#for context for anyone who doesn't read my AU: Vax Kiki and Gilmore are Kyor and Hunin's legal guardians in a sense

[blorbologist]

Two for joy - Cut Content

[These short scenes were originally going to be included in the Two for joy timeskip, however after some change of plans they never really Fit anywhere well. So I’m tossing this one here, given it’s not quite worth a oneshot of its own to me. Enjoy!]

Vax’ildan is starting to get a bit of a tan from being in Zephrah.

There just isn’t much reason to cling to the shadows here, even if the mountaintop offers a massive one he can follow if it really mattered. But Keyleth’s usually in the sun - tending to duty, dispute or otherwise. Gilmore’s basking like a content lizard, taking to the vacation with great pleasure when not nursing the enchanting projects he brought with him. What kind of a boyfriend would he be if he skulked inside while his partners rivaled the sun for radiance outside? 

So, he’s pretty sure Vex will tease him for this when they next meet. Worse, if she catches the flaky remnants of his first sunburn in a decade on his ears. Which is extremely unfair - he doubts she’d heckle Percy for finally getting more color to his skin. 

There are other reasons to be out and about, too.

Vax is doing his best to show Hunin how to handle a dagger - his stance is so wrong, he really should have given Kynan more credit - when Keyleth swoops in. Not literally, in this case - though he has come to expect her darting in as a great golden eagle. Her usual form is just as splendid, as far as Vax is concerned.

“Two gnomes!” Keyleth exclaims, breathless. 

“I don’t follow?” Kyor offers from the sidelines, nursing a lightly bruised wrist. 

Vax’s eyes brighten. “One of them ours?”

“If you could call Scanlan anyone’s, sure!” Keyleth says, flicking her hair away from her face. The shorter cut means it won’t stay back behind her ear when she goes flitting about - it’s adorable. 

“Well - what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

Now she turns into an eagle. 

“Class dismissed!” Vax says with a feigned salute. He laughs - maybe due to the sudden takeoff, maybe from how the twins sag against eachother in dramatic relief. 

They have no reason to complain - they’re not decked out in black leather. 

Keyleth’s eagle shoulders bunch as she brings them into a dive, and the savage wind is just perfect beneath the summer sky.

--

“How’s fatherhood treating you?”

Scanlan squints at Vax over his beer. “How hoppy is this? Does it even count as beer?” 

Vax takes a long, long draught of his, shrugging. “When in Zephrah. If you don’t like it, you can walk down the mountain -”

“Nooooo siree, no thank you.” Scanlan takes a gulp and makes a face at it. Drinks more all the same before wiping the foam away with his shirtsleeve. 

“How’s fatherhood treating you?” he tosses back. 

Vax pokes at his boots on the table - Scanlan does not remove them. “Actually? Pretty good - I don’t think either of them would call me a father. Or Shaun or Keyleth, for that matter. But we’ve moved past sir, and should be considered their legal guardians - moreso for their benefit than ours.”

“They’re, what? Fifteen, sixteen? You sure you’re getting your money’s worth?”

“Vex’s, not mine,” Vax points out. “And she’s yet to take the boots from me.”

Scanlan grins. “She will.”

“Oh, she will.” It’s easy to agree to that. A little less to force the next gulp down - took it a touch too fast. “We were just about that age, maybe younger, when we ran away from Syngorn. So, you know - just hoping history doesn’t repeat itself.”

The gnome’s grin broadens. “See, I get to skip all the teenage angst and turmoil - Kaylie’s a perfectly fine, grown woman.” He sobers. “Capable of calling me out for my bullshit, seeing through the rest of my bullshit, and critiquing my eating habits. Did I tell you she’s talking about putting me on a diet?”

“Several times.” Vax knows Kaylie, for her part, has been enjoying their stint in Zephrah greatly - an isolated audience with limited familiarity of common jigs and barroom songs, she’s become an overnight celebrity. If he drowns out Scanlan’s babble he can still hear her from here.

“- and of course I said yes, because she’s my daughter, and I love her, but Vax I don’t think you understand just what that much salad does to a man’s psyche-”

“We could go see Grog,” Vax says, unperturbed, a finger tracing the rim of his tankard. “It’d be a boys' weekend.” Taps a drop clinging there - it escapes at a leisurely pace. “Plus Pike. I hear she’s been giving baking a shot, lately. Makes a mean sponge cake.”

Scanlan pauses. Puts on his best thinking face. “So, like. A cheat day?”

“If you want it to be. There’s also cage matches.”

“If you fight, I’ll sneak you some magic - so long as you don’t snitch to Kaylie that I bailed on the veganism.”

They shake on it. Scanlan’s grip matches his, in the dark, half-drunk. “Deal!”

--

“You shit!” Vax cries, betrayed, when he hears the tell-tale hum of Scanlan’s magic around Grog, bearing down on him. “Oy, Scanlan, you bastard!” That last part comes a little shrill as he ducks into Grog’s space, under one arm and away. 

He’d love to take a moment to shoot the bard a fuck-you, but one of the privileges of being small is the ability to vanish in the crowd. 

And in this case choosing not to because he’s sitting with Pike, and Vax doesn’t quite feel like giving her the finger. That’d be more dangerous than the - oh SHIT ax -

--

Vax snitches on Scanlan.