As Allura leaves and the Vox Machina have the rest of their day until dinner, Pike makes the executive decision to ignore the gala until the exact last possible second. After all, it’s something fancy-schmancy that she doesn’t have any idea how to navigate at all, and it seems much of everyone else feels the same—barring Percy, of course. So naturally, everyone disperses as quickly as possible, avoiding eye contact with him as he calls after them to behave yourselves tonight and wait, we need to discuss etiquette before the ball!
Of course, the only one sticking around with him is Vex, and possibly Vax out of pity, though Pike pays it all no mind. She’s intending to show up fairly into pregaming—at least that way she won’t have to remember the events of the night, Percy’s nagging, or how badly they all embarrass themselves in front of the sovereign of the entire land. It’s a win-win-win.
At least, as far as she knows, not much of anyone else has experience with this sort of thing either—Grog definitely doesn’t, and she can’t imagine Keyleth, or even Scanlan has experience with high society. She can only pray to Sarenrae that they don’t manage to embarrass themselves too badly. Maybe she’ll garner some respect as a cleric, or maybe she’ll be asked to bless another house or—Everlight forbid—perform some priestly ritual she’s unfamiliar with due to lack of studies, training, or both. The thought makes her bite the inside of her cheek.
Her feet wander as she loses herself in thought—but more importantly, loses Percy’s line of sight—taking her back to the kitchen, empty as it is. The dishes are still set aside from breakfast, needing to be washed, and she doesn’t have anything better to do. She kicks one of the chairs from the table over and climbs atop it, scrubbing the oatmeal from the plates and, at the same time, thoughts of the evening awaiting from her mind.
Menial tasks like this are easy, simple. Repetitive and all-encompassing. Something to be meditative on, and it’s easy to lose herself into a rhythm, letting her mind wander to find other things. It’s no surprise that her absorption into the task leaves her completely unaware of her surroundings—when Keyleth stumbles into the room and squeaks out a hello, Pike nearly drops the plate in surprise.
“Oh, hi,” Pike manages, catching the wet plate just barely and finding herself relieved that at least she’s not shattering porcelain on their first day in the keep. “Sorry. Lost in thought.”
“That’s okay,” Keyleth says, still clinging onto the doorframe, her willowy build seeming to more grasp it like vines than simply exist near it in the same space. “I was kind of hoping to bump into you, actually?”
Pike’s interest piques—they don’t have many one-to-one conversations, and even the ones that they do are short-lived and usually for a purpose. You saved our lives, Keyleth, and et cetera. To the point, not often consisting of more than just a debrief in combat. It’s not that they don’t enjoy one another’s company—far from it—it’s just that, before moving into a keep in which they each had their own rooms, most everything they did was as a group. As Vox Machina rather than Pike and Keyleth. She supposes that, with more room for spreading out amongst one another, there’s bound to be bonds strengthened with members of the team as individuals. This is good, Pike thinks. It’s team-building.
“Did you need something?” Pike finds herself responding.
“Well—yeah—I mean, yes and also no? It’s… less of a need-something and more of a kind-of-want-to-talk-about-the-last-big-thing. ”
Knowing Keyleth, she’d continue talking unless Pike interrupts here, which she does so. “Okay, shoot. That dragon—Krieg—was kind of crazy, and I’m totally down for talking about it.”
Keyleth bites her lip, looking down, up—anywhere but at Pike. “I mean—we killed a dragon, right? Scary, exciting, nerve-wracking. There’s all kinds of things going around in my head right now. But is it—is it supposed to feel like I did something wrong?”
Pike cocks her head, curious. “What do you mean?”
“Like… like I keep thinking it isn’t over. I’m looking around, waiting for the next attack. Wondering if we should’ve done anything more. Wondering if we could’ve done anything more… and I’m also kind of blaming myself maybe? A little bit? For going along with everyone else when we decided to give up?” Keyleth has detached herself from the wall and is now nervously pacing, chewing on one fingernail and gesturing with the other hand to elucidate her point. “I mean—if we killed Krieg—whoever—then, then we probably could’ve killed him before, right? And if we killed him before, then those people in the village died for nothing. We let a family die just because we were cowards.”
“Hey,” Pike says, unsure of where else to go from here but knowing she has to stop this train of thought as it’s happening. “Hey—it’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault that that happened. If you didn’t shield us from that rubble, we would’ve died.” And if I had tried harder with their blessing, maybe the Everlight would’ve protected them. Maybe if I was a better follower, more holy, more devout, they wouldn’t have died. “There’s a million things we could’ve done better, done differently, but you’re going to drive yourself crazy thinking about all the ways we could’ve not fucked up.” She hops off of the chair and crosses the distance between them, taking Keyleth’s hands in her own to still her movement, the restlessness radiating in the air around them but Pike can at least control this, control Keyleth’s self-feeding anxiety.
Keyleth nods at Pike’s words, possibly comforting but possibly not. “Is that really all we can do? Just… say we’ll do better next time?”
Pike shrugs. “I think… I think we have to actually do better next time. It’s not about just saying it, but we have to actually hold ourselves to that, too.”
“What about the people we hurt? The people that die just so we can have the luxury of saying we’ll do better?”
For once, Pike’s at a loss for words. What about those people? That family that Pike can only hope is granted peace, gentle repose because her powers failed her in that moment? Don’t they mean something? Keyleth seems to be asking her, pleading her. Don’t they mean more than just mistakes that we made, ink blots in our story? Footnotes lost to history?
“We remember them.” Pike’s fingers find the symbol of Sarenrae that lives on her chest, tucked underneath her tunic at the moment but close to her heart. “We do better for them. They aren’t lost in vain.”
Keyleth’s shoulders shake, and she stoops down to envelope Pike in a hug, unexpected but not unwelcome. Pike wraps her arms around her back, holding on as long as Keyleth needs her to. They’ve made mistakes. They haven’t always won every battle.
“Thanks, Pike,” Keyleth murmurs into her ear. “You’re so wise.”
I don’t feel wise, she wants to say. I’m groping along in the dark as much as anyone else is. To be honest, Pike has her own doubts—about their mission, about their group, about her faith. But this isn’t the time to voice them. She wonders if there is a right time. “I try,” she says. “Just… trying not to carry it all with me, you know?”
Keyleth nods against her shoulder, sniffing a little as they pull apart. “I don’t know how not to,” she admits. “It’s all so… hard.”
“Adventuring isn’t all glory and gold. There’s sacrifices and hardship, too.”
“Do those sacrifices mean anything if we’re not the ones dying?”
Pike doesn’t have an answer for that, either. Keyleth doesn’t seem to be expecting one—she straightens her antlers and stands up fully, an intimidating height above her. To be fair, most everyone is—but for some reason, looking up at Keyleth is different from looking up at Vex, Percy, or even Grog. There’s something different in the way Keyleth beholds her, and Pike doesn’t want to pry too deeply into it.
“I’ll see you later,” Keyleth says, stepping out of the door to the kitchen, and Pike just nods.
As she puts the plates in the cabinet that they were taken from in the first place, she says a small prayer to the Everlight for the family that died. Maybe it’s penance enough.