Trust Exercises

Chapter 1

"Hey! Um, remember when I said we needed to go to a temple and you said there wasn't time and then well, a whole lot of other stuff happened and we killed the Briarwoods and saved Whitestone? That?" said Pike, standing at the workbench, her head barely coming up to the work surface.

"I do," said Percy slowly, glancing over his shoulder. She had knocked on the door to the keep's workshop and he knew it had to be her because she would be the only one who would bother to knock. And it was nice that whoever was at the door had even the barest of manners but when he realized it was Pike he had a feeling it would be something like this.

"Well, now that we do have time, I do still think it would be a good time for you to be looked over," she said.

"If you weren't paying attention, the demon is gone. Scanlan made sure of that."

"I still think it might be a good idea to go to the temple."

"I'm not converting. I already have a god and it's already more than I can handle," said Percy.

"I just said a temple. It doesn't have to be mine."

"I have a lot of work planned out today."

"Okay, well, just let me look, okay?" she said, placing a hand at his elbow.

"I don't get why you're so adamant –"

"One minute of your time! All I'm asking for is one minute. I don't know what that thing that took over your body looked like to you but that was FUCKING TERRIFYING for us. This is literally the least you could do to put the rest of us at ease to confirm that thing is really gone, you understand?"

He shut his mouth, for a moment, and looked down at her, her nostrils flared and her mouth set in a hard line, an expression that looked out of place on her. He put down his chisel and wiped the grease off his hands with a dirty rag.

"Fine. On my knees again?" he asked.

"That would be helpful, yes," she said. He stood from the chair and turned and knelt on the floor, still taller than her but she could at least reach out a lightly glowing hand and touch a space just under his collar. He flinched at it, at what he thought was like a hot stove, even if it wasn't so searing. It was warm, until it wasn't, the temporary touch of the Everlight leaving making Pike's hand feel downright chilly.

"And?"

She sighed.

"And?" Percy repeated. "It's gone?"

"It's gone but... what it left behind looks really painful."

"It's not," he said.

"I still think you should go to a temple.

"And what? Pray about it?"

"Well, that, and, I'm thinking a purification ritual could help, because even if the demon is gone, there's just, you know, a demon-shaped space in you right now that could be really easy for something else to climb in, and just leaving it to... to fester seems like a bad idea, when you can actually do something proactively for it? And I kind of think, even if you say it doesn't hurt, that maybe that's because it's been there for so long that you don't notice it," she said. There was something timorous in her voice, something that just needed a little more prodding to break free.

"And I can only go to a temple to do this."

"It's really not something I want to do alone. At a temple, they can do it in a way it doesn't hurt. We – I – don't want to hurt you further –"

"Who put you up to this?" Asked Percy with a squint.

"And !!" She continued on. He thought it must have been Keyleth, who should have known better that ritual purity would not cure him of being a prick, not even she was so naive, but then his chest seized with the memory of two night ago, where he'd been drunk but not drunk enough, when Vex had finally coaxed him back into her room, and how her touch with the buzz of liquor had been fine but as he'd begun to sober up and she began to take off her clothes how his hands began to shake and he could not look at her, and somehow he'd ended up curled in a ball under her blanket unable to move, and she had just left him there. A running commentary in his mind told him to get up, to stop this nonsense, that what he was doing was worse than wrong, it was humiliating, and for no reason to boot, but his joints and muscles had locked in that position like some ancient memory telling his body the only way to survive was to play dead. He had wanted to die, he had felt himself falling into a deep, dark hole, but in the morning he woke up and had thought, or maybe just hoped, that Vex had thought him too drunk to continue on and left him alone for the night. But with Pike here, still talking, still making words he didn't understand, that obviously was not the case.

The gaping maw yawned at him again.

"--how me and Grog have been out nearly every night this week, and you've barely left the workshop since we got back, and I know the reason you haven't left the place isn't because your hand is bothering you because otherwise you wouldn't be tinkering with all this stuff because this has to be harder on it than just going to a market day or a tavern or whatever. But my point is that, like, as much as it would be nice if nothing bad ever happened ever again, and we could just all live in this nice keep and get occasionally invited to fancy parties as dragon slayers, we both know that's not going to happen-- hey -- hey! Are you listening to me?"

Percy blinked, and she focused again right in front of him, and the breath began flowing from his throat again.

"I'm listening," he said, and Pike patted his cheek, and noted his slight shudder, and she huffed.

"See, this is what I mean! There's something wrong with you. We all need to be in good shape in case something happens and you're not and not doing anything about it. What I'm saying is that if you don't go to a temple for this, I'm not letting you go with us on any new assignments," she finally finished.

Percy furrowed his brow and sat back on his heels. "Now who died and put you in charge?"

"I'm going to tell them I don't think you should go, you're not up to it, and," her voice rose, "and if they won't listen to me and want you to come anyway, I won't go."

"Are you kidding? The last time you weren't there, Keyleth almost died --"

"-- and Scanlan almost lost an arm and your hand got mangled! I know!" she cried, "I know, it's horrible, and it's because I wasn't there in person and I feel horrible for it! And the reason why I wasn't there? I didn't get my shit sorted quickly enough! But I at least tried and you're not doing anything about it, and if I stay home because of you, who's fault will it be next time?"

He watched her gesticulating hand, coming too close to him for comfort, and then looked back to her face. "So, you're extorting me."

"If that's what you call trying to get you to care about the rest of us to fix your own problems so they don't become problems for the entire party, yeah, I'm extorting you," said Pike. "You don't have the temperament to be Lord of Whitestone? Fine, I agree, you don't, but if you're going to be here in Greyskull Keep with us you have a responsibility to the rest of us. And if you don't take that responsibility, I'm going to make consequences before the real ones happen."

Percy looked anywhere but her face.

"I don't want to go back to Whitestone. I don't want to go to the temple there," he said too quickly.

"Then we don't go to Whitestone," said Pike. "I know I said we don't have to go to my temple, but I know they can do it, and if you don't want to go back home it's probably the best place."

'Home.' That word still stung.

"And you'll want to bring everyone out to watch this purification happen, correct?" he asked. "As this is about proof they can trust me and I'm not full of demons?"

"Oh, no," she started, "that's not -- I'm really the only one who could tell there was a demon anyway, so it wouldn't help. If that's what you're worried about we can be discreet about it. Like when I took Grog for his," and then she stopped.

"Grog for his what?"

"Anyway," she started a whole new thought, "we can just tell them we were going to see if they could do anything else for your hand. That's it. No one else needs to know anything more."

By then Percy had decided to stand, using his good hand to push himself back to his feet, and returning to his desk. The surface was strewn with all the anatomy texts he could find, along with references on more delicate gnomish machines and what little he could find on their prosthetics. His first stupid thought was that if the temple could actually do anything about it, all his research and prototypes would have been a waste of time. It would not have been true, of course, and having full use of his hand the way it had been before Whitestone would be preferable, but the sunk cost fallacy was always appealing, in its own way.

But that was not why they were going, anyway. Pike had already told him by the time she had looked at the hole and two immobilized fingers that the window of time she'd had to repair it fully and not just clean up the remains had long since passed. She'd also warned him that anyone saying they could truly turn it back to the way it was, if they were telling the truth, would have to chop off the rest of the hand first, and he wasn't prepared to do that yet.

"Fine," he said, returning some of the blades left on the table to their preserving oil and picking up the chisel to hang on its peg. "I'll go, if that's how it is."

The most she let out was a sigh of relief. No excitement he noted -- she wasn't pleased about this state of affairs, either, which was somewhat comforting.

"Great! that's great. We should start out tomorrow morning for the temple. Eat a decent breakfast and I'll meet you at dawn."