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She’s unsettled when he comes back.
They notice it slowly, one by one, and don’t–– they don’t––
It’s just a reminder, really. Another one, along with his too-slow heartbeat and his too-quick healing and his chill, his constant chill, like the warmth has been leeched away, like he’s got one foot in death already.
(Well he has, hasn’t he?)
She doesn’t say anything about it. She doesn’t say much, actually, and that is perhaps the starkest change, that she has gone so silent, half a ghost already. Mourning, almost.
(”Do you–– Will you stay?” he asks her once, and it’s half a prayer, half a plea, please don’t leave me alone, please don’t let me face eternity by Her side without you.
“I don’t know,” she says, russet and canine and curled into his side, and he remembers all those years they thought they might be a good soldier, strong and quick and loyal til the end, and she shivers and shift and turns avian instead, flighty and free, and it’s little better. “I don’t know, Vax.”)
Percival does not take his eyes off him once he comes back.
He trusts Pike, certainly, and if Pike says he is himself then Percy is inclined to believe her, but this is too kind, too much of a gift. (A bitter one, certainly, but time is precious, and time with the dead is most precious of all.)
In his experience, the gods are not willingly kind as this.
He sees it while they mill around beneath the arching limbs of Pelor’s orchard, a flicker of motion he thinks might be a play of the light, except that there is not play of the light, no shadow to be played with. Vax takes a handful of heavy steps away from the group as Grog and Vex argue over the fruit, and it is not a grand change, but she goes long and limber as they settle near the trunk of an enormous tree, draped around his neck as though she were born to it, as though she were supposed to do this, now.
Percival’s skin crawls.
It’s a base horror, and he has seen oddities enough in the world to push through it, but he can’t help the nausea welling through him.
Then Vax looks up, meets his eyes, and Ilmariel shivers back to herself. Percy takes half a step forwards before Athanasia nips at his ear.
“Don’t,” she says softly.
“But––” Percy begins, still staring at Vax who stares back at him, cold and wan. He looks so very lonely.
“It’s alright,” Athanasia croaks. “They’re alright.”
“Are they?” he asks, wry and jagged, and he’s almost surprised to find a deep, welling ache beneath his wariness.
“Mostly,” his daemon allows. Percy sighs.
“Alright,” he says, and he turns away to give them their privacy, and that is the end of it. Athanasia runs her beak through his hair.
Some battles, he remembers, must be fought alone.
Keyleth notices it the first night. The slow rumble of Terrah lulls her into a fitful sleep, but that odd lullaby does little stem the nightmares, and she wakes in the small hours of the morning to darkness and fear and a heavy, hot weight against her side.
For a moment she thinks it is him, before she remembers it can’t be, before she remembers how cold he is. That thought burns away the cobwebs, has her sitting up in bed with fire in her hands, staring down at the doe against her side.
“It’s alright,” murmurs Ilmariel, Vax still next to her, chest rising and falling slowly––slowly, but only the even rhythm of sleep––eyes flickering behind his eyelids. Ilmariel stares at her with liquid eyes. “It’s just me.”
How? she wants to ask, but she knows how, knows enough, and it only sets the fire burning hotter in her heart, only churns the bile in her belly until she could choke, only––
Ilmariel lays her head gently upon her knee, and Keyleth breathes long and slow and deep. The fire in her hands flickers out. Across the room, Feldarios sleeps soundly, head tucked beneath one wing.
“It’s alright,” she repeats, and Keyleth finds she is crying, thick and silent tears, and her heart aches so much she feels she might burst. Ilmariel blinks up at her. “It’s alright.”
And Keyleth slowly, slowly, lies back down, curls around Vax as though she might keep him warm––as though she could give him some of her fire––and returns to sleep.
In the morning she says nothing when Ilmariel is a quick, quiet squirrel perched on Vax’s shoulder, doesn’t bring it up when Vex knocks nor over breakfast nor as they move northeast towards Ioun’s key.
Some secrets, she knows, are not hers to share.
Grog only sees it cause there’s no one else around, cause he’s staring out the window when it happens and everyone is busy worrying about the fire and the people with the crossbows and the little guy with all the cryptic talk about power an’ shit. But Grog’s upstairs halfway through smashing something into a nice raspberry jam and just happens to look out the window and see it, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fast. She leaps from Vax’s shoulder and hangs in the air, all claws and teeth and orange-black stripes that look a whole lot like Minxie, actually. And there’s tearing and ripping and blood everywhere, beautiful, and then she’s gone again, and he’s gone with her.
Always been a sneaky little shit, Vax has.
Later, when they’re mopping up the mess and he’s more or less stuck in the hole he made for himself, Vax ducks back in the ruin of the front door, and she’s on his shoulder, and it all looks right, but Khav shudders as she buzzes round his head––and they’re even funnier like this, him all big and her just a tiny lil thing––and he knows he didn’t just make it up.
Vax just stares at him, slow and somber and cold enough to make him wanna shiver, or get all puffed up about it.
But they’ve given each other enough shit for a lifetime. And like, you’re supposed to respect the dead. Even when they’re sneaky assholes.
So Grog just gives him a little nod and lets it go.
Some things aren’t worth kicking up a fuss about.
Part of being a healer is taking note of the hurts of others before they notice themselves, or when they are trying to hide them.
Especially when they’re trying to hide them.
Pike has put a lot of work into reading Vax’ildan.
Despite that, it is days and days before she notes Ilmariel’s shimmering, as though her skin does not fit right, as though she might shed it at any moment, fall to pieces and leave nothing for them to fit back together. It is an unpleasant reminder of what is to come and she hates that the outcome is known, that they cannot change it, that it is so much bigger than all of them.
“I’m alright,” Vax says, when he catches her looking for the fifth time in ten minutes, walking across town as though nothing has changed. “We’re alright.”
“Vax––”
“It’s how it’s supposed to be,” he says. “It’s how it was always supposed to be. It’s Fate.”
Pike believes in a great deal. She isn’t sure how she feels about capital-F-Fate.
She curls her fingers through Miro’s ruff and wishes–– well, she wishes a lot of things.
“I just worry,” she say, because she doesn’t know what else to say, because nothing is big enough to capture this fear-grief-anxiety of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I know, Pickle,” he says. “Me too.”
It is as much of an admittance as he will allow, and Pike pats his hand, and drags her gaze away from the shimmering daemon.
Some wounds cannot be healed, no matter how hard you try.
Scanlan has never considered himself the observant one of the group, but it’s hard to miss Vax. He’s a big ol’ sulking black spot, the storm cloud raining on everyone’s parade. It’s not even like he means to do it; just being around is a constant reminder of when he won’t be, and Scanlan’s not an observant guy but even he catches those sidelong glances.
And if he’s noticing them, Vax has to be drowning in them.
“A night out,” he proposes, weeks into this strange and unsettling bargain, doing his level best not to count the days, not to wonder how much longer. “You and me, like the old days.”
Vax grins. “Think you can outdrink me, old man?”
“Definitely,” Scanlan tells him, thinking nothing of the sort. From the wry glint of Vax’s eye the rogue knows that, but Scanlan’s nothing if not a good liar, so he smiles brighter and promises to pay.
He can’t say he’s planning on remembering much of the evening––that’s why he’s picked an out-of-the-way pub in a town where no one will remember them in turn––but even drunk as shit he can’t help but notice the way she shimmers and shifts, a red squirrel and then a dark bird and then an otter and a mink and another half dozen animals he can’t name. Vax, slightly cross-eyed and staring into his pint, doesn’t seem to notice.
“Uh,” starts Scanlan intelligently. “She always been able to do that?”
“Wassit?” Vax looks behind him just as she shifts into a snake, curling round his arm, tongue flickering out as her head weaves back and forth. “Oh. Yeah. ‘S new.”
“How new?”
“She started doin’ it when we came back.”
“Oh.” Scanlan thinks on it long and hard (most of what he does is long and hard) and nods decisively. “That’s weird.”
“Yeah,” Vax agrees.
Scanlan thinks harder. “Cool though.”
“Yeah.”
Scanlan stares at Ilmariel, and Vax, and their empty drinks. “Wanna ‘nother round?”
“Fuck yeah,” Vax says, and they wave down a bar wench, or maid, or whatever you’re supposed to call them, and work on getting absolutely shitfaced. The evening ends with Terre belting out an old drinking song while half the tavern sings along, and it’s not so bad, really. He could almost forget about the looming raincloud.
In the morning Scanlan remembers only fragments of the conversation, and decides not to think too hard about it.
Some things you just have to accept and move on.
(Vex notices first. The moment she clambers down through the tree, heedless of Percy’s fears, the moment she reaches out to touch him and find him cold, she sees Ilmariel shiver and shift, imperceptible to anyone else. But she knows her brother, knows him like she knows herself. She knows change when she sees it.
“What happened?” she asks, even as Percy remarks that if it is not Vax it will kill her. (She knows her brother; she does not need Percy to tell her this.)
“A gift,” he says. “Or a curse. I’m not sure.”
“A reminder,” says Ilmariel, deep black as though in mourning, and it is only the shadows of the Feywild––the shadows, and the wariness––that hide her change from the others gathered around them.
“Alright,” says Vex, her voice watery. “Okay. Well. You’re here. You’re back.”
“We’re back,” he agrees, caveats aplenty hidden in his voice, and she does not push because she does not want to know.
Some gifts are too precious to be questioned.)