#celestial!percy

[amrynth]

Look Twice, Shoot Once

Angel/Demon AU for TECHNICALLY AU August day 10.  I got it done right after bedtime last night and left edits for day 11 Amrynth.  Day 11 Amrynth did not appreciate this but did it anyway!  

I’ve done a demon au elsewhere so I went angel and absolutely based celestial Percy off of the designs of one @alienfirst 

So plot: Vex is trying to shoot a harpy for a job with the Slayer’s Take and ends up shooting Angel!Percy instead.  Woops.

[alienfirst]

Just going over the top with the bird look for this celestial AU because I like feathers and fluff. I can sort of swing it by saying Percy isn’t QUITE a celestial, he’s kind of his own thing due to Orthax, but that’s a bit weak as far as reasoning goes. But hey, that’s the great thing about AUs, reasoning is far from the first thing to worry about.

[luciferaseluciferin]

If the first idea of Celestial!Percy getting answers about himself come from the Raven Queen, the second is finding out from Ioun. His wings grown in during the year VM had spread apart, he gets to offer non-answers to his friends. Eventually, they meet Ioun, and as they are leaving the library, she hands him a book, telling him that it should provide the answer he wants. I think I like this better because it’s quieter and a little more sad.

*

Vex finds Percy in her study. He certainly has his own, or his workshop, but Vex’s study came with a set of wide windows that looked out to a copse, constantly occupied by small birds, and more recently, ravens. Percy was loathe to admit his own abysmal grasp of flight, and the view offered a study space in that regard. 

Today though he was shaking, hunched over a book Vex recognized as the one that came from Ioun. Sturdy, dark purple binding, with gold pages, and scattered black sheets that almost seemed stapled in. She had asked him later in private what the book held, as he pointedly had avoided even opening it until he was in private. There had been an odd uncomfortable silence between them when Percy had said the book was his. Aside from Vex asking if they should return it (at which Percy replied that the book would return when it was meant to, as far as he understood), they hadn’t talked about it since.

“Percy?”

Black and white wings snapped aside as Vex’s hand rested on Percy’s shoulder, his head lifting up in surprise. He didn’t turn. She could feel him shaking, seeing one of his hands gripping the pages of the book, threatening to rip them out.

“Darling?” Vex pressed closer, Percy’s wings relaxing and spreading outward to give her space.

The rest of him didn’t move, pages still in a deathgrip. She reached over slowly, gently pulling his fingers apart. It had to be bad if you pulled out the pages of your own book, right?

“Percy.” Not a question this time. A soft command as she did her best to straighten the pages and close the book.

He shifted to look at her, the volume falling from his knees to the floor. Percy’s eyes, wide and rimmed with red, finally found hers and he gave a weak smile, a stupid attempt at making this moment a joke, a move that Vex would not be following.

“She was right.”

Vex shifted a wing aside to give her space and step in front of Percy. She kneeled cautiously, her gaze never leaving Percy’s face as she picked up the book and held it close to her chest. “What are you -”

He laughed. Quiet and strained, his wings pulling close to his body again, as he hunched over. “The Raven Queen. I was always broken. In such an absolute way,” Percy gave Vex a genuine smile, one made of all teeth that meant Vex would spend a good month watching him in every quiet moment, “there’s nothing I could possibly do to redeem myself.”

And silence. A silence Vex hadn’t had in a long time. Not the silences at dinner, or the silences where there simply just weren’t words. Vex hated it and knew she couldn’t break it. This wasn’t a moment she could ask Percy to give her. She did all she could think to do. Sit at her desk, Percy’s book in her lap as she busied her hands rifling through letters, keeping an ear out for any welcome word or ruffle of feathers.

[dancerwrites]

celestial!Percy au idea - Why Percy Does Not Sing In Public

measured rhythms 

Pike & Percyset a little after The Kill Box

“Why don’t sing more often?”

“Why don’t I what?” Percy asked, turning to glance over at Pike, who was getting coffee from the pot the spectral servants had brewed for them. He was sure he’d misheard her. 

“Sing,” Pike repeated, clutching her mug and holding it close to her face, relishing the warmth. “Like you did with me, when I was restoring that boy in Westruun.”

He shifted uncomfortably on his chair, and dropped his gaze to his own half-empty cup of coffee before him. He took a deep breath to try and relax his wings, which had flared reflexively behind him, as he searched for words appropriate for an answer. 

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Pike continued, taking a seat across from him at the kitchen table, in the seat where Scanlan had nearly been killed a couple days prior while Vex practiced shooting arrows from her broom. “I just think you have a lovely singing voice, and I wondered why I’d never heard it before.”

Percy chuckled at that, but it was half-hearted. He remembered hearing a similar sentiment from his music tutor when he was twelve and just starting to understand his heritage. 

The Briarwoods had said as much, after he performed for them at his mother’s request. Back when Percy had been proud of his talents, always hoping he could show up Julius in some way. 

“There hasn’t really been any reason to,” Percy said finally, reaching around to scratch at a couple feathers that felt out of place, not sure if the twisting of his stomach was hunger or nausea. “Not since leaving home.”

Pike hummed as she sipped her own coffee, but didn’t press, and Percy sighed, running a hand through his hair. 

“It came easily, as a child,” he found himself saying, staring at the grain of the table. “But as I got older... my lessons fell away, I suppose. Before-” He took a deep breath, clasping his hands together as if it could stop the shaking. “Before, back in Whitestone, we would sing hymns at the Zenith every other week, when Father Rynal would hold a service, but since then... Well, we’ve hardly had time to go to temples on the regular, have we? Apart from you, of course.”

He didn’t mention the way the words seemed to flow from his lips - the ease with which they had once found tempo and pitch of their own, pulling him along with their own notes. 

He didn’t mention the way the words seemed to desert him after his sessions with Ripley, after his escape from the castle and nearly four years on the run.

He didn’t mention the strange inspiration he’d felt only a few days ago, the way that memories of melodies had returned to him after so long. 

Pike laughed, and Percy found himself looking up at her, her buns from the day before slightly messy on top of her head.

“I’m glad to be back with you all,” Pike said, lowering her mug. “I’ve missed you all so much. But thank you for telling me. Maybe we should find some hymns we both know one of these days - maybe Scanlan could help us find some-”

“Scanlan? And hymns?” Percy found himself asking, and the two of them laughed together. 

It felt good after the tension of the last couple weeks. 

“Fair point,” Pike murmured, sipping at her coffee again. “But you’ll keep it in mind? So we can sing together again one of these days?”

The tone of her voice was hopeful, and Percy found himself nodding, which made her smile brightly, and that, in turn, made him smile as well. 

“I think I would be amenable to that, yes,” he murmured, and the grin on her face at her apparent victory was enough for him.

[its-little-miss-muffet]

so have you seen the idea where the raven queen is vax's and vex's mother (a la gilgamesh, so they had three parents) and they were raised in Shadowfell for a time but the other gods insisted that they go to the material plane bc they are partially mortal? and have you seen the AU where percy is some sort of celestial being? I kinda like the idea of smushing both of those AUs together, in part because the twins were the ones who found percy, bound and imprisoned pre-stream?

Yooooo, I love this idea! Both the RQ-twins AU and the celestial!percy AU are so good, mixing them together could be super interesting! Like, did their divine/angelic parents know each other? Were the twins secretly searching for Percy all along? Or when they came across him, completely by accident, did they all recognise each other in an instant? Suddenly realising they weren’t the only demigod-types in Exandria? 

God, there are so many possibilities w/this, I love it! And what would the rest of Vox Machina think? Assuming Percy can conceal being celestial, does the rest of the party suddenly find out that almost half of the group has otherworldly parentage? I love it!

Also: Vax and Percy and Vex. Flying together! Spending time soaring across the skies, and sometimes Keyleth joins them in a polymorphed form. So good.

[luciferaseluciferin]

Was gonna post this with another sketch, but the other sketch got a larger thought attached to it that I’ll probably do a mini blurb on, so this goes up on its own.

Basically have two thoughts on Celestial!Percy finding out what he is (was meant to be). One being that he visits the Raven Queen, because as much as he dislikes her, she is the only being he has access to who might be able to tell him anything. She is, of course, blunt.

[alienfirst]

Okay, so Celestials just have bird feet in this dumb Celestial!Percy AU. I’d say I don’t make the rules, but it’s my AU, so yeah, I do actually make the rules.

Given the context for my Celestial!Percy, his feet are probably a smidge more human like than what I drew. I have context for him being Celestial (and a specific type of Celestial), I swear. There’s a story outline and everything. (Anxiety spurs a lot of fan work. It’s a bit silly.)

[alienfirst]

(Whoop whoop, hour-ish long sketch that actually pertains to Celestial!Percy AU because why the hell not.)

The large gold pendant was well known. After all, every member of Vox Machina had one, with slight differences in shape and detail, but always the same five dragon scales. 

The other pieces Vex adorned her hair with were accepted without question, simple pieces to stand out against her dark brown hair. It was Velora, one evening outside, under the moon and away from a rousing party, who asked what it all was.

“Ah! Pearls from the Ozmit Sea. Gathered during a vacation of sorts.”

“And the white stones?”

“Well,” Vex’s voice went quiet, “these are truly special.”

She pulled the lowest hair pin from her tightly held curls, a couple black and blue feathers tied to the stick, and a brilliant white stone at the end. Vex bent to her knees and held it out to Velora. “The white stone this city is named for? It’s actually angel eggs.”

Velora snorted. “I am much to learned for jokes, sister.”

Vex stuck her lip out and put the hair pin back in place. “I hold you in higher regard than that, dear.”

“Angel eggs?”

“Truly. Quite some time ago an angel egg found it’s way here. It shattered and over a long period, the egg shells... settled. They grew with the leylilne and spread and hardened into white stone.”

“And the angel?” Velora arched her eyebrow, and Vex almost laughed at how much she just knew that the girl got that motion from her.

“Oh, he’s around,” Vex waggled the feathers attached to the hairpin at Velora, “his wings are stained a bit black, but he’s around. Shall we go ask him to dance?”