Does this have anything to do with that weird hell-thing you were ranting about?”

    “Gehenna,” Thistle corrected, and Gaster felt his soul flutter with nervousness when he heard the tone in her voice - gods just talking to her made him feel like he was standing on the edge of a cliff. Except this time he didn’t have Grillby there to break his fall.

    “Gehenna is a hell-thing,” Gaster pointed out a little more hesitant this time.

    “Gehenna is a wall of fire,” Thistle growled, sounding exasperated, “And it’s heading right for us.”

    “What? How?”

    Thistle gave an infuriated sort of flail with her arms, losing her place in the book she was reading as the pages ruffled from the motion, “How the hell should I know? The wind shifted directions maybe - ? Why do you care?”

    With that she got back to her looking.

    Gaster cast a dubious look up to the ceiling of the tent, where the tarp was for the most part still and unmoving. Sure there were walls around the camp, but if there was wind, some of it would make it here to move things around right? Even the ash fall outside came down in straight lines, wafting unhindered by any breeze that could make it drift. If there was no wind, it made no sense for even the ash to be falling here, let alone for the flame itself to be pushed in this direction. There had to be some driving force -

    Gaster felt a pang of something like excitement shoot through his soul and every logical thought he was holding onto froze and shattered.

    No. No it couldn’t be. There was no way. It was unthinkable. It… It might be… What if it was…? Maybe he was just being optimistic and hopeful. It was impossible. That couldn’t be what he thought it was.

    With a jolt Gaster realized his breathing had sped up. He didn’t know what it was - excitement or panic or something else entirely. Suddenly all he could think about was keeping Thistle from finding that ice spell. He needed her to stay distracted and out of the way. He needed… He needed…!

    It was then that Gaster noticed some of the books Rowan had dropped were so close to him. Close enough that two of them fell inside the barrier if only just barely, half their bindings sticking out the other side of the magic wall. Gaster glanced up at Thistle and Rowan, both still pouring through books. Back down at the two by his feet. Back up again, his soul writhing fearfully. He waited and timed himself, watching for when Thistle was in the middle of opening another book before grabbing one of the ones that had fallen, clutching it delicately with blue and sliding it towards him. There was some resistance, the confused magic of the barrier not sure what to do with something that was halfway in and halfway out, but eventually it gave. Then cautiously, one page at a time, Gaster started looking. Looking for the rune Thistle had flashed in his direction.

    His blue magic jittered, his soul taught with nervousness and the control it took to rifle through pages without making an unbearable amount of noise. He glanced a few ice spells, always feeling a jolt like lighting rock through him when he peered at the runes - but none of them were the right one. None of them were the one Thistle was looking for. He made it to the end of the book, holding his breath because if he didn’t he knew he’d let out some sort of exasperated noise.

    Right. Of course his luck wouldn’t be good enough for something like that. The fates couldn’t possible align once to give him the break he needed.

    There was still one book within his reach.

    Gaster waited again, impatient and fearful and hesitant all at once. Thistle moved on to a different book, and in the second her back was turned he slid the last book towards him. This one he recognized from the way the pages were decorated - it was the one Rowan had been looking at earlier. He flipped through these pages a little quicker, lingering on each page long enough to see if it was an ice spell before turning away again. Like before, every spell he saw that might be the one he needed sent an electric shock through him. Fear, exhilaration, the need to find what he was looking for all crashed down on him in some kind of spine-shuddering feeling of anticipation, only to wash away again into disappointment when he didn’t find the one spell - !

    “Ah!” Rowan exclaimed, and every inch of Gaster’s body froze, “Is this it?”

    Gaster felt panic rise in his throat like bile. He didn’t know what terrified him more, the thought that Rowan may have found the spell, or that Thistle was turning around to look in his direction. What did he do? Did he just stand there and hold his breath and pray she didn’t happen to notice the books at his feet? Maybe if he stepped in front of them - but if he moved he’d draw attention to - shit, what should he do?

    Thistle peered down at the book Rowan was showing her, scanning the page and shaking her head - thank gods she wasn’t paying Gaster even a second of attention, “That’s the wrong rune, sweetheart. I need this one.”

    She flashed Rowan the rune she needed again, and Gaster tried to memorize it as inconspicuously as possible. Wait. He knew he’d seen that. Had he passed it, thinking of the wrong one? Thistle turned her back to Gaster again, and as fast as the skeleton could he rifled through the books he had, his eyes constantly darting from one page to the other, to Thistle and Rowan. One page, the next, Thistle, Rowan. One page, the next, Thistle, Rowan. One page -

    Gaster froze. There. There. He was sure of it. It was an ice spell, clearly inscribed with that grand spiraling rune that Thistle was searching for. It was a creeping ice spell, like a breath of frost. Something powerful enough to yank water from the air and spew it forward like a wave. If the pictures opposite the spell were any indication, it could freeze people solid. It would be a terrifying spell in any mage’s hands.

    Gaster held his breath, waiting for Thistle to turn her back completely to him again and reach for a new book - and swift as he could he whisked the insidious spell books into his inventory. For a few seconds Gaster just stood there and waited, head spinning, an unbearable sort of terror clinging to his soul. Nobody had seen that, right? Nobody knew he’d just - ? No it… it didn’t look like it. Thistle was still preoccupied, shoveling her way through books with reckless abandon while Rowan more or less entertained themselves just looking at pictures and symbols. No one noticed. No one knew.

    Now he just had to sit in his corner and wait, and try not to draw too much attention to himself.

    It took a short eternity for Thistle and Rowan to make it through all the books in the room, and even longer for Thistle to admit defeat. She poured over a few of the tomes a second time, grinding her teeth together with growing exasperation when she couldn’t find the one she needed - the one Gaster was so neatly hiding away. The ash was thick on the ground and heavy on the canvas over head when in her anger Thistle kicked one of the piles of books over. The sudden noise startled both Gaster and Rowan, and scattered a few loose pages across the floor.

    “Fine!” Thistle barked in aggrivation, “I’ll make do without it!”

    The mage heaved a deep sigh, calming her tone just a bit before saying, “Alright Rowan, stay close to me. We need to make sure you stay safe until Bracken gets back.”

    Gaster felt his soul leap into his throat. Wait, she was taking Rowan with her? But - !

    “Thistle, wait a second!” Gaster shouted, catching the mage’s attention. He had to resist the urge to shrink back away from her when she fixed a glare in his direction.

    “U-uhm,” he stammered, “Do you…? Uh… the barrier. You should teach Rowan to drop the barrier.”

    Thistle’s scowl deepened, and she took a threatening step towards him, her presence looming over him even if she was shorter than he was. Gaster couldn’t help himself - he flinched back a step. He was scared. Scared of her, and scared of her finding out what he was hiding. But… for a few seconds he could convince himself he was scared for Rowan more.

    “Why?”

    “Y… you said the fire is heading this way, right?” Gaster asked, hands up pleadingly as if it could somehow ward off anything she might decide to throw at him, “If you can’t stop it, you’ll have to run. Right?”

    Thistle frowned at him and said nothing, but he could see the spark of some recognition in her eyes at least.

    “This barrier is like a parasite,” Gaster said a little more assuredly this time, “And it’ll just keep taking more out of the kid the farther they get from it. It could - it will kill them Thistle. Please.”

    Thistle regarded him for a long moment, questioning, bitter - but she knew he was right. She would be a sad excuse for a mage if she didn’t know this already. For a few seconds Thistle looked on the verge of saying something - probably some question about why he cared. But whatever she was going to say, she bit back. Instead Thistle just ushered Rowan closer, putting an arm protectively around his shoulder as she turned to leave.

    “Worry about yourself,” she snarled. She paused long enough to make sure Rowan had something tied around their mouth and nose so the falling ash wouldn’t choke them, and then she led them off. The two of them vanished into the haze outside, joining the bustling forms as humans ran back and forth, trying to make sense of the coming threat.

    Gaster sighed and slumped back in his prison, shivering and nervous. He watched the ash fall. Hoping. Praying. Reaching out to every god or goddess he’d ever heard of. Even some he’d probably made up at some point. Please let the ash be falling for a reason. Please let the fire be something with intent. Please let help be on its way.

    Please let it be Grillby.

Fandom: Undertale
Characters: Grillby, Gerson, Gaster, a handful of OC's who are necessary as plot devices, a few really frickin' determined humans
Spoilers: Eh, maybe if you squint
Content Warnings for current chapter: none? what? seriously? hey cool!


First --> Casting Rain -- Ch 1

Next --> Casting Rain -- Ch 63

Last --> Casting Rain -- Ch 61


We've got three weeks' worth of fanart feature guys, are you ready??? Cuz holy heck they're fantastic.

The first several are from cococaramel154, who seems to have been having a field day sketching up the guys in allsorts of awesome scenarios. The last two there are my favorite for a thousand reasons I can hardly describe.

Next up is Loumun-Versen back again and stabbing me with FEELS. They did a piece depicting Grillby right after Ammy passedand it made my heart do a funny skip thing when I saw it.

And last but certainly not least we have Kakurosu returning with their awesome colored pencil art! And I swear every time I see it it keeps getting cooler and cooler. They drew several scenes from the last few chapters, and they're all fantastic!

Also! I'd like to apologize to you guys for not commenting on anything yet I'm such a dweeb. I was in such a panic trying to get this chapter up that I... forgot... I hadn't done that yet. So! Please continue to be patient with me. I'm so so SO sorry.


Okay so I've got a nice list of research and life updates and apologizing to do so I'll just... bold all the important stuff and you guys can skim the rest! Do the Rowan thing - look for the pretty symbols!

So first off, I am so profusely sorry this chapter took so long to get finished guys. To those of you who don't read my journals, and who don't know what was going on, basically depression kicked me in the teeth. We won't get too far into it. I'm rebounding back up now. We are going to try and move on and be stronger people next time and all those flowery things. I'm actually really grateful for all of the support and well-wishes you guys have given me, and for helping me crawl back to life. Seriously you have... literally no idea....

Secondly! Research notes!
So this chapter has been rewritten 8000 times and in the process 90% of the research I did became null. But! Some still made it in the chapter! Yay it was not all for naught!

So~ Marasmus.
We'll start out by saying there are two kinds of wasting diseases (well, neatly described ones that I could research with some ease) that were documented in medieval medical texts. The more common one (if my searching is any indication) was actually not Marasmus but instead Atrophy. However Atrophy is the wasting away of the body associated with tuberculosis. And since Rowan is just wasting away with no prior disease attached, I went with Marasmus instead.

Marasmus, like Atrophy, is the progressive wasting away of the body - though this one is more closely associated with malnutrition than TB. Though I've seen it used interchangeably with atrophy before. Marasmus is also specifically described as being seen in children and the elderly, and we know in modern times it has to do with severe protein deficiency. Back in ye olden times, they also believed marasmus was associated with aging - or the affliction that comes with age - and (if I remember right) children afflicted with it were also assumed to be sick of the soul (put's a whole new meaning to the phrase "an old soul" huh?).
Marasmus was also described by ohhh... god I lost that article damn it. Anyway, there was a more famous medieval doctor who wrote a paper on marasmus and used the description I did in-story ~ the analogy that you're like a burning lamp. Except his was a little more particular. He said that the human body was like a lamp, holding both wick and oil. If you were afflicted mildly by the disease, you were burning your oil, which was easily replaced with food and rest. The trouble came when you were out of 'oil' and began burning your 'wick' (which we know now is your body breaking down tissues during the severe stages of malnutrition). If you burned up your 'wick', then your lamp would no longer be able to burn. You'd die.

While I didn't find an explicit 'cure' for marasmus, I found a cure for the atrophy associated with TB, which was "equal portions rum and boiled milk, sweetened with a loaf of sugar". That cure was from the 1800s though, wayyy after poor Rowan would have wanted it.

We also talked about humors again - briefly - this chapter. Humors were associated with the four elements of the body - water, fire, earth, air. Winter was associated with the cold and wet, and the fevers caused by it were associated with... uh... hot and wet I think is the right one. Which means if Rowan comes down with a cold/fever, they'd probably be eligible for some good ol' fashioned blood-letting! Fun! (don't quote me on that one though, I'm reciting from memory).

And lastly we have an important update about the posting schedule!! That most of you saw coming.
Okay so, along with the angry fit with depression, there's one other hindrance in my life right now - and funny enough it's not school.

I'm moving.

Not very far away lol. Actually I'm literally 10 minutes away from my old house. But! We're moving this weekend, and I'm going to be packing/settling in for awhile. So I'm nixing the posting schedule until I'm settled in.

What does this mean?

This means that I'm just going to free-write and post when things get done, as they get done, when I have time to do them. That could mean we have three chapters in one week (holy fuck). That could mean you don't see me for half of forever. I just don't know. And I'm sorry about that! The original plan had been to get a buffer going so you guys wouldn't see any of the mess and uh... I think we all know how that worked out. However! Please don't worry about me abandoning this story - no matter how long I end up breaking from updates. I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, that I am too deep in this shit to turn back now lol.

Anyway, thanks again for being patient with me. Hopefully this chapter was worth the wait for you! You will all probably literally murder me when the next chapter goes up. Please stay safe until we meet again.

© 2017 - 2024 the3Ss
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GamerSelkie's avatar
Aaah Rowan was the little boy who keeps the barrier up! Haha hah ha... ha...God damn I'm stupid... X'D
It was so lovely seeing nice human for change. These people must be really desperate to use little child and just keep slowly starving him to help their cause. Anyway it was nice to see Gaster interacting with someone who was not going to make him suffer. :3 (It is going to change when Thistle finds out who has been keeping that book all this time)
Also Grillby is coming, the Grillby is coming! So don't give up Gaster. Really gives him more kick to go on. Hurray! :happybounce: 
And again, we have learned new thing about sickness's from medieval times. I love that you do so much research for us. Even that you have to dump some of them away. You are too good for us. :prettyplease: - NaNoEmo 5/30  Thank you.