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Here is a story about grief.
His name is Mollymauk Tealeaf, and he meets the greatest friends he has ever known in a tavern.
They are simply easy coin, at first; they are adventurers and seem to have recently come into a good deal of it. He struts like a cockerel into their midst, smiling, happy, all snark and sass and teasing tones. He boasts about the circus, their acts, his skills, and then the blue tiefling asks for a fortune, and he tells her--
”there is something bright and adventurous in your future,”
--and he did not know then how right he was.
He invites them to the circus, and they come, and there are undead, and danger, and the circus falls apart, and when all is said and done he and Yasha go along with them, this rag-tag group of strangers, because it feels right to do it.
They wander. They adventure. Mollymauk sees the world from the back of a trundling wagon. He laughs and jokes and argues and fights alongside them all, writes their names upon his heart, jesteryashabeaufjordnottcaleb, a litany in his head when he sleeps, the people he loves, who love him, who stand together against danger, and when the night comes that someone kidnaps three of their number (yashayashayasha) there is no doubt in his mind that they will get them back.
No hesitation. No pause. He and Beau and Caleb and Nott go looking, and they find a dwarf named Keg who knows the name they need-- Lorenzo, vile and bitter on his tongue-- and they find the caravan, and they attack, and--
--and he dies there, on the snow-slick dirt road. The morning sun is rising, and the world is stained orange and red when the blade comes down. Beauregard screams and Nott makes a sound like dying and Keg looks on with horror, and Caleb is frozen with a real, cold terror.
”Respect,” Lorenzo says, warped and cruel and mean.
Defiance, Mollymauk thinks, and dies, and his eyes never close.
The others escape with their lives. They take his body and wrap it in the tapestry he bought (because he loves-- loved-- to feel like royalty), and they dig a hole in the ice-hard earth and they put him inside of it and cover him back up. They mark his grave with a staff, and his coat of many colors, and they leave.
They journey far. They find a new friend who grows flowers where he fell. They kill Lorenzo. They rescue their friends. They say goodbye, and they move on.
But not really.
==
Here is another story about grief.
His name is Lucien. He is the Nonagon. His followers dig him up from the grave of a circus man, and give him life, and he continues where he left off the first time.
He is purpose. He is meaning. He will find a city lost to time and it’s own hubris, and he will seize the power for himself, and he will use it to remake the world as he sees fit. It will be better that way. He knows that it will.
There are those who try to stop him. They call him by a name he does not claim and say that he was their friend, and there are echoes of them in his head-- skeletal wings and a blue-tinted smile and hushed Zemnian and a searching mind and the smell of the ocean and buttons in a bottle-- but they mean nothing to him.
They are remnants. They are memories of the piece that was left when he was gone, the piece he has erased now that he is returned. He tells them this, these people who call him friend. They treat him with caution, with care, like he is a dangerous beast who might turn to snap at them-- and he is, really, and he relishes in their discomfort.
They plot against him and he knows it. Cree tells him, in her soft hissing voice, urges him to end their lives, but he does not. They amuse him, and they may be useful, and so he lets them live.
They invite him into their magical home, and he sees the image of a coat in stained glass and he feels something-- something inside-- but he ignores it, because it is nothing but a remnant. He is cruel, sly and deceitful, but they do not hate him. They speak to him. They tell him of the person he was, but he--
He was not. He is not. He is Lucien, the Nonagon, and no one else.
He steals. He leaves. They follow. He knew they would.
He finds the remnants of the ancient city, and delves further until he opens the door to the city itself, trapped between places, the power of it calling out to him like a song, like a symphony made just for him. He finds it an unruly place, chaotic and disordered, but it takes so little effort until it bends beneath his will.
He feels them coming and he does nothing to stop them. He wants an audience. He leaves them alive.
why did he leave them alive
They witness his ascension and they see his power but they fight to stop him, still. He does not fear them. He is purpose. He is meaning. His will is solid stone.
But they call to him with words he does not know, circus people, all have our issues, never forgiven myself, could have done something to save you, molly, molly, mollymollymolly
you're killing her, you're killing her, you love her, you're killing her,
and he feels it fighting inside of him, this deep raw wound flayed open in his chest, something there that should not be, the part that never should have existed, trying to free itself, trying to help them, to save them, these people, these people--
The blue tiefling reaches out with her magic and splits him in two, and he dies in agony, in fear, knowing his purpose is gone, disbelieving, lost and confused and knowing only that he has nothing left, that there is nothing left of him.
Lucien dies, and the city dies around him.
==
Here is another story about grief.
He calls himself Kingsley, because the last thing he remembers is feeling like royalty.
He was someone else, once. Or, rather, the body he is in belonged to someone else once, someone who had friends who call themselves The Mighty Nein. He thinks they’re shifty, weird, unusual, but they welcome him into their fold with laughter and tears and open arms, and he has nowhere else to go, anyway, and so he stays.
He does not like to think about their friend. He looks like him, he is certain of that, and perhaps there are some things which are the same, but he is different. He is a different person. He leaves behind that name, and the coat, and starts on the long, winding journey to discover himself, and who he is, but there is always something in his mind that feels… familiar.
Love. Joy. Tinkerer. Magician. Sea. Rumor.
Empty.
He joins them near to the end of their journey together, and feels so much like an outsider that he can hardly stand it. There was something here, once, his mind tells him. You were something more. And he has to shrug those thoughts away because they make his skin feel too tight for his body.
They seem to understand, these strange friends-who-are-not-his-friends-really, and they leave it be. They do not press for him to become who he might have been. Beauregard gives him a journal, closes it in his hands and says, ”Whenever you’re ready,” and he feels--
He joins Fjord and Jester upon their ship, and sails with them for a long time. A year passes. He learns everything he can about the ship, about the crew members, about the world. He lets Jester mark his body to make it feel more like his own, and drinks with the crew when they stop in ports, and savors the feeling of ocean wind through his hair.
Another year passes. He wakes up one morning and decides that he might like reading. He picks up Beauregard’s journal.
Weeks later, he leaves the ship to visit. She and Yasha live in a small cottage outside of Rexxentrum. He knows it when he sees it; it is absolutely overcome with wildflowers.
He stays with them for several months, and they tell him about the friend they lost. A circus man, a peacock, a braggart. A kind and caring friend. Hedonistic. Gentle. Obnoxious. Loyal. Woke in a grave and made a life and lived it, and then gave it to save these people who meant so much to him.
If Kingsley closes his eyes, if he thinks hard, if he lets the quiet wash over him, he can almost remember--
Well. Nothing concrete ever sticks with him. Smells, sounds, sentences sometimes. Feelings. He is surprised to find that it saddens him. Ashamed to say that he almost wishes he could remember, that he could be this person for them, again, and perhaps Yasha is psychic, or simply perceptive, because one night she puts a hand upon his shoulder and says, very quietly,
“He would want you to be you,” and it takes Kingsley an hour to stop crying, although he will never admit that it happened.
He leaves their cottage and returns to sea, feeling more like himself than he ever has, and when more years have passed and there is another ship, he names it ‘Mollymauk’ and steals it right out from beneath the captain’s nose.
Somehow, he thinks Fjord doesn’t mind.
Kingsley sails off into the sunset, and lives.
==
Here is a story about love.
One day, Mollymauk Tealeaf is lying on his back in empty whiteness, and he meets a man dressed in a cape of raven feathers.
He is upright and austere, with a face obscured by a metal beak, lower jaw visible, mouth drawn into an amused smirk as he crouches down to help Mollymauk stand.
“You’re an interesting one,” is the first thing Mollymauk says to the stranger, and it makes him laugh, sharp and sudden.
“So are you,” says the raven-man. “My name is Vax. I’ve come to take you onwards.”
“Onwards?” Mollymauk tilts his head. “That’s ominous.”
“Maybe for some people,” says Vax. “But The Raven Queen has taken a shine to you. I don’t think you’ll mind it all that much.”
The Raven Queen. Because he’s dead. Mollymauk brushes himself off, and considers this fact, and also considers that he is not panicked, or afraid. He simply is. It's a pleasant surprise. “So you’re death, then? You don’t look how I thought you would. You’re more handsome, for one.” He smirks. “I can tell, even with the mask on.”
Vax laughs again. “Thanks. And I’m not death. Just a messenger, of sorts. A champion.”
“Champion. Impressive.” Mollymauk crosses his arms. “And you’re here to take me ‘onwards’.”
“Yes,” Vax nods. He holds out his hand. “Come with me.”
Mollymauk smiles. He thinks of his life, and his friends, and how he knows-- knows, somewhere deep inside-- that they will be okay. That they are better than he left them. He thinks of them all, moving on, fighting and succeeding, living their lives, dying, and he says, “Not yet.”
The Raven Queen’s Champion cocks his head, not unlike the bird his armor mirrors.
“Not yet,” Mollymauk says again. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll just hang around for a while. You know,” he waves a hand, “to wait for the others.”
Vax’ildan studies the strange purple tiefling in front of him, and he feels the soft, cool caress of his goddess’ hand upon his face, and he smiles a little more, a little wider.
“Well. If you’re sure,” he says, and he turns and leaves, and Mollymauk watches him go, and when he is alone again he claps his hands and rubs them together and says (to himself),
“I’m too noble for my own good,” and laughs, and sits cross-legged on the ground to wait.
He waits for days. Years. Eons. Seconds. Time seems to have no meaning in this place, this sliver between life and death.
Nott comes first (although she is Veth, now) and he greets her with a grin and a hug. He kisses Caleb’s forehead when they meet again, and pinches Jester’s cheeks (and doesn’t mind when Artagan comes to sit with them). He gives Fjord a bow, and draws Beauregard into a hug that’s more a chokehold, and braids Yasha’s hair, and they laugh and joke and reminisce until Caduceus comes wandering in, and then Essek, the two he never knew but is glad to meet now.
Kingsley is the last, somehow.
“I got lost,” says the other purple tiefling, no longer Mollymauk’s mirror image, his own person, new and complete. “The sea is a big place. Hello,” and he offers his hands. “It’s good to finally meet you. You know, you look just as gaudy as I thought you would?”
Mollymauk laughs, loud and happy, and shakes Kingsley’s hand. “I love living up to people’s expectations,” he says.
“Hey,” Caduceus says, already walking ahead. “We should get going.”
“Oh! He’s right!” Jester dances in place. “This is so exciting, I can’t wait to see what’s next!”
“Yeah,” Mollymauk says, as the others gather, as they step forward into the unknown, together. “Neither can I.”