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The first time Vex’ahlia holds her newborn child, her beautiful Vesper, face wrinkled and pink, hair a dusting of black fuzz on top of her tiny soft head, all she can think of is how lucky she is; she has a husband, and a beautiful child, and even though her brother is not there to see this chapter of her life, she’d never thought she would be either. She thinks it again, and again, through one birth, then another, and another, and another.
How lucky am I. How lucky are we.
Five children, five beautiful children, filling the halls of Whitestone with laughter. Trinket nearly goes mad trying to keep track of them all, giving her sorrowful glances when she laughs and tells him that he’s not their nanny, that all he needs to do is stay by her side.
The sorrow is there, too; how could it not be? She’d always wanted her children to have cousins – and they still might, when Velora is older, but it’s not the same. Her brother, her other half is gone, lost too early, the fate that they had always fought against tooth and nail coming to pass despite their best efforts.
(And oh, how they’d tried, and tried, and tried, calling on gods and magic and healing more wounds than any person should bear; in the end, it was a god that called him home.
How fitting.)
So she gathers her children close, lets the vibrancy of their lives build her up, keep her tethered and here, happy in the life that she’s built for herself. That she and Percy have built together, brick by painful brick. She watches as their tiny hands and bright smiles and bubbling laughter soften Percy, and soften her in turn; she’d never thought parenthood would suit them so well. But it does, it does suit them well; it’s all too easy to let the callouses on their hands turn soft, to let the battle-hardened edges melt away, bringing the kindness that they both sometimes had to bury to surface.
They don’t let their skills fade; neither of them trust in the tentative peace that’s stretched across the countryside enough for that. But one day, a year, maybe two later, Vex realizes that she can’t remember the last time she fought something outside of a spar. The thought makes her pause, makes her wonder if they’re making a mistake. She can’t let this fall away, can’t let it be destroyed like so many other things in her life have been.
“We won’t let that happen,” Percy says firmly into her hair when he calls her out on her fretting, when he pulls her into a tight hug, the kind that settles all the anxiety in her body. “Maybe some peace and quiet isn’t a bad thing.”
But the very next day they ask Cassandra to babysit, and wander out into the woods, just the two of them and Trinket. They go hunting, and feel the sweet ache of muscles being put to use, the shine of skills that refuse to disappear.
It gets easier, after that.
The thing is – she knows that she will outlive her husband. She knew it the first time she looked at Percy and thought, oh, there you are. The first time they kissed, the first time they fucked, the first time that she told Percy she loved him, his blood on her hands and tears thick in her voice. He is a human, and she is not; or not fully, at least. The elven blood that courses through her veins extends her life by decades, by centuries; she doesn’t know how long.
“How do you manage it?” she had whispered to Keyleth, late one night, when they were on watch together, their friends sleeping all around them. “Knowing that you’ll outlive the people you love?”
Keyleth’s face had twisted, her smile more of a grimace. “Not very well.” She must have seen something in Vex’ face, because she shifted closer, shoulders leaning together. “I just try to focus on right here, right now. That’s all I can do.”
Two months later, Vax was gone; Vex didn’t ask again.
(It was then that she understood that death would claim people in her life no matter their age, no matter their race; she has no control over who the Raven Queen calls. And she was angry, so angry. So she decided that she wouldn’t let it control her, that it didn’t matter; she would claw whatever joy she could from life while she still had it, that she wouldn’t let fear of death stop her from living life to its fullest.
And she does, she does. But the grief still lingers, still fills the hollows in her bones, even as it becomes more palatable, easier to bear. It takes years, but she thinks she has a handle on it; she thinks she understands her grief.
It’s not until much later, when she starts to see grey streak through the fine white-blond of Percy’s hair many years before her own grey hairs will appear, that she realizes that there is something quite different about having a life wrenched away too early and watching someone die slowly, bit by bit, year by year, the casual reaping of time gone by.
It’s a different sort of sorrow that fills her then.)
Percy ages, and so does she. She ignores the fact that he’s aging twice as fast as she is; they have so many years, forty, fifty, sixty; enough to live a lifetime together and more. They watch their children grow, becoming toddlers with sticky hands and fumbling feet, to children with gap-toothed smiles and wild hair, running wild through the halls of Whitestone. Before she knows it, they are teenagers, then young adults, stepping out into the world to make it their own, armed to the teeth with knowledge and weapons and magic. It’s hard, to let them go, to let them leave; it would be harder still to make them stay. They’ve done everything they can to prepare their children for this, for the venturing forth. She can’t deny that she’s glad when Grog offers to go with Vesper and Percy Jr on their first trip without their parents, and gladder still when they say yes. He’ll keep them safe, where she and Percy cannot; and in time, even he won’t be needed.
She’s glad, then, that there’s so much of an age gap between Vesper and young Johanna, and even more that Johanna seems so happy to stay home longer, to let herself linger. It gives her more time to treasure the last days of her baby’s childhood, to delight in the young woman she’s grown into. But soon she too, is venturing forth into the world with a bright smile and a wave and nary a backwards glance, her brothers and sisters at her side.
“This is good, right?” she asks Percy. “Them growing up?”
“Yes darling,” he says, looking as lost as she feels, “it’s good.”
But then their children are gone, and they are at home, alone, trying to figure out what comes next.
“Empty nesters,” Pike calls them.
“Old farts who need to get back out into the world,” Scanlan says.
But the thing is - they’re not old. Or she isn’t, at least. She’s sixty-one, and still looks like she’s barely passed thirty. Percy, though – Percy is fifty-eight, and his hair is grey, his face lined with wrinkles. She loves them, loves every single one of them, but at the same time she hates them. She hates what they mean, and the future they imply. It’s harder, now, to ignore the fact that she’ll outlive him, that he’ll die an old man when she’s barely hit middle-age.
“Don’t cry, love,” he whispers into her hair, holding her close. His hands are still strong as they run up and down her back. “I’ve still got many years in me yet. And you’ve given me a good life, the best life I could’ve ever asked for.”
“It’s not fair,” she chokes out, mimicking the words she said to Vax so long ago.
“I know,” he says. “But life rarely is.”
They have nearly thirty more years together. Vex cherishes each and every one. They travel together, adventure together, until Percy cannot, until the weariness of older adulthood catches up with him. By then, though, they have grandbabies to watch, and nights to while away together in the softness of their home.
It’s hard, watching him lose the pieces of himself he loves so much. Watching his fingers grow stiff and unwieldy, his eyes grow weak, until even his tinkering brings more frustration than joy. But she stays, and she does what she can, and reminds him that she loves him every day, even in this; she couldn’t imagine abandoning him now.
He dies at the age of 87. Old, by human standards, but still so gods-damned young.
She buries him beneath a cherry tree, one that blossoms bright and full during the springtime, in the woods outside the city. She’d asked, when it became clear that he was nearing the end of his life, where he wanted to be laid to rest. He’d caught up her hand, pressed a kiss to her knuckles, and smiled.
“Wherever you want, darling. So long as you’re beside me, when the times come; nothing else matters.”
(She and Vax had always joked that they’d be buried beside each other, when they were younger; but he had no body to bury, and she is married to a man that she loves more than life itself. Neither of them had thought the ending they were granted a possibility, but here they are anyway.)
She commissions a double headstone, and leaves her side blank. Her death still feels impossibly far away.
And then it is just her, and her children, and her grandchildren. And in time, their children too. Generations upon generations, filling the halls of Whitestone and beyond.
She watches them age, watches her children grow grey and old. They are only a quarter elf, and it shows; she wonders when people will start asking if she is their sister instead of their mother. She knew, when she was younger, that she would live to see her children grow old; she hadn’t realized that she would live to see them die, too. But she knows now, without a shadow of a doubt, that she will outlive them.
She wonders, now and then, if that was why Syldor never loved her and Vax, to spare himself the pain of watching them die. To give himself distance between them, to pre-emptively stop the pain before it could even take place. There are times when she even understands it; the rest of the time she thinks it’s a bullshit reason. She loves her children, loves them with every aging bone in her body. And if seeing them live, if having loved Percy, means that she will die long after them – then so be it.
“Mum, I’m almost as grey as you are,” Vesper laughs at her one day.
Vex smiles, and laughs along with her, running her fingers through her daughter’s greying hair. “Nonsense, darling. It’s just a trick of the light.”
She’s one hundred and forty-two years old when her first child dies of old age.
Vesper is not the first to pass; Vax, like his uncle before him, had passed too early, at the age of fifty-four. He’d lived a fuller life than her brother had, but he was still so young, too young, when he’d been taken from them.
But Vesper – Vesper is the first that she sees grow frail and old, the first that she sees die not from bloodshed but peacefully, passing away in her bed, with her children and grandchildren gathered around her. Vesper lives longer than her father did, but she’s more human than not. As are her other children, all old and grey, carrying more wrinkles than she does. She knows the they will follow Vesper soon, in the coming years. Nothing lives forever, and her children’s lives are so terribly, terribly short.
She’s never cursed her heritage more.
(She remembers being young, and feeling like she would live forever, like she was invincible. That first death, in the sunken tomb, had taken her by surprise; she hadn’t realized how easy it would be, how quick. For all their battles and bloodshed, for all that death haunted them around every corner, they had felt so fucking strong, so untouchable.
She wishes they hadn’t been so naïve. And now, with death feeling so very far away, she wishes she hadn’t been right, that she hadn’t been quite so strong.
Maybe it would have been better, not living so long.)
She’d be lying to herself if she didn’t think about ending it early, about giving up and going to join her husband, to her brother, to her children. But then she looks at the bright, shining faces of her great-great grandchildren, and her friends who are still so alive, and she knows she could never follow through. Not while Keyleth is still here, nary a grey hair in sight. Not while Pike and Scanlan still visit, still drag her off on adventures, greying hairs and aching bones be-damned.
Grog had died a long time ago, around the same time as Percy. She misses him, still, as she misses all of her dead, the quiet hollow ache in her bones. Their little family had never quite been the same, once the two of them had died.
(But then, it hadn’t quite been the same since Vax, either. She supposed it was to be expected.)
There are times when she can’t help but feel glad that she’s only a half-elf, that she’ll only grace two centuries, if she’s lucky enough to do so at all. But that still means she’ll watch so many generations pass, her children, her grand children, her great-grandchildren –
She doesn’t know how she’ll bear it.
“I’m sorry,” Keyleth says to her after Vesper’s funeral. “I’m so sorry you have to bear this.”
Vex shakes her head, tears pouring down her cheeks. “I’m sorry too, Kiki. I know – I know you’ll live so much longer than I –“
Keyleth shushes her, pulls her into a hug, chin pressing against the top of her head. She’s gotten so much more – gracious isn’t the right word, she’s always been gracious, but so much smoother, easier with other people, none of the bumbling awkwardness of her youth. “You don’t have to console me. Not now.”
Later, Keyleth will confess that she’s almost glad, that she and Vax didn’t ever have children; that she doesn’t have to carry the weight of witnessing her children die, and every generation after theirs, for however long it takes for her own life to end. Vex gives her a shaky smile, wishing for one terrible moment that she had, that they had, that she wasn’t alone in this –
But then it passes, leaving only a bone-deep weariness, and the gratitude that someone else has noticed her grief.
“I’m still sorry you didn’t get the chance,” she whispers to Keyleth.
“That’s alright,” Keyleth whispers back. “I’ve got a long time, yet. Another chance may come.”
When the last of Vex’s children dies, her sweet Johanna, she leaves Whitestone, for a time. She takes off, travels to parts unknown, tries to lose herself in the world. She says that she wants to adventure, that she wants to feel the fresh wind on her face. But the truth is – the truth is, she’s not sure she can bear to walk the halls of Whitestone without them, without her bright and beautiful children gracing her halls. Not yet, anyhow.
“Are you coming back?” her great-great-granddaughter Elise asks. She’s seven years old, and she loves Vex, in the uncomplicated way of children. “I’ll miss you.”
Vex smiles, and gathers her in to a hug, sweeping and grand. “Of course, dear heart. I’ll be back before you know it.”
She’s gone for years. It’s only too easy to lose herself in the travel, in the anonymity of it all. To let go of the titles, of the responsibilities. On her own, there is no Lady Vex’ahlia, Mistress of the Grey Hunt. She’s just Vex, an old woman traveling with her very strange pet and a concerning number of weapons.
She takes Trinket with her. (Of course she does. How could she leave him behind? He is her most precious companion, the only one who still remembers her when she was small, when she was young, fresh faced and so terribly new to everything. His life is linked to hers, after all, and while he has slowed down – as has she – he’s still happy to follow her wherever she goes.)
There are battles on the way – there are always battles – but for once, she tries to stay out of them. She leaves the fight to someone else, to the young adventurers determined to prove themselves. She’s been retired for such a very long time; she wants to keep it that way.
She sends letters, and responds to Pike’s cheerful messages, but otherwise – otherwise, she lets herself be alone. Lets herself grieve for her children, for her husband, and for the life she still has ahead of herself.
“I’m sorry, buddy,” she whispers to Trinket, as he licks the tears from her face, some seven years after leaving home. She hadn’t thought she’d still have tears to cry, but they still come, fresh and fierce, after all this time. “I still miss them, you know? Percy. The kids.”
Trinket lets out a mournful croon as she wraps her arms around his neck, buries her face in his fur.
“We should go home,” she finally says, all snot and tears and watery voice. “I’m tired.”
Elise is a teenager when she returns. Fourteen and full of fire, and not half-bad with the knives she’s determined to wield, much to her mothers’ chagrin. She reminds Vex so much of Vax it aches; but then, so many of her other offspring have, too. She’s angry at Vex, at first, when she returns; but then she warms to her, and to Trinket.
“Take me with you the next time you go?” she asks, so hopeful it hurts. “I want to see a dragon.”
“Perhaps,” Vex says with a smile. She knows she’ll need to leave again, even if just for a time, even if she’s not sure when. “I could use a travelling companion.”
Her other great-great-grandchildren are growing too, nearly unrecognizable. Elise is one of the younger ones, she thinks. There are so many of them now that she’s barely able to remember all of their names. Not all of them live in Whitestone; some, she learns, have moved to Emon, to Westruun, even so far as Wildmount. One of them, she learns, of the elder generation of cousins who stayed, is pregnant, due in three months time. She’s not sure how she feels about becoming a great-great-great-grandmother. It, like so many other things, makes her feel impossibly old.
When the child is born, ushering in the sixth generation , she gets them to stop adding the “great’s” to her title. All it does, besides reminding her of how old she is, is make her keenly aware of all the generations she has lost. The children don’t really remember who *exactly* she is to them, anyhow. She’s family, they know that much. But beyond that it doesn’t matter. So they shorten it to “great-Grandma Vex,” and leave it at that.
And by then – by then, oh, she’s so tired.
She’s barely one hundred and sixty. And for all that she feels terribly old, when she looks at the young ones around her, she knows that she is not yet reaching the end of her life. She knows that she has years, decades, before she’ll pass herself.
And she wonders, then, how long she has - before her grandchildren die, and her great-grandchildren too. Wonders how many generations will die before her times come.
She looks at Elise, so young, so full of life – and wonders if she’ll bury her, too.
“How old are you?” Elise asks her one day, several years later. “My moms don’t know, or they won’t tell me.”
Vex smiles at her, and hands her some fletching. Although Elise still prefers to use her knives, she’s adept with a bow too, eagerly learning whatever Vex will teach her. “Old.”
Elise fidgets with the arrow she’s repairing, not looking at her. She’s still young – just sixteen. She’s been glued to Vex’s side since she returned, her constant companion.
Vex hadn’t realized how much she missed having a child to mother – or grandmother, as it were.
“Are you going to die soon?” Elise asks quietly.
Elise knows that she’s a half-elf. They all do; some of her generation still have the pointed ears that Vex gave them, although it’s fading out, for those without fresh elven blood in their heritage. (There aren’t many of her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren who have found elven or half-elven lovers, but they do exist; Vex can’t help but feel grateful, that she’s not going to be the only one who lives a long life; she can’t help but feel grief, that they will have to endure the same losses that she does.)
She doesn’t voice it, but Vex knows where the question is coming from. Vex had watched her grandson, Elise’s grandfather, pass away not three weeks before. Her grandchildren are dying; and in time, her great-grandchildren, and her great-great-grandchildren, will, too. Generation after generation, slipping through her fingers.
“Oh, no, darling,” Vex says, something complicated tugging at her chest. She smiles at Elise, gathers her into her arms, a hug that she knows Elise will only put up with for so long. (She’s so sixteen it hurts, huffing at shows of parental and grand-parental affection, grumbling when Vex just laughs at her disgruntlement.)
“No,” she says, voice soft. She swallows past the lump in her throat, squeezes Elise tight past the grief that threatens to rise. “No, I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got so many years left to live.”