#8, Road Trip: Oh, my asshole friends.t
Originally posted here on March 9, 2022.
If you could hit the road with anyone from your source material (yes, including yourself), who would it be? Where would you go and what would you do?
This prompt amused me because Vox Machina's travels could be considered an extended road trip. Such is the nature of living with a group of people and traveling by foot, horse, carriage, whatever, across the continent regularly. As it is, though, choosing an individual to go on a road trip with... well, most of them sound terrible, if I'm honest, so I think the most entertaining thing to do with this prompt is to dissect exactly how I think a road trip with myself and any other individual member of Vox Machina would go.
I'm starting with Grog, because that's quite simple: it wouldn't go. I think he would rapidly break all of my bones out of excitement over something mundane, or he would throw me right through windows, doors, walls, et cetera, in the interest of trying to make me a tad more exciting. We have vastly different interests and wildly different ideas of where we would want to go, so I would anticipate argument and physical violence, which I would certainly lose due to Grog being approximately seven feet tall and as strong as an ox.
Scanlan would be worse. He's like Grog except manipulative, short enough to pass under my eyeline, and intelligent enough to trick me on occasion. Not only would we fight about where to go and what to do, but he would force me to participate in ways that would make it seem like I had agreed, not just like I had been physically dropped in the middle of an activity or location. He would drive me to insanity (which is, yes, ha ha, not a far trip) and I would probably shoot him. Sorry, Scanlan--I'm not letting you or Grog drag me to a brothel with you.
I think I could survive a road trip with Keyleth. She's a bit too excitable for my taste, and I would be tired of her every exclamation over plants, animals, interesting natural formations, and similar, but I can never quite get tired of her. Her enthusiasm is infectious, even to me, and I do (platonically) love her dearly. Chances are, I would agree to follow her to wherever she wanted to go, because I have few things I can think of wanting to do and her activities would at least not be actively objectionable like Grog's and Scanlan's would be.
Pike might be a little... intense. She means well, and is our guiding light, but she would probably try to make me focus on myself and my problems, and quite frankly, the person I would least want to go on this trip with is myself. If she were to leave me and my issues alone, I think we could have an amenable time, seeing sights, laughing, joking around--and possibly having to haul her out of brawls that she initiated because she's a short little spitfire that's used to having Grog and the rest of Vox Machina to back her up. Frankly, I don't mind that terribly--although if any of you tell her, I'll be rather irritated.
Vax'ildan... That could go three ways. One, we are totally quiet, either out of a lack of a particular closeness between us or out of respect for each other's "whole vibes," as Valence put it while I was struggling for how to describe it. Two, we fight the whole time, because our similarities grate on us and, without someone there to mediate, we might end up at each other's throats. Three, we have the best time of all of the possible outcomes of these road trips, form a close bond, and are inseparable forevermore. That's the thing, with Vax--I don't know how to predict him, since both of us can be so unpredictable, especially when it comes to each other. Overall, a trip I would rather not risk taking, but it has the highest possible reward for it.
And then, of course, there is his twin, Vex'ahlia. Vex... I know anyone particularly familiar with my source will probably expect something romantic here, but you have the wrong time period: I was plucked from my world and dropped into the headspace well before the defeat of the Briarwoods, and frankly, I had little to no room to acquire anything more than passing moments of "oh, hm, I suppose she is attractive" before returning to my bog of angst. Vex is pushy, bitchy, demanding, irritating, and abrasive (and I mean these all fondly), while also being completely charming when she chooses to be. We make for a good team, and out of everyone in Vox Machina, she understands me best--and also how best to get under my skin about it and force me to face my problems. Vex brings many of the benefits and drawbacks alike of a trip with Vax or Pike, combining them into a terrifying chimera of forcing me to face my problems while also risking a fight, with the quiet, tantalizing promise of a fabulous trip with an interesting, intelligent woman and none of our other asshole friends to interrupt our conversations. It would be a struggle, and one I doubt I would emerge from alive.