Chapter Text
Mollymauk Tealeaf is slain. He has just enough time to realize he isn’t walking away from this fight, just a few moments where pain spikes before getting drowned out by a vaguely familiar numbness, and then — nothing.
He wakes up in the darkness. Nothing hurts.
The darkness is soft and overwhelming, but it feels strangely comfortable — more a heavy blanket than a crushing weight.
A moment passes, and in the darkness, Molly can see: there is a man sitting cross-legged by his side. He is slender and pale compared to all the blacks that aren’t his skin. His age is hard to grasp. His features are beautiful, and his smile is kind when their eyes meet.
"I don’t believe we’ve met, friend?" Molly asks, pushing against the invisible cold surface to sit.
"I don’t think so," the man replies. "My name is Vax’ildan. I’ll be your guide here."
"Am I dead, then?"
"You are. I’m sorry," the man replies. "You lived well, Mollymauk Tealeaf, but this is the end of the path."
Molly lets out a soft chuckle, unsure yet how he feels about it. He always knew he was on borrowed time, with no guarantees of tomorrow, and he got two whole years — two wonderful, joyful years with good people — and it should be enough. Maybe, it can be enough.
He looks around, and it is bizarre: he can see Vax’ildan and himself quite clearly, but nothing else. It’s quite disorienting. Death is supposed to be disorienting, probably. All those poor ghosts they questioned on their journey certainly sounded confused as hell. For a moment, he imagines Jester trying to question his dead body in that way and is simultaneously perturbed and curious, and then he remembers: Jester. Jester, and Yasha, and Fjord — taken. Beau, and Nott and Caleb, and that new ally of theirs, Keg — one man down in a fight that was already going wrong in all the ways it possibly could have.
"My friends," he starts, suddenly overcome with a sense of dread. "They are in trouble!"
"They have each other. They are no longer your responsibility."
"I was supposed to protect them. They need me down there… Don’t they?"
He trails off at the end, as he remembers exactly how the fight went down. How useless he was in the end, with his plans, and his unfounded trust in their success, and his swords barely leaving a scratch on the enemy.
"You did all you could," Vax’ildan says, looking at him kindly. "And you left a mark on them. But they have their own paths to walk, my friend. And they are not here yet. They are safe for now."
With that, he gets up, offers a hand and pulls Molly up. They start walking, quietly, in the darkness. Molly thinks, one by one, about each of his friends, and he says his goodbyes. Yasha, with her fierce loyalty and her awkward kindness. Jester, with her contagious joy and her peculiar mix of wisdom and naiveness. Fjord, steady, and scared, and trying to hold everyone close and safe. Beau, fierce and mistrustful at first, and adorably smitten with his best friend, just as loyal as her once they got to know each other. Nott, so lost, so miserable under all the jokes and callousness, and so full of love.
He says his goodbyes, and it’s sad, but peaceful: two years is so damn short, and the few weeks he got to spend with this particular crazy bunch is even shorter, but he doesn’t have regrets about the way he lived.
And then he thinks of Caleb. Caleb, seemingly terrified of what his own flame can do, and using it anyway. Caleb, always trying to be smaller than he is: hiding in corners and under dirt, looking down, running away from confrontation unless it is about protecting them. Reserved, and careful, and always hungry for knowledge, and carrying Nott over shallow streams and making sure her voice isn’t dismissed or forgotten.
He thinks of Caleb worrying about that ambush plan of theirs, and insisting they must rescue their friends, anyway. He is a sad, complicated puzzle of a man, and he was only just beginning to relax with them — relax with Molly, specifically — and Molly finds that not only he’s terribly fond of the man, but he can’t say goodbye. Not yet.
"Is something troubling you?" Vax’ildan asks, and Molly realizes he is standing in place, caught in thought.
"Aside from the whole being dead situation?" he jokes. It doesn’t sit right, but he smiles anyway — habits do die hard. Harder than him, it seems.
Vax’ildan, at least, seems mildly amused. "It takes a bit of getting used to, I suppose."
"That it does," Molly agrees, and then frowns. "It’s not this, though. I just… I guess I always aimed to leave places — and people — better than I found them. And I’m not sure I upheld that standard with my wizard friend."
"And it is bothering you?"
"It does. Unresolved business and all that. Or was that bullshit?"
Vax’ildan laughs, and it’s a good laugh. It is good to hear, and Molly smiles against his worries, and when their eyes meet again, there is some mischief in the other man’s eyes.
"You could see for yourself, if you wish," Vax’ildan offers carefully. "My mistress sees all. I could show you the life of your wizard, not quite through his eyes, but as close to it as one can. I doubt it will bring you peace, but it might satisfy your… curiosity."
It sounds like a trap, but Molly isn’t one to shy away from what he wants just because it sounds like a bad idea.
Vax’ildan sits him down again, touches his forehead, and Molly is flooded with Caleb’s memories. He sees it all. The happy childhood. Young Caleb — Bren — finding joy in magic, mesmerized by all the ways in which a keen mind, a steady hand and a few ingredients can manipulate reality. The academy, and pride in doing well, and a new found camaraderie, and eagerness to learn, and to serve the Empire, and to make the world a better place. Trent Ikithon plucking Caleb and his friends off the main course and corrupting them, twisting them, brainwashing them into his perfect tools. Love, born under pressure, both support and a trap. The evening Caleb burned his family, and the way he broke watching them die. The decade in the asylum. Empty eyes, and empty walls, and mind caught in a loop of guilt and horror, and visitors from the past seeing a shell of a man they once knew and loved. The clarity gifted by another broken mind and the escape. The self loathing and the determination to fix his sins or at least prevent others from going through the same.
The way Caleb found Nott, and attached to her right away, something inside of them both clicking into place.
The weeks Caleb watched the rest of them with a mix of fear, and suspicion, and a desperate need to be allowed to stay.
The weeks he watched them with an entirely different mix of emotions: fond, and sad, and confused.
All the times he almost left in the middle of the night, but didn’t.
His face when he realized Molly fell. The change in him.
How he took charge, and led, and kept everyone on task, dipping into the training he hated that he had. The note tucked into the folds of Molly’s shirt with a desperate hope for a miracle, his coat on the stick, Caleb’s shaky fingers brushing Molly’s hair from his face so very gently before covering him with tapestry and soil.
The way he fought, and bled, and risked his sanity to burn alive people who hurt his friends.
The last thing Molly sees is Caleb spinning up the magical tent to keep everyone safe and falling asleep alongside Nott, exhausted and hurting, but alive.
Molly comes out of it, shocked and shaken. There is too much he did not expect to see, and too much he did not expect to feel. He isn’t surprised, really — just overwhelmed by the chain of whiplashes he witnessed that Caleb actually lived through. He stares, frozen and barely breathing, into the dark, until he feels himself being gently guided into a hug. Vax’ildan silently holds him for a long time as he cries. When Molly has finally calmed down, Vax’ildan stands up, offers a hand, and says, "It’s time."
And this time, Molly says, "No."
He saw Caleb break, and hate himself, and deny himself any joy. He saw Caleb smile his shy smile, and silently take care of his friends, and finally beginning to let himself enjoy life again, if only a little bit at a time. Molly saw him allow himself to want, if not yet ask for, things that are not vengeance, or punishment, or bending the universe to right the wrongs. And he saw Caleb blame himself for their friends being taken and for Mollymauk dying.
He can’t possibly be at peace knowing he might have become the reason Caleb loses what he just barely regained.
"I know I’m dead," he says. "I know, and I’m not asking for that to change. But I’ve seen this boundary letting things through before. Can’t I have just one more talk? A dream, a vision, a fucking seance, if that’s what it takes… something. Just to tell Caleb it wasn’t his fault."
"I’m only a guide," Vax’ildan says with the same unbearable kindness in his voice and in his eyes. "And the door between the dead and the living can only be forced open from another side. You could choose to wait for the summon that will likely never come, if you wish, but you will have to wait alone. I don’t recommend it, but I can understand it if that’s what you wish to do."
"I’ll wait," Molly says. "Those bastards surprised me more times than I can count. They’ll come through, eventually."
"I thought that might happen," Vax’ildan admits, and then smiles. "Good luck, Mollymauk Tealeaf. May your wait not be in vain."
Molly stays in the darkness, waiting, and remembering all the precious moments he was wise enough to know to treasure, and all the precious moments of another’s life that he was stupid enough and lucky enough to witness.
He finds, his fondness only grows now, that his curiosity is satisfied.