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It’s just a normal dinner.
That’s what Yasha keeps telling herself.
“Fucking forgot to sign off on that form Dairon’s been hounding me about,” Beau is saying, between gulps of wine. She’s been doing it all night; fixating on the small things. It’s what she’s always done, as long as Yasha has known her. “Figures, yknow? Now it’s gonna be weeks. Dairon’s gonna fuck me up when I get back.”
Beauregard looks particularly beautiful in this light.
Stunning, one might say.
Her wife is leaned up against the counter, hunched over a plate of mostly-cold food left out from hours earlier. She’s grunting appreciatively, shoveling it into her mouth—just as she usually does when she gets home late from work. It’s certainly no candlelit romantic meal, but it’ll have to do.
Yasha had originally hoped there would be a bit more pomp and circumstance for it all, but with the looming solstice, Beau’s early nights have become a thing of the past.
“I could heat it up again.” Yasha’s offered it several times already. Mostly, she’s just hoping the topic doesn’t shift to anything more serious.
Beau blinks at her, shrugging. “It’s good as is.”
“Not as good.”
“Fucking wrong about that.” Beau cleans off the fork. “Gonna miss your cooking on this goddamn trip. Caleb’s stupid fucking boba pearls always give me the worst indigestion.”
“Try spiders.” Yasha wills her face into a gentle smile. It’s a joke. She’s making a joke.
And Beau does laugh, but it’s not string-free. She studies Yasha, elbows propped up on the counter. A strand of hair has freed itself from her topknot, and she blows a puff of air to move it from her face. “You’re worried.”
It’s an understatement.
To say the least.
“I’m alright.” Yasha really, really doesn’t want to get into it. She’s been avoiding this for weeks—since Beau first brought up the Apogee Solstice, the Ruby Vanguard, the Grim Varity, The Shadowfell.
Beau rubs her neck. “I don’t have to go.”
Everything in Yasha wants to agree. She wants to wrap her arms around Beau’s waist and hold her close and never, ever let her leave again. “Yes, you do.”
Beau loves fighting. She loves winning. And she’s good at it. If Exandria is truly hoping for a savior, they couldn’t ask for a better one if they begged.
Or a martyr.
Yasha really hopes it’s not the latter.
Her knuckles turn white from where she’s gripping the edge of the island, sucking in her breath.
Beau puts down her fork. “Yash, come on. Don’t fucking… pull away. Not tonight.”
A muscle works hard in Yasha’s jaw. “It’s me.”
“I don’t—”
“You’re my wife , Beauregard.”
Her wife. A title as good as “death sentence.” She’s tried to heal, and for the most part, she’s done a pretty good job, but some days, it feels like loss still follows her like a dark shadow—waiting to strike.
Her mind fixates on Zuala. Her first wife, her first love. Yasha can’t let Beau fall to the same fate. Can’t go on living and breathing if Beau joins the only other woman she’s ever adored on the other side of the veil.
“It should be me,” Yasha continues, unsteadily. “I should be the one fighting.”
“You hung up your sword.”
“If one of us is going to die—”
“Neither of us is going to die.” Beau grips her arm. “I have no intention of letting Caleb Widogast outlive me, got it? If that squishy motherfucker is sticking around, I am, too.”
Yasha tries to laugh. It sounds a bit like a sob. Beau reaches up to wipe Yasha’s cheeks, and only then does she realize she’s started to cry.
“I —” Yasha breathes out, leaning against Beau’s touch. “I’m not strong enough… to lose another one. My fear is entirely selfish, Beau. I need you to come home to me.”
Beau presses her forehead against Yasha’s and pulls her close. “You could go, too.”
It’s another possibility that Yasha’s been considering. Veth has already offered to watch the little ones. They would be safe with the Brenattos. She could go with Beau, fight beside her, heal her, drag her away from danger when Beau’s pride wouldn’t let her do it herself.
“I can’t,” Yasha whispers. “I can’t make them orphans. Not like I was.”
Beau grits her teeth. “Why do you keep talking like that? It’s the Shadowfell and then Marquet. We’ve been to worse places.”
Yasha shrugs. “I don’t trust these people you fight beside. They’re not us.”
Us.
The Nein.
They should be going together. Plunging into danger as one, like old times.
Splitting the party is a dangerous thing.
“Caleb and I have been doing jobs like this for ages,” Beau promises. “We’ve got this in the bag.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
///
Cross my heart.
Hope to die.
The phrase rattles around in Beauregard’s head as she and Caleb part ways to set the final charges. They’re the only two left from their original party.
Ryn. The Shadowfell team. One by one, everyone around them has fallen. Beau really, really wants to know which god they pissed off that keeps landing them in these sorts of “last line of defense” situations.
When is it gonna be someone else’s turn to save the goddamn world?
Beau’s scarf is pulled up high over her face, but it doesn’t help much. They’ve been choking on dust for days. She smells rank and is already wishing for a hot fucking bath.
She’s getting real sick of this solstice shit.
“Here we go,” Caleb mutters under his breath, giving her a nod. “See you on the other side, ja?”
“Don’t jinx it, man.” Beau lets her eyes linger on him for half a second before turning away. They’re going to be fucking fine.
They have to be.
“Beauregard.”
Beau glances back over her shoulder to see the man she calls a brother staring at her. His ginger hair is a bit greyer than it once was, and his eyes have a few more wrinkles, but Caleb is still Caleb through and through. Familiar. Recognizable. And while she’d be reluctant to admit it out loud, it gives her some measure of comfort to have him here. They’ve stared circumstances like this in the face before and made it out alive under far unluckier odds. They can handle a little hit and run.
Right?
“Don’t die,” Caleb says after a few long moments.
It reminds Beau of Dairon.
Yet another person counting on her safe return.
“Don’t plan on it.” Beau tosses him a grin. It’s all she can do. She adjusts her goggles, clearing her throat, which has gone dry. “Got people waiting on me back home.”
“ Ja.” Caleb colors a bit. “Me too. But, uh… if I go down, you run. Got it?”
“Caleb—”
He doesn’t shy away from her glare. “Promise.”
“Fuck.” Beau runs a hand through her hair. “Yeah, man. Same goes, alright? Let me go down in a blaze of glory and tell my story to your tiny purple time-wizard children.”
“That is not going to happen.” Caleb swallows hard.
“The glory thing or having Essek’s babies? Is it because you’re getting old?”
Caleb rubs his forehead, and Beau grins. She fucking loves pissing him off like this. “Man, you’re always so weird about your relationship. Easy target. Besides, who knows, you two fucks almost invented time travel. Maybe you’ll make arcane babies with the same shit—”
“Don’t fucking die, Beauregard.”
And then he’s gone.
Beau takes a moment to center herself, then plunges into the fray. She makes a beeline for her target device, dodging around giant armored automatons and bustling grunt workers. It seems everyone is trying to look busy down here on the ground floor, the bustle of activity increasing as the solstice approaches by the hour.
Beau had caught sight of the other infiltrator group earlier as they crested the rim, but she’d instantly lost track of them in the chaos. She’s not too worried. They’ll prove to be useful or will simply serve as a distraction.
Beau gets to win either way.
Her training and instincts take over as she completes the final few steps. Centered breathing. Light feet. Blend in. Read the room.
Unfortunately, the anti-magic devices they decided to target are in plain sight and heavily populated. It’s almost like they don’t want people trying to attack them. Go figure.
Plant the charge.
Rig the charge.
Get the fuck out of here before the charge goes off.
It’s Beau’s mantra as she works quickly and stealthily. Avoid. Duck. Run. She backtracks through the rocky landscape, counting the seconds in her head.
Three.
Two.
One.
And all hell breaks loose.
The machines detonate. Shards of metal go flying. Heat singes the side of Beau’s face, and she braces— scanning for Caleb. She’s almost to their rendezvous point now, and from there, their exit strategy is simple: get the fuck out of dodge.
Find Caleb, find Caleb, find Caleb, find Caleb.
“Fan out,” a familiar voice magically projects into the space—velvety, greasy. She recognizes it instantly as Martinet Ludinus Da'leth. “You’re looking for two disrupters. Joyfully predictable in their arrival.”
Beau ducks behind a piece of rubble, hopefully out of his sight. She’s hoping that the Martinet expected a ranged attack from Caleb. Perhaps it’ll give them both some cover. Divert attention a little bit.
Through the smoke, haze, and dust, Beau hears a single groan—accompanied by the grinding of metal gears. It sends a deep chill down her spine. In the center of the place, she can see the silhouette of one of those damn mage hunters.
And she knows exactly what mage the construct found.
“Fuck,” Beau mutters. Her hiding spot is decent. She could stay put until a path cleared, continue her exit, and keep her promise to Caleb.
To Yasha, too.
She could use this opportunity to get the fuck out. Ludinus would be satisfied with punishing Caleb. He likely wouldn’t be sending reinforcements after her. She could make it back up to the rim and out.
But truly, if Beau’s being honest with herself, she was never going to leave him. It was a faulty promise from the start.
It’s stupid. It’s suicide. And it doesn’t matter. She’s not leaving him.
Beau clenches her fist, grits her teeth, and ducks out into the open. From the looks of things, Caleb doesn’t have a collar on yet. If she can just get a good strike on the mage hunter, it might distract it long enough for Caleb to fight back.
Or at least buy him some air time.
Someone runs past her in a beeline for the Key, nearly sending her to the ground. She curls in on herself, keeping her gaze fixated on Caleb.
“C’mon, c’mon,” Beau grunts to herself, swinging her staff off her back. She’ll go down fighting here if she has to. “ Don’t fucking burn out on me now, Widogast.”
The collar catches a glint of red light above, ominous as the other claw of the mage hunter brings it down towards Caleb’s neck.
Beau’s almost made it in range now, and she prepares to leap.
“Ah, ah.”
Beau freezes. Not of her own accord. Her muscles lock in place, arms forced behind her back. Her staff clatters uselessly to the ground as an unseen force turns her slowly.
Upon the first glance of her captor, Beau’s momentarily confused. The lavender woman from earlier is attacking her. Why the fuck—
And then it clicks.
“You,” Beau coughs out. “You must be the mother.”
The resemblance is uncanny. This woman is clearly older now that Beau has gotten a better look, the years visible on her face. Her eyes are darker, sadder, and her mouth is set into a grim line.
The woman extends her hand, beckoning Beau forward. “Did you really think you could win?” Fuck, even the twang and tonality of her voice is similar.
“Eh.” Beau knows she’s in serious danger. Her body can’t move. Her weapon has fallen. And her backup has likely already been collared. She tries to laugh. “It was worth a try, right? We all got family that we’re trying to—what’s that bullshit you fuckers keep saying? Create a better world for?”
She waits for any show of recognition on the woman’s face. Indeed, her jawline clenches for just a moment. It’s a chink, perhaps. One discovered too late.
“Are you going to submit on your own?” the woman continues. “Or will I have to step in?”
Beau snorts. “I think you already know the answer to that.”
The woman raises her arm.
Beau’s world goes red.
////
Walk forward.
Walk forward.
Step.
Step.
Kneel.
There’s a sudden cold pressure on her legs, arms, wrists. Someone’s hands wrap around her neck, squeezing, prying her mouth open. Something rough slides against her teeth, against her tongue. It tastes of iron.
All of a sudden, Beau is choking. She convulses a bit, red fog clearing. She gasps against the fabric in her mouth, lungs burning, eyes smarting.
Steady, Lionett.
Steady.
Breathe.
Beau’s eyes dart around, taking in the scene. She’s on the ground. How did she get on the ground? Her knees dig into the rocky terrain, tearing the fabric of her pants and flaying the skin underneath.
Ludinus—the fucker—is up on the Key, staring right at her. Even from a distance, she can see the sick smirk on his face. He’s enjoying this—enjoying watching her bound and kneeling on the ground.
Submitting to him.
Beau’s never wanted to kill him more.
All these years of tracking him, analyzing him, studying him—all for this? For him to get off on watching Beau be humiliated? The abundance of manacles and chains dig into her joints, with several more still clicking into place. Overkill, perhaps. But probably not.
Now, Beau’s been in dire straits before. She’s escaped from some pretty fucked up situations—situations she had no business surviving. She’s been frozen to the side of a dragon, had her windpipe crushed by The Nonagon, been nearly stabbed to death by the woman she falls into bed with at the end of the night.
But each of those near misses had been deflected by the rest of the Nein. Without them… well, without them—she’s as good as fucked.
Caleb.
Beau cranes her neck to catch a glimpse of him. He’s no longer being held aloft by that damn mage hunter, but the collar is latched around his neck.
Shit.
And then, of course, it gets worse. It always does. Ludinus reveals a goddamn beacon, and Beau wants to kick someone. Maybe herself. Of course the assembly is using the Luxon Beacons. Of fucking course.
It’s one of the final missing pieces that she’s been trying desperately to unscramble, going around and around these last several months. And now she’s powerless to stop him from using it.
She takes in her options, doing her best to calculate how much time they have until the solstice hits. It can’t be long now. Ludinus shoves his arm into the Key, and suddenly, time becomes a whole lot more confusing. Hours rush by in a matter of moments—the dizzying spin threatening to overtake her. Beau shuts her eyes as the chaos erupts around her, trying to channel Dairon’s voice in her mind.
Focus on the breath going in and the breath going out.
Correct your mind if it wanders.
Breath is a powerful tool, Beauregard. Harness it.
The dull panic in Beau’s veins and head begins to fade. The blood pulsing in her ears begins to sound like ocean waves, rolling forward and back—slowing the hammering against her ribcage.
She’s not chained up; she’s just holding very still.
The cold press of the manacles against her wrists are gusts of salty breeze. She can hear Veth and Jester laughing, the gentle thrum of Fjord, Kingsley and Caduceus chatting nearby. If she opens her eyes, she’ll see Caleb sitting a few feet away, reading a book and probably taking copiously annotated notes to give to Essek.
And Yasha.
Yasha will be standing calf-deep in the ocean, staring out at the horizon. She’ll have the kids with her, maybe, lifting them high above the waves.
And Beau. She’ll have Beau, too. She’ll always have Beau.
I’m sorry.
Beau doesn’t like admitting defeat. She refuses to open her eyes. She won’t see her own failure, her own inability to save the one fucking world that her chosen family walks in. She won’t see Caleb, collared and slumped. She won’t give Ludinus the satisfaction of watching him win.
Instead, she’ll sit here. She’ll see the ocean. She’ll hear her family. She’ll spend her last moments with them.
Everything goes white. And Beau stops thinking at all.
///
Somewhere, a million miles away, Yasha Lionett-Nydoorin is staring up at the sky.
Instead of a storm, she’s fixated on the bright leylines dancing in the darkness. The red moon glares down at her, and Yasha can’t help but feel the hair rise on the back of her neck.
She hasn’t heard from Beau in a while. And although she’s tried not to dwell on the possibilities, the solstice being moments away doesn’t help.
"Anything?"
Another figure joins her in the doorway. His usual disguise has fallen away. Apparently, Essek didn't want to... die during the solstice as anyone other than himself.
"Not yet." Yasha inhales slowly, grounding her feet. One hand is pressed against the doorframe of her home. She hopes the kids are sleeping, although she has a sneaking suspicion they understand that something is happening tonight.
They can likely sense her restlessness, her worry.
For the thousandth time, she wonders where Beauregard is. Whether she’s staring up at the same sky or… whether it’s already too late.
Her knees wobble a little, and she grips the wooden post.
"They are capable," Essek says quietly. It sounds more like he's trying to reassure himself.
"I know." Yasha takes a few steps out into the yard, past the garden she's been meticulously tending for months. If she can't save Beauregard, she can at least grow the best tomatoes in Zadash. “Stormlord,” she rasps out, quiet, low, pleading. “I don’t ask for much. I don’t ask for anything at all, usually. I am asking, though, for her. Be with her. Please.”
It’s tied for the most important prayer she’s ever uttered.
Yasha would fall to the ground and beg if she thought it would do anything. Instead, she stands. And watches. The red starts to close in—the dreaded solstice beginning at last.
Beau.
Yasha can’t breathe.
You promised.