Chapter Text
Tap tap tap
Vex was tired. Not just because it was the middle of the night and all she could focus on was an incessant tapping at the glass, but just in general. She woke up exhausted, she went to bed exhausted. There was not even a reason for it, or at least none that she could name. If someone had asked her how she felt she would smile, flip her braid, and say “Oh just wonderful darling. I am one of the heroes of the realm, I have a doting husband and daughter, and I just so happen to be the wealthiest woman this side of the Ozmit. What more could a woman want?”
If anyone who knew her looked closely though, through the barely there cracks in her armor, Vex was faltering.
But right now, in the dead of night, alone in a bed that is too big and too soft, her only focus was on that damn tapping on the glass. Percy was gone for two more days, an extended meeting with Keyleth about rumors from Wildmount of experiments with residuum, and Vex was left alone.
She was, of course, aware that she was never truly alone. Even now, at what must be nearly 3 in the morning, all she needed to do was ring the bell by the bed and a servant would appear. They would get her whatever her heart desired, as long as it was a material item. Something though nagged at the back of her mind every time a servant did something for her, a deep guilt? It was silly, she had worked to get here and this was everything she could have ever dreamed of, and yet looking at the faces of the young women who await her beck and call, Vex was reminded she was a fraud. That in her luckiest days she would have been the one serving and not the other way around.
Perhaps that is why she did not call for help with the tapping. Perhaps that is why she put on her well worn adventuring leathers and walked out the servant entrance. Perhaps that is why she grabbed bread and cheese from the kitchens before rousing Trinket from his sleep and walking into the Parchwood.
“I know buddy, I’m sorry for waking you but I needed some air.” She hadn’t had to cast any spell, but she knew Trinket could understand her. In response he just bumped her hand with his snout. Still, even here in the town, she could swear the taping followed her, a dull sound now, like a shoe hitting wood rather than a branch against glass. She was still tired.
Tap tap tap
The damned tapping followed her as she walked from cobblestone to dirt to forest floor. The tapping followed her as she tried to think of anything but. The tapping followed her as her eyes finally fell on the culprit. It was a raven; larger than anything with feathers the color of oil on water, iridescent in the moonlight. Vex didn’t feel herself fall, she couldn’t feel anything but her heart in her throat and the rock pressing into her knee. It had been one year since the wedding, since the last time she saw her brother. It had been one year without any ravens on her windowsill, with no pink ribbons left in Trinket’s hair. There were rumors of course, whispers from the servants, that Vesper saw a raven almost daily, a raven that never visited Vex. She could only feel her throat closing, her eyes watering, and Trinket bumping her shoulder… and the rock.
She didn’t feel it until it was too late. The rock in her hand went soaring. Whether by luck, haste, or godly will, the raven jumped from its perch as the rock missed it. Vex sobbed.
“She was right! How the fuck are we supposed to move on if you send us ravens?! If you have something to say, have that bitch let you visit. We know you can!”
The raven landed next to her and simply cocked its head. Trinket, ever the betrayer, licked the bird and it simply chirped. Vex could only hold her bear and sob, big, deep, heartbreaking sobs that were not for her, or her brother, or really anything. It was simply a year and half’s worth of anger and grief and frustration. What was the point in armor if a simple bird could get under it.
There was no point in any of this. The servants in the castle and the advisors both looked at her with disgust when they thought she could not see, although for different reasons. She was a hero of the damned realm and yet she had never felt more alone. In times like this, before it all, her mother would soothe her as she cried, braiding her hair to tales of dragons and heroes. After, in Syngorn, Vax would have been the one to comfort her, telling stories of revenge, escape, and freedom. She now had all that, she had escaped, slain the dragon, and was more free than she could have ever hoped, and yet here she was, back where it all started- crying alone on the forest floor.
The raven still sat there, it’s beady eyes watching her as it opened it mouth and in a simulacrum of human speech simply said one word, “Sister.”
Vex saw red. Of course she did, “YOU ARE NOT HIM!” she shouted at the creature, “you are a fake, a memory of a memory of a brother whose goddess will not even allow him to visit. You are not him… you are not him…”
The bird did not even flinch as it hopped a step closer, its beak partially open as it simply repeated, “Sister… do not cry…”
“Why do you do this? Is this even you or is this her playing another cruel trick. Reminding us what we lost.” The tears were fading as anger boiled inside of her. Even now, a champion of the Dawnfather himself, Vex found the gods to be petty. What all knowing deity would send a cruel prank on a family she had taken so much away from already?
Vex didn’t know what was worse, the fact that she had seen her brother at the wedding and knew he could be free- even if only for a moment- or that the thing she saw then was only partially her brother? Even now, this raven… she shut down the thought before she could have any hope.
The raven was not having it, as it jumped onto Trinket’s muzzle as the two creatures nuzzled each other and chirped and huffed back and forth. Vex simply sat, her tears dry but her mind numb, she didn’t know how long she sat there, but at some point she realized it didn’t matter if this raven was sent by her brother or his god, she wasn’t talking to it- but if it wanted to listen to her problems she would not stop it.
“It’s just… it sounds silly, but this past year and a half has been the best year of my life and the worst, all at once. It is not entirely your fault, although at times I do curse your absence. Did you know, I haven’t said your name since… well since Vecna? I have always simply said ‘my brother’. There are days when I want to scream it from the rooftops and days when I swear I heard it instead of mine, and there are days when I wish it was never uttered again. There was this priest of your goddess- Lieve'tel- she stayed in Whitestone for a while after you left.”
Vex barely remembered those days immediately following Pandemonium, but she remembered that elf. Her dark hair and dark armor that she would catch out of the corner of her eye and hope for just a second that it had all been a bad dream. Lieve'tel wanted to see the chapel she made for her brother, wanted to be of some help, but no one understood what Vex was going through, not a cleric of the very goddess whose fault this was, or Keyleth who swore she understood. Vex continued to vent, still not to the raven.
“She pissed off everyone. She was from Synorgn so I suppose you would have hated her just as much as we did. Keyleth hated her most of all I think. There was a time there- I haven’t said this to anyone, not even Percy- that I hated Keyleth just as much as I hated Lieve'tel. Both of them tried, and I guess I couldn’t truly hate either, but Keyleth kept thinking she understood my pain. I know she lost you too but it wasn’t the same. We knew her for what? Two years, three? You were my brother- are my brother- my other half, my shadow. She lost a lover, but I lost you . And you send her ravens still. You're my brother, where the hell have my ravens been. My daughter gets them, but not me?”
The raven simply paused its pruning of Trinket and flew to her knee. It nuzzled its beak against her shoulder in a way that Vex supposed was supposed to be comforting. She simply shrugged it off, but allowed it to continue to sit on her knee, drawn up against her chest.
“No one understands. They think that I am strong, that I am poised, that I know what the fuck I am doing. I don’t know, I have never known, and now? Hells for the past year I’m not even here half the time. I have Vesper and Percy and Vox Machina, and I am lost without you brother. The servants hate me because they know I am a fraud, a common bastard in fine dresses who is merely pretending she has worth, the advisors hate me for the same reason but look down on me as they do. Percy sees that I am a shell of what I once was and he is powerless to help. Everyone pities me but Vesper.
“You would have loved her, brother. I think she is touched, her freckles seem to glow in the sun and she came out with hair the color of spun silver. I know you send her birds, so maybe you do love her as much as I do, but she should have been able to meet you. I should have told you but I thought we would have time. First the wedding and now her, I was maybe too good at keeping secrets from you. I wish you would have met her, she would have had you around her little finger in a heartbeat.”
The raven tried to nuzzle her again and this time she let it, her fingers petting the silky smooth feathers as the tears started to flow once more. She wasn’t sure she could stop speaking even if she wanted to. It felt good for once not to think about what everyone expected from her.
“I don’t think I cried for you before now. I was numb for nearly a month after Pandemonium. I barely ate or drank. I mostly slept, but I don’t think I ever cried. I’m sorry I never cried for you, but everyone expected me to be strong. I think I pretended to be so much that I forgot myself. Then it was too late and everyone expected me to be a council member- to train this elite force, then Vesper was born, then the wedding and suddenly it had been a year and I still saw you out of the corner of my eye sometimes. Grog called me by your name once and I didn’t correct him; Scanlan walked on egg shells for two weeks after that. But it felt like you might just come slinking out of the shadows once again, hidden until he said it one more time. You never did. Then the birds stopped and I assumed even you had moved on.
“A champion of your goddess. I wonder if you even miss us, if you mourn the life you could have had with us? Why would you stop? Keyleth gets a raven daily, my own daughter gets them, Percy said he saw a few here and there, but me? You just leave me again and again and again while I can’t even find the time to cry.”
Here the tears started up again. The raven simply continued to nuzzle her shoulder and pick at her hair as she held it tight against her. The sobs racked her body as she held this bird, possibly divine, and possibly her brother. The raven simply repeated two phrases over and over, “I am sorry” and “I am here”
Time didn’t matter here in the Parchwood. It was her domain, her forest that she now knew like the back of her hand. At some point she fell asleep, exhausted by emotions and the late night. Trinket made an excellent bed and the raven remained in her arms as she slept.
When she awoke, it was midday, and she did not awake to the sounds of wildlife but to Pike’s voice in her ear,
“Vex? Can you hear me? Where are you?”
“I can hear you Pike, I’m here.”
“Where is here? I have some of your Grey Hunters at my cottage looking for you.”
“Fat lot of good they are if they couldn’t track me. Tell them not to worry, I will head back soon. Cover for me for the rest of the day?”
“Oh a diplomatic issue came up? Of course I’ll let them know where in Emon you are.”
“You are the best, Pike, thank you! Can I come over in maybe two hours?”
“I’ll see you whenever you get home. Of course you have to run now.”
Vex laughed at Pike’s very obvious fake conversation and thanked the gods that they found that gnome. She was a good friend. The raven simply shuffled in her arms, trying to get comfortable now that she was awake. Trinket simply huffed at the movement and sound as he covered his eyes with his paws to try and continue to sleep.
Vex looked at the raven in the daylight and was shocked that she did not immediately assume its divinity last night- it was large, this she knew, its feathers even more iridescent in the day, but the main thing that set it apart from its earthly counterparts was the fact that its eyes were molten gold. It simply stared at her, blinking as it said in that hollow voice, “Morning. Sorry. Stubby, Sister.”
She smiled, a sad smile, her muscles still sore from all of the crying from last night. This bird might be divine but it was not her brother, not fully. It was, like most things of his now- a memory of a memory.
“Don’t cry.” The bird simply said, pecking at her hand.
“I won't. Send my thanks to my brot- to Vax’ildan. To Vax. And tell him I love him and that I have not forgiven him and that he owes me ravens.”
“He knows. He loves. Send ravens.”
She simply smiled as she took it into her hands and threw it into the sky. As it flew away it left a single flight feather behind. She stood, frozen in place, until it disappeared into the trees. With a sigh she readied herself for the day, stretching, before waking Trinket to head deeper into the forest.
The Parchwood was full of life even in the dead of winter, but for Vex, it seemed to offer anything she could wish for in any season. After a stop by the stream to wash her face and drink, she and Trinket ate until they were full of fresh berries, even grabbing some for Pike. A turkey wandered into their lunch and with quick shooting, Vex had a meal to bring as well. Quickly field dressing it, Trinket was more than happy to eat the organs.
Vex realized there was only so long she could continue to hide in the woods. Yes her Grey Hunters would hopefully not be looking for her, Percy was gone for another day at least, and the castle could run on its own. She had no meeting or plans for the day besides Pike, but still she mused, it would be best to return before people really came looking.
The walk into Whitestone was uneventful. As much as the people of Whitestone knew their saviors from the Briarwoods and the de Rolos as a family- they did not know Vex’ahlia the Ranger. Trinket got a couple of familiar looks, but Vex, in her worn leathers, had eyes wash over her. For the first time in forever, she was happy for anonymity, to be looked over in the crowd.
Pike’s home was on the edge of Whitestone, a wonderful little cottage that she stayed in occasionally. Pike still spent most of her time in Westruun, with her great-great-grandfather, Grog, and sometimes Scanlan, but this home was fully Pike’s. Vex stayed on the outskirts of the property for a while, waiting to see if it was being watched by her Grey Hunters- it was not and Vex could only shake her head at the work she still had with them. Vex simply sighed as she walked up to the door as she sent a quick greeting via the earrings. Pike met her at the door with a quick hug before seeing the turkey and berries.
“Vex! Thank you! Come in, come in!” Pike ushered Vex and Trinket into the small home. It was a home built for Pike, but she had a few pieces of furniture made for Grog, so Vex felt both too big and too small. But with Pike, it felt comfortable as the two women settled in to properly dress the turkey.
“I can make a pie too with the berries if you would like. Where were you this morning? The Grey Hunters certainly looked worried.”
“I was just out for a hunt in the Parchwood. I swear, for as much as I have taught them, they can be stupid. I am not that hard to track- I had Trinket for gods’ sake.”
An uproarious laugh broke from Pike’s lips as she set down her part of the turkey to clutch her chest, “Vex, you are… one of the most sneaky people.. in Exandria. If you don’t want to be found, you won’t be!”
“I’m not that sneaky!”
“We have a skewed perspective because of- well let’s just say it’s a wonder anyone can find you, Trinket or not.” Vex noticed the pause, noticed how Pike’s eyes widened slightly as she caught herself.
“We can say his name Pike.”
“You don’t. I just assumed you didn’t want us to.”
“I know I haven’t been the best at talking about… Vax.” Vex paused, feeling the weight of his name in the air, before pushing through the catch in her throat, “But I think I am ready to try.”
Pike reached over to grab the other woman’s hand as she ran her fingers over her knuckles, “We can do it at your own pace, just us if you want. I know it is not the same as what you or Keyleth feel, but I miss him. No one calls me Pickles anymore. No one does my hair the same way. I miss our late night conversation and his pranks.”
There it was again- tying her grief to Keyelth’s. She bit her tongue, Pike was coming from the right place. She was right, she could never know, but Vex realized she could not hold a monopoly on this grief. Her brother- Vax- loved fiercely and proudly and touched so many people’s lives. She simply smiled a tight smile as she responded, “He loved you, in his own silly way. Did you know he was seriously considering following Sarenrae before- well, before all of it. I know he found a lot of peace in his conversations with you, and a lot of laughs.”
They both fell into silence as they remembered Vax, in all of his facets, before Pike interrupted, “Well if we are going to want to eat anything you procured, let's get started. Did you hear what Scanlan is up to now?”
The rest of the morning and into the afternoon was filled with the girls gossiping about everything from Scanlan to Kima to shared memories of Vax as they continued to make pie and turkey. It was nice to just be , no stress, no servants, no pressures.
But real life always had a way of sneaking in. A voice in both their ears brought them out of their post dinner conversations,
“Vex, dearest, I’m home, but why are the Hunters saying you are in Emon?” Percy’s voice was as clear as if he was in the room with them.
“I wanted some peace away from the castle, so I had Pike cover for me. I am glad you’re back, darling.”
“Hi Percy!” Pike joined in.
“I’m here too, guys! I’m staying for the night, I’m pretty tired.” Keyleth’s voice joined the chorus.
Vex took in a deep breath as she readied herself for a plunge. With a put-on smile to pike she grabbed her earring and said, breath shaking, “That’s great, Keyleth. We should all have dinner tonight, I think I’m ready to talk about Vax.”