#birds of a feather // vilya vessar

[stubborngods]

@circleoftrees asked: ❛ i’m trying to fix your hair, so hold still. ❜ keyleth to vilya? 🥺

she wasn't really sure that still was a setting that she had. but, regardless, vilya did her best to comply with her mother's wishes - even if she couldn't stop her foot from tapping against the ground and her fingers from bouncing against her leg and her eyes from drifting through the clouds. keyleth's hands in her hair were gentle, the way they always were, and she leaned heavily into their weight. even if she had trouble standing still, she'd do her best for her mom. but patience was far from one of vilya's strong suits; " are you done yet? "

[stubborngods]

@circleoftrees asked: if you asked me to help you hide a body, i would. [ elaina to vilya ]

vilya had questions. many of them, in fact - like, for example, who were they hiding? why were they hiding? and where had this seeming random declaration come from, anyways? - but some of her questions seemed to be the most important of the pick and so those were the several questions that came out of her mouth pretty much all in the same breath: " are you asking me to help you hide a body? is there a body we need to hide? does mom know and if not, are we telling her? "

[stubborngods]

@animvs asked: ❛ i thought you’d like some company. ❜ // vax @ vilya :]

solitude was a difficult thing for one to find in the mountains of zephrah - especially when one was the daughter of the voice of the tempest - but vilya had made it her mission long ago to carve out small spaces for her to be alone with her thoughts. but, alas, she could never manage to be alone for very long. peering over the edge of the rocky out cropping she'd managed to climb her way to the top of, the half-elf blinked down at her father for a few seconds in slight confusion before sighing and leaning back to continue staring at the sky. he could climb up on his own if he wanted to sit with her. " oh, look, you found me. yippee. "

[stubborngods]

@storiesbreathed asked: 014. a luxurious drawing room smelling of tea . gwen & viliya?

as much as she enjoyed adventuring, exploring the world her family had saved more than once, vilya found that she much more preferred coming home. well, one of her homes, at least. she knew she'd have to make a stop in zephra before she went back to her party, to visit her mom and sister to fell completely satisfied. but for now, she was in whitestone, sitting in her favorite room in the house, with one of her favorite people with her. grinning at her younger cousin, the half-elf leaned forwards and snatched a scone from the tray on the table. it had been nearly a year since vilya had been back, which meant that she had a lot to be updated on. " so, gwendoline, catch me up, what have i missed? "

[stubborngods]

@storiesbreathed asked: "You are far too nice." leona to vilya?

" me? nice? " her voice seemed to rise a bit with incredulousness. vilya's eyebrows shot up as she peered down at her cousin from her place in the tree she'd climbed when - she had assumed - nobody was looking. listen, as much as she loved whitestone, as much as she loved spending time with her family and the others who frequented the grounds of the keep, sometimes she just needed a quiet moment to herself - the type of moment she'd normally be able to get back in zephrah. but, alas, this was not zephrah. which meant that she was bound to be found eventually, and of course it was by one of her many cousins. the rogue tilted her head as she shifted her weight onto one of the lower branches, beginning to climb down. " are we sure you're talking to the right one of me? because i'm vilya, not elaina, and i don't think anyone's called me nice in years. "

[stubborngods]

fan fact for u all: vilya and vesper are roughly the same age as beauregard (i believe they're both a few years older than beau but i could be mistaken). anyways this is just to say that theoretically they could interact with might nein or with bells hells guys with little to no issues <3

[stubborngods]

vilya vessar

critical role oc; played by mikey madison; arcane trickster rogue/monster slayer ranger multiclass & (eventual) champion of the raven queen; daughter of vax'ildan vessar & keyleth of the air ashari; twin to elaina vessar. portrayal includes multiple canon verses:

again i will do these later dont look at me

[stubborngods]

muse info dump time; this time about parts of vilya's adult life, specifically the spouses she ends up with in her normal canon that exists in my brain!! obviously this does not necessarily mean it is canon for every universe, as there are an infinite number of them out there. also this exact senario doesn't happen in every universe but it does happen in at least one of them....... gonna be put under a read more because i started typing it and then just... didn't stop so it's kind of long whoops lol

so, anyways! vilya joins an adventuring party when she's older but it kind of goes badly and the party ends up splitting. she ends up just traveling with two of her previous party members: - poet, a half-drow wild magic sorcerer (any/all pronouns) - & dovecoat, a dhampir college of secrets bard (they/them pronouns). their classes + pronouns are not all that important to this post but i just wanted you to know who vilya pulled with all her autistic swag. so! the three of them fall in love. they are in a polycule. they pull a perc'ahlia and get married without telling anyone. their wedding rings have the same enchantment on them that vox machina has on the earrings but they have to twist the ring to be able to speak to one another. i love them so much and they're just a silly little triad. anyways, back to the reason i made this post (because i need to talk about how vilya becomes the next champion of ravens before i fucking explode): poet ends up dying. they don't have a cleric. neither vilya or dovecoat know revivify, and even if they did, neither of them have any diamonds. so what, you may be asking, does vilya vessar do? she turns to the raven queen, of course. she's been avoiding this fate her entire life. she's been running from this very thing since the day she was born, but she is nothing if not her father's daughter and the matron can always use a new champion and so when vilya looks up from the dead body of her spouse to see the current champion of ravens - her father, of course - standing there, all she says is "no." there's a lot contained in that no. a lot of grief for a man she never really met until it was too late to do anything about it and anger towards a goddess that's never really done anything to her except for watch it all go wrong and a deep, deep resentment because obviously it's all turned out this way in the end. what other way could it have gone? fate-touched and death-claimed as vilya is. so, she says no. as in, no you can't have them and no i won't let you and no you raven bitch take me instead; because, again, vilya is nothing if not her father's daughter. she says no and somewhere, listening as she always is, the goddess of death and fate and inevitability replies, as you wish, my champion. vilya looks and vax is gone. poet wakes up. poet wakes up and he looks at his wife and he asks, "v, what did you do?" and vilya looks at her and she replies, "nothing." she's lying. all three of them know she's lying. none of them comment on it. vilya doesn't see vax again.

[stubborngods]

oh, by the way!! i don't think i've said this before but i do have classes for vesper and vilya!! - ves is an enchantment wizard with a few levels in artificer (alchemist subclass) because somebody has to be the healer in this group goddammit. and also they learned to make molotovs and no one has been safe since <3 - vilya is an arcane trickster rogue with like three levels in ranger (monster slayer subclass) just because she begged vex to teach her to use a bow. the arcane trickster part is mostly just because i think vilya deserves weird fucked up magic i don't know exactly what level they are but they're at least high enough to multiclass (and pick subclasses in each class) so they're at the very least lvl 6?? anyways! pls enjoy my unhinged thoughts

[stubborngods]

thinking about my beloved twins vilya and elaina vessar and how they are nearly identical to the point that usually only keyleth and vex (and vesper ofc but ves is a part of their terror trio, so they don't quite count) can tell them apart except that the matron kind of claimed vilya at birth and elaina has been trying to get the matron to notice her since birth and they're so tragic and awful and sad and parallels..... vilya would not wish this fate on anyone much less her sister while elaina is grasping at fate with her own two hands and not care how much it hurts her to get there

[stubborngods]

who around here is gonna let me be SOOOO silly about my beloved critical role darlings (cass de rolo, vesper elaina de rolo, & vilya vessar)?? HUH?? yall wanna hear about them so bad

[stubborngods]

feeling kinda ahhh about my vaxleth child oc so pls take this scene of her that won't leave my brain thanks <3 (also side notes about my darling vilya vessar: - the matron of ravens truly looked at this tiny half elven child and went "yes you will make a good champion later" but that's unimportant at this point in time - because she was concieved after vax became the champion of ravens, she has like... this weird connection to the astral plane and keeps accidently summoning her father. this scene is the first time that happens and she thinks she's dreaming / hallucinating. - vilya is also a twin! she has a sister named elaina but elaina doesn't show up in this scene; i just thought you all should know about her. - vilya and elania are a few years older than vesper! they were born during that period of time when vax stayed in zephrah with keyleth <3 - okay that's all my fun facts pls enjoy my little scene, i might post more)

She slams the door when she leaves, and by the time her mother even steps outside, Vilya's already halfway up into a tree just barely out of line of sight. She settles onto the highest branch she dares to test, and leans back against the trunk. Tears she can't tell are from fury or sorrow leave trails down her face and she scrubs them away with the back of her hand. A bird alights on the branch above her. 

She knocks her head back against the wood and speaks to the bird, because she knows as well as anyone who it comes from. 

"I think," Vilya says, voice half a whisper as she closes her eyes, "that I am too much like you. And I think, somehow, that's supposed to hurt." 

She hears the branch above her shift, like the raven has taken flight and left her to feel the full range of her furyangersorrow at a man she'll never meet. Then, she hears it: a laugh, low and dark and something sort of like her aunt's. She opens her eyes. 

There's a man in the tree above her, balanced on the branch with all the practice of a bird himself. It's a man she recognizes, she's fairly sure, because she sees him every time she goes to Whitestone, because she sees him every time she looks in a mirror. 

It's a man that looks just as confused as she feels, long dark hair hanging down around his face and a cloak of feathers that reach just far enough to brush against her legs. She blinks a few times and he's still there, still looking down at her, and so she just says, "Hi Dad."

"You know who I am?" The Champion of Ravens asks her, and she resists the hysterical urge to laugh. Instead, she replies, "I'd have to be an idiot not to. Aunt Vex looks just like you. Or... *you* look just like *her*."

That's not quite the truth anymore, Vilya knows. It's been nearly a decade and a half since her father joined the Matron of Ravens, and though her family is one of half-elves, half-elves still age. Her father laughs again, quiet and sad and something else she can't quite place.

She asks, "Why are you here?"

A look passes over his face then, one that Vilya catches, even obscured by his hair. She hasn't looked away from him, scared that if she does so, he'll vanish. 

Maybe he'll vanish anyways. Maybe this is just an emotional hallucination and her mother will think her insane when she tells her about it later. Her mother will cry; that part she knows for sure.

He replies, "I was hoping you could tell me that."

Vilya frowns, and another one of those indescribable looks passes over his face. She wants to ask about it, wants to pull as much information as she can from this figment of her imagination that she summoned from every story she's ever been told of Vox Machina. Her father looks up suddenly, every bit a bird in the midst of taking flight, before he reaches down and fastens something to the end of the braid her mother faithfully puts in her hair everyday. 

Her gaze is drawn downwards. A feather has been fixed to the end of her hair, darker than any feather on any raven she's ever seen. When she looks up, the Champion of Ravens is gone. 

Vilya climbs out of the tree.