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Grog and Pike spend their childhood running wild in the streets of Westruun, sunstruck and drunk on their own youth. Twin alley-dogs, they pass the days getting into trouble and laughing their way out. The whole town knows them; has known that sweet little gnome girl all her life, remembers the day she appeared in the streets leading a half giant by the hand and announcing to all the world (as they watched, some with the grace to try to hide their stares and some with gaping mouths) that this was her new brother, Grog, and everyone had best be nice to him or she’d set them right herself, and from that moment they were never seen apart.
He was a bad influence on her, some said, watching from their doorstep with narrowed eyes and pursed lips as Grog brawls with a neighborhood boy and Pike cheers him on. She was such a sweet child before he showed up. Where did they pick him up, anyways? Where does one find a stray goliath?
He’s a good boy, some said, smiling at Grog as he clumsily stacks fruit back onto a cart with a meek expression. I think he had it hard before. He’s lucky to have found them. Have you heard about the goliath herds? Where do you find a little gnome on the plains?
Watch out for those two, the city whispers, they’re fighters, the both of them. They fight for each other and themselves and they’ll take on all the world if they have to. A man spits foul words at Pike. He spends the night at the nearest temple. Grog spends the night in jail.
The whole city speaks of them—fondly, derisively, with exasperated affection for a nuisance with puppy-dog eyes.
They don’t care much. Grog knows the mischief in Pike’s eyes has always been there, is as much a part of her as the light shining through her fair hair and the way she carries bandages for the street cats. Pike knows that Grog is trying, every day, to rein in the fire in his blood because he never learned to, before, but he will just for her, that he is too loud and too rough sometimes but has a softness inside him that sometimes only she sees. So they let the whispers brush off their backs and Grog hefts her onto his shoulder like she’s a precious thing and they run off together, darting through the alleys they know like home.
--
There’s a window on the top floor of Wilhand’s house, and if you are very careful you can climb out onto the roof. Pike mastered the trick very early, and nearly gave her great-grandfather a heart attack. She taught Grog the first night she found him awake in the kitchen in the middle of the night; she could smell the nightmares on him but saw the look in his eye and only took him by the hand and showed him the window, and how if you put your hand just here, and swung your leg around just so, you could heave yourself up onto that flat bit there and climb up to the top. They spent the rest of the night counting the stars, and Pike listened as Grog told her in a loud whisper every constellation he knew from the plains, the hammer and the mountain and the owlbear, and the next morning she woke up cradled in his arms to his toothy smile and Wilhand’s frantic cries from the window.
Grog is affronted when the old man scolds him. “I wouldn’t have let her fall,” he says, as if to think otherwise is lunacy. “I wouldn’t ever.”
They climb onto the roof most nights when it’s clear, and sometimes when they know they can get away with it they leap across the rooftops, Grog first then leaning over the edge to catch Pike, and find the best spots for watching the stars. Sometimes they tease each other and talk about the day’s adventures, doing their best (for some value of the word) impersonations of the neighborhood shopkeepers and drunkards and bullies and laughing until their bellies hurt.
Sometimes they stretch out on their backs, or lean back on their hands, and tell stories of their pasts before they met— “See, if we tell each other everything that happened before, right,” Grog reasons, motioning intently with his hands, “then it’s like we were there for it!”
Pike accepts this logic with a giggle and tells him about growing up with Wilhand, from crying her eyes out over a broken stuffed dog and finding him awake late at night stitching it back together to running away for two nights when he told her she couldn’t keep the bird she had found on the street and nursed back to health. Grog tells her about the Herd of Storms, about the axe Kevdak ripped from his hands, about how it feels to fight surrounded by your brethren, and how it feels to fight them, too.
At first Grog tries to keep a calm façade, strong and unruffled like he remembers the great warriors of the Herd. It doesn’t take long before he gives up, at least when it’s just him and Pike—Pike always knows when he’s upset, no matter how hard he tries to hide it. Pike knows just about everything about him. Grog convinced himself once that they weren’t really two people at all, but that whatever it was that made him Grog and her Pike was really just one thing, that had gotten confused somewhere along the way and ended up in two bodies, still joined at the hip and able to recognize its other half. Grog likes to think that they were destined to meet each other, because he can’t bear the thought of some other Grog, in some other world, without a Pike. When he conveyed this thought to Pike (slowly, haltingly, struggling to find the right words to mean ‘I think our souls are one’ when he’d never learned much about souls in the first place) she agreed wholeheartedly and told him that the gods do strange things sometimes, and maybe it wasn’t an accident.
They cry some nights. Pike always pretends she doesn’t see but always shifts just a bit closer and puts her head on his arm and asks if he wants to see if Tilly the Baker will be willing to trade stale pastries for help stacking firewood tomorrow. When Grog turns his head and sees stars reflected in the tears on her cheeks, he gasps like he’s been hit (and no physical injury has ever made him gasp like that) and curls around her, miles of pale goliath skin encircling her like he can keep out what hurts even when it lies inside.
They stay like that until the sky turns gray then sneak back home before Wilhand wakes up, slipping into their shared room with one big bed and one small, pulling cold blankets over themselves and closing their eyes just as the door creaks open and the old man checks on them. As soon as the door closes they open their eyes and giggle to each other, the night already behind them as the sun’s first rays peek through their window.
--
Grog is too big, and growing too fast, all of his limbs too long to keep up with and his strength growing faster than he can account for it. He is a menace, banging into furniture and knocking over everything he reaches for and he doesn’t mean to, they know he doesn’t mean to, but one day the old grandfather clock in the corner comes crashing down and while Grog stands there staring at it like it bit him, Wilhand jumps to his feet and snaps, “All right, that’s it!”
Grog and Pike both jump and turn to him with wide eyes. Grog shoots a glance at the door, suddenly looking more scared than he ever has. Wilhand huffs a great sigh and puts his hands on his hips.
“No, you great lug, you don’t need to go. Sarenrae knows I won’t kick you out over this. But the time has passed to do something about this clumsiness of yours! You, my boy,” he says, jabbing a finger at Grog, who was looking immensely relieved (and a little embarrassed) a moment ago, but jumps again at the sudden movement, “are going to learn to fight.”
There’s a long silence as Grog looks at Pike, then slowly looks back at Wilhand. “But I know how to fight,” he says, baffled. “I learned to fight soon’s I could walk!”
Wilhand scoffs. “Sure, you learned to fight when you were little! But you’ve gotten quite a bit bigger now, and you need someone to teach you where to put your feet before you bring this whole house down ‘round our ears!”
Grog frowns, put out at the slight to his abilities, but carefully considering the idea nonetheless. “Well,” he says, drumming his fingers against his leg restlessly. “I do miss fighting, a little bit. And it’d be nice to hold an axe again. I do love the feel of a good axe in my hand.”
Wilhand nods and claps a hand on his thigh, as high as he can reach after Grog’s latest growth spurt. “That’s my boy. I’ll get you set up with a tutor in no time, just leave it to ol’ Wilhand.”
Pike clears her throat and two sets of eyes jump to her, two pairs of eyebrows raising. Pike stands with her fists on her hips and her chin out and that gleam in her eye that says she’s made up her mind and there’s nothing anyone can do to change it.
“If Grog is going to learn to fight, then so am I,” she declares.
They blink.
“I’m not gonna let him go off and have all the fun without me,” she continues, unabashed. “I’d get bored all day around here alone. I’m going to train with him.”
Wilhand hesitates, but Grog breaks out in a grin and sweeps Pike off her feet, plunking her on his shoulder and dancing about the room. “Yeah, that’s right! Me and my buddy Pike, we’re gonna learn together!”
Wilhand sighs, but smiles fondly. “Oh, all right. I’ll find someone who’ll take on two students.” He winces. “Watch the chair, Grog—“
--
Madam Quinys Tabrak is a tall, dark-skinned woman with close-cropped dark hair and crow’s eyes, and Pike is sure she sees a smile hiding in the wrinkles at her eyes. She nods when Pike introduces them as brother and sister and slaps Grog’s hand when he reaches for an axe. She teaches them how to stand and how to place their feet in a sunbaked courtyard until they’re drenched in sweat and so exhausted both physically and mentally they can no longer consciously remember what to do, but still bend their knees and step one two when Quinys claps her hands.
Finally, the sun begins to set and Quinys smiles, and brings them inside to a small kitchen where she gives them cool water and slices of fruit and meat sandwiches and tells them you’ll do well and I’ll see you tomorrow and give old Wilhand my best and the two trudge home through the darkening city and collapse in their bed as the old man chuckles.
--
Battle rushes through Grog’s veins as surely as blood, and it isn’t long before he’s holding an axe again. He throws himself headlong into every exercise, body moving on muscle memory alone as he all but loses himself in the reverberation of each strike through his body. Quinys, with her crow’s eyes and mind like a whip, watches each move he makes, every step and swing and slam, and sees past it, through it, to the thunder in his eyes and the unchecked fury in every movement.
“You have to learn to channel it, Grog,” she says one day, sitting him down in the shade as she teaches them to maintain their weapons. “Your rage. You can’t let it control you: you have to learn to focus it into something useful. It’s tool, just like your axe. You wouldn’t let your axe swing you around.”
Grog scoffs at the thought, but when they go back to their lessons he pays attention to every word she says.
Pike doesn’t love the feel of a weapon in hand the same as he does; she learns to swing a mace and feels comfortable with the heavy grip in her palms, enjoys the feeling of flexing her growing muscles, but doesn’t take the same visceral joy in feeling her blows land and a target give way before her. She starts to spend more time during their lessons watching Grog than paying attention to her own drills, seeing his glazed eyes and bared teeth and flared nose, seeing her big brother in a way she never has before.
She goes to Quinys one day, while Grog whales away at a dummy.
“Is it… healthy?” she asks, softly, almost embarrassed to ask but needing the answer.
The training-master tilts her head and puts one hand on her hip, mulling it over, her eyes roving over Grog, assessing. She doesn’t bother asking what she means. “We all fight for different reasons, Pike,” she says finally. “Some of us fight because we have to, some for the sport, some for money, and some because they love it. Grog loves to fight. That boy won’t be happy unless he has a fight to win, and when those fights come, his rage could keep him alive.”
Quinys looks down at her, meeting Pike’s concerned gaze, and her eyes soften. “And he’s still Grog, Pike. He’s still your brother, through and through. And if you’re worried about him, talk to him. That boy will tell you anything.”
Pike smiles and looks down and feels a hand on her shoulder.
“And Pike,” Quinys adds, when she looks back up at her. “Maybe it’s time you start thinking about why you fight, and how far you want to go down this road.” She tilts her head to indicate Grog, who stands panting in front of the demolished training dummy. “I’d say Grog has found his calling, but I think you should look for yours outside the battleground.” She squeezes Pike’s shoulder and smiles. “Just a thought. You’ll always be welcome here, as long as you like.”
She strides over to Grog and claps a hand on his shoulder, and Pike watches them go, biting her lip and looking down at the mace in her hands.
--
Pike tells Grog and Wilhand that she’s decided to become an acolyte at the temple of Sarenrae just after dinner, when the three of them are hazy with warmth and fullness, gathered around the fireplace.
Wilhand immediately jumps up from his raggedy old arm chair and swings her around, planting kisses all over her cheeks and forehead as she laughs and pushes him off. He runs to the shrine of Sarenrae and kisses its feet, hooting with glee as he dances around the living room.
Pike meets Grog’s eyes and he drops his startled expression, giving her a smile that she can’t quite pretend isn’t forced.
“That’s great, Pike,” he says, and Wilhand bounds in between them and takes Pike’s hands in his own.
“You’re darn tootin’ that’s great!” he exclaims. “My Pike. Y’know I always hoped, but I couldn’t make the decision for you, see.”
She spends a long time talking with Wilhand as he grills her about the temple, how much has she spoken to the clerics there, of course they were delighted to have you, they’ve got brains in their heads don’t they?, you’ll still come home and visit, you wouldn’t forget your great-great-grandfather, would you? And by the time Wilhand is yawning and sending her off to bed with a final kiss on her forehead, she realizes that Grog somehow managed to leave the room without either of them noticing.
--
She finds him on the roof, of course.
Stretched out at the highest point, arms crossed behind his head as he stares up at the stars (and it’s not a completely clear night but the moon is bright enough to reflect off the whites of his eyes), Grog doesn’t move as Pike approaches, clambering up the roof and laying down at his side, tugging one of his arms down so she can rest her head on it.
They lay in silence for a while, until finally Grog breaks it.
His voice is undeniably thick but he’s clearly trying hard to keep it even as he asks, “Why?”
Pike thinks it over, shuffling so she’s laying on her side, her head propped on one large bicep (he’s grown so much lately, a full-sized goliath now, they’ve both been growing too fast) as she faces him. He resolutely keeps his eyes on the sky, but his arm curls around her nonetheless.
“Why do you get so angry when you fight?” she asks him.
Grog frowns. “What d’you mean?”
“When you fight, you get all… rage-y. Why does that happen?”
Grog shrugs, Pike’s head moving with his broad shoulders. “It just… does.”
She nudges him sharply in the ribs, and he scoots away from it before pulling her back to his side. “That’s not answer.”
Grog blows out a breath and raises his free arm, gesturing helplessly. “I dunno. I’m not really… angry at anything. I love to fight, you know I do, and when I have a weapon in my hands and something to swing it at I just feel… alive, y’know? Like, my blood is pumping, and everything smells and tastes and feels so much… more, and better, and it’s kinda like being really, really excited, because you’re good at what you’re doing and you can’t wait to do more of it. Does that make sense?”
He finally turns his head to look at her, and just like always Pike squashes the urge to reach out and wipe the tears from his cheeks. Instead, she nods.
“You feel like you’re doing what you were meant to do.”
Grog grins and leans forward to bump his forehead affectionately against hers. “Yeah, that’s right! You’re so smart, Pike, you always know the words to use.”
Pike smiles, and pats his arm, then gives him a more serious look. “Grog, the way you feel when you’re fighting… that’s how I feel when I help people. Becoming an acolyte of Sarenrae, becoming a cleric… that’s what I was meant to do.”
Grog gives her a long, mournful look, but she can tell he understands. “What’ll I do without you, Pike?” he asks softly. “You’re my buddy Pike.”
“You’ll be fine, Grog. You’re real strong, and it’s not like I’m going away forever. I’ll still see you, just… not as much. Sarenrae is the goddess of second chances. She wouldn’t take away my chances of seeing you again.”
Grog makes a soft sound between a moan and a whine and gathers her up more fully into an embrace. Pike holds him back as best she can, laying her head on his shoulder.
“I don’t want to give you up,” he confesses softly. “Why can’t things just be the way they always were?”
“It’s part of growing up, Grog,” Pike says, wrapping her arms around his neck and squeezing. “Everybody’s gotta do it some time.”
Grog falls into another long silence, then finally says, softly, “Sarenrae gave you to me. You were my second chance. I guess… I guess if I have to, I can give you back.”
They stay like that, clinging to each other, until the stars fade and the sun comes back up.
Wilhand doesn’t even yell.
--
The separation is hard, at first. Grog finds himself constantly looking over his shoulder, or casting some comment to someone who isn’t there. He mopes (not that anyone dares call it that to his face) through the city, tracing his and Pike’s old routes with lifeless steps and glowers at anyone who gets in his path. Those that know him best look at him with pity; everyone who visits the temple makes sure to tell the clerics and let Pike know her big brother says hello.
He feels most alive when he’s fighting. He stopped the formal lessons ages ago, but he still visits Madam Quinys for sparring matches, more and more frequently and one day he finds her waiting in the entranceway to the courtyard with a wrapped package.
She thrusts it out to him and he takes it, hesitantly, eyebrows raised. At her nod, he tears open the wrapping to find a shiny new battle axe, perfectly balanced the way he likes and decorated with bear teeth strung on twine and wrapped around the handle. He gapes at it, swings it around, then stares at her.
She smiles, ever so slightly, and says, “You’ve spent enough time in the training grounds, Grog. Time to go find the real fights.”
He looks at her like he wants to hug her but doesn’t quite know how and she spares him by giving him a short, formal bow.
“It was an honor and a pleasure, Grog.”
He grins with all his teeth and bows back.
“Likewise.”
--
When Grog tells Wilhand that he’s going to take some mercenary work and he’ll be out of town for the next several days escorting a caravan to Kymal, the old man nearly has a heart attack.
It takes an hour of arguing and no, see, it won’t even really be dangerous, no one attacks caravans on that route and I’m well-armed and I can fight better than anyone, you know I’ll be fine before Wilhand relents.
“Young man,” he says sternly, pointing a commanding finger in Grog’s nose where the goliath knelt down to properly argue with him, “if you do not return home safe and sound within the week, I will be very upset with you.”
Grog ruffles the old gnome’s hair, takes the bag of food and the full waterskin that are shoved into his arms, and goes to the temple.
--
When the clerics finally fetch her, Pike runs up and leaps into Grog’s arms. He holds her tight and spins her around, then plops her on his shoulder out of pure habit.
“What’ve you got all this stuff for, Grog?” she asks, drumming her heels on his chest.
He grins and holds out his axe. “I’m taking a real mercenary job. I’m escorting a caravan to Kymal. If I’m lucky, I might get to fight off some bandits!”
Pike gasps and grills him for details and when he’s done she bumps her fist against the side of his head. “You be safe, Grog, and come see me when you get back! Kick some bandit butt for me, okay?”
“Okay, Pike,” Grog says with a grin, grabbing Pike and twirling her around one last time before setting her back down. With a wave and a smile, he hoists his axe onto his shoulder and sets off.
--
Grog returns from Kymal with nothing more than a bruise from tripping over a stone in the road.
It does little to ease Wilhand’s nerves when he announces his next job.
They go on like that; sometimes he comes home without a scratch, sometimes covered in dried blood and makeshift bandages, but he always comes home with a pouch full of gold and lungfuls of stories, told at the top of his lungs to anyone who’ll listen.
He passes off most of the gold to Wilhand; the way he sees it, he has little need of it (shiny as it is, and he does keep some to look at) and he feels a perpetual debt to the old man. Bags of gold seems like very little when weighed against a home, a second chance, and years of love like he never knew existed.
One day, Wilhand calls Grog into the kitchen and laying on the table is a massive pauldron in the shape of a giant animal skull. When Grog does nothing but gape at it, Wilhand laughs.
“It’s for you, my boy. We don’t know when your birthday is, but it’s the anniversary of the day you came to live with us, and I figure that’s close enough. I thought you might like something to keep you safe on the road.”
Grog lunges past the table to hug the old man, who laughs and pushes him off and over to the gift. He pulls it on and buckles the wide leather strap and flexes, showing off to a laughing Wilhand.
He rolls his shoulder under the unfamiliar weight and grins.
--
His name starts to spread, as more than that troublesome half-giant boy living with the gnomes. He starts to hang out at the same bar day after day, and word spreads that if you’re looking for some serious muscle, you go there and find the goliath. Giant skull on his shoulder and a fuck-off axe strapped to his back. Can’t miss him.
He travels further and further from Westruun on jobs, spends more time camping in the wilderness with strangers who look at him like a wild animal that might attack at any moment. Sometimes he tells funny stories about his buddy Pike until they ease up and smile at him. Sometimes he bares his teeth in their direction and sharpens his axe until they leave him well alone.
It’s in that bar that he meets the twins.
Two shadow-birds, they seem to melt out of the shadows as they approach, one with a large bow slung over their back and one swamped in a cloak, a mug of ale held out in offering.
“Are you Grog Strongjaw?” the archer asks, and he thinks that one might be a girl from the sound of it. He eyes the mug, then snatches it and throws it back.
“Yeah, that’s me,” he grunts afterwards, wiping foam from his mouth with the back of his hand. “You looking to hire?”
“We have a proposition for you,” the other says, and that one is probably a boy, Grog thinks.
Grog makes a face. “Look, not that the two of you aren’t good-looking and all—” he begins, before the girl cuts him off.
“Not that kind of proposition,” she says. “We want to offer you a… partnership, of sorts.”
He raises an eyebrow and nods at her to continue.
“We’re looking to start an adventuring party,” she says. “Talented people like yourselves and my brother and I, all working together for mutual gain. We can take on greater challenges, bigger jobs, and get a larger pay and better loot for our trouble. We hear you’re the best mercenary in Westruun, and you can do more than caravan runs and escort missions.”
Grog looks them over. They’re tiny—not as tiny as Pike and Wilhand, of course, but scrawny and more than a foot shorter than him. “And you two are pretty good in a fight too, I suppose, then?” letting his disbelief color his words.
Without a word, the archer draws her bow and fires without looking. Grog turns to follow the arrow and sees it sticking out of the bullseye on the dartboard across the bar. A moment later, there’s a flash and then a knife is embedded in the same board, hardly an inch off the arrow. Grog turns back to the twins to see the boy with a smirk on his face and the cloak pulled back to reveal a belt of knives.
He looks at them for a moment, then leans back and laughs, a full belly laugh that has everyone at the nearby tables looking to see what’s so funny. The archer has her hackles up, clearly not taking kindly to the supposed mockery, and her brother just blinks.
Grog finally calms down and wipes tears from his eyes, then grins at the two of them, eyes gleaming with the promise of blood in the future. “And you say you can promise me bigger fights, yeah?” he asks.
“Yeah, big guy,” the boy says, grinning back. “All the fights you can handle.”
“Well then,” Grog says, rolling his shoulders. “Count me in.”
--
Wilhand, rather predictably, isn’t happy about it.
“So you’re just going to up and leave with the strangers, forever?” he bursts out when Grog returns and tells him the news.
“It’s not forever,” he tries to interject, but there’s no stopping the old man. He bundles around the living room, waving his hands over his head.
“Two strangers come up to you in a bar and promise blood and fortune, and you’re ready to go off into the wilderness with them and never return! I should’ve known this would happen someday.”
“Wilhand—“
“And what about me, poor sad old Wilhand left all alone in his big old empty house because his children are off fulfilling their destinies…” He abruptly deflates and turns to Grog, gesturing imperiously. Grog dutifully crouches down in front of him and Wilhand takes his face in his hands.
“It’s just my luck that I happened to get two children fated for great things, hm? I always knew it, y’know. I always said, to anybody who’d listen, I said to them, my Pike, my Grog, they’re gonna grow up and be important someday. They’re going to do something.” He sighs and pats Grog’s cheek. “You grew up too fast. Both of you. What am I gonna do without you, hm?”
Grog places his large hand over Wilhand’s tiny one. “It’s not forever. I’ll come back, promise. And Pike’s just over at the temple.”
Wilhand sighs again. “Aye, I suppose so. Well, far be it from me to keep my children from their destinies. You go off with these strangers, and you stay safe, and the next time I see you, you’ll be great. I can feel it in my bones.” He tilts Grog’s head down to lay a kiss on his forehead. “And don’t you forget old Wilhand out there in the great unknown.”
Grog feels a surge of affection for the old man, smiling down at him and gathering him into a hug. “Never.”
--
Saying good-bye to Pike is the hardest thing Grog has ever had to do.
Standing outside the temple doors, Grog reflects that the last time he was this nervous, he was about to put himself between an angry Kevdak and a helpless old man.
He hopes this will work out as well as that did.
Despite everything, he still feels as light as always when he sees Pike. He smiles wide and easy and genuine as he lifts her up into a hug and she laughs as she wraps her arms around one wide bicep.
“Grog,” she says, in that way that’s uniquely hers, her voice brimming with affection. “It’s been so long! You don’t come see me anymore.”
Immediately filled with guilt, Grog goes still, and naturally, Pike notices. She leans back, trusting as ever that he won’t let her fall (and he shifts his arms to account for her without a thought), and looks into his face. His eyes dart away and she narrows hers, suddenly suspicious.
“Grog, what is it?” she asks, tapping his arm to get his attention.
“I… I, uh—“ he stammers, suddenly nervous and unable to tell her. What will she think of him, to betray her like this? To leave her like this?
“Grog,” she says sternly, but he can see concern growing in her eyes and he has to tell her. He can never keep anything from Pike.
“I joined an adventuring party,” he blurts out, then looks away. Then immediately looks back, his shoulders creeping up towards his ears in preemptive defense but Pike only blinks.
“A what?”
“An adventuring party,” he says. “Y’know, like… bunch of people, go out, fight monsters, save damsels… that kind of thing. I joined one.”
Pike nods slowly, and Grog can’t read her face. He doesn’t know when she got like this, so good at hiding her thoughts, so calm all the time so he can’t tell if she’s mad at him.
So he asks.
“Are you mad at me, Pike?”
She blinks, then reaches out to squeeze his arm. “No, of course not, Grog! I guess I always sort of suspected you might, one day. It always seemed the thing for you to do, going out on adventures, since you’re so strong and all. I think this is what you were meant to do.”
“Aww, Pike,” Grog cuts in, and she smiles at him, but it’s tight in a way he doesn’t like, that makes something soft in his chest hurt.
“I just… You’re… leaving Westruun, then?” she says, softly, and his arms close around her.
“Yeah,” he says, his voice gruff because he will not cry in the middle of a temple, damn it. “I guess I am.”
“I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too, Pike.”
And he holds her close and buries his face in her fair hair and if a few tears leak out, no one can see, and Pike would never tell anybody.
--
“You ready, big guy?” Knife-boy (Vax, he’s Vax and she’s Vex, gotta remember that now) asks, standing by his sister (and her bear—she has a pet bear, as it turns out) a little way down the road. Grog pauses just outside the gates of Westruun, looking back over his shoulder.
Wilhand’s house is already long out of sight. He thinks, maybe, he can make out the spire of the temple of Sarenrae from here, but he’s not sure.
Grog hefts his pack more securely over his shoulder, then turns back to the twins. Vex raises an eyebrow and he grunts and walks to meet them.
“Yeah,” he says, brushing past them. “I’m ready.”
--
As it turns out, he actually likes Vex and Vax, and it’s this that keeps him on the road when the first few missions are barely different from what he was doing on his own.
“We have to get our names out there,” Vex says one night, clasping a mug of ale tightly between her hands and sitting ramrod-straight on her chair around their small round table in the corner of the crowded bar. “People just need to hear about us. Once they know we’re out here, we’ll get bigger jobs. You’ll see.”
There’s a gleam in Vex’s eyes that Grog recognizes, he thinks, from his days on the plains. There’s a hunger in her soul that he nods to. Greatness lurks around her, and she can see it, with crow’s eyes that remind Grog of the training-master back in Westruun. Someday she’ll snatch it, bite and claw her way to it. Grog thinks he’d be happy to help her along.
Vax claps a hand on both their shoulders, already well on his way to drunk. “Don’t worry so much, sister,” he says, a little too loud. His smile is loose and easy and he sags against Grog. “We’ll get there. We’ll stumble our way into fame soon enough. Right, big guy?”
Grog snorts. If anyone would trip into infamy, it would be Vax; for a man who may as well disappear into thin air when he wants, he is as likely as Grog to find himself nose-to-nose with danger, and far less likely to be there on purpose. Unless, of course, his sister is involved; there’s a steely edge under the man’s easy exterior, and it comes out when his twin is in trouble. Grog knows it intimately; he holds the same one close to his own heart.
“Yeah,” he says, belatedly, and Vax laughs it off, then hooks his arm around the goliath’s neck. Grog’s should twitches but he allows it.
“We’re gonna go far, big man,” he says, shaking his finger in Grog’s face. “Trust me. It’ll come to us.”
--
Greatness comes to them in several forms:
Of a gnome in bright clothing, whose weight feels familiar when he sits on Grog’s shoulder and strums his lute (“You remind me of someone,” Grog says one day as they walk, the gnome humming idly on his shoulder. “Someone handsome, I hope,” he shoots back with a smirk. Grog smiles. “The best person in the whole world. Maybe you’ll meet her someday.” “Her, you say? I’d definitely like to.” And he winks and Grog swats at him and they go on, laughing), who makes him laugh more than anyone ever has before and takes him on adventures through new cities that they speak of only in whispers and muffled laughter around the rest of the group;
Of a girl with antlers on her head (and it takes a little while before Grog realizes they’re fake, when he sees her take them off and thinks she’s about to die) who bends the very world around them to her will and can turn into wild beasts (“Minxie!” he exclaimed in glee when he first saw the big white cat with massive fangs. They all laughed at him, but no one ever refers to the tiger as anything else after), who will wrestle him and still come out all right;
Of a boy with white hair and wild eyes and glasses with shiny frames, who speaks in an odd way and has complicated machines that Grog at first mistakes for magic, when smoke comes out the front and an enemy a field away falls to the ground (“Why did you make something to do your killing for you?” Grog asks as he watches him clean the gun, entranced. He looks up and raises an eyebrow. “Does your axe do the killing, or do you?” he shoots back. “I take full responsibility for what my inventions do.” And he suddenly goes quiet and looks far away, so Grog leaves him.).
They make a good group; after a little awkwardness with each new arrival they settle into an easy status quo, and very soon it becomes obvious how well they work together. They fit like pieces of the same puzzle put together at last, like something obviously meant to be. At night around the campfire, or after a successful mission crowded comfortably together in a tavern, they share bits of themselves—awkwardly at first, but soon stories of hilarious accidents and childhood jokes turn to stories of history. Of family.
Grog learns about Vex and Vax’s mother, and eventually learns about the dragon that killed her. He learns about Keyleth’s father and her tribe and the weight of their expectations. He learns about Scanlan’s music troupe. He learns that Percy had a big family, that he’s from the north, and that he doesn’t like to talk about it. Little by little, Grog tells them, too; he tells them about Wilhand, and about Pike. He tells them, slowly, staring at the knots in the wood table, about Kevdak.
They get bigger jobs, fight bigger monsters, get bigger rewards.
It’s good.
He’s happy.
He misses Pike.
--
The house feels so empty with Grog gone, feels barren, like something vital is missing and the house itself is straining for its return.
Pike visits home more, acutely aware of her great-great-grandfather all alone, stops by for dinner and tells him stories about the temple and its patrons and hears the kind of gossip that no one talks about around the priests.
“It’s quiet,” Wilhand says one night as they wash the dishes after dinner, suddenly going still and looking up at the ceiling. “I keep expecting to hear him stomping around.” He chuckles. “I keep thinking he’s up to something, trying to hide from me.” He looks down and belatedly starts washing the plate again. “I’m sure he’s all right,” he adds in a mumble, almost to himself.
Pike nudges him with her shoulder. “He’s Grog,” she says. “Of course he’s all right.”
--
As the days go by, Pike starts to feel… strange.
Every day at the temple of Sarenrae is mostly the same as every other. It’s a cycle of prayers, lessons (religious, historical, and magical in turns), and temple duties that only ever changes in the details from day to day. At first, Pike had found it comforting; moving to a new place, completely unlike all she’d known before, the structure had given her a grounding as she began her new life.
But now, she was beginning to feel… itchy.
During lessons, she struggled to pay attention, following the paths of the sunbeams from the classroom floor to the stained glass window. She watched the birds outside and the face of Sarenrae in the window in equal measure, and wanted to ask both of them Is this really it?
Wracked with guilt and uncertainty, she doubled her efforts in performing her duties, cleaning the temple and helping the priests at the altar. She spoke the loudest during prayers, and at night before she slept she knelt by her bed and looked at the statue of Sarenrae smiling benevolently down at her from her nightstand and asked for help.
“I thought this was what I was meant to do,” she whispered. “I want to serve you, but why do I feel this way? What did I do wrong?”
One night, she feels a warm hand on her shoulder and sees sun outside her window and hears softly in her ear, “Do not fear, my child, you are on the right path. And wherever you go next, I will be with you.”
The next thing she knows, Pike is waking up with aching knees and one hand clenched tight around her holy symbol, a subtle light shining out from between her fingers.
--
Pike sees Grog again, and almost wishes she hadn’t.
He doesn’t come home; she only glimpses him from across the square, but it is undeniably him, from the tattoos on his face to the skull on his shoulder to the axe on his back it’s Grog, and she waves and calls out to him but he doesn’t so much as turn his head to look. He disappears off into the crowd and she runs after him, desperate to know what he’s doing here and why he isn’t either off adventuring or at home with Wilhand.
By the time she finds him, he’s leaving the city gates and she runs to them in time to see him marching off towards the looming Gatshadow, eyes staring straight ahead and unheeding to her continued cries.
She wants to run after him but the sun is setting and her arms are full of herbs she needs to get to the temple so she only stands for another moment and watches him go, then turns and scurries off back into the depths of Westruun.
--
Pike is on edge the entire day when it comes, constantly looking over her shoulder and unable to shake the prickling on the back of her neck and the quiet voice at the base of her skull that urges her to Go. She’s been twitchy ever since she saw Grog, plagued by the thought of his unnatural stare and the way he marched, all stiff, rigid movements, nothing like the predator’s grace he grew into.
She leaves the temple after her final lesson and goes to Wilhand for a hug and a meal, hoping some conversation and the feel of home will ease her nerves. He notices something is off but she dismisses it as nothing but stress, some long days and restless nights, nothing to worry about, but would he mind if she spent the night in her old room?
She is, of course, welcome, and she spends the night in Grog’s big bed, curled up on his pillow and imagining that it still carries something of him.
The next morning, they arrive.
Pike opens the door to a half-elf girl with dark hair and she looks for just a second above her head before her eyes drop down to her level.
“Oh,” she says, like a weight she’s been carrying for days has been lifted off her shoulders. “You must be Pike.”
--
The half-elf’s name is Vex’ahlia, and she is the one who swept Pike’s brother away, and has now seemed to have lost him.
Pike cannot bring herself to bear any ill will towards her.
Vex is clearly worried, has bags under her eyes and her fingers drum nervously on the table as she sits down to talk to Pike.
“I’m so glad I’ve finally found you,” she confesses, gratefully taking long sips of tea Wilhand produced as soon as he heard they had guests. “We’ve been looking for you—Grog talks about you all the time, and we were hoping you’d seen him. He said he wanted to go visit home, and we were of course happy to let him go off on his own for a bit—business has been a bit slow lately—but we thought he’d be back by now, or he’d have at least contacted us. We’ve been worried sick, to tell you the truth.” Vex laughs, high and nervous, and downs the last of her tea. “Grog can take care of himself, of course, but he’s a dear friend, and I can’t bear the thought of him hurt and alone somewhere.”
Pike nods, biting her lip, and in the back of her mind hears, Go.
“I know where he went,” she says slowly, and Vex snaps to attention. “I saw him, not too long ago, marching all alone towards Gatshadow. He was acting strange, but I didn’t… I couldn’t follow him then.”
She pushes back from the table and stands up, looking Vex’ahlia in the eye, who glances around, clearly unsure what Pike is about to do.
“I’m coming with you to find him,” she declares.
Vex raises her eyebrows. “Are you sure, darling?” she asks. “It’ll be very dangerous.”
Pike nods, and she doesn’t know quite where she gets the confidence as she replies, “Yes.”
--
Wilhand, as it turns out, is wiser than any of them give him credit for; he produces a suit of armor and when Pike gawks at him simply shrugs and tells her, “I always thought your destiny might lie beyond these walls.”
Speechless, she hugs him tightly and he helps her put it on. She pulls her holy symbol over her head and lets it rest against her breastplate, glowing faintly.
Wilhand whistles softly. “Does it always do that?” he asks.
Pike lifts it with one gauntleted hand. “No,” she says. “Only when I make the right decision.”
--
It feels strange to hold a mace in her hand again, but it feels good to hit the old bastard responsible for her best friend’s empty eyes. Her holy symbol glows brighter than ever as she uses the magic the priests taught her to heal her new comrades-in-arms, these mysterious strangers who are risking their lives for her brother.
It’s a strange feeling, seeing the evidence of Grog’s life outside their family for herself. She wonders in between breaths if Grog felt the same when he visited the temple.
Either way, once they’ve saved Grog, she’s planning on getting to know them.
--
When Grog opens his eyes and sees Pike, at first he thinks he’s died. He stares wide-eyed and slack-jawed into her familiar face, and slowly the details come into focus and he realizes he hurts entirely too much to be dead.
Pike’s hair is mussed and her face is smeared with sweat and grime and there’s a cut on her cheek and her eyes are full of worry, real worry, the kind he rarely sees. She’s in full armor, holding a mace at her side. Just behind her, the rest of the party hovers anxiously around him, but he has eyes only for Pike.
It takes a few tries for him to speak; his mouth feels full of dust and his tongue feels heavy and awkward. He swallows a few times, then manages to get out, “Pike.”
She seems to snap out of a daze and drops her mace, grabbing one of his hands in both of hers. She smiles at him, tired and stressed but genuine, and says, “Oh, Grog. Look at the mess you’ve gotten into without me.”
He smiles and squeezes her hand. “Always did need you to look out for me, Pike.”
“Grog,” she says, in her Pike way. “You know I always will.”
--
Without a word spoken about it, Pike joins the team.
They are all, immediately, in love with her.
Even as they go through the stressful trial of removing the phylactery from Grog’s chest, Pike charms each and every member of the S.H.I.T.S. (“That can’t really be your name,” she whispers to Grog, scandalized. “What? It’s a good name!” he responds, affronted. She only sighs, which means he wins the argument) just by being Pike. She asks Percy about his inventions and listens to his existential ramblings with a serious expression; she has enthusiastic conversations with Keyleth about the local wildlife; she exchanges gossip with Vex and once planted herself in Vax’s path, looked him square in the eye, and told him in a stern voice to go talk to his sister after a brief spat.
It’s a strange feeling for Grog, watching Pike bond with his new party members. For so long, their bond was a thing very much theirs and only theirs; they had friends in Westruun, people who they saw regularly, spoke to, tussled with or played with, they were also so wrapped up in each other that everyone else was entirely pushed to the periphery.
But these past long months with his new party has left Grog with the comfortable knowledge that he would risk his life for theirs and he feels oddly vulnerable seeing them with Pike, like by allowing them to meet and bond with her he is offering up a part of himself, like he’s baring his throat and hoping they won’t cut it.
He’s a little jealous, at first, struggling to keep himself from hovering around her as she spoke to them, from making embarrassing pleas for attention to remind himself that she still loves him best. He’s proud, and satisfied, watching the rest of the party fall in love with his buddy Pike—because it is only right that everyone love Pike, but can’t help the nagging voice that whines she was mine first.
She knows, of course, because she’s Pike, and because she’s Pike, she’s kind about it. She always comes back to him, no matter what she does with their comrades or how much time she spends with them, she always circles back to Grog. They spend a day together apart from the rest of the group (and as time goes on they spend it less and less apart—Scanlan joins them often and is welcome, fits into the spaces between them almost seamlessly), or curl up together at night and whisper for long hours, or bump shoulders during a meal, a constant reassurance that loving more people doesn’t mean loving each other any less.
--
Another door slams shut in Vex’s face, the laughing face of the mayor of the small town disappearing from view. Quivering, her spine ramrod-straight and her eyes blazing with barely contained fury, Vex turned on her heel and stalked back to the rest of the group, Scanlan trotting at her heels with an odd expression mixing irritation, concern, and fear aimed at her back.
Before anyone can make the half-dozen reassuring comments they were preparing, Vex snaps, “We need a new name so these fucking backwater assholes take us seriously when we offer our help.”
Grog looks at Scanlan, expecting him to raise a stink, but he puts his hands up in surrender before anyone can even say a word.
That night, after much (increasingly drunken) debate and at least thirteen (increasingly terrible) suggestions (primarily from Scanlan and Grog, who seemed to have given up on the process a few hours in and spent the rest of the night blurting out the first thing that came to mind), the name Vox Machina is born, accepted, and made permanent on threat of death by a very drunk Vex, who immediately afterwards downs the rest of her drink, slams her mug back down on the table, and marches off to bed.
They take out the bandits harassing the town the next day, regardless of the mayor’s opinion on their (former) moniker, and when Grog drops the leader’s body on his doorstep as Vex shoves the wanted poster in his face, they get paid anyway.
--
The twins fulfill the promise they made to Grog when it all started: they continue to move on to bigger and bigger fights. They make powerful friends and allies and find themselves in increasingly influential positions, where Grog is always happy to take a step back and let the smaller ones handle things, Scanlan with his silver tongue and Vex with her charm and ambition and Vax with his stubborn idealism and Percy with his noble history and Keyleth with her journey to be a leader and even his Pike with her wisdom. He stands behind them, puts himself between them and danger, makes himself into a stone wall in their defense and an unstoppable force against their enemies. He improves his abilities at a breakneck pace, leagues faster than anything he could have achieved in a courtyard training with dummies.
He watches Pike blossom. He watches as she gains incredible power, both to heal and to call forth the might of the gods to punish their opponents. Her relationship with Sarenrae was always so foreign to him before, a part of her that was locked inside the temple where he couldn’t follow. Now he sees it more clearly—still something removed from him, but so inherently Pike that he can’t help but hold it dear to his heart. He watches her glow with divine radiance as she heals their injuries and helps the sick and wounded they meet along the way, and thinks that finally the whole world can see her goodness made physical. He learns a few rudimentary prayers so he can join Pike when she prays before bed and occasionally even means them.
He can’t believe he ever thought that going to the temple was Pike’s true calling; every day they spend on the road, seeing Pike’s eyes light up whenever they stop to help people, laughing and cheering with each other as they continue to train and improve, long days in good company and big fights against the deserving and all of it together, side by side like always. How could anything other than this be their purpose?
--
They go to Vasselheim.
Vasselheim is a wonderful city: it has a guild dedicated to hunting the biggest and baddest monsters out there (granted many of them are right pricks or huge idiots, but he’s a big enough man to move past that, and really Kash and Zahra are okay), a legally sanctioned battle arena where he can punch the shit out of people without even getting in trouble for it (Keyleth getting in trouble is, as ever, an entirely different story), and a temple dedicated to the coolest god Grog had ever heard of (making, at least, three or four gods total) run by the coolest old man Grog had ever met (with the deepest and most sincere apologies to Wilhand for the thought).
Grog can’t stand the place.
Pike stands in the doorway of the rundown temple of Sarenrae, one hand resting on the threshold and a look on her face of both deep mourning and deeper determination. Grog stands slack jawed with burning eyes as the rest of the groups says their quiet goodbyes and all Grog can feel is the tearing feeling inside his chest of betrayal as he realizes he was wrong the whole time.
Sarenrae did want Pike at a temple.
Just not the one in Westruun.
As the rest of the group moves away to a respectful distance (because they know, they know that as much as they love and are loved by Grog and Pike, they will always have something special between them that the rest don’t share, and Vax gives him a pat on the shoulder as he passes because he knows, he understands what it is to be one half of a whole, and he doesn’t know what it is to be left but he knows that he could not bear it), Grog takes one lurching, jilted step towards Pike, then another, then drops down to one knee in front of her.
“Oh, Grog,” she says sadly, and reaches up to touch his face and he realizes he’s crying, has probably been crying for a while now. He lays his large hand over her small one and squeezes like he can keep her with him if only he holds on tight enough.
“It’s okay, Pike,” he says gruffly, clearing his throat like it’ll keep him from sounding like his heart is wedged in his throat. “I thought we had it figured out, is all. I thought you were meant to stay with us.”
“Things change, Grog,” she says, looking back over her shoulder into the dusty interior of the temple. “I’m most needed here, now, and the world needs you with Vox Machina. Someday, when my work is done here, I’ll come join you all again.”
“I wish they didn’t have to,” he grunts, glancing away. “I just wish things could be the way they always were, y’know, just you and me against the world.”
“I know,” Pike says softly, and there’s a wistfulness in her voice like she has that same dream, but has long since acknowledged it as a fantasy. “But we have responsibilities now. We’re not kids anymore, and a lot of people are counting on us.”
“Yeah,” Grog says, because he knows, he recognizes that there’s something big and bad on the horizon and they’ve gotta step up to the plate because there’s no guarantee someone else will, but he still longs for simpler times, for a simpler world where being the baddest motherfuckers around doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice the most. And he knows, deep down, he recognizes that he’s changed, that the Grog that lived in Westruun and darted through alleyways with his little sister on his shoulders wouldn’t have cared about the shadow of Orcus, wouldn’t have even considered caring so much he would leave his buddy Pike behind to go after it. He remembers that night on the roof of Wilhand’s house, when he got his first real taste of the idea that there are things greater than the two of them, and he murmurs, “I guess we’re still growing up, huh?”
And Pike nods and throws her arms around his neck and he draws her in and wraps himself around her, buries his face in her hair and holds on.
A long moment passes but it still feels far too soon when Grog reluctantly relinquishes his hold on Pike and she steps back into the doorway.
“It won’t be forever,” she assures him, and he nods even though it doesn’t really make him feel better when he still knows that they’ll be an ocean apart now.
“I love you, Pike,” he says, and reaches out one more time to ruffle her hair.
“I love you too, Grog,” she says, and doesn’t duck away.
At last, he straightens up and they share one last, long look, like they haven’t already memorized every detail of each other’s appearance, like they could ever forget a thing if they were apart for an eternity.
“Bye, Pike,” he says finally.
“Bye, Grog,” she responds.
And he squares his shoulders and turns away and walks back to the rest of Vox Machina.
As they walk back towards the city, he looks over his shoulder one last time to see a small bright speck still standing in the doorway of the temple, and he thinks he can see her waving.
He waves back.
--
It’s almost upsetting, how easily he falls into a routine without Pike. He fucks around with Scanlan and pranks Vax and knocks Percy’s ego down a peg and helps Vex keep track of their loot and occasionally suplexes (and is suplexed by) Keyleth’s earth elemental form.
He’s okay.
Maybe he shouldn’t be so surprised; he did spend a long time without Pike, before she joined the team. But after knowing what it’s like to have her around, her sudden absence still feels like an open wound, like someone took a knife to Vox Machina and carved out a Pike-shaped space.
It helps that they all miss her.
They all mourn Pike’s absence, and “I wish Pike were here” becomes one of the most commonly spoken sentences at any group meeting. It helps, when Grog needs to sit by himself and stare at the sky and just miss her, that they all know what he’s going through, know to keep their distance and let him compose himself before coming back to the group.
He gets used to it.
He always misses her; it’s a simple truth about reality that he will always miss her; the sky is blue, water is wet, and Grog misses Pike when she’s not there. But it becomes background noise, only surfacing as a moment’s thought when he sees something that reminds him of her rather than a constant, painful ache.
And he sees her again sooner than he thought.
--
Whitestone is awful. It’s a terrible city full of terrible things and frankly Grog would feel bad for Percy even if his entire family wasn’t murdered by vampires that then conquered his hometown, Whitestone is so awful. And there’s probably a connection there, but Grog can’t be bothered to care when they’re spending all their time hiding and sneaking around instead of real fighting.
And then the fighting starts all at once, and when they need her most, Pike is there.
At first, Grog thinks she might have actually gone and become a literal angel while she was away. The soft radiant glow that always seemed to surround her when she cast her spells is blinding in this form, and her entire body is bathed in gold. She saves their lives, which is at the same time nothing new and completely awe-inspiring, and he is entirely swept up in the sheer glee of fighting at her side again.
And she stays with them, or does her best, for at least a little while. And it turns out that while she is not quite an angel, she is also not quite here. When Grog goes to hug her and finds her not quite solid he panics, afraid something’s gone wrong and he might have hurt her, and only calms down after frantic reassurances from Pike and the rest of the party that no, everything’s fine, it’s just… not really fully her. Just the parts that matter.
He sits next to her and feels the warmth radiating off of her and meets her smile and thinks, It’ll do for now.
When she blinks away in the basement of the castle, he keeps fighting.
--
Grog never expected to actually see Kevdak again.
He was always there, a shadow in the back of his mind, a reminder of things he left behind, little more than a boogeyman. Kevdak represented the biggest turning point in his life, and his point of greatest weakness.
He’ll always be grateful that he met Wilhand and Pike, and they’re a better family than the Herd of Storms ever was, but he’ll also never forget how it felt to lay beaten and bloody on the cold ground, abandoned by his people and expecting death all for an act of compassion. He doesn’t like to think about it much, but it haunts him, a constant reminder that weakness can mean death, and that you can’t always trust the family you’re born with.
But he comes to face Kevdak again with his new family at his back, and most importantly Pike is there, in the flesh, to stand at his side. Pike, who maybe more than anyone (except, perhaps, Wilhand, who did after all see Kevdak in action first hand) knows what this means.
Grog has never been more afraid in his life, and never more determined to win.
It’s this determination, at least in part, that gets him killed.
He refuses to give up the sword. Craven Edge is always pushing, always at the edge of his mind crying for more blood, more violence, and while small parts of him push back (he’s never been one to back down from a fight, but Craven Edge is undiscerning in its demands, and the first time he feels it whispering when he glances at a passing civilian he doesn’t sleep all night) the rest is caught up in the power it gives him. There’s no need to be afraid of Kevdak when Craven Edge makes him nigh undefeatable. There’s no chance that he’ll be beaten down again when he can suck the very strength that still sometimes haunts his dreams from his uncle’s body.
As it turns out, Kevdak isn’t what he should be afraid of.
It’s insulting, really, that he dies after the danger is passed, while they’re sitting around to catch their breath and assure themselves they all made it out okay. Grog is already feeling so numb from the sight of Pike with his sword (his sword, from his throw, and that smile on her face like he’s the one who needs reassurance, he’s going to be sick) that he almost doesn’t notice that all feeling is leeching out of him, that the world is going gray, that his senses are dulling, that he doesn’t remember telling it to but his body is standing up and walking away. The last thing he hears is a low, malevolent chuckle in the back of his mind, and then everything goes completely dark.
He remembers a few things, vague words and voices that are important to him, that he knows he needs to get to, they’re right there and if he follows that light he’ll find them—
He wakes up to see Pike and Scanlan with tear-stained faces leaning over him, and he blinks and without thinking reaches up to wipe Pike’s cheek with one large thumb.
They have to explain to him what happened, and he almost wouldn’t believe them but for the grief-struck expressions on everyone’s faces and the sudden clarity of mind as he looks on the sword and realizes.
(And the rage that comes feels cleaner, no longer arson but a forest fire, leaving everything in its wake demolished but ready to begin again.)
So he goes into Westruun with no supernatural influences, for good or ill; he faces Kevdak with his head held high and his axe in his hand and his friends at his back and he isn’t afraid because he knows, he knows like he knows the weight of his axe in his hands and the sound of Pike’s laugh, that this is where his power comes from: from the fury bubbling up within him, born of years-old suffering and the love of these people who came to die for him, and no weapon known to man or god (or goliath) can beat it. Not Craven Edge.
Not the Titanstone Knuckles, either.
And as he falls from the sky (bloody and battered and close to death but more alive than he’s ever been before) it feels more like flying.
The dragon is easy after that.
--
Grog sits on a rooftop.
He’s lost track of what city they’re in, what world-ending threat they’re facing now. They’ve all started to run together in his head, remembered only by the scars they leave behind.
Staring into the setting sun, he feels far removed from the alley-dog of his childhood, bright-eyed and floppy-eared, blundering in and out of trouble and caring for nothing beyond the bounds of his neighborhood.
His skin shows a tapestry of pain and rage, a history of battles won and lost and lessons learned told by the marks they left behind. He’s proud of them, proud of what they mean. Proud of the proof of responsibility he’s shouldered and how he’s borne it. Pike was there to see him get some of them—maybe even most of them. She wasn’t there for all.
She isn’t here now. She’s back at her temple; he can’t remember if that means Whitestone or Vasselheim anymore. It hardly matters when they spend so much time on the road. She joins them when she can. She’ll probably appear, in that glowing angel semi-form, and be able to remind him where to find her before he gets the chance to. Sarenrae grants that to her more and more outside of their darkest hours, now.
She’s damn well earned it, in Grog’s mind.
He misses her, always, but it’s gone from his heart being torn in two to a dull ache in the back of his chest, a faint hollowness like things aren’t quite as good as they could be.
He’s not sure if he’s just gotten used to her not being around, or if maybe he’s grown out of needing her like he needs the very air he breaths, his love for her still capable of stretching across continents but now without pulling him to pieces with it.
They’re both bigger, now, than they were when they were Grog and Pike, Pike and Grog, two scraggly mischief-makers of Westruun. They have greater destinies that pull them in all directions, and sometimes away from each other.
But they always, eventually, pull them back together.
Grog leans back as the stars begin to appear and looks for the owlbear, the mountain, the hammer, and a few more constellations that he learned from Vex and Keyleth and Percy, all prone to watching the stars (or reading about them) and happy to share during cold night watches when the world is quiet and the party’s asleep. In his mind, he recounts the stories behind them that Scanlan told him, no doubt exaggerated but all the more entertaining for it. He traces new patterns the way Vax showed him, lewd drawings and simple shapes, the smaller man too lazy to learn the proper ones but well-versed in ways to distract a hungry, teary sibling from the outside world.
He shoulder feels cold where there’s no one to lean against it but his family is inside the warm room below him celebrating another day alive and he’s content knowing they’re safe, knowing that whatever danger they charge into tomorrow he’ll be there between them and it, knowing that wherever Pike is now, whatever she’s doing, she can see the stars, too.