Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s really on hour three of hiding up a tree that she starts to appreciate Syngorn. 

Oh, Vesper has been to the elven metropolis before. Many times before. But not for a wedding, and the amount of ceremony surrounding her Aunt Velora’s has been enough to break even a daughter of Whitestone’s patience for etiquette and propriety. The whole spectacle - which fabric sleeve conveyed which blessing and what stance is most propitious for maidens versus matrons  - would be hilarious if she wasn’t also so tragically roped into it. But here she is, tucked against the trunk of a mossy oak, surveying gracious homes and winding, peaceful boulevards even older than the castle she calls home. In the morning light the city looks like a living thing - like a garden in bloom, rioting and surging upwards from the order imposed upon it.

Growth, Vesper thinks, and the knot in her chest tightens. 

“Ella?” 

The knot immediately loosens, a little. She’d catch hell if it was her mother who’d found her out on the grounds. But Aunt Keyleth is another matter entirely. 

“Up here,” she states the obvious, and a few moments later a wildcat with gorgeous red patterned fur skitters onto the branch next to her. It brushes against her arm and side and, after Vesper offers a few scritches, walks across her legs to perch on the other side of the branch. Vesper doesn’t see so much as feel the swirl of air as the cat becomes a half-elven woman, her wild red hair held back by a circlet of antlers. Vesper could swear she feels the tree shift and stretch, too. A unaccomplished brat from some distant human city is one thing, she supposes. But it’s not every day that a tree has the honor of hosting the Voice of the Tempest.  

“The wedding’s going to start in a few hours,” Keyleth is saying. “What are you doing up here?” 

It’s a fair question and Vesper sighs, feeling the ancient weight of all twenty-one of her years and not a small twinge of embarrassment. She doesn’t have an answer that isn’t childish. 

When she tries to think of one, her mind flashes instead to the tapestry in the banquet hall of Castle Whitestone, displaying the De Rolo family tree as branches of the Sun Tree itself. She’s six again and she knows she should be happy because her parents are, but the new thing on the wall looks like the Sun Tree but most definitely is not. It’s wrong. She can see the dozens and dozens of names spiraling off the woven branches, mostly in silver, with six names towards the bottom in gold - the ancient enchantment woven into the threads reawakened to keep the living De Rolos up to date. 

Sold off to some Dwendalian wine merchant by Vedmire, the piece’s discovery and reacquisition had been a minor miracle and a feat of negotiation which her Aunt Cassandra took no small amount of pride in, Vesper now knew.  But five years old, burdened with not one but two intrusive new siblings, she didn’t appreciate what the return had meant. She’d only had room to be scandalized that there were four other Vespers De Rolo stitched into the tapestry. They were dead, those other Vespers, and that scared her more than anything. 

She’s as far as she could be from that tapestry right now but the feeling in her gut is similar somehow — and in an odd quirk of fate, that old moment of fear and heartbreak that the world didn’t revolve around her had also involved her aunt. She remembers being scooped up by strong arms, and a voice tickling her ear. “Don’t worry. We can come up with a special name that’s just for you,” Aunt Keyleth had told her. 

“Ella?” 

Back in the present, Vesper blinks and tries to collect her thoughts. 

“I just wanted some quiet, before everything, I guess. I lost track of the time.” That, she feels, her aunt would understand, and it has the luxury of being the truth. Not the only truth, of course, but true enough. 

“Your father would be shocked, with him talking about the clocktower all day every day,” Keyleth says.   

“I think he understands no one’s really paying attention once he gets going. Honestly, he does half his thinking while he’s monologuing.” She hears a very un-leaderlike snort from the Voice of the Tempest. “But when did you arrive?” 

“Maybe a hour ago? Some Zephrah stuff came up, otherwise I would’ve been here for the dinner last night.” 

Vesper nods and looks back out at Syngorn. The chimneys of the Tarn Ward are going full tilt in preparation for the evening’s market, adding a heaviness and sort of a shimmer to the air. The light has turned from a delicate blue to a kind of pure, sharp white. A beautiful day. “You didn’t miss much,” she says. 

“Just whatever drove you up a tree, love.” Her aunt’s hand, ever so carefully, settles on her shoulder. 

“Do I need an excuse?” she counters. 

Keyleth laughs, and shakes her head. “Absolutely not. But I imagine you might be… looking for shelter from a storm?”

“What a very diplomatic way of saying ‘my mother.’” 

“I must be getting better at this whole diplomacy thing, then.” 

Vesper can’t help but smile at that - she knows intellectually that no member of Vox Machina expected the kind of renown or responsibility they’ve earned. But they’ve been Vox Machina for so long, longer than she’s been alive, so it seems absurd that Aunt Keyleth could consider herself a novice leader now. 

“You have to remember, Ella,” the druid adds, softer than before, “that she only has the one sister.” 

“I know,” Vesper answers. “I know it’s all out of love,” and here she braves a look at Keyleth, who never got the chance to do what her Aunt Velora is setting out to undertake today. The green eyes are bright and kind, as Vesper has always known them to be. That’s another thing Vesper admires about her aunt: she bears her own sadness so well. 

“But?” Keyleth asks. Vesper hates herself a little for the dramatic sigh, but she can’t help it. She huffs and looks away, back towards her grandfather’s house, to the white linens and colored lights - hints of the wedding ceremony - being laid out in the garden. “It’s not mother. I mean, she’s been a terror, obviously, but we all expected as much. She expected as much.” 

“So what then?” 

Vesper sighs. What is it, then, actually? 

 “If I can help, you know I’d like to,” her aunt adds, unhelpfully sweet. 

“I know.” They’re silent for a moment after that. 

And it’s in moments like these that Vesper loves her aunt the most. Keyleth would probably sit quietly with her in this tree until sunset if that’s what she needed to do, without expectation or explanation. But it isn’t what she needs, and her aunt knows that, too. 

“Do you ever wish... do you ever wish that you weren’t the Tempest?” 

“Sometimes,” her aunt says. “Sometimes I do. But when it’s hard, I try think about everything I’d lose if I wasn’t. I wouldn’t have met your parents if I hadn’t gone on my Aramente. I wouldn’t know you.” 

“And there might be a cabal of dragons terrorizing Tal’Dorei from the ruins of Emon?”  

“Yeah, that would suck.” 

Vesper tries to be very interested in the boats setting out on the lake, and not on the fact that her aunt is looking at her. 

“I won’t pry if you don’t want me to, Ella. But I think the last time I went to some big thing and you weren’t in the middle of wrangling three De Rolos was at your parents’ wedding.” 

“I told Dan to take Gwen and Charlie for a really long walk, so hopefully the innocents are spared, at the very least.” 

“Wise move,” Keyleth says, and when Vesper dares to look back at her aunt, she’s smiling. “Although it’s given Scanlan and Pike plenty of time to catch up with the twins.” A part of Vesper that knows she should be more charitable to her siblings regrets her saying, “Oh Gods, we’re doomed,” but the rest of her is too suddenly full of dread to care. 

“Trust me, we’re not there yet,” her aunt says, and the dread curls into a knot of guilt. “If it’s not something that’s happened, is it something about the wedding? Something that’s going to happen after the wedding?” 

“Door number two,” Vesper says, throat suddenly tighter. She braces for her aunt’s next question, but Keyleth waits. 

“They’re… they’ve been distracted – my parents, I mean – but after the wedding they won’t be. And Aunt Cass says that unless I actually want to put myself forward as a challenger to the current Curator of Fortune’s Bounty, she’s done teaching me about tariffs and trade routes.” 

“Oh, wow. I had no idea that’s what you were learning with her.” 

Vesper feels herself start to shrug and grips the branch tighter to stop the motion. “It was a lot of other things, too, but I think…” Glancing up at the garden lawn, she scans for any figures there but only sees rolling grass and jasmine ruffled by the wind. “Aunt Cass is good at spotting everyone’s bullshit, mine included. She could tell I was trying to stall being done with shadowing her.” 

“Why?” 

Vesper looks from the lawn to Keyleth, whose face, for all her years as an adventurer, seems as young and guileless as Vesper’s own, pinched in a frown. The wind switches direction, and Vesper lets out the sigh she’s holding in. “Because – because then I’ll be done, and they – merciful Pelor, they have all sorts of plans.” 

“Plans?” 

“Plans and plots and schemes, and contingency scenarios on said plans and plots and schemes, all designed around my happiness, I know, which makes me sound like a brat, but –“ 

“You’re not a brat, Ella,” Keyleth tries to intervene but Vesper’s eye roll has already started. “My childhood included a trip to The Theater. Of course I’m a brat. And who else would get handed a place in the next Grey Hunt recruit class and/or a letter of introduction to the Cobalt Reserve and/or an aid post on the Council and not be grateful for it?” 

“You don’t have to be grateful if you don’t really want any of those things. And it’s okay if you don’t know what you want yet, either.” 

“I’m not sure that it is. It – It all has to be for something. It’s not –“ She looks into her aunt’s face and finds only warm sympathy. It’s infuriating. 

“I’m not an adventurer.” Vesper gives breath to the thought she’s had a million times growing up in Whitestone Castle. “And I’m not a warrior, or an engineer, or a mage, or a scholar. I’ve spent a lot of time being adequate at a lot of those things, and I can make light glow in my hands, but,” Vesper suddenly finds she needs more air in her lungs. “But I’m not going to be brilliant the way you all expect. I’m just not. And it seems damned unfair to be handed a free ticket to whatever strikes my fancy when…”  She takes another sharp breath and notices the smell of the Jasmine hanging in the breeze. 

“When, if you were anyone else, if the world was fair, you wouldn’t be good enough?” 

Vesper can feel her nails digging into her palms, but the pressure is good. It feels right. She braces to shy away from another one of her aunt’s hugs, but it doesn’t come. She almost misses what Keyleth says instead. “I certainly know that feeling.” 

“It’s different, though! You had Vox Machina with you, not looking at you.” The archdruid's expression turns sad, so Vesper adds, “And you’re amazing.” 

Keyleth shakes her head. “I’m loved. And that gave me the courage to do things I definitely didn’t think I was brilliant at. It still does. But Vesper,” her aunt reaches out, so that there’s no escape from those kind green eyes. “Life isn’t fair. You may not think you deserve a chance to try whatever you want to do – I think anyone who’s ever met you would disagree, but – but it doesn’t matter if you deserve it. You’re getting it. And you’ll make good or screw it up. Probably a bit of both. The only thing I can promise is that your family will adore you no matter what you do. Or don’t do. There’s a tree in Zephrah for you to stare broodily off into space for as long as you want.” 

“I wasn’t being broody,” Vesper catches how defensive she sounds and amends the lie. “A little moody, maybe.” 

“You come by it honestly,” Keyleth smiles, which only makes Vesper feel smaller. She looks back out at her grandfather’s lawn. Even from this distance, she can see a large grey figure in a ridiculous feathered hat gesticulating and making throwing… no, strike that, actually throwing what look like whole bouquets of flowers at speed. The petals explode in a riot of pinks and violets, scattering over the lawn. If Grog’s done with brunch, then she really is on borrowed time. 

”I just… I can’t fix the world, but they look at me like I can.” 

Keyleth laughs, which seems rude, before she adds, “I know you won’t believe me, but you already have. Just by being you. Although,” her aunt’s voice turns mischievous. “I did warn your parents the trip to The Theater was maybe gonna be a little much.” 

Despite herself, Vesper smiles. “It was fun, though. Wolfe swears he understood the second act.” 

“Did he?” 

She scoffs. “Of course not.” 

For a moment, they’re quiet and Vesper thinks maybe they could just stay up here all day, forever. 

“When your uncle didn’t know what to do with himself, he looked around to see if he could help someone else,” Keyleth’s voice is so quiet she almost misses it. “Your mother, of course, and your dad too sometimes. Pike and Grog and Scanlan. And me.” 

Oh now Vesper feels awful. But daring to look at her aunt, Keyleth is still smiling. “Maybe try that?” 

“Push my crippling self-doubt away with a savior complex?” 

“Find a way to be of service to someone who doesn’t have the gifts you’ve been given. Or to something else that’s bigger than Vox Machina.” 

Gods help her, her aunt is being generous and vulnerable and loving and helpful and, “Grog’s huge,” she says, anyway.  

“I know. But it’s like when you lose something, right? You never find it while you’re obsessing about where you put it, but you’ll realize, like, right in the middle of a Council meeting when Brom is going on and on and you’re like, I literally could not bring myself to care if someone in the middle of the room was waving around a Deck of Many Things. And then you remember, Grog took my herbalism kit, and so I put that jackberry in my -“ 

“Aunt Kiki?” 

“Oh. Right. Analogy over?” 

“Yeah. It was a good one, though,” she says, and the way her aunt laughs sounds like music to Vesper’s ears. 

Then, by mutual agreement, they both work their way down from the tree, towards the tables and chairs laid out in the garden. 

*

 There is a great deal of protocol even to how they’re standing: her mother, as a matron of honor, is up near the dais where the ceremony is being performed, the rest of them placed slightly to the side, but at a very specific distance - close enough to acknowledge their nobility, near enough to be included among the bride’s family, yet slightly cordoned off from the elves, with the rest of Vox Machina to their left. 

Vesper stands next to her father - apparently it matters that she is his “heir” even if she has no hereditary right to Whitestone. The twins have already caused a minor incident, probably, by Leona swapping places with Dan so she can keep hold of Gwen’s hand; just from Vesper’s brief glance back, both her sisters seem to be conspiring to hide pieces of fruit in Wolfe’s coat without him realizing. Truly, the De Rolo family has turned out in all its glory. 

It’s a glory Vesper wouldn’t trade for the world, though, as she endures ceremonial elven love poetry with a boredom she hopes reads as stoic. Velora and Vin’yaron are marrying young for elves — at the borders of decency, in point of fact, and it seems to Vesper that her grandfather is compensating for that with as many layers of ritual as he can marshal while still getting everyone to the cocktails at a reasonable hour. Velora, for her part, smiles like she could stand up there hearing all the aphorisms of all the elves from the Calamity onwards and not mind a bit. But she’s always been sure of herself, her Aunt, always leaping headlong into what she wants with perfect faith that others will catch up behind her. 

Vesper suspects that in another world, some other iteration of her life, she’d probably have that same kind of confidence. And as the fifth hand fasting knot of… six? (Seven? She really should’ve paid attention at the rehearsal) is laid out by the Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt and the Verdant Lord, Vesper finds to her distaste that she has plenty of time to be introspective. 

There really shouldn’t be that much difference between her and Velora - the ten years between them means less now than it did a decade ago and will only continue to mean less in the decades to come. But maybe it’s the distinction between growing up on the tales of Vox Machina and growing up actually seeing them in action. Velora’s memories are full of her extended family as gore-spattered heroes: chaotic and bruised but alive and triumphant, solving the terror of the age in real time. That was all history to Vesper, as settled as the seasons. Her memories of her family are of what happened after: near limitless magic and trips and fun, yes; but then nightmares, so many nightmares, and bad days where the adults in her life needed space and quiet and things she didn’t understand – and then, once she did, knew that she couldn’t give them. 

But that puzzle won’t ever be solved - she came on the scene both too late and too early for Vox Machina - so Vesper glances back at her siblings, and flicks Wolfe in the shoulder to get him to look up from cleaning his fingernails. Dan, Melora bless him, looks ready to lie down in the grass and fall asleep, and she gives him a thumbs-up and a whispered “Hang in there,” which she hopes will buy them at least one more hand-fasting knot. 

Turning back to the dais and the ceremony, she feels her father lean into her ear and ask, “Well, Captain, will the center hold?” 

“For now, sir,” she whispers back, and tries to focus on what Vin’yaron’s guardian is saying and not on the fact that Leona has been suspiciously quiet, which means she has something planned and it probably has a timer attached to it. 

But her father stays close and she doesn’t need to see him to know his eyes are alight with mirth. “Who disrupts the ceremony and makes us have to start all over, do you think?  One of our brigands or Scanlan?” 

“Quiet, or you’ll speak it into being.” 

“Yes, Scanlan, of course. You’re right as usual.” Vesper hopes he’s also making a show of paying attention still, that he doesn’t see her roll her eyes. 

But they’re both spared further speculation on just how the ceremony is going to go awry by the very last speech… of the ceremony, at least, and the signal for Velora and Vin’yaron to take the cords of all the knots and weave them together into one rope, joining them together one final time (Seven! It was seven) before they speak their assents and seal all with a kiss. 

Damn the elves, they do know how to build up to something properly, because it’s wonderful the way bride and groom hold each other right after, like they’ll never let go. It’s even better when Vesper glances towards her grandfather and sees Devana all but holding him upright, both their eyes brimming with tears. 

And it is even forgivable when none of the legendary adventurers, august dignitaries, or powerful spellcasters notice the dark cloud moving over Lake Ywnnlas at speed. 

But the crowd does notice, they can’t not, when a cold breeze drifts over the water and rolls across the lawn, whistling at about the level of Vesper’s only slightly pointed ears. It pulls her eyes just to the right of the dais, where there is now a dark silhouette, towering twenty feet high, billowing such that it gives its edges the feeling of thousands and thousands of feathers. She feels her father step in front of her and nudge her back, and Vesper’s body more than her mind takes the hint to grab hold of Wolfe’s arm and Dan’s shoulder, readying them to run. 

Vesper isn’t sure anyone can run, not when a white mask solidifies, shining and expressionless, and the billowing shadow becomes a cloak of many folds. She can only tell that it opens because a dark figure steps forth from it, all in black and elegantly masked except for a shock of jagged white bone poking up from its right shoulder. “What the fuck,” she can hear Leona’s whisper behind her and for once in her life Vesper can only agree. 

The “What did you do?!” from Aunt Pike is louder, and Vesper turns to see her Uncle, for once in his life, grasping for words. “I don’t even have the stupid spell anymore!” Scanlan hisses back. But then the masked figure takes three strides to reach the dais, and intones words that silence all the crowd’s murmurings.

“Velora Vessar. You are grown… so, so beautiful.” 

“Vax?” Velora asks, and somehow her actually naming the dark figure in raven’s feathers makes him real, at least to Vesper. This is really happening. Fuck. 

“As I said to you, long ago, you are not our half-sister. You are our sister. The Wish of Scanlan Shorthalt applies to you as well.” He inclines his masked face towards Scanlan. “Thank you, for the last time, old friend.” Vesper can feel not only hers but the entire company’s eyes turn to the gnome, who gives the tiniest of waves in response. 

Her mother had told Vesper the story, of course, of how her her uncle came to be present at her parents’ wedding. “I wanted to hug him so much and I was scared he’d vanish if I touched him. I was overjoyed and I was terrified - typical bride at her wedding.” 

Velora isn’t afraid - or at least she doesn’t seem it. She flings herself into Vax’ildan’s arms, crying and laughing in about equal measure. Vin’yaron, to his credit, only takes a tiny step back, and covers it with a deep bow.  

Vesper holds tighter to her brothers, her own pulse suddenly very loud in her ears. But because this is a day of wonders, it’s Wolfe who takes her hand in his and purposely takes a slow, deep breath. They’ve never been that close, her and the twins; she’s been too much always either their antagonist or their minder. But she reads his thought then as easily as Leona would: Don’t panic. Just watch.  

She lets go of Wolfe’s arm and he moves to support Dan’s other shoulder. Somehow seeing that gives Vesper the courage to turn back to the dais, where the dark figure has removed his mask, though his face is pressed against Velora’s. 

She’s nodding, Velora is, agreeing to something, but the Raven Queen’s champion clearly doesn’t move on an elven time table, and Vesper doesn’t quite get caught up to speed before he’s embracing his new brother-in-law, then gliding smoothly off the dais. 

“Forgive me, my son.” Her poor grandfather, he’s the one who calls out from the crowd at the wedding he planned so meticulously. But Vesper hears something new in his voice, something she reckons can’t be contained, when he adds, “I treated you very poorly.” 

“You owe me no debt, Syldor Vessar,” Vax’ildan’s voice, so slow and grave, seems to echo off the trees. “Except for the final reckoning even the elves must pay. I am beyond your neglect.” 

He moves away from Velora, not quite stepping towards Syldor, not quite accusing. But it’s unnerving, even from a distance, as he continues, “You have two children, and will live to see… many generations who carry your blood in their veins. Love them, without pride or condition. For your own sake.” Vesper watches her grandfather nod, mutely, which is sign enough of how upset he must be. 

But there’s an upside: as Vax’ildan turns towards her mother, Vesper sees a completely new expression on her face - her smile bright and something like relief in her eyes. Relief and hunger, underneath tears. Imposing as he seems, something in Vax’ildan’s face lightens too, as he’s pulled into a hug by his twin. “You could’ve at least put on a few wrinkles, you ass,” her mother says.  

He smiles - but a moment late, a beat slow. “Time… has not the same hold on me. And you… are still so beautiful.” 

“I miss you so much.” 

It’s hearing her mother’s voice break that does it. Now Vesper is crying, can feel herself shaking, and balls her hands into fists to try and steady herself. At the edge of her vision she can see Dan, eyes wide, and Leona, mouth agape, behind him. Gods only know how the rest of the assembly is reacting, but it’s the strangest feeling - the intensity of the focus she’s able to direct towards her family, and the blur that is absolutely everything and everyone else. 

She has time to process that thought before she’s struck by the sudden cold wind around her. Vax’ildan is moving towards the Whitestone contingent, saying something to her father that Vesper could not catch if her life depended on it. And suddenly he is in front of her, regarding her with eyes that are curious and sad and kind all at once. It’s like looking into one of the deep pools in the Parchwood, and at Dan, and at her mother.  

“Uncle,” she breathes more than speaks the word. 

“Niece.” He agrees, pressing his forehead to hers. She braces for it to be as icy as the air all around him. But it’s warm. She can feel the muscles in his face relax, and feels something in her settle as he puts his hands on her shoulders.

“Thank you,” he says to her, and all she can do is blink stupidly back at him. 

“Your love… it helps them to be their best selves, and I cannot imagine what a burden that must be.” Well, Vesper cannot imagine how to breathe at this moment so she reckons they can call it equal. 

“But you are strong. You will protect them, always, keep them safe,” Vax’ildan says, neither quite a statement nor a question in his strange, stilted voice. It feels like a promise.

“I will,” she whispers, and her uncle smiles. 

“And you will be kept in return. And loved. So, so loved, Vesper Elaina. As I and your grandmother love you.” 

“I know,” she isn’t entirely sure she speaks it aloud, but whether or not he’s reading her thoughts, her uncle presses her hands with his. I know. Then he pulls away - glides, soundless, to her siblings behind her. Her father wraps his arms around her, and she leans into him, grateful for the solidness of his shoulders and the softness of his coat collar. And somehow, in the corner of her eye, she notices… Oh Gods. 

Aunt Keyleth. 

Her posture is rigid, her expression unreadable, a hard, bright light in her eyes as Vax’ildan bends down to speak a few words to his namesake. Vesper has only seen her aunt like that once or twice. “The Tempest,” Vesper murmurs, and her father hmms in agreement. 

It seems unfair; not only that this is happening so publicly, under the boughs of Syngorn’s cool gentility, but that it isn’t really a moment her aunt will have with her love.  It is a meeting of avatars - The Voice of the Tempest and The Raven Queen’s Champion - in as arch and forced a reunion as a story is to real life. No one - and especially not her warm, easily flustered, corny aunt - asks to get flattened out like that. But Wishes, Vesper decides then and there, can never give us wholly what we ask for – not unless we are Gwen, whom of everyone present seems completely satisfied with what’s transpired. She jumps easily into her uncle’s arms and tells him, “Thanks for saying hi, Uncle Vax!” like he’s just popped round for tea. 

Vesper disentangles herself from her father and moves to wrap her arms around a shaking Wolfe as Vax’ildan bows before Keyleth and her mother gives a wet laugh from the dais. “You’re still so fucking weird!”

“I am,” Vax’ildan says, not taking his eyes from Keyleth’s, “only myself.”  

The two say nothing for a long, fraught moment after that. Keyleth shakes her head even as she runs her hand along his cheek. Try as she might to keep from gawking at - Gods it’s strange to even think it - her aunt and uncle, Vesper can’t help it. She watches. She watches them hold each other, clearly more than they’ve expected and not nearly enough. She watches when her uncle says, “I am so proud of you,” and Keyleth can’t hide her wince. 

“It’s thanks to you,” her aunt says through her tears. “It’s all because of you.” 

Vesper can’t put it into words, but something in her mind clicks into place just then. She forces herself to pull Wolfe in tighter, and to smile at Leona, whose eyes are welling with tears. “Vox Machina can’t go anywhere, can they?” she whispers, earning a small smile from her sister. 

Another gust of cold wind kicks up, and Vesper sees her uncle, still holding tight to her aunt’s hand, step a little away. “You will live,” the Champion of the Raven Queen says. “All of you… Live!” 

“Wait!” Her mother’s voice cuts through the air again. “This time, really this time, I want those goddamn -“ 

As she’s speaking, Vax’ildan looks towards her in that slightly puzzled, sorrowful way Vesper supposes the Gods must look down on mortals. But understanding, like a bolt from the sky, hits her the moment he cocks his head to the side. She knows what he’s about to do. Any sibling would spot the play a mile off. Her uncle, Vax’ildan of Vox Machina, Champion of the Raven Queen - that asshole - he smiles, and before her mother can say “boots,” he’s scattered into a tumble of feathers. A sudden chill, a flash Vesper swears she can feel her in bones, and he’s gone. 

*

It starts raining three hours into the party, but no one seems to mind. Velora, Vin’yaron, and their friends in the Verdant Guard had already danced their way down to the lake and were half in, half out of it – or in Scanlan’s case, levitating and playing his lute on top of the water. Vesper had happily let herself be pulled into a series of dances down on the beach and was already sweating by the time the rain started. The hem of her dress was crusted in sand and wherever her shoes had ended up, they were probably a loss, but she takes the pause to catch her breath and let a set of drunk elves explain some sort of game the Guard plays in the water with a set of differing sized racquets and balls. Vesper decides she needs to be much drunker to understand fully, but plays her own game of asking questions that egg on the more gregarious of their number to correct each other, louder and louder. 

It’s not even hard, just the work of a moment, to slip out of the circle unnoticed. She liberates an unopened bottle of wine from the pile the guard had brought down with them and vanishes. Thanks for saying hi, Uncle Vax, she thinks with a smile, and walks up to the garden. 

When she arrives back at her grandfather’s, she can tell there’s still mingling and a little dancing underneath the tents – well, as much as any group with Grog in it can be described as little – and the lights from the house have an turned an inviting orange. But the rain is cool and she still feels awake, so she turns right, not left, and walks back towards the oaks at the lawn’s edge. 

It’s a surprise, but also it isn’t, to see Aunt Keyleth and her mother sitting together underneath one of them, glasses in hand. 

“You’re an angel, darling,” her mother crows as Vesper hands her the bottle to open. 

“Only a little bit,” she corrects, and accepts her mother’s arm around her as she sits. “Did Papa bring the little ones back home?” Vesper asks and Vex chuckles. “About an hour ago. The twins teleported with them, too, so it appears I don’t need to worry about any of you being enticed by the charms of Syngorn.” 

Vesper pulls a face. “I’m overjoyed for Aunt Velora, but this place is… one giant inside joke that non-elves aren’t in on.” 

“Very diplomatically put,” Keyleth says, her eyes bright even in the dim grey of Vesper’s darkvision. “I’ll drink to that,” Vex adds, and there’s a pop as the cork comes free. 

“You can drink after your father, darling,” her mother adds, handing her a spare cup, and it strikes Vesper then, as it does every so often, with what easy authority the Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt issues commands. She takes the cup, takes a sip, and takes a moment. Then she asks, “What old times were you three reminiscing about, then?” 

“We were mostly just wondering how long it will take for us to go to a completely normal wedding,” Keyleth says, and Vesper tries to spot any distress in her aunt’s voice or face, but doesn’t find it. “Not putting any pressure on you, of course, darling,” her mother adds. 

“Oh, don’t worry. I think the only way I’d ever have a normal wedding is if I elope,” she answers, and feels a warmth that has nothing to do with the wine when the two women next to her laugh. “Wait, is that why you two got married the way you did, the first time?” 

“Yeah, Vex, is that why?” Keyleth adds, playfully pointed. 

“Oh Gods, I’m outnumbered.” 

“And flanked,” Vesper smirks, letting her chin rest on her mother’s shoulder. 

“I’ve gotten out of tighter scrapes,” is the arch reply, but Vesper can’t fault it. She blinks, realizing that although the rain has started falling in earnest, the patch of ground they’re sitting on is completely dry. Rangers and druids, she thinks, and for a second is awestruck. But it passes, and then Vesper sees her mother and her aunt, buzzed and taking a break from the crowds.  

“Are you both all right,” she asks, pulling away a bit to see them. “After everything today?” 

“We are, love,” Keyleth says. “I promise.” 

“Are you all right,” her mother asks, frowning and suddenly looking her over like a ledger, “What Vax - what your uncle said to you, I know it must have been a lot to hear.”   

Vesper swallows the automatic ‘I’m fine’ back down and looks into her glass, trying to think of the more accurate answer. 

“And what he said about, about you protecting people? Dearest, I hope you know that we’re here to protect you,” her mother adds, smoothing her white hair back behind her ear. “No matter how old you get, no matter how responsible you are, we will always protect you, too.”   

“I know,” she says and takes another sip of wine, for courage. “I wish I could’ve gotten advice from Uncle Vax when he was alive. I mean, it helped, what he said, actually. It was also the sort of thing that, well, it’ll probably happen one way or another, so it’s not worth agonizing over. And also,” Vesper pauses and steals a quick glance at Keyleth, “I realize if I keep thinking about my life in some grand way, my head will explode.” 

She feels her mother press a kiss to her temple and say, “He’d tell you drink the rest of this bottle and then go get the most stuck-up of those elves in trouble. He’d tell you to go wherever you want and have fun.” 

“His drinking advice usually sucked,” Keyleth says, “But the rest for sure.” 

The two half elves share a laugh and Vesper feels closer to them then, somehow, like she’s found a missing corner piece for a puzzle. “I’m glad I got to meet him,” she says, “Even if he was a bit dramatic.” 

“Oh, he was always dramatic.” 

“Ugh, the worst. Insupportable.” 

“Are you sore about the boots?” 

Vex rolls her eyes even as she pulls Vesper in closer. “Not really. It was mostly a bit, even back in the day.” Then after a pause, “But if you, in your having fun, making mischief travels, were to come across any Boots of Haste, well, Winter’s Crest is always round the -” 

“Noted,” Vesper cuts her mother off. “Would it be all right, though,” she says, softer, “if where I wanted to go right now was home?” 

“Of course, darling.”  

None of them rise immediately, however. They sit under the tree, talking about the wedding and Whitestone and nothing at all, waiting for a moment they all know will come when the night clears, and the rain stops.