Chapter Text
Obann snuck off with the red-haired bitch; the Nein got Yasha and the Laughing Hand. That is, they killed the Hand and kept Yasha. With no dispelling magic left, they had to use the manacles to put her to sleep—something Fjord and Jester were adamant either they had to do it themselves or couldn’t be in the room when it was done.
In the end, Fjord did it—forced his face stern to try and cover up the way his hands shook hard handling those manacles—and Jester left.
Beau finds her sitting outside the Cobalt Soul.
The clouded sky is broken through spears of light—has been ever since the fight under the Chantry. Jester has found her way to one of the rays and sits within it; she would look entirely peaceful, face turned up toward the light, if not for the way her tail curls and uncurls in anxious flexes by her ankle.
‘Hey.’
Jester’s eyes—entirely dark, even the sclera, and Beau wonders when exactly that had become totally normal for her, when it had been those eyes she sought out in everyone's faces—open slowly and she rolls her head toward Beau, not lifting it from where it rests back against the stone wall.
‘Hey.’
‘Mind if I sit?’
Jester shakes her head.
Beau sits on the ground beside her, carefully negotiating the tugging pain from a wicked slice to her leg. And they just…sit. She thinks she knows what Jester needs—takes a moment to weigh it, make absolutely certain it’s about what Jester needs and not what she wants—and is relieved to find that when she lifts her arm, Jester scoots closer and sets her head down on Beau’s shoulder, sighs.
‘You did good down there,’ Beau tells her, scratches her nails up through Jester’s hair. She doesn’t comment on the scrap of something that falls out, just flicks it away. ‘We couldn’t—we needed you, Jes, and you did - amazing.’
Jester lifts her head; there’s the tiniest crinkle between her brows like she’s confused by something. She shakes her head, laughs a bitter little laugh. ‘I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t stop them breaking the pin, I couldn’t close the portal, I couldn’t -‘ Beau moves her hand so it covers Jester’s mouth and grins; it is not despair or uncertainty or confusion that consumes Jester then—just pure outrage. She shoves Beau’s hand away, glares. ‘You are so lucky I’m out of spells for today or I would rebuke you so hard, you have no idea. You’d be an icicle, Beau, you would be waddling around totally encased in ice, we would have to chip you out.’
‘Or get Caleb to thaw me.’
‘Or put you in the hot tub. You could float in it and melt all the ice away,’ Jester giggles. She snuggles into Beau’s side again, seemingly having forgotten the conversation they were in. Beau doesn't pull her attention back to it; she doesn't want to see Jester confused, or despairing. It hurts too much.
After a minute, Jester reaches into her coat for the notebook she keeps there and, in plain view of Beau, sketches a goofy ice-cube Beau looking shocked and then embarrassed as she began to melt into a puddle.
‘Cute,’ Beau drawls. 'Look, I wet myself,' she says, making Jester laugh.
Jester continues to draw and sketch and at some point, she begins to sketch for real what had happened down there. Obann with wings flared. The glyph on Yasha’s neck. That awful pit, shadows twisting in and over themselves in horrible grasping arms. Beau herself, hair a mess, dripping with blood and sweat, hands glowing with a holy light. And for a moment, Beau swears she feels impossibly soft fabric drift across her fingers, her cheek; when she twists to see who it is behind them, she knocks her head hard on the stone wall.
Jester laughs. ‘Did you see him?’
‘Ow. No.’
The reluctant healer reaches up, traces her fingers over the throbbing lump on Beau’s forehead; it stings, she'd probably scraped off a layer of skin, and then it doesn’t.
Whatever final flicker of power Jester has for today, she gives it to Beau.
Eyes fixed on the injury, tongue caught between her lips, Jester works her magic—literally—and it sparks green and pink between her fingers, smelling of cinnamon and sugar like always, and the pain fades.
‘He didn’t mean for you to get hurt—he probably just thought it’d be funny.’
‘Like how he taught you how to look like your mama and you got banished from Nicodranas?’ Jester recoils from Beau and the comment, her lips pressing thin and pale blue. Dark eyes flash with a warning that Beau heeds—this time. She backs down with a, ‘Sorry. Just…feeling a bit protective, I guess.’
‘Well don’t. I don’t need you to protect me.’
‘No, of course not,’
‘I’ve been looking after myself just fine!’
‘Yeah, I know! You’re great and strong and amazing and you don’t need anyone!’
Jester’s scowl fades the tiniest bit and she leans back into the wall, and Beau’s side. They sit in silence, feeling and watching the rays of sunlight shift ever so slightly. Eventually, Jester says, ‘Sometimes I need help. I know I always look super strong and buff and happy and stuff? But y’know, sometimes I don’t...know what I’m doing so much.' Jester leans heavier into her side. Reaches for Beau's hand. 'Thanks for looking out for me, Beau. Even if I don’t think the Traveller needs to be, um, interrogated—‘ Jester pauses, eyes wide. She grips hard at Beau’s hand and laughs. ‘That would be so much fun though! Maybe, when he lets you see him one day, maybe we can interrogate him!’
‘You want me to punch a god with my ki?’ Jester nods eagerly. Beau shrugs. ‘Shit. I mean, yeah, I guess I’m game.’
‘Oh my gosh it would be so much fun, I’m going to ask him about it.’ She looks on the verge of leaping to her feet to do exactly that—and stops. Settles in place. ‘Later. I’m—‘ She laughs quietly, an airy little laugh that is so perfect, designed to hide any little imperfection in what she is about to say, about to admit. ‘I’m a little tired.’
Beau returns the tight grip Jester has on her hand, squeezes. ‘Me too, Jes. But later, tell him I’ll beat the shit out of him if that’s what he wants.’