Chapter Text
Two small figures walked along the path toward the Turst Fields, heading away from Whitestone, though still winding close enough to it's outer walls. Their silhouettes outlined by the yellow gleam of the setting sun. Scanlan, despite being weighed down with all of his belongings, walks slightly ahead of Kaylie with obvious determination. However, they're mutual in their silence.
Neither of them were truly ready to take a long trip. Only Kaylie seemed to acknowledge that fact. A worried glance told her that Scanlan was hardly in any shape to travel. She would've like to tell her father— she'd finally decided on whether or not Scanlan deserved the title whilst he was still unconscious. though, was unsure if she'd ever call him it out loud.— that he should pace himself. The dumbass only just roused from his death-induced coma, after all. She took time out of her life to come Whitestone, bring him back to life and sit by his bedside in waiting. Kaylie had no desire to drag his exhausted body through the rest of Tal'Dorei, should he wear himself out before they even make it outside of the province.
Ultimately, though, Kaylie understood his need for space. Having been on the other side of the door as Vox Machina erupted. And that desire to avoid emotional conflicts by getting as far away as possible from the epicenter? That's something she knew first hand. It's what she'd done with Scanlan only a few months ago. It was, apparently, a Shorthalt trait.
So, she lets him walk ahead of her but keeps a watchful eye on him, nonetheless.
They get rather far in the first few hours of their trip. They're still quiet aside from the occasional tune that Scanlan hums to himself. Kaylie decides she can't take the silence anymore. Besides, a question has been burning a hole in the back of her throat. "What was Juniper like?"
"Oh," Scanlan stops dead in his tracks ahead of her. "You heard that much, huh?”
"I did." Kaylie, taking the opportunity to catch up with Scanlan now that he's stopped, quickly notices the way his brows have furrowed. "Take yer time answerin' if ya have to. Just don't hold us up any longer, yeah?"
He nods and as they start down the path again, he thinks back to last night. The state he’d woken up in, the looks of shock from his friends— could he even still call them that?— as he laid into them. Some of the things he said were honest and true to his feelings. The others were meant to cause enough harm for them to let him leave. Because he knew they'd be stubborn in the belief that they cared about him and would make it difficult for him to say goodbye. So, he hit them where it hurt. Tried to make them hate him just enough to let him walk away but not enough to never let him come back.
Now, Scanlan is considering the possibility that he did more damage than he intended to. The way he and Vox Machina parted ways left him with an aching wound. Not like the actual wound he now possessed. A streak of large claw marks raked across his torso, courtesy of Raishan. No, this was one that couldn't be mended with the passage of time or healing magic. Scanlan supposes both are just another scar added to his growing list. But it all happened in such a blur that the details of their fight are foggy to him.
The only thing still clear in his head was the way Kaylie looked as she reentered the room, tears streaking down her cheeks, when she asked him; "Are ya coming?"
Suddenly, as if the cruel universe was privy to this sudden thought of wounds, Scanlan plants his left foot directly in a dip along the path. The immediate unevenness of his stance sends shooting pain through the weal on his stomach. He clutches his side and noticing this, Kaylie immediately offers her arm to brace him. Politely, Scanlan shrugs her off. It's a sharp and throbbing pain but he can manage so long as he doesn't focus on it. Instead, he tries to think. He tries recall his mother.
“She was, um—” He squints at nothing, still looking ahead at the path before them. Scanlan hasn’t realized it until now, since Juniper’s never come up much in recent conversation, but he’s forgotten a lot about his mother. And he’s having trouble remembering her as anything more than just a lifeless and bloodied face. He closes his eyes, clears his head of that gruesome picture and tries to dig deeper for a fragment of something he can use to tell Kaylie about the former most important person in his life.
But all he remembers is music. So, naturally, Scanlan starts by recalling all of those memories of songs he knows that he learned from her. And eventually the others come flooding back to him too.
He remembers the sound of her smooth alto singing him lullabies or old sea shanties she'd picked up in their little port town. And he remembers that he eventually picked up on singing too. Though, he much preferred to sing tall-tales and nonsense epics, all in an effort to make his mother laugh.
Her laugh. That, he can remember. It was booming and infectious. And when she laughed, she'd always cover her mouth with her hands. The hands of a worker. Nails dirtied and fingers calloused from a hard life but gentle nonetheless.
And with that memory came the memory of her plucking away at a lute, singing him a story that she'd heard whilst arm wrestling a dwarf one night in their local tavern. She had big, strong arms. Muscles that could rival Pike Trickfoot's own. And she used them to wrap him up and tickle him relentlessly whilst he was restrained, blowing raspberries into his neck as he screamed with childish glee.
He'd been so young when he'd lost her. It all seemed like forever ago.
Scanlan wipes a tear that’s fallen down his cheek and opens his eyes again. Kaylie is watching him, an eyebrow quirked, not really sure what to make of his tears.
“She was strong but gentle. And, she loved music. We used to sing together, actually. And she always told me I had the better voice but I still don’t believe that's true." He smiles wistfully at Kaylie, "She was a good mother but I think she would’ve much rather have been a bard.”
"Instead she left a legacy of bards." Kaylie gives him a nod, "I gotta think that'd be almost as good as bein' one yerself."
"Yeah," Scanlan says rather distantly.
A small silence falls between them, filled only by the distant sound of birds chirping, the crunching of dirt beneath their boots and the shifting of items inside their traveling packs. Scanlan decides then that he's done with the constant awkward silence. He and Kaylie have years worth of catching up to do and he's tired of wasting it on less important matters. Wasn't that ultimately why he shed himself of Vox Machina and set out on this road with her in the first place? They've got to start somewhere and since they're already on the topic of mothers, Scanlan figures theres no better time to ask.
"What about Sybil?" He asks abruptly.
Kaylie startles, "What?"
"Your mother," Scanlan says. Slowly this time. He's suddenly worried that he got her name wrong, "It was Sybil, right?"
"It was." She hesitates, "Ya really don't remember her, do ya?"
"I remember bits and pieces," Scanlan rubs the back of his neck. He feels guilty. "I've tried to remember more but she came at a very difficult time in my life, I think. A time that I really wanted to forget, y'know? So, it's all sort of fuzzy for me."
"Alright. Then we should pay her a visit." She brushes a hand through her short hair, giving him a scathing look. "Would that refresh yer shoddy memory?"
"She's alive?"
"Of course she's alive, ya bastard!" Kaylie doesn't sound surprised by his misconception but she doesn't sound amused either. "Why do you think I told the troupe to detour to Kymal? Ya told us to head to Vasselheim but I wasn't goin' anywhere without her when there were dragons fuckin' about. And thats where yer pretty little half-elf friend found my drunken arse."
"I'm sorry." Scanlan blinks in shock, "I just assumed—"
"Yeah, well, you assumed wrong." Kaylie shoves her hands in her pockets and shrugs, "We're not exactly on the best of terms but, then again, we never were."
"Oh," Scanlan chuckles. "Her too?"
"I need to see her again soon, anyways." Kaylie tactfully ignores him, "Never did get a chance to drop in before ya died and had me whisked away."
They lock eyes and it's then that Scanlan realizes Kaylie's suggestion is a serious one. The pit thats already in his stomach seems to grow in size. He doesn't know if he can face Sybil. Fate (or rather, Kaylie's revenge plot) bringing him face-to-face with his daughter that night in Emon already forced him into spiral that he'd yet to recover from. And yet...
He gives Kaylie a sheepish look, "Would she even want to see me?"
"I could never get her to shut up about ya," She huffs but the affection in her words is poorly disguised. At least to Scanlan, who considers himself somewhat of an expert when it comes to masked emotions. "I'm sure she'd be thrilled to see yer ugly mug again. She's forgiving. More than I am, at least."
"That’s comforting," He replies with crisp sarcasm.
Kaylie smiles but looks away at the path ahead. "Suppose we'll slowly make our way to Kymal then?"
"Yeah," Scanlan nods. "Alright."