#forever thinking about king singing circus songs and sea shanties and humming along while yasha plays her harp ;;

[dent-de-leon]

Casting my Molly thoughts onto you

Sometimes I think about Molly singing tunes, mainly ones he's heard from Toya in particular. Imagine him just humming melodies to sooth Yasha's troubled thoughts. And imagine him on watch just quietly singing that one melody he heard from Toya when he first met her. And like the Nein falling soundly asleep to Molly's singing that it becomes a routine for them to fall asleep to it.

AHH YES!! I'll never recover from the fact that it's singing that first breaks that all consuming Emptiness always gnawing away at him. Molly is wandering alone in the cursed Savlirwood, lost, haunted--unable to even feel fear when confronted by a growling bear. He just feels numb to all of it. Until this moment when there's a note, a song, and it brings him back to himself a bit.

He hears Toya's song, and he can't help but follow.

It's the fact that Molly was so drawn in by this bittersweet song. It's Molly feeling this wistful longing when he hears those lines, this aching soul who just crawled out of his own grave, still almost stranded in this liminal space between life and death, still so lost and haunted. "The moon shown bright on that haunted night/As the dead sang out their song/Now's your time to drink and dance/For soon we shall all be gone." It's the way Molly looks so vulnerable, so helpless and lonely, Toya just can't bear to abandon him--

And of course, the circus takes him in--takes care of him. It was a song that saved him, much like how the Moonweaver first greets Tealeaf's wounded soul with a song. Sang for him a story of her own home--a tale of a king brought back from the dead, a promise of what's to come and a chance to be born again--

It's just so sweet to me that Molly's soul, once so shattered and lonely, always found comfort in music. His loved ones soothing him with a soft song. And I can definitely see him singing with the Nein too. I mean, we know that he used to do it all the time. Whenever he was risking his life to save others, or out for a bit of vigilante justice--he took to singing as he ran off into the night. And I'm not surprised that Toya's song seems to be a favorite of his for "choir practice."

And he does sing a bit of a fun little drunken song in that one break in episode. But I do so love the thought of Molly getting the chance for more "choir practice" on the Nein's adventures, just breaking out in song as they make a daring escape--or more likely--complete fools of themselves--

But the thought of Molly singing around a campfire for his family is even better. Molly singing Yasha's favorite songs from the circus when she's staring off into a storm, wrapping her up in his arms and holding her close. Both of them feeling a little less Empty and alone in the world. Molly singing softly when Caleb tosses and turns from another nightmare, singing until he finally falls back into a restful sleep. Mollymauk teaching Jester that beautiful melody Toya sang at their last show together--the one she eventually sang before Lucien, desperately trying to reach Molly--

I really just love the headcannon that Molly will sing for the Nein the way Toya and Sehanine used to do to comfort him. And I love the thought that, as Kingsley, he takes up choir practice again. And when he finds out Yasha plays the harp? Maybe one day he asks her to play for him. And she strums a few notes that are so terribly familiar, so bittersweet. And when he starts to sing along, he still remembers every word--

One last thing: when Lucien confesses he set the family caravan on fire to kill his parents--and the puppet they made out of his dead brother--he mourns how much he misses the little plays they used to put on. The songs. "My parents looked after the music, and we children would put on little plays. Little to others, I suppose, but grand to us. Yes, grand."

It's the unbearable pain of what comes after. The realization that his family's days of song and dance are forever over. "After a while I couldn't let it go on, couldn't look at myself or live with myself, so I burned down the caravan with all three of them inside, took my sister, and that was that...No more little songs. No more farces.'"

It's the way a hag tries to tell Lucien that the only way he'll ever be happy again is if she carves out his soul, turns him into her empty, mindless puppet. "My beautiful boy...I had hoped to make you mine one day. What a perfect specimen you would have been. Oh, how you would have been merry with laughter and dance..."

And then a part of Lucien is born again as Molly, gets to experience the joy of falling in love with music and dancing all over again. Escapes the hollow Emptiness Lucien always feared awaited him. Feeling so free for the first time in the longest time, finding comfort in singing songs with a family who loves him so dearly--