Chapter Text
The last thing Percy says to her, to them all actually, just before bed is –
“This place will never…never be like our first home together. But it’s what we have, and I would be humbled and honored if you would like to call it home. For now,” he adds quickly. “I understand you’d rather not think of it as a permanent situation, but—”
“Hey.” Scanlan raises his hands. “You’ve got a hundred rooms.”
“Eighty-seven,” Percy corrects.
“I claim ten of those. For personal reasons.”
“Whatever your heart desires, Scanlan.” Percy frowns. “Within reason, of course.”
“Oh sure, sure.”
Vex gives his beret a little flick as she walks past, following Percy up a flight of stairs. “It’s a wonderful gesture, darling. Really. We couldn’t be more grateful.”
“I’m not entirely sure what the state of the rooms is, but Cassie said they were livable.” He pushes a door open down one hall and nods. “This wing of the castle belongs to all of you. You can pick—”
Grog muscles past all of them and claims a room. “Mine! This one’s mine. It’s the biggest, so it’s mine.”
“Aw, come on!” Scanlan whines. “You didn’t even let me look.”
Pike goes jogging down, armor echoing down the hall as she shouts for Grog to let her see, and Keyleth bounds after them all, Vax in tow.
Vex sighs. “Typical.”
“Very.” Percy adjusts his glasses and glances over at her. “This is alright?”
“It’s more than alright. You don’t have to worry about it.”
He shakes his head. “I want everything to be as perfect as we can manage it. The world is falling to pieces, Vex. We should have some semblance of sanity here, for as long as we can.”
“It’s fine, Percival. Honestly.” She kisses his cheek. “Thank you.”
He smiles. “You must really like it, then. Handing out kisses.”
“Only the best for you, my lord.” She bows her head and Percy groans.
“Please. Never do that again.”
She tosses and turns that night, probably the consequence of a new bed and all the new anxiety she’s managed to collect. Sleep won’t come, so she hauls herself out, puts on something light and steps into the hall. It’s quiet, which means her brother is probably nearby, but she’s not looking for him right now. She heads down the hall, hoping the identical stone walls and corners don’t confuse her in the dark – tracking is tracking, but she needs rest, she needs quiet and peace and she still can’t manage to find that.
The Briarwoods and their history permeate the halls. Vex’ahlia can feel how wretched they were in the stonework, can perfectly recall the coldness they prompted inside her. She applauds Cassandra for scrubbing the place clean of their essence, for the most part. But a spinning circle of magic causes a chill to run down her spine, and Vex wraps her arms around herself tighter, shivering in the cool air of the hall –
“Vex?”
Percy’s voice echoes quietly, hits her gently. She turns and sees him at the end of the hall, buttons of his vest undone, sleeves rolled up. He looks like he’s been in his workshop, carrying a candle and some notes in his hands. She turns around to join him.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
“Can’t stop…hearing them,” she manages. “The sound, it’s—”
“Let’s have a drink.”
“It’s late, Percival.”
He shrugs. “Couldn’t hurt.” He leads her down the halls and toward his room, setting his things down on a little desk just inside before closing the door again behind him. “There’s some whiskey in the library. One of them,” he adds. Vex laughs. “My mother loved books, and my father loved my mother. He converted at least six rooms in the place to libraries, apart from the two that were already here. My grandfather was distraught.” He pushes open a heavy wooden door. “This used to be his smoking room.”
Vex inhales. “Smells like it, still.”
“Well when a man smokes every night for sixty-one years in one room, the smells tends to linger.” He takes the top off a decanter and pours into two glasses. “Here you are.” She takes it, and Percy raises his own. “To sleep. Eventually.”
“Eventually.” The glass makes a bright noise in the dark of the room. Percy lights a few candles and settles into an armchair. “I’m going to have to get to know this place all over again.”
“Is it so different?”
“The paintings are gone or in storage. The smells are different. There’s an entire wing that was destroyed by whoever the Briarwoods let live there. Some of my siblings had rooms there. Whitney and Oliver, if I remember.” He shakes his glass. “I don’t know if we’ll ever get the place clean of them.”
“You will,” Vex says, surprised by her own confidence.
“I should hope so.”
“We’ll help you. After the dragons.”
“If there is an after.”
She scowls. “Don’t talk like that. We’re not going to die that way. Warring with dragons. Men who call that honor are just cowards. Too afraid to want to die at home and at peace.”
“Is that how you want to die, then?” Percy leans back and looks at her. He seems relaxed on his own land. Still the tense-shouldered creature she’s known all these years, but he slips a bit, just ever so slightly. More so now that the place is really his. “At home?”
“This may shock you, Percival, but I would someday like a family of my own.”
“Little trackers, hmm? Trailing after bear cubs?”
“Naturally.”
He laughs. “That seems…nice.”
Vex sits in the chair across from him. “It’s a good thought. It warms me.” She takes a sip. “What about you, then? Come on, let’s hear it. How would you like to die?”
Percy freezes a little in his chair, and Vex wonders if she’s touched a nerve. She opens her mouth to tell him to never mind her, never mind the question, it’s –
“Honestly, I thought I was going to be dead already. I didn’t…expect to survive the Briarwoods.”
“…Percy.”
“And Ripley is still out there. I have no idea when we will meet again, or if I’ll survive that.”
“But if you do.”
He nods. “If I do…I should think your way of doing things isn’t so bad. A family couldn’t hurt. I enjoyed having siblings, and my mother and father were good people. Their love is the thing that’s truly missing from this place.” He smiles. “If you can believe it, we were all very happy here, once. It’d be nice to have a family in these halls again.”
Eventually Vex begins to fall asleep in her chair, and Percy taps her on the shoulder. “Let’s get you to bed.”
“I’m going to get lost.”
“Nonsense, we’ll get you there.” He hooks his arm in hers, and they walk silently through the wings. It’s not as many turns as she remembers, but eventually they find their way back outside her door. “Thank you for having that drink with me.”
“Thank you for sharing.”
“I’d say any time, but I’ll be keeping my inhibitions up around you for a few days, just to save face.”
“Typical Percy,” she teases. He laughs again. She’s not heard the sound before as often as she has tonight.
“Rest well,” he says, and squeezes her hand.
He goes before she can get in the last word, but Vex figures that probably doesn’t matter. Not when he seems…happy.
She finally slips out of her leggings and crawls into bed, playing Percy’s words in her mind over and over. She can imagine him quite clearly being dragged through these halls by pesky sisters. It’s not hard – she was, and is, one herself. She’s seen the portrait of his parents, and they looked happy and in love. Perhaps, she thinks, Percy will have a family here. Perhaps their families will be friends.
And then the thought, falling unbidden into her head – Perhaps we will have one together.
It warms her belly, just a bit, but for reasons she doesn’t understand. She finds Percival charming, of course. But there’s no deep seated desire there to marry the man. She’s only just learned so many things about him, how long would it take to know him well enough to settle down with him?
And it’s Percy, of course. And it’s her. There’s no settling to be had. Not yet. Not for a while. And Percy will eventually rule over Whitestone. That’s a completely different life than the one she’s imagined for herself. Of course, as a younger woman the life she imagined was always Vex and Vax, taking what they wanted, returning what needed to be returned to those who’d been wronged –
But her brother is in love with Keyleth, he’d made that clear. And Keyleth is…an unknown. A variable Vex’ahlia had not expected.
She huffs, digging into her blankets. It couldn’t be so bad, she thought. Filling these halls with family and friends. But still, that was a life for someone else. Certainly not for her.
And though sleep finally claims her, it is not as restful as she would have liked, and she is plagued by dreams of what if’s and could be’s for the rest of the night.