With TLOVM Season 3 confirmed for this fall, what better way to kick off the season than with some cozy fics, hot art and great vibes for our favorite couple?
Last year, we were ecstatic to see over 40 pieces of artwork and 90 fics pop up in response to our prompts - so we're delighted to return and host Perc'ahlia Week again! This is a fan-hosted event intended to celebrate all things about the pairing: delightful arrow gifts to handling politics as a married couple.
We want to make sure this environment is welcoming to show fans and safe for minors to dip their toes into fandom: as a result, we request that anything that might contain spoilers for TLOVM s3 and onwards be tagged #c1 spoilers. And, as steamy as Perc'ahlia can get, please remember to tag more suggestive works appropriately.
Tag any creations made for the event with #percahliaweek, or @ us here @percahliaweek, and we will reblog it. Or you can submit directly to the blog if you’d prefer!
We also have a Discord server - both to encourage eachother to work on WIPs and just hang out. You can find us HERE <3
Any questions? We have an FAQ up HERE - but please don’t hesitate to send in an ask!
Hey everybody!! In case you weren’t already aware, we’re gearing up for the start of Perc’ahlia Week in just one week!! Just like last year, I’ve made some moodboards for each day’s prompts, either to help get gears turning for any last-minute entries, help with works-in-progress, or just in general get hyped up!!
Day One — Courage / Heart
And also some general ideas for interpretations of the prompts, in case anyone’s still stuck:
Courage
– the canon liquor and its associated… events (c1 e78), or any callbacks (c1 e96), or other liquor-related things
– gearing up for a fight, gathering the courage to confess/propose, preparing to deal with something scary or life-altering, etc
Heart
– “my heart is someone else’s” (c1 e63 / TLoVM s2 e8), and its associated recalls (c1 e69, c1 e87, Dalen’s Closet)
– Valentine’s and other heart-themed holidays, heart as in the center/importance of things (i.e. “the heart of the matter”), and just general lovey-dovey things <3
Day One of Perc’ahlia Week 2024 will be Monday, September 23!! Remember to use the #percahliaweek or #percahliaweek24 tags, or tag us @percahliaweek for your posts so we can see them and reblog them! We can’t wait to see what everyone creates <3
Fandom: Critical Role
Characters: Percy De Rolo, Vex'ahlia, Anna Ripley, Vax'ildan, Keyleth of the Air Ashari, Pike Trickfoot, Trinket (Mention), Syldor (Mention), Saundor (Mention), Scanlan Shorthalt (Mention)
Pairing: Perc'ahlia
Word Count: 3,017
Note: Here's the "Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart" AU that no one asked for, written for the "Heart" prompt for @percahliaweek.
[Also found on AO3.]
Percival’s heart died at the age of eighteen.
That isn’t to say that Percival died, of course.
Rather, the young man in question survived the massacre of his family and the torturous pain inflicted upon him by Anna Ripley, living only by the “grace” of one of the good doctor’s many experimental forays into blending science and magic. Her medical tools made quick work of carving him open, breaking bone and tearing apart wet muscle to then hold his bloody heart in her hands. Within the new cavity of his chest, Ripley installed metallic gears and springs and small weights; where once he functioned through his own biological processes, he was driven by clockwork, the delicate kind that he once tinkered with in his youth.
And so, Percival persisted, though he was now forced to treat his heart like a machine.
x-x-x-x-x
Vex’ahlia’s heart died at the age of nineteen.
That isn’t to say that Vex’ahlia died, of course.
Rather, the young woman in question learned the shattered remains she had left in the wake of Syngorn and Byroden had to be held in a tight fist, guarded just as fiercely as Trinket’s mother had protected her cub in her final hours. As she traveled with her brother and slowly learned the magic of the world around her, she discovered that some of it could be used to wrap her fragile heart with briars and thorns. More times than not, the spike of the vines was an internal and mild discomfort that reminded her to tread carefully. But sometimes (the worst times, she believed), her thorns could be visible for all to see. They wrapped around her entire body in a startling display of gnarled and twisted vines, prickly things that warded off anything that would want to hurt her first.
And so, Vex’ahlia persisted, though she was now forced to act as though her emotions were inconsequential.
x-x-x-x-x
“I don’t trust him,” Vax’ildan said in a murmur, throwing a glance over his shoulder towards the pale human man that they’d just released from one of the many prison cells surrounding them.
“He can help us,” Vex countered. “If nothing else, he at least seems to know where to find this cult we’re apparently looking for.”
“Didn’t you hear his chest?” he pressed.
“Of course I did.”
“Then you agree that something’s wrong with him, or that he’s hiding something, because he hasn’t said a word of that to us.”
“And would you expect me to announce my condition to the entire world?” Vex asked with a quirked brow.
Vax stared at his sister for several long moments before rolling his eyes as he clicked his tongue in frustration. “That’s different, Stubby—”
“Is it?”
He sighed heavily. “Alright, alright, fine, be that way. But if he tries anything weird—”
“I know,” she said simply, because she always understood her brother and his caution. It was, after all, his own way of helping further shield her brambled heart.
x-x-x-x-x
Percy, as Vex learned his name was, managed to fit in with the rest of their group, despite clearly having some sort of noble background. Though he kept to himself, he did what he could to help with the various odd jobs they picked up, particularly so since he armed himself with some of the newfangled black powder weapons that were becoming increasingly popular throughout the world. Despite the weapons being terribly loud and often reeking of the burnt powder, they did pack quite the punch, and his precision with his shots usually allowed them to significantly reduce the amount of time they spent in combat.
The longer he spent with Vox Machina, the more they realized that he was also rather good with repairing things, a talent not restricted to the careful maintenance he had to keep up with so his firearms were in working order. Slowly but surely, it became commonplace to find Percy in possession of their broken odds and ends, piecing things together to repair weapons or to craft something entirely new and useful.
As such, it was not a surprise when Vex noticed Percy pulling out a small tool kit one evening when he had volunteered to take watch and she had yet to fall asleep. What was a surprise, however, was when Percy shrugged off the heavy blue coat he rarely parted with and unbuttoned his shirt. As the fabric fell away from his shoulders, pooling at his elbows, she saw the face of a clock on the front of his chest, resting over the space where his heart would be. What she initially assumed was nothing more than some intricate pocket watch sticking to his skin with sweat was soon proven to be attached to him as he opened the small glass door protecting the face and inserted a small key into one of the lowermost winding holes; as he turned his hand, his expression contorted with discomfort. Still, he turned the key a few more times, no matter how frequently he winced, before the subtle movements of the clock’s hands seemed to move much more smoothly than the jerky pace they had had before he used the key.
“So, that’s what you’ve been keeping secret from us, darling?” she couldn’t help but ask, propping herself up on one elbow as she looked at him.
Percy visibly stiffened, sitting ramrod straight as his eyes widened, before he hastily closed the clock’s door and pulled his shirt back up over his shoulders, his now-shaking hands fumbling to rebutton the garment.
“I, ah, didn’t realize anyone was still awake…” he said instead of answering her question.
Vex fell silent for a few moments, just studying him in curiosity. “Is it magic?”
Percy fidgeted with the collar of his shirt, intently focused on ensuring it lay flat against his throat.
“...I’m sorry for prying, darling,” she said gently, slowly recognizing that she would be equally evasive if the situation had been reversed.
Percy sighed a little and clasped his hands together in his lap before hesitantly meeting her gaze. “No, it’s… You all were bound to find out eventually.” He paused to tug off his spectacles before using the corner of his shirt to clean the lenses. “Yes, it is magic, but not by my own doing. I admittedly lack the interest, much less the aptitude, for such things. And, regardless of how I came by it, this is the only thing keeping me alive.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, more out of sympathetic understanding than pity.
“It is merely the current circumstances I have to live with.”
“...Does it hurt?”
Percy was quiet for several moments before he sighed and let out a small, almost exasperated, laugh. “Perhaps you could join me for the watch? I’ll happily answer whatever questions you have, dear, but it may be a bit more comfortable for you to sit up while we talk.”
x-x-x-x-x
Despite how carefully Vex guarded her emotions to keep her thorns under the surface of her skin, Syldor would always be one of the catalysts for pushing them up into plain view of everyone. It seemed like a miracle that her anxiety waited to take full bloom until after Vox Machina left the embassy. But it also seemed like a curse that it happened when Percy was still at her side even as everyone else had moved on to their rooms. As she heard the subtle creak and groan of the vines grow louder and felt the full-body prickle of the thorns forming, she let out a strangled noise of frustration.
Although Percy’s eyes widened in alarm, he had the decency to not jump away from her like some others had in the past.
“I… suspect you’re not alright,” he said tentatively.
She laughed, wet and strangled and lacking any true mirth, as she shook her head. “No, of course not. He’s supposed to be in Syngorn! I don’t know why he had to be here in Emon of all places.” She sighed and wrapped her prickly arms around herself, trying to further the physical shield around her form.
“If it will make you feel better, dear, we don’t actually have to search for your… for the Ambassador’s acquaintance.”
“No,” she said, vehemently shaking her head. “No, I… I don’t want him to know that I’m this upset about seeing him. I can’t let him know.”
“He isn’t aware of the thorns,” Percy guessed.
Vex swallowed and answered in a soft voice, “No. It was a kind of magic I learned after I left his home.”
“Then he won’t know,” he promised. “Even if that means the rest of us have to speak to him without you present.”
Vex tentatively turned her dark eyes to his blue ones, pools of sincerity that she usually only ever saw in her brother, lacking in judgment for the condition her body was in. Slowly, impossibly, her posture relaxed and the briars and thorns and vines receded under the compassion in his gaze.
“That… means more than I think you realize, Percival. Thank you.”
x-x-x-x-x
"Couldn’t sleep?” Vex asked quietly as she slotted herself beside Percy.
“Of course not,” he said, sounding as numb as his distant stare seemed to indicate. “Not when I know she…” He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t think I’ll be getting any sleep until I finally end this.”
Vex nodded and watched him carefully, knowing full well that he was leaving plenty of things unsaid but also knowing he was unlikely to want to disclose any of them. That did nothing to stop her from worrying about him.
“Would you like me to keep you company?”
He was silent for a long while, the only sound between them the steady tick-tock, tick-tock of his heart. He eventually nodded, slow and hesitant. “Yes. I… I would.”
She nodded again and turned her attention to restringing Fenthras while Percy took apart Retort, cleaned the parts, and reassembled the weapon. He seemed more than happy to pass the time in silence, however broken it was by the ticking of his heart. When it grew late enough that Vex was about to suggest they call it a night and join the others in the train’s sleeping car, Percy lightly cleared his throat.
“I have something I would like to give you, Vex’ahlia.”
“Oh?” she asked with a small tilt of her head. Not that it was unusual for Percy to make things for her, of course; it just hadn’t seemed to be one of his priorities in recent days, and understandably so.
“Ah… not my usual fare, I admit, but… but it’s important for you to have, I think, before tomorrow.”
Vex felt a sudden whisper of anxiety in the back of her mind, sounding so much like Saundor that she almost physically winced (or was it because her protective thorns were pricking at her insides?), telling her that Percy was trying to say goodbye in his own way. She refused to entertain the thought and tucked the fear away deep in her chest, beneath the briars.
“What is it?” she asked, forcing her tone to remain light and teasingly curious.
He offered her a weak smile and reached into an inner pocket of his coat, producing a small—but thick—envelope. When he passed it to her, there was a surprising amount of heft to it. As she moved to tear the envelope open, he reached out and placed a shaking hand over hers to stop her.
“Please… please wait to open it. I suspect you’ll know when the time is right.”
“...I’ll wait,” she promised softly, once more feeling the prickling pain of her anxiety and once more burying it.
x-x-x-x-x
“No matter what today”—Percy paused to release a shaky exhale—“I forgive you. But I cannot let you leave.”
Ripley let out a noise that seemed caught between a derisive snort and a frustrated growl, grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket with her clockwork arm and flinging him to the ground. The sound of glass cracking seemed nearly as loud and sharp as any gunshot from that afternoon. It was difficult to tell if it was from the shattered ground, Percy’s spectacles, or from the face of his heart; when he managed to push himself up into a semi-sitting position, Vex’s sharp eyes could see that it seemed to have been all of the above.
The glass pieces from the face of his heart were chased by its minute hand as he moved to aim Retort up at Ripley, his own hands trembling hard enough that Vex was certain he would miss the shot. The doctor seemed to reach the same conclusion as she shook her head and leveled Animus at Percy in return, her smile condescending and disappointed.
“It seems to me, Percival, that you are the one who won’t be leaving here today.”
A gunshot sounded, accompanied by the sounds of even more shattering glass and the crunch of wood and various metallic snaps.
As Percy fell backwards, pain erupted all over Vex’s skin as vines wrapped around her body and she screamed and screamed and screamed. She was vaguely aware of Keyleth’s responding cry and Scanlan’s curse and her brother suddenly at her side like a shadow, fumbling to notch an arrow when her hands were usually so sure. She drew back her bowstring, the briars and thorns of her pain indistinguishable from the ones blooming along the curve of Fenthras, the weapon mirroring her own heart, and she released all her grief and rage into the arrowhead that sank into the junction where Ripley’s clockwork arm connected with her shoulder. The others also turned their attention to Ripley, mercilessly cutting into her and breaking her as she’d broken their beloved tinkerer. When the doctor screamed her pain and frustration, the sound was cut short by Vex’s second arrow striking true in her throat.
Ripley’s decimated body barely had time to hit the ground before Vex, vision little more than a blur, dropped Fenthras and ran to gather up the pieces of Percy into her shaking, thorny arms.
x-x-x-x-x
Vex’ahlia,
I have no doubt that you or your brother have found the letter I left for the group as a whole. I also have no doubt that you all have read it and are, in varying degrees, rather cross with me.
This, however, is meant for you and you alone, dear.
I’m aware that giving you my winding key is likely too little, too late, but I wouldn’t entrust it to anyone else. While you now hold the literal key to my heart in your hands, please know it belonged to you long before this. I have many regrets but I think not telling you sooner is the one that I carry with the heaviest burden. I sincerely hope you’ll hold onto this piece of me.
Yours,
Percival
x-x-x-x-x
“Honestly, what he needs is a clockmaker,” Pike sighed heavily.
“Then… there’s nothing you can do, Pickle?” Vax asked after he cast a sideways glance at his sister, watching her once again reread the letter that Percy had evidently left for only her.
“I never said that,” Pike replied with a small huff, moving to wipe her bloodied hands with a damp washcloth. “I managed to stabilize him but he’ll need a completely new clock to ensure he actually stays alive. Unfortunately, though, I think that’ll have to wait until he wakes up.”
Everyone in the room thankfully left the ‘if’ unspoken between them.
“So, what do we do now?” Keyleth asked, her voice still hoarse and scratchy from how much she had cried.
Pike sighed again, a little softer, and looked over Percy’s form in the hospital bed. “All we can do is wait.”
x-x-x-x-x
Despite Vax’s attempts to coax her out of the room, Vex became a near-constant fixture at Percy’s bedside, his winding key in her pocket and his letter in her hands, watching and waiting for him to open his eyes. Sometimes, for the sake of drowning out the irregular and weak ticking of his heart, she would talk to him, keeping him updated on the team’s misadventures or reading a book aloud.
On one of the many nights she tried to read to him, she found that she couldn’t focus on the words and, with a sigh, she closed the book. As she set the book down in her lap, she looked over at Percy, gnawing at her lower lip as she became lost in thought.
“I don’t know if you can actually hear me, darling, but I’m so proud that you entrusted me with your heart. That you let me see it as plainly now as you did when you first showed it to me. But, yes, I am a bit cross with you for not telling me about your feelings sooner.” She let out a small laugh before she sighed and continued, “It means nothing, though, without you here. Your home needs you. Your sister needs you. I need you. And… I should have told that my heart is yours in return.”
“Oh, good. I was worried I’d simply made a complete ass of myself for leaving you that note.”
Vex’s head snapped up at the sound of his voice and was met with a thoroughly exhausted—but cheeky—smile as Percy struggled to sit up.
“Percy!” she gasped, frustrated and surprised and relieved and giddy all at once, before she nearly flung the book across the room in her rush to move in and wrap him in the tightest embrace she dared.
“It’s good to see you, too, dear,” he said weakly.
As she pulled away from the embrace, she began to pepper his face with kisses, feeling his skin warm considerably under the shower of affection but not caring enough to stop, trying to pour every ounce of her love into him so he couldn’t have any doubt that she reciprocated his feelings.
x-x-x-x-x
Percival’s heart revived at the age of twenty-three and Vex’ahlia’s heart revived at the age of twenty-seven, irrevocably intertwined in each other.
