Beau knows that Molly is a gaudy bastard. That had been her first impression of him before Yasha had grabbed her attention back in Trostenwald. Everything he wears clashes wonderfully in a way that she knows her mother would be horrified by. Molly is a gaudy bastard, but he's her friend.
Unfortunately, she's the only one of his friends with a skill in jewellery repairs so she finds herself leaning over one of his small horn jangly things at one of the tables in the tavern they're staying at. It shouldn't take her long to fix, the delicate chain had snapped as it had gotten caught up in their earlier fight.
'Hey, dickhead, why do you wear these things in battle when they're so fragile?'
Molly's jangly things are an aesthetic nuisance as far as she's aware. They jingle when they're trying to be quiet and tangle in the longer hair of some of the others. They are very pretty, Beau will give him that, but they really do nothing for a frontline fighter like Molly.
Molly clinks two of his baubles together as he answers, rubbing purple fingers over the points of the sun that dangles from his right horn. He leans forward over the table to look at her intently.
'To give you something to do, obviously, darling.'
'You're such a dick. Seriously, why the fragile jangly things? They do nothing to help you.'
He grins at her, then, one fang catching a little on his bottom lip as it tightens. He is still leaning in close to her. His elbows come to rest on the table before him as he plonks his chin in his hands.
'Jangly things are very helpful, actually, captain obnoxious. I knew someone once who kept all their expensive and decorative spell components on their jangly things. All pearls and owl feathers and gemstones. Perfectly within reach, and sparkly too.'
Beau's seen the inside of Caleb's component pouch so she's not entirely sold on this idea. Caleb might go for a bat shit headdress, though. She's never seen Molly cast anything that isn't his innate tiefling bullshit or requires him to cut himself to activate, so the component idea is no use for him.
'Dude, you don't have spell components. How do they help you?'
His smile widens. She can see where his fangs extend upwards into his gums above the top of his teeth. He sinks further into his hands, gleefully, as he says, 'grab my horns'
'What?'
'You heard me, handlebars, grab 'em.'
He looks far too gleeful for Beau to fully trust in this. But he's very insistent, so she puts down her tools and reaches out for his horns.
She's never touched either of the tieflings' horns. It seems rude. Now she looks at them, Molly's curl up at a perfect angle for grabbing.
There's a difference in Molly and Jester's horns. Jester's curl around her ears, right in the place Beau might put her hands if she kissed her. Molly's horns, however, they jut up and back above his head in a high arc. If she wanted to drag him about, they'd be pretty good for leverage.
She closes her hands around the base of Molly's horns. Or more accurately, she tries to. Once her hands begin to close, she is stabbed in the hand by multiple sharp bits of metal.
She opens her hands to reconsider Molly's jangly things. They are spaced equally down each horn. There is not a hand sized gap between the chains that wrap and dangle from his horns. Each sun and moon and dangling charm has sharp points integrated into its design. They are pretty, yes, but they're made to stab anyone who grabs for him.
There is one gap in Molly's horn coverage. Beau sees now why she's fixing this broken chain as she picks her tools back up. There's a hole in her friend's armour. That can't continue.
Now she thinks about Jester's horns again, she realises Jester's jangly things do the same job. Hers are less conspicuous, more hanging chains than charms, but Beau thinks they're hard enough to grab.
'Alright, I guess your ridiculous jangly things do have a purpose. Just out of curiosity, how often do people go for your horns?'
Molly's been covered in jangly things as long as they've known each other. He was ungrabbable back at the circus. Jester, too, has worn her chains and bells and ribbons for their entire friendship. She's never seen anyone go for their horns, but perhaps it is an issue. They haven't seen any other tieflings along the way for her to compare with.
Molly gets impossibly smug once she tells him he's right. His jangly things clink softly as he angles his head back a little to find the angle of ultimate smugness.
'Too often for my liking. People who are horn-grabbers are always the kind who forget that they're attached to my head. Or they just don't care.'
Molly's horns are attached to his head. Beau forgets that. She looks at them when he clinks loudly but she never actually considers how having horns feels. They are attached to his head, she sees where his skin splits apart to let the rigid curl of his horns free. She pokes him in the forehead and finds where his horns meet his skull.
He tries to bite her finger, jokingly, as she pulls it back. He seems resigned to her investigating so she returns to considering him. She's never thought about what Molly's skull looks like before, but she realises now, it comes with horns attached.
Molly's skeleton, it seems, is pretty easy access. His horns, now she looks at them, are a weak spot in his defences. She doesn't think it's easy to get helmets for tieflings. Unpredictable horn growth makes for custom jobs on any headwear. She's never seen a tiefling helmet for sale.
She's also caught Molly struggling to disentangle clothes and horns in the bathhouse. Neither his or Jester's outfits are mostly designed to go over their heads. She's seen Jester painstakingly lace up the wide closure of her dress. She's seen her turn away from pretty clothes she wants because the closures are too small for her horns to fit.
She's watched the tiefling alteration club in the evening, as Molly and Jester gather next to the fire to add or reinforce tail holes in garments and widen the necklines for horns to fit. Watching Jester tie her tail into layers of petticoats every morning is always an experience (the time that Jester borrowed Molly's spare leggings was an entirely different experience).
Neither of them ever complain about it. Even though it takes Beau a minute to get dressed, a flat nothing next to Jester's fifteen. It takes them time on top to sort and attach their piles of charms if they chose to remove them. Molly has always made a show of his getting dressed, announcing his late arrival to the others with his usual dramatic showmanship.
For the first time, she wonders how much of Molly's gaudy and open outfit is out of practicality. His shirt's wide neckline allows him to get it on and off, and also access to his body to activate his blood stuff. His coat flares out into two at the back, letting his tail wave free. His charms are his armour. His necklace is his periapt. His tall boots and leather corset-y wrappings double as his armour.
Molly is defended, but subtly. Beau thinks it's a circus thing. If Molly's been grabbed enough to deem people 'horn-grabbers', he's been grabbed quite a bit. She's never seen it happen when they've been travelling together, but she assumes that a circus fortune teller appears an easy target.
'Here. Don't break any more.'
She closes the final broken loop on Molly's chain and hands it back. She watches him carefully thread it into its designated gap, fingers much more careful on his horns than she had been. She forgets that they're attached to him. That he can likely feel whatever vibrations carry down them into his head.
Once the chain is in place, he jangles his head from side to side and runs his hands up and down his horns, seemingly satisfying himself that his horn armour is back together.
Gaudy bastard. Beau thinks she understands him better now.