#tldr Ludinus cast Feeblemind instead of Power Word Stun on Keyleth. because we KNOW he has that fuckin spell

[blorbologist]

37 feeblemind vax and your choice

37. Feeblemind

You blast the mind of a creature that you can see within range, attempting to shatter its intellect and personality. The target takes 4d6 psychic damage and must make an Intelligence saving throw.

On a failed save, the creature's Intelligence and Charisma scores become 1. The creature can't cast spells, activate magic items, understand language, or communicate in any intelligible way. The creature can, however, identify its friends, follow them, and even protect them.

[Oh y’all are gonna hate me for this]

It’s been a while since Keyleth has felt like a natural disaster. Do asteroid impacts count? Because she makes the ground buckle and splinter so hard she hopes that damn moon feels it.

She shouldn’t take any pleasure in it. This is work. But this is also saving the world, this is what she was born to do - this is what she hasn’t gotten to do, in a long while, and it feels good to let loose and roar with the fury of the world itself. 

As an Earth Elemental, most of her understanding of the world comes down to vibrations - she feels more than hears the metal screaming in protest as its foundations are ruined. Instinctively, she can see the movements of all the very, very squishy people around her, though it takes a moment to differentiate the Ruby Vanguard from her people. Best of all, the boulders of bulk make pain only a slight sandpaper scrape -

Keyleth can’t see Ludinus turn to look at her. Intuit it, from the heavy unease that quiets her thoughts. Birds stop singing when a predator is about - it’s a lot like that, being looked at by a wizard. 

It’s familiar, is what she means, and she knows how to react to it. 

She can’t. Is the problem.

She can’t, because she - 

She can’t.

He did something. Something - something terrible, something just as familiar. With his mouth - words. Couldn’t hear it, not with the roaring end of the world. But he did and this is - she knows but she doesn’t and it’s terrifying.

She sees familiar faces. Another mage, a pretty mage, a safe mage. A dragon, and the mere memory makes her earth arch into scared spines. Too many teeth, too many, and with no order to them, just predator and scared and furious and she feels the same and she -

This shouldn’t hurt. But this thing is prying her apart, stone by stone and sending grit flying and it’s worse than blood because it’s part of her, and she’s smaller with each strike until she’s - she’s not. 

She’s not, and that’s shocking, to be herself again, and she’s not - she can get a lot more hacked off her like this, she realizes, as the blade smiles with mud that looks red under the moon and the woman lifts it.

Move. Move. She can move - but it’s a stumble back on her elbows, and that’s not what should move, it’s her mouth. Move in the right way, she knows the sounds she needs to make, so why can she only scream - 

(It is better, that she knows what’s coming? Even like this, even when she knows nothing, nothing of what she should. She knows the darkness. She met it in foam and beachrocks, once. It’s not that bad. It might even be better than this terror, this everything wrong, because he might be there.)

(If she were a dragon, at least she could tear them apart. The dragon tore apart her friends. At least she knows what a dragon is - primeval, the fear for great reptiles that dig you out of your nest to eat you even as you wake.)

(All this time before it comes and she can’t - she can’t - she can’t use it for anything but trying, and trying, and not -)

She isn’t scared of birds. Maybe she should be, in the same way scales and teeth send her heart running. 

Her world is black feathers. Feathers are downy nests and hair and comfort. A dark night, many dark nights, where she sheds her skin and finds his warm. Wings beat, heavy, and her heart tries to slow to match them. 

Feathers mean him mean her world is whole, even when she isn’t.

She hadn’t - they shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be here.

He is.

There’s something on his lips. It should mean the world to her, she knows. It should mean she’s safe. 

She can move. They haven’t robbed her of this. She could reach out and touch him.

Frozen not by terrors beyond her, but by confusion, by her own confusion. Her own fear, that she doesn’t know who he is, even when she should, she should, better than her own - it’s on her mind every night, every night, and she can’t think it now and can’t say it to him and the shame mingles with the fear with the easing in her tense muscles and she can’t.

Can’t. 

And then she couldn’t if she wants to, because he’s gone, and she doesn’t understand. 

Not sure she wants to - maybe, maybe like this, it hurts less.

[Send me a spell and I'll write a ficlet/snippet to go with it!]

#tldr Ludinus cast Feeblemind instead of Power Word Stun on Keyleth. because we KNOW he has that fuckin spell #so. it isnt directly Vax getting Feebleminded. and it's all hurt no comfort. but. :D #critical role #campaign 3 #vox machina #cr3e51 #vaxleth #keyleth #vax'ildan #ludinus da'leth #cr fanfic #critical role fanfiction #ask game #fic prompt #spell ask game #my writing