#especially since everyone is rolling around in verin content lately

[the-kaedageist]

There was a dead man sitting in his chambers.

Verin Thelyss blinked at the sight of his older brother, very much alive and sitting on his sofa. Before he could react, his brother - his martyred, brilliant brother - said softly, “I’m getting married.”

Verin froze. “Is this some sort of cruel joke?” he asked. “Essek died five years ago. Lost to the depths of Aeor.”

The sharpness of grief was still surprising - he hadn’t expected to feel it, not when he received the news and definitely not five years down the line. He and Essek had always had a complicated relationship, forged on their mutual understanding as new souls but having followed very different paths. Essek had always been cold, untouchable, and somewhat callous, yet losing him had felt like a piece of himself had vanished from the world as well. Who was Verin Thelyss, without his older brother to measure himself by?

“Have you ever known me to have a sense of humor?” the man who looked like Essek asked with a wry twist of his mouth. He was laughing at him; Verin could see it in his eyes. This, above all else, convinced him that this had to be an imposter.

“Whatever illusion you’re weaving, it’s not going to work,” Verin said, hand on the hilt of his sword as he circled to face this strange specter in his chambers. “There are few people low enough to impersonate a dead man, much less an unconsecuted one who will never return. Show your true face.”

Something on the imposter’s face twitched slightly. “Oh,” he said softly, “so the cat is out of the bag, so to speak?”

Verin narrowed his eyes at the foreign idiom and cast a third-level Dispel Magic in the direction of the man in front of him. The image of Essek didn’t even flicker. Undead? A quick Divine Sense revealed no sign of anything undead within sixty feet, which eliminated two of Verin’s best hypotheses for what was going on in front of him.

There were other ways to impersonate another. Verin drew his sword, eyes narrowed; ‘Essek’ watched him do so, but made no move to get up from the sofa or defend himself.

“Who are you, in here impersonating my dead brother?” Verin demanded.

‘Essek’ sighed heavily and massaged his temples as though he had a headache. “I told him it was not going to be this easy,” he muttered to himself. Verin wasn’t sure who ‘he’ was, but it certainly was not going to be so easy to pull one over on the Taskhand of the Bright Queen, no matter whose face someone wore.

“I’m two seconds from calling for backup and taking you prisoner,” he snapped.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” a soft voice spoke in Common.

Verin whirled around to the entrance to his small bedroom. Leaning against the door frame, looking out at the rest of the suite, was a red-haired human, handsome but tired-looking.

“Dwendalian agents? I should have known.”

“For the Luxon’s sake,” the Essek imposter muttered.

“Your brother did not die in Aeor, years ago,” the human said, his Common accented with an unfamiliar cadence. “You were told that he was killed in order to protect him, but he is very much alive.”

Verin frowned. He glanced between the two again. Something about the red-haired human was familiar, like he’d heard something about him in the past. A famous mage from the Empire, perhaps? Or a traveler in Xhorhas? He rifled through his memory, trying to place the image.

“When you were 32 and I was 40,” ‘Essek’ said with a glance at his companion, “we had such a terrible fight that we both used our magic against one another for the first and only time. The Umavi was furious, and demanded to know why, and we told her it was to prove our skills and loyalty to the Dynasty.”

This was a story not many knew. Verin’s ears twitched, his curiosity piqued.

Essek continued. “But what no one knows but you – and I – is that the fight started because you took my favorite ear-cuff and broke it.” As he relayed this story, the red-haired man’s mouth twitched like he wanted to smile.

Verin felt the blood drain from his face. “How could you have known that story?” he demanded. “No one knows that story.”

“Your brother does,” said Essek, the real Essek, living, breathing, and standing before him. Verin lowered his sword and stared at him, stunned. “I’m alive, Verin. It is…good to see you.”

Now that he believed him, it was obvious that the Essek in front of him was not the Essek he’d known – a person using an illusion would have taken the form of the perfectly-coiffed Shadowhand, elaborate mantle and all. The man in front of him looked nothing like the Essek he remembered – he still sat with his spine straight, and his ears were still adorned with all manner of jewelry, but he wore simple adventurer’s clothes, his hair was longer, and he looked…happy?

Verin quickly sheathed his sword before rushing to Essek and enveloping him in a hug.

“Don’t ever tell anyone this was my reaction,” he whispered fiercely into the crook of his older brother’s neck, trying desperately not to cry and failing miserably. “I’m not happy to see you. I’m just—”

Essek’s arms came around him, and he held him softly as Verin pretended not to cry into his shoulder. When Verin pulled away, the rollercoaster of surprises continued – Essek was crying as well.

In over a century of their shared existence, Verin had never seen Essek cry once, not even as a child.

As Verin stood again and backed away to give himself space, the human circled around them slowly and seated himself next to Essek. The two of them held a conversation with their eyes alone as Verin attempted to compose himself.

“Why are you here?” he finally asked once he was back to himself. “Why would you risk – everything – to come here? To see me?”

Essek glanced at the human. “I’m getting married,” he said again, reaching over and taking the man’s hand. “Although it is customary for all the senior members of my Den to be present, it was decided that it would be…unwise…to reveal my situation to the Umavi.”

Verin gave a snort. Their mother would have had a fit and then immediately turned Essek over to the Bright Queen for abandoning his post, and they both knew it.

“There is only one member of my Den who I trust enough to invite,” Essek continued, and Verin blinked in surprise. Who was that? Wait…him?!

“Me?” he said incredulously. “You trust me?” He was not going to cry again, but he could feel the emotion building in his throat. “We’ve never gotten along, Essek.”

Essek smiled fondly. “This is true. And yet, you are the most trustworthy man I know in the Dynasty. You do what you think is right, and you care not for what the Bright Queen or court will say about it.” He glanced around at the sparse furnishings of Verin’s suite in Bazzoxan. “Unfortunately, the Dynasty does not reward loyalty and honesty as it should.”

This was the Essek he knew. “I may not be a Shadowhand of the Bright Queen,” he snapped, “but it is a tremendous honor to be trusted with the command of this garrison as a new soul, at my young age.”

Essek sighed. “That wasn’t meant to be an insult, Verin,” he said, sounding tired. “You are…better, than the rest of them.”

“How do you know I won’t take this information to the Umavi and the Bright Queen right now?” Verin demanded. “You praise my loyalty - yet by revealing yourself, you put that same loyalty into jeopardy.”

“Must we get into Court politics today?” Essek asked, a familiar aloof expression crossing his face. “I have no control over what you do. Reveal me to the Bright Queen and the Umavi if you wish.”

The human sighed heavily. “What Essek means to say,” he said in Common, although clearly he was following the conversation in Undercommon – had Essek taught him their language? “is that he trusts your sense of loyalty to doing what is right over your loyalty to the Dynasty.”

For the first time, Verin studied the human man who had won his brother’s rare affection. “You are his intended,” he said.

“Yes. I am Caleb Widogast,” the man said with a nod. That was a name Verin knew well.

“Of the Mighty Nein?” Although the Nein had only been friends of the Dynasty briefly, they had done more for the Kryn than any other group of outsiders; they were practically household names, by that point. It all became a lot clearer, in hindsight. “You were in Aeor with the Mighty Nein when you ‘died’,” Verin added, looking at Essek.

“I was,” Essek confirmed, spreading his hands wide in an expression of openness. “As you can see, I did not die. I simply…did not return.”

“Essek is one of the Mighty Nein as well, now,” Widogast told Verin.

Verin stood and began pacing. “You threw away everything to join a group of mercenaries?!” he asked. “You had the Umavi’s favor. You were a dunamantic prodigy. You were respected in Court, elevated far beyond your years, and the only new soul to directly serve the Bright Queen herself—”

“I was miserable,” Essek interrupted, more feeling in his voice than Verin had ever heard before. “None of those things meant anything to me. I had not even realized how…empty my life had become, until I met the Nein.”

It was a startling thing, to have envied his brother for so long for something Essek hadn’t even wanted. The realization shook him, leaving him off-kilter.

“And now you’re getting married,” he said, glancing at Widogast again. He supposed he was handsome, for a human, his bright hair quite striking. Good cheekbones. “To a human?”

Essek’s face grew guarded. “I am getting married,” he said, chin high, “to the only person who has understood me at such a deep level that it is like our souls are made of the same essence.” He glanced at Widogast again, their eyes meeting, and gave a smile that Verin could only describe as sappy.

Oh good, something new to envy Essek about, Verin thought as he watched him exchange fond looks with his fiancé. Somehow, his brother always managed to land on his feet.

“Essek would like you to be there,” Widogast said, squeezing Essek’s hand as though trying to reassure him; Verin wasn’t sure he liked the idea that Essek needed to be reassured that this invitation was welcome. “As the representative of his Den.”

“And as my brother,” Essek added softly.

Verin studied this new, strange Essek in front of him, the fragile hope that seemed to encompass him, the gentle happiness that embodied his entire self. For the first time, he realized that the Essek he’d known had always been deeply unhappy and lonely, and that was the reason for his coldness, his callousness. This was what his brother was like with friends, with love in his life? What an incredible transformation.

“Of course, I will attend,” said Verin. “I would never miss such an event.”

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#critical role #verin thelyss #essek thelyss #shadowgast #caleb widogast #cr fics #cr fic #I have more of this but I'm not sure if I'm going to ever finish it so I figured I'd post the first part! #especially since everyone is rolling around in verin content lately #also I wrote this three weeks ago so it was even before the wrap-up #but who knew it would end up being so timely?? #my fics #me