Chapter Text
Dying wasn’t pretty.
Pretty was the light of the sun, the blooming of flowers, the smile on her friends faces. Dying was the quick slash of a fiends claws, the momentary realization of Oh, but I wasn’t done yet before it all went dark. Dying was waking up with blood coating your body, and Grog’s shell-shocked face, his hands shaking for the first time since she met him.
Dying was the realization that there was now a scar circling her midsection, where she’d been cut in half.
Dying was seeing white in the periphery of her vision.
Dying was realizing that she would carry those marks forever, a scar on her belly and ghostly white strands of hair.
Pike spent some time on a fishing boat after. She’d needed space, a chance to get stronger, to make sure it never happened to her again. She needed the assurance that she was capable, that she could hold her own and pull her weight.
Grog had been upset, but she needed the time to just be, and she knew she’d return, after all she was the cleric, and Grog always needed healing, especially with those new friends they’d made.
Months after returning, Pike found herself in the Umbral Hills, watching as a man with white hair convinced Vex to let him free.
Pike played with the strands of her own pale locks while the group made their way out of Jorenn Village, her sharp gnomish ears catching the faint wheeze the man – Percy – was making as they walked.
Once they made a mid-day camp, she’d approached him while he worked on his weapon, the sound of his pained breaths caught her attention as she got closer.
“Percy, right?” She began, when he nodded she continued. “I heard you on the walk, are you okay?”
He frowned. “Quite fine, thank you.”
Pike could hear the rasp in his voice, the rattling in his chest, and met his frown with her own. “You don’t sound fine.”
His expression was careful and cloudy green eyes searched her for something Pike couldn’t figure out. He was quiet long enough that Pike felt herself fidget.
“Let me help?” she asked, softening her voice. “It’ll be quick.”
He hesitated, something warring on his face, before she saw him swallow and nod. “If you insist.”
A glimmer of satisfaction bloomed in her chest as she instructed him to lift his shirt, and it grew more when he did so with only a grumble under the breath.
It withered a bit, when she saw the boot-print on his ribs, dark and bruised and painful. She held back a wince and examined the injury. It certainly looked like it had cracked a rib or two, but it wasn’t the only thing that caught her attention.
His shirt was only hitched up enough to see the bruise, and carefully covered his torso, but there was no hiding what she could see. The scars. Scattered across his ribs and down his side. Thin and pale in some places, angry and jagged in others.
She took in a breath, and held her amulet with one hand, the other reached out to his wound.
He flinched back.
Pike bit her lip. “I won’t hurt you,” she promised. “I just need to touch you to heal your ribs.”
He was still hesitant, and Pike made connections she didn't want to make. She remembered visiting a burned town, early in her clerical training, where soldiers were shell-shocked and bodies that were too little to just be bodies were covered by cloth. She remembered reaching out to a man with burn wounds, who flinched back, eyes clouded with an unnamable grief. She remembered making the same promise.
“I won’t hurt you,” she repeated, hand softening where the pale glow of Serenrae’s light blossomed in her palm.
He was stiff, but forced himself to nod, and he didn’t flinch when Pike reached for his side again. She knew the signs, she’d been trained to deal with people like this, who’d been through something she didn’t understand.
Ghostly white fell into her vision.
Maybe, she thought, glancing up at the man’s own white hair. Maybe she did, this one time.
The warmth of the Everlight flowed through Pike’s arm, down to her hand and into the cracked ribs beneath the bruise. It faded as she pushed healing energy into him, and she could feel the way his bones knit back together, strengthening and granting him the relief to take a deep breath.
He only relaxed once she backed up, Pike could see the tension melting away when given space as he tugged down his shirt and waistcoat. “Thank you,” he said with a tight smile.
“Anytime,” Pike answered, swiping strands of white away from her face.
A week later, after finding out a cult was kidnapping people for a reason they never learned, after fighting and killing those in a shitty hideout, and after putting bodies to rest, Pike was finally able to relax herself.
The town had been thankful for the help the SHITs gave – and Pike was endlessly amused that the acronym was sticking – and with the payment they’d been able to get some supplies for the next part of their journey to a more populous area.
They were planning on heading off the next day and Pike was restless with the anticipation as the sun began to dip low.
She wandered through the streets, taking in the relief-filled faces of people walking, no longer needing to run inside to avoid being taken. We did a good thing. She thought, pride in her heart. We helped them.
She found herself outside the town’s smithy, the scent of smoke clogging her nose. There was the distinct white hair of Percy at the outdoor forge, visor masking his face as he used a set of tools to move a glowing mold to a cask of water.
The loud hissing drowned out her approach, and Pike watched as Percy maneuvered through the forge with practiced grace. He was an interesting sort, she’d decided. All polite distance mixed with calculated movements and careful words. She hadn’t forgotten the scars she saw, but they fell to the back of her mind as the mystery of the wagon took focus.
Now, she wondered if those jagged wounds were like the thick scar that circled just above her hips. If his white hair was like hers.
Was it wrong? She wondered. To hope that he’d died before? To hope that someone had resurrected him and he lived with scars like she did? That he also lived with the knowledge that that had been it , no retracing your steps, not until someone who cared enough decided to give you another chance.
Her hand brushed the symbol of the Everlight around her neck.
“Hey Percy!” She called out, making the man startle. The tongs he’d been holding fell from his grip as his hand swung to his pepperbox and what looked like metal balls scattered across a table.
She cringed. “Fuck, sorry! Just me! Pike!” She raised her hands in surrender as he lifted the visor from his sweat-streaked face. The metal rolled across the table, some scattering into the straw floor.
“Ah,” Percy’s face was either pink from the heat or embarrassment as he spoke. “Apologies for the break in composure.” Finally, his hand strayed from the pepperbox and relaxed at his side.
“It’s fine,” Pike waved her hand dismissively. “Sorry for interrupting. What were you making?”
Percy looked to the table of scattered metal. “Ammunition,” he answered. “For the Pepperbox.” He frowned at the metal in the straw and moved to start organizing the metal from the table, carefully putting them into a tray before he knelt down to pick them from the ground.
Pike swallowed the guilt back and fell to her knees to help. “I didn’t know you made your own ammo.” She picked up one of the metal balls, they were almost hot to the touch.
“Well, when one has a one-of-a-kind weapon.” He shrugged, and Pike was a little jealous of his gloves as he handled the now numerous bits of metal in his hand.
Pike stood and placed some of his ammunition in the tray, they were perfect spheres of gray metal, and she had to be impressed with the skill they were forged with. “Where’d you get the idea anyway?” she asked, looking down to Percy who had frozen. “For the Pepperbox?”
He paused before righting himself with the last of the ammunition in his hands. “Nowhere in particular,” he answered. “Inspiration strikes when it will.”
That was a non-answer if Pike had ever heard one, but she’d only known the man for a few days now and had enough sense to not press too hard.
The next few minutes were quiet as Percy continued to work, flitting about the smithy with a practiced ease. She didn’t know much about him yet, besides his penchant for nicer clothes and that one blue coat, his deadly aim (as proven in the fight with the cultists), and now that he made his own ammunition for his unique weapon. Moving to a crate she sat down, kicking her legs in the air as he seemed to forget she was there.
She waited a while longer, until he was done counting under his breath and putting the ammo into a pouch he had on the table.
“You’re sticking with us, then?” Pike blurted, unsure if she would have asked otherwise. “I heard Vex talking about picking up more rations.”
Percy nodded stiffly. “If you will have me.”
“Of course!” Pike assured him. She couldn’t think of a reason not to bring him with. He was a good fighter, saved Vex from whatever that spell was, even if his weapon hurt her ears. “You were really helpful with the cultists.”
“My pleasure.”
She was getting the sense he didn’t talk a lot. Pike’s heel kicked a bit too hard into the wooden crate and she hissed, Percy’s attention drawing from his bag to her. She took a moment to appreciate how much he’d put himself back together after the jailbreak. He’d cut his hair at some point after dealing with the cult– taking away the bangs that hung in his face – and he’d gotten those new clothes with Keyleth and Vex that were hidden under an apron now, but looked nice when without.
He didn’t look like an adventurer, he looked like he came from money, like his voice and fancy glasses implied.
He was also covered in soot and sweat from working in the hot forge, which kind of took that look down a notch.
“Are you alright?” He tilted his head, and those once-cloudy green eyes studied her with a renewed sharpness.
She gave a thumbs-up. “Yep, totally fine.”
He studied her and then turned back to his work, seemingly satisfied with what he saw.
She rubbed her heel through her boot. “You-uh- you got anyone you want to get to, since you’re free now?”
Percy paused again, and Pike was getting used to the idea that he was a bit stuck in his own head. “No,” he chuckled a little. “I wasn’t lying when I said I was totally alone in the world.”
That struck her heart in an odd way. The man’s speech in the jail cell had seemed like a ploy, one that Vex hadn’t fallen for so much as allowed him to think worked.
But when he spoke, it wasn’t a ploy, it was honesty, brutal honesty sure, like he’d offered upon meeting, and it made her fingers tighten on the edge of the crate. “Oh.” She looked at her boots, then back at him. “Good thing we found you then.”
He looked at her past the gold frames of his glasses. “Yes, quite good. I-,” he hesitated. “I am admittedly a bit unused to working in a group. I haven’t had much company as of late, and I may not be a stellar conversationalist, if that’s what you’re after.”
There was a layer to that admission, something deeper that Pike wanted to poke and piece through, but for now she was able to see he was giving her an out, one that she wasn’t sure she wanted to take.
“I just want to get to know you,” she leaned back on her hands. “You’ll be travelling with us, it’s a good idea to know more than your name and all that.” She had to admit, she wasn’t sure she knew his whole name anyway.
“Not much to know,” Percy said, and that felt like a lie if Pike ever heard one.
“You were in jail for attempted murder,” Pike deadpanned.
He remained quiet, and Pike didn’t want to push too hard and scare him away.
She kicked her legs again, seeking out the right words in the right order. Make it seem light?
“We can start small,” she forced a laugh. “Like your hair, do you dye it?”
He ran his hand through it, forgetting his glove was caked in soot apparently. “No, I don’t.”
Something like hope, but with a guilty twist rolled through her. “I don’t either,” she used a finger and twirled through a curl.
He studied her again, that sharp, calculating gaze focused on her face and hair. He had a streak of black soot through his own and Pike stifled a laugh.
“I mean- it used to be black,” she offered, maybe reaching out would help? “It- it changed a while back.”
He raised a brow, it made her frown, it wasn’t white like hers, instead it was gray as his stubble had been. Did I misjudge?
“Oh?” Percy leaned on the table, seemingly more at ease. “I must admit, spontaneous pigment changes are rare, and rarely for good reasons.”
“They’re not,” Pike admitted, meeting his gaze as evenly as she could. “It’s – it’s my resurrection scar.”
“Ah,” He nodded. “I’ve heard of that happening, you worship the Everlight, no?”
That guilt-hope feeling left Pike. Heard of it? “Yes, I do.”
“The Dawnflower ,” he mumbled, rubbing his chin with his soot-covered hand. “I am sorry for your death,” he added, addressing her more directly. “I can’t imagine the experience pleasant.”
“No,” Pike’s hand fell to her stomach, tracing the edge of her hip. “It wasn’t.”
“You were brought back, though,” he gestured to his own hair in reference. “You thank the Everlight for this?”
“Grog, really,” Pike didn’t know when she lost control of this conversation. “He and my Great-great Grandpa Wilhand, they brought me home. The Everlight helped immensely, but Grog was the one who-.” She trailed off, unsure how to explain the sensation of being called home.
“Good, that’s good,” Percy tapped his own hands on the table, there were questions in his eyes but he remained quiet.
“It is.” Pike grinned, a little forced. “I’m glad to be here.”
Percy forced his own smile, it didn’t reach his eyes. “It’d be a shame if we hadn’t met.”
Pike took a breath.
Maybe he didn’t know what it was like to die. She shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up, however fucked those hopes were.
“It would be,” she agreed, seeking a way back to control the situation. “You don’t dye your hair, you said?”
He shook his head, arms crossing in front of him.
“So, it’s always been white?” She pressed.
He paused again, before he turned back to his work, his back to Pike. “No.”
Pike had a feeling she was pushing too hard, but there was something she could gleam from that.
“Spontaneous pigment changes are rare, and rarely for good reasons.”
“Well,” Pike knocked her knuckles on the crate as she hopped off. “I’ll leave you to it, see you at the Inn?”
He waved a hand. “Of course, I’ll see you there.”
Pike left him to his work, leaving the smoky atmosphere for the clear breeze outside. It didn’t stop her from wondering, about the strange man, about his scars, about his white hair.
What was your reason?