Chapter Text
It’s the silence, mostly.
They were used to chatter, the constant noise of something , whether it be laughter or singing or joking or teasing. There was always something. But the silence was somehow louder.
The swamp’s humidity couldn’t compare to the thick air of anger and hurt that pervaded them. The bitch’s hut was only so far ahead now and she was about to deal with a storm.
In the middle of them was Jester. Her eyes were hard, cold, and pointed ahead, her lips in a gross grimace. She’d been crying again. To Beau, it felt like she never stopped.
Honestly, she expected Jester to bounce back quick. To brush the whole thing off as no big deal, they’ll deal with it, they’ll find a way around it. But no; it was like this truly broke her. Suddenly she was torn open and raw and unable to hide it from them.
Her hands (or, what was left of them) had been re-bandaged this morning. They were tucked in Veth’s winter coat, the only thing small enough that they had on hand. Her skin was a paler blue than usual.
Beau hated it. Hated the situation, hated Jester’s pain, hated the witch, hated how naive they were to think that they could handle this when it caught up to them.
Hated witnessing it.
Beau can’t even remember what they had been doing. She only knew it was their first night back at the Xhorhouse and everyone was still settling in. It was only the two of them, chatting about nothing, and Jester was expressing with her hands, when suddenly she flinched, and her eyes went wide, and she froze mid-sentence, and Beau saw the thin lines of red at her wrists, but before either of them really even knew what had happened, Jester’s two calloused, clawed, thin, skilled hands fell from their proper place and landed with a thud on the wooden floor.
Beau couldn’t even process what she had seen until Jester let out a painful, terrifying scream, and then Beau was shouting for Caduceus, and there was so much blood . She had torn off her shirt to stem the flow until Caduceus could land a healing spell, but even then it soaked through within seconds and quickly formed a puddle.
When Jester passed out, Beau was relieved. That gave them time to burn their bloody clothes and come up with a plan.
Oh, and what a plan it was. To confront the witch and….do something. Kill her? Demand she fix Jester’s hands? If she can do that. They haven’t discussed it past ‘find the bitch’, and Beau doesn’t know how to bring it up again.
Before they got closer to the hut, Caduceus put a hand on Jester’s shoulder.
“We should switch the bandages,” He said.
“Should I put up the dome?” Caleb suggested.
“No,” Jester said, her voice too soft and too croaked. “It’ll be quick.”
They still formed a protective circle around their clerics, just to make sure no creatures sneak up on them. Beau kept an eye on Jester.
Caduceus unwrapped Veth’s coat and revealed the two bandaged stumps at the ends of Jester’s arms. It still shocked her to see it. It was wrong, to see Jester without two of her essential tools. She used those hands for so much.
The bandages were soaking through. It came away with thick clots and stuck to the raw edge. New beads of blood burst through as scabs were ripped away. That was something they noticed as time went on; the healing spells never stuck. It remained raw and bloody without ever truly healing. Isharnai’s doing, no doubt.
It was painful, too. Beau could see Jester squeeze her eyes shut and bite her lip as Caduceus re-wrapped her wrists. A whimper involuntarily escaped.
Beau couldn’t take it.
“Jester—“
“Let’s go.”
Jester spun on her heel and lead the way further into the swamp. Beau watched her go, watched the others give her silent looks that said a lot, saw the pain they all shared, and wished, desperately, that she could’ve given her offer to the witch, because her own pain would be so much easier to handle.