Work Text:
Tinkerer finds him first. Not that he is hiding, since he doesn’t know where to hide in this place, but still. He’s been on his own in this little circle of gravestones, admiring the blooms and the trees around him. Lichen and moss cover the stones in a variety of colors, some of which (he’s looking at the pink-purple stuff on one grave in particular) seem impossible. It grows in a way that doesn’t smother or hide, but like a picture frame, to highlight and enhance. Dozens of different flowers cover the small mounds, in bushes or stalks or thin stems with buds that dangle like crystals. It’s peaceful, quiet, and sort of out of the way of everyone.
The tall people who seem to live here occasionally pass within sight, clearly watching him, but they don’t intrude. He thinks someone talked to them about the whole thing and so they only talk to him in yes-or-no questions.
And so Tinkerer finds him there, in his little spot, with the afternoon sun dappling the grass and stone and flowers. She sits beside him, leans back on her arms, and stares upwards into the canopy. “It’s pretty here, right?”
Empty hums.
“Yeah. Very peaceful. Very nice.” Tinkerer stops. From the corner of his eye, Empty sees her chew on her lip; the face is somehow familiar and not, but he recognizes her eyes more than anything, the clever little cogs turning away behind the iris.
(He specifically does not think further on why he understands eyes so well. He does not like whatever echo of a feeling it brings up.)
Tinkerer slowly knocks her foot against his knee, and he looks at her properly. “Can I tell you about Molly?” she asks, earnest. Confused, all Empty does is nod. “We didn’t get along all the time, at the start. He was kind of a dick. We all were, honestly,” she laughs, shakes her head. “But what stuck with me was that he wanted to let his old life, well, die. And all I wanted to do was get back to my old self. I didn’t get it at the time.”
A pause. Empty fidgets and digs through the grass, digging up pebbles and clusters of grass roots. He wants to do something with the stems, but the idea is oily, slippery. He loses it and instead picks the blades apart.
Quietly, Tinkerer says, “I think I understand better, now.” She digs through a pouch and produces a handful of rings of all sorts: made of metal or wire or flower stem; real or fake gems or just the naked band. “I made these for you. Well, I stole some of them. But, if you want?” She offers the hand.
Empty reaches, slowly, towards a ring. His nails are too sharp, too long, and whatever muscle memory that still clings to his bones has proven unkind, if not harmful. He’d scratched Rumor when she went to wake him up that first day and since then has been careful about touching people. He plucks a silvery ring from the collection and holds it up to the light. The metal is dull, and he thinks it’s fake, but the gem on top glitters red and -
red pupils red orbs red on his skin a red glow pouring from within red blood spilled spilling red dyed all the way inside his being
drops it. “Empty,” he mutters, digging his hands into his coat.
“Okay, not that one. Sorry, this was probably silly,” Tinkerer says, standing, moving away.
Empty reaches out and wraps thumb and forefinger around her wrist. “Tinkerer,” he asks.
She hesitates, then sits and uncurls her hand once more. This time Empty is more careful than to pick the first one that catches his attention. His hand hovers over a few, before he takes the copper wire ring, then - watching Tinkerer for any sign of disapproval and seeing none - takes the woven flowers. The flowers fit perfectly, bright white and a glossy green over his purple skin. The wire ring does not.
“Here,” Tinkerer says, taking it back, taking out a toolkit, “let me just…”
He watches her unwind, add more wire, and tweak at it, talking to herself. Looks at the soft flowers on his finger.
He’s not Empty at the moment, but he doesn’t know who else (what else) he can be just yet. So he sits and idles in the sunlight and the smell of flowers and the quiet halfling curses as Tinkerer knicks a finger.
-
The sky is overcast, the clouds not dark yet but in the distance thunder rolls. The colors of the Grove look deeper, heavier and somber in the low light. Instead of admiring this subtle change of coloration, though, Empty is trying to climb onto the roof of the somewhat cramped cottage they live in.
His fingers ache from trying to scrabble up the side of it, clawing into the slight gaps in wooden boards. His ass hurts from falling on it several times. One of his boots has a tear down the sole now, and he can feel dirt and rocks filling it up. It’s lucky that he left his coat inside, otherwise he’s sure it would be torn and ruined.
The coat is important, he knows this, but more than that he just likes it. All the things he likes he takes care to protect in pockets or in the little chest someone got for him one day. So the coat is safe.
Still, Empty wants to get on the roof and is increasingly annoyed that he can’t. He wants to watch the clouds grow and darken, rolling on by. The rain on his face, cleaning away all the things he can’t seem to wash out of him. Somewhere in the echo of echoes that make up his memory, storms mean waiting, and longing, and reunion.
The fifteenth or so time he falls on his back - he’d been almost to the second story, so close! - Joy leans her head over his, a bemused smile. “And just what’re you doing, Molly?”
Empty can’t help but grin in return, though it’s small, and makes a great show of flopping his limbs on the ground. Joy giggles. Then he points upwards, towards the storm, then angles the finger to the roof.
She takes a moment to put it together. “Oh! You want to- okay. Okay, let me go get Yasha and I’ll give you guys some privacy.”
“Joy,” Empty whines, making dramatic grabby motions at her.
“Oh,” Joy says again, quieter. “You want me? I mean, yes, of course! I would love to watch the storm with you. Here, let’s just-” She pulls him to his feet and brushes the dirt off his clothes. “Just hold onto me, okay, and try not to fall!”
There’s a flash of pink and green and a brief moment of being nowhere at all, then they’re on the flattest part of the slanted roof. Empty takes a startled step, slips, and grabs frantically onto Joy’s skirt before he falls.
“I told you,” Joy huffs fondly and helps him get his balance. They carefully arrange themselves so they’re laying down, the roof digging into his back and their horns almost knocking together. There’s a squeak and chittering noise, and Joy goes, “Don’t be like that, you can go inside if you want.”
The weasel Joy wears around her neck scurries out and over his shoulder, perching there long enough that an emerald green eye glances at Empty, winks, before the weasel leaves.
Empty watches the clouds for a while as the darkness of the storm fills them out. There’s the taste of rain and lightning on the chilled wind. The quiet stillness settles over him, the world tensing not in fear, but in expectation. Joy shifts, grumbling about her tail. There’s no terror, no rage, no threat.
Empty almost remembers a time when all he felt was terror and rage, so filled up he forced all of it onto everyone he knew. He prefers being Empty to that.
“It was snowing, when we. When we said goodbye that first time,” Joy whispers. “Back in winter, and - oh, god, it was only a few months ago, huh. Feels like it’s been years.” Her laugh is not joyful, it’s sad and resigned for reasons Empty doesn’t understand. He cranes his head to watch Joy run her fingers over small creases in her cheeks before she notices him watching. She smiles, bright and a little fake, a little fragile.
Empty is made of fragile things right now, so he doesn’t comment - as much as he can comment right now.
The first raindrop splatters against his cheek and into his eye. He hisses and closes it. Joy laughs, a real one. Then the sky splits open, dropping all the rain it can, and she shrieks. Empty chuckles with her.
“It’s just nice,” Joy says, louder over the rainfall, “that I can say hello again in a different storm. It’s a little like a fairytale.” She shifts, and her hand hovers out near his shoulder. “I’m Jester, nice to meet you!”
Empty sticks his hand out, watching the rain catch under his nails and through the many scars on his arms. In the haze of the storm, it almost looks like all those marks are being cleaned - not washed away, but remade into something he can bear to carry.
He shakes her hand, and musters his broken voice to say, “M.T.”
-
One of the people who actually live in the grove makes tea and little lettuce sandwiches for lunch. Empty takes his outside, the noise and body heat of the too-small space a bit much for his comfort today. He sits back against the outer wall, and watches the flash of butterfly wings as he eats. There are flashes of images and urges that he knows aren’t his, ideas of being a butterfly in some manner, of cocoons and births. He puts those away and keeps his head carefully, well, empty.
It’s nice outside, despite the afterimage-thoughts. The after storm air is clean and crisp. Tree boughs hang heavy with leftover dew. The ground is soft and, unfortunately, still damp. Empty breathes it all in with the scent of his tea.
“Hey,” says someone, and he jolts to the side, hands darting to grab something from his side but nothing’s there and -
It’s the tall pinkish-pale person, one of the strangers who was there in the empty place. He holds both hands up, palms out, and smiles gently. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to intrude on some personal time.”
He stands where he is, expectant or awaiting. Empty eventually eases back into his spot, watches him for a time. Hesitantly, he pats the ground next to him. The others, the ones he knows, like this person deeply. Empty thinks he should at least be nice to him.
Pinkish smiles wider and sits down, a long process of curling himself up into a kind of meditative pose, leg over leg and hands wrapped around his own teacup. He closes his eyes, takes a sip, and hums in appreciation.
Empty watches him from the corner of his eye, his own cup held close. But Pinkish doesn’t move beyond his breath, a calm giant of a person. He’s so pale it’s almost bright against the dark colors of the wood of the house, the grass and flowers surrounding them. There’s a darker color around his throat, though, and -
his fingers grip through the fur into the skin and he pushes pushes pushes all the things he hears into the veins into the head and watches the red spill from the nose
he spills the tea on his lap.
Pinkish opens an eye, furrows his brow. “Everything okay in there?”
Empty digs his fingers into his leg and can do nothing but shrug.
“I’ll get some towels. Maybe some clean pants.” Pinkish stands and goes into the house.
Empty feels the heat of the tea seeping into his skin, not quite scalding. His nails prick through his pants. There are thoughts - memories - spiralling through his head, things he hates and wants rid of. Little, terrible weeds in the almost barren plot of his mind.
Pinkish comes back out and lays a towel out on Empty’s lap, never touching him, and sits down again. “If you want to change, there’s some clothes inside the tower. I think they’re real.” He huffs a short kind of laugh. “It’s hard to tell if what Caleb makes is real or not, sometimes.”
Empty pats the tea from his clothes, not quite willing to change out of them. They’re the first gift he was given in this life, besides a name that does not quite fit - a boot that needs to be worn and stretched before it stops pinching. He’ll find a way to clean it up later, but he’s not going to put something else on.
Pinkish sits beside him, looking at Empty, and the weight of it is a dull itch between his shoulders. He knows Pinkish is friendly, if not quite a friend like the others. There’s no name for him in Empty’s mind, not like the instinctual tug of Love or Joy, so it feels as if a stranger is weighing Empty’s life on some scale he doesn’t understand.
“Could I show you something?” Pinkish says, setting his tea cup aside. Empty jerks, nods, and follows him as he wanders seemingly aimless into the graveyard. He mutters a hello to some of the stones, careful not to step on the flowers, and Empty does his best to keep clear as well.
He stops at an older grave, almost overgrown with a rose bush, the thorny stems curling through carved holes in the stone. Pinkish waves his hand tenderly over the leaves and petals, and wipes dirt from the etched words.
“This one came to us well before my time. Before my father’s time, too. So long ago that the only people that remember his name are my family.” It sounds like it should be sad, but Pinkish’s voice is fond. “I came here sometimes, when I thought no one would be coming home. It was comforting, though I’ve been told my idea of comfort is a touch morbid to other people.”
Empty looks at the stone and flowers, and it does seem pretty if one ignores the bones that must have grown the bush. He cocks his head, confused, wondering what the point of this is.
“It’s a reminder,” Pinkish says, moving to kneel in front of the grave. “Death is not an ending. Things grow from the remains, and memory carries on in ways no one can predict. You are an extraordinary example of this. When your friends first found me here, you could not stand at their side. But you were with them, in their grief, their determination, their love. In their rage, for some.” Pinkish smiles, even as the thought of the others losing him knocks the strength out of Empty’s legs. He plops down next to Pinkish, more sprawled out than he is.
“You had passed, but you were not gone. For months they remember their time with you. And when it came time to save you, they would not give up. Then, of all things, you truly did return beyond death. It is a remarkable journey you have been on. Now there is only a single question left for you.”
Pinkish digs his hand under the bush, wincing as thorns prick his hand, and delicately plucks something; a small, bright purple orchid, so out of place amongst the roses. He puts it in Empty’s hand. “What are you going to grow from the remains?”
Empty twirls the orchid as Pinkish stands, a rustle of silk and leathers, and begins his meandering way back to the house. Watching him go, Empty tucks the flower behind his horn, and finds, in the back of his head, a name for this one: Hierophant.
-
Several days into their stay at the Grove, Magician calls everyone to meet in the house. It is terribly cramped with all of them; he ends up half sitting on Love’s lap, half leaning against Rumor because she refuses to leave Love’s side. Tinkerer and Joy claim the table as a seat, despite Hierophant’s already resigned protests.
“It has been a long enough break that I believe we are recovered enough for the… next necessary steps. To that end, I will be returning to Rexxentrum to deal with it.” There’s a round of raised voices, complaints, worries, and Magician raises his hand. “I am not suggesting I go alone. A few members to accompany me would be greatly appreciated, but too many and we risk Trent noticing before everything is in place.”
This raises a new round of people volunteering. Empty tunes it out, knocking his head back into Love’s chest until she starts braiding his hair. Rexxentrum sounds vaguely familiar, but he doesn’t think he’s ever been there. Trent is a foggy picture of a deeply unpleasant looking man. He supposes, if asked, he will go along, but he’s not sure how much help he could be right now. He’s good with swords, he thinks, and there’s some trick he can almost grasp but reaching too hard for it makes his skin crawl.
Finally there’s an agreement on the team being sent: Rumor, Tinkerer, and Magician. Everyone goes to prepare themselves, and Magician walks up to Empty, twining a wire between his fingers.
“This is simply an offer, if you wish to come with us. Seeing as, from what I understand, few people in the Empire really know of your existence, you will draw no more attention than…” he shrugs and makes a gesture over Empty’s body, his bright clothing, “well, you normally would.”
Empty considers this, leaning his head back to look at Love. Love smiles, brushes hair out of his face. “It may be good to see new places. I don’t think you’d like being stuck here much longer without something to do.”
So he nods, and Magician promises to Love, “We will keep an eye on him, and make sure he stays away from anyone dangerous.”
Empty goes to pack and quickly discovers he has almost nothing to pack. He finds the scimitars on a kind of weapon rack, and wanders looking for something like armor until Sea pulls a set out of his bag. Travelling light feels natural, though, so he isn’t too put off until he has to wait some hours for everyone else.
Magician gathers them up, does something complicated with chalk on the floor, and there’s a sudden sensation of moving too quickly but staying still before Empty stumbles out onto a stone floor. Someone in armor shouts, their chair clattering to the floor, managing a startled, “Expositor! I-”
“Yeah, sorry. We’ll get out of your hair,” Rumor says, pulling Empty up.
Rexxentrum itself is a wild example of color and buildings and people, and Empty can’t go five steps without spinning to see the newest shop displays, or the gaudily dressed people, the painted flags waving in the wind. He nearly crashes into several people and carts before Rumor groans. “Alright, who’s watching this guy so he doesn’t break something.”
He ends up with Tinkerer, because Magician wants Rumor’s help with his thing, and Tinkerer grins wide. “Don’t worry, Molly! I’m going to show you the best sights in this place!”
It becomes clear Tinkerer doesn’t actually know many sights at all, but they end up in a shop full of weird little trinkets and Empty buys a handful of everything. He manages to set one of the lightshow things off in the street without getting caught, just to see, and watches people scatter. Tinkerer laughs beside him. He’s shown a park that looks boring compared to the Grove, and Tinkerer points to a ring of towers and tells him to never go there. They find a new patch of stone, and she tells him about the time a giant worm popped out and tried to eat them - he thinks this isn’t entirely true, but he doesn’t mind a good story.
Finally, as evening sets in, they wind up in a kind of dancing bar. Tinkerer gets them a round, and Empty spends the last part of the day tapping his foot to the loud, hearty music.
Magician slides into the seat next to him, his own drink in hand, and watches the dancing for a time. “Somehow we keep winding up here,” he says to himself, tone weary, shoulders tense. Empty worries his lip, then pats Magician on the hand. He blinks out of his thoughts and smiles, small and thin. “Sorry. It has been a long day.”
Rumor comes along, plucks Tinkerer out of her seat with a request-demand to dance, and proceeds to make a show of annoying everyone who is dancing the right way. Empty laughs to himself, and Magician’s smile eases into a genuine one.
“I have spent a good while trying to kill my past,” Magician tells him. “I suppose Mollymauk and I had that in common from the start. At times I thought I was close, and at others I thought that killing it would destroy what I had found.”
Empty shivers, because even now he has that impulse to rip every shred of what came before out of his skin and bury it somewhere deep. Magician sighs, rubbing his eyes. “Do not worry. I suppose I was inspired by Mollymauk in some way. I am not going to kill the past. I intend to resolve it, so I can move on before it or my obsession can kill me. Even so, I know many of my memories will be painful for the rest of my life.”
Magician gestures out to the dance floor, where Rumor and Tinkerer are laughing and making a great nuisance of themselves. “It is important, though, that we not let the pain taint everything we have done, everywhere we have been. This, being here with the Nein, has brightened a place I thought would be dark forever.”
He downs his drink, stands, then settles his hand on Empty’s shoulder. “Whoever you decide to be, make brighter memories than the ones that came before. It will ease some of the burden.” A clap, a grin and nod towards where Rumor is being escorted to the door, pretending to be drunk and shouting curses. “We will be around to help, I promise.”
-
It’s night, the moons high in a clear sky, and he sees everything in shades of greys and dark purples. It turns the boughs of the trees into a shifting cloud of shadows and spots of glimmering stars. Empty wanders from the house, tugging his coat tighter against the chill. Tonight has been restless, his mind tripping over things he would rather keep buried. When he did manage a few minutes of rest, the flash of red and screams woke him with his breath caught in his throat.
Out in the living Grove, he can remind himself he’s not in that empty, dead place. The brush of wind and the chorus of nightlife, owls and insects, replace the hollow, endless voices. He is half tempted to find the flask Rumor keeps, the one that smells bitter and burning, but worries that being out of his right mind might be dangerous right now.
He navigates the graves and overgrown iron fence, walking in slow circles all around the Grove. As he nears the outer edge, where the crystalline trees are bright even in the darkness, he sees flashes of glowing eyes deep in the strange, twisting forest beyond. They blink and vanish, and Empty turns away to wander closer to the center, where it’s safer.
He first hears the bubble-pop and hiss of hot water. Then the hesitant, careful chords of some silvery music. He follows it to a series of hot springs, faintly aglow from beneath the water, and Love with her back to him, a curving harp in her lap. She plucks a few more notes, one of them twangs. “Shoot,” she whispers, and moves to tune it.
Empty closes the distance and drapes herself over her back, his arms dangling over hers. “Love,” he chirps happily, his night already kinder for having found her.
“Oh, Molly!” she says, “I didn’t… did I wake you up? I thought I was being quiet when I left.”
Empty shakes his head against her shoulder. “Empty.” He gestures away, trying to communicate as best he can where his head was at.
“Ah,” Love replies, understanding. “I’m sorry about that. Do you want to listen? I was making a new piece. Trying to, anyways,” she adds, rueful. “I’m still not very good.”
Empty nods and settles in behind her as she begins, plucking chords. It’s a slow piece, a melancholy sort of happiness in the tune. Empty plays with her hair while he listens, finding the line where the white tips become black and then fade back into white near her scalp. He starts clicking some of the beads together in time to the music, and Love huffs and taps the back of her head against his nose.
As the piece draws to its finish, Empty could almost swear Love glows, a soft whitish-blue, like the afterimage of lightning. Then she’s done, he blinks, and whatever trick of his eyes that was vanishes. He applauds her. Love ducks her head, mumbling her thanks.
It’s calm here, with Love, the night sounds mixing with the rhythmic bubbling of the pool. Her heartbeat pulses from her neck to his cheek. He feels it lulling him slowly to a state of almost sleep, relaxed enough that he doesn’t think much of reaching out to idly pluck some of the harps chords. Love guides his hand to some, so the random notes have some kind of structure.
“No one blames you,” Love whispers. His hand stills, feeling the wire press into the pad of his finger. “We’ve… this is, sadly, not the first time we’ve had to fight against each other, for one reason or another. What I was running from took me away, too, for a time.”
Empty hugs her from behind, and Love lets out a stuttering breath. This is one of the times he despises his broken speech. All the comfort he wants to offer he tries his best to give to her through touch. Love lays the harp to the side and grabs his hands, squeezing.
“But they saved me,” Love continues. “They loved me enough to try, no matter how much I hurt them. And I did. I hurt them in a lot of ways. But they loved me enough to forgive that, too, almost instantly.” Love twists enough that she can return the hug, cheek on Empty’s head. “And I loved them enough to accept that forgiveness, eventually. It, uh, did take awhile.”
Empty hums, suspecting where this is going.
“They forgive you too, because they loved you and they never stopped. Honestly, all that stuff with saving the world was an accident,” Love says, a teasing lilt. Empty rolls his eyes at her.
Eventually they part, and Love wipes her eyes, gathers her harp. “I’ll be here, whenever you need a reminder,” she promises. “We all will. We’re not leaving you again, no matter what.” She kisses his temple with a tender smile, and heads back to the house. Empty waits a minute more, until the burn in his eyes fades, and goes to join her.
-
Magician and Rumor take another trip out to Rexxentrum. This time around Empty prefers to remain in the Grove, taking a day to lounge in the sun. The little one (relatively, she was near as tall as Empty), the sister to Hierophant, is sat next to him telling stories about her family. It’s giving Empty a new respect for Hierophant, who despite his calm and wise demeanor was more than willing to mess with his siblings. It brings up some of the better parts of his memory, however broken, of pranks close to mean-spirited and reconciliations in a little chaotic group.
He wishes he had more memories of them, rather than the cruel and callous gang that had followed him in ice and blood.
There’s a sucking, popping noise and Empty leans up to see Rumor and Magician, and a dark skinned elven stranger, reappear in front of the house. The little sister goes running up, asking for souvenirs. Magician gives Rumor a tense look and she waves him off. Her eyes meet his, for a fleeting second, but her face remains carefully blank as she twitches her head, telling him to go somewhere else.
Empty decides to stick his nose in this, anyways. He’s curious, and bored, what else is he going to do.
He follows Rumor and the stranger around to the back of the house, hiding himself behind the corner. There’s whispering, and footsteps as someone paces. Then Rumor growls, “You are not meeting anyone until you step off your fucking high horse and listen to me.”
“I did listen to you, Beauregard. That is why I want to meet him,” the stranger says, calm but with an undercurrent of frustration. “You must admit your judgement in this case is compromised.”
“Like hell it is. I know perfectly well what happened, and it’s done. Over. Close the damn book on it, alright Dairon?”
“All I ask is that he be questioned so we know for a certainty his innocence-”
“If he wants to be questioned he’ll tell you himself when he’s good and ready. Until then you are not taking him anywhere. He stays here. That’s final.”
“Beauregard…”
“We leave no one behind, you taught me that even if it wasn’t the lesson you meant to teach. And we leave no one alone. He taught me that.” An exasperated sigh, and Rumor huffs in response. “I’ll call you if, not when, we want to go through all that bullshit. See you later.”
The stranger calls out, “Expositor,” but Rumor has swung around the side of the house, spots Empty making a hasty attempt at hiding.
She snorts, grabbing his arm. “C’mon you eavesdropping asshole, I gotta calm down a bit and you get to keep me company.” Empty swats her arm, and she pokes a part inside his elbow that makes his arm go tingly. “Shut up, I’m a delight.”
Rumor clearly has a destination in mind, guiding them to a small crop of graves. She hesitates a moment, staring at one in particular before she sits. Empty takes a look, sees nothing remarkable but the icon of an eye -
she reached for him, found him, it’s only right she get a gift, one more nudge so she can see things right but the connection slams shut and he reels, insulted at her refusal
Empty shakes his head, hard, and sits so that he doesn’t have to see the eye. Rumor folds herself up with a casual ease that makes Empty both feel sore and envious. Then she sits, eyes closed, breathing.
He distinctly remembers her being louder, brash and rude and fun because she gave as good as she got. But, he supposes, he’s a lot quieter too. So much has changed, and he has missed all of it because he was gone, in many senses of the word. He thinks about this puzzle piece of a person he is slowly putting together, with dozens of empty spots. Some of those are because he found pieces he didn’t like, with razor-edges and spite, so he lost them as best he could. It’s just a worry of what he’ll be when it’s finally finished; still so much empty, or filled with nothing he recognized.
“Can I tell you something about Molly?” Rumor asks. She hasn’t moved, hasn’t opened her eyes. Empty makes a quiet noise, uncertain, and she takes it as a yes. “He taught me a lot of lessons in what short time we had. Course I don’t think they were meant as lessons, I think he was mostly just bullshitting us, and himself, with whatever felt good at the moment. Doesn’t change that I learned a few things from him.”
Empty is pretty damn sure the only time he was serious about anything was when the other person wore his body, and he hates every single line he can recall out of that mouth.
“The one I think he did believe, all the way through, was to leave places better. Leave people better.” Rumor’s lips twitch into something softer than a grin, then her face blanks over again. “He left us better, even if it hurt. I like to think a few towns remember what he did for them. And, I think he’d want to leave you better.” She breathes deep, exhales. “If leaving Molly behind is better, he’d want you to. He wouldn’t want to burden anyone with their past.”
Empty watches her rise, fluid, and stretch out. She takes an extra moment before opening her eyes, looking at him with sincerity. “Well, that was a good talk. Riveting as always. I think Caduceus is making lunch, so I’mma-” she cuts herself off, scratches at her neck, then turns.
Empty pushes himself up and grabs her shoulder, turns her to face him. He swallows, smiles nervously, and holds his hand out. “M.T.” he says. It’s not the first, but each time it feels like putting on a certain amount of weight. Some days he wants to be free of it. Other times it feels like his only lifeline.
Rumor studies him, then shakes his hand. “Guess I’m Rumor for now. Nice to meet you, you purple disaster.”
-
It was an odd, stilted conversation to get Hierophant’s permission to use the hot springs. It mostly consisted of Empty getting him to follow, then pointing at the pool and waiting until he got the idea. And for all that work, Hierophant just said, “Ah, yeah, everyone’s welcome to use it.” He’s a little miffed it was that easy after all that.
At least he could relax in a hot spring now, if only he stopped moving into the cold spots it had for some reason. But it’s big enough he can float on his back, and he’d much rather do that than be warm.
He’s drifting around the pool, sometimes hitting one of the edges and pushing himself off again. The warmth of the sun counters the occasional cold on his back. He watches the sky and shuts out the rest of the world, content to not think, not feel, not remember.
Then the water surges up and over him, sinking him a couple feet down. Empty sputters and splashes, feels the water swell underneath him and push him back to the surface. He wipes hair from his face and finds Sea laughing at the edge, one hand out. It twists, and a bubble of water grows next to Empty, popping and splashing him.
“Sea!” Empty yells, crossing his arms.
“Sorry, sorry,” Sea says, “It was way too tempting.” Empty huffs louder and turns his back. “Ah, come on, no hard feelings right?” He hears steps approaching and ducks his head to hide his grin. “Really, I wasn’t going to let you drown or anything.” A pause. “Uh, M.T.?”
Empty spins and hurls water at Sea, soaking through his clothes. Sea sputters and falls backwards while Empty laughs,
“Alright, I see how it is,” Sea grumbles. “Trick me, then splash me when my guard is down. The betrayal.”
Empty can’t reply other than laugh harder, now more at Sea’s put-out expression than anything. He loses sight of Sea for a moment, though, and then there’s a shout as he cannonballs into the water, sending Empty tumbling into the side of the pool. He surfaces, Sea looking smug, and spits the mouthful of water he ended up getting at him.
“Ew,” Sea says drily. “I did actually have a point to coming here, beyond getting your spit on me. But it’s nice to see you’re still a little shit when you want to be.”
Empty shrugs, leaning back against the stony side.
“I’ll just get it out so you can go back to relaxing,” Sea says. “I wanted to say, I understand some of what you’re going through. Not all of it, because a lot of that was fully insane. But trying to figure out who you are, who you’re supposed to be, when you don’t have much of any ground to stand on. I thought I had some idea when we started, even if it was a mask, but it seems like every month I find a completely new version of me.”
Empty drums his fingers against the water, not quite able to meet Sea’s eyes. There’s the almost-familiar tattoo on his hand, curling down his arm. The water reflects the feathers inked on his neck. He knows why he got them, what they were for, but doesn’t remember the event itself. Pieces of one of his lives that he may never get back.
“My point is, you have all the time you need to figure out who this person right here is. And, if you find you don’t like it, you can find a different you. The Nein are going to be with you every step.” Sea laughs. “They put up with me when I thought releasing some demon snake onto the world was going to help me.”
That gets Empty to smile. Maybe one day he’ll be able to get that story out of them. There are a lot of stories he wants, really. None of them involve him; he just wants to know who they are, beyond the names he’s given them.
Sea climbs out of the pool, twists his hand, and all the water in his clothes peels off and drops back into the pool. Empty raises a brow, and Sea grins. “Just a trick I stole from that demon snake. Think about it, okay? And if you need help crafting a mask to wear until you know what you want, I have a few tips.”
-
Today is a big day, though Empty only has an idea of why. Hierophant is busy cooking a number of things, his family scurrying about, collecting blankets and chairs. Love is outside, reading from the paper Joy left on how to decorate every spare piece of ground with trinkets and little fairy-lights while Rumor climbs trees and hangs streamers from the branches. Before Magician left with Joy and Tinkerer, he set the magical door out in the yard, open, and inside Empty can see the cats carrying platters to the table relocated to the first floor. Sea watches it all, looking a little overwhelmed and amused.
Empty, also out of his depth at the moment, wanders through the Grove until he stumbles on the dark elf. Instead of the mantle and robes, he wears a simple undershirt and pants, and looks all the more awkward for it. When he sees Empty, the elf - Floaty, Empty saw him float, that’ll work - nods.
“I don’t suppose you caught what all this is about?” Floaty asks, and he sounds like he knows the answer. Empty can’t tell if that’s on purpose, but he shakes his head. “Apparently it is safe enough for some of them to reunite with their families. I did not catch all the details, but I have a rough idea why this is the case.”
Empty nods along, trying to remember if he knows any of them have families. Joy mentioned her mother, once. Rumor complained about her family, but he doubts she invited them. He’s at a bit of a loss.
The pop of teleportation rings out. Joy has her arms around a red tiefling who seems shaky, holding her hand tight. Tinkerer holds the hands of two other halflings, a boy and a man, as she chatters away; the man looks bewildered, horrified, and proud with each word. Magician smiles as the newcomers are dragged over to the magic door and the slowly coming together picnic, going over to watch Rumor and Joy finish up.
Beside him, Floaty stares after the halflings. “I suppose I should have expected this,” he says, shame clear. “I… perhaps it is best I remain out of sight for this reunion.”
Empty frowns and pokes his arm.
“I have also done harm to these people,” Floaty says. “Not intentionally, at first. I never expected to meet people like them. But I more or less took Veth’s husband as a prisoner, due to in part my own selfish actions. I’m not proud of who I was, at the time.”
Empty looks over to the halfling family, then frowns at Floaty, and he winces. “I suppose you have every right to judge me. Your crimes were done while, for lack of a better term, under the control of something. Mine were simply an extreme error in judgement. I can not even begin to guess the number of people I have hurt.”
Rolling his eyes, Empty moves and pushes Floaty towards the picnic area, ignoring his scrambling protests. Rumor watches on, grinning and giving them a thumbs up. When they get close, the halfling man looks up and his face darkens. Then Tinkerer moves to introduce - or reintroduce, apparently - them. Empty slaps Floaty on the shoulder and leaves him to it.
He enjoys the picnic, however little of it he really understood, and how little he could participate. His friends make sure to include him, despite his limited vocabulary. The little halfling asks him a dozen questions about his tattoo, and the whole time Empty is tense, expecting the kid to ask about the dangerous topics. But he doesn’t.
At the end, while Empty juggles plates to bring inside, he sees the halfling man approach Floaty. There’s a short conversation, then the man holds out his hand and Floaty, hesitantly, takes it. Empty grins and nods to himself.
Night falls, and their group is sprawled out on the grass, watching stars, whispering stories and memories to each other and to Joy’s mother. Floaty sits nearby, watching them fondly when Empty goes to join him.
“They are remarkable, aren’t they,” Floaty whispers. “For all the blame I deserve and accept, they offer forgiveness. Without them and their mercy, I know I would have fallen ever deeper into my arrogance until it destroyed me.” He looks at Empty, and Empty feels his gaze wandering over the empty spots in his tattoos where eyes once marked him. “I think we both can agree on that one, no?”
Empty nods, rests back on his elbows, and watches his friends talk in the dim gold glow of the fairy-lights. Tower, he decides. This dark elf full of regrets can be Tower.
-
He is not sure who he is; Empty, M.T., Mollymauk Tealeaf. Maybe all of them, some days. Maybe he’ll never be any of them again, not fully. But he knows he has a home that will wait for him, and accept whatever he becomes. That is more than the thing that once wore this body had, and it is enough for him.