#anyway thank u! I'm having a lot of fun with zephyr

[thenugking]

FLYMM? Oh boy I am excited for this one - 21, 22, 24?

21. Describe a defining moment from their past, which makes them who they are today! 

I mean I was thinking of going with the time their brother disappeared out of their life and their parents were suddenly a lot happier and they suddenly had a lot more money for a while. But I don’t know if that was defining as much as a few days of happiness over proper meals and not having to deal with Enver being a dickhead today, turning into an increasing feeling of unease the longer he was gone.

The biggest defining moment for Zephyr came several years later, when their other brother woke them up in the night and told them he was taking some money he’d hidden away and leaving, because he wasn’t sticking around to let their parents sell him like they did Enver. Here’s all the places he hides money and food that their parents don’t know about, and he suggests Zephyr use them too and get out as soon as they’re old enough, and he promises to write to check up on them but they can’t tell their parents where he is. Zephyr, who was 12 at the time, freaked out about losing their favourite brother too, and yelled for their parents to wake up and stop him. Their brother told them being a snitch wasn’t going to make their parents love them any more when there was no one else to get at, and booked it out of the house. He didn’t write any letters back after that.

It’s the biggest regret of Zephyr’s life, and also the moment that they finally stopped repressing all their concerns about their parents and suspicions of what happened to Enver, and realised that no, there isn’t anything they can do to be good enough for these people. That if there’s another debt, they’re not going to make themself helpful enough or kind enough or smart enough or quiet enough that their parents will value them as much as their own safety and comfort. It’s the moment they decided to stop trying to appease other people, while also unfortunately cementing for them that fucking up out of fear will lose you the people you care about forever.

22. How is your Tav’s relationship with their family? Their parents? 

NOT GOOD. Zephyr was the baby of the family, and growing up was the favourite, as much as Sally and Dravo had one (causing resentment from both their brothers). Once they were the only kid left, all the abuse was focused on them. They left home when they were 14, signing on to work on a ship and get the fuck out of Baldur’s Gate. They’ve come back to the city several times since, but always avoided going anywhere near the family home.

They had a bad relationship with Gortash growing up (he was… never a nice person, but certainly made worse by Sally and Dravo treating every sign of neurodivergence or normal kid fuckups as a sign that he was a monster, and took out his problems on the smaller, younger kid). Zephyr’s relationship with their oldest brother was better, though still pretty volatile, since a bunch of kids in an abusive home are never going to have great coping strategies or conflict resolution skills. By present day, Zephyr is repressing their past as much as they can (that’s the same as Letting Go and Moving On, right?) but misses both their brothers and desperately hopes they’re both safe.

Then their old associate Nine Fingers gives them the heads up that she’s been looking into the local arms dealer who’s suddenly causing the Guild a whole lot of trouble and she’s pretty sure he’s Enver Flymm, and it would benefit both of them if Zephyr would go and have a talk with him and find out what’s up. Zephyr had a whole complex mix of emotions on finding one of their brothers again. But they were pretty sure the reunion was going well, up until the moment Gortash had a steel watcher grab them while he rammed a tadpole in their eye and told them it was far too late to try and make amends (for, yknow, not stopping their parents being abusive monsters when Zephyr was an eight year old).

24. What does your Tav consider to be their own biggest character flaw?

Zephyr acknowledges that they’re selfish. If asked, they would immediately go on the attack about it (that part is totally Not a character flaw!!) because fuck you, what’s wrong with keeping themself safe and happy when no one else cares enough to?? But they’d admit, to themself at least, that it’s deeply selfish of them to, say, not tell Karlach some things that she really deserves to know, just because they’re deeply enjoying spending time with her and they don’t want her to learn the truth and immediately start hating them. Zephyr’s had a lot of experience with allies turning on them on hearing about past fuck ups/things that were not in fact their fault, which is definitely down to the fact that they fundamentally can’t be good enough for people, and not because of the “immediately going on the attack whenever they get scared” thing.

[echantedtoon]

Until Death Do You Vow Ch11 Epilogue

(Hey everyone. I just wanted to thank everyone who read this far and liked my story enough to read it to it's end. I had a lot of fun writing it and it makes me happy knowing some people loved it enough to read it fully. If you liked this consider checking out my other works. Thanks to everyone for reading this, faving it, or leaving a nice comment. And thank you to Snaccpop Studios for creating such wonderful characters and giving me the opportunity to make this wonderful story.)

-TWO YEARS LATER-

The sights of the other cars and buildings going by met f/c eyes as you looked out the car window and stared at the beginning sunset. 

"So how was work today?", Taylor asked a moment after he started up driving again. 

You turned to your boyfriend and sighed tiredly. "It's fine. One of my coworkers got a broken leg from tripping over the stairs so I had to cover their shifts today. I swear all those little goblins just wanted to grab everything. I had to stop one from trying to climb on the horse statue from Greece."

Your job at the local museum was a good one but you hated school field trip days with a burning passion.  All the little imps running wild, barely listening, complaining about being bored, and trying to grab their little mits on everything they see was a lot for one person. No help from teachers who didn't seem to care as long as all of the kids stayed in one chaotic hoard. Thank God they didn't stay for more than three hours! You could've snapped and yelled at one of them-

Taylor groaned. "Ugh. Another reason why I am going to make sure that our kid doesn't end up like that."

Your brow rose. "Our kid huh?"

He shrugged without looking at you. "Still plenty of time for one. *ahem* "

You slowly shook your head yes with a sly smile. "Uh huh...Well we'll have to discuss that with Elias first and see what he thinks about becoming a second father."

"U-Um. Yeah. *Ahem* ..A-Anyways! I'm almost ready to publish my book." Taylor steered the conversation to something else really quick before turning on his blinker and turning to right onto another road. "My publisher said it looks good, but I need to get an idea for the cover. I know a really good artist and they can do it for a good price and I know what I want it to look like."

"Sounds like a plan. ...Hey. You didn't forget to close up the shop again did you?"

Taylor briefly shot you a cross between a pout and scowl. "Of course I didn't! Geez! I forget to lock the backdoor one time!"

It had been one year since you both graduated from Zephyr University. You'd taken to getting that job at the museum you've wanted. It was a good job, usually quiet but sometimes it can be stressful especially with tours of little kids of field trips. Taylor...well he didn't change much if at all. He was still the same. Still went at the most random times to do investigations. Still obsessed with documenting the paranormal but instead of running a club, he preferred to do so via updating a website by the same name as the old club. But his real day job was something that neither of you seemed to expect.

He ran a flower shop.

Gallagher And Potts's Bouquets and Flora. The name had taken forever to decide between the two men and usually consisted of Elias growing said flowers or however many flowers a specific person ordered, and Taylor just loading them up into his car and taking them over to the shop which was pretty close to the mansion just inside town. Taylor became fascinated by ecto-bontany and Elias was really happy one of his hobbies could be appreciated and flourish. The hardest part was renovating the old building you all bought for the shop. 

But he's been working on a larger side project that was paranormal investigating. Taylor had come up with the idea of writing the history behind the Gallagher curse in detail to clear up the legend once and for all..minus a couple details of course such as Elias actually being a real ghost. You both rather not have a floodgate of people coming to gawk at Elias like some carnival attraction. The collaboration AND Taylor's interest in Elias's flowers meant Elias and Taylor talking a whole lot more and well..Elias shared many intimate and personal life experiences in great detail about his life and family agreeing to want to clear up the entire legend. You guessed in turn that brought Taylor to open up about his own past. One thing lead to another, and you suddenly found the both of them falling for each other.

As for yourself it was also a new experience. Carefully but awkwardly going around a best friend who had feelings for you but eventually you both decided to try dating after a month of awkwardly dancing around the topic. And you both kept in touch with Elias so one thing also lead to another-

So here you three were. All in one big relationship with each other. It had its ups and downs but you can say you enjoyed this much more than the 'relationship' you had with Ian. Now all that heartache just seemed like a bad dream you barely thought of anymore.

Sunset came to the sky painting it pretty oranges, pinks, and yellows as the car kept driving along until you got to the edge of town and Taylor was turning into a nicely paved driveway added to the front of the mansion. Slowly coming to a stop, Taylor cut the engine and you both got out to go inside the now renovated mansion. Turns out there was a lot more than just the family jewels hidden away in the mansion. When you suggested getting the mirror fixed (thus it wouldn't be broken anymore and that would mean no more curse because of there being no more broken mirror), both men seemed all for it ..But you and Taylor could barely afford anything, Elias couldn't part with his family's jewels, and you wouldn't ask him to do Elias had agreed to spare with enough of the rest of the hidden fortune just to fix the mirror which now sat perfectly fixed and safely tucked away in Elias's room. In a hidden place only Elias knew. All fixed which meant it was harmless which meant no more bad luck which meant no more curse! When Elias brought up the idea of you both possibly living there too...Well as Taylor put it-

"I'm not living somewhere that'll give me an asthma attack!"

After you elbowed him for the rude comment, you three came to another compromise. Which was Elias allowing just enough more of the surprisingly gigantic fortune to renovate the mansion back to its full glory.

"The light's still on. Elias must be doing something."

"Probably haunting out new recipes to try and make us eat it." He rolled his eyes when you shot him a look. "You know I'm right. I'm not trusting him with anymore meatloaf." His hands grabbed the doors. 

"You're the one who asked him to try and make it because you wanted to try ghost food!"

"And I learnt my lesson." The doors were loudly pushed in to reveal a pretty clean and safe mansion. "Hey! We're back!"

You walked right in behind Taylor and found a regular sigh for you but scary for anyone else. Brooms, mops, rags, and all kinds of cleaning products were flying around and cleaning the various places of the mansion by himself. Puppeteered by the blue floating Spector in the middle of the foyor. Elias turned and his floating face lit up in a wide smile seeing you both eyes sparkling.

"My darlings!" He greeted quickly turning and floating towards you both with open arms. "How was your day?"

"Ugh. Boring. There was this guy who wouldn't make up his mind trying to decide on roses or sunflowers for like two hours and then he knocked over a stack of pots and ran off before I can make him pay for anything! I had to clean it up myself!" Taylor made no moves to stop Elias who reached him first and proceeded to plant a kiss of greeting to your shared grumpy boyfriend's face.

"I'm sure he didn't mean it. Next time just ask him politely to fix his mistakes," Elias assured him giving a comforting squeeze to Taylor's arms.

"Looks like you've been busy too," you commented looking at the nearest broom sweeping a pile of dirt into a dustpan.

Elias was quick to greet you next giving you the same kiss and hold as Taylor. The coldness of his lips making your body involuntary shiver. "Spring cleaning! I already have the upstairs finished and wanted to surprise you both with a clean house. Are you hungry? I made dinner."

"After the day we had, definitely. What did you make?"

"Meatloaf!" Taylor froze as Elias smiled wider. "I found a recipe for it in one of my grandmother's other cook books. You'll both love it!"

Taylor turned paler than Elias and you couldn't help but laugh.