Work Text:
Jester looked down at the empty page of her sketchbook. Usually she knew exactly what she wanted to draw, but now she was at a loss of inspiration.
She flipped through the sketchbook. There were a couple of drawings she'd made of her mother and a few other sketches from home in Nicodranas, but most of the pages had been filled with pictures and notes of her travels: caricatures of people they'd passed and creatures they had defeated, watercolour paintings of landscapes they'd journeyed through, messages for the Traveler, portraits of her friends that she made whenever they weren't paying attention to her. All the fun and exciting stuff she had experienced.
As she went through them one by one, she came across one of her favourite drawings. It was the latest one she'd made, one of Kiri with her little music box. Jester was really proud of this one. She'd made sure to put as much detail in all of Kiri's little feathers as possible, as well as the happy, little music notes floating all over the page, to truly capture the joy of the little girl with her music box.
That was the last drawing. On the next page, there was a singular note she'd written to the Traveler.
Why didn't you come?
Jester clenched her jaw in anger. Everything had been fine before. Sure, the Traveler didn't answer her all the time and sometimes she wondered if he really was around, but then he'd show her — whenever they won a fight or battle, or hell, even that stupid drinking game in Hupperdook that she didn't even participate in — that he was watching over her and her friends. Which is why her sketchbook, filled with all her good memories and fun experiences, was dedicated to him.
But then everything had gone wrong. The Iron Shepherds had come for her, Fjord and Yasha, shackled and gagged them, put them in cages and taken them away. At some point she'd heard the horrible sounds of fighting outside the caravan they were being transported in, and a part of her hoped it was the sounds of her friends coming to free them. But when the fight was over and they started moving again, she hoped, and prayed to the Traveler that it hadn't been them.
The next few days she had spent tied up next to Fjord as the Iron Shepherds did horrible things to Yasha and all the others that had been taken by them, while her nights were spent reliving that moment where she'd heard the sounds of battle while she was tied up and unable to help. Something horrible had happened that moment, she knew it. She had dreams of all her friends dying at the hands of the Iron Shepherds; Yasha and Fjord to the awful torture devices she'd seen used on the other captives, and Caleb, Nott, Beau and Molly right outside the caravan that fateful night.
The more time went on, the worse the nightmares got, and at some point she lost hope that anyone would ever come for them at all.
Then thankfully, someone had come to save them. For a brief moment, Jester had thought it might be the Traveler, but it wasn't. It had been her friends. The others, who had apparently followed them all the way to the Sour Nest just to rescue them.
She didn't know how to feel about that. If anyone should have come to rescue her, it should have been the Traveler. She spent so much time worshipping him and she knew he watched over her, protected her, kept her and her friends somewhat safe throughout their dangerous travels. But the moment everything seemed to be going wrong, when Jester needed him the most, he was nowhere to be found. She almost felt… like he had abandoned her? She didn't want to think of the Traveler that way, but it hurt that he hadn't even shown a single sign leading to something, anything, that could have been of help.
Because in the end, it had been Nott, Caleb, Beau and some new friends of theirs who had come to save them, which she was so incredibly grateful for. But she felt angry too. Angry that the Traveler hadn't come for her, instead leaving the task up to her friends, who had gotten badly injured along the way, if the gash in Caleb's stomach and the bruises all over Beau's body were anything to go by. It left a bitter taste in her mouth.
But those frustrated feelings of neglect were instantly washed away, replaced by worry the moment she had been freed from her blindfolds and chains, and noticed the state her friends were in. She immediately went to find Yasha, trying to heal her from whatever it was the Iron Shepherds had done to her.
Then they got ready to leave and she remembered frantically looking around, scanning the faces of her beat-up friends, seeing all they had gone through just to get to her, Fjord and Yasha. She remembered counting the heads of the people she didn't know, and those of the ones she did…
Someone was missing.
Jester's heart had dropped into her stomach. She'd known immediately that something was wrong, but she didn't dare ask, for she was afraid of what the answer might be. After a moment, she collected all the courage she had within her, just to utter the horrid question.
"Where's Molly?" Her voice had trembled, because despite asking it, she didn't want to know. A part of her probably already did.
The grief-stricken glaces shared between her friends told her all she needed to know, but even when Beau explicitly told her he hadn't made it, she refused to believe it. Molly would meet them outside. She had to tell herself that, lest she burst into tears right then and there.
Except he hadn't been waiting for them outside and he hadn't joined them back on their journey to Zadash either. At some point, Caleb had stopped their carriages on the way, and Beau had taken her by the hand, led her to where he lay resting.
Oh, Molly, she'd thought, looking at his coat which hung over the wooden cross by his grave, covered by a thin layer of snow, billowing slightly in the wind. You were so special.
She'd sat on her knees by his grave, pulled one of the tarot cards from his deck that Beau had retrieved and thanked him for all that he'd done. Fjord had said some words of his own and then she'd stood by Yasha, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder before the other woman had taken off with a mournful cry. Caduceus had then stuck his hand into the ground and said he'd made the earth remember Mollymauk. "Something will be here," he'd said.
And now Jester was sitting in one of the carts besides Nott, reunited with her sketchbook, staring blankly at the page that read, Why didn't you come? In all of what had happened, being separated from her friends, them coming after her, and Molly fighting till the very end… Why hadn't the Traveler looked over them? She'd prayed to him, begging not for her own safety, but for that of her friends. So why, when reunited with them again, had one been missing? It just wasn't fair.
Mollymauk had been so wonderful, so full of life, a beautiful spirit with lots of love to give. It felt wrong that his grave was the first one Jester had ever been to. Tears welled up in her eyes at the thought of it.
She flipped the page of her sketchbook and got out her watercolour paint and her pencils. They still had a long ride ahead of them, so she could spare plenty of time to make a large, double-paged watercolour piece. Normally her drawings and paintings were for the Traveler, but this one would be just for Mollymauk. And for herself.
Not once did her attention leave the page as she channelled all her focus into the careful strokes of colours she worked on, blending everything together and shaping it into one beautiful picture:
A snowy hillside with a small, round patch of green grass where a cross made from wooden sticks stuck out from the ground. From it hung a beautiful, extravagantly decorated coat, covered in a soft layer of snow, and by it stood the rest of the Mighty Nein. The sky was dressed with purple clouds, and among them, Jester painted Molly, as beautiful as she remembered him, adorned with bright, white wings and a glowing halo above his horns, looking down upon his friends. Because Jester knew that if the Traveler wouldn't be there to protect them, Molly would.
Then she decorated the ground around the grave with flowers. Caduceus had said something would grow there, and knowing him, it could just as well be a bunch of fungi, but Molly deserved something pretty. Something purple, like him, that would tell him she missed him, that they all missed him. So, very much. A flower that symbolised they would see each other again, someday, someway.
Jester looked down at her painting, holding back her tears so as to not ruin it. She grabbed her pen and ink, and below it, she wrote in the nicest handwriting she could muster:
Thank you, Molly. We love you.