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Another morning, another day of misery. Your fault , she thinks, It’s been over a month, they aren’t coming to save you or whatever. Veth deserved it. She’s probably back in her body and with her son while everyone else does whatever the fuck they’re into these days. Maybe they’ve split off from each other. See, this was the right choice.
She’s had to convince herself of that every morning for the past month and 2 weeks and 4 days and-
Get your ass in gear, Lionett.
She ended up at a small tavern on the edge of the Empire. The old owner up and died one day and Beau woke up in the now abandoned bedroom the next morning with the deed in her name on the nightstand. Hey, at least she got something.
And so she got to work. Kept the old staff, increased their wages and lowered some prices. No sense in making other people miserable- business would stay afloat regardless.
She often went to bed after 3- staying awake until the last calls were out and everyone left the bar. Someone else had to deal with rowdy customers, broken tables, and room rentals. Other employees were there to handle the morning rush.
This morning, one of the cooks hands her a cinnamon pastry from a new recipe she wanted to try out. She almost cries. She has to reign herself in from crying a lot these days- too many things set her off. Seafarers, cats, tea, buttons, adventuring parties, parents with small kids, etc. The worst is thunderstorms. They happen too often these days. She tries not to dwell on that one too hard.
A few groups come through for brunch, and lunch is practically empty. Slow days are nice. She leaves to go for a walk. It’s sunny for once- a break from the usual rain and thunderstorms. She subconsciously picks up a flower from the ground and slips it in her journal with the others she collected. There isn’t much to write these days. Dairon would be disappointed. Do they even remember her now? Do the Nein?
Thunder crackles above her. Of course.
She keeps walking until she’s at the edge of town where civilization becomes woods. She catches herself humming a song Fjord used to hum while he sailed.
Stop thinking about them, she chides herself, they’re better off without you.
Clouds start to cover the area. A light drizzle starts.
She finds a tree and sits a few feet away from it. She takes a deep breath and lets it wash over her. Meditating is much easier when you’re not trying to save the world. As long as she can push the thoughts of her old team away, she could do it for hours.
Her peace is interrupted by the tree in front of her being struck by lightning. Energy courses through her body as she jumps back, “Fuck you too, Isharnai,” she yells at the tree.
She blames it on adrenaline, but it doesn’t go away.
A group enters and immediately finds a table. Beau doesn’t look up at them. She wouldn't believe what she saw if she did. She continues making drinks for people at the bar top while her family sits across the room without her knowledge.
“She didn’t acknowledge us when we walked in, do you think she remembers us?” Yasha says as they sit down. Her voice is raw; she doesn’t speak that much these days. Guilt and grief built up walls around her heart again. Walls she had just broken. This could be her only chance at breaking them down once more.
Caleb puts his hand on her shoulder, “I think Beauregard is just busy, I don’t think she has it in her to forget any of us, even with Isharnai’s deal.”
“And didn’t she say everything she did was reversed? She has to remember us,” Jester hits her hands on the table.
“I don’t think we should all go up at once,” Caduceus begins, “Only one to start, we don’t need to overwhelm her.”
“Yasha,” Jester says instantly, barely letting Caduceus finish.
Yasha’s eyes go wide in panic. “Shouldn’t Fjord or someone who can break the news gently?”
“That’s why it should be you, Yasha,” Fjord says, “You understand what went through her mind that day more than any of us.”
“Okay”
Beau makes her way to the end of the bar and drops the glass she had in her hand. The glass shatters on the ground around her feet but she barely notices. The woman in front of her looks exactly like- no it can’t be.
“Beau,” the woman says and Beau wants to sob. She had almost forgotten what Yasha’s voice sounded like. Her body moves before her brain does and she’s standing in front of Yasha in an instant. She forgot how tall Yasha is.
Yasha’s arms wrap around her, her hand rubbing at her growing out undercut. “It’s okay now, we fixed it.” Beau is so small like this. Yasha always towered over her, but Beau’s usual confident demeanor helped mask the differential.
“It’s really you,” Beau’s voice full of astoundment and rough with tears threatening to come out.
Yasha smiles for the first time in many weeks, “it’s me.”
Beau steps back and takes in the sight of Yasha. She has dark circles under her eyes- darker than usual. “The others-”
“Are here whenever you’re ready.”
Beau’s heart stops, the reality of what’s happening setting in. “I- uh,” panic strikes across her face, “I don’t know if I can. I can’t- I can’t.”
“Hey, it's okay. Breathe. Take your time.”
“I need to get out of here, I need to sit down,” she picks up a glass and fills it with what looks like water. She chugs the whole thing. “I need to go to my room.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“Please.”
Beau leads Yasha into her room and she almost starts crying immediately. It's too much. She had made peace with not seeing them again and now they were here in her bar and Yasha’s watching her like she mattered to her. Like she still does.
Yasha leans against the doorframe as Beau starts pacing. “What are you thinking?”
Beau stops in her tracks, looks from the floor to Yasha and shakes her head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Yasha-” her voice breaks, “you can’t just expect me to come back like nothing happened. I’m back to square fucking one compared to you all who are probably even more powerful than you were before. I can’t just walk back into all that.”
“The curse reversed, you should have your powers back.”
“Even so, what all has changed between everyone that I missed? Nott is probably Veth again. Hell, didn’t Travelercon already happen? The peace talks? I missed everything, Yasha. I can’t come back,” there’s a venom to her tone that had been building up for so long.
“We didn’t have Travelercon yet,” Yasha keeps her voice level.
“What?”
“We delayed it. And we haven’t gotten her body back yet either.”
“Why didn’t you-”
“We’ve spent the entire time trying to get you back. It took weeks to be sure killing her would reverse the curse and not put you in danger and when we weren’t sure, we made a deal with her.”
“Is everyone-”
“Everyone is fine, Jester tricked her. I’ll tell you that later.”
Beau goes through a facial journey of most emotions in the frame of 3 seconds.
“Dairon got Caleb into the Soul’s libraries to research. They sent us with an extra one of these in case something happened to your old one.” She presses an Expositor pin into her hand.
Beau stares back up at Yasha, meeting her eyes. Yasha’s holding a mix of a plea and deep sadness.
“We couldn’t rest until we fixed this.”
“It wasn’t worth it-”
“Beauregard, losing you almost broke me like Molly did. Like Zuala. I thought I was going to lose you in the Cathedral and I was so relieved to not and then you left and didn’t tell any of us. The only thing that kept me from leaving again was getting you back.”
Beau’s brain stops working for several seconds and she looks away, trying to process what she was just told. One, Yasha had never called her by her full name. It was rare when anyone but Caleb did, but Yasha never had. Two, comparing losing her to her best friend and her wife dying? “Yasha I-”
“Just because you don’t think you’re deserving of love doesn’t mean we don’t love you- that I don’t love you.”
“You love me?” Beau’s voice is small, and if the room was any louder Yasha wouldn’t have been able to hear her.
Yasha walks to stand in front of Beau, puts her hand under her chin and lifts her face up so their eyes meet. “I have for a while- I just wasn’t ready to admit it to myself. I finally accepted it the day before you left. I was convinced I was cursed before-” Yasha trails off.
“I’m so sorry.”
“No. This isn’t on you. I just want you to understand how much we all care about you. I know I was gone for a while and couldn’t show you how much I cared- still do, but we all should’ve done better. We need you and we love you.”
Tears start at the corners of Beau's eyes but Yasha keeps going.
“They’ve all been so torn up. Jester’s slept in my room for weeks now. Fjord refused to sail out for the peace talks because he didn’t have you- his first mate. It took weeks for Caleb to research what would’ve taken you 3 days tops. He barely slept. Nott sat with him every day to make sure he ate something. And Caduceus tried to get the Wildmother to intervene every chance he got. Hell, we got Essek involved in trying to figure this out.”
She continues, “If you want to stay here then fine, but it won't be without the knowledge that we love you so much. That I love you,” she takes her hand away from Beau’s face and turns to leave.
“Wait-” Beau practically begs, “I regretted it the second I left. I almost broke down seeing a fucking cat the other day. Every time an adventuring party walked in I had to excuse myself to calm down because I couldn’t stop thinking about everyone.”
Yasha turns back to Beau.
She picks up her journal- now full of pressed flowers and opens it to the first flowered page. “But most of all I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I didn’t have anything to write so I started picking up flowers. I convinced myself it wasn’t because of you.”
“Beau-”
“Every time it rained I’d listen for thunder and hope it was you coming back. Feelings have always been so hard for me I thought they’d stop if I left everything behind. I figured if I ignored how much I cared about everyone, it’d go away, but it just got worse. I cared so much I thought if I left I’d rip the bandage of you all leaving one day. I thought giving myself agency over the choice would make it better but-”
“That’s never how it works,” they say in tandem.
“I left all those times because I was scared of how strongly I felt about you all,” Yasha’s face is so tantalizingly close to Beau’s, “your heart doesn’t care about your opinions, it just feels.”
“Kiss me,” tears still drip from her eyes as she speaks, “we can talk about it later, but please.”
Of all the ways Beau thought about what kissing Yasha would be like, this was never one of them. Yasha was so soft in the way their lips met that it almost made her cry more. She’s not used to being handled with care.
When they pull away it's only because of a lack of breath. ”We’ll talk later, but for now you should see everyone else before they barge the door open themselves.”
“Yeah,” Beau takes a breath and lets her beating heart calm, “let them in.”
Before she knows it, Beau is wrapped in the arms of the entire Nein. Cries of “why did you take the deal” and “we missed you so much” erupt through the room but stay unanswered for now; conversations can come later.
“Don’t do that again,” Fjord puts his hand on her back.
She breathes in the embrace from her family, realizes how much she missed everyone, “okay.”