#homie had a wedding wizard hat

[grimebabytoes]

Harvest Moon Light of Hope is SUCH a shitty game,, but I can’t help playing it. I can’t stop until everyone in town loves me and I birth a whole ass child...

Gus is #1 character without a doubt

[terezis]

prince and court jester au...

look, being a court jester was not kravitz's ideal choice of career, alright? but bard college doesn't pay for itself.

like, sure, it's a sweet gig, he guesses. free room and board? gourmet meals? all the wine he can drink? kravitz's not complaining about any of that. kravitz loves a good rosé. it's just - well, there's a reason why the position's gone unfulfilled for so long.

the prince fucking sucks.

prince taako's sister, queen lup - long may she reign - was recently wed to baron sildar of the winterlands, where she now lives with him quite happily for half the year. the prince, running the household in her absence, has been in low spirits ever since she left for her honeymoon... and that’s saying something, since he was already kind of a dick!

but nobody can call him out on it, because, well - he's the prince. last week he banished a duke because they wore the same color hat to brunch. the head chef is currently rotting in the dungeons for the crime of over-salting yesterday’s soup. suffice to say, everyone in the castle is scared shitless. court is a nightmare.

kravitz isn't sure how he hasn't been fired yet. or sent to the stockade. or beheaded. the prince doesn't seem to like kravitz's music. kravitz is quite offended on behalf of his lute. jokes don't land. even dirty limericks are tossed out and left to rot on the cold marble floor. on good days, the most kravitz can hope for is an eye roll or maybe an aggrieved sigh. probably kravitz should be thrilled. in this castle, the best one can hope for is to be ignored.

yeah, he should be so lucky.

it's his own fault, really - kravitz couldn't keep his pretty mouth shut. he was just so sick of taako's shit. the funny thing is that he doesn’t even particularly like the head butler, but after nearly an hour, all the jokes at jenkins’ expense had started to grow old.

so the next time taako says something about shitty wizards, kravitz snorts and mutters, “i guess you would know.”

silence. you could hear a pin drop... or a head hit the floor.

slowly, taako turns to stare at kravitz. “you got something to say, bubbelah?” the prince asks.

“no, m’lord,” kravitz says blandly.

taako leans forward. “oh, c’mon, you’re the professional clown. if something’s funny, you would know. why don’t you share with the class?”

kravitz is... maybe beginning to question his life choices a little bit. just a tad. it doesn't bother him so much that everyone in the room is staring - he is a bard - but he's never had prince taako's full attention before. it's... a lot. 

were his eyes always that green?

“we-e-ell,” kravitz starts, rolling the word around to buy himself some time, “it just seems to me that you talk a big game about spell slots, but i’ve never actually seen you use your own. are we even certain you can cast, or do you consider ‘poor taste in hats’ to be its own school of magic?”

there’s an audible gasp from somewhere else in the room. gods. if he gets himself executed, his mother is going to be so pissed off.

but then, something strange happens. the prince starts to laugh. and laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

it’s not an attractive noise by any means; more of a honk, if kravitz is being honest. it sounds like someone’s strangling a goose. kravitz feels his face begin to heat up.

in the months he’s worked here, kravitz can’t recall ever seeing the prince smile.

after what feels like an eternity, taako sits up, still giggling, and wipes the tears from his eyes. he glances over at kravitz and says, “bold words from a real life buffoon.”

now that’s just rude. “i’m a bard.”

“really?” taako asks. “are you? ‘cause you look more like a fool to me!”

kravitz resists the urge to roll his eyes. “i suppose it would take a fool to know one,” he says. taako makes an affronted noise.

“rude! that’s prince fool to you, homie.”

they continue on like this for some time.

things change, after that - as though bickering with someone who isn't afraid of him has broken taako out of some kind of spell. and kravitz isn't scared of him, is the thing. taako starts calling on kravitz to entertain him at all hours, which should be inconvenient - and sometimes it is - but it's also kind of fun. when taako's not terrorizing the castle staff, he's actually sort of charming. he's easy to talk to, and kravitz finds himself enjoying the prince's company.

they start taking meals together; they argue over manners and magic alike. the duke is un-banished, and the head chef gets an apology. taako buys kravitz a fool's hat, complete with little bells, and wears it himself when kravitz flat-out refuses. he jingles merrily in court, and within a week all the nobles are wearing stupid little hats in similar styles. it's the funniest thing either of them have ever seen.

kravitz learns that taako loves to cook, though he hasn't had much time for it lately; that he misses his sister like a limb. they sneak into the kitchens late at night. taako talks about growing up on the streets before the former queen plucked him and lup from obscurity and made them her heirs.

(he's sworn to secrecy when he finds taako teaching one of the pages how to cast mage hand. one million years dungeon! don't you dare tell a fuckin' soul! i mean it! turns out the prince is a pretty accomplished wizard after all.)

weeks pass. the castle starts preparing for lup to return home. much as he tries to play it off, taako is so nervous and excited that kravitz can't even find it in himself to be disappointed that they'll have less time to spend together.

taako scoffs. "what the fuck are you talking about?” he says. “soon as lup's settled in, taako's takin' a fuckin' vacay. how do you feel about the beach? we got a nice little villa down by astral sea, s'got plenty of room for a prince and his one-man band. better get practicing, maestro, taako wants a show.”

kravitz grins.

here's the thing about being a prince, and not a king: nobody cares about who taako's going to marry. at least, that’s what lup says when she pulls kravitz aside a few nights before he and taako are set to leave. kravitz flushes, and files this away for further thought.

[zacknano17]

Day 6: words 10,066 - 12,500

In which, Taako finally fixes up his roots.

“Ideas. Yes.  Of course.  Ideas.  Hmm, hmm.  Yes, I have.  Many.  Many ideas,” he says.  “I'm a veritable fountain of ideas.  I'm overflowing with them.  So many ideas.  Maybe too many.  Too many ideas.”

“I can help you narrow that down a bit,” she says.  “Lay 'em on me. We'll see what we can do.”

Taako has never thought about weddings.  He has never even considered the possibility of getting married.  He has never even been to a wedding.

“Um, well, there's flowers.”

“Yes? What kind of flowers were you thinking?”

There is a very long pause.  “...purple ones...?”

To her credit, Rebekah's smile never falters.  “Tell you what, Taako, why don't I show you samples of some of my work, and you can tell me what you think?” she asks, standing up from her seat.

He is greatly relieved.  It's much easier to look at pictures and decide what he likes rather than pulling these things out of his own imagination, especially since he has absolutely no idea what he's talking about.  “That sounds, um, like a good idea,” he agrees.

She motions for him to follow her and leads him to the wall, where a number of portraits of her previous clients hang.  As they walk, he notices her discreetly reaching into her breast pocket and pull out the Oculus.  He tenses.  He is not ready to fight her just yet, not without Merle and Magnus to back him up.  With some effort, he turns his attention to the picture she has led him to.

It's a pair of humans, one man and one androgynous.  The picture doesn't show much other than the two of them, with matching smiles.  They are holding hands in a way that shows off their matching rings.

As nice of a picture it is, Taako doesn't see how it's going to help him pick out flowers when he can barely see their boutonnieres.  But then Rebekah reaches up with a wand he hasn't noticed and taps the frame. The picture appears to zoom out, and the view extends to the entire temple around the pair.  He can see a beautiful display of purple flowers wrapped around an archway.

The view hones in on the flowers, and Taako watches in surprise at how real they look as the image appears about life size.  Then, Rebekah reaches through the frame and pulls a single blossom through.

“Calla lilies,” she says.  “They come in white and pink and plenty of other colors too.  They're fantastic for weddings.  The purple ones supposedly symbolize charm and passion, which I feel would be wonderful for someone as charming and passionate as you.”

She plucks the flower from the painting and hands it to him.  Even to his untrained senses, he can tell it's real.  He can't help it as he strokes the delicate petals with a fingertip.

“Nice, right?” she says.

“What kind of magic is that?  This is...real?” he asks, looking back at the picture frame.

“It's cool, isn't it?”  She sounds excited.  “It's technically a type of conjuration, but it's a mix of that and illusion magic, as you can guess from the paintings.  The flowers only last about an hour, but it certainly gets the job done, doesn't it?”

It does indeed.  “I didn't realize I was in the company of another wizard,” he admits.

“I consider myself more of an arcanist,” she explains.  “I've been known to break the rules when it comes to magic, if you will.  Make my own spells.  This is all stuff of my own doing.”

So, she is a higher level wizard in possession of a Relic that can make her illusions into reality.  Taako has a bad feeling about this.  But on the same note, he is getting a fair bit of reconnaissance done.  It's more information than they've literally ever had going into a fight before, he was fairly certain.

“Neato,” Taako says.  “I'm more of a transmutation specialist myself.  He raises up the umbra staff and does a quick incantation to turn the color of the flower to blue.

This catches Rebekah's attention, but not in the way he expects.  “Your magic focus is an umbrella?” she asks, studying the staff.  “That's a very peculiar focus.”

Normally, he wouldn't care that someone figured that out.  But he is still considering her the enemy at this point.  When it comes time to take the Oculus, the less she knows about who he really is, the better. It's a little too late to do anything about that now, though she doesn't need to know about the properties of this thing that make it truly peculiar.

“Yes, well, I couldn't be bothered with anything mundane,” he replies, shrugging.  “Show me more flowers.  I'm not sold on this lily.”

She does.  He finds that the activity is not as boring as he would have assumed, and within forty-five minutes, he has a whole bouquet of flowers in varying purple colors.  He remains undecided on the flowers, and Rebekah smiles patiently.

At this point, she sits them both down at the desk again and she draws out some paperwork from one of the desk drawers.  There's a very official looking contract with a sum listed on him in an amount that Taako is not sure he has ever seen in one place at one time.  Looks like the Bureau of Balance is going to be footing one hell of a bill for this little adventure.  He signs it with a flourish and then admits he will have to get in touch with his accountant to begin the payment process.

They arrange another meeting for two days from now, and then she walks Taako back out to the front room, where Salvatore is still sitting. While she books the meeting, Taako peeks into the sitting room. Merle appears to have fallen asleep.  Magnus won't quite look at him.

Well, fuck.

“Come on, homies, it's time to jet,” Taako calls into the room.

Merle snorts awake and Magnus stands up but still doesn't look at him.

When he turns back toward Rebekah and Salvatore, Rebekah pipes up.  “Oh, Taako, one other thing before you go,” she says.  “You really ought to consider going back to your natural hair color before the big day.  It's your choice, of course, but I think dark hair would really suit you.”

He blinks at her for a moment and tries not to scowl.  It doesn't look that bad!  If it did, he would have fixed it a week ago before it was that bad.  He knew he should have worn a hat.

He manages a weak smile.  “Yeah, don't worry, Reebo, that's my next stop,” he manages.

Behind him, he hears Merle's laughter.

Today is great.

It isn't cowardice or even vanity that leads Taako to do exactly what he says and go straight to the hairdresser after they leave Wedding Wonders.  It's just that, Rebekah was technically right about his roots, and besides, Magnus was going to, um, want some space? Probably?

He isn't really in a good mood, so he does in fact just go back to his natural dark brown, figuring he can do something different with it later if the mood strikes, and this way, Merle will fucking shut up forever about his roots.  He buys little castle to put into Steven's ball on the way back to the inn, because, okay, yeah, he did what he had to do, but he still feels a little badly.

Neither Magnus nor Merle are in the tavern area of the inn when he comes back, so he heads straight upstairs.  He stops at Magnus' door and knocks on it.  “Hey, big guy?  I gotcha somethin' at the store. Can I come in?” he calls.

“Yeah, I didn't lock it,” Magnus' voice chimes back.

Taako opens the door and strides in, pretending he doesn't feel bad. Magnus is sitting on the bed with his legs folded under him as he whittles away at a piece of wood, pretending he isn't upset.

Magnus doesn't look up at him, so Taako sort of tosses the bag on the bed. “Open it up,” he says.

Deliberately, Magnus puts down the piece of wood and opens up the bag.  He pulls out the tiny castle and holds it up, giving it a quizzical look.

“It's, uh, for your fish,” Taako explains.  “The lady at the store said it was made out of a special material so it wouldn't like damage his fins or whatever.”

“Um, you know I can't open the globe, right?” Magnus asks.

Taako sighs.  “Um, you know I'm a fuckin' wizard, right?  Like, that's sort of my whole deal.  Hand 'em over.”

It's a careful balance, as to not upset the level of water and not disrupt the magic that keeps Steven fed and clean in the first place, but five minutes later, Magnus is cooing at the fish globe, now stocked with a fancy little castle.  He definitely seems a little more cheerful, so Taako will call it a success.

He settles on a chair near the foot end of the bed, twirling the umbra staff between his hands while not really making eye contact.

“Um, you know I wouldn't have done any of this if I had had a better option, right?  Like, okay, she thought I was marryin' someone and she knew it wasn't Merle,” he says, the words sort of tumbling out of his mouth, unbidden.  “I couldn't think of who else could do it.  It's -- it's just for a little while, until this dumb mission is over, and then we can proceed to never speak of it again, right?”

“Yeah, Taako, it's fine.  I get it,” Magnus says.  He is still focused on Steven, but there's a definite shift in his expression.

“No, I don't think you do?  Because here's the thing, Mags, I got us a free pass to walk right in there,” Taako points out.  “All we need is an excuse to get the three of us in a room with her, and then we confront her about the Oculus.  Because she has it.  I saw her use it.”

That did catch Magnus' expression.  “She used it?  Are you okay?”

“What? Yeah, homie.  Not a scratch.  She used it on those weird paintings to show me the flowers she used in the weddings, and then she made real flowers.  She's not -- this isn't a fuckin' Gundren Rockseeker sitch we're in right now, I don't think,” Taako explains.

“So like the Miller Lab, more or less.”

“Yeah, exactly.  I don't know that the Stone ever...fucked that Slime Lord over as much as the ghosts he used it to summon did.  Reebo is in the same boat, I think,” Taako says.  “The Gauntlet and the Sash wanted destruction, but maybe the Stone and the Oculus are...happy to just be used?”

Magnus goes quiet for a long moment, contemplative.

“I know we have to take it from her,” he finally says, “but I wonder if there's a way we can do it without a fight.  She hasn't hurt anybody with it, right?  And if we force the issue, it's probably not going to end well.  But we can't just let her have it.  From what it sounds like, this thing could be worse than the Sash.”

“The ability to conjure up literally anything she imagines?  Yeah, I'd say so,” Taako snorts.  “Maybe we got lucky, and it's stuck on somebody with no imagination.”

He knows that isn't the case, though.  He knows, because there's little way she would have been able to weave together such intricate designs for these weddings without it.

There's more to this.  There's something that they're missing.

“She's not going to give it up easily, I'll bet,” Magnus muses, sighing.

Taako thinks about Merle attempting to reason with Gundren.  He thinks about the thousands of people incinerated in Phandalin.  He thinks about Hurley's desperation to save Sloane, even if it meant losing her own life.  He thinks about the sheer determination Lucas had to see his mother again, despite the fact that he knew exactly what the Stone was and what it was capable of.

“They never do,” he agrees quietly.

“Yeah.” The defeat in Magnus' voice tells him that he's thinking the same thing.

“Either way, I figure we should all three be there before we try anything,” Taako says.  “This thing is ridiculously powerful, and I'd really rather not be on the wrong end of that.  I think we'll, uh, need to play the whole wedding charade a little longer, my dude.”

Magnus' expression falls a little, not that it was particularly cheerful to start with.

“Come on, dude, it's just a fuckin' game until we get this thing over with,” Taako groans.

“I said I wasn't mad,” Magnus says, and he's actually pouting now.

“You're pouting,” Taako points out.

“I'm not pouting.”

“You totally are.  Your face looks like this.”  He puts on the most ridiculous pouty face he can manage.

Magnus frowns at him, not helping the matter at all.

“Taako...it's not about the fact that it's you,” he finally says.  “It's about the fact that it's a wedding. Planning a wedding makes me think about the time I actually did get married.  And it's like -- man, I don't know.  It just kinda sucks, okay?”

Taako doesn't really know how to deal with grief, much less such a tangible, open expression of it.  On one level, it's very irritating to him, mostly because he can't relate.  He's never lost anybody he's cared about.  He doesn't let anyone that close to him.  He just wants Magnus to get over it and work with him here.

But he also knows that yelling at Magnus for grieving his dead wife would make him the supreme asshole of the universe, and he...well, maybe he doesn't want Magnus to think of him that way.  As much as Taako loves to push people away, he knows full well that Magnus and Merle have managed to worm their way in anyway.  He talks a bit talk, but there are important people in his life too.

“...but you get why it was necessary, right?” Taako finally says, determined not to get annoyed.  “I need you in there.  I trust you at my back.”

That catches Magnus' attention.  “I thought you didn't trust anybody.”

Taako bites back a curse.  “Bad choice of words.  I trust you to do your best to not let me die,” he says wryly.  “Not with much of anything else, my dude.”