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It’s been a while since Yasha’s spent the night out with Mollymauk. A quiet survey of the area, nothing special, as the rest of their party sleeps bundled together in a horse-drawn cart, with only a drab canopy to shield them from the cold.
She sits down, arms crossed, with her back resting up again a nearby tree trunk. Molly settles next to her, unrolling his large tapestry of the Platinum Dragon and wrapping it around himself.
Yasha can’t say she could ever see herself traveling with another group. The circus was already an adjustment, being roped into such an odd feeling of closeness with mere strangers. That closeness, however, had quickly transformed them into a family of sorts. Forced to protect each other for the sake of survival and yet it’s sentimental value much more than Yasha is willing to admit to herself.
And Molly—he might be the closest family she’s ever had.
“I’m so glad to be out of that bloody city,” Molly says, slightly exasperated. He leans back. Fixed intently on the night’s watch, though it looks like he could fall asleep at any minute.
“Yeah, me too, I guess,” she says. “I just am excited to see more, you know.”
“It’s nice to be on the road again.”
“Yeah, it’s nice to be on the road.”
The circus never was one to stay still for too long. And to her relief, it seems like the Mighty Nein are the same.
“I’ve never been up this way before,” Molly says.
“You haven’t?” she asks.
“Not that I can remember,” he quickly corrects himself. “Not that I know .”
To that, Molly lets out a little laugh. Sometimes, his laugh feels desperate and empty. She can’t quite tell if he feels that way now.
Yasha lowers her head, a bit somber. “That’s true.”
While Molly has his gaze fixed ahead, Yasha finds herself distracted by the subtle noises of the nature around her. From the gentle wind brushing against tree leaves to the distance pattering of forest animals.
Yasha stands up, patting Molly on the shoulder as she does so. “I’ll be right back,” she tells him. Soon after, Yasha hears him turn his head, his earrings and chains rattling against each other.
In the immediate area, there isn't much in the way for flowers, just a bit of uneven grass and dying shrubs. Maybe a nice leaf or two, nothing worthy of preserving for later.
She walks out a bit further, it feels no further than a few feet. Among the devastation, some soot or ash and the remains of a fallen tree, she finds a group of posies, growing peacefully in the rough terrain. She picks a handful and leaves the rest to spread anew across the ground.
From a little ways away, she can hear Molly’s earrings and baubles again, alongside the rustling of fabric.
“Yasha?” he calls out.
She starts to walk back and turns around to see a slightly concern Molly, stood up with one eyebrow raised. “I found some, some of these,” Yasha says, holding out the small posies in both hands. “I’m going to put them in my book.”
She pulls out a book, a keepsake full of pressed flowers. There are a few scribbles to accompany them, not anything more than the memories she keeps hidden in her mind.
She continues to thumb through the pages, counting each of the flowers, petal by petal. With each flower, she attaches it to a place, even just a few words that slowly unfold into something bigger.
Though Yasha has no ink on her at the moment—she’s tempted to wake Caleb to borrow some however quickly shakes away the thought—she promises to herself that she will make an inscription. Right next to the flattened cluster of posies:
'small posies; night-watch with mollymauk’
Molly leans in, glancing over her shoulder. “That's lovely,” he says, lips curling at the corners.
Yasha closes the book. “Yeah,” she whispers.
Molly tilts his head up and Yasha copies him. Staring wistfully at the stars, they both exchange each other glances though say nothing. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see him take in one last, sharp breath and clutch to his pendant of Bahamut, the Platinum Dragon. A prayer? A hope for the future?
And in a quick instant, Molly’s soft breathes fill the vicinity as he falls asleep on Yasha’s shoulder.
She had made herself comfortable in the Leaky Tap tavern. But, maybe, this is alright too.
If she looks back, will she see the remnants of Zadash behind them? No, perhaps not, it’s too far away now. All that remains is a faint trail of cart tracks to lead them back.
‘a wilting orchid; the circus beginnings’
Since her beginning days in the circus, she'd formed some strange sense of amicability with this mysterious lavender tiefling.
A strange happening, she'd call it. But truthfully, it's no stranger than the fact that she joined the circus at all.
Even among their mismatched ranks, she still finds a way to feel out of place. The other members of the circus glance upon her with cold eyes. Especially the small dwarven girl she's come to known as Toya, who looks at her most of all with the utmost terror. If it's the years of unrest that's made their eyes grow cold with distrust, Yasha can't say she blames them. She only prays that the Stormlord delivers them safety.
From underneath the incomplete canopy, she looks over to the side, once again observing the tiefling chatting with Toya and rustling her hair with his hands. The young girl laughs, voice noticeably strained and eyes a little weary. But nonetheless, she seems content in the tiefling's presence, watching his playfully swing his scimitars and balances them on the tip of his fingers.
There’s something different about this tiefling. Not his manner of dress, nor the type of charisma he projects as he flings leftover circus posters left and right, littering the streets. Those qualities fit in all too well with the curiosity of the carnival.
Instead, what she finds unusual is his attitude. A sense of openness, kindness that extends to all who cross his path, even those that choose not to return it.
He approaches her in his usual manner. A gleeful saunter, light on his feet and both hands gently brushing over the hilt of his scimitars. She always knows when it's him. The rattling of his pendant and the baubles on his horns are a dead giveaway. They sway side to side, following the same rhythm as his steps. Like a tambourine to accompany a dancer.
He smiles at her warmly, setting a seat for himself on the ground next to her. “Y’know we see plenty of folks from here and there, but I don't believe we've ever had anyone from Xhorhas join us before,” he says, leaning forward on one elbow. “It's refreshing if you ask me.”
She doesn't reply. She can’t even remember if she ever told anyone she was from Xhorhas. If one thing is for certain, this tiefling has a keen eye for what otherwise might go unseen.
The one thing that Yasha does remembers is that her lips couldn't help but curl into a faint smile.
“The name's Mollymauk Tealeaf, it's a pleasure,” he says.
He holds out his hand, and while she's hesitant to shake it, Yasha does anyways. He bows to her, lifting the back of her hand to his forehead.
“Yasha Nydoorin,” she says, though her voice is still barely above a whisper. She might be blushing. Her face feels hot, clammy, and tense all at once. “It's… a pleasure.”
With that memory, she smiles upon it fondly, as he had once done to her.
‘daisies; a calm day in the tent’
Just as distinctly, she can remember the day Mollymauk first read her fortune.
She’d seen him do it before, sometimes for curious carnival-goers, other times for any filthy eye that gives Molly even a second’s glance.
This time, he decided to pull her aside, just for a moment. He withdraws a deck of cards from one of his pouches.
She doesn't disregard things like good fortune or faith in times of need, not at all. But, she wonders just how much Molly really knows.
Her eyes flutter back and forth as he shuffles the cards, a sort of methodical-looking procedure to it. Or perhaps, there was nothing methodical about it at all. The spontaneity, the artistry, the type that could only be harbored by him. The type of values he always seems to live by.
And in an instant, Molly draws a card from the deck and places it carefully on the table.
“Flip it over, my dear,” he says.
She does, revealing an intricate pattern of a woman and lion, that almost appear to weave together seamlessly with the flowers laced among her dress and the lion's mane. The woman smiles fondly, and her face looks vaguely illuminated by a halo floating above her.
“The Strength Arcana,” he says. “And don't let the name fool you, my dear, because the strongest are also often the gentlest of them all. It’s more than strength of body, it’s also strength of mind, willpower and the like. The person I see in front of me is someone compassionate and calm, only if you don’t give into the urges inside you.”
Molly reaches forward and pokes Yasha’s chest with his finger.
“And that represents me?”
“Of course.”
Again, he finishes shuffling the deck, holds it out once more and she draws the second card.
An illustration of a tall tower tilted slightly to one side and surrounded by lightning. Atop it sits a tiefling-like creature, legs crossed and hands resting playfully on the knees. The tiefling grins; happy? mischievously? She can’t tell.
“The Tower Arcana,” he says. “The catalyst for a great change is upon you. Something that’s going to throw your life through the loop. Something sudden, something unexpected. But the signs of it have been around you this whole time.”
The tiefling figure on the card grows larger, closer until Yasha senses their blackened eyes staring directly through her. The tiefling on the card or the tiefling in front of her? Either or, both at once?
“Will it be for the better or for the worse?” Molly says. “We’ll wait and see, won’t we?”
She knows well enough by now that there is no magic to his ways, at least not the type of magical essence one would usually think of. And yet she chooses to heed his words.
Better to heed his words than find herself ruined among the catalyst.
‘a soft lily; arrival in trostenwald’
A crowded cart ride, something that was certainly too small for the size of the circus they were transporting, had lent itself to many sleepless nights. Nights that were almost completely quiet except for the cantor of the horses and Molly’s gentle breathing as his head rests on her shoulder. Molly, who had fallen asleep next to her for warmth and laid his gaudy robes over the both of them as a blanket, sleeps as gently as a child. She can't help but keep her eyes fixed on him as his chest rises and falls in rhythm with her own.
It's been a restless week of travel. For all of them.
But finally, as the horses come to a slower pace at the front gates of Trostenwald, Yasha thinks she can catch some piece of mind.
She shakes Molly awake, watching as his fluttering eyes bring him to consciousness.
“We're here,” she says.
The cold morning they'd first arrived in Trostenwald, she wasn't quite sure what to make of it. The autumn air breathes little life for flowers. And though Trostenwald finds itself surrounded by a large spread of fertile lands, her eyes are far too drawn to the mass and mesh of run-down taverns or apothecaries.
“Looking for something?” Molly says as he leaps from the back of the cart.
“Just a few flowers.”
“Hmm, well give me a bit and I might be able to find something,” he says. “Maybe we could find a couple of vendors in town?”
The spend the better part of the afternoon searching for a flower vendor. Above all, Trostenwald is recognizable for its ale; around every turn, every nook and cranny. Flowers, on the other hand, seem much less popular.
Eventually, Molly points out a small cart with a young boy stop up front and what Yasha can only presume is his sleeping sister behind him, on a chair that rocks back and forth. The cart is filled to the brim with lilies of all sorts of colors. Yasha's eyes quickly fall to a group of purple and white lilies.
"The purple and white ones," she says. "I'd like to have a few of those."
The boy’s face lights up as the two approach him. In his arms is the offering of a small bouquet, tied off with a bright purple ribbon.
He only asks for a few coppers. Yasha notices Molly hand him that and a few more. Following him, she withdraws as many coppers as she can muster, about four copper that she has on hand. The occasional tip from circus-goers is only ever a silver piece or less. Graciously, the boy takes the copper pieces into his hands and begins to count them, a bright beaming smile while he waves goodbye to Molly and Yasha.
Now a few feet away from the vendor stand, Molly playfully pokes Yasha with his elbow.
"You did a good thing back there, I just want you to know that."
This isn't the first time she's heard those words, and yet it sounds just as surprising as before. As a merciless world teaches her that her kind knows not to be gentle, perhaps she must teach the world to think otherwise. The woman, the lion, the halo.
He hadn't lied to her. Not now, not ever.
‘a small dandelion; trostenwald’s first gift’
Quickly, Yasha was able to find some sense of comfort with the circus. Distant from the flamboyant acts, though still attached to them behind closed curtains. A moderator, a guard of sorts.
She could have contented herself with relaxing in Trostenwald, unbothered by any unusual glares their presence draws—"You get stares when you travel with people like me," Molly had told her—if not for her responsibilities attached to the circus. Setting up the tent, attracting the attention of any potential customers. The latter, of course, she finds herself no good at. She leaves it up to Molly instead.
As she begins to hitch up the circus tent, Yasha’s eyes wander over to a small child, digging her feet into the dirt and both hands clutched on a stuffed animal that appears to be falling apart at the seams.
“H-Hello?” she tries to call out, though it fails to be anything more than a meek whisper.
The child averts her gaze from Yasha, closing off as though her body begins to fold back into itself. She clutches onto the stuffed animal, even harder than before.
Embarrassed, Yasha makes her way over to Molly. She begins to tug ever so slightly on the sleeve of Molly's robe, like a child trying to catch the attention of her parent.
"Something the matter?" he says.
She points over to the child, who seems not to notice either of them watching her in the distance. “I think I scared her away,” she says.
“Well that's no good,” he says. “You're supposed to be the charm, after all.”
“Yes, well—”
“It’s alright,” he says. “Let me handle this.”
She watches, taken aback slightly, as Molly approaches the child. Still, she looks shy, though her expression softens up a bit. She's too far away to catch any words, except for a few giggles here and there.
With the child's full attention, he runs up to Yasha and leaps onto her shoulders.
“Hey—!”
“Sorry, dear. Hold me for a bit, won't you?”
He balances on one foot and draws his scimitar from his side. The child looks up at them in awe as Molly places the pommel to his nose and begins balancing it.
“Molly, you're actually quite heav—” the force of Molly's weight as he puts his foot back down interrupts Yasha as she speaks. He takes out the second scimitar, still with his nose balancing the first, and twirls it around in his hand.
With one last leap off of Yasha's shoulders, causing Yasha to wince, the child now looks at them and her eyes fill with stars. Soon enough, Molly is crouched down next to her and gives her a pat on the head.
Yasha, standing completely still, simply blinks in awe.
Just as Yasha approaches him, the child quickly runs away. “I don't—I don't get how you're so good with, with people, you know?” she says. “How you connect with them.”
“The key is to talk bigger than you actually are,” he says. “Like an illusion, really.”
Like an illusion. It would never have occurred to her that his charisma was anything but sincere.
“Here,” Molly says, producing a small, slightly wilted dandelion from his pocket and placing it behind Yasha’s ear. “The kid told me to give it to the ‘tall, scary woman with the pretty braids’. I think that means you.”
Yasha looks back at the little girl and a slight pink spreads across her cheeks. "Thank you, Molly," she says. "You are a kind soul."
"Ah, don't thank me," he says. Molly rubs the back of his neck and looks away from her. Yasha swears she notices a bit of blushing, though she can't be sure if her eyes are playing tricks on her or not. To that, she slaps him on the back. "It was a gift from the kid, not me."
‘a discarded begonia; the performance’s eve’
One night, the night before the circus performance in Trostenwald, she catches a sleepless Molly, sleepless just like her. While she had gone wandering for discarded flowers along the sweeping streets, in every little corner or crack she could find, she isn't quite sure why Molly is awake. She remembers him falling asleep before she had, so soundly and peacefully, beautiful as a lavender blossom.
He's wandering out behind the tent amidst the chill air, eyes seemingly staring far-off in the distance, into nowhere. Wherever he's staring, he focuses on it with all his being, body somehow tense and yet floating freely in its space. He retains that focus as he lifts one of his scimitars and makes a precise cut along his forearm. And crowded behind the edge of the tent, she intently watches the crimson eyes on his body glow faintly and begin to drip with thick blood.
Just then, his face pulls to a scowl-like expression, eyes narrowed, and the blood pouring from the palm of his hand clusters together into a small orb. It floats, waving slightly from side to side.
“Molly?”
He pulls back in shock and curses under his tongue, causing the orb of blood to splatter on the ground. Steam appears to rise from it, as it fizzles and dissipates into the wind.
“For someone your size, it always surprises me how quiet you are,” Molly says.
“Sorry, I can’t help it,” she murmurs. “Is this a new act for the show?”
“Eh, not quite,” he says. “I’ve been doing a little, soul searching, body searching if you can call it that.”
Yasha shoots him a confused glance.
“To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure what I’m capable of,” Molly says.
“Whatever it is, it's quite amazing,” she says.
Molly pulls his focus together and reaches out his hand once more. The blood slowly drips from the cut on his forearm. Closing his eyes, trying to channel whatever energy is inside of his, the blood remains a formless stream, mixing well with the blood already spilled on the ground.
Yasha has seen him do these strange things before, despite his claims to be unattached to the arcane arts. If there really is nothing magical about him, then what else might it be? The inexplicable manipulation of blood, or the piercing ice shards that she's seen grow around his fingertips and spread farther across his body.
Some things, some people, the universe relegates to live in the domain of absurdity. Mollymauk, she figures, is one of them. All of his stories, any recollection he has of his life before the circus, it's all defined by absurdities. Secretly, she admires his acceptance of the unknown and how readily he can throw away any hint of existence before 'Mollymauk Tealeaf'. A life made entirely in present. No chances for looking back.
‘forget-me-nots; an empty night, empty field’
There have been a few times she's found herself lost in conversation with Molly. A frequent happening, to the point where each individual conversation blends together into one.
One night, however, she can picture better than any other. The exact time and place are irrelevant, the most she knows is that it was just before their arrival in Trostenwald. Yasha remembers that night best of all.
An empty field, an empty sky that began to flood with stars as the sun drew farther and the moon drew closer. She was drifting off into nowhere, like a boat stranded at sea, as their soft words tried to usher her into the lull of the night's rest.
Molly rests his head on her lap, his hair and horns littered with whatever wildflower and piece of foliage Yasha could find. She’s practiced a few times, making these silly little necklaces and crowns out of wildflowers. Though the color is slightly obscured in the darkness, their faint purple glow blends in with the rest of Molly’s hair, and the messy braids that Yasha attempted to put them in.
“You should grow your hair out more.”
“Why so?”
“So I can give you braids, like mine.”
“You think it would suit me?”
“Of course it would.”
Molly laughs. “Y’know the last time my hair was cut, I believe it was your doing,” he says. “You’re the only one who does a good cut and shave around here.”
He lifts one hand and takes a few strands of Yasha's hair, twirling them around his finger.
“Before the circus had you never thought to shave yourself?” she asks. “I can't imagine you as anything except clean shaven.”
“Well before the circus, I didn’t think much of anything, let alone a shave, ” as he finishes the sentence, he almost has a bit of regret in his eyes.
“I was—I was different then, to say the least.”
All of the sudden, the air between them has grown tenser, heavier. She doesn’t want to force him to talk, not any more than he’s willing. All of the circus-folk are mysterious, it’s just a fact of life she’s come to accept. Herself included.
Molly bites his lower lip. He doesn't try to hide his hesitation. It's better to be left unsaid, is what she thinks, and what she assumes he thinks as well. Secrets, however, are just as dangerous kept as they are given.
She doesn't pressure him. This time, he speaks of his own volition. And as Molly begins to rattle off more about his past, his absence of a past, she thinks to herself, all the while still completely fixated on every word.
The way he describes the feeling of dirt in his throat as he tries to breath in for the first time anew. The coldness as he only has his own skin to grasp onto, piercing red eyes bled through his body that appeared to stare back at him with immense anguish. And as he frees himself from the dirt, all he knows how to do is scream in horror, raised to a cacophony with cawing crows and ravens circling overhead.
How does it feel to live without a childhood, without any attachments? Some part of her really wishes she had that too. For the best that she at least has something to latch onto, though that distant voice in the back of her mind regrets that it had to be the long, dead expanse of Xhorhas.
“Sometimes, I wonder if this body is immortal,” Molly says, a bit more subdued than he usually sounds. He lifts his hands, staring at the crimson eyes of the snake that seem to glisten in the moonlight. “This arsehole died once before, and who knows how many other times before that.”
She begins to run her fingers through Molly’s hair, staring off into the distance abyss of nighttime stars.
“Do you feel immortal?” she asks him.
Does she feel immortal? Perhaps invincible but never immortal. She's simply one of many born into a world that builds those to be strong, unwavering, fearless. Born to die in battle with no regrets. Accepting of death, though never overcoming it.
“Maybe, maybe not. You can be immortal in more ways than one,” he says. “Even if I die and someone else comes to take my place, the memory of the townsfolk is enough to keep me alive. And yours as well.”
“And what if I die?”
“Well you're not dying without me, that's for damn sure,” he says with a laugh. “You're far stronger than I am, anyway.”
Strong out of the necessity for survival perhaps, but she can’t say that she’s anything too special.
“You’re strong too, you know,” she says. “Differently than myself, but still strong.”
In truth, she's never thought much about her own mortality, and she's learned to accept it as a necessary part of the universe.
“Promise me that you won't die before me,” Molly says. “You'll live to tell the tale of that wandering carnival barker, Mollymauk Tealeaf.”
Yasha shakes her head. “I can't afford to make promises like that,” she says. “Not in this world.”
He looks at her, somewhat dejected, but understanding. “No, I suppose not,” he says with a sigh.
Molly sits up from her lap, a few of the wildflowers falling from his hair but the braids still hold together. He starts to lean in a little closer until the two of them are looking at each other eye to eye.
“Promise me one thing then,” he says, holding out his left pinky. “You won't lose sight of the road ahead and you'll remember that I'm here for you wherever you go."
“And after you die?”
“I'll still be here for you,” he says. “Even after I die.”
Yasha takes Molly's pinky into her own. “I'm here for you too, you know,” she says. “And I will be even after I die. Promise me you will remember that.”
“I promise,” he says with a smile. “And mark my words, a promise made is a promise kept.”
By the time they'd arrived in Trostenwald, it was only months she had known Molly. And yet, as those months shifted into entire eternities, it's become hard to imagine her life without him. A permanent fixture, something inescapable to everyone who crossed his path.
That, she figures, means he's already found immortality. And the promise of his own—does that mean she's found immortality as well?
Molly lets out a yawn, the weight of his body almost growing heavier until he's completely taken over by the fatigue and falls limp. Yasha moves his head to rest on her shoulder with fingers that lightly grace his horns and run down all the way to the messy little braids and purple wildflowers. Smooth as silk, looking graceful in the moonlight.
“I've left every town better than I found it,” he had told them, in the underground depths of the Leaky Tap tavern. His face that time was unforgettable, twisted with the sort of agony and pain she’d never wish to see him in.
His words, however, she still wholeheartedly believes.
Whether as the existence of a far-off memory, or the physical body she sees resting child-like on her shoulder, there's something interesting about Mollymauk Tealeaf. Something that no stretch of time, no higher power, no crevice of the universe could ever hope to forget.