“i’m sorry.”

she says nothing.

“do you have anything to say to me?”

the floorboards press down as mom approaches the bed, sits on the edge.

“it’s rude not to look at someone while they’re talking to you, beauregard.”

she starts crying before she turns around, hot silent tears, knows it’ll throw mom off. she’s learning that mom doesn’t prepare for her to actually feel something when she speaks to her— at least, not anything she doesn’t want her to feel.

“i— i said i was sorry, beauregard—“ panic twists on her face, panic and fear. she reaches out and thinks better of it. “but it’s not all my fault. if you’d have just been ready in time, i wouldn’t have to yell. you know i just want you to be ready so you don’t make your father angry, you know that. i don’t want him to be angry at you.”

then why don’t you do anything when he is, she doesn’t say.

(he said he wanted a son. don’t you care?)

“can you say you’re sorry?” mom asks, voice gentle for the first time.

“‘m sorry.” it feels torn from her before it’s fully grown. before she has a chance to feel it.

“there we go. may i have a hug?”

she buries her face in mom’s shirt, tears fast and hot.

this is the worst part, she thinks. because it means they’re done talking about it.

—

“i knew this was all you would ever do,” thoreau lionett says. “we tried so hard with you, and you still did this to us.”

she stares at him as the crownsguard goes and gets the keys for her manacles. she can feel a bead of blood tracking down her forehead, cool, and soaks in the sensation of it like it has any of the catharsis of crying.

i wanted to travel, she thinks, for you. i wanted to take some bottles from that good year to zadash, where they have the big harvest close market. maybe i’d even make it to rexxentrum. i’m not the one who said no.

didn’t you give up trying, she thinks, when i wasn’t a boy? didn’t you give up before i could even try?

“yeah,” she says instead. “looks like you were right.”

the crownsguard takes her manacles off with the glassy sound of grainy metal on grainy metal. she bends her hands at the wrist one way, and then the other, the crack of joints orphic and loud in the quiet hall.

“get your things,” dad says, almost spits. “we’re going home,” and he says home like the definition doesn’t quite reach all the way to her.

he’s always said it like that, she thinks, like she’s the one who made it that way.

i wanted to make you rich. i wanted to make you proud.

her chest hurts.

—

“wow, you really let him get to you, huh?”

the sand pit monitor bends down to look her in the eyes, squinting. there’s a smirk curling at the edge of her mouth, like it’s funny.

“no,” she says, because her tone makes it sound like she shouldn’t have.

“kid, he’s gone. it’s just you, now, just you and me. doesn’t matter why you’re here. you have the chance to make something out of it, if you let it go.”

it sounds nice when she says it. like it’s something she could do.

“alright—” and the monitor cracks her neck. blocks her face with her forearms. “let’s go again.”

let go, she thinks, and doesn’t.

she sees her moment coming like it’s brought to her by the gods, sweeps the monitor’s leg and sends her flat on her back in the sand.

she struggles to her feet. “see, there you go. just gotta let go.”

“yup,” beau says, and gives the monitor a hand, and doesn’t tell her that she can taste blood because she bit down on her tongue.

—

“jeez,” fjord says. “so sensitive,” and she wants to fucking punch him.

he’s still smiling like it doesn’t mean anything, like the sound of it isn’t like teeth in her.

she can feel it in her, the urge to cry. tries to think about making her mind go blank— it doesn’t matter what it is, they always say, your response can always be controlled. it doesn’t matter why you’re upset, because you can choose not to be.

(fjord and jester, they think she’s a monk. she’s a monk, right? did all the training, and stuff, but that’s, like, one of their whole things. how making your mind go blank is supposed to let you see more clearly, how it can heal you, and she’s never felt that, not once. it’s just something wrong with her, right, it’s gotta be?)

then, something funny happens. the lump in her throat, that tickly herald of angry tears, it turns into a rasp, and she starts to cough.

“beau?” jester asks, from up ahead. “you okay?”

she doubles back and rubs her hands together until they glow, round face scrunched with worry, and the itch in her throat subsides, leaving only the ghost of an ache.

“yup,” she says. “just fine, jessie. don’t waste your spells.”

fjord looks worried, too, when she glances over at him, but then jester bumps into her with a shoulder.

“beau,” she says, like it’s obvious. “it wouldn’t be a waste.”

no? she almost says, almost lets it slip that she really isn’t sure it wouldn’t be, and doesn’t.

—

“i’m sorry, beau.”

“pretty sure i should be sayin’ that to you, jes.”

they’re curled in the belly of the cart together, towards the back. further up, caleb and nott are dozing, totally spent, and fjord’s sharing the driver’s seat with mr. clay, their words blurred together in a low, gravelly buzz.

“it’s not your fault, beau,” jester says, even though tears are sliding down her face sideways, getting lost in her hair and falling into her mouth. “it’s not anyone’s fault.”

“yeah,” she says, and reaches for jester’s hands. “i’m still sorry, though. how come you’re sorry?”

jester looks right in her eyes. “molly loved you a lot.”

“oh—” and her throat winds shut. “you think so?”

“i know so, beau.”

she doesn’t speak for a moment. doesn’t want to speak badly of the dead, but she’s the least afraid of saying it to jester:

“maybe he should’ve said it once or twice.”

jester’s eyebrows scrunch further together— not really a frown, just concern.

“i think he thought you’d see it.”

“yeah,” and she’s crying, too, now. “i wish i did.”

“it’s not your fault you didn’t— he could be pretty mean. people don’t always know how to show it so other people can see it, you know? but he did.”

she doesn’t say anything, just pulls jester’s hands a little closer to herself.

“it’s not your fault you don’t think it’s love when someone’s mean to you, beau.”

“i—”

“i can tell, you know. i wish fjord could. he wouldn’t give you such a hard time if he knew it hurt you like that.”

jester wriggles closer so she can wrap her arms around beau.

“i won’t ever do that, i promise.”

“okay,” she says into the crown of jester’s head, and falls asleep like that.

—

she has a wicked coughing fit that night, goes and sticks her head outside of the dome to try and keep from waking anyone else up.

she thinks about it, about fjord making the horses go so she has to run to catch up, molly laughing when he’d successfully pissed her off.

that’s love, she thinks, that’s what love looks like. just gotta learn to see it, and then she coughs up blood.

and if jester does that, too, forgets, well, she won’t blame her.

—

she gets used to it.

maybe it’s because she didn’t have siblings, you know? from what caduceus says, she thinks, that’s just how siblings are. they love each other without saying it. maybe if she’d had one— if her parents had had the son they wanted earlier, when she was still around, maybe she’d get it.

fjord lets up, a little. she hopes jester didn’t talk to him about it— doesn’t want to miss out on any of it— if this is the kind of love fjord wants to give, then she wants to soak it in like flowers in summer, wants to know that it’s all around her, that it’s for her, even if it aches at first. she didn’t get the chance with molly, so she’ll take it now.

he calls her his first mate and she knows she’s doing better.

caleb is easier— she thinks they might be the same way. they can practice with each other. she hauls him up after a nasty fight, while flames are still licking up the grass where bodies have fallen, and thinks of the little boy in the lionett manor, thinks of holding him up, over her head, where mom and dad can’t reach.

(nott, though, is gonna take some time. she still can’t really tell if nott thinks she’s good for anything other than watching out for caleb. and, well, maybe she isn’t, but at least she’ll be damn good at that.)

and jester hasn’t broken her promise, yet. she even tells nott off, calls beau pretty and smiles like it’s easy, like she believes it, like she knows how it makes her feel.

if she’d had to place bets on which would stop, jester wanting to be her roommate or jester talking about fjord, beau never would have bet on herself, but somehow that’s sort of just how it turns out— jester says she loves her, on the deck, in the rain, and asks her about nott and yeza and blushes furiously, and tusk love never comes back out of her haversack. the first time they meet marion lavorre she eyes fjord up and down so fiercely beau wonders just how many messages jester’s sent to her about him, but the second time they visit it almost feels like she turns that gaze on beau.

wishful thinking, she chalks it, shakes off the thought and heads down the hall to jester’s room.

—

she gets sick when they go to kamordah.

she wants mom and dad to be like she remembered— it’d be easy, right, then, to just give up on them. to throw herself the rest of the way into these new people, and learning how to learn how they love her.

mom’s what she expects, at first— she holds it like a shield, dad being awful, like it’s a burden only she’s got to carry, like she doesn’t have another entire person to care for. she’s so surprised they’d even told tj about her that she starts crying when he runs to her.

she plans what she’ll say to mom on their way out— she’ll turn to mom and say that she had better do more to make sure tj’s okay than she had with beau, because maybe she’s not what they wanted, but he is, and they should at least care for the things they wanted.

but then dad goes and says all the shit he never seemed to be able to when she needed it. says he’s proud of her like she’d gone off to school, like it had been her choice. like that’s what she meant to do, to make him proud.

for a moment, she almost wonders if maybe it was.

he says she wouldn’t come home just to see them like it’s funny, like it’s something mutually understood. like she’d chosen to leave— and she only pauses because the way he says it almost, almost reminds her of fjord, saying something that he knows will get to her because it’s a sign that he knows her, and there’s another moment where she wonders, again, if she’s been wrong. if that’s what it was.

but then jester pulls her aside.

—

she loves jester— don’t tell nott, she’s sunk on her so far the fishhook feels like just another part of her mouth— and she knows jester’s right, but it’s funny, she tells her almost exactly what the cobalt soul used to, and it’s like ice water down her spine.

(beauregard, dairon tells her, i think the soul has taught you that anger is wrong.

isn’t it, though, she says, and ducks both of dairon’s fists, makes you sloppy and all that?

anger can make you sloppy, yes. it can be fleeting, and can lead you astray when you mistake it for strength. but anger is not wrong.

they catch beau’s fists, one in each hand, easy because beau feels the fight, the fire draining out of her.

anger is what you feel, beau, she says. no one can tell you that what you feel is wrong.

beau cries in the makeshift training pit and dairon lets her.)

“yeah,” she says to jester, “okay,” and for the first time in months, feels the urge to cough.

—

it gets worse all the way to the witch’s hut, this feeling of something growing. like when caduceus casts that funny spell he has and mushrooms sprout in seconds, not days— natural, but unnatural, that’s what it’s like.

she thinks isharnai can see it in her, whatever it is— her eyes from under the snarly curtains of hair glitter like nott’s used to, like she’s seized on something precious.

and, well, whatever’s precious to her can’t be good for beau.

when she thinks jester gave her something in kind, it crawls up almost to her throat and she starts wheezing— she should have done it, she thinks, should’ve protected jester, should’ve protected all of them.

but jester’s so fucking smart, always, and instead she just cries in front of everyone and tastes blood and knows that something is wrong.

jester gets angry with her, and she’s trying to decide whether to say hey, i finally got to see it or are you breaking your promise when she falls backwards.

—

she wakes up in rosohna, in their bed.

there’s a faint strain of caduceus’s artificial sunlight that almost makes her think she can gauge what time it might be by looking out the window, but then she remembers.

or, rather, she tries to roll out of bed to look out the window, fails miserably, and remembers as she takes ragged, gasping breaths into a pillow that it wouldn’t matter anyway.

she passes out again.

—

“—just don’t understand why she didn’t tell us she was sick! they said it’s really dangerous, and it was all this time, how could she not tell us? how could she not tell me?”

she wonders if jester’s trying to wake her up by yelling. she can hear tears in her voice, shakes and tries not to open her eyes.

“jester,” caduceus says. “i don’t think she knew.”

—

“beau.”

she doesn’t move.

“beau? i know you’re awake, i can tell. your breathing’s different. i know by now, you know.”

both of jester’s hands are around one of hers. she doesn’t open her eyes, just squeezes, and jester squeezes back immediately.

jester takes a deep breath. “okay, i— we brought you back to see a doctor here, and they said you have, like, plants in your lungs. caduceus hasn’t even heard of it, that’s how i knew it was bad, but apparently you can get it if—”

a sob tears through her voice and she stops completely. beau can feel her shaking right down to where she’s still holding her hand, and opens her eyes.

jester looks fucking miserable— she doesn’t think she’s seen her cry this much since she scried on yasha, cheeks dark, eyes wild.

“you get it when people don’t love you enough.”

oh.

she opens her mouth— to apologize, for being selfish, for all their love not being enough— but nothing really comes out.

right.

plants.

jester would have cut her off anyway, she lets go of beau’s hand and leans forward, gripping the sheets— “and i told fjord, i told him and nott that they shouldn’t be so mean to you, and i said if yasha doesn’t love you like you love her then she’s stupid and missing out because you’re perfect, beau, really, everyone should love you. i hate that they don’t, i don’t— i wish i could be enough.”

she keeps leaning forward, and beau can see just how long she must have been crying— there are tears beading together under her chin, and soaking into the front and lap of her dress.

“they said it only happens like this if you’ve had it before, and i hate that it must have been your mom and dad, i’m so sorry, i wish i’d just told you they didn’t deserve you instead of that you should forgive them, that’s what i meant, they don’t deserve you and they shouldn’t be allowed to have a kid at all if they did this to you, we’ll go back and get tj as soon as you’re better and he can live with momma and yeza and luc in the chateau—” she finally pauses to breathe, wet things, gasping and desperate. “people should have loved you your whole life, beau. i love you so much, you know, but i shouldn’t be the first one.”

she feels like she could say something, then, opens her mouth and almost immediately spits blood down the length of the bed.

“oh, gods, oh gods, beau, hang on,” and jester runs out of the room, comes back in with a thin metal dish of some kind— “here, it’s gonna be okay,” and she cries and rubs beau’s back while she coughs, blood first, then leaves, petals, until she’s retching entire plants into the basin.

when she’s done, her chest feels empty, hollow like her lungs had been somewhere in there. she smiles at jester, bloody and tired, and falls back against the pillows.

—

that night, jester carries her into the bathroom down the hall and runs a bath.

(“i know it looks bad, jester,” caduceus says, tilting the basin and peering into it, “but this is actually a very good sign.”)

she knows it’s late because everyone’s in bed— they all ducked in, briefly, to smile watery smiles at the two of them and say they love beau. it’s the first time for some of them but she doesn’t mind— but are asleep now, and the house is quiet except for the faucet and jester humming.

jester pulls a stool right up next to the big clawfoot tub while beau gets in, sinks down and tips her head against the lip.

she watches beau for a minute with big, dark eyes.

“it’s okay if you don’t know why— i know you didn’t even know you had this— but was it because i said i loved you? why all the plants came loose?”

“yeah,” she says, head still tilted back. she feels drowsy, still, heavy and warm, and jester looks hopeful more than anything. “i think so.”

“oh.”

jester looks into her lap for a long moment, purple spreading across her face like wine on fabric. so pretty, always so pretty, beau thinks, and when jester just blushes deeper she realizes she must have said it out loud.

then, she looks up.

“can i kiss you?”

“yeah.”

jester cries a little when she kisses her, shakes like she’s cold, except beau know she doesn’t get cold. after a long moment, she pulls away and swipes at her eyes, strips down to just her smallclothes and climbs in and just holds beau against her.

He hasn’t joined the party yet, choosing instead to watch the revelry below from one of Jester’s childhood hiding places. He observes the masquerade through a simple face mask; a deep forest green, dappled with lighter greens, decorated with kelp and colorful sea glass, and held in place with a piece of the red cord he’s carried with him since his time on the Tide’s Breath. Jester had insisted that they all keep their masks and costumes a secret until the party, so Fjord makes a game out of searching the crowd for his friends.

Nott (Veth he has to remind himself. Not Nott anymore. Veth) er, Veth is easy enough to spot, leading Yeza around the buffet table. She’s wearing a pretty yellow dress, embroidered with delicate flowers. Her dark hair is braided into an elaborate updo, dark eyes sparkling with excitement above her broken porcelain mask.

He picks Caduceus out next, his firbolg form towering over most of the guests, but especially the white-haired gnome he’s conversing with. The beetle mask he’s wearing should be creepy as fuck, but his soft, floppy ears and long waterfall of hair soften the edges and make him look only mildly disconcerting.

Yasha would be hard to miss in a crowd, even without the large white wings that sprout from her shoulders. Her dress is midnight blue, embroidered with silver thread in patterns reminiscent of a lightning strike. Fjord thinks her white avian mask might be an eagle of some kind, but it’s hard to tell with her head ducked as it is, eyes on her dance partner.

Her dance partner being Beau. Beau, who Fjord wouldn’t recognize if he didn’t already know what her mask looked like. They’d gone shopping for masks together (Jester had pouted for hours when she found out), and he’d been the one to find the elaborate owl mask that looked a little too much like Professor Thaddeus. She’s dressed in a charcoal grey suit trimmed with blue. It has sleeves. Beauregard Lionett is willingly wearing sleeves and dancing and isn’t trying to start a brawl with the goliath from Vox Machina. He’s so proud he could cry.

It takes him a while to find Caleb. He’s sequestered himself in a dark corner (another one of Jester’s favored hiding spots), like Fjord, keeping himself separate from all of the attention and praise that none of them are quite sure they deserve. His cat mask is pushed up so he can better focus on his conversation partner. Essek, Fjord realizes with no small amount of shock. They’d invited him of course, at a banquet in Rosohna celebrating the end of the war, but none of them had expected him to actually show, Caleb especially.

Fjord searches the room for Jester fruitlessly. She isn’t by the stage, where a family of gnomes called the Shorthalt Seven play song after song. She isn’t sitting down with Allura Vysoren and her wife, Kima, who have abandoned their masks (a golden swan and a silver dragon, respectively) in favor of wine and ale. Nor is she at her mother’s side as Marion flirts with both Lord and Lady de Rolo. The Lady’s bronze dragon mask does little to muffle her laughter as her husband flushes a brilliant crimson behind a raven. She isn’t pestering Taryon Darrington, who is wearing a garish mask that can only be his construct, Doty. (the construct is wearing a mask, too. A truly horrifying thing that Fjord can only guess is supposed to be a likeness of Taryon.) In all of the music, laughter, dancing, drinking, mischief, and general chaos of the evening, Jester is nowhere to be found.

“Looking for someone?”

Fjord nearly cracks his head on a low beam jumping at the soft voice beside him. He’s halfway to summoning the Star Razor before he thinks that it might not be the best idea to run a random party guest through with a sword. He does spin towards the voice, and comes face to face with Keyleth of the Air Ashari and Vox Machina. The Voice of the Tempest. The powerful as fuck archdruid that could level the Chateau if she really wanted to.

Her rabbit mask is pushed up between her antlers, so he can see her wince and blush. “Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He waves off her apologies. “It’s fine, really,” he says, taking a breath and willing his heart to stop racing. “I just wasn’t expecting anyone else to be up here, that’s all.”

Keyleth nods, her mask slipping a little with the movement. “I get it,” she says. “Don’t get me wrong, I love getting dressed up, and the free drinks are always a plus, but the whole socializing part of events like these have never been my forte.”

“It’s not the socializing I mind,” he says, searching for the right words. “It’s being the center of attention that bothers me, I suppose. Especially when-”

“You feel like you don’t deserve any of it, and you’re terrified that everyone will realize all at once how much of a fuck-up you truly are and throw you out on your ass?” Keyleth finishes, giving him a wry grin.

Fjord laughs. “Um, yes. To all of that.”

“Unfortunately, that feeling never really goes away,” she says, shrugging. “Sorry.” She’s quiet for a moment. “Having friends helps,” she says eventually. “Getting to see the positive impact of something that you did? That helps, too.”

“Thank you,” he says. “I think it also helps knowing that you aren’t alone in what you’re feeling.”

Keyleth grins. “Don’t mention it. Now, did you need help finding someone?” Her fingertips spark with magic as she wiggles them at him. “I probably have a spell that can help.”

Fjord shakes his head. “Thank you, but sometimes it’s just nice to sit back and watch the crowd.”

She likely sees through the lie, but she doesn’t push it. “Okay,” she says awkwardly. “Well, I should probably get back before my friends send a search party after me. They can get kind of paranoid sometimes.”

He nods. “It was nice talking with you, Miss Keyleth.”

He’s turning back to search for Jester when Keyleth calls his name. He turns back to her, about halfway down the stairs, an unreadable expression on her face. “Yes?”

“One last piece of advice?” He nods. She takes a deep breath. “Don’t wait until it’s too late to tell someone how you really feel about them. It works out for some,” she adds, eyes darting to Lord and Lady de Rolo, now dancing close, lost to everyone else but each other. “But, the more time you get with someone you love, the better.”

He swallows past the lump in his throat. “Thank you,” he says quietly. “I’ll take that into consideration.”

What he doesn’t say is that he was already almost too late. They’d lost Jester during one of their recent battles. She’d gone down and Caduceus was too far away, too focused on keeping Caleb and Beau alive. Fjord and Yasha’s meager healing abilities hadn’t been enough, and, for twelve agonizing hours, Jester was lost to them. Cad was able to bring her back with Beau and Nott’s help. Fjord’s too. He’ll be damned if he can remember everything he said, but he knows he’d whispered his love to her, for only her to hear.

Keyleth is long gone when Jester’s voice interrupts his thoughts. “Fjo-ord, where are you? I’ve been looking everywhere for you. The party got too stuffy, so I went to my momma’s balcony for some fresh-”

He chuckles as her message cuts off. “Message received, loud and clear. Stay where you are, Jessie, I’ll be right up.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fjord finds Jester right where she said she’d be; in her mother’s room, out on the balcony, staring up at the night sky, the ocean breeze gently ruffling her hair. He stops to examine the mask that she’s left on the table before going out to join her. It’s a full face mask, styled after old theatre masks. One side laughing, one side crying; comedy and tragedy in one. The laughing side is a deep emerald green, the crying a jewel-bright pink, all accented with gold.

As he sets the mask aside and moves to join her on the balcony, he sees that the colors perfectly match her dress. The sleeveless bodice is patterned with harlequin diamonds, green, pink, and gold. Her skirt flares out, layer upon layer of emerald green tulle. She looks like a princess, and Fjord, in his simple mask and pirate costume, feels every inch a pauper.

The moment he sets foot on the balcony, she turns to him, and the smile she gives him wipes away any momentary insecurities.

“There you are, Fjord,” she teases. “It feels like I’ve been waiting forever.”

He grins, moves to lean against the railing. “Please accept my deepest apologies,” he says. “How ever can I make up for such a grievous error?”

Jester giggles. “Wellll, for starters, as cool as it is, you can take your mask off. This balcony has officially been declared a “no mask zone”.”

“Is that so?” he asks, smirking when she nods seriously. “I suppose I should comply, then. I wouldn’t want to break official rules.”

He unties his mask and hands it to Jester, watching as she runs her fingers over the sea glass. “This is really cool, Fjord,” she says, rubbing her thumb across a piece of kelp.

He blushes a bit, ducking his head. “Thanks, Jes. Yours is...gorgeous,” he says. “The wh-whole ensemble, really. I mean, gods, Jester, there’s rarely a day you don’t take my breath away, but tonight...gods, tonight...”

Her eyes are wide when he finally dares to look up at her, mouth hanging open just a little, a purple flush coloring her cheeks and chest. “Fjord...” She laughs a little, breathless. “Fjord, I...”

She’s speechless, searching for words, but she isn’t panicking. There are tears starting to gather at the corners of her eyes, but she’s smiling, and not the sad, pitying kind of smile she’d given Freddie de Rolo when he’d tried to kiss her, and she had to turn him down. He steps a little closer, gives her time to retreat if she wants. She doesn’t move.

He reaches up to stroke her cheek, and she leans into his touch, eyelashes fluttering. “We never did have that talk about the day you died,” he says softly. “Or about the day we brought you back.”

“No, we didn’t,” she says. She bites her lip. “What...what did you want to talk about?”

He has to close his eyes, can’t watch her face as he says what he’s about to say. “I don’t know what I would have done if we hadn’t been able to bring you back, Jester.” His head drops until his forehead meets hers. “Losing you would have destroyed all of us, certainly, but you can ask anyone, Jester. I was useless. It was only twelve hours, but it felt like a lifetime.”

She lets out a shaky breath that he can feel wash across his cheek. “And all of that stuff you said during the ritual?”

He pulls back just enough to look into her eyes. “I meant every word.”

Tears are flowing freely down her face. “Even the part where...”

“Especially the part where,” he says. “I’m in love with you, Jester Lavorre, and it shouldn’t have taken you dying for me to admit it.”

Her answering smile knocks all the breath from his lungs. Or maybe that’s her jumping to kiss him, throwing him off balance with her enthusiasm. He ends up on his back on the floor, Jester sprawled on top of him, both of them laughing hysterically.

“Oh gosh, Fjord,” Jester manages between giggles. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Jes, don’t you worry.” He pushes himself to sitting, giving her the chance to climb off of him. Instead, she settles more fully in his lap. “And you don’t ever have to apologize for trying to kiss me, alright?”

She grins, leaning in to kiss him. “Good,” she says. “Because I’m going to want to kiss you a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. I’m talking an obscene amount of kissing here, Fjord.”

He laughs, winds an arm around her waist. “I think I can live with that, darlin’.”

She rests her forehead against his. “Will you say it again, Fjord?”

He kisses her again. “I love you, Jester.”

“She wanted to,” Fjord informed her. “I managed to convince her not to, but she was half a second from scrying on her and sending her an invite.”

“Fuck, man. I owe you.”

“You really do,” he agreed because the argument-Jester had insisted it was a ‘debate’-had gone on for nearly an hour. He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, “I was thinking-“

Beau cut him off, her hand coming up to grip his shoulder to the point he thought it was going to bruise. “What the hell, Beau?”

“Do you hear that?” she asked, her eyes looking up at the sky above them.

“Hear wh-“ but he didn’t get a chance to finish the question because Beau was tackling him to the ground as a large sound exploded around them.

Not just sound he realized as he sat up, ears ringing.

The garden had exploded.

Flowers and people were scattered everywhere and a portion of the house was on fire.

“Jester,” Fjord whispered, getting up and running towards the house, the echoes of Beau’s warning a dim sound as he ran flat out towards the doors and up the stairs.

He could hear people screaming for help, and a part of him was pulled towards those sounds-he’d been charged with protecting people, with protecting the whole of nature, but his world came first.

And Jester was his world.

“Jester!” he yelled as he climbed the stairs and skidded at the door of her childhood bedroom. “Jester,” he called again, pushing the door open.

“I’m here,” he heard her call and his knees went weak with relief as he saw that she was okay.

“You can’t be here!” Nott was yelling from the balcony doors, her crossbow at the ready. “You can’t see the bride before the wedding, it’s bad luck!”

“I think we’ve passed that point,” Jester argued reasonably. Her hair was falling out of the pins a little bit, dust and debris covered her dress; she was so gorgeous Fjord was pretty certain his heart stopped. “What was that?”

“Fireball,” Nott answered. “I recognize it as something Caleb’s done before.”

“Someone attacked the house?” she asked, disbelief coloring her voice. “On my wedding day!?”

Fjord walked across the room, some of the windows had been blown in and he could smell the acrid sent of smoke floating into the room. The fire was close. “We have to get out of here, Jessie.”

“Who would do this?” she demanded as she opened her armoire and took out her axe and component pouch, tying it around her waist where the Traveler’s symbol already hung. She’d been hoping he’d show up, she’d also been hoping the Gentleman would come, but thus far neither one had made an appearance.

Either way, Marion was supposed to be the one to walk her down the aisle.

“Where’s your mother?” Fjord asked, realizing Marion wasn’t in the room.

“I-“ she looked around the room, her brow lowering in confusion. “I thought she was here? Nott, did you see where my mama went?”

“She got a note,” Nott remembered, her eyes still focused on the garden outside where they could hear the shouts of people asking for help and other people responding that they were coming. He recognized a handful of voices and knew that, for now, things were covered outside. “Stepped outside and said she’d be right back.”

“Fjord,” she stepped towards him for the first time and wrapped her tiny fingers around his forearm. The women in his life were constantly bruising him. “I don’t like this.”

“I don’t like it either,” he agreed. “Nott, you got this? Can you check on the others?”

“Go, I’ll message you when I know everyone is okay.”

Grabbing her hand with his Fjord let Jester out into the hall just another explosion rocked the house. “Fuck,” he bit out as they were thrown against the wall. “Shit, fuck.”

“Agreed,” Jester murmured as she hung on to him. “This a lot of magic.”

He heard the unanswered question in the statement, who would want to put this much energy into attacking them? “I mean, a lot of people hate us.”

“I’m going to cast sending and see if I can find Mama.”

“Not here,” he argued, pulling her down the stairs and into the dining room where Marion had sung the night before for their rehearsal dinner. He led her to the corner of the room and unsheathed his sword so he could protect her while she did her magic. “Okay, send it, but be quick.”

Jester nodded and quickly cast the spell, counting on her own fingers because Fjord was watching the room to make sure no one came out while she was in the magic. “Mama? Where are you? Are you okay? Someone’s attacking the house. I’m with Fjord and we’re okay, where are you? Are you okay?”

Fjord waited patiently for Jester to tell him what Marion had said, but he could hear footsteps above them. They needed to move sooner rather than later.

“Jessie?”

“He’s got her,” she answered, her voice panicked. “I didn’t even think-it’s been so long.”

Fjord lowered his sword and turned to face Jester whose face had gone pale blue. “Whose got her?”

“Sharpe.”

It took him a minute to remember the name; the powerful and embarrassed lord who Jester had humiliated by locking him out on a balcony in nothing but a girdle in full view of the city. He’d wanted her executed, but that had been years ago.

Surely he couldn’t have been holding a grudge this dangerous for that long.

“That’s absurd.”

“It’s the truth,” she told him as he put a hand on her shoulder before she could say more.

“I know it’s the truth. I believe you, I’m saying he’s absurd.”

“Mama says she’ll be okay but-“

“We’ll go get her,” Fjord assured Jester. “Do you know where she is? Where he’s taking her?”

Jester nodded and took his sword from him, cutting at the frothy fabric of her skirt till he could see the pink shoes and stockings she’d had underneath. There might be something seriously wrong with him, because he didn’t think he’d ever seen anything so sexy in his entire life.

He was still staring when Jester handed him back the sword. “Fjord!”

Bringing himself back to the present he took his weapon and swung it once out of habit, loosening up his wrist for the battle that was certainly to come.

“EVERYONE’S OKAY ARE YOU OKAY WHAT ARE YOU DOING? YOU CAN REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE.”

Fjord winced at Nott’s magical shout, “We’re fine but someone’s got Marion. We’re going after her.”

“We’ll hold the fort here,” Caleb’s voice chimed in from the air. “There’s a handful of people attacking the house but we can handle them.”

“Sounds good,” Fjord replied and then relayed the conversation to his bride-to-be. “You okay with this?”

Jester looked uncertain, lifting one shoulder in a kind of shrug. “This wasn’t in the wedding vows.”

“What are you talking about? I have a whole paragraph about rescuing kidnapped parents in my vows, you don’t?”

She smiled, which had been his intent, and together they stepped out of the big house and ran in the direction of Sharpe’s house because he was too stupid to have a hideout of any kind.

“My vows had a thing about piracy,” Jester said between breaths as they turned a corner.

“No more piracy?” Fjord clarified, and her grin was wicked when she looked over at him.

“More piracy,” she corrected. “At least once a year I want Captain Tusktooth make a return to the seas and take down at least one ship. The guys can come if they want.”

Fjord couldn’t believe he was laughing as he ran down main thoroughfare in the hopes of rescuing his soon to be mother-in-law on his wedding day, but wasn’t that the kind of life he’d signed up for when he’d proposed to Jester?

“Fair enough.”

“There, that’s the house.”

The building Jester pointed to was slate gray, without an once of color or style to it. “That’s one ugly ass house.”

Jester mumbled something under breath, a spell, but couldn’t remember which one. “Mama’s in the basement.” Locate creature. “Do we have a plan?”

“Do we ever?” Fjord asked her seriously. “No moths, though.”

“No,” she agreed and there was something incredibly dangerous about her as she stared at the house which contained her mother. Fjord knew better than anyone exactly what Jester Lavorre was capable of, but he’d bet all his money Sharpe had no idea what he’d brought on himself. “But when we see him, I get the first shot.”

Fjord took her hand and kissed her knuckles, “After you, sweetheart.”

Jester walked across the street and together they stepped into the shadows created by the setting sun and slipped into an open window and on nearly silent feet made their way to the basement door where they could hear Marion viciously mocking Sharpe from the room below.

“Quiet!” an unknown male voice shouted, probably Sharpe himself.

“Let me go, Sharpe. You’re making me miss my daughter’s wedding.”

Fjord was impressed at how steady she sounded, considering she hadn’t been out of her house in close to a decade.

“Your daughter is going to be dead before the night is out, the little bitch is going to pay for what she did to me.”

“I said,” Marion began, her voice taking on a quality which made Fjord feel a little queasy. “Let me go. You will untie me, and your comrades will stand down as I leave the house.”

There was a shift in the air, Fjord could recognize powerful magic when it moved around him.

“Your mother has magic?” Fjord whispered.

“Of course she does.” Fjord rolled his eyes at Jester’s tone because how was he supposed to know if no one told him? “She doesn’t use it very often anymore, but you can always catch a bit of it when she sings.”

Well, that certainly explained a lot.

There was a creak on the stairs and Fjord pulled Jester back and away from the doorway, standing in front of her. Not that she needed his protection, but he’d rather take the hits than risk her going down. He might be able to heal, but his magic had nothing on hers.

Fjord briefly wished for his shield, raised his sword, and prepared to strike as soon as the person stepped through.

“Mama!” Jester cried, pushing past Fjord to hug her mother. “You’re okay!”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Marion assured her daughter, her smile completely calm and unworried. “I told you I would be, but we should go. The charm I cast on Sharpe and his friends won’t last long and I’d like to get the guards here before he comes to his senses. Jester! What happened to your dress?”

Fjord sheathed his sword as Jester explained.

Everything was going to be fine.

 “I mean, we can always just do it another day,” Beau suggested pragmatically as the Mighty Nein assessed the damage of the ruined wedding décor.

They were all in various states of disarray; when they’d gotten back with Marion the fight was beginning to die down and Beau was the only one who really looked the worse for wear. Her charcoal gray clothes were cut and splattered with the blood of Sharpe’s men.

Both Reani and Keg were watching her with avid interest, but Beau had yet to notice that.

Caleb and Nott only looked like they’d fallen in some dirt and given enough time would probably be presentable, but Fjord’s clothes were filthy from Beau throwing him to the ground and Jester still wore her cut up dress.

Not exactly the classiest of wedding attire for any of them.

“Jessie?”

She scrunched her nose and studied the damage. “I don’t mind waiting if you don’t.”

Fjord thought about waiting, about trying to plan this all again and getting all his friends and family in one place for a second time. Sure they could just do it all tomorrow, but he’d already waited long enough to marry Jester. He really didn’t want to wait another day.

“Fuck it, let’s do this now.”

Cheers rang out from his friend and from the people nearby who could hear and in a flurry of movement Nott began corralling people near the raised stone patio, Marion standing just inside the house.

She’d been all confidence in Sharpe’s house, but the moment they’d started walking home he could see the terror take over. They barely made it back to the house, Marion’s knuckles nearly white by the time she crossed the threshold.

Jester had made a quiet, sad sound as Marion closed the front door and ceremoniously locked it behind her.

Fjord imagined it would be a long time before she left again.

“You ready, partner?” Jester asked as she sidled up beside him. Caduceus waited at the broken windows, beneath the blackened walls of the second story, a new archway of flowers already growing around him.

He laughed at the term and held out his arm to her.

They’d walk down the aisle together.

“I’ve got some stuff in my vows about loving you forever.”

Her smile went soft as she looked up at him, “I might have written down some things which made Beau cry when she read them. About never letting you go and fighting for you for the rest of forever.”

Fjord swallowed back his own tears and moved to take a step forward but Jester held him back. When he looked down at her she was glancing at the crowd and then back at him, keeping her voice low enough he had to lean forward to hear it.

“There was also some sex stuff, but Beau convinced me to take that part out and save it for later.”