Under the cart

"I really thought he was dead." Jester's voice is quiet, their little bed under the wagon only just echoey enough for Molly to hear her. He brings a hand up to card through her soft hair, her trills breaking through the sound of scattered rainfall.

"Yeah," he settles on, takes a deep breath that fills his chest with cold, "but you kept your head. That's good. You did good."

"It could've been… not good /enough/, if he was really really hurt." She sniffles, just once, and Molly draws her closer, lets her pillow on his chest. "And if Caleb was gone we'd be pretty screwed in a fight like that."

He takes a few more slow breaths, settles his heartbeat so the thump of it doesn't upset her any worse than she already is. "/If/'s are no good to us, sweetheart. We'll keep our wits about us and we'll be ready, if something happens. I'm certain of it."

Jester looks up at him then, and Molly has to rush to train his expression into one that looks as confident as his words sounded. She must catch him looking a /little/ insecure, though, because after a moment she squints, and smiles, and says, "What if something happens and you haven't told him how you feel?"

"Then I'll confess my love to him as he dies in our arms, and he'll die as he lived, asking, /what ze fuck, Mollymauk/."

Jester laughs and splutters at that, and Molly feels lighter for it, watching her puffy eyes light up with mirth again.

"You /will/ tell him though, won't you?" She asks, squinting at him, and Molly redoubles his pettings so to encourage her to lay her head on him again, just so he doesn't have to look at her when he speaks.

"When the season is right, my dear. And in the mean time, you have your /Oskar/ to worry about."

That shuts her up fairly efficiently, after a stream of giggles, and although he adores her, he's glad to hear her soft snores not long after.

Tomorrow is a new day, he thinks, which is great because this one was proper shite. And maybe tomorrow he won't be lying when he says he's going to talk to Caleb about… whatever's going on there. Maybe. But /if/'s and /maybe/'s don't do anyone any good, so he takes a few good breaths, and lets the moonlight on the wet grass take him to sleep.