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“Hey, Vax,” Keyleth says into the quiet evening, glancing up at the half-elf braiding flowers she had crafted earlier in the hour into her hair. They’d meandered around the forest surrounding Zephrah for a long while before settling under a large oak tree, with Keyleth settled in between his legs facing the sun.
“Yes, Kiki?” He replies, not pausing his work for a moment except to grab another flower from the dwindling pile. He will help pick them out gently later, and she will lay them out amongst the blades of grass for animals to use or eat afterward. They do this type of thing often, drinking in each other’s presence during these quiet, domestic moments neither thought they’d ever get.
“You know you never gave me that dance, right?”
Finally, his scarred hands are still. “What dance?” He asks, and Keyleth sighs, not wanting to recount the awkward and embarrassing moment they shared.
She knew then that he was shaken, confused, and dealing with his own problems. But she had been drunk, more on the sight of his handsome face than the ale their party got. It still made her face burst into flames with how disappointed and rejected she’d felt.
“Hey, I’m only kidding. I know what dance you’re referring to,” Vax assures her gently. He begins his weaving again, adding a new flower. She grumbles that she wished he didn’t. This elicits a quiet chuckle and a kiss on the top of her head.
“After I’m done braiding your hair, we can have that dance you so desperately want.”
She snorts a laugh. “Don’t call me out here, Vax!”
Because she was desperate, but she always was when it came to him. Desperate for his touch, his kisses, his presence.
He pauses the braiding once more to lightly tickle her side. “I like calling you out, because regardless of what it’s about, your face goes as red as Grog when he rages. It’s cute!” he jokes.
“Oh, oh! Who’s cuter: Grog.. or me?”
“Grog. Obviously!” His reply comes without a second of hesitation, which makes her laugh again.
“Yeah, yeah. I can’t compete with his beard, we know,” she waves to herself and then the few birds flitting from branch to branch. She could talk to them, make them chirp back to prove a non-existent point to make him laugh, but she decides not to and let her boyfriend finish the flower-filled braids in comfortable silence.
After another half hour, Vax is done and offering a hand to help her up—the one with the blight. But he corrects himself, quickly replacing it and offering a tight smile. “Let’s go home.”
-
They don’t talk on the way back. They could, about several things—his blight, why he won’t talk to the Matron about it, if they should visit his sister and her almost-brother or the rest of their found family—but they don’t. They might someday, when they are a little more willing to break the comfort they fought so hard to have. But today they aren’t.
-
Eventually, Zephrah fills their view. They walk along familiar paths and faces while holding hands, stopping only once to help a girl who couldn’t find her brother.
Keyleth walks into their cottage first, walking over to the worn couch they now share after taking off her shoes. She glances up as Vax takes off his, forever grateful that his shoes mingle amongst hers now. It’s a random, small thing, but a thing she appreciates nonetheless.
He catches her eye and smiles. “Want me to take out those flowers first?”
She shakes her head softly.
He walks over and hugs her, kissing her temple and then her lips before pulling away slightly. “You’re beautiful, you know that right?” She nods this time, her face heating. Even after the hundreds of compliments he’s given her since they met, she is still flustered by them. “Good,” he breathes.
The fire crackles to life after Keyleth adds a flame, and they start to sway to non-existent music.
After a while, she leans against his chest, reassuring herself that he is alive—wonderfully, fully alive—before talking again. “Hey, Vax?”
“Yes, Kiki?”
“We can continue this anywhere, soo.. Want to move this dance to the bedroom?”
As she always was, she is desperate. And right now, kissing him sounds a lot better than dancing in his arms to a song neither of them hear. He laughs and picks her up with ease, having done this so many times before, and says, “I would’ve expected that joke from me. Not you.”
A pause to adjust, and then he’s walking with her in his arms towards the room he once only longed to share with her. “But.. of course we can.”
-
The flowers are picked out eventually, but not until many have already scattered onto their shared pillows. Catha and Ruidus are already high in the sky before they speak again, voices slightly rough.
“Hey, Vax.”
“Yes, Kiki?”
“Thank you for coming with me.”
He places a kiss on her bare shoulder, picking out the final few petals from her hair. He places them on a bedside table before wrapping himself around her once more.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
And, although both of their minds are buzzing with things they don’t want to bring up yet—his blight, their friends, the fact the mention of Grog reopened a small wound they know will never close—they crawl under the sheets anyway, and Vax drifts off to sleep whispering a silent, heavy thank you to his Matron for letting him stay just a little longer.