Curate, connect, and discover
Between the Circus Kids, as Caleb had taken to calling them, there had been a longstanding agreement not to let the other forget anything important. Not when they knew that it could happen and how much it would hurt them to realize it when it did.
It had been Mollymauk’s idea. It was why he had given Yasha the book she used to press flowers and small keepsakes meant to be passed on to the woman she had wanted to show the world to. It had been Mollymauk’s idea, to find her on a bad night, and prod her back to reality to ask the small questions. The important questions.
“What colour were her eyes, love?”
“What did she used to call you again?”
“Can you tell me that story about that time you fell into the swamp? That was funny and I need a laugh.”
Yasha remembered every question. Every detail it had been meant to drudge up and back to the front of her mind. Every small smile she missed and the way Zuala’s eyes would light up right before she laughed. She remembered every small pattern of speech and the way her wife had been so fierce in her love.
And she remembered the way Mollymauk would never let her forget.
“Caleb,” Yasha had always been afraid that her voice was too loud when she intruded on these moments the mage would take. These little reprieves long after the adventure was done and their future was safe. When there was a familiar lavender tiefling off exploring the world with no apparent recollection of them, and the life being built around the broken foundations between them was still unsteady in the wake of it all; “Do you remember Molly’s laugh?”
She did.
She heard it often enough. In her memory and in every fresh flower in a fresh book she wanted to keep for herself. In every way Kingsley would strut or swoop in and out of her life with the same exuberance that Mollymauk had once clung to her when she made her way back into his.
Caleb would smile at the question. “I believe we still hear it often enough, no?”
“No… No, I don’t think it’s the same. Do you remember that time we had in Zadash, when he tried to get you in on a con to get us rooms?”
There was a moment when Caleb would have to pause. To think. To realize exactly what was being asked.
His hands would shake sometimes, as he got the drinks for them from some cupboard or other. His eyes would be wet, his smile would be sad.
Yasha knew that Essek had tried to do the same. But it was different with someone who never knew the tiefling they both loved. Essek could never offer an opinion or correction. Beau would never want to correct them unless they twisted something so far out of the truth that she felt the need to make sure the truth was still there.
But they had an agreement to remember.
“Caleb,” Yasha would say, often with an arm around Caleb the same way she would once hold Mollymauk when he asked the same questions. She missed how he would climb into her lap with that annoying, feline grin of his. Caleb would lean against her and drink with her; “tell me about Molly.”
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