#its SO early on like the ONLY thing established abt taako's character is that he's good out here!!

[jerreeeeeee]

do you think after barry died in phandalin his lich form constituted fast enough to see the rest happen. you think he was close to losing himself upon seeing his wife's nightmare all around him and no sign of her. you think he thought tres horny boys would die for good. you think he heard taako say he wouldn't leave without him

[sneegsnitties]

Creatures of the Light, Run From the Night: Chapter 1: Prologue; The Beginning

[AO3 LINK] @tazbang

Rating: T+ (bound to change) Characters/Ships: Blupcreatia, Taagnus, Davenchurch, the light of creation, the voidfish Tags: tags: The Adventure Bang 2019, blood, transformation, alternate universe - canon divergence, character death, canon compliant, canonical character death, temporary character death, body horror, stolen century era, established relationship, we know nothing abt the light yall, angst, the light fucks everyone up? kinda, touch starved, alternate universe - creatures and monsters, other additional tags to be added Summary:The Light Of Creation has always been one of a mystery. It has the power to create, that obvious. But what else does it do? No one knows. This is what the seven birds are trying to figure out, why it’s so important to the hunger? what is the extent of its abilities? What else can it do? These questions will be answered, but not in the way that either of them were expecting. The light of creation has its reasons for doing what it did. A reason that is not quite understood. But whatever it did? It was definitely not what they signed up for. Not even close.  

The Light Of Creation has always been one of a mystery. It has the power to create, that obvious. But what else does it do? No one knows.

This is what the seven birds are trying to figure out, why it’s so important to the hunger? what is the extent of its abilities? What else can it do?

These questions will be answered, but not in the way that either of them were expecting. The light of creation has its reasons for doing what it did. A reason that is not quite understood. But whatever it did? It was definitely not what they signed up for. Not even close.

It started out in minor details. The flowers in Merle’s beard never fell out and instead stayed firmly rooted in place in the tangle. Whenever Lup entered a room, the temperature rose slightly. Lucretia seemed to have an aura of eeriness around her.

But then it started to get more noticeable. The transformation into these creatures begins now, one by one. Not terrible ones, nowhere near it. a being made out of pure crystal, one made entirely out of malleable metal, a ghostly spirit, one made out of vines and flowers, a fully functioning robot without limitations, a being of magma with features of a phoenix and the zombie-like man.

This is how it all happened. This is that story. A story with love and loss and pain and everything in between. It’s the same story we all know and love but with a different twist.

The light of creation? Turns out it can do more than just create things. It can transform you. Why? Guess we’ll have to find out.

It started with Taako; he was the one to be around it last, to put it in its case for safekeeping. Though when he went to bed that night, a dull ache began to spread by his left ear. But Taako just assumes that he spent too much time leaning over the light in the lab, studying it. But the pain didn’t go away as he slept.

When he wakes up the next morning, after tossing and turning to get comfortable. it hurts even more. Assuming he slept oddly, or even that he had somehow gotten injured while collecting the light. But that’s impossible. This is a peaceful plane with only the most basic magic.

So as he enters his bathroom in the morning a glint of something purple and shiny catches his eye as he walks by the mirror.

Taako pauses, his eyes widen as he sees the strip of purple crystal starting at the base of his left ear and down his cheek.

This crystal, whatever it is, was not there last night. Nor was it of his own doing. He’s much more careful than that. he knows better than that.

In a panic, Taako tries to remove it. Scratching at the skin, around the crystal but to no avail. It’s stuck. he’s bleeding.

The elf braces himself against the sink and stares at his bloody hands. A lump forms in his throat as he tries to steady his breathing.

He needs to get this off his face. He needs to get to Merle. He needs to know what’s happening.

That lump in his throat bubbles up and he chokes back a sob, he’s afraid. Afraid of what will become of him.

Everything is alright. He hears a small voice in the back of his head say.

No, no, it’s not. Nothing is fine. He’s not alright.

A knock at his door startles Taako out of his thoughts.

“Koko?” He hears Lup say, “Are you okay?” Her voice a comfort to him.

He wants to lie but can’t. He can’t lie to his sister about this. Lup knows when Taako is not fine.

Steadily, but shakily, he pushes himself off of his sink. “N-no,” He sobs, reaching for the bathroom door with a bloody hand. his cheek throbs in pain

“I’m coming in,” Lup says, panic rising in her voice.

He just stands in the bathroom's doorway as his twin bursts through the door. His eyes squeezed shut as she does so.

“Taako.” Lup gasps

“I don’t know.” He opens his eyes and sees the panic and shock written on her face.

“You’re bleeding, Taako, what’s on your face? What happened?” His sister grabs his wrists, staring at all the blood on his hands

“I don’t know.” He repeats. “I need Merle.” He says softly through his tears.

“Right. Yeah. Fuck.” She drags him through the door of his room and yells for the dwarven cleric.

The dwarf stumbles out his room sleepily and yawns, “what? It’s too early for this shit.” He looks up at the two and his eyes widen, “what the hell?” The dwarf says. “The fuck happened, kid?”

“I don’t know.” He sobs.

“Looks like you got into a fight, but come here.” He motions him to come closer. “I’ll heal you right up.”

He leans down to the dwarf’s level and even though he teases Merle endlessly for not being a good cleric, he’d trust him with his life.

The blood stops flowing and the scratches he had made on the skin around the growing crystal heals, but… the crystal stays.

“Pan, what’d you do?”

“I-I didn’t do anything.” he sniffles. “I woke up, and it was there.”

“Well clearly. Let’s get you to the infirmary. Was there any pain last night?” Merle ducks into his room for a moment to grab a cloth for Taako to press against the wound.

“It just ached a little, I thought I just leaned down too much yesterday. I was looking at the light.”

“And you did nothing about it?” Merle shakes his head with a sigh, “you’re killin’ me, kid.”

“I thought that was the hungry boy’s job?” Lup teases

“Oh shut up,” Merle grumbles but smiles anyways.

Once they enter the infirmary, Merle has Taako move the cloth away. The wound that he had done to himself had mostly stopped bleeding now, but it revealed the growing crystal on the side of his head.

“Damn.” the dwarf whistles, “are you sure you didn’t fuck anything up? Or you didn’t like, lick the light?” he says as he prepares to cast a healing spell.

“Who do you think I am? Licking things that you aren’t supposed is more of a Magnus thing to do.” Taako says nervously, with a hint of laughter at the things his boyfriend has done, “I would’ve known if I fucked up on transmuting anything, I’m literally the best transmutation wizard out there. Its… it’s impossible that I would ever fuck up.” he stutters.

“I know, I know. I never said I doubted your transmutation skills.” merle casts the spell, but only the broken skin around the crystal was healed. “Huh. well shit.”

Taako grips the edge of the bed, “what?” he asks, eyes widening. “Shit what?” the elf winces as the crystal grows ever so slightly along his neck.

“Merle…” Lup starts to say, grabbing the dwarfs shoulder

“I know. I saw.” he grumbles, shrugging her off “I’m going to try to detect some magic.”

Taako tenses, squeezing his eyes shut again and waits for Merle to confirm if this - whatever is happening to him - is magical or not.

“I-i can’t detect anything.” his friend and sort of father figure say after a quiet moment.

“Bull shit.” his twin says as calmly as possible, “bull fucking shit.”

“I’m doing my best Lup, does this plane have its own magic?”

“Yeah, but it’s only simple cantrips compared to what we can do.”

Merle hums, “might have to do more research on that. Check out The Light again too.”

“I think we’ve done all the research we can on the light, Merle, what else could we possibly find?” Lup leans against Taako in comfort.

“I don’t know. But it couldn’t help but to try?” he suggests, ‘’ I’ll continue to try to figure out what’s happening with him.”

Lup exhales, “Okay, thank you.” she smiles wearily, “love you Ko,” she kisses his forehead.

“Ditto,” he whispers and watches her leave, although hesitantly.

Lup is about ready to break down into tears. She’s afraid. Afraid for her brother, afraid for what the rest of this cycle is going to be like. 49 years of running and resetting and nothing like this has happened before. She doesn’t even know what she’s going to do if… if he fully turns.

This plane has people on it, though their magic is weak. It would take a powerful spell for this to have happened to Taako.

The elf finds herself back at the door to her shared room with Barry and Lucretia and sighs deeply. She opens it slowly and the two don’t seem the miss her during her absence. A wave of exhaustion courses through her body and Lup squeezes herself between her partners. They re-adjust for her presence once again making itself known.

“Mm, where’d you go?” Lucretia asks sleepily, placing her chin on Lup’s shoulder.

“I- I was checking on Taako,” she whispers.

“Is he okay?” Barry slurs, squinting at the two of them through sleepy eyes.

“I don’t know.” She sniffles and buried her face into her boyfriend’s chest.

“What’s going on?” Lucretia asks.

“There’s this crystal stuff growing on his face and I don’t know how or why. He said he didn’t fuck up on transmuting anything and I believe him but I’m… I’m afraid.” Lup says and breaks down into tears.

“Crystal stuff?” Barry asks and reaches over to grab his glasses off of the nightstand, “was that what that yelling was about?”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine, have faith in Merle,” Lucretia reassures.

“No, but when he healed him, the crystal was still there. He didn’t detect any magic or anything either.”

“No magic?” Barry makes a noise of confusion, “that’s not good.”

“Yeah no shit, Barry.”

“I’m… not that good at comforting stuff yet. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, I’m just… afraid.”

“I would be too.” Lucretia says and kisses the base of Lup’s ear, “this plane has very weak magic. There’s been no hostility towards us so it couldn’t have been from the people here.”

Lup is silent, “then what would it be?” She asks quietly

“A curse? Sorry, that’s probably worse.” Barry apologizes.

Lup detangles herself from her partners and stands up. “I’m going to make breakfast. I- I gotta try to get my mind off all of this. You did nothing wrong. Fuck… it grew”

Lucretia stumbles out of bed and wraps her arms around her girlfriend’s waist again in a quick hug, “it’s okay.”

“It’s not. I’ve lost him before but I think this... this will probably the worst be the worst.” she says and moves towards the doorway, “If you want to help me, I’ll be in the kitchen.”

She wanders through the halls of the ship towards the kitchen. Fighting away that feeling of dread that had infected her thoughts any more than they already had.

He’s going to be fine, she thinks to herself as she begins to prepare breakfast for the crew.

Putting herself on autopilot, she only focuses on what she’s making at the moment. Or she tries, Lup can’t stop thinking about the fate of her brother.

She was fine the three other times her twin had died, and she didn’t. Well, mostly. But this? This is going to be hell.

There was that one cycle where he had gotten incredibly sick from a highly contagious disease that plagued the plane. He had fallen fast; it was too late for the cure to work. Taako had died within the week.

But this crystal stuff? That’s new, something that they had never experienced before. Who knows how long it’ll take this time.

It’s growing, slowly and surely, it will take over his entire body. Lup is afraid of the day that it’ll happen.

Unless the crew finds something to reverse it.

“Lup? What’s going on?” Magnus says, bringing her out of her thoughts. “Wheres Taako?” he says in a panic

She looks up at the fighter and he looks afraid.

“There was blood on the sink in his room and I want to know if he’s okay.”

“I- Magnus. I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s okay.” Lup admits

“Lup. what’s going on?” he gives her a serious look. “You’re scaring me. Please, please tell me that my boyfriend’s okay.” his voice cracks

It had slipped her mind that Magnus usually checks on Taako in the mornings after his workouts. She should’ve gone to Magnus first. “There’s… there’s this crystal stuff on him. It’s growing and we don’t know where it’s from.”

“What do you mean? I don’t know any of this magic stuff.” the fighter frowns and leans against the counter.

“It’s not magic.”

“What else could it be if it’s not magic?”

“I don’t know. Look, uh this is almost done so if you could go down to the infirmary and deliver it to Merle and Taako?” she tries to change the subject away from her brother.

“Lup, I’m sorry for pushing you on this, but how?”

“Again, I don’t know,” she says forcefully. “I don’t know what's going on! Nobody does, Magnus!”

The fighter raises his hands in mock surrender, “I didn’t mean to upset you,” he grabs the plates she prepared.

“It’s fine, I didn’t mean to yell either.”

“It’s a stressful time.”

“Sure fucking is.” the elf sighs.

Magnus walks down the hallway towards the infirmary, afraid of what has happened to his boyfriend. He’s not paying much attention because he ends up almost running into Davenport, somehow, even with his short stature.

“Sorry cap, uh, Lup told me to go deliver food to Taako and Merle in the infirmary,” he says and watches as a look of confusion forms on the gnome's face.

“What?” he asks plainly

“I don’t really know what’s happening besides that Taako has some sort of crystal growing on him and I’m scared to be honest with you,” Magnus says awkwardly.

Davenport just stares up at him in disbelief. “What?” he repeats, "I thought this plane’s magic wasn’t strong enough for something like that to happen.”

“I mean, I’m the only non-magic user here so I really can’t comment on that.” he walks towards the infirmary again. Leaving Davenport to figure out what the fuck is going on his own.