For the writing prompts: Beauregard, 37
Whatever spell Beau has been hit with, it’s a doozy. She’s still up, at the end of the fight, still on her feet, but she feels unsteady, her mind wrapped in a layer of fluff. It’s kind of like being drunk, but less pleasant. Gods, Beau misses being able to get drunk. Stupid clear-headed monk shit.
Just then the world decides to lurch violently in front of her eyes, and she sways where she stands, before an arm loops low around her waist.
“Guess I can’t just leave you here to die. Let’s get you back to the others for a nice healing spell.”
The voice is sharp and insistent and Beau remembers that Nott is with her. Wait, Veth. Veth not Nott, but still kind of Nott. She leans heavily on the small, sturdy form at her side. “Yeah, uh, yeah, good idea.” Her words are harder to find than they should be, and they come out a little blurred around the edges.
Beau takes a step, and then another, thinking hard about where her feet should go. The third step fails her, one ankle landing how it shouldn’t, and the other leg giving way, and then she’s sitting on the ground again.
Veth glares down at her for a moment, almost tapping her foot, but then she sits next to her. “Ok, I guess we’ll wait here until Jester messages us or something.”
Beau smiles, vaguely, while the ground and the sky and all the trees shift and dance sickeningly in front of her eye, and she slumps against Veth’s shoulder. It’s a good shoulder. Solid. Nice to lean on. She feels… safe. Veth’s a mom, she thinks. She wonders fuzzily if that’s how a mom is meant to make you feel. Safe.
“Do you think they could have loved me?” She only means to think it, but she must have said it out loud, because Veth replies.
“Urgh,” Veth’s tone sounds like she’s rolling her eyes. “I really don’t think you want to have this conversation with me.”
Beau thinks about it. Now that she’s said it, she’s pretty sure she does want to, but she knows her brain isn’t working right at the moment, so maybe she doesn’t. Ah, fuck it. “Could they have though,” the words are still coming out slow and slurred. “My parents. You know, if I was… different.”
“They love you, Beau.” Veth’s voice is impatient but steady.
“No.” It comes out whiny enough that even in her befuddled state, Beau is kind of ashamed. “I mean, like they love TJ.” A new wave of dizziness overtakes her and she gulps in some air, fighting down the urge to puke before she can carry on speaking. “Like you love Luc.”
There’s a silence, and Beau isn’t sure Veth is going to answer. Thinking about it, she’s no longer sure she asked the question out loud at all.
But then, after a long moment. “You don’t know how they love TJ. Maybe they loved you as best they could. It’s ok for that not to have been enough.” Veth draws in a deep, shaky breath that Beau can feel right through her. “You don’t know,” she continues, quietly. “You don’t know that Luc won’t grow up and ask the same question about me. About his mom who wasn’t there. I love him, but maybe that’s not enough.”
“‘S different.” Beau’s eyes want to close, the lids drooping of their own accord. She won’t let them. “You died. And you were a goblin.”
“I’m not anymore. But I’m still not there.” There’s a break in Veth’s voice that Beau doesn’t like.
Beau is really having trouble staying with it, her head has started to pound like a fucking giant’s having a party in there, but she needs to say this. She needs to. “You will be. He loves you. You love him. And Yeza loves him. He has you both, you know? And you’ve done all this awesome, important shit. He’s gonna be so proud.” It’s not really what she wants to say, but it’s close enough for now. She cranes her neck around and squints at Veth as best she can, wishing she could read Veth’s expressions the way she had learned to read Nott’s. Veth isn’t exactly smiling, but she isn’t crying either, and that’s not nothing.
Beau lets her eyes drift closed and leans on her friend’s shoulder and trusts that Veth will keep a watch.
“Your parents are idiots, Beau,” Beau thinks she hears, though she might be dreaming. “Fuck ‘em.”
They wait together for the others to find them.
Writing prompts for days.
