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he's seven years old, and it's a pleasant summer day in whitestone. the sun shines above them, almost at its zenith as percy is chased around the courtyard by oliver. they're both laughing, with mother sitting to the side holding the infant cassandra and supervising their play. their father is inside, no doubt meeting some kind of dignitary from a far off land.
(all lands are far off to percy at this age, but he's convinced himself that he'll see them all. his young mind works in angles and formulas already, spinning like the machines he dreams of creating to make the world a better place. all his life percy has dreamed grand, global dreams.)
percy ducks around the big tree in the middle of the courtyard, only to be routed by julius on the other side. his two brothers catch him, giggling, and declare that he's it. their mother calls to them, reminding them to be safe, and all three boys titter to each other before they go back to their game.
(the boys chase each other round and round the courtyard and johanna envies them for their boundless energy while she bounces her youngest child on her knee. cassandra blubbers excitedly at her older brothers whenever they pass, and only percy stops long enough to pay her any attention. he adores his baby sister, has done so since she first wrapped one chubby hand around his index finger. it warms johanna more than the summer heat to see her percival making time for their cassandra.)
the other children attend to individual interests, sprinkled about the courtyard and hardly paying their more rambunctious brothers any mind. at one point frederick makes an appearance and they all crowd around him to question him on the proceedings of his meeting. they try to convince him to join them in their activities, but frederick regretfully informs them that he has yet more meetings today.
(their father always has meetings and never time to play with them. they all agree among themselves that leading whitestone sounds quite boring, and quietly confess to each other what their hopes and dreams are. percy wants to learn celestial, to begin with, but he doesn't admit that the reason is because his favorite bedtime song mother sings is in celestial. he says he enjoys a challenge. the de rolo children all want different things out of life, but at the very heart of every childish aspiration is familial inspiration.)
at the end of the day, percy comes to dinner with skinned knees and palms and a big smile on his face. his glasses are askew and he has grass stains on his clothes, but he looks so happy that johanna can't get onto him. he's seven years old and he loves running, loves the feeling of his dark hair blown back from his face as he speeds ahead of all his siblings. he's always been the fastest, which is a fact he's proud of.
(it isn't until years later that that pride becomes sickened horror. he hears the wet thunk of arrows in flesh behind him, the rush of air that indicates more are coming, but most of all he hears cassandra wail and the tumble of a body to the ground. he turns with trepidation, and sees his worst fear realized. cassandra, his baby sister, with a chest full of arrows. she looks to him with wide, fearful eyes and tries to speak. her own blood gurgles in her throat. an arrow slams into a nearby tree trunk and percy turns and runs, knowing his cassandra is already dead.)
he's eleven when he tinkers successfully for the first time. percy presents the tiny metal man with movable arms and legs to cassandra and she keeps it with her at all times for weeks. mother tells him he's done a good thing but he just shrugs, bashful, and admits with some degree of shame that cassandra is his favorite. johanna understands, as she always does, but warns him to keep that bit of information between the two of them.
(cassandra has always been his favorite and will always be his favorite. after that first success, he makes her all kinds of little things in the workshop his father has set up for him. he tells her bedtime stories and sings to her in mostly-correct celestial. percy is the one cassandra comes to when she has nightmares or is afraid of the monster under her bed, and it's percy who pushes back the shadows and protects her while she sleeps.)
he's twelve and his father lets him in on a little bit of their lineage, tells him about his great-grandfather percival and how kind he was, how beloved by the people. percy wants to be like percival before him, wants to grow up and be kind and good. he's always wanted to be good.
(percy wants to be a good person so badly, has struggled with his own morality all his life. he confesses to breaking his mother's vase. he doesn't die like the rest of his family. he wants revenge and his mother had always told him that it was best to forgive and forget but how can he move past something like this? how could percy possibly forgive or forget the slaughter of his family? does needing vengeance make him a bad person?)
he's fourteen and can speak in unbroken celestial, though the only person to speak the language to is his tutor and the slowly learning cassandra. he still sings his sister the song mother had always rocked him to sleep with. cassandra looks at percy with wide, fearful eyes as she frets once more over the darkness at the corners of her room, and her dependable older brother's song chases the evil away time and time again. cassandra believes he's good. to her, he is a light in the dark, and it's enough to make him believe he's good, too.
(percy remembers this for a split second after she falls, thinks of soothing her with the song from their childhoods as she stares up at him. he can't chase her demons away this time, can't protect her from the monster under her bed. when he turns his back on his favorite little sister, he wonders if this makes him bad. he wonders if cassandra was wrong all along. maybe percy himself was the shadow, and both of them were clueless. that first night alone, when he absolutely can't make himself take another step, he sings himself to sleep.)
he's sixteen and cassandra is too old for her brother to sing her to sleep every night. julius and vesper learn to lead, but percy is left to his own devices. he spends most of his time either reading in the library or tinkering in his workshop, and sometimes cassandra escapes her studies and comes to find him. she's learning celestial well, and when they converse in the language their voices complement each other, despite her occasional hiccups.
(he is always patient with cassandra, even when she is the most frustrating girl in the world. he learns to say he's sorry rather quickly, and cassandra learns that the best way to get percy to do whatever she wants is to guilt him into it. johanna watches with a smile as percy carries cassandra's books for her with hardly even a complaint.)
he's eighteen and not entirely sure what he wants to do with himself. he's turned most of his attentions to tinkering, and thinks soon he may move on to making weapons. he could, of course, simply live his life in the halls of castle whitestone as a nobleman, left to himself or perhaps even married off, eventually. the thought of it makes him uneasy. he's always wanted to see the world, and perhaps he could live out that dream of his. percy's sure there's a good market for adventurers.
(cassandra laughs at the suggestion when he brings it up. she's quick to recover, though, and tells percy that she supports him no matter what. she just can't imagine him as anything other than her adoring older brother who makes her little metal armies and sings her to sleep and plays swordfighting with her when he has time. cassandra makes him promise that he'll bring treasures back to her if he does become an adventurer.)
he's twenty-one and not sure about these briarwood folks.
(he's twenty-one and his entire life is ripped from him.)
he's twenty-six and he's looking at whitestone with an ache in his chest and smoke clouding his mind. (he's twenty-six and his gun is heavy in his hand.) percy is with vox machina and they stand at his back, at his side, ready to face death itself for him. (percy is with his family, something he never thought he'd get again.) cassandra is alive. (cassandra, his cassandra, alive and angry with him for abandoning her to die but while the briarwoods may have her mind, percy has her heart and he sings to her, the old words coming to him like it's been only a day since he last spoke them and she sees him, cassandra sees percy.) he's avenged his family and the demon inside him is gone. (he still doesn't have an answer, still doesn't know if he's become warped over the years, still can't figure out if orthax came to him because the demon found something kindred in percy.)
he's twenty-six and he's home, with his new family and his old -
(that's where ludwig dropped a lantern and nearly set the castle ablaze. and this book, whitney spilled her drink on it and father got so angry percy thought he might explode. the metal men percy made cassandra still stand in their ranks, dutiful soldiers to this day. keyleth and percy sit together in frederick's study, reading in silence and comfort. vex tells him she's glad he's okay. grog gives him a drink from his cask and scanlan balks when percy tells him the expense of the list. vax doesn't walk away from him, for once.)
- and for now, it's enough.