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Vex is already drifting into dreams when the door of her room opens. She sits bolt upright and is reaching for her bow before her eyes are even fully open, but the soft pad of paws tells her it’s ok. It’s just Minxie.
The bed sags as Minxie’s weight lands on the end of it, and then she’s curling herself around Vex. Her fur is chill to the touch and she smells like the forest, and for a moment Vex envies whatever adventure she’s just come from, out there in the cold night air.
Vex pets her ears, her big, soft head, and feels a low purr rumble all the way through the both of them. They lie there, cushioned in the warm dark of Vex’s bedroom, as Minxie’s purring fades into deep, even breaths and Vex’s own eyelids grow heavy. She’ll wake in the morning with Keyleth wrapped around her, and she’ll tease her about leaving cat hair in the bed, and there will be a moment where Keyleth won’t be sure if she’s serious and will start to apologise and Vex will hush her with a wink and a kiss until they’re both laughing.
Perhaps.
Or maybe she’ll wake on her own, Keyleth slipped away back to her own bed with the shifting of her form, the first glow of dawn still lurking below the horizon. And she won’t say anything much to Vex at breakfast, until Vex makes an offhand comment about the cat hair but it will come out sharp-edged and just the wrong side of cruel and Keyleth will look down at her plate and the conversation will move on, leaving a cold lump in Vex’s gut.
Vex turns over, clenches her fist in Minxie’s fur. “Stay with me,” she whispers. “Stay here with me. Please.”
***
Keyleth falls asleep as Minxie. She wakes with the sun, back in a half-elven body that only feels like hers some of the time.
She looks at Vex, still sound asleep beside her, her face peaceful in repose but also kind of weirdly scrunched against the pillows, and Keyleth can’t help but smile.
She considers what Vex said. She thinks about how Vex thought that Minxie, thought that Keyleth, was sleeping when she said it.
Keyleth thinks maybe she intended to go back to her own bed this morning. Staying here brings a whole host of potential problems that she doesn’t really want to deal with right now. Everything could be avoided so easily. Leaving would be the work of a moment.
She settles back into the bed and lays a protective arm gently across Vex’s waist.
When Vex wakes, Keyleth will be here, and together they’ll find out what the new day will bring.