Chapter Text
Rain lashes against the stained glass windows of the castle as Keyleth strides through the halls with Derrig at her side, more than a little irate at the lack of decorum from certain members of the council in her last meeting.
“The nerve of them,” she seethes. Derrig, even though his height is comparable to hers, has to hurry to catch up with her furious pace. “They never listen to me, and yet they love calling me ‘princess’ and parading me around the place. So much so for ruler of the realm if they don’t even let me speak!”
“Well, they are not known for their progressivity, your highness,” Derrig says, and Keyleth does her best not to snap at him, too. “I have no doubt that you will be able to wrangle them into submission eventually.”
Keyleth huffs. “Well, I don’t think you need to say it like that.”
Derrig laughs. “How else would you prefer I put it? There’s still hope, I believe, for them. They did approve your marriage. Look how well that turned out!”
If it were even possible, Keyleth’s mood sours even further. “Yes, look how well that turned out,” she mutters under her breath.
Derrig tilts his head to the side, eyes narrowing. “Trouble in paradise?” His hand drifts to the hilt of his sword.
Internally, she thinks, fuck.
She shouldn’t have have said anything.
“You could say that,” she grumbles.
The last thing she had spoken to Derrig about was when she was planning to take Vax’ildan into town. She’d spent the better part of an afternoon fretting to her guard about the best place to take Vax to dinner, if it was too much and too romantic too soon.
She can see where he would have the impression that her relationship was ‘paradise.’ Now, ‘trouble’ would be quite the understatement.
“I was under the impression that you and Vax’ildan were starting to form a bond,” Derrig says, brow furrowed and a steely glint in his gaze now. “Did something happen that I should be aware about in regard to your safety? If he laid a hand on you-”
Gentle hands in hers, deep hazel eyes-
“No, no,” Keyleth hurries to say. “Sh- he didn’t do anything. I just…” She takes a deep breath. Tries to calm the simmering anger that threatens to rise up in her chest at the reminder of her recent revelation. “He’s not the person I thought he was, and I don’t know how we can get past it. How I can trust him again.”
“Ah,” Derrig nods sagely. “Miscommunication, then. While I’m glad it’s not a threat to you, that is often the worst follies of marriage, especially one that begins with two reluctant parties.”
You could say that again, Keyleth thinks.
They’re just past the library when Keyleth suddenly stops in her tracks. Derrig is so caught up in trying to keep up with her that he takes several steps beyond her before he realizes she’s not in step with him anymore.
“Princess?”
Keyleth frowns.
“Is everything alright?” he asks. His alertness is palpable, and Keyleth rests her hand on his arm in reassurance.
“It’s nothing,” she says, but he knows her well enough not to believe her. “You go on ahead.”
Derrig takes one long look in the direction Keyleth’s attention has been fixed on, and then nods. “You’ll alert me if anything happens?”
Keyleth nods, and Derrig steps back. Turns on his heel, and then leaves her standing at the doorway, just as she had stood what feels like a lifetime ago.
Oh, how different things were then, Keyleth thinks bitterly to herself. The last time she’d stood in this same place, she had butterflies fluttering in her stomach at the thought of her husband and the tentative bud of affection she felt blossoming in her chest for him.
Now, she’s just conflicted.
She hasn’t known what to think about her- wife? Husband, still? It’s been three weeks since Vex’s admission of guilt, and since then, no matter how hard she’s tried, she can’t even label the budding relationship. Partner seems the most neutral, the most fair to Vex’ahlia, but that doesn’t feel quite right, either, for reasons Keyleth can’t quite put a finger on.
So she’s avoided Vex’ahlia all together, staying far away from the spots that she had been starting to think of as ‘theirs’- especially the library, where she currently stands staring at Vex’ahlia’s lonely figure tucked against the window.
Without Derrig by her side, her rage from her meetings fading, Keyleth no longer feels quite so confident. What exactly had she planned to accomplish by sending her guard away? She doesn’t really want to talk to Vex’ahlia, but-
But something’s off.
The same defeated hunch to her shoulders that had accompanied her in the first few weeks of their life together is back. Melancholy rolls off her in waves that Keyleth can sense, even from this distance, and her heart twists in sympathy before she even knows why.
“Is everything alright?” Keyleth asks, raising her volume just a fraction above the normal so it carries properly across the library, and Vex’ahlia startles, her attention snapping to Keyleth with a jolt.
It happens so fast that if Keyleth had blinked, she would have missed it, but she hadn’t- and so she notices Vex’s hand swipe at her cheeks before she’s pasting a too-wide smile on her face.
“Everything’s fine.”
Keyleth takes a few steps further into the library to avoid having to continue to project her voice. She doesn’t fancy the entire palace finding out Vex’ahlia’s business, no matter how furious she is at her for- well, for everything really.
Instead, she chooses to take her frustrations out in a different way. A crueler way, really, and a much more selfish one. “I thought you said you weren’t going to lie to me anymore,” she says. It’s a low blow, but she’s still high off her fury from earlier, and she still resents Vex’ahlia for taking away something that had begun to feel so precious to her.
Vex’ahlia swallows. Looks down at her hands. “It’s not fair for you to have to deal with my problems in addition to yours,” she says, and though the moisture in her eyes reflects the candlelight, her voice is steady. Determined. Proud. “You don’t need to continue to care about me, if you don’t want to.”
“No, I don’t,” Keyleth says flatly, but not coldly. She crosses her arms over her chest. “I shouldn’t care about you at all. You lied to me, to my people. Stole months of-” Of my love. Of my life. “Of my country’s time.” And yet I still care.
“I’m so sorry, Keyleth.”
“You should be.”
Guilt flickers across Vex’s face before her regret gives way to a resentful anger. Her fists clench, but she doesn’t say anything else in response, and turns back to the window, and Keyleth’s fury continues to boil beneath her skin.
“You should be sorry,” Keyleth repeats, and Vex’s head jerks up at the sudden break in silence, at this escalation of their conversation- an escalation that has both brewing for a long time. “You make me furious. I cannot fathom why you would disrespect me so much as to lie to me, my father, and everyone I care about.”
“Keyleth, I-”
“Did you ever stop to consider that we would have helped you, if you just asked ?”
The fury that Keyleth has been holding back for the past several weeks is finally coming to a head, stoked, in part, by the many failures of her advisors in her meeting prior, but fueled mainly by her anger at the bittersweet feeling of longing she cannot let go of every time she so much as looks in the direction of Vex’ahlia’s honeyed hazel eyes.
“Why would you?” Vex’ahlia snaps, and gods, now she’s angry too. The book she had been reading thumps to the ground as she stands, defiant, defensive. “You’re a princess. You’re supposed to inherit the most independent, wealthy country on the continent. You’ve never wanted for anything, never had to beg for a safe place to stay, never gone to bed so hungry you’ve had to eat paste. A few months ago, you wouldn’t even have looked at me as an equal.”
Vex’s words are like being doused in cold water, leaving Keyleth speechless.
“Vex’ahlia-”
“My mother spent half of her life waiting on a diplomat who didn’t give a flying fuck about her,” Vex continues, her voice frigid, now, colder than Keyleth has ever heard it. “She died still holding on to hope that he would help her children once she was gone, and yet, here we are. So forgive me, but I have never had a reason to believe in the aristocracy.”
Never.
The word, and how easily it comes out of Vex’s mouth, chips anguished pieces out of Keyleth’s heart. She wonders if Vex can hear it shatter.
“Well. Then maybe it’s for best that this ends here,” Keyleth says, straightening her spine, and folding her shaking hands behind her back, out of Vex’s view. “If these past few months have done nothing to dissuade that notion.”
Vex’s gaze snaps up to meet Keyleth’s, but she is not so foolish as to betray her emotions as Keyleth continues to speak.
“I opened my home to you,” she says. “Gave you everything of myself that I could offer, and more. I thought-” her voice cracks, breaks. “I thought that we could have been more than partners of convenience. It’s unfortunate that a means to an end is all I could ever be for you. It seems we both have own own tendencies to behave like to our parents.”
The barb has its intended effect, and Vex flinches.
Keyleth’s jaw clenches. She tries not to take note of the way her stomach twists at seeing Vex hurting, even if it was, in her opinion, deserved. “Maybe in another world we would have been friends,” she says bitterly, about to turn on her heel, unable to stand in this room and watch the future she had begun to imagine for herself slipping away. “And you would have let me care about you the way I was starting to.”
She fumbles in the bag she keeps at her side, draws out a pouch full of gold she often keeps on her person for treating the Ashari kids to sweets, and tosses it at Vex, who lets it drop to the ground with a melancholy clatter.
“There’s more where that came from,” Keyleth says, and now, she’s just tired. Tired of fighting, tired of losing people she cares about. “If you have truly never had a reason to believe in the aristocracy, I’m not going to force you to stay for the sake of your brother’s health. I don’t like the thought of trapping the people I love in impossible situations.”
The word slips out before she can stop it, and she sees surprise flicker across Vex’s face before she’s able to mask it.
The next thing Vex says, is so far from what Keyleth was expecting that she’s near-speechless.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Said what?” she asks, stupidly, perhaps, and-
“‘Never,’” Vex says.
She hesitates for a moment, and then something in her eyes hardens.
Keyleth can’t even begin to decipher the emotion before Vex closes the distance between them to press her mouth to Keyleth’s in a kiss that is many things- frustration, anger- but also tender in a way Keyleth isn’t ready for, her lips hesitant, as if asking for permission.
Against her will, Keyleth finds herself softening to the kiss, her lips parting automatically to accommodate Vex’s.
It feels right after more than a week of them not speaking to each other, not holding each other, not kissing each other, and she can feel her fury at Vex waning with the slide of Vex’s tongue against hers.
When they part, they’re both panting and Keyleth’s usually flawless lipstick is smeared. She bows her head, one hand on Vex’s chest, stopping her from leaning forward again.
“I care about you more than I should,” she says, fighting to keep her voice even, to stop herself from wanting to forget the damned argument and just kiss the woman in her arms senseless. “I’m so angry with you. Lying to me- it’s going to take a long time to fix the damage that’s done. I- I can’t deny what I feel for you, but if you want to go, I won’t stop you.”
Vex swallows. “As long as you’ll have me, I’m not going anywhere. I want to trust you, Kiki. To let you in. It’s just- it’s difficult.”
“I know.”
“But if you’ll let me, I want to try.”
Despite their conversation in the library, Keyleth can’t quite bring herself to fully open up to Vex. A part of her is always left wondering what else she’s hiding and keeps trying to pick out the differences between the facade she’d created of her brother and the real version of her, made even more difficult by the fact that Vex still has to hide her identity from the rest of the Ashari.
Keyleth finds herself wondering why she didn’t notice the insincerity in so many of her quirks in the first place.
She’s more graceful now, her light steps no longer masked behind the stomping around that had irked Keyleth in the first place. She doesn’t pin her bangs back all the time, letting her hair fall in a soft wave around her eyes when they’re alone, and her words are less measured. Freer.
Vex is, in many ways, a stranger, but not an unwelcome one.
She is- Keyleth doesn’t know how to describe her now. All the words she thought were appropriate- charming, honest, earnest- don’t fall into place the same way they once did. Now, things like more enigmatic come to mind. Beautiful- though that is a word she would have applied to her even when she knew her as her brother.
The next days and week are spent in a careful dance, not avoiding each other, but not seeking out each others’ company, either. Keyleth eats breakfasts alone late in the morning after her early meetings, while Vex rises and dines with the sunrise.
In the evenings, Keyleth spends her time in the gardens keeping up a few plants that the staff have entrusted to her. Vex is often in the library, sheafs of paper in front of her, her hands always busy with sketching and miniscule fixing rips in clothing.
By the end of the week, Keyleth is sick of it. She’s sick of pretending that she’s not keeping an eye on Vex the entire time. She’s tired of having lost a friend- because that’s what ‘Vax’ was to her at the beginning- to their conflicting lives.
“Come with me,” Keyleth says, after striding determinedly into the library one morning.
Vex looks up with wide eyes, surprised at Keyleth’s rare interruption, though she begins to close her sketchbook and put away her colored pastels even she asks, “What’s going on?”
“Just follow me,” Keyleth says.
She doesn’t know if she should be flattered or terrified that Vex trusts her so implicitly as to not ask for further clarification as she leads her through the palace. She stops only at the kitchen to request that the chefs pack away two small meals before they’re heading out of the main gate of the castle, through the slowly emptying town square, and toward the winding paths that skirt up the mountains mountains.
For at least fifteen minutes, neither of them say anything. For once, it’s not awkward- Keyleth is in her element on these trails, having grown up traversing them since she was little, while Vex seems absorbed in following, occasionally glancing down at the sprawling valley below them.
By the time they reach their intended destination and crest the peak they’ve been climbing toward about an hour later, both of them are a little out of breath. There’s a cute pink flush to Vex’s cheeks when Keyleth finally turns to face Vex.
She takes a seat on a large rock, one with a perfect view framed by two massive trees.
“Where are we?” Vex asks. She hesitates for a moment before perching next to Keyleth, though she keeps a few inches between them. Then, she turns her attention to the view below- Zephrah, now just a clump of buildings nestled among the mountains, cherry blossoms blanketing almost every surface.
“My parents used to take me here when I was younger,” Keyleth says, while rummaging in the bag the cooks had given them. She holds out a waterskin and apple to Vex. “My parents were always private people, and didn’t want me to grow up always been scrutinized by being in the public. We’d come up here for camping, just us, when they were able to step away from their diplomatic duties.”
If she closes her eyes, she can almost smell her mother’s perfume. It’s just like she remembers up here, breezy and cool and nothing like the wildness of life in Zephrah’s courts. There’s no one who might appear demanding her time, no one to judge her from throwing the apple core down the mountain when she’s done.
She wishes that her recollection of her mother was stronger than a scent on the wind and the ghost of a touch on her shoulder.
“Oh,” Vex says. She looks down at her apple, biting at her lip before she raises her eyes again. “They seem like lovely parents.”
“They are. My dad- he tries his best now. I think it’s just hard when there are so many memories of her he can’t escape. I look just like her, you know.”
“I know the feeling, yes,” Vex says morosely. Keyleth believes her. There’s something raw and unfamiliar about her voice now, like the wind has stripped away all her guardedness.
“What about you?” Keyleth asks, when the silence lingers too long, and all they’ve accomplished is eating their apples and looking out at the view. She tries her best not to sound accusatory. She doesn’t want to sound judgemental- but she’s tired of waiting.
“How so?”
“What about your life? We’ve lived together for months, but I feel like I know nothing.”
Nothing real, she doesn’t add, but by the guilt that flickers across Vex’s face, the effect remains the same.
“What do you want to know?”
Everything. “What is your brother like?”
Vex immediately seems to soften. “Well, he looks like me, but you knew that-” Keyleth gives her an obligatory smirk, but doesn’t respond beyond that- “And he’s hopeless,” she continues with a crooked smile. “A hopeless romantic. Optimistic to a fault. Wears his heart on his sleeve, is obsessed with the apothecary in town. Gilmore. I- this is the longest we’ve ever been apart. Codependent twins, and all that.”
“What do you think he’s doing now?”
She’s thought about Vax’ildan a lot. More than she should, probably. Ever since Vex’s confession, she’s wondered if they would have gotten along. If things had panned out the way they meant to, would she have fallen in love, then?
And then she looks over at Vex’ahlia, the setting sun kissing the top of her hair, and thinks, no, she wouldn’t have.
“Gilmore- his crush? Boyfriend? He wrote me,” Vex says, her gaze still fixed on the horizon, an distant look in her eyes. “He’s not quite so sick now that my father has finally begun to help him get the medicine he needs. They’ve even gone on dates, which I do my best not to think about.”
Keyleth lets out a breath. “That’s a good sign, at least.”
“Yeah.” She doesn’t sound convinced, though, and there’s a hint of bitterness to Vex’s voice that Keyleth doesn’t expect. “I just- I wish I had been the one to make him better. All those years, and we still needed my father’s fucking money for it to happen.”
“Well,” Keyleth jokes, “You can always pretend it was my money instead.”
Vex’s shock reads plain across her face, and for a moment, she just stares at Keyleth like she’s expecting another shoe to drop- rightfully so, if the redhead’s most recent outbursts on the subject matter are any indication- but the fury that usually accompanies Keyleth’s thoughts on the situation doesn’t come.
“I hope you know I didn’t mean to take advantage of your family’s hospitality,” Vex says after a long moment. She turns the apple over in her hands again. “My father- he’s a difficult man. He’s always somehow expected everything and nothing of my brother and I. I’m not attempting to make excuses, but- the initial decision, to come here, to marry you- it was always about us and him. Never,” she emphasizes the word- “About you.”
“I appreciate that,” Keyleth says simply, and after a moment, Vex accepts it. She relaxes, leaning against the trunk of the tree behind her before taking a bite of her apple.
A tranquil silence falls, then. The prickly, tense atmosphere that Keyleth has felt dissipates, leaving an almost peaceful air to Vex’s companionship.
When Keyleth and her parents came up here before, she spent her time throwing leaves off the cliff and watching them drift through the air current before vanishing from view. Her father taught her how to read the pattern and predict it, which resulted in young Keyleth growing a bit of an obsession with the wind and the clouds.
Now, though, she hasn’t paid the wispy cirrus clouds and
“Most of what you know was true.”
Keyleth pulls herself out of her thoughts, turning to Vex.
“About me, I mean. Some of the little things are different, like my favorite flower. But the big things- my mother- are real.”
“What is your favorite flower, then? If it’s not snowdrops?” Keyleth asks, and it’s so far from what Vex seems to have expected her to say in response that it takes her a moment to answer for herself.
“I don’t know that I have one,” Vex says with a bitter sort of smile. “I’ve never had much of an occasion to enjoy them.”
Oh, Keyleth thinks, at the reminder of just another way she can never understand Vex’s life before Zephrah. “Then maybe we will just have to come up with a reason for you to get the chance to,” she decides, and the shocked expression on Vex’s face tells Keyleth all she needs to know about the differences between the two of them, if Vex’s is one where even liking flowers are a luxury.
But still, there are so many questions she has. So many things left unanswered. “If not flowers, then. Tell me about you,” she says. It’s not an order- but a heartfelt request. “Did you always want to be a seamstress? Would you dress differently, if you had the choice? What’s your favorite color?”
Vex laughs. “Of course you would ask me about my favorite color,” she says, and Keyleth, on edge after years of being laughed at on the schoolyard for innocent questions such as these, blinks when she hears affection in her voice. “It used to be blue.”
Keyleth raises her eyebrow. “Used to?”
Vex looks very deliberately into Keyleth’s eyes, and says, “It’s become green, I think.”
There’s a meaning Keyleth is almost positive she’s missing behind Vex’s response, but, after a long moment where they both stare each other down, Keyleth gives up on it altogether, letting out a frustrated huff.
“To your other questions- I never wanted to be a seamstress,” Vex says. She fiddles with the end of her hair, staring absently off into the distance. “The shop was my mother’s. I always admired her work, but sitting inside, slaving day and night over whether my stitches were even, was something I never had the patience for as a young girl. I enjoy it a bit more now, but part of that enjoyment is out of necessity. It would be miserable to keep insisting on hating it.”
The imagery of a young Vex fuming over sewing is an adorable thought, though Keyleth wishes something that had so clearly not been her passion could have remained something of the past for her, and not her entire life’s work.
“The fashion aspect is… a tolerable upside,” Vex continues. “The design part, the color part, is something I do love. I enjoy making people look beautiful- though that, maybe, was my own hope that I would have the chance to have the experience for myself one day.”
“You’ve always been beautiful,” tumbles out of Keyleth’s mouth before she can stop it. Her instinct is to cover it with meaningless babble, to distract from her error- but she doesn’t, because she knows it’s true.
Vex blushes. “I doubt that,” she says. “But thank you, darling.”
Oh, how that word twists something in Keyleth’s heart and sends butterflies soaring in her stomach.
Impulsively, she leans closer to Vex and allows her eyes to flicker down to Vex’s lips, but doesn’t close the last space between them. She lets her gaze linger there before her clear emerald eyes meets Vex’s.
For a moment, neither of them dare to break the silence, and then Keyleth reaches out to pinch a curl of Vex’s hair in between her two fingers.
“And these?” she asks, so quietly it might have been a whisper. “Tell me about these.”
“About what?” Vex breathes.
“The beads.”
She’s been wondering about Vex’s hair for some time. Even before she knew the truth, she tried her best to memorize the beads that always adorned it. Wondered about each color, if they meant anything, why she wore them.
“My brother’s. Not mine.”
“They don’t mean anything?”
Vex swallows. “These don’t,” she says, but she doesn’t look away from Keyleth. Then, she lets out a tired laugh. “I rather hate them, actually. They scrap together when I sleep, and hit my face when I walk. Not very suitable for much of anything, really.”
“Then what do you like?” Keyleth asks, and watches moisture begin to shine in Vex’s eyes.
“Feathers. Well, feathers, and a braid,” Vex manages. She turns away to brush tears off her cheeks- but Keyleth reaches out and stops her before she can hide away.
Slowly- slow enough that Vex could stop her, if she wanted- Keyleth reaches out to undo the leather tie Vex uses to keep the beads in her hair. It takes a minute or so, but soon, she has a mosaic of different colored beads clutched in her palm, and Vex’s hair is bare of any ornamentation.
“May I?” she asks, one hand hovering just above the hair that spills over Vex’s shoulder, and Vex nods.
The process of braiding Vex’s hair is… stranger than Keyleth would have thought. She’s not used to doing hair that isn’t her own, not after her mother’s death- and certainly not used to the intimacy that comes with being close enough to Vex to smell the summery soaps she uses.
Vex’s hair is silky smooth and heavy in Keyleth’s hand as she weaves the strands into each other. The sections fall into place effortlessly, like they were made to sit that way, and when Keyleth pulls back to study her work, she’s stunned by the effect it has.
Vex as Vax was attractive, yes- but in a timeless, ethereal way, in a way that Keyleth almost felt that she couldn’t even begin to measure up to. The angles her hair drew around her face were intimidating, designed to accentuate her sharp cheekbones, high eyebrows, and pointed ears.
But with her hair like this, her bangs frame her face, the dark color bringing out the freckles on her cheeks and the warm flecks of honey in her eyes. The smooth edges of her braid pull attention to the roundness of her lips and her smooth complexion, and Keyleth thinks that this version of her is the version she can see herself waking up to every morning.
“There you are,” she says, unable to hide her smile as she tucks a rebellious curl out of Vex’s eyes, and kisses her.
Their journey back to Zephrah proper feels like both an eternity and no time at all. Keyleth is sure that multiple people spot them on the walk through town, hand in hand, faces flushed, with kiss-swollen lips, but the only person she can think to care about about is Vex, and Vex’s hand in hers- a hand that now, seems so impossibly soft for Keyleth to have ever thought belonged to her brother.
It’s with those soft hands and a disarming sense of urgency that Vex fumbles with the door to Keyleth’s bedroom before managing to pull it open.
There’s nothing soft about the fiery look in Vex’s eyes when she presses Keyleth up against the doorframe that has Keyleth’s stomach dropping in a giddy sort of swoop as Vex surges upward to capture Keyleth’s lips in a searing kiss.
Keyleth can’t help but gasp at the unexpectedness of it all, at the feeling of their bodies pressed flush against each other, Vex’s weight pushing her back against the wooden frame. She’s never done anything like this before- kissed anyone like this, touched anyone like this- and it’s terrifying how easy it is to let her hand settle on Vex’s slim waist, even more so to reach up and run her hands through the braid she so gently put together not an hour earlier.
Terrifying, but addicting.
Their kiss(es, if she’s being fully truthful with herself) on the mountain had reminded Keyleth of a warm breeze: a gentle brush of their lips and a hint of apple.
This kiss is all fire, embers fanned into a bright flame, hot and wanting as Vex trails open-mouthed kisses down Keyleth’s neck, and Keyleth bites back a moan as she relishes in how Vex’s cool, calloused fingertips trail over her exposed collarbone, as her mouth chases every inch of skin her fingers dance across.
Her hands fumble at Vex’s blouse, desperate to shed even some of the layers between them, but she’s so distracted by Vex’s bruising kisses that it takes her several seconds too long for her to be able to slip the buttons open.
Impatient, she abandons the buttons altogether, to tug Vex’s shirt out of her waistband, hands sliding up the muscled planes of Vex’s abs- which she tries not to short-circuit at- and up her ribcage to thumb at the underside of Vex’s breasts, fingertips brushing past the band that Vex has been using to flatten her chest.
They’re so close together that Keyleth can feel how Vex shivers at contact, and the knowledge that Vex is just as turned on as Keyleth is goes straight to Keyleth’s core, a desire she’s not quite sure how to feel about tightening in the pit of her stomach.
“Kiki,” Vex pants, and when she looks up Keyleth, her cheeks flushed a pretty shade of pink and her chest rapidly rising and falling, looking completely and utterly smitten, Keyleth knows she’s screwed. “Tell me to stop. Tell me this is a bad idea.”
“This is a bad idea,” Keyleth whispers, and Vex’s expression drops, before- “But I don’t want you to stop.”
“Good,” Vex says, and then she’s deftly unbuttoning Keyleth’s own linen shirt to suck a series of dark purple bruises into the pale swell of Keyleth’s breast. Keyleth claps her hand over her mouth to muffle her whimper, her head falling back against the doorframe as Vex lavishes her freckled skin.
Her leg slips between Keyleth’s knees and Keyleth can’t stop herself from grinding down on Vex’s clothed thigh. Her arousal leaves a damp stain, which Keyleth can only be embarrassed about for a split second before Vex is murmuring, “Does that feel nice, pretty girl?” and she forgets to be self-conscious entirely.
Try as she might, Keyleth can’t stop her hands from wandering, wanting to learn every inch of Vex. She tries to memorize how each touch is rewarded with a different reaction- skimming across Vex’s stomach makes Vex press her leg firmer between Keyleth’s, a squeeze to her shoulder has her sucking a particularly hard bruise into Keyleth’s breast- and, deliciously, a kiss to the gentle slope of Vex’s ear makes her whole body shiver.
Keyleth will certainly remember that.
It isn’t long before Vex is tugging them back from the doorway, deftly pushing Keyleth past the many potted plants she has scattered about her bedroom until they reach Keyleth’s bed.
Somehow, getting there has reality rushing back to Keyleth, the gravity of what she’s about to do a jolt to her already overwhelmed thoughts. Kissing Vex is easy. She can do kissing- those are simple. She’s been kissing people- albeit for diplomatic reasons and not for pleasure- since she was little.
This-
This feels enormous.
Keyleth has never been the type of girl to want to have sex. Her advisors used to tell her that her sexuality should be a tool she wields, not a feeling she chases- that a princess should choose carefully who she lavishes with attention- a lesson that young Keyleth took a little too much to heart.
She still remembers the other daughters of diplomats laughing at her when she admitted she still hadn’t kissed anyone by the time she became old enough to take on her official royal duties. The derisive, mocking laughter sunk into her bones until she couldn’t handle it anymore. She went out that very night to dance with boys who she thought at least had nice lips, and left before dawn with her first kiss.
Even then, those hadn’t meant anything then other than making a point. The feeling hadn’t made her giddy, or made her want to jump into bed with him. It was damp, his lips were chapped, and it was over before she really was able to think much about it.
But this- the feel of Vex’s lips on hers, the slide of their tongues against each other, the rosemary and lavender of Vex’s hair- makes Keyleth’s heart sing and her whole body ache in ways she’s never felt before.
She’s never felt so out of her depth. She feels as though she should have had this experience before, or at least have tried, or wanted to try. Maybe then she would feel less… young. Undeserving.
Sensing Keyleth’s hesitation, Vex sobers, taking a step back for just a moment, hand slowly trailing down Keyleth’s rapidly rising and falling chest to hold her hands tightly in hers.
Keyleth swallows. Vex reaches up and cups her face with one free hand, thumb stroking over her freckled cheek.“Kiki,” she murmurs, looking up at Keyleth with those enchanting, captivating eyes of hers. “Is this still okay?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she confesses. Tries to turn away and hide her blush, but Vex doesn’t let her. “I feel like- like I’ll fuck things up.”
Vex shakes her head. “You won’t,” she says. “We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”
“But-” She knows her face is scarlet now, and can’t quite meet Vex’s gaze when she speaks next. “But I want this. You.”
She places one palm on Keyleth’s chest, walking them back until Keyleth can feel the mattress pressing into the back of her legs. “You do?” she asks, insecurity managing to sneak through the confidence she tries to project.
“Yes,” Keyleth breathes. “I want to try.”
Despite Vex’s relieved look, her next question is serious. “Do you want to keep going?”
Keyleth licks her lips. “I do,” she says, and, for the first time she’s said those words since she met Vex, means them.
At that, Vex’s smile grows wider, and then pushes Keyleth down to sit on the mattress before kneeling in front of her.
Open-mouthed, Keyleth watches Vex as her delicate hands begin to undo the button on the pair of flowy pants Keyleth had worn for their hike. She slides them off Keyleth’s legs with an ease that shouldn’t be so devastatingly attractive, but, in both of their already aroused states, has Keyleth choking back a moan that feels premature considering all the steps they have yet to reach.
She can’t help but marvel at how she got to this situation - with Vex on her knees for her, dark eyes looking up like Keyleth is the sun and moon, but she’s certainly not complaining as Vex tosses her a wicked wink before sliding a hand up Keyleth’s leg, closer and closer to where she craves Vex’s touch the most. Her nails press deliciously into her inner thigh for a moment, and then she’s brushing aside the soaked fabric of Keyleth’s panties to lick a hot stripe up Keyleth’s aching cunt.
Keyleth shudders at the sensation. This time, a whimper does escape her lips as she throws her head back and her hands scramble to tangle in chestnut-brown hair. Vex will definitely need to re-do her braid, and probably the rest of her hair after this, she knows, but Keyleth can’t be bothered to care.
Vex takes her time swirling careful, calculated circles over Keyleth’s clit, through her folds and soaked, curly red hair. Keyleth has to press one palm over her mouth to muffle her moan as Vex begins leisurely fucking into her with her tongue. The stretch is- strange, she thinks, but not unpleasant, and stokes the embers of pleasure she can feel curling in the pit of her stomach.
When a minute passes, and Vex still hasn’t picked up the pace, Keyleth tugs impatiently at Vex’s hair, the pressure not enough, never enough-
“Still doing alright, darling?”
“Vex,” Keyleth complains, glaring daggers. “Please.”
She regrets her plea a moment later when Vex’s mouth presses firmly into her folds with even greater pressure than before. She can’t stop her hips from bucking, chasing the delicious, almost overwhelming sensation of Vex tugging at her clit, and she throws one leg around Vex’s frame, her heel digs into Vex’s back as she tries to pull Vex even closer, to have Vex’s tongue fill her just a little more-
Sensing that Keyleth has had enough teasing, Vex picks up the pace, adding first one, then two fingers when the first slides in with no resistance. She begins thrusting relentlessly into Keyleth ith earnest, bringing her nearer and nearer to the brink. Her hands dig into Keyleth’s hips so hard Keyleth knows there will be bruises later- but she doesn’t care. She welcomes the thought, even.
On a particularly deep thrust, chased by Vex pressing the flat of her tongue against Keyleth’s throbbing clit, Keyleth comes apart, falling forward against Vex and pressing open-mouthed, sloppy kisses to the top of her head as wave after wave of pleasure courses through her.
She loses herself in the floaty, nebulous feeling that comes after- like she’s drifting on the wind.
Vex coaxes Keyleth through her orgasm, licking gently away at the wetness that spills into her mouth until Keyleth, overstimulated, pushes her head away and instead draws her up for a filthy kiss. She can’t hold back her own desperate moan thar escapes her when she tastes the salty tang of herself on Vex’s lips- but Vex swallows that down, too.
When they part, Vex looks ruined, her face still covered in Keyleth’s slick, her hair mussed, her eyes bright.
For a moment, they just drink in the sight of each other- Vex still on her knees, her shirt falling open, her collarbones flushed and Keyleth is breathless on the bed.
“I’ll get you a cloth. You won’t want to sleep like that, darling,” Vex says softly, when she’s caught her breath, but when she stands, Keyleth catches her wrist.
With one fluid motion, she swaps their places and pushes Vex back into the mattress. She keeps herself above Vex with one arm. With the other, she slips her hand into the waistline of Vex’s pants. She gasps when her fingers come away soaked.
“Keyleth,” Vex says, her voice strangled, eyes as dark as the night sky, her pupils blown so wide Keyleth can barely see the faint ring of hazel around them. Keyleth tilts her head to the side.
“Yes?” she asks innocently.
If she had any doubt about Vex’s feelings about all this, knowing that she’s this turned on just by making Keyleth orgasm is all the confirmation Keyleth needed.
“If you don’t fuck me in the next few minutes, I will be needing a very cold bath.”
Keyleth leans down and kisses her, cutting off her last word in a reckless, dirty kiss that has Vex arching up into her. “Take off your pants, then,” she says when they part, not even an inch between their lips.
“You just had the best orgasm of your life, and you’re still ordering me around like a princess,” Vex teases, but betrays her desperation at how fast her hands scramble to pull her trousers off.
The moment Vex manages kick them away from the bed, Keyleth pins her back down and slips two fingers into her dripping core, meeting next to no resistance as she begins thrusting into Vex’s already fluttering inner walls. Her fingers slide easily down to the knuckle, which startles her for a moment before she adjusts.
She does her best to mimic what she remembers from how Vex fucked her- she starts slow at first and tries to recreate what made her feel that tightening in her stomach, what made her see stars- and it seems to work, for the most part. She learns Vex prefers tight circles around her clit, how just the right amount of pressure makes her gasp her name-
She thinks it’s the most beautiful sound in the world.
“You’re a fast learner, Kiki,” Vex gasps, as she wraps her arms around Keyleth’s neck, clinging desperately to her, their bodies pulled flush against each other as Vex grinds into Keyleth’s hand. Every so often, the bared skin underneath Vex’s open shirt brushes against Keyleth’s chest, the friction delicious and hot.
It’s impressive, really, how long Vex lasts. Her eyes are screwed shut, lips parted in a soundless scream as Keyleth fucks into her over and over again while she mouths urgently at the tanned skin where the buttons of Vex’s shirt have been wrenched open.
When Keyleth splits Vex’s legs further apart and adds a third finger, Vex lets out a strangled, desperate whimper, her whole body shaking as she tries to bite back her orgasm. Keyleth leans forward to nip at her sensitive ears, tugging at the pointed tip.
“Come for me, Vex’ahlia,” she breathes into the curve of Vex’s ear, and it’s the sound of her full name falling from Keyleth’s lips for the first time and the heel of Keyleth’s palm pressing against her aching center that has Vex shattering apart onto Keyleth’s fingers with a keening cry.
For a minute, the bedroom is filled with nothing but the sound of their panting. Vex flutters around the empty space Keyleth leaves as she slides her fingers out of Vex’s cunt.
Keyleth licks her fingers clean, trying to hide her own moan at the musky taste, before pressing a gentler kiss to Vex’s cheek. Vex just watches, hazy and blissed-out, holding weakly onto Keyleth’s shoulder before Keyleth lowers her to the mattress and settles onto the pillow next to her.
“I would not say that you ‘didn’t know what you were doing,’” Vex says, after managing to wiggle her way into Keyleth’s arms. “If that’s the case, I would be very intrigued to see what happens when you do know what you’re doing.”
Keyleth laughs, an elated, relieved laugh. “Well, I don’t plan on that being the last time.” She’s almost afraid to look at Vex when she says it. Is it too much to presume? To want to have Vex forever?
It’s not, she knows for certain, when she finally musters the courage to check and sees that Vex is smiling. “No, it won’t be,” she says, with a tenderness that feels more and more like home with every passing day as she rests her head against Keyleth’s heart.
The next morning, Keyleth wakes to an foreign sensation tickling under her nose, and she tries to bat whatever the culprit was- a piece of fuzz, a bug, maybe- away before sudden realization strikes her, and she opens her eyes to golden sunlight streaming through the window and Vex’s hair spilling across the pillow in a rich, dark wave.
As quick as lightning, the events of the night before come rushing back to Keyleth.
Trading memories of their mothers under the starlight. Walking hand in hand the entire path down to Zephrah, letting Vex lay her down onto the mattress-
If she closes her eyes, she can still feel the chill of her fingers as she undid each pearly button on Keyleth’s blouse, and the soft glide of Vex’s tongue across the swell of her breast, between her legs-
The memory of that is enough to make her blush, and she presses her palms over her face with a groan.
When she took Vex up to the mountain, she thought they’d maybe get one passably honest conversation together. Maybe she would learn a few more things about Vex’s life, or finally talk about what they were- husband and wife doesn’t feel right anymore, but neither does calling Vex her wife-
Instead, they talked, and then they fucked, and now, if Keyleth looks across the pillow, she can trace the curve of Vex’s bare shoulder, and reach out to touch her silky smooth hair.
She’s not sure what to call this: progress, maybe, but right now, anxiety beginning its treacherous seep into her mind, it feels a lot like a regression.
She doesn’t know how she can stay angry Vex when she’s looked into Vex’s eyes in the midst of her pleasure and saw nothing but raw love reflected back at her. She doesn’t want to be angry with Vex- not for a situation she never deserved to have in the first place- but fury has a way of lingering long after it’s welcome, and- well.
Keyleth is still furious.
She just isn’t sure who it’s directed at anymore, and still it builds, and builds, a pressure behind her eyes and in her heart until she can’t breathe anymore, and then-
“Kiki?” Soft hands cup Keyleth’s face, brushing away the tears that have begun to fall without Keyleth’s bidding, and then Vex is pushing herself upright, brow furrowing in concern, tucking fiery red hair out of Keyleth’s eyes, her touch lingering for just a moment too long against her cheek.
“What are we doing, Vex?” Keyleth whispers, imploring and devastated.
To her credit, Vex doesn’t recoil. “What do you mean, darling?”
“I just-” Keyleth swallows and sits up, too, pulling out of Vex’s concerned grasp for just a moment. “You- I- We fucked, and we talked about- about that not being the last time- but I still don’t know what- I don’t know what to think. About where we go from here.”
Vex lets out a long breath. “Where do you want us to go, Keyleth?”
The question should be judgemental, but there’s no sign of it in Vex’s voice, just a disarming kind of earnestness, and it's terrifying to know that whatever Keyleth says now will write their story beyond this morning.
“I want you,” she confesses, the words are bare, and vulnerable. “I want this. It’s not just sex to me. It scares me how much I want this, because I don’t want to spend every second wondering if you’ll lie to me again, or questioning if you’re telling me the entire truth.”
Vex swallows. She reaches out and takes Keyleth’s hand, and Keyleth lets her, though she’s sure Vex can feel the tension radiating through her body.
“Kiki, look at me,” Vex says, and against her better judgment, Keyleth raises her eyes to meet Vex’s. “From here on, everything about myself is yours. Everything about my past, everything about the present, and the future. When I said that I have never had a reason to trust an aristocrat, it was because I hadn’t had the chance to realize that I already trusted you. I don’t want that moment of anger to lead where we go from here.”
She looks down, playing with Keyleth’s hand. “It was easier to be angry at you than to admit that I am in love with you,” she admits. “You know what happened to my family. The thought of letting someone of your stature have that much control over me- it terrifies me. I’ve spent most of my life terrified of chasing someone who has never thought of me as an equal. But Kiki, I would follow you anywhere.”
Keyleth can taste her own lingering tears when she leans forward to press her lips to Vex’s, but she doesn’t care.
“I’d let you,” she whispers, and she can feel the shuddery, relieved breath Vex takes in at her words. When they part, Keyleth keeps Vex’s face cupped in hers, staring at her for a long, thoughtful moment. “I do want to tell my dad. About you, who you really are. It’s important to me that he knows. I don’t want to have to lie anymore. Not to my dad- or anyone, eventually.”
“I know,” Vex says, but she sounds so unsettled by the notion- specifically, of telling Korrin- that suddenly Keyleth finds it important that Vex not be afraid of Korrin the way she has been of Syldor all her life.
“He’ll understand.”
He has to, Keyleth thinks. If he doesn’t. Well, that’s a whole different problem that she’ll have to find an answer to.
For now, it’s easier to take Vex by the waist to turn them over and press her gently into the mattress to kiss her until the clocks outside the palace struck noon.
Vex confesses her deception to Korrin as summer is just starting to bleed into fall. He takes it with grace, and none of the fury Keyleth reacted with.
She then confesses to the council of elders at the start of winter, when the season’s first snow just beginning to dust the treetops of the surrounding mountains. To her surprise, they aren’t offended in the slightest, and offer her condolences about her close-minded father (their words, not Vex’s) before sending her off with well wishes.
At least, Keyleth assumes that’s what happened.
She hears about the results of the hearing when Vex returns home that evening, nose pink from the cold and snowflakes sprinkled in her braid. It’s a little baffling that even as a princess, she wasn’t allowed to attend- but she’s relieved that she won’t have to sneak around trying to hide Vex’s identity anymore.
They celebrate with a midnight dinner on the library balcony, kept warm by a cheerful fire crackling beside them, the city lights sprawling out across the vista below them- but Keyleth can’t take her eyes off Vex and the way the way the flickering flames bring out the warmth in her eyes and the brilliance of her smile.
She looks… settled. At peace.
It’s a look that Keyleth has grown to adore seeing on Vex as she’s begun to really and truly flourish in Zephrah, no longer so much a stranger to the Ashari and more like family. There’s a confidence that has settled into her step and a vivacity that she had never been able to really keep for herself in Byroden. And the Ashari love her, the kiddos especially. She’s charming with them, teaching them silly little games and buying them more treats than could possibly be healthy when they go on walks through town- a habit that always has Keyleth’s eyes watering at the sight.
“I have something for you,” Keyleth says, when they’re halfway through their chocolate cake and mulled wine, and gods, Vex’s immediate intrigue is endearing. She sits up straighter, leaning forward ever-so-slightly.
“Oh?” she says, eyebrow quirked. “Do you, now?”
“Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”
Vex obeys.
Keyleth takes a moment to soak the moment in, tracing every familiar angle of Vex’s face in a way she never has the courage to do when Vex is watching, before she fumbles in her pocket and draws out something small before holding it just above Vex’s outstretched palms. She lowers the object, but doesn’t let go, doesn’t want the shape to give it away before Vex sees it.
“Open your eyes,” Keyleth whispers, and Vex does, and as she opens her hands, Keyleth opens her own to reveal a familiar band: golden, with flowers delicately carved onto the outside. Vex’s wedding ring, given to her months ago.
“I didn’t know you kept this,” Vex breathes. She takes the ring and turns it over in her hands, an unreadable expression on her face as she traces the smooth edges.
“I want you to have it back,” Keyleth starts to say, but is quickly interrupted-
“You know, you don’t have to return this, when technically it should be my brother’s-” Vex says, then stutters to a halt. “Wait, what did you say?”
“I said,” Keyleth says patiently, amused. “I want you to have it.”
“But-”
“Vex’ahlia.”
As it always does, her full name shuts Vex up quick.
“I want you to have it,” Keyleth continues deliberately as she reaches across the table to hold Vex’s hands, squeezing them ever so gently. “Because I want to marry you for real this time.”
“Oh,” Vex says, and immediately starts to cry.
Which, of course, has Keyleth out of her chair and at Vex’s side immediately, panicking all the while. “Fuck, I didn’t mean- I mean, we don’t have to, if you’re not ready, I just thought that maybe now that the council knows, we could-”
But she’s cut off for a second time, then, by Vex leaning forward and kissing her, salty tears and sweet chocolate and bitter wine lingering on her lips, and, “Of course I will, Keyleth,” breathed into the space between them.
After that, there are a thousand things to consider, and a thousand differences between this wedding and the last.
In the lead-up to the first, Keyleth spent the majority of her time after the engagement announcement hiding in her room and dreading her impending obligations to a man she barely knew. Her father ended up doing most of the work- the flower preparations, the meal selection- and she preferred it that way. It was easier to pretend that it wasn’t happening at the time.
Her wedding now, is one she couldn’t stop thinking about even if she tried.
Instead of wondering which diplomats and families to invite, Keyleth’s biggest decision is over who to ask to stand by her side (she decides on her father and Derrig, who cries when she asks him to).
What to wear is a different struggle entirely. She’s not about to re-use the same dress from their first wedding- she hadn’t liked it much to begin with, and it didn’t feel right to start their new marriage in the same way that their first one did.
That particular dilemma is quickly solved when Vex pulls Keyleth aside several months before their wedding, and takes her into a dusty, barely-used storage room in the castle, her hands over Keyleth’s eyes to stop her from peeking.
When she steps away, it’s to reveal the same flower-petal dress she’d shown Keyleth in her sketchbook what feels like an eternity ago- the one that reminded Keyleth of her mother. The fabric she used is light and airy, dipped in an almost white shade of pink that is so perfect that it doesn’t even clash with Keyleth’s red hair. The layers fall around the mannequin in graceful waves.
“I was wondering,” Vex says with a shy blush dusting across the bridge of her nose, “If you would like to wear this when we get married.”
Keyleth sniffles. “You know, that’s not very fair of you,” she says. At Vex’s confused look, she just shakes her head. “You’ll know what I’m going to wear, and I won’t know what you’re going to be dressed in.”
“Well, that’s just part of the fun, now isn’t it, darling?” Vex teases with a wink, before stepping closer and wrapping her arm around Keyleth’s, resting her head against Keyleth’s shoulder. “You’ll have to try it on and make sure it fits properly. I did my best to approximate your measurements, but it certainly isn’t perfect. Vax is coming in a week or so, and he’ll make the adjustments for you to keep some of the mystery. If you want any alterations, he’ll do those, too- it’s just a little hard to determine what your waistline is during sex.”
“Vex!” Keyleth splutters. “Have you really been thinking about this while we’ve been--?”
She’s, strangely, quite flattered.
“Not all the time!” Vex laughs. “Just the less important parts.”
Keyleth shakes her head, bemused, before frowning, reaching out to twirl one of the dress’s layers between her fingers. “I didn’t get you anything,” she says regretfully. “I wish I could sew like you. Or had any talents, really.”
“Keyleth,” Vex says firmly, looking up at her. “You’ve given me a place to live, food to eat, and people to care for. That is more than enough for me.” Then, she gets a tell-tale sparkle in her eyes. “And if you want to prove your talents- well. There’s certainly time for that tonight, darling.”
The months carry them into the tentative first weeks of spring and, before Keyleth can really process it, their wedding day. In the end, neither of them had much of an appetite for another huge wedding- not when the first one had felt so disingenuous and wasteful.
Their wedding now takes them to the summit where Keyleth had first taken Vex. The breeze drifts across the mountaintops, chasing the slowly sinking sun and rustling Keyleth’s hair as she stands at the ruffles of her skirt stirred with each gentle gust. Korrin holds their rings, emotion already reading plain on his face, and Derrig, though considerably more composed, tries to sneak in the occasional sniffle as Vex, Vax, emerge up the worn path.
Keyleth wouldn’t say that Vex takes her breath away when she steps fully into view. She’s always been hopelessly attracted to Vex, and this is no exception- but today, her beauty shines not in the scandalous cut to her blouse (there is none), nor the lipstick she’s wearing- but instead in the clarity shining in her eyes, her head held high and unashamed, certain.
The outfit she’s chosen for herself is quintessentially her. Not her imitation of Vax, not an overly feminine version of herself- just Vex in a way Keyleth has grown to carry in her heart. She wears no suit coat and no obstinate jewelry as she had when they wed each other for the first time.
Instead, she’s dressed in a cream blouse tucked into rose-dyed, high-waisted pants a few shades darker than Keyleth’s dress, her hair spilling over her shoulder in a perfect braid, a cherry blossom tucked behind her ear.
Her lips part in an soft‘oh,’ when she sees Keyleth, and Keyleth wishes it would be proper to kiss her there and then. But she restrains herself- mainly for her father, who has been looking forward to the chance to re-do the ceremony of it all right.
Instead, she waits for Vax to place his sister’s hand in hers.
“Well deserved,” Vax murmurs to Keyleth when he leans in for a hug, and she’s comforted by the unwavering strength she finds in his embrace and the color in his cheeks. His presence has quickly become one of her favorites, aside from Vex’s- a witty, endearing spark. “The tailoring suits you.”
“Thank you, Vax.”
It’s strange to say his name still. A part of her still associates the name with Vex- but when she turn from him to his sister, she knows that they will never be the same to her. Not when Vex has stolen her heart away so wholly.
“Since the records have already been changed to account for this union,” Korrin says to the both of them, “I won’t belabor the point much longer than it needs to be, and allow you to seal your relationship in the way it should have had the opportunity to do from the start.”
Which leaves only one thing- their vows.
Unlike last time, when her vows were the traditional vows members of the Ashari royalty often use while marrying a stranger, Keyleth has spent a long time agonizing over what to say. Nothing feels like it captures Vex in the way she wants to.
“When we first met and were married, neither of those things were by choice. I found myself struggling to keep having faith in my choice, wondering if it would ever be the right decision, if I would ever regret not getting to choose my forever partner for myself. But in every moment even when we were both unsure of the other, terrified to trust each other- I was falling for you all along. And I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that I will choose you in every life,” Keyleth breathes. “Vex’ahlia- I loved you before I truly knew you, and love you even more now that I do.”
“Keyleth,” Vex says, with an adoring smile and the stroke of her thumb across the back of Keyleth’s hand. “I was afraid of you when I met you. Not because you were cruel, or distant- but quite the opposite. You were inviting and compassionate from the first night and every night since, and I knew then that it would be difficult not to love someone so willing to be vulnerable and who allowed me the same space to do so myself. I was terrified of the power you have over me because I wasn’t used to sharing my heart with anyone else. I wasn’t used to being loved the way you showed me love. Now, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am forever grateful that you continued to give a girl who never should have been in your life the chance to take part in it.”
“Your vows now sealed in law and in word, it is my great honor to declare you eternal, chosen partners in life. You may now kiss the bride-” Korrin says.
Vex doesn’t wait for Korrin to finish his sentence to close the distance between her and Keyleth. And though the wind whips through their hair, and there are only three other people, not a hundred, watching them, it is just as sweet, if not sweeter, of a kiss as the first time.