#how vex would fit into the au if she was his goddess and now i gave myself brain damage. bless!

[aq2003]

day 5 of perc'ahlia week: fairytale/class

ok so. goddess vex and cringe fail cleric percy. (not pictured bc i ran out of time to draw it but she becomes mortal for him lol <3)

[enkelimagnus]

A Castle in the Forest

Percy x Vex’ahlia, Chapter 4, 3337 words,

A Modern AU, in which Vex is a park ranger taking over the Alabaster Sierras post, and finds much more than she bargained for

Read on AO3

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The Lady’s Chamber is an amphitheatre, standing facing the crossroads of the second biggest crossing of Whitestone. Vex has driven by it a couple of times now, and she’s always seen a couple of worshippers there. Now that she knows the state of the Zenith’s congregation, it seems like this one is much more popular.

The theater part is domed in cream-colored stone. It’s in much better shape than the Zenith, despite the desolate patches of grass peeking out of the stones of the courtyard surrounding it. It’s winter however, so desolate grass is no real surprise.

Whitestone feels a little less like somewhere she could run away and hide in now that she’s felt the heaviness lingering in the city’s past. Vex is a little shaken by Father Reynal, his attitude and the state of his temple.

It’s mid afternoon and the sun has descended greatly on the horizon. Shadows grow as she steps closer to the door to the inner part of the Lady’s Chamber. The theater itself is empty, but she’s hoping the sanctum will at least have a priest. And with luck, this priest will be able to help her root the fiend out.

The door is made of metal and she knocks on it with the scale-shaped knocker. Someone must have been right behind it, because she doesn’t have to wait very long before it opens.

Vex tries not to let her disappointment show on her face. The person behind the door has thick white mustaches and receding white hair and looks weathered by time. He probably won’t be up for a hike and a battle with a fiend.

Fuck, what is it with this town and elderly clerics?

“Can I help you, ser?” The older priest says with a polite but not incredibly cheerful smile.

“Good day, Elder,” Vex replies in kind, before starting to explain again who she is and why she’s there. The facts haven't changed since she’s talked to Father Reynal.

She’s faced with a similar look from this priest than Father Reynal’s. A muted concern, and light dismissal. She’s already tired of this town’s clergy and she doesn’t even know this one’s name.

“Come in, for a moment,” the priest says before letting Vex into the sanctum of the temple.

It’s a simple main room with a rectangular wooden table. The legs are sturdy, skillfully carved. Contrary to the Zenith, this priest doesn’t seem to be alone. Sitting around the table, looking up at Vex as she enters, are two individuals.

With her bow strapped to her back and her muddy boots, Vex initially felt like a sore thumb in these holy places. But when her eyes fall on one of the people in this room, she suddenly feels much better about herself.

Across the table from the entrance is a goliath. Vex has never talked to one, or been so close really. She knew there were a few working for the TWC, but none that she actually met. She’s seen a couple in passing.

They must be at least seven feet tall, skin grey and heavily tattooed all over their back and bald head. A giant axe, fit for their hand, rests against the table by their left side. By their right is sitting the other figure. Next to the goliath, this gnome looks even smaller.

Their skin is a strange purple, almost brown, their hair black with a dark purple streak. It’s a charming thing really. The difference between these two is almost comical. Vex is immediately interested.

“This young ranger seems to have picked up a fiend in the forest,” the priest says.

The goliath looks up in interest. “Do you want us to go smash it for you?”

Vex chuckles lightly. “Actually yes,” she points out. “Do you have divine gifts?”

The gnome next to the goliath laughs out lightly, looking over at their companion. “Oh, that’s funny!” Their voice is high and unbelievably sweet. Vex finds herself softening a little towards them, for no reason outside of that laugh and that voice.

“I don’t,” the goliath shrugs. “I mostly can smash things. But she’s got all the divine shit you want,” they gesture towards the gnome.

“My name is Pike Trickfoot,” the gnome introduces themselves, nodding. “I’m a cleric of the Everlight, Sarenrae. And this is Grog Strongjaw.”

Oh that is definitely what Vex needs. The Everlight is a goddess of redemption and healing and that’s absolutely the energy needed to combat a fiend and save an enthralled half-elf. It’s hard enough to charm those of elven blood, so the fiend is either powerful or very lucky. Or both. Let’s not hope for that, though.

“Vex’ahlia, ranger of the Tal’Dorei Wilderness Conservation program, stationed in the Alabaster Sierra's outpost,” she introduces herself machinally. “So you’d be willing to help?”

She’s maybe a little too business-minded, but she’s just… tired, and worried about this druid out there all alone and probably in dangerous situations.

“I would need a couple of days of preparation and some more information, but I can probably do something, yes,” the gnome, Pike, replies.

“I sensed them on the western edge of the stone platform Castle Whitestone stands on,” Vex starts explaining. “It’s reachable through a path, but it does require quite the bit of walking.”

The priest, who has been silent for a few moments, shifts, clearing their throat.

“We’re up for walking,” Pike smiles. Grog nods. They seem to be working as a pair. “In two days at dawn? If that works for you.”

It sounds almost too good to be true. She still doesn’t know the name of the priest whose temple she’s come into, but their guests are planning to help her with the fiend. After Father Reynal’s pushback, she was really not expecting much from the Lady’s Chamber.

“That works,” Vex nods. “We will meet at the mouth of the path? If you have a phone number, I could give you the map to it?”

They exchange numbers, the gnome writing out ‘Pike Trickfoot’ with a sparkle emoji as her contact. Vex just puts herself in as Ranger Vex’ahlia. Simple and to the point, she doesn’t know this sunshine of a person. She’s not going to have little personal things in there.

The priest next to them clears their throat again. Vex sends them a look. They seem to be nervous about something. They’ve now cleared their throat many times. They’re either sick or they are uncomfortable. Or, third option, they’re trying to make the gnome and the goliath notice something. Vex’ eyes narrow.

Pike smiles, looking at Vex with a warm glint to her eyes. “I do hope this will be easy work and that we will not risk too much. But we never know, with these things. Keeper Yennen has seen enough of these in his days, haven’t you?” She asks the priest who sighs.

“We’re divine servants,” he says heavily. “All our paths are eventually called to cross with a fiend’s. It comes with the faith, unfortunately.”

Vex keeps watching him. There’s something uneasy about this situation. Pike seems to be referring to something the priest does not want to discuss. Yet another untold horror. This town holds one at every corner. Everywhere Vex looks, she can see one.

“You should leave now,” Keeper Yennen nods.

This feels like déjà vu. Because it is. Once again, Vex is shoved away from a conversation, from knowledge. Once again, she politely takes the cue and leaves. She’s starting to get a little tired of it.

She hopes that, in a couple of days, she can ask Pike a couple of questions about this place.

On her way out of the courtyard surrounding the Lady’s Chamber, someone bumps hard into Vex’s shoulder. She’s seen them coming, with their long blue coat and their brown boots, but she really thought there was space for them to cross without bumping. She curses at the sudden ache that radiates into her arm and chest and whips around.

“I’m sorry!” The person she’s just bumped into says, their right hand raising to rub over their left shoulder, while Vex is rubbing her right one. They seem younger than Vex, about eighteen years old. It’s hard to tell really, with this world they all live in, this world where everyone ages differently at different rates. They seem human, but they could very much be eight hundred years old.

They’re familiar in the same way Father Reynal was. Which makes sense, because Vex saw them at the same place, at the same time, she realizes immediately.

They’re about the same size and stature as Vex is. Their hair is dark brown, almost black, but streaking with white around the temples. They had been standing in front of the Zenith, speaking with Father Reynal, when Vex drove by after her very first supply run.

“It’s all fine,” Vex shrugs.

“Have a good day!” They call out as they rush towards the Lady’s Chamber.

Vex raises an eyebrow at the retreating figure. Two temples at once? Or maybe a new convert of Erathis. Father Reynal did say the worship of Pelor has dwindled in this town.

Everyone she has met in this town, except for the gnome and the goliath, has a strange nervous energy about them. They all seem to struggle with hiding secrets, as if the skeletons are too big to fit in the closets they try to force them in. The truth, or at least the story, of what has happened in Whitestone in the past few years is eager to jump out and reveal itself.

Vex wants to know. After today, there’s no doubt about it. She wants to know about this fiend and about Castle Whitestone. About what happened to the De Rolos and why they’re gone. About the empty temples and the half dead tree in the center of town.

She guesses it’s a little rich of her to want to know and stop people from lying to her, when she’s herself running from the past and refuses to tell anyone her own last name. When she’s trying to hide her own past from herself.

She drives back home quietly, without the radio on. She lets her own thoughts be loud for once, no matter how uncomfortable it is to hear her own self-reflection, to discuss her past and future with this horrible nagging thing that is her own mind.

The sun is setting over the trees, she has a cub to take care of, and she wants to rest. She wants to light a fire, make some coffee and settle by the warmth with the cub napping on her feet.

The loneliness is getting more than bearable, it’s getting enjoyable. She loves the quiet of her cabin in the evenings, when she hears that lone wolf cry out. She’s never heard any other wolf respond to it. Poor creature. She can relate to what it must be feeling.

She does all as planned, gathers her things and makes her fire and settles with a blanket. She brushes out her hair. It’s growing more than it used to. It had fallen a lot when she was in Shademurk Bog, especially in the last couple of months, when it had gotten unbearable. It’s growing again now. She’s growing again.

Right as she’s about to fall asleep, the wolf cries. And to her great surprise, a second cry answers it. She goes to sleep with a smile on her face, and the cub snuggled against her chest. She stopped making him sleep in the crate some time ago.

Vex awakes to a chill and misty forest morning. She sees the fog wrap around the trees. The ones around the cabin are a little thinner, a little younger. The forest itself gets thinner around civilisation, as if to protect its oldest, most precious mysteries with barriers upon barriers of younger fodder.

She’s halfway through her breakfast when the talkie-walkie hisses with an incoming call. The thing that’s not supposed to work, because the other half of the pair of walkies was lost with the previous ranger.

“Hello? Hello, is there anyone here?”

The voice seems a little anxious, a little hurried. Something’s wrong. Vex bolts from her chair and rushes to the dust-covered walkie.

“Ranger Vex’ahlia, speaking. Can you tell me what’s happening?” She asks, forcing her voice to stay calm and soothing.

“Yeah, huh, hi, huh,” the voice continues. “We found this and a body? In the middle of a clearing?”

A body? Vex’s heart freezes in her chest and she forces herself to swallow. She’s trained for this. She needs to call in the local authorities, which she knows to be the Pale Guard. She grabs her phone from her pocket without thinking, ready to dial as she walks.

“Can you tell me where you are?” She responds. “There should be a trail marker within a hundred yards of you, if you haven’t strayed too far from the path. I’ll be there asap.”

The walkie goes quiet then, and she waits with bated breath for the person to contact her back with a position. It takes a few horrible frozen minutes for the receiver to crackle again, and she’s given the coordinates.

“I’ll be there asap,” she repeats. ”I will be contacting the authorities too, so do not be surprised if members of the Pale Guard arrive as well.”

“Okay, thank you,” the voice replies.

Vex volts back, dialing the Pale Guard emergency number that gets her directly to someone without going through any helplines. She slides the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she straps her quiver to her thigh and grabs her bow. She puts her coat on and walks into the foggy morning.

It takes her about forty-five minutes to get to the trail marker she was given. She follows instructions and finds the camp of the person that contacted her quickly. A fire is lit in the center of an encampment of three small orange tents. She notices a crossbow resting against one of the tents’ sides.

“Hello? I’m the ranger you had on the walkie,” she calls out.

Three figures come out of the tent with the crossbow. They’re tall, two humans and a dwarf. One of the humans, tall with blonde hair, has a smaller version of a quiver strapped to their thigh.

The dwarf’s right hand is gloved, and in the glove, they hold the walkie. It’s dirty, with dark stains that Vex already knows is blood.

“Thank you for coming,” one of the humans says.

“I’m doing my job,” she replies. “Now show me the body.”

They take her a little bit further from the camp. The body is half-sat against a tree. The right side of it is burnt to a crisp and the left is wracked by large claw marks. The blood that burst from those wounds has long dried on the intact clothing.

There’s no way Vex can recognize them by looking at their face, half is charred and the other is almost fully melted from the heat, frozen now into a horrifying grimace. No wonder those who found the body sounded so tense on the walkie.

Her eyes fall on the insignia on the mostly intact part of the clothing. She swallows. It’s a triangular shape, of a burnt orange color, with the silhouette of Tal’Dorei in dark green over it. The letters TWC are written in white over the continent. Vex wears the insignia’s twin on her coat.

It’s Regae. It has to be. She doesn’t know of any other people from the TWC in the area, and the body isn’t old enough to be a previous ranger. Regae had been there for fifty years when he disappeared.

She takes a deep breath. “Alright,” she nods. “Thank you for calling me in. The Pale Guard will be here shortly to identify what has happened there.”

The human with the small quiver now has their crossbow in hand, ready to go. Machinally, Vex searches for the crossbow bolts and what they look like. She did make a promise, however unspoken, to the cub, after all.

Her sight falls on the ends of the crossbow bolts, the fletching. The pattern is immediately familiar. It’s the same one as the one she had to pull out of her sleeping cub. Her eyes narrow at the human.

“May I have your name, please?” She asks, trying to keep the anger from her voice. It seems to work, as the human doesn’t look as suspicious as he would have otherwise. She takes an arrow out of her quiver.

“Donavan Clarence,” the human nods.

“I see you enjoy hunting, Donovan,” Vex gestures towards the crossbow. “What kind of game are you after? Are you more of a pheasant type, or do you go after bigger prey? Let’s say, bears for example.”

Her voice is cold as ice now, her hand on her bow, ready to notch the arrow, draw back, and shoot.

The human stares at her intensely. “Why are you asking?” They growl.

“Maybe because it’s my fucking job to keep the innocent creatures of this forest safe from criminals like you,” she shrugs, and draws her bow.

She’s incredibly close to them, and if she shoots, it will hurt. They both know it. She hopes the Pale Guard isn’t far. By killing the mother of the cub, Donovan Clarence has committed a crime. National Parks protect the creatures they watch.

The human looks at her, full of contempt. “You have no idea what you’re doing, half-elf,” they hiss. Their hand drifts to the bolts and Vex’ hand loosens.

The arrow shoots through the hair and goes straight through the palm of the human. They scream in surprised pain. Blood gushes out of the wound and starts streaming down their hand and arm, soaking their sleeve.

Around them, the two others get their swords out, ready to defend their friend. Vex swallows. Okay, maybe she jumped into this one a little too early. With lightning-fast motions, she notches another arrow into the bow.

“You have no right to hurt the creatures of this park,” Vex continues. “The only person allowed to deal with threats in here is me.”

“It was a last minute situation, ser!” The other human tries, but their voice falters with hesitation and Vex knows they’re lying.

The cold eyes of Donovan Clarence and their total lack of remorse is enough to see clearly through this conversation. They had fun killing an innocent bear and trying to kill its cub as well. It was pure cruelty.

“The Pale Guard is on its way,” Vex reminds, taking a step back to encompass all of them in her line of sight. “You have no choice but to surrender. The one who killed the bear, if they’re not the same as Ser Clarence, will probably be arrested for poaching.”

She can see them start to shift uncomfortably. They’re calm for now, but this is not going to continue to be calm if it goes on much longer. Her bow is drawn again.

They stay like this, waiting for one of them to make a move, for what feels like an hour. It’s probably close to a couple of seconds before there’s noise coming from the path and a loud shout of “Pale Guard, put your weapons down!”.

Vex exhales. Thank the Gods for this. She knows she wouldn’t have been able to take down three people. They may not look strong enough to match her one-on-one, but this would have been three-on-one. She wouldn’t have come out of there looking good, if at all.

She gets to explain her point and the Pale Guard believes her. She’ll have to answer more questions in town, but they know what her job is, and she introduced herself when she first arrived. It also seems like Donovan Clarence has been suspected to be a criminal hunter for a long time. They’re just finally able to get some proof of it.

As Clarence and their buddies are taken away, Vex’ attention is violently brought back to the very dead body of the previous ranger. One of the members of the Pale Guard there is now crouched by the body, running spells over it to try and determine cause and date of death.

They get back up and walk back to where Vex is standing, arms crossed, looking quite worried.

“We’ve found traces of fiendish magic on the burnt side of this body,” they explain. “You have a fiend on your hands, ser.”

Vex sighs. “Thank you,” she nods. “I sensed a fiendish presence around Castle Whitestone yesterday.”

The guard looks around. “We’re quite far from the Castle Whitestone, in a completely different direction.”

That’s true, but she’s pretty sure the range of her trance would be enough to find a fiend around this area. “How long have they been dead?”

There’s more looking around and more thoughtful pondering airs on the guard’s face. They’re writing things absent-mindedly on a red-covered notepad.

“With the weather here and all… I would say about four months.”

Four months? That means there’s been a fiend around the forest for at least that long. Vex prays to anyone that can hear that Regae hadn’t been investigating other deaths from the same creature when they found it.

“Would the Pale Guard be able to lend me a couple of people to help defeat the fiend?” Vex asks after a moment.

The guard stares at her. “The Pale Guard isn’t trained to hunt creatures in the Parchwood Timberlands, ser.”

“It’s ma’am,” Vex specifies more out of habit than anything else. “Then who is trained to do that?”

They tense slightly, closing up their little notepad and shoving their hands in their pockets. “That would be the Grey Hunt, ma’am, but they haven’t really been around since…”

Has she stumbled upon another one of those untold stories, again? How many fucking mysteries are there in this godsforsaken town?

“Since what? I’m new here, I don’t know anything about the local history,” she snaps.

“Since the De Rolo massacre.”

Almost immediately after that, their superior calls for the guard she’s been talking to and they’re delighted to escape. Vex curses at the retreating back of the humanoid and stomps one foot in the soft floor of the forest.

The De Rolo massacre. What the fuck happened in this city? Why won’t anyone tell her about it? She can feel her own frustration growing in her chest. She wishes she was a black dragon, so she could spit out that angry acid.

After that, none of the guards seem to want to talk much to her. They pack up the body of Regae to bring it to their lab and verify the readings of the initial spells, and only nod at her goodbye.

She’s left alone in the clearing, with fire burnt out and the tents still fixed into the ground.

[hufflepirate]

Current Vox Machina feelings: Still thinking about Grog and Ioun even though I’m several hours of content past the gang’s convo with her.

But seriously though. She explicitly says that she’s not picking Grog as her champion because he’s so uncomfortable in her realm. She apologizes for that. She says THAT’s why he’s not her champion. Which implies that unlike the others, who are for specific character reasons not appropriate champions, he could have been. Her criteria for keys is that they should be unexpected and look at the world differently than she does. Who’s to say her criteria for a champion couldn’t be related??

What I’m saying is Champion-of-Ioun Grog AU.

What I’m saying is sweet, wonderful, open Grog, who learned painstakingly to read, who constantly embraces new people, places, and situations, who so often listens well even when he pretends he isn’t or when he can’t make sense of what he hears, becoming the champion of the goddess of knowledge and going out into the world that way.

What I’m saying is I meant to write a couple short headcanons and then this ran well away from me, so now it’s under a cut.

Grog faces a different test within the library, tailored to him, and therefore with less singing and magic. His friends work too hard and too frantically, desperate to help him because he’s the dumb one and this is Ioun, only to have him finally, finally find the book when he blocks them out and trusts himself and his instincts. He hands a tiny book with no words in it to Ioun and his friends are screaming behind him as she asks if he’s sure it’s the right one, and he looks her in the eye and says, “Well, yeah! It’s supposed to be a secret, right? So of course it’s blank until you make it tell us.”

Grog doesn’t let Ioun see how much his friends’ reactions are hurting him, because it isn’t polite, and she’s a goddess, and he’s not supposed to be petty and little around her. The moment they step up to Sprigg’s house, his feelings burst out all at once and he won’t let anyone but Pike near him.

It’s not long before he feels something new. Something different. There’s a voice in his head and what feels like a soft touch in the middle of his forehead, where the third eye opened up in Ioun’s presence, and she tells him that there’s lots of ways to know things. The others will see, in time.

His voice is quiet and reverent and sad when he asks Pike about it, and she’s so happy for him that she leaps up to hug him and place a kiss into the center of his forehead, and he pulls her close and lets her calm joy settle him down and make him feel ok again.

His forgiveness comes slowly for some of the group members, but things build back, and in the mansion, he discovers that reading is a little bit easier now, though he’s no better at sitting still for it when the subject matter is boring. It’s lucky that they don’t have a lot of time for reading, just now. Not with Vecna ascended. He’s still much slower than most of the others, and he doesn’t bring up how much frustration still keeps him bored even when things are important.

Puzzles are easier to solve than they used to be, the things that used to come slowly coming faster, chasing his instincts with less of a delay. He says things and the others look surprised, but there’s a faint sense of something in his head that soothes the hurt when they look that way, and he thinks probably that’s Ioun, too. He says things he would have said before, but this time there’s a reason and he can explain it.

The first time he uses her blessing, reaching into his connection to her at the height of the rush that comes with getting his best hit in on an enemy, it’s beautiful and euphoric and the sense of what’s vulnerable to him makes his heart swell with the exultation of battle and he shouts it out to his companions with joy.

After the dust settles, he and Pike are sitting, exhausted, slumped at a table like they used to at Wilhand’s (only better because here the chairs fit him and he’s not on the floor), and he looks over at her, and she’s wearing the Dawnfather’s armor, but doesn’t belong to him, and he’s wearing Kord’s gauntlets, but has been claimed by another, and he wonders again if it was the right thing. He decides that maybe, like the twins, who were black-and-white negatives of each other, in the end, he and his own sister are meant to be different-and-the-same, and maybe it’s alright that the gods are complicated, and maybe it’s even alright that they share.

He doesn’t have the words to say to Vex. He’ll never have the words to say to Vex. He thinks that’s probably not what knowledge is for, or what it does, and the soft, pleasant, comfortable stirring in his head that always means Ioun is there doesn’t have to speak to tell him he’s right. He watches her cry and insist that there’s a way to get Vax back, and he waits for her to realize that there isn’t and come around to blinding, directionless anger. When she does, he takes her out to the forest outside of Vasselheim and they fight the biggest monster he could get a contract on and he gives her all the money from the contract even though it won’t make things better.

Ioun is mostly quiet about it, but he can feel her approval, and he begins to understand what she meant about lots of ways of knowing things. Nothing about his plan was anything like the way Percy or Scanlan knew things, but Vex looks a little better as she wipes tears out of her eyes that might be anger or sadness or pain but are probably all three. He doesn’t say anything as he pulls her into a hug, but her arms are strong around him and the fake smile she pastes on when he lets go is a little less fake than the one she left with, and that’s alright.

Tary is Tary and he’s never really known what to do with Tary, all the way, but he’s been thinking a lot about books lately, and what they’re good for and what they’re not and why so many of them are boring and turn out not to have what he wants to know in them, so he goes to see Tary anyway. He doesn’t want to write a book, but he does some thinking about Tary’s and suggests that maybe Tary’s book tell the truth instead of being like all the other adventures Tary read as a kid that made him keep saying dumb stuff and not know what to expect. He doesn’t know if Tary’s listening or not, but it feels good to say it.

Percy says they might as well set up a temple to Ioun in Whitestone for when Grog visits. And anyway, it’s about time Whitestone had a good temple to her, instead of a corrupted one. He wants to fill it with books. He wants to make it a library. Grog says they’ve got to be careful and the books should be true, and there should be people there to teach you about the things that are written about. Percy doesn’t understand what he means at first. Not until he says you learn blacksmithing by feeling it in your bones, and sometimes you learn the truth by seeing it.

The temple in Whitestone is an odd place. It has many books and many tables, which is only to be expected, but everything else is - different. Half of Percy’s books are about science, so there are machines to play with to make sense of the books, and once he’s gotten Percy thinking about it, there are lenses and prisms and magnifiers for looking at things. There’s an open porch, protected from the elements with a roof and some screening and shelves with doors that close when the rain comes with wind, but the nature books sit outside and Keyleth’s raised up a garden with as many things as she can think of in it, and he didn’t know it would be good for her to build, without Vax here, but it is. There are books about devils and demons and circles of hell, and he’s learning, slowly, how to draw well so that he can tuck better pictures into them, so people can know what they’re looking at. It’s important that books have pictures. It’s important that the pictures be true.

Percy always looks surprised at the people in Ioun’s temple. He always looks surprised when there are farmers there, and children, and housewives, but Grog isn’t, and he gets JB Trickfoot to work there, because she’s been lots of places and seen lots of things, and the next time he visits Whitestone, he’s happy to find that another librarian has shown up who’s terrible at organizing things and very good at baking and has installed a small wood-burning oven in a little alcove to explain cookbooks with, because it’s one thing to write about the details of bread and another to pick the dough up and stretch it and feel it and look at it.

Grog is getting older. Calmer. He goes into the woods and watches things. He draws them. He kills them. He draws them some more. He keeps his drawings in a tidy bundle in the bag of holding and does not call them a book.

The longer he draws, the better he is at seeing the details. The better he is at seeing them, the better he is at drawing. He still reads slowly, and his writing isn’t as steady as his drawing, but his drawings are good, and he remembers the things he drew better and better and when he goes to visit Pike and Scanlan, Pike takes careful, tidy notes about the things he tells her.

Grog and Pike don’t write a book until she gets so pregnant that she can’t leave the house as much and he’s hovering around the house waiting for his new niece or nephew to arrive and they consolidate all his drawings and all her notes, looking for something she can do indoors, and discover they already have.

Percy has to invent entirely new technology because there’s no way drawings as intricate as Grog’s could be reliably copied by hand more than once without losing the details, and the details are important because they’re the truth. Percy and Tary spend months together in Percy’s workshop, covered in ink and smoke and calling him in to forge all the large pieces of a machine he can’t quite picture until they start building it. It starts to take shape, and it takes even better shape once they add the small, delicate pieces they’ve worked on, and it makes sense when Percy calls it an Imprinting Press, but he doesn’t really understand what they’ve made, in its fullness, until a month and a half later when he’s finally allowed in the room again.

The machine stands dormant, piles and piles of plates stacked nearly up to the ceiling behind it, and Percy and Tary hand him a tidy medium-sized volume, bound in nicer leather than most of the books in the library. He opens it up to find words printed with consistent, uniform letters, even more consistent than the best scribes’ work, all the a’s looking exactly like a’s and the b’s looking exactly like b’s. The pictures are breathtaking, printed from engravings that must have taken his friends many, many hours, but they both have an eye for detail, and everything he drew is there.

His book gets its own stand in the center of Ioun’s temple, and as he places it in its spot, he gets the sense of something big happening. Something new.

Ioun’s voice in his head isn’t a voice at all. She’s been with him for years, and it doesn’t have to be a voice, hasn’t had to be a voice for a long time. It’s just a feeling. She’s proud of him. She loves him. Something is happening, and he is a champion of Ioun, and what he has built is going to stand for a long, long time.

There are children in the library and they want to know about fighting dragons again, and he lets them drag him away to the porch to tell the story for the thousandth time, roaring and stomping and acting out the fighting and all. For a moment, he sees a three-eyed figure in the doorway, out of the corner of his eye, who vanishes when he turns to look straight on. He touches her symbol, tattooed on his forearm, and smiles.