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They have to stop before reaching Bazzoxan proper, the night settled fully above them and the monsters of the wastes howling in the distance. Beau slides off the moorbounder and sits heavily on the ashy dirt, unwinding her bandages. The papery crackle of the dry cloth is the only noise except breathing, wind, and beasts hunting. She finds one of the bigger wounds on her side (from Yasha? The Hand?) and pokes about it with a finger. The pain is a strange buzz wrapped around her spine, like she’s drunk, like her body is turning off piece by piece.
Beau hears the heavy, slow gait of Caduceus approaching her and she wraps the wound again. She looks up as he kneels down, which is still not face to face height for them, and Beau raises a brow (what did I do, why are you coming to me?).
“We’re gonna need to find a good path to the kiln,” he says and produces the map. “Time might be important, considering…” and he glances back to the group, Fjord and Jester sat as far apart as the dome lets them, Caleb stress chewing his wire, Nott already drunkenly passed out, and… empty space. It reminds Beau of the Shepherds, of the dragon, of the demon well.
She says, “Sure,” and takes the map to chart a basic path through Xhorhas, seeing if anything in her memories makes her reconsider. Not like she’s an expert in this place before a few weeks ago. What she accomplishes is maybe a bit better than what someone else could’ve done. Caduceus takes it and coerces Caleb into memorizing it.
The firbolg is being weirdly focused, intense instead of gently meandering between destiny and whatever the fuck is in front of him. Once Caleb finishes he makes tea and pushes each cup into their hands, and then he sits across from her and just studies her. Waiting, maybe, she thinks he could wait forever if he had to, he waited years in an empty graveyard. She wants to ask (stop looking at me, I’m useless, I’m pointless) what he’s waiting for but she is run ragged on loss; of blood, of friends, of so many things she has no names for. There is not enough energy in the world.
Then Beau remembers the Ball Eater, the two of them with tea cups and blood on their hands. She had said she was most comfortable when things were going horribly wrong.
She stares into her tea and watches the muddy reflection of stars ripple across the liquid. Well. The world is falling apart. She should probably get to work. She takes first watch and the others blink as if reorienting themselves, debating on the other watches. Caduceus nods at her.
So Beau sits up and studies her wounds and stares into the endless gloom around them. Some of this blood is Yasha’s, she thinks. She pulls out the tarot cards at one point but once the deck is in her hands she can’t even lift a single card from it, the paper too heavy. She puts them away and looks at the group shifting uneasily in sleep, guarded by a dome and (don’t trust me, I’ve failed twice) her.
--
They ride into Bazzoxan and buy spaces in the Ready Room again. Soldiers are milling about the bunks, so they go outside and find a remote alley to talk and then do not talk for a long while.
Caleb eventually says, “We need a plan, for at least the next few moves. We need something concrete.” Nott laughs at that, high and harsh and tinged with alcohol. “Ja, not our style, but things have gone out of control.”
“The kiln is our best option,” Caduceus reasserts. “If it’s capable of purifying my home, it should remove any other corruption we bring to it.”
“And we should make sure the dynasty is alerted, else they will not be prepared for when it gets out,” Caleb adds.
This sets Fjord off, which gets Jester upset once he implies they avoid Yasha and the Hand until someone weakens them, and Nott just snipes randomly when things get too loud. Their voices settle into a bee hive hum and Beau rubs her arm, pressing into the slash wound a night’s rest hadn’t cured. Only when she hears Caduceus cough and say her name does she clear her head and rejoin.
“We can do both,” she says, assuming they hadn’t gotten anywhere useful yet. “Send a message to Essik or someone, word it that we failed to stop the Hand. Going to fucking jail right now would be extremely stupid. We should tell some people here to be on the lookout too. Then we go find the kiln.”
“If we tell the soldiers here, about Yasha,” Jester worries her lip and curls in on herself. “Won’t they fight her?”
Beau says, “Well, duh. But I don’t think Yasha wants any more deaths on her hands.”
“What if they kill her?”
“We can ask them to be gentle with her, if they can. But she’ll probably be with that monster, so pulling punches would get more of them needlessly killed.” Beau sees the look of betrayal cross Jester’s face, hurt and anger as she turns around and stomps away for a moment. But that’s her job right now, say the things no one wants to hear, she’s the asshole (Molly’s blood is on her hands already, what’s one more).
No one argues beyond the look on Jester’s face. Good. She doesn’t have the energy to shout right now. Fjord and Caduceus go to tell the Bazzoxan leaders what to look for. Nott and Caleb help Jester word her message to Essik. Mundane and human, Beau watches the spell form and walks back to the inn. The sign still reads Ruddy Poon, she notes. Was that really just a couple days ago? (Did Yasha find it funny, before she went into hell?)
Something shifts in Beau’s mind, some of her turns into quicksilver and some becomes molasses. Simple thoughts, where to go, what to hit, what to get, move quick to the forefront for a yes or no or throw it off a bridge decision. Others she can feel rising, bubbling up from the base of her spine towards her skull. She doesn’t know what happens when the sticky slow thing finally gets into her head. But she wants to buy throwing daggers for no reason (throwing stars in her pack but no, can’t use those) so she goes into the Ready Room and does so.
--
Beau stands in front of her house and it is set in the Barbed Fields, the marble contrasting against burnt black stone and desolation creeping into the garden. The door opens and her mother stands there, hands on her hips. “This is what you get, Beauregard,” she scolds. “You never learned to behave so everything gets taken from you. If you could just be good for once, maybe she’d have stayed. Instead, you make this happen,” and she points to one of the barbs behind Beau. It towers over the manor, eclipsing the harsh sun, and impaled on its point is Yasha. The blood drips down the stone to make a pool at Beau’s feet. In the red reflection, her face is the Laughing Hand’s mockery of a face, her eyes are laughing mouths.
She snaps awake, unmoving, sweating through the sheets. The air feels too hot, her stomach feels stretched and empty. Beau sneaks out of the Ready Room and outside, sitting with back against the storefront wall. The dream lingers, which is odd (hardly the worst fucking speech her mother gave) since she doesn’t remember her dreams.
In one pocket are the throwing knives, and in the other are the tarot cards. She places both on the ground in front of her and stares. She picks the cards up and starts shuffling.
“Sorry,” she tells the night. “I’m sorry, we lost her. We thought we were helping, or protecting her, and we led her into the worst shit possible. I lost you both.”
No one responds, and nothing in her feels better nor does it feel worse. Beau is as she is, sitting in the dirt. She flips a card and sees a death’s head skull surrounded in black velvet, reads Death. Fucking figures. Beau thinks she should be angry; there are so many things to be angry at, the tarot cards spitting in her face, the Hand, the war. She has a list that only grows of things that she has to kill. Or should she be despairing, like everyone else? Who knows, anymore, and she’s too exhausted for introspection at ass o’clock, so she puts the deck away and starts flicking daggers into the air, catching them, throw again. Up and down, like a juggling act. Sometimes the blade bites into her hand, but those are just scratches.
--
They pass days navigating north-west, trying to circle around the mountains and the forests. Caduceus sometimes calls on Beau for what she knows (nothing, why would I know anything) and a few times to help convince someone in the group this is the right way to go (how would I know what destiny and purpose is?). Fjord is the most reluctant at first, but they have no other solution and soon he begins talking to Caduceus. She overhears them discussing the Wildmother, how faith works. Maybe this trip will help someone. Maybe it’s a way to kill time.
Jester won’t talk to her, and she doesn’t try to start a conversation. They ride different moorbounders and sleep apart in the bubble (she can live without forgiveness, it’s actually fairly easy). The tiefling has nightmares regularly, waking up with gasps and nervous energy. Beau has no words and no energy to help.
Nott is drunk more often than not, despite Jester’s sad looks and private talks. Beau sometimes shares the flask with her, but being drunk doesn’t feel any different than sober, everything muted and gone so very still. There’s so much jittering and shaking packed into Nott’s little form that Beau can’t keep up with her anymore. More than once Beau’s let Nott take over her own watch so she can just lie still.
Caleb stares at her more than she likes, and she’s not one to fucking judge on nosiness but (just drop the other shoe already, tell me what I already know) it’d be nice if he just got it over with. They fight a giant demonic gorilla midday today and he studies her for half an hour afterwards before asking if she wants the group to stop and rest up. Everyone is fine though, and they have some healing if things get worse, so she shakes her head. It only got a few hits in, but that’s unavoidable (she’s all the front line they have now).
When they do make camp, she settles down under a willowy purple tree and breathes in as deep as she can. Takes stock of three broken ribs, several inches deep lacerations across her back, and an entirely bruised leg. Nothing hurts, there is just a faintly electric prickle under her skin and running through the front of her brain. It feels better than the molasses oozing up her spine though, makes her feel less stuck in place.
Caleb comes over to her spot and Beau sighs. She tries to tell him to go away or leave it be, whatever this conversation is, but the words crumble in her throat and she just sighs again.
“You are closing off,” he says, half-accusatory half-statement. “You do not speak unless someone makes you. You sequester yourself away in camp.”
Beau scoffs and thumps her head against the tree. “You’re one to talk.”
“I am unfortunately familiar with the symptoms, exactly.” Caleb sits in front of her, and Frumpkin crawls into her lap. She baps him lazily with her hand and he starts kneading her lap. Right on the bruised leg. Beau does a half-hearted shooing motion which Frumpkin completely ignores. Minutes pass, and Caleb makes a sort of pained noise. “You are not even going to fight me on this. You just gave up?”
“The fuck do you want?” Beau says, tired and perhaps a little concussed, when she considers it. “I can do my job without talking.”
“I want you to be okay,” Caleb responds with too much sincerity. “I want us all to be okay. That will take time, I know, but this… this seems to have broken you.”
Beau should be mad (never been okay, buddy) or lash out (just keep getting yourself into trouble) or something, anything. She looks inside, waiting for the indignation, but her busted ribs are wrapped around a void where her guts should be and the molasses is crawling up her throat (like a worm, like a god, like blood and seawater).
What she says is “Maybe I was always broken.”