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It hurts. Everything fucking hurts. He’s back down in the dirt, eyes staring up at the clear sky, feeling the pain move in waves outward from his sternum.
He blinks. There are voices around him. They feel far away, distant in a way he doesn’t quiet understand. He knows those voices. Caleb, Nott, Beau, and that new person Keg are walking towards him. He can feel their footsteps through the ground. He wants to sit up, to call to them, to let them know he isn’t dead. At least not yet.
But moving hurts too much, his chest feels like it’s been ripped through. And judging by the last thing he remembers it has. He wishes, not for the first time, that Jester was here to patch him back up. He wishes, not for the first time, that he hadn’t been so cocksure.
He finally pushes himself into an upright position. His friends don’t seem to notice as they stop to discuss what to do on the other side of the road. He’s looking at them, trying to find his voice to shout when he notices a flash of black out of the corner of his eyes. When he turns to look, there is a half-elven man crouching next to him, hand outstretched.
“Who, who are you?”
“My name is Vax’ildan, but most people call me Vax.”
Molly regards the gentleman before him with suspicion. He seems to have a faint outline of wings stretching behind him, dark in their shadow.
Vax sighs and sits down moving to be next to Molly, between him and his friends.
“Look buddy, I know this isn’t easy. But I am the Champion of the Raven Queen. I’m here to help you to whatever happens when people die.”
“You don’t know what that is,” Molly still looked past the man who called himself Vax, “If your Mistress is the Matron of Ravens you should have some sort of idea.”
“I never really died. But that’s enough about me. Its time for me to take you to the next place.”
“They can’t see me, can they.” Molly’s statement lingered between them, quiet on his lips and heavy on his heart. Vax sighed, placing a hand on Molly’s leg and shaking his head in a quiet no.
Beau walked over to where the two men were seated. She took Molly’s coat off his body, which he now noticed was still laying on the ground behind him.
“We need to bury him,” she was saying, rifling through his pockets for his coin purse and tarot cards, “don’t want animals to rip him apart.”
“He came back once, what if he can do it again?” Nott’s voice was small as she and Caleb approached.
Vax smiled at Molly. “You did come back once. Do you remember anything about who you were before?”
The party kept talking quietly, but Molly stopped listening. He was glad Beau had grabbed his most prized possessions. “I don’t. And I don’t want to. I’m glad to have died how I lived, as Mollymauk Tealeaf.”
The pair sat their for a while, watching and listening as the remaining members of the party decided what to do. After about an hour, Vax stood and held out his hand once again, an offering. Molly reached out and let Vax help him stand.
“Gods, I thought death wasn’t supposed to hurt as much as dying.”
“Its all a bitch, sorry to say.” Vax laughed as his wings enveloped both of them. Molly closed his eyes and felt the wind whip around them as he realized he no longer needed to breath.
When he opened his eyes, he was alone. A shimmering doorway before him was all he could see. He flicked the back of his coat out from his body, and strode confidently into the beyond.