#frieennnnnnds workin through guilt and missing vax hours :')

[blorbologist]

For the CR hurt/comfort prompts, how about Polymorph with Keyleth and Scanlan? :]

24. Polymorph

"This spell transforms a creature with at least 1 hit point that you can see within range into a new form. An unwilling creature must make a Wisdom saving throw to avoid the effect. A shapechanger automatically succeeds on this saving throw."

[Interesting, interesting - okay, I think I've got an angle!]

Spellcasters usually don’t spar - they practice. They meditate, or train, or study. Clear distinction there. It’s all very dainty and structured, and Scanlan prefers it that way. Means no one can see him stumble and laugh at him in ways he didn’t orchestrate, you know? 

He and Keyleth crash together, sand blooming in the air around them. Scanlan huffs, bracing his hind legs as best he can, and with a shake of his head throws Keyleth clear. 

There’s no one to scamper out of the way as the young bronze dragon crashes into the mansion’s thick basement walls. Well. Next time he’ll have some servants watch them, for atmosphere. Right now this feels like a cagematch, something for show. Two beasts thrown in an arena for the entertainment of creatures to whom their lives are toys. 

That’s why they’re here, after all. 

It takes a shake of his massive head to clear the thought from Scanlan’s mind. Triceratops is nice. Triceratops isn’t as stupid as he thought, when it was scared stupid by fire and tight spaces, but it still doesn’t think as much as he would.

Keyleth curls against the wall, talons fisting into mortar and brick. A long tongue flicks out as she hisses - they fucking agreed no fire, don’t you dare - and scales rattle. 

Scanlan doesn’t mind being goaded. Running full-throttle into a wall is clear, it’s adrenaline and instinct and a satisfaction as he nicks that flying lizard in the wing with a horn as Keyleth swoops by. 

He can see why Grog likes it so much. 

The earth buckles, the sand screams by his unfocused eyes as they collide. Something in his neck jars, the massive meaty heart bumbles its next beat.

(They’d tried. And tried, and hoped, and hoped, and - for what? For fucking what?)

(He’s selfish. He thinks it isn’t worth it. Saving the world, fine, argue all you fucking want that there’s no Vax if there’s no world for him. That this is what Vax wanted. That he made peace with it. Well, this sorry fucking bastard made peace with leaving, and never coming back. And Vox Machina didn’t fucking let him, and something about that saved the fucking world. Why couldn’t this work out, too? Why does he hate himself for putting the world, his daughter, over his friend?)

(She isn’t. So of course she feels so guilty about hating it, about wishing - and wishing Scanlan could have wish’d. And she has so much to keep her busy, real reminders that this is what Vax was willing to die for, did die for. But now it feels like everything in her life is for the world and not herself, because Vax is gone and Vex and Percy are having a baby and no one knows how to handle a thousand years made worse for a hundred you can’t have. He only would have been with her for a hundred, two hundred. How dare she resent the beautiful world for taking that long moment from her?)

Scanlan roars, and he can’t hear himself think, and he tries to make Keyleth bleed, or make himself bleed, or make it hurt in his bones instead of in his head. Polymorph is good for that, too - can’t think, but can bleed as much as you need to. Until you’re you, again, and have to live with how little things changed.

It’s sparing. It’s supposed to teach them something, between the brain damage and bleeding. 

Honestly? Today, they just want to clear their heads.