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There are many years when Pike’s hands are soft; they're kept unmarked by her years of peaceful worship. She works by Wilhand’s side, cleaning the shrine and taking care of simple offerings to Sarenrae. She scrubs and dusts but never enough to leave marks of her work.
For many years, Pike doesn’t hear what Wilhand hears. She watches him as she cleans, watches as he bows his head and clasps his holy symbol and murmurs prayers so quiet that she can’t make the words out. Sometimes he laughs out of nowhere, startling her from her work, and she wonders what sort of jokes a goddess can tell.
She asks him that question one day as they’re eating, and Wilhand simply chuckles. “Plenty of jokes. It’s like talking to an old friend, dumpling.”
“Oh,” she says, as if that makes her understand. It doesn’t.
She doesn’t understand for a couple more years. Not until the night a crying woman knocks on their door, holding a son that’s unnaturally silent except for almost unnoticeable breaths. Wilhand takes one look at them and grimaces.
It takes more than a couple of minutes to coax the child from the woman as she desperately clings to her sick son, and when Wilhand succeeds he passes the baby off to Pike and brings the mother to their kitchen while he searches for the necessary components for what he needs.
And that leaves Pike waiting alone by their shrine to Sarenrae, the boy held close.
The child is quiet in her arms as she holds him, unnervingly still. Pike worries if she takes her eyes off of him he’ll be gone before Wilhand even returns. She brings the little bundle closer to her chest, humming a soft melody she pulls from some foggy memory of her childhood. He doesn’t move, and Pike feels a heavy weight inside her stomach as she runs through the chances of his survival. Whatever way she looks at it, they aren’t good.
She takes a seat next to the shrine, trying to calm herself. His heart is still beating faintly and that’s something at least. Medicine can only do so much, however, and she knows that.
(“Sometimes you just have to have a little faith,” Wilhand will laugh occasionally when she questions him about why he does what he does.)
So… faith.
It’s not something she’s ever really tried. She follows Sarenrae’s teachings, of course. She’s a Trickfoot, after all, but it’s never really gone beyond that. But with a tiny life fading away in her arms, it’s hard not to want to give it a try.
She brushes the pad of her thumb against the baby’s cheek, feels the clammy skin and squeezes her eyes shut. Pike reaches out for something she’s never understood, something that’s always evaded her, and whispers a plea for this child’s life. Behind the darkness of her own eyelids, Pike feels something reach back.
Suddenly it’s like a string is pulled taut, one end rooted in her heart and the other stretching out into the unknown. A missing piece of a puzzle falls into place; a sense of wholeness and rightness that makes her chest feel as if it’s about to burst with warmth.
Oh, Pike thinks as it spreads out from her heart and winds its way through her veins. Is this what he feels when he talks to her?
And maybe she’s never known this feeling before but she knows enough to recognize another hand (too soft and warm for Wilhand’s, too soft and warm for anybody mortal) cupping the one that she holds against the child’s face. The heat in her heart swells and spills out from her body, the hand on hers tightening.
As the wave of heat subsides, her breath hitches in the silence; a shuddering ache in the aftermath of… the aftermath of something. She doesn’t know what, but she knows she just did something.
After a moment of silence the boy cries, a sharp contrast to his deathly quiet from earlier, and she thinks that maybe it’s the most beautiful sound she’s ever heard.
She first catches Vax staring when she heals a child in Stillben (because some things never change) with a cough and no money for a healer. She brushes aside his parents’ attempts to pay her the few coppers they have with a laugh, settling instead for a promise that they’d help somebody else who needed it if they had the chance.
As they walk through town after, the rogue falls back to match her pace (which is awfully slow for him, considering his legs are much longer than hers), looking down at her closely. “That was awfully nice of you.”
She shrugs good-naturedly. “They needed help. I could give them that help.”
“And you did it for no payment,” he says softly, seemingly more to himself than to her.
She smiles at that. “I did get payment, though. They’re going to help out somebody that needs it in the future.” She draws a circle in the air with her fingers. “It’s a cycle, right? You help somebody else and then they pass it on. And then that person passes it on too. That knowledge is more than enough payment for me.”
“Is that your idea or Sare… Sarenrae?” he asks, saying the goddess’s name slowly as if he’s unsure if he’s saying it right.
Pike laughs, and it makes Vax jump a bit. “Yes, you got it right. Sarenrae.”
She’s surprised he remembered it, honestly. They’ve only been traveling together for about a week and a half. Before, when her faith came up, nobody in the group had really batted an eye (except for Keyleth, who’d initially been wary of her before they bonded over a shared fondness of plants—she says a little thank you to Wilhand for teaching her about herbs when she was little, as it turns out it helps with both healing and making friends).
“And I don’t know, a little bit of both?” She reaches up to brush a piece of hair that’s fallen loose from her bun back behind her ear. “It’s not like she told me she wants me to do this, but I think it lines up with what she wants. She wants to help people and heal people. That’s what I want too.”
Vax looks her over quietly for a minute, the two of them falling behind the group ever so slightly at their pace. His silence lasts a little too long for her taste, making her awkwardly fiddle her thumbs together as they walk.
Finally, he says, “You’re a genuinely good person, aren’t you?”
She let’s out a flustered laugh, more out of surprise than anything else. “I… thank you?”
“No, no, really,” he insists, moving his hands for emphasis. “Most people do good shit because they get something out of it, you know? But you do it because it’s the right thing to do. That’s… that’s fucking wonderful, really. If more people were like you, the world would be a much better place.”
“Oh,” she says simply, more than a little caught off-guard.
She knows people think she’s nice. She’s always been told that. Townsfolk in Westruun always used to gush to Wilhand about what a little angel he had for a grand-daughter, usually while she awkwardly stood off to the side. Once she found her knack for healing, the praise only grew. She’s used to it, really.
But from Vax? Well, she thinks this might be the most he’s ever talked to her since she joined their little group. And there’s something very genuine about the way he speaks, something in his eyes as he looks down at her that makes his words feel so much more meaningful than the compliments she got in Westruun.
Because she’s not sure what else to say, she settles for, “Hey, thanks!” Pause. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
And then she punches him in his side playfully and instantly regrets it because he nearly topples to the ground with a huff. It turns out her new friend is… a lot more fragile than Grog. She makes a note to watch her strength in the future as she helps steady him, stuttering apologies as he laughs it off and pats her on her head.
The group comes together naturally after that. They take jobs together, drink together, fight together, find common ground. They find a family in each other faster than she expects, faster than any of them expect. It’s… well, it’s sort of wonderful. It’s been just her and Wilhand for so long, and then just them and Grog, it surprises her how easy it is to slip into an almost domestic familiarity with her traveling companions. They find another family member in Percy, who they pull ragged and half-starved from a prison cell.
The twins have to practically carry him out, his legs weak from days of disuse. As soon as they lean him up against a wall, Vax finds her and takes her hands.
“Can you help him?” he asks, glancing over at where Keyleth and Vex are trying to talk to the young man. “He looks like he has some injuries that haven’t been tended to. Like he got in a scuffle and they just tossed him in here. And I’m sure you noticed, but he’s really weak.”
“Of course,” she responds instantly, squeezing his hands.
The smile that lights up his face at her answer makes her want to laugh.
So she fixes Percy up to the best of her abilities and they let their new companion settle into their group. He fits like he’s always belonged, like he’s meant to be with them. And maybe, she thinks, maybe he is. Maybe they’re all meant to be together. The thought fills her chest up with warmth.
She likes Vax. He has a good heart, despite him thinking the contrary.
Pike continues to catch him watching her whenever she heals, whenever she communes with Sarenrae. She thinks he likes the idea of having a connection like she has to her goddess, and he confirms it when he carefully starts to probe her with timid questions.
She teaches him the basics of her faith when he asks her to, the little things that Sarenrae believes in. He nods along silently as she rattles them off. It’s the concept of redemption and forgiveness that she thinks they’ll have to work on the most with him; she’s not blind to the way he tends to hold grudges, but she knows that with enough help he can learn to set that aside.
“It’s all a learning experience,” she says matter-of-factly as he braids her hair during one of their conversations. His expert fingers make quick work of the thin blond strands, pulling it back into a braided bun more elaborate than her usual style.
“I’m still not sure if I’m right for this kind of faith,” he admits quietly as he ties the bun in place. “I know I was the one to bring this whole thing up, but… I don’t know, Pike.”
With a small smile, she turns back around to face him. “And if you realize that’s true, then you can back out at any time. There’s no shame in admitting that.” She pinches his cheek and he lets out a startled laugh. “You’re my family and I’m going to be here for you no matter what you decide, got it?”
Vax swats her hand away, his usual shit-eating grin replaced by a very soft, vulnerable smile that makes him look much younger than he actually is. “You’re too good for all of us, really.”
She pinches his other cheek and he makes a noise of protest. “You don’t have to put me up on a pedestal. I’m just a person, like you and the others.”
He chuckles. “Yes m’am.”
And then the Conclave comes.
She stays in Whitestone to care for the injured while her friends leave to find a way to end this. It leaves a dull ache in her heart as she waits for them, busying herself everyday with healing until she can’t even muster a single spark of divine magic by evening. She knows she’s most useful here. She knows the refugees need her help. It doesn’t stop the loneliness that sweeps over her every time she turns to look over her shoulder when she hears heavy footsteps expecting to find them and instead simply finding a guard.
The thought that keeps her going is that they’ll come home. They’ll come home to her because of course they will. Grog will pick her up and laugh until he’s tearing up a little bit and Keyleth will druidcraft her the loveliest flowers as an apology for leaving her behind. Scanlan will surely have a ridiculous amount of songs and poems stockpiled for her when he returns, and maybe Percy will recommend her more books from the library that they both know she won’t actually read. Vex will attempt to lift her off of her feet in a hug like Grog does, only to give up mid-lift when she can’t even get Pike off the ground. And Vax. Vax will braid her hair while she helps him figure out his faith (and probably trail off into gossip like they usually do) and laugh themselves silly until one or both of them pass out.
Instead, Vax comes by his faith in a dark tomb with his sister dead in his arms, and Pike can’t help but hate herself a little bit for not being there when her family needs her most.
He doesn’t even talk to her when she joins up with them again. He outright avoids her and they both know it. She knows him, she can read him like a book.
When he finally breaks and speaks to her, it’s not the talk she’s expecting. It’s like his world has been tilted sideways slightly and he’s scrabbling to find purchase so he can steady himself. There’s guilt building up in him. And anger. And shame. And under all of it, a sense of being completely lost in a world he doesn’t understand.
Pike has always respected the divine, but she knows that if the Raven Queen lays a finger on her friend she will personally fist fight a goddess. (Or, at the very least, she will have a couple very strong choice words for her.)
Her heart aches for him, really.
But that ache is nothing compared to the pride she feels as she watches him slowly accept his new role; his new place in the world.
She doubts Vax’s relationship with the goddess will ever be anything close to that of the average worshipper and deity—no, there’s too much baggage there, too much strain in how the relationship came about in the first place—but she finds solace in the face that he’s making peace with it.
When he asks to talk about faith now, it’s like he’s tiptoeing around her. Faith is sensitive now and he needs to be in the right mood to bring it up. She lets him run his hands through her hair and braid it like they used to do, something familiar that puts him more at ease.
“Sometimes I just wonder what would’ve happened if I’d started following Sarenrae,” he admits one morning as he runs a brush through her hair.
She blinks sleep from her eyes as she listens, a frown spreading across her face. He’s brought this up a lot. Sometimes it worries her, honestly, how much time he spends stuck in the past.
Pike’s hands were once soft and unmarred, but they’re tough now. Her fingers are calloused, scars scattered across the skin and mapping the long journey she’s made from the girl cradling the child by the shrine years ago to the woman she is now. When she turns around and cups Vax’s hands in her own, he stills.
“You’re going to be okay,” she assures, lacing her fingers through his. “I know it’s scary, but you’re going to be okay. We can’t keep living in the past, Vax. We can spend a lifetime worrying about what could’ve happened but that doesn’t mean we should. Sometimes you just have to let go and start moving forward.”
His mouth opens as if to speak, then he promptly shuts it again. If his eyes glimmer a little too brightly at her words, she doesn’t mention it.
“Thank you,” he says finally, and she knows that he thinks that’s a lame response by his tone. She untangles one of her hands from his and pats his cheek with a small laugh, causing a timid smile to pull at the corners of his lips. He gives her hand a squeeze before releasing it, a gentle signal that he’d like to move on.
So she turns around and lets him start brushing her hair again.
“Fun buns or braid?” he asks, a small waiver in his voice that she chooses to ignore for his sake.
After a beat she responds, “Fun buns.”
“Good choice, Pickle.”
“Hey, thanks.”