Chapter Text
When the white haze finally faded, at first Keyleth couldn’t process any feelings beyond a familiar bone-deep grief and a sensation of having been suspended in time (even more than the usual feeling that followed her relative immortality).
If this really was the end, she found relief in the fact that Vax had been there by her side even if only for a moment. Moments were all the two of them had ever been able to hold onto and she would hold onto this one into whatever awaited her in the next life.
The peace of that feeling didn’t last long. Suddenly Keyleth could feel more unpleasant things again. The pain came back to her body slowly like ivy growing from her toes to the tips of her fingers.
She gasped for air suddenly as sharp pain spread to her head. Had she been holding her breath?
“Kiki, darling-,” a shaky voice cut through the pain for a brief moment. She heard a sob of relief, then “hold on for me darling. We’ve got you.”
Vex’ahlia, Keyleth thought to herself with an overpowering sense of deja vu. No, it can’t be.
Vex must certainly be far from here. No matter what befell Keyleth, she had to hold onto the fact that Vex and her family were unharmed.
Her breaths were still coming out in strangled gasps and she could hardly think through the pain and the panic of her last moments. Then a feeling of warmth started to spread through her and she felt her pain recede. She felt her strength return and slowly her eyes blinked open.
Where before, Keyleth had stared up at a blood-red sky and a cloak of black raven feathers, she was now met with clear blue skies and the tear-filled eyes of Vex’ahlia. He was nowhere to be found but those eyes - after all these years the hazel eyes were just the same in both twins and it sent a fresh pang of sadness straight through Keyleth’s heart with the fresh reminder.
“Hi,” she managed to say in a quivering voice. Her first word in what felt like an eternity.
“Hi Kiki” Vex replied, through her tears as she brushed a stray hair off of Keyleth’s face and began wiping away some of the blood and grime that lingered from the recent ambush, as if to assure herself that this futile effort could erase what had occurred. “I thought I told you never to scare me like this again.”
Finally, Keyleth began to really take in her surroundings. She was still on the ground at the base of the Malleus key in Marquette. She had no idea how much time had passed since the solstice. Vex was cradling Keyleth’s head in her lap and Pike stood beside her, hands outstretched and glowing with a warm light that continued to spread through Keyleth’s body, soothing the lingering aches.
She moved to sit up but all the joints in her body seemed stiff - slow to move. “Easy there,” Percy’s voice came from over Vex’s shoulder and she felt his arms supporting her back, easing her slowly up, gripping her hand like an anchor until she could breathe and move more easily.
On her other side she could see Scanlan and Grog smiling at her nervously.
“Lucky for you Pike’s still got it,” Scanlan said with a half smile. “Or you’d still be a statue right about now. It seems that old elf bastard was determined to keep you as some kind of fucked up souvenir.”
“You were like a rock! And not the cool kind!” Grog exclaimed with a look of growing relief spreading across his face.
So Ludinus had petrified her before she had even had the chance to regain her senses. Keeping her as a trophy to commemorate his triumph in using her as bait. Bait for Vax.
“What happened?” Her eyes met Vex’ahlia’s again and she tried to convey with a look all of the thoughts that still sat in the forefront of her mind. I’m sorry, Vex. I’m so sorry I couldn’t save him this time. Did we really lose him again?
But she couldn’t bring herself to form the words. It felt much like it had that very first time Vex had approached Keyleth, begging to know the truth of the sacrifice that her brother had made for her - the sacrifice that taken him away from them both irreparably. She just couldn’t bring herself to break both of their hearts again with the truth. Not yet. So instead she followed up with, “how did you all get here?”
Vex, who was hastily wiping the tears from her cheeks and gripping Keyleth’s hand reassuringly with her other hand simply glanced over her shoulder.
Keyleth followed Vex’ahlia’s gaze and, for the first time she noticed young Orym and his friends. It was the same group she had met not long ago, but Bell’s Hells looked so much surer now somehow. Wiser and battle-hardened. And powerful too - standing in a sort of protective formation behind Orym they appeared truly powerful and intimidating in a way they hadn’t been before.
“I made a call”, the lavender-haired sorceress said with a glance towards Vex. Imogen stood commandingly in front of the group with one hand (covered in red lightning scars like webbing) resting reassuringly on Orym’s shoulder. Her other hand was being held firmly by Laudna who looked on with such adoration that Keyleth couldn’t help but smile a bit.
“We don’t leave anyone behind”, Ashton stated, earning a grin from Fearne who stood by his side.
Orym looked up at his friends with a grateful smile, then he met Keyleth’s eyes and stepped forward. He look so much more self-assured than he had the last time they’d met. Though clearly battle-worn and small of stature, he walked with such grace and seemed to stand tall as he approached. He was all determination and love where once he had been full of such grief and loss after his love had been taken from him.
Keyleth had felt such a strong kinship with the young Ashari who had failed, as she herself had, to save the one he loved. To see him now with such courage and self-assurance, and with so much love surrounding him… it warmed her heart and she gave him a smile that did little to convey how proud she was of how far he’d come since that dark day. It did little to convey the guilt she felt for luring those murderers in the first place.
It had all been a trap. She the bait… Derrig and Will the collateral.
Vex helped her to her feet as Orym approached and looking up at her he said humbly, “Thank you, Tempest, for coming to our aid. I should have known better than to endanger you like that. I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
When he finished, he looked down at a satchel he held in his hands as if unable to meet her eyes. The disappointment he clearly felt was so familiar that it was more than she could bear.
She knelt before Orym, covering his trembling hands with her own and tried to show him all of her gratitude through a wave of emotion. “I’m ok now, Orym. You were wonderful and I couldn’t ask for better.”
What she couldn’t say - Vax had come.
To see him again outside of the afterlife was more than she could have hoped for. It was enough.
“What Otohan Thull did to you… to all of us,” Orym continued with a glance over his shoulder at his friends, “we made her pay.” He reached into the satchel then and Keyleth’s heart skipped a beat as he added “this is for you”.
Before she could even swallow down her disbelief an Onyx orb, swirling with a familiar black energy that she could feel tugging on her heart, was cradled in her shaking hands.
As she crumbled, shaking with sobs holding him close to her heart she felt Vex’s hands cover her own. She was vaguely aware of Vox Machina surrounding her in a tight hug and for a moment she let herself be a child again, scared and unsure and terrified of loss and failure. She let herself just be Kiki while they held her.
She had to be strong for them. For him. They were her strength and had always been.
She strood slowly and with her eyes still firmly fixed on the orb- Vax, in her hands she said, “Pike, please-“. Choking down another sob she continued, “Can you-?”
“Fix him?” Pike cut in then and Keyleth looked up to see her glancing over at Grog and Scanlan with a sad smile. “Keyleth you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to give it my very best shot”.
Keyleth looked down at the orb in her hands again squeezing it impossibly tighter as she felt an old familiar hope surging in her chest.
“But-“ Pike continued with a slightly more wary tone and the fresh hope began to stutter. “It would take some time and a whole lot of power. Dispelling this kind of magic is new for me and I’ll need some help from the Everlight.”
“Looks like the bloody gods need our help again,” Vex said, giving Keyleth’s hands a reassuring squeeze and the Keyleth looked up to meet her determined gaze. “It’s high time we ask for something in return for our services”.
“We might have closed the gateway temporarily,” Keyleth heard Imogen say in her calm, commanding voice over Orym’s shoulder. “- but if you want to end this thing for good and keep those useless gods happy… there’s a bigger problem still out there.” Imogen looked up at Ruidus then, the angry red light reflecting off her lavender eyes, then she looked back at Keyleth and the corners of her mouth lifted in a slight smile, all power and determination.
She could almost feel the electricity radiating off the sorceress when she said, “we have some unfinished business with Ludinus and Liliana. You interested?”
Recent memories of Ludinus’ calculated trap and Liliana’s final attack on Vax flashed through her mind and a heat like fire started to spread through her bones. Keyleth stood finally, tucking the orb into her slightly tattered cloak and letting his closeness give her the strength to meet Imogen’s eyes and say, “when we’re done with him he’ll know who the gods really are”.
A knowing smile from Vex tells Keyleth that she won’t be alone this time. With her friends at her back, no power in any world can stop them.