Chapter Text
The first tattoo vanished so quietly that Mollymauk almost convinced himself it had never existed.
It happened on an ordinary morning.
The Mighty Nein had made camp beside a winding river, the sort of water that was clear enough to catch the dawn in fractured ribbons of gold. Mist hovered over the surface, and somewhere in the trees, birds had begun arguing with one another long before anyone else had found the energy to wake.
Molly crouched at the water’s edge, sleeves rolled to his elbows.
Cold water splashed across lavender skin.
He scrubbed dried blood from yesterday’s fight from the backs of his hands before lifting his wrist to inspect a particularly stubborn smear.
Instead, he frowned.
“…Well.”
His right wrist was smooth.
A delicate crescent of violet ink had once curled just beneath the bracelet he always wore.
Now there was only skin.
No scar.
No fading pigment.
Nothing.
He rubbed harder.
The skin flushed beneath his fingers but remained blank.
“Huh.”
He stared another few moments before snorting quietly to himself.
“Either I’m losing my mind or my tattoos have started wandering off.”
He pulled his sleeve back down.
By breakfast he’d almost forgotten about it.
———
The second one disappeared four days later, this time Caleb noticed first. They had rented two rooms in a roadside inn after nearly a week on the road, and the luxury of warm water had convinced even Molly to bathe before collapsing into bed.
Steam drifted lazily through the room.
Caleb sat at the small desk translating notes while Molly stood near the wash basin, drying his hair with a towel.
“Molly.”
“Hm?”
“You have…” Caleb frowned.
“…less.”
Molly looked over his shoulder.
“Less what?”
Caleb stood.
His brow furrowed deeper with every step.
“There was an eye here.”
He gestured carefully toward Molly’s left shoulder.
“A small one.”
Molly twisted enough to look.
Only smooth purple skin stared back.
“…You’re right.”
His smile faltered for the first time.
“I swear there was.”
Caleb reached out instinctively before stopping himself inches away.
“May I?”
Molly nodded.
Caleb’s fingertips brushed gently over the empty skin.
No raised scar.
No magical residue.
Nothing.
“It is simply…” Caleb whispered.
“Gone.”
———
Jester declared it had to be a curse.
Beau insisted someone was playing an elaborate prank.
Fjord suggested illusion magic.
Caduceus quietly examined every inch of Molly’s remaining tattoos without speaking.
When he finally leaned back, his expression carried an unease that Caleb knew too well.
———
Over the next two weeks, they kept count.
Not because they expected more to disappear, but because they couldn’t ignore the pattern anymore.
Every sunrise revealed another missing piece:
A flower vanished from his ribs.
A winding ribbon disappeared from one thigh.
Tiny stars decorating the backs of his hands blinked out one by one.
Always painless, always clean, always impossible.
The tattoos never faded.
They simply…
Ceased.
Caleb began waking before dawn, the dread of finding another empty space causing many sleepless nights.
Sometimes it was only a single line.
Sometimes an entire design.
Every disappearance felt like another page quietly torn from a book no one had finished reading.
———
At first, Molly joked.
“What do you think? More aerodynamic?”
Beau rolled her eyes.
“You are literally becoming less colorful.”
“Tragic.”
Jester laughed.
Caleb didn’t.
———
The jokes stopped after Zadash.
Molly caught his reflection while changing shirts and froze.
His chest had once been woven with sweeping curls of violet and crimson that framed his heart like stained glass.
Now there were gaps.
Large ones.
Not enough to ruin the design.
Enough that the missing pieces stood out more than those remaining.
He stood there for nearly five minutes quietly. An eerie stillness began to seep into Molly as he looked at his reflection silently.
Caleb found him that way.
“…Molly?”
No answer.
Caleb stepped closer.
“Molly.”
The tiefling finally spoke.
“I don’t remember what was there.”
His voice was small.
“So why do I miss it?”
Caleb looked into the mirror instead of directly at him.
The empty patches were startling.
They weren’t ugly, but they had an unfinished look that made Molly seem fractured into small canvases of incomplete artistry.
Like a masterpiece abandoned halfway through.
“You miss it,” Caleb said quietly, “because you know it belonged to you.”
Molly swallowed.
“I keep trying to picture it.”
He touched the smooth skin over his collarbone.
“I know there was something beautiful here.”
Another pause.
“I just can’t remember what.”
Caleb’s heart ached.
He wanted to say the obvious—that the tattoos weren’t Molly.
That ink wasn’t identity.
But looking at Molly standing there, tracing the outline of something no longer visible, Caleb realized that wouldn’t help.
———
That evening, after everyone else had fallen asleep, Caleb quietly returned to the room.
The usual Molly would have been sleeping, or messing with his cards, or doing anything, but Molly contently sat in silence (as he seemed to be doing more of lately).
“I cannot sleep either,” Caleb admitted.
Molly smiled weakly.
“I was thinking.”
“I know.”
A long silence settled between them.
Finally Molly asked,
“Do you think they’re disappearing because I’m forgetting who I am?”
Caleb answered immediately.
“No.”
Molly looked at him.
“You didn’t even think.”
“I did not need to.”
“But what if-”
“No.”
Caleb’s voice was firmer now.
“You are not becoming less yourself because something has happened to your skin.”
Molly looked down at his hands.
“It feels like I am.”
Caleb crossed the room until they were only a step apart.
Then, very gently, he took Molly’s hand.
“I have watched you comfort frightened children,” Caleb said quietly.
“I have watched you make strangers laugh when they believed they had forgotten how.”
“I have watched you stand between monsters and people you barely knew.”
He squeezed Molly’s hand.
“None of those things were written in ink.”
For the first time in days, Molly’s smile reached his eyes.
Only for a heartbeat.
But it was there.
Outside, unnoticed by either of them, another tiny violet line disappeared from the back of Molly’s shoulder. And somewhere far away, whatever ancient magic was unraveling him continued its patient work.