Chapter Text
It startles Jester when the wooden doors of her chapel creak open. (The First Church of the Traveler, despite Jester’s best efforts, is short on congregation.) She runs excitedly toward the newcomer: a tall, heavily muscled woman with scraggly hair and oddly pale skin. The grey of her jacket is nearly obscured by the heavy layer of grime it bears. “Sanctuary,” the stranger breathes through chapped lips. “Sanctuary,” she repeats, and collapses forward.
“Hey, hey, are you okay?” Jester pulls the woman inside and helps her sprawl onto a pew. “Okay, let me get you some water.” The stranger’s eyelids flutter, but she seems to nod with appreciation. “Are you okay?” she continues once she returns with a mug. Head-shake. “Is someone chasing you?” Nod. “Omigosh, that’s so exciting!” Jester gushes. “Wait, are you on the run from the law?”
A raised eyebrow, then another head-shake. “You are...very strange,” the new arrival decides once she’s had a few sips of water. “But I like it. Thank you.”
“You are welcome!” Jester gives what she considers to be a polite pause, then: “Would you like to know about the Traveler!?”
The weathered lips form a thin smile. “I am afraid that I have more pressing issues.”
“Of course, how rude of me! My name is Jester! It’s nice to meet you.”
“...Yasha.”
“Do you need help? We should talk to the sheriff. She’ll know what to do.” Jester leads the way, and Yasha shrugs and follows suit.
***
Beau kicks her heels up on her desk, sparing half a glance for the two con artists sharing a cell. She contemplates a nap, or maybe visiting The Ruby’s Bordello, or maybe just a drink when her door bursts open. Ordinarily she’d be right pleased to see her current crush, the town’s dark-eyed young preacher. But maybe not given current company.
“Yasha? The hell you doing here? And why the fuck are you wearing a Confederate uniform?” she blurts out. “Last I saw you, we’d gotten as far as Kentucky, then you split.”
“I… I had to go back for her.” Yasha’s head bows. “They killed her, Beauregard, and they conscripted me. I ran the first chance I had, and now I am here, and they are after me.”
Beau chews on this for a while. Bad news in bunches; nothing travels faster. More words than she’s heard Yasha say in a row for a while, and almost all of them bad. “Well, you’re here now, at least,” she mutters.
“I didn’t realize that you were here,” Yasha admits. “But it is good to see you.”
“You too,” Beau says. “You too.”
***
Yasha doesn’t think Beau is lying when she says this. She isn’t sure about this, mind you. She can see the way that Beau looks at Jester, and the way Jester looks at Beau, and the way Beau looks at her. What she doesn’t know is what she and Beau had; she knows it wasn’t the same as what she and Zuala had had. Still, ill luck seems to cling to her like a shroud, and it has followed her to this place, and that means that it will probably brush against Beau and also her new friend (?) Jester as well. And that means that she owes them answers, so she parts her lips and begins to speak.