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It’s a quiet night on the Squalleater, drifting on the open sea with a busted boat. Yasha is staring down at her empty dinner plate and wondering if it’d be rude to ask Caduceus for more when she hears Fjord say, “Y’know, I think it’s almost Winter’s Crest.”
The phrase means nothing to Yasha and she looks up at the rest of the Mighty Nein to see if they know. A sea of equally puzzled faces stare back at Fjord.
Caleb is squinting like he’s heard it before but can’t quite recall - which is saying something for him. “Winter’s Crest? That’s… a holiday, ja?”
“What? You don’t - oh. No, I guess nobody in Wildemount really celebrates it, do they? Yeah, it’s a holiday.”
Jester perks up. “I love holidays! What is it celebrating, Fjord?”
“And how do you know about it?” Beau asks. “Aren’t you from Port Damali?”
Fjord squirms, uncomfortable with everyone’s attention being on him for what was probably just an idle thought. “Well sure, but it’s a big port. Lots of people from all over the place. I’ve served on a few crews with people from Tal’dorei. I’ve never celebrated it but I’ve heard about it.”
“I don’t know any holidays,” Caduceus says. He’s only eaten half his meal but he tips the rest of the food from his plate onto Yasha’s without comment. “Other than the Wildmother’s holy days, of course. Is it in honor of a god?”
“Nah,” Fjord shakes his head. “From what I remember, a long, long time ago, some creature made of ice came out of a rift in Tal’dorei that lead to another plane? And it brought an army and there was a big war or something and Winter’s Crest celebrates the people of Tal’dorei banding together to defeat it.”
Beau looks disappointed. “Oh. So it’s like Unification Day, where we’re supposed to celebrate the Empire defeating the Dominion.”
“Nein. Unification Day is about patriotism and respecting the Emperor. I remember reading about this now. It was a very long time ago, but Winter’s Crest is more about, ah? Being thankful for what you have and giving gifts to people you love to show your gratitude?”
“Gifts?!” Nott and Jester gasp in unison.
“I want gifts!”
“We should definitely do gifts!”
“We’re not from Tal’dorei,” Yasha feels the need to point out. “You didn’t even know it was a holiday until a moment ago. Why should we celebrate it?”
“We are also limping our way across the ocean to a small port to repair our boat - where would any of us find gifts to give each other?” Caleb asks.
Fjord nods gratefully. “I wasn’t suggesting we celebrate it. I was just making conversation.”
“If it’s something we feel needs to be said,” Caduceus puts in, “then I am very grateful for all of you. I’m not sure what that has to do with an ice monster though.”
There’s a moment of quiet as they all consider that. Eventually Fjord says, “You know what? I have no idea either, Cad.”
~
Yasha expects that to be the last any of them hear about Winter’s Crest. Xhorhas doesn’t really have holidays and while Yasha understands the concept, she’s never related to it much. There’s not a whole lot to celebrate back home, so they don’t. Yasha in particular feels she has little to celebrate when her mistake in being captured got her best friend killed mere months ago.
So Yasha isn’t expecting it when she finds Beau pacing the hallway outside of her room. It’s not unusual for Beau to be in the hall when Yasha is going to sleep (she seems to like to say goodnight to Yasha for some reason) but she’s usually more collected and cool than this. Tonight she just looks nervous.
“Beau?”
Beau jumps and whirls, fists up, then she relaxes when she sees Yasha. “Uh. Sorry. Caught up in my thoughts.”
“Were you waiting for me?”
“Who, me? Nahhh, of course not, I was just… Uh. Just trying to… get some thoughts in order, y’know what I mean?”
“Oh. Okay. Goodnight then.”
Yasha begins walking past Beau to her door when a hand shoots out to grab Yasha’s wrist.
“Uhm. Hypothetically, if someone had a question for you about Molly, would you be willing to answer it? Hypothetically?”
Yasha stiffens. “Molly took his secrets to the grave and I will not betray any trust he had in me.”
Beau holds her hands up in surrender immediately. “Whoa, uh, sorry. I didn’t mean like - I just wanted to ask about the tattoo he had on the back of his neck. Not uhm - I don’t need you to tell me any private information about him.”
“...Oh. That one was just a tattoo of an eye. The other eyes were marks he woke up with, but he got that one done himself.”
“Weird follow up question. Do you remember what it looked like well enough for Jester to draw it?”
The hallway is silent. Yasha stares at Beau and Beau looks increasingly small under her gaze, like she’s withering away to nothing.
“I mean, you don’t have to do it obviously, I was just -” Beau stammers when the silence has dragged on for too long.
“You want to get it tattooed on yourself,” Yasha interrupts. “You mentioned that before, I think.”
“...Yeah. Fjord made me think of it. All that Winter’s Crest shit about showing gratefulness. Molly gave me… some perspective that I really needed. I know it’s a little late to say thanks to him but -”
“It’s nice,” Yasha decides. “I will describe it to Jester as best I can. Molly would insult you for it, but secretly he would be glad.”
“That does sound like him.”
“I’m going to bed now. Goodnight, Beau.”
Beau’s demeanor shifts entirely, melting back into the cool persona she’s cultivated. “Of course. Sweet dreams, Yasha.” She smirks and winks, strutting off down the hall to her own room.
Yasha nods and enters her room, closing the door firmly behind her as she gets ready for bed.
Halfway down the hall, Beau curses suddenly and turns to say “They’d be even sweeter - ah, shit,” before realizing the hall is empty.
“You forgot the other half of your pickup line again, huh?” Nott says from out of nowhere.
“Fuck you and where the fuck did you come from?!”
“I’ve been here the entire time? Maybe you humans should learn to see in the dark.”
“Fuck off!”
~
Yasha spends the next morning describing every detail she can remember of Molly’s neck tattoo, but she has to leave the room when Beau sits down with Jester and Orly to actually apply it. The blood doesn’t bother her, but she was there for many of Molly’s tattoos and the sight of it brings back too many memories.
Up on the main deck, she finds Fjord sitting against the mast and fiddling with a net she’s never seen before. Fjord gives her a distracted hello when she passes him but he seems focused on the net, which draws her attention.
“What is that?”
“Fishing net,” Fjord says absently. “Found it below decks in the cargo hold. It’s not a good fishing net, but it might get us something.”
Yasha doesn’t mind adding fish to their diet, but the net looks tangled and ripped in a few places. It seems like a waste of Fjord’s time when Caduceus and Jester have everything covered.
“I know it’s bland but do you dislike the magic food that much?”
Fjord’s head jerks up. “No! I’m not trying to be ungrateful or anything. We’d all have starved to death if it weren’t for those two. I’m just… I wanted to give something back.”
Yasha kneels down next to Fjord. “You want to give them... fish?”
He chuckles. “No, no. I mean, yes, but - I was just a deckhand back before everything went to hell in my life, but I’ve spent a little time in the kitchen on fishing boats. I only know how to make one meal but it’s a pretty good meal, if I do say so myself. Thought I’d give Caduceus and Jester a break, y’know? And give all of you lot a treat.”
Yasha mulls this over. “This is about that Winter’s Crest thing again, isn’t it?”
It’s hard to tell when Fjord is blushing due to his skin tone, but him ducking his head to busy himself with untangling the net is a dead giveaway. “Just seemed like a nice thing to do while we’re making our way.”
“Everyone will be very appreciative to eat something new, but I think Caduceus likes cooking.”
“He deserves a break like everyone else.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Yasha says. “He’ll appreciate the gesture, but he would appreciate it more if you showed him how to cook it, rather than just kicking him out of the kitchen for a day.”
“You think?” Fjord asks dubiously.
“Yes. Also, he doesn’t eat fish so he’ll have to make his own food anyway.”
“Ah, shit,” Fjord curses and throws the net down with an unsatisfying noise, too lightweight to make a heavy impact on the deck. “Ruins that idea, doesn’t it?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no, you’re fine. I should have thought of that.”
“He doesn’t mind cooking meat for others,” Yasha points out. “He just doesn’t eat it himself. He’d be satisfied if you taught him how to make it.”
Fjord sighs and picks the net back up, picking out a knot with his nails. “Yeah, alright. Might be a moot point if I can’t catch anything with this damn net anyway. I need to get it untangled so I can see how many holes there are in it. I’m hoping Jester can mend it with magic if there’s no really big holes.”
“We could just tie any broken parts together, couldn’t we?”
Fjord grunts. “Last resort, but yeah. It’ll make the net smaller and more prone to breaking, but I ain’t looking to haul in a big catch anyway. Just enough to feed us all.”
Yasha has nothing else to add but also nothing in particular to do, so she sits in peaceful silence with Fjord until he’s done. The ocean is an oddly quiet place when no one is saying anything - there’s no seabirds this far from shore and it’s calm day so there’s no storms to whip up the waves. There’s nothing but the creaking of the boat and the occasional snatch of conversation on the wind from someone elsewhere on the deck.
“There,” Fjord says eventually. “Think I got it. Help me lay this out?”
“Sure.”
Laid out flat, the holes in the net are easy to spot and none of them look like anything Jester couldn’t fix with magic.
“It seems alright,” Yasha offers.
“... I am grateful, y’know?”
“For... the net?”
“For everything you guys have done for me. None of you would be stuck here at sea on a broken ship if it wasn’t for me. You especially. I know you’ve got better things you could be doing.”
Yasha shakes her head slowly. “I don’t know where I’d be if I wasn’t here. I’d be alone though. This is alright.”
Fjord is quiet for a moment. “... Yeah. I don’t care much for being alone.”
“I’m used to it. But that doesn’t mean I enjoy it.”
“Well you’ve always got a place with us. If you want it.” Fjord heaves a sigh and stretches, rolling the kinks out of his neck. “I’m gonna go find Jester and see if she’s done stabbing Beau with a needle. I wish I could surprise her, but I ain’t catching anything with the net like this. Hopefully we can get a nice fish dinner out of it once it’s mended.”
“Hopefully,” Yasha agrees. She’s eaten things that tasted far worse than Caduceus and Jester’s magical food and she’s not going to complain about it, but she’s also definitely eaten better. “I’m going to stay up here awhile longer. I like watching the clouds.”
Fjord pats her on the shoulder and walks past her to the interior of the ship.
Yasha isn’t alone on the deck, but she might as well be with everyone else doing the jobs they were hired to do. She looks up at the sky and studies the clouds overhead. They’re not storm clouds, but that’s about all she can say for certain. If there’s some sort of sign from Kord in them, she doesn’t see it.
“I guess if I was supposed to be somewhere else right now, I would be. Right?” she asks the open sky.
There’s no response but the wind.
~
“What’s the rope for? You’re not going swimming are you?”
Yasha glances up in the dining hall to see Nott carrying a large coil of rope and Caleb looking amused.
Nott scoffs. “Of course not! Why would I do that?”
Caleb shrugs. “I don’t know. Why are you carrying rope?”
Nott looks down at it, back up to Caleb, then back down to the rope again. “I… I wanted to see if I could teach you something.”
“Rope tricks? I didn’t know you knew any.”
“Ah, sort of?” Nott looks nervous, her claws picking at one end of the coil. “Back when I was - when I lived with the tribe, there were a few older goblins who could do magic. Nothing as good as you, of course! But they had a couple of clever tricks. I wanted to try and… I don’t know. Figure it out with you?”
Caleb’s face softens and Yasha feels like she’s intruding but leaving would just startle both of them. They’re both terribly jumpy creatures.
“I’m sure it won’t be a very impressive trick to you,” Nott says, “but - well, maybe we can…?”
“I would love nothing better than to recreate a spell with you,” Caleb says earnestly.
“Oh. Really?”
“Ja, of course. Perhaps I can teach you something as well. It will be a wonderful way to spend time together.”
Nott flushes under her bandages and drops the rope to the floor, her voice pitching up higher with embarrassment. “Right! Well! Anyway, the uhm, the spell is pretty simple from what I remember? There’s a circle of rope on the floor about this big around and if you do the spell right, it makes the rope disappear and leaves a magical snare trap in its place!”
“Useful,” Caleb nods and begins digging through his coat for his spellbook.
Yasha takes advantage of the distraction to make her exit as quietly as she can. It’s not that she minds watching them, but this is clearly something just for the two of them and she won’t deny them the rare opportunity for privacy.
(If it makes her nauseous to watch because the only person she was ever so close to is gone - well. Yasha is very good at burying her feelings.)
~
Two days out from Bisaft Isle, Jester flounces across the deck at midday and plants herself next to Yasha, who has been catnapping against the shattered remains of the mast. Yasha cracks an eye open to peer at her, but when Jester doesn’t say anything immediately, she closes it again. Yasha hadn’t been looking for company but if Jester’s going to be quiet then it’s fine.
“When I used to get gifts for my birthday,” Jester says without preamble, “they were always very expensive. But now I don’t have that much money and even if I did, I’m on a boat and I can’t buy anything like that and I have no idea what to get Fjord for Winter’s Crest!”
Yasha sighs.
“I need ideas. What sorts of presents did you used to get on your birthday?”
“I didn’t,” Yasha says bluntly.
Jester gasps. “You never got presents on your birthday? ”
“No,” Yasha says, because it’s easier than saying she’s never celebrated her birthday, nor does she even know for sure when it is because when you live in Xhorhas, you don’t have time for frivolities like that. “It wasn’t that important.”
Jester huffs in disbelief. “Well, you will have to tell me later when your birthday is so I can make sure to get you a nice present for it! Is it soon?”
“No.” It’s in the fall or thereabouts. Probably. Most Xhorhasian kids are born in the fall, whether by coincidence or design, and their first test is surviving winter. Yasha has no reason to think she was any different.
“Just as well, I couldn’t get you anything on this boat either,” Jester says with a sigh, resting her chin on her hands. “What do you think I should get Fjord?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think he wants anything. Other than things we can’t give him.”
“Giving gifts isn’t about what people want, it’s about the things they need, even if they don’t know they need it!”
“Get him a sense of self-respect then.”
It’s out of her mouth before she even knows why she said it, like the ghost of Molly dancing across her tongue, all grins and barbed wit. She can almost hear him cackling in the back of her mind and it’s a familiar but still painful ache.
Jester stares at her with wide eyes and Yasha scrambles for something, anything else to say.
“I - I just meant -”
Jester makes a choked noise as she swallows air, then apparently can’t hold it back any longer. The giggles come sputtering out of her mouth and between her fingers like she could physically hold them in, even as she tilts to the side and collapses on the deck of the ship, convulsing with laughter.
Yasha is frozen in place. Her eyes dart around the deck, but while Jester’s getting side eyes from a few of the crew, none of them seem inclined to ask her what’s so funny. The only other member of the Mighty Nein who is above decks is Caduceus and he’s on the upper deck near the wheel, meditating. If he’s noticed anything happening on the lower deck (and he probably has, given what Yasha knows of him), he isn’t letting it interrupt him.
Slowly, Jester’s giggles stop and Yasha is able to breathe in relief as well. Jester sits up, a little wobbly and wiping tears from her eyes, but no worse for wear. She pats Yasha on the shoulder fondly and says “Thank you for that, Yasha. I know just what I’m going to do now. You’re very funny, you know?”
Yasha doesn’t think she is but she clears her throat and says, “Uh, thank you. What are you doing?”
Jester grins. “It’s a surprise,” she whispers confidentially and prances off.
Yasha decides it would be in her best interests to forget this entire conversation ever happened and spends the next several hours in the hold, drinking out of Nott’s flask and refusing to answer questions.
The next morning, Yasha spots Fjord leaving the captain’s cabin with a beet red face - which looks very strange indeed on his skin tone. Dread curls in Yasha’s belly but she has to ask.
“What’d Jester do?”
Fjord jumps and his face flushes even more. “Ah - she uh, it was a very nice - she just painted me a portrait.”
“A portrait?” Yasha asks suspiciously.
“Yeah. With her normal paints, not the - not the other ones. The magic ones.”
“The ones she makes dicks with,” Yasha says, although she knows Jester is just as capable of drawing dicks with her other set of paints as well.
“Yeah, that one,” Fjord squeaks. “She hung it up in the captain’s cabin. It’s uh… very dashing? I guess? She said it was to commemorate my captainship.”
“... Can I see it?”
Fjord visibly panics. “Ah? Maybe later? It’s uh, it’s breakfast time right now isn’t it? Wouldn’t want to be rude to Cad and let breakfast get cold!”
Yasha has already eaten breakfast but she figures she’s been mean enough to Fjord, even if he doesn’t know that. “Sure. You’re looking a little peaky. Why don’t you go back to your cabin and I’ll bring you your plate?”
“I - I don’t - ”
“Just put something in front of it if it bothers you that much,” Yasha interrupts.
Fjord slumps. “Yeah, alright. I can probably… move a desk in front of it or something. It’s only the bottom part of it that bothers me anyway. The upper half looks pretty nice.”
“Jester’s a very good artist.”
Fjord nods miserably. “A very creative one too.”
“Yeah. Good luck with that.”
Yasha leaves Fjord to scurry back in his cabin and heads back for another round of breakfast.
~
There’s a rumble of a storm on the horizon, but it’s not headed for them. Yasha can feel the call of it in her bones, but she knows it’s not getting any closer, which she tells the crew to their relief. The Squalleater is in no shape to weather a powerful storm and that one looks mighty indeed.
They’re due to reach Bisaft in the morning and it’s late enough that most of the ship is sleeping aside from Orly at the helm, but Yasha’s never been able to fall asleep when there’s a storm. It’s like there’s electricity running through her veins and thunder booming in her chest with every heartbeat. Kord speaks to her like this, she thinks sometimes, though she rarely knows exactly what he’s saying. Yasha savors the sharp scent of ozone in the air, the only thing stronger than the scent of saltwater all around her, and finds her peace in it.
That peace is immediately ruined as the only figure on the boat taller than her sidles in to her peripheral vision to stand next to her and says, “It’s a beautiful sight,” in his low drawl.
It’d be an exaggeration to say that Yasha hates Caduceus. He’s done nothing worth hating and he spends his days making sure all of them are as happy and healthy as he can make them. It wouldn’t be fair to so much as dislike Caduceus Clay. Yasha’s life has never been fair though and it certainly isn’t fair in this.
Yasha doesn’t respond to Caduceus’ comment, hoping he’ll take the hint that his company is unwanted. Yasha isn’t good at subtlety and Caduceus is very perceptive so it can’t be that hard for him to tell, but he doesn’t move from where he’s standing, gazing out at the horizon with all the serenity he stole from her.
“I’m ready whenever you are.”
Yasha jerks her head towards him. “Excuse me?”
“You’re still grieving,” he says, blunt but bizarrely kind. “There’s nothing wrong with that - we all come to terms with death at our own pace - but you carry it like a bag of stones around your neck. It’s heavy and dragging you down, but you act like it isn’t there and pretend you can carry the weight forever.”
Her face twists into a snarl. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Keep your nose out of things that aren’t your business.”
Caduceus doesn’t seem bothered by her reaction, gazing down at her with the same gentle expression he always wears. “I didn’t know him, but I know death and I know grief. There are days when you can hardly stand to look at me, so I think it is my business. If you’re not ready to accept my help, that’s alright. But I wanted you to know I’m offering it.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you aren’t. And no one expects you to be. Have you spoken about it with anyone?”
Yasha wants to hit him, but she’s not sure she’d be able to stop if she started. “There’s nothing to discuss. He’s gone. I’ve lost people before and I’ll lose them again.”
“That is the way the world works,” Caduceus agrees. “That doesn’t mean we aren’t allowed to be hurt by losing them.”
“I’m dealing with it.”
“Are you? You’re saying you don’t feel like screaming at me or the rest of the group for trying to replace someone who can never be replaced?”
Caduceus’ words are expertly aimed knives right between Yasha’s ribs. Because yes, yes, gods above she’s had days where she wants to throttle the others for losing Molly and then filling the hole in the group before she’d even known he was gone. Was Molly’s body even cold before they’d found this overgrown skinny waste of a talking farm animal to take his place? In what world did they think he made up for any of Molly’s brightness and the good he brought to the world? Yasha would trade any ten of Caduceus just to have Molly back and it’s not fair that everyone else has moved on and she’s stuck in place, wondering when she’ll stop feeling her breath catch every time she sees the color purple out of the corner of her eyes-
A hand lands on her shoulder and pulls her closer.
“It’s okay. It’s all okay.”
She’s crying. When did she start crying? She can’t remember the last time she cried.
“It’s good for you. I know it doesn’t feel like that, but it has to come out sometime and you’ll feel better for it. You’re safe right here.”
Yasha feels more than hears the deep rumble of Caduceus’ voice because her head is resting on his thin chest. His voice is slow as molasses and she thinks he’s still talking but she lets it wash over her without focusing on the words, encompassing her like a warm blanket while sobs wrack her body.
(Molly used to share a hammock with her on cold nights in the circus. Yasha would have tolerated the cold if she had to, but she didn’t have to when Molly was wrapped around her and he ran hot as furnace.)
She loses track of time, the smell of ozone mixed with the muddy herbal scent that follows Caduceus everywhere goes, the peals of thunder blending seamlessly with the low notes of his voice. There’s nothing there in all the world but the two of them - them and the ghost of a tiefling twice-dead.
Yasha comes back to herself slowly. They’re well away from the storm, which she knows without ever looking up from her view of Caduceus’ chest. He’s such a fragile thing, she thinks distantly, with his fur like moss and his bones like mushroom stalks. Delicate as his gossamer shirt and yet he holds the entire group together with the unwavering steadiness of a mountain.
“Are you alright?”
Yasha nods slightly and pulls back away from him, turning her face away so she can rub her eyes. There’s no pretending none of that happened, but she has her pride.
“I believe you. Do you want me to leave?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
Yasha looks out to see and half expects to see dawn cresting, but no. It’s still deep in the evening and she’ll have a chance to sleep this entire exhausting experience away.
“I am not trying to replace him,” Caduceus says. “No one can replace another. Lives are not interchangeable like that. You don’t have to like me if you don’t want to, but I want you to know that I’m not trying to be what he was to you, or to anyone else.”
“No,” Yasha agrees roughly. “You are only yourself. You’re not at fault for that.”
“The hole he left in you will heal on its own. It may never be gone, but the edges will stop feeling so raw eventually.”
“And in the meanwhile, you’re just another future hole in my soul.”
Caduceus chuckles. “Isn’t everyone we meet? But how empty would we be if we didn’t make space in our hearts for all those lives that will be gone one day?”
She thinks sometimes being empty would be easier, but she remembers Molly back when he was empty. It didn’t do him any favors. “Thank you. For being there for them when I couldn’t be.”
“We’re all entitled to time and space when we lose someone.”
“And thank you for… for this. Whatever this was.”
He gives her a thin smile. “This is my job. Or it was. Many people came to bury their beloved dead in our graveyard.”
“It seems difficult.”
“It was never harder on me than it was on them, so who am I to complain?”
Yasha claps him on the shoulder and as scrawny as Caduceus is, he doesn’t falter under her strength. “You’re a good man.”
“Good is not a thing you are. Good is a thing you do,” he says reflexively, like he’s quoting scripture and maybe he is. “But thank you.”
“I’m going to bed. This has been… a very long night. Don’t wake me up for breakfast, alright?”
“I’ll save you a plate or two,” he agrees. “Sleep well.”
Yasha thinks that for the first time in awhile, she just might.