011. Grave

[katzepaw]

Nott is watching Beauregard, crouched on the ground. You’re just off to the side of Glory Run Road still, snowfall lazily drifting. She’s going through the pockets of that bright, eccentric coat - pulling out pouches and trinkets, a deck of cards.

". . . Molly said not to steal from happy people.” Nott shakes her head when she’s offered some of his gold.

“Is that what you think I'm doing?”

“Nope. I think you should take everything you can, but I can't steal from this one.”

Beauregard looks between the two of you, and then down to Mollymauk, still on the ground. Mollymauk is dead. He isn’t complaining. She pockets the gold. You aren’t objecting either. You’re busy, at the moment. Summoning the earthen cat’s claw to dig a grave, as quickly as you can - Keg stands off to the side, increasingly nervous the longer you all wait here. Waste time with this.

You’re pulling that hideous, loud coat off of him while the other two discuss whether or not they should take his swords or not as well. One is useful, at least. A teleport spell. The other seems to be a waste.

"What do you want to do," you ask, your voice surprising you with how tired and faraway it sounds.

"Caleb, she's right, we can't fight them," Nott says, in a small, miserable voice.

"Cut your losses," the dwarven woman, Keg, adds, gruffly.

"Not without help, anyway," Beau says. "Did you guys just suddenly fucking forget that they took Yasha? They took Fjord, they took Jester."

You sigh. "That is what I'm talking about. Mollymauk is dead. Three are not, not yet, and we have invested a lot of time into forging this alliance we are in, Nott. I'm not proposing a head-to-head confrontation. Maybe. I want to know where they are, I want to know what conditions they're in. I'm not willing to walk away from this."

"It would be the smarter bet," Nott whispers, but you know she's only saying it to see what you'll do when confronted with it.

"She's not wrong," Keg chimes in.

"Fuck you both," Beau curses.

You hunch your shoulders, thinking, and glances at Nott. "We could live, sure, we could live. We go hide in the woods. Go back to picking pockets and pulling scams on people." You sigh, resigned. "But you know that I want more than that."

Beau is quiet for a long moment, and then begins to speak. "Do y'all remember what Molly said a few weeks ago when he told us that he left every town better than what he found it? When he first told me that, I remember that my first initial knee jerk reaction was, "You fucking arrogant, narcissistic bastard, no one can fucking know "that." He was an arrogant bastard, but he was right and do you know how I know? We had a conversation last night when we were up for watch, and he asked me what my greatest lie was and we pulled fucking cards for it. Loser would go first. He told me this story about tricking a town into thinking he was royalty, being a king, to pull off a scam. I was almost going to tell him about my childhood, and I didn't. Because he told that fucking story and I realized: even in his scams, when he was doing something shitty, he was still making people feel good or feel special. The town was being visited by-- graced by his presence, by his royal highness. And I told him this story of ruining a couple's lives by extorting them because I fucking could. Because I fucking felt like it. I realized if I can deliberately leave a town shittier than what I found it, of course he could fucking leave a town better than what he found it. And I'm not going to do that again. I'm not saying that I'm going to go off and be a fucking hero, but maybe we can equal out and I can at least not fuck any more shit up. Take baby steps towards the leaving the town better... thing. That's the least I can do for him. And I'm going to start with these fuckheads."

Keg is watching, and then looks away, determined. "I'll take you there."

"What are we going to do first?" you ask. "The man crawled out of a grave once, if he's to be believed. He's done it once, maybe he will do it again." You're not sure what the thing to do is, the right thing to do. "Do we stay here, do we try to find, I don't-- I've read of miracles . . "

"Look, you guys don't have a lot of time for your friends," Keg says. "The ones that are captured."

They decide to wrap him in that tapestry of the Platinum Dragon, it isn’t as if you’re going to carry it with you. A wasteful purchase, enormous and ugly. Maybe it can be comfortable here at least, as the three of you struggle to lift him into the hole your spell made. You sit down in the dirt and start to write. This is too optimistic for you, you think, but— maybe—

You write him a letter, telling him his name and where to find you, for if he wakes up again.

You finish writing, hands still now, and climb down into the hole - tucking the note into his clothes, under his hands. Hopefully away from blood. There’s a moment where no one seems to know what to do - you, in the grave, Beauregard and Nott staring down at you, at him lying there. Dead. You lean down to brush the hair out of his face. Your emotions have gone a little cold, you aren't sure how to feel, looking at the face of this man who sometimes you were quite fond of and sometimes you were quite frustrated at, but you knew him. You knew him. And then you begin to push dirt over him - struggling with it, until Beauregard starts to move to help as well.

Nott shuffles her feet. “Should we say some words or anything?”

Beauregard starts.

“Long may he reign.”

Nott echos.

“Long may he reign.”

“That's the best fucking shit I got.” Beau says as she turns to you. Your turn.

You've never been good at this, and you hesitate. ". . . Shine bright, circus man." you say softly.


That’s really all you have to say at the moment.

Nott starts to speak after you. “I think you're supposed to say things about how good they were and how many people loved them, and what a wonderful life they had, but I don't think any of those things are true, or at least we don't-- I don't think he even knew.“ Nott adds. She’s talking as you peel away, sighing, going to search in the treeline for-- There. A stick. Something at least.

A five-foot, six-foot sturdy branch, one that could be a walking stick, and you take that stone-- that lucky rock that you had found-- and start to hammer the branch into the ground at the end of the grave. After a moment you hang the coat from it. The light snowfall is starting to pick up, settling on it almost immediately.

Nott looks at it, hands twisting— “That'll be stolen, though.”

“Not right away. If he comes up out of the ground, it will be here waiting for him in a day or two.”

Another long silence. This one, Beauregard is the one to break it: “All right, let's go.”

“Go after them?”

“Well, we do not have to decide what we are going to do right away. We could have an opportunity, grab our friends. We don't need to rush into the lion's den. Let's see what we are looking at, what we are dealing with. We get our three friends back. We have not traveled with them this far to throw it away.”

Nott presses, biting, suddenly.

“To throw what away? I want to hear you say it. Why do you want to go after them?”

“Their deaths would be a waste.”

“Wrong. Why?”

And without looking at her, you storm off into the woods.

Later, Nott finds you alone in your room at the inn, tired, wounded, and dirty.

"Let's talk for a minute," you say, weary. "I want to talk about what you and I are doing."

She watches you, always patient with you.

"I was this close to running off from that road when things turned on us," you admit shamefully. "You and I, we are going to survive together. That is the main thing."

Nott peers back at you like she's trying to read you. "Why didn't you run?"

"The dwarf stepped up," you say, and snap your fingers. "Changed my mind like that. But we have done a lot and you know what I am about." You are a coward, that isn't going to change. Until you get what you want, you will always have to be a coward, because you aren't allowed to die. "So I just want you and I, you and me especially, to be on the same page because we have been for months now, ja? You are my friend, I want you to be with me, and I want us to live. We have done a lot with these people, and if we can finesse this and do it in a way that does not throw our lives in the fire, there is more to be achieved. We will help you get to where you want to get, and myself, together. We will work together with these people."

Nott is quiet for a long minute, looking down at her hands. It hurts you to make her sad, you know she cares for these people. But you're still surprised when she speaks up to disagree with you. "I know that you want revenge for what that man did to you, and there's things I want too, but... Mollymauk was amazing. Showed me something. He had this spirit of life that was pretty outstanding. You know, he was the moment that we all traveled together. He came up, and we were all talking, and all cagey, and all iffy with each other when we met all these folks but he said, "Hey, want to come see a circus show?" and that lit the spark, right?"

"Yes," you admit, terse.

"But before that, it was--" You know what she means. Your life with her, before that, was still so bleak, even if less lonely. "All I'm saying is, he was a rainbow man who represented life at its fullest, and that's what I want. Even more than what we were going for before. Together, we're sort of living life now, aren't we? Before, we were in the darkness. So I know we have things to do, and I want to do them. But the reason I want to find these people and rescue them is not to use them, and it's not because we've invested time in them, but it's because I love them. We need to find them and rescue them because we're a team now. So if you're just using them or whatever, that's fine and I'll support you; but I want to find them so that we don't go back to the way it was, when we were hiding in the shadows and ducking into alleys to get away from people. We were safe, but we weren't really alive, right? With these people, we're having fun and winning contests and killing bad guys and rescuing children, and it's amazing. I hope you're with me on that, and I hope we are on the same page."

You don't respond for a long time, not looking at her directly. But finally, in a low voice, you admit - "I like them."

"That's a good start." She smiles up at you through her tears, like she's proud. "I think they like you."

You shrug, accepting that she's won this argument by getting the admission. "We are not hiding anymore. Well, not like we used to. There is a certain amount of risk to what we are doing. And what I want is good, for more people than just me."

"I know it is," she agrees gently, "and I want it for you. We've used a lot of people in the past and I just want to make sure we're not using these folks. Are we?"

"Well." You are using them, you are always using everyone. That's how it has to be for you. But at least this time, there's more than that. "We are about to risk our lives to pull three people we met four or five weeks ago out of the hands of a lot of dangerous people. Seems like a pretty good offer for them."

"Okay," she says.

"I don't have any family," you admit, taking her hands. "You're the closest thing that I have. I have come to rely on you and I am grateful for your company."

She blinks rapidly for a second. "I couldn't do this without you."

"Well," you say with a small smile, "let's screw our courage to the sticking place and get them out of there."