1. I’m limiting this list to one fic per author (but may repeat some authors from list #1.) I also link author profiles, so please check out their other fics as well!
2.  These are MY personal favorites. That means if you reply “you’re wrong because you missed X”, no I’m not.

Professor Caleb Widogast and Dr. Essek Thelyss’ students just wanted a break from the sheer amount of assigned readings they had. As it turned out, both professors were single.

Events escalated from there.

Essek watches Caleb languidly through the lashes of his usable eye. He has unquestionably just endured the worst day of his entire life: his title, his Den, the respect of his Queen, everything he’s worked towards for the past half-century, crumbled to dust in an instant. Adding injury to insult, he barely survived the two separate ambushes set by his former colleagues long enough to deliver himself as a warning to possibly the only people who might avert the impending apocalypse. In the past half hour, he has been repeatedly (and very painfully) jolted to and from the brink of death like a child’s yo-yo. And yet…

And yet, seeing this human’s face—this foreigner, who, not so long ago, he might have imprisoned or killed as “Empire scum” without a second thought—the tender studiousness of Caleb Widogast’s expression, as he gently dabs at Essek’s eyelid with a damp cloth… Essek finds himself strangely at peace with it all.

There’s something in Caleb’s dreams. It wants him to know that he’s not alone. It wants him to know that he’ll never be alone again.

Elves don’t dream, so all Essek can do is watch.

In which the humans do a politics, the Xhorhasians learn about potatos, and everyone decides five hundred years of living in disguise and on the run isn’t actually a great life plan, Essek.

Shadowhand Essek Thelyss of the Kryn Dynasty has been selected to spend the year at the Soltryce Academy, teaching the basics of an esoteric school of magic known as dunamancy. While the goal is to build better relations between the Dwendalian Empire and the Dynasty, it’s also the best way to prove to his mother he is committed to furthering the reputation of their well-regarded Den.

Renowned former adventurer Caleb Widogast has recently been appointed the Archmage of Civil Influence. Beloved by the common folk, Caleb finds himself frustrated with cutthroat peers and a morally lackadaisical aristocracy. Being able to attend every dunamancy lecture, plus new students and old friends, should keep his troubled mind away from unfinished business.

Though Essek and Caleb met three years ago, a misunderstanding put them at odds. The more they talk, the quicker Essek falls into his first romance…which unknowingly leads them both into a web of underhanded machinations.

Footsteps pad down the hall and past the stairs. Actual footsteps. Verin can’t remember the last time he saw Essek walk on his own two feet. He feels a twisted knot form beneath his sternum; something isn’t right.

Thinking only of justice and restoring his family’s honor after Essek’s betrayal, Verin Thelyss finds something he never expected, an Essek he never expected. A mission for justice turns into a race against time and a family finds their world upended.

Essek shows up on Caleb’s doorstep in the bitter cold of winter.

It is still early in the day, barely three-sixteen, but the sun is already disappearing between the city houses, leaving only blue light in the streets. The temperature is falling with the sun and the moons are high in the sky, white and pink shadows against the blue. Essek is dark and indistinct in the doorway, the shape of him muffled by a heavy cloak, and they have need of each other’s complicated company.

Caleb knows what it is to be hunted.  He sees it in Essek’s careful placement of his minimal luggage, how he has not unpacked anything more than what is needed at the moment, the modest respectability of his nightclothes, how he sets his boots by the bedroom door instead of on the tray in the foyer.

The Dynasty’s memory is longer than lifetimes, and Kryn lives are already long.  Ludinous Daleth keeps fat ledgers.  Their quarry will go to ground tonight with his head on Caleb’s pillow.“

“Okay, you definitely have something new,” Beau said when he stalled for too long. “Spill.”

Essek continued to chew his thumbnail.  “Tour group on the lava field.  There was a sudden breakout from a soft spot.”

“…And?”

He took a breath, then shrugged.  “It looked like hands?”

(Aka, the spooky volcanology AU that absolutely no one asked for.)

It’s… the stupidest thing. Essek grits his teeth. It’s a trained habit - a way to redirect some of the pain without showing any symptoms. A Shadowhand never shows his hand, and it is this he excels at - a poker face, a well-concealed illusion of poise and grandeur and tolerance. But today, he is unlucky. Because there is little that escapes the keen mind of Widogast - and here he has quite the disadvantage. It is, quite literally, his least favored terrain. Stairs. —

When keeping mages in an enclosed terrarium, please keep in mind the following: They need lots of places to hide and explore. Provide enrichment opportunities for them to keep them from getting bored - plenty of books, hidden treasures, and secret chambers. And if you’re feeling bold, think about including an Anti-Magic staircase just to challenge them. See what they do with it.

 Essek clung to her; his fingers gripped the front of her coat. He looked small in a way he never had before, frightened in a way that Caleb hadn’t fully processed he could be. It wasn’t Essek’s nervousness, the anxiety of a brilliant man who could see danger all around him, who could see the falling dominoes and the way the web he had woven had entangled him. It was the fear of a small child, or indeed, a stray cat—the fear of a creature trapped in a terrifying world it did not understand.

 Essek, brilliant Essek, Essek who believed he could find the answers to everything, unable to understand a thing—the thought of it stabbed at Caleb’s heart.

—

In a world where Trent makes it back to Eiselcross before the Nein do, Essek spends a night under the effects of the Feeblemind spell. Caleb undertakes a duty of care, and the Nein learn how Essek feels about them beneath everything.