Chapter Text
She climbs the steps to her room slowly, going over everything Dairon had told her and wondering how, if it all, she is supposed to thank Jester for literally saving her life. Or—apologise? It’s not like it’s her fault that she looked into the true face of her god and then tried to extract information about a divine being, which caused her to die a little—oh, no, it actually is entirely her fault, since she’s the one that suggested the whole thing—and to hear that Jester had been there, waiting, watching, had thrown herself into action, had brought her back…
Beau makes it to the door, pushes it open with a gentle rap of her knuckles on the wood.
‘Hey Jes? Dairon told me what happened—what you did, for me, and—‘
She stops. There’s something wrong. Something…off.
Jester is standing seemingly frozen in the centre of the room—not literally, thank the gods, but she isn’t moving and she’s standing unnaturally still, head lowered chin to chest. When Beau skirts around so she can see her face, she finds that Jester’s eyes are open and blank, unseeing, staring down to the floor.
‘Shit. Shit,’ she swears again with a little more feeling. Closing the distance between them, Beau puts her hands on Jester’s cold wrists as Jester had done for her. The other girl doesn’t look up, so Beau kneels. Gets in her line of sight as much as she can.
‘Hey, Jes,’ she whispers. Her voice is hoarse, almost entirely from being briefly dead.
Jester stirs enough to blink, shake her head. She lifts a hand. Sets it on Beau’s cheek.
‘Hey,’ Beau says again, and she turns her head slightly to kiss the swell of Jester's palm. It sends a jolt through her—shock, nerves, panic—but she can totally explain it away later. ‘Are you okay?’ she asks. Shakes her head before Jester can answer, if she even intended to. ‘Stupid question. Just - are you -’
Blue lips curve into an empty smile. ‘Okay?’
‘…Yeah.’
Jester sighs. The sound is stifled, like she’s pressing it as small as it can go. ‘Yes. yes. I’m fine—I’m always fine, Beau, don’t you know that?’
‘O-kay.’ Beau stands slowly. ‘I’m detecting a hint of not fine.’
‘What gave it away?’ Jester looks up, finally. Stops at Beau’s chest.
Beau looks down, at the neatly healed scar—and at the blood dried there, and the shimmer of diamond dust from a hasty revivify. Before she can speak, before she can reassure Jester—that she’s alive, that she’s okay—Jester speaks. The words are flat. Neatly contained, compressed.
‘I'm...mad.’
Okay. Not what she expected. Beau rocks back on her heels; brain still feeling like so much sludge more than anything that actually works, she can’t figure out what the right response is to that. So, she doesn’t try.
‘You don’t look mad. You don’t sound mad.’
Jester laughs. The sound catches, hiccups. She shakes her head. ‘I can’t,’
‘Let it out.’
‘I can’t,’
‘Sure you can.’
They’re standing close together. Beau does the only thing she can think of right now—she shoves her. She doesn’t know, doesn’t have the first clue how to get this out of Jester gently. She prods her, jabs her in the shoulder—hard. ‘Let it out!’
‘Beau!’
‘Get mad! Get angry! Say what you want to say!’
She pokes at her again; Jester smacks her hand away.
‘I don’t want to—‘
‘That’s some real bullshit right there,’ Beau dares to accuse.
‘Stop it! I could hurt you!’
‘I don’t believe you would ever—‘
‘It doesn’t matter what you believe,’ Jester snarls. Her teeth glint under the light of the lanterns, the shadows swinging wildly as Jester suddenly lurches, throws herself away from Beau. ‘Don’t you get that? Things are unfair,’ she says, and her breath catches as she drags it in, crumples out of her under the weight of a slew of biting, scrambling words that pour from her like she’s been keeping them bottled in for a very, very long time. ‘Things are unfair, life is unfair, and it doesn’t matter if I don’t want to hurt you because I will! That’s what people do! Good people have bad things happen to them, and bad people don't care, they like hurting people!’ Jester tells her, and a frustrated, hurt scream rips out of her.
Beau watches in awe and ache as the air around her grows thick and white and cold, crystals slowly forming. The temperature drops suddenly, stinging at her lungs with each breath.
‘You want to know? Why I’m mad? I’m mad that Yasha’s wife died and then he took—he took advantage of her and he stole her from us and she nearly killed Fjord and she nearly killed you and she didn’t want to do any of that! I’m mad that Fjord’s captain doesn’t care enough to find him, I’m mad that Nott, Veth got—‘ The word cracks with a sob. ‘Got killed and put into a body she hates. I hate that we keep going into fights and getting hurt and leaving people behind. I hate that everyone is fighting in some war that no one seems interested in stopping.’ Her hands lift to her head, and sink, clawing, into her hair. Tugging, like maybe if she pulls hard enough she can—what? Stop screaming? Fix something? It sounds like Jester is trying to stop, but the words and thick, bubbling tears have started pouring out and she doesn’t seem to be able to stop it. Not this time. ‘I’m m-mad,’ she hiccups, ‘because everyone seems to think I’m crazy, that the Traveller doesn’t exist, even though he has saved your life so many times, and - and because my dad is - is a slave trader and I got abducted and Molly died and I couldn’t save him, and if I had been there maybe I - maybe I—I’m a healer who doesn’t heal people, and it’s my fault, I should have been there, I could have saved him, I would have tried. I promise I would have tried,’ she cries, voice cracking. It’s eerie, and powerful, and sublime, to see it all finally come out. To have wave after wave of fury and pain and hurt crash over her and into the room, like Beau is standing in the still centre of a hurricane, one that Jester has summoned, and the whole world is finally, rightfully, crashing down around them. It feels like it's been cracking for a long, long time and this feels right. Painful, and awful, and sublime—but right. ' I spent my whole life trapped in a room and I can’t be mad about it because I love my mama and I understand why, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt,’ she screams, and the crystal wall, the ice, and the cold, and the scream tears out from her. Jester crumples down there where she is standing in the middle of the room, panting hard.
Beau waits a moment. Then, carefully, she picks a path across the ice. It crunches underfoot and she slips a bit—but it’s cool, no one noticed.
Reaching jester’s side, she hesitates. What if Jester doesn’t want it? What if Jester wants to be left alone? What if, after saying all of that, she can’t stand to have Beau near, to have Beau look at her? She stops with her hand outstretched—and then closes the distance again. Kneels behind her in the crackling shards of ice that break and poke at her knees. She brings Jester into a hug, arms around her waist. She isn’t going to leave Jester alone.
She wonders, distantly, if Jester remembers the last time they were like this. Whether she remembers what they had said.
Jester is still clutching her head in her hands. She isn’t sure if she can even hear her.
‘I love you, Jes.’ Beau tightens her hold as best she can, still weak as a kitten. Looking about at the ice that covers the room, she lets out a shaky breath. ‘God, you’re fucking incredible. That was incredible. I knew it would be.’