Keyleth wiped a hand across her eyes quickly, eyes moving from Percy's body to the spot she'd last seen the flicker of his spirit, as if she could somehow anchor it there just by glaring at it.
She looked away as Vex stepped up, though Keyleth averted her eyes during the whispered kiss, trying to give her an instant of privacy in the midst of the display. It was a public show for all to see. That's really what these rituals were, what they demanded. They had to pull out their hearts and put them on display to see if the gods thought they were bleeding out enough to send back who they'd lost. Or at least that FELT like how it worked. And with Kash forced to do it, it wasn't even the warm if baffling spirit of Sarenrae they were relying on. It was some dark bitch goddess none of them understood and no one loved and who they might end up having to fight for Kash after this. Which she would do, for Percy and Kash.
Honestly, she might even want a fight right now, and Keyleth knew that was absolutely foolish to think in the midst of a ritual like this. But it was just all so much, and it was all the time and she couldn't help properly. What was the point of everything they did if they couldn't even reliably take a tree home to save Percy and he didn't stay put to be resurrected properly? What chance did they have of saving everyone else when they couldn't save their own?
Keyleth shook herself as Vax touched her shoulder and then knelt, his wings unfurling. His wings really were very pretty, for all that his armor smelled like a tomb. At the moment, Keyleth found that annoying too. They were a gift-burden from yet another overbearing entity with an agenda they didn't understand. They shouldn't get to be pretty. Just once, things should look like what they truly were.
Keyleth fumbled for a second as Vax finished and she stepped up to Percy's side in his place, awkward in touching Percy when he was so very ... not there. Not inside his own body. Percy's shoulder against hers was one of her most frequent steadying comforts. Even when they disagreed, he was always ... solid. Percy cold and stiff was fundamentally wrong. She found what she was looking for, cupping the bird's skull she'd once given him in both hands. "Percy," she said. She tried to sound calm, but Keyleth knew she didn't. She was upset and she was emotional and it was unfair and petty but she was angry. "We disagree about ... many things. Most things, it feels like, some days. But lately, I feel as if we at least understand one another better than we used to. We've talked about death ... probably more than is healthy, but given what we do, it's natural. Maybe you spent so long thinking of the Briarwoods and Ripley as the end of your journey that now this seems like where the story should finish. Maybe it was all you needed."
Keyleth gripped the little skull. "But understanding that things end doesn't give you permission to LET it. There's things left to do. Things WE need to do, and we need you to do them, Percy. I need you. Some things die, but other things need to live, when they can." Keyleth shut her eyes, reaching into her grasp of wild magic and summoning forth a small flock of birds, who rushed through the room, hovering instinctively over the spot she'd last seen Percy's spirit. "And I swear, Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski del Rolo III, if you live through dragons and and mind flayers and vampires but let fucking Ripley die knowing she got to kill you, they will follow you to whatever afterlife you find and shred everything you sketch for the rest of eternity, and shit on everything you touch!"
When she finished, Keyleth realized just how ridiculous she'd just been, eyes teary and face a mix of devastation and genuine, irritated, fruitless fury. "Just come back," she said again, voice small instead of angry.
She must sound like she'd lost it. Maybe she had. But Keyleth knew what she saw, she knew that had been Percy, and that he'd been on the edge of being ... of leaving. She felt it. She didn't know what Vex had whispered, but she knew Vax's forgiveness had been soft and Vex's kiss had been sweet and Keyleth ... well. Yelling him back to life somehow felt better than pleading.