Chapter Text
When they find him in the Umbra Hills jail cell, Percy is certain he’s hallucinating. He’s not sure why it’s the twins that his fevered brain decides to conjure up, but there they are, real as life. Relics from a past that seems like three or four lifetimes ago.
Gods, he hasn’t thought about them in years. No, that’s not true. He has thought about Vax in the occasional moments when he remembers he’s still human and not already a ghost. He even thought about finding Vax after his flight from Whitestone. For about half a minute, and then he realized it was folly. He’d only ever received one missive that might’ve been from the twins, half a year after their departure: a small parcel containing a blue feather, a tuft of brown fur, and a drawing of a tree with a dagger protruding from the trunk. No message, no hints of where to find them. All of Percy’s inquiries to the courier had been fruitless.
And, of course, a few months later, none of that mattered. Nothing mattered.
None of the lessons in diplomacy or statecraft. None of the carefully-crafted network of Whitestone nobility who were supposed to offer a defense against the violence of the outside world. None of the titles or wealth or reputation. It was all erased in the space of a few hours.
Percival de Rolo himself may well have ceased to exist – Percy doesn’t know who he is now, whose dreams tell him to shape a metal barrel and pack small charges of powder, but he’s not the naïve child he once was, the scrawny young fool who wanted nothing more than to be seen as an adult. Not after watching his soft-spoken tutor, who taught Percy the history of ethical thought in Tal’Dorei, cut his baby sister’s throat.
He was even angry at Vax for a time, because Vax would never have fallen for any of it. He would’ve seen through Ripley and the Briarwoods in a moment. If he’d still been in Whitestone…
So, no, Percy doesn’t think of Vax unless he can’t help it. Unless he can’t quite find it in himself to remember that Percival de Rolo is gone. Unless he’s so tired of running, so tired of living in gutters and covering his own tracks that he thinks he can’t go on. When even revenge isn’t quite enough to keep him going. Then his mind will conjure up the feel of a well-balanced dagger or a flash of long black hair or, worst of all, a warm hand on the back of Percy’s neck. It’s not that he ever hopes to find Vax – he rather hopes he never does – but simply the notion that Vax is still out there, maybe, if he hasn’t managed to get himself killed, that gives Percy something like hope. Still throwing daggers with frightening precision and still bickering with his sister and still slipping in and out of the shadows.
Percy must be closer to death than he thought, then, if he’s literally seeing Vax pick his way through the detritus in some of the other cells. Vex, too, is rummaging through whatever Ripley left behind, though Percy knows she won’t find anything. He watches them with the dispassion of the damned, wondering what horrors his dying brain will show him next.
It’s not until they get much closer that Percy sees the new armor, new weapons. New scars. His mind wouldn’t have fabricated those, would it? And where is Trinket? He wouldn’t fit in here, but why would that matter to a hallucination?
Vex spots him first, crumpled in a corner of the cell, and then motions for Vax. “There’s only one prisoner here, and he looks half-starved. Do we let him out?” Percy hears her whisper.
“Looks harmless enough,” Vax replies. It’s the same voice he remembers from two lifetimes ago, amused and surprisingly gentle.
Vax approaches the bars and Percy hears the soft click of a lockpick. Somehow, Vax has gotten even better at his craft: the heavy lock pops in seconds, the door swinging open with a rusty creak. Percy tries to speak but his voice fails him; he’s spent the last few days doing nothing but screaming until his voice simply stopped working. Instead, he struggles to his feet – a costly expenditure of energy, given his malnourished state – and silently holds up his manacled wrists.
“Okay,” Vax says warily, “but you’re not allowed to try to kill me. I’ll be very cross, and you’ll just wind up dead. Deal?”
“Deal,” Percy croaks, staring straight into Vax’s eyes, the same warm brown with a glint of humor, despite the direness of the situation. They don’t so much as blink.
He doesn’t recognize me, Percy thinks.
There’s no reason he would, really; it’s been nearly six years since Vax left Whitestone, and nothing about Percy’s appearance is the same. He’s now filthy and dressed in rags, the bruises and cuts on his face somewhere between healing and festering, not to mention the drastic change in hair color. He remembers that he even had a final growth spurt not long after Vax left. And anyway, their… acquaintance had lasted little more than the duration of two seasons. Vax had said he and his sister were going to keep on the move; he probably had a Percy in every city.
By the time Vax has half-carried him back out into the sunlight, he’s convinced himself to put it – him, their past together in another lifetime – out of his mind for good. After all, the spoiled rich boy who followed after the rogue like a dog searching for scraps is long dead.
The twins drag him down the road to a waiting wagon, and it’s not just the three of them – there’s a whole band of assorted ne’er-do-wells. There’s a huge one and two tiny ones and a fucking dragonborn, among others. They’re loud and crude and ridiculous, and against his better judgment, Percy likes them immediately. They take him to their camp in the woods, which is little more than a circle of tents around a fire, but considering where he’s been, it looks like an oasis to Percy.
A red-headed druid heals him a little and brings him food and water, but he can’t even attempt to keep up with her questions as he wolfs it down. “Keyleth, darling, there’ll be time for that later,” says Vex. “The man was in a prison cell and clearly being tortured – the last thing he needs are questions.”
“Sorry,” Keyleth says with a wince. “I was just curious.”
Percy waves a hand as if to dismiss any hard feelings. “Later,” is all he says.
When he’s finished eating, there’s a stream nearby where he can bathe. Vex tells her brother to fetch their new guest some extra clothes, since his are in ruins, and Percy waits patiently by the water. He doesn’t have to wait too long.
“The trousers will be short on you,” Vax says, handing them over. “Nothing to be done about that, since I’m by far the closest to your size. The closest who actually wears trousers, in any case.”
Percy feels the corner of his lip quirk up. Once, an inexperienced, dark-haired boy would have blushed at the thought of putting these clothes on. “These will be perfect. Thank you.” His voice still sounds rusty to his own ears, but it’s getting a little stronger with use.
“It occurs to me that we still haven’t asked you your name.”
“Oh,” Percy says, oddly unprepared for the question. Should he lie? If Vax doesn’t recognize him, it’s better to be someone else entirely. His full name would probably mean nothing to the rest of this group, but there’s something to be said for covering one’s tracks. He could start over if he wanted to. He’ll still have his mission of revenge, but he’ll be better able to hide, and he can put that other life behind him. “It’s… It’s Freddy.”
A slow grin spreads across Vax’s face, his eyes sparkling. “No, it’s not.”
“It’s not?” Percy says, too stunned to ask anything else.
Vax leans in. “It’s Lord Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III of Whitestone. But I’ll call you Freddy if you want.”
Percy swallows loudly. “Uh… Just Percy is fine.”
“Whatever you say, Freddy,” Vax says with a wink, and his smile begins to fade into an expression that’s sadder but full of warmth. “I want to hear your story whenever you’re ready to tell it. I don’t imagine it’s a happy one, but the least I can do is listen. You’re with us, now, with Vex and me and the rest of us. You’re going to be okay.”
And he walks away.