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Chapter Text

The fundamental truth of nature: death is the fertile earth from which all life springs.

This is easy to forget in the depths of winter, when the world is cloaked in thick snowfall and the smells of the world fall away, leaving only the essence of coldness.  It seems then that death will be an eternal slumber.

The night is worse.  The dark casts everything into shades of blacks and whites and grays.  The trees become dull stabs in the night, their branches horizontal slices.  No birds sing out in the dark.  No animals crunch over the snow.  After a snowfall, in the deepest night, the world is wrapped in its death shroud.

This is merely the blindness of memory.

If you stand still and let your body work, you can smell the sweat of the wolf and the fear of the rabbit under the freeze—low and layered, but there.  What seemed to be the crack of ice and the crash of a branch to a hard grave, is the heavy tread of a bear lumbering towards its home.  The world is alive, but it is waiting—waiting for the long sleep to end.  Beneath the snow, tiny sprouts rest in embryo form, protected and secure from the harsh winter.

Soon, the first warmth will come from the south and the snow and the floor of the world will turn into a muddy birthing bed.  Then the world will fill with the wild hymns to life.  The trees will trim their branches with finery.  The birds and animals will decorate their homes in fresh twigs and grass and flowers.  And new life will begin—from the ground, in the trees, in the sky—everywhere it can take hold.  New life will begin.  This new life will flourish and grow and live the life it is intended to live, whether small or large, beautiful or ugly.  It will live.

And then, when the spring is through, the fall will come again, and all this too will pass.  But in its time it feels like everything.

And it is everything.

And then it is nothing.

Chapter Text

Keyleth arrived in her usual way, with an unnatural cracking and rending of tree bark.  She stepped out of the Sun Tree, head held high, even higher with the crown of antlers, and, with a gesture, the wound in the tree healed without any sign of passage.  She was expected and an honor guard, resplendent and glittering in Whitestone blue and white and purple, marched her through the streets. 

In Zephrah, this would have been a celebration, complete with air acrobatics and lively stories of the departed’s life.  In Emon, it would have been a state day of mourning, but also an opportunity for a parade and holiday.  Families would have clung to each other on this rare day together and the more mercenary would have filled every spare space with memorial wares for sale, like carrion birds around a freshly killed calf.

But this was Whitestone.  In seventy years, the buildings had grown tall and the streets had grown wide.  Where once there had been rutted cart tracks there were now carefully maintained cobblestones.  The smell of manure from the fields, once dominant, was now overwhelmed with the sharp sting of coal from the furnaces of the local workshops.  But this was still Whitestone.  So the buildings were adorned with black blunting, every window was covered, every shop sign obscured, and each door had a black bow wrapped around the door handle.  As she moved through the streets, Keyleth caught a glimpse of a few people—a women in a green dress peering from behind a black-curtained window, a child clutched back to his mother’s skirts as he tried to rush out to the guards—but mostly the streets were deserted.  This was a state funeral and everyone in Whitestone was in full mourning.  The streets were empty, but the temple of Pelor was a restless mass of people.

As the honor guard approached, Keyleth saw Vex’ahlia immediately.  Merely a small figure at this distance, her poise shouted above the dull hum of the crowd.  Where Keyleth held her head up to fight the natural urge to crawl away, to find momentum against the gaze of others, Vex’ahlia’s entire body rose up, a bulwark against any cruel words or judging glance.  On the temple floor, leading a line of De Rolos, surrounded by the entire population of Whitestone, she was still perfectly Vex’ahlia, never to be anyone else.

The crowd parted in silence as the honor guard marched and Keyleth was swept down towards the temple, towards Vex’ahlia—Vex.  In her mind, Keyleth always saw Vex the same way: raven-black hair woven in a braid, the smell of dried leathers and washed furs, hands busily fletching an arrow, children laughing and fighting around her.  Vex was always a calm center of a chaotic storm of her own making.  Drawing closer—pushed by the energy of the crowd towards the stage—Keyleth could see the strands of silver laced through Vex’s braid, the light crinkle at the corner of her eyes, and the laugh lines around her mouth.  She wasn’t laughing now and she smiled like someone who could only smile on the outside—thin and tightlipped.  No children played around her.  Instead, grown, they stretched out in a line to her left.

Keyleth’s step quickened, the name Vex rushing to her lips.  But Vex’s eyes caught Keyleth before the name could spill out and the word froze in her throat.

Vex’s tone and formality were as cold as the air.  Her eyes were tinged with red puffiness. “Voice of the Tempest, thank you for coming on such short notice.  Your presence honors us.  We hope you will grace Whitestone for these days of mourning.”

Keyleth swallowed her familiarity and ignored the twist in her chest. “Lady De Rolo, Baroness of the Third House of Whitestone and Mistress of the Grey Hunt, I am sorry for your loss.  The Ashari people have lost a great ally.  I will do what I can to honor Lord De Rolo.”  It was a practiced way of speaking, one that helped her keep the violence of her emotions still beneath the surface.

Vex nodded and gestured to her right. “You know Cassandra.”

Time hadn’t changed Cassandra’s height.  Regally upright, in one of the well-tailored suits she had taken to wearing in the years after the emancipation of Whitestone, she still stood only up to Vex’s ears.   Time hadn’t worn her to a stoop and probably never would.  Keyleth appreciated the physical perfection that Cassandra must pursue to fight off the weight of time.  But her hair was completely white and her face carved with wrinkles.  The flesh could only fight so hard.

Cassandra smiled a small, melancholy smile, “Hello, Lady Keyleth.  I’m happy to see you again, even if the circumstances could be better.”

Keyleth clasped Cassandra’s hands, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not the tragedy it might have been.  A long life for both of us and . . .” She laughed under her breath and looked down the line of faces. “My brother and Vex’ahlia seem to have singlehandedly ensured eternity for the De Rolo name.”

As Keyleth handed out condolences with handshakes and bows, she considered the truth of Cassandra’s words.  Beginning with Vesper to Vex’s right—a woman of about seventy who showed her age in her eyes, but not her face—and continuing down the line to littlest Allura—who had just celebrated eighteen and seemed more interested in a brunette standing at the front of the crowd—there were eleven De Rolo children, every one of them betraying Percy and Vex in their face, movements, and voice.  And when she turned away, she was sailing a sea of De Rolos.  She tried to remember the last update she had received: eleven children, forty-five grandchildren, and twenty or twenty-one great grandchildren.  She thought those were the numbers.  Percy and Vex had found another way to defeat the Briarwoods and all they needed was each other.  Keyleth smiled.

She took the seat she was offered, a seat of honor with the family.  There were a few local family friends and respected merchants and townfolks—she didn’t recognize any of them—but it was mostly more shades of Percy and Vex.  She did recognize Pike and Scanlan and she embraced each of them in turn.  Pike hugged back, powerful and assured, and ended it with a caring pat on Keyleth’s shoulders.  Scanlan wiggled with discomfort, but his clowning was noticeably subdued.  They were all slower and more considered now.

The funeral itself was normal religious babble, wrapped in the pageantry that royals received by tradition, if not because they deserved it.  At least here it was heartfelt.  The people of Whitestone, filling the temple of Pelor, took joy in the grace of their god and the accomplishments of the De Rolos.  She had been here when Pelor’s light had broken through.  She had helped it break through.  She couldn’t begrudge them their belief.

Halfway through the ceremony (the priest was citing a passage from a book that Keyleth was only vaguely aware of), Keyleth realized that this was the remains of Vox Machina.  Vax, Grog, Tiberius, even Taryon were gone, some much sooner than others.  With Percy dead, the saviors of Whitestone were dwindling.  But, she nodded, as the priests of Pelor continued the last rites for the dead, that was right.  Percy would have liked the idea of living on as legend.  He preferred building something that lasted, something that could be carried in hands or in the mind, over putting his hope in a single fragile life.

Afterward, Keyleth paid her respects, but did not linger.  It had been years since she had last visited Whitestone.  She had known, from Vex’s letters, that Percy was not doing well, but Vex had assured her that there was no rush to visit, that there would always be more time.  Keyleth reflected bitterly on that thought as she looked down at Percy.  His hair was mostly gone—along the edges it had been carefully cut back—and his cheeks were drawn.  Despite the work that had been done, his skin still bore a slight sallow tone and the suit he wore was slightly too big.  The wreath of heliotropes, morning glories, and lilies resting on his chest covered the wasting, but Keyleth’s eyes were too trained not to see the signs.  Percy’s illness had not been sudden.

⁂

The De Rolo castle was alive with light, laughter, and libations.  Keyleth was certain it had never looked like this when Percy was a child.  The De Rolos he had described were always formal and distant.  Keyleth had often wondered if he was often glad just to get a nod of approval from his parents or, perhaps, just the absence of a disapproving look.  These De Rolos were loud and tactile.  There was a wrestling match going on in front of the fire, involving two children and a dog.   Three middle aged women and a man were gathered around a harpsichord singing, while two more women arm-wrestled on the closed top (which did nothing for the sound).  Even Cassandra seemed to have mellowed in her age, a glass of wine in one hand and a foil in the other, casually brushing away sword thrusts from two teenaged De Rolos.

They might have the De Rolo name, but these children and grandchildren were all Vex’ahlia.

Keyleth had been guided by a steward of the family through a whirlwind of introductions.  In a normal diplomatic situation, she would have committed the faces and names to memory, but the faces here were so similar that she knew it would take far more than a mere glance and an exchange of words to commit the De Rolos to memory.  Now, she was in a chair near the fire (and, as a result, a wrestling match), sipping warm mulled cider.  Her eyes scanned the flurry of activity, took in the mixture of voices.  A time or two she startled at a laugh that was very much Vex, only to see someone else with the same face.

Keyleth laughed and talked and reacquainted herself with the De Rolo family.  She passed some time with Cassandra and even more time with a teenage De Rolo named Ayla who at first seemed annoyed at the idea that Keyleth might be the same age as Gran (how Keyleth laughed at that) and then fascinated by the idea of elemental magic.  Later, she’d handed over her antler circlet to a crowd of children to play and explore with.  She could always find it later.

All that time, her eyes wandered for Vex, for the opportunity to catch her alone.  But that opportunity didn’t come.  Instead, she saw her only once.  Through a crowd—attired in armor, fur-lined cloak, bow slung over her back—Vex was in a heated argument with an old woman that Keyleth vaguely remembered as Vesper.  Keyleth rose and pressed through the room, but it was only to see Vex hurry away and out the front door.  Vesper turned with a familiar look of anger on her face, but her face softened when she saw Keyleth.  She apologized for her mother, but Keyleth waved it away and continued into the outdoors.  Vex had vanished in the darkness.

So Keyleth followed.  She felt a familiar anger simmering inside her.  The outrage she felt at every injustice she saw, every wrong.  And, like she always did, she swallowed it down.  Whatever was happening, it was not about her.  Whatever Vex was feeling, it was not about her.  This was about Vex and what she needed.  And Keyleth knew that Vex didn’t need to be alone, at least not yet.

The forests of Whitestone were thick and ancient, the canopy overhead blocking out any light.  But Keyleth had been in thicker, more ancient forests, forests that lived and breathed the dust of the earth, so she knew there was nothing to fear here.  Even in the pitch dark, she could see.  Even in the silence of night and winter, she could hear.  And, with changes, she could smell, which is what she needed now.

Keyleth’s body melted into itself, folding and stretching and expanding until there was nothing left of her original shape.  In her place stood a massive dire wolf, fur sleek and dense, muscles tensing for action.  Keyleth sniffed the air, rolling the color and taste of the forest around in her head.  In winter, the smells were packed down in the snow, but they were still there for those who understood.  Looking back at the castle, there was a vibrant path of odors, standing out in the night.  It was the smell of Vex: sour green from the leathers and furs, sweet purple from her soaps and perfumes, spicy yellow from magic, tangy red from the musk of a breeding female.  They were a secret world of sense that Keyleth shared with the animals.  She huffed into the air, making a heavy cloud of steam that punched the chill.

She ran the trail, jumping fallen trees and frozen streams with no hesitation, her muscles flowing like water beneath thick hide.  The trail, as she expected, was uneven, winding.  Unexpectedly, it went deep into the forest, farther than she would have thought Vex could have gotten.  Keyleth realized that Vex had run at full speed as soon as she left the party.  She was burning off her energy, wearing herself down.

She was up in a tree in the distance.

Keyleth slowed to a padding walk, almost stalking Vex’s position.  If Vex was on alert (which she always was), she had seen Keyleth coming.  Through the veil of darkness, Keyleth could just make out Vex pulling out her bow and readying an arrow.

Keyleth released the shape, the world melting into a new experience, the layer of smell evaporating into a world of brighter colors.  She stretched and walked forward.  Vex lowered the bow as Keyleth approached.

Vex landed effortlessly, standing tall under her heavy furs, every inch the proud animal she had always been.  Yet Keyleth couldn’t help but note the bags under Vex’s eyes and the slight give in her left leg as she stepped forward.

“Why are you here?”

It was the greeting Keyleth had expected, but the words still tore at her throat and she found her own words caught up in the wound.  “Vex.”  And the name froze in the air.

So Keyleth pushed across the gulf between them—the space of a few feet that felt like miles—and wrapped her arms around Vex, pulling her tight.  The furs were coarse against her bare arms and the leather armor unyielding against her body (creaking and straining with every movement), but most of all she drew close the rise and fall of Vex’s body beneath the layers, the soft rhythm of her breath.

For a moment, that was all.  Vex stayed painfully still, her arms limp at her sides, her eyes locked forward.  Every bit of distance that Keyleth had felt in Vex’s every word seemed trapped in that stiff, motionless body.  Vex seemed to scream, “You have no right to hold me this way.”  So Keyleth let go.

At least she meant to.  Instead, as she tried to pull away—in the instant before her muscles relaxed—Vex surrounded her, her arms pulling Keyleth closer, her hands moving beneath the cowl and clutching at her back, her face buried in Keyleth’s shoulder.  And she shuddered.  Her whole body quaked.  And she sobbed, the wetness hidden against Keyleth.  Keyleth pulled her closer, nestling Vex’s head in her neck, and wrapped the mantle around them.  The cold pushed in around them, but together they could reduce the cut of the winter to a gentle caress.  Vex, there in her arms, sent Keyleth’s mind back through the decades to the last time they had needed this, the last time grief over a loved one had pushed them together.  She drew Vex closer, pulling her entirely under the mantle, wrapping Vex in the only protection Keyleth could offer.

They lingered, Vex pouring her tears into Keyleth, Keyleth grasping on to this closeness, until, finally, Vex pulled away.  Her face was blotchy and wet and she wiped it clear on a fur.  Even in this state she was practical and understood that wet skin in this temperature could be dangerous.  She regarded Keyleth with puffy eyes and said, “I thought I was finished with tears.”

Keyleth pulled her close again.  “Shouldn’t we know by now that we’re never finished with tears?”

Vex grimaced, fighting against her body to smile.  “Oh, Keyleth.  Why do we keep losing people?”

“Because they don’t lose us.”  Keyleth had meant it to be sage wisdom, aloof, calm, but it exploded out as a sob and she felt the hot tears burn down her face.

Vex reached up and rested Keyleth’s head on her shoulder, wrapping an arm around the lanky torso and pulling the heat of her body close.  Stroking Keyleth’s hair, she absentmindedly tangled her fingers in the locks and kissed Keyleth lightly on the top of her head.

“I’m sorry, darling.  This moment is worse for me, but it’s all going to be worse for you isn’t it?”

Keyleth blinked back the tears and picked up her head.  “This isn’t about me.  I’m sorry for being so selfish.”

“Nonsense, darling.  We all get to mourn.”  Vex cupped Keyleth’s face and wiped away the tears, her own attempt at a smile dragged down by the weight of the tears she hadn’t cried yet.  “Grief isn’t selfish.”

Keyleth returned the gesture, brushing Vex’s cheek, taking away the remains of a tear.  “I think it can be very selfish.”

“Then let it be selfish.”  Vex dismissed it with a wave. “You’re allowed to be selfish sometimes.  Gods know I will be.”

“Now’s your time.”

Vex’s face flickered between smile and frown before she pulled Keyleth in for another hug.  It was short this time, but they lingered, enjoying the simple comfort of the press of another body.  When they parted, they walked, picking a path through the tall trees and snowy, gnarled forest floor.  They talked a little, but mostly passed the time in the silence of each other’s company, leaning on each other when they needed, walking their own path when the forest called for it.  As they parted to meet up on the other side of a deep stream valley, Keyleth watched Vex at a distance. She strode across the land with a regal tread, her confidence not dampened by the pain that burned inside her.  It was everything that made Keyleth admire Vex.  In some ways, it was the same thing that frightened Keyleth about Vex.  Keyleth had had to fight for every inch of her confidence.  Vex always seemed so effortless, a raging river to Keyleth’s trickling creek.

On the other side, where their paths converged, was a massive fallen tree, just turning to rot.  Vex bounded to the top of it, struggling at times, but never giving up.  She stretched out a hand to help Keyleth stand beside her.  They looked out together into the never ending floor of leaves and rocks and snow.  Vex squatted down and Keyleth sat beside her, her legs dangling over the edge of the tree, her fingers rubbing at the wood of her staff.  Everything felt better now.  It would be so easy just to let things be.  But Keyleth had learned long ago that letting things be was simply a way of avoiding responsibility.

“Vex, are you angry with me?  I mean, you don’t act angry with me now.  But you did.”  Keyleth cast her eyes over Vex’s downcast face and caught the flash of defiance ignite in a moment, then die down just as quickly.

“I’m not angry with you.”  Vex sat down and pulled the furs tighter around her shoulders.

They sat in silence, each staring out into the frozen darkness.

Keyleth sighed.  “Vex . . .” She reached over and pulled Vex’s hand close, squeezing it tight.  “Please.”  She didn’t mean it to be a plea, but it came out a strangled gasp.

“I’m not angry with you.  I’m angry about a lot of things right now, but I’m not angry with you.”  Vex had turned and seemed to be searching Keyleth’s face for something.  “How long has it been?  Since we saw each other.”

Keyleth response was immediate.  “Almost seventeen years.”

Vex laughed and shook her head.  “Seventeen?  It seemed like five.  When did time start passing so quickly?”  She took a long time to speak again, but Keyleth could tell the words were simmering in her belly, rising, pushing to come out.  When she finally spoke it was a slow sigh.

“Percy was sick for a long time.”  Vex nodded with each word, eyes down, as if reviewing a record in her mind.  “A long time.  By the time he passed, it was a relief.”  Her head swung sharply, locking eyes with Keyleth.  “I feel bad even saying that, but—“ The tears ran down her face. “—my Percy has been gone for so long, I just—“ Keyleth folded Vex into her body, letting her head rest on her shoulder.

“I noticed that . . . his death wasn’t sudden.”

“By the time he stopped eating, he’d been gone for years already.  His mind started slipping about ten years ago.  Little lapses here and there.  Forgetting dinner, little events, drawing blanks on names.  It wasn’t really anything.”  She smiled.  “Percy wouldn’t be Percy without getting too wrapped up in his little projects.”  Vex chewed at her lip.  “Then he forgot our anniversary.  Darling, you should have seen his face.  He was so confused and—

“I thought he would remember me to the end.  He stopped remembering the children years ago and when he remembered them he couldn’t recognize them.  But I thought he’d remember me.  And then one day he didn’t.  He did a few minutes later.  But I’d catch him staring at me from bed and I could tell he was trying to work out who I was.  I could see him going through the options in his mind and coming up empty.  Once he called me Vesper.”

Keyleth hugged Vex close.  “Why didn’t you tell me?  I could have helped.”

Vex pulled back, shrugging Keyleth’s arm away.  “Really?  Please tell me how you could have helped,” she snapped, before taking a cooling breath, holding up a hand to stop Keyleth’s stuttered response.  “Keyleth, you couldn’t have helped.  Please, think about how much help I had here in Whitestone.  The children were more than enough, I promise.”

“I would have liked to help,” whispered Keyleth, eyes down.

“You would have only made it worse.”

It felt like the air had been knocked out of her lungs.  “Worse? Vex, I—“

Vex’s voice cracked and shattered and the dam of tears broke with it, shuddering through her body.  “You look so young, Keyleth.”  Each syllable seemed to break Vex’s heart.  “He wouldn’t have understood.  He would have looked at you and then looked at me and—“ Vex turned sharply away, swallowing the jabbing pain.  “He wouldn’t have understood.  He wouldn’t have understood what happened to him.  And I couldn’t watch that.”

“Oh, Vex . . .”

“So I didn’t tell you.”  Vex threw the words into the air with pride, her chin held high, still stained with tears.  “I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t—I couldn’t watch that.  I was selfish.  It’s that simple.”

While Vex spoke, Keyleth had retreated, her shoulders collapsing downward, her back slumping.  Now, she pulled herself up and spoke with care and deliberation.  “I understand.  I’ve seen many people die that way.  Losing their hold on the world.  Losing their hold on themselves.”  She took a deep breath. “Every loved one has told me that they wish they could forget the end.  That they could remember only how they were before.”  Keyleth rested a hand on Vex’s hand.  “I know I’d feel that way if I’d seen him.”  She nodded. “I know.  I—I know.”

Vex reached over and tucked a stray hair back behind Keyleth’s ear.  “Are you angry with me?”

Keyleth sighed into the light touch of Vex’s fingers, her face screwing up as she shook off her thoughts. “No more angry than you are with me.  It’s that stupid kind of anger.  The anger you need, but know you don’t deserve.  I’m more angry with myself.  I could have come at any time, I just got caught up with my own life.”

“We all did, darling.”  Vex laughed bitterly.  “I guess that’s the downside of building your own life.  It becomes so full you don’t have time for anything else.  Good lord, look at all the children I had.  How did I even have time for myself?”

Keyleth smiled, her face draped with shadows of regrets passed.  “I guess we have a lot to catch up on.”

Vex nodded.

“Vex?” whispered Keyleth.

“Yes, dear?”

“I have a daughter.”  Keyleth’s face burst into a wide grin, her eyes glancing at Vex for reassurance.

“What?” Vex oscillated between absolute joy, confusion, and anger before finally just giving in to the excitement.  She grabbed both of Keyleth’s hands.  “When?  How?  Keyleth, darling, tell me all about her. Now.”

Keyleth laughed a sob of joy.  “She’s almost seventeen.”

Vex shouted, “Seventeen?”

“As you said, we get caught up in our own lives and . . . well, it’s complicated.”  Keyleth ducked her head, but the smile stayed fixed in place, her cheeks a vibrant pink.  “Her name is Koreen.”

Something about this confession broke the wall Vex and Keyleth had built up and everything came pouring out.  They talked through the night, sharing stories from the past seventeen years, then stories from even further back that they had never thought to tell each other or they had simply forgotten.  As the night wore on, they snuggled on the tree, keeping themselves warm and sharing the moment while it lasted.  They laughed, their voices bouncing back from the largest trees or disappearing into the depths of the forest.  And they cried, each taking their turn to comfort the other, to hug tight and dry tears.

When the weak light of sunrise filtered through the canopy above, they knew it was time to head back.  Vex slid off the tree and guided Keyleth down, their fingers interwoven.  Falling with a jolt, Keyleth steadied herself on Vex’s shoulder.  She looked up with a flushed look.  “Seventy years hasn’t solved the clumsiness.”

Vex smiled kindly.  “Would you be you without a little clumsiness?”

Keyleth pulled herself up to her full height and looked around.  “I suppose it’s time to head back.  Your children are probably looking for you.”

Vex laughed and Keyleth glowed inside at the sound.  “They’re used to me disappearing into the wilderness.  I think they grew up believing it was my job.”  Vex looked longingly at the forest.  “I need to stay out here for a few days.  I can’t mourn properly back there at the castle.  I need this.”  She gestured widely at the forest expanse.  “Percy would understand.”

Keyleth nodded.  “What should I say?”

“Tell them I’m out here.  Tell Vesper or Joanna or Freddie—really any De Rolo with gray hair will do.”  Vex brought up a finger and fixed it pointedly at Keyleth. “And if Vesper has a problem with it, tell her she can come out here and find me.”  That brought a broad smile to Keyleth’s face.

“Okay.”  Keyleth started to turn, but stopped herself and brought her hand gently to Vex’s cheek.  “I love you, Vex.  We all do.”

“I love you too, darling.  Don’t worry.  I’ll never be alone.  Percy and I worked very hard at a cure for loneliness.”

Keyleth leaned in and kissed Vex lightly on the cheek, her thumb brushing the other cheek.  “Please come in from the wilderness before I leave.  We shouldn’t let seventeen more years go by.”  She turned and walked into the dawn light.

Vex watched her go, her hand touching her cheek and feeling the lingering heat Keyleth’s lips had left behind.

Chapter Text

“The look on her face!”  Keyleth laughed, filling the room..  “How did you know?”

Vex smiled broadly and took another sip from her wine glass.  “The elves always underestimate half-bloods.  It’s my favorite weakness of theirs.  Taionia just didn’t pay attention to my father’s reminders.  She should have remembered my time in Syngorn and adjusted her strategy accordingly.”

They were sitting in the Voice of the Tempest’s personal chamber—a standalone structure built of branches and a thick clay paste.  From the outside, it was a half-sphere, covered in intricate patterns and bright colors of green and blue—the colors of the different buildings in Zephrah changed with the seasons, producing an ever-changing range of community art.  Inside, the building was all warm woods, hung with objects of symbolic importance: the skull of a giant eagle, an old bear skin from the early days of the tribe, rich tapestries that told the stories of the Ashari people.  Keyleth hung the mantle of her office in a spot of honor when she wasn’t using it.  Its many colors glimmered in the cool white light of the orbs that floated in the chamber.

Keyleth rarely used these chambers.  She preferred to stay with her people in one of the communal spaces that other families shared.  She would rotate the chambers that she lived in from time to time.  It was considered a great honor for her to choose a space.  Keyleth said it was only right for everyone to have that dubious honor, which, according to her, mostly consisted of spilled water and broken cookware when she tried to help.  She only used the Voice’s chamber for her official duties and, even then only when the ceremony was necessary.

But, Vex noticed, Keyleth used her personal chambers when Vex came to visit.  Keyleth said it would let them talk into the night without having to worry about anyone else.  Vex noticed it gave them a privacy that was a luxury among the Ashari.  Outside this chamber, thirty families lived together in large villagehouses.  Even this chamber, like all buildings in Zephrah had only a deer skin flap across the door.  It was easy enough to listen in at private conversations or burst suddenly into a room.  Keyleth had explained that the Ashari didn’t do either of those things.  It would be a complete break with social norms—unthinkable.  Yet, Keyleth still always made sure that the two of them had that privacy even in the face of the unthinkable.

Keyleth was pouring herself more wine.  It was a special Ashari blend, grown on the southern slopes of the mountain, and Vex suspected it had a much higher alcohol content than the wines she was used to.  One glass was always enough to make her head go effervescent.

Keyleth giggled again and shook her head.  She shifted closer to Vex and pulled her into a hug.  “I’m glad you came.  It made the negotiations that much easier.”

“My pleasure, darling.”  Vex smiled.  Keyleth’s hugs were always soothing.  She wondered when she had realized that.  Vex had spent decades learning to like Keyleth more.  After their adventures, she had loved Keyleth—there was never any doubt about that—but the awkwardness, the strangeness of Keyleth had always soured Vex towards her fellow half-elf.

Consider her laugh.  Keyleth usually giggled, tight and high, like she was nervous anything bigger would draw notice to her.  That pull inward, the slouch, the hiding behind the hair.  It was a piece of Keyleth that Vex never understood.  By all appearances, her father and community built her up, held her up, supported her in all the ways Vex had never been supported.  While Vex never sought greatness, only wanting the security to protect herself, her brother, her friends, she didn’t hide from greatness.  Greatness seemed to be the thing that Keyleth feared the most.  That giggle seemed to bottle up that fear and give it being.  It pushed Vex away.

But then there was the other laugh.  The broad hearty laugh that only came with drink.  The laugh Keyleth was laughing now.  It came when Vex told a dirty joke and Keyleth’s faced turned red.  It came when Keyleth’s mind had wandered outside her worries and she let her joy out unqualified by the thought of what others would think.  That laugh filled Vex up.  It pulled her towards Keyleth.  Like Vex was now.

This close, Keyleth always had a deep musky smell of wet dirt and dew-tinged flower petals that clung to the nose, overpowered the senses.  When she was younger, Vex had likened it to being buried alive: the dirt pushing in your lungs, your eyes burning as you scrambled to find purchase, that smell coating everything.  It was not a pleasant experience.  Later, Vex had learned that it was just a cleansing scent that the Ashari used in their day-to-day lives to protect the senses when dealing with odious things.  Vex had always wondered how Keyleth could cut into the rotting corpse of an animal or monster and not vomit.  Even Vex, with all her training, had trouble not retching when Keyleth went to work.  Now she understood.

It also hadn’t escaped Vex’s attention that the further Keyleth got from their adventuring days, the less prominent the smell.  Sitting here, beside her, their knees brushing, Keyleth’s hair draped across Vex’s shoulder, it was a light scent that tickled the nose, leaving behind a pleasant reminder of life outside, of the escape that always awaited Vex.  The great wilderness.  Keyleth would walk into a room and Vex, her back turned, her mind occupied, would find the scent tugging her lips into a smile.

Keyleth traced a finger along Vex’s lips and grinned as she sipped at her cup.  “You look happy,” she said.

Vex kept smiling, finishing her wine, and refilling both of their cups.  Conversation moved on to things beyond the Syngorn delegation: harvest, friends, family.

Vex talked about her children and her grandchildren and her great grantchildren.  How she was training Ludwig to take over as Master of the Gray Hunt.  How little Allie had headed off to Emon to study at the Alabaster Lyceum (if Allie was to be believed, she was buried in her arcane studies, but Vex could read between the lines of the letters enough to know that she was more interested in studies of a more personal nature).  She smiled sadly as she told Keyleth about her new great-grandchild, how Velin and Maggie had named him Vax.  He was a beautiful chunky baby.  Keyleth hugged Vex close.

Keyleth talked about Koreen, a smile painted wide on her face.  She was always exuberant about her daughter.  Vex suspected she could talk for hours about how proud she was of her and Vex understood completely.  In the last few years, Vex had grown to love Keyleth’s daughter, Koreen.  After the initial shock of seeing a second Keyleth—identical in every outward facing way and almost the same age as Keyleth when Vex had first met her—Vex had noticed the differences.  The shyness was still there, but Koreen was more outgoing than Keyleth, not requiring drink to let herself go.  She was training to be a windwalker and she already performed aerial acrobatics with a fearlessness that brought a grin to Vex’s face.  Koreen was a woman after Vex’s own heart.

As they talked, Vex sipped at her drink, letting her hands dance lightly from place to place on Keyleth.  As if testing the water with these physical glances would let her decide what to say next.  But Vex knew that physicality was an impossible test of Keyleth’s feelings.  Keyleth would envelope you in an enormous hug or cuddle up close or kiss you gently on the cheek.  And she would mean every bit of affection and also absolutely nothing more.  Vex had mastered the art of meaningless flirting in her teens, but Keyleth … nothing was meaningless with Keyleth.  She always meant every bit of affection, every loving glance, every joyful embrace.  She just didn’t necessarily mean it in the way most people saw it.

But it had been the same way with Percy.  All those gifts, those sly comments, those looks, that confidence in her.  And Vex had seen nothing.  She was certain he didn’t return her feelings.  So certain that she swallowed her words.  If hadn’t been for Percy taking the leap, for that electric touch of his lips against hers, those words would have stayed locked away forever—safeguarded like a treasure with no use.  It would have been such a waste.  If the decades had taught Vex anything, it was that the only worthwhile treasure was the one you let go.

So.

Vex brushed Keyleth’s cheek and cradled her face in the palm of her hand.  Keyleth smiled a warm sleepy smile and nuzzled against Vex’s skin, her eyes closed.

“Keyleth,” began Vex, “I—”

The deerskin across the door thrust back for a moment and Keyleth and Vex’s eyes snapped to the opening.  There was the briefest glimpse of Koreen’s face—that mirror of Keyleth’s—shining in the darkness, her arm pushing the deerskin aside, and then, just as quickly, her arm disappeared into the darkness and the deerskin fell back.

“Mom,” came the voice from outside, cut through with blades of panic, “Mom, it’s Granddad.”

It felt like only a single heartbeat.  But in that moment, Keyleth was up (later Vex vividly remembered the moment when the heat of Keyleth’s face was ripped from her hands) and through the door.  By the time Vex was out the door, Keyleth and Koreen were yards ahead, making their way for one of the communal huts.  Keyleth was wild in the moment, her tattooed wings seeming to take flight.  When Vex followed them through the door, she almost slammed into Keyleth’s back.  Keyleth stood still, Koreen’s hand in hers, taking in the room.

An Ashari healer knelt by the bed.  Vex recognized her—Calatin, she thought.  She looked over her shoulder at Keyleth and Koreen and gestured, as she rose, for Keyleth to approach the bed.  Keyleth gave Koreen’s hand a squeeze and then walked to the still form of her father, Korrin.

Just this evening, Korrin had seemed his strong, powerful self.  Face warm and welcoming, but traced with years of leadership.  His voice had been the gust of a tempest, capturing the room during the negotiations, just as his precise movements had drawn the eye.  Now, Korrin was pale, his eyes sunken, his lips tinged blue.  As Keyleth moved closer, his head drifted towards her, but his eyes were glassy and unfocused.  A hand raised, but, shaking, it sank back to the bed.  Even from across the room, Vex could hear the ragged rise and fall of his breath.

Calatin soothed Keyleth’s shoulder with a hand and drew her close.  Vex could just make out the whispered words.  “A quake in the heart, Speaker.”

Keyleth’s eyes searched Calatin’s face, a question passing between them, but Calatin just gave a slight shake of her head and Keyleth nodded and turned to her father.  She lowered herself to the floor, taking his hand in hers and running her other hand across his brow.  Korrin's lips curved into a shadow of a smile.

“Keyleth.”  His voice was the rustling of dried leaves in a breeze.  “My daughter.”

Keyleth leaned close and kissed his cheek.  “Daddy.”

Korrin took a deep breath and air wheezed into his lungs.  “I am so proud of you.  You have become so much.”

“I know, daddy, you don’t have to—”

Korrin raised his other hand in a sign of quiet.  He grimaced from the strain and the arm fell back to the bed with a dull thump, but Keyleth stopped.

“Listen to me, little sparrow.  My heart needs you to know this.”

Keyleth gave a tight nod.

“I am proud of you for all you have done for our people, yes.  But I have been proud of you your entire life.  At every step.”  A weak chuckle pushed through his lips, more breath than laughter.  “Your first steps.  I remember your first steps and how they filled me up with pride.  Your first words.  Your first story.  Your first windwalker lessons.  Do you remember that?”

Keyleth shook her head and the tears tumbled from her eyes.

“I have always been proud of you.”  Korrin’s eyes closed and his head leaned back and his words faded away.  But his chest still rose and feel.

Keyleth waited patiently, watching him closely.

Finally, Korrin, eyes heavy-lidded, looked at Keyleth again.  “I know you did not want this path.  I know you did this for your mother and I.  Please know that you were always our daughter first.  If your mother had survived, she would have gladly taken the burden of this on herself, as I did until you were able.  If I could have kept that burden, I would have.”  His grip grew suddenly tight around Keyleth’s hand.  “I would have gladly taken it for you.”

Keyleth pulled his hand close and squeezed it to her chest.  “Daddy, I know.”  She breathed around the tears now.  “I couldn’t have asked for a better father.  I always felt your love.  You never hid it and I am so grateful for that.”

“Love should never be hidden.  It is the element that lets us transcend the smallness of our lives.”  Korrin’s voice was softer now and, from across the hut, Vex could barely make out his next words.  “I have been lucky enough to have two great loves that made my world larger.  Your mother and then you.  I could only be the man I was because of you.”

“I love you, daddy.”  She could feel the strength evaporating from his hand and she rested it back on the bed, her hand on her father’s open palm.  She squeezed tight.

Korrin tried to squeeze back, but his fingers, an unhealthy purple, wouldn’t move.  Instead, he smiled weakly and closed his eyes.  “Hush now, daughter.  I need to rest, but we will speak again.”

⁂

They were Korrin’s last words.  He held on for a few hours more—Keyleth and Koreen by his side, Calatin moving in and out of the hut—but he didn’t wake again.  His uneven breaths marked out the seconds until there was nothing left to mark.

Keyleth laid her hand on Korrin’s chest and lowered her head, while Koreen wrapped her arm around her mother.  They stayed perfectly still as Keyleth whispered a litany that Vex couldn’t make out from across the room.  When she was done, she gave Koreen a hug and then stood.  Like it was the first time, Keyleth caught sight of Vex and gave her a pained smile.  She walked over and caught Vex’s hand.  Her eyes were brimming with pain, yet she was calm and carried her shoulders high.

“I need to take care of preparations for the first day of celebrations and—” She glanced back at Koreen, she was seated by Korrin’s side, face turned away from the rest of the room, an image of young Keyleth in mourning.  “—Koreen will need me after that.”

Vex gave Keyleth’s hand a squeeze and pulled her closer.  “Of course, darling.  Is there anything I can do?”

The same slight smile and a shake of the head.  “No, it’s all Ashari business.  I’m sorry your visit won’t be as relaxing as you planned.  I know that we were supposed to start—”

Vex held a finger to Keyleth’s lips.  “Hush.  You’ll need someone to take care of you.”

In the dim light, Vex couldn’t be certain, but she thought Keyleth blushed.  A shot of adrenaline surged through Vex’s body, lifting her higher.

“I—I, that is—you don’t need to worry about me.  You get some sleep back at my chambers.  I’ll probably be late, so—  Um, make sure you get some sleep.  I’ll be fine.”

And, like that, Keyleth pulled away and walked back towards her father’s body, leaving the absence of her touch on Vex’s skin.

⁂

Despite the events of the night, most of the Ashari were asleep, their communal spaces dark, the only movement the passing of the windwalkers overhead.  Vex had taken some time to gaze out across the moon dappled landscape that stretched outward far below.  She spent most of her time close to the ground, the trees overhead, damp ripeness of earth in her nose, the chatter of wildlife in her ears.  But she loved to soar.  She loved the heady coolness of the heights.  She loved the clarity of the thin air.  When she looked at the windwalkers soaring above, there was a piece of her that wished she could have been born into this life.

Vex turned to the village.  The large huts were barely visible now, just shadows tinged with a white frosted light, but there, at the heart of the village, was a single hut spilling the yellow-bright flicker of fire into the night.  Keyleth would be in that light, working side by side with people she had known all her life, with her daughter, doing whatever it was the Ashari did when one of their own died.  Vex was certain Keyleth would never need to be alone.  Vex wondered whether Keyleth had ever been alone with her people.  Vex shifted her braid, casually tugging at it as she tossed it to her other shoulder.  She supposed there were reasons other than flight to wish she had been born into this life.

There wasn’t much left to the night when Vex got back to Keyleth’s hut.  A part of Vex thought Keyleth might already be back, curled into the cool blankets she liked to pile on her mat.  Maybe she would even be curled up as Minxy, the cat form that used to be Keyleth’s comfort shape in times of stress.  The corners of Vex’s lips twitched up towards a smile as that picture flashed in her mind, but, when she pushed the flap aside, the hut was empty.  Vex didn’t bother with the lights.  Instead, she slipped off the outer layers of decorum and packed them away in her bag.  The nights were only just verging on warm, so she kept the other layers and settled in.

Keyleth had said “don’t wait up,” but Vex had no intention of leaving Keyleth alone now.  She knew Keyleth.  She’d seen her in the days and months and years after Vax’s passing.  She’d seen the dark bags and the red-rimmed eyes.  The hunch in the shoulder.  The missed meals.  They’d stayed in closer touch then.  While Vex was sure that Keyleth’s tribe would watch out for her, well, they hadn’t seen Keyleth the way Vex had seen her.  They knew her strength, her leadership—and, yes, her clumsiness—but they didn’t know her insecurities. They didn’t know her weaknesses.  They hadn’t seen Keyleth after the fall of Emon or the death of the Deceiver.  They hadn’t seen her in the hours after battle or the hard decisions had been made.   They hadn’t seen Keyleth after Pike and Vax and … Vex herself.  That huddled ball, shaking at the loss, the costs.

Vex shook herself and relaxed into the cool darkness of Keyleth’s chambers.  Vex wasn’t as well-trained as she used to be, but she’d spent decades waiting in the boughs of trees, watching the wilderness live out the night, waiting for her prey.  Over time, Vex had found that the key was to sink into the rise and fall of your chest, to let your awareness ebb with your breath.  In.  The damp fur of a passing fawn.  Out. The rustle of a sparrow’s wings.  In.  The green glint of eyes in a neighboring tree.  Out. The coarse texture of bark against your hand.  It was the same here, in this small, enclosed place.  In.  The shuffle of movement beyond the hut.  Out.  The smell of ice from the peak of the mountain.  In.  The glow of the moonlight on Keyleth’s mantle.  Out.  The steady thud of Vex’s heart in her chest.  In.  The picture of Keyleth’s face.

That was the problem with waiting.  You only had your own mind to keep you company.  Vex used to fear that the longer she lived, the harder it would be to keep that company.  It had been such tough company to begin with—the glint of a blade in the moonlight, the spreading scarlet stain on the dark earth, the copper smell of blood on her hands.  Always that.  After everything else—the Briarwoods, Thordak, Vecna—still always that.  Vex would have rather had Vax’s face, looking back, that last time, his face melancholy but at peace.  But she supposed that was reserved for her dreams.  No, waiting, alone in the dark, it had always been the blade and the blood.

Until Keyleth.

It had been decades ago, so long ago and an argument so unimportant that Vex couldn’t even remember what it had been about.   It was the kind of tense exchange the two of them had had plenty of times.  Something had to be done to stop something terrible.  Keyleth had done it.  And then, in private, she had broken down, her body collapsing and the tears pouring out.  For whatever reason, Vex hadn’t had the patience to see this moment of weakness through.  Perhaps one of the children had just been born or another one wasn’t sleeping or, maybe, she was just in a bad mood.  Whatever the reason, she had snapped—asked why Keyleth couldn’t see the good they did.   Why she couldn’t see what they had stopped.  Vex couldn’t remember the details.

But she could remember the response—it was how Vex knew it was past their adventuring days.  In those days, Keyleth was perfectly capable of a burning anger, but only when pushed to extremes.  Everything then was doubt doubt doubt.  She would do the right thing in the moment, but afterwards she would beat herself up and talk about her fear of becoming evil.  Of them becoming evil.  Her ideas were muddled and unclear and, well, Vex simply couldn’t understand why she couldn’t celebrate their victories.  Maybe that’s why this time stood out.  Vex snapped and Keyleth locked eyes with Vex and said, “Right and wrong … it’s not some—some giant scale where ‘this much good outweighs this much bad, so it’s good.’  That’s—that’s not how it works.  If you do something bad it’s a—an indelible stain on your soul.  When we steal or lie or manipulate or kill, it doesn’t matter how much good it causes—it is still wrong.”

Vex remembered that she said something about necessity, about the things that we all had to do.  If she was honest, if she was reflective—which she tried not to be—that was the philosophy Vex clung to in life, it was the life she had lived: you do what is necessary to survive.  Kill or be killed.  Yes, you do what you can to help others and make the world a little better, but, ultimately, survival was everything.

As Vex spoke, Keyleth’s eyes flickered between Vex’s face and the floor.  But when Vex was done, Keyleth said, “I talk to plants.  I talk to animals.  It doesn’t matter how far down you go, every living thing has wants and needs and awareness.  If you kill an animal, you’ve taken that away.  If you pluck a plant from the ground, you’ve taken that away.  Necessity is just necessity.  We have to kill to live, but—but that doesn’t make it right.  We don’t get to make ourselves feel better just because it’s necessary.”

There’d been more words—not an argument, just words—the two of them not understanding each other.  At the time, Vex had wondered how Keyleth could be so … rigid.  How she couldn’t understand that the basic things we needed to survive couldn’t be wrong.

But later that night, as Vex waited in the woods (Waited for what?  Vex couldn’t remember), she’d let herself sink into that half-meditative state and the images had come and, suddenly, Keyleth’s words made sense.

Always the knife and the heat of the blood on her hand.  The wound in the neck.  The wound in the side.  She had been doing what she needed to do to survive.  To cruel people who would have just as easily cut her into pieces as have looked at her.  She’d seen the evidence of that all over their camp.  He—he had looked at her with hunger in his eyes.  And she had done what she needed to do.  But she remembered the knife, glinting in the moonlight.  The scarlet heat slicing the air.  She remembered the look of sorrow on the woman’s face as she saw the man’s body.  As Vex pulled the knife out of the woman’s side.  Let her body drop to the dirt.  She had done what was necessary.  Then she had collapsed to the earth and cried at having killed, at having cut a person down.  She carved her first blood out of those poachers, those slavers, those sadists.  And felt the cost of those deaths even as she knew she was right.  It was a sickness that twisted deep in her throat and ripped through her stomach.

All those years later, in the dark, a lifetime from those killings, killings separated from her by so many other killings, Vex still felt that sickness.

Because Keyleth was right.

That night, as Vex thought those words, she felt a weight lift.  All those years, she had denied her feelings, told herself that to kill was right.  It had been necessary, so it had to be right.  But now she heard Keyleth, her eyes glistening with tears saying “It doesn’t matter how much good it causes—it is still wrong.”  And Vex felt that in her core.  She had killed because she had to, but it was still wrong.  Somehow, admitting that it was wrong let her breath again.  Instead of being an accusation, the knife, the blood were merely the truth.  She had killed.  It was necessary.  And it was wrong.

⁂

Vex didn’t know when she drifted off.  When she came to, she immediately grasped at a sound.  Muffled and buried under layers of blankets, Vex still knew crying when she heard it.  It only took her a moment to pick out the quaking lump across the room.

Vex opened her mouth to say something.  To call out to Keyleth.  To ask her if she was okay.  But she remembered what that was like.  What it felt like to be asked if you were okay, when you obviously weren’t.  Asking that wasn’t about the other person.  It was just a kneejerk way of making yourself more comfortable.  So she quietly stood up from her mat and leaned down next to Keyleth.

Vex felt Keyleth startle under her hand, her head jerking back and then hiding under the covers when she saw it was Vex.

“It’s just me,” said Vex, “I’m going to crawl under the covers with you, okay?”

Keyleth was stifling her sobs, but her words were drenched with tears.  “You should sleep.  I don’t need anything.”

Vex pulled back the blankets and slid underneath, wrapping her arms around Keyleth.  “I didn’t say you did.  Just shhh.”  Vex pulled herself tight against Keyleth and just held on.

They’d had to do this during the adventuring years, huddling together for warmth on the extra cold nights (until Scanlan’s magic took care of any discomfort, of course).  Pressed close under blankets and furs, fighting against the elements.  Then, of course, it had been Vax she had clung to, his arms wrapping around in a mirror image to her own.  So much had changed since those days—she wasn’t as spry as she’d once been (while she’d rejoiced at the gray in her hair, she was less overjoyed at the ache in her knees and lower legs) and friends and allies had passed away like water droplets in an hour glass—yet so much still stayed the same.  Keyleth was a walking example of that.  Still perfectly preserved, an image of over seventy years ago, as gorgeous as ever, and they were still fighting off the coldness of the world together.

Vex held Keyleth close until the shudder of her body calmed and the sniffling dried up.  No words were needed, so she didn’t say anything.  They fell asleep that way, drifting into the dark together, and awoke still in each other’s arms.  Wakening to the glitter of Keyleth’s copper hair in the morning sun, Vex smiled and gently gave Keyleth a squeeze.  She was surprised to find Keyleth reaching back with a quiet sigh, apparently awake but sleepy, to give Vex’s arm a gentle rub.

“Thank you, Vax,” said Keyleth and then Vex felt Keyleth’s body tense as she realized what she had said.

Vex herself realized she had skipped a breath when Keyleth said Vax, but she let the air out and simply grasped Keyleth’s hand.  “My pleasure, darling.  We all need the company sometimes.”

Not long after, one of the Ashari came to wake Keyleth and the string of preparations and then ceremonies and speeches and storytelling and performances and feasts began.

The whole thing was foreign to Vex.  She’d been raised in three worlds—her mother’s, her father’s, and the world in between—but in all of them death was a grave occurrence.  Vex could still remember the one funeral that had occurred during her time in Syngorn.  The entire city had shut down, a week of mourning instituted at the request of the council.  She found out later that the deceased hadn’t been anyone important, at least in the halls of power, but the death of an elf … that was something that had to be marked and respected in the gravest of terms.  It had been much the same way everywhere else—what had Percy’s funeral been, but the trappings of a very human confrontation with something they preferred not to face.  Amazing how humans, who were but a blink of an eye to the lifespan of an elf approached death in such a similar way.

The Ashari did not.

Zephrah was ablaze with color and noise.  Music, reedy and thin and flowing, wafted through the village on the constant winds.  Dancers weaved between the huts and villagehouses, not stamping, but floating, wrapped in intricate clothes of blues and greens and whites that were skillfully manipulated in time to the flowing notes.  Every hour, on the hour, a story would begin at the center of the village, told by a different Ashari, but always about the deeds and accomplishments of Korrin, from the greatest deeds (an old man burned across half of his body spoke of Korrin’s valiance at the Battle of Emon, leading his people against the Cinder King) to the smallest gesture (A middle-aged woman spoke of the time Korrin helped her find her lost bird).  Vex found herself drawn to the stories, watching Ashari after Ashari tell of the way that Korrin had touched their lives, each smiling broadly as they related the tale.  Even Keyleth stood up, her face beaming (but Vex saw the dammed up tears hiding in her eyes) and recounted the time her father had taught her to catch fish with a spear.

It was late before Vex had a moment with Keyleth.  The windwalkers were performing a recreation of the Battle of Emon, daring acrobatics and somersaults high in the sky, as Vex looked on in a mixture of awe and jealousy, when a hand slipped into her own and Vex looked over to the upturned face of Keyleth.

“It’s beautiful,” said Vex.

Keyleth nodded but said nothing.  The firelight painted shifting shadows across her face.  She was solid, unchanging, but the light cast her face as a canvas of chaos.  Vex had always thought of Keyleth as so … Ashari, but it struck her now how apart Keyleth seemed—always with her people, but never one with her people.   The shouts and singing and rejoicing from the rest of the tribe set Keyleth’s silence into sharp relieve. Keyleth understood her people, spoke for her people, but was separate from her people.  When everyone in this village was dead, Keyleth would remain.  Vex hadn’t quite understood what that truly meant until she’d lost Percy.  But now, seeing Keyleth here, it was like something had unlocked in Vex’s heart, some truth she hadn’t understood before.

“Where’s Koreen?” asked Vex, finally letting her eyes drift back to the performance.

Keyleth didn’t move.  “Up there.”

“They’re very good.”  Vex watched the performers leap from glider to glider, catching each other, turning dangerous loop and spirals, timing their movements perfectly with the sliding tones of the music below.

Keyleth smiled, lips wide, true joy spreading across her face.  “We let our grief out in our voice and our bodies.  With our voices we tell the stories that gave us grief.  With our bodies we transform the grief into something beautiful.”  Despite the smile, Keyleth’s eyes glistened with tears.  “She’s amazing.”

Vex heard the unspoken words—So much better than I was—and tugged Keyleth closer.  “We should dance.”  She stood up and tried to pull Keyleth with her, towards the throng of Ashari swaying near the fire, towards the ebb and flow of tones that were so foreign to Vex, towards Keyleth’s people.

Keyleth shook her head.  “No.  Not now.”  After a moment, she added, “I haven’t been drinking and I—I can’t dance right now.”

Vex didn’t let go of Keyleth’s hand.  “That’s a conversation for another day, darling, but I insist on at least one dance.  I’m your guest!  You wouldn’t force me to miss out on all the fun just keep my host company!”

Keyleth laughed quietly at that, the corners of her mouth twitching up every so slightly.  She stood.  “Alright.  But one dance.”

“Of course, darling,” said Vex as she tugged Keyleth along behind her, a playful smirk on her face.

The two of them, fingers entwined, merged with the mass of Ashari, folding into the sway and wave of the bodies.  The music was … different, all fluid movement, the beat lost somewhere underneath the notes.  It wasn’t anything Vex would normally dance to and she hesitated, unsure of what to do.  But Keyleth seemed to know when to move.  The music filled her ears and surged through her body like a gust of wind, sending limbs blowing in smooth, gliding motions.  Feet didn’t stamp, so much as glide.  Arms didn’t jerk, so much as fly.  Her body melted into the fray and Vex, hands still holding tight to Keyleth’s felt the energy of the dance in Keyleth’s touch and melted with her.  Where their bodies touched, the wind seemed to spread and where Vex touched another body, they picked up her sway.  The sway, the swish, the surge pulsed like air in a bellows from neighbor to neighbor until everyone was just a part of an undulating mass of bodies, sweaty and warm against the night air.  Vex let the energy wash over her—a tornado that couldn’t be quenched in her alone—and gave herself up to the music.

⁂

The celebration went on for days.  If Vex was honest, after that first night, she couldn’t separate the moments—she was simply awash in the experience of being.  The swirl of a windwalker above.  The smell of smoke and ash.  The flash of tame lightning in the sky.  The twisty tones of the music.  The steady tones of the storytellers.  The touch of Keyleth’s hand on her face.

And then it was over.  The last words spoken over Korrin.  His body committed to the air in a final, brilliant blaze.

When the air cleared and the Ashari returned to their day-to-day duties, it was like a veil lifted.  Vex realized that she needed to go home.

Keyleth smiled warmly, her eyes fixed on Vex’s face.  “I wish you could stay.”

“So do I, darling, but duty calls.”  She gave Keyleth an exaggerated wink.  In the past Keyleth had giggled and celebrated when Vex winked at her, but now she just kept watching, her eyes painting Vex like a energizing light.  “Yes, well …”  Vex turned to the tree they’d chosen.  “I suppose there’s no time like—"

Keyleth enveloped Vex in a huge bear hug, burying her head in Vex’s shoulder, folding her lithe body around Vex, squeezing her close.  After a moment’s hesitation, Vex entwined her arms around Keyleth.  Keyleth’s body was warm and firm under her arms.  She still smelled of the wilderness, a musky, muddy smelled that made Vex glow.  Vex held her close, face mashed against Keyleth’s collarbone, until she felt Keyleth begin to unravel her arms.

“Thank you,” said Keyleth as she stepped back, “For everything.”

Vex waved her hand dismissively, beaming at Keyleth  “Just returning the favor.  Nothing you haven’t done for me.”

“Still … thank you.”

Vex finally let the mask of gaiety lapse and looked at Keyleth with melancholy eyes.  She reached out and took Keyleth’s hand in hers.  “We have to watch out for each other, Keyleth dear.  No more falling out of touch.  No more hiding.  Understood?”  Vex leaned in to peer up at Keyleth’s face.

Keyleth nodded.

“Now,” said Vex with a clap and a spin to the tree, “Time to get back to tired old responsibilities!”

Keyleth reached past the tree and placed her hand on the trunk, resting her hand on Vex’s shoulder.  Vex could feel Keyleth’s face brushing her hair.  “Good-bye, Vex.  Come back soon.”

“Of course, darling.” Vex angled her head to the side and took a long look at Keyleth’s beautiful face, scrunched up in concentration.  Not for the first time, Vex felt the urge to lean over and kiss Keyleth’s pink lips.

With a few words and a loud cracking noise, the tree folded in on itself and became a doorway to Whitestone.

And for a reason Vex didn’t quite understand, in the moment right before she stepped through, she balanced up on her toes and gave Keyleth a quick kiss on the cheek, nothing more than a brush.  Keyleth probably wouldn’t even notice.  Then Vex was gone.

As the tree closed up behind Vex, Keyleth touched her cheek, a confused look on her face as she gently traced the shape of Vex’s kiss.

Chapter Text

Cassandra’s funeral had been the usual Whitestone state occasion: ribbons and flowers decorating doors and windows, lengthy lines for viewing the body, days of speeches.  Like Percy, there was an air of legend that surrounded Cassandra.  She wasn’t the de Rolo that returned; she was the de Rolo that stayed, sustained the town through the dark times.  While Percy had been the burning light that cast out the Briarwoods, Cassandra had been the guttering flame that kept hope alive in the deep winter.  Only a few of the old council had known the truth of Cassandra’s place in the Briarwood’s schemes and that truth had died with them.  Whitestone saw a Cassandra that had emerged from the shadows and, Keyleth considered, that was just and right.  After the Briarwoods, Cassandra had been too young to be given the burden of power, yet she had taken it anyway.  She started the rebuilding of Whitestone and guided its entrance onto the world stage.  She laid the groundwork for the city Percy and Vex would build.  And she remained a critical figure to the end.  The funeral had represented that.

And, unlike Percy’s, the sun had shown down warm and glorious on the service.

Now, of course, a few days into Keyleth’s first real break after decades of service to the Ashari, it was raining.  Just as it had been raining the day before.  And the day before that.  Storms rolling off the plains, over the Parchwood, and smashing against the mountains.  Heavy drops against the window panes.

Inside the warm halls of the Third House of Whitestone, Keyleth wasn’t thinking of any of that.  Instead, she was a giant cat, a warm ball of fur, crawling and rolling on the floor with the most recent generation of de Rolos.

“Aunt Kiki!” squealed Dayton, tugging at her copper tail as Jona and Jespyr rode on her back and Giliana wrapped her arms around Keyleth’s thick neck. “Aunt Kiki!  It’s my turn!”

Vex’s grandson Tal, calmly walked over to the wild wrestling match and scooped Dayton up.  “Patience,” he said, dangling a giggling Dayton by his leg. “You’ll get your turn.”

Keyleth lay down on the carpeted floor of the vast living room and slowly, inexorably, like a landslide, rolled over.  Jona and Jespyr held on to her fur for dear life and only let go (in a fit of laughter) right before her massive body would have crushed  them.  Meanwhile, Giliana was burrowing into the soft fur on Keyleth’s belly.  Keyleth flopped her paws in the air to the claps of the small children.  Her tongue lolled out of her mouth as she shook her head back and forth at the stritch-scratch of little fingers on her throat.

Suddenly, there was a clapping of hands from the doorway and Keyleth rolled her enormous head to the side.  It was Vex.

“Sorry, darlings, but I need Auntie Keyleth for a bit,” said Vex, a bemused look on her face.

Vex had been busy that morning.  Although she was needed less and less now in her official capacity—Ludwig was almost ready to take over as Master of the Grey Hunt and Freddie and Whitney had taken the de Rolo seats on the council—there were still things that required Vex’s assent or signature and she had been off this morning taking care of business that she’d, as she said to Keyleth, “let drift a little too far behind.” 

There was a collective groan of disappointment and Dayton, still in his father’s arms, whined an objection, but Keyleth twisted back into her normal shape (leaving Giliana still scratching at her neck) and promised him that he would get the first ride when she got back.  He didn’t look happy, but he did stop pouting.

As Keyleth walked over to Vex she giggled and gave Vex a quick squeeze, resting her head on Vex’s shoulder for a moment.  “Sorry, I—“ she laughed again, “—I just had the strongest urge to curl around you and lick your face.”

 “How scandalous,” said Vex with mock consternation, “What would the others think?”

Keyleth felt a slight flush in her cheeks and looked away.  “So what is it?”

“While you have been busy playing with the kiddies, I have been making the rounds and—“ She threw open the front door to reveal the sun breaking through the clouds over the muddy ground.  “—the rain stopped.”  She rested her hand on Keyleth’s back and guided her out the door.  “I know you’ve been looking forward to the great outdoors, so I thought we could go for that ride I’ve been promising you.”

⁂

The horses burst out of the forest and into the open field, sunlight breaking through the storm clouds and spilling across the plains.  The light warmed Keyleth’s face and she grinned.  She and Vex were galloping away from Whitestone across the farmland, vast and sublime, that rose towards the majestic white peaks of the Alabaster Sierras.  Keyleth loved this ride, the feeling of rising towards the heavens.  There was a grounding lightness out here, the heat of the horse’s coat smooth against her skin, the steady rhythm of the gallop reverberating through her body.  She held tight to the horse’s mane, her fingers tangled in its hair, and looked over at Vex riding her own horse just a little ahead.  Keyleth’s smile grew a little bigger.  The spring was finally here and with it came a warmth that despite the cool breeze coming off the mountains was exhilarating.  Damp earth and the smell of fresh blossoms filled the air.

Keyleth’s bounding revery was interrupted by a shout from Vex’s direction.

“Come on, slowpoke!”  She grinned as the wind whipped her hair into a flowing ebony banner.

Keyleth leaned down and whispered a request in the horse’s ear.  The horse snorted and the pump of the muscles picked up, the thump of the hooves becoming a ponderous smack against the wet earth.  Keyleth launched forward.  The thud of her body against the horse knocked the air out of her lungs, but she took a deep breath of the thin mountain air and laughed as she rushed past Vex.

At the crest of the hill, they both slowed, circled each other.  Their hair was tousled and their cheeks flush with excitement.  Keyleth leaned back, propping herself up on the horse’s haunches, beaming at Vex.  Vex sat tall in her saddle, reins loose in her hands, beaming back.  She shot Keyleth a wink and slipped off the horse, landing with a squelch in the rain-soaked grass.  Keyleth quickly followed.  She hugged the face of the horse close, giving her thanks for the ride.

Vex was looking past the farmland, down at the woods that surrounded Whitestone, watching the dark clouds roll off into the horizon, the sun cutting through and warming the skin.  She was luminous.  Keyleth shook out her mane of red hair as she walked to Vex’s side and casually ran her fingers through the sides of Vex’s hair, smoothing it down, tucking the stray strands behind her ears, pinning the blue feather back in place.   Vex gave her a smile and intertwined her fingers with Keyleth’s.

“I love the forests,” Vex said absentmindedly, “but there’s something about being able to look over the land and see it disappear at the horizon.”  She inhaled the scents of the wilderness.  “Or the mountains.”  She waved her hand dismissively as she laughed.  “Whichever comes first.”

Keyleth’s eyes lingered on Vex’s outturned face.  She absorbed the smile, the brightness in the eyes.  Before she turned her gaze to the mountains, as she squeezed Vex’s hand, she could feel her own smile spread softly on her face.  “I love that Whitestone smells like the mountains,” she said, “It reminds me of home.”

The farmland running between the Alabaster Sierras and the Parchwood was a tiny strip of land carved out by Whitestone settlers centuries ago.  The air was thin and the sound thinner.  Even the wind had a stretched out quality and hung light and empty around Vex and Keyleth, snapped tight by the occasional rumble of thunder.

Vex gave Keyleth’s hand a squeeze back and let go, walking back to her horse.  She stroked its side, her eyes following her hand, the corners of her mouth turned up in a hint of a smile, but her eyes feeling something else.

Keyleth took a deep breath.  “You’ve seemed happier recently?”  She hadn’t meant it to be a question.

“Things have seemed brighter.”  Her fingers lingered on the horse’s back, slowing to a stop until she gave her head a shake and the horse a pat and closed the space between her and Keyleth.  “The children are all on their own.  I have my pick of grandchildren and great-grandchildren to baby.  The Grey Hunt has been quiet for years.”  Vex shrugged.  “I suppose quiet has begun to suit me.”

“Quiet,” whispered Keyleth.  Vex’s face glowed warm.  Keyleth wanted to reach out and brush her fingers across Vex’s cheek, feel that warmth in her own skin.  Instead, she simply said, “Yes, it has been quiet.”

Vex turned to stand beside Keyleth, so close her shoulder brushed Keyleth’s arm for a moment.  She chuckled.  “Or perhaps, after all these decades, we’ve just gotten used to a full life.”

Keyleth wondered when they’d stopped having to talk about things.  She wondered when these little exchanges began to be little worlds of information.  She wondered when the cock of a head and the brush of a hand became able to communicate an ocean of emotion.  Mostly, she wondered when she’d stop pretending she didn’t understand what Vex was saying.

She glanced at Vex, saw the relaxation in her shoulders, the way her body leaned slightly towards Keyleth.  Vex, without thought, sought out Keyleth’s hand and tangled their fingers again.  And Keyleth felt the twitch of emotion in her own lips, the way they tugged upward.  So she stared outward and kept silent.  She wondered if Vex understood.  She wondered if Vex saw the same messages in Keyleth’s gestures and looks.  She wondered.  But she didn’t say anything.

Instead, they stood together in perfect silence—their bodies breathing out their thoughts, their fingers squeezing out feelings—until Vex glanced back towards the mountains and said, “Looks like another storm.”  As if to confirm her words, a rumble cascaded down the mountain sides and rolled across the plains.

Keyleth broke their connection and turned to face the oncoming storm.  “Should I let it rain?”  She shot a mischievous sparkle at Vex.

Vex caught the sparkle in her eyes and sent it back with a sly smile, but said, “Let it rain,” and turned back to watch the clouds.  After a few moments, the dark clouds rolling heavy towards them, Vex’s eyes strayed to Keyleth and she said, “Race you to the tree line?”

The storm raced too and it drove the horses towards the edge of the Parchwood at new speeds.  As Keyleth and Vex slowed their horses to a trot and then a stop and slid off their backs, the rain began and they retreated to the protection of the massive, ancient trees.

The storm moved quickly.  In a few moments, the scattered fat drops became a heavy wall.  But here, under the canopy, there was just the steady patter of the rain high above and Keyleth leaned against a gnarled pine, running her fingers along the bark, eyes watching the rain, as Vex settled her horse.

Keyleth understood why Vex loved the woods.  Although she had grown up with the quiet of the mountains—thin, drawn out silence built of breeze and cloud—the quiet of the forest had its own pleasures.  It was built of the rustle of distant animals and the crackle of dried leaves.  Where the mountains were truly empty in its quiet, the forest was a quiet of bustling life.

“Keyleth?”

“Yes?” Gazing out at the sheets of rain moving across the plains, Keyleth’s mind overflowed with thoughts.

“Could you look at me a moment, dear?”

Keyleth turned, her fingers still playing at the bark of the tree.   “Of course,” she said, “what is it?”  Vex’s eyes were painting Keyleth’s face and that glow, that glow that was so warm and inviting, called out to Keyleth.  Keyleth’s breath felt heavy in her throat and her eyes flickered between the ground and Vex’s face.

Vex reached out and grabbed each of Keyleth’s hands in her own.  “Darling, I’d like to kiss you.”

Keyleth felt her face go hot and she ducked her head, hiding behind her hair.  Her heartbeat rose up and pumped through her ears.  But her fingers also curled around Vex’s hands, refusing to let go.

Vex peered through the curtain of Keyleth’s hair.  “Keyleth, darling?  I really would like to … but it’s up to you.”

Keyleth swallowed her nerves.  Vex’s look was like being wrapped in a warm blanket and Keyleth sighed as it swept across her face.

Keyleth nodded tightly.  “I—I’d like that.”

Vex tucked Keyleth’s hair behind her ears and rested her hand on Keyleth’s face.  Her gaze glowed steady—intense, but open, as if she wanted to soak in every moment.  Her fingers brushed Keyleth’s face and coaxed her forward.  Slowly, Vex’s lips parted, she drew Keyleth to her.

Kissing Vex was smooth and natural—like Keyleth had done it a thousand times before—Vex’s mouth hot, her lips slick.  Sliding her hand to the back of Keyleth’s head, Vex pulled her close and Keyleth could feel Vex’s hunger simmering just under the surface, heavy and surrounding.  Feeling that, feeling Vex’s desire pulsing upward into her own mouth, Vex’s other hand kneading at Keyleth’s as their arms wrestled together, it was like a release, permission to just let go, to feed her own hunger and feed it now, to clutch hold of the stunning vibrancy of Vex, pull it close.  Keyleth wrapped an arm around Vex’s waist and pressed her tight against her body.  Vex tangled her fingers in Keyleth’s hair.  They melted into the warm flush of their bodies, eyes closed, energies focused on the hot slide of lips.  The world was reduced to the shared heat of their bodies, reduced to their shared breath, reduced to their shared longing.

Vex broke away first, breath heavy, and steadied herself on Keyleth, her lips hovering just a moment away—a promise.  Keyleth rested her hands on Vex’s waist trying to process what had happened.

But before she could hold understanding in her head, Vex surged upward and tasted Keyleth’s lips again and Keyleth’s world went scattered and frantic.

Keyleth’s tentativeness was overwhelmed by the sheer energy of Vex’s attraction.  It crackled in her lips and fingertips, pulsed through her body.  Vex was more passionate this time and her hands played across Keyleth’s body, lingering on her hips, gliding to her waist, her face, her thighs.  Vex’s mouth burned with hunger.  Her attention was so ardent that Keyleth lost her breath and quickly turned her head to the side and took a breath as Vex kissed down her neck.  Keyleth tried to steady herself and grasped at Vex’s waist, but stumbled back and slammed into a tree, her grip bringing Vex with her.  Vex pinned Keyleth against the tree, her body so vivid against Keyleth’s, Vex’s thigh sliding between Keyleth’s legs—

Keyleth shoved Vex back.  Her chest rose and fell.  Vex steadied herself, her mouth still open, her hands still reaching for Keyleth.

“Vex—Vex, we shouldn’t,” said Keyleth.  Her heart raced and her arms felt heavy.  Part of her wanted to pull Vex back.  Another part wanted to huddle against the tree.  She felt like a child and, as she looked at Vex, the only sound between them the fall of the rain and the quiet of the forest, the conflict on Vex’s face—the battle between confusion and anger, hurt and passion—just reinforced that feeling.  Keyleth was the voice of her people and yet here, in this moment, she had no voice of her own.

“And why is that, princess?  Tell me,” said Vex.

Keyleth flinched a little at the tone, the spark of insolence that Keyleth remembered so well from their youth.   She knew that Vex always chose the sharper emotion, the better to be protected, but the choice still hurt.

So she bolstered her voice and closed the gap between them, rested her palm on Vex’s cheek.  Vex’s face was hard, her jaw tense and defiant, and it would have almost been funny to Keyleth—that youthful rebellion in Vex’s age-kissed face—if it hadn’t been directed at her.  For a moment after Keyleth touched her that hardness remained, but then Vex sighed and the rigidness loosened.

“I—”   Keyleth’s words felt thick in her throat.  “I want to, Vex.  I’ve wanted to, since—” She broke away, her hand and eyes drifting down Vex’s arm, but she pulled her gaze back up. “Do you remember kissing me when you left Zephrah?  After my father died?”

“Of course, I do.  I wanted to do so much more.”  The standoffishness was still there—in Vex’s face, her stance, the clench of her hands—but the reminder of the kiss warmed her further.  Or was it the realization that Keyleth had felt what Vex hadn’t said?

“I could tell.  There was an energy …” Keyleth touched her cheek, lingering in the memory of the kiss.  She took a deep breath and looked at Vex sadly.  “… but we are doing this for the wrong reasons.”

Keyleth expected Vex to bristle again, but instead she smiled sadly, the hardness finally vanishing.  Her hands locked on Keyleth’s hips, she pressed Keyleth close and Keyleth couldn’t help but feel a thrill from that closeness.  “I remember, once, telling someone there were times to be selfish.” Vex popped up on her toes (Keyleth could feel the press of Vex’s fingers through her clothes) and pecked Keyleth on the lips.  Keyleth didn’t flinch away—she wanted that warmth right now, even if she knew they couldn’t have … whatever this was.

When Vex fell away, Keyleth traced the curve of Vex’s jaw, the vestige of Vex’s kiss mixing with her worries.  “And if it hurts someone?”  Despite her words, she lifted Vex’s chin with her thumb and forefinger and kissed her, savoring the small taste of Vex’s mouth.  She leaned back.  “I won’t hurt you, Vex.”

Vex laughed, the sound a bitter tang to Keyleth’s ears.  “How could you hurt me, Keyleth?  Do you honestly think I don’t know why you want this?  Do you think one day you’ll turn to me and call me Vax and it will be a dagger through my heart?”  Keyleth felt the heat burn in her face, her cheeks glowing red as Vex read Keyleth’s own fears like they were written in bold letters across her face.  Vex slid her hands to the small of Keyleth’s back and pulled her closer.  Her arms still had the strength of an archer’s and Keyleth let herself be pulled, rested her arms on Vex’s shoulders.  Vex’s lips brushed Keyleth’s chin.  She smiled.  “We’re both old enough to understand what this is.”

She hadn’t realized it until Vex said that, but Keyleth felt adrift.  Keyleth’s own heart betrayed her, but Vex?  Keyleth knew that Vex played her painful feelings close to her chest.

“And what is this, Vex?  What makes this selfish for you?”

Vex stiffened under Keyleth’s touch and puffed up her chest with pride, took on the air of a preening peacock.  It was a move that Keyleth hadn’t noticed until after their adventuring days, but she recognized it now as Vex girding herself for battle, putting on her armor against society.

“If you must know,” said Vex, her tone too sharp, “I was jealous.  I wanted you back then, when my brother got to you first, and … I was so jealous and so … angry at you for so many idiotic reasons, but even then I still wanted you.”

Keyleth inhaled abruptly at the confession.  “You—you wanted me then?” she said quietly, “I thought you didn’t like me half the time.”

Vex laughed and it wasn’t bitter and sharp, but sweet and delicate.  “I lusted hard, darling.  You were gorgeous.  Well … you’re still exactly as gorgeous as you were then.  Maybe more so.”  Keyleth could feel Vex’s hot breath on her skin.  “And now I can have you.”  Vex appeared to float as she spoke those words, but then Keyleth saw her gaze wander.  Her armor weakened.  “I didn’t even know it was still there and then you showed up again, looking the same, looking at me in the same way.  How couldn’t I be selfish?”

Vex’s words overflowed Keyleth’s mind.  She didn’t know which way to turn.  Vex’s desire was so powerful that Keyleth felt hot from her gaze alone.  She wanted to duck and hide, not sure of her own feelings.  She tried to connect what Vex was telling her with her own memories of days past, tried to connect Vex’s touch with their friendship, tried to connect the way Vex looked at her now with how she looked at her then.  In her mind, the pieces wouldn’t fit.

“What—what makes that selfish?” Keyleth finally managed, her arms frozen in place, still draped over Vex’s shoulders.

Vex arched a sardonic eyebrow.  “I thought that much would have been obvious.”  The eyebrow dropped and with it a shadow fell over her face.  “To let myself take—take my brother’s ….”  Her voice slipped away from her and Keyleth saw Vex deflate, the puff and the faux-pride draining into the earth.

“Vex …” began Keyleth.  She cradled Vex’s head in both her hands, tilted her face to hers.

There was still a spark in Vex’s eyes, but the smile was gone.  “I wouldn’t blame you for judging me.  I can’t believe how selfish I’m being.  To have such a beautiful life with Percy and then … there you are, the love of Vax’s life and—”

“Vex,” said Keyleth, her hands a little too tight on Vex’s face, “Vax has been dead for seventy years.”

Vex’s eyes widen, her mouth opened in astonishment.  It was like Keyleth had slapped her.  “How can you—”

Keyleth kissed Vex.  “You’re not selfish.  I’m the only person you could hurt and I—I want this.  I know I shouldn’t—I should push it away, focus on anything else—but I do want it.”  Keyleth kissed Vex again.  This time it was warmer, more willing, and Vex’s hands snaked around Keyleth and clutched her tight, a feeling of desperation vibrating in her skin, a feeling Keyleth didn’t expect from Vex.  Keyleth folded her arms around Vex’s head and breathed in with a whimper, finally letting her body mold to the shape of Vex completely.

They broke apart, each breathing deeply.  Vex, eyes closed, forehead braced against Keyleth’s cheek, her breath soft on Keyleth’s skin, brushed her fingers through Keyleth’s hair.  Keyleth unconsciously nuzzled into Vex, wanting to burrow closer.  Instead, she kissed Vex’s forehead and said, “I want—“ She paused, her fingers curled against the back of Vex’s head.  “If we—I …” She exhaled and now her voice was a whisper.  “I want you, Vex.  No matter what else I see when I look at you … I want you.”  Her voice dropped even further, a breeze barely audible above the rumble and downpour of the storm that still raged just out of reach.  “Tell me it’s okay to want you.”

Vex was silent, her eyes still closed.  She didn’t move, the only thing Keyleth could make out was the slow rise and fall of her chest and the feel of Vex’s fingers casually playing with a lock of Keyleth’s hair.

Finally, just as Keyleth’s heart began to pound, her chest to tighten, Vex sighed, a quiet laugh mixing with the sound.

“We’ve lived one hundred years, toppled tyrants and gods, and yet here we are, thinking we don’t deserve each other … simply because we want it.”

Keyleth couldn’t quite laugh at the sentiment, but a melancholy smile did creep across her face.  She buried her face in Vex’s hair.  “I’ve lived my life for other people, Vex.  It—it would be a big step to do something for myself.”

Vex shifted and kissed Keyleth on the cheek before leaning back and giving Keyleth a playful look.  Arms wrapping around Keyleth’s waist, she said, “Why, Lady Keyleth, you’ve just taken a week off for the first time in seventy years.  Do you think you can afford to be so extravagant as to treat yourself for a second time in the same seventy years?”

Keyleth blushed, wanting to hide from Vex’s radiant gaze, but a genuine smile painted her lips now.  She brushed Vex’s cheek with the back of her hand and kissed her.  It was tentative, but also light and heady.  Despite her worries, excitement buzzed in Keyleth’s head as she pulled away.

“Yes.  Yes, I think I can.”

Chapter Text

“Please tell me you didn’t, darling,” said Vex, her face a mixture of disbelief and laughter. 

Each time Vex saw Velora it was like being confronted with all the contradictions of her life.  There was that moment, right before she saw Velora, when Velora was a small girl, a feather tucked in her hair and a stuffed owlbear clutched to her side, her face filled with a bright smile.  Then there was first sight.  She stood tall against the window, perfect posture in a rich lilac waistcoat, head tilted up in that typical Syngorn arrogance.  The very model of elvish snobbery.  And then there was the moment immediately after, when Velora turned and saw Vex and she smiled, the same beaming smile of that little girl, the same beaming smile of Vax at his most playful.  For all the joy it brought Vex, it was also a smile that cut to her heart.

The two of them were standing at a window in Velora’s chambers.  Keyleth had left to take care of some Ashari business ahead of the banquet tonight and the negotiations tomorrow, but Velora, a diplomatic attaché, had completed her preparations for the ambassador days ago.  Despite their long-standing relationship, Vex still felt touched that Velora took so much time to see her on Vex’s irregular visits to Syngorn.

The wide smiled flickered quickly back to a more reserved, quiet smile, but the energy lingered.  “I can neither confirm nor deny that I had anything to do with the frogs.  I will note, however, that Alimere has not been able to look at soup the same way again.”  That thin smile could barely contain the smugness.  “That little ranger training I took when I was younger does have its uses.”

Velora shot Vex a quick wink and sent Vex laughing again.  It was nice sometimes to be reminded of the pieces of Vax that were left behind, even if it was a just an echo in a half-sister.

“I needed a laugh.  All of this,” Vex waved a hand vaguely over her shoulder, “Can get to be a bit much.”

“You seem to handle it very well.  I wish I had the ability to shut down some of the council the way you do.”

“Well, I do have a couple decades on you.  Get back to me in twenty years and I think you’ll be doing just fine.  I promise you, it’s just as stressful to me as it is to you.”

“You do a good job of hiding it.”

“Experience, darling.”

Velora simply said, “Ah” and lapsed into silence.

Vex arched an eyebrow.  “Something on your mind, dear sister?”

The thin smile reappeared on Velora’s lips.  “These last few years, you’ve seemed more like the sister I remember.  I’ve been very happy for you.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” said Vex with a sidelong glance.

Velora laughed lightly.  “I’m sure you don’t,” she said and looked out over the city.  She gestured in a controlled way at the spires of Syngorn.  “Do you still dislike the view?”

Vex rested her arms on the thick wooden railing of the balcony.  “Let’s just say its positives are not as outstanding to me as they seem to be to others.”

“Hm.”  Velora lapsed into silence again, then “Keyleth seems quite happy.”

Vex smiled warmly.  “She is, I think.  It’s been nice to see her anxiety go down a bit.”  Vex glanced over at Velora and realized that her sister had started smiling widely again.  “What?”

Velora arched an eyebrow and turned back to the view of the city.  “Oh, nothing, dear sister.”

“Oh no.  Out with it.  You’ve been dancing around this all night.”  Vex knew what it was, but she hated the parrying and feints that seemed like the normal conversational tone of all elves in Syngorn.  Velora could at least have the decency to be blunt.

“Keyleth, Vex dear, Keyleth.”

Velora was, like all elves, sparing in her touches.  Even with her own playful tendencies that were so foreign to most elves, she was clearly uncomfortable when Vex embraced her, pulled her close.  Vex knew that Velora stood it for her sake, not because of any desire to be hugged.  So Vex understood that when Velora gripped Vex’s upper arm and gave her a small smile that she was overflowing with emotion.

“I’m happy for you, that’s all.  I just wish you’d … announce it a bit more.”

Vex squeezed Velora’s hand on her shoulder, but said, “There’s nothing to announce.  Keyleth and I make a good pair, but it’s nothing more serious than that.”

“Of course,” said Velora as she turned and walked back into her chambers, “Perfectly apparent that there is nothing serious there.  Should we get ready for the reception?”

⁂

Vex thought the evening would be the normal bore: faux charming conversation as she feigned interest in the tiring elves of Syngorn with their seemingly inexhaustible ability to go over every possible detail of every possible aspect of every possible scenario—most of which would never even matter!  And it had been that at the start.  Luckily, Keyleth was there beside her.  With a well-placed hand and a well-timed comment, she made the conversation almost … entertaining—if only to see the delegates’ bemusement at Keyleth’s unorthodox style of conversation.  Vex had had to admit that Keyleth had been right to insist on coming.

But now?  Now it was all anger.

They had been funneling into the reception hall with its sweeping walls and gold inlaid murals and long tables carved from single pieces of timber from old growth forests.  They had been waiting to be announced.  The announcement had been the problem.

It started off well enough: “Lady Vex’ahlia de Rolo, Baroness of the Third House of Whitestone and Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt, ambassador for the city-state of Whitestone …”

That had been fine.  That had been normal.  That had been tedious.  It was sometimes shocking to think how much personal love she had for those titles and how much public distain she now had for their pronouncement.  Then the steward had continued: “… and her consort, Lady Keyleth of the Air Ashari, Voice of the Tempest and diplomatic appointee of the Ashari Nations.”

At the word—consort—Vex could only imagine what her face did.  Or perhaps it did nothing.  After all, this was exactly the thing she had spent her life doing: looking unfazed in the face of the unexpected or, as Percy had called it, not giving them the show they want, but the show you want.  But she didn’t have to imagine Keyleth’s face.  To say the red had crept into her cheeks would be to do a disservice to the sheer rapidity of the transition.  No, it didn’t creep, it leapt.  Vex saw her face freeze in a smile that surely would appear perfectly normal to everyone else in the crowd, but to Vex spoke volumes.

As they walked towards their seats, Vex leaned in and whispered, “I’ll take care of this.”

Keyleth kept her eyes straight ahead, but brushed Vex’s thigh.  The red was retreating.  “It’s—it’s okay.  It was just sudden—that is, unexpected.”  As they approached their seats and their table companions fo the evening, she leaned in slightly and her eyes flickered to Vex’s face.  “Really.”  The smile was genuine, real.

The problem was that Vex couldn’t help her anger.  She’d had it all her life and, if it hadn’t served her well, it had served her well enough.  Halfway through the diplomats’ speeches, the anger still burned in her stomach.  She couldn’t help stealing a glance at the steward, who stood stationary by the door, ornate staff at his side, eyes forward, fixed on the proceedings.  By the time the speeches were complete, the anger still hadn’t burned its way out and Vex decided that was a clear invitation to take care of this problem.

Vex pushed back her chair and shot Keyleth a charming, if insincere, smile.  “Don’t mind me, dear, I’ll be right back.”

Keyleth gave her a warning look and murmured Vex’s name in a conciliatory manner—the tone that Vex well understood to say that Keyleth didn’t think this … little disturbance … was worth it—but Vex knew she had to see this through.

She was almost to the steward, a sharp smile glinting on her lips as she imagined the verbal whipping she was about to mete out, when a hand gripped her upper arm and pulled her to the side of the room.  Instinctually, Vex turned to strike, but the passion and anger drained away as she looked into Velora’s familiar face.

“Velora?”

“Sister.”

Velora let go of Vex’s arm but kept her gaze.  Vex cocked her head but didn’t turn away.  She swallowed down the tight ball of venom she had prepared to spit at the steward and rearranged her face into a facsimile of a smile.  Velora, dear, I’m happy to talk in a few minutes, but I really have to take care of something.”

“Vex,” said Velora, “I’m the one that made the change to the address list.”

Vex found the careful arrangement of her face unspooling and she clung to the smile.  “Excuse me?”

Velora took a steady breath and said, “I changed Keyleth’s address to consort of the Baroness of the Third House of Whitestone.”

“Why?”  Vex found her tone unable to maintain her light playfulness.  It had begun to dig into her sharp, bitter tone.

Velora glanced around the room and gave Vex a slight nod to follow her out on the balcony.  Out here, in the fading sunlight, the air was warm and the conversations in the room a mere hum.  Velora stopped at the edge of the balcony and leaned her back against the railing.  She still stood straight, as most elves did, not quite allowing herself the luxury of relaxing into her position, but she spread her arms out on either side, her hands tight on the carved wood.

“It was meant to be a joke,” she began.

Vex arched an eyebrow.  “It wasn’t a very good one.”

Velora nodded with the slightest incline of her head.  Her face was serious, with only a hint of worry showing in the slight downward hitch of her lips.  “I have to agree.”

“What were you thinking? You know Keyleth well enough.  She embarrasses easily.”

Velora stared Vex down for a moment, her thoughts impenetrable, then spoken suddenly.  “Is that—”  Then just as quickly her mouth snapped shut and she began again with a softer tone.  Vex didn’t like that she could recognize the razor-sharp tone that Velora had begun with.  “We didn’t grow up together, but I thought a little sisterly jab would be … appreciated.”

“Hm.”  Vex sighed and walked over to Velora, leaned back against the railing next to her, and looked through the windows into the bright lights of the banquet beyond.  “Maybe just jab at me next time, darling.”

Vex could feel the warm spring breeze gliding over Syngorn.  It had a soft touch on her skin, but also carried the distant smells of the Verdant Expanse.  She much preferred the world like this: on the outside, the movement and signs of the world around her, the decorum and small talk and custom in there—visible but removed.  Vax had always been so good at cutting through the manners and the rules when they were in town.  Vex had only ever known how to slip into the flow, play the game.

Vex slid a hand next to Velora’s until she bumped her fingers.  “I think I could handle a little sisterly prank now and again.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”  Velora’s voice had drifted into her default elven coolness—a tone that Vex could never quite get a handle on.  But before she could say anything, Velora spoke again.  “I thought you needed a push.”

“Excuse me?”  There was the flash of heat again, but more as fuel for shock than anything.

Velora looked at Vex with sympathy—a look that Vex hated.  “Sister, it’s clear from the way you talk to her, look at her, that you have something special.  I know you married Percy, but he was human and you are not bound to follow—”

“Dear sister,” began Vex, the ball of venom working its way back up, “please do not make the mistake of confusing my decisions with Syngorn custom.  I know all too well the reality of ‘joining for life.’”

Velora, uncharacteristically for her career choice and her upbringing in Syngorn, let herself bow her head and look away from Vex.  When she met Vex’s eyes again, she nodded slightly.  “My apologies, Vex.  I meant only to help.”

Vex sighed and gave Velora’s arm a quick squeeze—the only affection that could be snuck into a room like this—“I’m sorry for my temper.  You’ve always been my favorite little sister.”

A slip of a smile appeared on Velora’s face and the two of them shared a moment of sisterly tenderness before returning to the dinner.

⁂

After the dinner, when Keyleth and Vex had left, headed for their room, there had been a fire burning in Vex’s stomach.  It burned hot and it spread to the tips of her fingers, radiated out through her lips.  She wanted to share it with Keyleth.  It was lightning drawn to her body and she barely made it to the door of their suite before her hands were on Keyleth’s body, before her lips were on Keyleth’s lips, and then her neck.  Every kiss was a slick burning symbol of what Vex felt in that moment.

After the first gasp and the nervous giggle, Keyleth had warded her off until they were inside the suite, the door shut behind them.  Then Keyleth had stopped holding Vex back and the hands had danced across clothes until the clothes fell away and were replaced by skin and they had tangled and fallen and lost themselves in the smell and taste and sound and touch of their bodies.  Vex had grinned as she lost herself in the moment.

Normally they collapsed together afterwards, still entwined in each other’s grasp and, on a warm night like this, when the air seemed soft with the scents of blossoms and the heady sylvan smell of the forest, they didn’t bother separating their sticky skin before giving in to sleep.  Tonight was different.  Keyleth had long ago passed the point of no return.  Her breathing had gone shallow and her lips parted just so in the moonlight, until she murmured a soft nothing and rolled over in her sleep.  But Vex hadn’t been able to follow suit.  There was an energy in her chest that she couldn’t identify.  Usually if she couldn’t sleep it was because her body was bursting with an urge to move and her mind followed along.  Tonight, she felt at peace.  Her mind was still and calm like a cold mountain spring just before the thaw.  Keyleth’s moon-kissed back rose and fell in time with her breathing and a waterfall of sunset tumbled down her back.  Vex traced the light glimmer of a smile on her own lips with the tips of her fingers and sat up.

The night was clear outside the window and the moon full, casting its color across everything outside, stretching inside.  Vex realized she was hugging the sheets around her naked chest.  The sheets were cold and she unwrapped her arms letting the breeze blow through the windows and across her skin.

Vex had liked one thing about Syngorn.  The people had been terrible.  Her home had been terrible.  Her education had been terrible.  But she loved the feel of Syngorn.  There was something of the forest in all elves—it was a deep primordial forest, thicker and more dangerous than any forest that the world knew today, but it was a forest nonetheless—and everything they touched had an element of the forest in it.  Even Syngorn with all its bad parents and worse memories had the feel of the forest in it.

From behind, Vex could hear Keyleth rolling again, the sound of rumbled sheets giving way to what Vex knew was the confused slide of a hand feeling for a familiar body.  She looked back over her shoulder.  Keyleth was just lifting her head and looking around the room bleary-eyed.  Her eyes finally alighted on Vex and she shot her what would have been a confused look if she wasn’t already scrunching her face up with sleep.

“Go back to sleep, darling,” said Vex with a light smile.

But—Keyleth being Keyleth—she didn’t listen.  Instead, she propped herself up on her side and tried to force her eyes open.  The tangled mess of hair on top of her head made a fiery crown that made Vex’s smile spread.  Even like this, Keyleth radiated the sun.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Yes, just thinking.  Nothing to worry yourself about.”  Vex shot her the glance that she hoped said “go to sleep, take care of yourself” but probably didn’t quite succeed.  She was calm, but that stillness brought a feeling of melancholy with it—the deep water cool and chilled but also a weight on her chest.  And Keyleth had an uncanny sense for detecting any strains of sadness.

Vex felt the shift of the bed.  Without looking back, her eyes returned to the moon dappled towers of Syngorn, she could picture Keyleth dragging herself up to a sitting position, her face draped with worry, her eyes painting Vex’s body with concern.

But Keyleth said nothing. Instead, Vex felt her hand rest on her back.

Keyleth was so warm.  It was easy, sitting like this—the blankets cool around her waist, the moon light washing her skin pale—to imagine Keyleth as the rising sun, her rays orange and red, carrying a healing warmth.  Vex shuddered out a deep breath, knew Keyleth could feel the rise and fall in her skin, hear the slight pain.  She wrapped her arms tight around her torso.  Felt the coolness of her own body.  It was like she was pulled between two worlds--one of twilight and another of dawn—and Keyleth was there behind her, keeping her in the dawn light.

“What’s the matter, Vex?” asked Keyleth.  “You’re not one to give up a good night’s sleep.”

Vex had to laugh a little at that.  She cocked her head and regarded the shadows of Syngorn.  If you squinted and the light hit them just right, you could almost believe that you were in a forest.   Vex sighed.

“I love the forest,” she began, “I’ve loved it since the day Vax and I escaped Syngorn and tried to find our way back home.  There’s something so majestic but savage about the wilderness that has always scratched at something in my heart.”  She could feel Keyleth shifting behind her, adjusting her position.  Keyleth’s arms reached around Vex and pulled her close to the warmth of her body, Keyleth’s head buried in her neck, her hair brushing against Vex’s skin.  Keyleth’s breath was a hot breeze.  Vex shifted her hands and gripped Keyleth’s arms tightly, tighter than she had intended, but perhaps more in line with her thoughts.

“When I was in the cities and the villages, I had a role to play.  Smooth off the edges.  Let the words sprout flowers.  Move just so.  We had to get what we wanted.”  Vex paused and she squeezed one of Keyleth’s wrists.  “I—I suppose there’s always been a bit of that with just … people.  What do they want me to be?  What do I need them to see?  For all the fun I could have with it, it was—it is—frankly, exhausting.”

Keyleth kissed the curve of Vex’s neck and then rested her chin on Vex’s shoulder.  “You don’t have to do any of this anymore.  Someone else can take over the diplomatic duties.  You can spend time in the Parchwood or,” and here the strength seemed to drop out of Keyleth’s voice, “with me.”

Vex turned her head and caught the corner of Keyleth’s lips with her mouth—a quick kiss mixed with a weak smile.  “I suppose I could, couldn’t I, darling?”  Vex kissed Keyleth again and nuzzled her cheek against Keyleth’s nose.  “I don’t know why I never considered that I was giving up the forest but keeping the cities.  It seemed right to pass on the Grey Hunt after Percy was gone ….  But this?  Syngorn?  This is—it’s something Whitestone needs and I can provide.”  Vex shook her head and leaned slightly into Keyleth’s arms, felt Keyleth hold her closer, the arms firm and strong around her chest.

Vex laughed.  “That’s not even the point!  The forests—that’s the point.”  The breath filled her chest and pressed tight against Keyleth’s embrace.  “I miss the forest.  It’s something I feel I could spend my whole life in.  It feels like the simmering silence of the forest runs in my veins.  I could walk into a forest and never come back and I’d be happy.”

Keyleth squeezed Vex even closer and Vex sighed at the contact, the comfort of the embrace, the heat of Keyleth’s breath.  “You could do that, you know.  I’ve thought that maybe someday, I’d … well.”

Vex let a hand fall to Keyleth’s thigh.  Even through the softness of the sheets, she could feel the strength in that body.  “You’re always one for solutions, but—” Vex shrugged in Keyleth’s arms.  “—it’s not a problem.”

Vex paused with a deep breath and looked out into the darkness, as if looking for answers, knowing the answers were not outside.  The corners of her mouth tugged up, but there was a sadness on those lips.  She didn’t understand that sadness.  Part of her wanted Keyleth to kiss the sadness, take it from her lips, burn it away, melt into her body, and overwhelm her mind.  Part of her didn’t want Keyleth to taste that bitterness.  Part of her wanted Keyleth to share it.  Know it.

Vex guided one of Keyleth’s hands to her lips and kissed her palm tenderly.  “You are my forest.”  She pressed Keyleth’s palm against her cheek and locked her eyes on the darkness.

Keyleth turned her head, still perched on Vex’s shoulder, and warmly kissed Vex’s neck—the flash of hot sun in the moon-white night.  “And you are my air and my sky,” she whispered into Vex’s skin.

Vex hadn’t realized that her breath was stuck in her chest—had been since she’d pushed those words from her lips—until it dissolved and rushed out in a quiet gasp.  She turned to look at Keyleth and Keyleth pulled away slightly to take in Vex’s face.

The words came out breathy when Vex spoke, “I—I don’t want you to …”  Vex painted Keyleth’s face with her gaze—and every moment of that gaze was adoration.  “I thought if I kept you at a distance, you wouldn’t have to lose me.  That’s … foolish, isn’t it?”

Keyleth’s shifted and Vex felt the press of her hand on Vex’s bare stomach as Keyleth guided her back down to the bed, shifted so she leaned over Vex, stroked her hair.  “Only because you didn’t ask me.”  Keyleth lay next to her and settled her head on Vex’s shoulder.  She seemed to love to nestle into the crook of Vex’s neck, tug her close.  “You don’t get to choose who you care about losing,” she said, “I learned that a long time ago.  You—you know?”

That familiar pain rang out in Vex’s chest, tight and close.  “I do, darling.”

“So you have to grab hold of life when it shines the brightest, even if it burns because … because it’s worth it.  Even if ….”  Keyleth’s voice faded away to nothing.

Vex searched for something to say, but realized that they’d already said it.  So she lay quietly, Keyleth’s breath steady, reassuring.  They clung to each other.  Clung to another love of their life.

Chapter Text

As a single drop of water contains the ocean,
So too does a single moment contain eternity.

As a single drop of water is too small to see the ocean,
So too is a single moment too small to see eternity.

As a single day contains the future,
So too does a single life contain all lives.

As a single day is too small to see the future,
So too is a single life too small to see all lives.

But the past?
We are never too small to see the past.

That is the trap.

- Common translation of an Ashari testing chant.

Chapter Text

As Vex took the rough steps upward into the darkness, her walking stick feeling more than a weight than a support, she considered that starting their journey with a visit to Pike had been a mistake.  She, of course, adored Pike, loved Scanlan, loved Ylorca (who had been visiting her parents).  It was always a bright spot to see Pike again, see her smile, her lightness of being.  It had just been harder this time.  A bit like looking into a mirror and not liking the reflection.

Vex had been so happy when her first hair went gray.  She was not, perhaps, overjoyed when the rest followed suit, a little quicker than she would have liked (she’d dreamed of having a cunning white streak like Cassandra—alas, it was not to be), but the changing face in the mirror … that had been nice.  Not having the reminder every morning.  There was part of her that felt like she should have been sad.  After all, she was losing her only chance to see a vision of Vax before they were finally reunited.  Perhaps her only chance to see him before he crossed into the Raven Queen’s realm.  But not having the daily reminder felt like a weight lifting, like when she had tucked Percy’s glasses into her nightstand drawer.  It became a memory to recall instead of a loss to carry—something she chose.

And then Pike.  Dear, bright Pike.  Her hair had been white for so long that it hadn’t marked a moment of the passing years (although, perhaps it was thinner now, more like wisps of cloud than a framing halo of light), but her face was a delicate sheet of paper decorated with crisp neat lines.  Those lines showed the joys of her years, along with the weight.  She moved more slowly now—just like Vex.  She contemplated more—just like Vex.  She watched the world moving around her now, interjecting herself with comments and laughter.  Her hands had felt like old leather when she grasped their hands.  Vex had looked at her own hands for a while afterwards as they caught up.  They had looked the same.

It was … harder than Vex had thought.  Growing older.  Had she ever even thought about what it would be like?

She’d been happy to see Scanlan too, of course.  Settled-down was a word Vex would have never thought she’d use for him.  But there he was.  The same smiling charmer with eyes only for Pike.  He’d performed a new song that night.  It had been bright like Pike and deft like Ylorca and cunning like himself.  But underneath the bouncing rhythm and the cheering words, Vex had detected an undercurrent of loss.  She wondered if that was the first time she noticed that he looked at her differently.  It was the first time she looked at him differently.  It wasn’t the first time she looked at Keyleth differently.  But there was something the same in them.

Scanlan barely looked older than the day they stopped adventuring.  His hair was still overwhelmingly black with only the barest hint of salt beginning to find its way through on the sides of his head.  And there were crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes.  Perhaps a crease more around his lips when he smiled.  But if he had been human, how old would Vax think he was?  Forty-five?  Fifty at the oldest?  He still seemed so young.  He still sang so young.

He knew he was going to watch Pike die and he would be there, his eyes only for her, until the very end.

Vex’s eyes had twitched involuntarily to Keyleth at that moment.

So, yes, perhaps starting the journey with Pike had been a mistake.

Then again coming up from below like they had so many decades ago, winding through the stone and the darkness—they could have flown to the top!—perhaps that was a mistake too.  Tracing the journey.  Feeling it all again.  Maybe the whole thing was a mistake.

Vex’s foot slipped on a roughhewn step and she felt herself begin to fall, gripped at her stick, felt it dig into the ground catching her weight.  Felt Keyleth’s strong grasp on her arm.

In the dim light of the globes that hung occasionally through the interior, Vex looked up at Keyleth.  She was ageless.  Still exactly as she had been all those years ago.  She still carried the same soft look of care and worry in her eyes—the worry tucked behind the care as if the ones she cared about might not notice.

“Are you okay?” Keyleth said, that hidden worry hanging on every word.

Vex pulled herself up straight (not quite as high as she had once been) and tapped her walking stick on the ground.  “Perfectly fine, darling,” she said, flashing Keyleth a wide smile.

Keyleth smiled back but her hand lingered on Vex’s elbow.  “Good.  I—I worry.”

Vex laughed softly as they took a few more steps.  “Really, I’d have never known!”  She patted Keyleth’s shoulder.  “Really.  I’m fine.”

Keyleth nodded and looked around.  “I wish we’d flown.”

“While we’re being honest, so do I.  But this …”  She jerked her chin forward to the path ahead.  “…this is important.”

They had talked so much about it before that Keyleth didn’t need to say anything.  They trudged forward, upward, a little longer in the darkness until (Vex didn’t know how long it had been) Keyleth stopped.  A slow smile spread on her face.

“Can you smell it?”

Vex lifted her nose and sniffed the air.  All she could smell was the rock and the dirt and the dust of ages.  “I’m afraid my nose isn’t quite what it used to be.”

“Fresh air.”  Keyleth was beaming now and she stretched out her hand.  “We’re almost there.”

Keyleth’s hand was so warm and soft (even with the years of accumulated calluses, they were somehow so soft) and there was an energy in her now that pulled forward and pulled Vex with her.  Vex didn’t want to say anything, didn’t want to tell her to slow down, didn’t want to tell her that her legs ached where they always did.  She just wanted to follow that energy, let it pull her upwards, let it carry her through life just this one more time.

And then they were outside.  A blue sky above.  A strong cool breeze hard against the skin.  The sun bright and light.  It was hard to believe that this was what remained of Thar Amphala.

In the time since that final battle with Vecna, the titan had become its own monument within Vasselheim—a reminder of what could happen, the threat of evil, that even the Cradle of Faith could meet its end.  They called it the Whispered One’s Ambit.

It had been left largely as it was: crumbling decaying.  But guards, mixed groups from each of the religions, wandered the insides and stood watch on top. They had been notified that Vex and Keyleth were coming and simply acknowledged their presence and moved on.  Up here, the city was far below, the air was thin, and there was little to remind them of anything but the past.

As they wandered there, high above the world, the energy in Keyleth’s gait seemed to drain away.  Her eyes lingered over the smashed tower and she moved unsteadily over the cracked and rocky ground.  The two of them moved slowly across the top of the titan for the first time in almost one hundred and forty years.  It was still a towering monument and, yet, Vex didn’t feel anything like she had expected.  She chuckled a little at herself and wondered, from Keyleth’s raised eyebrows, if a little of the chuckle had slipped out.  Here she was, on a massive titan and the thought at the forefront of her mind was the pain in her legs.

It turned out that magical healing didn’t undo damage, it just healed it quicker.  Broken was broken.  She hadn’t been much older than eighty when she’d started to feel the constant ache in her legs.  But that was what came of dropping out of the sky in an unholy ziggurat and shattering your legs.  Vex supposed that Delilah Briarwood deserved a bit of a last laugh—it had been so satisfying to see her die for a final time.  Vex shook her head.  Thinking of Delilah now … here.

She paused and looked around and Keyleth stopped by her side.  The tower was, as it had been so long ago, in pieces, but there were still elements of the base jutting out of the titan’s back.  The pattern of detritus and rubble had long ago become embedded in the stony floor and those pieces now seemed to act like a prison to that tower.  There was something appropriate in that.  Vex wandered to the tower and reached out slowly, running her fingers against the weatherworn surface.  The years in Exandria had done little compared to its time in the Shadowfell.  If not for the destruction they had brought to it, it would still stand as an obsidian beacon.

Vex turned away quickly (well, as quickly as she could now) and let out a huff of irritation.  Vecna.  Good riddance.  She walked towards the titan’s head, where the stone fell away and there was nothing but mist and air.  It was a slow journey, the edge much farther than she expected, but she made it and found a few stone growths perfect for resting.  She rested a hand on the stone and guided herself down, transferring her weight from her walking stick.  She took a deep breath of the thin air, set the stick against the stone, and looked out.  From this high up, you could only see the edges of the city—the titan loomed too large.  Instead, you saw the thick wilds that pushed at the walls.  Even that disappeared into white mist before the horizon.

Vex could feel Keyleth standing by her side, looking at the same view.  She had thought they’d have something to say when they got here, but finally being here, looking out from this place, she … didn’t have any words.  And, as the moments stretched on, Vex realized that Keyleth didn’t have any words either.  They were just here, together, at … not the end, but an end.  Vex reached her hand out without changing her gaze and brushed Keyleth’s arm, took her hand.  Keyleth squeezed it softly.

Finally, Vex breathed in that air again and said, “It doesn’t mean anything.”

There was silence and then Keyleth shifted, moved in front of Vex and squatted.  Her eyes were focused down and as she spoke, she began to work at Vex’s boot laces.  “It was a battle.  It—it wasn’t what mattered.”

Vex gripped her walking stick and leaned her weight back to help Keyleth work the boot off.  “It was so … big.  Everything back then was so big.  I thought finally coming back here, I’d feel it again, but …”  She waved a hand a round.  “… it’s just rocks.”

Keyleth smiled and began to massage Vex’s heel and ankle, work her way up her leg.  Vex sighed.  Keyleth knew just where the ache was, knew just the touch to take it away.

Her hand working away in familiar patterns, Keyleth looked up at Vex.  “So much is ‘just rocks’ if you give it enough time.”  Her eyes were strong but rimmed with sadness.  “You know?”

Vex nodded.  She couldn’t say anything more than that, so she went back to her thoughts, let Keyleth finish with the right leg, then move onto the left.  They stayed there in quiet contemplation—Vex staring out at the sky, Keyleth focused on the tiny ministrations of care.  The walking stick was gnarled and strong in her hands and Vex absentmindedly rang her fingers against the back of her hand, followed the history worn into her skin—the mountains of crinkled skin, the rivers of thick veins, the knotty lumps of her knuckles.  For a moment, just a moment, Vex’s eyes wandered to her hand, holding the stick tight.

She had always thought about Keyleth like a tree.  When she had been young she was supple and bent with the wind, almost crashing down, but always bouncing back, somehow stronger.  When times were good, she was bright and glowing, like the green leaves of spring—a quiet beauty.  When times were rough, she was radiant and burning, like fierce oranges and reds of fall—a vivid raging beauty.  Now that she was older, she was very much the same.  Just stronger, more able to stand tall in the storms.

Looking at her hand next to the twisting stick, however, Vex realized that she was like a tree too.  In her youth, she had been quick to grow, surging towards the sky, straining to touch the clouds.  Sleek and fast like the poplar.  But now … now she was gnarled and bowed.  Oh, she still stood straight.  She could still shoot a bow.  All in all, she was quite the fit and active woman still, but … the breaks, the tears, the folds.  The years had taken their toll and carved their number into her body.  It was astonishing how much age became impossible to ignore after a certain point.

When Vex’s mind came back into focus, slipping from her hand to the view in front of her, Keyleth was staring at her intently, Vex’s boots already back on her feet.  Silently, Keyleth reached over and coaxed the stick out of Vex’s hand and laid it to the side, then guided Vex’s hand to her lips.  The kiss was warm on Vex’s palm.  Keyleth set Vex’s hand down on the stone and in one easy movement slid on to Vex’s lap and turned to drape her arms over Vex’s shoulders.

“Welcome back.”

Keyleth kissed Vex lightly and then pulled her tight for another.  Warmth flooded through Vex’s body and she surged upward into Keyleth’s mouth, drinking deeply.  When they pulled apart, she ran her fingers through Keyleth’s copper hair.

“Now, what was that for, darling?” said Vex.  She ran her eyes over Keyleth’s face.

Keyleth smiled.  “To distract you from your thoughts.” 

“I assure you that my thoughts are perfectly delightful.”

Keyleth leaned in again and kissed her.  When she pulled back, she said, “And I’m sure they’ll continue being delightful.  Is it—is it anything you want to talk about?”

Vex gave Keyleth’s thigh a soft pat.  “No, dear.  Just … thoughts.  Just … time and all that.”  Her hand gave a little wave.

Keyleth said, “Okay,” and then glanced to the side, across the titan and Thar Amphala and into the mists.  “It’s just a place.  An important place, but we’ve been in so many important places.  Besides ….”

Vex nodded, filling in the gap left by the silence: it wasn’t the battle that really mattered.  Those unspoken words sat between them for a time until Keyleth, in a voice that was almost a whisper, said,  “We should go to the Platinum Sanctuary.”

⁂

There should have been snowdrops.  But they had blinked a long time ago and they were gone.

⁂

Vex was so used to coming back to Whitestone through the Sun Tree that at first she thought Keyleth had brought them to the wrong place.   But a moments focus, and the reassuring touch of Keyleth’s hand on the small of her back, and she was reoriented.   This was Whitestone.  A part of Whitestone that she knew well.

When they had built this place—more accurately, rechristened it—it had been a simple shrine.  Although she didn’t quite know what the others thought (they had never talked about it, not even Keyleth), Vex had always thought that it was meant to be a place to … remember.  Say hello.  Say goodbye.  Just to speak to the guttering light of the candles when the mind found its way into dark corners.  Vax had intended it as a symbol of devotion.  Vex thought of it the same way, but to a brother not a god.  But time guaranteed that things didn’t stay still.  They either rotted or they grew.

The Raven Queen had quite the following in Whitestone now.  Even many of the de Rolos were counted among her followers.  And with followers came monuments and glory.  Vex still remembered the generations of arguments it had taken in the city council for the permission to be given.  She remembered how the eyes had turned to her in her seat, as if she could dismiss the support with the wave of a hand. Perhaps she could have.  But she knew better than to do it.  That was against every dream Percy had had for his city.

So here was the Temple of the Raven Queen, rising tall and proud from the heart of the cemetery, graves carefully and respectfully folded into the building.  The shrine to her champion was on the west side, given a place of honor.

The shrine was still much as it had been, but the finishing details had changed.  There was onyx and gold inlaid in every surface and, above the alter, a detailed mosaic flowed from ordered chaos into the form of a proud raven, stretching its gold tipped wings wide across the wall.  Vex always rolled her eyes at that display.  Vax would have rubbed her nose in the adulation.  She would have arched an eyebrow and made a stinging remark and he would have laughed.

She wished he was here to rub her nose in it.  She wished she could think of a stinging remark.  She wished she could laugh.

This was more painful than she had expected.  She thought the pain had dulled over the years.  She had been sure that it had. Yet … here it was, an ache in her chest as she walked through the Temple of the Raven Queen.  She so wanted to do this.  She so wanted to step into the shrine.  She wanted Vax to be the first to know.  But she also wanted to run.  She felt like a scared child in the woods again.  What would Vax say?

“He’d say ‘I love you, stubby.’”

Keyleth’s words caught Vex off guard and she hesitated for a moment on the threshold of the shrine, rested a hand on Keyleth’s arm.  Keyleth was so beautiful, so young.  But over the years she’d become quieter—more considered—and the way she looked at the world had become … more studied.  It was at times uncomfortable to see a somewhat calculating look coming out of a face that to Vex would always be wide-eyed and naïve.  It was twice as uncomfortable when Keyleth looked at her that way.  The steady eyes seemed to measure out Vex’s thoughts and weigh their meaning to a fraction of their mass.

But then, as they did now, the eyes would soften and the lips would soften with them into a shadow of a smile and Keyleth would brush her face.

“I’ve become too transparent in my old age,” said Vex.  She looked away from Keyleth to the darkness of the shrine.

Turned away, she couldn’t see Keyleth’s face, but she knew the moods of Keyleth’s breaths and the shades of her touches.  Her hand beckoned on Vex’s chin and Vex looked up into Keyleth’s bright face.

“Or … I just know you too well,” Keyleth said.  She traced the line of Vex’s jaw.  “I—I’m happy to share everything, even the sadness.”

Vex laid her hand over Keyleth’s, pressed it tight against her face, shut her eyes.  With the world blotted out, she could reduce everything to that single touch—warmth lingering on her cheek.

She opened her eyes.  Keyleth’s face filled her world.  “Of course, dear.”  She took a deep breath and cracked her walking stick on the stone of temple.  “We should get this over with.”  And she dropped her hand and moved into the shrine, hearing Keyleth’s quiet chuckle behind her.

“This was your idea.”

Vex arched an eyebrow, knowing full well that Keyleth couldn’t see her face.  “I must have been having an off day,” she joked.

Keyleth’s arms folded in from behind in a hug and rested her chin on Vex’s shoulder.  “Oh no!  Should we call it off?” she said.  If it hadn’t been Keyleth, Vex was certain that would have been in a mocking tone.  Instead, it was astonishingly sincere, even if Vex knew that the intent was not.

Vex brushed Keyleth off.  “Don’t be stupid, darling.”

She took another step forward and was at the alter—what had once been the sarcophagus for the at first deposed and then disgraced family of Whitestone.  Unthinking, she ran her hands over the black and gold surface.  The mountains of candles that decorated the edges of the alter and climbed the walls framed the mosaic but also cast a dancing light that sent ripples of light up and down the seams of gold.  Vex didn’t like to think about the number of hours, perhaps days, she had spent here—talking to Vax, hoping to hear a voice, but never expecting to get a response.

When they—Percy—had first made this place, Vex couldn’t think of anything that was further from Vax.  She understood Percy’s gift.  She understood why he did it, but ... the Raven Queen, that was not a place for her brother.  It was not and never would be his home.

It had been after the wedding that Vex had begun to think differently.  After she’d seen him again.  It had been wonderful.  It had been awful.  That was when she realized that Vax … Vax … would always be her brother, but he wouldn’t always be … the same.  It had taken her time.  Decades.  But she had realized that he truly was the Raven Queen’s.  That this—this—was the closest she could get to him.

Now she had something to tell him and she needed to be as close as she could be.  So they were here.  So she could—

“It was just supposed to be a joke.”  The words dripped out of her mouth unbidden.  She wanted to clamp her jaw shut, stop the flow, but she knew now, above all other times, she needed to say this.  Perhaps Keyleth already understood.  But Vex wanted to make sure.  “One day, I’d rub it in his face and he’d get upset and I’d laugh and then … we’d have a real wedding and he’d be there.”  Vex’ahlia looked down.  She didn’t want Keyleth to see her cry for this.  She knew well enough how much this hurt.  “And I got it.  I did.  He was there, but … it wasn’t right.  He was Vax, but he wasn’t and ….”  Vex let the words die on her lips.

Keyleth’s fingers ran across the altar, following the lines of gold in Vex’s path until she brushed Vex’s hand.  “I think he knew about it all by the end.  He heard everything we didn’t say.”  She leaned in and kissed the top of Vex’s head.  “And we learn from the past.”

Vex nodded at that and a slight smile pulled at one corner of her mouth.  “Yes.”

“Are you ready?”

It was customary to kneel when you did this, but Vex’s knees complained too much at that exertion and, besides, who was there to tell them the right way to do it.  According to Keyleth, they should also do it in the center of the village in front of the whole community.  So, they were already breaking precedent.

They stood, in the Shrine, in front of the alter of black and gold, and faced each other.  There was Keyleth, just like she had always been.  Tall and powerful and young and kind and maybe a little bit scared.  But if she was, she didn’t show it.  She was already unwinding the rope from a pouch at her side.  It was thin and worn and the different bands of material that made up the rope were of different fabric and different colors.  They had each contributed two: Keyleth a green strip of cloth from one of her father’s robes and another from a multi-colored blanket made by her mother; Vex a black strip from one of Vex’s cloaks and a tattered piece of brown fabric that was the only shred remaining of a dress her mother had made.  Keyleth herself had woven the pieces together into the rope she held—the rope she now offered to Vex.

Vex grasped the thick rope in one hand and rolled it in her palm.  The individual strands were solid and distinct and, if you ever felt the desire, you could have traced a single path of fabric from one end of the rope to the other.  Vex let her thumb rub a section of the black as it dove between brown and green.  She sucked in a breath.

“How does this start again?”

Keyleth smiled sweetly and took her own breath of the warm air.  “First, you wrap it once around the palm and back of your hand—” Here, she demonstrated, turning her wrist slowly while holding the rope firm, slipping her fingers around the taut rope they held between them.  “—then you look at the other person and say ‘This is my life, held in my hand.’”

Vex couldn’t help smirking a little at the almost educational tone of Keyleth’s voice.  The jab followed naturally: “And do you, darling?”

Keyleth nodded and seemed to swallow thickly.  Was she nervous?  “Yes, I do.”  Her voice was softer than it had been a moment ago but her gaze was riveted to Vex’s face.  Vex thought of herself as strong willed and resilient, but the intensity of Keyleth’s eyes could be overwhelming.

She met Keyleth’s gaze and felt her own warmth pour out towards her, the corners of her lips pull up.  The words almost caught in her throat as she wrapped the rope around her palm.  “This is my life, held in my hand.”  The rope was tight and firm.

Keyleth reached out her other hand and gripped near the center of the line of rope that connected them.  Vex followed her lead.  Her hands shook, but she was used to that now.

“This is our life that we hold between us,” continued Keyleth.

“This is our life that we hold between us,” repeated Vex.  Keyleth’s eyes were evergreen—always vibrant, always clear—and at this moment that looked only at Vex.

Keyleth pulled the rope to the side and Vex let her hand be carried with it.  Then Keyleth reached out with her other hand, the rope still wrapped around the palm, and intertwined her fingers with Vex’s fingers.  The rope stayed firm and kept their palms from completely touching.  It was strange feeling Keyleth take her hand, but something come between them.

“I take your hand …”

Vex remembered the response: “… and I take yours.”

“My life is yours …”

“… and my life is yours.”  Vex suddenly felt short of breath and her eyes fell away from Keyleth’s face to look at their hands: Keyleth’s smooth and lithe, Vex’s wrinkled and knotted with time.  The rope of four colors now seemed to bind their hands, but Vex knew that if she let go now, the rope would loosen, unravel from both their hands, and fall away.  A shared life undone.  Keyleth had made clear to her that this was one way to end the ceremony.

Keyleth was watching her and Vex realized that their other hands hovered to the side, both holding on to the length of rope that gave them freedom.  It could bind them, but it could also fall away in a moment.  Keyleth lifted that stretch of rope, raised it over their hands.  She paused just as she reached the pinnacle—the rope curved over their hands like the rising sun.

“The light above watches over us.”  She brought the rope down and under their hands.  It was so close to pulling tight.  Vex could feel it, the tension in her palm where the rope already held tight, the rope tense between their hands.  “The ground supports us.”

The next line was Vex’s.  She had spent time several nights learning the ceremony.  It had been something she wanted.  To create this bond.  To share it with Vax.  Here.  Let him know first.  Like she hadn’t before.

Vex cradled the loop of rope in her free hand, squeezed Keyleth’s hand in her other.   Now she was meant to take the rope and wrap it around their joined hand.  It was the penultimate step in tying their lives together.  The words were “Like the sun, I will watch over you.  Like the ground, I will support you.”

The words came out unbidden and Vex felt her hand already moving, the rope circling their hands.  In some ways this felt like nothing more than a dream.

Keyleth looped her half of the rope around their hands.  “Like the sun, I will watch over you.  Like the ground, I will support you.”  Vex followed the curves of the rope, the way her skin seemed to fold around the rope, the way the rope pressed into Keyleth’s skin.

So now, all they had to do was pull in time.  If the ceremony had been performed correctly, the rope would pull tight, press their palms even tighter, and it would be like their skin was made one, the winding rope of their lives clutched between them.  If not ….

Keyleth met Vex’s eyes.  She held her hand level with her heart, the rope grasped firmly.  She smiled, but the smile was subtle, almost lost in the flickering shadows of the candlelight.  She nodded, ever so slightly.  And then she pulled at the rope.

Vex did nothing.   Just watched the rope pull towards Keyleth.  Without the reciprocating pull on her side, the rope went slack.  It uncurled from their hands.  Rough and heavy, it rubbed between their palms.  Until the rope hung dull and lifeless between their too outstretched hands.

Keyleth’s eyes drooped down to the rope, followed its length to Vex’s hand.  Vex watched her eyes wander up Vex’s arm until she met Vex’s gaze again.  There was a question there.

“Darling—” Vex stopped there.  “I thought—”  She didn’t know what to say.  Only what she felt.  There was a deep, unbearable weight in her chest and the rope had pulled it tight to the bursting.  She thought letting go would have stopped it, but now there was a new, a different weight in her gut.  And it felt like it was ready to burst too.  She needed to let something out.

"When I married Percy ... that was it.  I didn't think there'd be anyone else.  Not ... like that."

"Are we like that?"  Keyleth had taken her hands and was pulling them tight.  She had no intention of letting Vex pull away--as she was wont to do.

"I--"  Vex laughed and the sound seemed foreign after these last few months.  The sound was dried, scratchier than she remembered.  "We aren't are we."

Keyelth shook her head and leaned back against the alter, her hand still holding Vex's hands tight.  "I don't think so.  I'll never be Percy.  And I'm not trying to be.  You're not ..."  The voice broke for a moment, revealing the hesitation, but she barreled forward.  "Vax.  As much as we started out pretending that was the ... attraction.  We're us and what we have is ... uniquely us."

Vex stared at Keyleth for a moment and then pushed up on her tiptoes and stole a quick kiss.  "How are you still so awkward and yet you can say things like that?"

And, somehow, Keyleth managed to blush deeply enough that it shone out like a lantern even in the dull candlelight.

"I—I— Keyleth still ducked her head like she had all those decades ago when they had first met.  "I just say the truth."

"And I love you for it."  Vex breathed deep and found her eyes wandering to the floor.  "I'm sorry that I did that.  I was sc--I just felt like I was losing--."  Vex looked back to those watching eyes.  "You know."

And Keyleth did know.  She didn't even have to nod and Vex knew that she knew.  It was the wide openness of her eyes.  The way she seemed to simply accept everything that Vex said.

"Vex, we don't need to do this.  I was happy with what we had.  I thought you were too until you asked about the ceremony."

"And I am.  It’s not about happiness.  It's about--" Vex broke off with a heavy sigh.  "It's important, darling."

"Do you want to try again?"  Keyleth's eyes didn't implore, but there was a deeper question there--something in the way they searched Vex's face.

"Not—not that way, no."  Vex pictured the rope again, the interwoven colors, the shapes of the past.  The way it had tightened against her skin and tied them tight, pressed them against one another.  "I don't need to be tied to you."  Vex returned Keyleth's searching look and caressed Keyleth's cheek.   "What could bind us closer than we already are?"

Vex turned to the alter again, her fingers again tracing the gilt inlay, her eyes exploring the watching raven.  "But I need Vax to know.  I—I need him to be the first this time."

"Do you think he doesn't know?"

Keyleth was smiling and it was wide and free. Vex couldn't help but laugh.

"That man might know me better than anyone else in the world but--" The thought broke down as the words left her lips.  "No, he doesn't does he?"  Vex worried her lip, an old habit she'd never been able to break.  "He knows me—he knew me so well ... but I never opened up to him about my deepest fears."  She paused.  The mosaic raven regarded her closely.  "Although I suppose there are no secrets from my brother now."

Thinking of her brother--simultaneously trying to remember how he was and knowing he was something else now--was always tiring and Vex let out a breath and her shoulder's slumped.  But only for a moment.

A moment later a fire burned bright and she stared down the ravens.  They as much represented the Raven B—Queen as they did her brother and she wasn't about to give her the satisfaction.  She might have saved Vex's life so long ago, but her brother had repaid her a thousand times over.  There was nothing owed there.  No debt.  Nothing.

Vex raised a finger to the mosaic.  "Here's what I want you to know," she began defiantly, "I love this woman.  I love this woman intensely with my whole heart and my whole body and my whole—everything that is left of my soul to give.  I would give my life for her—"  Vex glanced at Keyleth and Keyleth's eyes were welling up with tears.  Vex took her hand and smiled.  "—even though I know I'll never have to.  This woman—"  Vex raised Keyleth's hand, shaking their joined fist at the mosaic.  "—this woman is the strongest person I've ever known and the fact that she looks at me and sees strength will always be the most baffling thing I've ever heard."

Vex was watching the mosaic again, but she could feel Keyleth's eyes.  "She might not be able to spend the rest of her life with me, but I … I will gladly spend the rest of my life with her."

It had been a burst of flame, burning bright and quick.  In that moment her body had felt light, lifted towards the sky.  Now it came crashing down.  Her breath was heavy, her chest tight, her shoulders hunched under the weight of her explosion.  She drooped.

And then felt Keyleth's hand in hers.  It had never moved from her grasp, but now it was a revelation.  It tugged her close and Vex turned her tired eyes to Keyleth's face, pulled in by Keyleth's gravity.  Now it was Keyleth's turn to brush Vex's face, linger softly with wet eyes and nothing but adoration on her face.

"All that, Vex?"

"It's not even all you deserve."  Vex shook her head but couldn't tear her gaze away from Keyleth.  "So much that I don't have the words for."

Keyleth gently kissed Vex and the warmth of that kiss filled Vex up.  So soft, but so intense at the same time.

When they parted, Keyleth rested her forehead against Vex's and said, "I guess this is it, huh?"

"I don't know what you mean, darling."

Keyleth gave that whisper of a smile again.  "You do."

With that she stepped away and faced the mosaic.  "Hey.  I--I know we talk a lot.  Or, rather, I talk a lot and I hope—I hope that you listen."  Keyleth let out a long controlled breath.  "I—you know.  You always know.  Because—because, well, death is everywhere and—and so are you."  Keyleth's words fell away and she stared up at the raven.

"Vex always had the words and you--I always have trouble with words around you, but ... these words are important.

"Vex--your sister … Vex," Keyleth huffed out something between a laugh and a sigh, "She saw me like you did.  She didn't know it at first because she saw ... well, all of me, flaws and all, in a way you didn't, but she saw me and ... it made me whole.  To have someone look at you and love you, not part of you, but ... all of you.  I'd only felt that a couple times before and I didn't expect to feel it again."

Keyleth glanced over at Vex then and just as quickly looked away.

"I know that I'm flawed and I know that I'm powerful, but you and Vex were the only ones who I felt that in and I'm—I'm glad I found it again.  Even if ...."

Keyleth didn't just glance this time, she turned her whole body and took both of Vex's hands and took all of her with her eyes.  vex had felt this before--Keyleth's whole attention.

"Vex," said Keyleth, trying and failing not to sound awkward and forced and yet, somehow, also being completely sincere at the same time, "I feared losing people I loved for so long.  It was the thing I feared more than anything else.  And it's still my greatest fear.  But—but—" here she snapped at the word "--some people are worth that fear.  You are so worth that fear."

Vex saw Keyleth swallow the warble in her voice—It was a thick knot that Vex had seen too many times.  Keyleth opened her mouth to say more and it hung open for a moment before she closed it and simply wrapped her arms around Vex and pulled their faces close.

"I love you," Keyleth whispered.

Vex accepted the raw emotion that rasped in Keyleth's voice—raw emotion that Vex could never quite grow accustomed too after all her years of putting on a show---and reached up to brush her fingers through Keyleth's hair.

Not looking up, letting Keyleth hold her close, Vex felt the strength in Keyleth become her own strength.  She clung to Keyleth like a sinking survivor to a piece of flotsam in the wave-tossed sea.  Keyleth was a lifeline, not one Vex needed, but one she wanted.

She whispered back, "I know, darling.  You're even more beautiful every time you say it."

Vex hoped the raven was smiling.

Chapter Text

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Keyleth knew this because she had thought about it and imagined it and worried about it too many times to count.  Because if you didn't think and imagine and worry, you couldn't find a way to fix it.  So Keyleth had thought and imagines and worried time after time. Often at night, when she was alone, and tired, and her mind wouldn't let her sleep.

It would go like this: Grog, in battle because he would be happiest that way; Tary, at home with his husband and the next generation of adventurers at his side; Percy, surrounded by family, Vex holding his hand; and then ... Vex (Keyleth had long ago decided not to think about what that would be like because her mind was too prone to accidental deaths or assassinations or food poisoning or any number of other terrible ends.  The thought of losing Vex made her choke and sob.  She didn't need more of that); and then Pike, Scanlan and Ylorca at her side; and then ... Koreen (again, Keyleth stopped there--the gray in Koreen's hair, the crow's feet around her eyes.  They were enough for now).  Then there would be a few hundred years when it was just Scanlan and her.  And then it would be just her.  For a thousand years.

The thoughts went on in much more detail and with many more tangents, but, at the core, that was how it was supposed to be.  That was the order of things: Grog, Tary, Vex, Pike, Koreen, Scanlan.  They had left the battlefields behind and they each deserved to live out the full length of their lives in whatever peace they could find.  But life wasn't set in stone.  You could live longer and you could live shorter.  You could live a blessed life or a cursed life.  These things were in the hands of nature alone.

All in all, Pike had lived a good life and she had died with a loving husband on one side and a loving daughter on the other, just as Keyleth had hoped.  She had changed thousands, if not millions of lives.  She had lived a full life that was an example to everyone she met.  You couldn't ask for much more.  Her last words had been "Scanlan, I'd like some music."  Scanlan had played her into the Raven Queen's realm and then cradled her form until night fell and the priests and priestesses of Sarenrae had come to prepare the body.

Pike had lived out the last years of her life splitting her time between her home in Westruun and the temple of Sarenrae in Vasselheim.  She had tried to transition her leadership for decades to focus on her family and the community where she had grown up, but she had never been able to break the prevalent view that she and she alone could lead the church as it grew and spread across the world.

The funeral would not be small.  If anything, it would be the largest of any member of Vox Machina.

But this first day was for Westruun, for friends and family, for those who were there in the place that Pike had called home.  So Keyleth and Vex had helped where they--filtered the visitors at the door, helped see to the arrangements for the body's transfer to Vasselheim—given Scanlan and Ylorca their time to say goodbye.  They knew it would be what they wanted under the same circumstances.  But as the day wore on and the friends and neighbors and officials kept coming, there came a point where Keyleth realized she had put on the official mask—the one she used to hide her feelings, the one with the rigid grin and the phony, too cheerful voice.  She didn't like that mask.  She didn't like a mask at all.  So she had excused herself as Vex played the social games with charm and grace, and walked through Westruun.

And walked.  And walked.  And finally found herself hunched on an old log at the edge of a field that was rich and brown and freshly planted.  It was a view that to those who knew was one primed for life.  There was a smell to the earth around fields—damp and thick, so thick you could almost choke—and that smell told you everything you needed to know about what lay below the earth.

But to the untrained eye it was also desolate.  Cleared and ordered, trees long ago felled, wildlife kept back by the noise of civilization.  Maybe it wasn’t the untrained eye that knew why it seemed desolate, maybe it was the contradiction of seeing too much.  Keyleth knew the ways in which life both found away and failed to take hold.  Keyleth’s eyes followed tiny signs of movement in the ruddy pink light of the setting sun.  Barely noticeable, they were field mice, scouring for food, digging and burrowing and desperately searching for anything.  How many of them would be dead before winter even fell?  How many would die once the snows came?  Oh, the ones that survived would bring so much life into the world.  And then that life would fade and crack in the harsh light of day.

Keyleth wiped at her eyes, hoping they weren’t too puffy, and slid of the log, kneeled on the rich soil at the edge of the field.  She brushed her hand across the top of the soil.  The earth was rich and dark and Keyleth pressed her hands against it.  She could feel the stored warmth of the sun, just beginning to make its escape into the gray-rose air or twilight.  She closed her fist and squeezed the earth tight.  Hot and wet, it clung desperately to her skin and she felt its heat trying to escape into her body.  The earth might be stubborn and hard.  It might be dangerous and sharp.  But it might also be warm and inviting.  It might be like this field, which held out its gifts and asked you to share in them.  A field was a different kind of life.  It was a life of potential until the first sprout made itself know.  It was a life of hidden energy and hidden activity--the first tender tendrils reaching out, the worms and the beetles and the ants working out their own lives around that energy where no one else could see.  It was a life of promise.

Keyleth stretched her fingers wide in the dirt, felt them swallowed by the field, tasted the loamy fertility in her nose and on her tongue.  She closed her eyes.  She reached out.

Here, in this field, live trampled and wrestled and intertwined in a thousand directions and Keyleth could feel it in the tips of her fingers.  She breathed in and felt the sharp copper taste of life tingle through her lungs.  She breathed out and the tips of her fingers were in dirt but not this dirt.  They stretched deep like roots, finding paths downward and out, labyrinthine and circuitous, finding the path of least resistance, the crack in the rock, the break in the clay, until the tops of her fingers stretched a mile wide and a mile down.  She breathed in and the jolt made her gasp.  Her head filled with the violent urge of plants to reach upward and outward at all costs.  If plants could scream, this would be their scream: a primal roar for light.  That roar filled Keyleth's being and she sat with it, her breath caught in her throat.  She rolled it around in her mouth and in her mind until the roar, the primal roar of "up!" was everything.  When it was all she was an all she could be, she grabbed hold of it and let the elemental power flood in.  She breathed out.

She breathed out and that energy came with it.  There was a tinge of electricity in the air, but most of it ground into the earth, finding the paths Keyleth had built only moments ago and everywhere it went the earth gobbled hungrily at the energy, seeking to sate an insatiable hunger.  Keyleth's mind went with it.  It flooded out—not focused, but stretched thin; yet not in pieces, but whole.  Keyleth felt large.  She was the field.  She was the fields.  She was the town and the mountains and the forest and the trees and the leaves and each sapling and each weed and bug and she could feel the pulse of life because she was the pulse of life.  She breathed in and the energy of the field dimmed.  She breathed out and it flared, each seed, each dull spot of life, exploded into a star, so brilliant, so infinite, so beautiful.  Keyleth thought (if she could think at all) “it would be beautiful to be like them” and the energy of everything she was reached out further, trying to fill every blinding spot until they could fill no more.  She felt weak inside.  She felt her body (her body?  So distant) scream in agony, but she knew that with just a little more, she could make the fields of Westruun bloom early.  She could give Pike that.  She could--

It was a light touch on her back, barely the breath of the south wind, but there nonetheless.  Suddenly, she felt her body again like it was hers.  Like she had before.  She snapped back into place.

The sky was dark and her hands felt the heat long gone from the earth.  The first chills were beginning to creep in--seasonable, but temporary.  Still, she shivered and she pulled her damp cold hands from the earth.  She sighed and it was weak.  She slumped forward and realized that she could barely find the air to breath.  Her body no longer screamed.  It simply whimpered and begged to be released.  It would be so easy to lay down here in the dirt.  To sleep a while.  To let her mind go dark. 

Vex knelt beside her, her walking stick laid to one side, a hand pressed against Keyleth’s back.

“I’m always happy to practice my tracking skills, darling, but I prefer a reward at the end.”

The voice made Keyleth startle, but her body didn’t react.  “I’m—I’m sorry,” she said and her voice was a rasp.  She cleared her throat and pulled her shoulders straight and strong.  “I just needed to … needed to ….”  Although her voice was her own again, it faded away into the coolness of the mid-summer air.

The hand rubbed circles on Keyleth’s back, but Vex’s gaze was on the field.  "It's a lovely view, darling.  I would have stopped too."

Keyleth smiled weakly at Vex.

"Scanlan and Ylorca and Kaylee have gone pub hopping.  They've left one of those irritating priests to watch over the body." 

Keyleth snuffled a little but she felt energy seeping back into her, warmth spreading from Vex’s distracted touch.  "That's good.  A body shouldn't be left alone so soon after death."

Vex didn't say anything to that.  She had become more fond of silence in recent years.  Although Keyleth suspected she had always been more fond of silence than she let on.  All that time in the woods, just Trinket at her side.

As Keyleth thought, Vex helped her stand and settled her back on the log.  She leaned over and picked up her stick, tapped it on the ground.  That was a little habit Vex had picked up over the years.  Keyleth knew that tap--it was a sign of dissatisfaction with out the sigh.  "Why ever would you want to get better at this?"  She drew a line in the loam and then crossed it out.

Keyleth flickered between a half smile and a frown.  Vex could be so direct sometimes.  "I—I guess I don't mean better, exactly.  Just ... not feel it as strongly.  Not—"  Keyleth waved her hand at her face "—this."

Keyleth felt foolish when she was like this.  Crying, sobbing over death when she had seen so much of it.  But it had been like that in the adventuring days too, hadn't it?  Each death seemed to be a wild thorn stabbed into her heart.  No matter how many thorns she pulled out it never quite healed and her heart never grew harder.  She'd seen everyone else have the few deaths that hit them, but most of them ... just were.  She'd never understood how they could be so casual about it.  Both Vex and Vax had been almost cavalier about death.  It was only close death that really seemed to matter.  But Keyleth would cry at the death of a monster.

She understood why, though.  It had taken decades but she understood why.  She knew—in her heart—why that pain was necessary, why she needed to embrace it not run from it.

She also knew it would feel so much better to live a thousand years without the pain of loss.  It would also make her a monster.  So, maybe she was meant to feel like this at the slightest death.  Maybe she was able to become the Voice of the Tempest because she felt so strongly.  She'd thought about it—oh, she'd thought about it so many times.  Yet, still, there was this piece of her that wished—wished—that she could let that care go.

Everyone would die.  She knew that.  What did it matter when they died?

The dull thud of Vex's walking stick in the dirt broke through Keyleth's thoughts.  Vex was setting the stick down on the ground again.  Her movement was stiff and slow but purposeful and determined.  When she had risen back to sitting her eyes were heavy on Keyleth's face.

She sighed and rub her eyes.  "I'm getting cranky in my old age," she said, "I was about to scold you for moping about when Scanlan and Ylorca are the ones who need us.  But that's not really the point is it?"

Vex reached over with one hand and clutched Keyleth's hand.  "I can't imagine what it must be like--looking at a future that stretches on so far.

Keyleth shook her head, but she didn’t look up.  "It's not so much."

Vex's hand squeezed Keyleth's again and she gave the back of her hand a little pat.  "Enough of that, darling.  We're too old for that nonsense."

Vex seemed to lean perpetually forward now, slightly unbalanced, but she still exuded a noble straightness in her posture, even as the years pressed down on her back. She lifted a hand to pat Keyleth's shoulder and her hand shook as it moved through the air.  Vex usually seemed so strong, but there were more and more moments where she seemed made of dried leaves, ready to blow away on the wind.

"I'm not so fragile that I can't still tackle you to the ground here and now," interrupted Vex.

"Stop doing that!"  Keyleth recoiled slightly at the strength of emotion in her own voice.  She hadn't meant to be so ... loud.

Vex merely raised an eyebrow; she didn't move her hand from Keyleth's arm.  "Doing what?"

"Knowing what I'm thinking! I—I—"  The emotion drained away again and left Keyleth empty and slumped.  "I never understood how you did that.  Just understood what people were thinking."

Vex reached out with her other hand and caressed Keyleth's cheek, drew Keyleth's eyes to hers.  "Occupational hazard.  You know that.  Knowing, seeing, it's all about getting out in front of things."  Vex's hands drifted to either side of Keyleth's face.  They were cold and somehow wrinkled and smooth at the same time.  "How do you bear to feel so much?"

Keyleth squeezed her red, tired eyes shut, hoping to relieve some of the stress--but it didn't do anything.  She sighed.  "I—I have to."

Vex nodded, the action itself seeming to take enormous concentration.  "Well, dear, there you go."

In all their time together, Keyleth had never quite figured Vex out.  People changed as they aged and grew old.  Some things fell away.  Others hardened in place.  New things grew up.  Just as some people grew out and around as the years passed them by, others crew thin and lean.  That was Vex.  Keyleth regarded her, glanced at Vex's shining eyes, took in her whole face.  Over the year's Vex had lost any excess fat.  She was all bone and lean muscle and skin now.  Her face had lost any of the curves it had once had and was now almost entirely one sharp angle ending at her chin.  And it wasn’t just the outside.  Just as some people lost their edge over the years, while others honed theirs into a fine blade ... that was Vex too.  Vex was so much sharper, quick to the cutting remark, quick to frustration.  It didn't bother Keyleth, she hadn't even noticed when it had happened, it had been so subtle over all these decades—but there were times when she wondered if she couldn't be sharper herself.  She assumed she was doomed to become softer and softer as time went by.

Yet, Keyleth saw a softness in Vex when she looked at her like she was right now.  It didn't come from the smile or the touch, but from Vex's eyes--a cooling light that shimmered deep inside.  It was cold, but not in a frozen way.  It was cold like a compress on a wound or a bruised arm.  Soothing.  Comforting.  A coldness to heal by.

The simple fact was that Keyleth was used to Vex.

No, they didn't see each other all the time and they only spent a couple weeks at a time together throughout the year (although Vex had begun to spend more time in Zephrah over the past few years, before Oliver had died.  Keyleth had ... liked Vex being there when she came out of council or diplomatic meetings). But there was simple a directness to Vex that was comforting.  The years had stripped away the soft fatty shell that Vex had built up over the years: the curves and warm smiles and tangled words—the things that Keyleth had found both enticing (because who wouldn't?) and off putting.  It was odd to think that so clearly: that there had been things about Vex that Keyleth found off putting.  But it was true.  The casual masks and the verbal performances.  For all that Keyleth had been able to enjoy them and the hidden smiles behind them, they also made her feel uncomfortable—deception was never her way.

"It's—it's not that simple, Vex."  And Keyleth knew that she said Vex's name a little too sharply, a little too much like a slap.  She hadn't meant to, but the weight in her chest wouldn't go away and it threatened to make her choke—so the words just burst out at Vex.  "I can't keep doing this," said Keyleth.  Vex's palm lightened on her shoulder for a moment and quickly ame back in place, a little tighter.

"Can't do what, dear?"  Keyleth knew that Vex couldn't help the edge in her voice, but, just this once, despite the hypocrisy, she wished Vex would sheathe the knife.

"Don't—don't bristle," returned Keyleth, "It's not about you!"

Vex chuckled and again Keyleth felt a little flare of anger inside, tamped down by that weight in her chest and the weakness in her limbs.  She realized that she was leaning towards Vex.

"Despite appearances to the contrary, I don't think the world revolves around me," said Vex.  The hand had left Keyleth's shoulder and Vex was bending over to pick up her walking stick.  Keyleth had noticed that the stick was good at keeping Vex at a distance in more ways than one.  It tapped twice on the ground and then Vex spoke, this time the edges were dulled.  "What's the matter, darling?"

Keyleth exploded upward in a wild rush of air and tangled her fingers in her hair, making it fly in disarray as she stalked a few steps into the field before hitting a wall of her own making and spinning back around.  Vex was pushing herself up, balancing her weight between her legs and the stick with a slight grunt.  She pulled herself straight and eyed Keyleth from the short distance, one corner of her lips tugging up, an eyebrow dangerously cocked.

"Would it be wrong to point out how attractive you are when you're upset?"  Vex’s wrinkled face gleamed pale moonlight.

"Stop.  Please."  The tone was raw.  Keyleth never meant to be so open.  But here she was.  She watched Vex's smile disappear into a look of concern.

"Keyleth dear, I miss her too."

“This is just—it’s so stupid!”  Her voice had completely run away from her now and she heard her voice shout like a petulant child.  “I know—we knew it would happen.  I just—it didn’t … I loved her and now she’s gone and I knew she would be gone, but it still hurts.”

Vex was at her side now.  She didn't attempt to reach out, keeping a tight grip on her stick, but her tone was so soft that the words embraced Keyleth like enfolding arms.  "I think it’s good that it never stops.  What would we be if it did?”  The words echoes in Keyleth’s head, remembrances of the very words that Keyleth had thought just moments ago.  "And yet here we are, sitting with our pain, while others sit with their pain."

Vex drew in a deep breath and there was a slight wheeze.  Keyleth worried about that sometimes.  There were too many signs that Vex's body was breaking down, but that one, that one sign of the inside weakening was the piece she pushed away.

Vex deliberately uncurled one hand from the walking stick and reached up to brush the hair from Keyleth’s face.  "I—I wish I had the energy to be what you needed right now," continued Vex, "but I—"

“You are always what I need,” said Keyleth.  She brushed a hand against Vex’s cheek, traced a finger along the line of her jaw.  Keyleth knew every detail of that face.

"I don't know if that's true.  You need a shoulder to cry on.  My shoulder has been a bit boney of late."

"I don't mind."  Keyleth was angry at herself.  Angry for being overwhelmed.  Angry for running away from Pike's side.  Angry for not being a rock for the others.

"Vex?"  It was barely a whisper and she said it again, this time trying to cover up the weakness in her throat.  "You—you shouldn't have come after me.  Scanlan and Ylorca—"

"Have each other, darling.  But who do you have?"

Keyleth breathed a heavy ragged breath, the energy all gone, her shoulders hunched.  "I'm strong enough to stand on my own."

The silence between them sat heavy on Keyleth's shoulders and she felt like she might crumple.  She turned heavy eyes to Vex.  "Vex, I ..." and her voice faded away again.

Vex rested her head against Keyleth's shoulder and squeezed her close.  There was still strength in her arms, even if not as much as in her youth.  "No one would ever doubt that you could stand on your own.  But I'm right here."

Keyleth looked down at the craggy landscape of Vex’s face, the shining gray and silver of her hair, the twist of her hand clutching at her walking stick.  She had shrunk so much in the last few years—her head could barely rest on Keyleth’s shoulder.  Her whole body was gnarled and bent.  As much as her spirit shined through and lifted her up, her body was always yearning towards the ground, towards the earth that would take her.  How could Vex fight that?

Keyleth tried to be steady.  With uncertain hands, she guided Vex from her shoulder, tipped her head back and kissed her lightly on her lips, then her forehead.  But then she was like a great tree whose roots have pulled loose from the soil.  She flung herself around Vex, desperate and needy, and collapsed and then collapsed again as the tears came in heavy sobs.

Vex, for all her frailty, stood steady.  She let the walking stick fall to the ground and wrapped her arms around Keyleth, holding Keyleth close, leaning into her—strong, enfolding, comfort—until the sobs turned to sniffles and the sniffles turned to words.

“How can I do this without you?  I—I have to—” And the tears came again and Vex’s arms grew stronger, so much stronger than Keyleth felt, and there was a piece of Keyleth that hated these tears and another part that felt relief that the dam had finally broken.

Vex's fingers fumbled in Keyleth's hair, an unsteady but reassuring pressure that brought calm and peace to Keyleth’s heart.  Then Vex was leaning back, a hand guiding Keyleth's chin—face blotchy, eyes swollen, chin wet—so that their eyes met.  "Don't you go stealing the joy of my old age."  She smiled charmingly, but the edges of her lips didn't quite swing up the way they usually did.  "I won't be robbed of the love I deserve and I won’t let you be robbed either."

“Vex ….”

Vex kissed her then, soft and light, stole the tears from Keyleth’s lips.  She stepped back and haltingly kneeled on the furrowed ground.  She took Keyleth’s hands and looked up at her.  “Kneel with me.”

Keyleth followed those eyes like a beacon.  She felt the damp, cool dirt through the fabric of her dress as she knelt in front of Vex.  Like this, their eyes were almost even and Vex painted Keyleth’s face with an adoration Keyleth had never quite understood.  Vex raised one of Keyleth’s hands and turned it so she could press a kiss into her palm.  Then, deliberately, carefully, she did the same with the other hand and then returned her focus to Keyleth’s face.

“Darling, I can’t be with you forever, but this—” Here, Vex squeezed their hands together.  “—this … connection is stronger than both of us.  It will survive both of us.”

Keyleth swallowed.  Her mouth was dry.  Her eyes ached from the tears.  “I wish I could feel it.”  She leaned forward, rested her head against Vex’s forehead.  “What will I do without you?”

Vex nuzzled her nose against Keyleth’s.  “You’ll do exactly what you’ve always done: live for everyone else and make the world more beautiful in the process.”

She felt the hot tears streaming down her face before she realized she was crying. Keyleth stifled a sob.  She dropped Vex’s hands and pressed tight against Vex's forehead, wrapping her arms around her head, cradling her tight.  “I wish I had your strength.”

“I wish you saw the strength I see.”

Keyleth glanced up, so close that Vex’s face was her world and her eyes, a deep emerald that faded to cool blackness in the dark, took in all of Keyleth.  Keyleth let herself be swallowed by Vex’s gaze.

“Do you—do you remember … when you first told me how you felt … after Cassandra’s funeral?  Do you remember how you kissed me?”

“Of course, darling.  How could I forget?”

“Kiss me like that again.”

Chapter Text

Vex spent most of her nights awake now.  The doctors said it was because bones in her spine ground together.  They said that was what caused the pain in her hip as well.  She didn't really mind it except for the sleep and even that ... well, she was used to it after all these years.  The ache in her legs had become constant decades ago and her balance had begun to drift forward a few years ago.  It wasn't much to add the stiffness in her hands and neck and the slight ringing that was always with her in her ears.  What was any of that but a sign of the times.  Vex felt that perhaps she didn't need any more signs of the times.  She'd had quite enough already and she'd get by just find thank you very much, darling.

It was usually nice to have someone else in the bed.  Having someone else in bed meant that there was a pleasant warmth to the sheets, a softness to touch.  Sometimes it was just nice to look over and remind yourself that a god loved you enough to lie bare and vulnerable beside you.  Keyleth could move worlds if she wanted to.  It was just Exandria's luck that she didn't want to.  Keyleth had long ago learned to sleep through Vex's comings and goings, so Vex didn't worry herself about that.  When she was alone, she had the stars and the moons and the forests and the lights of the city, but not being able to be out among them like she used to made them wear on her.  There was only so much appreciation you could have for the moon when you couldn't race it across the sky.  In her darker moments, she really did believe that the first moon moved so quickly just to spite her.

As she said, it was usually nice to have someone in bed, to be reminded of her youth and the way that energy still clung to her, even as her body betrayed her at every turn.  But tonight was different.  For all the comfort Keyleth brought, she almost wished that Keyleth wasn't here.  Because Vex has made a decision.

Vex slid out of bed and pulled on her dressing gown.  The world was so much colder now, even in the depths of summer, or, perhaps, it was Vex's blood that was colder.  She'd begun to think about that over the years, about the way that your body changed, how you experienced the world.  Did Zahra always feel cold because her body burned so hot?  Had Grog always felt hot because his blood ran so cold?  For that matter, what was it like to not see at night, like Percy or Tary?  The thoughts were alien, yet as her body shrunk her world, Vex had these thoughts.

She pulled the nightgown tight and slipped onto the balcony, looked out into the night.  She remembered, but only remembered, when the view had been vast.  Now she couldn't make out the horizon at night.  During the day, it was merely a smudge that she could point to, but never with any kind of exactness.  She peered into the darkness and found herself swaying slightly forward, the railing of the balcony coming up quicker than she expected.  She didn’t realize until it was too late that she had forgotten her walking stick.

The fear was quick and sharp and jagged.  It tore through her chest and into her throat as she swayed further forward, felt her balance slip.  She gasped, fumbled for a hold on the railing.  Smacked her arm instead.  Slid to the ground.  Slowing herself with the weight of her body against the rough stonework.

When she came to a stop (the breath tossed out of her by the landing), it was a moment before she felt anything at all.  Then it was just a dull throb in her arm and her back and her hip.  She had much worse every day.  But when she went to move her arm there was another pain--white hot, searing--and she winced, grit her teeth.  She cursed quite creatively.  One of the greatest frustrations of age was the way it removed your independence.  She and Vax had been so proud of their independence when it had been just them.  They were the only ones they needed—no one else and nothing else.  Of course that had changed, but there had been a confidence, always in the back of her head, that, no matter what, she could do it herself.  That confidence had slipped away so slowly that even looking back Vex didn't know when it had vanished.  Perhaps it had slipped between the cracks in her bones.  Whatever the cause, she only tried pulling herself up once before she called out to Keyleth.

"Vex?"  The voice came drifting from inside, a mixture of dozing confusion and stricken panic.  It was only a few seconds later that Keyleth rushed through the balcony doors and was kneeling at Vex's side.

Through the pain in Vex's arm and hip, she had a thought that she had had many times before: Pelor, Keyleth was beautiful.  Even now, her face twisted in concern, dressed only in a light nightgown (that Vex had given her years ago for her stays at the castle), Keyleth was beautiful.  Skin so flawless.  Hair, tossled and knotted, yet so full and perfect.  If anyone was born for immortality, it was Keyleth.

Keyleth was frantically asking questions but Vex waved her off.  "It's just my arm, maybe my ass.  I—I just can't get myself up," she said.

Keyleth quickly assessed the situation and hooked an arm under Vex's good shoulder.  Together, they pushed back to standing and shuffled to the bed.  Keyleth flicked on the glowing orbs and went to work: having Vex flex the arm, looking at the swelling bruise, tenderly testing the joint.

"It's okay, dear.  I just lost my balance."

Keyleth was already grabbing some bandages from her desk (the one Vex had had built especially for her decades before—so many pieces of Keyleth that she'd built into her life).  She sat next to Vex on the bed.  Vex couldn't be certain but she thought she saw Keyleth wipe the beginnings of tears from her eyes.  As she began to wrap the arm, Keyleth said simply, "I just get scared sometimes.  I want to keep you around for a long time."

Vex didn't say anything to that.  She let Keyleth get to work.  She only winced a few times.  This was nothing compared to what she had lived through.  Death tends to give you perspective.  Nothing in life can match the coldness of nothingness.

When Keyleth was done, she ordered Vex to roll onto her stomach and Vex diligently did as she was told with only a little pain and a little assistance.  She considered trying to make a dirty joke as Keyleth applied ointment to her bruised rear, but she didn't feel the playfulness.  Her decision laid heavy on her heart and the frailty of her body only made that weight heavier.

When Keyleth was done, she helped Vex get situated in the bed, propped up with piles of pillows behind her.  Keyleth softly sidled up next to her and kissed Vex's hair, slid down and kissed her cheek.

"Apologies for the dramatics, darling" Vex said, "I don't prefer the damsel in distress act."  Keyleth had sunk down and was nuzzling into the side of Vex's arm, one arm thrown around Vex.  Vex reached over and patted her hand.  "Thank you, love."  Her mind felt tired, but she knew her body wouldn't cooperate.  Anyway, better to have ... the conversation in the light of day.  "Why don't you get some sleep?  Youth needs its rest."

Vex felt Keyleth shake her head and snuggle up tighter.  "I won't sleep now.  I'm happy to just lay here with you.  I know you don't sleep much most nights."  She lapsed into silence and the two of them lay together in the dim light of the lamps.  It had always felt alien to have the lights on when the night was sitting there like that just outside the windows.  Keeping the lights on always made the darkness seem more menacing.

Keyleth broke into Vex's thoughts.  Her voice was small.  "I'm not that much younger than you."

Vex laughed a little.  It was almost a croak now.  Her throat seemed so much drier than it used to be.  "Oh, yes you are.  Age isn't all in years."

They had gone horseback riding a few weeks ago.  That had always been one of their joys.  Wandering the fields, the movement of the horse, the solidness of the ground, the sun, the clouds, sometimes even the rain.  Vex always remembered when Keyleth smiled when they were on those little journeys.  It wasn't that Keyleth rarely smiled--she was quite generous with that gleam of white--but there was something about Keyleth on those rides.  Vex didn't know if it was the wind in her hair or the freedom of just riding away.  But whatever it was, there was a special energy that filled Keyleth up when they were out there alone.  She glowed.  And that light bathed Vex.  That energy that filled her up.

They didn't go quite so fast anymore.  They kept to a trot.  Vex had finally had to admit that she couldn't go for quite as long anymore.  She knew Keyleth could, but she held back, keeping her horse sauntering beside Vex's.  Vex had tried to get her to race across the plains, run to the peaks.  But Keyleth just smiled warm but tiny and shook her head.

Keyleth, here in the dim light of the room, seemed to Vex like she was held back.

"You have so much you could be doing, darling.  So much more than caring for this shriveled up husk."  Vex saw the objection boiling up across Keyleth’s face but Vex hushed her with a wave of her hand.  "What's the point of an ageless body if you don't take advantage of it?  There's so much more you could be doing."

Keyleth simply pulled herself up and gave Vex a peck on the cheek. "I’ve told you: my life is my own and I'll waste it on whatever and whoever I want to.  And that's you."  She gave Vex another peck and Vex couldn't help smiling through the pain in her hip and side.  There was that warmth again.  Keyleth's gift.  "Besides," and Vex couldn't believe it, but Keyleth was blushing, "I'm sure--I'm sure I don't want to know what you'd do with eternal youth."

Vex chuckled.  "I showed you enough when I was younger."

That got Keyleth beet red, but she wrapped her arms around Vex (being careful not to squeeze too tight) and nuzzled her nose against Vex's face.  "I love you, Vex.  And now you’re stuck letting me take care of you."

"I suffer eternally," said Vex, with a dramatic flair.

Keyleth's laugh didn't make any noise but Vex felt it vibrate through her body.  As much as she pretended not to understand Keyleth, as much as she thought, perhaps, it would be better for her to live a life separate from Vex, Vex was lying if she said she wanted it.  She would have never left Percy.  Give her her youth and a thousand beaus and she would have nevertheless stayed by Percy's side until the very end.  And she could have had that, couldn't she?  Compared to Percy, she had barely aged.  And she knew that there had been ... interest from some quite lovely young people.  Vex laughed to herself.  That wasn't Keyleth anyway.  She wouldn't have even thought about it, let along considered it.  Vex had definitely considered it.  But that's what dreams were for ... and dreams were only so pleasant without Percy.

Vex's heart sank.  She loved Keyleth and she respected her and it was her choice.  But Vex desperately wanted to protect her from another heartbreak.  She would have enough wouldn't she?  What would Keyleth do when Koreen died?

What would Keyleth do when you die, you sentimental idiot?

Vex rested her head against Keyleth.  Felt the rise and fall of her breathing.  She smiled.  It felt so good to have Keyleth here.  It felt selfish.  But it felt good.  And right now Keyleth was telling her that that was all that mattered.

⁂

Vex's eyelids were heavy, the room a blur of shadows and morning light.  Her mouth tasted horrible and when she shifted she stifled a groan.  Her side, her hip was all a dull pain and her body was cold.  She looked lazily around and saw Keyleth sitting hunched over the large ancient writing desk Vex had moved in here so Keyleth could work at all times of the day.  She worked so intensely.  It reminded Vex of her little Allie.

She remembered visiting Allie at school in Emon and then later when she was a scribe for the council.  And later still when she took Vex's seat on the council.  Every time, Allie was busy, so busy, throwing herself into her work.  She'd become a wizard like her namesake.  It had been perfect for her.  She'd found a path and she followed it obsessively.

Which was a far cry from when she was a teenager.  Vex had never been particularly strict, but there were only so many times an ambassador's daughter could be found in Allie's bedroom before there had to be a little strictness.  Vex smiled at that.  She'd smiled then too.  Of course, it had to be on the inside, as the officials and diplomats around her indulged in emotional outbursts running the gamut from horrified to embarrassed to declaring "grave consequences."  And then there had to be talks and it had been all Percy could do (mortified as he was) to not laugh at Vex giving serious talks about decorum and self-control.  She'd had to surreptitiously kick him while Allie was rolling her eyes at her.

Allie had never married.  She'd never lived with anyone.  Vex had wondered about that.  But then, once she'd taken up magic, Vex had stopped over hearing her regaling her siblings with stories of her nights out and nights in.  It was like all that energy that had been simmering and boiling over in her youth had found an outlet in the arcane and ... that had been it.  Vex had been so proud of her.  Vex was so proud of her. She had accomplished so much.

She still remembered when she had seen Allie, her baby, alive for the last time.  It had been the year before she died.  She and Keyleth had made a special visit to Emon just to go somewhere without obligations.  They'd had dinner in Allie's tower, spent a pleasant night just talking.  Keyleth and Allie had shared an interest in the raw elemental arcane powers and much of the night had been spent on the sidelines, watching the two of them animatedly talk about the planes ands and the interaction of interplanar energies.  Vex was happy to watch and enjoy the sheer joy that seemed to drip off the two of them.  It had been a hot night in Emon, but the tower was cool and Vex had a blanket draped around her as she sipped at her wine.  There was happiness in that room.  Satisfaction in a life that she had no credit to, but that she was happy to claim nonetheless.  She had been so proud.

Allie passed in her sleep.  Word came the next day.  The funeral a few days after that--a large ceremonial affair in the streets of Emon.

It had been a gut punch.  Allura, the original, had lived quite a long life--long enough for little Allie to meet and train for a time with her namesake.  Vex had always assumed that wizards had a way of prolonging things.  Maybe they did.  Maybe Allie simply hadn't seen it coming.  Vex didn't know.  She supposed she would never know.  But she was gone.  The last of Vex's children.  When the others had died, she had cried.  She had mourned.  She had sat with her loss.  But this had been different.  When the news came, Vex had folded in half, the pain unbearable.  No tears.  Just a twist in her stomach.  The tears had come later when she could bury herself in Keyleth's arms.  But that first reaction had been agonizing disbelief.  She hadn't been ready to say goodbye.

Vex watched Keyleth, head down, intent on her work.  She was still wrapped in the dressing gown.  Her hair was still a tangled mess.  She was enveloped in the remnants of sleep.  But her mind was wide awake.  It was one of the many things that Vex loved about Keyleth: when she was awake, she was wide awake.  The morning sun was inching its way across the room and the light was beginning to glitter in Keyleth's hair.  Vex smiled.

"Good morning, darling."

Keyleth wasn't startled.  She looked over her shoulder and she was already smiling, the morning light shining on her face.  "Good morning."  She glided out of the chair and into bed.  "How are you feeling?"

"Acceptable.  Much better now that you're here."

Keyleth brushed her fingers down Vex's hair.  "I'm always here."  She looked Vex up and down.  "We should comb your hair, get you out of this bed.  It's getting late."

"I am perfectly capable of combing my own hair, Keyleth dear."

Keyleth was already reaching over to the nightstand for the thick hairbrush.

"Besides," continued Vex, "You should take care of your own rat's nest."

Keyleth shrugged, her arms swinging wildly (a glimpse of that awkward young thing she had once been) and kneeled on the bed next to Vex.  She slowly and smoothly stroked the brush through Vex's hair.  The rhythm became a soothing beat through Vex's body.

"I like being able to do something for you," said Keyleth.

"You do a great deal."

Keyleth scrunched up her face.  "Not enough."  The brush moved with a deliberate motion. Keyleth was so careful.  There was rarely even a tug as the brush hit a knot.  Somehow, Keyleth always saw them coming and worked them out with a few quick strokes.  "Do you want me to braid your hair when I'm done?"

Vex looked down.  Tears glimmered in her eyes and she hoped Keyleth was too engrossed in her task to notice.  Vex's children, as soon as their hair was long enough had all wanted to wear their hair in a braid like their mother.  Vex remembered Vesper running around when she was three with a short braid sticking out the back of her head and Ludwig had worn his light hair in a braid until well into his teens.  But Allie was the only one who stuck with it.  She had, in fact, taken it to an extreme, growing her hair quite long.  By the … end, the braid hung thick and heavy down the whole length of her back.  Vex rather thought that Allie had prided herself on that braid.

"No, not today."

Keyleth hummed out an acknowledgment and continued her work, asking Vex to lean forward slightly, so she could get at the tangled mess at the back.  Vex inclined her head and was happy that the gray curtain of hair blocked Keyleth's view.  A few tears ran down her face, finding paths in her wrinkles.  Vex quickly brushed them away.  She focused on the soft, slightly out of tune sound of Keyleth's voice.  Vex recognized the song: an Ashari nursery rhyme about the sun.

She felt the warm pass of Keyleth's body, the quick eclipse of the sun and then the brush was working on the other side.

Vex lifted her head.  She was tired.  She was always tired.  Her body ached and not just because she feel last night.  It always ached.  And she was slightly irritable.  Because she was always slightly irritable.  So, yes, she was tired.

"Keyleth.  I want to talk to you about something."

The brush slowed down for a moment and then continued on.  "Yes?"

"I'm getting older, dear.  I know it's not exactly news, but, well, I'm having a harder time moving around now."

"I know," said Keyleth, her eyes watching the movement of the brush closely.

"I've been having more accidents recently.  I already had that fall last week and now this."

Keyleth didn't say anything, just finished combing Vex's hair with a small flick of the wrist and rested back on her feet, laying the brush across her lap.

Vex looked up into Keyleth's face.  Keyleth wasn't looking at her.  Her eyes were still fixed on the brush.  Keyleth's hands fidgeted on the handle.

"Eventually, there's going to be a bad fall."

Now, Keyleth looked up.  She was smiling.  Her face was calm.  "And you'll get all the help you need and be healed up in no time.  You've got years ahead of you, Vex."

Vex thought the words would get stuck in her throat, but they flowed smoothly, falling out into the world.  "No.  No, I don't want magic anymore."

The words had come so smoothly that she had forgotten what they were, what they would be to Keyleth.  Keyleth's face had gone pale and pained.

"I--"  Vex started to continue, but found herself hesitating.  She reached out and brushed her fingers across Keyleth's cheek.  "I'm ready."  She saw Keyleth's face flash in panic and Vex grasped Keyleth's face in both hands, pulled herself closer.  "I don't want to die right now, but I also don't want to fight it.  If it's my time, I'm ready to face that."

Keyleth stared at Vex, but her face was slack, the color hadn't come back, and she didn't reach out.  A silent gap spread between them.  Vex brushed her thumbs against Keyleth's face and cradled her face, peering into her eyes, hoping she would say something, anything.

The silence seemed to last an eternity, but then Keyleth swallowed and nodded between Vex's hands.  "Of course."  Her voice was quiet and weak, but the words were clear.  She reached up and rested her hands on top of Vex's cradling hands.  Keyleth was so warm.  Vex angled her head up and tasted Keyleth's lips.  It was quick, like a theft, but when she pulled away that same warmth was there--the sign of Keyleth's presence.

"I love you, darling," said Vex.

"I love you too," said Keyleth.  Gently, she guided Vex's hands down into her lap and picked up the brush again, gave Vex's hair a few more strokes.  "Are you sure you don't want a braid?  It might make you feel more yourself."  Her fingers slid through Vex's hair, already starting the prep work.  Deftly parting the hair.

Vex took Keyleth's hand away and kissed it.  "No braid.  I feel quite myself without it."  She tried to smile, but it came out more grimace.

Vex held her breath.  Keyleth was quiet.  Not babbling to fill the uncomfortable gaps or smooth over the difficulties of the situation.  She was simply quiet.  And that quiet felt like an endless gulf.  Vex had, if she was being honest, expected tears, a wild hug, a plea to change her mind.  They were not what Vex had wanted, but they were what she expected.  That simple flat acceptance, that "of course" and the return to normal felt more disturbing and alien than any other response she could have predicted.  She didn't want Keyleth to feel pain, but she knew Keyleth, knew that she would feel it, and had hoped that she would be there to help Keyleth process it.  This ... withdrawal was something else.

Then Keyleth's long arms enfolded Vex and squeezed her close.  Keyleth buried her face in Vex's hair.  Vex felt the unevenness of Keyleth's breath, the quiver in her chest.

"Keyleth, darling—"

"I've thought so much about when ..."  The voice was a whisper, but fell away to a breeze on Vex's neck.  "Of course.  Of course.  But I'll miss you so much."

Vex rubbed Keyleth's back.  She grimaced slightly, glad that Keyleth hadn't clutched her bruised side, and said, "I don't plan on going anywhere soon.  I just ... I wanted you to know."

They lay there in the morning light, Keyleth clinging to Vex like a piece of driftwood in the ocean.  Vex's legs ached, her side throbbed, her shoulder was stiff and unyielding, and she felt light.  Keyleth was a heavy weight, her fingers dull pressure, her head uncomfortable against Vex's boney shoulder.  Vex held her tight.  The pain was worth it.

"I don't want to live to be nothing but a broken body."  She kissed the top of Keyleth's head, smelled the heat of the sun on her hair.  "I want you to remember me as I am, not ..."  She cleared her throat.  The tears welled hot in her eyes, but the fought them back.  "This—this is all bad enough."  She gestured at her body.  "In so many ways, I feel trapped in a shell that isn't me anymore, but ..."  She tapped her head.  "... this, this is me.  Crankier and a little bit harsher, maybe, but me."

Keyleth ran a hand down Vex's face and when Vex looked down Keyleth was looking up at her.  In a slow, careful movement, Keyleth pulled back and straddled Vex.  Vex couldn't help but notice that she positioned herself expertly to keep pressure off Vex's lap and thighs.  Like this, Keyleth was high above Vex and Vex was forced to tilt her head back.  Keyleth's eyes caressed Vex's face, sipping in every inch.  But Vex saw the nervous swallow, the worry around the eyes.

"You're so you, Vex.  You're so perfectly you.  You're so perfectly the woman I love."

The tears ran unbidden down Keyleth's face and she sniffed and snuffled as they came faster and faster.

Keyleth wiped her nose.  Her lips were pinched.  "I promised myself—I promised myself I wouldn't cry.  I'm sorry, Vex.

Vex reached up and brushed Keyleth's hair away where it stuck in the warm wetness.  "Sorry, dear?  Why should you be sorry that you'd miss me?  I'd be quite angry if you wouldn't."

Keyleth laughed a wet sob, a smile bursting on her blotched face.  But it just as quickly faded.  "But do you have to help it?"

"Keyleth, Keyleth--" She patted Keyleth's face.  "--don't you know me better than that?  I'll fight death to the end. I won't let a little thing like broken bones or a bruised head stop me."  She flashed a wide toothy grin at Keyleth.  Keyleth.  Gorgeous Keyleth.  Youthful Keyleth.  Wise Keyleth.  Anxious Keyleth.  The grin faded and Vex shifted beneath Keyleth.  The flesh was weak, but the spirit still strong.  She pulled herself up and wrapped her arms around Keyleth's torso, rested her head against her bosom.  Like this, she could hear how quickly Keyleth's heart beat.  She could feel the rise and fall of Keyleth's chest.  Every inhale and exhale.  The movement of life.  The hope and the worries that swirled inside Keyleth.

Vex pulled Keyleth down until Keyleth let her weight truly rest in Vex's lap.  Like this, Keyleth was still a half a head taller than Vex, but they could see almost eye to eye.  The weight on Vex's right hip was painful, but this was important.

"You weren't there for Percy, dear."  She pinched back the tears because she had also promised herself she wouldn't cry and she would't break that promise now.  "I don't want your memories of me to be a shattered shell and a shattered mind.  I can take the pain if I will be there."

Keyleth sniffled.  The corners of her mouth were pulled down and her eyes were pink, her face puffy.  "I understand, Vex.  I—I wouldn't want you ... I just wish ….”

She lowered eyes away from Vex, but Vex, with a light touch on her chin, guided her back.  "I like to think I'm not being selfish for once.  I like to think I'm doing this for you.  But I think I'm fooling myself."

"Oh, Vex."  The tears were back in force and Keyleth's voice was sticky from the wetness.  "When were you ever selfish?"

Vex beamed.  "Well, darling, I like to think my entire life."

Keyleth looked down at Vex with a love so intense it burned through the rain of tears and threatened to blind Vex.  The words came thick and slow, her lips torn between a smile and a frown, but they came with confidence.  "You just give and give and give.  How will the world exist without you there to hold it up?"

Vex shook her head.  The tears pushed at the back of her eyes.  "I'm just a small person building my own small world, darling.  I—I was so happy you came to visit, but I ...."  Vex swallowed the sob, knew that she needed to be strength, even if it was just one last time.  "You.  Is there anyone else who cares so much and is so powerful?  If anyone holds the world up, it's you."

"Vex. I wish I could make you see.  You're such an amazing--"

"Darling," interrupted Vex, "I know how amazing I am.  But you ... you are another level."

"But--"

Vex leaned back and guided Keyleth to her lips.  The kiss was soft and tasted of tears, but also happy memories.  Vex hugged her close.  "I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one."

Chapter Text

“You should sleep.”

Vex rolled her head to look at Keyleth, her breath rasping between her lips.  “I don’t want … to miss this.”

Keyleth squeezed Vex’s hand, felt the thin bones folded in delicate skin, and brought it to her lips.  After the kiss, the hand drifted through the air and brushed Keyleth’s cheek—a wisp of cool air that warmed instead of chilling.  Keyleth closed her eyes and smiled into the touch.  So many years in that touch.  So many memories.  She kissed the palm of Vex’s hand and laid it back on the bed, still clasped in Keyleth’s own hand.  Vex was watching her through heavy lids.

“I’ll be right here,” said Keyleth.

Vex nodded, head heavy.  The corners of her mouth strained towards the shadow of a smile.  Her labored breath tried to chuckle.  It only came out a wheeze.  “It wasn’t you … I was worried about.”

Keyleth gave a pathetic attempt at a smile.  She had been at Vex’s side for days now, long days and long nights, and she knew she was wearing thin.  But she didn’t dare let go.  Clutching Vex’s hand, she climbed into bed.  Vex didn’t move to meet her.  Her head stayed staring at the ceiling.  Keyleth knew that Vex could see very little now, but she was listening, feeling.  Keyleth watched her in the dim light.

She loved to feel the spirit of closeness.  It was that ripple in the air when a person was right beside you.  You didn’t touch, but you swore you could sense the person, feel them against your skin, across the gap.  Keyleth squeezed Vex’s hand again.  She wanted to believe that no gap was too big to stop that spirit.  That no matter how far way this took Vex, Keyleth would still feel the tingle of her closeness on her skin.

“You’ll see Vax again.”

It just slipped out, that unspoken thought suddenly made real.  In the silence, Keyleth could count the moments by Vex’s breaths.  Then Vex turned her head and Keyleth felt her lips lightly brush her hair.

“I was so happy … when I stopped … seeing him in the mirror.  When the wrinkles … finally took him away.”  Vex gasped, clutching at the air.  “Then I was afraid I would forget … what he looked like.”

“But you didn’t.”

Vex smiled like a dry leaf caught in a gust of wind—flying.  “No.  He’s still there.  So young.  We don’t … look like twins anymore.”

Keyleth released Vex’s hand and caressed her hair.  “I like to think you’ll be young again, after.”

“Like you, my eternal beauty?”  Vex mirrored Keyleth’s caress—slower, shaky, but also soft and tender.

Keyleth’s hand slowed and she cradled Vex’s head.  They kissed, their lips just brushing, then Keyleth nuzzled into Vex, leaning her forehead against hers.  “I love you, Vex.”

Vex’s lips brushed Keyleth’s again, Vex’s hand clutching at Keyleth’s hair, the grip loose, but the fingers tangled, holding on.  “I love you … princess.”  Vex turned her head back to the heavens, her lungs heaving for breath.  Keyleth wrapped her arms around her, one hand resting gently above Vex’s head, the other across Vex’s chest, holding her close.

“You should sleep,” said Keyleth.

Vex drew a long, labored breath.  “I’ll have plenty of … time to sleep … later.”  Vex’s eyes were barely slits, her words slightly garbled between weary lips.

Keyleth kissed her cheek.  “Don’t be stubborn.”

Vex grunted.  “Don’t see … why I should stop … now.”

Keyleth smiled and pulled herself closed to Vex.

They lay together in the guttering candlelight, Vex fighting her own body until she slipped into a shallow sleep.  Keyleth counted the uneven rise and fall of Vex’s chest as she burrowed into the crook of Vex’s neck.  It was just sunrise, the first honeyed rays of the spring sun pushing their way through the window, when, Vex’s eyes still closed, her mind still unconscious, the gurgle began in Vex’s throat.  Keyleth clutched Vex close.  After all these years, all these people, she was all too familiar with the death rattle.  Some said it was the soul escaping, reaching upward towards the gods.  Keyleth knew it was just the air making its last journeys through a failing throat.  That knowledge didn’t stop the sound.  It didn’t stop it seeping deep into Keyleth’s mind, slipping between the cracks of her memories.  As the hours ticked by, the sound so consistent, so constant, it seemed to fill the room, growing larger until it tucked into the corners, behind the curtains, under the bed.  Until it seemed to replace the air itself.  Keyleth knew the tension in her chest was just the stress speaking, but there was a piece of her that wondered at the sound, at its terrible progress.  But she breathed slowly and carefully and fixed her eyes on Vex, caressed her hair slowly, held her hand.  Keyleth would be here for this hard time, just like every time before.

A minute later Vex’s chest fell for the last time and the sound stopped.

At first, Keyleth lay still beside Vex, keeping her face hidden, delaying the moment she needed to acknowledge that Vex was finally gone.  This close she could bury herself in the being of Vex—the smell, the touch.  It had been so long.  They had had so long.  It was right to be grateful for that time.   It was selfish to want more.  It was—

A wet sob broke Keyleth and she clutched at Vex’s body, hugging, kissing, caressing, her tears hot and heavy, falling on the cooling skin.  For all her preparation, all her understanding, the absence of Vex was like a gaping wound in her chest.  She sat up and clumsily pulled Vex into her arms, cradling her as the choked wails filled her lungs and her body quaked, trying desperately to fill that wound with Vex’s touch, grasping for the feeling of closeness that had been ripped away from her.  There wasn’t anything to fill the wound.  So Keyleth cried until the tears gave out and her lungs screamed for air and her muscles collapsed.  Until she could do nothing but sit in silence—Vex’s body wrapped in her arms, her cheek against Vex’s forehead—and whisper her goodbyes into the vanishing morning shadows.  That goodbye, those words—they were their words and their words alone.

Eventually, there was nothing more to say and Keyleth took a cleansing breath, filling her body to bursting.  She straightened up, laid Vex carefully on the bed, and opened the door to the room.  One of the guards was stationed outside, as planned.

“Excuse me,” said Keyleth.

The guard turned to her and then lowered his eyes to the ground.  “Yes, Mistress Keyleth.”

“Please get my daughter.  She should be in her room.”

With a nod of acknowledgement, the guard hurried down the dark hall.

Back inside, Keyleth wiped her face and prepped her tools and supplies, letting herself focus on the task at hand, letting the order of necessity still her spirit.  When the knock came, a sense of calm had returned, but when Keyleth opened the door, Koreen didn’t need to ask.  The pattern of blotches and puffy eyes on Keyleth’s face told a clear story.

“I’m sorry, Mom.”  And Koreen threw her arms around Keyleth.

Keyleth encircled Koreen too and held tight.  Feeling the tears welling up in eyes again, she broke away.

“I thought it would hurt less this time.  But it’s—it doesn’t get any better.”

“She was a good woman,” said Koreen, and, not for the first time, Keyleth noticed the wrinkles at the corners of Koreen’s eyes, the smile lines etched into her face, “She did so much for the world.”  Koreen stepped into the room and pulled back her dull copper and silver hair into a ponytail.  “Should I get Velora and the rest of the family?”

Keyleth closed the door and brushed the tears from her eyes.  “No.  We’ll do the full burial prep of the body first.”  Keyleth saw the confusion on Koreen’s face.  “It’s common outside the Ashari and—“ Keyleth shook her head.  “—Whitestone has too much of the dead in their history.  They like—they like clean funerals.  What we call natural, they call grotesque.  Given that history, I find it hard to fault them.”  Keyleth smiled grimly.  “You should learn this.  When you’re out in the world, it might provide comfort.”

Koreen nodded her understanding and turned to Vex’s body.  She sat on the bed and then laid her hand on Vex’s chest.  “Thank you for teaching me pride.  Thank you for saving my mother.  You will live on in the tales of the Ashari.”

Keyleth’s heart swelled as Koreen spoke.  Koreen had always been a better Ashari than Keyleth—always accepting, always understanding, so in touch with the natural world, so in touch with their culture.  All her life, Keyleth had felt one step removed from her people, even as she cared for them with an immense passion.  She was proud her daughter was such a strong member of the community.  Keyleth kissed the top of her daughter’s head and squeezed her in a quick hug.  “Thank you,” she whispered.

The first step was very similar to the Ashari process of burial.  Keyleth and Koreen worked together to strip the sheets from the bed and, in one swift movement, shifted Vex’s body to the floor, where Koreen carefully removed Vex’s clothes.  When Keyleth returned with a washbasin filled with water and a sponge, Koreen was just pulling the loose gown off Vex’s body.

“Mom, do you want to—“

Keyleth cut Koreen off with a tight nod and kneeled on the floor at the foot of Vex’s body.  She set the washbasin to her side and squeezed out the large sponge.  She looked up at Koreen.  “Will you …?”

“Of course.”  Koreen took her place at Vex’s head.

Keyleth lightly grasped Vex’s foot, carefully scrubbing the still pink skin, washing away any trace of dirt.  “These feet carried you through the world.  For that we thank them and prepare them for rest.”

“Where did they carry her?” said Koreen, picking up the familiar call.

“They carried her across expanses of earth.”  Keyleth squeezed on the sponge and moved on to the next foot.  “They carried her over the waters.  They carried her into fire and out again.  They lifted her into the air.”

Keyleth began to wash Vex’s legs.  “These legs were tree trunks that held your burdens.  For that we thank them and prepare them for rest.”

“What burdens did they hold?”

“They held the burdens of heat and cold.  They held the burdens of family and friends, strangers and enemies.  They held the burdens of pain and happiness.”

Keyleth cleansed the sponge in the water and slid over the skin of the hips.  Koreen shifted her position to help Keyleth clean beneath the body.  They were practiced in the rites.  They did not need to communicate with much more than a glance.

“These hips bore generations.  For that we thank them and prepare them for rest,” said Keyleth

“What generations did they bear?”

“They reach their roots back to Syldor and Elaina and forward to Vesper and Frederick and Joanna.  To Percival, Cassandra, Elaina and Oliver.  To Julius, Ludwig, Kima, and Allura.  Their branches are wide and cast a mighty shadow across more than just their blood.”

The sponge, dipped again and, made clean, moved to the abdomen.

“This belly ate deep of the world.  For that we thank them and prepare them for rest.”

“Of what did it eat deeply?” intoned Koreen, as she shifted one of Vex’s arms out of the way as Keyleth deliberately covered every inch of skin.

“It ate deeply of life.  It ate deeply of food and drink, animal and plant.  It ate deeply of love and lust ….”  Keyleth’s voice faded away.  Her hand, so diligent in its movements, slowed to a stop.  Keyleth pinched her eyes shut and steadied her breathing.  “It ate deeply of all that life had to give.”

They continued in turn, celebrating each part of the body—the arms, the hands, the shoulders, the ears, the face, the eyes—naming Vex’s life and recording it in the Ashari tradition, giving the thanks each part deserved.  Working in tandem, they turned the body over and said the rites over the back, the buttocks, the spine and then turned Vex back.  Keyleth took in Vex’s face again, glad that she had died in her sleep, selfishly glad that she didn’t have to look into empty eyes.  She hesitated before taking the last steps, took a moment to hold Vex’s face in her hands one last time.  She traced a finger along Vex’s cheeks.

She wet the sponge anew.

“This mouth spoke truth.  For that we thank them and prepare them for rest,” she began again, as she dabbed at Vex’s lips, at the corner of her mouth.  Vex’s mouth hung open in her last gasp.

“What truth did she speak?” intoned Koreen.

“She spoke evil so that it might be stopped.  She spoke sadness to it might be soothed.  She spoke kindness so it might calm the world.  She spoke—”  Keyleth’s voice cracked and she paused a moment, gathering herself.  “She spoke love so that it might heal.  She spoke stories so that they might be remembered.”

“Thank you, Vex’ahlia de Rolo, for all of your gifts,” said Koreen, “You leave the world changed in your wake.”

“Thank you, Vex’ahlia de Rolo, for all of your gifts,” said Keyleth, “Your story will be recorded in both the truth and its spirit.”  That would come later, back in Zephrah with the storytellers and their students.

Keyleth leaned down and brushed her lips across Vex’s top lip.  For a moment, just a moment, Keyleth believed Vex would kiss back, pouring that energy back as she always had.  But there was nothing.  Just the still body.

Keyleth whispered as she pulled back.  “Goodbye, Vex.”  The words fell soft on the body.  Keyleth hoped that somewhere Vex heard them.  Then she sat back and calmed herself.  The next part was necessary for the funeral.  It would not be like an Ashari funeral and the rest of the preparations would be quite different.  “Koreen, could you please pass me my bag?”

Koreen moved quickly to pull together the final preparations.  Keyleth had Koreen lay out the clothes, making sure everything Vex had requested was there, while Keyleth threaded her curved needle and began on the mouth.  It was a skill that Keyleth hoped Koreen would not need, but it was a necessary education and Keyleth found it distancing to walk Koreen through the process of closing the mouth: explaining how to find the right place in the gums to push through the needle, the correct pattern to link the mandible and maxilla, and the proper way to firmly pull the jaw closed without any signs of your work.  For those precious minutes, Keyleth could forget the face she was working on.  She could hone in on the details where emotions didn’t rule.  She could lose herself in the mechanical reality of death.

When they were done, Vex was back in the bed, looking almost in a state of repose, her hair braided, dressed in her dragon scale armor.  Vex had said it was selfish to take it with her, but that she was happy to be selfish one more time.  Keyleth had laughed with her at that.  If it wasn’t for the increasing blotchiness of the skin, Keyleth could almost believe that Vex was just sleeping.  The Ashari in Keyleth grimaced.  That was the trouble with these burial preparations: the illusion that nothing had changed.  Lies for the living.

“Mom.”  Koreen placed a firm hand on Keyleth’s shoulder.  “I can take care of the makeup.  This is how you wanted to see her anyway, isn’t it?”

Keyleth looked into her daughter’s eyes.   She saw so much of herself in those eyes, but there were also so much strength that Keyleth knew came from within.  It was a strength born in kindness and care and Keyleth was happy to have played even a small part in creating this beautiful person.

“Yeah,” she said and she pulled Koreen into a hug.  “Thank you for being here.”

Koreen squeezed her back.  When they parted she smiled sadly at Keyleth.  “You’ve got to be there for the best mom ever.”

The tears pooled in Keyleth’s eyes.  Here was this woman who looked like her older sister.  Here was this woman with such power and such virtue.  Here was this woman that Keyleth wished she could be.  This woman that Keyleth was happy should could raise.  Keyleth hugged her again and kissed her on the forehead.

“I love you, you amazing daughter.”

Koreen ducked her head in a familiar way, hiding her face.  She did it so rarely, but when she did it was like looking in a mirror.  Keyleth squeezed her arm.  “I’m going to get Syldor and Velora.  I heard they came in last night.”

Koreen nodded and turned back to Vex.

Keyleth could have sent a guard or a servant, but she preferred to deliver this news in person.  It took only a few false attempts to find out where in the castle they had been roomed.

After a quick knock, the door to the room swung open and there was Velora.  Keyleth sighed.  Even now at almost 160 years, Velora looked so like Vex when Keyleth first met her.   Yes, she had the rounder cheeks and the finer, dirty blonde hair of her mother, but her sharp chin and piercing eyes and hair that she wore in a braid straight down her back made the resemblance all too strong.

Keyleth didn’t need to say anything.  Velora looked at her face and knew.  “Oh,” she said simply.  Then she caught herself and continued, “It’s good to see you again, Keyleth.”

Keyleth agreed.  “Do you and Syldor want to see her?”

Velora’s lips twisted into a sardonic smile, so too very much like Vex.  “My father, for all his arrogance, is a coward at heart, I’m sorry to say.  He couldn’t face this.  He found his excuses.  I hope he’ll be here for the funeral.”

The wound in Keyleth’s heart blazed hot, but she merely closed her eyes and breathed the heat out.  She had forgotten how sheltered the Syngorn Elves were, with their long lifespan and their cloistered city.  Even Velora, Keyleth noticed, kept her eyes pinned to Keyleth’s face, a slight tremor in her lip.

“And you—are you okay, Velora?”  Keyleth didn’t wait for an answer but threw her arms around Velora.

Velora went stiff for a moment, shocked by the informality, her hands uncertain and hanging in the air, but, in a moment, Velora closed her arms around Keyleth and held her close.  After a few seconds she pushed away and Keyleth could see the shimmer of tears in her eyes.

“I have to be okay.  To not be here for her now would be—“  Velora shook her head.  “No.  Could you …?”

Keyleth led Velora through the maze of corridors to Vex’s room and opened the door.  Koreen must have just finished the simple makeup job, as she was packing the various powders and brushes back into Keyleth’s bag when they came in, and she and Koreen exchanged greetings.

Vex looked … lifelike.  Her skin was radiant and alive.  In some ways, it made Keyleth angry, but maybe it would be easier for the others.  Maybe it would be easier for Velora.

Velora moved past Keyleth, towards the bed, and took a few tentative steps towards the still body, then a few more, until she stood looking down at the face of her sister.  Velora’s body was stiff and straight in the typical lofty arrogance of Syngorn elves—the posture Vex had always affected—but then her legs quaked and she stumbled onto the bed.  Back turned to Keyleth and Koreen, Velora reached out a hesitant hand towards Vex’s body and folded Vex’s hand into her own.

Tired eyes trained on Velora, Keyleth felt Koreen’s fingers twine with hers.  There was a light tug.

“Mom,” whispered Koreen, “She needs time.”

They left, shutting the door quietly behind them.  In the hall, with the guard standing by, the two of them stood in silence.  A low yellow light from small orbs kissed the stones of the castle, providing a calm light, but, away from the newborn sun, the air felt cool and wet.  Keyleth wrapped her arms around herself and Koreen gave her a soothing hug, but Keyleth didn’t feel the warmth.  The world felt cold.  Keyleth felt cold.  Something was missing.

But the castle was beginning to wake up.  Echoed movement drifted up the halls, dulled by the stone walls.  Somewhere, nearby, a breakfast had been delivered and the smell of butter and golden crust wafted in the air.  Soon there would be children and laughter and shrieks and then parents and conversation and Whitestone Castle would fill with light and movement and noise and … life would go on.  The next few days would be a memorial to the life that was no longer there, but, ultimately, life would go on.

Keyleth didn’t know how long Velora stayed in the room.  When she came out, the sun streamed in, chasing the cold away, and she stood tall, just like always, only the puffiness of her eyes revealing any difference.  She smiled weakly at Keyleth and Koreen.  “Thank you.”

Keyleth reached out and gave her hand a squeeze.  Velora nodded a silent thank you and then, haltingly, drew Keyleth into a hug.  For a moment, Keyleth was so shocked she didn’t hug back, then her arms closed and held Velora.  It was a brief hug, but it spoke volumes.

“Thank you,” said Velora again, “You made her life better, Keyleth.”

Keyleth flushed and lowered her head.  “I was just there.”

“Vex always said—“  Velora reached out and, after a moment’s hesitation, brushed Keyleth’s chin upwards, coaxing Keyleth’s eyes to hers.  “Vex always said you were too modest.”  Velora squeezed Keyleth’s shoulder.  “For the last half of her life, you filled my sister up in the good times and held her up through the bad.  All those years ago in Syngorn, I joked and pushed because I could see the light you gave her, the glow.  I mean it with all my heart when I say that you made her life better.”

Keyleth sniffled, a bittersweet smile spreading on her face.  “And they say Syngorn elves have no emotions.”

Velora smiled.  “Of course we do.  We just know better than to show them.”  She lightly smacked Keyleth on the arm.

The smile spread wider on Keyleth’s face.  “That sounds like Vex.”

“I’d hope so,” said Velora, “I spent my childhood dreaming of being her.”

“She was so proud of you.”

Velora drew in a long breath, her face impassive.  “I know you have a lot to do.  And the rest of the family will want their time ….”

Keyleth nodded, knowing that Velora needed to process this alone.  They said their goodbyes and Keyleth braced herself for the next part.  It was time to tell the de Rolos.

⁂

The funeral had been massive.  Bigger even than Percy’s or their children’s.  Vex was a legend and it seemed that ceremony was necessary for her to move into myth.  The sky had been clear with the sharp blue of the mountain air and the sun had seemed to hang in the sky as the rites were said over Vex’s body.  It was beautiful, but Keyleth could not stand there in the line, greeting the curious faces.  She had moved on.  Whitestone had been Percy’s, but the forest was Vex’s.

And the deep forest, in particular, was Vex’s place.  The place where the branches formed a knotty ceiling against the sky and the light was thin and used up.  The place where the ground was rich with decay and the new growth was thick and green in the spaces between the ancient giants.  The place where the birds were always heard but seen only as shadows flitting above.  The place where life moved at every turn but only in the crackle of dried leaves and the breaking of a twig.  There was a silence in this place.  A silence that could only be found in the constant presence of sound.  Keyleth stood in the heart of that silence and closed her eyes.

The silence made her heart ache.  There was life there and she could identify most of the sounds—their maker, their purpose—but outside the hum, in the gaps between, in the thick silence that pervaded everything here, she was certain she could hear a voice.

But she knew it was just memory.

It had been close to here that she had found Vex all those decades ago.  Keyleth craned her neck and peered up into the thick canopy.  Which tree had she been perched in?  How much higher were the branches?  Was it that one that lay rotting on its side?  Or was it the one that seemed to pierce the canopy and stretch higher than any others?  That was the thing about the forest, about the world.  Given enough time, it became unrecognizable.  It was necessary.   The giants that had once ruled the silence grew weak and fell.  And in the space they left, new life took root, to become new striding giants.  Keyleth pressed her hand against one of the thick trunks, felt in the back of her head the dull throb of life, and breathed deep.

She could feel Vex.  In the silence there was a press that pushed her on.  And it occurred to Keyleth only in that moment, for the first time in over a hundred and sixty years, that Vex had come here, run here, after Percy’s funeral for a reason.

She clenched her jaw and thought about not taking a step further, but her feet moved of their own accord.

Of course.  Of course this place.

The clearing was almost gone.  It was probably old even back when Pike had first built the bench and the forest was good at reclaiming its space.  It had done its work in the intervening years.   What had been a rare place of light in the darkness was now simply another shadow of an unknown past.  Eventually, no one would know what this meant.  Eventually, there would be nothing to mean anything.  But, today, Keyleth was here.  And, today, the bench was still here.

It wasn’t the original bench.  That had been hewn of wood and it had returned to the forest quickly.  No, this was the replacement that Pike and Grog had made together out of stone.  Not a headstone, as Pike had said, but a monument of a kind.  The kind you could sit on and think.  The kind you could wait on.  It was overgrown now and the stone was beginning to crumble, but it still stood.  It still served its purpose.  Exactly as Pike had intended.  Keyleth didn’t bother to clear the vines and the dirt and the fallen leaves.  She simply sat, treating it like it was: part of the forest.  A part that had its time and would pass.  Just like everything else.  Just as the great trees followed in the footsteps of the trees that had come before them, this bench would follow its creator.  It would eventually be nothing more than dirt.  That was the end for all things.

Keyleth took in a deep breath.  There was something special about the air this deep into the forest.  It felt heavy, dense, like the air picked up the weight of the light as the sun faded away near the forest floor.  And she simply sat for a while.  She closed her eyes and reached out, let the wall of life flow over her.  Life.  So much life.  Always continuing on.  Always ignorant of those who left.  What was a little death in a sea of life?  The world was so vibrant.  It would always continue.  Those who were gone simply slipped beneath the waves, carried away by the current.  They were shaped and worn down by that current.  Until there was nothing left.

Keyleth's shoulders drooped and she reached into one of the pouches she kept at her side.  She stared for a long time at the wooden box that she pulled out.  It was one of her ingredient trays that she kept for things like fragile berries or seeds that needed to be protected.  She had emptied it before she left for Vex's side.  She needed it to protect these last mementos.  Her fingers brushed the lid.  The wood was smooth from decades of use.

She flipped it open and took out the two feathers: one a brilliant blue and one the blackest black.  She held them up to the light, spun then each in turn between thumb and forefinger.

Somehow, across all the years, these were the same feathers, Vex had always worn: the feathers Vax had given her.  One from life and one from death.  A sign of his love and his care for her.

Keyleth wondered what, if he could say anything, Vax would say to her now.

His voice would come low and gravelly.  It wouldn't sound like Vax anymore.  Too long in the realm of the Raven Queen.  He would sound like a voice made of dirt and fungus.

We each have our time, he would say.  The tears are right because they show the truth of our emotion.  But you are the river.  You are constantly moving forward.  You are history.

"I'd rather just be a person."  Keyleth cupped the feathers in her hands.  They felt light and cool against her skin.

That is your gift.  To be both.  His voice would be heavy and slow.  It is rare and beautiful, even as it is a burden.

Keyleth sighed.  She was tired of gifts.  She was all too aware of the burden.  She closed her eyes and pictured Vax.  She knew it was wrong now, out-of-date, outmoded.  He would be different after so many decades in the Raven Queen's realm.  She had seen a preview of that at Vex and Percy’s wedding.  But she still saw him as he was before: a young beautiful half-elf, raven hair flowing down his back, and eyes that both glittered with mischief and were shadowed with deep despair.  A smile, when it came, as it rarely did near the end, like the cut of a blade.  He would always be that in her mind.

The burden is hard, yes.  But a worthy one.  Your life will have so much weight.

Keyleth squeezed her eyes shut to hold back the tears and unconsciously her hands squeezed at the feathers at the same time.  She let out a little gasp and loosed her grip her eyes snapping open and letting the tears fall.

"I wish I could—I wish I could talk to Vax like he was back then."

I wish I could talk to Keyleth as she was back then.  The years wear away at us.  The world shapes us.  We shape ourselves.  But the material is the same.

Keyleth hesitated and looked down at the blue and black in her palm.  "Do—do you still love me?"

Vax would be silent for some time and then his voice would rise like the grinding of mountains against the plains.

My love is like your love for me.  The years have worn it down.  Made it smooth.  Made it small.  Made it pure.  Yet that does not reduce its value.  I carry it just the same.  It is part of my material now and can never be separated from me.

The forest was so dark now, as if the very light fled the ghost of this clearing.  Keyleth wiped the few tears that had escaped and sniffled back her sadness.

"I didn't want that to happen.  I knew it had to, but I wanted to ... something made me think I could hold it tight and let it burn just as strongly forever."

Hold a flame tight and all you do is snuff it out.  There is darkness everywhere.  Be thankful for the light you are given.

"Our loved burned so bright once and I ...."  Keyleth traced the paths of the tree roots with her eyes, trying to find her own path through her thoughts.  "My love for Vex is that bright.  Why would I want it to dim?  What brightness does life hold without her?"

Where the tears had fallen, hot and blotchy, there was now the caress of a cold breeze that sent a shiver through her body.

You thought the same once for me.  I remember the thoughts and how they filled me with despair.  Yet there was more brightness.  So much more brightness.

Keyleth nodded.  Her head felt heavy, her shoulder's weak.  Where her hand held up the feathers, she felt a great weight.

Vax's voice would begin to fade then.  His vision would give him the understanding of when to come and when to go.  But he would say one last piece.

The shadows and the light can exist together.  Neither negates the other.

He would be gone.  And there would be a moment of silence where even the sounds of the forest ceased.

And then Vex would be there.  Not as she had been but as Keyleth remembered her.  She wasn't young.  That wasn’t how Keyleth remembered her, not like Vax.  The gray already left traces in her hair and the crow's feet kissed the corners of her eyes.  Her sardonic smirk left its traces around her mouth.  It was Vex when she and Keyleth had first shared a kiss.

Vex would smile.  Her eyes would be kind and her voice would be a gentle purr that wrapped Keyleth up and pulled her close.

Darling, she would say, you were my light.  The world so needs a light.

And Vex would lean in and take one last kiss.  She would linger and, in her lingering, stretch the moment out towards eternity.  And then she would be gone.

The feathers resting in her palm, Keyleth reached up to her lips and traced the warmth, the familiar warmth, the warmth of Vex’s lips on her own.

Chapter Text

There is an ancient tree in Zephrah.  Its trunk and branches are gnarled and thick from centuries of growth.  Its roots are a tangle.  It reaches out over its little corner of the village, its foliage forming a lush canopy in the springtime.  It is one of the few sources of shade on the cool, arid plateau.  The other trees and bushes on the plateau grow thin and wiry—the soil too dusty or rocky or uneven to provide a foundation for any life.  What crops thrive are supported by the magic of the Ashari.  But this tree grows without arcane aid.  It grows strong and robust from an inner strength.  The elders say it is the soul of their clan.  So long as the tree stands, so too will the Ashari.

The children of the clan call the tree Grandmother out of respect, but they also climb among its branches and roots.  They seek out hiding places and new heights.  The make up new games.  They make up their own stories.  Most of all, however, they love the birds that claim the tree as their own.

It is said that there was a time when ravens did not live in Zephrah, that there was a time when they were entirely unknown on the mountain.  But for as long as anyone living can remember, the ravens have made their home in the branches of the tree.  The falcons have always been there, but elsewhere they are known to kill invading birds.  The falcons claim their territory and protect it violently.  But in Zephrah, the falcons and ravens live in peace.  They coexist in the ancient tree, each finding their space in its weatherworn branches.  Those who care for the birds say that they care for each other’s young.

It has become the tradition of the clan to make their most important decisions at the base of the tree.  Children are welcomed into the tribe at its trunk.  Partners are joined—hands bound and vows taken—in the shade of its leaves.  Those who have passed back into the elements have their last stories told while their body is cradled in its roots.

Once every generation an old storyteller comes to Zephrah and tells stories beneath the tree.  She has come for as long as anyone can remember.  It is said that she is the descendent of the first storyteller of the clan.  It is said that she comes to tell the tribes most important stories—the stories that no one else remembers or no one else wants to remember but that must be remembered: the story of the sundering, the story of the heroes of the last age who rose up and struck down a new born god, the story of the failure of the Ashari, the story of the last of the Ashari’s eternal leaders—who threw down her mantle so that the Ashari might live as one with the world.  The elders who hold the secret stories—the stories that are only spoken in the darkest hours—say that the old storyteller is not simply a descendent of the first storyteller but is the first storyteller.

Those who know more say that she is not simply the first storyteller, but the last eternal leader.

The old storyteller herself says nothing beyond her stories.  When she comes, a single raven—blackest of its flock—and a single falcon—most majestic of its flock—fly down to her shoulders.  She walks slowly, most of her weight pressed into a long staff.  The staff is worn smooth from untold years of service.  She must have been tall at one time, but now her back is as crooked and gnarled as the branches of the ancient tree.  Her gray hair is cropped short.  Her face is a map of her life, drawn with thick black lines and worn and heavily creased.  It is the face of a long life, well lived.

When she is ready, she takes her place, hunched, on a base of roots.  Her plain brown cloak and traveling clothes—many times patched and covered with the dust of the road—pulled tight, her staff laid across her lap, she looks out across the crowd that stretches out around the tree.  And she tells a story.  She never tells the same story, at least, not as far back as anyone can recall.  But the story is always the right story.  It is the story that the village needs at that time.

This day, she tells the story of a tree, much like the ancient one she sits below, but much older.  It is, she says, a sister tree to this one—also the soul of a people.  It thrives in a land of pristine snow and black smoke, a birthplace of great evil that still scars the land.  Yet, the tree itself is a servant of life and of light, but many of the most important lessons in this story come not from the light but from the darkness.  The fundamental truth of nature: death is the fertile earth from which all life springs.

The story begins.