You’d think it might help matters that Fince is so deeply suspicious. That everything about him is a little conniving, a little slick and too well-practiced; really, appeasing a dragon? It’s a ridiculous suggestion, too foolish to be genuine. And he’s very distinct—you’d think finding him would just take following a trail of machinations and schemes.
Vex has found several problems with this line of thinking. First, that Emon is so large a city it’s impossible to narrow down your search to just one trail of machinations and schemes. Second, that Emon is so large a city everyone seems to know someone or have a cousin who knows someone that would first be described as suspicious, so asking around doesn’t do anything to narrow the field. Third, that Emon is so large a city it takes hours to walk from one end to the other, hours that would be better spent lying in a cool, dark room, trying to soothe away the headache that comes with encountering a dragon’s influence.
The initial pain, the realization of it, is always sharp. Like a pickaxe being driven behind her eyes—but harder to describe than that, some combination of senses that work together to scream dragon, enemy-of-mine, here-here-here.
Sunlight gleams off of a cheerfully bubbling fountain in the middle of some upscale district. Vex doesn’t squint against the reflection, even if it coaxes her throbbing headache back to the forefront.
Trinket butts his nose up against her palm, groans a little. Poor boy, he’s tired too.
“Well, this has been a waste of time,” Percy grumbles, adjusting his glasses.
He’s slouching against the same shaded wall that Vex has claimed, flushed from a long walk in the hottest part of the day. Across the square, Keyleth is in animated conversation with a bit of topiary. It’s a terrible sculpture; Vex tilts her head one way and it might be a bird. Or maybe a fish?
“Yes,” she agrees, casual. It’s easier to act as if this was all built into her plan; even odds on Percy calling her bluff. He notices more than he brings up, this one. “If you had to place a bet...”
She doesn’t have to look to know the corner of his mouth just pulled up into a smug little smirk. They’ve made their share of wagers—on marksmanship, drinking competitions, drunk marksmanship, hungover darts—and he’s one win ahead. It’s all part of her larger strategy, of course. She’s not losing.
(She is, but Percy was raised by people who seem to have taught him that bragging was in poor form. So he just leans there with that smug fucking look on his face because he knows he’s winning and he knows she knows she’s losing, which should really count as bragging. Ugh.)
“What would I be wagering?”
“No, just,” she doesn’t have the patience for it. Her head aches, they’ve found nothing, she wants a little distraction. “Odds on Grog and Scanlan sticking to the plan?”
“Very low.” He takes off his glasses, starts wiping them with a handkerchief. “Scanlan’s been very tetchy and Grog forgot it by the time we got to the bottom of the steps. They’re likely being kicked out of a brothel by now.”
“You could at least lie about it. My dear Vex’ahlia,” she teases, adjusting an imaginary pair of glasses, “our companions have most certainly applied themselves to the task at hand. They are responsible, stalwart— oh gods, I can’t do it.”
“I don’t sound like that!” Percy squawks. It’s funny when he gets ruffled, like every practiced motion gets knocked a little off-kilter.
Trinket grumbles that he really does, but Percy doesn’t speak bear. His loss, Trinket’s very insightful.
“Anyway—odds Vax and Pike get any information? Useful information? I can’t imagine they’ll get a weapon, no matter how fond of your brother Gilmore is.”
“And Vax is no master negotiator,” Vex agrees.
Percy clears his throat, turns to watch the fountain with her. He seems to have forgotten his glasses in his hands and they turn over and over, the hinges so small they don’t make a sound as he tests them.
“Your brother has a generous heart,” he murmurs.
It’s more genuine than Percy usually is—that’s why she blinks, why she swallows suddenly. Not wondering, not really, what he thinks of all of them. What he thinks of her. Percy keeps his cards so close to his chest.
Trinket’s cool nose presses into her fingers. She strokes his forehead, thinking.
“High,” she decides. “Not because they’ve got anything to offer, but because Gilmore is a good man. He doesn’t want anyone to die.” And then, an afterthought, “It would also suit him if Emon didn’t get destroyed by a dragon. He lives here.”
Vex’s temples throb. Her face aches, for fuck’s sake. Her head hurts and her mother is dead and it lingers at the back of every blink. Never all the way gone. The feeling moves to the next room, just around a bend in the road, just over the next hill—there’s a secret buried in this headache.
If she finds the dragon that wronged herself and Vax, well. Well. She doesn’t know if vengeance will even help. She doesn’t know how to stop hurting.
(She doesn’t know if she wants to.)
“Keyleth gets arrested?” Percy’s voice breaks the silence.
Right, their conversation. Her precious distraction.
“Middling.” Sometimes she decides plants will be happier growing beyond their boundaries. Guards have a history of disliking this.
But if it happens, see, Vex has a bit of parchment that was carefully smoothed out over the course of an airship ride. They are on the Sovereign’s business. Keyleth is on the Sovereign’s business. It will bring them as much protection as Vex can force it to.
Percy laughs, just once. And then, “Odds we die?”
“We’re going to die someday, dear. It happens to the best of us.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
She knows. “We’re going to kill it. It’ll be a hell of a thing to be dragonslayers, don’t you think?”
“Cold comfort,” Percy sighs. He knows, she knows he knows, that determination won’t keep them alive.
“Is there any other kind?” Vex asks. Her eyes are burning in her skull. There’s still a bit of ringing in her ears.
Percy is a private man. He’ll never tell her what he thinks of her.
(If he did, a peek behind the curtain: Percy is imagining they’re in the card room of a very formal party. Vex’ahlia is in dark blue, shuffling, subtly hiding aces up her sleeves and laughing as he tries to count cards when he can’t be sure which ones are missing.
Percy is imagining her in a forest with the wind in her hair and no pained tension in her face, beholden to nothing and happier than all of this has made her. Trinket is running along at her side and there are no wolves howling in the distance, no huge wingbeats disturbing the air. All of Vox Machina is just up the trail a little, barely out of sight, decidedly under her protection.
Percy is thinking of her in a shadowed library of some great estate, eyes sharp and reflective in the candlelight—a hundred books of dragonlore in precarious stacks around her as she buries herself in revenge.)
Trinket growls softly. There’s a bit of commotion; the topiary is no longer... whatever shape that was. It’s come alive with thorns, twisting to and fro under an aura of green. Like a cat after a long rest, it stretches and shudders.
Keyleth is staring at it, eyes wide and surprised, and a guard from across the square is walking towards her with purpose.
Vex leaves the shade, moving on an intercept course.
Percy’s a bit of a fool sometimes, a little puffed-up and easily ruffled, but he’s endearing. It’s sweet, the way his hand rests on his pepperbox as they approach the guard. The way his eyes track her hands as she draws the parchment from under her belts, his smirk at the Sovereign’s seal on the corner of it.
Odds Keyleth gets arrested? Zero. They won’t let it happen.