#I rarely feel like expressing these sorts of thoughts and massively prefer churning out long thought-out rambles...

[kafkaoftherubble]

237不止没有改进236，还他妈的直接... //CH237 did not improve CH236. In fact, it fucking—

Spoilers for Jujutsu Kaisen CH237.

Damn. This chapter blows as a belated Gojo fan. Also blows as a character-work fan. Or a "surprise me with an interesting and creative maneuver after the last chapter" fan. I should be glad I didn't inhale dangerous amounts of copium last week beyond small doses and hope.

You know what feels like the point of JJK as of this writing? "Be an asshole, or lose." Megumi ain't an asshole, is he? So there you go. He kept getting punished. Bruh had been an L magnet for a while now for sure, but at CH237 you can reasonably believe he's in that same afterlife airport in yet another offscreen death. At this rate JJK is gonna feel like a fundamentalist/millennialist Christian talking point: "This life on Earth is shit. You can only hope for salvation in the afterlife. No point trying to fight suffering while living; no point dreaming about improvement. True happiness only exists after you die... In God's Kingdom Gojo's airport, mai furrendo. Until Sukuna Reality-cut through even the afterlife, that is."

Megumi had a lot of characterization early on, man. He's got an interesting psychology, legitimate mental growth, a self-ish goal revolving around Tsumiki, a selfless goal revolving around his definition of being a jujutsu sorcerer, a dynamic of interesting potentials between himself and Yuji + himself and Satoru + himself and Tsumiki + himself and the Zenin clan (or whatever's left of it), and a canonically busted technique. We would have been so stoked to see what Megumi himself could do with Ten Shadows, especially when it's said to rival the Gojo clan's Limitless.

Instead, when the 10 Shadow vs. Limitless fight happened, it was Sukuna who demonstrated how good it was, not the young hero we're rooting to master it. And now comes CH237 and Sukuna's like, "Yea, this technique was just an Anti-Gojo move so I can forget this now that he's 2.5jo. Bye Megumi's L Magnet body! Bye Megumi's soul; thanks for tanking Unlimited Void that one time! MAGICAL GIRL TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE! BELIEVIX, SO MAGICAL!"

Was the whole point of Megumi's existence just to erase Satoru? Were all those previous hints to Megumi's character development and psychology just haphazard salad dressings?

And man. Because I'm, indeed, a Gojo fan, what really bummed me out is this growing realization: Satoru seemingly still dead right now really lends substance to people who said he's the single-most stupidest loser in this story ever. He has never made any right choice, has he? Even his insistence on not executing Yuji, which was framed to be a move for a noble cause back then (I'll die on this hill; I really can't see it as a self-motivating cause no matter how some people might like to paint it), is now seen as a stupid choice that doomed the future because of how much the villains are winning right now (while the strongest guy on the good guys' side is chilling with "no regrets" in an afterlife airport).

You'd at least hope that Satoru managed to introduce some permanent damage to Sukuna for the rest of the camp. Lose the battle, win the war. But apparently, from the looks of it, that didn't last. Sukuna magical-girled into his Second Stage Boss form. It's reasonable that his brain just got renewed from this, which means Malevolent Shrine may be back on the table already. And any (meager) damage Satoru had left on him from their fight is just wiped clean. Bruh even has his dumbbell-looking weapon (it's actually a legit weapon in Hindu myth if I recall correctly, though what exactly is the name slipped my mind this time) now.

Hell, that simp Uraume is still alive and kicking. Satoru didn't even offscreen that annoying twerp with his 200% Hollow Purple at the beginning of the fight. Now Uraume is presumably acting out those Gamble God(赌神) Chinese New Year Hong Kong movies with Hakari up there in the sky.

Honestly Gojo Satoru, are you sure you were the strongest at all? Or have you just been subjected to that old Chuck Norris meme, where tales of Chuck Norris being "the strongest" in the most ridiculous ways possible spread among people—except in your case, everyone including yourself believed it? 'Cause man, the story disrespects you so hard now.

Oh, and don't bother looking for Satoru's body among the rubble. Nor bother with the cast's emotional reaction. No Yuji, no Yuta, no nobody except Kashimo and Hakari. Some said this might allude to a background event—maybe Satoru is being patched up in the background as we speak, ya know?

But I don't know. It's just... better not to expect anything at this point. Better not to cook unless the intention is to write fanfics and what-ifs for yourself or your community. I do neither of those things, so I don't wanna try cooking at all. "Nekkhamma", man. Non-attachment is the better frame of mind by this point.

Still gonna stick with JJK though because hey, I still wanna evaluate things when it's all said and done. I'm not gonna try persuading my best friend into seeing it with me when Season 3 comes, though. Her fav is Nanami and she's only interested in Satoru because of me. By this metric, there's no point in having her stick around past her personal interests. She's not even one who likes pointless tragedies nor is she wanting of shows to watch, aye, Fionn?

Sukuna fans can rejoice, though. He reclaims the form Sukuna fans wanted to see for years! And he's more powerful than ever and is indisputably the King of Curses very likely riding into a non-airport style victory (unless Kenjaku screws him). In addition to being the strongest and poetic (that's the character depth non-Sukuna fans like myself missed at our peril, I suppose), he's—by his admission—an unwanted child with a hint of him "working to become the strongest" (this has been a pretty persistent fanon for a while now. Just need a confirmation.). He also doesn't know "love." And thinks everyone else is trash. There are some genuinely interesting possibilities to speculate about his background based on the breadcrumbs provided CH237 though. I wonder if the conjoined twin theory is true!

Hey, Gege? If you're transitioning Jujutsu Kaisen to Sukuna Kaisen, might as well start throwing the most meaningful bones to Sukuna fans, okay? No more being coy. Just tell them his backstory. Hell, I'll stick around out of curiosity alone... even if I hate an asshole who never gets punished.

Thank you for reading my ramble.

[punishandenslavesuckers]

Mollymauk Tealeaf wakes up in a grave by the road ten years after he died. Things have gone a bit wrong since then and he might be the only one who can set things right… since it’s the Mighty Nein themselves who’ve gone wrong. AU: Where Molly comes back to yell at his super-powered Level 20 friends. (AO3 - part1) (AO3 - part 2)

They end up under a large tree growing on the side of the road – bizarrely massive, thick, with a deep halo of canopy. The only one like it for half a mile in either direction and growing very near the mud that marks Mollymauk’s gravesite. Yasha tells him not to look at it, but like a festering wound, he can’t help but stare into the shallow pit. The churned earth is sweet with torn grass. Shocks of wildflowers still carpet the moss around the grave and there, knocked down in the long grass, is a small wooden plank, driven like a trellis into the ground where vines grew over the words carved there:

HERE LIES A FRIEND.

Caduceus has a small iron kettle warming near the flame. Fragrant and herbal. He’s roasting apples over flame, tending carefully to their rotation. He hasn’t said much since they settled here, leaving Molly and Yasha to huddle and speak quietly. Molly is mostly clean, his clothes dry, and Yasha helpfully combs bits of green stuff from his hair. Her touch breathes a cantrip, warm heat moving through Molly’s skin. She is exceptionally gentle.

Molly lays with his head in her lap, his neck resting on the cross-cross of her legs, sleepy comfort dominating his would-be troubled thoughts. For a while, he lets her stave off the anxiety, lets nothing but the friction of her fingers cross his mind.

“Did you see me die?” Molly asks eventually.

She’s quiet for a moment, but her fingers in his hair are unflinching. She quietly plaits parts of his hair with small blue flowers, running her fingertips along the curve of his horns, nails picking slightly at the metal in the bone.

“I heard Beau call for you… then nothing.”

Molly feels his heart tighten like a stabbed animal. “They buried me?”

“In your Platinum Dragon tapestry. Do you remember?”

Molly grins. “I remember. From Zedash during the festival.”

He can hear her smile in her next sentence. “That seems so long ago.”

“For me it was just a few weeks ago.” Molly moves his hand up lie back against Yasha’s knee. She takes his hand, lacing her fingers in his before he goes on. “I won a strawberry in a bag toss game. You won an arm-wrestling contest and had your first candy apple. Jester bought them.” He smiles, a sweet-tart memory flooding his mouth a little. “Doughnuts and drinking. That… that was a brilliant day. Wasn’t it?”

Yasha is quiet.

“Yasha?”

“I forgot about the candy apples.”

Molly tilts his head back. Yasha’s staring blankly into the fire to the side of them, a small grief written big in her eyes. Molly squeezes her hand to bring her back. When she seems to break out of it, eyes finding his again, he sees they are inexplicably bright, threatening to run over. So he takes their laced hands and pulls her knuckles to his mouth, kisses the ink there. Her skin tastes like static. She smells perpetually of rain.

He thinks, silently, that these hands can probably split the earth open. Call lightning enough to tear the world apart. He thinks that she’s the manifestation of a storm god’s will but, somehow, is sitting here with him while they wait for tea. She’s looking at him like a wonder and he doesn’t know what to do with that.

“It’s okay,” Molly says, smiling back up at her. He squeezes her hand. “You’re my best friend, you know. Maybe you have other best friends now, but for me it’s still the same. So you know you can tell me anything and I’m obligated to like you anyway.”

She laughs, but it hurts.

“Oh Mollymauk. You’ll be so disappointed.”

“Not possible.”

“I was a coward. I ran away.”

“Hasn’t everyone?”

“You don’t understand. I… I will have to show you for you to understand it.”

“Then show me,” Molly hisses, tilting his head back farther, glaring. “You won’t shock me. The world was on its way to war when I died. A slaver cracked my ribs open. It’s a brutal world and I always knew that. You know I knew that.” He squeezes her fingers again. “If you were brutal too, then I prefer that to your dying on principles. I believe in doing a good turn when possible. Sometimes it’s not. That’s okay.”

Yasha just stares helplessly at him. “Oh... dammit.” She wipes her face. “I forgot what you’re really like.”

“I think,” drawls Molly, “all of you are remembering a really different Mollymauk than the one that died.” He grins to break the mood. “I’m sort of an asshole. I love you, but I’m am not one to judge. Remember?”

“I’m starting to.”

“Tea?” rumbles Caduceus suddenly, materializing directly beside them.

Molly jumps.

“Oops. Sorry. I thought you heard me coming.” He kneels and offers Molly a small fired clay tea cup glazed in green. It smells sweet and delicious. “Careful. This mix is very rare. The last of its kind actually, I’m pretty sure.” He ponders. “Yeah, I’m thinking it’s the last of its kind, but this is a special occasion.”

Molly sits up to cautiously accept the tea. Yasha moves forward, unfolding her knees so Molly can sit back between them, leaning against her clavicle while she too accepts the tea. Yasha drinks hers. Molly follows her lead. The warmth of the drink spreads immediately though him, the bone cold in his body suddenly sliding away into an easy, fragrant heat. He blinks. Shocked to find a sudden rush of warmth behind his eyes too. As though it’s been years since he had tea and he just now realized he wanted for it.

“This is really good, Caduceus.”

“Thank you, but it’s hardly anything I did.”

“What kind of plant is this?” Molly examines the bottom of the cup. “You say it’s going extinct?”

“Sort of. I’m honestly not sure what kind of plant it is, but it only grows here.” He smiles warmly. “I’ve been tending the garden for a while though. Shame to see it go, really.”

Yasha’s head jerks up at that. “Caduceus,” she says, eyeing Molly with a faint nervousness. “Did… is this the tea from… uh…” She eyes Molly again. “From… here-here?”

Molly, who is half-way through his tea at this point, pauses.

“Of course,” says Caduceus, tilting his large pink head curiously. “That last of it should really go to you two, wouldn’t you say?”

Yasha coughs a little. “Uh...”

“What?” Molly demands, deadpan.

Caduceus considers a moment. “Ooooh, I see. You think it’s a little odd that I gave them the tea from –”

“Eh!” Yasha blurts, waving a hand to stop him speaking and Molly immediately lowers his tea cup. “Uh, it’s nothing.”

“What the hell is in the tea?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me right bloody now or I’m throwing it in your hair.”

“The flowers that steeped this tea grew from the earth around your grave,” says Caduceus easily. His tone and expression have a pleased warmth to them. “The apples I’m roasting fell from the tree that grew as your headstone. I don’t think either will grow anymore since I raised you. That splendor was, specifically, in your memory, Mollymauk Tealeaf.” A shrug. “That’s why I thought, of all the people in the world, it made sense that you and Yasha should have the last of it.”

Molly stares.

Yasha is grimacing.

“I’m drinking tea grown from my own grave dirt?” Molly says, slowly, clarifying. “Plants that grew on my corpse?”

“Yes,” says Caduceus, smiling. “That’s nice, right? Circular.”

Molly eyes the cup, eyes Caduceus, eyes Yasha, then Caduceus again. “Yeah, alright.”  And he downs the rest of the cup. “Can I get some more? It would be a shame to put me to waste.”

Caduceus’ smile broadens and he turns to Yasha. “I like them. I thought I would, but I like them a lot.”

Molly watches the firbolg amble away to get more of the tea. “He’s nice,” Molly says, draping his arms over his knees and looking at Yasha who seems relieved. “And unassumingly dark. I like it.”

“Yeah,” Yasha says. “He’s a good person.”

“Great hair.”

“Really great hair.”

“Do you mind if I ask who he is to you?” Molly drums his fingers on his knee. “He, uh, raised me from the dead and I gather he did it for the Nein and… apparently against his own moral code? Is that right?”

“Yes.” Yasha pauses, a faint shadow of regret in her eyes. “Caduceus serves the Wild Mother. Goddess of the grave and green things. Raising things from the dead is… not what he does, but he did this. I honestly…. I don’t really know why he did it.” She stops a moment. “He’s a friend though. He’s been with us since you died. He helped us kill Lorenzo and I still, to this day, I don’t know what we did to deserve his friendship.” She lowers her voice. “I think all we’ve done is break his heart in these last years.”

Molly waits a moment. Then, quietly, “Yasha.”

“Not yet.”

“I promise, whatever it is, I won’t hate you.”

Yasha closes her mismatched eyes. “It seems like such a long time ago, Molly. I… when you died everything changed. The Nein became something new.” She smiles. “They were so strong. We stood with gods in battle, Mollymauk. I don’t know how to tell you the story except… except that we were beautiful.” She wipes her face. “I wish you could have seen it.”

“I’m sorry I missed it.”

“I’m afraid for you Molly. Caduceus wants you to talk to the others and… he sees things sometimes. He dreams things that may be come true. I feel like it will be dangerous and I don’t want to lose you again.”

Molly cocks a brow. “You’re scared of them. Of the others?”

“Not all of them. And not for the same reasons. They’re all… things have changed. They’ve changed. Some of them are unrecognizable, Molly.”

“But Caduceus thinks I’ll have… what? Some sway? He wants me to talk them down from something?”

“Perhaps. I’m a little out of touch. I’ve been part of the storm for a long time.”

Molly tries to smile. “Well, I didn’t come back just to sit around and drink dead people tea. So… if there is something you think we can do to help our friends, then I’m up for it. Just say the word.”

She’s quiet for a while. Then, “I don’t want to lose you though.”

“You won’t. None of them are going to hurt me.”

“Oh, Molly. No.” She looks at him with a startled, frightened expression. “Don’t assume that. Don’t assume they wouldn’t hurt you. You don’t know their natures now. Please. If you want to do this, I’ll come with you, but don’t assume that.”

Molly hesitates then. “Really? You’re sure?”

She nods.

“Okay… well… that’s a little upsetting but…”

“I’m not asking Mollymauk to go into danger without protection,” says a voice suddenly.  

Molly twitches and looks over his shoulder, finds Caduceus standing there with his staff in his hand rather than tea cups. Molly notices, vaguely, that there are definitely green stems coiling from the wood in his staff, definitely living lichen in the whorls of it. He cups the crystal at the tip, lifting it toward his face, and gently breathes on the stone there. The amethyst begins to glow soft pink. The faint fey light swells from within and casts warm light across the downy slopes of Clay’s face. He looks to his companions and his eyes are lit again with a mirroring flame.

“If you want,” he says to Molly. “I have protection I can give you.”

Molly tilts his head. “Uh, well, I don’t turn down magic from clerics,” he says slowly. “Even ones that give me my own death tea as a beverage.”

“Good,” says Caduceus, smiling serenely. Then he makes a hand gesture at Molly, fingers sweeping in a small, precise series of movements, and in another language that pulls his voice deep and resonant, he says, a word and the word shivers through Molly’s chest, takes root, and sits there. Caduceus nods while Mollymauk shudders. “There. I can’t do it again until we rest but…”

And he gets no farther because in that precise moment something moves in the grass behind him.

Molly immediately sits up.

“Hey,” he says, frowning. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” Caduceus says blankly. He peers behind him. “I don’t see anything.”

“Right there,” Molly says, annoyed.

He points as the small blur in the grass. The blur freezes. Actually, it’s not a blur at all now that Molly is looking properly. it’s a very small figure in a cloak. It seems startled when he both points and continues to point at it as it darts sideways, bouncing like it’s trying to magically avoid his stare. Weirdly, Yasha stares around, confused. Her eyes pass right over the small thing in the grass which is definitely panicking under Molly’s open attention.

“OI! I see you.” Molly starts to get up. “What are you –?”

There’s a burst of light and a deafening BANG.

Caduceus jerks, hard, like something shoved him forward.  He staggers for a moment, surprised, the foot of his staff coming down in the grass as he suddenly leans his full weight against the wood. His eyes are wide, lips parted on the word he was saying… then he drops to his knees with a cry, clutching  his shoulder.

There is blood. Blood soaking through the fabric.

Yasha doesn’t even cry out.

She immediately grabs Molly, yanking him to his feet. The hair along the back of his neck stands up in a sudden field of static. Her fingers dig into his shoulders, the sinews in her arms and chest suddenly tense as she lets loose a terrible, shivering war-scream that Mollymauk has never heard before – a scream that reverberates in her throat and chest, like there are a hundred voices screaming in unison and the dark celestial dim transcribes something hot into Molly’s blood.

“GET UP, CLAY!” Her voice shakes Molly’s bones. “GET UP AND MOVE!”

And Caduceus grabs his own shoulder and bares his teeth, a flare of greenery shooting up from a wound, spitting blood as a small geyser of bloody ivy erupts from the hole, grows over, then withers and dies. And then Caduceus isn’t wounded anymore. He grabs something from a cord around his neck, like a tuft of fur knotted on twine and he focuses, his fingers pinching that bit of fur and forming a sigil in front of him. He whispers, “Show me Nott.”

And his eyes flash, his expression goes rigid with fear and he looks at Molly and –

And the second shot hits Mollymauk in the chest.

He’s in Yasha’s arms and the bullet still punches through Molly directly under his right clavicle, lodging in the inside of his right scapula and the shot instantly –

Molly jolts awake. He’s lying in a field beneath a massive, luminous moon. He knows it instantly. The air smells warm like spring, like crushed grass, like rain on the horizon and he grabs frantically at his chest, at the wound surely but there’s nothing. Just his own shirt, his own ribs, his unbroken clavicle. He can’t understand what’s –? What is going on?

A beautiful person in black feather-lined armor suddenly kneels over him and takes his hands, quickly, squeezing them to stop him scrabbling. Their fingers are cool to the touch, but they warm as Mollymauk calms. He can’t say how, but he feels he knows them, trusts them. They hold his hands between their palms.

“Not yet,” says the raven knight. “Don’t worry. I’m watching over you.”

“What’s happening?” Molly rasps. He grips their hands tight, knuckles pushing white through his skin. “What is this? That bloody hurt!”

“I know it does. I’m sorry. You won’t remember it on the other side though.”

“Fuck. I have to keep going don’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Then do it. Just –”

The raven knight shoves his forehead back and–

Molly spits up blood, gasps, his entire body glowing just pulsingwith the pain but he’s conscious. Blood is soaking his chest. At least three ribs sit shattered from the impact in his chest. There is a burning hot bullet inside him and he can’t scream because his right lung is collapsed. He is barely aware of someone holding him, clutching him like a busted doll in their arms. That they’re moving. He’s being carried, his head lolled against someone’s shoulder as they dash with his body in their grip.

He hears Yasha say, horrified, “Molly?!”

Her hands tighten. A flare of healing knits his ribs, cool blue arcana fusing the bone and inflating his ruined lung. He retches, feels that slug of iron in his chest wink out of his insides. He tastes blood and it’s too familiar. He’s choking, his chest cracked open and – “Respect,” says the beast standing over him, before his hand tenses on the glaive and – Molly yells. He thrashes and Yasha grabs him like cat lunging out of her arms.

“Molly! Stop! Stop, I have you!”

“What the fuck?!” Molly howls. Yasha is straight jacketing his arms to his sides, bear hugging him against her. “What the fuck was that?!”

“She must have followed me,” Caduceus is saying. He’s crouched behind the trunk of the apple tree, which provide very meager cover for seven feet of giant pink and gray firbolg bulk. He blinks anxiously, his ears flipped back against his skull now. “If she uses an explosive round, there’s not a lot I can do about it.”

“Is Caleb with her?” Yasha demands wildly. “Would he come? I thought you said –?”

“Is that Nott?!” Molly interrupts, Yasha still collaring him against her chest. She’s got her back flat to the apple tree and her eyes are lit with sparks of blue electricity. “Did Nott just try to bloody kill me?!”

“No,” Caduceus says, perfectly mild, “She definitelykilled you. My Death Ward pulled you back.”

Molly barely has time to process that before something detonates on the other side of the tree and a blast of fire and concussive force blows grass and dirt across the field around them. The apple tree shakes and wood splinters. Yasha kneels down, her arms still tight around Molly’s ribs, her body hunched protectively around him and it takes Molly a moment to realize she’s absolutely shaking.

“Nott.” Caduceus is speaking into a shimmering pendant on his wrist. “Nott, are you there?” A pause. “What are you doing? This isn’t like you. What’s wrong?”

“Oh, fuck you, Clay!” snarls a voice that… that honestly does not sound like Nott at all. The usual grated snarl oddly clear, almost too high to be the goblin rogue. “Are you seriously asking me what’s wrong? You turned on me once. I’m not gonna stand around while you make something to hurt us!”

“I didn’t make anything. It’s Molly –”

“Liar! That was a warning shot! I won’t give you another!”

“Nott!” Yasha is just yelling around the tree. “Nott, it’s really Molly! You almost killed him! Please, stop!”

“I can’t believe you’ve done this.” Nott sounds gutted. “Yasha, that’s not Molly! You know it’s not! We tried to raise him before!” There’s a pained noise from the pendant and Molly feels Yasha tighten her hold around him, as if to reassure herself. “Yasha, he didn’t come. He didn’t come before so why would he now? He’s gone. I’m sorry, Yasha. I’m so, so sorry, but Clay is lying to you. He’s just trying to get you on his side.”

Caduceus grimaces. The pendant on his wrist spins slightly. “Nott, please, I don’t want to fight you.”

“Psh! I’ll bet. You wanna know if I’ve still got an artillery round?”

“Yes. That. But I don’t want to fight people I love.”

“If that was true, you wouldn’t be out here constructing monsters in Molly’s image. All you care about is the balance of things or whatever! You don’t care about the rest of us!”

And here, Molly wiggles one arm free of Yasha’s grasp, snatches Caduceus’ wrist and pulls the pendant toward him.

“Hey!” he says loudly, a little flustered into the communication charm. “Nott, this is Molly. Hi. I’m not an undead abomination. I’m actually pretty much just me. Can you please, for the love of whatever god, please stop shooting at us?”

There’s a deafening silence.

Molly monitors it before adding, quietly, “Nott, it’s me. Honest. If you want to look me in the eye or do magic or whatever to check, I’ll let you do that, but you have to stop shooting.” A beat. “See? I told you those machines were a bad idea. Last I remember you just stole the one firearm from Hupperdook and I didn’t even want you to have that.”

Quietly, from the other end, Nott’s unfamiliar voice says, “Mollymauk?”

“Far as I can tell, yeah.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Okay. But do you have to killme while it’s still a topic of discussion?”

“Yes.” Her voice is so soft on the line, he can barely hear. “Because if I talk to you, I think you’ll convince me.”

“Okay, Nott, you see how that’s pretty worrisome for me, right?” Molly feels Yasha releasing her grip around his ribs. “I’ve been upright for all of ten minutes and I have old friends trying to kill me. Please, I’m really myself, I swear, and you’re scaring the hell out of me. Okay?”

“I don’t care because you’re not the real Mollymauk. I don’t care if you’re scared.”

“Nott,” Molly says. “I know this feels wrong and scary. I get it, but I’m really me so… you know… Don’t. Bloody. Shoot. Me.”

“You’re not real.”

“I’m real.” Caduceus has slipped the pendant off entirely, is letting Molly hold it, cupped in his hands, “Nott, it’s me. You know the rules have always been different with me and death. Maybe… maybe this is just another time the rules are getting bent around me. I don’t know. I honestly don’t, but would you let me figure that out before you blast the unholy hell out of me?”

Another long silence.

Then, “What was the name of the dwarf we meet on the road? The one who fought with us.”

“Keg. She smoked and wore plate armor. I liked her.”

“What card did you pull for Jester when you met her?”

“Uh, uh… Let me… The Moon. It was The Moon. Gods, Nott, I don’t have the best memory to start with. Trivia is not my strong –”

“What did you buy from Pumat Sol?”

Molly raises his voice at the piece of jewelry. “You can’t ask me to recite a grocery list to prove I’m a real person, Nott! That’s stupid!”

“Shut up! Shut up!” squawks Nott, sounding panicky. “If you’re really Molly, tell me the most expensive thing you bought from him. You’d remember that! You’d remember if you were Molly.”

“Gods, uh…” Molly racks his brain. “My heart pendant?”

“You remember the Hour of Honor in Hupperdook?” Nott’s voice sounds strained now, like its being bent over a hard surface. “Tell me who won.”

“I won. Beau lost. Fjord won. And you finished them off in a double or nothing.” Molly grips the pendant tighter. “Then we danced the rest of the night and were fucked up in the morning and got all our bloody money stolen. Every single coin we had. We killed a war machine and left Kiri with a nice family there. Then we set out and I made everyone a really nice dinner and then it all went to shit. Nott, it’s me. I’m not trying to trick you, I swear. Are you alright?”

Nott kind of chokes. “What?”

“The night I died, I thought you were… I couldn’t see you.”

Another long pause. “I was fine. That – I mean, obviously I was alright. I’m here talking to you. What are you–?.”

“I know! Gah, but… for me it was… Sorry. I’m glad you’re okay, you know, even if you’re trying kill me now. I mean, it’s fair. I might be a zombie from your perspective. No hard feelings.” A beat. “Maybe a few hard feelings, depending on how this goes. Nott?” Molly exhales noisily, a little miserably. “Can’t we be friends for a few minutes? Please. I’m really tired.”

“You told me not to steal from certain kinds of people,” she whispers. “What kind of people?”

“The happy ones. Don’t steal from happy people.”

“Oh.” Nott’s voice cracks. “Oh fuck. Molly?”

“Yes?”

There’s a noise from the long grass and Molly peers out into the still smoldering field beyond the apple tree. There near the road, standing up from a crouched position, is a small figure in dark cloak. Molly stands up, stepping partially out from behind cover only to be immediately yanked back by Yasha who moves to block him with her body. But the figure – apparently Nott The Brave, tiny as he remembers her – is tossing aside a thin metal weapon, a longer, heavier version of the sidearm he’d seen her carry all those years ago.

She tosses two more smaller weapons to the road, raises empty hands.

“Yasha?” Nott calls, sounding nervous now. “You’re not gonna stab me because I shot Molly, are you?”

A long pause.

“No,” says Yasha, but begrudgingly.

“Or electrocute me with lightning?”

Another pause. A sigh. “No, Nott, of course not. Do you promise to stop shooting us?”

“Yes. Yes, I promise.”

“Okay.” Yet another pause. “If you hurt him, I will kill you though, Nott. Sorry.” Yasha seems embarrassed. “Just don’t do anything. Okay? I don’t want to –”

“Right! Yeah.” Nott waves her hands frantically. “On the same page. No killing. Got it.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“No, but you… you promise-promise?”

“I don’t… know other ways to promise, but… sure.” Nott shrugs. “I promise-promise?”

“Glad to see some things never change,” mutters Molly.  He ducks under Yasha’s arm and moves carefully into the open, a little warily, hands spread and empty in front of him. He crosses the smoldering grass, boots crunching in the burnt earth. “Nott? That you?”

“Uh, hi?” says Nott. Her hood is so low he can’t see her face.  

“Hi?” says Molly.

Nott just stands there, awkward, her weapons all on the road and Molly just stands there, also awkwardly, back from the dead and slightly disheveled.

“You bloody shot me,” Molly points out.

Nott holds out for a full three seconds.

Then she makes this strangled, animal noise and breaks into a sprint, bee-lining straight at him. Fast. Arcane fast. Her feet don’t seem to touch the ground. She’s so fast he barely has time to react and she’s leaping up and tackling him, arms hooking around his neck, crossing ankles at the back of his spine and there’s very suddenly a small, sobbing… gnome? There’s a gnome in his arms. Dark hair, dark skin, sobbing profusely into his shirt saying over and over:

“Oh shit! I’m so sorry! I’m sorry! I thought you were a zombie thing, Molly!”

Molly just wraps his arms around her, blinking and confused.

“Uhh? Wow. You look… different?”

“Oh, uh, right.” She leans back and stares at him with bright golden eyes, gleaming cat-like from an otherwise adorable gnomish face. The only remaining ghost of the goblin girl he recollects. This new Nott has freckles and a slightly crooked front tooth. Her hair is fluffy and black. There’s a little scar bisecting her right brow and she seems a bit embarrassed. “I look… different now. Uh, it’s new.”

“Is it real?” Molly asks, fascinated. He uses two fingers to gingerly lift a section of bangs, his other arm hooked underneath Nott’s bottom, keeping her weight on his midriff. He grins. “Wow. Nott. You’re gorgeous. Is this how you’ve always imagined yourself?

She nods, a little anxiously.

“Well then, you look great!” Molly laughs, hugging her in a great teddy-bear squeeze and spinning around on his heels. She squawks indignantly but doesn’t fight him. “Ah! It isyou! Fuck! I thought you died while we were fighting Lorenzo. I thought he hit the cages while you were trying to unlock them.” He tucks one hand up behind her head, pulling her against his shoulder. “Gods, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“How are you here?!” Nott yowls.

“I have no idea!” Molly laughs.

“You jerk!” She pounds his back with her fists. “You can’t just come back in the middle of everything!”

“Sorry my miraculous resurrection is inconvenient for you. Should I fuckin’ off myself and reschedule?”

“DON’T EVEN JOKE ABOUT THAT!” She grabs hold of his head and he realizes she’s fighting down sobs a little. “That’s not funny! Don’t!”

Molly stops spinning and leans back a little. Nott’s gripping his horns like a pair of bony handholds at this point, something that would annoy him if he weren’t so completely fucking elated. She’s staring at him, eyes just scouring his face furiously for some discrepancy, some signal that he is not what he says he is. He waits, patiently for her to finish.

“Do you think Yasha will forgive me?” Nott whispers. “Do you think Clay will? I shot him.”

“Sure.” Molly shrugs. “What’s a bullet wound among friends?”

“Less than you think,” says Yasha suddenly. She’s moved to stand beside Molly and it says something about how enamored Molly is with Nott that he didn’t notice her approach. Very quietly the barbarian woman looks at Nott and says, “Hello there.”

The gnome-gunslinger lifts her face. “H-hi, Yasha.”

Yasha’s face wrinkles a little, at the corners of her eyes. “It’s been a while.”

“I missed you,” Nott says, rather like she’s afraid to admit it and has been carrying that around with her for a few years.

Yasha, a smile in her voice, says, “I missed you too.” She swallows. “I’m sorry that I… I’m sorry, Nott. For everything.”

Nott’s face immediately winds up, her golden eyes welling up.

“Shit! Me too!” She covers her face with both hands and yells into them. “I fucked everything up. I’m so sorry. I just… I should have gone after you or done something. I just… I thought you didn’t want us to find you anymore and after we lost Fjord I just…”

She’s vibrating with emotion and Molly preemptively opens his arms as she lunges out of his grip into Yasha’s waiting hold. Yasha catches her up, hugging her like she’s been waiting for weeks to do it and just stands there, holding her friend while she cries.

Nott is wailing. “Why did you leave?!”

“I had to,” Yasha says, clutching the smaller woman, cradling her head. “I had to, I’m so sorry, but I had to.”

“That sucks!”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I lost all of them after you left.” Nott’s voice is muffled, her face jammed into Yasha’s hair. “I don’t know what to do. You’re all running off with your freakin’ gods and stuff. Even Clay left!” Her fists are knotted in Yasha’s clothes, gripping leathers of it like handholds. “I don’t have a god I can run off with. I needed someone to stick around! I can’t just… just blow up the problem this time, Yasha. I literally do not have a magic bullet.”

“I know,” Yasha whispers, holding Nott so tight Molly can see her arms shake. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Nott sniffs. “What are we gonna do?” she whispers. “They aren’t listening to me anymore. They stopped listening to Caduceus. I can’t get them to stop. I thought… I thought Clay had a plan or something. This isn’t a plan. This is a shitty shitty –”

“Okay. Wait.”

Yasha and Nott stop hugging just long enough to look at Molly, blinking through tears. Molly feels a little bad about that but not bad enough to keep his trap shut. He gives an apologetic head tilt, grimacing.

“Sorry, but… I still don’t know what’s going on. You keep talking gloom and doom. What the hell is going on? Why are you shooting your friends? Why is Yasha walking around as a talking lightning bolt? Just… tell me?”

Nott looks at Yasha. “You haven’t told him?”

“You started shooting before I could,” says Yasha dryly.

“Oh. Right.”

Molly feels a hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll tell you,” Caduceus says. His eyes are pale and a little tired. “It was my dream that brought us here. I saw it over and over that I needed to come here. The Wild Mother herself stood in your grave, Mollymauk, but death – and the unmaking of death – is not the domain of the Wild Mother. Only the grave.” His heavy hand squeezes gently, almost bracing Molly. “Death is the province of the Raven Queen.”

Molly just stares up at Caduceus. He thinks, vaguely, that Caduceus Clay is the most interesting person he’s ever had the pleasure to stare at in close quarters and he smells faintly of drying flowers, but also Molly doesn’t understand a godsdamned word he’s saying.

Mollymauk just shakes his head. “What the hell are you saying?”

Caduceus gently, but firmly, takes Molly’s shoulders in his hands and holds his stare.

“I’m saying the Stormlord sent his disciple to your headstone and the goddess of the grave opened her hand for you. I’m saying the Raven Queen is conspiring with the wilds and the storm. I’m saying something is so wrong in the world that the gods are breaking their rules to fix it.” Caduceus looks mournful as he presses on. “I’m sorry, but I think my dreams mean this: there’s something you need to do in this world, Mollymauk Tealeaf and if you don’t …. the next epoch starts now.”

And, well, there is nothing to say to something like that.

Silence stretches like road between all four of them, a long and winding ribbon that Molly dreads to touch.

Eventually though, Nott breaks the quiet with a soft, appropriate, entirely universal, “Fuck.”

part 3