#I wasn't quite satisfied with how the Molly/Kingsley thing resolved itself so I wanted to do my own take on it

[theregoesmylurkerstatus]

Your name is… Well, Tealeaf you can agree on. You feel, bone deep, that Molly is a part of you too. You would be the same — same body, same soul — but. But. You were part of Lucien too. And being part of him changed part of you.

You remember these people, sort of. You woke up and you were scraped raw, a shell with so much of what it held gone, but even then… Even then, there are impressions. Before you recognised yourself, you recognised — friends, definitely. Red hair and magic, green skin and salt water, blue lips and joy and wrapped fists and intrigue, explosions and sharp teeth and — and. Lightning. Dark and light. Comfort and safety and affection.

But more than that slips through your grasp. And things snap back into clarity of thought before the rest of your heart does.

You’re too familiar with things. You know you weren’t — Molly wasn’t — when you were first chipped away from Lucien. You don’t know how you know. You certainly don’t remember it. But alcohol is familiar, though you don’t recall the taste, and it surprises you. You know about the ocean. You know you’ve heard about it. You know these people told you. You just don’t know a thing they said.

It’s not that Molly doesn’t feel right. He might be your soul, and Lucien wasn’t. He’s just not you anymore. You don’t like being given names, even by people you — love? Probably. They would give you more than that name, would give you pieces of deeds and moments shared and advice given before you could ever claim them, if you could ever comfortably claim them at all.

And you can tell, whatever Molly did, you can’t be the same. You feel… quieter. The desire to be the centre of attention — you remember, as if through foggy glass, how Lucien twisted the world around himself, quite literally. The coat — they followed a madman into madness with that coat in tow, and you can’t remember making them care that much.

You feel like a shadow of him. You want a darker coat now. You want it to be clear that you can’t share the same jokes and passion and experiences, exactly.

You don’t want them to look at you and be sure more of what they knew is coming back, so — they should address you differently. Kingsley — that sounds right.

(Molly pretended to be a king more than once. That doesn’t surprise you. You still feel it in your bones.)

And these people — they’re funny, and they love you too fiercely, and the way they move… The impression they give is of being your peer, but the respect the most terrifying people in the land give them tells a story you can’t reconcile with how something in you wants to approach them. Nothing you do really surprises them, but what they do keeps surprising something in you.

You know these people are more dangerous than most others you will meet. They would circle around you and never let anything through again. They dragged you back from oblivion, from someone else, recreated a person that barely existed in the first place, and you know in your soul — because that is what they have their fingers in so deeply — that they will do it all over again.

If you want to regain anything of yourself, anything that isn’t warped by fragile memories, you need to leave.

You still can’t leave entirely, at first. Because you love them too. You don’t know why. They gave you this life and body, yes, but you drew your boundaries sharply, and there is distance as a result. You hardly know… So many of them. You look at the one in the yellow sundress and you keep forgetting her name especially, because if you are familiar but different, she is unrecognisable. The face you see out of the corner of your eye doesn’t match the one that meets your gaze when you turn your head to look.

But still. It takes a few years for you to be able to sever yourself from that company entirely. The one you first remembered as oh so joyful watches you, and you think she’s not surprised that you leave, just as you aren’t surprised she didn’t stop you. She knows you have to go, knows all about being trapped by love. But she could never have left you go unaided to your own dangers without you forcing her hand. This is how you must flee.

And you’re on your own — with a crew, but not… Not your crew. Not Molly’s crew. Being a pirate is different. You know Molly was never on the ocean. It helps distinguish from the cart rides you dream of at night, the horses with the stupid names.

You start to feel like your own person again, instead of someone gifted individuality by those that watched you make the choices years ago. Darktow doesn’t care for the Mighty Nein, and no one here has any idea you were ever part of it. As far as the Plank King is concerned, they were some assholes who messed up the order of things years before. No one here gets any inkling of wariness to people you know more than deserve it.

You can be funny again without being looked at too fondly. You can tell whatever extravagant tales you want, instead of having people know your life story better than you do. Mollymauk is your soul, is your ship, is what carries you forward — but Kingsley is who he’s become.

The dreams don’t stop. You know you didn’t really get these before. Or Molly didn’t. Whatever. There are chains and screams and vicious ego and you — you remember those people, that you died for them, that you reached out just to throw off the pilot as much as you could, and you start to feel like maybe… Maybe the intense love they direct at you isn’t entirely for the other model of you. Maybe you earned it. Maybe these dreams are the metamorphosis between the two. You wouldn’t be the Kingsley who stands back a little more without being the one who held Lucien back in a fight to the death. You wouldn’t have tried so hard to hold back in a fight to the death if you hadn’t been Molly.

It’s confusing. You stop worrying about the distinctions, eventually, as the impressions of light and laughter increasingly press against your eyelids when you sleep. All you know for sure is that you aren’t Lucien, and that’s a lot of peace you don’t think Molly ever quite had, though he tried.

Of course, the Mighty Nein come back for you one day. They have their fingers in too many pies to ever retire properly, and you — you’re number nine. You made them and broke them up for some peace, but when that peace isn’t eternal, you aren’t surprised.

And when Caleb and Fjord and Jester and Beau and Veth (Nott, Nott, Nott) and Yasha reach out for you again, you know — you died for them. You chose to live for them.

Whatever else you are — Molly or Kingsley or both — you don’t think you could be anything but one of nine if you tried.

They love you, and you love them in mind and memories and soul, and that's all your heart ever wanted to know for sure.

Even if they are far too ready to rip apart anyone who looks at you funny.