#*jazz hands* yup here's a magnus-centric small fic no one asked for with hints of taagnus and a lot of stupid ire metaphors

[oldthe-nothing-maker]

Magnus walks through the debris of Raven’s Roost, and sees the dead, charcoal-twisted bodies of people he once knew, and gingerly pushes the remnants of the burnt door of Hammers and Tongs, and watches as ash settles on the long wild hair of his dead wife, and

he’s, like, okay with that.

He gets to work with a mechanical precision, the kind of which you get when you do something for a long time, a bit like hammering and carpentry and things (that’s what he tells himself as he drags Julia’s weight on the floor by the arms – there’s dried blood in her eyes, and she looks both hurt and surprised, as if she wasn’t expecting the pain). Of course he checks on both her and Steven first, just because; and after what he goes to look for survivors, and he finds none, and he’s still okay with that.

The okayness settles in; goes on for quite some time, even. He builds the funeral pyre, arranges the bodies in a rough but honest fashion: he doesn’t have the time to make something fancy, but he doesn’t want to rush through it, either, because, hey, that’s still his wife.

He lights the fire as night comes down: there is an unbearable amount of stars in the sky. He looks up to them, thinks to himself that he’s seen better, but then again, he’s also seen worst.

He’s still okay. He is tired, weary, sure; his legs are cramped, and a nasty cough has developed throughout the day in his smoke-filled lungs. His eyelids are heavy and he closes both his eyes as the first flames lick the soles of the feet of seventy-four dead bodies.

It’s okay, he thinks. It’s okay. It’s the year business.

He looks up to the sky once again, and, suddenly,

“none of them will ever come back”

and the finite, definitive, absolute unchanging never reachable never mortal number of stars in the sky weights way, way too much on Magnus Burnsides’ shoulders.

***

It’s a lot of fire, like, a lot of times, to be honest.

Magnus is a tough guy and his Armour Class is pretty high, so when shit gets risky, he’s usually the one that can handle the kicks: when the situation calls for it, he will jump out of the occasional window or walk through a Wall of Fire or two.

Here’s the thing, though: the party is composed of one warrior and six mages, and their Armour Class is shit, and fire kills people.

They all laugh, ten years later, when they remember one of Lup’s experiments where she tried to mix two spells and BOOM went the lab; they make jokes whenever Lup cooks, or when she says she’s just had a brilliant idea. “Hey guys, new video, new experiment: let’s find out what happens if I mix bleach and vinegar?” says Davenport in a perfect imitation of Lup’s obnoxious voice, and Merle nearly pisses himself laughing.

But that’s only ten cycles later: BOOM went the lab, and it’s Magnus who goes in what remains of the room with a poor attempt at a haphazard mask on his face, to see if any of the twins or Lucretia or Barry are alive, and comes back cradling four burnt bodies in his arms. None of them are bigger than foetuses: they’re just burnt bones. Burnt bones and a lot of black dust.

Davenport loses the control of the ship, once, on a volcanic land: they all watch from the shore, frozen, as lava bubbles up in the main cabin, and they spend the entire year nearly killing themselves trying to repair the ship because they can’t fucking die here because of a fucking parking mistake.

Of course, Merle pisses off the wrong guy at the wrong moment: Magnus hears his bad joke and he doesn’t even have time to look at him funny to tell him to stop trying to push that arsehole’s buttons: said arsehole says something in tongues, and in a second, Merle, his plants, his new shoes, his tiny eggplant-shaped watering can – all of it is reduced to really thin ash that rains on the white tiles of their house. A robot comes immediately to clean it off and Magnus has to break it open to put Merle’s remains into some kind of jar or something (he never stops doing that – mortuary rites, that is. Maybe he should? It’s hard to say.)

And of course, Merle doesn’t say a lot about his meetings with the Hunger (if anything at all about it, actually), but Magnus knows just enough to know that it involves a lot of darkness and a lot of fire, especially at the end.

Lup uses fire, and a spell goes wrong, and she disappears engulfed in the hell she’s created, and she dies. Barry gets in the way of a stray Magic Missile, and he spends three days agonizing in bed as magical burns slowly eat him from the inside, and he dies. Lucretia falls into a trap inside some sick labyrinth thingy, and they helplessly hit the bubble in which she’s imprisoned as the heat rises inside, and she dies. Taako – golden, green, beautiful Taako – is a bit too slow, a bit too far, and Magnus can hold his hand out all he wants but a Scout opens its opal mouth to spit a ray of black flames and Magnus’ hand catches nothing but smoke: Taako burns, and he dies.

Magnus survives. Magnus lingers on.

If the fight’s been really rough, if things have gone sour, Magnus asks Lucretia to draw him. He watches the burns and the terrible blisters blossom on his arms like patches of tiny pale flowers, and Lucretia takes them all in. If Lucretia is dead, he tries to do it himself. It’s not as good. After what he takes a needle and some thread he keeps in his pockets because – because who fucking knows when you’ll need a needle and some thread? – and he works his way through his wounds. The thread fills up with pus, blood and lymph. Magnus thinks, ahah, it looks JUST like constellations!

He looks outside, towards the empty space across the universe. Sometimes there are stars. Sometimes there are not. He thinks, he doesn’t remember what his constellations looked like. At least he keeps the scars secure.

The next cycle, the blisters are gone. Magnus’ elbows and knees are scar-free. He still has thread in his pockets. Lucretia draws, Merle garden, Lup experiments, Barry thinks, Davenport pilots, and Taako smiles. They heal.

They die.

They heal.

They die.

They heal.

Fun fact: you actually grow used to it real fast. Incredible, right?

Magnus says that he likes being sure that “time will heal all wounds”. No one understands the worry beneath, lighting the cracks on the floor: that Magnus isn’t stupid, and their time isn’t limitless, and eventually, eventually, eventually, gods, please, he will not know what to do with uncertainty.

***

- What am I going to do if you never come back? If none of you ever come back? Or – any of you?

Lucretia looks at him with careful eyes, heavy eyelids on heavy eyelashes:

- We’ll always come back.

- But – I mean, after we do... All that, you know? I mean, our main goal, it’s to, uh, not having to, you know, always have to run away, find the Light, all of that, so.

- You’ll have time to think about it when we reach that point. We will all have time to do this. You should not worry about this for now.

Magnus lowers his head. His voice is small when he speaks again:

- But I do.

***

The girl’s eyes are grey like rainclouds and her hands are cool to the touch. Magnus is so godsdamn thirsty, he’d probably kill for a cup of water.

- Here, take some of this, she says.

She hands him a gourd full of liquid. When he splashes the lukewarm water on his face, he feels like living again, which he’s pretty sure Taako would find, wow, that’s, that’s some comedy gold right there, pumpkin, wow! Spot on!

The girl keeps on watching him with these big, cloudy eyes. He drinks some more, and then maybe even a little more, and says to her:

- I think I overestimated my, uh, you know, my overall abilities to, uh, you know... Survive.

- Yeah, says the girl.

He hands her back the gourd; and then, he says:

- Hey. Uh. Okay, it’s going to sound, uh, kinda weird, so don’t – don’t freak out. But. How would you like... Some kind of magical cup, that can, uh, protect people, but like, forever? As, you know, thanks. For the water.

The girl immediately calls on her father about the fuckin’ weirdo over there. Magnus thinks he’s making the good choice.

In his hands, the cup tugs at the strings of his heart, and on that beat it sings good songs of golden homes.

***

What did it say again?

***

Water, water.

More water.

And after the stars, finally,

void.

***

Fire.

***

Magnus just can’t realise she’s not ever coming back. It’s too much. It’s too painful. It’s not how it should be.

Gods, please, why can’t he?

***

Why can’t he.

***

Why can’t he.

***

Why can’t he.

***

If Merle makes that awful pussy-eating grimace once again, Magnus will jump off the moving cart.

***

Why can’t he.

***

Everything heals given time, the cup says, but then it adds, and its voice tastes like honey, and Magnus thinks of gold and all things warm and home, home, home: and everything dies.

***

- Yaknow, I can’t believe you fuckin’ told that, that miracle cup to, uh, can it.

Taako has scars all over him. Some Magnus has seen grow and heal; some he feels like they shouldn’t be there; some cause him pain too. Of course, he’s not looking at him as he talks. Taako doesn’t do heart-to-hearts the fantasy movies way, baby.

- Yeah, well. That would have been selfish.

- Oh, uh-uh, sure, yeah, definitely.

Taako looks at his nails a little more:

- Well, anyway, we all did good, and we were all brave, so, so that’s, that’s pretty good in itself, hm, that’s what you, you could call a success story, isn’t it?

Magnus stays silent for a while.

- Yeah. I guess.

***

Add some more fire.

Also, soul bonding with his arms outstretched, a Mannequin Interlude, and revelations.

But mostly fire.

***

Magnus is still reeling. His arms are full of all the people he loves, has loved, will love, and he doesn’t even think about it, but, yeah, that’s true:

The stars? Still here, still not moving. Still real heavy. Time hasn’t stopped. Things still grow. Things still go.

And things still grow. And go. And grow. So home can too.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjbtuNBRzbE)