Work Text:
It’s remarkable just how easy it is to lose track of time when Percy emerges himself fully in his forgework.
He breathes out a heavy sigh, sweat damp and sore for it. He rolls his shoulder back, wincing beneath his respirator at how the tight muscles pull, and how the small of his back aches from his strange stooped position, more of a distant hurt than any actual sharpness that indicates true injury, but it hurts all the same.
The forge roars merrily, fire crackling in the stone and iron well made to keep it contained on the outskirts of Greyskull Keep’s walls, built close to the horses stables as the tools and shoes for horses would have previously demanded it. Though Percy does keep an ever dwindling and then building supply of shoes and premade tools for the horses and any other animals that would require them managing to build a tidy sum of finds that he funnels into both Whitestone and Greyskull itself from the selling of such things, it is often weapons that find their life given them beneath Percival’s hand’s and brought to true beauty in the fires of Greyskull.
Weapons, firearms to even daggers and swords, are something that Percy de Rolo knows only all too well, and the alchemy, mathematics and strength required for designing and then building a firearm to withstand its own alchemical explosion is something that Percy had never really thought about much, other than how to best make it stable enough to use . Not when it had been the dreaded Orthax that he now knows to have been guiding his hands, his dreams that had first dreamt up a machine both great and brutal enough to decimate everything in it’s - and his - path, but he’s learnt a new respect, not for the demon that nearly had him kill not only Vox Machina but Cassandra too, but for the power of the machine he wields with seeing hands, of the damage it could truly do. He’d hoped to contain the knowledge of his firearms to only himself, to keep the true nature of what he’s built and used and murdered with a second that only he himself could ever think to build, but Anna Ripley had ripped that dream from his hands before it’s even conception.
Both The List, now destroyed and all the better for it despite the well of resentment that lingers in his worser moments, and later, Bad News and Retort, were something that Percival knew better than to handle with anything but the most surest and delicatest of hands, despite the way his and the other’s adventures oft had him using it akin to a bat more than a gun, as many a headless undead still roaming around Whitestone could attest.
Regardless, Percival has always had a deep admiration for any machine that worked well within the sum of its parts, and had often been scolded as a child for sneaking into the blacksmith’s forges in Whitestone, and peppering poor Master Brickenwell with questions and for information that the woman had answered with surprising patient and grace considering her Lord’s third oldest son was interrupting her work. It had been Master Brickenwell’s own work book, and the intricate, sweeping details of her art depicting swords and shields and even excellently crafted jewelry that had inspired Percy’s own thick leather bound art book that he’d paid a tidy sum when able for it to be enchanted as weightless and impossible to lose. Percival has long since fully filled the book, forced to add extra parchment and paper when he requires. It’s probably easier to acquire a new book, perhaps even Gilmore would be able to give him one, but this book, with it’s pockmarked leather and the fading design of the de Rolo family crest has been with him since thick and thin, and Percy is loath to replace it.
That book, loose sheets of parchment and even pieces of paper crumpled with the high amount of graphite and ink scrawled across them, lies open almost to its end, scorch marked and soot ridden. He rested it on the twin of the heavy anvil he’s using currently, risen to waist height on a stone podium that Percy has knocked his knees on enough times to have the stone etched into his flesh.
He can’t even begin to imagine how long he’s actually spent in the forge; they’d been sent for by Uriel after managing to scour Whitestone of the Briarwoods and the rot that they had delivered into the lands, left in the capable hands of Cassandra and the council that they’d helped implement. Uriel however, hadn’t been able to see them straight away; Keyleth having bumped their arrival time to Emon considering with Tree Stride that had left the Sovereign floundering subtly before Lady Allura and Lady Kima had managed to find some excuse for Vox Machina to stay in the vicinity until everything was prepared for them.
It’s been four days since, and Percy had escaped the ever increasing tension and rising atmosphere that had slowly risen to life between the occupants of the Keep ever since. Whether from lack of information coming from the Sovereign and his Council, or even having the small well of bounties worth taken in the local area having dried up considerably, tempers have risen considerably, and their funds conserved solely for barhopping have dwindled considerably too.
Which brings Percy here, out of the Keep and into the relative solitude of what the others have labeled his workshop and the forge that none of the other’s tend to touch, as Percival is all too happy to help them with their woes regarding dented armors and unsharpened edges of blades. In a barrel by the door, completely filled to the very brim, a mountain of sharpened and barbed arrowheads with a neat, stylized V lies waiting their owner to attach the shafts and fletching, another has damaged dagger tips that Vax’ildan had thrown at him and asked him for something interesting to be made from them. A box has several handmade clasps, tiny and intricately carved with Sarenrae and Pelor’s sigil lays on one of the shelves, ready for welding to the armor and stitching in place, a pair of silvered and wooden antlers lie atop of that box, sharpened with dangerous points and carefully whittled enchantments supplied by Gilmore for an extra boost of energy. A widened ax head, base in nature and all the more barbaric for the tangle of barbed tips that run its edges, spanning almost four feet in width, lies on hooks across from the forge, and a series of shawm innards, glistening silver and gold in the forge’s fire, clock like in their workings and elaborate decorated with purple ink sits patiently on it’s shelf by Pike’s clasp box. A silvered rapier embossed with the sigil of the de Rolo family, inlaid with holy water and true silver, blessed and enchanted by Pike herself, takes pride of place over the door.
His workshop is a shrine to both his desires and his friends, things for them to be kept safe and protected surrounding him, as does ash and fire and smoke, spiced on his tongues and washing away the taint of brimstone and shadows that linger still. He often has to look twice at his own shadow, seeing the way his face curves a little too steeply, a little too sharply to be fully human, the way his back hunches more than it should out of his corseted waistcoat, less scoliosis caused by the trauma of numerous surgeries and breaking spine,and more winglike, the sleek feathered back of a bird. Often, he awakes to smoke billowing freely from beneath his skin, breathing only smoke and not air; he wonders how much of him was crafted from the places Orthax left in him, and how much was already there.
This though, here, in his workshop surrounded by the devotion he shows his friends and his artwork, the reason for his continued existence before the guilt and the anger and the vengeance had driven him, this gives him a purpose beyond himself and so, he’d whittle himself down to the bone if needed, if asked. From the dungeons of his family's castle to the dungeon that Vox Machina had found him in and how they had followed him to avenge his family’s massacre; he’s trying to become a better person, a person worth knowing , worth the devotion that Vox Machina had shown him by staying by his side, by saving him from Orthax, from something devouring his very soul. He’s so often questioned if he’s worth it, if he’s even able to be saved; he’s stayed upon the path of bloodlust and bloodshed and vengeance for so long that he hasn’t truly known anything different, but Vox Machina have not only given him family, but a reason to live, to hope that there is something better than the blood that floods his hands in droves from the people he’s killed without thought.
He drives the hammer down onto the battered piece of steel, slowly coming to life beneath his hands and his physical violence, taking the shape of a sharpened dagger, the steel riddled with the pattern so unique to it. Tapering to a deadly point that still retains the multiple stacks of metal melted together for a stronger blade, Percy’s been making work on this dagger for Vax’ildan for several hours now, having to work slowly with the heat of the sun he can feel hitting the open side of the Forge, and the heat from the very forge itself, blistering and unforgiving. He’s long since cast aside his blue greatcoat, in a thin button up with a waistcoat corset keeping his back somewhat in shape though the somewhat distinct S-curve of his out of place spine has been forced to grow into following Anna Ripley’s tender mercies can still be seen when he moves the wrong way, blue and white paneled beneath the heavy leather apron and heavy boots that keep his feet protected by the sparks that fly from every swing of the hammer.
Through the heavy goggles set in a leathered and herb filled mask with a distinct curved beak so reminiscent of his old one, he can see how the steel has grown a little too chilly to work with, and opening the forge door has heat blistering against his exposed forearms, and the flesh of his neck, flushing it redder than it usually ever is. He plunges it into the flames, seeing how the fire greedily licks at it, sending it from silvered to orange to red, heating through in a chemical reaction that Percy has always loved to see, perched on a rickety stool in Master Brickenwell’s forge and being explained the way the metal heats through, ready for it to be hammered and bent into shape under the will of its own kind, and how it was very much like the ocean; something to be respected and admired deeply, but feared for what it could truly do.
Percy, younger than he ever had been after his family’s death and having been brought up on the cliff eroding tides of Whitestones beaches, knows all too much the merciless and inhuman cruelty the ocean held, if only because morality was a human construct, and what was morals to a body of water that had no need of it? Bodies had washed ashore numerous times, enough that they were barely of note unless they remained alive, and it had been a common way of life, of people going to sea and remaining missing until their bodies washed ashore. He’d loved the ocean though, for all her power and her mysteries; his bedroom had overlooked the Cliffs of Whitestone, a sheer sixty feet drop that had terrified him as a child as much as it had thrilled him. He’d learnt of how the chill of the water could quench the metal, would quench the blade into the shape it would remain into until remade or decimated; that long living of power, of keeping it together and alive had always mystified and excited Percy, and the alchemical reaction of them together had been what had driven Percy into the sciences, into blacksmithing, into forging, and though his greatest invention had been at the hands of a demonic presence preying on his hurt and anger and want for justice, his firearms were a source of pride and derision.
The metal spits, molten and heated through, and a pair of heavy tongs are thrust into the forge, collecting the six inch long tapered dagger blade, the tang kept cold with damp wraps and carefully positioned at the very edge of its podium. It’s with the ease of practice that Percy strides through the dizziness that overcomes him briefly as the fire blisters against his flesh, no doubt the extent of the heat that’s required for his workshop and the temperatures the metal needs. The dagger lands heavily on the anvil, and the noise erupts into a burst of pain behind Percy’s covered eyes that he shakes off quickly, the heavy hammer coming down quickly as he slowly straightens the edges, tapering them to a fine point, keeping the surfaces even before he even attempts at fully sharpening them and taking that fine point to a deadly edge.
The steel cools as quickly as it had before, and only needs one edge more of hammering before it’ll need to be fully quenched, and so back into the blistering fire it goes, flames licking greedily at the air as the forge grate opens, and the dagger is thrust back into it, going from light orange to a bloodied scarlet to a white hot blue in a matter of minutes. Percy takes a moment to discard his mask, wiping his sweat damp forehead on a surface burned forearm, the hair having long since been singed off; he doesn’t actually know if the hair on his arms actually does grow anymore, forced back or singed off by the fire every time from the forge. Within minutes, the metal is heated a white blue, and without his mask but still just as sweat damp and reddened in the cheeks, heavy tongs grip the dagger, around it’s damp wraps and Percy stumbles towards the anvil, breath suddenly coming harsh for a single moment before he gets it under control with each well controlled fall of the small hammer, only stopped from trembling in his grip by the strength he’s holding it with. He watches with satisfaction sitting deep in his gut as the dagger’s edges take hold, a gradual soldering that Percival takes pride in with each movement.
When at last, he can quench it, he takes a moment to admire the profile, seeing the slender edge of it, the way the tang spirals towards the neck of the blade; finally cooled enough he thrusts it with confident hands towards the long trough of water at his side, counting several seconds with the clock hanging on the wall; after several minutes he pulls the blade out, setting it heavily upon the anvil he’d been using. It needs to rest a few moments longer, and the damp wraps are still enough that Percy can touch the tang with just leather gloves, feeling the faint bite of the heat onto blistered fingers. It’ll need plenty of sharpening on the stone, and he needs to find the wood that he’ll think would suit Vax’ildan’s tastes, perhaps Marquesian rosewood, awash in a sheen of deep scarlet ink would fit.
Regardless of whatever plans he needs to make however, the fact of the matter is that he can’t put those into place until the dagger is cooled enough to sharpen and grind, and then he’ll need to requisition some of the Marquesian rosewood that he knows Gilmore keeps in his shop; the wood often lauded for its durability and its fantastic ability of retaining and keeping enchantments that other woods often find difficult to keep a hold of. He and Gilmore had had a riveting conversation when Percival had first ended up asking when he could get some of the more enchantment friendly and even the most hostile wood, and it had delved Shaun educating Percy with his deep well of knowledge of spells and magicks and enchantments. Percy had only a very rudimentary grasp on magicks, though it had always worked well enough when he’d enchanted a piece of his equipment, and even the runes he’d etched into the steel boning of his waistcoat.
When he checks the bare dagger, it’s cooled enough that Percy can handle it with bare hands, and he strips his heavy duty leather gloves off, taking hold of the damp wraps. He unwraps it with hands made stiff and shaky, and he frowns down at them for a moment, wavering in the blistering heat. He puts the naked dagger pride of place on his workshop, in a sheath he’d already sketched out and calculated to fit the dagger he’d just made. It needs a little more refinement, and he might decorate the sheath - just a tanned piece of leather with black thread stitching - in the same wash of scarlet ink as the blade handle. It would make for a striking pair, he thinks, especially so in the hands of Vax’ildan who so rarely spares himself the color; at least the red would be subtle enough that it’d stay hidden when the rogue was stealthed and steeped deeply in shadows.
A cursory knock of the ajar door startles him from his drifting thoughts.
His workshop doors, plain and heavy oakwood doors that open outwardly - rather than inwardly as most doors in Greyskull do - so as to maximize the amount of room his shop would have have a code to him and the rest of Vox Machina that Vex and he had sorted out. Loathed to accidentally hurt one of the group or even the actual foundations of the Keep when working with volatile chemicals and the delicate handling of black powder that is always one bad misstep from igniting, fully closed doors with the reinforcements and a note placed on the door leave people warned that they disturb him with the utmost caution unless they wish to part with either life or limb. An open door means that he’s working but welcome to the company if they so desire him for it, and an ajar door, as now, is something that shows he’s working on something delicate but you can disturb him if needed, if required.
Percy has had a smattering of visitors since they’ve settled in Greyskull Keep, both before the Liberation of Whitestone and then after of it; at first he’d been a little reluctant to get set up and comfortable in Greyskull, if only because he’d been without a home for so long that he hadn’t know what a home was suppose to feel like. Not a proper, stationary, permanent home. Vox Machina had been home in the way people often are, and Percy had longed for that companionship as much as he had spurned it since throwing himself at a river’s mercy, homeless and aching from torture and his family’s murder but Percy’s childhood home had always been stationary; a castle of whitestone that had never bent nor cracked beneath the explosions of children and alchemy, had nurtured Percy’s growing childhood body until it was his body that had cracked beneath the strain; beneath blood and residuum and the spine currently growing forever crooked in his back.
But somehow, somehow , between a group of possessive assholes that had refused to hand his forfeited soul to the demon that had laid claim to it with him unknowing about it and placing himself in their care when they’d found him by chance, both Greyskull Keep and Vox Machina have become family, become home and Percy has never wanted to lose something less.
Another knock on the door, and it opening further has Percy turning, ducking his head as he slips his leather apron off, the knots loosening at the small of his back as he does so. He goes to hang it up on the hook just by the forge, or at least he means too.
“Freddie- whoa!”
As Percy turns, the world does too. Smeared in crimsons and gray’s, the forge spins beneath his feet, dizzying, nauseous; his stomach turns and presses against the back of his spine, his lungs - suddenly far too big for the heaving chest they inhibit - spasm abruptly, and he’s breathless with the force of it. He staggers, taking a single step forward, but he tilts to the side, staggering further to the right, where racks of tools lay. Between a second and a heartbeat and a blink of a struggling eye, Percy has collapsed, narrowly missing the edge of his cramped workbench, the ground that comes rushing up towards him.
Percy never makes it.
Between that blink of a struggling eye and a stuttering heartbeat, Vax’ildan has reached him, stepping through the various guttering shadows cast by the still blistering forge. Eyes fluttering, feeling soft around the edges and like his head is slowly spinning to a stop, Percy has ended up folded over strong arms, backside resting on an equally strong thigh and knee to stop him from fully collapsing to the floor.
“Shit , Freddie,” Vax breathes, and Percy, eyes tightly closed, makes a noise in the back of his throat, feeling the thundering of his own heart. He can feel the heat of Vax through their clothes; Vax in barely more than a thick leather tunic, undershirt and trousers and Percy in even less than that. “I’d say you’re falling for me, and I’m happy to see it, but - fuck, are you okay?”
Even when Percy seems to have gotten his footing beneath him, trembling and sweat damp all the more for it now that he’s finally able to think in at least a somewhat straight line, Vax doesn’t let him. Percy’s almost glad for it, for despite how stability has returned, his stomach refuses to settle, and his throat has suddenly become parched. He never quite noticed just how tired, nor how much his muscles had turned leaden, shaking in Vax’s hold. As he tries to straighten up however, the world swoops, and his back aches, pounding up from his spine to his neck to his temples and the world grays out, colors smearing together until Percy has given up on keeping upright, drifting further into an abyss that calls his name like a forge calls for fire.
“-eddie? Percy, can you hear me?” A panic roughened voice filters in slowly through his ears, and a large, calloused hand presses tenderly against his face; from chin to temple to behind his ear, Percy is being cradled like he’s a precious thing, like he’s liable to break if Vax’ildan isn’t careful with him. Not even as a child, prone to escaping into libraries or Master Brickenwell’s forge, has Percy ever been treated like that; only with Vax’ildan and Vex’ahlia. “Percival de Rolo, I swear to fuck if you don’t answer me now-”
“Save your petty threats, Vax,” Percy murmurs through numbed lips, and he can’t help the way his hand comes up clumsily to grasp at Vax’s hand on his face, but he misses, tilting sideways. He bumps a sharply pointed chin, and his suddenly numb fingers grip the very front of Vax’s dark leather tunic, curling into the worn soft and smooth fabric. The arm around his waist, gripping tightly to him as if terrified of letting him fall, tightens; not enough for an ache to set in, but for Percy to feel entirely safe in the arms of a rogue who he’s seen kill numerous people in a mere flash. That it makes him feel safer is a vague feeling that Percy neatly tucks beneath the many thoughts he has about both Vax’ildan and Vex’ahlia that he never really, truly unearths, not even whence alone. “You may- ah, you may let me go now.”
Vax’ildan’s face is set in stone, and there’s a stubborn furrow to his dark brows that has his face serious and unyielding.
“You swoon in my arms -” Here, Vax’ildan’s voice rises loudly over Percy’s half hearted protests that he “- didn’t swoon, Vax, don’t be so ridiculous!” and he keeps his steady grip upon Percy’s waist, and that his hand is so large and warm against Percy’s side has him flushing abruptly. “- You swoon in my arms because of dehydration and overworking, no doubt, due to how dry your lips are, and you think I’m going to let you go and do something like start working on whatever it was you were?”
Vax only stares at him as if he thinks Percy is a particularly stupid or stubborn child.
“Why were you looking at my lips?” Percy asks, and then immediately regrets it, flushing red.
Vax’ildan stares at him for one long moment once more, before his face cracks into a seemingly reluctant grin.
“Good to know that you can’t flirt for shit, Freddie.” Vax says, and in one smooth motion, he stands on his own two feet. Percival, apparently not allowed that choice, is held in a full body bridal carry by the rogue; long legs folded precariously over a muscular arm, squashed up small and protectively across a surprisingly broad chest.
Perhaps it’s a good thing Vax carries on, as Percy’s head swims dizzyingly, and he grasps tightly at the front of Vax’s tunic, feeling the smooth flesh that lies beneath, body warm and a feeling a heart beat thundering beneath it. Head heavy and swimming, Percy doesn’t fight the urge to lay his head on Vax’s chest, closing his eyes as the motion keeps his stomach turning, rendering in twain.
The arm around his back tightens slightly, and Percy turns his face into that shoulder and chest, pressing his nose against blood warm flesh, just to hear the way Vax’ildan gives a shuddering breath.