But laying next to him right now, all Keyleth can think about if all the time they're losing right now. It seems wrong, when he has limited time, to have to lose some of it by being unconscious. Or for her to have to.
It's not really rational, but the fact that he did just fall asleep is further fueling her miserable anger with him.
How could he have done this? He should've realized they would've done what they'd needed to in order to bring him back, and then he would've stayed. Why did he have to just charge recklessly in one last time and actually make the sacrifice?
The still insecure part of her mind has already latched on the obviously explanation, the one that would preclude any getting him out of the deal he's made: that he wants to go.
She hasn't believed that for more time than not. She can't when she's seen him looking at her, with all the pain and regret in his eyes. Were she less angry, Keyleth would want to tell him to at least not regret being with her, because she's afraid he currently does, and that's the one thing in all of this she doesn't want him to feel sorry for. She's become aware that were they in this situation with them having missed their chance to share love, she would feel even worse.
But now, when he's faced away from her, not touching but close enough the lack of heat from him leaves her feeling cold, all she can think about is how much she wants to shake him awake and beg him to fix this, to take it back, and exactly how she knows he would react.
Never mind that he should know exactly how she feels right now, because he's even been in this same damn position himself. He's told her about those past lovers he's had who were important to him, so he's told her all about Thorn, and how they lay together on a pair of nights when he was dead certain he was about to meet his death. Keyleth doesn't know how he was able to bear that, honestly, and he should know she's never been as strong as him, not when it comes to that kind of thing.
Of course he got to live in the end, which meant they'd had to deliberately part ways. Vax told her once his sister came before everything, and so Keyleth's been aware she's never come first for him. That was okay, at the time, if only because her people had to come before everything for her, so fair had been fair, she supposed. Besides, he left Vex happy in Whitestone and spent the last year of his life with her in Zepyrah, and during all of it, of course that was enough for her.
Maybe it wouldn't have been, if she'd ever faced what he'd implied, that the Raven Queen and devotion he'd found to her might come before her as well. That inevitably this exact sort of thing was going to happen, and it was always more likely to be sooner than later.
The ground's trembling a little beneath them. Of course it is; they're currently in Terrah, where that happens. The first time she came here, still only newly departed from home and in the thick of her excitement at seeing the outside world for the first time, she stayed up for an hour just listening to it. Nothing felt scary or ominous back then. Not the way everything has she since she hastily shifted everyone into the Feywild...well, not even everyone, of course, because it had already been too late to save Vax.
Which, maybe, it had long been.
But Keyleth is suddenly angry at losing even this silly little tremoring to that, something she thought would always bring her joy and comfort, because it's part of the Ashari, and therefore part of her. The rage winds itself up inside her and bursst out in an involuntary sound of frustration and grief; it takes all she has to not make it a yell loud enough to wake everybody.
As it is, she can't keep it suppressed enough to not wake up Vax. A moment later she's looking back into those beautiful, pained, doomed eyes, and she can't stand seeing them that way.
Keyleth knows what he's going to say, and she can't stand that either, not now. "Don't," she mouths, and clothes her eyes. She tries to stop herself from rolling over for a moment, but only a moment.
She feels his arm on her, oh so careful to not touch her skin, and she would want to argue with him over that, but the truth is she's grateful for it. It feels both better and worse to have it there, to feel his presence behind her, still there, but soon to be gone forever, and she does think she'd rather have it there tonight than not. It might even increase her chances of falling asleep, which she knows she has to do, if not how she'll do it.
"I love you, Kiki," Vax whispers behind her, and that she lets him say.