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This one's for the lonely child
Broken hearted
Running wild
This was written for the one to blame
For the one who believes they are the cause of chaos in everything
(Sara Bareilles - Satellite Call)
#1
They had done something good, her, the handsome half-orc and the abrasive girl with an undercut. The fisherman’s coins clattered on the table and Beauregard - undercut girl - did a double take and muttered to Fjord, the halforc, about having to accept it or not.
Beauregard gestured towards the fisherman. “It’s rude not to accept a gift, right?”
“I would hope that is the case,” he said. “Anyway. Thank you very much. I am sorry for getting in your way,” and he stood up and left.
They proceeded to divide the money up, and the hunched figure of the abrasive girl over the money, face scrunched up as she figured out how to divide four gold pieces between the three of them, looked, to Jester, goofy and the total opposite of the cynical and careless demeanor Beauregard had shown in the first two days or so they had known one another.
It looked endearing in a ‘I wouldn’t expect such a badass looking woman to lose her mind over math’ kind of way. It would have looked good as a drawing. But after a couple minutes, Fjord pointed out someone eyeing their coin and Jester forgot about it.
#2
“And then Oskar falls in love with her!” Jester slammed the book closed. “And he carries her across a field, and they love each other so much.”
Beau closed her eyes and deadpanned. “That’s so great.”
“It’s the most beautiful story, Beau!”
Silence dropped among them.
“Can we go to sleep, now?” the monk asked.
Jester sighed. “Yeah.”
And Beau took the edge of her blanket and did a hard turn on her side, facing away from Jester and towards the window of the room, and turned her bedside candle off. Jester sighed again, her insides feeling airy and full of butterflies after she had got halfway through the book. Beau didn’t seem she was going to be up for ‘girl talk’ or any type of talk really - after all, that was the nature of the one and only Beauregard, cranky monk extraordinaire.
A new big city was exciting, the sounds of chariots and chatter still lively under their window in the middle of the night. Sometimes laughter. Sometimes tavern inn chaos from downstairs. The faint light on the walls trembled along with the flame of the candle next to her bed, just like back home, like that one night she was in bed with a fever and her mom would look after her and sing her to sleep. The trembling flame in the low lit bedroom felt familiar, like much of her life had felt during the evenings and nights she had to stay in while her mom worked. Or unlike the times she’d sneak out and avoid Blude’s eye just to walk around the Chateau. Many times her mom or one of the other courtesans would take her and bring her back to her room, talking about how “the evening wasn’t a good time for sneaking around the lays”.
Jester figured she wouldn’t get much reading done, so she stood up to put the book away in her bag and take out her sketchbook and colors. She turned around and saw Beau’s sleeping figure, her face covered by her loose hair and her mouth ajar. The blanket fell off her shoulders and the moon shed light onto her bare arms.
Beauregard was hard to catch in any instance that wasn’t her looking stoic and in a perpetual state of boiling calm anger. Being often her roommate, that image carried a strange weight of privacy, in a bubble of strangers not knowing each other but witnessing daily life snippets of one another.
And Jester had never had a roommate before. Heavens, she didn’t really have anyone at all beside her mom. Or friends. And yet this group of people, she had already spent a lot of time with. Travelling. Fighting. Shopping. And Beau was in the thick of it all very often, so her sleeping image was familiar, yes, but never not a fascinating and endearing one.
Jester could have drawn her, just until sleep came to her. But that would have been - weird? Or not? Scared of doing something wrong, she carried the sketchbook to bed but put it on the bedside drawer, and waited for sleep to take her. Maybe she could have asked the Traveller about it at some point.
#3
She woke up in a cart - the new cart. Their appointment back in Zadash wasn’t waiting for them, not after the prisons. Not after Molly’s death. They - her friends and Ophelia Mardun’s crew - were cooking meals and settling for the night. It was about two days worth of travel from Zadash, and Jester sat in their cart, the sketchbook open in her lap on a blank page.
There was too much silence among them. Fjord kicked a pebble around with his arms crossed, his eyes on the ground. Caleb and Nott were huddled up near the bonfire and the new pink haired guy cooked food over the coals. Beau was opposite Caleb and Nott, staring at the fire and her arms on her legs. Her eyebrows furrowed, but no other element betraying what she was thinking. And Molly wasn’t there. He didn't talk. Didn't poke at Beau to give her a card reading. Or laugh over one of his carnival stories. He just. Wasn’t. Not anymore. Beau was going to take them to where they had buried him, and yet Jester didn’t think she was ready for that. Her mom’s words had been perpetual chant of her resisting in the dark nights of the prison, to take care and see beautiful things, and meet people she could call friends. But she had never been to a grave of a loved one before. Probably not the first experience her mom would have wished for her little sapphire to live. And yet, here she was. She wondered what her mom would have thought of the whole thing.
Motes of light illuminated the moonless sky, the everpresent scent of grass mixed with the leftover stench of rusty iron and blood where a bunch of them slept. Jester figured that stealing the carts of a group of people smugglers came with some major setbacks. Painful reminders just some of them.
The blank page glared at her, like another ugly memento, as if the rust and the blood and the illusions were its fiendish summoned creatures. The Traveller nowhere to be heard or seen for days, Fjord’s pain filled groans and the stench of mold and stuffy air the only company of those long, endless nights. Behind bars. Away from her mom. Away from her friends. Away from Molly’s last breath.
And then she heard it. Beau’s low cackle. The monk held a piece of paper and cackled at it,her face illuminated by the fire. She stood up and showed it Caleb and Nott, and Caleb shook her head but Nott elbowed Beau in the knee in a playful manner. Fjord kicked the pebble away and joined the group, who was now chatting and laughing over whatever Beau had showed them. The pink haired guy looked at the group and a warm smile painted his face with serenity and he went back to tend the coals.
Jester felt the smile make its way on her face, as tears dropped onto her lap, on the blank page and into her now tattered and worn out clothes. Beau pointed at the letter and cackled, cuts and bruises covering her face and skin. But she cackled, again and again. And Fjord shook her head but his shoulders shook as he smiled at her.
And under the stars, around a fire, and with the smell of roasted veggies and herbs now coming her way from where the pink haired guy was sitting, Jester thought that, maybe, the Traveller didn’t come because Beauregard and the others did. She wondered if they even had to.
#4
Nicodranas opened up at the horizon and all Jester could think and talk about was how excited she was for her friends to meet her mom. As some of them made it clear that they had never seen the ocean, Jester lead them to it. Caduceus looked at everything in his neverending wonder. He felt more and more like someone she could relate to.
Blue. All around them till eye could see. The shore under their feet and behind them, the waves crashing into the sand and the rocks that broke the surface of the water, immobile and ageless sentinels, smoothed out by wear and time. The smell of the sea, the smell of home.
She felt sorry for Nott as the little goblin girl couldn’t make herself even touch it with the tip of her toes. But she did try to hunt for seagulls, before a crab tried to crawl away with the log that was holding Caleb’s clothes. Had any of them, besides Fjord, ever seen a sea crab before? In all of this Fjord was enjoying everyone’s newfound reactions and smiled at Caduceus as the firbolg glowed with joy.
Caleb floated dead naked towards the high waters, and she very much teased him for it, but the human didn't acknowledge her. Fjord dived to swim towards him. Caduceus played with his feet and toes in the sand, which, again, relatable. And Nott fought the crab. And killed half a flock if seagulls.
But Beau wasn’t on the beach with them. She had jumped up to the highest rock and had stared at the ocean as the others soaked in the scenery. And then she had sat down, crossed her legs and closed hee eyes. And stayed there.
Jester didn’t acknowledge herself staring until she realized that that was the calmest she had ever seen Beau be and act. The monk up top had her hands in her lap, the wind brushing over her hair and the baggy clothes. The ribbon holding Beau’s hair flowed in the air.
She could have drawn that. She could have sat on a log and opened her sketchbook. And drawn Beauregard looking like that. Calm. Tranquil. And she was - so beautiful. And as much as she was trying to focus and train Nugget, Beau just there, even after her - apparently very short - meditation, looked different. Relaxed? Healed? At ease? Jester couldn’t give a name to it, and had to look away, aware that she was staring - again. She blamed it on the scenery.
#5
The ship creaked at the sway of the waves, and Jester kept her eyes glued on the point where the water met the ship, traces of barnacles barely below - or above? - the surface of the sea.
Steps behind her made her turn around. Beau walked towards her, a questioning look in her eyes.
“I just want to be able to control water if something happens, you know,” Jester said, her hands on the edge of the ship.
“Oh, you’re here keeping watch. It’s a good call, actually,” Beau said and nodded to herself. “Gonna stay up much longer?”
“Well,” Jester looked up. “Depends on the storm, I guess.”
“Yeah.”
The ship’s wood creaked to the waves of the blue expanse.
“Motion sick?” Beau asked.
The ship gave into a valley of water and balanced back up.
“Hmm, I'm okay. Kinda feels like a carnival ride.”
“It’s a little spooky, right?” Beau said, looking around in a bit of genuine paranoia. “It’s fun, though.”
Beau trying to small talk was never genuine, though. She kept looking at her feet and at her hands, and kicked an imaginary pebble, her arms crossed. She looked at Jester again.
“Listen, I just wanted to, uh,” Beau looked down. “Talk to you, for a moment - I’m not really good at this sort of thing - but, uhm. You know what you said about last night?”
The shipped swayed to the waves again. Jester nodded to let her know she followed, even if Beau was still looking at her feet.
“About being a good liar. You - you’re right. You really are a good liar.”
Knowing Beau, that was as much of a compliment as the monk had the guts to say out loud, so Jester smiled. “Thanks, Beau.”
Beau walked to the edge of the ship next to her. “Yeah. I think it takes one to know one, and I think - being a liar means when I know you’re not.” The monk pursued her lips and looked at Jester. “Does that make sense?”
Jester looked away. “Yes.”
“And when you are. Look,” she stood straighter, away from the edge. “I, uh - we all get sad. I just want you to know that.”
Her? Or them? Jester looked at Beau again.
“And I haven’t told you really any of this, but I also had kind of a lonely childhood, so-”
“You did?” Jester asked, her voice low with a hint of heartfelt gratitude and just heart .
“Yeah, I didn’t have a lot of friends. My, uh,” Beau’s smile was entertained yet bitter. “My father was - very protective, because of certain things that he believed. And, uh - so I wasn’t allowed to have a lot of friends. Really, any friends.”
Jester could have sworn that Beau’s voice almost broke at the word ‘any’.
Jester’s sketchbook weighted a lot in her pouch. “You could have used the Traveller in your life too, then.”
Beau’s smile wasn’t bitter anymore. “Maybe. Maybe I would have turned out a little bit more like you.”
Jester giggled and nudged Beau with her shoulder.
Beau's expression was open. Fond. “I admire that in you, you know. In my loneliness I, uh - I just got angry.” The sadness reached her eyes again. “And turned to bad things. But in your loneliness, you turned to creativity. And I think that’s beautiful, I really do.”
Jester’s neck and face grew warmer. And yet, the deck was exposed to humidity and a bit of cold breeze. But her cheeks burned and suddenly she couldn’t look into Beau’s eyes any longer.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” Jester said, her voice as nonchalant as she could make it. She lowered it in a mocking and ominous note. “Sometimes I’m angry, too.”
Was Beau’s voice ever this beautiful before? “Really?” Beau smirked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you angry.”
Jester gave a knowing nod. “It’s a sight to behold.”
“I’d like to see it someday.”
“Someday I’m sure you will.”
“And I’ll be proud of that, too,” Beau said and gave a light laugh.
They turned silent. The crashing of the water far away from them and right below them.
“Anyway,” Beau said, her eyes away from her. “I know you like to look for friends, and - yeah, I don’t know if I’m, like, best friend material , that might be a lot of commitment,” Beau's hands and arms moved around to help her convey her point. “Especially with my commitment of being first mate, uh-”
“It’s a really big - yeah, you already have a lot on your plate.”
“It really is, you know, so, uh,” Beau looked at her again. “You know, you don’t have to look far - for a friend.”
And silence came between them.
Beau turned around. “Anyway, I’ll leave you to-”
Jester hugged her from behind. Beau’s back was warm and firm, and in that moment tense from the surprise, probably.
But Beau put her arms on hers. Hesitant. Careful.
“Thanks, Beau.”
Beau sighed and her shoulders dropped and relaxed. She let go. “Love you, Jes.”
Jester’s face grew warm again as Beau stepped away. She looked at the monk and that guarded attitude. That guarded glance. The slopped shoulders. The tired and yet content eyes. She hoped she wouldn’t fall asleep after she got to bed just so she could draw it. Just so she could keep it forever.
Jester sighed and smiled. “I love you, too.”
Beau smiled. A new smile. Just for her, just for the now. “Don’t stay up too late.”
Jester nodded and Beau went below deck.
Jester breathed in the air of the night, her heart growing tenfold in size, her face warm and her hands restless.
The Traveller, unknown to her, was smiling, too.
#6
They couldn’t stay in Nicodranas for too long, despite how much Caleb had told her that spending time with her mother after such dangerous experiences was important. And she agreed. She loved her mom, she really did. But the dragon still appeared in her dreams, and so Nott needed to see her family, too. Or whoever person she called family back in Felderwin.
And after they handled, gods know how, the tower deal - apparently Beau and Cad had been convincing enough to make the mage at the very least curious about them - they had set on their journey again.
The ride all the way from the Menagerie Coast to the south-eastern outskirts of the Empire was going to take several days, which excited her, to the confusion of Beau who just wanted to get things done.
The night in Trostenwald was uneventful-
“Wow, wow , fucking cool, Caleb,” Beau shouted.
The lack of context went over Jester’s head, but that didn’t stop her from raising her voice in the middle of a sleeping party. “Caleb is really cool!”
And she turned to see Caleb walking away from Beau and Beau looking pissed .
“Yeah, he is cool,” Beau said, and then shouted, “You’re cool, Caleb - Jester thinks you’re fucking cool , ‘cause she’s your fucking friend! ”
Fjord mumbled under his covers. “I’m tryin’ to sleep, what are y’all doin’?”
Beau shouted, “ Sorry, Fjord! ”
Jester was confused as Beau stomped back to them while Caleb stood in front of a tree and had what Jester would have described as a rage fit.
After a while, everyone settled to bed, but Jester couldn’t sleep. Not because she was worried or anything, but Beau couldn’t stop turning around in her blankets. Once.
Twice.
Three times.
“Beau.”
“Hm.”
Jester turned to Beau. “You can’t sleep?”
“Hm.”
“Beau .”
Beau turned to her. “What?”
“Did something happen with Caleb?”
Beau closed her eyes and sighed. “Caleb’s happening with Caleb.”
Beau had told them - or revealed out of dire circumstances - that she was some kind of researcher for the Cobalt Soul, or an Expositor, she called it. Not quite like guards, but also not quite just librarians . Sometimes it looked like Beau knew much more about all of them than she let on, but that never stopped her from putting her face - at times literally - in front of what they had to face and take the damage. And probably a lot of them weren't aware of it, but Beau had kept a lot of personal discussions to herself out of- out of what?
Sometimes Jester wondered if that wasn’t running Beau thin.
Jester sat up. “Do you want to go for a walk?”
Beau’s eyes opened. A few seconds passed in silence.
“Sure.”
“But not too far away. Just a few steps.”
Beau didn’t comment on that.
As they walked a ways away from the camping party - Yasha was keeping watch, and nodded at them as they walked off - Beau would let out groans or sighs, bothered by something. Or just Beau being Beau. The monk didn’t always wear her heart on her sleeve - well, metaphorical sleeve.
“Do you think talking to Yusa was, uh - you know, a good idea?” Beau asked.
“It was! We got to see this pretty tower, and once Caleb learns new spells if we get into trouble we’ll be able to run back to my mom.”
Beau smiled at that. “Yeah, I guess that’s a good thing.” The monk crossed her arms and looked at the ground. “It’s just that, you know, he’s worried about things. And I thought he was gonna be happy - about magic shit. But him being worried about his own shit and stuff, and I don’t know, like-”
“Is he not excited about being buddies with Yusa?” Jester said. “He could teach him spells, and tell us more about the things we find, and, and-”
“Apparently his own shit won’t even let him enjoy the things he likes.”
Caleb and Beau knew more than what they had shared with the group. Maybe Fjord also noticed. Not that he was the most honest guy himself, but maybe. And Caduceus knowing at least something at all times was a truth that, after a while, had started to go unsaid in the group and taken for granted. He always gave proof for that, either way.
Jester sat on the ground and patted the patch of grass by her side. Beau huffed but sat down. The stars beacons of cold light from the full moon sky.
Jester spoke as she looked at the sky. “You know, after Molly, after the Iron Shepherds.”
Mentioning it still put her on edge.
“Yeah?”
“While we were heading back to Zadash, on one of the nights I saw you,” she looked at Beau. “Around the fire. Laughing at a letter and showing the others. And the others laughed and, like - it felt like Molly was still there.”
Beau didn’t talk, waited for her to continue.
“You made them laugh. After all that happened, too, and like, I was just there in the cart,” she wiped a tear away and sniffed. “And I kept thinking about the Traveller not being there when I needed him to be, but you were.”
“Jes-”
“You were there, Beau,” she sobbed. “You were there, you came there, Molly died and you all came there. And, like, after all that happened you managed to pull a laugh out of everyone.”
Beau looked down, her hand pulling at the grass. Her voice a whisper. “What, and leave your asses to rot in there?”
“I don’t know, just - you didn’t have to. Like you don’t have to try and say sorry or talk Caleb out of things. Or pep talk Fjord in or out of situations. You didn’t have to go in the tower with Cad, you didn’t have to come and check on me on the ship.”
“Jester, I-”
“No!” Jester faced Beau. “You don’t have to do any of it, you never do. Nott shouldn’t say those things even if she’s teasing, you don’t owe me anything, you don’t owe any of us anything - you have nothing to prove.”
Beau pulled grass out of the visible dirt. And then digged the grass inside the soil, and pulled more grass from a fresh patch.
“Beau.”
Beau pulled grass.
“Beauregard,” she leaned forward and took one of Beau’s hands in her hers. “You have nothing to prove.”
Beau pushed her head inward between her shoulders, her chin on her chest.
“What if I do?” Beau's voice hoarse.
Jester smoothed Beau's scarred knuckles. “But, Beau, you're one of my best friends.”
Beau sniffed.
“We are?”
Jester's heart pulsed in her throat. “I believe in you.”
Beau looked up. Her eyes red, one tear rolling down her cheek.
“I- well, I mean, it is a lot of commitment.”
The only other time Jester had seen Beau cry was in front of Molly’s grave, and in that occasion too she did her best to not let it show. The tough look of a girl with as many regrets as she had scars on her body, and the unsaid wish of making her eyes not look red and glistening with tears.
She brought Beau’s head to her chest, and wrapped her arms around her shoulders.
And Beau hugged her back. And she pulled Jester in, so close that she felt her shirt turn wet from Beau's silent tears. Beau's pain was quiet. Unspoken. Yet ever present and raw. And she was so beautiful to Jester. Dripping of good intentions, regrets, wanting to do better, and care. Love for her companions and friends.
Jester loved her. She loved Beauregard. So much that she felt like Beau's red eyes and that one silent tear were the only thing she wouldn’t have been able to draw no matter how beautiful the girl was because it belonged to Beau’s heart alone, and Jester loved that heart, too.