[ Everyone else gets back to Fjord within the day regarding their gifts, hard not to when he made them into tripping hazards outside their bedroom doors, but as night falls and he doesn't hear from Vax it occurs to him he may have overstepped. Perhaps the daggers were super personal and Vax wanted to ask for them back himself? Or the beads in his hair are incredibly meaningful and Fjord has made light of some deep cultural bond? He doesn't know. All he does know is he's too anxious to go and see if his box of gifts is gone from Vax's door. Being a coward, he texts him instead. He doesn't want to make demands as if asking for asspats; but it would be nice to know Vax isn't mad.
Vax can be unexpectedly prickly, at times, although Fjord thought he was getting better at navigating that particular mood.
[There's a handkerchief on Vax's nightstand. It's been folded a few times, and nestled inside is something that's probably familiar: an earring of whisper and a small, pressed snowdrop flower. Beneath it is a small note in elegant script:]
Vax'ildan -
I felt something good should come from my mistakes. The powers that be granted this request. I have the other one, but if you should like me to give it to someone else, you need only ask.
Yours, P
[How it got there is anyone's guess. Percy either talked someone into delivering it or managed to leave it while Vax was elsewhere.]
[ oh... he's forgotten entirely about the whisper earring. he doesn't even know if it'll work on the island, but he's curious enough to try.
though the mistake comment pulls a pout from vax'ildan. that isn't fair to say. vax hadn't thought of it as such, so... he attaches it, then touches it gently and says, tentatively, as though it may not work... ]
[ It's a video that starts off loudly with heavy breathing albeit not the fun kind. Fjord is traipsing through the jungle and the view is blurry until he comes to a halt next to a dead monster; his hand reaches out and he rips a couple of feathers off its hide. They shine opalescent in the watery weak sunshine, far prettier than the hideous creature he slew while out foraging for wizard supplies.
The next clip is of his glove rooting around at the base of a tree to pick up another feather. The next is similar, and so on, with each clip showing his hands or feet as he picks up interesting finds along the way, tiny rainbow ones and big pluming grand ones ...
[ oh that’s... that’s touching. vax smiles as he watches the compilation of feather gathering, and by the time it’s over, he’s grinning widely. vax shows his affection best with gifts, and when others return that... it’s nice. really nice. ]
[ It's the second or third day of Fjord courting Vax (he has stopped pretending he isn't, it seems silly to believe otherwise) and today the clips are of flowers and fruit that he is gathering into the Bag of Holding. Juicy peaches, obscenely lubricating pomegranate fruit that oozes when he sticks his thumb in, blueberries, strawberries, rich purple grapes, sunflowers and lotuses ...
The message today is: ]
will put the fruit and flowers on the kitchen table in the main house for you, whenever you want them x
[ Day four!! A video of the ocean is sent. There is the shush of early-morning waves rippling under a sherbet-pink sky skudded with navy clouds, a few gulls calling already despite the hour. The video pans down to a silly tusktooth doodle in the sand next to a heart and "Good Morning". ]
Percival has abided by Vax'ildan's request: he's stayed away. He's been cordial when they do see each other, and though he longs for the familiarity that exists between them, he... he knows this is his fault.
But, as ever, he longs to repair what he's broken. Or to express, somehow, that he's thinking of Vax. Still. Always.
He doesn't have his workshop, his resources are quite limited. So he gathers what he can and falls back on an older skill, one he learned quite young and has kept up with. It isn't nearly so impressive as the things he's invited, but. It's what he can do.
He waits until he's certain Vax is out before he leaves the small bundle in the rogue's room, on his nightstand. A simple, but fine piece of cloth tied with a slender white ribbon. Inside, a black wooden hairpin with a raven carved at the end; a handful of white feathered hairpins; a pair of crescents, also for his beautiful, dark hair.
[ vax’ildan knows immediately who has left these gifts for him, and he takes a moment to examine each one. as he does, touched tears, frustrated tears well in his eyes and he pushes them away with the heel of his palm. he wants to reach out. he wants to offer an olive branch, but...
fingering the a moon in one hand, vax’ildan touches his earring with the other, unsure if percy is even wearing his. ]
[it took Keyleth a little while to work up the courage to go over to Shaun's room to see Vax, a lot of internal conflict and convincing herself before she finally got up out of the bed and padded down there. When she did, she knocked quietly, once, and then a bit louder the second time, her stomach in knots and her voice soft.]
vax opens the door quickly and without hesitation the moment that he hears it's keyleth, his eyes wide with something similar to worry, to concern.
"keyleth," he murmurs, unable to make himself move. he's been so horrible to her since her arrival, and he'd sworn he was done with treating her like this. it had taken vex'ahlia smacking sense into him for him to realize what he's done, how severely he's left keyleth out in the cold.
[ vax'ildan receives this text when he should be sleeping, shaun gilmore fast asleep by his side. the stress of his current situation has been keeping him awake lately, and fjord's text only serves to let his blood run cold for a moment. is something wrong? something new to add to his list?
vax'ildan pulls himself reluctantly from shaun's grip, kissing his palm before the rogue slips quietly to the roof. ]
[without pretext, or a note--because the giver struggled through many, many drafts, and will probably send one belatedly--two small pots of flowers appear at the door to Shaun and Vax's room--a pot of snowdrops and a pot of bleeding hearts.
come to think of it, they probably don't need a note.]
[ vax'ildan knows precisely who has crafted these plants, and the sight of them makes his heart ache, just a touch.
vax'ildan brings them inside, careful to position them by the window where he knows they'll have sun. it's a wonderful gift, and he makes a mental note to return the favor sometime soon. ]
[wrapped up in shiny wrapping paper in a box propped against Vax's door is this: a handmade mobile, featuring the sun, the moon, and a riot of little tinfoil stars.]
if Shaun and I are the sun and moon, then you must be the whole entire sky.
[ if there's a way to make vax'ildan cry, it's by reassuring him that he's loved and cared for. such a gentle, careful handmade gift makes vax well up, and he sits on the floor with this gift for a long while allowing the tears to slip down his cheeks. only when he's recomposed himself does he seek keyleth out, saying no words, slumping against her side and clinging to her clothing with needy hands. ]
[After getting his workshop set up, Percy did not forget the promises he's made. The first is a gift for Vex, as that seems like the right thing to break in the place. Then? Something Vax asked for.
He spent some time considering the design. He wants it to mean something, even if the ring itself has plenty of meaning as a symbol. When he settles on a design, he gets to work. It doesn't take long once he gets going: he finishes it in a handful of hours.
And then he delivers the ring in a plain box. He even fires off a text to let Vax know he's left it in his room - not the one he shares with Gilmore.]
[a hand-painted card appears under Vax's door. a peaceful sunny day scene; a vast expanse of wildflowers under a sunny sky. there are two little figures laying on the grass; one dark haired, one red haired.]
Vax, you went back to your own bed and now mine feels too big and strange, so come back soon, okay?
My heart's just been feeling really happy and full of love for you, like it always is, and i just wanted to write you a letter and tell you. At home I've got about a hundred. It makes me wish I could go back and get them so you could read them all. Well, someday, right?
I am really lucky to have you. Thank you for being mine. Let's go on a date soon?
even though it's only been a few days it feels like so much longer. I think it must be because I know that you're right here. I could just climb into your bed, feel your body next to mine, comb my fingers through your hair, all the things I've spent so long longing to do… but I can't, because I pushed you away.
that in and of itself feels so strange, so jarring, because of where we were when I could last do all of those things. it's something I was always good at with other people--being too much, taking too much, being weird and annoying and taking up too much space--but you never made me feel that way. With you everything always felt like it was just right, like everything matched up and aligned. I never had to worry too much because I knew things were always right.
Essek said that sometimes when people die and come back like this, it changes them. I can't tell if he was trying to placate me so I wouldn't feel like the way I was feeling was my fault, or if that's true. There is a part of me that feels like it must be, because everything has been different from the moment I washed up.
I want to say that I am proud of you. Your big heart is something that I love very much about you, and I don’t want to inhibit that. I’m sorry if you ever in any way interpreted my grief as wanting to inhibit you. This has all just been so much to process, and it hasn’t been without pain for me.
I have written and rewritten this part several times. I don’t want you to think I am writing you a list of demands, in any way, but I think it might be helpful for you to hear the things that made me feel the most hurt? I don’t know. Maybe.
I think the biggest thing has been feeling like I’m not as important as you say I am. You tell me that your feelings haven’t changed, but sometimes I feel a little as though I am just sort of here; almost as though you know I won’t go anywhere, so it allows you to view me as an afterthought? I don’t know if that’s true--I’m just telling you how I feel.
In addition--I am not necessarily jealous of Shaun at all. I care very deeply about him on his own and the last thing I want to do is make you choose between us now. I have worked so hard on foster a relationship between Shaun and I in order to possibly foster a relationship between all three of us. To form a circle, instead of a triangle. But when you weaponized him against me--called him “my fiance” when I didn’t tell you we were going on a date, as though to show that he was on a higher level to me, that really, really hurt. Perhaps you didn’t mean it to hurt, but it did. And on some level I think--not that my behavior was appropriate, I know--it made me feel more anxious and worried about getting married, because I wanted to be on the same level as him. I felt like that was somehow the key that I needed to fix everything, the thing I needed to be as important to you as he is. In retrospect, it wasn’t an appropriate way to express that anxiety and hurt, but now I hope that I am expressing it more appropriately. I know and I understand that you are not ready, and that perhaps things have changed so significantly that you don’t want to marry me at all anymore. I hope that you better understand now what was going on in my mind.
Grief is a very strange, funny thing. There is still part of me that is grieving deeply for all of the things we’ve lost. For our old life, and in some ways, for mine. I don’t think all the words in the world could explain what it was like to arrive on this island and to see you again, and then the emotional whiplash of realizing that the things that I imagined were not only wildly incorrect but also never going to come true.
In our time apart, I have met a new friend. And I have also done a lot of thinking about what you said. The truth is, Vax’ildan, that there is never going to be a person in my life who means as much to me as you do. And I am not built like you, with a heart that is meant to share with so many others. Not on this island, not at home, not anywhere. I knew that I could not only make peace with but be happy with Shaun and you and I as a unit. And I knew that I could make peace with your other lovers, especially since so many of them are also my friends.
I can make peace with your life, but I am not certain if you can make peace with mine. I feel like you’re afraid of how much I love you--because I take so much, because I want so much. Our separation has made me realize that maybe I can make peace with this, too, even if it hurts.
I feel now that I am at a crossroads and I am offering you an out, if you want one. I still love you very much, obviously, and want to be with you if you want to be with me. But if you have come to the conclusion that you feel like this is too much--that I am too much, that the idea that I know that you are my soulmate, and that I am not too worried about having other lovers (except Shaun, and perhaps my new friend if it progresses there)--I can let you go. I am going to wait the rest of my lifespan for you at home, and I’ve made peace with the concept that I can find ways to survive in a similar way here. I can love you and grieve you in a similar way.
But in the event that you think you can accept that, please know this: although this separation didn’t radically change anything, I have realized that perhaps if I simply accept that things are different but that my heart is still the same, I can feel better and I can function just fine and learn not to be consumed by things I can’t change, and that I can still be happy with whatever we have. I can learn not to take up so much space, and to be less demanding, and I’m sorry for being that way in the first place.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
text, un; hexadin
Vax can be unexpectedly prickly, at times, although Fjord thought he was getting better at navigating that particular mood.
Past midnight, he shoots him a text. ]
hey buddy, did you like your goodies?
un: vax
oh
i’m not gjonna be home for a few days
but i can sneak in and pjick them up
i’m sjorry fjord, i hope i didn’t make you wjorry
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a gift
Vax'ildan -
I felt something good should come from my mistakes. The powers that be granted this request. I have the other one, but if you should like me to give it to someone else, you need only ask.
Yours,
P
[How it got there is anyone's guess. Percy either talked someone into delivering it or managed to leave it while Vax was elsewhere.]
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though the mistake comment pulls a pout from vax'ildan. that isn't fair to say. vax hadn't thought of it as such, so... he attaches it, then touches it gently and says, tentatively, as though it may not work... ]
so fucking me was a mistake?
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text; soulmate; shaun
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pre-recorded video/text; un: hexadin
The next clip is of his glove rooting around at the base of a tree to pick up another feather. The next is similar, and so on, with each clip showing his hands or feet as he picks up interesting finds along the way, tiny rainbow ones and big pluming grand ones ...
Attached to the compilation is a text: ]
goodies for you when i get back x
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fjord, you dingus
thank you
those are beautiful
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pre-recorded video/text; un: hexadin
The message today is: ]
will put the fruit and flowers on the kitchen table in the main house for you, whenever you want them x
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these are great, fjord. thank you
do i get to kiss you when you come home?
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video, un; hexadin
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thank you
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whisper message
[It's not... actually that late.]
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i am. ... are you?
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text, un; hexadin
Re: text, un; hexadin
vagina
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a couple days after her intro
are you busy
i have a question
it's jester!
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it’s nice to hear from you
what’s up?
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text; un: thelyss
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a gift
But, as ever, he longs to repair what he's broken. Or to express, somehow, that he's thinking of Vax. Still. Always.
He doesn't have his workshop, his resources are quite limited. So he gathers what he can and falls back on an older skill, one he learned quite young and has kept up with. It isn't nearly so impressive as the things he's invited, but. It's what he can do.
He waits until he's certain Vax is out before he leaves the small bundle in the rogue's room, on his nightstand. A simple, but fine piece of cloth tied with a slender white ribbon. Inside, a black wooden hairpin with a raven carved at the end; a handful of white feathered hairpins; a pair of crescents, also for his beautiful, dark hair.
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fingering the a moon in one hand, vax’ildan touches his earring with the other, unsure if percy is even wearing his. ]
i got your gifts.
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...
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action (and anxiety)
Um...Vax? It's me.
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"keyleth," he murmurs, unable to make himself move. he's been so horrible to her since her arrival, and he'd sworn he was done with treating her like this. it had taken vex'ahlia smacking sense into him for him to realize what he's done, how severely he's left keyleth out in the cold.
"come inside. please?"
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text, un; hexadin
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vax'ildan pulls himself reluctantly from shaun's grip, kissing his palm before the rogue slips quietly to the roof. ]
fjord? are you okay?
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sorry it's short lfkjsd
it's perf shh
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a gift
come to think of it, they probably don't need a note.]
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vax'ildan brings them inside, careful to position them by the window where he knows they'll have sun. it's a wonderful gift, and he makes a mental note to return the favor sometime soon. ]
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h e y y y
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you okay?
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a gift
if Shaun and I are the sun and moon, then you must be the whole entire sky.
I love you.
-Kiki
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may i stay with you tonight, keyleth?
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serious question.
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not at all, you’ll have fun
delivery
He spent some time considering the design. He wants it to mean something, even if the ring itself has plenty of meaning as a symbol. When he settles on a design, he gets to work. It doesn't take long once he gets going: he finishes it in a handful of hours.
And then he delivers the ring in a plain box. He even fires off a text to let Vax know he's left it in his room - not the one he shares with Gilmore.]
text;
do you know that i still think it's a message from you if i see any sort of black bird?
silly.
i love you.
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text, un; hexadin
you should come share my bed on the ship sometime
i miss waking up with feathers on the floor
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i'll only do that if your bed on the ship is an actual bed and not a hammock tied between lower deck masts
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text
hi vax, it's keyleth
[obviously.]
my love, can i let jester give me a tattoo of a raven with snowdrops?
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delivery
Vax,
you went back to your own bed and now mine feels too big and strange, so come back soon, okay?
My heart's just been feeling really happy and full of love for you, like it always is, and i just wanted to write you a letter and tell you. At home I've got about a hundred. It makes me wish I could go back and get them so you could read them all. Well, someday, right?
I am really lucky to have you. Thank you for being mine. Let's go on a date soon?
xoxo
Keyleth
text;
Vax,
even though it's only been a few days it feels like so much longer. I think it must be because I know that you're right here. I could just climb into your bed, feel your body next to mine, comb my fingers through your hair, all the things I've spent so long longing to do… but I can't, because I pushed you away.
that in and of itself feels so strange, so jarring, because of where we were when I could last do all of those things. it's something I was always good at with other people--being too much, taking too much, being weird and annoying and taking up too much space--but you never made me feel that way. With you everything always felt like it was just right, like everything matched up and aligned. I never had to worry too much because I knew things were always right.
Essek said that sometimes when people die and come back like this, it changes them. I can't tell if he was trying to placate me so I wouldn't feel like the way I was feeling was my fault, or if that's true. There is a part of me that feels like it must be, because everything has been different from the moment I washed up.
I want to say that I am proud of you. Your big heart is something that I love very much about you, and I don’t want to inhibit that. I’m sorry if you ever in any way interpreted my grief as wanting to inhibit you. This has all just been so much to process, and it hasn’t been without pain for me.
I have written and rewritten this part several times. I don’t want you to think I am writing you a list of demands, in any way, but I think it might be helpful for you to hear the things that made me feel the most hurt? I don’t know. Maybe.
I think the biggest thing has been feeling like I’m not as important as you say I am. You tell me that your feelings haven’t changed, but sometimes I feel a little as though I am just sort of here; almost as though you know I won’t go anywhere, so it allows you to view me as an afterthought? I don’t know if that’s true--I’m just telling you how I feel.
In addition--I am not necessarily jealous of Shaun at all. I care very deeply about him on his own and the last thing I want to do is make you choose between us now. I have worked so hard on foster a relationship between Shaun and I in order to possibly foster a relationship between all three of us. To form a circle, instead of a triangle. But when you weaponized him against me--called him “my fiance” when I didn’t tell you we were going on a date, as though to show that he was on a higher level to me, that really, really hurt. Perhaps you didn’t mean it to hurt, but it did. And on some level I think--not that my behavior was appropriate, I know--it made me feel more anxious and worried about getting married, because I wanted to be on the same level as him. I felt like that was somehow the key that I needed to fix everything, the thing I needed to be as important to you as he is. In retrospect, it wasn’t an appropriate way to express that anxiety and hurt, but now I hope that I am expressing it more appropriately. I know and I understand that you are not ready, and that perhaps things have changed so significantly that you don’t want to marry me at all anymore. I hope that you better understand now what was going on in my mind.
Grief is a very strange, funny thing. There is still part of me that is grieving deeply for all of the things we’ve lost. For our old life, and in some ways, for mine. I don’t think all the words in the world could explain what it was like to arrive on this island and to see you again, and then the emotional whiplash of realizing that the things that I imagined were not only wildly incorrect but also never going to come true.
In our time apart, I have met a new friend. And I have also done a lot of thinking about what you said. The truth is, Vax’ildan, that there is never going to be a person in my life who means as much to me as you do. And I am not built like you, with a heart that is meant to share with so many others. Not on this island, not at home, not anywhere. I knew that I could not only make peace with but be happy with Shaun and you and I as a unit. And I knew that I could make peace with your other lovers, especially since so many of them are also my friends.
I can make peace with your life, but I am not certain if you can make peace with mine. I feel like you’re afraid of how much I love you--because I take so much, because I want so much. Our separation has made me realize that maybe I can make peace with this, too, even if it hurts.
I feel now that I am at a crossroads and I am offering you an out, if you want one. I still love you very much, obviously, and want to be with you if you want to be with me. But if you have come to the conclusion that you feel like this is too much--that I am too much, that the idea that I know that you are my soulmate, and that I am not too worried about having other lovers (except Shaun, and perhaps my new friend if it progresses there)--I can let you go. I am going to wait the rest of my lifespan for you at home, and I’ve made peace with the concept that I can find ways to survive in a similar way here. I can love you and grieve you in a similar way.
But in the event that you think you can accept that, please know this: although this separation didn’t radically change anything, I have realized that perhaps if I simply accept that things are different but that my heart is still the same, I can feel better and I can function just fine and learn not to be consumed by things I can’t change, and that I can still be happy with whatever we have. I can learn not to take up so much space, and to be less demanding, and I’m sorry for being that way in the first place.
Love,
Keyleth