WHO Eadwulf Grieve & Vex’ahlia
WHERE The Crossed Quills
WHEN Thursday, October 21, 2021
WHAT Eadwulf and Vex share a drink as they try to talk through all of this timey wimey stuff and shed a little light on their respective pasts.
WARNINGS Mentions of parental death, strained parental relationships,
Crossed Quills was fast becoming Eadwulf's tavern of choice. It was handy to get to, one short waypoint journey from city to forest, and almost familiar in its cornucopia of boisterous patrons, simple fare, and boundless liquor. The last time he had visited it with a sense of trepidation had also been the first: when Bren had invited him there.
That occasion had been tense for very different reasons; now, Eadwulf did not dread an ambush from Vex's friends, even if they included the rest of Bren's, for they all seemed preoccupied with newly-arrived offspring. But Vex herself had become a subject of dread for Eadwulf. In just a few short days, she had morphed from the woman he sometimes hunted with and whose company he enjoyed into the potential future mother of his potential future children.
Why he wasn't booking it to the other end of Vallo, he couldn't say. She had summoned him and here he was. Perhaps conversation would move no further than Vax'ildan's most recent misadventure, he thought weakly as he descended the steps from the second floor. Or perhaps Vex would already be in her cups when he joined her. He and Trinket could brood in silence equally well: the 'family' dinner Vex had insisted on the other night was proof of that.
Before he'd even reached the bottom of the steps, Eadwulf was already scanning the bar for a familiar pair of pointed ears, blue feathers in dark hair, and one accompanying brown bear.
Though she had told Eadwulf to meet her at a particular time, Vex had gotten to the Crossed Quills earlier. She’d needed...a moment. A moment to sit alone in a space where it was quiet insofar as no one was talking to her but loud enough that there was no chance of stewing in her own thoughts. There were so many of them, too. Thoughts about her future here, about her future at home, about a daughter she hadn’t even known she’d had until days before...about a brother whose most difficult experience thus far had been living in Syngorn in the years after they’d been forced out of their mother’s arms, no memory of all of the things that had come after for them.
For as much as she hadn’t wanted to think, though, it was all Vex seemed capable of doing. She hadn’t even heard the barkeep’s attempts to catch her order as she sat there waiting for Eadwulf and stared unseeing into a row of whiskeys behind the counter. All of the thoughts moved around and shouted over one another, making it impossible to hang onto one for too long while simultaneously making each one feel increasingly more dire in turn.
Currently, Vex’s thoughts were settled on a mix of Eadwulf and Astrid...and Percival. She’d given all three topics more than their fair share of consideration since Astrid had arrived, but she was no closer to resolving how she felt about any of them than she had been when she’d first seen Astrid call her her mother. Or at least that was where they’d settled before a laughing boy stumbled and fell into her. Black clothes, black hair… Vex’s breath caught and she looked up, only to find that it was not her teenaged mirror image staring back at her and apologizing for the disturbance. Her face must have finally been incapable of shielding her thoughts, though, because his attempts at turning the incident into a line turned swiftly into his half-asked can I buy you a drink? dying quickly on his tongue.
Just past the now embarrassed patron, however, Vex did catch sight of a familiar face. Eadwulf. Confusion, guilt, frustration, anticipation--it was difficult to pinpoint exactly what she felt whenever she looked at him now. She offered him a tight smile as she nodded toward an empty seat beside her at the bar. “Seems I didn’t have to send Trinket after you, after all,” she said.
Eadwulf couldn't help it. He glowered, just a little, at the man - boy, really - who'd stumbled into Vex at the bar. Their eyes met and the youth scarpered, cheeks red. Vex'ahlia's presence had done more to chase him off than Eadwulf's intervention ever could and she didn't need him coming to her rescue, especially now, so he let it go.
He even took the offered seat without quibbling about how such threats were unwarranted. They both knew better. When the barkeep wandered over, looking harried and impatient, Eadwulf inclined his head toward his companion. "I'll have what she's… Ah." Vex wasn't drinking anything yet.
Well, keeping a clear head wasn't going to make this any easier. "Two ales and two shots of vodka," Eadwulf ordered. If Vex'ahlia objected, she would speak up. She wasn't the kind to meekly go along with anything. Once the barkeep had deposited the two large pints and two small shot glasses brimming with clear liquid, Eadwulf paid him and turned his attention to the drinks. "I only learned about this recently." He offered Vex her shot. "Almost reminds me of home. Bottoms up."
In this instance, Vex was happy to let Eadwulf order for the both of them. She’d asked--or told?--him to buy her a drink, anyway, and the least she could do was let him pick. That and she wasn’t sure she had her wits about her yet to even know what she really wanted. In regards to drinks, of course. She welcomed the fact that they weren’t required to dive right into conversation, that Eadwulf was willing to let the drinks arrive first. A few more minutes to really collect her thoughts wasn’t going to magically provide her with insight as to how she felt about any of it, but it was time and Vex found she was in desperate need of it.
She took the offered shot of vodka and emptied it quickly, unable to hide the wince as the clear liquid burned its way down her throat. Liquor was terrible, she’d decided shortly after arriving in Vallo, but it was effective. She took a quick swig of the ale, as well, washing the acidic taste of the vodka from her mouth.
Glancing over at Eadwulf, Vex lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “So.”
"So," Eadwulf echoed. He'd watched Vex'ahlia imbibe, then followed suit as well. The vodka burned as it was supposed to, briefly distracting him from his equally febrile thoughts. Having been trained to keep his own counsel, it would've been easy to maintain a blank expression and wait Vex out until she spoke her mind.
But that would be unfair. And for reasons he dreaded defining, he found that unpalatable.
"How's your brother?" he asked, rubbing his thumb into a ring of condensation on the bartop. "And -- our daughter?" Because Vex would have spoken to both, to either, of them far more recently than Eadwulf. She'd steer the conversation as she wished from here on in.
Vex wanted to latch onto the easier topic of conversation, but as she tried to decide which one that would be she realized that there were no easy conversations to be had tonight. Small talk may have been safe, but she doubted either of them wanted to engage in it. Taking a deep breath first, Vex took another drink and replied, “I honestly don’t know how my brother is. I did everything I could to convince him that I’m me and that he’s safe and should come home to the Xhorhaus, but I know him at this age. If our father isn’t here to rebel against, I have no reason to think he won’t just rebel against everything including me.” She had no idea what exactly Vax might get up to that night, but she did know well enough that the harder she tried to make him do anything in particular, the more likely it would be that he’d find himself in trouble.
“I think this might be payback for what a chore I must have been growing up,” she continued. “Vallo gifted me with a daughter who seems to have her shit together in ways I never did at her age, so it had to give me teenaged Vax to make up for it. Which is to say that Astrid seems to be doing well. I know this is a lot for her, and I wouldn’t blame her if she wasn’t taking this in stride, but…” Vex paused and glanced over to her companion, taking a moment to appreciate the humor in the pair of them having such a good kid together. “Well, I guess we didn’t fuck up too terribly, did we?” It was meant to tease him, but the truth of it rang through, too. A part of her had been worried, and her teenaged twin’s appearance had served as a reminder of why.
Eadwulf did not know much about Vex and Vax's upbringing. He had recently learned that she was even nobility, let alone that her mother was dead. She was as much a cypher to him as he took pains to be to everyone around him. But this was one occasion on which keeping their cards close to the chest benefited no one.
He listened as she spoke of Vax's rebellious streak and wondered if his sister had shared it. She must have done so, if she felt this was some kind of punishment, or counterweight, for Astrid being as mature and self-aware as she was. "You judge yourself harshly," Eadwulf pointed out before he could stop himself, a hand on his pint glass though he had yet to raise it to his lips. The vodka had unlocked his tongue enough already. "I see a woman who has done everything in her power to be kind to a child she does not know. Who is protective of her when she's no more than a stranger. You've been devoted to Astrid since she arrived in our time. That bodes well for your future, regardless of any other elements."
Meaning him. Vex was a force of nature and she would move mountains for any child she had. That was heartening, surely. As for Eadwulf -- he changed the subject before he had to examine his feelings too closely: "Unless you do not want children?"
Vex hesitated then glanced over at Eadwulf, her brow lifting at the words he delivered as though they were an indisputable fact. “Do I?” she asked. And she had to admit that it was nice hearing that he thought she was all of those things. It was one thing to try to do the right thing, or to have someone like Shaun or her brother, when he was the right age, tell her she was doing a good job. It was an entirely different thing to hear it from someone she knew never wasted words on something like empty flattery. She smiled to herself then at how different he and Percival were in that regard. The latter was intelligent, and privileged, and awkward, and she was sure that he was equal parts pleased with hearing himself speak and not realizing how many words came out of his mouth. For as much as she saw pieces of Percival in Eadwulf, and for as much as that likely drove her desire to be his friend, they were such incredibly different people, too. Somehow that made her feel marginally better about that part of her predicament. If they were so different, her future self wasn’t replacing Percival, was she? You couldn’t replace one thing with an opposite thing, just as they’d never thought to replace Scanlan with Taryon.
“That’s all very kind of you to say and I will do my very best not to make you repeat yourself,” she continued, a hint of jest in her words.
His following question, at the very least, was an easy answer. “No, I do. I do want children. I want a family. I want a chance to be something different than what came before me. I just--” Vex pressed her lips together, trying to choose her words carefully. “Up until a year ago, I imagined getting to have those things in a very different way. I’m not…unhappy with this potential future. How could I be? Look at Astrid and everything she promises a future could look like. How could I be unhappy about that? It’s just...an adjustment, which I am very sure you understand.”
Vex lifted her mug and took another drink, and then shifted on the stool to look toward Eadwulf without having to continue craning her neck. “But I’m not the only one needing a drink tonight, am I? Is the concept of children of your own an unwelcome one? I don’t want to assume.”
Eadwulf's lips didn't so much as twitch. He had meant what he'd said and said what he'd meant; Vex might seek to make it more palatable to herself with humor, but Eadwulf had long learned that he might as well stand by his words and deeds. No one else would.
He watched her carefully as she struggled to order her thoughts -- or perhaps to phrase them in such a way as to satisfy the confusion she must've felt. A confusion he shared, though his took a different form altogether: not merely the surprise of it, but the previously decided impossibility. The unwritten pact he had made with himself to keep from passing on the rot that grew within him.
"I never thought about having children of my own," Eadwulf bluntly replied. As Vex shifted to look directly at him, he remained immobile, channeling his nervous energy inward. "Never imagined it. If Bren has told you anything about our shared history, you'll be aware that I am the servant of a disgraced master." It was more than he'd said to Vax or Gilmore, or even Vex'ahlia since arriving here. No need to say it to Bren, who already knew.
And no one else would care, Eadwulf had always thought.
"Not the kind of life that offers many avenues for parenthood. Or family." Though the latter had been excised from Eadwulf's life by his own hands. He took a swig from his pint, regretting that it was not vodka, before his gaze was dragged back to Vex's. "You did not imagine this future. Did you imagine another, then?" With someone else, perhaps? "I know little about your life outside our hunts," he added. "Do you have a lover?"
That was fair, Vex thought. Her own life hadn’t necessarily been the kind of life that welcomed the idea of a family, of children, but she at least had hope that the life of adventuring was temporary. She’d had the privilege of hoping that, with the Chroma Conclave gone, maybe peace would be possible. Except she’d promised the Raven Queen they’d slay a god to save her brother, hadn’t she? Even so, she’d had hope and it tugged uncomfortably at her heart to know that Eadwulf had been and still was living with the idea that his life--chosen or not--could never afford him the luxury. “Your story is yours to share,” she offered, “and that’s the only way I’ll hear the whole of it. I know at least some about Trent Ikithon, but I know more about the fact that this life is a different one than those we had at home. You don’t have to imagine different things for yourself here right at this very moment, but maybe Astrid is proof that something different is possible for you if you choose it.” She couldn’t change his past but, as his friend, maybe she could offer him some of the hope she’d had.
And then-- ah, yes, there it was. The moment she’d been dreading, even if she’d walked into it so carelessly herself. It had been a year and it was still hard for her to even say his name. There were days that she didn’t think of him constantly anymore, and the dull ache of losing him was less pronounced, but talking about him was rare. A wound she’d been disinclined to reopen.
But Eadwulf was asking and Vex felt that, given their predicament, it would be unfair to not be honest. “No,” she said, after a quiet moment of reflection. She sighed, lifting her chin as she fixed her eyes on the ceiling above them. She would not cry. Not here. “I did, though. Lord Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III, just Percy to his friends. Cassandra’s older brother. He was...unexpected, but not unwelcome. He gave me my title when I needed it the most, in front of my father, before he and I ever entertained being an us.” She smiled at the memory. It was an important detail, she thought. Outside of everything else Percy was or had done in his life, in spite of the demons he wrestled with, he was the kind of man that gave titles to unwanted half-elves because he saw the worth in them and demanded that others see it in them, as well.
She cleared her throat. “He was here for a time, but Vallo saw fit to return him home a year ago. We haven’t seen him since and all Vallo does is keep giving me new memories of what our life will be back home. So, no, I didn’t imagine this future. Vallo has made my attempts to have something different very difficult with its insistence that I continue remembering the things I hadn’t experienced yet back home.” Pulling her gaze from the ceiling, she met Eadwulf’s gaze. “I can’t say that it’s not nice to know that there’s a chance this won’t be forever, at least. I have no expectation that Astrid’s future is ours, please don’t misunderstand. There’s hope for both of us, though, in general.”
If Eadwulf had been told that he was to have children with a murderess, he thought he might be less open to let her explain herself in her own time. This was one of a few reasons why the future Astrid represented seemed so unlikely: if there was any justice in Vallo, someone like Vex'ahlia should surely not end up bound to someone like him.
But perhaps she'd already had her chance at someone better snuffed out. This Lord Percy sounded like the kind of man who might have made her happy -- the kind of man who had, if Vallo's continued poisoned chalices were any guide, in another time, in another place. In this one, Eadwulf was being given a chance. And the opportunity to blow it.
"I'll drink to that," Eadwulf said and did just that, mostly to buy himself a moment's pause to think. "He sounds -- decent. I've never given much credit to nobleborns. The few I've met tend toward thinking awfully highly of themselves with little to show for it. If this de Rolo were to show up again, I'd at least let him disappoint me in person." The twitch of a smile tilted up the right corner of his lips. For someone as guarded as Eadwulf, it was no accident. "Will you tell me more about how you came by your title?" And, indirectly, more about herself. Eadwulf couldn't very well come out and ask; that might betray a genuine desire to know another person. Couldn't risk that.
I'd at least let him disappoint me in person. It was such a Percy thing to say, Vex thought amused, but immediately made the decision as soon as she'd thought it that she would not compare the two men again. It wasn't fair to Eadwulf, it wasn't fair to Percy, and godsdamnit it wasn’t fair to her. It was a relief then when Eadwulf asked her to elaborate, so she did just that.
"Get comfortable, darling," she mused, and paused to take another drink. "It's a bit of a story with a lot to be prefaced." And then she told him. She told him about her mother, the woman she's supposedly named Astrid's twin after. She told him about being forced to leave her to go live in Syngorn with Syldor where she was too human to be worth more than the sneers she and her brother had received. She talked about their father and how she and Vax had struck out on their own, how they'd returned to Byroden to find their mother dead, and how Trinket had been the first to join their party of two. She'd hesitated as she'd reached that point in the story, unwilling to share the truth of it just yet.
And then she'd spoken about Vox Machina and the momentum behind her words kept her going through talk of the Briarwoods and the attack on Emon, and how they'd begin searching for the vestiges with which they might be able to slay the ancient dragons and how that search had lead them to the Feywild and Syngorn.
She'd paused then, after what felt like hours of talking though it likely hadn't been that long at all. "And that's how I became Lady Vex'ahlia, Baroness of the First House of Whitestone, and Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt." But Vex was not merely someone who enjoyed talking about herself. In truth, she wasn't all that fond of doing so, in general. What Vex did enjoy, however, was dealing in trade and she knew that her story was a sort of currency in this particular transaction. The more she invested, the more she could collect, and she both wanted and needed to know the story she'd told Eadwulf was his to share. Whatever the future held, they'd get nowhere without being willing to shed some of the guards they both kept built around them.
"I'll save the rest of my story for the next round of drinks," she said. "But in the meantime, what's yours? I know how my brother came to serve the Raven Queen, but I'd like to know how you came to do so, too."
While getting people to talk about themselves was a tool of spycraft Eadwulf had used in the past, he had not asked Vex to share some of her story with him out of a desire to use it to his own ends. He listened attentively and found himself engrossed despite his years of learning how to study a subject -- or target -- without becoming invested in them. He was so taken with her tale that he even forgot to drink, only sneaking in a sip when Vex'ahlia wound down and even then only to buy himself time.
What to say? Vax'ildan was the Matron's chosen champion, with the black wings to prove it. Anything Eadwulf could say to embellish his own conversion would pale by comparison. Yet knowing what he knew now about the twins' humble beginnings, about their living with a foot in one world and a foot in another, he struggled to see Vex as someone who would value grand tales over simple truths.
Eadwulf drew in a deep breath and said, "It was after I -- we -- lost Bren." As he spoke, he kept his eyes on the ale in his mug, not on Vex'ahlia. He told her of the dark place he had reached, though he was scarce with details so to why. He mentioned that the Raven Queen was not unsanctioned, in the empire, but that her followers were few. He had wanted something that was his, something that would make every sacrifice and every secret make sense. "It didn't, but I got away with it that first night so I kept coming back." To the temple. To Her. "I didn't have a disappointing father to impress," he added, "and my mentor never made me choose. A good thing for us both."
He gestured to Vex'ahlia's pint. "Do you want that second round now?" He hadn't told her anything particularly heinous, though the hints of it were there between the moments of deliberate vagueness, but he was still new to unveiling anything about himself. The aftermath was inevitably uncomfortable.
Looking down at her empty mug, Vex seemed almost surprised that the ale that had come in it had gone. It shouldn't have been so surprising considering the comfortable warmth that buzzed in her cheeks, but the time had passed almost without her realizing it had done so. She pushed the mug forward and shook her head once. "Mm, as much as I'd like to say yes," she replied, "I'm not sure Astrid wants to deal with me having too much to drink. But that being said, I'm not in a rush to leave, so I'd take some water."
She wondered what reaction he'd been hoping for.
It was hard to scare Vex off, though, and Eadwulf's tale certainly wasn't going to do so, especially what little he'd shared with her just then. She hesitated again--it felt like she'd done that more since this conversation had begun than she ever had before. "I don't know all of your secrets, and all of your sacrifices, or why you had or made them. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you had no other choice, or that everything happens for a reason, or some bullshit platitude that attempts to absolve you of the uncomfortable or terrible things from your past. I don't think you're looking for absolution, anyway." She raised a brow, giving him a moment to dispute that observation if he wanted to. Then she added, "All I know for sure is that our lives are made up of a series of choices and we don't have to make the same choices tomorrow that we made yesterday. If she--the Raven Queen--gives you what you need to make different choices than you've made in the past, then I'm glad you found her."
Her fingers tapped idly on the counter. "I hope you don't mind if my relationship with your goddess is a bit complicated. Some days I hate her as much as I'm grateful to her for the life she's given both my brother and me."
The pause had lingered, because Eadwulf had no objection to offer. He wasn't looking for absolution, no, but that begged the question: what was he looking for, here? Understanding? Kinship? He thought of the robes that had appeared in his home a few weeks ago and how difficult it was to part with that last vestige of Trent's presence in his life.
He knew what his old master would have to say about his being here tonight, about Vex'ahlia and her friends. It was why Eadwulf made short work of his drink, as though the alcohol could drown out that familiar voice at the back of his mind.
But there was another voice now, too. Vex'ahlia's. She didn't let the conversation falter. Nor did she get hung up on Eadwulf's lack of response. When she mentioned the Raven Queen again, he shrugged. "She is hated and loved in equal part. Sometimes by her own followers." He didn't elaborate. "I won't try to convert you. And it doesn't seem as though attempts have been made to convert Astrid, either. She seems -- more like you than I." Eadwulf caught the bartender's attention and ordered the water Vex had asked for. "I'm glad that's the case."
“It’s not something I’ve asked Astrid about yet, though I should add it to my list. I think I have more questions for her than there is time to ask them,” Vex replied. She decided not to linger for too long on the Raven Queen, or her fears that she would take Vax’ildan from them. For as much as she tried not to think about it, especially here in Vallo where the Raven Queen’s grasp was all but nonexistent, it was a fear that still haunted Vex. Complicated was likely an understatement.
Slowly, Vex reached out and, despite being worried that it might be the thing that sent him running back into hiding, covered Eadwulf’s hand with her own. “Give yourself some credit, darling. She likely didn’t inherit being well-adjusted from either one of us, so we clearly made a good team in helping her become who she is now.”
Eadwulf tensed but didn't withdraw his hand. He could go quite happily through most days without a sliver of physical contact and make up for it once every so often at the Fight Club events. That wasn't to say he'd never considered a less violent alternative.
"This is Vallo," he replied, his shrug careful so as not to move his arm too much. "Stranger things have surely happened." He did free his hand once the barkeep returned with cups of water, which Eadwulf paid for, along with their other drinks. His Looking Glass wages and tips were plentiful enough to allow it.
He did not expect to miss the touch of Vex's hand and dismissed the sentiment before it could take root. "And since this is Vallo's doing… we may see her again." In one form or another, as an infant slowly maturing normally or a woman grown.
Vex let her hand fall back to her lap, a nod of thanks offered to the barkeep as Eadwulf covered the tab. It was time to head back to reality where her twin brother was too young and her daughter was waiting. And though she knew there was so much in her world right now with the crowded Xhorhaus and extended family she suddenly had, she couldn’t help but to be grateful for the brief reprieve they’d been allowed here. She hoped he was right, too, that there was a chance that Astrid wouldn’t disappear from their lives forever.
“We should do this again sometime,” Vex offered. “Though perhaps next time with fewer existential crises?”
Deflecting with a joke was what Eadwulf should have done: commit to nothing, avoid indebting yourself with your words. Precepts to live by for an imperial spy. But the empire was far away and Eadwulf had abandoned his post, anyway.
"Next time we hunt, perhaps," he said instead, veiling his agreement in a pretext for their next meeting. One that would fatten his pockets and Vex's, as well as afford an opportunity to get out of the city more. To get to know each other better.
Foolish things to want, perhaps, but Eadwulf did.
"What say you, Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt? Same time next week?"
For the first time in a week, Vex laughed freely at the sound of her now useless title. There was very little resolved that had been complicated an hour ago. She was still worried about her past and future, her other life and this one. She was concerned by how long Vax would be his younger self, and unsure of how to reconcile her multitude of feelings about their daughter. A drink and a conversation about their pasts was not going to resolve those feelings in a night.
Nevertheless, Vex felt for a moment that it was okay to look forward to the future without knowing what it had in store for her and without expectation. She nodded in confirmation and because she was inherently an ass who simply could not help herself, she replied, “It’s a date.”