#updates friday

[tchilidogs]

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[peantbutter-honeycombs]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Warnings: This story explores grief in a tangible way. These are children. This is a mother and a leader who has lost her chance to be a wife. Please take care and caution when reading.

Relationships: Keyleth/Vax'ildan (Critical Role), Keyleth & Original Child Character(s), Keyleth & Vex'ahlia (Critical Role)

Keyleth will never stop loving Vax'ildan. Nor will she stop loving his adopted children, Fia and Talric. Now that he's left the mortal plane, however, she struggles with her role as mother without him. The children learn to mourn their father, as she learns to mourn alongside them. Together, they learn to rely on each other as a family… and also, that their beloved Vax is never as far away as he might appear.

Written in collaboration with the incredibly kind RottenKidNextDoor (PortalofWords)

[high-lady-lana]

The Fawn and Her Fox

Chapter One: Nightmare

        Freezing cold water steals the breath from my lungs, invisible hands tugging at my bare legs, nails digging into my skin. Skin that burns, burns, burns despite the below freezing temperature of the water. Hours, days, months, years. My screams ravage my lungs and my skin feels like it's ripped from my bones and my bones are torn from each other, until there is nothing left. My heart pounds in my rib-cage, the only sound the slow tha-thump, tha-thump of my heart.

        The water is so dark, voices screaming in my ear, tugging my hair, my eyes burning in their sockets. I am going to die, I am dying, this is my end. The hands grip, tossing me from grip to grip, shredding me apart, icy water filling my lungs, gurgling with my screams, muting me... forever...

        A warm hand wakes me, my breath comes in great gulping gasps as I shoot up from my sleeping position, clutching at the neck of my high neck night gown, tearing it away from my throat, desperate for air. Slowly, my surroundings come into focus. 

        Dark bedroom, soft sheets, the brilliant, beautiful stars burning brightly into my bedroom. Paintings of flowers, sprawling valleys, vast fields, emerald forests, swooping mountains cover my walls in a lovely panorama or nature, flowing seamlessly into one another.   

        My eyes drift to the owner of the warm hand and everything fades away. Long fiery red hair, sun-kissed skin, eyes one of russet and the other of gold, strong jaw and broad, strong form.

        Lucien Vanserra, my salvation and ruin. 

        His brow is creased with worry as he takes in the sheen of sweat glossing my tan skin, blending in with the freckles across my nose. His nostrils flare and an extra beat bumps beside my heart in my chest. His hand falls away, taking the warmth with it, clenching it in his lap. 

        "I apologize, lady. I woke from sleep and I was worried when I felt distress..." He doesn't elaborate how he felt the distress.

        The bond. The mating bond the exists between our two souls, connecting us. It anchors me to reality while also scaring me away from the man who has done nothing wrong. He was a pawn in everything just as I was, yet I don't know how to be around him. What do I say to a virtual stranger who I am inexplicably bound to? 

        He gets up from the bed and fidgets a moment before walking towards the door. In two easy strides he is there, palm on the handle. 

        "I dream of what happened in the cauldron." The words shock me. He was almost gone, so why did I speak? 

        Lucien pauses, not daring to turn or it seems even breathe. 

        "Even after all this time, I dream of what the cauldron was like. I can't seem to forget, no matter how much I want to cast the memory aside, it's always there." A shiver runs through me and I pull the blanket over me, staring at a doe on the wall. The doe tentatively staring at a fox, scared. 

        With great care, he faces me and sits in a chair beside the window, the moonlight illuminating him, casting him in a silver light, caressing his brutally handsome features. Perhaps I shouldn't have said anything. I don't need to have him here, knowing my greatest horrors. Internally I scoff, he was there during my greatest horror. He can probably feel and see everything through the blasted bond between us. 

        For a long moment he is silent, rubbing the purple curtain between his thumb and forefinger. "I dream over every horror I have endured in my life." His voice is quiet, almost as though he is scared to tell me anything that might frighten me away. "My family killing the woman I had loved, barely escaping with my own life, what I let happen to Feyre. Things that transpired in her absence, the events at Hybern, the war." Lucien shudders, gripping his hands into fists. "I know what it is like to dream of every great horror that plagues you."

        Slowly his eyes meet mine and when they do a pang shoots through me as if it were a physical touch. Most things of his life I know. In the few conversations we have had, he was quite honest about his life. It's clear there are things that chase him from slumber as they do me, and not just the things he has laid on the table, but things he is too ashamed to speak of. Trauma will do that to you. 

        Slowly it ate at me and my sisters, we all fight it to varying degrees of success. Feyre fares seemingly well now, while Nesta was sent away to deal with her trauma in a healthier manner than she had been, and me? I live life as expected, but nothing has soothed the terror that lives inside me each and every moment of my waking and dreaming life. Gardening helps, solitude, baking, they chase it away, even if momentarily, but it all comes back, no matter what I do.

        "How do you live with it," I whisper. He has lived a great many years more than me, maybe he has the secret to handling it.

        A wry smile graces his full lips. "I'll let you know when I find out." 

        My hands ball in the blankets in my lap and my heart slows to a calm rhythm as I search his face and he watches me with the eyes of a man who has seen much and continues to see too much. What does he see? My disheveled hair, rumpled nightgown, haunted look? What does he make of it all? 

        "Time," his deep voice fills the room in a soft sigh. "Time will heal all wounds. The deeper the wound the longer it takes, but it gets easier. Every day it gets easier. You remember that you lived, despite the odds you lived and you have many years ahead and you can either let it slowly kill you, or you can push it into submission." He stands again and heads to the door once more. 

        He turns the knob, looking at me one more time. "Don't let ghosts control you. You beat them once, they cannot harm you now. The past is a nasty thing if given too much power, don't give it power." With that, he leaves my room and his footsteps pad down the hall to his room. 

        For hours his words stay with me, soothing some wound inside me, giving me strength to carry on for another day.

[tchilidogs]

PREV - NEXT

Thank you to all Ko-Fi supporters!

MariJade, Rotshi, DogHouse, Isis Islas, DuskDoodles, Chili, UnicornHaven, ChillyTuesday, MayaYuki, (:v), Jay, Kayd, Puro, Ally, Artastic_Friend, doujinshiwasamistake, chaosmorphosis, Tyler JC, Icarian, Hilde Kristin Bjerke, Yatagoru, Katie, just saiyan.

Become a supporter and get early access to pages, discord and read ahead!

[tchilidogs]

PREV - NEXT

Thank you to all Ko-Fi supporters!

MariJade, Rotshi, DogHouse, Isis Islas, DuskDoodles, Chili, UnicornHaven, ChillyTuesday, MayaYuki, (:v), Jay, Kayd, Puro, Ally, Artastic_Friend, doujinshiwasamistake, chaosmorphosis, Tyler JC, Icarian, Hilde Kristin Bjerke, Yatagoru, Katie, just saiyan.

Become a supporter and get early access to pages, discord and read ahead!

[ichigosatsuki]

Nuzlock Update 3

Didn't do much mostly cause of school and stocking up cause of the Corona virus 😅

But an update is an update! ^w^

I went out to collect some more Pokies for my team!

Caught Ribbon the Cutiefly in Melemele Meadow, Linsey the Alolan Diglett in Seaward Cave, and Glass Joe the Crabrawler in Route 3 from trying to pick up some berries (I mean it was bound to happen eventually right?)

[ichigosatsuki]

Pokemon Nuzlock Update 2

Restarted since I failed, beat Hau(twice) and ran into another Pikipek and managed to beat the Pokemon school principal!

Though sadly Sammy(the new Pikipek) was defeated by her freaking Magnemite! Which sucked cause she(Sammy the Pikipek) had rock smash to beat it but sadly was too slow 😔

She never even got the chance to evolve into toucan Sammy ;-;

Afterwards I updated my look a bit and caught Kyle the Abra! Beat a team Skull member and managed to defeat Illima by the skin of my teeth!

But my newly caught Kyle died from his Smergle! I hope this bad luck isn't gonna keep happening cause it's scary only having one Pokemon on your team!

Headed off to Route 2 got a Makuhita for it to get KO'ed in a trainer battle then a Zubat from Hau'oli Cemetery that got killed by a wild Spearow!

I swear I'm starting to think I'm getting bad luck with every new Pokemon I catch... ;-;

Beat my first trial and caught a Alolan Rattata which promptly died to a Petitil from a random trainer battle later!

And my Poppy evolved!! :D

[ichigosatsuki]

Pokemon Nuzlock Update 1

After I beat Hau twice I ran into my first encounter!

Named him Woody!! :D

Then unfortunately for me got my butt handed to me by the Pokemon school principal 😵

Soooo..yeah this is certainly gonna be a fun Nuzlock! Got my first reset of the run..really early oh gawd wish me luck... 😖