The body and spirit of their friend is returned to them as a miracle. A naked miracle, but a miracle nonetheless. He is briefly draped under the muddied and tattered coat before he is running.
'Empty' he says.
Jester paints through the bittersweet sorrow of this amnesia, squatting on a dying city to paint flounces of fabric that Molly would have loved. Clothing that she hopes their companion will love.
She is the best one to do it, she thinks. She is the painter, yes. But she has evenings upon evenings of fireside alteration time with Molly to draw upon, where they'd added tail holes and wide necklines to things and gushed about fashion.
She paints things that Molly had dreamed of: a shirt once dismissed for its tiny neckline is altered in paint, leggings in vibrant fabrics, ridiculous boots, socks swirling with colour. Everything is painted to fit comfortably.
She takes time to remember Molly telling her about the sundress that the circus had stuck him in before they'd mastered tail holes. He'd particularly hated not being able to move his tail with ease. She doesn't want him to encounter that again, and she would lend him her spare clothes, but at this point, her spares are stained and sweaty and torn from travel. So she paints.
Once she is done, she wraps up the body of her friend in new clothes, topping it off with the tattered and muddied coat salvaged from his grave. She hopes he will like it, once they are home.
She takes him by the hand and holds onto Fjord as Caduceus takes them home. Once they get a moment, she pulls the cards from her pocket and tries to speak to lost memories. She shows him his drawings of them and he blinks at her. She pulls a card at random. The sea. Fjord. She guesses its meaning will reveal itself eventually.
She can't get through to him so she lets him sit, watching his eyes wander, a little lost, through the grove. The Nein picnic and celebrate. She feeds him fruit from Fjord's plate and holds his tail in hers.
Beau and Yasha sleep beside him on that first night in the Grove. Beau watches him curled up and still, so unlike the stories Fjord had told about his restless sleeping companion. He sleeps like the dead, not like a squirming barnacle anchored to sleeping companions as if to the hull of a ship.
Beau watches him sleep. She notes that Jester didn't paint any armour. She has left his horns bare. That won't do, she thinks, dusting a finger along the pierced edge of a horn. Molly would need armour. Body armour, the others can provide, being as Beau doesn't wear it. The horn armour, however, she does adopt as a task.
Caleb had talked about going to Zadash in the morning. She considers going along to buy a collection of barbed chains to dangle from his horns. Rexxentrum will be her destination, however, when she leaves the grove. So Caleb is taking Veth and Jester to Zadash alone.
She corners him before breakfast, both of them stood awkwardly before a grave marker.
'You said you were shopping, right?'
'Ja. If I get a moment.'
'Can you pick up some horn chains for me? Our friend is missing the jangly things'
He nods, 'Ja okay. I was thinking of getting a few sleeping draughts just in case. Our purple friend liked to keep them around'
Back in Trostenwald, Beau would never have thought, as she now does, that Caleb would be the best of them to go out to procure jewellery. But she knows him better now. He is tasteful and efficient when he shops, a quality that was once hidden beneath layers of dirt. He will be able to pick out something Molly will like.
And then he speaks and he's not Molly but a brother made of possibility. Kingsley still feels like Molly did. The brothers have the same flair for bastardry, but Kingsley makes a point to be less gaudy. Beau watches Caleb use silent image to map their new friend's taste.
And then he goes to Zadash, leaving most of the Nein to amuse themselves in the Grove. Beau sits with Yasha in a particularly vibrant patch and tells her about the chains she's asked for.
'That is clever,' Yasha says 'I did not think of that. It really hurt Molly when people grabbed him'
'He never told me the details of that. Just made me fix his jingly shit when he snapped them'
Yasha smiles, lost in memory. 'He had so many of them in the end. He loved shiny things very much.'
'I bet Lucien got rid of them all, that bastard.' Beau spits out the name. They had buried Molly's things so carefully when they'd laid him to rest, tucking his scimitars into his hands and blanketing him in his tapestry.
None of it had been there when they'd dug in the empty grave. None of it had been with Lucien when they'd met him. All the fragmentary parts of Molly's identity were gone, save for the items they'd carried with them and the coat they'd pulled from the ditch.
They sit in silence for a while, listening to the grove and remembering.
Caleb returns later in the morning and tosses Beau the chains she'd asked for. The ones he's grabbed are basic, with hooks and horn caps and loops to hold charms. 'I thought he should pick, when he's ready.' Caleb explains.
Beau puts them in her pocket until she can get a moment with Kingsley alone. The tiefling is gone for now, but she doesn't think he's gone far.
And then they're fighting. The temple burns behind them and the Nein are flinging what they have against the wall of magic Trent has surrounded himself with. Kingsley reappears as the battle ends and Beau is thankful for his absence between her other emotions.
They put out Cad's home and settle the families back down. It takes them a while. The casters make it look easy. Beau hauls water from the spring in one of the salvaged buckets. Its like moving crates at the Bambauchs' all over again but with much less animosity and a much lower chance of Jester gambling all her money away once they're done.
Instead of the gambling, Beau finds Kingsley when they're done. He's busy being delighted by Veth and the concept of rosé. Beau sits down next to him.
'Sup'
'Hi Scribbles' Even he seems a little unsure of the nickname as it comes to him.
'It's Beau.' She says, fairly certain that nobody has actually told him. 'I've got something for you'
'Oh?' There are the wide shining eyes that Molly had watched fireworks with. She pulls the chains from her pouch.
'Got you these.' He takes them with a look of confusion. 'They go on your horns. To, uh, stop people grabbing you. Your brother had problems with that.'
Kingsley carefully inspects the dark metal before nodding approval. 'How do they go on?' He offers them back to her, lowering his horns so that she can touch.
She moves carefully. His horns are, after all, attached to his skull. She'd learned that from Molly. She hooks the caps onto the tips of his horns before carefully winding the chain round and round, anchoring it at the base.
When she is done, she grins at him. 'Grab on and see'.
He reaches for his horns, wrapping his hands around them before his eyes widen. 'Ouch, Scribbles. Those are fucking sharp'
'I fucking hope so. Anyway, you can stick charms on them if you feel like it. Or not, whatever. If you break them, I can fix them but I won't be pleased.'
He hums and goes back to his rosé. There's a hint of a smirk where she knows Molly once would have given her shit for caring.
'Go fuck yourself,' she says for good measure as she heads back across the grove. She undermines the sentiment with a grin. He grins back. Yeah. She likes this bastard.
They spend a week in the Grove together, getting ready to head into the mess of jobs they have to do. Kingsley latches onto Fjord and Beau smiles to see it. Looks like the captain will have a new first mate while she tears apart Ikithon's life's work.
Fjord seems quite glad to be sharing a tower room with Jester. Although he did come to Beau outraged once he'd found out that Jester has spent the last year sleeping with horn protectors and Beau had left him to deal with Molly's horns unprotected. Kingsley makes himself at home in Fjord's neglected room, with permission.
Beau thinks he's using the tower for whip practice, working with a determination that she'd never seen on Molly. They sit in the salon in the evenings, all nine of them and talk about the future.
Veth ducks out often, slipping back into the commitments of the life she has made it back to. But tonight she is here as they sit up late, talking idly.
Kingsley looks a little out of place but perks up every time Fjord or Jester mentions the upcoming return to the Nein Heroes. It is a comfortable conversation, with quiet lulls where they all sit sleepily before the warm fire.
Cad dozes off first, out of magic and tired from a day's work in the Grove. He curls slightly around Jester beside him and she smiles and pats his hand.
The conversation lulls further after that, with nobody wanting to disturb their cleric. Caleb leans closer to Essek to talk quietly about something that Beau thinks is probably unbelievably nerdy.
She has Yasha slowly falling asleep in her lap, feet sprawled over an initially reluctant Fjord. Beau runs her fingers through Yasha's hair as she talks. The Nein is at peace as Kingsley nods off.
Less so when he wakes up shaking. A year with the Nein means Beau can recognise a nightmare when she sees one. She's a little trapped so all she can do is watch Veth hurry over and take Kingsley's hand, climbing on the sofa so that she can get to him.
The halfling whispers to him and holds his hand as her other hand carefully rubs behind his horns. The gestures are practiced. Beau wonders how often Veth has soothed tieflings without her noticing.
Once Kingsley is calmer, Caleb shifts from Essek's side to kneel beside him, pulling a pair of sleeping draughts from his pocket. He offers them to the tiefling, speaking quietly. Kingsley shoves them away in a pocket and Beau catches what could be the faintest glimpse of interest in the tiefling's eyes as Caleb says something more before returning to Essek.
She nudges Yasha. 'I'm going to bed.' She announces and the Nein scatter for the night. As she waits for Yasha to gather a couple of things, she watches Veth finish with Kingsley and slip back to her rooms with a smile. Her impact is notable.
He stretches, although not as far as Molly would have. Beau guesses that Lucien lost some of their circus friend's flexibility. No more watching a Tealeaf fall over with his leg behind his head then. Unfortunate.
Yasha checks with Kingsley before returning to Beau. He accepts another hug. Yasha wraps practiced arms around him, moving a hand automatically to the base of his horns. Yeah. Beau thinks. Molly's brother is home.
This is a miracle, she thinks, but a miracle made of love rather than divinity. The Nein is its own kind of magic and she loves them all so much. Yasha takes her hand and they rise up through the tower to bed. Behind them, Jester nudges Cad awake, making sure everybody gets to bed alright. The Nein disperse, but even apart, they are still all together, ready to care and empathise and love each other.