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Chapter Text

Vex’s quiver was empty, her ribs protested against every breathe, and she was beginning to think that Grog had been right. As revolutionary an idea this felt, Vex knew that, to his credit, Grog was right more often than most people seemed to think. It was very easy to disregard Grog as only a fighting rage machine, but he was more complicated than that. Not only was he devastating on a battlefield, he was good at fighting. He knew how to do that better than anything else. Still, she had disregarded this particular idea of his and that was a mistake. It was beginning to look like a fatal one.

Grog had insisted one summer in Whitestone that they all learned to fight with their hands, not just with the things that they used from fifty feet away. He thought that they had gotten extremely comfortable with their range weapons and had suggested that he teach them how to fight. Vex has respectfully declined, but had enjoyed watching Vax benign thrown across the front lawn of Whitestone at all hours of the morning. She and Percy had watched with some glee as their friends were blown off their feet by Grog fora. Week while they tried to land a single punch. They were range fighters, after all. They stuck to the back and with his guns and her bow, they wouldn’t need it.

Percy was laying on the cool stone floor, splayed out on his side, blood leaking steadily from his stomach. Bad News was several feet off, the butt of her shoulder dented where Percy had tried to drive it into his attacker’s head. He wasn’t faster than their knife, however, and the hole in his stomach had bled steadily and left him unconscious. A knife to their back had left Percy relatively clear but there where enough of the bastards that Vex didn’t doubt he’d be robbed of everything he had and relieved of his head before the fight was over. Vex wasn’t feeling wonderful herself. The brutish human man standing in front of her has clapped his heavy club into her chest in a single lucky blow which was one too many. She was wheezing, clutching her ribs, using her bow to ward off his attacks, and wondering how long it would take him to crush her.

The man smiled, toothy, rotten, terrible. Vex flinched and squared her shoulders. She had one foot standing planted on either side of Percy’s prone form. She held her bow between her shaky hands. All she had to do was hold him off until Vax could get to her.

“I’m going to eat the flesh off his bones,” the man snarled, raising his club high above his head.

“You’re going to have to go through me.” She said.

He brought the club down and she brought her bow up to meet it, snapping it half, but slowing down the club. If it had collided with her shoulder at full speed, she had no doubt that she would be on the ground. As it stood, her right shoulder was just dislocated. She grunted but kept standing and tossed her bow over to lay by Bad News, not wanting to damage the string anymore than she already had. The club caught her leg unexpectedly, taking it out from underneath her and sending her to the ground over Percy.

Vex closed her eyes and held her arms over her head, waiting for the club to come down on her.

There was a moment of anticipation, metal cutting through the air, and the sound of something heavy hitting the ground in a heap. Vex opened her eyes to see Vax, standing a few feet away from her, hand still outstretched as his knife appeared back on his belt with a puff of feathers. His boots danced across the ground, already pulling the healing potion off of his belt. Vex shook her head.

“Percy first,” She whispered, “Percy first.” Vax seemed reluctant, but he complied, cradling Percy’s head as he poured the potion into his mouth. The wound in Percy’s side closed minutely and the puddle of blood under him slowed in it's growth. He coughed, his face screwing up. He always had hated the taste of healing potions.

“Let’s get to Pike,” Vax said, supporting Percy on one side and Vex on the other. At this point, the fight had dwindled and she had no doubt that the others would have it handled soon.

Whitestone, as always, was warm and welcome when they walked through the Sun Tree. Percy leaned on her, his arm drawn over her shoulder. Vex was only an inch or two shorter than Percy, so they slotted together neatly, his hip sliding into the dip of her waist, her shoulder fitting nicely under his arm. He smiled at her, eyes tired but body intact. Percy always had trouble sleeping, but healing magic tended to leave him exhausted. Vex herself was beginning to feel the oncroach of rest. She tugged Percy closer, rejoiced in the warmth of his chest, worshiped the folds of his coat, the unkempt locks of his hair. He rest his head against hers as they walked. She could feel the gentle breathes he took in, the quiet hums he let out.

“Thank you for protecting me,” Percy said into her hair, kissing the top of her head. Vex squeezed his hand.

“Always.” She said, looking up at him. “I can’t let you die by the hands of someone so ugly.” Percy laugh lowly, somewhere deep in his chest.

“How high are your standards on this?” He asked.

“At least as pretty as me.” She said. “Prettier. Prettier than me.”

“So Shaun Gilmore is the only man who can kill me?” Percy asked.

“If Shaun Gilmore is trying to kill you, you’ll get no protection from me.” She teased, kissing Percy’s jaw. “I love you, darling, but I’m not stupid.”

Chapter Text

Caleb had though that Caduceus was clear of the explosion. He had thought, with his last minute move to the left, he would be safe. He was wrong. The undead that they were facing was enough of a strain on Caduceus, having to fight the instinct to handle it and be stealthy as long as they could, and now that they were in the midst of fighting, Caduceus was taking up an unusual role. They could all do considerable damage to the undead, but none so well as Caduceus. He was trained almost exclusively to fight off the hordes of the things, to protect the bodied in his graveyard, and to cleanse the world of the undead. It was his thing like Caleb’s was fire.

He was glorious on the battlefield in a haunting, awful way. Pink and blue magic swirling around him, knocking down the melting bodies in flurries of mushrooms and bright pink lichen. The air was cold and crisp and it froze around him, thick with the sweet scent of decay. Caleb had been keeping an eye on Clay since the fight had begun, seeing as they necromancer who had started this whole mess had spotted Caduceus’ brand of magic miles away. The undead were scattered among them, but they seemed drawn to Clay’s magic. He had been holding his own, but as their numbers increased and his spells decreased, Caleb knew that this was not sustainable. If he could get Clay out of the circle that he was stuck in and closer to himself, then they could work together to dwindle the numbers.

Nott seemed to have the same thought at the same time, and she screeched from her spot several yards in front of Caleb just as she threw a barrel of black powder into the air.

Caleb had voiced his complaints with the whole Fluffernutter debacle. The idea had sparked a few weeks of debate among their group, he, Fjord, and Yasha firmly against, Jester, Nott, and Beau firmly for, and Caduceus somewhere in the middle, mediating the whole thing. He had no doubt that Mollymauk would have loved the idea if he had been around to hear it and tip the vote, but as it stood, it took several weeks for the girls to intact it in battle. It ended up working splendidly in an open area, several hundred feet away from the rest of the group and the opposition had admitted that, in the perfect circumstance, it was acceptable.

This, he thought, was not the perfect circumstance. Caduceus was too close, as was Nott, and there was a chance that the undead would clear the area before Caleb’s fire met the barrel. Even so, he wasn’t going to let the opportunity to clear Clay a path because of a risk.

He set an angle, decided that it was too close, jogged a few feet to the left, and shot off a fireball. He watched as the light arched across the sky and met with the barrel. He caught Clay’s eye for the second between hitting the barrel and it exploding, he watched a smile curl across his face for the second between when the barrel exploding and Caduceus being tossed backwards fifty feet, landing in a large, pink and green heap on the edge of the wood.

Caleb’s breathe caught in his chest for a moment as the gravity of what just happened hit him. He thought that Caduceus was clear of the explosion, but he was wrong. He was thrown backwards, he was limp in air and didn’t do anything to catch himself. Jester was at best a full minute jog away from them and at worst and twenty minute battle. He thought hat Caduceus was clear but he wasn’t and as Caleb tried to will his feet to move, to move himself an inch towards him, he noticed that Caduceus wasn’t getting up. He wasn’t moving and from his spot several yards away, Caleb couldn’t see if he was even breathing. His staff was discarded a few feet away. His hair was tossed carelessly over his face.

Caleb had thought that he was safe but he was wrong.

He advance on Clay’s prone form, but as he did, he found himself instead advancing on a house, a small cottage with a carriage full of burning hay blocking the front door. Screams through voices that he knew so well but felt so wrong. He had made those gentle tones twist into pain. He had made those voices that lulled him to sleep and cured his illnesses and made him who he was into something horrific. He-

No. No, he told himself. He screwed his eyes shut and fought back the images that flashed before them. He wouldn’t allow himself to shut down when Caduceus needed him. He couldn’t do anything for his parents, but Astrid wasn’t holding him back now. His body was his own. Only he could tell it what to do, and he told it to move.

Caduceus was surprisingly light, and Caleb was able to drag him into the dense tree line with little resistance. Upon inspection, he was conscious, but barely, caught somewhere in the process of coming back to himself. Large, pink eyes rolled to the back of his head. Caleb took off his heavy jacket, folded it up, and rested Clay’s head on it. Caduceus’ armor had served him well. There didn’t seem to be any burns on his torso, just tender flesh and bone where he had landed on his right side. There was a small trickle of blood leaking down the side of his face where his head had connected with the ground. His nose was bent to an awkward angle and, knowing how broken noses healed, would surely look handsome on his angular face in a few months when the bruising went down.

For a moment, Caleb was frozen, examining the damage and trying to figure out what to do. He could feel the cold air around him piercing through his clothes, burning his lungs as he sucked it in quickly. He realized that he was shaking, shivering, hands hovering over Caduceus’ prone from. He could feel his precariously controlled panic beginning to seep into his bones along with the cold. He was on the verge of losing himself, of sinking into a memory he would sooner erase and leaving Caduceus to perish on the forest floor because of him, he was a fucking monster, he couldn’t do anything right and all he did was burn and burn and hurt the people that he cared for and why couldn’t they just see that all he would ever do was hurt-

A hand met his, big, shaking, but solid, grounding. Clay’s eyes were clear, maybe tired, but conscious, looking up at him.

“Mr. Caleb,” Clay said, voice cracked and weak, “it’s okay.” He sounded so sure of it like he sounded sure of everything. When something came out of Caduceus’ mouth it sounded like a fundamental truth of the universe. That certainty that Caleb so lacked as comforting. “Time for that later, yes?” Caleb blinked at that, clearing his mind of the gnoll caves, of talens raking over his cheek, soft, purple lips brushing his skin. He nodded.

“Time for that later.”

Chapter Text

Yasha had told herself time and time again that she was better off staying as far away from Beauregard Lionette as she could. She was a tenacious creature, a thing of passion and anger as fire. Yasha could respect that. She could respect the things that made her burn inside. She could also recognize it. It had been there, sitting in Zuelle’s stomach when they had linked their hands together, there in the blood she spat in the faces that killed her, there in her hands on Yasha’s face for the last time. It was too familiar. Too close. Beau was like a sun that hurt to look at for too long. She was brilliant, bright, likely to blind. Yasha had set her mind of avoiding the draw of that sun’s gravity.

Beau had her arms wrapped around Yasha’s neck, dragging her head down, her lips were trailing on Yasha’a jaw, smart teeth nipping every few seconds.

Beau knew about Zuelle. Yasha had confessed it around a campfire one night. Beau had backed off after that. She understood, somewhere, the idea of forever, and the importance of that promise. She told Yasha that she wouldn’t push, that she didn’t want to do anything that Yasha didn’t. She also said that the door was always open.

They were staying in an inn, the first one in a while. It was better than any that Yasha had stayed with before the Nein, although she and Molly had a habit of camping out under the stars rather than mingling with small town residents. Her heart stung a bit when she thought about Molly, but she focused on Beau. The door was open, just as she had promised. Jester, amazingly, had read the awkward air around them better than she could communicate or Beau could understand, and left to find Caduceus and gossip.

“What do you need?” Beau had asked, her voice softer than Yasha had ever heard it, and there, in that mediocre room in that medium town, Yasha knew that this, for once, was for her. Beau was getting something good out of it, or at least she hoped so, but the focus was on Yasha. Beauregard was a selfish person on her own confession, but she seemed to delight in giving other people pleasure.

It took a moment for her to relax, for the muscles of Yasha’s body to unlock, to allow herself to feel this, to have this. Chase it, Zuelle had always told her, chase what you want.

Once she felt that permission, she crumbled. She leaned forward, wrapping her hand around the shaved part of Beau’s head, maliating her lean form exactly where she wanted her. Beau moaned into her mouth and started fumbling with the leather straps keeping Yasha’s armor in place.

Yasha might have gotten a bit overzealous. She hadn’t wrapped her arms around someone like that in so long. Nobody’s lips had lavished her skin. Molly’s touch was the last that was so gentle, but even that was a step removed from what Yasha ached for. She hadn’t felt this buzz in her brain, the jittery, desperate energy running under her skin since she held Zuelle the same way. She was excited, rusty.

She picked Beau up by her waist, lean legs wrapped around her hips, back arching, pressing them as close as they could get without occupying the same space. Yasha’s fingers dug under the waist line of her pants. She turned, displacing the knot on top of Beau’s head. She was distracted and didn’t realize her strength when she slammed Beau up against the wall.

There was a terrifying moment after she heard Beau’s skull connect with the wood of the wall where Yasha was sure that she’d knocked her clean out. Then, a puff of air blew out of Beau’s mouth, her legs loosened around Yasha’s waist. A nervous, bubbling laugh poured out of her. She tucked her face into Yasha’s shoulder, her hand coming to rub at the back of her head.

“Oh my gods,” Yasha breathed, cradling Beau’s neck, unable to move from her position, pinning Beau to the wall. Beau was still laughing when she spoke.

“Bed, please?” She said, gently carding her hand through Yasha’s hair. Yasha complied, laying Beau out on the mattress.

“Are you bleeding?” She asked, her hands shaking ever so slightly. Beau took one of them in her own.

“No, no,” she said, “just hurts.” They were all, unfortunately, familiar with head trauma, but Yasha didn’t feel comfortable letting the concussion stew.

“Let me get Jester,” Yasha said. Beau’s grip on her hand tightened.

“I love Jessy to death, but do you really want this story told over and over again for the rest of our lives?” Beau’s voice still held that hint of laughter, and Yasha wondered if Beau would be so mortified to hear it in Jester’s dramatizations. She decided, however, that she would be.

“Caduceus?” She asked, gripping Beau’s hand tighter. Beau nodded and realized what a bad idea that was.

Prying Caduceus away from Jester before she could ask too many questions was difficult, but he retreated quickly after Jester told him to ‘have fun in there,’ clearly uncomfortable with what she was insinuating. He, thankfully, didn’t ask too many questions, although he didn’t seem to completely grasp what had been going on in there.

“I don’t know how you get a concussion in a locked room, but if anyone could pull it off...” he muttered, pink magic dusting around Beau’s face, clearing up the concussion and lightening the lingering black eye from a few days ago. “You two stay safe. I’ll have Jester bunk with me tonight.”

“Thanks, Duceus.” Beau called as he turned to leave.

“Thank you, Caddy.” Yasha said. She was still testing out the waters of the nickname, since everybody else in the Nien had come up with their own for their newest member. He seemed to like it well enough.

Yasha felt awkward, panicky, afraid to touch Beau, as though she would break her like she just had.

“Do you want to try again?” Beau said, sitting up and rubbing he stubble on the back of her head. Yasha was shaking her head before the answer even formed in her mind.

“No,” she said, buckling the straps on her armor again. “I’m sorry,” She turned to leave, embarrassed and horrified and wishing so badly that Molly was there to give her advice or smooth the tension or just to laugh at it so that she could too.

“Wait, woah, hey,” Beau rushed forward from the bed, taking Yasha’s wrist in her hand, and gently tugging her back towards the bed. “We don’t have to do anything but you don’t have to leave.” Beau said. “We can talk or kiss or just lay down, if you want. Whatever you want.” Yasha hesitated for a moment, tracing the line of the scar over Beau’s collar bone, before she nodded and let Beau lead her back to the bed. It was barely big enough to hold the both of them, but she curled around Beau, wrapping her arm around her middle, pulling her back flush against her chest. Beau hummed and tangled her finger’s with Yasha’s.

Beau smelled like evergreen trees, unburned incense, and sweat. Yasha fell asleep with that smell wrapping around and around her, ozone and flowers and graves slipping away until that warm body next to her was the only thing her spine would bend for.

Chapter Text

“Oh my gods, Caleb...” Molly felt bad, he really did, but he couldn’t help the laugh that rose slowly from his gut. Ophelia Mardun was the kind of woman that Molly’s will would bend to, and he was glad that it was Caleb facing her and not him. It was a hollow, sedated thing, nothing like his usual, real laugh. It was translucent. Still, he laughed. He knew how terrible panic attacks were and he knew that Caleb always collapsed when he was left in social control, but he still laughed. Caleb leaned against a tree and heaved in deep, stuttering breathes. Molly’s stomach was full of butterflies. “Bravo, darling, that would have been a disaster if I had been talking, you did wonderfully.” Nott tugged at his pant leg and tried to encourage him. Caleb went deaf to Molly’s praises.

Mollymauk ran his fingers through Caleb’s hair. The wind moved the dirty red locks as his fingers carded through. He sighed. He couldn’t feel Caleb’s hair.

The raven man who had introduced himself as Vax’ildan was leaning against the trunk of a tree a few feet away, glowing but also sort of not glowing with the same black void that Molly was. He had helped Molly up from his body, and when their hands had connected, Molly didn’t feel warmth or cold, but something like static electricity. It stung and tickled and Molly recoiled as soon as he had his footing. Well, sort of footing. He no longer had any mass or balance, so he didn’t really need to have any footing on the ground. Still, habits. Vax’ildan had asked him to come with him, and Molly almost obliged this handsome creature, but he caught a glimpse of Beau in the corner of his eye. She was bloodied and on her knees and crying. Beauregard was crying. She was pounding her fists into the ground and she was sobbing. Something in Mollymauk broke at that.

Dammit. Beauregard was going to keep him from fucking his ghost man in the spectral realm. Fuck her.

Mollymauk refused to leave until they found Fjord, Jester, and Yasha. He had to see Yasha again. He needed to give her a flower and kiss her forehead. He needed her to know that he was okay. When Molly went to draw his swords on Vax, he had found himself unarmed and essentially naked, even though physical things were kind of fuzzy and he didn’t necessarily have a body to have uncovered anymore, so instead he tried to flirt his way through. Vax’ildan the Raven Man had laughed and agreed to let him stay, but only until they found the others, and only to observe. He couldn’t interfere with their world. It wasn’t his world anymore. Vax’ildan fiddled anxiously with a black feather on his armor.

“He means something to you.” Vax stated rather than asked. Molly supposed Vax had gotten bored with simply encouraging him to move on. Molly turned that over in his head.

“I would have liked him to, yes.” Molly said. He studied Caleb’s features as Caleb began to regain his composure. “But no. No, he’s been through a lot in the past. At least, I get the sense he has. His walls are up high. I wouldn’t want to push him past any limits. I was going to let him heal a bit before I did anything.” he paused for a moment. “Although I can’t help but flirt sometimes.” Vax snorted at his spot by the tree.

“The first thing you did upon waking up was offer sex in return for staying with your friends. I’d say no, you can’t help it.” He said through a laugh. Molly liked his laugh. It was young, unlike the rest of him. That’s not to say he wasn’t handsome, quite the contrary, he was that strange, either twenty or three hundred that elves tended to be. But Molly could see the way that he carried himself and how he hadn’t seemed extremely upset or sympathetic when Molly realized what was happening. Mostly, it was his eyes though. They were heavy. Vax’ildan had seen too much to be young anymore. His laugh was pure, though, so Molly sought it out.

“Well you can hardly blame me.” He said with a toothy grin. “I’m desperate to see my friends through and you just look delicious.” Vax laughed again.

__

Molly stood over Beau’s shoulder as they came upon the graveyard. It creeped him out a bit, and he was good with undead things. Maybe it was the simple idea of a graveyard, the distant, fleeting memory of dirt filling up his lungs. He still wrapped his arms around Beau’s shoulders, tried to hold onto her as they crept up to this strange building. It was beautiful, he had to admit, in a strange and melancholy way. A shiver went up Beau’s spine as he touched her. He didn’t recoil, as she tossed her head back, trying to figure out what was watching her. Vax’ildan did not walk past the barrier of the graveyard, shrouded in the dark part of the woods.

The giant man that opened the door and welcomed his friends in looked nice enough. He as pretty in a strange, ethereal kind of way. Molly wondered for a moment if he would flirt with him, but, as soon as he made Molly’s friends cups of tea and settled them down to talk about their troubles, Molly decided that, no, he wouldn’t have done that. There were some people that were so clearly off limits, some that were meant for other people, whose hearts beat for a different reason than his. Molly had felt the same way about Yasha when he’d first met her. The comparison was high praise, and for a moment, his nonexistent chest ached for her.

“They’re safe with him,” Vax’ildan had said as they left the graveyard. Molly cast his eyes back to that bright pink, melancholy man. He stood at the edge of the graveyard, regarding the line where the grass turned from soft green to rotten brown. Molly could see his soul weep for them, those dying, dead things outside of his home. “He belongs to the Wildemother. The Raven Queen trusts her. You can trust them to him.”

“He doesn’t belong to anybody,” Molly said without turning back to look at Vax. “Nor do I. Or you.” Molly could feel the air around Vax grow uncomfortable.

“I think you have a naive idea of god and worshiper relationships, Mollymauk.” Vax said after a moment.

“I think you have a bad relationship with your god.” Molly retorted. “Besides, even if I am naive, you can hardly blame me. I’m only two.”

__

Molly stayed by Caleb the entire time that they were in the nest. It was a force of habit, staying so close to him. He knew that Caleb was, as Jester would often say, squishy. It was less favoritisms and more that he trusted Caleb the least to handle himself. He had his hands on Caleb’s shoulders, futilely trying to apply pressure to the many wounds scattered across his torso. For some reason, Molly’s translucent heart was pounding away in his chest, Caleb sucked in desperate, labored breathes, and Beau shouted out into the room.

“ Fuck him up!”

Caleb spurred to his feet, clutching at his side. His hand shot out, crackling with ash and embers. Molly tracked the light as it flew across the room, watched it burn through the thing that burned through him. He watched the life leave that body. He had never wished for someone’s death in regards to vindication, but fuck, watching that corpse hit the ground lit something in his soul.

“That’s for my fucking cat.” Caleb strangled out. Molly laughed, whooped, jumped in the air and pumped his fists in triumph.

“Fuck yes! Nobody touches Frumpkin without eating ass!” Vax didn’t laugh or join in. He had taken to silently leering over Molly’s shoulder. He supposed that he had seriously overstayed his welcome.

Molly wasted no time waiting for Nott to pick the locks on the cages. He appeared in Jester’s and Fjord’s first. He bent down, pressed his lips to Jester’s forehead, brushed the hair away from Fjord’s eyes. He felt the ache of crying pulling up on his throat, but he didn’t cry, couldn’t cry. He no longer possessed the capacity. He adored Jester, but he knew that his time was fleeting. He needed to see Yasha.

She looked so small, chained and bloodied, unconscious on the floor. He melted, wrapped himself around her, hoped that she could find some comfort there.

“I’m so sorry,” Molly whispered, “I’m so sorry,” Yasha’s breathe hitched, “I love you.”

Vax’ildan’s hand met his shoulder. Molly knew that it was time to leave, and, for the first time, he felt that it was right.

“Don’t cry too hard for me, love,” Molly whispered into Yasha’s bloody hair, “I’ll always find my way back to you.”

He stood, took Vax’s hand in his, let himself be led out of the house. Feathers started to bleed from the Raven Man’s cape, wrapping around Molly’s tangling in his hair, catching on his shoulders. The moon was high in the sky and his heart panged for the cool touch of the Moonweaver.

“Mollymauk,” Vax’ildan said, “you can let go.” Molly knew that, had he been able, tears would be pouring down his cheeks.

“I’ve never been so stuck.” He whispered.

“I have you,” Vax said, wrapping squeezing Molly’s hands in his. “You can let go. You can let go.”

Molly closed his eyes, felt the tug in his chest and, as the feathers began to blot out his being, he let the moonlight take him. He was floating, floating, falling somewhere else, collected up in Vax’ildan’s arms. The stuff that made him up dissipated, drifting up, up, mingling with the moon beams until that was all that he was.

Chapter Text

Scanlan knew that, for all of his tall talk, that he was easily contained with a length of rope and a gag in his mouth. It didn’t surprise him that they had managed to subdue him so easily. What shocked him when he woke up was the fact that they had managed to catch Vax’ildan. It was hard enough to spot Vax when he was intent on not being found, and even harder to get your hands on him. They guy was slippery, almost as good at talking his way out of things as his sister, and always ready to break a finger or dislocate a shoulder to slip out of bonds.

So it a bit of a shock when Scanlan woke up, gagged and bound, to find Vax’ildan hung up by chains in the ceiling. He was unconscious, a steady beat set up by the drops of blood from his forehead hitting the stone ground. He was stripped of his armor, and Scanlan could see it piled up in the corner of the room with his boots and his holy symbol, tossed carelessly on the ground. Scanlan would pay good money to see whoever these assholes were staring down the Raven Queen after they’d 1) harmed her precious champion and 2) tossed her symbol onto the ground like trash. He had his issues with the woman, but he would revel in her revenge as much as she would.

He tried to call out of Vax, but not much sound made it through the gag. He tried to topple the chair he was tied to, but his mobility was limited by the tight ropes on his legs and hands. He cursed and racked his brain for any spell that could help.

He didn’t know how long it had been when they came. It was a tall, thin human, somewhere in his late fifties, dressed in armor well above his station. Following him was a younger man, skittish and nervous looking, who wheeled in a table on which laid several instruments that Scanlan didn’t care to be acquainted with. The younger man approached Scanlan and tugged on his gag.

“Fuck, I don’t know whether to use Charm Person or Hold Monster on your ugly face.” It wasn’t his best, but he spat it with magic and the man stumbled back, clutching his head as the magic sunk in. The older man reacted quickly, retrieving a knife from his pocket, grasping Vax’s hand in his own, and slicing through his little finger like it was butter.

Vax stirred cried out but didn’t fulling regain consciousness. His hand spasmed and he jerked, but his head fell back down, hair hiding his face. Scanlan bit his tongue and tried to figure out if he could Vicious Mockery both of these fuckers to death.

“For every spell that you use, he’ll lose a finger.” The man dangled Vax’s little finger in front of Scanlan’s face. His jaw snapped shut. “Choose them carefully. You only have nine more.”

Scanlan felt curses and screams building up in his chest but he choked them down. He had to hold it together.

“I have a few questions for you and if you answer them honestly, then everything will be fine and you two will be on your way home in no time. If you don’t, then I will slowly torture and kill your little halvie here.” To make his point, the man took a handful of Vax’s hair and pulled his head back, trailing a cut across Vax’s collarbone. This managed to stir Vax, his eyes rolling from the back of his head and hazily tried to focus. Eventually they landed on Scanlan, then the man in front of him, then the knife still balanced against his skin.

“Oh, hell.” Vax murmured, and was rewarded with a slash against his opposite collar bone.

“I’d keep from saying too much if I were you, but I do encourage screams, crying, anything of that sort.” He patted Vax’s cheek with his hand. “Make it pretty for me.” Vax spat directly in his eye. The man grimaced, whipped at his eye, and smacked Vax so hard across his face that Scanlan heard his neck pop.

“Vox Machina recently found their way into a certain house owned by a certain Nobel. This house contained a certain jewel that was procured by the members of Vox Machina, two of which I am now in possession of. If you can tell me where I can find that jewel and I can retrieve it with no trouble, then you two will be released with no more trouble. If you present a challenge, I guarantee that I will rise to it.” The man put down his bloodied knife and retrieved a long, menacing whip that a pointed, metal end. Scanlan's eyes bulged and he caught Vax’s desperation leaking across the room.

Scanlan knew that Vex had the jewel and he knew that Vax would endure any torture in the world to keep her safe. It was all he could do to help.

“So, Master Bard,” the man’s voice seethed with sarcasm. He made his way back behind Vax, cracking the whip across the ground. It cut through the stone and sparked. Scanlan could only imagine what it would do to the delicate skin of Vax’ildan’s back, smooth, pale, and unmarred. “Where is the jewel.”

“Honestly?” Scanlan said, his eyes locked with Vax’s, trying to say sorry without saying sorry. “I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.”

The whip cracked. Scanlan heard the metal tear through flesh. Vax’s face screwed up as he jerked forward, his arms straining against the chains that held him upright. He contained his scream, letting out only a groan through his teeth. He breathed heavily. The man cracked the whip against the floor again. Scanlan flinched.

“Come on, put your back into it!” Vax shouted, tugging experimentally on the chains. Scanlan saw him picking at the lock. He had no idea how he was planning to pick it with no tools, but if anybody could do it, it was Vax. The man struck again, and Scanlan closed his eyes, listened to the way that Vax drew breathe in through is nose while he clamped his mouth shut. “You whip like my girlfriend!” He shouted, “Come one, put a bit more in and maybe you’ll hit as hard as my boyfriend, but that bastard-“

Suddenly the whip was around Vax’s neck, tugging tight and cutting off his air. Scanlan moved to open his mouth, to through out a spell, to do anything but he counted Vax’s fingers again and decided to wait until he was really on Death’s door.

“Let’s try again, shall we?”

Scanlan lost track of time at some point. He had been trying to gauge how long they had been there, but he had been distracted by the number of wounds opening up on Vax’s back thanks to his silence, by the sound of knuckled breaking over sharp cheekbones, the gentle crack of his ribs. Scanlan eventually hung his head down, closed his eyes, tried to block out the screams that Vax could no longer contain.

Vax, for his part, had kept his mouth shut, if only to keep them alive long enough for the others to find them. That’s why it surprised Scanlan when he heard Vax’s voice, rough and broken from screaming.

“No, no, stop it, you bastard-“

Scanlan snapped his head up to see the man, hands slick with Vax’s blood, gather’s the matted, long, dark locks behind Vax’s back, holding his knife where he had collected it in his hand.

“Oh, I would start talking, he doesn’t seem very happy to lose this,” Scanlan searched his mind for anything to bargain with, met Vax’s large, dark, panicked eyes, and decided that all he had was the truth.

“Wait!” He called, straining against his bonds. “Wait, okay, I’ll tell you.” The man laughed, tugged on Vax’s hair, and released it. Vax’s head lolled forward, his body slumping, no longer able to hold him up. Scanlan focused on his bare feet, bent against he ground as his knees buckled and not the man approaching him. The knife found its way to Scanlan’s neck, and he looked up. He caught sight of Vax’s hands, rubbed raw and bleeding around the shackles, and moving. One of them, just a bit, not enough to catch the eye, but there, just in the grasp of it, covered up by the blood from his missing finger, was something glinting in the dull light. Scanlan kept his eye on that shackle, waiting for the moment that it broke.

“Then tell me,” the man reeked of sweat and blood and Scanlan wrinkled his nose up.

“Okay,” He said, tracking as Vax’s fingers worked past the last latch, “okay, but you have to let us go.”

“I said I would, so I will,”

“The jewel is...” He watched as Vax get sloppier, started to panic and shake his chains. Scanlan needed to hold the man’s attention, “straight up my ass, why don’t you look around for it,” he spat out, magic coating the words. He saw his spell take root at the same time that Vax’s shackle broke through. He slumped towards the ground on one side, but with his free hand, he was able to grab at one of the knives on among the man’s table and slash into his back. The younger man rushed forward, but Vax was quicker and kicked out at him, sending his reeling back.

Scanlan watched as the two men approached Vax, and he prepared a spell on the tip of his tongue, and he smelled lightning on the air.

“You stupid fuckers,” He screamed, “his girlfriend is gonna beat you up!”

As soon as it was out of his mouth, the door behind Scanlan burst open, energy crackling along the floor and ceiling. He heard a shout as the younger man was thrown against the wall, the smell of burnt skin filling the air. Scanlan slumped slightly in his chair. If Kiki was here, then he didn’t have anything to worry about.

He watched as Keyleth’s eyes fell upon Vax, categorized the wounds scattered across his body, and then they shifted, alight with burning power, and met the man who had tortured Vax.

He barely lasted three seconds. Scanlan was counting.

Vex wasn’t far behind Keyleth, and when she came bursting into the room, she stopped only to land a kick into the ribs of the younger man before she was standing on her toes, picked the lock on the other shackle, and lowered her brother onto the ground.

“You had to go after Scanlan, you idiot,” she murmured, “are you okay, dear?” She called over her shoulder.

“Yea-yes, yeah, I’m fine, just a bit tied up over here.” Keyleth set out healing what she could of Vax’s wounds as Vex stood to cut the ropes tying him down. Scanlan thanked her and rubbed his wrists before settling on the ground next to Vax. “You look terrible,” he said, Vax laughed softly, arching his back to try and escape the pain.

“And you are a sight as always, my friend.” Keyleth was stroking her hand through Vax’s hair, gently running her magic over him.

“We should get you to Pike,” she said, her voice soft. The terrifying force that had torn through the room was gone, leaving behind just Kiki, anxious and fidgeting and lovely.

“Gil is going to kill me for losing his favorite finger.” Vax murmured as they helped him to his feet.

It took Pike several weeks to get Vax’s hand back in order and even longer for Scanlan to approach the subject with him. Getting him alone was a challenge onto itself since between Gilmore, Keyleth, and Vex’aliah, he was barely out of sight at any time. He finally managed to catch him one morning before breakfast. They walked slowly through the walls of the Keep together, chatting casually.

“So why did you do it?” Scanlan finally blurted out.

“What am I meant to have done?” Vax replied.

“Why did you let them take you?” Scanlan came to a stop in the hallway. Vax stopped along with him, sighed and worrying over a stray strand of hair.

“I couldn’t very well leave you to those bastards alone.” He said, rolling his shoulders.

“Well, that’s actually very genuine of you, Vax.” Scanlan smiled.

“You wouldn’t have lasted six seconds.” Vax called out as he continued down the hall.

“Oh-ho- surely ten at least!” Scanlan hurried after him.

“Eight. Final offer.”

Chapter Text

When she woke up, she really had no idea where she was. It was a strange feeling, expecting to be... well, she wasn’t exactly sure where she was supposed to be, a bed, perhaps, something more comfortable than the hard ground beneath her. She felt her fingers trail over the surface beaneath her, felt brittle, dead grass crumbled under her hand. When she opened her eyes, she saw the sky, dark sections cut up by stars the tops of the trees above her. Her vision swam for a moment before it zeroed on the splash of color on the ground next to her.

He was a tiefling, lavender, with tall, curving horns covered with gold and silver jewelry. He was holding two swords, covered in blood and glowing softly in the darkness. Blood was dripping down his body, staining his semi-white shirt and trailing down his arms. She watched as he blocked a blow from the orc on top of him, kicked up at her, and sent her to fall against a tree. He grunted, made his way to his knees, and looked back over his shoulder, grinning with blood in his teeth.

“Back with us, sweetheart?” He asked. His voice was deep and smooth and twinged with a slight accent that she couldn’t place. She blinked, scrunched her eyes up, and tried to wrap her mind around the man in front of her. He sliced through someone’s chest, and she jumped, let out a yelp, and crawled backwards, suddenly very aware that this person was very dangerous. He looked back, and what had been something malicious in his eyes melted away into worry. “Jester?” He asked. “Darling, are you okay?” She blinked up at him, not sure how to respond.

The man kicked back the threatening-looking human in front of him and dug one of his swords into the ground, dragging the other over his palm. She watched with wide eyes as blood bubbled to the surface of his delicate-lavender skin, and, perhaps more worrying, he didn’t seem to mind it. He spit into the pool of blood in his hand and growled towards the concoction, black, glowing magic flowing from him. He smiled sweetly at her and slammed his palm into the ground. Around them grew a bubble of translucent red, like a sheen of blood had been thrown out of the ground. For a moment, she was terrified, leaping back from the bloody walls that formed around them, breathing heavily. The man came to his knees again, holding his ring-covered, tattooed hands out in front of him, as though he were surrendering.

“Jester, what’s wrong?” He asked.

She began to feel her panic leaving her, bit by bit. At first, this strange man had terrified her, but now she couldn’t deny something familiar and warm about him. His red-sheened eyes were less menacing, more endearing, deep, and genuine. She had seen his face before. She couldn’t put a name to it, no matter how hard she tried.

He must have recognize something, she supposed, some kind of look in her eyes. He must have seen that before. Felt it before.

“Can you tell me your name?” He asked, his voice gentle. She screwed her brow up and, with a jolt, realized that she didn’t know. It was an alarming thing to realize, and her breathing spiked again. She opened her eyes wide with panic. “It’s okay!” The man said, “it’s okay, just breathe for a second.” She stared at him as he mimicked too large breathes, drawing breathe into his lungs audibly and then puffing up his cheeks as he blew it out. She followed his lead, breathing in, breathing out. She could still feel her soul stirring in her chest, desperate to jump out of her but unable.

“Your name is Jester,” the man said. “Jester Lavorre. And my name is Mollymauk Tealeaf. Molly to my friends, and you’re my friend.”

“Molly,” she said, testing out in. It was familiar on her lips. She had said it before.

“It’s okay, we’re safe here for right now. Just take a second and breathe.” This strange creature that had been so terrifying a moment ago was kind, was peaceful, bled warmth into her bones. She dug through her head to find him somewhere in there and instead she found nothing.

“My head is empty,” She said, shocked by the sound of her own voice, different than what she expected. Molly’s face dropped slack, the gentle smile that he didn’t need to work to keep up melting away. He looked at her like he’d been struck, with wide, horrified eyes. She wondered what she had said wrong.

“Oh, Jester,” he whispered, something heavy and wet in his voice, “oh, darling it's okay. Its okay,” he held his hand out, and for whatever reason, she took it. She knew that, sticky with blood it may be, he was someone that she could trust. He was someone that she could lean on. She pitched forward, tears springing to her eyes, and fell into his chest. He was crying too, a little, and she felt the shaking in his chest as he fought to contain it.

It was silent in the blood bubble, but Molly shifted when he saw that the majority of the fighting was over. Jester pried herself from his arms, searching through the translucent blood for anything that could harm her. Molly’s hand found hers, and with the other, he guided the blood into the ground. Jester’s heart was pounding him her chest.

“It’s okay,” Molly said, his voice thick with tears, “it’s okay, we’ve got more friends, and they might be able to help.”

Molly stood, guiding her to her feet and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She could feel the trepidation in his steps, the way that he drew her close, ready to protect her or keep her from running if he needed to.

Jester made the decision to trust him. Despite his appearance, it was a very easy one to make.

“Caleb!” Molly shouted, gripped at her arm and hugging her into him, “Caleb we’ve got a problem!” Emerging from the trees around them, a tall, lean woman in blue robes. She was beautiful, dark skin, brown hair tied up into a knot on top of her head. She balanced a bow staff on her shoulders and rubbed at the blood dripping from her broken nose. Closely behind her was a man in a brown duster, scraggly red hair twisting around his head, and dirt scrubbed across his face. He gripped at his abdomen, red staining across his hand.

“Jester,” he mumbled, his voice thick with a different accent from Molly’s. “If you could please?”

She stared up at this strange man, his body caving inwards, holding out one hand to her, and she had no idea what she was meant to do. He must have noticed the look in her eyes, the panic, the loss, because he took a step forward, that hand coming forward to cup her cheek. His hand was unnaturally warm, like he’d just held it over a fire. His intense, blue eyes bore into hers, looking for something in the darkness.

“I...” he mumbled, looking up at Molly, “I don’t think I can do anything about this.”

“What?” The tall, blue woman said. “You can’t do anything about what? ”

“I saw a spell hit her,” there came a croaking voice from behind her. She spun around in Molly’s arms, searching for the source. There was a shadow poking out from around a tree. She couldn’t see the details, but it sent a shiver up her spine.

“A cleric is in demand in this case.” Said the man Molly called Caleb, “I can’t fix this,”

“We’re not too far out from Zedash,” the blue woman said, “we can get back by tomorrow night if we push it, but can somebody please explain what’s wrong?” She could hear the annoyance bubbling in her voice.

“Something to do with her memory,” Molly said, rubbing her shoulder with his thumb, “she got up and didn’t remember anything.” The blue woman’s shoulders sagged with something akin to grief.

“Let’s make her comfortable,” Caleb said, “Yasha can provide some healing, and we can bind the rest of our wounds. We’ll get back to Zedash as soon as we can.”

“Jessy,” the blue woman said, stepping forward, “come on, Jes,” Her heart ached and she couldn’t say why.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, feeling tears spring to her eyes. Molly hugged her tighter.

“It’s not your fault,” he said, “you can’t control this.” He turned his gaze to the others. “Let’s try not to overwhelm her. She can’t help this.” The blue woman nodded, scrubbing at the blood under her nose. She cupped Jester’s cheek in her hand and pressed a quick, chaste kiss to her forehead. There was heat behind it. There was love behind it.

Jester settled easily into the tent that Molly and the woman named Beau set up for her, curling into the blankets and Molly’s technicolor coat, trying to remain calm through the barrage of nothing in her head. She had a sketchbook around her belt, and as she flipped through it, it only became harder and harder to keep herself calm. There were little drawings, pictures of some of the people that she was traveling with, a picture of Caleb, little squiggly lines running up and around him, a note beside him reading ‘ Stinky!’ In pretty cursive writing. There was a drawing of the half-orc man named Fjord, beautifully detailed, taking liberties, but still recognizable. There was a drawing of a goblin that she didn’t recognize, swaddling a baby with Caleb’s face drawn in. There was a drawing of Beau and the large woman called Yasha kissing passionately. There was a drawing of Molly, covered in royal robes, a crown over his head, looking absolutely celestial.

Little notes, too, small letters, piece of paper folded up and stuck between the pages. After she read a lovely note that was signed “Mama,” she put the book away.

Jester watched through the opening in her tent as the large woman who apparently kissed Beau wrapped Molly up in a tender hug, dark, beautiful magic swirling up to wrap around his broken skin. She cupped his cheeks in her big hands. Spoke shortly to him. Jester saw that look on him again, broken down to the bone. Yasha pulled him close, kissed at his cheeks, held him against her as though to heal some deeper hurt. Eventually, he broke free, whipping at his eyes, clearing the dark, running makeup that had smeared around his eyes.

He made his way to her, ducking into her tent and smiling.

“Do you want to be alone?” He asked. Jester shook her head on instinct. The thought of sitting by herself in that darkness, of floating in the lack of herself, was paralyzing. He nodded and kicked off his boots, settling into the mass of blankets next to her. “It’s going to be okay,” he whispered into the dark. “I know it feels like the earth is caving in on you and you can’t dig your way out, but you will. We’re here to help. You just have to keep digging.”

She turned and carefully laid herself out next to him, careful that her horns didn’t tear through his skin. He wrapped his arms around her, kissed her head. She listened to the air as it entered and left him. She listened to his heart. She listened to the way the grief bled in and out of him.

She fell asleep eventually, floating away into the darkness around her, washed in the smell of lavender and blood.

Chapter Text

The cave came down with no warning. That was the thing, Percy supposed, about fighting kobalts and dragons in complicated cave systems. They always knew what brick would topple the tower. They knew what rock to kick to bring everything down. Percy wasn’t fond of boulders crushing his skull in, so as soon as the crossbow bolt from in front of them hit the stalagmites above them, Percy tried to decide what to do. He had two directions to chose from, forward and backward. Before him was Vax’ildan, about ten feet ahead. Vax watched the bolt hit the rocks too, his eyes met Percy’s for a moment. There was desperation in his look, but not for himself. They both knew that Vax and the others were clear of the rocks, but Percy was not. Behind him was Grog, taking up the rear to try and protect against an ambush. He didn’t have enough time to get both himself and Grog to Vax.

He had to work quickly.

Percy swung Bad News around to his back again and sprinted as fast as he could towards Grog. He had to hit him just right to bring him down. Grog was gigantic, and Percy didn’t have the kind of leverage he needed to take him down. However, Percy knew that Grog would drop anything to catch one of them if they ran at him. Keyleth had tested it. He’d dropped an almost full tankard of ale when she flung herself into his arms. Percy trusted that Grog would drop his axe and that he would also get the hint with the rocks hitting the ground right on Percy’s heels.

Percy rammed into Grog full force with his shoulder, jumping a bit to hit him in the solar plexus, at Grog’s center of gravity. Percy had been right, Grog had dropped his axe, and now his arms came protectively around Percy. He hadn’t expected Percy’s force, though, and as the rocks started to overtake them, Grog toppled backwards. Percy felt his shoulder pop as he connected. He heard a snap somewhere under him. Grog roared in pain. Even with the protection of Grog’s form and the distance from the original cave in, rocks still pummeled down on them. Grog’s arms tightened around him protectively. He was taking the brunt of the damage for Percy, shielding him from most of it. Something collided with Percy’s temple. He couldn’t decide if it was a rock or the ground, but regardless, warmth pooled to the surface, his vision blurred around the edges, his stomach flipped. The last thing that Percy saw was Grog’s face, twisted up in pain.

__

He came to choking on a healing potion. The bitter-fizzy taste of it was putrid on Percy’s tongue, but he swallowed it down anyway, knowing that it was precious stuff and Vex would be disappointed if he wasted it. He tried to blink away the dark spots in his vision before he realized that there were no dark spots, it was just dark. He

opened his eyes as wide as he could and he was still blind. He worried for a moment that his sight was impaired beyond Pike’s treatment, because by now, surely, she had taken care of him. And then Percy realized that his brain was still pounding inside of his skull. He realized that he could feel the sticky, awful sensation of drying blood on the back of his neck. And then he realized that his right leg was numb to sensation.

And then he remembered the cave and the rocks and Grog.

Grog.

“Percy?” There was Grog’s voice, deep, defensive, a bit scared. Grog didn’t like to admit when he was scared, but Percy could always hear it. It was rare that Grog didn’t turn fear into anger. It was rare to see him vulnerable. Percy might not have been attuned to his own emotions, but he was to those around him, to a degree. Grog wasn’t subtle. He was a loud person, and that meant he felt all of his feelings loudly. It made Percy’s chest ache.

He shifted, felt his body protest, let out a weak whine, and settled back onto the hard rock. Grog’s hand found his, surrounding it completely in warmth. Percy leaned into it, chased the warmth that he lacked.

“Where are we?” He asked, his voice wind and croak. He could hear the sigh of relief that Grog let out.

“The caves,” he said, “we’ve been here for a while.”

And that was strange, because Percy truly couldn’t remember entering a cave. The last thing that he remembered was a sleepless night in his workshop, working on decreasing the misfire rate in Bad News. He couldn’t recall anything to do with a cave. He figured he wouldn’t tell Grog that. There was no reason to worry him further/

“The others?” He asked.

“They’ll come back,” Grog said quickly. Percy squeezed his hand.

“Well, of course they will,” Percy said, “the real question is when.” He lifted shaking fingers to his ear and tugged on his earring. There was a crackle, popping magic in his head, and a voice cut up by it. He winced, chased Keyleth’s voice to no avail. “I think we’re on our own for a bit.” Grog grunted ands shifted, drawing closer to Percy. In the pitch black, Percy couldn’t see Grog, but he knew that Grog could see him. It was a strange feeling, being observed without observing.

Percy tried to take stock of himself, to single out his injuries and decide what was worst. There were too many. His head pounded, most likely the cause of his lapse on memory. He had remembered his mother’s lessons on battle healing. She had insisted that, though none of them were likely to become warriors, let alone clerics, they all knew how to mend bones and cauterize bleeding wounds. It was, thankfully, a skill that he hadn’t needed to use very often for others, but one that he frequently used to assess his own state during battle. Head wounds were always dangerous, his mother had warned him. Head wounds bled, they caused sometimes permanent damage, and, when in his line of work, all too frequent. Symptoms included headache, confusion, lack of coordination, nausea, dizziness, ringing in the ears, fatigue, and memory loss.

“Can you tell me, Grog,” Percy said, “what exactly happened?” His eyes were heavy and, considering his current position, it didn’t change much for him to just close them. Grog shifted again, fidgeting, but obviously trying to stay quiet.

“I don’t think you’re meant to go to sleep.” Grog said, taking both of Percy’s hands in his.

“That actually not true,” Percy corrected. “Brains heal when we sleep so I definitely need that. Or just a healing spell.” He winced as his ribs creaked around the air he drew in.

“The cave fell,” Grog said. Percy thought about nodding and then remembered the pool of blood that was congealing his hair to the ground. He couldn’t exactly remember that. A few flashes, the sound of metal hitting rock, the look in Vax’ildan’s eyes, the sound of his shoulder popping out. He rolled it, and it was back in place, sore, but not out of its socket.

“Where are we?” He asked. Grog huffed and shifted.

“The caves.” He answered. Something was strange in his voice, something panicked. Percy couldn’t pay attention to it. His brain was foggy, twisting the dark, loud world around him.

His memory lapsed again. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t form words anymore. He gasped, reached for any way to communicate.

His earring seemed to hum for a moment before it crackled to life, much too loud in his ear.

“-rog? Are we close?” It was Keyleth, her voice much too loud in his head. Percy groaned and scratched at his ear. Grog seemed to understand. He snatched the earring from Percy’s ear and worked it into his own.

“Keyleth, we can hear you,” he said, keeping his voice down. “Percy’s hurt.” The two of them spoke quietly for a few moments, and Percy drifted, no longer able to hold on to complete consciousness. He could hear Grog talking to him, quiet words of reassurance that barely broke through. He could feel Grog’s hand on his torso, feeling for his heart beat, keeping him warm.

Light, bursting through the darkness, cutting into his head. Swirling, gold magic, leaving the tastes of sunshine and sage in his mouth.

The next time he woke up, he was surrounded by sunlight. Its was welcome after all of that dark. He was huddled in Grog’s arms, warm and alive. He wasn’t inclined to get down any time soon.

Chapter Text

Beau had never died before, but she really had to give it to Mollymauk. She certainly couldn’t have clawed her way out of a grave and stumbled, naked to civilization at the moment. She had almost expected to see him when that arrow had struck through her chest. It was strange, the finality of it. There had been so many moments that she was sure she was about to die, but at that one, she knew. And it wasn’t something to grieve or celebrate, it just was. She laid on that cold, forest floor, and she made peace with the gods.

She watched from somewhere else as Caleb noticed that she was down. She saw the panic run over his face. She saw him crash onto his knees next to her, checking with shaking hands for a pulse. She saw the color drain from his face, the haunted, blank look in his blue eyes, the way that he screamed for Jester.

And it wasn’t Molly who came to get her. It was a tall, lean figure clad in black. She supposed that maybe he was too busy in the afterlife to great an old friend, but hey, what the fuck did she know? Maybe ghosts couldn’t do shit. Still, it would have been nice to see him. She squared her shoulders against the figure. Feathers spooled around them and Beau got ready to fight.

She didn’t have to. Jester and Caduceus got to her first. The ritual that they casted was beautiful to watch and the black-clad figure did nothing to stop them. She watched as they swirling their magics around her, as the diamond sunk into her chest, as the blood stopped flowing and she breathed again. And then she snapped back into her body.

She could only describe what she felt next as whiplash.

She hurt. Every muscle, bone, and tendon were aching inside of her and every breathe shook and broke. She felt like clay, dried out and cracking in the sun. She screamed for relief. Caduceus seemed to expect this as she shook and cried. He did something and she slipped into unconsciousness.

It was several days before she could even walk. It was humiliating, having to be carried or laid out in the cart. Yasha didn’t throw her over her shoulder like she usually would. She carried her gently in her arms, cradling her head, as though she were afraid that Beau would break. Fjord was all too kind to her, always rushing to help, even with the few things that she could do for herself. Caleb couldn’t look at the blood stains on her robes.

The closest safe haven was the Blooming Grove. She could tell that Caduceus wasn’t happy to be going back with no solution for his dying home, but she wasn’t getting better fast and they couldn’t get back to Zedash in time. It was slow going. She couldn’t move fast, even if she was riding the cart. They were forced to cover half of the land that they usually did in a day to ensure that she could eat and sleep.

And she just felt like shit. Not only her body, which felt like it was shutting down around her. She felt like emotional shit. And while that wasn’t new, the things that she was guilty about weren’t usually staring her in her face. She wanted to bury herself in the ground so that she didn’t have to hear Fjord and Caleb talking about their pace against the winter. She wanted to fade away so that she didn’t hear Nott consoling Jester after nightmares.

Jester was sitting with her in the cart next to her, recounting the tale of some pathetic man who had paid prettily for an evening with her mother and hadn’t even been able to enjoy it. Beau was only half listening, resting her eyes as she turned the words around in her mouth and wondered if she should say them.

“You should leave me behind.” She mumbled, barely loud enough to hear. Jester stopped short in her story, going very quiet and very stil, perched next to her head.

“Beau...” She whispered, not with fear or sadness, but disappointment.

“I’ll only slow you guys down.” Beau could feel a sting building up in her chest, and she fought the tears that she didn’t think she had the strength to wipe away.

“No,” Jester said, “Beau, it's not your fault.” Beau laughed. A hollow, angry thing.

“Doesn’t matter,” She coughed, tasted blood on her tongue, “I’m still doing it. Cad shouldn’t have to go back, you guys shouldn’t have to take care of me, this is all bullshit.” Jester huffed and sat for a moment before she moved, balancing herself so that she was looking down at Beau, perched atop of her. She looked divine with the sun beaming through her hair.

“Beau that’s stupid. We wouldn’t ever leave you, even if you stayed dead, we would have just tied strings to your arms and made you into a puppet,” that made Beau smile. “We couldn’t ever abandon you. And yeah, it's totally annoying that our super badass monk friend can’t do her cool shit, but it's okay because you’ll be able to in a few weeks! So just shut the fuck up!” Jester kissed her cheeks hugged her. Beau settled into Jester’s arms, warm and tired and aching. The cart swayed and jostled and lulled her into something resembling sleep. Beau thought about Molly.

“Besides,” she thought she heard Caduceus call from the front of the cart, “we’re over half way there. If we abandoned you now, it would have been a waste of time, so we might as well.”

She could hear the smile in his voice. Beau dreamt about a Molly puppet, a morbid idea, but no doubt one he would delight in. She dreamt about steam curling up from tea and bodies crawling out of the ground. She slept deeply, and knew that they were all there with her.

Chapter Text

Vax’ildan’s foot was turned almost one hundred and eighty degrees and he was beginning to consider if it would be better to just cut it off and try again. He didn’t know exactly how he had done that. It was a slight sprain that morning, he landed wrong jumping between shadows a few days ago, but considering how minor it was, he just didn’t bring it up to Pike. He was greatly regretting that choice.

He had his back to a wall, rough stone behind him. One dagger was on his hand, another on his belt, the last dug into a gnoll’s head. He shivered, tried to take a step towards better cover, and crumpled, pain shooting his his leg. This really wasn’t going his way.

He met Vex’s eye across the battlefield, clocked the twenty or so gnolls that were beginning to close in on him, and tried to apologize through his eyes.

“Retreat!” He heard Vex screaming, Percy echoed her across the chamber, grabbing putting himself between Grog and his prey to try and break through the rage. He was distracted, readying himself for the pierce of several spears when Keyleth collided with him. Tossing her staff out and sending lighting through the gnolls. He managed to balance himself, leaning against Keyleth’s stable form. She gripped at his belt, hauled his arm over her shoulder, and started walking.

They scattered, pairing up, escaping down every tunnel. They couldn’t follow all of them, not in effective numbers. It was just their luck that
Keyleth was several inches taller than Vax, and he struggled to keep up, cursing and dragging her back as his foot met the ground. She was patient, sending waves of healing magic through him, but unable to do much without being able to stop and set the bone. The pain was spiking up his leg with every step. He cried out, clung to Keyleth, tried to keep moving.

“Fuck,” he whispered, tossing a knife behind him as the gnolls began to catch up. Keyleth shot fire behind them and kept moving. He gripped at her robes. “Fuck, Keyleth just go,” He could feel his chest tightening. That familiar guilt blossomed in his stomach. If she died here because of him he would never forgive himself.

“What?” She squeaked, “No!” She tugged him closer and kept moving.

“I’m only going to slow you down, just go!” He pushed away from her, trying to untangle from her arms but she held fast, pulling him into her chest as she growled at the creatures a few yards behind them. He met her eyes, those brilliant, hazel things, and he thought he could scream or cry or kiss her. Something broke in her eyes. She moved towards the wall and set him against it. He closed his eyes, choked down the grief, and prayed. His Lady had been waiting for this. He wouldn’t deny her her Champion any longer.

There was a roar from beside him. He opened his eyes to Minxie, prowling in front of him, protectively snapping out at everything that came within three feet. Vax watched as she tore into anything that dared attack them, pulled them to pieces with smart teeth and flaming claws. His chest swelled with affection.

When she finally became Keyleth again, she was covered in blood and breathing heavily, but the gnolls were dead and the tunnel was empty. She sat down next to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Vax relaxed into her hold, pressed his ear to her chest, listened to her breathe rattling around inside of her ribs.

“If you ever suggest that I abandon you again I will kick your ass.” She said. Her voice was wet and tearful. He smiled into her skin.

“I don’t doubt it.” He mumbled.

Keyleth carried him back to the others, nestled into her arms. It was slow going, but they made it. Pike was quick to snap his foot back in place and heal it enough that he could walk, saving her spells for the much more severely injured Scanlan.

Vax elected to spend the evening away from the Keep. He felt overwhelmed, overstimulated, and didn’t want to smother himself in the others. He wished his sister goodnight, and he and Keyleth walked to Glorious Goods.

Their relationship with Gilmore was a complicated one, but one that satisfied him more than anything in the world. Gilmore wasn’t attracted to Keyleth in the least, but they had always been fast friends. Once the three of them had gotten their feet in the relationship, they had quickly become a force of nature. Vax was genuinely terrified of the two of them when they put their minds together.

Gilmore didn’t ask questions. He rarely did when they came to him looking beaten to shit and covered in blood. He just opened his door and let them inside.

Curled between the two loves of his life, Vax could feel that guilt in his chest again, the thought that he might have left them alone that night tearing into him. He could feel it blooming inside of him as tried to shove it down, Keyleth moved closer to him, wrapping her arm around his chest.

“Stop it,” He mumbled into his hair.

“What?” She whispered into the darkness.

“We can feel you blaming yourself for everything under the sun,” Shaun turned to mirror Kiki, kissing at Vax’s temple.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Keyleth said.

“We’re here,” Shaun intertwined his fingers with Vax’s.

“And so are you.” Keyleth kissed at his cheeks until he closed his eyes, drifting off to sweet things whispered in the darkness.

Chapter Text

Keyleth had worked herself into a tiny closet, clutching at the wound in her leg. It had been so very loud outside of the door, but now that it was closed, it was almost crushingly quiet. She could hear her own breathe, the sound of her heart pounding in her chest, the muffled crashes and curses of a battle. She heard Percy’s gun, exploding a few yards off, Grog crying out as he tore into people, the almost heavenly ringing of Pike’s magic. She tried to calm down her breathing, to keep herself from completely shutting down. She gathered her magic in her hand, pressed it to her wound, clenched her teeth against the burning.

The door of her closet began to shake, like someone was being thrown against it. She braced herself for the fragile door to cave in. The lock squeaked, she prepared a spell in her hands. It crashed inwards, Vax’ildan falling to the ground at her feet, a goblin biting for his neck. She let the spell loose and shot the thing off of him, sending it crashing into the wall opposite them. Keyleth bent down and helped Vax to his feet, letting him pull her into the shadows.

“We’ve got ourselves into quite the clusterfuck,” Vax mumbled, barring a dagger in his hand and keeping his eyes on the door. “I don’t think we can handle all of them, we need to find a way out.”

“My leg,” She whispered, leaning into him and gripping at the feathers of his cape. He ran his hand down her leg, stopping when he found the deep arrow wound. She had healed it as best as she could, but the what she couldn’t pull out of the arrow was still stuck in her leg, so healing could only do so much. That wasn’t even mentioning the poison that most definitely coated the thing and was eating through her blood. She only had so long before she was all but useless. Vax made a sound of disapproval and pity, applying pressure to the still-bleeding wound.

“It’s alright, we need to get moving,” he whispered, wrapping his arm around her waist. Keyleth pushed back.

“Vax,” she could feel her throat tightening up, “Vax you can get out of here without anybody seeing you. I’ll find my way out, just go.” Vax’s face screwed up.

“No,” he said, holding fast to her, “no, I’m not leaving you.”

“I’ll only slow you down,” She cupped Vax’ildan’s cheeks in her hands, tilted his face up so that she could kiss at his lips. “Go.”  

Vax didn’t let her push him away. Her magic was waning, but she sent a bolt of it to seal up the bite marks on Vax’ildan’s neck. She only liked the bites that she left.

“Save your strength, my dear, you’re getting out of here,” Vax wrapped her arm around his shoulders, pulled her weight onto himself. He wasn’t strong enough to carry her outright, but she leaned into him, letting him lead her out of the closet. They jumped from shadow to shadow, moving as quickly and quietly as they could. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very,

Vax’s daggers whizzed back and forth, thrown and carried back to his belt as they skirted away from any threat. The longer they walked, the weaker she felt, the poison beginning to course through her properly. She couldn’t stay quiet, she couldn’t move quickly. She was dragging Vax back with her. Something connected with Vax’s shoulder, sending them both tumbling to the ground. She cried out as the arrow in her leg was jostled and saw as Vax pulled a similar one from his back. His eyes met hers for a moment and then he was gone, disappearing in the shadows. She breathed out, let the tension leave her body. If she was going to die, at least Vax wouldn’t die with her.

There was a moment that she counted the footsteps coming towards her, the skittering of tiny feet, the clunk of heavy metal. And then the whiz of a dagger over her, the sound of bodies hitting the floor. She couldn’t open her eyes again, they were too heavy, but she lay with the knowledge that Vax’ildan was still fighting, that he was still fighting for her.

It was hazy after that. She couldn’t string time together quite right. Eventually, she was picked up by arms much stronger than Vax’s. Eventually, she was laid out in the grass, something warm next to her, the earth swirling beneath her. Eventually, white hot magic coursed through her and beat the poison away.

She came to properly with Vax calling her name, sweet and drowsy on his tongue.

“Kiki,” he whispered, “Kiki,”

“I’m here,” she said, fighting to get her bearings. She was still near the ground, but something was laid out under her now. Something warm and soft covered her up to her chin. She shifted in the makeshift bedding and remembered that they couldn’t travel quite as fast without her magic.

“You gave us quite a scare,” He whispered back, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Us, being the others, since I gave them just as bad a scare.”

“You’ve really got to stop risking your life for everybody,” she turned and caught his lips. “Shaun’s going to kill you one of these days.”

“May we all be so lucky as to die by the devilishly clever hands of Shaun Gilmore,” he laughed softly, cutting it off to cough into her shoulder.

“Are you going to be okay?” She said, wanting to run her hands through his hair, but unwilling to break through the warmth of her blankets and Vax.

“As long as you are.” He said into her skin.

“We’re going to be fine.” She said, kissed Vax’s hair, and drifted back into sleep.

Chapter Text

The sight of Molly covered in blood was not an unusual one, but so deeply saturated in it was alarming. They were trapped in the sewers below Zedash, Molly leaning heavily on Caleb, trying to find their way to the surface near their inn. That’s where Jester would be, so that’s where they needed to go as soon as possible.

Mollymauk’s breathing was labored and wet, dragging in and out of his chest in a way that worried Caleb deeply. He pressed his hand harder into the wound in Mollymauk’s side. He didn’t even cry out anymore, just slumped against Caleb further and tried to breathe.

“You need to move,” Molly gasped out, his fingers digging into Caleb’s shoulder, “you’ve got to go,” Caleb tightened his grip

“Yes, we do.” He huffed and strained to carry Molly a little tighter, move a little faster, if only to prove that he could. It wasn’t very convincing.

“I’ll only slow you down.” Molly wheezed, and Caleb tightened his hold on Molly’s wrist.

“And Yasha will squash me if I leave you.” Caleb muttered. Molly tried to laugh but just ended up coughing and fighting to breathe. Caleb started running as much as he could with a tiefling in his arms. Molly’s feet dragged behind them, no longer able to support him on their own.

“Caleb, I’m serious,” Molly sagged further in his arms and Caleb bit at the inside of his cheek.

“It’s not a good look on you,” Caleb released Molly’s arm to reach into his pocket. He retrieved his wire and tried Nott again. “Answer, please, Molly is badly hurt, we are lost.” There was a crackle on the other side of the spell and Caleb cursed, shoving it back into his pocket. Caleb listened closely to the sound of Molly’s breathing, waiting for the moment when the interruptions, pained gasps, and wheezing were no longer acceptable. Molly’s lungs sputtered and blood bubbled from his lips. He tried the wire again. “Nott, please, I need you, please, answer me.” There was a crackle, a fizz, and then, Nott’s screeching voice broke through.

“-leb! We’re coming! Jester is tracking Molly’s swords, just stay where you are, youcanreplytothismessage!” Caleb let out a sigh and came to a stop carefully lowering Molly to the soggy, disgusting ground and trying to catch his breath.

Molly’s hand stayed tangled in Caleb’s coat but his body sagged. As he was laid down flat, Molly jerked and dug his claws into Caleb’s skin. His eyes blew wide as his chest heaved, trying desperately to draw in breathe but not being able to.

“Nott, Nott,” Caleb called, trying to keep Molly from slamming back into the ground as he fought for air, “he can’t breathe, what do I do? What do I do?” He could feel panic clawing at his chest. He choked it down. There was a pause on the other side of the spell and Caleb gently cradled Molly’s head.

“Okay, okay, Jester wants to know what’s happening?” Nott sounded on the verge of panic.

“He-he can’t breathe, he has a wound in his chest, he’s gasping but not getting any air in.” He could feel his heart beginning to pound. Molly was going to die in his arms.

“Is one side of his chest rising and the other not?” She asked/ Caleb pushed Molly until he was lying flat and watched as the left side of his chest rose and the right didn’t.

“ Ja ,” he gasped, running his fingers through Molly’s blood-matted hair.

“Okay, Jester wants to know if you have a knife?” Nott’s voice was fast and loud. Caleb patted through his pockets with shaking hands until he produced one. It was small and thin, but it was useful if he ever needed a discreet way of defending himself. He took it into his hands and gripped Molly’s arm in his other, hoping that it offered some sort of comfort.

“ Ja,” he breathed, “what do I do with it?”

“She says to feel for his ribs. Count to the second one and stab him between the first and second.” Nott’s voice was full of apprehension. Caleb hesitated, his hands staking as his fingers trailed along Molly’s collar bone. Molly was still gasping, his eyes rolling back into his head, slowly losing the fight for air. “You have to get through the-the chest wall? You need to push through and then put your fingers in and separate the tissue so that the air in his chest can leak out. Can you do that?”

“I-“ Caleb could feel bile raising in his chest as the thought of it ran through is mind. He cared for Mollymauk. He cared for all of these people and he was tired of hurting the people that he cared for. He watched as Molly’s face began to drain of color and his eyes rolled up into his head. He could do this. He had to do this. “Yes,” he said softly.

“We’re close,” Nott said, an out offered to him. He could wait until they were there. Something in Caleb knew that Molly wouldn’t survive that long.

He counted Molly’s ribs, pressed the tip of the knife against Molly’s skin.

“Oh, my friend, I am sorry,” he choked out before he carefully drove the knife through Molly’s chest. It was much harder than he had imagined. He had to cut through tissue and bone, but when he broke through, he could feel the give from the knife. He didn’t push a centimeter further, afraid that he would knick lung tissue. He pulled the knife out quickly, pushed the awful sucking sound that it made into the back of his mind, and dug his dirty fingers into the wound that he made. The moment that the air leaked out of Molly’s chest, his lung inflated, no longer pushed down by the pressure. Molly gasped and arched his back to meet Caleb. He removed his fingers and pressed his hand to the wound, hoping to stop the bleeding. The thought of cauterization crossed his mind as he heard footsteps in the distance.

Nott, Jester, and Fjord came barreling around the corner, all much too loud for such a dangerous place. Jester crashed into him, leaning over Molly with too much vigor. She pried Caleb’s hands away from him and quickly set to work closing up his wounds with light blue magic that made the air cold and crystallized. Caleb stood up, realized that his knees were weak, and instead kneeled by Molly’s head, carefully running his bloody hands through Molly’s bloody hair. Nott spoke to him, gripped at his clothing, patted at his face, but Caleb kept his eyes on Molly, caught the moment that he came gasping back to life.

Molly had slept for fifteen and a half hours and Caleb was going to lose his mind. He hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten, just waited for the moment that Molly would wake up so that he could apologize. Jester had praised him for medical wherewithal and it had made Caleb sick. He wanted to scream. Instead, he sat beside Molly’s bed, carefully flipping through a book that he wasn’t reading over and over. Nott would come in every once in a while, bringing food or drink or trying to convince him to sleep. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. He just kept flipping pages with blank eyes and waiting.

Yasha stayed with him. She waited on the other side of Molly’s bed, breathing evenly, spinning her giant sword on its tip. Caleb was convinced that there would be a gigantic hole in the flooring of the inn by the time that Molly was awake and he really couldn’t find it in himself to care.

“Thank you,” Yasha said after fifteen hours and forty three minutes, “for not leaving him.”

“I would never do that,” Caleb said.

“I know,” She didn’t take her eyes off of her sword, “but anybody smart would have. So thanks.” Caleb felt the feeling begin to return to his chest.

“You know me,” He muttered, his voice devoid of humor, “I’m always ready to be a fool for you all.”

Chapter Text

Pike clutched at her chest, pawing at the armor there to try and access the wound that was hiding underneath it. She fell to her knees, dragging in ragged breathe. It caught on something, and she tried to keep her body upright, but failed, her palms hitting the grass. She grunted, gritted her teeth, and tried to breathe.

“Pike!” Grog let out a woeful roar, and Pike could feel the ground shake as he approached her. She felt hands as big as her torso lifting her up and she stopped trying to fight it. She let herself go limp in his arms.

“Grog,” She mumbled, coughs wracking her body. Grog cradled her in his arms, his axe abandoned beside him. The battle raged on around them, but Grog was hyperfixed on her, his rage abandoned.

“Don’t,” Grog whispered, “don’t leave me,” Pike could feel him desperately trying to make it better, to fix her, but to no avail. Her heart broke for him.

“It’s okay,” she choked out, trailing her fingers over his cheek. “It’s okay, just go,” her mind was beginning to slip away, to cloud with darkness. She reached for her necklace, her symbol, her Lady, reaching out for light. “I’ll only slow you down, just go,” Grog had begun to cry, holding her up and sobbing into her armor.

“Don’t leave me,” he said again, trailing his fingers over her hair.

“Pike?” She heard Scanlan’s voice call from a few feet off. The sounds of his magic had been dancing in the background, little songs lilting in his voice, the tones of his flute. They stopped all of a sudden as his knees met the ground next to them. She could hear him talking, a healing spell on his tongue, but she reached for him. Her hand met his face, her fingers trailing over the stubble on his chin. He let out a terrible sound, something like grief cutting through him. “No,” he said, so lost and broken and disbelieving.

She wanted to fix this. She wanted to make this better, but magic didn’t swirl to her fingers. She couldn’t wish this better. Scanlan gripped her hand in his, he whispered under his breath. She couldn’t tell if he was trying to find a spell or if he was praying. She secretly hoped that it was the later. She knew that Sarenrae looked upon him with a special kind of zeal. The thought of wrangling the one and only Scanlan Shorthalt into such a traditional religion was something to boast. Pike was so proud of him.

She loved him so much.

“I love you,” she said, her voice caught in her throat, “I love you,”

“No,” he whispered, “No, Pike don’t, not again.”

“I love you both so much.” She could feel herself fading away. One hand in Grog’s one hand in Scanlan’s.

“No,” Scanlan said.

“Goodbye,” Pike felt a smile creeping onto her face. The battle field had grown quiet. “I’m going to die now.”

She took in one last huge breathe and sprawled herself further out in Grog’s arm. She lolled her tongue out of her mouth, groaning out a small, ‘bleeeeehh.’

Giggles erupted around them as Grog screamed out, “NOOOO!” He carefully laid Pike out on the ground before he launched forward, managing to capture the twins as they ran away giggling. At seven, they were as quick and cunning as their mother, but Grog’s legs were longer and he tucked them each under one arm, stomping around and threatening to hug them to death. Scanlan waxed poetic about his lost love before he picked up his flute again, playing a vicious battle tune. She stayed still, laying out and, every once in a while, commenting loudly on just how very dead she was.

After a few moments, the littlest De Rolo, Whitney, came waddling up to her. Whitney squatted down next to Pike and poked her in the face. Pike opened her eyes to look up at him.

“Aunt Pike,” he said softly, “get up,”

“Well,” She said, “I guess you could raise me from the dead,” she wiggled her fingers in front of his face. He smiled, the picture of his father, even so small.

“Get up!” He squealed, jumping up and down. Pike laughed and rose to her feet, extending her arms in front of her.

“Watch out!” She shouted, her voice monotone and moaning, “I’m a zombie! I serve Lord Whitney!”

“Eat Freddy!” He shouted, gripping one of Pike’s hands. One of the twins popped his head up, momentarily distracted from Grog’s grapple. His sister managed to squeeze out and sneak behind Grog, not truly concealed from his senses, but perhaps enough to catch him off guard. Pike staggered forward dutifully, moving slowly and groaning as she approached.

“Velora, save me!” Freddy screamed, smiling and gripping his glasses to his face with one hand, swatting at Grog with the other.

“I’m sorry, brother,” Velora called, “you’re on your own!” She traipsed away from the battle and towards her mother, sprawled out on the lawn. Vex perked up as Velora dropped Grog’s coin purse in her hand. She laughed, showed the pickings to Percy who was tinkering with a clock, who grinned and kissed her cheek in pride. Vex took out a coin and handed her the purse, telling her to put it back while slipping the gold into her daughter’s pocket.

“Be careful summoning the dead,” Percy called to Whitney, “or your uncle will have to come and arrest you.” Pike dropped her arms and wrapped them around Whitney, lifting him up and blowing raspberries on his cheeks.

They collapsed on the lawns of White Stone, Scanlan regaling the children with a tale of Vox Machina. Pike listened to him spin the story with her eyes closed, snorting when her husband took liberties, usually to make himself look cooler.

She let the contentment wash over her.

Chapter Text

Zedash, if you asked Nott, was exactly what they needed. It was nice, having a place to sit and stay for a while. It was a nice city too, Nott liked it. There were plenty of pockets to pick, plenty of places to go, plenty of bookshops. She was beginning to get used to it. She knew that some of the others were getting antsy and wanted to move, especially Caleb and Mollymauk, but she couldn’t help but adore the chance to sit in a coffee shop for an hour or sink into a crowd and not have to worry. It was a  distant memory that she clung to.

Caleb wasn’t doing well. She could tell. After confessing his past to herself and Beauregard, he had closed off, as though he were afraid they would use it against him. It didn’t matter how much she assured him she wouldn’t, it still felt as though he was bracing for a blow.

She and Jester had taken to shopping while they were waiting to travel again. They could spend hours a day searching through the different markets in Zedash, coming home with different treasures every time, some bought, most stolen. Molly frequently joined them, but rarely stayed with them the entire time, taking to talking to the interesting people that he met, giving out money, or setting up booth and giving tarot readings for a silver with Yasha as his bodyguard. It always peaceful, this time in the city. Unlike anything that Nott had had before. She loved it.

But Caleb wasn’t doing well. And if Caleb was unhappy, then she was unhappy.

She couldn’t really help the feelings that she projected onto Caleb. Luke was so little and so smart and so fragile when she left, and when she saw Caleb that first night in that cell, little, and smart, and fragile, something in her brain clicked. An instinct left open found a home in him. She loved Caleb like she loved Luke. She didn’t know if she deserved either of them, but she wanted so desperately to make all of things that made them hurt go away.

It was a mother’s job, after all, to heal the hurts of her son.

She woke up early with the intent of dragging as many of her party as she could to market. It was perhaps the last of their early mornings in Zedash. She didn’t intend to waste them.

Caleb hadn’t slept. She could tell. He would always crawl into bed before sunrise to feign rest, but she could tell by the way he lay that he had spent the night bent over papers and books, running himself ragged even as they had this time to recuperate. She still shook him gently when she woke up, playing along to a game they both knew was imaginary.

“We should go shopping,” She said softly. Caleb hummed.

“You go shopping a lot.” He said.

“But you don’t,” Nott made her way out of bed and started to get dressed, tucking her hair into her hood and making sure that her mask was secure, “there’s a bookstore a few blocks off the main road that we haven’t gone to yet.” She knew the things that could drag Caleb from his solitude. He didn’t bite.

“I can go tomorrow.” He said, “Take the others, I’ll only spend three hours in the same shop and slow everyone down.” He rolled over, turning his back to her.

“It’s no trouble,” She said, “it’s fun, seeing you get excited about books.”

“Go, Nott,” Caleb muttered into the pillows. His voice didn’t leave room for any further argument. She stepped forward and placed her hand on his back, trying to tell him, even if she couldn’t through words, that she was there. He flinched beneath her touch.

That simply would not do.

The Mighty Nein sans their wizard spent the day in a small tavern across town, sitting around a table, deciding exactly what was to be done to cheer their gloomiest member up. Nott knew that Caleb’s problems went much deeper than a simple cheering could fix, but it was something.

As they walked to the tavern, Nott had tugged on Beau’s robes until she fell behind the others. They walked in step, Nott speaking quietly and Calmly.

“If you tell anyone, I will kill you.” She said, no hint hesitation of exaggeration.

“I know.” Beau replied, her gaze forward. “I won’t.”

The tavern was second rate, but that meant they didn’t look twice at people like them. Molly, loud as ever, was enough of a distraction that she could get away with leaving her mask off.

“What are we supposed to do?” Fjord asked, “I mean, he’s not the most forthcoming guy, we don’t even know what’s wrong.”

“Maybe that doesn’t matter,” Jester said, doodling in her sketchbook. Caleb, wrapped up in blankets, unicorns flying around his head.

“Well,” Fjord scratched at his head, “when something’s wrong with me, I need to fix it. That’s the only way things get better.”

“Not necessarily,” Molly interjected, “sometimes-thank you dear-“ he took the tray with their latest round from the barmaid who winked at him. Nott saw him slip her a silver. “Sometimes what people need is comfort. Not all problems are easily solved and not all of them can be solved by other people.”

“If he has to fix it, then he needs to fix it.” Yasha said. “Either we can help for we can’t.”

“But sometimes,” Jester put her pencil down, “when someone is fixing things, they just need their friends around so that they’re not alone.” She took to doodling on Beau with those pretty inks her mother had sent her instead. Detailed, pin-up ladies with Fjord’s face.

“So we need to be there for him.” Nott said. “He doesn’t need to be alone.” A moment of silence fell over the table.

“How...” Molly started, “how exactly is one there or Caleb Widogast?”

___

Caleb hadn’t moved since Nott left him that morning when they arrived back to the inn. He was meditation, she thought. Sometimes he would do that, live in his thoughts for a very long time. Sometimes, she thought that that was just what she told herself so that she didn’t worry.

“Caleb,” She said, “we brought you a book.” He didn’t move. The others began to trickle in behind her. Jester held the book tight to her chest. It was a novel, nothing that would spark his magical interest, but something that he would, no doubt, enjoy reading anyway.

“And we thought we could all enjoy it,” Fjord added awkwardly.

“If you’d like,” Yasha tacked on the end. The room was heavy and silent for a long time.

“ Ja,” Caleb finally said. They all let out breathes they didn’t realize they were holding.

Armor was abandoned, boots thrown across the room. Yasha and Jester shoved the other bed up against Caleb’s, making the single a double, and just barely big enough for them all to fit. Fjord was eventually handed the book, after he was ranked the second most soothing voice (Molly had claimed first, but since he was functionally illiterate...).

Nott couldn’t be sure how long they all laid in that bed together, curled around each other. Jester was at her back, her arm wrapped over her to rest gently on Caleb’s shoulder. Yasha and Molly seemed to have a rhythm of their own, a way they knew how to lay without Molly’s horns tearing into her. Molly’s hand was gently combing through Caleb’s hair until it came rest as he nodded off. Beau was all but spooning Jester, which left Fjord sprawled awkwardly at the foot of the beds. At some point, the book fell to his chest, and the only sound was the gentle, even breathing of her companions. She heard Caleb draw in a very deep breathe.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“Of course,” she replied, taking his hand in hers and drifting off, much too hot and much too comfortable.

Chapter Text

Yasha hadn’t thought twice about stepping between Fjord and the oncoming spear. It was what she did. She didn’t have the best armor, but she was built for it, for taking blows for other people. Looking back on it, truly, she wasn’t even sure if it would have cut through Fjord’s heavy, leather armor. Even so, she didn’t dare leave it to throw him off his feet or sneak into the cracks in the padding for fear he wouldn’t get back up again. Not while she was standing so close and could just get in the way.

It was like that for her. She’d couldn’t leave them in danger. Not even in the slightest.

She saw that spear coming and she pushed Fjord out of the way. It stabbed into her side, right under her rib cage. She felt it and she didn’t. In the midst of battle, pain sometimes just faded away for her. She could push her body to the very last straw, and she could keep moving until the battle high fell. It was useful, her rage. It was dangerous, but it was useful. She could continue for far longer than any of her companions when gravely injured. She could protect them.

It was stuck on something in her chest, so instead of pulling it out, she broke it off, throwing the jagged handle onto the ground and jumping at the man who had thrown it. He was dead before she hit the ground.

By the time that the battle was over, Yasha could feel it. It was twisting her insides, making her see stars with every movement. She coughed, catching blood in her hand. Her breath was coming short and tight. She cast her gaze around for Jester, but a hand came to her shoulder, catching her attention.

Caduceus smiled as he came around to her line of vision. He looked a bit scuffed up, but no worse for wear. There was a small cut above his eyebrow that was bleeding lazily, and he wiped at it with his sleeve as he ran his eyes over her battered torso.

“Hey, Yasha,” he said smoothly, “did you ever have a childhood nickname?” He asked. Yasha sputtered and tried to think.

“Well, I-I, not rea-“ She gasped.

Caduceus yanked the spear out of her chest with a sick, wet sound. She cried out, gripped at his arm, and used him to keep from doubling over. Caduceus hummed in sympathy and helped her sit on the ground, supporting her with an arm around her shoulder.

“Sorry, sorry,” he murmured, “had to get it out. It’s easier if you don’t expect it.” She nodded and rested her head on his shoulder. She coughed. Blood seeped into Caduceus’ shirt that was not his own. Yasha gasped, something in her chest catching, and couldn’t get air into her lungs. Caduceus placed his hand next to her wound and began to expect it. Yasha gripped at his armor, tried to breathe again, and felt blood bubble up in her throat.

She panicked, kind of, shook Caduceus when she couldn’t speak, and felt his magic begin to work in her. It burned through her chest cavity and evaporated the blood from her lung.

She gagged, pulled away from Caduceus, and spat the blood from her mouth and throat. She breathed deeply on her hands and knees, her head spinning.

A hand rubbed her back softly.

“You should take it easy for a bit.” Caduceus said. “Your chest could be hurting for a while. Tell me if you’re having trouble breathing for the next few days.” He patted her head affectionately and turned to check over the slash on Nott’s leg. She stayed where she was, one hand pressed to her chest, the other steadying herself on the ground, breathing deeply. Drowning in blood was always unpleasant, but something had shaken her in this. She closed her eyes and tried to remain calm.

Someone sat down next to her and by the sound it the leather creaking through their armor and the sword glancing across the ground, it was Fjord. He placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

“You’ve gotta stop doing that.” Fjord said, a nervous laugh on his voice. He sounded tired. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye an shook her head.

“I’m fine,” She said.

“Yeah,” Fjord replied, “but we’ve seen how quickly that kind of shit can turn. ‘Barely fine,’ can turn change real fast, so I’m not ‘fine’ with that.” Yasha shook her head.

“Don’t worry about me.” She said, poking him in the ribs. “You’re the squishy one.” Fjord laughed and swatted at her hand.

“Well, it still stands,” he said. “I mean it. And if you’re going to keep throwing yourself in front of spears, at least let us worry.” He patted her shoulder and she scoffed.

“I’m not losing any of you,” She said, “not any more of you.” Fjord nodded and rubbed at his face. “When I see one of you in danger- I can’t help it, I just jump.”

“How do you think we feel about you?” Fjord asked. “Seriously, we don’t want to lose you either. And if you keep pulling this shit, we’re just going to lock you in a room very nice inn room and make you take care of yourself for a week.” He laughed. Yasha shook her head and smiled at him. “Thanks, though.” He tagged on.

“Yeah,” She replied, throwing an arm around his shoulder, “of course. Any time.”

“You’re really not getting the point of my scolding session.”

Chapter Text

The thing about electrocution is that it never happened the way it did in the stories. Pike had heard plenty of horror stories about being being tortured with lightning magic or being shocked back to life after a heart stopped. The simple truth of the matter was that electricity did much more damage than it was talked up to.

That’s why she was only half surprised that, as the lighting ripped through Percy, she was only half shocked as he dropped to the ground, convulsed for a few moments, and then laid completely still. It was alarming, of course, but not surprising. She rammed her mace into the face of the wizard that shocked in, dropped her shield, and landed on her knees next to him.

Pike carefully cataloged the burns on his chest and checked his pulse, not finding one.

This, usually wouldn’t be a problem. Except that she was out of spells. Her energy was spent and there was nothing involving her magic that she could do.

She huffed, tugged off her gauntlets, and started pounding on Percy’s chest.

If there was one thing that she had been told time and time again by every healer, book, and cleric, it was; chest compressions, chest compressions, chest compressions.

She counted under her breathe, unbothered by the fight happening behind her. She saw Grog come to her side through her peripheral vision, but she kept up her compressions, adjusting for better leverage. She stopped every thirty compressions to check for a pulse.

She could feel herself beginning to wane the longer that she went on. Something in Percy’s chest cracked, and then gave. His ribs broke under her hands.

It was ten minutes before Vax’ildan, bleeding from a wound in his left shoulder, knelt on Percy’s side, and nudged her hands out of the way. Dutifully, he picked up where she left off. Pike sat back only for a moment, felt the ache in her arms, and then jumped to monitor Percy’s pulse. Vax breathed his count under his breath and paused. Pike pressed her fingers into Percy’s neck, and waited for a pulse.

She shook her head, and Vax continued.

Keyleth knelt by Percy’s feet and placed her hand on his knee, gently cooing to him that it was going to be fine, that everything was going to be fine.

“I don’t have anything left,” She said, something hollow in her chest, “I’m out, I can’t help,” Pike took her hand on her own and kissed her knuckles.

“It’s okay,” She said, “we’re okay.”

Vex'ahlia knelt at Percy’s head and took it into her lap, gently running her fingers through Percy’s hair. She placed her hand on Vax’s shoulder and counted with him.

Five minutes passed. Pike and Vax switched. She could feel his ribs creaking with every compression. She hated the rise and sink of her hands, the heels of them digging into his skin, beating his heart for him. She paused. Vax checked. He shook his head.

They kept at it, switching back in forth. Her arms chase. Percy’s chest sunk with each pound.

She couldn’t say exactly how long it had been when his heart began to best of its own accord, but Vex had doubled over, pressing her forehead to Percy’s crying softly into his hair. Keyleth as no longer telling him that it was fine. Grog had stopped patrolling around them and had sat, ever vigilant, by her side, quiet and severe. Scanlan was several feet away, as though he thought, by proximity, that he might cause some hiccup that would bring the proverbial house of cards tumbling down. Pike wanted to reach out for him, to comfort, but her fingers were pressed to Percy’s neck again, and there, hiding just beneath the surface, was the barest hint of a pulse.

She laughed, tears springing to her eyes. She took Vax’s hand in her own and kissed it, felt her heart jumping around in her own chest.

Grog was careful to hold him close as they made their way to a large tree. Keyleth had managed to save a spell for transportation. Pike schooled Grog on protecting Percy’s head as they made their way through. The Sun Tree welcomed them back into Whitestone.

It was difficult to get Cassandra out of the room while Percy was still unconscious. Pike assured her time and time again that he was fine, that his ribs had been set and that he would be fine with the many healers that Whitestone had on hand tending to him. That didn’t make Cassandra leave. It didn’t make Pike leave either.

She could still feel him breaking beneath her hands. She could still feel his heart, still and cold in his chest.

Cassandra sat next to her, twin arm chairs set up beside Percy’s bed. Vex had fallen asleep, laying next to Percy’s on the other side of their enormous bed. Pike had removed her armor, starting to relax as she tended to the cuts and bruises that had accumulated. She examined her hands, rubbed raw and bruised. She picked at her nails and listened to the somewhat labored, but still present breathing from the bed. She closed her eyes, let the adrenaline leak out of her. She was exhausted, running on fumes, and she needed rest.

Cassandra nudged her shoulder.

“Thank you,” She said, “for taking care of him. You always take care of him, of all of them.” Cassandra sighed and tugged at the end of her braid, pulling it down and running her fingers through her hair. “And I worry,” she said it as an afterthought, resting her head against the back of her chair.

“About what?” Pike asked.

“You,” Cassandra said. “You work so very hard and you protect everyone. It makes one wonder; who takes care of you?” Pike hummed and patted Cassandra’s hand.

“Did you know that last week, Percy saved my life?” She said. Cassandra shook her head. “Yeah, and a few days ago Grog took an arrow for me. I can’t count the times that Kiki and Vax and Vex and Scanlan and all of them have. I protect them, they protect me. I’m never alone. I’m never left to fend for myself.” Cassandra smiled.

“Oh, Pike,” She said, kissing the top of her head, “I wish you every happiness.” Pike laughed lightly and squeezed Cassandra’s hand in her own.

“I already have it.” She smiled and rested her head against her chair, knowing that they were safe and alive and that they would be there when she woke in the morning.

Chapter Text

It was really only a matter of time before Vax’ildan got sick. Keyleth had been somewhat prepared for it. During most of the year, Emon was pleasantly warm and sunny enough that she didn’t worry too much about Vax’s insistence upon patrolling the ground as often as possible. Besides the occasional sunburn, he wasn’t in danger of much harm. That was, until it started getting cold. Once that cold set in, Keyleth and Gilmore spent a considerable amount of time betting on when he would drop dead of illness.

Which wasn’t really funny. But it kind of was. They’d just returned from Whitestone the day before, and although the castle had become a sort of second home (Cassandra had gone to great lengths to help her brother find his home there again, and with Percy came the rest of them, naturally), Keyleth was glad to be back in Emon, if only for Vax’s improved mood. She had noticed that, once he went a week or so without seeing Shaun, his attitude soured and he started getting more and more testy. Being back in Emon, however, meant that Gilmore was a leisurely walk away.

She was glad to have both of them in the same place, if only to preserve the continent a bit longer. Two people so in love separated was a dangerous thing.

To be completely honest, she wasn’t positive of her relationship with Gilmore. She found him attractive, of course she did, he was one of the most beautiful men she’d ever seen. That ball lay in Shaun’s court. He had expressed, previously, that he was only interested in men, and that had remained consistent in their relationship, but small moments had sent her blushing. A compliment, a lingering touch, a kiss. Moments that she could have brushed off as familiarity and fondness before were being read into now that the three of them had reached their arrangement.

Really though, she would have been glad just to have him as a friend. He was a wonderful one, and nights like that, sitting with him before a fire, each consumed in their own books, were getting sweeter and sweeter.

It wasn’t until Vax came in from the biting cold that their evening took a turn for the chaotic.

The thing was, really, that they couldn’t stop Vax from paranoidly patrolling outside of their homes. They couldn’t stop him from anxiously checking their defenses. Not since the Chroma Conclave. Not while the scar was still fresh and tender on Gilmore’s stomach. Try as they might, there was some need, some compulsion in Vax’ildan to protect, to do everything in his power and beyond to keep those he loved safe.

All they could do, really, was pick up the pieces afterwards.

She could hear him coughing from the front of the shop, hacking up a lung, and cursing as he made his way back to Gilmore’s rooms. She looked at Shaun and he looked at her, and they both stood, abandoning their books and made their way to the front of the shop.

“Vax, darling,” Shaun said, “are you alright?”

“Peachy,” Vax responded. His voice was strained and hoarse, and Keyleth turned the corner first. He was leaning against the front counter, an arm wrapped around his ribs, shaking like a leaf. Keyleth came forward, Shaun right at her heels, and wrapped Vax up in her arms. He bristled for only a moment before he settled into them, Shaun’s clever hands carefully checking him over for any injury. “I’m fine,” Vax croaked indignantly, “I’m fine,”

“You’re burning up,” Keyleth said, pressing her lips to Vax’s forehead. “You’ve been peakish for a week, and it’s no wonder, being out in the cold for so long.” Vax groaned and pressed his face into her collar bone. She ran her fingers through his unruly hair and started leading him back into Gilmore’s bedroom.

Keyleth adored Glorious Goods, but perhaps her favorite part was Gilmore’s bed. It was huge, absolutely massive, and unnaturally comfortable. She was sure that Shaun had managed to cast a series of spells on it to make it fit it’s users requirements, since it was just on this side of firm to her, and Vax described it as the softest thing he’d ever slept on. She settled Vax among the many pillows and started peeling back his armor.

“Really, you two,” he squeaked out, “I told you I was-“ He interrupted himself with a series of sneezes that sent him shooting up and gasping by the time that it was done. Gilmore cooed and brought a cool, wet rag to dab at Vax’s face.

“What were you saying, dear?” He asked, laughing lightly in his chest. Keyleth rubbed circles into Vax’s back and worried over the straps of the Raven Queen’s armor. Vax clutched at his symbol like it was the only thing keeping him upright. Gilmore tutted. “You’ll be seeing Pike in the morning,”

“I’m-“ Vax started.

“If you say, ‘I’m fine,’ one more time I will drag you there tonight.” Keyleth promised. Gilmore laughed as he piled a few pillows up and laid Vax back. She knew that he would be loudly complaining by morning, but for the moment, Vax looked so worn out. He was mailable beneath their hands and quieted down, either too tired to protest or his throat too raw. Gilmore took to slowly working through Vax’s complicated braids and Keyleth rubbed circles in his chest with cool, healing magic. It wouldn’t do much, but it might clear his lungs. She pressed kisses to his temple and cheeks, trailing them across his face.

He couldn’t keep doing this, working himself into a state. She looked at Gilmore and he looked at her, and between them passed the understanding that they would be having a conversation about this in the morning. For the moment, though, the only thing they needed to do was wrap themselves around him and keep him safe, tucked between them. And that’s exactly what they did.

Chapter Text

Fjord was drowning. It wasn’t the first time, but that didn’t make it any easier. The feeling of water, pouring down his throat, filling up his lungs and weighing him down was a familiar one, but it still made his thrash and jerk in the cold water. It bit at his skin, and he screamed, the noice escaping in air bubbles. He tried to follow them, to find his way to the surface, but the dispersed around him. There was no surface. There was no escape, no more air. He let the water slide down his throat, tear through his lungs.

Something wrapped around his ankle, something slimy and much too strong. The grip tightened, tightened, it just didn’t end. It didn’t stop until something popped. White hot pain corsed up from his leg and through his spine. He screamed again, but no bubbles left his mouth this time. He was breathing, painfully, water. Like cement passing through his lungs.

He was being dragged down, and he knew because it was getting colder, colder, and his body was adrift, this thing separate from himself, this thing he was trapped in.

There was no voice, no eye, no message or purpose. It was just him, that thing around his ankle, dragging him down and down into the darkness.

When he woke up, there was water in his lungs and he couldn’t get it out. He jerked awake on his back in the inn room that he and Caduceus had crashed in for the night. He tried to draw in breathe, but something was stopping him, like a block in his throat. He jerked, kicked in his sheets, felt the pain from something somewhere but couldn’t place it because he couldn’t breathe.

And then there were hands on him, big, warm ones on his chest. Fjord couldn’t get his gaze to focus, but he could see a mass of pink and grey. A deep, gruff voice spoke to him.

“It’s okay,” the voice said, “you’re okay.” Those hands, which had been gentle, grew in force, and pressed down. Fjord was terrified, for a moment, that the hands were going to crush him, that he wasn’t out of his dream, that he was going to die, but then that thing blocking his breathe broke through. Water gushed forth from his mouth. He coughed, sputtered, and the hands gently laid him on his side. He couldn’t say how much water left him. It was enough to cause him concern, that was for sure. He coughed and coughed, trying to clear his lungs but not being able to. He was crying, he thought, but he was so focused on getting air into his lungs that he wasn’t paying much attention to that. Those hands were on his back, rubbing circles and that voice, deep and soft, was cooing gently to him. Caduceus was there, like he always seemed to be, and so Fjord knew that he was okay.

That’s when he saw it, that slither of something in the corner of the room. It was barely there, a flash of dark green, slimy flesh gleaming in the low light of their room. He saw it writhe under Caduceus’ bed, and then there was one glowing eye, and then another, and another, too many to count, bright yellow things, staring straight at him.

“ Fair Child ,” that voice that tore apart the bits of his spine, “ Gravekeeper ,” Caduceus didn’t seem to hear the voice at all, just kept talking to Fjord like an eldritch abomination was under his bed, calling for him.

That just wouldn’t do.

Fjord liked the power that U’katoa had given him. He liked the skills that he had earned, but he wouldn’t wish this on anybody, especially not Caduceus. He always talked about his goddess with such revere, such love. He spoke about her like she had held him, protected him, like he knew her and she knew him. He called her Mother, bowed his head in reverence when he spoke her name. Fjord couldn’t imagine someone like Caduceus bowing his head to a child of Zehir. He couldn’t imagine someone so fundamentally good revering something so intrinsically evil.

And Fjord felt something in his chest growing, a feeling that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. A protectiveness, closer to possessive than selfless, burst forth from him. He surged from his spot on the bed, ignoring the pain from his ankle, and sent blast after blast after blast of cold energy at the bed. He didn’t think about the consequences of shooting at the thing that had been so very… beneficial to him, he just did. When his voice rose from him, it was dark and rough and twisted with something menacing.

“He’s mine!” He shouted into the dark.

An arm was around his chest, holding him up, and he realized that it was Caduceus, and that his legs were weak beneath him.

“Fjord,” Caduceus said softly, “Fjord, are you here?”

Of course he was there! Where else would he be, he summoned the falchen, squared his shoulders, took Caduceus’ arm in his hand, and pointed it at the bed like it was something fearsome.

And the longer he looked at it, the less true that became. It was a bed, albeit a partially destroyed one, and though the under of it was dark, it wasn’t dark enough to hide an eldritch abomination. There was nothing under there.

Which meant that he had just caused reckless damage to their inn that he would be paying for.

Which meant that he had just laid claim to Caduceus with no real danger of him being taken away.

Which meant that he was seeing things.

His legs gave out underneath him and Caduceus caught him with a slightly distressed hum. He carefully led Fjord to the remaining bed, sitting him down and taking the sword from his grasp. It dissolve into sea mist after a few minutes and Caduceus didn’t seem worried about it.

“Let’s take care of this foot for you,” He murmured softly, pushed Fjord back gently to lay back. He complied, awash with pain and exhaustion without the adrenaline to keep him on his feet. Caduceus dutifully examined his ankle. “How did you manage to break it in bed?” He whispered, more to himself than Fjord. He half wished Jester were there to make some obscene joke. He poked his head up and looked at the foot for the first time. It was twisted unnaturally, turned out, and marred with dark green bruises. Dark green bruises that wound up his leg, marked with suctions points. Caduceus studied it for a moment longer with worry in his eyes before shaking his head as though to clear a nasty thought and concentrating. He took Fjord’s foot in his hands and, looking up at him, smiled sweetly.

“Weird dream, huh?” He asked, and then he snapped Fjord’s foot back into place. He barely contained the scream that bubbled up in his chest, only quelled by the warm, soothing feeling of Caduceus’ magic working through the limb.

“ Fuck, Duecy,” he breathed.

“Sorry,” Caduceus said, “we don’t have to talk about the dream. I have some tea made if you want it.” Fjord smiled tiredly and laid back out on his bed.

“You always know.” He whispered into the dark.

“Yeah,” Caduceus said, “yeah, I always do.” Fjord listened to him prepare the tea and only sat up when it was pushed into his hand. He sat on the bed, rubbing at his still tender foot, and watched as Caduceus braided back his disheveled hair.

“I saw something,” Fjord said, “after I woke up,” he screwed his eyes shut. “Or I thought I did. I don’t know.”

“It’s okay,” Caduceus assured. “Plenty of people have a hard time getting out of nightmares properly. You just had a nasty one. Nothing unusual.” It was funny, because Fjord felt pretty fucking unusual. He drank his tea too quickly and rubbed at his face.

“I fucked up your bed,” He said, pulling a pillow from his, “you take mine.”

“No, it’s fine,” Caduceus said, “I’m not all that big, at least not horizontally. We can both fit.” He smiled, took Fjord’s empty cup, and dutifully put away his tea set. Fjord watched as he settled in the bed next to him. He breathed in the dark for several minutes before he spoke.

“About what I said…” he started lamely, not exactly sure what his excuse was.

“It’s okay,” Caduceus interrupted. “You’re possessive. It’s not necessarily a bad trait to have.”

“Well,” Fjord said, “I wouldn’t call myself possessive, I certainly wasn’t before i joined this group.” Caduceus hummed and closed his eyes.

“Sometimes, when people are wrapped up in a lot of personal problems, they have a hard time imagining others as anything besides extensions of their own stories.” Caduceus said it so nonchalantly, like saying ‘hello.’ “It’s hard to have context when you’ve got tunnel vision.” Fjord let that sit in his chest for a second before he sighed.

“Yeah, maybe,” he responded. He didn’t want it to be true, but Caduceus was rarely wrong.

“Besides,” Caduceus said, “You didn’t really have anybody to be possessive of before you had us.” He pulled the blankets up to his neck, his feet dangling off the end of the bed.

“Yeah,” Fjord said, “night Duecy.”

Chapter Text

Beauregard knew what standing cuffs did to somebody when they were left in them for too long, so she wasn’t exactly jazzed to be locked into them. She was bleary when she had been locked into them, but just conscious enough to notice that 1) she wasn’t tall enough to do more than brush the ground with her toes when she tried, she her weight fell onto her wrists and shoulders. 2) Yasha, who was maybe half a foot taller than her, didn’t have that problem, and her form would easily be supported on her feet once she was conscious. 3) The kick she had managed to messily land on the person locking her in had nailed him straight in the balls, and this was very satisfying.

She woke properly a while later. They must have been in a basement level or closed off room, since there wasn’t even the hint of daylight. The room was illuminated by a torch in the wall, and she had to wait for her eyes to adjust to it to see properly. She took several seconds to breathe and blink and try and get the weight of her body to shift from off her aching shoulders.

“Beau?” She hears Yasha’s voice, so soft. She was always so quiet, except when something made her properly mad. Beau wondered how someone so big was so soft all the time.

“Yeah,” she breathed out. “You okay?”

“Yes,” Yasha replied. She was able to see properly again, and she blinked up at Yasha’s form. She had her feet on the ground, and was shifting to try and tug on her shackles. “You?”

“Yeah,” Beau said, and that was mostly true. She was a bit sore everywhere. She could feel the bite of metal in her wrists, and dried blood on her forehead. “I’m good.” She pulled on her shackles and regretted it as she felt a shot of pain run up her arm. “What the fuck happened?”

“The Crownsguard,” Yasha said.

“Oh shit, ” Beau muttered. She remembered the squabble that they had gotten into with a few Crownsguards in town. They had believed Nott to be responsible for a string of thefts in town just because she was a goblin, and while it was in character, it wasn’t applicable. The rest of the Mighty Nein had acted as an alibi. That evening, she and Yasha had snuck out of the inn for a smoke and a talk. It hadn’t been a very productive one, since six of the bastards had come up and demanded they come with them under the charge of conspiracy. When Beau pointed out that it was a bullshit one, they’d gotten violent, and she had responded. That was about all she could remember. “Oh mother fucker, I hate the Empire so goddamn much.” Yasha grunted in response.

They spent the next however-long in silence before the heavy, metal door of their cell creaked open. A large, intimidating human woman entered, followed by a smaller elven man. Beau stood as talk as she could.

“So,” The man said, “you are friends of the goblin.” Beau bit back the comment that rose to her tongue on instinct and looked to Yasha. Silent and stoic. Beau took a deep breath. “Tell us about it.”

Yasha was quiet. Beau was quiet. The elven man didn’t seem happy about that. The large woman walked up to Beau, cracked her knuckles, and punched her straight in the gut. Beau had to catch her breath and try not to puke.

So, it was going to be that kind of interrogation. What else had she expected from the kinds of people who strung up their prisoners from the ceiling?

By the time that the man and the woman left, Beau could feel her ribs cracking with each intake of breath, her left leg was bent inwards and throbbing, and three of her fingers were broken. She didn’t know what Yasha’s state was. She couldn’t focus on much more than the pain radiating through her body.

Beau had been trained to be extremely aware of her body at all times. Every time she pulled a muscle, broke a bone, or threw a joint, she was so desperately aware of it that she couldn’t focus on anything else outside of the adrenaline of a fight.

She knew what happened next. Her leg was broken. Her shoulders would dislocate eventually, but most likely not before she suffocated. Her air was already coming in short, shallow gasps. She didn’t really know if she was truly conscious or not.

Yasha was talking to her, she thought. Begging, maybe.

“Wake up,” Yasha said, “please don’t leave me.” Maybe. It was all kind of lost in her head, in her confusion. She couldn’t breath, she couldn’t think, and she felt her left shoulder slip out of its socket with a half hearted scream.

“Come on, unpleasant one,” a soft, strained voice poked through her haze. An unnaturally warm hand was connecting with hers, tugging at the shackles around her bloodied wrists. Her eyes cracked open slowly. There was a mass of purple in front of her and, even in her foggy mind, she knew to name that mass Mollymauk. “Down you come,” one of the shackles came undone and her shoulder screamed or maybe that was her. One arm hooked around her torso, and she pressed her face into Molly’s warmth and she was smothered by his lavender perfume. Her other arm came down and she didn’t have the energy to react. Molly lowered her to the ground slowly.

Everything was nebulous and drifting until the sharp, familiar feeling of Jester’s magic. It always left that sugary aftertaste in the back of her mouth and her feeling jittery and strange. A few bones cracked into place. She could breath just a bit better. Molly was cooing something stupid and too nice to her. She didn’t like when Molly was nice. It meant that something was wrong.

She felt a bit clearer now, and she tried to lift herself into a sitting position. Jester had moved on to Yasha, but Molly kept her where she was.

“Stay still,” he said, “you’re… you’re fucked up, Beau, just stay still.”

“ You’re fucked up,” She grunted, her throat cracked and dry.

Molly wasn’t very strong for all of his charm, and so they sat awkwardly on the ground and waited. Beau could hear Jester talking to Yasha in a high, worried voice, and she could hear Caleb and Fjord speaking softly with a chillingly familiar voice in the hall. She had never heard Caleb sound so angry so vocally. He was a cold-angry kind of guy. His anger narrowed down into a cold, calculating version of him that scared the shit out of her, especially considering what she’d recently learned about him. Now, though, she could hear the wet, angry emotion in his voice. The outrage.

“The way that you have treated these people is completely unethical and completely against protocol,” He was raging, speaking as loudly as Caleb was capable to the elven man who had questioned them. She knew that there was nothing they could do about it, and she knew that they had probably spent all of their money getting them out of that cell, but fuck if that reaction didn’t kick something in her. She wanted to cry. She wanted to set eyes on Nott, but she was absent from the room, most likely a request from Caleb to keep her from being nabbed by these bastards.

She blinked heavily as Yasha kneeled next to Molly and pressed a kiss to his temple. He traced his thumb over a cut on her cheek. It felt so personal. She felt embarrassed watching. Yasha dipped forward and lifted Beau up into her arms. Beau might have scoffed and pushed herself away if she had the energy. She loved fawning for Yasha’s attention when the damage was superficial, but when she was really hurt, when she was really vulnerable, she hated leaning on other people. Even so, she melted into Yasha’s arms. There wasn’t anything else she could do at this point.

Yasha moved quickly, Molly and Jester flanking her at either side. As she left the room, she stopped and turned to the man as Caleb and Fjord fell into ranks. She paused for just a moment, spat at the ground at his feet, and kept walking. The air outside was colder than anything that Beau had ever felt, and she dug herself into Yasha’s arms a bit more.