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These were the moments that Mollymauk Tealeaf lived for. These were the days that would stay with them, in this life where every day might be their last.
The freedom of racing with their crew, flying through the streets, ducking around stalls and leaping over carts, with a severed hangman's noose still around their neck - freedom was truly the sweetest drug in all the world, especially when it was spiced with a life taken back. He could see Jester up ahead, feel Yasha hanging behind, had lost track of Caleb and Nott but had the utmost faith in them. Jester was laughing loud enough to wake the dead and Molly was pretty sure they were laughing with her. It was hard to tell when everything around them felt light and floaty, the edges of the world made soft and blurred by raw adrenaline.
But they could see the ocean up ahead, and that kept them moving well enough. Home was calling and as they emerged from the market streets and out into the docks, they could see the Peacock's Pride floating free, already pulled away from the docks with her sails unfurled. Fjord would be at the wheel waiting for them all.
"Hey Molly!" Jester called, turning back to beam at them. "Let's go swimming!"
"It's a beautiful day for it!" Molly called back, before looking back to make sure that Yasha understood the plan as well.
Then it felt like the bottom was dropping out of their world, because they turned just in time to see the captain of the damned and bloody Crownsguard himself step out of Yasha's path to block her way with his glaive. Behind him, two more shadows emerged from the shadows behind Yasha that might have been the shape of his lieutenants. Molly's first mate stumbled to a stop, neatly pinned, cut off from her crew by the gleam of that wicked blade even as she drew hers' in retaliation.
"Tealeaf!" called Lorenzo, without looking back. The bastard knew that Molly would have stopped when they saw one of their crew caught. "Going somewhere? And here I thought you loved to dance!"
Everything but the hemp fandango, Molly thought bitterly, before drawing their swords with a growl of frustration. At least Caleb had managed to toss the blades back to them before disappearing into the crowd. "Oh I am well out of patience for you and yours', Lorenzo!"
Out of the corner of their eye, they saw Jester step up beside them, her axe at the ready. "Motherfucker, we are gonna feed you to the fishes."
"Shame to deny the hangman his due," said Lorenzo, and Molly heard the fierce, feral grin in his voice. "But I think these two lovely ladies' severed heads will really brighten up the harbor."
Lorenzo was a big man, but could move fast as lightning when pressed - a fact Molly had already had unfortunately frequent cause to learn as they and the corrupt captain had clashed in the past. So they weren't unprepared when their foe suddenly whirled around and closed with them, laughing in bloodthirsty delight, but the impact of the glaive against their two crossed scimitars still drove shockwaves of pain down their arms. In the fraction of a second they had to take in other details, Molly saw Yasha try to race to their aid before Lorenzo's backup jumped her. Molly also saw Jester wavering, wondering who to run to.
"Help Yasha!" they called to her. At least that way, the numbers would be even if nothing else. They didn't have time to see if she listened, because Lorenzo pulled back and swung the blade at Molly's head instead and they had to dance aside or lose it.
It was a bitterly hard fight from there, and Molly knew it was equal parts luck and skill that let them hold their own. They were quick and nimble, Lorenzo bigger and slower, but with the amount of power he could put behind his swings and a weapon that massive, Lorenzo only had to be lucky once. Molly could get in a cut here and there, but Lorenzo was such a big, muscly bastard that it was hard to know if the open, bleeding wounds that came to criss-cross his body were doing anything at all. Dimly, Molly was aware that they were being pushed back, driven along the docks and towards the water. For just a moment, they entertained the idea of jumping and swimming for safety, and discarded it with the next clash of steel. Over Lorenzo's shoulder, they could see that Jester and Yasha were nowhere near the edge. If they jumped, that would mean abandoning them, and that was if Lorenzo didn't just jump in after them and drown Molly himself.
Molly was forced a step back and their foot met nothing but empty air. They stumbled and that stumble saved their life as the glaive scythed past their chest. Molly took a deep breath, righted themself, and then immediately tried to dart around Lorenzo, back into the fray, back towards their friends. They barely made it two steps before they felt a big, meaty hand close around one of their horns and throw them to the ground with a damn near inhuman strength, shortly followed by a boot coming down on their chest to pin them in place.
"You know," said Lorenzo, as Molly's vision swam back into focus to see their oldest, bitterest foe standing over him, with his damned glaive readied just over Molly's chest. "You really only have to live long enough for me to drag you back to the gibbet. A man can live through a lot, Tealeaf."
Don't look, Molly thought desperately, as if Yasha or Jester could hear them from here. They hoped those two hadn't noticed. They hoped neither of them would see. And then, as the glaive gleamed against the sun as Lorenzo tensed to bring it down, Molly fixed what they were sure would be their last coherent thought in their head. Well fuck you too.
The arcane words echoed across the docks above the sound of battle, and fire roared. Lorenzo stumbled, eyes going wide, and when he stumbled so that his foot slipped off Molly's chest, Molly wasted no time in pushing themself away and shoving themself to his feet, darting back to gain some distance.
It afforded them a very good look at the smoke rising from the back of Lorenzo's head, and at the man standing behind Lorenzo with his hand still upraised and smoke still pouring forth from his fingers. Caleb watched with the light of fire reflected in his blue, blue eyes as Lorenzo made a hoarse, choking sound, curling in on himself so that Molly could see the hole blown through the back of his head, to clear a path for the fire even now eating its way through the big man's body. Molly saw his veins burning red, saw his skin starting to smoke and blacken and fall away as the fire consumed him from the inside out.
Lorenzo lived long enough to turn and try to run for help. He lived long enough to realize he wasn't going to make it. And all Molly had to do was stand and watch it happen - they fancied that they were not a bloodthirsty man by nature, despite their chosen profession, but they and Lorenzo had danced a bloody dance over the years that had sometimes felt endless, and it would have been a lie too great for even Captain Mollymauk Tealeaf to tell to pretend that it wasn't a wondrous relief to see it concluded at last.
Molly's crew had not been forced to watch them laid low, but Lorenzo's was not so fortunate. Molly saw the halfling and the half-elf staring with wide, terrified eyes at the pile of ashes that had once been their captain before they also tried to turn and run. Yasha cut one down with ease, and a crossbow bolt sprouted out of the other as Nott seemed to materialize from nowhere.
"Over here!" Molly called, once they got their breath back, once the bodies had stopped falling. They had just enough time to see Jester take Nott by the hand and Yasha wave them on, just in time to be reassured that they were all going to make it to the edge of the docks with them, when someone else grabbed their wrist and spun them around and Molly tensed for an instant, but just an instant, because it was only Caleb. Caleb, their first mate, their love, staring at Molly with such a scolding look on their face.
"Nothing is ever easy with you, is it?" Caleb whispered, and pulled Molly in for a deep, desperate kiss. Molly grinned against his mouth, twined their arms around Caleb, and lost themself in the kiss for a long, sweet, well-earned moment. It was Yasha, bless her and damn her, who decided when the moment would end. Being Yasha, she decided it by picking them both up bodily and tossing them into the ocean waters. Molly and Caleb surfaced, sputtering and gasping, just in time to see the others jumping in after them.
Molly glanced at Caleb and grinned their brightest grin. "Admit it," they said. "That's why you stick around."
It might have just been a flush brought on by cold ocean waters, but Caleb's cheeks darkened. "Among other reasons," he said. "Now shut up and swim, Captain."
Molly did so, and the rest of their crew was already lowering a ladder for them all by the time they arrived.