The Abbey was held up, protected by the residential Bishop and Vaux, while Reynauld stood in the far front, waiting. However, the fool’s eyes were searching for another, his fellow Jester. Flagging her down was a lot easier since there so many of her running about.

“--Quincey! I have an idea. Do you know where that blasted cannon is?”

“ ooooh, an empress? fancy stuff. ” she tosses the headdress back onto the bed in lieu of taking up the battered captain’s hat. “ fish costume? are you putting on a show for the fish folk? ”

“You’re a fancy lady.”

He laughs a little, putting the spear down.

the way she chirps in response isn’t quite right, there’s no resonance in her chest behind it – but it’s damn close. she responds again before she pops her head around to look up the staircase. “ hey, big guy. whatcha doing? ”

He tapped the next nail into place, his own chirrups cut short and screeching to a sudden stop. He scratched at the back of his covered neck, sheepish and caught.

It seems he’s been found out, from the chirping just under the stairs. It’s not Dismas, no. Not Dismas. Dismas, with all his shame in his transformed body, was a quiet creature. Reynauld pauses in the beat of the hammer. He had made it halfway up the stairs so far, the new steps clean and well crafted. 

“More like an Empress if you ask me.”

He hums as polishes the spear casually. His blood and a mix of whatever the weapon has pierced over the decades. Chester scratched his chest idly at the memory.

“The staff matches the whole look... I’m thinkin’ ‘bout a fish costume.”

She was in his arms for one moment, and he was shoved against the stone alley wall the next. 

Then Vvulf appeared. A hulking mass of hate and muscle and death. The stench of gunpowder and ash stinging the Jester’s nose as he moved. 

It was quick, so fucking quick and she was down.

Enraged and inhuman grunts followed and metal crashing against her once and twice. Chester moved then, a spell already falling from his lips as he gathered the heap of his friend into his arms and the sink into the ground. Lost between space for only a few seconds, all he could offer was a few drops of healing on the other side, in the town square. 

Brigands hadn’t made it this far, just the smallest bit of relief as he carried her toward to the Sanitarium. He looked down at her as she spoke, a weary and crooked smile on his face as brought her through the barricade. 

He seemed to handle stress a lot better-- at least lately. Perhaps its because he’s given himself less time to really feel it and simply focused on being a de-stressor. That was easier than messing up perfectly sharpened blades on cuts of wood. The trees are happier at the very least.

He didn’t look up from his thrumming, his eyes closed behind the mask.

“Do you know what’s going on? Has anyone told you yet?” He asked instead, curious to how close she keeps her ear to the grapevines. There’s so much chitter chatter every day that he catches, so much he sees when he’s quiet for a few days.