#and i saw that and went ''i can make this about pikelan''
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y’all wanna hear about my pikelan au where pike, keyleth, and vex own a bakery and, to celebrate their first big year, go on a girl’s trip to dalen’s closet or somewhere equally tropical. while hanging out at the resort’s lounge the first night, pike immediately strikes up a playful rapport with the lounge singer, scanlan. she spends every subsequent night staying up long after her friends have gone to sleep so that she can hang out with him after his sets. they get drinks and talk and walk along the moonlit beaches. probably go skinny dipping once or twice. it’s flirty. it’s playful. it’s very quickly something, but neither of them want to be the first to acknowledge it.
after all, what’s there to do?
swap numbers and socials and continue to play at something that can never really be anything when they’re oceans apart until it peters out and they’re both disappointed?
or, y’know...
it takes pike until the last day and numerous pep talks from her girls, but she gathers her courage and comes to scanlan with a proposition: one night, no regretting or lamenting, just enjoying that they even got this time together.
it’s magical, to say the least.
the next morning, scanlan wakes up alone, and he does his best to swallow his disappointment that she didn’t wake him to say goodbye. didn’t even leave a note. until, pike reappears in his room, still bare and beautiful, carrying a plate of toast and complaining about the lack of food in his apartment. she snuggles up in bed with him. she drapes her body all over his as if they’d done it for years. and scanlan knows he’s ruined. he’s fuckin’ gone for this woman. cupid’s arrow never felt more like a curse.
but, pike said no regrets and no laments, so he cobbles together a proper breakfast for her and enjoys the way she gleefully takes up space in his space and touches him as if he is and will always be hers. then, he delivers her to her friends at the airport and (painfully, regretfully, privately lamenting the whole damn time) lets her go.
pike is far more at peace with it.
or so she adamantly proclaims.
she humors her friend’s jokes about “her vacation boyfriend” and “tropical true love” and pretends that her new habit of daydreaming and wistful sighs as she stands behind the bakery counter is only a temporary side effect.
after all, what’s there to do?
they both agreed that it was better to have one perfect night than try to complicate it with logistics and expectations.
that was the right choice.
she made the right choice...right?
a couple months later, while in the bread aisle at the grocery store, who should she run into but scanlan fuckin’ shorthalt. her vacation boyfriend. her tropical true love. both of them reaching for the same loaf of bread. hands touching. gazes meeting.
her first reaction is anger. to jump to the conclusion that scanlan lied to her and led her on with some sob story about an estranged daughter so that she’d think he was a good guy and fall into bed with him.
it doesn’t help that, while staring at her, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, scanlan stutters out,”you said you were from westruun”.
when their arguing pulls a crowd, pike storms out of the store, and scanlan follows. with the initial shock gone, he explains that, not long after pike left, sybil got in contact with him and told him that -- fine, if he wants to be in kaylie’s life, he better come be in it and prove it. he’d thought about pike every day since that night. wanted to contact her as soon as he came to tal’dorei. but pike had told him that she was from westruun; she never told him that she lived in emon. so he figured that he would still be asking for long distance, still be putting too much pressure on something that pike had only wanted to be one night.
“i didn’t want one night!” pike snaps. “i thought that’s all we had! you made me believe that’s all we had!”
they stare at each other in tense, charged silence.
“can i take you out to dinner?” scanlan asks, breathlessly.
and, well, it’s a start.
[tldr; what if the pikelan slow burn but they already resolved the sexual tension so all that’s left are the messy, complicated feelings?]
#Critical Role#Pikelan#back at it again with my long-winded pikelan ideas#would you believe that this whole idea was inspired by that one text post#about that banana bread that the baker called 'better than sex'#until one day the name was changed to 'almost better than sex'#and op was like either the banana bread got worse or girlie got some good dick#and i saw that and went ''i can make this about pikelan''#and then i did in the most overly dramatic way possible#i also reblogged that post into my pikelan tag almost two years ago#in case you were wondering how long i've been sitting on this lil daydream material#at any given moment i am daydreaming up some windswept romcom pikelan idea#and that's all you need to know about me#pikelan au
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Class AU part 2 Love Domain Pike
Pikelan day prompt: CLASS SWAP (part 1, Swashbuckler Scanlan)
inspired by fanart
When Scanlan Shorthalt heard the words “Grog’s sister the cleric,” not many ideas beyond Grog in a wig with a magical staff came to mind, so he was extraordinarily surprised to meet Pike Trickfoot, a very cute gnomish adept of Sehanine, patron of moonlight and illusions, the fey goddess of trickery and lovers trysts.
He could not believe his luck.
Scanlan had never paid more attention to Sehanine more than any other god, even though she did sound, admittedly, right up his alley. Faith wasn’t really his thing. Devotion sounded even worse. And idea of giving himself wholly to not just someone but some thing in the cosmos made him laugh, except for a tiny space deep in his stomach that didn’t find it amusing at all, and in fact, found it just a bit infuriating megapowerful celestial beings leveraged magic for people’s love and how unfair that was. Since Scanlan didn’t like to think things like unfairness, he didn’t. He would scrounge for magic all on his own, thank you very much.
But the mischievous glint in the eyes of the black-haired cleric and the ever present waves of love she exuded really could be.
Except it didn’t take long to see that while Pike had a needed skill in healing, Pike and Scanlan’s specialties in magic overlapped a bit. She did things differently, her magic imbued with a strangely close, warm divine feeling that was totally foreign to want he knew. But the first time there was a witness not responding to questions and Scanlan prepared to charm him, Pike stepped in before him to do it herself.
He saw the soft warmth of her magic around her perform a charm that previously he’d never known anyone but himself to do. It was beautiful.
And he hated it.
She could charm and inspire and make some illusions and heal. All the skills Scanlan had to offer, spread out in slightly different directions. Scanlan had worked with groups before, traveled around for fire to kill beasts or find treasure, but his time with them never lasted long. And he figured it would be the same this time. Why would they need two gnomes with similar magic, when she was a much stronger healer?
Scanlan decided to take the opportunity of The Shits arriving in a new bustling town to part ways with the group. Quick and easy, he snuck out of his shared room at the Inn, not even disturbing Grog’s heavy snoring. But Pike stopped him not more than three steps down the stairs that went down to the now mostly abandoned tavern of the late late night or early early morning.
She was just unnaturally there, sitting on the stairwell landing, under a window the moon shone through. There was a covered bench smelling faintly of stale beer and the ancient wooden planks off the inn wheezed beneath them whenever either of them moved, but she smiled serenely like she belonged there in her slinky red nightgown and lacy pink robe and the glittering pendant of Sehanine she always wore.
“Aren’t you going to say goodbye?”
He quickly ate the frown that had appeared on his face. It wasn’t good to let people know what you were thinking. “Goodbye, sugar. It was fun while it lasted. Give my regards to The Shits. If we ever cross paths in the future, I’ll be sure to skip town before I’m settled with another bar tab.”
He attempted to continue on his way, but her soft voice, reminiscent of some kind of frosted cookie he always felt for some reason, wafted across him like crowbar to the kneecap.
“Leaving us won’t make you less afraid.”
Once he could swallow the gorge of unexpected emotion back down to wherever he hid it normally, Scanlan turned to look at her. In a move of unexpected cruelty, her perfect gnomish face was a perfect composition of perfect kindness tinged with sadness.
“Who’s afraid of anything? Possessions? Gross necromancers? Hulking monsters? That’s the adventuring life and I’ve been doing it longer than any of you.”
“No, that’s true. I was a little surprised by that, but that’s not what you’re afraid of.”
Scanlan sighed, gratified by the annoyance. “Can the cryptic. I’m leaving because it doesn’t make any sense to have two people with the same skillset on a team.”
“I really don’t think overlap is the problem. Our methods are different enough. And Vex and Percy both deal ranged attacks. Vex and Vax are both sneaky. Redundancy isn’t bad.”
“Well, you’re not the one being made redundant so your opinion on the topic is of limited value to me,” Scanlan said, trying for an edge he normally didn’t have.
It may have succeeded, a sour little frown appeared on Pike’s face. Unless she was in battle, she always looked beatific as standard fare. So he felt a small degree of satisfaction in winging her on his way out, as it were.
“I don’t look at it that way. It’s fine that we can both rely on charms. It’s fine that we both have illusions and boons at our disposal. It’s great that we can both heal.”
“Except you can heal more than I can, and if you can cover all the other areas I’m situationally useful in, why would they need me?”
“Ah, so” she said knowingly. “It’s not just that you have to be special, you have to be useful too.”
Terrifyingly, he opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. There were plenty of times he had no plan for what he was going to say, but it was rare indeed that the well was ever empty. She continued to speak in his place and given the circumstances, he couldn’t tell if that was good or bad.
“Is that why you’ve left every other group you’ve been with? Someone else could do the things you can do?”
“We--we’re adventurers!” Scanlan said, raising his voice to a level he did, maybe once every five years. “Everyone has to be useful. Why are we even doing these things if not to succeed, get gold, or renown, or hell, even turn a good deed every once in a while. And you can’t do any of those things if everyone on the team doesn’t play their part. With you here, I don’t exactly have a part, do I?”
Pike’s face softened again with sympathy, that kindness within her blooming on her face again, in her cheeks and her eyes. And while it was lovely, it only made Scanlan angrier because that hadn’t been his goal at all. At least point, he wanted her mad, at least a portion as angry as he was, so he could leave feeling safe with a bridge burned behind him.
“Of course you still have a part, Scanlan. So what if we do some of the same things. We do them entirely differently. We think about illusions and charms differently. Just as Sehanine will, hopefully, continue to bless me with gifts no one else can understand, you use the arcane in a way none of us can understand either. And I’m surprised you never thought this worth mentioning considering how often I’ve heard you brag about it, but... Scanlan, you’re a bard! Just being that you can get us audiences with people we would have never otherwise. You’ve created stories about us that people know about Vox Machina before we’ve even met them. So, I’m sorry you felt like I was replacing you, but maybe you can understand that to me it seems at least a little bit like you’re fooling yourself so you don’t have to get any more comfortable with us than you already have.”
After waiting for a word from Scanlan that did not come, Pike continued, “Because that’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it? Attachments. Real ones that really attach to you. Loving people, or letting people love you. Either or.”
He was laden down with his bags, pouches, bedroll, a lute, flute, and a shawm and they all felt like a hundredweight heavier. Still he shook his head.
“You obviously aren’t familiar with the legacy of Scanlan Shorthalt. I’ve loved many people. Probably hundreds,” he said, but even to him his voice was empty of the humor or bravado that gave him his usual panache. It was just empty. It had always been empty, only now he couldn’t pretend.
Pike touched her holy symbol, grasped her fingers around it reverently even though she must have been blindly intimate with it at this point. Yet still, reverent.
It made him think. He hated thinking.
“You can leave if you really want to, Scanlan,” she said. “But I wouldn’t be happy with myself if I let you leave thinking you needed to, or that you aren’t allowed to want something else.”
Scanlan looked down the stairs to the empty tavern and back at the moonlight spilling over Pike’s dark hair.
“Maybe I should give it more time. Think it over. If you’re... okay working together.”
Pike’s smile lit up the small tiny space deep in his stomach that, if normally anything at all, was dull and bitter and distant, now felt lighter and more present.
“Good.” She rose and stood shoulder to shoulder with him as they walked back towards the rooms Vox Machina had rented.
“But I should probably confess something.”
“Well, well, well, a cleric’s confession,” he said, with more humor than he felt, still reeling from all her words, but really, truthfully, “I definitely want to hear that.”
“You need to stay for your own reasons, that’s true, but I still have selfish reasons for wanting you to stay.“
“Oh?” Scanlan said casually, white-knuckling the strap for his lute around his chest.
“Sehanine loves music,” Pike said with a devilish smile.
Scanlan thought that was all she would say, but she paused, leaned into Scanlan’s space and kissed his cheek. Just a soft press of her lips that left a warm lingering pulse spread across his face.
“I love music.”
And with that, Pike left him.
For the first time in a long time, when he went back into his room, and put down his packs and supplies and bedroll, he was pretty sure it was a decision his heart made.
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pikelan fic where pikes a knight and scanlans the prince she needs to protect from some sort of harm.
I didn’t know there were so many Pikelan fans out there! I’ve gotten so many requests for them. *Cracks knuckles* this’ll be fun.
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If Scanlan was honest, he’d been expecting someone taller. He was used to half-elves, goliaths, even the occasional orc, so it was a bit of a shock when he waltzed out of his bed chamber’s to find that the knight stationed outside was only a couple of inches taller than himself.
“Oh, hello good sir!” He put on his most dashing smile. “I’m just coming through.”
The knight--their face covered by a bulky iron helmet--slanted their head ever-so-slightly to one side. Then, quite suddenly, they dropped down into a low bow. The sound of their armor clanking was enough to make Scanlan’s teeth rattle.
Scanlan gave the new knight a thumbs up and went to move around them only to be stopped as a gauntleted hand whipped out in front of him.
The knight had managed to clamber back to their feet.
Scanlan frowned. “Excuse me.” He stepped to one side and, almost in unison, the knight did too. Another frown, another step to the side and, once again, Scanlan found a brick-wall-of-a-knight blocking his path. “I have a show to go to.” He plucked a quick note on his lute for emphasis.
The knight actually had the audacity to shake their head.
Scanlan bunched his lips at one corner of his mouth. “Ah. Curfew?”
The knight nodded.
“I didn’t actually think they were serious about that.”
The knight could practically see the gears turning in Scanlan’s brain. He threw himself against the wall, clutching his chest as though he was wounded.
“What am I to do?” he lamented. “I promised I’d attend...it’s not noble for a prince to go back on his promise...” He pressed the back of his hand against his brow in a swoon and waited for some kind of reaction from the knight.
But the iron-clad figure didn’t budge, not even a muscle.
Scanlan cleared his throat. “And it would be good for the people, you know, build up the relationship between the royals and the common folk.”
Still nothing.
Scanlan peered up at the knight, as though staring hard enough would give him a peek at their through their helm. No such luck.
So, he did what any self-respecting gnome would do. He made a run for it.
For the briefest of seconds, he actually thought he’d managed to outsmart the knight. After all, they were weighed down by layers upon layers of armor, he had a clear advantage.
Or so he thought.
Scanlan felt a sudden jolt as the knight grabbed the back of his tunic and yanked him off his feet. He landed on the floor with a heavy thud that knocked all the air out of him. The knight’s face hung above his own and somehow, deep down, Scanlan could tell they were smiling behind the cover of their helmet.
“You’re a stubborn one, aren’t you?” Scanlan said, blowing a stray strand of hair off his face.
Once again, the knight remained silent.
Scanlan gave a heavy sigh and got to his feet. “I’m a man of honor,” he said as he dusted his trousers. “I can admit defeat.” With that, Prince Scanlan Shorthalt gave the knight a theatrical bow and disappeared back into his bedchamber.
He made sure that the door behind him was properly closed before retreating to his four-poster bed and stuffing a gnome-sized pillow under the blankets. It was a simple trick, but one that could fool even the smartest wizards if done properly. Once he was satisfyingly convinced with the setup Scanlan made a beeline for his bedroom window.
The castle the Shorthalts called home was an old one, complete with thick vines that liked to climb the peal-white bricks of the tower. They weren’t anywhere thick enough to hold up an adult human, but they were perfect for a gnome as short as Scanlan to make his escape.
Slinging his lute over one shoulder, Scanlan slipped carefully out his window and down the side of the tower. It took a while for him to reach the ground as his legs had a bad habit of shaking whenever he made the climb (as would any other man’s, Scanlan reasoned as he climbed) but once he felt the soft touch of the ground beneath his feet Scanlan felt a rush of adrenaline burst through his veins.
He’d done it. He’d beaten that stubborn knight!
Someone tapped him on the shoulder.
Scanlan didn’t move.
“You saw me climbing, didn’t you?” he asked, not even bothering to look over his shoulder.
“Afraid so.”
The sound of the knight’s voice made Scanlan’s stomach twist. He whirled around and found the knight with their--no, her helmet tucked neatly under one arm.
Scanlan wasn’t surprised that the knight was a woman, he’d seen (and been slapped) by his fair share of female knights in his lifetime. No, what surprised him was just how beautiful she was. What surprised him was the way the setting sun made her white-gold glow, the way her blue eyes shone.
Scanlan opened his mouth to say something, anything but the only thing that came out was a weird, high-pitched giggle.
The knight blinked dumbly. “Are you...okay?” she asked slowly.
“Shmoop.”
“...Huh?”
“What?” Scanlan tried not to slap himself. “Sorry. You scared me--in a good way, I mean. In a great way actually!”
For a long, painful, moment the knight was completely silent. Then, suddenly, she started to laugh.
The sound alone was enough to make Scanlan’s heart flutter.
“Queen Juniper told me you were strange,” she said between her laughter.
Scanlan managed to gather himself enough to form a proper sentence. “In a good way, I hope.”
“The jury’s still out on that,” the knight said. “But I’m afraid you need to go back inside.”
Scanlan gave a mock-salute before pausing. “I will, on one condition,” he held out a hand. “Your name.”
The knight rolled her eyes and turned to head back towards the castle gates.
“I’m not moving!” he called after her.
“Pike!” she yelled back.
“Pike,” Scanlan murmured under his breath. He ran after her, the show could wait.
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The Wake of Vox Machina (prologue & chapter 1)
It is I again, with a weird fic about Vox Machina who are basically gods now and haven’t seen each other for 500 years and love each other very much. Pretty pairing-focused, if that is your shit. It is definitely mine.
Pairings: pikelan, vaxleth & perc’ahlia
Words: 2952
Rated: M
Link: ao3
a multi-chapter godlike vox machina reunites AU - prologue & chapter 1
Prologue
Vox Machina wakes.
Percival rises from smoke and ashes in the forge of Whitestone castle, in the dead of night. Through some passing miracle, no one is around to see him form out of thin air, smelling of dynamite and brimstone.
Keyleth's roots pull back into her body. Her bark turns back into skin. Her branches retract. Her face emerges, then dozens of arms, which slowly turn back into two. She stays rooted until the moment her eyes open, when her feet trunk splits into legs again and she can feel the dirt between her toes where she stands a foot-deep in the earth.
Grog digs himself out of the fresh overturned earth of a recent battlefield, the taste of blood and adrenaline in his mouth. He opens his eyes to a dark sky, laying on his back in the carnage, surrounded by discarded weapons and the errant cut off limb of a soldier.
Vax'ildan falls from the sky in a cocoon of feathers. He does not know how long he has been falling for as he wakes - he just knows to spread his wings and catch himself before he hits the ground. As he does, he catches his first glimpse of the endless ocean underneath him. He is drifting between the clouds on his glowing raven wings, disoriented for but a second before he focuses and uses every muscle in his body to move.
Vex'ahlia is pulled together from the roars of a family of bears, twisting into existence as her bones snap into place. Her body regenerates at an immense pace, perfecting her up to the bright blue feathers in her hair. Her longbow is strapped to her back with her quiver of arrows and she breathes in the earthy, fresh scent of the deep forest around her. Around her, the bears roar again - a call into the world that their mistress has returned - and from the woods around her, an immense spectral brown bear emerges, his eyes locked on her.
Scanlan steps out of a bookcase in the romance section of a public library in the middle of Tal'dorei's capital. His skin is paper, first, but strengthens as it turns human once more, and the lines scratched across him disappear. His third eye opens before his regular two do - and with it, he searches for the last one of them.
---
Pike wakes in her crypt, her hand bursting through the stone of her mausoleum and grasping her mace in one smooth destructive movement. She gasps, inhaling the cold air into her lungs with a vengeance. Her eyes burst open and she grips her mace harder, the feeling of it in her hand familiar and comforting, even in the shock of rebirth. Immediately she starts coughing, dust of the stone she destroyed trying to make its way into her lungs. She sits up straight, pushing the material off of her and wiping it from her eyes with the back of the hand holding the mace. Once she feels a little less disoriented, she opens them again and looks around the room.
Her mausoleum looks the same as when she went to sleep. A little older, of course, worn by age. It is cold and dusty and some weeds have managed to worm themselves in through the cracks in the stone floor. She knows immediately that it has been a long time since anyone has set foot into this building. She can feel it everywhere around her - the utter silence. The emptiness.
They would never wake. This had been their promise when they went under; the price they paid for the peace in the world. This should not be happening.
Pike coughs again and gets up out of her stone coffin. Her armour is spotless and heavy on her body. She clenches and unclenches her fists for a moment, enjoying the sound of the metal as it creaks. She looks around the room for a moment and then leans back against the edge of the coffin.
This should not be happening. This was not what was supposed to happen.
Her thoughts reach for her family and she feels her heart lurch. If she was awake, they would be too - and they could be together again. She could see them.
Immediately, she is overcome by yearning, and part of her mind begins to think of ways to reach them. She is not entirely sure where all of them were buried, but she would find them. Scanlan would know.
Scanlan.
He would come for her as soon as he could. She knew it. He would be here any second now, probably.
But fear creeps up on her again, and she feels a shiver run down her spine as she remembers, in full force, that no matter how happy it makes her, this should not be happening.
They would never wake...
Unless the peace they fought for had been destroyed. Unless the gods had found this plane again.
Chapter 1
Pike hated waiting.
She was a little embarrassed that even now, when she was practically a god, she couldn’t bring up the patience to sit quietly for a little while. But, in her defence, she was waiting for someone who she hadn’t seen in over five hundred years. And waiting… it reminded it of when she was little.
Littler, of course. Grog would say tiny. The smallest of gnomes. Back when her parents locked her up in a tavern room and told her to wait for them to return (bloody and bruised and possibly intoxicated) ten hours later. Waiting made her feel small.
It wasn’t so bad if she had something to do, but having just waken up from a five hundred year long nap in a stone mausoleum, there really wasn’t much to busy herself with. She scraped up some of the stone dust that she left behind when she broke free from her slumber, but other than that she was stuck just… looking around.
And overthinking.
She felt like her frown might be etched into her forehead for another half a millennium by the time that something in the air seemed to shift.
She was leaned back against her tomb again, holding up her mace and wondering whether there was anything she could do for it without any resources. It looked sharp enough, but it was covered in dust, and perhaps if she took off some of her armour she could bunch up her tunic and start cleaning with it.
But before she even remembered she might not want to greet her friends half-naked, the air around her mace seemed to crackle.
Her eyes widened. This mace wasn’t like some of the vestiges her friends used, a weapon that evolved and changed over time. It was as awake as it would ever be. So the arcane runes that started hovering in the air around it, growing bigger every millisecond, couldn’t have come from there.
Her subconscious caught up before her active thought process did and she felt excitement bubble up in her chest as she watched the arcane runes settle on the stone floor in the shape of a large circle. They were golden, and gorgeous, and they sparked with purple like a small fire being fed dry wood.
A flash of light overtook the room and then her vision of the runes was obscured by the person in front of her. He was gripping her mace with the same familiarity that she was, his hand just above hers, their fingers almost touching but not quite. A vibrant eye made of purple light was staring at her from his forehead, but he had his eyes closed in concentration, a small frown between his bushy eyebrows. Her lips parted as she quietly looked over his face – the big nose, the long eyelashes she had always been jealous of, the pronounced cheekbones, the pouty bottom lip that had tempted her a million times over. She brought her gaze back up to his eyes just in time to watch them open.
The moment Pike locked eyes with Scanlan Shorthalt once again, her throat expelled a strange, pained groan that sounded suspiciously like a choked-back sob. She could see a strange fire light inside his soul when he registered her standing before him, the power of his affection flowing from his gaze as he, too, looked at her. The glow of his third eye slowly disappeared until he was all skin and bones again.
The shock of seeing him shut down her brain temporarily. She was incapable of coherent thought, even as he looked her over and slowly slid down his hand on her mace until it covered her own. At that, another one of those sob-like sounds, this time louder, echoed through the cold stone room.
She could not explain how overwhelming it was to have someone touch her. Although the last five hundred years were a blur, her body seemed well-aware that it had been ages since she had felt that connection. Emotion welled up in her unbidden, and she swallowed back her tears until she saw that he had not deemed such a thing necessary.
Scanlan was crying. Full, hot tears were rolling down his cheeks as he stared at her, his own jaw slightly slack as well.
“Pike,” he croaked out, and she wondered what would happen if she tried to speak.
Pike brought her free hand up to where he had laid one of his own over hers and put it on top of them, trapping his hand between both of hers. Her voice quivered. ��Hi Scanlan.”
Scanlan cleared his throat and her favourite lop-sided smile appeared on his lips. “You have aged exceptionally well, miss Trickfoot.”
She let out a breathy chuckle. “Yeah, well. Petrification does wonders for your skin, apparently.”
He reached out his hand and, feather-light, traced his fingers down her cheek. “You don’t say…”
There was so much tenderness in her voice, and the space between them seemed static with emotion. Pike let out a full sob now, pushing closer to him and pressing her forehead against his with a clumsy bump. Scanlan let out a shuddering breath at the contact and she wanted nothing more than to see those dark brown eyes again, but her own eyes had closed somewhere in that motion and she was far too overwhelmed to open them.
For some reason, she felt incredibly heavy. She felt exhausted. Absolutely tapped. Inside of her, her emotions were roaring through her body like a thunderstorm.
She felt Scanlan’s hand grab her by the waist, and then he was wrapping his full arm around her, burying his face into the crook of her neck. She could feel his tears against her skin. Her mace and their hands were trapped between their chests now. She could feel them move as they breathed in tandem. She had never been this happy to be alive before.
Soon, he lifted his head slightly to nuzzle her cheek with his nose. “Pike, you’re freezing,” he told her, sounding a little bit worried.
He did feel very hot against her. Like he was running a fever. But maybe it was her.
“Must be the stone,” she answered hoarsely.
Scanlan let go of her to wrap his second hand around their already intertwined them, making it a pile of four, like they were playing the game they used to play when they had a boring watch together. He was like a charming little hand warmer.
He was frowning again, though, going over something in his head. “I don’t think I have anything to help with.”
“I’ll warm up naturally. It’s okay.”
He looked her in the eye again, searching for something. He looked so damn hopeful that it was almost heart-breaking.
“This isn’t a dream, right? We’re really awake?”
“I think so… Unless I’m dreaming.”
He couldn’t help but smirk at that, it seemed. “Do I show up in your dreams regularly?”
She smiled back. “You’re like herpes. Just can’t get rid of you.”
He pulled a face and she laughed – her first laughter in five hundred years. It felt absolutely perfect.
“Cruel, cruel mistress,” he told her playfully, and bumped their foreheads together again.
“I’m so happy to see you,” she whispered back. Watching him cry set her off as well and she could feel the tears start rolling down her face. He couldn’t resist letting go of her hands so he could wipe them away.
“Not as happy as I am, Pike. I don’t know what to say.”
“Me neither.”
They smiled at each other in silence for another little while.
Then, reality seemed to set in.
Their smiles dropped almost simultaneously, and she would have felt weird about how in sync they were, as she always did, if it weren’t for the million other thoughts that were clamouring for her attention.
“Are the others up too?” she asked.
Scanlan brought his hand to his mouth and gently bit down on his thumb. “I haven’t checked yet.”
She flushed a little at that admission, at the implication of it considering that he was standing right in front of her, but refused to acknowledge that response. “Could you do it now?”
He nodded. “I think so. The eye, it…” On his forehead, the purple light appeared again and his third eye dashed open. “It doesn’t really need to recharge anymore. Or maybe I’m just using some energy stored up over the past few centuries. Who knows. Give me a second.”
Scanlan focused, his eyes glazing over, and Pike wondered how he had known that it had been centuries since they went to sleep. She wondered how she had known. Because she did know – she knew full well that it had been five hundred and thirty two years since they had laid down their futures for the rest of Exandria. She couldn’t have said how many months it had been on top of that, but she knew the amount of years perfectly. It was strange.
Then again, she supposed waking up from a never-ending sleep spell was strange on its own. It was bound to have some side effects.
Scanlan hummed, still looking like he was seeing an entirely different scene than she was.
“What is it?”
Maybe he couldn’t even hear her. It wouldn’t surprise her.
But, no, Scanlan held up a finger to tell her to wait another second – irritation spiked, of course. She wasn’t a patient woman.
“Everyone’s up,” he then said.
Relief washed over her. Part of her had still been afraid that one or more of them hadn’t risen from their slumber. She wasn’t sure she could do this without all of them here.
“Where are they?”
“Percy’s in a cellar somewhere. I think Whitestone, looking at how fancy the place is dressed up. Might even be his own workshop. Keyleth… Keyleth’s in Zephrah. As for the other three, I can’t really pinpoint it.” He frowned. “There’s no real landmarks. Vax is somewhere over an ocean. Vex is in a forest. Grog… On a recent battlefield? In a carnage somewhere, at least. Lots of blood. Lots of gore. Kind of nauseating, to be honest.”
“Focus.” Pike put both of her hands on his shoulders, staring into his unseeing eyes. “Can you figure out where he is? Grog?”
“I don’t have to know where he is to bamf us to him.” Scanlan reached up and scrambled for her hands, pulling them from his shoulders and holding them loosely in his own. “I just need to…”
“To what?”
Scanlan blinked, and when he looked at her again she knew that he was back. She suddenly noticed their faces were pretty darn close together at this point.
If she blushed a little at that realisation, she would never be the one to point it out.
Scanlan seemed to notice, though, because he also flushed – he always did when he saw her blushing. It was a strange comfort. True gnome solidarity right there – at least she never looked like a fool on her own.
It was a little intimate, though.
“To zone in,” Scanlan said. He nodded towards her mace, which was now resting on the floor between the two of them. “Like I did with your toy, there.”
“Don’t call it a toy.” She pulled a hand free and knocked him on the shoulder.
“Ow.” He reached for the place where she’d touched him and looked at her like she had offended him in his soul. “Be careful there, hon’, I’m still as weak as a dish rag.”
“I think you lost the right to say that the first time you took the full force of a fireball and managed to just brush it off.”
He pursed his lips. “Party pooper.”
“You did it to yourself, friend.”
Pike could imagine Vex in the back of her head. You hear that, Scanlan? Friend, she said. She thought Scanlan must have heard it too, because he got the same hurried look on his face.
“We’ll pick up Grog first.”
“Yes, please.” She was itching to get to her brother.
She could feel the magic in the room rising and – okay, looked like they were going right this instant, apparently.
“Maybe we can catch him before he kills someone,” Scanlan added as he started concentrating. The next words from his mouth were undeniably arcane, a language that she could follow but never truly speak. He was moving his hands frantically in the somatic components of the spell.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” she said.
Scanlan sent her a look that she took to mean fair enough, and then the world disappeared in a flash of bright purple light.
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I was traveling Thursday night until this afternoon, so I just finally finished the Dalen’s Closet Oneshot.
Want some thoughts?
Unfortunately, I was traveling for not-happy reasons (saying goodbye to a relative who is very ill) so CR wasn’t really in the forefront of my mind, and I also already had the plans to travel for a couple of weeks. I was in the air when the oneshot started airing. As soon as I landed I pulled up Twitch for a few minutes while waiting to deplane and walking through the airport. I basically saw the minute or so before Scanlan sang the Boring Ballad of Derrig (which was kind of nice because I got a crash course in who Liam was playing) and then the entire Sylas reveal until he threw them off the cliff. Then I walked out of the airport so I turned off Twitch.
I was staying with my parents in their big, nice RV but had bad internet on my phone, so even after they went to bed I didn’t spoil myself. And then the next morning I was waiting for them to wake up I was scrolling through twitter, saw a bunch of mild spoilers and went “Fuck it” and read the CritRoleStats for the last half hour or so of the show. And I cried. At tweets.
Friday and Saturday I managed to watch up to the last hour in bits and pieces, when it was appropriate (before bed, waiting while said relative was sleeping, etc.) I stopped myself when I could tell the battle was starting to get close to ending.
Got home this afternoon, and after eating and settling in I was ready for the end. Went to bed and finished it on my laptop in the dark with a big pile of tissues next to me for the ugly sobbing I knew was coming. I was right.
So there were three acts to it, the pre-rehearsal dinner, the dinner and fight, and the wedding. I thought so much about everything was so great and perfect. I LOVED seeing Tary again, I missed that asshole so much, and Sam did great falling right back into him (I mean we’ll probably get to see him very soon in the Darrington Brigade oneshot which will also be great, can’t wait for that) but I’m so glad he was so included in the wedding.
My heart was full seeing Kima and Allura and Gilmore again, even though we didn’t get to spend much time with them. And getting to check in with Kaylee, too! I’m a little sad that apparently they forgot about her going back to school, but hey, hopefully she does well with Bitcoin. :) Keyleth as the best-man-zilla was fantastic, and I’m so glad they found “jobs” for all of Vox Machina, so they were all a part of the party.
Both Keyleth and Tary’s speeches were SO good. I cheered a little at the Lionette wines namedrop, neat to see a just a teensy little TM9 in our VM oneshot (is Beau alive yet? She’s older than 19, right? I’m kind of wondering if that is foreshadowing or just a cute detail?)
Everyone grilling Derrig about his “intentions” was great, I wish we had a bit more time with him. Obviously Derrig isn’t an option here, but I do hope that SOMEDAY, maybe not yet, but someday, Keyleth moves on and finds love again. She deserves love, if she wants it. I love that he was a VM fanboy and knew about them and was a little dorky about it.
In the battle, once again we just saw the absolute might of Grog. Staying fine during the wine, barely being bothered by being poisoned, tanking multiple high-level creatures and not dropping under 100hp. Yeah he doesn’t have the magic others do, but he’s got the staying power and he’s amazing.
I was 100% not surprised by the Sylas reveal, it felt very obvious to me that he’d be the one to fuck things up, but it was still awesome. I felt so bad for Percy and Vex, Percy had nothing but bad choices and I think he did the best he could with almost no resources. It sucks that Vex died *again* and on her wedding day but even he knew that Pike would be there for her and I think he thought she’d last longer than she did.
The rest of the fight was an unfortunate lesson in splitting the party for half of the players, but everything worked out OK, with Grog basically being the shining star. It was nice of Matt to let Pike’s spiritual weapon bow work for Vex since that is definitely not Rules As Written, but yay for letting Rule of Cool win out, especially for the bride that you just killed after ruining her rehearsal dinner. At least everyone got to do something cool.
OK and then the wedding. The vows were beautiful, and I started crying pretty early on. It’s gotta be a little weird telling your friend you love him and saying wedding vows when your husband is 4 feet from you but wow, both Vex and Percy’s vows were thoughtful and perfect.
Then of course Sam fucking Reigel comes in and just... destroys everyone emotionally. Because that’s what he does, and it was perfect. Like I can’t even... what... how... wow. I would love to know if Sam talked it over with Matt and/or Liam ahead of time. There was also a moment you can see Liam shift into Vax and it sent chills up my spine. I loved that he played Vax just... more alien? Less connected to reality? It felt so true to the character. And I felt like this was the closure that both Vex and Keyleth needed. I love that Vex WANTED Keyleth to have that moment, as well. It felt like both of them, and really all of them, could finally accept it and be at peace now. Or hopefully can be, in Keyleth’s case. (Also, Marisha’s outfit? Amazing. They all looked great but wow.)
Anyway, I went through like ten kleenex from ugly crying. And I don’t know if they’re planning on any more VM oneshots (I know there’s the “VM vs TM9″ thing happening, whatever that is, but this could be the end of the actual story?) I hope it’s not the end. If it is, I can accept it (I mean, we do have the animated series coming up but that’s, you know, a prequel). It feels wrapped up now. But I do still hope just every once in awhile they get together and we get to see it.
I hope that Scanlan catching the bouquet at the end hints that we can eventually get the Pikelan wedding, though we don’t need two wedding oneshots in a row. The ONLY thing really missing for me in this oneshot (there are a few smaller quibbles / “I WANT”s) like the one actual hole was... a serious lack of Pikelan, since that’s my main ship in this fandom. I have some thoughts about their separate bedrooms I think are more deserving of their own post, but there was so little Pikelan in this oneshot that it was like a 9.5 instead of 10 for how much I loved it. But hey, we know what WILL happen. And they’re gnomes. They got time to make it happen. And we did get a lot of Pikelan in the Search for Bob at least.
Anyway, that’s enough rambling. I just had to type out a lot of feelings about SOMETHING, and this was the best place for those feelings.
Can’t WAIT for this week’s episode and seeing Palock!Fjord in action!
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Bird Song.
Characters/Pairings: Mei Birdwhistle (OC), Pike Trickfoot, Scanlan Shorthalt, Grog Strongjaw (mentioned), Pikelan
Summary: [~2k words, post-VM, canon adjacent] Mei Birdwhistle, adventurer by trade and enthusiast by hobby, leaps on a chance to meet her idol, Scanlan Shorthalt.
Warnings: none
Notes: my piece for Pikelan Day’s oracle Scanlan theme! this is an incredibly self-indulgent little AU, but I had a lot of fun writing it. I probably won’t post it on ao3 since it’s Pikelan-centric content is low, so please enjoy this lil tumblr exclusive! <3
The poster on the tavern’s community board was unremarkable. Lots of flowery black inked cursive on white parchment with little else to draw the eyes, so Mei Birdwhistle could understand why so many had overlooked it. After all, she had done the same two days in a row before, on her last afternoon in town, in one final attempt at finding a task interesting enough to keep her, she caught the address of the quest’s giver: Edge of church district. Past the bridge. Red brick cottage.
There could be no mistake who posted this notice.
With a gasp and a flash of adrenaline, Mei tore the paper from the board and tucked it away into the pocket of her travel cloak. No one rushed her. The ambient noise of the tavern at her back continued on unperturbed, but Mei’s heart beat a frantic song in her ear — a song of triumph and adventure.
She swept out the door as it opened. As a gnome from a predominately human city, she learned from a young age that doors were a problem for taller folk, and it was best to wait for them to be opened rather than exert herself unnecessarily. The couple whose legs she snuck between were less than pleased to be knocked askew, but she threw a smiled apology over her shoulder and ran on.
She pulled the poster from her cloak once she escaped the busy, long-leg infested thoroughfare and found a calmer street. With the knowledge that its lackluster design held greater promise, she dedicated herself to a more thorough read-through of the notice:
FEELING BORED? UNFULFILLED?
DO YOU HAVE A COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR DAD?
TRY ADVENTURING!
I am looking for a party of 3 or more novice-to-intermediate level adventurers to fetch a gem from Gatshadow. The gem is cool-colored, will probably have an iridescent shimmer or magical glow, and can fit comfortably in the palm of a gnome or similar-sized folk. May be cursed. Definitely haunted. Oh, and the gem is located in a wyvern den.
FIRE RESISTANT ARMOR WILL NOT BE PROVIDED. PLEASE BRING YOUR OWN.
ONE (1) SUPPORT MANDATORY.
For further information…
Mei’s reading trailed off as she reached the address, having already committed it to heart, and her thoughts instead wandered to the newest challenge at hand. She did not have a party. Not currently, at least. She had left Bulwark and the others in Whitestone two weeks ago after they had told her about their plans to stay in the city for a while, build a headquarters of sorts, and bunkered down on their research.
Unlike them, she could not stop.
Not when there was so much world left to see.
But — they were not her first party, and they would not be her last.
“I wonder if Sasha’s in the area,” Mei muttered under her breath. Somewhere rattling in her pack, probably lodged between her spare flute reeds and lyre strings, was a sending stone. And, maybe, if she had not turned the corner and spotted the red brick cottage in the distance, she might have taken it out and sent a message, but — as it were — she saw her destination and any thought of rekindling fragile flames fell flat in the face of her resurging excitement.
She was about to meet Scanlan Shorthalt.
Her idol.
Her inspiration to take up the bardic call.
Very little could deter her path now, and Mei took off down the road with a jump and a click of her heels.
❀❀❀
Pike Trickfoot was as beautiful as every story and legend described. Gentle eyes above a dazzling smile. A voice like a summer breeze. “Oh, hello,” was all she said, “Can I help you?” and Mei fell mute, the tips of her pointed ears burning.
With the paper held tight in her trembling hands, Mei presented it to Pike.
“You’re here about the quest?”
Mei nodded.
“Great! Come on in. Make yourself at home,” Pike said without a dip in enthusiasm, ushering Mei through the foyer to the living room. A whimsical dance of flute music drifted from somewhere deeper in the house, and Mei melted into an offered armchair, eased by the sound. Pike, with a quick “I’ll go get my husband”, smiled and disappeared up a nearby staircase.
Mei waited until her pounding footfalls faded before bouncing up from her seat. With rapt attention, she walked around the living room and snuck peeks at the other areas of the house. It had been some years since Mei left home, and many more years since her family had lived in a true gnomish home. Mei could see the bread starter on the kitchen windowsill from here, and she ran her fingers over the knick knacks on the mantelpiece. There was an empty space of wood flooring between the dining room and the living room, perfect for a spell of dancing after an evening meal. Mei’s fingers plucked at invisible strings as a plucky, folk tune sprung to mind as she continued her exploration.
Amongst the knick knacks and on either side of a statuette of Sarenrae were two wooden dolls, weather-worn and clearly hand-carved: one of Pike and the other — Well, she could only assume it was of Scanlan.
Huh. She’d never really thought about it before...that she didn’t know what Scanlan looked like, not truly, beyond the elaborate portraits he would include in his books.
“I carved those myself.”
Mei’s hand paused a centimeter away from the face of the Scanlan doll. She could feel the almost-sensation of contact on her fingertips. Flushed and embarrassed, Mei spun around to face Scanlan Shorthalt in all his true glory.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to snoop. I just — Your home is beautiful, Mr. Shorthalt! It reminds me of my own childhood home, and — ”
Scanlan laughed and waved a hand as if dismissing the rest of her ramble and, as if by magic (and maybe it was), Mei felt the words leave her. “Please, call me Mr. Trickfoot, if you must. Scanlan is preferable. Shorthalt is my nom de plume.”
“Oh.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Oh! Yes!” Mei hurried forward, holding out a hand to properly introduce herself as her upbringing would dictate. “My name is Mei Birdwhistle, sir — Ah, I mean, Scanlan.” When Scanlan took her offered hand, she shook his hand with — she would admit — a bit too much vigor. “I am an adventurer by trade and an enthusiast by hobby! I am so pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Birdwhistle, huh? Any relation to Ken Birdwhistle, the councilmen in Emon?”
“Yes, he’s my father!” A pleased warmth flooded Mei’s cheeks. How amazing! To think that The Scanlan Shorthalt knew her father’s name. “Have you met him?”
“Once, when he was sworn into his post,” Scanlan said, gesturing for her to take a seat in her abandoned armchair before sitting in the rocking chair by the fireplace. “Sometimes the powers that be in Tal’dorei seem to forget that I’m not the only gnome of note...but! Your father’s doing a lot of great work in Emon, so I won’t say it wasn’t a pleasure.”
Mei nodded. She couldn’t believe her father had never mentioned meeting Scanlan. She was still a young girl when her father moved them from the countryside to Emon. Then again, when she considered it...Things were often a blur in her adolescence...She wondered in her father had ever tried to seek Mrs. Trickfoot’s assistance with…
“...about the quest. However, I notice — ”
Mei came back to the moment with a chirped, “Hm?”
“Is the rest of your party on their way? Or, did you pick the short straw at the tavern?”
“Well…I don’t...Technically, I’m at the moment...gathering…”
Scanlan laughed. “Didn’t think that far ahead, huh?” and as much as it was accusatory, his tone was equally paternal, like he caught her with her hand in the cookie jar and not admitting that she came here just to meet him.
“I don’t have a party, no, but I can get one.”
“I wasn’t aware they were just handing them out these days.”
Mei grinned. “You would be surprised.”
Again, Scanlan laughed, and Mei followed his lead. First, she giggled her usual windchime of a laugh — short and sweet and contained, but she could not help but be memorized by the casual manner in which Scanlan lounged and laughed, his expression open and his voice filling the room.
She could not help but follow.
She threw her head back and laughed, which — if she were to reflect on the situation — was exactly where she went wrong. Half a laugh in, a spear of pain spiked through her chest, and her next laugh became half a cough and the next a cough half-laughed until she was coughing and wheezing and fumbling for her handkerchief.
“Um, Pike…”
There’s Scanlan’s voice and then the rattling of a tea tray somewhere beyond her before a gentle hand laid itself on her back, and Mei finally sucked in a breath that stayed. Meekly, with her handkerchief clutched tight to her chest, she looked up through her bangs at the gentle, smiling face of Pike Trickfoot and mumbled,
“Thank you.”
Pike did not remove her hand right away, a flicker of something flashing across her features, but... Then a teacup found its way to her hand, and Pike settled by Scanlan’s side and Scanlan resumed their conversation as if they’d never left off and...Maybe Mei was just being paranoid.
“I’ll be honest with you, Mei, I’m getting up there in years now,” Scanlan said, and Mei noted the wistful note to his voice and how, at his side, Pike muffled a laugh. She hid her own smile behind her teacup. “That’s why I’ve been more prone to outsourcing quests, you see, but...Well, how about I accompany you on this quest?”
Mei just barely saved her teacup from spilling as she jolted with surprise. “Y - You’ll come with me?”
“Sure!” Scanlan boomed and turned to Pike with an added, “My lovely wife and our friend, Grog, will come too, right?”
Pike nodded. “It will be nice to get out of the house, and — ” The door to the back garden opened, and Mei turned to see a goliath ducking through the doorway, stomping his boots and calling out his arrival. When she turned back to Pike and Scanlan, she saw Pike beaming widely, “That’ll be Grog. Here, how about we put this conversation on hold for a moment and start some dinner. You’re invited to stay, of course, Mei.”
Mei’s head spun, but her need to politely decline still came through, “Oh, I wouldn’t want to be a bother…”
“A bother? Nonsense!”
“We insist!”
Mei refused two more times before, with common courtesies accounted for, she smiled and agreed.
❀❀❀
“So, you think it’s her?”
Pike and Scanlan stood in the kitchen, tucked away in a corner out of sight from the dinner table where Mei and Grog were playing a game of bolder-parchment-sheers over the last biscuit. Scanlan pawed at some dishes in the sink, eyes on the horizon beyond the window but his mind farther. To Pike’s question, he shrugged.
“You know how these visions are….You never know for sure, but Ioun hasn’t knocked on my head to tell me ‘no’, so I’ll take it that we’re moving in the right direction.”
Pike leaned into his side, her cheek squishing up against his shoulder. Under her touch, an until-then-noticed tension melts away with a sigh.
“The girl’s cursed, by the way.”
Scanlan groaned, folding forward to lean over the sink in defeat. “And, this is, I’m just going to assume here..No whim-wham-Greater Restoration-and bam?”
“Yep.”
“Shit.”
#Critical Role#Scanlan Shorthalt#Pike Trickfoot#Pikelan#Pikelan Day#this is so self-indulgent and pointless but it exists now and I Love It!!!#my writing
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A Pirate’s Life For Me (chapter 2)
Pairing: pikelan
Words: 2247
Rated: M (for language)
Link: ao3
Chapter 1: tumblr / ao3
a multi-chapter pikelan pirate AU - chapter 2
Since he was so distracted that night, he spent most of the next morning as well trying to figure out how to proceed. He had no idea at what time they’d woken up, since his biological clock had been a mess since he started drinking at 16, but he figured it was around mid-day when he finally settled on a plan.
Time to share.
He looked over at Pike, who was fiddling with her symbol of Sarenrae. She had a frown on her face that hadn’t been there a moment before, and Scanlan was momentarily distracted by the change.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Huh?” Pike looked up.
“You look constipated.”
She laughed and then glanced up quickly, as if she was afraid the pirates might hear her.
“I’m fine,” she then said, “I’m just contemplating.”
“Contemplating what?”
“Sending a message.”
Scanlan perked up. “You can do that?”
She nodded. “To people I know, yes.”
Oh. Well, that made sense.
“So you can call for help,” he said.
“Theoretically.”
She frowned again and he was starting to see what was going on.
“But you haven’t,” he continued.
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
Pike, who had looked the tiniest bit scared for his reaction, looked at him in surprise at his calm response. He assumed she had a good reason for it, and he could tell she wasn’t sure how she’d earned that trust from him. But, really, he knew he had only known Pike for a day, but if there was one thing that was clear it’s that she wasn’t stupid. She had to have a reason.
“My brother again,” she said.
Scanlan smiled. “That man keeps showing up.”
She returned his smile. “That he does.” She sighed. “The thing is, I could send him a message. I could say ‘hey Grog, I’m stuck in the bowels of a pirate ship, say hi to papa Wilhand!’ But then what? I don’t know where we are. I don’t know who they are.” She gestured at the deck above them. “What could I tell him? Nothing. And you don’t know Grog – he would do anything to come find me immediately. He’d get in trouble, and he would probably murder a bunch of people who don’t deserve it.” She shook her head. “I’ll let him know when I actually have something to tell him. I told him I was alive, of course. Him and Wilhand. They know I’m safe, somewhere.” Pike looked around the small cell. “Safe-ish.”
Scanlan nodded. “That makes sense.”
“Yes. But I go over that again every day. Wondering if I shouldn’t just…” Her voice drifted off and the frown returned.
“Hey,” Scanlan said softly.
Pike looked back up at his face with an open, vulnerable expression. It made him feel weird. He had people around him who trusted him usually, of course, but not like this. They trusted him because they knew him, they trusted his skills, they trusted he wouldn’t turn on them in the blink of an eye, but they didn’t… They didn’t trust him personally. Not like this.
Against his will, he felt like Pike was filling some kind of small void in his life. That was dangerous.
“We’ll get you out of here,” he told her. He walked up to her and sat down next to her on the blankets. “Actually…”
“What?”
“I might have an idea.”
Pike’s expression brightened at that, and once again Scanlan was awed by how comfortable she was with hope – how she didn’t try to smash it down as soon as it reared its head to prevent herself from running the risk of disappointment. She just went with it, radiating it, giving herself over to it.
He tried to remember whether he’d ever seen anyone as beautiful as Pike full of hope.
“I have some magic,” he finally uttered, “And there is this… spell. A glyph, really. It’s really powerful. If I imbed it in the ship, it works as a sort of group charm. Once it’s activated, it will charm everyone in a two hundred foot radius for as long as I manage to keep concentrating and the glyph isn’t disturbed. We could make them put us on shore.”
Pike’s eyes were wide. “You can do that?”
“I can. But it’ll take a long time.”
“How long?”
“Two weeks.”
“Wow.” She blinked. “That is long.”
“Yes,” he nodded, “And we’ll have to somehow keep it a secret for those two weeks. I can only do this once. If we’re disturbed, we’re fucked.”
“Right.” Pike nodded emphatically.
“I thought maybe we could use the blankets,” Scanlan continued, “If we drape them over the glyph ever time I need to take a break or sleep, we should be able to keep it hidden.”
“Yeah, that sounds like it should work.” Pike shook her head. “I can’t believe you can do something like that. You must be really powerful.”
Scanlan shrugged. “Really powerful people can do it quicker, I think. I’m just glad I know how to do it.”
“How do you know?”
“I read a lot.”
Pike arched an eyebrow at him.
Scanlan chuckled at the sight. “Yeah, you didn’t think I might, did you?”
“Not really,” she admitted.
He got serious again. “There’s one more thing.”
Pike sobered up as well. “Oh no. What is it?”
“My magic… It’s not like yours. I need sound. To channel it.”
“You’re a bard?”
“Yup.”
“That’s really cool. But… I see how that could be a problem in this case.”
If the pirates heard him playing music, they would definitely try to put a stop to it. Especially if it went on for hours every day.
“I have to be really quiet about it,” he told her, “But I’ll be very focused, so you have to keep an eye out, yeah? Stop me when someone approaches.”
Pike nodded. “I can do that.”
Scanlan sat back for a moment. He had expected that he would have to convince her that he was even able to do this. But she just… bought it. It made him feel a little bad. But, well, he was still getting her out. So he wasn’t doing anything too bad, he supposed.
Pike looked at him curiously. “You want to get started now?”
“Yeah. Sure. Why not?”
He got off the blankets, and Pike followed. They pulled them to the side and Scanlan sat down on the wooden floor, trying to focus. He flicked his wrist and a small pan flute appeared in his hand.
Pike startled. “How did you do that?”
“It’s a pocket dimension,” he told her. He flicked his wrist again and the flute disappeared.
“Wow.” She smiled. “What else do you have in there?”
He looked her straight in the eye. “Weapons.”
She sat down on the floor as well, apparently unperturbed by that declaration. “What kind?”
“A sword. Crossbow. Small hammer. A dagger too, I think.”
She nodded. “That’s a lot.”
“You good with weapons?”
Pike grinned at him. “Scanlan. I’m a war cleric. Weapons are my jam.”
Before Scanlan could get too turned on from the power in her eyes, Pike’s eyes crinkled and she sent out a burst of laughter.
“Oh wow. Get it?” she said, “My jam? Because you’re a bard?” She laughed again. “I didn’t even do that on purpose.”
And, sure, he wasn’t getting turned on anymore, but the sight of a giggling Pike did some other things to Scanlan’s head that he was definitely not prepared for.
He managed a grin, feeling slightly light-headed. “Funny.”
Pike nodded. “I’m hilarious.”
“Well,” he said, “If you need a weapon, just let me know. I’ll keep them on me for now. They’re well-hidden there.”
“Yeah, we don’t want anyone to find weapons we’re not supposed to have. They might want to keep us alive, but they’re not exactly opposed to roughing us up, in my experience.”
Scanlan went a little cold at that. “They’ve hurt you?”
Pike shrugged. “A little. I’m strong.”
For a moment, Scanlan saw nothing but red. He wanted to get up and go slaughter these assholes. He wanted to tear through them one by one and blow up this entire fucking ship when he was done.
Then, suddenly, Pike touched his face.
“Hey,” she said softly, pulling him back to the present, “It’s okay. They’ll get what they deserve at some point.”
He would make fucking sure of that, yeah.
But she did calm him down a little, and he nodded tersely.
Pike smiled at him and pulled away, sitting back down and looking at him expectantly. “Well?”
Scanlan took a deep breath to overcome the last of his fury and focused on his magic again. He wasn’t kidding when he said it was a powerful spell – he had to concentrate, and even then it would be exhausting.
He pulled out his pan flute again and held it in his hands as he started muttering the incantation. Slowly, the soft sway of the spell took him over and turned into music, until he was singing quietly to himself in the small cell. He glanced over at Pike, who was watching him, enraptured, and then he closed his eyes.
The music stayed soft, somehow, even when he could feel the magic taking hold and he started drawing out the glyph on the floor. It would be around five foot by five foot, and casting it mostly consisted of drawing the same lines over and over again while singing the incantation at it and using an instrument as a spellcasting focus. When his throat started to ache and his voice started croaking, he turned to his flute and channeled the magic through there, playing soft notes while he drew on the wood with one hand. It took hours before the lines started to become the least bit visible on the floor – a faint, flickering glow that signified the start of the glyph.
The whole time, Pike divided her attention between watching Scanlan and watching the door, waiting for the inevitable to come and interrupt them. At some point, Scanlan’s music almost lulled her asleep, but she managed to keep herself awake and alert enough to notice when someone started approaching the hatch to their little cubby in the ship.
Quickly, she tugged Scanlan’s arm that was holding the flute away from his face, and Scanlan stopped mid-incantation, the lines on the floor becoming invisible again. He looked dazed.
“Someone’s coming,” she told him hurriedly.
Scanlan just nodded sluggishly. There were bags underneath his eyes that hadn’t been there before.
“The flute,” Pike urged.
Scanlan managed to flick his wrist and make the small instrument disappear just as their pirate friend started descending the stairs. He had their one meal of the day in his hands. Scanlan was really glad that his disguise didn’t disappear while he cast a spell, because he wasn’t sure he could have mustered enough energy to fix himself up at the moment. He felt like he could fall over any moment.
Pike must have noticed, because she hurried over to him and wrapped her arm around his waist, letting him lean against her so he stayed upright.
“Don’t fall,” she whispered, obviously worried. She didn’t look away from him, instead inspecting his face for invisible injuries, even as the footsteps approached their cell and stopped in front of it.
The pirate snickered. “Am I interrupting?”
“Always,” Pike told him without looking away from Scanlan.
“Maybe I should just sit back and watch,” the man taunted.
“Watch our staring contest?” Scanlan said, without looking up either, “You’re welcome to.”
The pirate snorted and dropped their one meal of the day into the cell through the bars. “Food.”
“Much obliged,” Scanlan said. Pike was trying to repress a giggle.
The pirate was clearly disturbed by their lack of fear or even interest in him, so he stomped away without saying another thing. As soon as he was gone, Scanlan dropped his head onto Pike’s shoulder. She grabbed his arms quickly and positioned him in front of her so he could lean against her fully. He took full advantage of it – he was exhausted, and she was very soft.
Pike brushed his hair out of his face again, this time paying attention to get the hair that wasn’t visible because of his illusion as well. She smelled nice. But since she’d been in this ship for weeks, that had to be his imagination. Was he that tired?
“I could take a nap,” he mumbled into her shoulder.
Pike laughed softly. “I got that idea, yeah. Maybe you should.”
“M’be.”
“Come on.”
Pike let go of him for a moment to drag the blankets back over the spot where he’d started making the glyph and then took his hand to guide him onto it. He huddled up against her and made a protesting noise when she started to move away.
“What is it?” she asked him, her voice soft and gentle.
“C’n you stay? Y’re soft. ‘nd warm.”
“Alright.”
This time, Pike was the big spoon. She wrapped herself around him, and Scanlan let out a content sigh. Even though their sleeping arrangements were incredibly uncomfortable, he still felt himself drifting off to sleep – but not before hearing Pike start to softly sing to him, a gnomish lullaby that he remembered vaguely from a long, long time ago. And it must have been because he was so tired, but at the sound of it, he started to cry very quietly.
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A Pirate’s Life For Me (chapter 3)
Pairing: pikelan
Words: 2172
Rated: M (for language)
Link: ao3
Chapter 1: tumblr / ao3
Chapter 2: tumblr / ao3
a multi-chapter pikelan pirate AU - chapter 3
Pike woke him up a couple of hours later so he would still be able to sleep that night. Scanlan was as groggy as he came after a few-hour long nap in the middle of the evening. His head ached like a fucker and he immediately said as much.
Pike shook her head with a smile on her face and reached out to stroke his head a few times. As she did, the rush of power came over him again and the headache subsided. He sighed in relief.
“Thanks. There’s nothing I hate more than headaches.”
“Nothing?”
“Almost nothing.”
“Well, you’re welcome.”
For a while, they just went about their business separately. Pike was frowning and staring at her symbol of Sarenrae again, and Scanlan fiddled with his pan flute for a bit. He wasn’t trying to get some more work done on the glyph – that would be extremely bad for his health, and he knew it. Even if he had a resident cleric at hand, too much magic wasn’t something to play around with in his experience.
Eventually, in the middle of doing nothing, Pike started humming that tune again. She had part of the blankets in her lap and was pulling at a thread on it, as if she couldn’t stop herself. Scanlan froze in his tracks.
His movement must have been abrupt, because Pike looked up at him immediately and stopped humming. “Scanlan?”
“I’m fine,” he told her, “It’s just… What song is that?”
“Ah.” Pike thought about that for a moment. “I’m not sure, actually. Papa Wilhand used to sing it to me. You reminded me of it.”
“I did?”
She nodded. “I don’t know why. It’s not like your arcane magic is in gnomish.” She looked up at him. “Do you know it as well?”
“Vaguely…”
His voice drifted off and he caught himself, looking back up at her. She had her head tilted a little, and was looking at him curiously.
He tried for a grin. “It’s been a long time since I heard that kind of song.”
The spark of curiosity in her eyes brightened. “How old are you?”
He tutted. “Now, now, never ask a gnome his age.”
She laughed. “Fine, then. Did your parents sing it to you?”
Scanlan turned away from her a little so she couldn’t see his face. “My mom,” he said casually.
“Ah,” Pike said.
She sounded so understanding that he was momentarily annoyed.
“What?” he snapped.
“Nothing.”
Pike hesitated for a moment. “What was her name?”
Scanlan stared at the wood in front of him, felt the swaying of the ship on the calm waves, listened to the creaking of the ship.
“Juniper,” he then said.
“Pretty name,” Pike responded quietly.
Scanlan looked at her again. He shouldn’t have snapped at her.
“What’s your mother’s name?” he asked.
“Maxime.”
“Good name as well.”
Pike snorted.
He arched an eyebrow at her, and she blushed lightly when she saw.
“It’s just,” she stammered, “My mom… Well, we didn’t keep in touch.”
“How so?”
“She’s not a good person. Not that my dad is a good person… Really, there’s probably a grand total of two good people in my family. Wilhand and Grog.”
“Wilhand isn’t your father?”
She shook her head. “He’s my great-great-grandfather. And Grog is adopted. Sort of.”
“Wow.” Scanlan leaned back against the wall. “And what about the rest of them?”
Pike shrugged her shoulders. “They’re off somewhere or other. Cheating people out of their purses.”
“Charlatans?”
“That’s one word for it. It’s how I got my name.”
“Pike?”
She looked at him weirdly for a moment. “What? Oh! No. My last name. Trickfoot.”
“Trickfoot,” he muttered. Didn’t sound familiar.
He nodded slowly. Not the best part of her life, then. That made sense. Pike didn’t seem like the charlatan type.
“At least they’re not pirates,” he joked, before he could stop himself.
Pike nodded. “That’s true. Not like these bastards.” She glared at the ceiling once more.
Scanlan was quiet for a moment. He flicked his wrist a few times, making his flute appear and disappear. He kept his eyes on the familiar carved wood, the tiny flowery swirls that Keyleth had added to it when she made it for him.
“Have you dealt with pirates much?” he asked.
Pike shook her head. “No. Just once or twice. We usually fought them off pretty easily. They’re not that powerful, usually.”
He smiled a little at that. “Not compared to Pike the War Cleric.”
“Exactly.” She smiled at him. “Have you come across pirates before?”
“Sure,” he said, “But… I don’t know, they can be very different from each other.”
Pike nodded contemplatively at that. “That’s true. Some pirates don’t even attack merchant’s vessels.”
“True. They keep to the crown’s ships.” A tiny smile formed around his lips. “Or other pirates.”
“Now that sounds like fun,” Pike said.
Scanlan almost dropped his flute mid-wrist flick, but he managed to keep control of his magic. “You think so?”
Pike hummed emphatically. “Paying guys like these back? You can’t say that’s not tempting.”
“Oh, no, I agree. I guess I just wasn’t sure you would. I mean, there’s privateers who do the same thing without being outlaws.”
She nodded again. “Sure. But…” She hesitated for a moment, but then seemed to catch herself. They were in the belly of a pirate’s ship: the only person who could hear what she was saying was Scanlan. She looked him over for a moment, frowning a little, as if trying to gauge what his reaction would be.
“The people in charge…” she said finally, “They’re not always the smartest.”
“True.”
“And, well…” She pursed her lips. “I’m not the person for politics. At all. But if I would get my hands on all the money pirates have stolen for the crown and distribute it amongst the people of Tal’Dorei myself… Well, there’s a lot of good that can be done with that kind of money, you know? Privateers… They have to just hand everything back over to the same people who lost it.”
Scanlan frowned a little and thought that over. “I hadn’t really considered that,” he muttered, “That could be really interesting.”
“Right? I feel like… I don’t know, you can do the right thing without being legal per se. Or even in charge. If you have enough balls, and enough heart, you can change the world for the better without getting caught up in endless rules and paperwork.”
“You’ve thought about this a lot,” he stated, sounding a little surprise.
Another one of Pike’s little blushes appeared on her cheeks. They were quickly becoming his favourite thing in the world.
“Well, I had a few weeks of down-time,” she said.
As if that thought triggered another, she immediately started frowning again.
“There he is again.”
She looked up at him. “What?”
“You’re thinking about your brother.”
She blinked. “How did you know?”
He moved up to her and pressed his finger onto her forehead, right where it crinkled when she frowned. “You have a tell,” he told her with a teasing smile.
Pike swatted his hand away in embarrassment. “You’re perceptive,” she mumbled.
Scanlan sat back and sent her a smug grin. “Quite.”
She shook her head at him again, but there wasn’t anything disapproving about it.
“What were you thinking now?” he asked, and he nudged her gently.
Pike sighed. “Just… I really miss Grog.”
Scanlan nodded. “That makes sense. I mean, I don’t have any siblings, but… Well. I have some people who come close, I guess. I guess I miss them too. A little.”
Pike got very quiet for a moment and when he looked up at her, she was staring at the floor, one hand clasped tightly around her holy symbol. “Were they on the ship with you?”
Oh. She thought they were…
“No,” he assured her, “No, I took this trip alone. I was on my way back to them.”
Visible relief overtook her expression. “Good.” Her gaze turned quizzical. “What kind of trip were you taking anyway?”
“Oh, just… boring stuff.” Scanlan fumbled for words, trying to find something. And since they had just talked about her family, to his greatest surprise the thing that came out eventually was: “I visited my mother’s grave site for the anniversary of her death. We lived in Wildemount.”
Pike startled and looked at him wide-eyed. “Oh, I’m so sorry…”
“Don’t be.” He smiled at her, feeling mildly guilty. “It was a long time ago.”
She hesitated. “What happened?”
Why had he brought this up?
Still, even though usually the topic of his mother made him clam up and leave as soon as possible, he found that he was actually pretty comfortable with telling Pike. Especially with the way she was sitting beside him, looking up at him with eyes that were endlessly gentle.
“There was a goblin invasion of our village.” His voice stayed soft, as if he was relaying bad news to her. “She didn’t make it.”
“I’m so sorry, Scanlan.”
He attempted another smile. “Like I said, it’s been a long time. I’ve made my peace with it.”
“Have you?”
This time, Scanlan was the one who startled. He stared at her, and Pike stared straight back at him. He wondered how she could go from gentle to not-taking-emotional-prisoners in such a short amount of time.
Pike gave him time to reboot his brain, and when he did, he frowned. “Well. Maybe not. It’s hard to make your peace with something like that, I guess.”
‘”Definitely,” Pike nodded, “I would even say almost impossible.”
Scanlan nodded slowly as well. “Well, that’s an insight into myself I hadn’t had before.”
Pike laughed. “Look at me casually changing your life.”
He looked at her. “Yeah,” he said softly, “Look at you.”
Pike’s brain had already moved on, and she looked off into the distance. “I almost lost Wilhand to a sort of invasion, you know. But he made it. I can’t believe how lucky I am sometimes.”
She seemed startled by her own words and looked back at Scanlan. “Oh shit, was that super insensitive?”
Scanlan smiled at her. “No. I’m glad you got that chance. Goblins too?”
“Goliaths. But one of them stood up against the others and saved him.” A wide smile appeared on her face. “Grog.”
“Your brother is a goliath?”
“Adopted,” Pike clarified again quickly.
“Still.”
He’d never worked with a goliath before. Could be real interesting. They definitely had their uses.
“What a peculiar family unit,” he said with a half-smile playing around his lips, “Ancient gnome. Gorgeous gnome. Towering goliath.”
Pike laughed again, but she was blushing as well. “It’s interesting, that’s for sure. What’s your family like? If you count those people you talked about before as siblings, that is.”
“Oh, well… Also varied, I suppose. A couple of half-elves. A human.”
Pike nodded understandingly. “Tall people.”
Scanlan laughed and nudged her. “Yeah, you have no idea how nice it is to talk to someone who’s on my level for once.”
“It makes you forget you’re small, doesn’t it?”
He grinned. “Sure does. Although I refuse that let my stature limit me in life.”
“Very admirable.”
“Well, you must understand, miss war cleric.”
“Fair enough,” she laughed.
He had to say, he really hadn’t expected his time aboard this ship to be quite this… pleasant. He was enjoying himself.
And as if Pike could read his mind, she said: “I know it’s mean, but I’m really glad you showed up, Scanlan.”
He smiled and shook his head at her. “No, no, I get it.”
Scanlan laid back on the one blanket they shared at night, his hands behind his head and his eyes closed. He was starting to get sleepy again – this glyph really took its toll on him.
“It’s been a long time since I made a friend,” he said.
Pike chuckled. “I can’t say the same. But I don’t think I had a friend like you before.”
The two of them looked at each other and then laughed a little. Pike came towards him and laid down beside him on the blanket.
“This whole situation is ridiculous,” she sighed.
“Tell me about it.”
She sighed once more. “We should go to sleep. If we wake up early there’s less chance that they’ll catch us while you’re making the circle.”
Scanlan nodded. “Yeah. And I’m ready to doze off again anyway.”
“Should I wake you up?”
“Yeah, that’s probably for the best. If I’m a bitch in the morning, I’m sorry. Not a morning person.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
She huddled up closer to him, laying her head on his chest. Scanlan brought down one of his arms so he could rest his hand on her shoulder. It wasn’t any less strange than the night before, laying here with her like this. It was still sort of miraculous, and it made him feel warm.
On the cold floor of the darkened ship, that was all he really needed.
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