In another moment, he may lose everything, become nothing more than a mindless abomination his friends will have no choice but to put down. They might all fall to Lucien's will except Jester and Yasha; Caleb hopes they just planeshift out then. The entire remaining population of this cursed place might come charging in on them, either on their new ruler's direction of simply out of their own rage and pain for the loss of their old ones.
Only for this moment, is he still free, to say some final words, to do some final deeds.
If he had the words on hand, he would tell the people surrounding him how much he loves all of them, how they've practically saved him from himself. He would tell Veth of all of the affection and regard he has for her, how much he wanted for her to have. He might even tell Jester of his feelings, if only because her lack of reciprocation may stop mattering very soon.
He lifts his head, and his eyes instead meet the other object of his recent yearnings, and to him he has something more specific to say, something he was hoping to say later, but well, he thinks he does have the words for this one, so better do it now.
"You gave that gem up," he says to him, soft enough so only he can hear. "I know exactly what it could've meant to you, I know how important it had to have been, and you just gave it up, just like that. You must have even been planning to beforehand; even you can't figure that much out about using it *that* quickly. Before we went on this last trip together I never would've thought it."
"Well," Essek replies, equally softly, "it wasn't going to do me much good if the world ended. And maybe I was a little glad to do it, honestly. It...felt good. It's always felt good, from the time you've been my friends." He speaks as if it was even something wondrous.
"It does feel good, to help people you care about," Caleb tells him. "It took too long for me to learn that, too. But we won't forget it, I think."
"I couldn't," Essek says, and then his eyes drop, as he adds, "not when one of them was you. I couldn't..." He takes a deep breath, and it becomes clear to Caleb he's not the only one with things to say in what might be the last moment for them. "I never even imagined caring this much about someone outside my family...and you...you just might mean more to me now than even them. More than that beacon...that's so easy for me to say, how could that be so easy for me to say...more than even what we're trying to protect right now."
The only words Caleb can have left in response to that spill out of him. "Please let me kiss you, Essek." His voice drops to a whisper as he leans in.
Essek meets him halfway, and for one single, precious moment, for the first time in a very long time, everything is good again.