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"No!" Pike screams as Vax flies upwards, trying to stop the Whispered One's Ascension, trying to leave her again. "I won't let you!"
Mythcarver is in her hand; the Vestige humming melodies and laments in her ear, sounding so much like Scanlan. She throws it at the Champion, intent on hurting his wing.
He'll be grounded, pinned if she's lucky, Mythcarver is too large for any of them to lift and then Vax won't be able to leave her and then the other won't be able to leave him. It makes Pike angry, how they'll happily stay for one of their friends but not even try to talk to another.
Vax isn't paying enough attention to the fight, his full focus on stopping the Whispered One's plans. But, for all his focus and all his devotion to the weave of Fate, he can't help but turn back as Keyleth cries out.
He turns around, eyes searching the battlefield for his Voice of the Tempest as everything else becomes background noise. His wings keep him in the air, each brush of feathers against his skin reminding him of his goal.
He knows he has to kill the Whispered One, knows that's the reason for his blight and the Matron's warnings. But his Lady knows him as well, she knows of his devotion to his friends, knows how he'll twist Fate so his loved ones will be safe.
The Matron of Ravens watches as her Champion spots his lover amid the fighting trying to restrain the Everlight's disillusioned child, she watches as he sighs in relief and goes to turn back.
She watches as he trusts his friend to cover his back, to not even attempt to stop him on his crusade.
She also watches as the Knowing Mistress's blade strikes her Champion through the heart.
Vax chokes, almost pushed back by the force of the hit as he stills in midair. Then gravity takes over and he's left falling, the ground rushes up to meet him and he hears Keyleth let out the scream he can't.
And then the Champion of the Raven Queen knows nothing else.
Vex cries out her brother's name as he hits the ground with a boom!, dust rises around him and stings her eyes but it isn't important. What's important is getting to her brother.
The Ranger runs over to him, the first, always the first, to reach him. Looking for injuries, for signs of life, are pointless as Mythcarver sticks out of his chest like a cruel pedestal. A sheath fit for the only weapon capable of killing an undead monster.
Percy is still frozen, along with Keyleth, both of them too throw by what just happened. Pike, kind, healer Pike, is the only one left whose able to move as she rushes forward.
She didn't mean for this to happen! Vax was only meant to be pinned, unable to fly until he gave in and let her heal him. He and the others were meant to join her, to renounce their false gods and not die for them!
B-but, it's fine! It's fine and okay and fine, because the Whispered One is almost a god and when he is Grog will be okay and Vax will be free! Free of his blight, free of his pain, and free of his loyalties to death!
"I-it's alright," Pike knees down by Vax's body, reaching for her holy symbol. The tension in Vex's body eases slightly, memories of battles fought and won because of her healing flash through her mind.
"It's fine," their Cleric goes on, the round edges of the symbol pressing against her glove. "The Whispered One will bring him back, and-"
All the tension returns as Vex whips around and, her Vestige forgotten, punches Pike in the face.
Vex lunges forward, taking her by surprise as Pike is pinned. Uncaring of the Vestiges she wields, Vex attacks. Hit after hit, blow after blow, her screams eventually snap the others out of it.
"We were here to save you! We came all the way here, we hurt our friends just to try and save you. We were ready to kill everyone here just to get to you, Vax was ready to do anything he could to bring you home. We have a way to fix Grog, you idiot. But, b-but now."
Vex loses steam, her punches no more than light slaps against Pike's bloodied and bruised skin. "But now, you've killed him. You've killed him. Y-you..."
Vex sobs, she screams and wails and cries because her brother is dead, her twin is dead. Vex knows she won't look like him when she dies, she'd be too old by that point. By a moment, or a minute, or a year, Vex won't be as old as her twin anymore and just the thought alone makes her rear back for another hit.
Percy catches her arm, his hold gentle and delicate like she'll break even more if he's too harsh. That's always been the way with the twins; Vex and her sharp features always cracking first as she cries, while Vax would comfort her in all his softness and take the blows she was too shattered to.
It's been like that as long as they can remember, Vex being too sharp and hurting those she loves while Vax is too soft and lets himself get hurt. It's a story as old as they are, it's a story of Syldor Vessar and their mother, Elaina.
Percy is soft for those he loves, holds everyone he cares for close to his heart and fights for them like a cornered animal. She's always seen Vax in the way he cares for others, during their year apart it always made her heart ache.
It was on one of those nights, the wound of their departure all too fresh even after months, that she asked him to marry her.
And now, with her lover pulling her away from their bruised and bloody healer, Vex finds herself grateful for her sharp edges. The Ranger glares at their Cleric, relishing in her flinch like a predator.
"Pike Trickfoot," the Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt preens when she flinches at the name. "I hereby banish you from Vox Machina, effective immediately."
There are screams behind her, raised voices and the sounds of flesh on flesh, but Keyleth isn't paying attention to it. She runs towards Vax's still body, and nothing else mattered.
She wasn't the first, is never the first, to reach Vax but that doesn't matter now. Her lover is cold, the blight always stole his warmth but Keyleth knew ways to warm him up again.
None of those will work here, his heart isn't beating and he is cold and there's nothing Keyleth can do. She isn't a Cleric, nature always came easier to her then worship, then death.
Even if Keyleth was a Cleric, they don't have a diamond on them. She's heard tales of people using sentimental items, wedding rings and family heirlooms, but she has none of those here. Her antlers would mean nothing to him, the gem ornamental and not worth enough gold.
There truly is nothing she can do, no spells she could cast, no magical items she has, no plants she could grow to save him, no...
No plants she could grow to save him!
Oh, Keyleth you fool!
She pulls out the vial, the pink liquid and flower petals slosh around in it as she holds it up into the light. It'll work, if Deliah's notes are to be believed she can use this to save him. One way or another, Keyleth won't let the Matron take him away from her.
The sword comes out with a wet squelch as the Air Ashari places it to the side, Mythcarver shrinks to a more suitable size for a half-elf even as it knows that Keyleth won't be the one to wield it.
She moves towards Vax's head, propping him up as she presses the vial to his lips and tips it back. The scene is so reminiscent of the nights spent slowly feeding Vax broth and pain medicine as the blight spread.
If Keyleth didn't have to press against his throat and jaw to make it go down, she could almost trick herself into hearing Vax's voice complaining to try and ease the tension.
"Come on, Kiki. You couldn't have-ah! H-ha~ You couldn't have found a better t-tasting plant?"
The Tempest can't help herself, muttering an apology to the corpse and the memory even as she sits back and waits for the potion to do it's job.
With a kind of morbid fascination, Keyleth watches as the wound in his chest closes up. The cracked and shattered bones of Vax's rib cage melt into the pink liquid as it reforms itself into unbroken bones.
Keyleth cries in relief as Vax's body knits itself back together, muscles, tissue, and skin all grow back until the only evidence of the wound ever being there are the tears in the Vestiage.
Even those are being repaired, the Death Walker's Ward too used to Purvan and Vax's fights to let itself be torn so easily. Mythcarver hums a mourning melody, and the Ward joins it with a soft golden glow of the Matron's message to her first Champion.
Vax is healed, his body pristine and unmarred by the wound. The blight is still there, the Matron's 'gift' as she says.
But, he isn't waking up.
The Champion's body is healed, his heart repaired and bones unbroken, and yet he isn't waking up.
"No," Keyleth frantically searches for a pulse point, placing her ear against his chest only for neither lungs nor heart to move. "No, no, no, no, no, no."
"VAX!"
The others whip around at the scream, a mourner's wail echoing off the walls of the crumbling tower they find themselves in. What a horrible place for a Champion to die, surrounded not by friends and family but by betrayers and fools.
There is no changing fate, no second choice, no do-over or reset button. Even those in favour of chronomancy become warnings of self-fulling prophecies; Kings trying to change their Fate only to become slaves to it as they pave the way for their own downfall.
The Matron has seen countless moments like these, across all her domains. Death and Fate are intertwined, it is one's Fate to die and even immortals only delay the inevitable.
But, she is not worried.
Her Champion is Fate-Touched, able to bend and pulls the strings around him.
But, most of all, her Vax'ildan is stubborn.
Percival whips around as Keyleth screams, instincts honed on the one who has become something of a younger sister to him. Vex'alian abandons Pike, dropping her limp body to the ground as the lovers run over.
The Druid is sobbing, her forehead pressed against Vax'ildan's still chest as an empty vial falls out of her hand and tumbles to the ground. The sound of glass against stone is a familiar one, so is the sound of anger at a failed project.
Vex'alian rushes towards her, pulling her back from the corpse even as she fights to stay with it. Neither of them are fools nor blind, they know what it was that vial contained.
Percival moves past them; despite knowing it's futile, he checks for signs of life. Finding none, he doesn't let that stop him. The noblemen knows of the human body well, long nights in his youth spent going over textbook after textbook in a drunken fit for knowledge.
Even before coming to trust Vox Machnina, he'd had all of their races' different biology memorised. The others have given him flak for it before, but were always thankful for it during times where Pike wasn't available or their casters were out of magic.
Vax'ildan isn't able to be thankful at the moment, so Percival will be in his stead as he pulls the cord to bring Diplomacy to life. Half-elven physiology isn't that dissimilar to a human's given the hybrid nature of them as a whole, something Percival is thankful for as he places his hand on Vax's chest and thinks clear.
The Rogue's body jolts! as electricity surges through it and into his heart, nothing.
Clear.
Another jolt, still nothing.
Clear.
Nothing happens, Percival is almost tempted to try again but he knows the risks if he goes any further. When Vax'ildan is revived, because there's no world in which Percival accepts another family member's death, he'll need his muscles intact.
Percival, knowing there's nothing he can do, knowing there's nothing any of them can do, allows himself to turn off Diplomacy, to step away from the corpse, and join Keyleth and Vex'ailan in mourning.
And then, he rises.
Vax floats, finding himself in a familiar void with a familiar feeling of weightlessness all around him. He sees a light off in the distance and, with nowhere else to go, starts moving towards it.
As he gets closer, the weightlessness leaves him as Vax starts to feel solid ground beneath him. First an endless floating void, then a solid floor, and finally the feeling of imperfect stone underfoot.
As he gets closer Vax is able to make out what it is, a string.
A golden String of Fate glows as the Matron of Ravens holds it in-between her claws, looking down at it with an emotionless mask and countless raven skulls.
She doesn't speak; Vax has no words for her, either way. His trusted friend stabbed him through the heart, what could he possibly say in the face of that?
He moves towards her, watching faintly as the String goes still and lowers itself into her claws. Sitting by her side, Vax closes his eyes and leans into her decorative armour.
The Rogue isn't stupid, he knows what happened and knows what this all means. So, he thinks to himself, the best he can do is get comfortable before his Champion duties call for him.
As Vax sleeps, he doesn't see as his goddess grabs 7 other Strings and starts to weave a golden Web of Fate. His soul is safe under her watchful raven eyes, kept from the void by a thread.
Vax's body rises, heart unbeating and eyes as black as night. Golden pupils contract and focus on Mythcarver, the blade fitting perfectly in his hands as both his Vestiges glow and sing.
This time, is this way, the Champion will not fail.