Vax & Keyleth - Critical Role One Shots

3

- The Gift -
Part 1
Based on my own invention of a happy ending,
this has nothing to do with original plot continuation of their story after Campaign 1

The Oh Hellos - Pale White Horse
"No feathery, white mask faced wearing-deity is gonna take you from me and us"

Dark, endless- guiltless dark. It's creeping fingers reach every light, every candle it can find. Till everything is snuffed out. No city, no people just the vast wastelands of moors and bogs- in the dark. The distant bare trees held a single pair of eyes, a raven much larger than any average, watches the unison procession of a nervous garrison. Their heavy worn in boots squelch and kick up the mud caking their trouser legs. Their old armour clanging with every step they take. They are exhausted, hungry and barely finished what they've began. Clouds of breath escape their lips in the wintery night as the temperature drops to way past freezing. The raven caws at them, making all their heads snap to him, some even reaching for their sword. The Raven however seems unimpressed by them so he flies off deeper into the nearing Forrest. All soldiers watch him go, the last remaining bit of life for miles now gone;Just as quick as he'd been noticed. A few wondered about him, wondered if somehow he knew what they'd done and just come from. Nature was funny that way, it's intuition of human's capability and probability of cruelty never faulted. Some of the soldiers replayed the evil in their minds, trying to fathom, trying to justify for sleeping sakes or indeed to live on after everything was over. Other men, only looked forward to the far stretch of land in front of them- that was all that was left for them now. There were no point in looking, thinking or going back. There's nothing to go back to. Birds were just birds, they held no power in the land of men. They were the men, the sword of their city, striving forward to finish the commands of their Captain. They'd just took down a whole town in the matter of hours, what was birds to them? No, now all that was left was to fight, to progress on and on till they left the dark. The endless, guiltless dark.
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Justification, what kind did they have this time to defend what they had done- the Raven thought as he flew low amongst the trees. He saw what they were heading toward just ahead and prepared himself. There was nothing reasonable enough to allow what they did to go unpunished. Especially not to him, he knew personally that everything came with a price, even love. To save someone you love, to care enough to place your own life at the hands of fate and say have at it. Some people say its noble but deep down he knew it was selfishness because it was just that. He wanted his sister to live and he was willing to reverse time and fight off a god to make it happen. Others don't get this privilege, they must accept that their loved one is gone and theres nothing to be done and  very often it is the case. But for Vax'ildan it was not.
The Raven cawed again, deep and brooding as it flew even lower right at the temple steps and in a burst of black smoke and red light the feather wings and talons were swapped for hands and feet. He did a smooth three point landing, raising his head quickly right down the centre of the Forrest. They were on his turf now, the reckoning would begin.
Many temples of the raven queen were erected after his departure and this one, was the first to do so. Built out of black marble and colder than death on the edge of snowy topped mountains. These soldiers had come along way to get what they wanted, which was to rid the Raven Queen off the face of this plain and see to it that anything of her would not continue. So the champion was sent to deal with this meagre revolution against the mistress of death. Though being back home was strange for him, it did not feel like home, it had been way too long for it to feel like home anymore. In fact time had become something of a myth to him now so, he stood up on his feet felt the cold against his skin and waited.
He could hear the foot steps, crunching now through perfect fresh snow. Vax'ildan unsheathed his daggers, one flaming in his right and spinning the other in his left. Taking in a breath, his great black wings opened up from his shoulder blades and extended out and up casting a great shadow on the snowy Forrest floor. When the soldiers march through a moment or two later and see him standing there;They falter. This champion they've heard so much about now bares all the wonders his deity had blessed him with and he stands to use those gifts against them. The fiery dagger light his brown eyes, the red and black reflecting there just like the plain he left from, he stares them down. The wings rise, arching and covering the entire front of the temple blocking entrance. Nothing moves, except the fire lit off the dagger in the Icy wind. The soldiers draw their swords, still stepping forward and now only fifty feet from both temple and guardian. It's only when one of the feathers from Vax's wings, long and black loosens from its place and is picked up in the wind and lands on the powder snow in front of garrison, that they stop. The leader, looks down at it and then up to Vax. That's when it truly dawns on him, the bird from the tree. The way it cawed at them mockingly , the way it looked at them as if they were nothing but worms he could pull from the soil and devour. It was no random bird, it was a raven. They Raven and it was him. He'd been watching them, knowing what they'd done and what exactly what they were planning on to do.
His eyes sharpened, daggers raised and spilt blood.
-
The snow was no longer pure, no longer untouched but scarred with the same viciousness that was wreaked across a distant village that the garrison had left in ruin. Fourteen men where dead laying in the snow, eyes reflecting the sky above them wit their mouths in the shape of their last dying breath. Bodies bruised and cut, some missing limbs and ligaments. They did not die in a long winded battle in the way they thought the would when the were assigned their duties. They died quickly, brutally and forgotten.
Vax stood, daggers returned to his side and wings gone. He looted their bodies , pocketing all he found worth in and prepared to go return home. Taking some time to pile the soldiers bodies, he emptied a flask owned by one of the soldiers on the pile. Before leaning down to the bottom of the pile and touching the fabric the man's blood soaked robe with his fiery dagger and setting them aflame. Vax, pleased with himself, turned back to the temple and walked back up the black marble steps. Only for his feet to touch the top step and to be hit. Hard.
Something knocks him off his feet, catches him before he falls and rises him into the air. He's kept in place and  has nowhere to go and nothing to fight. He can but simply allow whatever it was about to happen, happen. His dark eyes stare up at the sky only for it to be soon replaced with a pale familiar white face that he'd seen so often.
"My dear champion" She spoke but her lips did not move. "You have done well"
Vax said nothing. She moved them so that they both looked down on the burning bodies.
"More will come" The Raven Queen murmurs. "Bigger, worst than before"
"Then I will do my duty" Vax stated, looking at the snow with pink hue. "As I've always done and will do"
"Yes" She says deeply, as though he's reminded her of a point she wanted to make. "But I have foreseen this danger and in it, my dear champion you, will not prevail"
There's a pause as air hitches in his throat.
"What are you saying?" He asks for clarification as she turns them back away from the bodies and now stares into her pale white mask again. "Are you saying- I will die, they will kill me, are you saying that?"
"Indeed" She nods. The icy wind picks up and for the first time Vax feels the cold, real cold. The fear of death wasn't something that he held but the reminder of it sent shivers down his spine. He knows what its like to die and it wasn't a experience he was willing to go through again. "Although I believe that all death has meaning, ours has come knocking too soon"
"What do ask of me then?" He strengthens his tone, shows no fear.
"You will not vanquish the foe alone, I planted something here during the building of my temple. I have let it grow all these years waiting for a moment such as this" She began to lower him again back to the ground. "When you joined my side -faith in the Raven Queen surged and many temples and monuments were built in my name" She continued when his feet touched the temple steps once more. "For that short time, I was filled with a surge with a great power and was able to create a single thing that would help your efforts for when the time came, when you must leave me" She feels Vax look at her but presses on. "When the small town of Rae was constructed after the defeating of the Cinder King, It was made by a believer of mine. So the whole town believed in me and has ever since. This attack on Rae, it was a attack on me and though all that has perished tonight died with no fear but comfort, I will avenge them. Death does come to us all but so does justice. The wicked will be punished and people will get their vengeance. You are my vengeance. Release your gift, reconvene in Whitestone with your own, discover this ghost amongst the living that plans to destroy all that has been built since the days of peace. Smite them, champion."
"My own?" He questions, stomach flipping with nerves and joy at the thought of seeing his family again.
"Vox Machina rises from the ashes once more and you, will lead with the gift"
Vax frowned his eyes brows, trying to focus what she was saying and trying to comprehend that she had planned  for his death, was willing to stop it and return him home.
"And this ..thing.. where is it?" He asked.
"It's hidden where the snow melts, where the trees bloom, where the birds thrive" In a whoosh of sudden air, she shrunk down from deity size and down to his. "Follow the path behind my temple, deep within the Forrest, near the mountain's edge, you will feel when she is near. Do not wield magic, nor weapon. Do not even use your dagger. There is a powerful spell that stops any harm to come her way. If you do so, it will send you all the way back here to where you started. If you want the gift, you must not fight"
Vax stares at her confusedly as the Raven Queen bore her own dark eyes down at him.
"I don't understand" He lowers his head.
"Understanding will come, when this is all over- now go, you have two weeks before your body will end up like theres, be my justice and i will be yours- " In a large gust of wind in a array of black feathers spiralling upward and single flash of red light- The Raven Queen was gone. Vax found his eyes land on the pile of burning soldiers.
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