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Where Yasha went, storms followed. That was not necessarily an objective truth, but it had seemed to storm when she wished it to do so, staring at the sky and wanting it to split open and pour down upon the earth. Not always. Not every time. But sometimes.
Even here, at the Chantry of the Dawn. Even now. Even now, after ——
It was as if the sky had broken open, as if the storm that was raging outside had come in, terrible and all-consuming, swallowing her grief and sorrow and anger as she stood over Beau’s body, sword driven deep. The rain had become her tears, or maybe it was that her tears had become the rain, salty in her mouth as she loomed over Beau, dying. Dead.
And then freed.
And then… there hadn’t been time, really. There hadn’t been enough time at all, to think about it. When Obann, or what remained of Obann, laid on the floor dead and disgusting and terrible, she hadn’t thought about it then, either. It was only later, when they had arrived back in the main body of the beast, of the church, and the sky was still screaming, and it was not her who realized it.
“Yasha,” Jester said, voice soft and quiet and sad, weary and tired and breaking but still trying to be a light. Alight. Looking at her with kind eyes and a kinder face, reaching out to touch Yasha’s shoulder. Touching her arm, the sleeve of her dress getting soaked by the rain. “It’s raining.”
She made a noise of agreement. It was raining. She was drenched from head to toe, hair hanging heavily around her face, damp and dripping and cold. Cold to the bone and further, somehow, cold to the very dregs of her soul, if there was one that remained in her body.
“No I mean,” Jester hesitated for a moment and she was dry. Or, mostly dry. Her hair had dried and she looked a mess but they all did. Every last one of them. “It’s just raining… over you.”
Lightning crashed and thunder rumbled and Jester looked terrified, for a moment. Of her, Yasha was sure, but a small and logical voice in her mind said that Jester was terrified for her. Strange. So strange.
“Jester’s right, Yasha,” Fjord said, stepping around to look at her, a furrow in his brow. He didn’t reach out for her like Jester did and he, too, was mostly dry. “There’s a storm cloud over you… literally.”
It took a moment for their words to make sense in her mind. A moment for them to process and a moment for her to look around to the others, to Nott leaning heavily against Caleb and Caduceus speaking quietly to Beau, who was watching Yasha. Just watching her. Shame curled in her chest and she looked away, forever and always a coward, only to look up and find rain falling on her face.
There was a cloud there. It was dense and heavy and dark, furious and carrying with it a storm, deep thunder and sparks of lightning. Yasha couldn’t see the ceiling through it and simply stared for a few moments, at the cloud that was hovering perhaps a foot above her, drenching her and only her in a torrential downpour. It was darker near the center and spread out, small bits of cloud circling, and every last shadowy thing was raining. She reached up for it absently, passing her fingers through the clouds and feeling not much resistance at all, only weighty mist. Lightning brushed against her hands and it didn’t hurt, but Yasha didn’t think that much could hurt her, right now.
“Oh,” she said after a moment.
“Yasha,” Jester started, always saying her name with that sweetness that reminded Yasha of the candies that Mollymauk had once deposited into her hand and insisted that she try, and he ended up laughing at the face she made in reaction to the cloyingly sweet sugar, unfamiliar and too bright across her tastebuds. It had almost hurt. This almost hurt.
But they were quickly waylaid by other people and there wasn’t time to talk about it, really. There wasn’t time to consider the fact that there was a storm raging over Yasha’s head and Yasha’s head alone, not when they had accounts to give, though Yasha refused to speak. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t bring herself to form words, and instead she simply stood near the back, a shadowy figure, pulling her cloak tightly around her. That, too, was entirely soaked through and useless for its technical purpose but she didn’t take it off. She was cold to her very core and she clutched to it, helpless, and bore the storm. Beau watched her, quietly.
By the time that anyone could question it again it was the next morning and Yasha had spent the entirety of the night sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, not quite caring that she was still being rained on. Not caring that the thunder was rumbling ominously and the lightning was striking around her head. Instead she sat there, a silent sentinel, and when she fell off to sleep it wasn’t restful in the least, instead plagued by odd shapeless nightmares and Zuala’s voice.
When she woke in the morning her chest ached and she had curled beneath her cloak, forehead pressed against her knees, and her spine protested when she rolled her shoulders and made to stand. She didn’t know what the plan was, but this cloud had certainly dumped enough water onto the floor of this inn that there would likely be permanent damages, and she awkwardly looked around and dragged a dresser over it to hide the watermark.
It was still raining.
They all stared at her when she joined them. Fear was in their eyes and again, instinctively, she thought it was fear of her, which was warranted. But there was concern, too, and Jester grabbed her wrist and pulled her close to the table, heedless of the way that rain had started to fall on her, too.
“You’ll get wet,” Yasha said, voice creaking.
“You’re wet,” Jester said smartly, brows furrowing. “Why is it raining over you, Yasha?”
Yasha shrugged, not knowing the answer. They were all looking at her. Other patrons of this establishment were staring at her. It was making her uncomfortable and she wanted to go back to the room that he had and sit in that corner a bit longer, until the floor rotted beneath her.
“Caleb?” Nott turned to him in askance. Immediate. Apparently that hadn’t changed, in the time that she had been with —— the thought stuttered.
“I have never read of anything like this,” Caleb said haltingly, staring less at Yasha than at the cloud, which was a relief. He waved a hand in the air and it seemed to shimmer strangely. “Druidic magic can conjure storms but… this has been over your head since yesterday and it reads as magical but not any discernible school of magic,” his brows were furrowed. He looked troubled. Caleb often looked troubled, but this was different than other times.
He waved his hand again and nothing happened. “Dispel Magic didn’t work,” he said quietly, mouth pulling down into a harder frown.
“Oh, let me try,” Jester said, twisting and reaching up for the cloud. Nothing happened and she made a disappointed noise.
“You said it didn’t have a school of magic?” Beau asked, and Yasha’s heart gave an uncomfortable, painful lurch at the sound of her voice.
“Not truly,” Caleb rubbed his forehead.
“Can you Identify it, Caleb?” Jester said, staring at him with wide, anxious eyes. She hadn’t let go of Yasha’s wrist, yet. Water was beginning to soak up her sleeve, and Yasha wanted to tell her to let go, but couldn’t find the words.
Beau was watching her.
“I,” Caleb started, glancing at Jester and then away and then back and then away before looking up at the cloud again, “I don’t believe that I can… hold a cloud, but I can give it a shot?” More question than statement.
Jester dragged her around to Caleb, who gestured for Yasha to crouch because he was too short to reach the top of her head, let alone a cloud that was hovering a foot above it, too. Yasha hesitated for a moment before bending at the knee, watching as Caleb’s pants started to get drenched in the rain, too. It seemed to be getting heavier and heavier.
He passed a hand through the cloud and his mouth pinched and he visibly winced when lightning struck his hand. “No, no, this won’t work,” he said, mostly to himself, pulling his hand back from the cloud and shaking off the water.
“Sorry,” Yasha said automatically, feeling shame curl in her chest again.
“Not your fault,” Caleb was clearly distracted and thinking, gaze unfocused.
Jester squeezed her wrist and Yasha stood up properly again, not wanting to look at any of them. Unbidden, she looked at Beau, who was looking at her intently. She looked away.
“Do you think,” Caduceus started to say, but was cut off by the owner of the establishment bustling over and telling them to please get out, because the cloud was beginning to scare patrons and their big friend was getting water everywhere.
Yasha glanced up and noticed that, yes, the cloud had gotten remarkably larger. It was definitely covering Jester, now, and she was getting drenched with rain water and Yasha shook off her grip at last, stepping away from her. Jester looked at her with wide, beseeching eyes, but Yasha turned away and made for the door of the inn, rain getting in her eyes. She made an aborted motion to wipe it out of her face, but remembered that it was raining on her persistently, and dropped her hand to her side.
There were still other things to do. Yasha lingered back as the rest went about their business, remaining outside where possible and huddled against walls. People have always given her a wide berth, alarmed by her size and her musculature, but it seemed exacerbated now with a roiling storm cloud over head. She was relieved, on one hand. Less so, on another.
Between one place and the next Caduceus lingered near her, just outside of the radius of the clouds so that he remained dry. Lightning cracked beside her ear and she titled her head away from it absently. It didn’t hurt, but it was still somewhat alarming.
“Do you think,” Caduceus started again, picking up where they had been interrupted and watching her carefully, “that this has anything to do with the Stormlord?”
That was logical. The Stormlord and a storm. Yasha shrugged, a quick motion, glancing away from Caduceus’s intent eyes that seemed to see everything, “I don’t know. He has never…” Yasha wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence and tried to find words, before settling on, “he has only spoken to me in dreams, before.”
Caduceus nodded slowly, “Maybe this is a divine sign?”
“Could be,” Yasha leaned more heavily on the wall behind her, still not quite looking at Caduceus. “Perhaps it’s a punishment.”
“I don’t think it is,” Caduceus looked sad, for a moment. “I think it’s more like a sign.”
“Of what?”
“I dunno,” a smile curved at his mouth and he looked honestly regretful that he couldn’t give her an answer. “We’ll just have to interpret it as we get more information. Or maybe this will go away soon.”
Her chest ached still as if lightning had struck directly at her heart.
Later that day she gestured Caleb side and held out her bag for him to take, needing to get it out of of the rain. Her thoughts were entirely consumed, as they had been for most of the day, with concern for the contents of it. Or, rather, the single thing in there that meant more to her than anything else in the world: the book. Both a gift from Molly and her love for Zuala —— it couldn’t get ruined. It couldn’t. If it did, she would be lost.
“Are you sure, Yasha?” Caleb said, holding the drenched bag in her hand.
“Yes,” Yasha’s hands clenched and she stared only at the bag. “Can you,” a pause, because no one else had ever really touched the book, before, “please… check on something in there.”
“Your book?”
“Yes. Please.”
Caleb watched her for a few moments before nodding and kneeling on the floor, beginning to rifle through to bag to the bottom. Most of the contents were wet, and thunder screamed against her eardrums, the rain getting briefly heavier. Yasha was immeasurably glad that she had always, always wrapped the book in multiple layers of thick fabric, and she let out a heavy breath of relief when Caleb pulled it out and unwrapped it, showing her that it was entirely dry and untouched by the torrential downpour.
“Thank you,” she said quietly, hands knotting together. “Can you… hold onto it for me?”
“Of course,” Caleb said, wrapping it back up carefully and turning to tuck it into his own bag. She watched it disappear with pain in her heart, but it was overwhelmed by the sheer relief that she felt that it was intact and okay. When he turned back to her he watched her for a moment, a strange and considering look on his face as he looked above her, at the clouds. “It stopped raining so heavily.”
She blinked, startled, and looked up. Where the cloud had been ominously dark and stormy it had turned a gentler grey. The thunder had disappeared and the lightning had dissipated and while it was still raining on her, it was not coming down in sheets upon sheets. “Maybe it’s over,” she said.
“Hopefully,” Caleb stood up and reached out to clasp her shoulder.
It had begun pouring furiously again hardly an hour later when they were all together and Yasha’s shoulders felt impossibly heavy. Beau was watching her again and she didn’t meet her eyes. She wanted to wring out her cloak and wished that she had when the rain had seemed to let up briefly, but it seemed pointless to do anything about it, now. Many things seemed pointless.
“Yasha!” Jester said, eyes lighting up the moment that she saw her, though there was a palpable moment of disappointment when she glanced up and saw that was raining heavily again. Or, still, to most of them. Only Caleb had seen the moments where the storm had let up. “We were trying to figure out how to keep you dry or, well, mostly dry, because of your cloud thing,” she gestured up at it, mouth pursing, “and we can do stuff like this,” she wiggled her finger and the rain started slanting away from her, “but not forever, you know? Though hopefully this doesn’t last forever forever.”
“And we can,” Fjord gestured vaguely and for a split second there wasn’t any water falling on her at all, before quickly being replaced, “but that won’t help you much at all.”
“So,” Jester drew out the syllable, reaching into her bag and pulling out something, brandishing it for her to take, “we got you an umbrella! Black, because we know that’s your favorite color.”
Yasha found herself strangely taken aback by the gesture. It was… decidedly kind and thoughtful and thoroughly conscientious, something that at least most of them had been time into to figure out how to make her objectively more comfortable with a storm constantly going overhead. An umbrella was an obvious, quick, non magical solution to the problem, but there was a strange pressure in her chest that threatened to crest in her throat that she realized, faintly, was an emotional response. Too emotional. Unwarranted in its emotional intentions, and she clutched the umbrella to her chest, staring at it dazedly. Dumbly.
“We can get you a different one, if you want,” Jester said quickly after a long moment of silence, “or you don’t have to use it, it’s totally up to you!”
“No it’s,” Yasha started, voice strangely high in her ears and she opened the umbrella, placing it over her head. “No I like it. I like it very much… thank you,” she glanced at all of them and found that Caleb was glancing up at the cloud again. So was Beau. The thunder had gotten quieter by increments, and the umbrella withstood a more moderate downpour of rain, and Yasha felt confused and thankful and shameful, all at once.
“Sadly I do not have something that would dry you off quickly other than flames,” Caleb said after a moment, expression considering. “Some with arcane training do, but I never committed it to memory, myself.”
“That thing that Pumat did to you that one time?” Nott said.
“Yes, that,” Caleb looked at Yasha again, apparently genuinely apologetic. “I am sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Yasha said quickly, shifting the umbrella in her grip. “I… I can’t wait to be dry again. At least for a little while.” Jester laughed delightedly, and Yasha exhaled slowly.
It poured fiercely when Yasha fought the Champion. It all felt like a punishment, albeit not a divine punishment per say, and it was harder for her to grapple and grab onto Yasha the way that she wanted to be, harder to land hits, but Yasha didn’t truly fight back. This was a release, this was screaming into a storm and knowing that no one would scream back and that the only response would be her own echo. This pain, this was hers, and this storm was hers, too. It was hers and it struck her with furious lightning and screamed at her with roiling thunder and stuck her with pouring rain.
Pain was a relief. And the storm didn’t let up.
Later, after Caleb told her that he understood and they had all scattered, concerns stares following Yasha that she knew and recognized and tried not to acknowledge for fear of the guilty and ache in her chest unfurling and making it impossible for her to breathe, Beau found her. Unerringly, quietly, standing just beyond the radius of her storm cloud.
“Hey,” Beau said. It was the first word that she had directly said to Yasha since the chantry, since the storm had started, and Yasha wanted to curl up and disintegrate into nothingness. She wanted to become one with the storm, impossible to displace from it, to become rain water or thunder or a crack of lightning across the sky: there and then gone.
“Hello,” Yasha didn’t look at her. Couldn’t look at her. Looking at Beau hurt. It hurt. It hurt.
“Do you mind if I…” she could see Beau gesture out of the corner of her eye, and it took her a moment to realize that she was referring to the cloud which had gotten larger again, spiraling out horribly, smaller clouds trailing and yearning to become one with the bigger dark mass.
Yasha made a slight shrugging motion. As if to say that Beau was free to do whatever she wanted, which she was.
Beau stepped into the downpour, and Yasha wondered why. Why she would bother. Why she would get close to Yasha, who had almost killed her not so long ago. Why she would voluntarily step beneath the raging storm that was Yasha’s and only hers and allow herself to become drenched in this neverending rain water. Why was she stepping closer to her, shoulders lax and utterly without fear. Beau should be afraid of Yasha. They should all be afraid of her. She should have left them, but where would she go? There was nowhere but to follow them, because they looked at her with worry and concern and fear in their eyes and she wanted to protect them. They saved her. She had to protect them. She had to protect Beau, who was looking at her with fathomless dark eyes. Even Beau should hate her. Even when they should all hate her.
The storm raged. Yasha shifted the umbrella so that it was above Beau, who stared at her with surprise bleeding into her face. Yasha was already drenched from the fight, after all.
“You okay?” Beau said, voice carrying clear as a blade singing through the storm. “That’s… a pretty stupid question, I know,” she said after a moment wherein Yasha genuinely tried to figure out how to respond to that question. “You’re not okay,” it felt like judgement, somehow. It felt like damnation, like the ache that was screaming in her chest, but it felt like a glimpse of the sun through storm clouds, too.
“No,” Yasha managed after a moment, still not looking at Beau. “I’m not.” It was the full truth of it, the bare truth of it, it was an admittance in search of reassurance that would never come. Or, rather, should never come, because she was a creature who did not deserve reassurance, utterly lacking in the capacity to believe that she, herself, is worthy of forgiveness.
“It wasn’t your fault, you know.”
Beau wanted Yasha to look at her, she was aware of it. She knew that it was expected of her to look at Beau during this conversation, to meet her dark eyes and face her judgement wholly, but gods. Looking at Beau hurt. It hurt. It hurt. Yasha couldn’t bring herself to look at her, could remember still the way that her face had still carried remnants of pain and fear as she drove the sword into her chest. Beau still had a scar. She had to. Yasha was afraid, and a coward, and couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t speak.
“What he made you do,” Beau started and then paused, and she touched Yasha’s hand gently, calluses against her tense knuckles from where Yasha was gripping onto the umbrella hard enough that she would likely break it, soon. It was a fleeting touch: there and gone. “That wasn’t you. I know it wasn’t you, we all know it wasn’t you… you didn’t do it willingly, you were forced to.”
“I almost killed you,” her voice was tense, poised to shatter and Yasha wasn’t sure if she would shatter into pieces or disintegrate. Wasn’t sure if she wanted to cry or scream or if she wanted to be given fit punishment again, to be hurt and feel pain and remember that she felt pain. That she was made of pain. It felt as though she were made of pain.
“Obann almost killed me,” Beau’s voice was strong. She was so strong. It was stunning and wonderful and glorious and terrible.
“It was my hand,” Yasha spoke quietly, mouth twisting. “It was my blade.”
“You don’t have to punish yourself,” Beau grabbed onto Yasha’s wrist, now, and pushed her arm so that the umbrella was shielding her own head from the rain, not Beau’s. “You don’t have to —— you don’t have to throw yourself into fights and hope that you get hurt because you think that’s some twisted form of repentance, Yasha!”
“You could have died,” Yasha looked at her now and she had been right: looking at Beau hurt, looking at the worried, stricken expression on her face hurt, looking at her like she was terrified that Yasha would slip away. I see you. I see you a lot. “And it would have been because of me. I didn’t —— I couldn’t control my actions but I watched them and I watched myself,” her voice broke and she found that she couldn’t say it.
“I didn’t die,” Beau squeezed her wrist, voice fierce, eyes blazing. “I know you feel guilty and I can’t stop you from feeling guilty but I’m asking you,” she stopped suddenly, mouth setting. There were drops of rain on her eyelashes, and Yasha remembered with a terrible sharpness that Beau was beautiful. “Please… don’t do this again,” she gestured wildly, broadly. “Just talk to us, or something, I don’t know —— I know we’re terrible at communicating but watching you hurt yourself.” A sudden stop.
Yasha felt wretched. There was an odd flutter in her chest, something that reacted when Beau touched her and intensified as Yasha remembered that Beau was beautiful, even here and now and looking determined and rain soaked, or maybe it was especially here and now. It was terrible and terrifying and Yasha swallowed. Quashed it.
“Okay,” she said at last, after a minute of silence, and she pulled her wrist from Beau’s hand. “Okay.”
Beau took a deep breath, chest rising and falling, and glanced up at the clouds. They were still terrible. Perhaps less spread out. “Okay.”
“Do you want to try meditating?” Caduceus suggested, already sitting on the ground.
“To reach out to the Stormlord?” Yasha was sitting down anyways, mimicking Caduceus’s position for lack of anything better to do, careful not to catch him in the radius of her cloud. There wasn’t any thunder or lightning, at the moment, but it was still giving a steady supply of rain.
“If you want,” he said simply, as if that were that.
“Is this how… you speak to the Wildmother?” Yasha asked, settling her hands on her knees and shifting slightly.
Caduceus smiled faintly. His face was always gentle, eyes always kind, but there was forevermore something strange about him, not quite fitting his form. It could be how thin he was, the fact that his elbows were sharp and his neck too hollow. Or it could be that he saw everything, and every time he looked at Yasha she felt as though he was analyzing her down to nothingness. It was something that she feared instinctively, the concept of being known.
“Sometimes,” Caduceus closed his eyes, and Yasha followed suit. “Sometimes I sit and meditate and reach out to her, and sometimes she reaches out to me in return. It works best when I’m surrounded by nature, or by the sea. Other times I hear her accidentally, when I touch an animal or speak to a tree, but it’s less a conversation and more of an acknowledgement.”
“Oh,” Yasha said, more exhale than anything. “I… have never prayed to the Stormlord. I tried to reach out to him in a storm once, but,” her hands clenched around her knees. “I think he only speaks to me when he’s ready.”
“Gods can be like that,” Caduceus’s voice was so low and calm and steady. “Most of them aren’t like the Traveler.”
Yasha didn’t know what to say to that, so instead she said, “What do I do now?”
“Breathe, and reach out to him,” he sounded somehow more relaxed than usual. “The thing about the gods is that they aren’t here in this plane physically, but they are always listening, even if they don’t always talk back. You just need to reach out to them and see.”
It made sense, and Yasha tried, or she thought she did. It was bracing to simply sit there in silence with Caduceus, to listen to his steady, deep breaths and to match her own with them, and her own thoughts seemed to slow down to a steady trickle rather than a rapid stream. But, there was no inkling of the Stormlord, and she wasn’t sure where to begin other than to ask him was it you who gave me this cloud, and if it was, why?
She tried not to be disappointed when it didn’t work, and smiled slightly when Caduceus apologized that it hadn’t turned out precisely how she wanted. Yasha wondered, as she left Caduceus to his meditating after sitting with him for the better part of an hour, if the Stormlord had heard her, and decided to leave her to figure it out alone. That seemed like something a god would do, and she knew that the Stormlord had talked to her before and that he had saved her, but she wasn’t sure if this cloud was from him at all. Yet, where else could it have come from?
Yasha glanced up at the bottom of her umbrella and wondered if she was truly cursed.
Caleb hadn’t quite figured out the cloud. He studied it when he could, simply staring at it as if he were trying to decipher its meaning and place in the world, and he often asked Yasha if he could try a few things, to which she always said it was perfectly okay, because she trusted Caleb well enough and if anyone could figure it out, she supposed that it was him. Oftentimes, Beau joined him.
“You said druids can conjure storms,” Beau said, passing her hand through the storm, “Oh, ow ,” she said, shaking her hand as lightning caught her.
“Sorry,” Yasha said automatically.
“Nah, not your fault,” Beau said, leaning down to give her a smile. Yasha’s heart lurched. “Maybe we should see a druid? They might be able to clear it up.”
“Mmm,” Caleb hummed, flipping through a book. “Perhaps. It’s extremely powerful magic to be able to change weather itself, but I’m not sure it’s that straightforward.”
“What do you suggest then?” Beau said, an edge of impatience in her voice. “We can’t just let this literal cloud hang over Yasha forever.”
Yasha wanted to point out that the cloud was fine, albeit something of an irritant, and simply another aspect of her life that she could learn to deal and cope with well enough. It didn’t really matter, other than the fact that it caused people to stare at her more and she caused property damage nearly everywhere she went and she was never fully dry and could barely remember what it had felt like to be try from head to toe, never mind what it was like to be even slightly warm, and while it was strange to hold onto a sword and have to grip it more tightly to compensate for the rain slick, but there was no need to put so much time into trying to decipher it.
“We could consult someone else,” Caleb said quietly, more to himself than either of them, the way that he got sometimes. “Have more minds thinking on it.”
So they asked Essek, because they were headed towards the Dynasty regardless and because he was there and physically present and when Caleb presented the situation to him, he looked at the cloud over Yasha’s head with a furrowed brow, before raising further off the ground, floating beside her to peer at the cloud more closely.
“I’ve never heard of such a phenomenon,” Essek said, in that same way that Caleb talked when he was talking to himself more than anything.
“I wouldn’t touch it,” Fjord said warningly, “it tends to shock anyone who reaches in.”
“Well, it’s not storming right now,” Caduceus said, which was true. It was raining heavily, still, but without the storm that seemed to come and go at random.
“Hmm,” Essek hummed to himself, and then, “Well, that was unpleasant.”
“I did warn you,” Fjord sounded slightly amused as Essek lowered himself towards the ground again, shaking his hand absently.
“Sorry,” Yasha found herself saying again. It was her cloud, after all, and it was shocking people regardless of whether or not it had active lightning, for some reason.
Essek waved his hand as if to say it was nothing and made several gestures in the air, brows furrowing. “That is odd… it appears as if it is simply an isolated storm that is centered on you. Certainly arcane in origin, but seemingly lacking in a true source,” his eyes flicker to the symbol that she wears on her chest. “You are a follower of the Stormlord?”
“Yes,” Yasha pressed her fingers against the pendant absently, shifting the umbrella in her grip.
“Well, I will certainly look into it,” Essek said, a slight furrow to his brow. “Perhaps there are records of other followers of the Stormlord having clouds begin to follow them, or there is some record of an especially stubborn curse.”
“Thank you, my friend,” Caleb had a certain weight to his voice and Essek looked at him. There was a strange, tense energy that passed between them and dissipated as Essek smiled, close lipped and cordial as he always seemed to be, and said it was no problem at all, and wasn’t there another arcane happenstance that they needed help with, after all?
Yasha turned and found Beau looking at her and forced herself not to look away compulsively. Instead she smiled, and felt a rush of relief when Beau smiled at her, in return.
“Do you think that if I shot a crossbow bolt through the cloud it would get electrified?”
She blinked and stared at Nott for a few moments. Nott, who was picking clay out of her hair still and was stricken, upset, thoroughly disappointed and enraged, too, but was talking to her all the same. For a distraction, perhaps? Yasha supposed that was likely the reason why, everyone had briefly scattered and Nott was left, mouth pinched tight but squinting at the cloud with something mischievous in her eyes.
“Uhm,” Yasha said eloquently and tilted her head back to look at the cloud, moving the umbrella accordingly. There wasn’t any lightning in it right now, but it seemed to shock anyone who touched it, so, “Maybe?”
Within seconds Nott had pulled out her crossbow and aimed it at the cloud and fired. It was an almost startlingly fast motion, though Yasha knew that Nott was fast with her choice of weapon, and she ended up bracing herself for defense, hand going to her blade automatically.
The bolt soared through the cloud and buried itself into the wall just beside Beau’s head from where he had reentered the room, causing her to shout.
“Guess not,” Nott said, obviously disappointed, only to laugh at Fjord who was staring at the crossbow bolt with something like betrayal written on his face.
“Is there a reason why you’re firing your crossbow at Yasha?” Beau said after a moment, sounding thoroughly affronted, as though anyone attacking Yasha would have to answer to her. It was thrilling, to hear her sound like that in reference to Yasha , of all people, and it was petrifying to know that it caused her heart to sigh with happiness.
“I wasn’t firing it at Yasha ,” Nott said, crossing her arms, “I was firing it at the cloud .”
“Uh huh,” Beau said, obviously not at all believing her.
“Maybe it’ll work when there’s actually lightning,” Yasha said quickly stepping through one of the many puddles she was constantly creating. “You can try later, Nott.”
Nott blinked and then smiled, “Thanks, Yash.”
On her way out of the room Beau caught her gently by the elbow, not caring that the rain was falling on her and instead looking at Yasha carefully. She always looked worried for her, these days, and Yasha wasn’t sure what to do with it. “You okay?”
“Sort of,” Yasha said after a moment, aiming for honesty in the face of Beau’s concern and the set of her mouth and the slight furrow in her brow. “Not… entirely. But,” Yasha paused and ducked her head slightly, pulling her arm from Beau’s grip. Her hand felt warm, like the only warmth that Yasha had experienced in what felt like a lifetime, and it was radiating outwards and if she weren’t careful she’d want Beau to hold onto her forever. “Be careful, you’ll get wet.”
“I don’t mind,” Beau said, but she didn’t reach for Yasha again and didn’t stop her from walking away.
“Caleb,” Yasha said quietly, feeling bad for disrupting him while he was pouring so intently over a book, and even more so when he gestured for her to go on, but didn’t look up from his reading. “Could you,” she paused, feeling awkward and ridiculous, switching which hand was holding the umbrella absently. “I wanted to see my book, if that’s okay,” Yasha finally said, speaking quickly around her nerves and then clarifying, “I can’t… hold it, so you would have to, if that’s not any trouble.”
He seemed to freeze for a few moments before he nodded, “Of course,” and then reached for his bag, digging through it and pulling out the book and its wrappings. Yasha was relieved to see it again, felt herself exhale in one long breath and tension in her shoulders unwind.
She hated not being in possession of that book. Yasha had, albeit accidentally, intertwined that book with Molly and Zuala so thoroughly that being without it felt like being without a limb, or without her heart. As if she was poised and waiting, something essential missing, and unable to move nor continue without it in her hands.
But she was terrified of ruining it, of losing it in any capacity, and with a raincloud overhead she couldn’t hold it in her hands. Even beneath the umbrella she found herself afraid that the book would become waterlogged and the ink would fade away or the binding would fall apart or the flowers that she had gathered over the years would somehow be lost. It was better to keep it with Caleb, for the time being, better to keep it safe and dry.
Caleb handled the book with care and she was thankful to watch him pull apart the fabric slowly and then turn the book so it was facing her, propped on his crossed legs. He tilted the book back slightly so that nothing would immediately fall out and began to flip through the pages, not commenting or appearing irritated at all when Yasha asked him to stop as she stared quietly at one of the plants tucked within the pages, or when she simply wanted to look at something quietly. He didn’t even look, as if respecting Yasha’s privacy. Her chest shuddered.
“Molly drew that,” she said, gesturing to the page that she had asked Caleb to pause on, and his eyes flickered down at it. It was a pretty thing, colorful lines sketched into a page on a day that he had taken the book from her and told her, quite magnanimously, that he was going to draw her a masterpiece within its pages, like he had drawn his tarot cards. It was a landscape, somewhere in the Empire, but embellished with far more flowers in the field that Yasha recalled from that place. “He said he wanted to give me a masterpiece.”
“It’s very beautiful,” Caleb said after a heartbeat, and he seemed transfixed with it before looking at Yasha and then at the cloud and then at her. “Yasha.”
She was still staring at the lines, remembering when she had watched Molly sitting with the front of the book facing her, propped against his knees as he drew, a smile playing across his face. “Yes?”
“I believe that your cloud,” that distracted her and she looked at him, catching his gaze and noticing that he looked contemplative, again, but confident, as well, “is connected to your emotions.”
“My emotions?”
“Look up,” Caleb said, and she did and found that the rain had lightened to a drizzle, again. A bare mist. She still held Molly’s happy face in her heart, the way that he had beamed when he handed her back the book, the way that she couldn’t help but smile at the artwork as she traced it and thanked him and laughed when he said that his payment could be braiding her hair again. “The rain lightens and nearly stops when you’re… happy or content or relieved. And the rain, it’s salty like…” he broke off.
Like tears, her mind supplied. “Oh,” she said, quiet, and she looked at the colorful drawing that Molly had done for her and her alone. “So it will never go away.”
Caleb’s brows furrowed, “You could be —— ”
“I,” Yasha rubbed her knuckles and looked away from the blindingly bright drawing and the blindingly bright man before her, “I don’t know if I could ever be… truly happy again. It’s not… it seems impossible.”
“I know,” Caleb said in that simple, easy way of his. He had always understood her, or at least understood her shadows and her darkness and the cloud that lingered overhead that was once metaphorical and was now, it seemed, literal. “But you… deserve happiness, Yasha.”
Did she? She didn’t think she believed him. The rain started to pick up again and she looked at him and he was giving her a rueful expression, a pinch in the corner of his mouth and gentle brows. “So do you,” she said, giving him a tight smile as pain flickered over his features. “Thank you, Caleb,” she stood back up, “can I… ask you to keep it safe, just for a bit longer?” For the rest of time, maybe.
“ Ja ,” he said quietly. “Of course.”
The Mighty Nein were —— odd. Most people would agree with that, she supposed, given that they were a motley crew at best and the fact that they succeeded on strange, absurd ventures was… surprising, even to her. They were a tight knot of people, as if they were daring the entirety of the world to pull them apart by force, and Yasha was constantly in awe of them, as if she weren’t part of them.
She supposed that she wasn’t.
They revolved around each other and wore each other’s troubles and worries and connections like a well loved cloak, fabric following the well known curves of the shoulders without hesitation nor issue. She had known them as long as they had known each other, Caduceus being the exception, but she didn’t know them especially well. They did not know her especially well, either, though Yasha didn’t think that there was much of her to know, besides.
Yasha had been there and then gone and disappearing, always. Of her own volition, much of the time, but by force another, and that was something that would drive a blade through her heart forevermore, forever after. There were many blades in her heart. It was a wonder that it was still beating. All the same, she had flitted in and out of their lives silently for the past year, had watched as they had grown closer in her absence, and had been mutely surprised when they welcomed her back with, primarily, open arms.
Even now. Even after everything that she had done, even with a cursed cloud (she didn’t know if it was a curse, precisely, but it was the only answer that she could settle on after so very long and she had nothing else to refer to it as other than hers, the way that little else in the world was hers, the way that Zuala had been hers) hanging over her head and dousing them all in rainwater.
They were so bright. Colorful, cast in bright hues. Sometimes it hurt to even conceptualize of them, and when she did she thought helplessly of Molly. Well, Yasha thought a lot about Molly. Not constantly, not endlessly, but with every beat of her heart she thought of him, imagined his face in her mind and hoped desperately that she would never forget him for as long as she lived.
Molly had suited them all better than her, there was no doubt in her mind regarding that, and while she was certain Jester would protest if she were to ever voice it aloud, she didn’t think anyone would privately disagree. But she found herself thankful that they had allowed her to remain with them, still, that they smiled at her presence and laughed at her words, though she wasn’t certain if anything she said was truly worth laughing about, and that they bore the rain that followed her, even when it threatened to encompass them all.
It did that, sometimes. The storm would widen and intensify and would drench them all, until they had to step further and further and further away from her. It was especially bad in battle and the aftermath, or when she found herself ruminating or otherwise dwelling heavily on Zuala or Molly, on the things that she had done, when rage was the core of her heart and she found herself choking on it. When it did happen she didn’t quiet notice, tucked away with her umbrella, until someone shouted over the whipping wind and the pouring rain and the blaring thunder and she would return to herself and realize that they were all soaked through and she felt and immense guilt begin to consume her again.
It was a never ending consumption, really.
And it had happened again. Of course it had happened again, here outside of the hug’s hut. There had been such immense fury at the idea of Beau leaving, of her handing over her misery to this creature and leaving them forever, when Beau belonged here and Beau should be here and the Mighty Nein were her family. Yasha wanted —— she wanted ——
But it wasn’t enough, and the storm had spread as they left behind the hut and it spread and it spread and it spread until.
“Yasha!” Jester’s voice, cutting through the gloom.
Yasha hadn’t even opened up the umbrella, it was hanging by her side and held loosely in hand. Her hair hung heavy and wet, sticking to her face and she brushed it away instinctively, even though it was fruitless and simply shifted. Her gaze focused and she saw that the others were looking at her with concern evident on their faces, standing several yards away from her and giving a wide berth, because the storm had circled further and further outward, driving them farther and farther away.
Doing the work for her.
“Yasha, calm down, please,” Jester said loudly, and it occurred to Yasha that she had to yell in order to be heard because the storm was so loud. Horribly loud. Terribly loud. “We can,” she glanced at Caduceus, who was staring at Yasha with a stricken expression, “we can help you! With magic! If you want, only if you want.”
They were all so tired. Going to Kamordah and then here and. Yasha was tired. She wanted to sleep, but her sleep would be plagued by Zuala’s death and Molly screaming and people dying, dying, dying, all around her. Felled by her hand. They could help her with magic but ——
She shook her head. She didn’t want magic touching her. She didn’t want it altering her in any way, didn’t want to feel its touch on her mind, the thought was repulsive not because she didn’t trust them but because it was terrifying to consider. It wasn’t the same as control but she had people in her mind before and she didn’t want anyone to touch her mind ever again, not for as long as she lived, not for as long as she could help it.
A touch, to her wrist. Light and fleeting, gentle. Jester was staring up at her and her hair was sticking to her face, too, and Yasha instinctively opened the umbrella to hold it over her head. Jester laughed, something wet and sad as she curled her hand around Yasha’s elbow. “I’ll walk with you,” she said, sunny, or trying to be.
“You’ll get wet,” Yasha said quietly.
“It’s okay,” Jester squeezed her elbow and started pulling her along until she was walking again. “I don’t mind a bit of water.”
The others watched her quietly and didn’t move as the storm started to engulf them, too. Yasha wanted to tell them that they were being stupid, that there wasn’t a point in getting drenched when they could step out of the grip of the storm and stay relatively warm, even here in the mountains. She wanted to, but couldn’t make her mouth form words and instead said nothing as they all began walking again, ignoring the storm raging overhead.
Jester talked to her. There was a nervous energy about her, frenetic and strange, and Jester had to speak loudly to be heard over the storm but she talked about her childhood and different stories that her mother used to tell her and what it was like to grow up in the Lavish Chateau, what it was like to look out over the whole of Nicodranas and always, always be in some form of awe. She spoke at length about the different pastries that were her favorite and, at one point, dipped into a thrilling tale involving a mermaid, a prince, and a roguish pirate.
Yasha listened. She listened, and didn’t absorb especially much, but listened to Jester speak and let her voice fill her mind, and when she looked over at Beau, Beau was watching her with a solemn expression, eyes still red from crying not so long ago. Beau offered her a flicker of a smile, something small but genuine, and Yasha tried to remember how to breathe.
Eventually, the storm quieted and withdrew, and it was raining only on her, again. It was better this way, at least. The others didn’t have to suffer so similarly, too.
The cloud spread out to cover her entirely when she laid down, because of course it did. Yasha took to sleeping sitting up, though she had done it plenty of times before and it wasn’t hard to become accustomed to. She wedged herself into a corner of a room or propped herself against a tree or a rock or something similar, folding her knees so that she would fit beneath the cover of the umbrella and remain, mostly, try. Sometimes she woke up with the umbrella misplaced and drenched, sometimes not.
Sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night to rain falling on her, only for the umbrella to be adjusted and cover her again and leave her primarily dry. When this would happen she would open her eyes partly, a quick glimpse. Frequently it was whoever was on watch or whoever was closest to her at the give moment, most often it was Jester or Beau or Caduceus. It would occur to her to say something, to thank them for the assistance, but she would instead take a breath and shift her arms around where the umbrella was wedged between her arm and her side.
Today she woke up primarily dry and found herself briefly thankful for it. Dawn had started breaking across the sky and it was growing lighter above them, she could see it from just beyond the edge of the umbrella, and she stood up with a roll of her shoulders, pushing away from the surface that she had leaned against. It was rare for her to feel well rested upon waking, but this morning she did, and she tried to cast her memory back to what she had seen in her dreams.
Zuala, she recalled distantly, as if seeing it through a great mist. Zuala, laughing and singing quietly, her clever hands braiding flowers into Yasha’s hair, as glorious as the day that she had fallen in love. It was a precious, gentle dream, something fleeting and ephemeral and therefore that she held close to her chest and covetous as she glanced around at her companions. Her… friends.
Jester was still asleep, though she was mumbling, clearly roused by everyone else awakening around them. Nott, too, was asleep, curled up next to Caleb who was sitting up and going through his component pouch, mumbling quietly to himself. Fjord and Beau were awake and going through their morning workout and Beau looked —— Beau looked.
Her hair wasn’t down but there was only one tie holding it back, the rest of it falling gracefully against her shoulder. There wasn’t anything especially different about her, Yasha supposed, but there was a certain threshold of radiance that seemed to have peaked just beneath her skin, or maybe that was the glow of sweat or something as mundane as that. She was talking with Fjord and laughing, only to laugh harder when he tripped over himself and turned a darker shade of green out of embarrassment, her head thrown back in the early morning light.
Beau looked gorgeous. Beau was looking at her, catching her eyes and beckoning her closer, “Morning, Yasha,” she said, laughter still in her voice as Yasha drew closer. Her eyes were glittering and she glanced up briefly, looking pleased as she said, “Hey, your cloud is less doom and gloom.”
Yasha shifted her umbrella and realized that it was true. It was still drizzling, but it was remarkably light compared to the steady downpour that she had fallen asleep with the night before, it practically wasn’t raining at all. The cloud was grey, rather than an unrelenting black, and Yasha felt a rush of relief. “It is,” she said, feeling thoroughly stupid for saying it and for holding her umbrella at her side awkwardly.
“You could join us for our workout,” Beau said sunnily, pointing a thumb down at Fjord, “I need someone who can keep up with me better than the Captain, over here.”
“Hey, I’ve been improving,” Fjord said, standing up and brushing himself off.
“Barely,” Beau punched him in the shoulder and he winced, rubbing it.
“Yeah I,” Yasha paused, before setting the umbrella down carefully, not wanting to break it accidentally. Barely a mist was falling on her, “If you guys don’t mind.”
They gave reassurances and Yasha couldn’t help but smile as she drew closer and was summarily distracted, eyes catching on the low neckline of Beau’s sleepwear and. It occurred to her, unpleasant as swamp water in your boots, that she had never seen the scar before. Hadn’t seen the remnant of what Yasha had done to her, of the sword driven through her chest. It wasn’t a pretty scar, but Yasha didn’t think that any scars were pretty, exactly —— Molly had always boasted that his were, and so were hers, but Yasha hadn’t really understood the desire to romanticize scars, of all things. They were remnants of battles, proof of survival, but they weren’t pretty nor beautiful nor anything of the sort and Yasha felt her throat constrict as she stared at the scar on Beau’s chest.
The mark that she had left on her. That her hands had left on her, even if it hadn’t been under her own free will. It felt as though a haze had descended on her, a strange noise filling her ears, making them feel overfull and overwhelming and Yasha wanted to sit down again and go to sleep in hopes of seeing Zuala again. She knew she wouldn’t see Zuala again, the remnants of her singing lost beneath the din of a storm.
“Yasha,” Beau’s voice cut through her mind and Yasha looked at her, wasn’t certain when she had looked away, and there was vivid concern on her face.
“Beau,” Yasha said, for lack of anything else to say. She liked saying Beau’s name.
Lightning cracked beside her face and Yasha glanced up again at the pouring rain and the furious storm and she sighed, quietly. Reached down and picked up the umbrella again, turning it so that the water that had gathered there quickly poured out onto the ground, and set it over her head. She was no longer primarily dry anymore, but it didn’t matter.
“Maybe another time,” Fjord said gently, giving her a small, concerned smile.
“Maybe,” Yasha said and she felt like a dull blade. She turned and started back towards where she had woken up. Jester was awake now, speaking animatedly with Nott who had also woken up. Caleb was watching her, one hand still dipped into his component pouch, though not actively rifling anymore.
Yasha leaned against a large rock and closed her eyes and determinedly didn’t watch Beau and Fjord fall back into working out after they spoke quietly for a few moments. There wasn’t anymore laughter, and Yasha didn’t even try not to feel guilty about ruining their morning. Instead she stood there, and felt chilled to her soul again, tired down to her very bones, and asked the Stormlord why.
“Hey Yasha?”
“Yes, N —— uh, Veth?”
“Can I still try to fire an arrow through your storm cloud?”
“Oh. Yes, of course.”
“Sweet.”
Playing the harp helped. Yasha was afraid of the water damaging it, but whenever she played it seemed to lighten the clouds above her and while there was still rainfall, it was essentially nonexistent. So she played, fingers plucking across the strings, sat there on the coast of Nicodranas, watching the ocean move and shift and settle. It was beautiful, in a way that shifted something in her chest.
You’re beautiful.
“You’re getting good with that thing,” Beau’s voice surprised her enough that Yasha almost crushed the harp against her chest as she turned and stared at her. “Oh shit, sorry, did I scare you?”
“No,” Yasha said too quickly, and they both knew that it was a lie. She started to relinquish her punishing grip on the harp, “A little bit.”
Beau laughed quietly and sat down next to Yasha, a polite distance between them but still within the realm of her cloud. Yasha wanted to tell her to move, because otherwise she’d get wet, but prior experiences informed her that Beau wouldn’t move unless she wanted to, and if she hadn’t wanted to sit closer to Yasha she would have remained outside of the clutch of the cloud.
Something warmed in Yasha’s chest with that knowledge, and she found herself glancing furtively at Beau, at the way the setting sun caught on her skin and shone in her eyes. She looked good, though Beau always looked good, and Yasha found that she wanted to keep looking at her and looking at her. It hurt, still, and she thought that looking at Beau would always hurt, a little bit, and while there was still a thrum of guilt deep in her chest every time she looked at her, there was also the wonder that Beau existed. Strong, amazing, brave Beau, who was one of the greatest people that Yasha had ever known. She ranked up there with Zuala and Molly, at least, and Yasha could admit quietly to herself that she adored her. More than, really, and while that was terrifying it was also something that she accepted and knew would never come to pass or amount to anything at all.
Yasha was… Yasha didn’t deserve someone like Beauregard Lionett. She struggled to think of many people who did, but for as much as she would like to kiss Beau and felt the want to kiss her every time their eyes met, then she would remember the scar bisecting her chest and the rush of guilt, for more reasons than one, would threaten to overwhelm her.
“Thank you,” Yasha said abruptly after they had been sitting in silence for some time and she had looked away from Beau forcibly, though she saw her jerk slightly in surprise. “I… like playing the harp. It,” she tried to find the words for it and ended up gesturing towards her head, “it helps clear my mind.”
Beau glanced up at the significantly lighter rain, almost none at all, which had shifted slightly with Yasha’s thoughts but hadn’t started pouring down on them, yet. “I’d say,” she said, bemused and beautiful. “I heard you, down the way,” she gestured with her head down the beach, “and I… I just knew it was you, and I wanted to let you know that you sounded really good.” Beau looked at her, and looked at her, and looked at her.
Ever since the Chantry of the Dawn, Beau looked at her frequently. First with fear (for herself or for Yasha?) and then with concern and then with contemplation and now —— now, Yasha didn’t know. But she looked back and felt her heart sigh. “Thank you, Beau,” she said, turning her gaze away again, flustered despite herself and plucking at a string absently, “uh, again.”
Beau laughed, and Yasha had to laugh, too. “I was thinking,” there was still laughter and amusement in her voice and it made it warm like the sun, “that we could talk strategy, since we’re both the ones who get in the thick of things. Everyone else has their magic,” Beau wiggled her fingers and Yasha watched her, helplessly endeared by the way that Beau talked so expressively with her hands, “but we’re, y’know, sentinels.”
“Of course,” Yasha said, plucking too hard on a string and jumping slightly at the noise that it made. “Uhm,” she set it aside gently, leaning over so that she could put it outside of the cloud. “You’re amazing in a fight, Beau. You’re very… strong.”
Perhaps Yasha was seeing things, or perhaps there was genuine surprise that flickered across Beau’s features for half of a moment, before something pleased and confident took its place. “Hey, you’re pretty great in battle yourself. You’re the one swinging around a giant sword,” she gestured to the blade that Yasha had set not so far away, as well, a slight waggle to her brows, and she ended up laughing when Yasha flushed a faint pink again.
“You’re much faster than I am,” Yasha felt, as she always had, uncomfortable being the focus of praise. She wondered if it was hypocritical that she wanted to give so much of it to Beau, in that case.
“I’m nimble,” Beau said with a grin. “Makes me hard to hit.”
“I know,” Yasha said, wishing that she could hide her smile, could hide the way that Beau was making her smile. It was too much, too obvious, the thud of her heart felt so loud in her ears. But she found that she could watch Beau forever, could look at her and commit her to memory and place her not beside Zuala but nearby her in her heart, and maybe she would never get rid of this cloud and perhaps she would never be truly happy again but she could listen to Beau laugh and it would be close enough.
She wondered about forgiveness. The concept thereof. Was forgiveness hers to give? Or, the better way to put it, she supposed, would be: was she able to forgive herself? Were her sins and the things that she had done wrong again and again and again throughout her life absolvable? Could she prostrate herself before the gods, before the Stormlord who reigned quiet in the sky, and seek forgiveness?
Yasha wasn’t irredeemable. If someone like her was irredeemable then what did that mean of Caleb, of others like them who had done terrible things but regretted them bitterly? She had done terrible things, she had run like a coward while her wife was put to death and she hadn’t stopped running since. She had killed people, so many people, and she killed still.
Killing for a cause was righteous and good, or so the stories that Molly used to tell her said, but what of someone who killed not for a cause but for a people? Specific people alone, the people that she wanted, above all else, to protect? Did she deserve the Mighty Nein and their kindness and understanding and unquestionable confidence in her?
She wasn’t sure. Perhaps she would never be sure and perhaps she would spend the rest of her life wondering and uncertain and still seeking that forgiveness for the things that she had done.
But as she tilted her head back and let the rain of her cloud, her own personal manifestation of misery, or maybe it was blame or maybe it was something that believed itself and therefore herself unforgivable and would thus follow her for the rest of her life, wash over her, she wondered if she could be forgiven.
“Would you forgive me?” her voice was a mere whisper, a quaver, she imagined Zuala’s lovely, wonderful face in the clouds. Imagined her smiling at her, laughing with her, touching her face and speaking of flowers, beautiful flowers.
Would Zuala forgive her? Did forgiveness of the self hinge wholly on her wife? They were utterly interlocked in Yasha’s mind. Immovable and immutable. Yasha was a coward and a killer but Zuala had loved her, and would she forgive her pathetic, coward wife? In her heart of hearts, Yasha was certain that she would, but there was still something in her that was afraid. Petrified. Paralyzed, and wanting. Maybe Zuala blamed her, after all.
She thought of Beau. She thought of Zuala. She thought of Molly, who would have pulled her out of this misery with a smile and a laugh, taking her hand and running with her until they somehow outran it, and left her misery behind for a spell.
Perhaps. Perhaps she could start to forgive herself.
The rain lightened overhead.
On the ocean the cloud was… difficult. It was hard to know where to go and where she should stand, otherwise the wood beneath her would get waterlogged, and people (usually Marius) would end up slipping in the puddles that she created. They all got adjusted to it, but she, as always, felt no small measure of guilt that they had to readjust for the presence of her cloud.
For her presence.
When Fjord told her that she would be in charge of canons should that be necessary at any point in their voyage she had blinked, honestly surprised. “Are… are you sure?”
“Of course,” Fjord patted her shoulder bracingly, having to reach up to get to it, but he was smiling at her genuinely. “I want the strongest of this crew handling that, it’s the safest bet for all of us and you won’t have to struggle to load the canon like most of us.”
“Uhm,” she glanced down at her hands and thought about how quickly everything got wet when it rained properly and she didn’t have her umbrella, “What if I drop one?”
“You won’t,” Fjord said easily shaking her shoulder and then turning as his name was called on the other end of the ship. “If we’re lucky we don’t have to use the canons at any point in time, but if we do I trust you, Yasha,” he said, nodding at her before turning and walking away.
Trust. He trusted her? Maybe to some that was more surprising than it should been, but she found herself appropriately surprised. She knew that everyone trusted her in battle, at least, that they trusted her to get things done and to defend them with her life. Loading a canon and firing for them was similar enough to defending them in battle with her body and sword, but it wasn’t quite the same thing, not really. This was implicit trust in her abilities and competency, waving off the obvious downfall that she would have to face, given the fact that she literally rained everywhere she went, even when it was a bare drizzle on her shoulders.
She found herself standing there contemplating it for longer than she should have. Longer than she was aware of, at least, considering that Caduceus seemed to materialize at her side some unknown amount of time later. “I’m making some tea,” he said, gesturing towards the center of the deck where several of the others sat, speaking about… something.
Beau was lounging with her face in the sun and Yasha’s breath caught.
“Okay,” she said, and she followed him.
“TravelerCon is really soon guys,” Jester sounded mildly frantic as she wielded a paintbrush and started to paint small dick statues, worrying her bottom lip. “The Traveler is busy with,” she gestured widely, “organizing travel, I think, and I need to plan things, and he doesn’t really want to be The Traveler anymore so we have to figure that out, and we need to get there on time, and I know that the Peace Talks need to happen first but it’s, like, right after.”
“We’ve got this handled, I think,” Beau said, and when she caught Yasha’s eye she smiled radiantly and Yasha ducked her head. “We just need to plan a few events, right? What do you think, Yasha?”
“Uh,” Yasha said, suddenly caught as Caduceus handed her a cup of tea. Small droplets of rain fell into it and she took a sip to busy her mouth so that she didn’t have to immediately speak, and when she looked at Beau again, Beau was giving her a patient, careful smile. “I could… play my harp?” It sounded ridiculous aloud and thoroughly stupid.
Jester lit up anyways, looking up from her work and beaming, “Oh, Yasha, that would be wonderful! We could have a little concert,” and she went on from there talking at length about several half formed ideas that were rattling around in her head. They all chimed in every now and then, Veth suggesting a shooting contest and Beau a scavenger hunt and Caduceus just wanted a nice fire. Caleb dropped by eventually and said that he still had several magical effects to decorate the area, and even Fjord paused and said he hadn’t a clue what could happen at TravelerCon, quite frankly.
It was a nice, sunny afternoon.
Followed by Fjord dying that night.
(But he was fine. It’s fine. Never mind that Yasha couldn’t tell whether the storm was hers or the literal, actual storm raging around them, rain whipping around them and it could have been the sea air that tasted like salt or her own personal rain.)
Peace talks went well and there was an air of hope. It was strange, and she found herself hoping and wondering and hesitating, thoughts stuttering, not quite sure and still trying to decide. Silly, really, to wonder quite so intently about something that should never come to be, could never come to be, it was just that…
The way Beau looked at her, sometimes. Yasha wasn’t sure if it was wishful thinking or… or something else. How she smiled whenever their eyes would catch and the way that she always sat near her, regardless of how heavily it was raining above her. The way that she would listen to Yasha and ask her for her thoughts, her opinions, always taking her opinions into account even when they were worthless or silly or not actually contributory to much at all. The way that Beau would touch her fleetingly, but somehow lingering, and the warmth that suffused through Yasha’s freezing cold skin whenever she did.
Sometimes Beau looked afraid that Yasha would disappear. As if, if she were to dare look away for a moment, Yasha would melt into the shadows and flee from them again and never return. That look was always strung out, somehow misplaced, and brief. There and gone.
Wishful thinking, perhaps, but.
But Yasha had been married, once. And, gods, she wanted to be worthy.
At night the ocean air was quiet and the deck of the ship was peaceful. Or, at least, in the midst of a night that wasn’t also plagued by sea monsters trying their best to kill Fjord and take back the cloven crystal, and on the third night of travel everything seemed almost peaceful. Yasha enjoyed sitting on the deck against the railing, legs hanging out over the side, staring at the night sky beyond her cloud. Somewhere between drizzling and proper rain, she was… content. Or something close to.
“I brought you some blankets,” Beau said from behind her and Yasha turned, looking at her and the fact that she had, in fact, brought some blankets. “You’re always freezing to the touch, so,” she trailed off strangely, looking almost unsure of herself.
“Oh,” Yasha said quietly, tucking the umbrella against the crook of her elbow and reaching out for a blanket. “Thank you, Beau.”
“Don’t mention it.”
She wrapped it around herself, still yet unwilling to take off her cloak, wet though it was, and she felt impossibly joyful when Beau sat down next to her. Close, close enough to touch, though they weren’t quite touching. Beau was pretty in the moonlight, the way that she was pretty everywhere, cool tones washing over her and making her seem like she was glowing.
“Do you ever wonder,” Yasha tried to figure out what she was trying to ask, tried to figure out how to make it not sound awkward on her tongue, “why we’re here?” Close enough.
“Feeling a bit existential tonight, huh?” Beau said, pulling her knees to her chest and looking over at Yasha. “Not really. We’re here because we’re here and the gods created the world or whatever, I never really put a lot of thought into why other than to do something with ourselves. I mean, I somehow became a full fledged expositor and we go on these crazy adventures, right?”
“You became an expositor because you’re amazing,” Yasha said quietly, giving Beau a small smile and enjoying the briefly shocked look that crossed her face. There and then gone. “I guess I… I have this thing, this cloud,” she looked up at it and noticed that the rain had lightened considerably. Because Beau was here, probably, “And it’s apparently a reflection of my emotions and my feelings and that’s messy and bad a lot of the time because I… I am trying, but I don’t know how to get there or if I can really be happy again. And I don’t know why this cloud is here, other than it being a… manifestation of my misery.”
“Could be from the Stormlord or some… weird, crazy magic, you have some inherent magic,” Beau shrugged.
“I thought,” it was hard to figure out what to say or how to say it and her heart felt heavy in her chest. “This sounds ridiculous or silly but I thought that I was put here to… be miserable. After Zuala, and then Molly, I just thought that I…”
Beau touched her elbow, gently. So warm. So impossibly warm. “Yasha,” just her name. Beseeching and quiet. Adoring, maybe.
“But is this cloud trying to tell me that I should be happy? Or forgive myself? And I know you say that I shouldn’t blame myself for… for anything, and I’m trying,” Yasha caught Beau’s pleased, proud smile and felt helplessly proud of herself, “and. The rain lightens when I’m… lighter, and it worse and awful when I’m not, and I’ve found myself wondering recently what I… want to be. What I’m meant to be, if I’m not supposed to drown in my misery.”
Beau made a soft, thoughtful noise, “What have you been thinking?”
“About what makes me… happy. Remembering Zuala, remembering Molly, those things make me happy, but that only lightens the rain, because I’m living in the past, I guess?” Yasha rubbed her face, feeling herselt started to heat up, embarrassed. “I gues I don’t know what makes me… really happy. Or, I do, but it’s,” she made a frustrated noise and looked at Beau again.
She was looking at Yasha with a peculiar expression, not like she was seeing her for the first time but instead like she was seeing her and seeing her and wanted to see her for the rest of their lives. Something tender and broken open and it —— it took Yasha’s breath away. The soft parting of her mouth and the tilt of her head and her easy, unassuming understanding. That Beau was just there to listen to her and hear here and be with her, and Yasha.
Yasha felt unworthy beneath the enormity of it, felt impossibly small yet impossibly immense.
“I’m happy here, with you guys, I think,” Yasha found that she was whispering and that she was afraid of speaking any louder than this, as if these were words for Beau and Beau alone. “And I… I’m happy here, with you.”
Beau’s lashes fluttered briefly and she leaned towards Yasha, who felt like her heart was about to burst in her chest, that familiar ache paradoxically softened by the panic that was rising in her chest. Panic because… because of so many reasons, but not because of Beau. Not directly. Not exactly.
“Please don’t,” she said quietly and Beau stopped immediately, guilt washing over her and Yasha grabbed her wrist quickly, holding onto it as if it were a lifeline. “Not if it’s just…” she didn’t want to say pity, she didn’t want to see only because Yasha had just said that Beau made her happy but she thought that Beau understood, anyways.
“No I,” Beau licked her lips, and the curve of her mouth was nearly fearful, but her eyes were warm, “I want to kiss you so badly, Yasha, I’ve wanted to for —— for a while.”
“Oh,” Yasha exhaled, “Okay. Good.”
The umbrella clattered to the deck behind them and she kissed her. Holding Beau’s face in her hands felt utterly impossible, improbable, the solidity of her and her jaw and her cheeks and kissing her, their mouths pressed together lightly and then more firmly, breaths catching in unison as Beau’s hand found her waist and squeezed and, oh. Yasha wanted to hold Beau against her for the rest of time, wanted to feel this warm against her freezing skin, wanted to feel as though that warmth was sinking into her own body. It felt like it was. It truly felt like it was, and like Yasha was finally, at last, warm after a long, perilous winter, the sun finally rising on her again as she had been waiting for for ages.
They kissed and kissed until a bright light flashed across their closed eyes and Yasha winced, pulling away from Beau reluctantly and shielding her gaze, looking up and finding herself gaping. There was no rain falling from the cloud, any longer, and it was instead a pure, brilliant white, with arcs of lightning roiling within, humming with energy so broadly that Yasha’s skin felt electrified, too. It was breathtaking, nearly as breathtaking as Beau, and she found herself unable to speak as it started to rise higher and higher in the air.
“Hey,” Beau squeezed her hand from where it lay, warm against the warm skin of Yasha’s waist, and she turned to look at her, to meet her smile and feel weightless beneath the beautiful curve of it, “I’m happy, too.”
Yasha kissed her again, didn’t ever want to stop kissing her, and didn’t bother to watch as her cloud floated higher and higher and then, above the sailing ship, was left behind.