when She cuts his string, they all feel it.
kerrek feels it as a sudden gust of cold wind, curling over his face and neck. he hunches his shoulders, drawing his cloak tighter about him, and continues on with a melancholy he cannot name.
kynan feels it as the clap of a warm hand on his shoulder, shaking him with a gentle, jovial kinship. he nervously sharpens his blade, feeling his brow furrow as he feels responsibility settle on his shoulders. he has vowed to be better, to do good—and so he shall.
kash and zahra feel it as a taste of sourness in the air, as if there is a kind of laughter that has stopped existing, that they will never be able to find again. they look toward the peak of the heaven’s stair as one, and they find each other’s hands, grateful each for the presence of the other.
velora pulls away from allura, feeling as if the belt vax had given her is suddenly very important, perhaps the most important, and she scoops it into her hands and whispers its name. she giggles with delight as it winds around her hands, hissing a quiet greeting. she introduces herself, and tells simon that they’re going to be the best of friends, because her brother told him to take good care of him.
taryon darrington feels something stab into his side, and he adjusts his armor with a grumble as a sense of extreme discomfort, of dread, overtakes him. he seizes his necklace and scrutinizes it, but it doesn’t blink. it hangs limply in his grasp, and tary feels his shoulders slump as he pulls it off and tosses it aside. it’s lying to him now, he knows it. he feels the sudden urge to make plans to visit whitestone and check on vex'ahlia. soon. she’ll need it.
shaun gilmore feels his heart break as it only has once before, and he finds himself leaning heavily on a wall in the middle of the castle of whitestone. he runs his hand up and over his jaw and cheek, his brows furrowing and his eyes stinging with tears. the wound in his shoulder is nothing compared to the agony clutching at his chest. there’s the ache of a future that never was, and a friendship that was one of his closest. it’s a fondness that almost makes him sick in its intensity, and he begins to weep.
trinket finds the smell of chocolate on the air, and he rumbles quietly as he sits beside the side of his best friend and mistress, finding himself aching for the scratches behind the ear that only vax can do just-so as he watches feathers form on the wind.
grog feels it like a punch to the gut, and his hands tighten into fists. he’s not afraid for vax—he’s not afraid of anything. but he does feel sad, not enraged like he was when he saw pike impaled on the pincer of a monster, not frustrated like he was when he saw scanlan crumpled in vax’s arms, not disappointed like he was when the bard left a day after, but sad. he’s going to miss vax a lot. knowing him, being around him… it’s been an experience. an unforgettable one.
percival tastes the copper of blood in his mouth, and he isn’t sure if he’s bitten his tongue or if he’s remembering what it was like to drown in Her sanctuary. all he knows that this is bitterly, enormously unfair. finally, finally he has a family again, and he felt whole for a moment, but She is reminding him that he is broken. She is taking his brother away, and he will never be able to forgive Her for it. he watches Her envelop vax in her cloak, and he regrets not cherishing the wholeness of his family when he had it.
pike feels something searing her beneath her armor, and tears dance in her eyes as she realizes it is her heart. she clutches the symbol around her neck and wonders, wishes what would have been, had she pulled him down the path to the everlight when she had the chance. before the world had broken and She had taken him. but no. no. this is his choice, just as much as Her design. it just doesn’t keep the burning in her chest from being any less painful. she will miss this wonderful boy, her beautiful, all-sorts-of-fucked-up vax. but she knows that he will never leave them far behind. he loves them too much, and they love him.
scanlan feels as if he finally knows what they felt, when he left them a year ago. what it’s like to see a good man turn away and walk into the unknown. and he wonders if this is the price of that, of his cruelty and selfishness, because there is always a price. the price of waiting too long to return, waiting too long to speak, waiting too long to wish. if it were him, he wonders, but, well—it wouldn’t be him. his life isn’t worth the world. the life of good men is what the world is worth, and vax’ildan is the best of them. the price of the world is losing the best of it. ain’t that just how things would go, huh? the moment for jenga passes, and he closes his eyes and wishes.
keyleth feels as if the breath is being sucked from her lungs. she feels as if the moon is being plucked from her sky, leaving only a clumsy, graceless, overbearing sun. she no longer has balance, no longer has focus, because the one who had taught her how to center herself is being taken away. she was faithless before, and still she knows she will never base her faith in the gods. but vax? but vax’ildan, her vax’ildan? he has faith. he has faith that he will see her again. he has faith that she will do right by her people, that she will do right by the world. he has faith in her power, in her ability to lead. and she has faith in him. the air returns in one painful, shaking breath, and she feels the world spin beneath her feet.
vex’ahlia feels the world shatter irrevocably. she watches the feathers fall into nothingness and she knows that there is nothing she can do, nothing that she will ever do, that will ever be the same as it was before. not threading her bow, not cleaning her boots, not petting trinket or flying on her broom or looking in the mirror. every move she makes, she’ll be looking for him through the corner of her eye, a shadow that’s been there since her birth, her shadow, her other self, her twin. there is a pulsing ache in her chest and tears pouring down her face as she realizes now more than before that there is no coming back from this, that he is crossing a threshold from whence he cannot return, until the day that she follows him. determination finds her in that moment, determination to remember and to search for him, always, as long as she lives. and she will live. for him, she will live.
vax’ildan, the champion of the raven queen, feels only peace as he leaves white flowers in his wake, stepping forward into the darkness to join his Mother, to feel her hands in his hands and to hear her say that she’s proud of him. he feels peace. he has given the world everything he could give, and now he can rest. he can finally rest…. and then, when they’re ready,
his family will find him again.
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