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Vex made a promise thirty years ago to never stop looking for a way to bring her brother back, but he manages it himself to save Keyleth. And when it all goes absolutely tits up, she isn’t the one to save him either.
For most of her life, Vex has walked directly into carnage and decimation. She’s battled ancient dragons and massive devils and would-be gods, but she’s never been a soldier and she’s never been in anything like the battle beneath her. There must be thousands, swarming through the deserts, called to defend the gods or to lay waste to them. It is a dizzying frenzy to gaze down into from her perch above it on her broom, all these countless factions tearing into one another, and, in the middle of all of it, a giant purple hand closes around the center of the enormous telescope and its pillar of red light and pulls.
The massive red beam that’s been firing into the sky for weeks sputters and dies. The bridge is severed and Ruidus is freed as well. The Red End does not wake.
It’s Pike who frees him from the orb, even as Vex throws Fenthras over her shoulder and races toward him. Pike turns her back on her ethereal, red opponent and Grog covers for her distraction with a heavy swing of his ax as she throws out her hand. The air shimmers in a streak nearly a hundred feet long and the orb shatters, dissolves like an early morning fog, and reforms as Vax.
He is here. He is given back his form.
And he is screaming.
Vex can feel it more than she can hear it, the noise lost to the cacophony of the battle but his agony pierces straight through her heart worse than any injury she could receive to her own body, and she streaks toward him to be at his side once more.
Her broom cannot move quickly enough for the visceral magnetism drawing them back together and she free falls through the dust storm, lighting her path with the brilliance of the Dawnfather’s summons that spills from her skin. She weaves through thrown spells, arcs of lightning, and whizzing bolts and arrows with hardly a thought to dodge them then pulls up at the last moment to throw her arms around her twin.
Keyleth summoned him back to the Material Plane, Vax slipped through the Divine Gate on his own, Scanlan pried him free of the machine, Pike returned him to his body, but Vex is the first to lay her hands on him. She touches him before anyone else.
They revisit their earliest truth.
Vex holds him first.
She clings to him for all she’s got, her arms around him and her thighs clenching the broom. She kicks off off the purple hand with both feet and flies them both up and out, back up above the crowd and the chaos and away his prison.
Vax is still screaming and it’s an awful, inhuman sound. His voice is rough and alien, the howls echo around them like blustering wind and ravens’ cries. His body is tense and twisted, contorted and shaking from his ordeal. His wings do not resist their momentum and encircle them both.
They tumble through a landing on the ridge above the crater, in a spot near enough to watch or shoot but far enough to avoid being trampled. Vax cries out as they hit the ground, a small and miserable noise.
“Brother.” She’s said the word so many times over the past thirty years, in reminiscence, in reference to the relationships between her own children, in pointing out her husband’s late siblings in their portraits lining the hall, and still the act of shaping the syllables is like blowing dust off an old memory and brings a sudden sting to her eyes. “It’s all right, darling. I’m right here.”
Vax’s skin is cool, though not cold, and he is already starting to sweat as she lays her hands on him and urges the pain away.
More often than not these days, the wounds which Vex cures are simple scrapes and bruises, occasionally a minor injury from patrolling the Parchwood, but the spell seeps into Vax and is strong enough that his screaming gives way to choked whimpers.
It’s an absolutely absurd thing to feel his body against hers once more.
It’s like when her children were first laid on her chest. This thing she’s carried inside her for so long that now exists beyond her, that is here in the world to touch and soothe and hold. For decades, Vax has been made of only her love and memories and now he’s here, he’s in her arms.
Percival, the children, Vox Machina, they’ve held her together well from bleeding out at this lost part of her. She’s been happy, she’s been loved, she’s loved. She lives a good life. But what a thing it is to be reunited, to be truly whole once more.
Something wet splatters across the back of Vex’s head and dark flecks speckle and shine across Vax’s hair and feathers.
She turns as the body of a red-robed cultist collapses behind them, the top of their head missing and splattered in a spray across the desert sands. Beyond them she can spot Percy in the distance, perched atop the carpet and already sighting his next target.
Even at a distance, they’re a target, with Vex lit up like the sun and Vax, their prize, crumpled across her, unmoving.
“Vax?” She smooths back some of his hair for him and finds debris, rubble, dust.
From the fight raging around them now or from their last fight thirty years ago?
Vax doesn’t respond to his name with any coherence, just a horrible pained noise and a shudder. He’s breathing intermittently, in short pants, then stops and stills for unnaturally long stretches.
She can’t even begin to comprehend what he’s been through in the last weeks, tortured and trapped inside that machine, bled for his power and for Her power.
He won’t be moving on his own for a while. As much as it pains her to let him back out of her reach, out of her sight, Vex has a way to keep him safe.
Trinket bursts out of the locket with a roar. He’s old now, silver streaked and slower than he once was, but he’s still a fighter and he doesn’t hesitate to throw himself toward the nearest member of the Vanguard and strike them down with a heavy paw.
An arrow from somewhere Vex doesn’t see finishes the job, lodging into the back of their neck and dropping them dead.
A second arrow from another direction slices through Vex’s sleeve and leaves a gash in her upper arm before getting entangled in the spirals of bone protruding from Vax’s shoulder. He hardly reacts except to shudder.
“It’s all right, dear.” She holds the Raven’s Slumber out to her brother, amazed she’s able to speak and act even this clearly. She could cry from his pain. Her hands are shaking. “We just need to get you somewhere safe, all right?”
Before she can secure him inside, there’s a familiar flash at the corner of her eye. The glow of daylight from her body reflects off of Taryon’s armor as he sprints toward them, bright and dazzling enough to make her squint. He’s moving more quickly than anyone around them, making their opponents look downright sluggish, operating at what even her kids call Vax Speed.
They’ve only ever seen that kind of movement from Taryon.
“Well, hello there!” Even up here, he has to project more than usual to speak over the clamor around them. “My goodness, Vax’ildan! It’s been a while, welcome back. We certainly have quite a lot to catch you up on, you’re lucky I’ve brought copies of all my books. I’ll have you know, I’ve completed quite a lot of my old list in your absence and become quite the formidable combatant and renowned adventurer along the way. Even the other side of this conflict was knocking on my door, you know, requiring the aid of the renowned Darrington Brigade to lead them to victory. But Taryon Darrington’s loyalty is not something that can just be bought for gold and I still devote myself to Vox Machina as a lifelong and fully-fledged member. And to your sister, of course, as both compatriot and best friend.” He reaches into his pouch and pulls out a string of black beads and a bottle of the healing draught he’d created just before their arrival. “This will keep you two— three— safe from harm.” He holds out one of the beads. “And this is for after.” He passes over the draught.
The coin he’d handed her earlier, imbued with resurrection magic, is still cool against her breast.
As soon as Tary is clear, Vex drops the bead.
The force of the explosion knocks the air from her lungs and the translucent sphere takes form around them. She hardly notices the pain, that sudden rush of pressure that blows through her body and then is gone. It’s slight enough even when she isn’t focused to distraction, an easy price to pay for the bubble’s protection.
Trinket makes a displeased groan but knows the trick well enough by now to not resist it.
Vax quiets and slumps heavily against her, unconscious.
Well. Fuck.
He can’t die from this, can he?
She doesn’t even know. Those last few days together, after he was already dead, he’d just come back until he didn’t anymore. He won’t come back again this time. If she lets him slip and turn to ash again, he won’t come back. She’s spent thirty years looking for a way to draw him back to her side. Now she has him and she isn’t going to let him go easily again. She’s going to hold on as long as she can.
When she reaches for the seam of the mask, though, she hesitates. He pulled it off himself, last time, and now she’s struck with a sudden fear that it won’t come off. She’s afraid of what she’ll find beneath. She’s afraid she’ll find nothing beneath.
But whether he turns to ash or just lays her limp in her lap, he can clearly feel pain and she can’t allow for that.
When she pulls the raven’s face away, she finds that she’s the one who has changed. It’s still his face, her face, her mirror, pinched in unconsciousness and preserved in youth.
The tears spill and the sob escapes her throat, to behold him. Something that’s been knotted within her chest unfurls for the first time in three decades. Blood flow returns to a sleeping limb. Her twin, her best friend, her other half, her first companion.
Here he is. Here he is.
Vex holds the drink to his lips, tips it so it pours slowly down his throat. A few drops splash out and dot her trouser leg, but that’s something that lost its novelty ages ago.
Vax swallows. His features relax. The furrow between his eyebrows softens and smooths away. The limp spill of his body shifts and one shaky hand rises, lands, and curls around her ankle. He presses his nose to her thigh, burrows in against her, seeks her in his unconsciousness.
He is still making sure she does not go far.
Vex sniffles, wipes her eyes with her wrist even though that streaks dust and dirt across her face, and strokes his hair. Yes, she is here, yes, she has not gone far, yes, she will not be the one to leave.
When Trinket begrudgingly surrenders to their containment, he lies down beside them with his nose against Vax’s hip, Vex buries her hand into the fur on his haunch.
How many nights of their youth were spent just like this? It had been the three of them, for years. Unwelcome cityscapes and hostile forests and Vex’ahlia and Vax’ildan and Trinket, on their own but together.
Through the wall of their impenetrable bubble, the fight carries on and slowly dies away.
They may only have a few moments but, for now, neither the Raven Queen nor the Dawnfather is calling to interrupt, and she’ll cling to this for as long as she can.
The battle ends swiftly. Without the bridge to Ruidus, no more of those spectral reinforcements arrive and their sheer numbers overwhelm the Ruby Vanguard and their sympathizers. As for the factions that have moved on to fight on Ruidus itself, she doesn’t know, but their work down here is through and they’ve no way to follow anymore.
She can feel a distant heat, like an echo of a solar flare, from the Dawnfather. It feels like approval. It feels like victory.
Tary’s bubble outlasts the combat and they’re still inside, still safely ensconced and coiled together, as Vox Machina gathers around and decides what to do next.
What happens next is a debate that circles around itself for a while. Do they return to Whitestone, do they stay here until they know the other team, with Keyleth’s soldier and Vex’s other doppelganger, has returned to the planet safely? Do they try to bring Vax with them? Do they wait until the Raven Queen comes back to collect him again?
And then it’s been half an hour since he was freed and he has not woken and She has not called, so Grog lifts him gently into his arms and carries him into the mansion.
The bed poses an issue. “Does he lie down on his wings?” Grog wants to know. “Or does that hurt? Like when you sleep on your arm and gets all funny?”
“He doesn’t breathe,” Pike says. “Just put him down on his stomach.”
“Put him on his side,” says Scanlan. “In case he throws up or something. No, not the antler side, what are you doing, the other side— yeah.”
“The man’s been dead for thirty years,” says Percy. “What the hell is he going to throw up?”
“You know how a baby can, like, shit as soon as it's born?” says Grog.
“Yes, I’d say I’m well aware at this point, as a matter of fact, though I’m not sure it’s entirely relevant.”
Grog lays Vax down in the middle of the bed, resting on his left side with his wings out behind him, and Vex wastes no time to crawl in beside him and smooth his hair back.
It was always Vax who’d clung to her when they were children, who followed her about and threw his arms around her and wanted to sleep with his head against her shoulder, but now she’s desperate to touch him. She feels a pang from just being five feet away.
“I gave him a potion earlier,” says Vex. “That could come back up.”
“If you throw up a healing potion, do you un-heal?” Scanlan asks.
“I bet Tary would know,” says Pike.
“Where the fuck is Tary?” says Vex. She knows he survived the battle almost entirely unharmed. She saw him a few minutes ago, standing like he was posing for a portrait with his flaming sword aloft and rhapsodizing his own, and to a lesser extent the rest of Vox Machina’s, contributions to today’s victory.
Percy gestures back out of the room.
Tary is out in the hallway, just at the edge of Vex’s view from the bed, and speaking urgently and emphatically to Keyleth.
Keyleth has kept her distance so far. When she lost track of her, Vex had assumed she’d turned her focus to her duties with the Ashari. But she’s not with her soldiers, she hasn’t returned to Zephrah, she’s here in the mansion with the rest of them.
She’s resting a lot of weight on her staff and she has a grip on Tary’s upper arm while he seems to be almost holding her up by the elbows. Vex can’t really hear them at this distance over whatever the fuck conversation this is that’s happening around her, but she can see Tary’s face well enough to make out a lot of ‘you’re incredible!’s and a ‘right where we left off.’
Vex raises a hand to her earring. “Keyleth. What the fuck are you doing? Get in here.”
She watches Keyleth shudder, sag, take a deep breath, and then let Tary help her into the room.
She’s still recovering from her wounds from the fight that the rest of them should have joined, the one that got Vax captured. The gashes are closed but the scars are heavy and huge, breaking up her tattoos, marring her face, slowing her movement to an unsteady shuffle. The fight has taken a lot out of her and the exhaustion is visible.
“I’m sorry.” She looks childlike and terrified in a way Vex hasn’t seen in years. “I’m not okay. I don’t—” She takes a trembling breath. “I don’t know how to keep doing this.”
“Neither do I,” says Vex.
“None of us do,” says Percy.
What is the alternative? Never see him again until she’s dead herself to keep the wound from reopening?
“How long do we have him?” Keyleth looks to Vex first, then to Pike, then Scanlan.
But none of them know.
“I’m imagining two hours,” Vex admits. She hates saying it out loud. She wants someone else to have a different theory. “That’s about how long it was, I think, after Vecna. So I’m imagining two hours.”
She remembers bracing herself, counting the seconds, terrified at losing both her siblings at first and then feeling like a prey animal who’s heard a twig snap, knowing her life is ending but unsure of just when the strike will come.
“Not enough,” says Keyleth. “That’s not enough.”
“It never will be,” says Vex. She feels that insufficiency like a hole in her chest. “But he came back for you, dear. Can you give him what time he has?”
The wings may have given the rest of them pause, but thirty years later and Keyleth still knows just how to nudge and fold them to settle more naturally against Vax’s back. Even with her injuries, she is is quick to find her position on his other side. She embraces his wings and presses her cheek into his feathers.
Twenty minutes pass and the Dawnfather’s Blessing fades, the room dims. Vax’s wings remain, still in Keyleth’s grasp.
Two hours pass and the Raven Queen does not appear.
Three hours pass and Pike steps outside the mansion, to test the limits of her spells without the Apogee Solstice or the giant moon anchor to cause interference, and to reach out to the rest of the world. To Cassandra, to the kids, to Lawrence.
They’re alive, they’re all alive, they love them, they’ll be home soon.
Four hours pass and Keyleth falls asleep. Her eyelids have been steadily drifting closed for hours and her breath gently stirs Vax’s feathers as she exhales. The rest of them eat a lackluster, haphazard vegan supper and toast their victory without quite feeling it.
Five hours pass and Vex is the only one awake in the bedroom. There was discussion when they’re first walked in, if this was where Vax’s room had been originally, before he’d started sharing Keyleth’s and before the additions were made for the children.
None of them remember.
Everyone knows where their own room is, though. Vex will call out, when it’s time and everyone else will come back.
Six hours pass and Vax stirs.
He pulls his head back from Vex’s shoulder stiffly, as if he only half-recalls how to operate his own body, and blinks up at her. His gaze is distant, focused on her but seeing so much more. “Vex’ahlia. Sister.”
His voice is rough, heavy and breathy and strange, and the sound of it makes her start to cry all over again.
“Hi,” she manages. “I’ve missed you so much.”
He lifts a hand to her cheek, his fingers still curled, and wipes at a tear. Everything is slow and stiff.
Vax Speed.
“I’ve not been far,” he says.
“I know.” He can’t go far when she carries him with her everywhere. “How do you feel?”
He considers this. “Better now. Thanks to you.”
“To all of us. Scanlan got you out of the machine. Pike got you out of the orb. Or stopped you from being an orb? Whichever it was. And look.” She points over his shoulder.
He turns, slowly, this time in a way she can tell is not just from whatever changes he’s gone through on the other side but from pain as well.
Keyleth sleeps on, oblivious and exhausted, hugging Vax’s wings to her chest.
He watches her for a long time, unmoving.
“Hail to the Tempest,” says Vex. “You saved her.”
She means it earnestly. She really does. She loves Keyleth with all her heart. She’s her sister. They’ve been friends for more than half their lives. She’s so glad he saved her.
But it’s the first little spark of the brother she knew when he turns back and eyes her suspiciously and asks, “Are you jealous?”
“What? Me? Jealous? No.” She doesn’t realize it’s a lie until she’s saying it and then she shakes her head and commits to it with a roll of her eyes. “No. Never.”
“I’ve missed you too.”
“I’ve missed your stupid face.”
“It’s the same as yours.”
“No, it isn’t. I got rid of that thing a long time ago.”
Oh, the smallest crack of a smile.
His heartbeat is slow. He doesn’t breathe. A growth of spiraling bones emerges from his shoulder and neck.
There are stretchmarks on her hips and thighs and breasts. A scar across her belly from which her own twins were pulled. She’s spotted a few silver hairs at her temples and wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.
He’s changed. So has she.
“I actually did die, though,” Vex points out. “On my wedding night and all.”
It’s more dramatic to say it that way than to call it the rehearsal dinner for her vow renewal.
Vax’s hand finds her elbow and rests there. A moment passes before he speaks. “I am no deity, but I am now divine. My way back to you is not one traveled easily. The path through the Divine Gate is sealed, but the veil between realms grows thin at the Apogee Solstice. I am not as large as the gods and I am fast and can make myself unnoticed.”
For a moment, she doesn’t really hear what he is saying. She’s focused on how he’s lapsing back into the strange voice, the stilted word choice, the speech pattern that is nothing like her brother and she just wants him to speak normally, to be Vax again.
And then she registers the words and frowns. “What do you mean? You can only get through the Gate during the solstice?”
“Yes.”
“But.” She shifts and rolls over so that they’re lying face-to-face. “But the Apogee Solstice is over, darling.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re still here.”
“I am.”
She waits for him to explain further, to disenchant her of the realization that’s sparking within her before it ignites into fully fledged hope.
But he doesn’t. He watches her quietly, his face gentle and familiar even with that strange new gaze.
Vex covers her mouth. “Oh my gods.”
“My lady will miss me in my absence, but she cannot blame me for my delay.”
“Oh my gods.” The tears spring to her eyes once more, but this time with a rush of giddy euphoria. It is dizzyingly impossible, it’s what she’s prayed for for so long.
Vex throws her arms around him. Vax gives a little wince of pain and Keyleth grunts in sleepy irritation and Vex clings to her brother, her mirror, her twin, her other half, her best friend, her first companion. She holds on tightly and rejoices for what time they have.