#these people are exandria's hope against the red end

[funscarypdr]

i cannot believe this community theatre production could be the reason they lose zathuda

[saphirered]

Something to tug at the heartstrings: How about a sequel to Ghost, wherein the reader loses Lucien a second time but, eventually, finally, finds happily ever after with Kingsley? A sorta soulmate AU, where the reader is just meant to be with this soul. Thank you! 💜

Okay, this one turned out a loooooot longer than I intended but I'm happy with the way it turned out. Definitely something to pull on your heartstrings with a good amount of angst and fluff. Hope you enjoy and thank you for requesting! 😘

-

You knew it was over, the end had come when even across the worlds you felt like a final thread within you had snapped yet you felt nothing, just empty. You knew that moment would come at one point and while you hoped things could have been different… No, things could never have ended differently. Even then, you already knew there was a madness, greed and hunger for power within Lucien he could never escape. Never would it be enough. He’d stop at nothing and would sacrifice everything if that meant he’d achieve his goals. He was willing to do it before, he had done so before and would do it again a thousand times over.

Lucien had been angry, upset, trying to convince you this is not where it had to end between you two. That you could follow him along this path, forever, no longer bound by a fate not your own, a life in the hands of another. You could truly have been free. You could have been like gods among the ants left at the mercy of the whims of circumstance. That’s what he promised you. He promised you greatness, the world, a future of your own making, power, riches, you could have named your price and he’d offered it to you. Lucien had told you no price would be too steep for him but you had found one.

You’d asked him, once faced with the choice, would he choose you or would he risk it all in the pursuit of this damned purpose of his? Lucien didn’t have an immediate answer. Those moments of silence before his honeyed words were enough for you to know the real answer and deflecting, dancing around the truth like he had, all of it was just a dead give away. Nevertheless he tried to keep you at his side because if you know one thing, Lucien is a selfish man and he’d do anything and everything in his power to keep you at his side unless you’d leave of your own volition.

Lavish gifts, romantic gestures, luxuries he’d bestow upon no other, no expense was too great, no time wasted and no love spared. Lucien really went all out to show you just how much you mean to him, how much he needs you, needs you at his side. But nothing could make up for the fact that in the end he wasn’t sure wether he’d choose you or power when faced with the ultimatum. He knew that if he asked you, you’d give your life for him but he could not return the favour and his love knew boundaries set by his idealistic purpose. The more time you spent with him, the clearer that became.

When you became more reserved, coming to terms with this truth that did not mean you distanced yourself from Lucien. You still loved him and that wouldn’t change but like before, you refused to be part of his own demise. You’d not stand idly and watch as he went on a suicide mission with some perverted shadow of what was once living. You don’t know whether or not it was something Lucien had planned, if it was a spur of the moment, if he even was aware he was doing it or the Eyes of Nine reaching out to you but you’d seen the visions, you started waking up being faced with the horrors to a red eye marked on your skin, and another, and another.

And the more you were shown, the clearer it became. You could not be part of this. You’d not resign yourself to this fate and watch the others fall for the whims of one man and his own stupid greed, watch the man you loved fall to his own selfish hunger for power. You’d spare yourself the heartbreak of having your lover be torn away from you yet again. So you left. You did what you couldn’t do before; said your goodbyes and left. If this is truly what Lucien wanted then you would not stand in his way. You’d not be an obstacle but you’d also not be watching from the sidelines waiting for a side to win. You’d not interfere because after all this is the man you’d sacrifice the world for but you’d not stand by and watch him sacrifice you for his own visions. Should he find his way back to you you’d embrace him with open arms. Should he not, you’ll have departed on your own terms and made peace with that. You’d have said your goodbyes.

So when that final thread snapped, the eyes disappeared and a quietness hit you, like all sound had been pulled from the world but the wind and the waves you knew it was over. Lucien was dead and gone and Lucien would not be returning this time around. The world was spared and had gone back into tune. The Mighty Nein had returned and truly became the unsung heroes of Exandria. They did what you could never. They’d risked it all for the people they loved and they succeeded. And while your heart warmed at the thought of that love you also felt an emptiness, an emptiness you’d experienced once before when Lucien was first taken from you.

—————

Even now, that feeling of emptiness, a part of you missing still lingered. It’s as if when Lucien finally passed he took a part of you with him and your life would never be as it was before. You still wouldn’t change a thing. You had found purpose not only in your skills but a sense of belonging among the Revelry. Sure they were a rowdy bunch but something about Darktow and it’s people reminded you of the early days of the Tombtakers. Call it sentimental. But you made yourself useful, proved your usefulness, resourcefulness and connections across Wildemount and beyond to benefit you and ended up with a ship of your own, a respected Captain among Darktow with the favour of the Plank King himself. Though the latter is mainly to do with the copious amount of gold you’ve brought him. You and your crew alone have given the man a private fortune that must have made him richer than the kings of the mainland. Not that you cared. Gold did little to fill that void left in your heart. You had no use for it save for the upkeep of your ship, the payment of your crew and the copious amounts of booze and gambling you and your crew partook in simply because you could.

Life in Darktow and as a member of the Revelry is anything but uneventful but that’s exactly what you need to keep you on your toes. The day you resign yourself to a quiet and restful life is the day you die. You’d been in port for a week and a half and things have been going smoothly. Too smoothly in your opinion because if you know anything it is the gods like messing with your threads of fate a little too much. Perhaps your next voyage will be all storms, or you’ll get stranded somewhere? Maybe the Concord will be on the hunt for you again? A naval battle or a few could be fun? What will the gods throw at you next?

Maybe you shouldn’t have tempted the gods like so because the next thing you see is a tiefling of lavender skin, intricate tattoos all over, and a charming grin on his face attempt to barter with one of your deckhands for something. Your stomach drops, shivers running down your spine and conflicting emotions of joy and pain rush through you all at once. Your bosun shakes your shoulder after seeing you so shellshocked and checks in to see if you’re alright. You shake it off and take a minute to breathe studying the interaction with the tiefling.

Right from the get go you know it’s not Lucien. It couldn’t be and wouldn’t be. Yet it’s also not Mollymauk. However brief your knowing him may have been, you knew well enough this was also not the circus man you’d grown to admire. So who is this? Curious by nature and unrestrained, unbound by the knowledge you probably shouldn’t against all better judgement, you step over to the gangplank on the other end of which your deckhand and the tiefling are conversing. You stand there, crossed arms and just watch. Neither seem to notice you as of now but you’re sure they will if you stay long enough.

As Kingsley goes on, trying to convince this deckhand he just needs to speak to the captain for a brief moment because the Plank King has told him he is to deliver an urgent message, all lies of course, he catches the glimpse of someone that seems familiar to him in some way. He hasn’t ever encountered this person standing at the top of the gangplank before. This isn’t a face he’d forget. He’s never one to forget a pretty face and well, this one’s the prettiest of them all. Okay, he may have seen people as pretty before, so he’ll blame it on attraction then because the moment his eyes fall upon this figure the world just fades for an instant, the words of the deckhand falling on deaf ears but he’s good enough to not let it be noticed.

“You wish to see the captain? Well here I am.” Finally you make your way down the gangplank with a walk that expresses authority and grace but there’s something Kingsley can’t quite put his finger on. You turn to the deckhand.

“I’ll deal with this. Back to work.” The deckhand with a nod to you and not so much as a goodbye to him scurries up the gangplank and goes back to whatever task Kingsley had kept him from.

“My my, captain, I must say your ship is magnificent…” The tiefling tries to sweet talk but the expression you give him shows you’re not buying it. That doesn’t mean he’ll stop trying. He’ll just have to up his charm a little. Kingsley wants a ship and this is a great ship. He meant that part.

“Cut the crap and get to the point. I don’t have all day.” You give the man a wink for some reason feeling yourself slip into that back and forth game of wit and charm you’d had with Lucien. Gods be damned for pulling on those strings again, your heartstrings no less. And damn your own weakness for not being able to resist that charming grin of this man.

“Perhaps this is a conversation better had in private?” Kingsley, as promised picks it up a notch and walks up the gangplank like he already owned the ship but gestures for you to lead the way. Deciding to humour him and yourself you lead the way to your cabin, the door falling shut behind you two.

—————

The events that followed were the beginning of the end and the more time you spent with this man, this new version of the face you’d been so familiar with, the more you felt that emptiness begin to fade. At first Kingsley had tried to persuade you to go to the Plank King to give himself the opportunity to get the ship’s papers and convince the crew that you’d done something terrible and face judgement while he’d offer to vouch for the crew to be spared if they accepted him as captain. When that didn’t work he tried to coax you in sharing a drink with him, one he had spiked with a strong sedative so he could leave you at the docks and sail away. When that didn’t work he tried to sleep with you. Maybe a few days or weeks in your company wouldn’t be so bad. Have you seen you? He could spent hours just getting lost in your eyes.

But he didn’t manage to charm his way into your bed either. You’d caught him on all accounts, somehow figured out all his attempts and called them out exactly how he planned them. It’s like you could read his mind, or at the very least calculate his every move before he’d even done so. He isn’t anything if not persistent. He wanted your ship and he’d work for it. What he didn’t expect was the need to literally work for it when you offered him a job as a second mate since the last one had fallen to the jaws of a dragon turtle.

Over the weeks on your ship you’d eased him into fact that you had a very intimate relationship with Lucien and had met Mollymauk. You knew who he used to be, you knew his story up until a certain point. In turn Kingsley filled in the gaps, though even his knowledge felt more like second hand too. While you both tried keeping your distance when it came to the undeniable attraction between the two of you it was difficult. That pull remained, be it from your own memories of the past, the ghosts that still plagued you sometimes, or his phantom visions and feelings from a life he never lived himself.

You had to come to terms with it but the more you got to know Kingsley and the more he got to know you, why should you keep fighting something you both felt? Why put up walls, put in time and effort in something so… so stupid? So you had a good and honest talk. Set some boundaries and drew a line. You’d see where this would take you and won’t put any pressure or expectations on the other but you certainly wouldn’t spent a moment more trying to fight this stupid pull between the two of you. Those days were over.

The threads of fate could be a twisted thing but at times could be so in a humorous way. Kingsley had ended up with the ship he wanted after all. Not be leaving you stranded, poisoning or even killing you. Instead his secret message from the Plank King did come. Though his had been a lie when you first met, this one wasn’t. With the discourse on the high seas, the tensions between Xhorhas and the Empire on the low and the Concord’s opportunity to look towards the Revelry, you were needed as more than just a captain in a fleet. You’d be a commander instead and your captaincy would have to move to someone else so who else could you have handed it to? Both of you had been laughing like idiots when you finalised the deal and signed over the deed of the ship to Kingsley Tealeaf.

Despite this new promotion you’d still find yourself back on your old ship with Kingsley going on adventures of your own. He made a good captain save for the mornings he’d be preoccupied and slacking leaving his first mate to take over his duties. Coincidentally those were the days you’d spend on the ship and of course the captain could not let you sleep among the crew. No, you deserved a place more suitable of your station; the captain’s cabin. Part of that arrangement neglected to mention to the others was that the captain would be sharing his cabin with you.

So you’d wake up in each other’s arms like plenty of times before, fingers brushing through your hair, gently dancing over your shoulder and arm up and down as the light bleeds through the curtains signalling the afternoon’s approach. And as per usual with a groan, you’d shift and readjust yourself into a more comfortable position and allow your sleeping limbs to wake. A kiss would be pressed to your cheek, forehead, crown, shoulder, neck, wherever was most convenient pulling you from the final clutches of sleep and easing you into the day.

These moments would be spent embracing the quiet sounds of the waves rocking the ship gently and the shanties of the working crew, until one of you decided to break that silence.

“You are the most truthful and up front person I’ve come across in a long time.” Kingsley speaks as he presses a kiss to the top of your head as you wrap your arms a little tighter around him. You look up to him with an amused half smile, final hints of exhaustion still remaining on your features.

“I am a liar, a thief and a killer. I live a life of piracy and plague the seas.” You deadpan and earn a ‘you know what I mean’ look from the tiefling as you flick his chin. He catches your hand before you can do it again and instead kisses your knuckles, holding on tightly with an amused grin as you try to retaliate.

“And yet you stand out among the masses like a beacon. I could be faced with the promises of the world and my eye would still fall to you. I don’t pretend to understand why or how but it’s true.” Kingsley might have given the words a bit more flare but they’re true no less. He doesn’t understand why but the two of you, or whatever version of him, seem to be entwined wherever you go always bound to end up meeting over and over again like you can’t escape. It’s not like he minds because the two of you meeting back up in unpredictable spaces and situations has been rather enjoyable. Especially once you’d gotten a moment to yourselves.

“Are you trying to charm me, captain Tealeaf?” You tilt your head slightly giving him the same look you’d done when you first met; innocent disbelief.

“I don’t know. Is it working? Because if so, I will lie and say it’s intentional.” At this comment you sit up, pulling yourself free and leaning on your elbow to allow your lips to meet in a sweet but quickly heated kiss. There’s a knock at the door and you pull away making move to get out of bed but Kingsley holds you there. He’s got no intention of leaving this bed just yet and neither are you if he can persuade you to stay. Let the outside world stay that; outside.

“You’re a good man, Kingsley.” You stroke his cheek tracing along the peacock feathers crawling up his neck and jaw. Kingsley raises an eyebrow but when you see that half grin crawl up his face you know you might just have said the wrong thing. Not bad but more akin to provoking the devil.

“I am a liar, a thief and a killer. I live a life of piracy and plague the seas.” Your own words are turned against you and you scoff. The knocking on the door doesn’t go away and Kingsley rolls his eyes childishly clearly not wanting to be bothered by the whines and responsibilities of the day just yet.

“Yes. Yes. I head the first time.” He shouts annoyed with the interruption and the knocking stops but instead of making any move of getting up he pulls you into his lap. A surprised giggle escapes your lips as playful kisses are peppered all over your shoulders and neck.

“Did you have to deal with their constant antics or could they figuring things out themselves?” Kingsley asks between kisses.

“Always.” You pull yourself out of Kingsley’s grasp and get off the bed reaching for a shirt and pulling it over your head earning a groan of disappointment from the man. You shake your head in amusement.

“I suggest you get dressed before you have a mutiny on your hands for neglecting your crew, Captain Tealeaf.” You put on your pants and sit down on the edge of the bed to slip on your shoes, tying the laces as you go. You feel the tiefling slip up behind you arms wrapping around your waist.

“Is that an order, commander?” Kingsley whispers into your ear. You smile turning your head to face him, waiting to see who will lean in first and close the gap. The knocking on the door returns and you take this moment to gently flick Kingsley’s chin again as you slip from his grasp and step over towards the door. Kingsley grumbles a collective of rather colourful words making you grin.

“It is, captain. Back to work.”

[kimabutch]

JLCR: instrumental track edition

Just hit another milestone on the JLCR playlist (1250 songs!) so I’m doing another mini-playlist, this time focussing on instrumental songs for locations and specific scenes. 

I’ve organized the playlist by campaign and then by order within the campaign. Because Critical Role gives us stunning scenes every single episode, I’ve only been able to include a fraction of my favourites, usually chosen because I had a specific song in mind. I’ve also quoted parts of Matt’s descriptions, so that this is also an ode to his beautiful narration.

This playlist has got a little bit of everything: folk/trad, lo-fi beats, post-rock, soundtrack, and classical. I hope you enjoy!

Campaign 1

Whitestone, Briarwood Arc

The Night King, Ramin Djawadi (from Game of Thrones, Season 8)

“As you get close enough to start scanning over details, you can see that a lot of the buildings appear to be closed or empty. There are people working in the fields. As you make your way to the centre of the town, there is a town square. There is a tree there, a very large, old tree that is twisted, with all these various gnarled branches that reach out. You recall Desmond mentioning something called the Sun Tree that is the centrepiece of this area. And you get a view enough of the tree to see that there are eight humanoid bodies of varying ages swinging from it.” (e28)

Bolts of lightning are coming down from the storm in the distance, too, as the thunderstorm itself is reaching more of a fervoured pace, the rain itself getting harder and harder on you guys. So, with that, you can see, looking over your shoulder on the other side of this wall another bit of skeletal horde is starting to come down one of the nearby intersections. (e32)

Okay, okay, I know this is a little too on-point: this song was literally written about fighting an undead army in and around a castle. But when I listen to this song and close my eyes, I can imagine a dozen scenes from the Briarwood arc, played out perfectly in my head. And Ramin Djawadi is just a fantastic composer.

The Flute Duels in The Diamond Nest

The Ballroom Set, Jean-Michel Veillon

“So you pull out your flute and other gnomish girl with her flute as well gives you a look, and you guys start weaving together this flute duel, almost like Flight of the Bumblebees but two conflicting sides. As you guys begin to build this perpetual symphony of — it’s almost jazz flute almost in this improvisational feel to it. The drums build, you can see Dr. Dranzel is tapping his foot to it and he gets this really fast fiddle sound out of a classic violin, the whole room begins to gather around and cheer. [...] 

Eyes locked, tapping your feet heavily against the actual wood to the table. The rhythmic pounding of your feet and the drums — because the entire room is now also slamming their tables in with it as the music builds and builds until eventually you both take one deep breath and go for that same sustained note a second time. She’s challenging you at the game she lost last time, and the two of you both swell into this cacophonous spray of music that hits this one final note.” (e37)

As a flute player of 14+ years with a strong interest in traditional music, I can fairly confidently say that a flute duel would be unlikely to end on a very long note, because flutes sound like shit when you start to lose air, which is usually after only a few seconds — flutes are the least air-efficient of all wind instruments, unless you can circular breathe, in which case it’s a moot point. 

That being said, I love this scene, and I’ve chosen a song by one of my favourite trad flutists for it, Jean-Michel Veillon. He’s a master of Breton and Irish flute, both of which contain improvisational elements that you can hear in this mind-numbingly fast piece. While it has none of Dr Dranzel’s fiddle in it, there’s only one flute, and it doesn’t end on a particularly long note, it’s definitely a crowd-pleaser that would both provide a distraction for a stealthing party and challenge a long-lost daughter to keep up. 

Pyrah, Destroyed

Study for Player Piano (II), Ólafur Arnalds

“Your vision crests the mountain and steps into the valley of broken, blackened shale to the ever-burning forest. As you come upon it, you recall where the Fire Ashari village was and where you were greeted before and given your trials. Where there is now nothing but sundered, broken wood, tents, destroyed bodies burned and charred and curled up in horrible ever-gasping pain. 

The forest itself is flattened from the inside out, like a blast from the centre of it just exploded outward, the trees all bent and snapped at the base, and in the centre, where there once was that small pool of molten lava that you created the portal through and stepped into the elemental plane, there is a large, ominous, flickering gash between the planes that is roughly 30 to 40 feet in width and height that is pulsing as fire and magma pours out of it. You can see wandering imps and elementals and various entities slowly peeking out and escaping and wandering throughout the mountain tops. From what you can see, there are no signs of any survivors.” (e40)

The entire Chroma Conclave attack is emotionally harrowing but Matt’s description of (and Marisha’s reaction to) Pyrah’s destruction just kills me. This piece gives off such a horrified, mournful mood to it, and the glittering piano throughout makes me think of falling ashes. 

Glintshore Island

Hydrological Story, Kishi Bashi (from the Fourth Phase)

“As you begin to grow closer to the island, you see, as it begins to come more into form, there is a singular mountain peak that’s shifted mostly to the western side. It’s not a super peak. It’s a gradual point. You can see a little bit of a brush-like detail of the jungle that you had heard mentioned before. He begins to bring you up towards the southern shore of the island. At this point of perspective, the sunlight that’s hitting the island is causing a glittery shift of thousands of points of light across the beach shoreline, deep into where the blackened jungle tree line is. It’s beautiful. It’s a very strange and awe-inspiring sight, to be such a small little forgotten part of the land and to look so pretty from this distance.

The closer you get, the beauty begins to fade as you see the black beaches. You can see the landscape is barren and broken, aside from the ashen grey and black jungle plants and trees that have been left there, dead, for an extended period of time. The mountain itself, the rock itself going from black to a ruddy red and brown colour. The sands themselves and the glass surface across the eastern shore that tends to reach out, almost like a mouth of a creature, is rough and varied in topography” (e67).

Glintshore has fascinated me from the moment I heard its description — what a setting for one of the most intense fights of all of campaign 1, and the arguable emotional climax of Percy’s character arc. I think this piece perfectly captures a sense of beauty, strangeness, menace, and anticipation. 

The Birth Heart

Aspen Trees, Danny Norbury

“As you enter the Birth Heart, it’s an archway of branches and trees that knit into each other and wrap around as you step in. You can see what looks like a heavy cluster of forest is really just an outside row of trees that are all intertwined. The inside is open with the occasional stalk of tree that blossoms up into the higher portion. [...] 

This is the centre of the Birth Heart. And within there are a number of lanterns that are hung from the branches all throughout that all have their own yellowish fairy glow within each point. They’re all through the inside at different levels. It’s just hundreds and hundreds of these yellow glowing lights that are hooked up into the boughs ahead. There are a number of people walking off the path, just through the soft mulch wood and dying pine soft floor of the canopy, all wearing similar robes of greens and yellows, golds and whites” (e84).

The description of the Birth Heart is among my favourites in all of Critical Role; if I had to live anywhere in Exandria, it would for sure be the Birth Heart (despite Ashley’s misgivings about what Senokir’s wife’s ashes might be doing to the place...) This song, for me, evokes the feeling of being surrounded by nature and totally at peace. 

Ioun’s Test

Harbinger, Mike Oldfield

“Clutching the Ioun stone, as you sing this song, the stone glows ever so faintly in your hand and you glance up and you can see about ten of the various spectral librarians that are wandering have stopped and they’re all looking at you. Seemingly temporarily distracted or entranced by the song. [...] As you continue to sing, with each beat, each name that’s mentioned that deals with the Calamity and the Chained Oblivion, you watch as their pace seems to quicken a bit, and then as the singing slows they begin to slow down again. [...] 

They continue to push at a brisk pace and you watch as other of the spectral librarians begin to gather into this group and is now a cluster of about 25 of them that are snaking around these bookcases and traveling at a pretty fair pace. Which once was walking pace, and then went to a jogging pace, they’re now darting through. And they’re leading you quickly away from the centre of the library where everyone else seems to be clustered. So the two of you are following and swooshing behind them, you’re going over and around bookcases. Some of the bookcases you see have giant holes in the centre and you can dart through and dive past. The speed is increasing to the point where the wind is starting to kick up in your hair and you’re amazed at the speed of these librarians and the fact that they’re being driven by your very song, and also the fact that you have no idea how far away the rest of your friends are in this library, and this library seems to just go on and on and on” (e105).

The imagery of Scanlan conducting the spectres with Mythcarver and his singing, desperately holding onto Vex as she maneuvers her way perfectly through eternal bookshelves — it’s just too much. I love it. This song feels celestial and ethereal, appropriate to Ioun’s realm, but conveys the excitement, urgency, and movement of the scene — with a large orchestral sound that surrounds you.

Whitestone’s Epilogue

Coronation March, Edward Elgar (performed by George Hurst & the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra)

Cassandra, as a note by the way. She’s had a few pretty difficult brushes with death and the experiences definitely left a mark on her. Within the year following the battle with Vecna, she begins to remind you of yourself at a very dark time. Recognizing that, you come to her and help pull her from a dangerous edge of lashing out at the place she’s worked so hard to build. You help her realize that this guilt she’s been holding as being a tool of manipulation, the times that she has been is not her fault, and used against the ones she loves. In that determination to no longer be a tool for others to use, she asks Vex to teach her and train her. To not just be the lady beacon of Whitestone, but also join in as one of its protectors” (e115).

This is among my favourite pieces of classical music ever. The opening theme — melancholic but stately — reminds me particularly of Cassandra. No matter how much time passes, the halls of Whitestone will always bring some memories of the years she was a captive in her own home. However, there is something of hope in it, too, and the transition into a major theme reminds me in particular of Vex and Percy’s devotion to their city, and of the healing that Cassandra and Percy might find together. Also big fancy balls. 

Campaign 2

The Evening Nip

Passage, linanthem 

“Eventually, you hear some voices and some laughter, and a clink of glasses. As you curve down, the light gets brighter from around the corner, until suddenly you look into a stone-set subterranean tavern. From floor to ceiling, it’s about 20 feet tall. You can see there are two balconies that overlook it from the left side, and one that’s barely visible around the corner, as the room opens up to the right of you.” (e13)

You can see in the far back right corner of the chamber there is a long, dark mahogany well-carved table. [...] Sitting feet crossed up on the table in a nice, long deep-blue coat, leather-gloved hands, light teal skin, jet-black hair that’s long, just past the shoulders, a widow’s peak in the centre, a bit of a dark goatee, male figure standing there, hands entwined and crossed, looking at you from across the way with a curious grin” (e14).

Shouldn’t the Evening Nip be playing medieval tavern music? Probably, but I think sleazy, jazzy beats fit the Gentleman perfectly. You can almost hear his skin dripping.

The Underground Laboratory

I Don’t Think About You Anymore But, I Don’t Think About You Anyless, Hungry Ghosts

“Each couple of splashing sounds that hit as the oars hit the water and the occasional crack of the water against the brook or a rock in the centre, you being to maneuver your way through this dark tunnel with just the low light that you’ve been applying. It gets colder and colder the further down the tunnel you go and while it is moist, you begin to see your breath just in general this low in the ground. [...]

The torchlight extends into the chamber, and you can see a little more now. The two side chambers are almost pill-shaped. They’re rounded at each side, and they’re enclosed, but open into the center chamber. At each of these rounded edges, as you step inside and glance to the right and left, you can see cage-like contraptions: iron domes that are very tight-knit, dark iron rusted metal. They’re on the edges of each side. You see load-bearing pillars in the center of the chamber to the right and left, and cold braziers behind those against the walls: little domed pieces of stone that once contained flame for light. Across the way you can see two tables with chairs, a bookcase” (e15).

This is the song that’s running through my head anytime the Mighty Nein are going to a remotely spooky place. And can’t you imagine some drips and metal bar squeaks superimposed over this track to make it the perfect spooky-underground-lab track?

The Blooming Grove 

Owl Song, Cosmo Sheldrake

“There is something unnatural, or at least magical, that maintains this little pocket of untouched paradise. There you can see small pools, bits of bog where the soft green and browns of compost fall into green, thick, algae-covered bits of water. You can see dozens and dozens of stone tablets, about a foot to two feet high, with bits of script across them, too far to see, that have partially fallen or leaning. [...] 

As the light passes between the small breaks in the tree canopies, the green comes to light with colour, numerous types of colour. A rainbow of flowers, of pigments you’ve never really seen before, begin to emerge as the light hits it. Nearly every inch of these gravesites contain a smattering scatter of rainbow colors across petal and stame.” (e28).

I have so much love in my heart for the Blooming Grove, and Caduceus’s introduction — it’s my favourite example of the trope that @night-filled-mountain so beautifully described once: "The tension breaks and everyone is so incredibly tender.” Their arrival, through thorns, to a paradise and a new ally, gave me a feeling of peace and relief that I’ve rarely felt in fiction. I think this song just really gets to the heart of the Blooming Grove: peaceful, though strange, and surrounded by mysterious circumstances.

The beaches of Nicodranus

another perspective, Idealism

“Looking past the afternoon sun at this vantage point especially, you can see it dancing across the distant horizon shore like hundreds of little glistening flecks of glass. The shore’s sound itself is very soothing as you approach and pull up your pants and take off your boots to begin to step into the soft sand. [...] 

As you guys gather your things, dusk has set in, and now the sky shifts from light blue to a deep blue and purple on the eastern side as the oranges, reds, yellows, and pinks begin to overtake the western side of the skyline” (e33).

“As you gather in the mid-afternoon here in Nicodranas, you walk your way towards the ocean side of the port, finding the lengths of the city that lead to the familiar beaches where you once had yourself a stroll, a soak and a battle with a crab. [...] Beautiful open sky. The warm sun hitting you up through your clothes. You can see now Yeza and Luke, both, marvelling at the sight before Luke just goes running off into the water” (e71).

Every time the Mighty Nein come to Nicodranas, I know we’re in for a treat with Matt’s descriptions. Their beach day marked a peaceful moment before the pirate arc, while their return before this current arc allowed them to breathe after Yasha... leaving, and for Nott to have some much-needed beach conversations. This peaceful lo-fi track evokes that same sense of calm and nostalgia that I get from those episodes, and in particular makes me think of, perhaps, a quiet moment between Nott and Yeza, watching a Nicodranas sunset. 

Darktow

Under Ceilidh Pressure, Coìg

“This island, unlike the jungle islands that you’ve come across and a vast majority of the Swavain Islands here off the Menagerie Coast, is mostly rock and cliff. In fact, from what you can see, most of this island from this perspective is jagged cliff face and probably a few hundred feet up is where the island’s even surface even begins. At the base around this cliff face you can see a scattered web of a shipyard, just tangled docks that maneuver around containing dozens and dozens of ships. Across that you see numerous torches that mark various intersections where they all meet, and built into the base of this cliff face, you see a number of buildings and windows, all slowly being lit as the night grows darker and darker. This mass of natural-looking, hive-like pirate city there stands before you. Welcome to Darktow” (e41).

You guys walk out into the cold night air. The heavy mist has fallen across Darktow and you can barely see beyond the outskirts of the city where the ocean begins. You can still hear the waters coming in against the rocks on the outside of the island, but you cannot actually see where the water connects. Beyond that, you can see the outline of the ship masts that are set at the end of the shipyard that are vanishing into the mist that surround you” (e42).

Wow, Darktow sure was cool — wouldn’t it have been nice if they’d stayed there for more than 24 hours? Either way, though, this Cape Breton folk band’s song gives me strong pirate-town-at-night vibes, and the part where it picks up in the middle reminds me especially of their chaotic heist on the boat.

Felderwin

Elégie in C Minor, Gabriel Fauré (performed by Jacqueline du Pré)

“As you come upon the outside of Felderwin, which is built not too far from the Eistus River, you can already see there are a number of buildings burned and blackened on the opposite end of the fields. The fields are on the northern side of the city. On the southeastern side, there's a section of the town that appears to have burned or burnt down to varying degrees” (e48). 

“You make your way past the outskirts and you can see the river itself cruising right along. It would be a beautiful landscape if there wasn't this intensity of emotion and the distant haze of long-greyed smoke that still hangs over the vicinity of the partially burned farmlands. Nevertheless, Nott leads you over towards one of the shaded banks under a few trees and you come to a stop” (e49).

An elegy seemed like a good choice for Nott’s return to Felderwin, both for her mourning her (presumed dead) husband and for her recounting the details of her death. The happy, nostalgic middle theme makes me think of Nott’s happier memories in Felderwin, and in particular her description of coming to the river with Yeza. And Jacqueline du Pre’s gorgeous, evocative cello playing makes my heart hurt. 

Rosohna

La Cathédrale engloutie, Claude Debussy (performed by Martin Jones)

“As he turns, you can now see before you, throughout the vicinity, this beautiful courtyard of subtle grey and green bushes and trees. You see that you're on a hill. The centre of the city seems to be on some sort of hilltop and looking down, you can see the perimeter wall, made of a dull grey with a purplish-tint type stone and across the crest of it, you see these green lanterns that alight with this soft, green glow. 

Beyond that, beyond the barricades, your vision stretches out to see the entirety, it seems, of Rosohna, this incredible, vast metropolis, alit with thousands of the same little, green lantern glows. You see stone and metal and dark clay making up all the structures in various sizes and shapes, some of which have been repurposed ruins of old that have been built upon and refurbished, some of which, at least closer to the centre, appear to be extensions of an elvish, domicile design that is familiar yet unfamiliar, in some ways slender and jagged, but beautiful and sleek. Then, beyond that, you can see extending wards of the city that tend to be a little more patchwork and scattered. You can see distant bonfires that are lit in some of the streets, giving distinct orange glows that break up the rest of the green, sparkling lights that make up the entirety of your vision. It's beautiful.” (e57)

Matt’s description of Rosohna took my breath away: such a monumental city in a place that the characters had been told was barely “civilized.” This piano prelude captures, for me, the idea of walking up that hill and gradually, this enormous, dark, glittering, beautiful city sprawling before you. Musically, this song is built in parts on unusual scales, so that it gives me the sense of “familiar yet unfamiliar.”

And that’s a wrap! Thanks so much for reading and listening!

[ohnoregard]

Love is not a Fairytale (Except it Kind of is)

In which each member of the Mighty Nein realise/learn about Beau’s feelings for Jester before Jester does, and reflect on their own experience of love along the way.

Read on AO3 or below the cut. 7,790 words.

  Nott

Nott lay in the darkness and watched a love story unfold. She hoped.

Across the room in a well of candlelight, Jester and Beau sat huddled together, silent and content. There was enough floor space for them to sleep separately, more than enough, but this is what they did. It was what they had always done. They were the roommates. They shared beds and bedrolls and no one thought anything of it. Except now, Nott thought, that maybe there had been signs.

Like just a few minutes earlier, when Jester had slipped back into their shared room in the Gentleman’s establishment and her near soundless approach had caused a soundly sleeping Beau to stir and wake before even Nott’s keen ears had heard her coming.

It made Nott think of nights in Felderwin, long ago. She had always woken to the sound of Yeza’s soft footsteps, her husband sneaking up to bed after a late night of experiments. The mere presence of the person she loved most in the world had been enough to pull her from sleep. Even when she had been heavily pregnant and so tired that she thought that she would never feel fully awake again. Yeza had always been her person. The one she had an almost symbiotic existence with. At least… she had.

But she wouldn’t dwell on her and Yeza. Or her and… no. Right now she needed to distract herself. And what better way than to focus on Beau and what exactly her intentions towards Jester were? Because Nott felt protective towards Jester but also, strangely, towards Beau as well.

So she watched as Beau – her eyes heavy with sleep – had pulled herself somewhat ungracefully from her tangle of blankets and lifted a corner to invite Jester inside.

Something in Jester had been off. Her momentary pause in the lit doorway had given Nott a view of her face as they briefly locked eyes. Jester was caught in the middle of some kind of quandary. Happy but confused. Disappointed but accepting. All emotions that Beau seemed to pick up on immediately.

“Oh Jessie, come here,” Beau had whispered, opening her arms wide and smiling sadly at the woman – Nott realised with shock– that she loved.

Not just like. Not just ‘had a crush on’. But LOVED. The kind the got written in all capitals on your heart the moment it beat in time with another’s.

And in response… Well, Jester all but dove across the room, narrowly missing a gently snoring Caduceus in her dash to reach Beau’s embrace. She hadn’t spared another look at Nott. She had just burrowed under the blanket and into Beau’s arms, sighing contentedly as Beau whispered something that only she could hear.

Whatever it was, Nott knew that she had said it with love.

 Caleb

There’s a battlefield before them, somewhere in their future. They could all feel it. War was in the air, bubbling over into every corner of every town, no matter how far from the front.

The attack on Rexxentrum had taken them by surprise. Both the Nein and the everyday people of the Empire. Rexxentrum was so far inside the border that they had all thought it safe. Protected by distance, and perhaps, the Nein’s naïveté. Naïveté that would have them believe that as long as they were after the beacon – at least in a larger, less immediate sense – then there would be some kind of… well if not a ceasefire from Xhorhas then at least a lack of escalation.

They had been distracted, yes, but by the kind of world-ending things that could not wait. Yasha and the Chained Oblivion and cults so out of their depth that they were playing with the very existence of sane, free life on Exandria. Those were not the kind of forces that you could put on hold whilst you searched for a lost relic. Not even the kind that a whole civilisation’s religion revolved around.

And now… now they were peacekeepers. Supposedly working for a force that none of them trusted, yet were wholly beholden to. Pissing off the Xhorhassians would have been one thing… They could have retreated back into the Empire or the Menagerie Coast. The Bright Queen could have sent assassins after them but they were so unimportant back then that she probably wouldn’t have bothered. But the Empire… the Empire and its institutions were insidious. Their shadow assassins would hunt them to the ends of the Earth. As far even as Allura’s Tal’dorei.

Trent played at indifference, but Caleb knew that it was an act. If he had his way, he would rip away any remnant of home and family that any of them had. Beauregard, as little as she cared for her family, would have to find a way to get them out. Jester would move the world to save her mother, and the Nein would move it right along with her. Then of course there was Nott and her husband and child. Whatever they did in this time and place, however the peace treaty and their dealings with Trent went… it could endanger it all.

“I said her name.”

Caleb looked up from the book he had been reading, pouring over his Dunamantic spells for any small hope of a way out of this mess. Beau was sat beside him by the fire, picking at the ribbon Jester had tied to her staff. It was frayed now and battle-worn, but still as bright a blue as ever.

“Ja,” he confirmed. “I am sorry.”

��S’not you’re fault,” she muttered. “S’mine.”

She was exhausted, they all were, but, like himself, he doubted she would sleep tonight.

Caleb was sure that they were being watched in the Cottage’s common room. Which is why tonight they were all crammed into one room, whiling the evening away. One room with alarms on the doors and windows, and a thorough sweep by Fjord’s new all-seeing sword. Still, they had to assume that they were being watched. They had to be careful about what they did and did not say.

“I am sure that they would have gotten our names by some magical means,” Caleb said, aiming to comfort her at least a little.

He understood her anguish. She alone of the Nein knew and appreciated everything that Trent had done. Nott knew the facts, but Caleb didn’t think that she quite grasped the true extent of the manipulation, the utter overwhelming overwriting of everything Bren had been. But Beauregard understood.  Nott feared Goblins and Ghouls. The monsters of the world. Beauregard knew that the races more commonly regarded as ‘people’ could be far crueller. She had even experienced a little of it herself.

“If they hurt her…” Beau gritted out, her teeth clenched so hard that she must be in pain from it.

Her understood that too. Inflicting a little pain to punish yourself.

“I will burn them to the ground before I allow them to do that,” he promised her.

For them to hurt Jester would be worst of all. She was so full of light and kindness. So ready to see the good in the world, even when no one else could. Trent would ruin her. Break her in a way that Caleb wasn’t sure that they could pull her back from. After all, Caleb had once been wide eyed and idealistic too.

Then Trent had cut it out of him with every slice of his dagger. Every white-hot pain as another shard of crystal had been slipped inside his body. Every defilement of the boy he had been, leaving scars to show that he could never go back to Bren the boy. Bren who had loved his parents and his Empire in that order. Scars that he imagined marring the soft blue of Jester’s forearms. Cutting through the delicate, glittering lines of her tattoo.

“Fuck!”

Beau had sworn so loud that the whole room had stopped what they were doing to look at her.

“Sorry, fuck. Just an ember from the fire,” she lied.

Caleb watched as her face contorted, the pain she was feeling of the mind, not the body.

“Do you need me to heal you?” Jester asked worriedly, jumping up from whatever she and Caduceus had been doing to run to Beau’s side.

“No, no it’s fine. Didn’t even leave a mark. Just scared me a little.”

More lies, but Caleb didn’t begrudge them.

Jester, it seemed, didn’t believe her either, but in an entirely different direction. She poured over Beau’s body, lifting her arms and unfurling her legs, looking for any sign of injury.

“Jessie,” Beau said, her voice as soft as her expression as she smiled gently at Jester. Softer and more gently and with her eyes filled with more tenderness and affection than she ever showed to anyone else and… oh.

No wonder her worry for Jester was consuming her. Beauregard, against all expectations, was in love.

 Yasha

Yasha knew what it was to be in love. She knew love in all its shades and stages. In its brilliant sunny yellows and blood-stained reds, it’s sorrowful blues and the empty greyness that the sorrow left behind. She knew it. She had felt the shame that came from falling for someone that she knew could never ben her mate but loved non the less. She knew the brilliant excitement of love when it was new. And most of all, she lived now in the soul crushing, life ending rawness of loss, of walking around with a hole in her chest where Zuala once lived. Where now was only death and emptiness and whole other kind of shame.

So that’s why – when she saw the true depth of the fear in Beau’s eyes when their foe turned its attention from Beau herself to the approaching Jester – that Yasha knew that Beau was in love.

At first, she was jealous. Only for a moment. Not because she wanted to be in either woman’s position. She’d had Zuala and lost her. That was it for Yasha. She neither expected nor wanted to love again. She did not think she was capable. And to do so would feel like desecrating a grave that she did not have it in herself to even visit.

No, Yasha was jealous for a wholly different reason. She was jealous that Beau got to be afraid that Jester might die. Because that meant that Jester was alive. It meant that Beau had the world to fight for. To live for. And that, Yasha knew, was a precious thing. One that could all too suddenly be taken away.

Once she noticed it – Beau’s love, that is – Yasha didn’t know how she hadn’t noticed it the moment she rejoined the group. The dynamic in their shared room had been… off. She had put it down to the strangeness of sharing her space with friends again and, perhaps, some lingering mistrust or unease that they may have around her. But now she understood. She might not have been a famous rock harp player in her blackout years, but she knew a little about rhythm. Enough to spot it in the way that Beau and Jester moved around one another. Enough to see the way that her presence in their space threw it off. Not because either of them wished she wasn’t there, but because the two of them alone was a complete melody. She was chord that was obsolete.

She wasn’t sure if the other members of the Nein had noticed it yet, and she would not rat Beau out. But she would try to talk to her. Remind her that time and life were fickle things. Things that in their line of work, they could not risk taking for granted.

“Beauregard, may I speak to you.”

“Yeah. Uh. Sure.”

“Please would you walk with me a little?”

Where Yasha walked, Beau tentatively followed. As the warm light of their campfire faded and they passed out into the darkness beyond, Beau flipped her goggles onto her eyes and blinked slowly into the night. The lack of direct eye contact was a relief for Yasha. She did not think she was up to that yet. Not with any of them. It hurt too much to see that they didn’t hate her.

They walked until they found an outcropping of rock where they could dangle their legs and look out over the moon-lit landscape. In this light, the land around them reminded Yasha of home. Of Zuala tracking through the sparse woodland. Of stolen moments than time and fate had stolen back.

“What’s this about?” Beau asked eventually, clearly trying her hardest not to sound pissed off. She was shivering, though. Yasha had forgotten how much Beau and Caleb felt the cold. They seemed to feel everything so intensely, those two. Maybe it was the human thing, but Yasha doubted it.

“I would like to talk to you about Zuala and… Jester.”

Beau frowned, then softened. Then looked almost ready for a fight.

“Does Jess remind you of her or something? Your wife, I mean.”

“Oh, no. Not at all,” Yasha said quickly, before Beau could get the wrong idea. “Jester is a very different person from Zuala. Though I suppose in different circumstances they could have been more alike.”

Beau relaxed beside her, her dangling feet beginning to sway in the night air.

“I know that we’re not, like, the closest or anything. But you can talk to me about her if you want.”

“No that is… err… No, thank you. But I would like to talk to you about Jester.”

Beau froze.

“How’d you know?”

“I saw your concern for her. And then, once I had an idea, it was pretty obvious.”

“Great,” Beau huffed. “Even when I try to be super subtle I’m clearly failing.”

“Perhaps it is just that I know what to look out for. I think… I think that we are perhaps similar, you and I, Beauregard.”

“How so?” Beau asked, half standoffish, half eager.

“Our families did not understand us. Often the world judges us before they get to know us. Perhaps that is why we look for the light itself instead of what the fight can bring us. Why I looked for Zuala and you for Jester.”

“Hmm.”

Clearly she was not convinced.

“I am not asking you to talk about your feelings, Beauregard. I think that you know me better than to think that I would be any more comfortable in that situation than you. But I wanted to talk to you anyway. To remind you that love is easily lost. Especially in the kind of life that we live.”

“Love is a pretty strong word.”

“But you are in love.”

It wasn’t a question. They both knew the answer.

“So?”

Yasha looked out over the plains. She could see a copse of trees to their left. Thin, hardy trees like the kind that occasionally grew in small groups in her part of Xhorhas. They reminded her of times spent hunting with Zuala. Helping her skin a still warm rabbit and sharing the meat over a midday fire. That one memory was enough to fill her with enough warmth – no matter how fleeting – that she did not think that she would have felt even the fiercest of icy winds.

“No matter how it ended, I do not regret what Zuala and I had. We had love. She knew that I loved her and I knew that she loved me. Now that she is gone, that is a comfort to me. That and the memories of the times we shared as mates.”

“You’re saying that I should tell Jester that I love her in case I die?”

“Regret is the most terrible thing, Beauregard. I would not wish the depth of regret that I feel on anyone. Let alone you.”

“I’m not good enough for her,” Beau muttered, smothering with her foot a lone flower growing courageously out of the rockside.

“Do you not think that that is for her to decide?”

They sat in silence for a while. Both lost in their own thoughts until Beau’s shivering become too pronounced to ignore.

“Come on. We had better get back. The others will be worried.”

When they arrived back at camp, Nott was eyeing them suspiciously. She was crouching by the fire, tracking their movements like they were prey.

“What were you two doing?” She asked accusingly, jabbing the dagger she had been sharpening in their direction. “You weren’t fucking, were you?”

Yasha watched as Jester snapped to attention at that, her deep blue eyes going big and wide as she looked worriedly between Yasha and Beau.

“What? No! Don’t be stupid.” Beau replied, as brash as ever. “We were just having girl talk, that’s all. Just because we fuck other women doesn’t mean we can’t have girl talk, alright!”

Everyone but Yasha and Caduceus flinched.

“Nott!” Jester admonished. “Of course not, Beau. Nott is just being silly, aren’t you Nott?”

Beau and Nott stared each other down for an uncomfortably long period of time before Nott finally nodded and relaxed back onto her log.

“Fine, yeah, sure, whatever.”

After that, Jester ushered Beau closer to the fire and draped a blanket around her shoulders. She was smiling up at Beau brightly and for just a moment, Yasha was sure that she could hear Zuala laughing.

  Fjord

He noticed it in the middle of one of their scariest battles yet.

It was a stressful day, even for them. Near death situations had been had by all, but what they all were struggling to deal with was the horrifying realisation that the person nearest to death had been Jester.

Beau had been down numerous times. Caleb perhaps even more. And whilst Fjord could remember Jester being knocked unconscious in the heat of combat before, it had never been for that long. It had only ever been moments before Caduceus or a health potion had gotten her back on her feet.

This time it had been… longer. Considerably longer. Caduceus had been incapacitated and try as they might, none of the rest of them could get to Jester with a health potion. Not for a really, really long time.

It had been Nott who had eventually saved her. Just when Jester’s breaths had started to slow and turn shallow. Just as Beau, held tight beside a stunned Caduceus in the creature’s grasp, screamed out for their downed cleric. The kind of scream that you can never unhear. The kind that Fjord was certain he would hear in his nightmares night after night.

And then… Jester had been alive. Irrefutably alive as she had rushed at the beast and inflicted such wounds that it had died in an instant of tremendous pain. Pain which it – in Fjord’s opinion – more than deserved for hurting his friends.

“Yo, that was awesome Jessie!” Beau had said with more shake than bravado from the spot on the ground where the now deceased monster had dropped her. “I’m just gonna, you know. Sleep here a little.”

They had all noticed then how badly Beau was hurt. Fjord had no idea how she had managed to remain conscious with the deep slashes in her belly and neck. But if the scream had anything to do with it, he was pretty sure that the only thing holding her together had been the desperate need to get to Jester.

“Damn it, Beau,” Fjord said with a wince as he wrapped his palm around her rapidly bleeding throat and cast Lay on Hands. “What the hell were you thinking, taunting the damn thing like that?”

“Had no health potions,” she croaked, her throat raw and, most likely, still torn after his meagre healing. “Had to get Caduceaus free. For Jester.”

Despite the fact that Beau’s wounds were inarguably far worse than Jester’s, once they were all healed up and hobbling towards the nearest inn for a good strong drink and a warm bed, it wasn’t Beau that they were all fussing over, but Jester.

“You guys, I’m fine!” Jester insisted. “The Traveller wouldn’t just let me die! I’m his favourite, you know? He told me.”

“Yeah – urgh – even so. I think we need to set out some kind of system for health potions. It’s kind of pointless for one person to have three of them if that person can’t get to someone who is down,” Beau said, taking charge as she often did these days. She was looking Fjord dead in the eye as she said it, but he wasn’t offended. He agreed.

“That’s my fault. I should have handed these out. Here, everyone without a health potion please take one.”

Fjord pulled three basic and one greater healing potion out of his bag and lined them up on the table.

Beau grabbed a basic and slid the greater towards Caleb.

“Here. I’m going to get a drink.”

“But you already have a drink!” Jester called after her as Beau slid out of the booth and stumbled her way over to the bar.

“I think she just needs something a little stronger,” Fjord reassured her. “I’ll go make sure she’s okay.”

He hadn’t even gotten within ten feet of her when Beau’s voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Wanna go fuck each other up?”

For the briefest moments, Fjord was confused. Then he realised what she was asking.

“Is this just your way of beating me into a bloody pulp?”

“Or the other way around. Either way works. Just need to punch something.”

“Does this mean we can skip training in the morning?”

“No.”

He sighed. He was pretty sure that Beau wouldn’t skip training even if a volcano was erupting around them. Which, given their upcoming destination, wasn’t entirely out of the question.

“Lead the way.”

Beau led him out into a back alley that she had clearly scoped out earlier. It was pretty narrow, but it was deserted and dark, so he supposed it would do. At least when she won, no one would see him pass out.

“So, you wanna talk or are we just going to punch?”

Her fist connected hard with his chin, snapping back his head and making him see stars.

“I guess just fists then.”

Mid way through his sentence, Fjord rocked forward on the balls his feet, and struck out at Beau’s core. He had aimed as close to centre as he could, yet still managed to strike nothing but fresh air.

“Gonna need to try harder than that,” Beau said as she brought her fists up in front of her chest and waited, poised for his next attack.

Fjord feinted to the left, then struck out hard with his foot, swiping for Beau’s legs. Again, nothing. She seemed not even to move in place as she deftly jumped above his sweep, taking the opportunity to rain down four consecutive hits to the side of his head.

This time, Fjord retreated, dodging just out of the way of her next attack.

“Fists aren’t fair,” he panted.

“So use your sword,” Beau bit, anger flashing in her eyes. “Or this isn’t even worth it. I might as well be punching Frumpkin.”

Saying a quick prayer for guidance to the Wildmother, Fjord summoned his new blade and dove for his friend.

This time, he felt an impact. The cold steel of his sword sliced through flesh once, then again, tearing through the place where Beau’s robes met at her naval and leaving them stained in a bloom of red. Far more than he had expected.

It was then that Beau really came alive. She ducked his next blow, then used her crouched position to send a flurry of punches to his stomach that left him locked in place, tensed from head to toe in a mixture of pain and itch-like tension.

Blow after blow hit him from one side, then the other as she spun around him, pulling out her staff and swiping for his legs, knocking him onto the floor before retreating and going back into her defensive stance.

Power crackled reflexively in Fjord’s palms and before he knew it, two shots of bright green energy rocketed from his palm, lighting up the alley in all it’s dank, moss-covered glory before hitting Beau square in the chest.

The blows knocked her back, but not for long. She pulled a throwing star from the pouch and her hip and launched it at his outstretched palm.

The warm metal bit into his flesh, one pointed prong sticking into his palm and making the magic there fizz.

“Come on!” She screamed. “Fucking hit me!”

“Why, so you can manipulate Jester into kissing it all better?”

He regretted it the moment it left his mouth. The pain and adrenaline of battle had made him forget who it was he was talking to. That she was his friend. Perhaps his best friend. And that this… this thing they were doing was for her catharsis, not an opportunity to say something he didn’t mean. To hurt her.

“Beau.”

“Fuck you, Fjord. Fuck you.”

With that, she turned and ambled, limping slightly, back into the inn.

Fjord dropped to the ground, panting. He sat there for a long moment, feeling the regret build in his chest, forcing his lungs into an ever-smaller space until it felt like he was drowning.

It wasn’t long until the door to the inn slammed back open and Jester, purple with rage, stormed out into the ally.

“Jester, I-”

Her palm connecting with his cheek knocked the rest of his sentence right out of his head.

“How dare you hurt her!”

“She asked for it! It was her idea!”

Jester towered above him, looking more demon than person.

“What did you say to her?!” Jester screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “She wouldn’t even look at us… at… at me!”

“Where is she now?” Fjord asked, getting shakily to his feet and backing away a little from the terrifying Tiefling.

“She… she talked to Yasha for a moment and then they went and bought a room just for the two of them and…”

“Oh, Jester.”

Ignoring the potential harm to life and limb (or, more accurately, to his conscience), Fjord pulled Jester into him and held her tight.

“What are they even doing that they need their own room?” Jester sobbed.

Given the fact that Fjord was pretty sure that Beau was in love with Jester, he was pretty certain that she hadn’t dragged Yasha off to let off some steam of the non-punching variety.

“I don’t know, Jess.”

She pulled away, glaring at him again before making for the inn door.

“I’m going to bed. Tell the others not to bother me, okay?”

   Caduceus

The people at this inn were really nice people. It was a good morning. A really good morning.

The rest of the Mighty Nein were asleep in their rooms and Caduceus was slowly brewing them all tea and cooking up some eggs and spinach. Or at least, kind-of-spinach. It definitely looked and tasted like spinach. Apart from it being purple. And tasting a little… zingy. But zingy was good in the morning. He’d put a little of it into their tea. It was really nice of the inn staff to let him use their kitchen.

The second person from their merry band to wander downstairs was, predictably, Beauregard.

“Hey Caduceus.”

“Hey. I made eggs and purple stuff. Want some?”

“Sure, why not.”

Beau sat down in a booth and pulled out a book whilst she waited. Caduceus pottered around the kitchen, smiling at the way the steam curled up from the tea in waves. It was going to be a good day, he could feel it.

“Here you go,” he said as he set down a plate and wooden mug of tea in front of Beauregard. “Breakfast of heroes. Well, one hero at least.”

She was frowning at him when he slid into the booth with his own plate and mug.

“What do you mean, hero?”

“You saved my life yesterday, so there’s that. Petty sure that thing would have crushed me in one of it’s arms if you hadn’t distracted it.”

A smile appeared on Beau’s face for a flicker of a second before it was gone. Replaced again with stoicism.

“Yeah, well. That’s what friends are for. Doesn’t make me a hero. I hate that hero bullshit. So full of expectation and responsibility.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, Caduceus, can I tell you something?”

“Sure,” he said, smiling big.

“I’m in love with Jester.”

The moment she said it, she exhaled deep and dropped back against the back of the booth.

“What, you’re not going to say anything?” She said after a moment.

“Huh.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, huh.”

“Why ‘huh’?”

“I’ve been waiting a long time to hear you say it out loud.”

That got her to roll her eyes and fold her arms in front of her chest.

“Well fuck. How come everyone seems to know?”

“You – err – You love real deep. It’s kind of hard to miss.”

“Fjord and I punched the shit out of each other last night. Well, he also slashed and blasted the shit out of me, but whatever. You think he’s mad at me for liking Jester?”

Caduceus shrugged.

“A shrug? That’s all you’re giving me?”

“It’s all I have to give.”

Another loud exhale and Beau picked up her tea.

“I’m kind of worried this whole thing is going to fuck up the group.”

“First Fjord is mad at me, then Jester is going to go comfort him and they’ll get together and I’ll just be sat wallowing in a corner. I’m not sure I can do that, man. I don’t think I could stay and watch that shit.”

“What makes you so sure that Jester would choose Fjord?”

“Are you kidding me? I’m such a fucking mess, Caduceus. Not even my own dad wants me. Fjord’s got the whole Tusk Love thing going on. And what am I? Who’s going to write a romance novel about someone like me? No one, that’s who. Not even when the fucking Kryn get romance.”

She signed and slammed down her tea on the table.

“You can only be what you see, you know? And all these stupid books are feeding her some bullshit idea of what love is and I’m scared it’s going to fuck her up. She’s going to end up with someone she doesn’t really love just because she thinks that’s how the story is meant to end.”

“And how is it meant to end, Beau?”

They both froze at the sound of Jester’s voice.

“Fuck, Jessie I…”

“Don’t.”

  Jester

Everything would be okay, Jester was sure. Except right now everything felt not okay in the biggest, more terrifying way.

She had spent all night lying awake and wondering what Beau and Yasha were doing in the room across the hall. She had even tried sneaking up to their door and listening, but all she had heard was whispering and then silence. A really long, terrifying silence. What could they be doing that was so quiet? Were they keeping quiet intentionally so that she couldn’t hear them? Did they know that she was there??

That thought had sent her skittering back to her room where she had tried to talk to the traveller. She tried all night. Whispering all these confusing feelings and fears to him. And after a while, he had sat on the end of the bed beside her and told her to follow her heart. That she already knew what she wanted. But all that did was make Jester more confused. Because she didn’t understand at all.

Which was why, when morning finally crawled around, she had leapt from bed – Sprinkle tucked into her cloak – and had snuck into the town’s bathhouse to make herself feel more like Jester again and less like some twitchy ball of confusion.

It was pretty easy to break into the bathhouse. No one was there and the locks broke pretty easy when she hit them with her axe.

It had been difficult figuring out how to heat the water and fill the bath by herself, but she had done it in the end and had even found a bottle of rose oil to empty into it. Though maybe emptying the whole bottle into the bath had been a bad idea. It had kind of stung her eyes a little, but that was okay because then it was for sure the rose oil making her eyes water and definitely not because she was crying.

She was even feeling sort of cheery – all clean and sweet smelling – by the time she walked back into the inn. Right until she had heard Beau – the one person who had never treated her like a child – complaining to Caduceus about how stupid she was and how she knew nothing about love apart from what she read in books. Which was totally not true. Not at all!

Except… maybe it was… just a little bit.

She knew her Mom’s love and the Traveller’s love. And they were both really, really great. Like, the best. But when it came to love love, it was true that the only thing Jester knew was what she had read books. Books about fated romance and torrid affairs. Books that had been Jester’s only real window into the outside world. Books that turned out to be kind of, maybe, sort of… wrong.

“Jessie!”

She heard Beau calling for her a long time before she saw her. After she’d run out the inn, she had hidden herself down by the lake’s edge, her knees drawn up to her chest as her mind tried and failed to magnify the sound of the soft lapping of the water into the familiar call of the Nicodranas sea.

“Jess…”

She didn’t look up.

“Go away, Beau.”

“Look, Jess, I’m sorry. I just… I came to tell you that I’m leaving. I’m going back to the Archive in Zadash. I won’t bother you again.”

Jester was… confused. Sure, she was upset at what Beau had said but it didn’t mean that Beau had to leave.

She looked – her face full of a frown – up at woman who had begun to mean so much to her. More than she had let herself believe before she had seen her dragging Yasha up to bed. More than Oscar or Fjord. More than any of the other Nein.

Now here she was with her pack on her back, telling Jester that she was leaving. And Jester had never been more afraid in her life.

“It’s okay, you know, if you don’t want to room with me anymore,” she hurried out, desperate for Beau to stay. No matter what. No matter what that meant or who she was staying for. She just had to stay. She had to. “You could just tell me that you want to stay with Yasha now.  I – I won’t be offended. And – and I promise that I won’t get in your way.”

Except she was sobbing and clearly, definitely, way beyond offended. She was breaking inside because Beau – Beau! – was going to leave just because she couldn’t stand to be around her any longer.

“Wait… wait, what? You don’t… you don’t want me to leave?” Beau asked as she sank into the sandy bank beside her.

“No!” Jester exclaimed, leaping forward to wrap her arms around Beau’s neck. Because whatever Beau had said, whatever she wanted now with Yasha, Jester couldn’t stand it if she left.

“Jessie… Jess… I…” Beau pushed her back, holding her shoulders to keep her at arm’s length. “What exactly did you hear?”

Jester sniffled and looked away.

“You know, that stuff about me knowing nothing about love apart from what I read in books and stuff.”

Beau breathed long and soft, then pulled her back into a hug, this one softer than the one before, full of tenderness that Jester hadn’t felt anywhere but in her mother’s arms.

“And that’s why you’re upset?” Beau asked, her voice as tender as her hug.

“Well yeah, obviously.”

This time, when Beau pulled back to look into her eyes, she looked scared and relieved at the same time. Which was… weird. And kind of confusing. And also a little scary.

“I didn’t mean it like that, okay? I just meant … Look, people don’t write – or I guess publish – books about real life. I was angry that the only books that people get to read are about stupid fairy-tale romances that bear no resemblance to what love is really like. And all the young girls that read them get fooled into thinking that’s what love is because that’s all they see, you know? And then when they find someone who fits that fairytale, they just settle for it because that’s what they think love is. Except it’s not.”

“I know that.”

Beau sighed.

“I know you do, Jess. And some of those other girls do to. But it’s hard to recognise something you’ve never seen. If I hadn’t found Tori, I might have been that girl who didn’t know what to look for or who she is.”

Jester shrugged and sagged back onto her heels, pulling out of Beau’s hold. She didn’t like it when Beau talked about Tori.

“Maybe if my Momma and Dad had stayed together…”

“Yeah, Maybe,” Beau said with a sigh. “But then your whole life would have been different and you might not be the you that you are right now.”

“Maybe that would be better?” Jester wondered. Maybe then she’d be more like Yasha. Stronger and more stoic. The kind of person that Beau really wanted to be around. Not some silly girl who liked to play tricks and eat sweets. Even if there was so much more to her that people just didn’t seem to see.

“I happen to think that you’re pretty great just the way you are. So don’t you dare think about changing that for someone else, okay?”

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t think I’m stupid? Or a child?”

Beau smiled soft and warm.

“No, Jessie. I don’t. Not at all.”

Now Jester really was confused.

“Then what do you think I am?”

Beau smiled again, kind of sadly this time.

“The most incredible kind, funny, smart, beautiful person I’ve ever met.”

“Beau…”

“Listen Jessie, I know that you and Fjord maybe have this thing going on, but I love you and I can’t keep it in longer. And I don’t mean like a friend kind of love. I mean like the kind of love that people in your books have. Only real and really fucking painful.”

Jester was… Shocked. Beau was so… Beau. She was so incredible and amazing and okay maybe what Jester had been feeling wasn’t the normal kind of friend feelings. Friends don’t spend all night crying because they think their friend might be sleeping with someone else. At least, she didn’t think that they did. And what about…

“What about Yasha?”

Beau frowned, like she was confused beyond measure that this was the question that Jester was asking.

“What about Yasha? She’s a friend.”

“You shared a room with her last night.”

Beau sighed, understanding.

“Yeah. Fjord and I got into it a little bit and I needed some space to talk it out.”

“Space from me?”

“Yeah,” Beau admitted reluctantly.

“Why?”

“Because… Because Fjord said something out of order about my feelings for you and it… it pissed me off. And… scared me.”

“Why would it scare you?”

“Because I’m terrified that you’re going to fall in love with him and I’ll have to watch,” Beau admitted, her head hung and her voice so full of pain that it hurt Jester just to hear it.

“Beau, I’m not in love with Fjord,” Jester said seriously, insistently, leaning forwards so that her hands rested on Beau’s knees and she was so close that Beau couldn’t even try to look away.

“No?”

“No.”

“Good. That’s good. Because… well, that would kind of suck. Like really fucking suck.”

“Yeah,” Jester agreed, falling back into her own space. It would suck. Because Fjord was nice and all but he wasn’t Beau.

“Yeah,” Beau repeated, her face a little dazed. “So you’re not mad at me?”

“You didn’t mean to call me stupid. I just didn’t hear the whole conversation.”

“No, I mean, you’re not mad at me for having these feelings for you?”

“What? No!” Jester cried. “Of course not, Beau! Why would I be mad?”

Beau shrugged, avoiding her eyes again.

“I’m not mad,” Jester promised. “I’m just a little confused.”

“How come?”

There were those eyes again. Soft and understanding. Calm and raging all at once. A little like the ocean.

“Well, when Fjord had to give me air in the ocean it was kind of like a kiss, you know? And I’d never been kissed before so after I asked Nott how it was supposed to feel.”

“And what did she say?”

“I don’t remember exactly. But it was something about how it felt like this whole big thing that made you feel properly alive or something. I don’t really understand what she meant because I already feel alive…”

Beau laughed, nodding.

“You’re the most alive person I know.”

“I know right? So, anyway. She said all of that and I realised that when Fjord and I kind of kissed it didn’t really feel like anything. Just a little bit scary and weird.”

“Okay.”

“Which I was not expecting at all because of Tusk Love, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“What does it feel like to kiss a girl?”

Beau’s breath caught and for a minute Jester thought she was going to pass out.

“I can’t really say how it’s different,” Beau began tentatively. “I’ve never kissed a guy before. But kissing someone new sort of always feels different. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like very much and sometimes it does. It depends on the person. But I’ve never had fireworks or anything like they say in books. But I guess it could be because I’ve not really been in love with any of the women I’ve kissed. Not in love, in love anyway.”

“Do you want to kiss me?”

She’d said it before she even realised that she was going to say it. But as soon as it was out of her mouth she knew that it was right. This is what she wanted. This is why she had lain awake all night fearing what Yasha could give to Beau. This was the fiarytale she wanted, not some perfect romance. She wanted real. She wanted her best friend. She wanted the girl who made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Who always went along with her crazy ideas and never once judged her for it. The girl who was always there. The one who made Jester’s heart beat faster than it ever had before. Even when she had been facing down that dragon all alone.

“Jester…”

Jester shook her head and realised she had been monologuing in her head but not out loud and now Beau looked worried.

“All I could think about last night was that Yasha might be kissing you and I was super jealous because I don’t want anyone kissing you but me.”

That wasn’t quite the extent of it, but Jester’s mind was messy right now and she wasn’t sure how to articulate that epiphany she had just had in words that didn’t sound like nonsense.

But, as it turned out, it didn’t matter. Because Beau froze on hearing those words. Froze like a rabbit caught in a fox’s glare. Then she smiled. Really smiled. And kissed her.

The moment that Beau’s lips touched hers, Jester didn’t see fireworks, she saw whole constellations exploding behind her eyes. Hot, nervous tension flooded her, rushing into her chest from every corner of her body until she felt sure that she was glowing. Her hands grabbed for Beau’s robes, desperate to pull her closer. To make sure that the kiss would never end because this… this was what Nott has been talking about. This was the kind of world-changing kiss that made everything fall into place. The kind of kiss that punctuated a life. The kind that divided it into the time before she knew what it was like to kiss Beau – Beau who was her best friend, her roommate, her real life fairytale – and the time after it when nothing made sense but wanting Beau and needing Beau and loving Beau.

Because that was what she had been feeling. She knew it now. Knew it for sure. This was what her Momma had told her about. This was love.

“Jessie? Jess, are you okay? I didn’t fuck up did I?”

She realised that she had stopped kissing Beau and had gotten caught up in her own head again. And Beau was looking at her because of it so soft and broken. So wonderfully beautiful and afraid.

“No,” she whispered, kissing her again. “You didn’t fuck up Beau. You did everything just right, okay?” She kissed her again. “I promise.”

This time, Beau looked dazed when she pulled away.

“You smell like roses.”

Jester grinned. “I broke into the bathhouse.”

“What? No way?”

“I drew the biggest dick on their wall. It was awesome! But I also left some money because I felt kind of bad for using a whole bottle of scented oil.”

“Yeah, we can pay for that stuff now, so it’s not as much fun to take it,” Beau reasoned.

“I know right! What’s up with that?”

“I guess they’re not the establishment now or whatever. We’re richer than them so it’s not like taking from the rich and giving to, well, us. Because we’re the rich ones now.”

“That’s pretty smart, Beau.”

“Thanks, Jess,” Beau said, kissing her with a smile. “You can still draw the dicks though. And mess with their stuff.”

“You want to come with me next time?”

“Always.”

Jester smiled, her happiness so big that she felt like she was floating.

“I love you, Beau. The proper kind. Not just the friend kind.”

Beau’s smile was like a warm ocean breeze.

“I love you too, Jessie.”

And then Beau kissed her long and deep. She pressed her down into the sand and covered her face with soft kisses that made her giggle, before pressing back into her mouth, opening her up and bringing back those fireworks.

Jester hadn’t know what romantic love was. Not until she had met Beau. But this, this was the stuff that real fairytales were made of.

[kikiashari]

NAME: Keyleth Ashari

AGE: 24

PRONOUNS: She/her

OCCUPATION: Owner of a flower shop

❀ I’ll follow the canon of the livestream, and I’m following until after she decided to turn into a goldfish, so shortly before they have to go to Marquet for the third time. I’m trying to keep her bio as spoiler free as possible and shortened as much as possible too❀

Canon Bio:

❀ Keyleth is a half elf, born in Zephra home of the air Ashari, daughter of Korrin and Vilya. Her mother was next in line and become the leader of the air Ashari -the Voice of the Tempest- and so she went into her Aramente to meet the earth, fire and water Ashari. However years passed and there were no news about her, it was decided that she had passed away -though Keyleth held hope that she was alive somewhere- And so the became the next in line and had to depart for her own Aramente.

❀She ended up in the town of Stillben near Zephra where she met the other two half-elven twins Vex’halia and Vax’ildan, the goliath Grog Strongjaw and gnome Scanlan Shorthald. They began working together in many little jobs. Later they met Grog’s childhood friend Pike Trickfoot and later on they met the human Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III, but you can call him Percy. 

❀ The party goes in many adventures that eventually lead them to the capital city of Emon where they discover a plot against the King and proof that he had his family had been possessed by demons. Eventually with they befriend Allura Vysoren who begins to help them in making things right. During their investigation they end up finding out a member of the council general Krieg was actually a blue dragon and they manage to defeat him.   shortly after that they manage to save the royal family, in thanks the King throws them a parade and makes them part of the council of Tal’Dorei.

❀ Through it all they had been hearing about missing children and during a festival in Emon they noticed a strange golden eyed child taking away one of the King’s sons. They chase to a pocket dimension where an entity was kidnapping children and using them as shields, Keyleth while trying to save one of the kids accidentally kill him something that weighs heavily on her. Things calm down they even get their own keep. one day Allura asks them to look for a friend of hers Kima of Vord. The party embarks to Kraghammer where after many perils they rescue Kima, they then take her home. Is in this continent where Keyleth meets the fire Ashari, succeeding in the task they set out for her.

❀ Once they are back they hear about the incoming visit of the Briarwoods, whom Percy tells them are the people that murdered his whole family. After a tense dinner with them things go south. To clear their name and more importantly help Percy get revenge they set out to Whitestone. They find out Delilah works for an entity called the whispered one. After a hard battle they managed to win and free Whitestone (...)

❀ Once they are back in Emon they are asked to be present at an important announcement by the King. But this is cut short when 4 dragons destroy the city, a white, a black, a green and a massive red one. Later they find many other cities in Tal’Dorei were attacked as well. She finds out that the red dragon, leader of all the others broke free from the fire plane destroying the fire Ashari village as it escaped, and that he had escaped with the help of someone the Ashari had taken in but in reality was a green dragon. Whitestone becomes a safe haven for people as Vox Machina decides to fight the dragons. for this they need legendary weapons they go through all of Exandria looking for them and even the Faewild.

❀ Eventually after a lot of ups and downs they defeat the dragons, and finally she goes to the water Ashari where they tell her that her mother was lost while she was doing her trail and all that was recovered was her leg. Still Keyleth remains hopeful she’s alive. After that she and her friends go back to Zephra where she is named the Voice of the Tempest.

❀ She, Vex, Pike and a new friend Tary open a bakery in Whitestone, they all go to the beach and have a fun time, Vax and her live together in Zephra, she creates with Pery and Tary alarm stones to give to cities in Tal’Dorei so everyone will know if one is in danger and send help, 

Echo Springs Bio:

❀ Keyleth was born into a very loving and happy family, her parents owned a successful flower shop. And so she grew up learning all about plants and taking care of them, she always felt more at ease when surrounded by nature, she liked to imagine how it would be to be a bird or a squirrel.

❀ She was home schooled during her childhood, which made her a little sheltered and awkward  but she does love to meet new people and she loves to think people are good. When she was fifteen her mother mysteriously disappeared, she doesn’t think she would just abandon her family and wants to think she’ll come back someday.

❀ Now her father decided to retire and now she in charge of taking care of the shop, it may not be a big deal but to her she’s very set on doing well and making her father proud -a thing that she has specially strived for since her mother went away- 

Some of her dreams:

❀dragons destroying a city

❀ a cherry blossom overlooking a village in the middle of mountains

❀ a kraken 

[popsicletheduck]

He of a Thousand Voices

My first Critical Role fic! I actually wrote this a while ago, when I was still trying to catch up, but I didn’t post it because one, I didn’t think anyone would read it, and two, I’m very bad at finishing things.

Rating: PG

AU (ish? it’s sort of an odd story)

Words: ~2k

Spoilers through Episode 78

The world is rain soaked, great grey sheets pouring from the sky. It’s early afternoon but it hardly looks it, dark and dim in every direction. Your sodden hood flops in your eyes no matter how many times you push it back. Each squelching step sends a splatter of mud against your already well worn boots. The pack on your back seems to weigh double what it did when you slung it on this morning and you can’t seem to stop shivering.

So the sliver of red orange peeking out from beneath the tavern door is a very welcome sight.

You hadn’t planned on stopping, after all you have business elsewhere, important business. But then this storm rolled in this morning, seemingly out of nowhere, and made further travel near impossible. So now you’re here, in the first town you walked through large enough to even have a tavern. You have to admit, it will be nice to sleep inside for once, although you’re not quite sure you have the coin to cover it.

You push the door open, greeted with the warmth of a crackling fire, the smell of bread and ale, and the soft sound of a lute being played gently in the corner.

It’s tiny and rough, not much more than a few hand carved tables and chairs arranged around a small stone fireplace set in the far wall. But it’s clean and it’s warm and it’s out of the rain and honestly you’ve spent the night in places a lot worse. The owner is a jovial halfling man who tells you a room is four silver, a meal is two, and a drink is three copper.

You carefully count your coin, and you buy a room and a drink, and you hope it’s not too much.

Given the time and the place you have the tavern almost to yourself. There’s only one other person, a human man sitting in the corner next to the hearth, the source of the music you heard when you first walked in. He’s not quite playing, just gently strumming here and there, notes and chords falling softly among the crackling and snapping of the fire. There’s a mug in front of him, but his eyes are half closed, and he seems lost deep in thought.

You take a seat near him, not out of curiosity or the need for company, but simply out of a desire to be close to the fireplace. You throw your cloak over the back of an empty chair and stretch your feet out as close to the fire as is wise, basking in the warmth.

The owner brings you your drink. You sip slowly, trying to make it last, and dig around in your pack for some of your dwindling rations. Your mind begins to drift as you stare into the flickering flames, worries about this journey, about what the destination holds for you, wondering what the future has in store.

A slight creaking of wood snaps you back to the present, and with a start you realize the lute player is now sitting right next to you. Your hand goes instinctively to the dagger sheathed at your side.

He holds his hands up, half a smile quirking his lips. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” and his voice is pleasant and his eyes are kind but how in the hells did he manage to move so quietly. “Just looking for a bit of company. It gets a little lonely here now and again.”

He’s somewhere in his late twenties, dark brown hair that falls just shy of his shoulders, short trimmed sideburns, pointed features. His clothing is simple but well made, a half cloak of deep blue draped carefully across his shoulders.

“So. Just passing through?” he asks.

“Yeah. Only stopped because of the weather.” You try to relax. Surely there’s no harm in a little conversation.

“Came in quite unexpectedly, didn’t it? Pretty odd, actually, for this time of year.” There’s a flash of something in his eyes, gone so fast you’re not sure you didn’t just imagine it. “Where are you headed, then?”

“Down the river.”

“Ah, so you’ve heard the siren call of great city on the delta. then. And what are you hoping to find there? Answers? A purpose? Or just adventure?” His fingers strum gently on his lute, nothing more than a few unconnected notes, like half of the opening of a song.

And you may have originally thought human, but the more you look at him, the more you’re convinced that’s not right. Half elf, maybe?

You shift a bit in your chair. “There’s a lot of places between here and there.”

“True. But you’re not headed to any of them, are you?”

“What about you? Surely you’re not from around here.”

He smiles. Your avoidance is unsubtle enough for a child to pick up on, but he smiles. Like it amuses him.

“No, you’re very right.” He takes a sip from his mug, leaning back in the chair. “I go wherever the wind takes me. Wherever there’s someone who want to hear my story.”

“Surely there are better places for storytelling than an empty tavern in the middle of nowhere.”

“Ah, but it’s not empty, is it. You’re here.”

Well it’s not like you have anything better to do, trapped here until the storm blows through. “So what’s this story?”

He smiles, and for no good reason it sends a shiver down your spine. You’re not sure whether it’s excitement or fear, or maybe both.

Not human. Not half elf. Not anything you’ve ever seen before.

“This is a story about scoundrels and misfits, about adventure, about heroes.”

“Heroes? Everybody and their cousins knows the stories about the heroes.” The great heroes from when the world was new, folk tales, legends, told a thousand times and with a thousand variations.

“Trust me. You’ve never heard this one before.”

His lute is back in his hand, and he begins playing softly, underneath his words, as he spins a tale you’ve never heard, about another world, a world called Exandria, and a group of adventurers called Vox Machina. A pair of half elven twins, an ex-noble tinkerer with inventions that kill, a holy gnome cleric, a half-giant goliath who is her best friend, an elemental druid destined to rule her people, an irreverent gnome bard, a chromatic dragonborn sorcerer seeking to prove himself. About their humble beginnings, doing jobs for mysterious strangers. About the death of a dragon, and unsettling threats made by unseen enemies. About the rescue of the emperor, and deals made with devils and one pulled back to life from the great beyond. About adventures deep below a dwarven city, unnatural beings from worlds beyond, a fight in a perverted temple leagues below the sun. About a journey through the sky and across the sea, to a holy city far to the snow covered north, a brush with the law and fights in a pit. About a lord and lady that came bringing darkness and death in their wake, the bloody fight to free a city, darkness defeated in the tunnels beneath. About traitors discovered and unexpected family found and-

And the wrath and ruin of a conclave of dragons, cities brought to their knees, civilizations destroyed, fire and ice and acid and poison spewn across the land. About the desperate push for ancient, powerful objects, scattered across the lands. One in a sunken tomb, and a deal with a goddess to save a fallen companion. One given as a gift, after solving a deadly riddle. One pulled from the bisected corpse of a tyrant, a duel unfairly, barely, won. One hidden at the heart of a cancerous tree, a cancerous being, in another plane of existence. One in a city far to the south, one in a shipwreck deep beneath the waves, found by another first, gained at the price of a death, a spirit implored to come back. And the last in a city made of brass, a game of chance lost and a battle not just for power but for freedom.

About the death of two dragons, an uneasy, unsettling alliance with a third. About plans made, allies gathered, a date set to march. The last night before the attack, heavy with the knowledge that not all of them would be coming back.

Through it all his voice bobs and weaves, twisting with the music. One moment he is himself, then a duregar general negotiating for his life with a knife at his throat. Then a crazed black powder merchant, the disembodied voice of a fiend, a daughter looking for answers. An ancient red dragon spitting threats like fire, a goddess, a sphinx, a dead man, an archfey, a broken child, a giant. Friends and foes and everything in between.

Finally he falls silent.

“Well?” you ask breathlessly.“What happened? Did they defeat Thordak? Did they survive? And what about Raishan?”

He just smiles.

You leap to your feet, the mugs on the table rattling as you slam your hands downs. “You can’t just leave it there! Good or bad, success or failure, I need to know!”

He still sits, composed, completely unfazed by your outburst. “This story may be mine to tell, but it is not mine alone.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Find me again when your journey is complete and I’ll continue the tale.”

“How? How will I find you?”

“Just like you did this time.” With that he stands, takes one long drink of ale, winks at you, and walks away.

You want to follow, to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and demand answers, demand the ending, but you find you can’t move, your body locked stiff and noncompliant.

You hear the door creak open. “Until next time,” he calls.

The door closes. You have control of your body again.

You rush to the door and fling it open. There’s no sign of the man, creature, whatever he was. No retreating silhouette in the dusky light, no footprints in the muddy road. Nothing, as though he walked to the door and then simply ceased to exist.

“Can I help you with something?” the owner calls from behind you.

You shut the door reluctantly. Is it your imagination, or is the rain beginning to fall softer now? Turning to the halfling you ask, “That man. Do you know anything about him?”

“What man?”

“Wha- The man who was in here before me, he was playing the lute, he said he was a traveler.”

There’s a long pause as the owner studies you. Whatever he finds seems only to put him at more unease. Finally, he speaks, hesitantly. “The only one who’s been here today has been you.”

You return the gesture, but there’s only honest confusion and concern in his eyes. He’s telling the truth or, at least, he believes he is.

“I’m sorry, it’s been a long day on the road, I must have dozed off.” You try to smile, but in your own mounting uncertainty you’re afraid it’s weak.

“You must’ve been real tired then. You’ve only been here a half hour at most.”

Half an hour. But looking back you’re certain the tale took hours in the telling. Or was it days? The more you try to remember, the more unclear your memories become. Was it just one man, or were there more? Was it told to you, or did you watch it unfold before your eyes? The story itself remains clear as crystal, frustrating incomplete, but the details around its telling are lost in a swirling miasma.

“...hey!” You realize the halfling has been trying to talk to you, and by his tone, for several minutes too. “Are you okay?”

“I think...I think I’m going to go to bed.” There’s a pounding in your head, an unsteadiness in your feet, an ache in your stomach like you haven’t eaten for a week. Maybe you haven’t.

“I think that might be wise.”

As you slowly climb the slightly rickety stairs to your room, you wonder just what you crossed paths with, and you think maybe you’re lucky to be in one piece with your mind intact.

You also start planning how you’re going to find him again.

You simply have to know.

[tiamat-zx]

Charred (Revisited)

I updated my most recent fic to include references to Episode 83, so if you want to leave kudos and comments, click the link to the story on ao3 here.

Otherwise, you could do so here as well.

To refresh people’s memory, this is a re-enactment and expansion of the final scene from Episode 81. There are spoilers, so read at your own risk.

And yes, I reposted this because readers sometimes are unaware of updates to stories unless they check them often.

Once again, I wanted to thank the likes of @onceandfuturekiki, @rovingromy, @ordainedcrown, @duskmeadows, @dancer4813, @a-heart-of-kyber, and many others for being awesome inspiration, awesome writers, awesome friends, and just plain awesome.

It was a horribly exhausting day, a day spent within the sulfurous and volcanic city that used to be Emon.  A day spent fighting for survival against the Cinder King and the dangers that loomed within the Cloudtop District. But even though Thordak had fallen, there was still an even greater danger on the horizon.

In her room in Castle Whitestone, standing in front of the mirror of the vanity table in her nightgown, Keyleth holds the Spire of Conflux in her hands and stares at her circlet on the table, lamenting over the day’s events. The Cinder King had proven to be an even more terrifying and dangerous opponent than they thought, but at the very least they had two months to prepare for this endeavor, which included gathering allies and the Vestiges of the Divergence. After a long, harrowing two months—and many, many near-misses along the way—their preparations were complete... or so they thought.

They did not win the battle by their combined might alone because while they had the assistance of Zahra, Kashaw, Kima, Gilmore, and Jarett, there was another individual that they had forged an alliance with. And that individual was the one who released Thordak from the Plane of Fire in the first place which caused the destruction of Pyrah and most of the Fire Ashari to be exterminated. The one who attacked them first in Emon and forced them to flee because her might was too great. The one who used Whitestone and Vox Machina’s beleaguered state as leverage to ensure their allegiance in destroying Thordak. The one who ultimately turned on them all once the battle was won and Vax chose to attack her, to try to stop her from achieving her own goals.

The one who called herself the Diseased Deceiver, Raishan.

Keyleth’s eyes begin to water as she thinks back to that horrible confrontation. They were wounded and spent, most of their strength expended on Thordak. And yet, even though she told Vax to wait for her before attacking, Vax had interpreted her words differently from what their intent was and chose to strike first. And then when she flew even further into the tunnel and Keyleth and the twins chose to pursue, that was when everything began to go wrong starting with the impact of those meteors.

They clearly underestimated Raishan’s power as she used her magic to disappear and systematically remove the protection of the Heroes’ Feast that would’ve shielded them from her poisonous breath. And even after the rest of the group—sans Kash and Zahra who stayed behind to stop the fire giants from interfering—managed to catch up and Devo’ssa was finally summoned by Scanlan, she had then proceeded to lay waste to them all, unleashing spell after powerful spell on them. They struggled to keep each other alive, but despite their best efforts Raishan had slain both Vex and Scanlan temporarily before Pike managed to revive them. She nearly killed Vax as well and would have if Keyleth hadn’t managed to save him from the burning lava. And when Raishan attempted to flee while clutching two dragon eggs, Keyleth tried to follow to give chase and aid the party best she could... only to have the ground break beneath her and have her plummet into a river of lava below her.

Keyleth could still feel the horrible pain that she endured from that fluke of a circumstance. She had managed to crawl out of the river but not without suffering some severe damage that was fortunately lessened by the fire resistance potion she drank earlier. And to make matters worse, they were repelled by an invisible wall. And by the time they figured out how to make the wall vanish, Raishan and Thordak’s corpse were already gone. The Diseased Deceiver had escaped with her prizes in tow. Keyleth had stood there in silence upon witnessing the absence of both, her vengeance having been ripped from her fingers when she was so close to achieving it. Burned and spent, she tried so hard to remain strong and not break down, to try to focus on their next course of action. It was only when Vax and Kerr—the blacksmith who acted as a mentor to her in Westruun—tried to comfort her did she allow herself to cry from the pain and exhaustion.

Keyleth stands there in front of the vanity table mirror, still clutching onto the staff as she stares at her reflection and the state she was in. Parts of her body were still burned by her sudden lava bath, though most of the burns were fortunately healed by Vax and Kerr’s healing magic. Her beautiful red hair, once long, was scorched and mostly gone, the blackened ends reaching down to her shoulders. Keyleth sighs, knowing that this was karma at work, punishing her for her own hubris. At the very least, she was still alive for the moment before they would all head out to fight Raishan once more the next day. She sighs again, tired and exhausted from the events of the day, all of her remaining willpower spent towards standing tall and not collapsing, to remain focused on the task at hand.

She and her allies were presented with a very difficult choice: to either pursue Raishan straight away while both sides were depleted but with a higher risk of someone dying permanently, or pursue her after resting in the hopes that they manage to catch her before she fully recovers. Keyleth herself had to make the call, and as far as she was concerned, she made the right choice; nearly dying in Thordak’s lair made her more cautious and wary of what was to come, especially after witnessing Raishan’s magical prowess even though she was diseased. She underestimated her once before, but not again.

But did I truly make the right call?

She continues to stand in front of the mirror, lost in her own thoughts. She had been desperately trying to hold back her rage towards the Diseased Deceiver for weeks now, knowing that Grog was right about there being a proper time for her to let loose her fury. But then, in the back of her mind, a thought occurs to her.

Is this how Percy felt when it came to the Briarwoods? Is this what he felt when he wanted vengeance so badly? When he came so close to becoming like the very monsters he vowed to destroy?

Am... Am I that close to feeling that same sensation?

Keyleth’s eyes widen as she looks at herself in the mirror once more. Thinking back, she was acting no different from the gunslinger when she wanted to lash out at Raishan and wanted to kill her right then and there. But then Percy calmed her down, telling her that she had fared better compared to him. Deep down, she knew that he was wrong; her rage was far greater than his back then. She wanted that dragon bitch dead, no matter the cost. And it is only now, in this moment alone in her room, that she begins to understand the feelings her best friend felt.

Another thought occurs to her. While it was true that she desired revenge, she realizes that that desire was rather selfish of her. After all, she wasn’t the only one who suffered from Raishan’s actions. There were many other countless pockets of civilization that suffered as well, not just the people of Emon and the Fire Ashari. Countless others died because of the dragon’s machinations.

Keyleth, still clutching the staff, comes to an understanding that it is not revenge that matters, but rather that Raishan needs to answer for her crimes. It is not revenge, but justice that she yearns for.

For the first time since she learned about Raishan’s involvement in this whole ordeal, she understands.

If I kill Raishan out of need for vengeance, I’m no better than her. No, she needs to be brought to justice. She’s a very real danger to the rest of Exandria. And if we can’t stop her, who will?

A soft knock sounds out from her door, distracting her from her inner thoughts.

“Come in,” she calls out. The door soon opens, and in the mirror she sees Vax walking in, out of his armor and looking equally exhausted.

“Hi,” is all Vax says as he approaches her.

“Hi,” she replies, not even needing to look back due to his reflection.

Keyleth soon notices that Vax was clutching a bottle in his hand which he soon places on the table. He then pulls out of his pocket the familiar shape of a certain dagger: Whisper. As soon as the blade comes into view she shudders briefly, thinking back to when that weapon was plunged into her back by Kynan at Glintshore. That small, legendary dagger had nearly stolen her life, but now it is in the hands of the man she loved with all her heart. Knowing that makes her relax a little more.

Vax’s other hand soon caresses the remnants of her charred locks as he says softly, “Have a seat.”

“Okay,” she replies just as softly. She does as she is told and sits down on the chair next to her, placing the staff aside. She continues to stare at herself in the mirror as Vax holds both Whisper and the ends of her hair in his hands. And then, to her surprise, he starts to grab hold of the edges and uses the Vestige to slowly cut the charred and burnt edges away. Keyleth sees Vax’s pained expression as he works, the thought of having to cut her hair that was beautiful to him no doubt hurting him.

“Do you like it shorter?” she asks as he continues his work. In all honesty, she never felt so self-conscious about her hair before. Fashion was never really a priority for her in the past. The only time she thought about it was the time where she went shopping for clothes with Vax so they could infiltrate the Velvet Cabaret in Vasselheim.

The memory brings a smile to her face, as does the moment when Vax had “proposed” to her. It was so silly at the time, yet it felt... right. She knew it was merely a ruse, but still, it made her feel happy that Vax wanted to do it. And she had accepted without much difficulty.

Vax thinks for a moment, considering how to answer her question, and then replies, “I like you.”

Keyleth smiles again at his thoughtfulness. But then her smile fades as she notices his furrowed brow, a constant for Vax that she had noticed having traveled with him for this long now. It was something that he usually did when he had a lot on his mind or wanted to keep his thoughts to himself.

“You know, I see you doubting yourself,” Vax tells her as he keeps cutting, his tone soft and soothing. “I see it, Kiki. But I’ve no doubts in you. I’ve known you for a long time now. And I have seen the strength in you growing. And I’m a fan. You’re going to make a great leader someday.”

Keyleth could feel herself shrinking ever so slightly into herself. It was always flattering and so sweet of Vax to think that highly of her. But at the same time, she feels as if she still isn’t worthy enough to be a leader just yet, not after her desire to want to kill Raishan ended up costing so many people their lives, including Vex and Scanlan. And despite Vax’s and Kerr’s words to her, she still feels so much guilt.

“I just feel like there’s so many people I can easily disappoint, and I don’t want to,” she admits quietly and reluctantly.

She was going to be the leader of her tribe once her Aramente was complete. All she had left to do was to go to the Water Ashari and complete her training. And after that, she wasn’t sure what would happen. She would probably have to part ways with Vox Machina, a thought that often frightened her. They were her family for the better part of two years now, and despite the arguments and infighting they occasionally got into, they were still tied to the hip. But thinking of the possibility that she would eventually have to leave them all to return to Zephra to continue where her father left off always made Keyleth feel very unsure of herself.

I’m not ready to go back, I can feel it. I don’t want to leave any of them. And yet, I will have to eventually once there’s no reason for any of us to stick together.

Vax pauses for a moment, still gripping her burnt hair, and soon says back to her as he continues cutting, “You’re doing the very best you can with what you’ve been given. And I have seen you rise again and again and not stop and not back down. And you fucking blow me away with the things you can do out there. You are beautiful, you are talented, and you are strong as fuck.”

Keyleth smiles a little, feeling the conviction behind Vax’s words, the meaning behind them. He has faith in her. They all have faith in her, a young woman who is easily prone to making rash decisions and having occasionally poor judgment. A woman who is led by what her heart tells her and not her mind. And yet... they all have faith in her. It made her want to cry.

“And I can’t take the doubt away. I can’t do that,” Vax continues to say. “But mix in with that my faith in you. Percy’s faith in you. Grog’s faith in you. Kerr’s. Vex’ahlia’s. Scanlan’s. Allura’s. All of ours. We are all behind you and we all believe in you. And we all love you. And obviously I love you.”

It was then that Keyleth remembers a circumstance similar to this moment, the time when she talked about her distrust of Kima while they were in the Underdark and Vax spoke up, telling her that she was not alone. That she had a family with her. She remembers how understanding he was, and how supportive he was even long before he confessed his love to her.

And the moments they shared ever since he confessed, both large and small, were treasured moments in her heart. She remembers how it felt for her to love him and yet not have the courage to say it, to have her fear of losing him control her. It was not until after Tiberius had died that she had found that courage. And now she isn’t afraid to explore that love with him anymore.

“And I love you,” she replies. She then went on to say, “You know, um, everyone comes from these backgrounds, having all these well-ventured and traveled pasts. You were the first people that I knew and met.”

She smiles a little sheepishly. “So not only are you the longest, I don’t really have any other friends. You are my family. I’ll try not to let you down.”

Vax smiles at her in the mirror as he puts away Whisper and moves around the chair to kneel down in front of her, running a hand through her hair. She could see in her reflection that all of the burnt edges were now cut away, leaving the rest of what remained clean.

“I’ve no worries. Look at you,” Vax tells her, still running a hand through her hair. “Don’t you look like royalty?”

“I’m not a princess, remember?” Keyleth reminds him with a smirk on her face. She never really liked being called a “princess” as she didn’t think of herself as one. Still, that didn’t stop the others from treating her like one, especially Tiberius when he was still with the group.

“That’s kinda what I like about you,” Vax replies, which draws out a slight chuckle from Keyleth. He was always so sweet, and she feels so happy that out of all the people she met in her life, Vax was the one she fell in love with. The two of them, despite their vastly different backgrounds, were clearly alike in so many ways. In fact, perhaps too much alike. But still, it allowed them to relate to each other so well. She laments on how they could’ve had a lot more time to be happy if not for the dragons, the Raven Queen, and all the unfortunate events that transpired in-between. Despite those events, however, it allowed them to grow into the people they are now.

I might as well be honest with myself and admit that I would never take any of it back.

“Would you do me a favor?” Vax soon asks her. “Down the line, once all this is behind us... will you go back to the theater with me?”

His sudden and rather non-sequitur request catches Keyleth off-guard for a moment as she stares at him, utterly confused as to why he’d say that now of all times. “What is it with you and the theater? Why?”

Vax shrugs. “I don’t understand it, either.”

Keyleth scoffs a little as she brings her hand up to match his hand that is still caressing her hair, staring at him with longing eyes. “Just as long as you go back to Zephra with me. Maybe?”

Vax replies with a smile, “You don’t have to ask.”

Keyleth smiles back, happy at his decision to go back with her when they had the chance. Ever since she first showed him the village from a distance, and ever since their reunion with her father, she had wanted to show him everything. But now that promise was set, assuming they survived the coming battle first.

“Does my hair look okay?” Keyleth then asks Vax, still feeling self-conscious about it.

“You kidding me?” Vax asks with an incredulous look on his face, puzzled at her statement.

“The short thing kinda works? It works with my bone structure? The antlers aren’t overpowering it, right? The length kinda balanced out this, you know? Maybe bangs? Actually, no. No bangs.”

Keyleth continues to babble nervously about her uncertainty regarding her new look as Vax abruptly kisses her, silencing the thoughts in her head. She knows that she always had a tendency to talk too much, and a part of her is thankful that Vax found a rather direct way to calm her down.

Gods, I love him so much. I honest can’t believe it took me so long to realize it.

She eases into the kiss, eagerly matching the level of affection he gave. This feeling of intimacy between them always makes her feel at peace, that she feels safe with him around. Even their first kiss together months ago during their raid on the castle, unexpected as it was, somehow felt right. It was a feeling that overwhelmed her briefly as she found herself lost in the moment until Percy had interrupted it.

To be fair, he was a little angry at Vax for endangering Cassandra’s life. Any brother would react in such a manner. I know Vax does when it comes to Vex.

After a while, Vax breaks the kiss. “Kiki... I stand by what I said. We’re all behind you. We always will be.”

Keyleth nods. “I know. In fact, I’ve come to a realization.”

“What is it?”

She fidgets a little as she finds the words to say, and then replies, “I may have been going about this whole thing with Raishan the wrong way. I’ve realized that revenge is rather selfish, especially since I’m not the only one who suffered due to her actions.”

Vax nods understandably. “You’re right. That’s actually how I felt about Thordak recently. Still, a part of me feels pride for being the one to ultimately destroy him.”

“But pride can lead to ruin,” Keyleth replies. “We’ve seen it happen many times.”

“That being said,” Vax tells her, “I am glad you’re coming to that realization. It’s a sign that you’ve changed.”

She nods. “I have, haven’t I?”

“You have. I mean, look at the person you were years ago to who you are now. You’re much more understanding of the world around you, you’re not afraid of having to make the tough choices, and you’re no longer afraid of the path you’ve chosen to walk.”

Vax soon embraces her. “I’m proud of you, Keyleth.”

Keyleth looks at herself in the mirror and smiles.

He’s right. I have changed.

She returns the embrace. “Thank you, Vax’ildan. Thank you... for staying by my side. I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done with my life if I never met you or the rest of Vox Machina. I probably would’ve become such a self-righteous bitch.”

Vax chuckles. “Probably. I mean, you still tend to be sometimes. But at least you’re aware of it.”

She breaks the embrace and stares at him with a pouty look on her face. “Hey! That’s mean!”

“I’m just being honest,” he replies.

Keyleth rolls her eyes. She then finds herself yawning, overcome with weariness as the exhaustion of the day begins to finally catch up with her.

“Tired?” Vax asks.

“Yeah,” she mutters sleepily. “It’s been a very long day. I don’t think I can do much more before collapsing.”

“Come on, then. To bed you go,” he tells her as she feels herself being picked up by Vax and carried to her bed. She can barely keep her eyes open as Vax tucks her in and kneels down next to her, the look in his eyes so full of adoration for her that it made her smile.

“Rest well, love. We have a big day ahead of us,” Vax says with the gentlest of tones, running a hand through her hair. “And hopefully we’ll all make it out of this coming battle alive.”

“I hope so, too,” Keyleth replies as she finds herself drifting further and further into sleep. She then manages to pull Vax’s head close to her as she gives him one last kiss. “I love you, Vax.”

“I love you, too.”

Keyleth continues to smile as she finally surrenders to the exhaustion of the day, her eyes closing. And for the first time in a long while, her dreams are peaceful. She has no doubt that once he falls asleep as well, Vax would be dreaming the same dreams. Dreams of the two of them living a peaceful life free of dragons and death. Dreams of a future where they even raised a family together.

They were dreams worth making come true.

As Keyleth begins to sleep, Vax lets out a deep sigh that he had been holding for a long while. She looks so peaceful in her sleep, a gentle contrast to how she was several hours ago back in Emon. The look of defeat on her face when Raishan had escaped had broken his heart. In fact, it was just as heartbreaking as when he found himself awake and he found her sprawled on the ground with most of her hair burnt off, barely conscious, and her entire body scorched and burned. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she fell into the lava and barely crawled out.

The entire confrontation was horrible. He knew that he did the right thing, that he had to try to stop Raishan. And yet, it was a personal failing on his part when his efforts were all for naught. In fact, he couldn’t even begin to imagine how horrible it was for everyone as he was unconscious for most of it. What he did see, however, was Scanlan lying there frozen solid. The sight of his dear friend dead inside the ice was more than he could bear, and he silently thanked the gods for Pike still being with them as she revived him.

Vax thinks back to the confrontation between Scanlan and himself, when the gnome started to blame him for everything going wrong. Vax had felt that he did what he had to do, that they all did so. But the look of hurt and hostility on Scanlan’s face wounded him deeply. He had pulled him aside and tried to explain things, even showing Scanlan the letter he had written in case he died. The bard’s words to him weeks ago, that everything was better compared to the beginning, were hard to believe in the early days of the Conclave’s occupation of several cities in Tal’Dorei. But over time, Vax started to believe in them. After all, he was not alone anymore. It wasn’t like the times he had shared with Vex’ahlia before they all became the S.H.I.Ts. He felt like he belonged with this ragtag group of misfits. He considered them all family.

Scanlan was right. Things were indeed better despite the tragedies that unfolded every day. And even more so once their dynamic began to change. For instance, after having gotten to know the group for a year, while he felt an attraction to Shaun and they seemed to hit it off right away, he never even considered the possibility that he would fall in love with someone else. And he never expected it to be with Keyleth, of all people. But over time, he developed a genuine emotional bond with her, something that he had only shared before with his twin. And then, that bond soon grew into something more, eventually culminating with him falling for her.

Despite his willingness to charge headlong into danger, a quality that the Raven Queen seemed to appreciate when she spoke with him in her temple, he was very patient when it came to Keyleth. He bided his time, never pushing, never forcing himself on her. When he came close to death against the Briarwoods, he had thought of her being beautiful and walking under the trees. He was so convinced that he was going to die at that moment and would have if not for Scanlan and Keyleth managing to give him the strength to get up and run to them. And when he was brought back from the brink of death during the siege of Castle Whitestone, he had the urge to admit his feelings for her, and in his muddled and dazed state did so and emphasized it with their first kiss. But realizing that he may have been a little too hasty, he decided to give her space and wait for her, to let her choose for herself.

And despite so much happening in the months since, despite almost losing Vex and his faith becoming inverted and now serving a goddess of death as opposed to a goddess of life, things truly began turning around for him, especially when Keyleth had summoned the courage to confess. He had started to believe that just being around her would ultimately be enough for him. But her coming forward with her feelings made him feel so happy. The last time Vax felt such happiness was when he spent the first ten years of his life with his sister and their mother. The last time he had allowed himself to be happy before the fates chose to make him their personal plaything, starting with Syldor taking them and Thordak killing his mother.

He sighs again, and stares at the charred edges of hair scattered on the floor. Her hair that he himself had cut. It had hurt for him to do such a thing, but he wanted what was best for his beloved. He then looks back at Keyleth’s sleeping face, and then to the hair on her head that remains. Even with her hair being shorter now, she was beautiful, every bit like a princess even though she always said she wasn’t. But she was indeed royalty in his eyes.

A princess like her honestly doesn’t deserve someone like me. But still, the fact that she chose me over others means a lot. She deserves to live to see everything come to fruition. Her desire to avenge her people and bring Raishan to justice, her Aramente, her wanting a future with me. All of it.

He stands up and walks to the charred strands of hair on the floor, taking the time to pick them all up. He holds them in his hands and, after some deliberation, chooses to weave them together. He had plenty of practice when it came to braiding Vex’s hair on a constant basis, so this was no difficult task. Within minutes, he comes up with a thin but sturdy chain of her blackened but still beautiful hair that he soon ties to his belt, a trinket to remember her by along with the mark of her hand on his back, still there after all this time. He knew that if he were to ever be apart from her, he'd only have to think back to when he asked her to do that. It was proof that no matter the distance, they would be inseparable.

Feeling satisfied, he removes his shirt and boots and soon goes under the covers on the other side of Keyleth’s bed, wisely choosing to give her space so that he doesn’t wake her. As he lays there, he mulls over what was to come. Their rematch with Raishan would happen the next day, and they all needed to be at their best so they could finish her off. They had to finish things, or else something far worse could occur.

She will pay for what she did, love. That’s a promise to you, to your people, and a promise to myself.

Vax smiles once more at Keyleth’s sleeping form, and joins her in slumber himself.

[esmeravde]

The One Time 2

Lana sat in her usual spot by the door in a comfortable chair. The store had been busier than normal. Suddenly, despite the war going on for months, people were interested in Xhorhas and its history. Lana didn’t know the reason for the sudden interest. However, she found it amusing and made a note to restock her shelves. The business of the day had distracted her from the mystery that was Caleb. She had almost forgotten the invitation she had extended to him, but a moment of quiet at the end of the day kept him in her thoughts.

The sun was just disappearing past the city’s skyline and Lana had just locked her door, when a soft knock caught her attention. On the other side of the door stood Caleb alone, looking no different than he did earlier.

“I am sorry I’m so late, we were busy.” Caleb said.

“No problem.” Lana glanced over his shoulder to see him unaccompanied. “None of your friends with you this time?”

“No.” He replied. Lana wasn’t sure if she believed him considering the conversation she overheard that morning. Ultimately, she didn’t really care, he had come, which was the first step.

“Come in.” Lana held the door open for him as he entered. “What I have to show you is in my private chambers.” She locked the front door behind them and lead Caleb to her small home that was attached to the bookstore. The small sitting room had walls of books and some comfortable seating in the centre permanent arcane lines formed at teleportation circle.

“You have a teleportation circle in your home?” Caleb questioned.

“Yes,” Lana smiled gesturing for him to take a seat. “I use it to gather the rarest of books from my friends across Exandria and occasionally visit different climates.”

“Who did you ask about me?” Caleb asked as he sat. Lana realized he wasn’t a man to keep his questions left unasked.

“My friend Essek,” Lana replied while moving around the room, selecting various books from her shelves. “I believe you know him.”

Caleb frowned.

“The Dynasty touches even here,” Lana continued. “But that isn’t all that extraordinary. After all we are in a time of war, it makes sense, both sides would have people in the capitals.I am not a spy, but my friends are all over. Essek and I knew each other long before this war started and hopefully will long after.” She placed a pile of books beside the chair Caleb had settled in. “What is extraordinary, however, is a vollstrecher is working to help the Dynasty.”

Caleb immediately stiffened in his seat. “I am not a vollstrecher.”

“But your arms say otherwise and Essek said you were affiliated,” Lana observed.

Caleb was silent. His eyes grew distant.

“I’m sorry,” Lana stuttered while sitting across from him. “I let my curiosity get the better of me. The story is yours to tell and I will not pry it from you. Know this Mr. Widogast, if I believed you were anything like the Scourgers I have met or heard of I would have never invited you here.” She paused for a moment, then gestured towards the books. “I have brought you all that I thought would be helpful for you and your friends. The top book is all accounts of the Luxon, many are rumour but perhaps some of the rumours will line up with something you already know or will learn.” Gesturing to the second book, Lana continued. “Then, there is a book on the Assembly and the manner in which they have fortified themselves. I understand you must know some of this but perhaps it will help. Underneath is some of my rarer books on magic. Also, if you have any need of spells let me know what you are specifically looking for as I may have it.”

Lana stopped, realizing she should leave Caleb to go over the books and collect his thoughts. She stood in order to leave him to his study and proceeded to go back into the bookshop.

“Danken,” Caleb said quietly. “I should not take long.”

“You may stay as long as you like.” Lana replied before leaving him.

Once back into the peaceful isles of the storefront, Lana mentally chastised herself. It was foolish of her to question Caleb like that. He was clearly well guarded and bringing up what she assumed to be a difficult subject was unwise.

As she mindlessly moved through the aisles adjusting books and making notes on what to restock, she recalled the pain and guilt that was evident on his face when she had asked about his association with the Assembly. It was as obvious as the red hair on his head or his intoxicating blue eyes. She wondered what he could have done to cause that guilt. If what she knew about the vollstrechers was true, well then there were many things.

She pitied the man who read in her sitting room. In her life she had known only ordinary amounts of pain, loss and shame. The loss of her mother was the most extreme pain she had ever felt. She tried to imagine what he could have gone through but felt lost. Whatever it was, she could never understand.

There was only one way she could feel what he felt at any specific moment. She had a scroll that could project the user’s emotions onto someone else. It was particularly useful when telling stories but Caleb would have to be willing to use it and to tell her his story, which, she realised was unlikely. She let out a soft sight of defeat and continued down her aisles of books.

Trying to avoid her own thoughts, Lana made a stronger effort to organize her shelves. After hours of categorizing and rearranging, a floorboard creaked from the other side of the room putting Lana on edge. No one should’ve been in the store that late in the evening. Quietly, while listening for another sound Lana place another book on the shelf.

“It was…” A voice came from behind her.

With a quick motion Lana had her hand outstretched toward the intruder.

“...kind of you to allow me access to some of your treasured books.” Caleb said as he came around one of the shelves. He was greeted by Lana whose hands had burst into flame. “Ah!.” He exclaimed instantly backing up, his voice wavering.

“It’s you.” Lana let the magic dissipate with a sigh of relief. “I wasn’t paying attention, lost in thought or avoiding it, and forgot you were here.” She paused for a moment before continuing. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Ja, the books have been helpful.” Caleb paused. “You practice the arcane?”

“Oh,” Lana chuckled nervously, rubbing her hands together. “Yes, I have had the ability for a time. Essek and others helped me understand some of it.”

“Essek taught me some things as well.”

Lana nodded, “He is a good teacher.” There was a moment of silence.

“Thank you again.” Caleb said while turning towards the door.

“You are very welcome.” Lana smiled at his back. “Good night Mr. Widogast.”

“Good Night.” Caleb said as he walked through the door, which Lana held open.

Lana watched the wizard disappear down the street and leaned against the door frame for a moment. She was pleased he had come but wasn’t impressed with her own behaviour. She had never been so forward and unobservant. If he came back, she resolved to be aware of her guest and herself. With feeling of defeat, she closed the door and headed towards her bedroom.

On her way to bed, after extinguishing every flame, Lana felt the sudden need to pray. She wasn’t an overly religious person but did believe and occasionally worship Ioun. The Knowing Mistress was a part of her childhood. Her parents always said knowledge was power, so they would pray and study, study and pray. For the first time in years, Lana felt the need to ask for help. For the first time in a long while she didn’t know the answers and didn’t know how to find them. Normally, she could read people easily, like how the best captain could read the ocean. Each wave, each crease a story.

As she sat on her bed, she wondered if she truly did understand people or had she been making it up as she went along. After all, anyone can be right some of the time. How could one man cause so much doubt in her mind? Caleb Widogast had made her whole focus change. At first, she only wanted to help out of curiosity and loyalty to Essek, but having spent the evening with the soft spoken wizard she genuinely wanted to help. Her inability to understand him made everything harder, a scourger, vollstrecher, wizard. She was lost. How could she help him effectively?

In desperation and frustration Lana reached out and grasp the symbol of Ioun that sat on her bedside table. She laid back and focused her thoughts outward towards the Knowing Mistress. She allowed herself to envision a vast library full of scrolls and books.

Lana wandered through the endless rows of books, all without labels or titles. Everyone book a mystery to be learned, a history to be rediscovered. A tinge of excitement filled her and she wondered what each book contained.

A gradual staircase climbed upward in a steady spiral. Slowly, she made her way upward, slowed by her need to wander aimlessly through the aisles. Every time she went down new aisle, she let her fingers running along the spines of endless stories, hoping to gain some new knowledge.

After turning down another aisle a figure stood in her way. She was older with waves of silver that fell down her back. Her robes were blue and white and seemed to tumble to the ground like unrolled parchment. When she turned to look at Lana, purple eyes smiled at her. In her hands was a small book. The figure held it out towards Lana.

Taking a step forward Lana took the book in her hands. Her eyes left the unique woman and gazed at the book. It was small, like one of the books that contained ancient myths. The dark leather seemed new, except for one corner which had been burnt slightly. When Lana looked up again, she found herself alone the female presence, gone. Her attention was drawn back to the book in her hands. Carefully, she opened the cover and started to read.

Lana felt herself pulled, like traveling through a teleportation circle, to a small house. There a small boy with fiery red hair studied. His hands moving in the familiar patterns, drawing a spell in the air and in front of him an orange kitten appeared. His eyes filled with joy.

Once again, Lana found herself in a different place, but with the same boy but slightly older standing outside of the Soltryce Academy with his parents. They spoke to their son in Zemnian, tears of joy, pride and sorrow in their eyes.

Then, she was with him again, but this time he was with two others, following a man away from the Academy and out of Rexxentrum. Again a shift to darkness and all Lana could feel was pain, sharp piercing pain in her arms like knives. After a moment in the darkness the pain faded but was replaced by the voices of the parents, Zemnian that transitioned into Common. They spoke of betrayal, revolution, rebellion.

Out of the darkness came fire, flames and incredible heat. She was with the boy again but he had turned into more of a man. From where she stood, behind his shoulder, she could see the flames engulfing a small house. The heat was on her face and fire in her eyes, but the screams came, doubt overwhelming doubt. They were his parents.

Lana’s vision shifted one more time. They were in an asylum her hands on his face, Lana felt the energy flow through her. A heavy film that covered Caleb’s eyes lifted, the radiant blue irises shining full of anger and pain.