#like also i know that taako says that first thing and then continues trusting magnus and merle and even barry kinda | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fernpost · 4 years ago

Text

looking forwards

[link to ao3]

Angus McDonald, boy detective. Greatest detective, if you asked him. And if you asked most of his clients.

He could solve any case, any mystery or murder or missing persons case. He’s always able to find the truth.

He just struggles sometimes, when it comes to himself.

His own emotions are swirling masses of weird bubbly feelings . He does not like how hard it is to decipher his own feelings.

Deciphering people's feelings about him is often just as hard. He knows social cues. He’s studied them thoroughly, and knows why people say what when he’s asking them certain questions and what they’re hiding when they ask him to leave.

Working a case is easy.

He’s solved plenty of murders before. Those are easy. Child’s play! And Angus is not a child anymore. He’s twelve whole years old, and had the first birthday party he’s ever really enjoyed to celebrate with all his friends.

Sure, most of them were adults, but he’s always gotten along really well with adults.

And they’re his family, so it’s fine-

Well. They’re not really his family. He’s not blood related to them. He’s not sure he has any immediate family now that his grandpa is gone. He’s never asked Taako or Magnus or Merle of Kravitz or Killian or- or any of them if they consider him family.

They’re his friends. That’s fine. He’s perfectly content with that (he thinks. Again, his own emotions are confusing).

But that’s okay. Because he’s going to school soon. It’s kind of far away from where most of them live, though. Far from the home Taako, Lup, Barry, and Kravitz have been sharing. Where Angus has been staying.

Very far from where Magnus has been setting up his school. And a whole day's ride away from Killian and Carey’s home.

The school is three hours away from Angus’s ho- from Taako’s house, where Angus is staying.

He hasn't- he hasn’t told Taako he’s going to school yet. He doesn’t know how to tell him he’s going to need to move out because obviously he would never ask Taako to uproot his whole life- all of them to uproot their lives just for Angus to be able to attend school. Not when they finally got settled down.

He really doesn’t even need school, but when his parents passed away and he went to live with his grandpa he dropped out. And if he wants to go on to college (if Lucas is serious about the potential teaching job) he needs to at least graduate high school. He was almost done too, but his grandpa didn’t have a lot of money like his parents did, so he started solving more and more cases to help out.

His parents didn’t give his grandpa any of their money because they didn’t expect him to be around when they passed on- not that they were bad people! He doesn’t mean to make them sound bad. They weren’t bad. They weren’t the best, he guesses. They’re not as fun as Taako, or as warm as Lup, and didn’t give as many hugs and Magnus, and didn’t talk to him about science like Barry, or-

But they were nice. They just weren’t really into parenting. They still left their small fortune to him, he’s just not old enough for it.

He’s thinking of petitioning the banks and saying he’s perfectly independent to get the money so he can move out easier.

He wonders if Kravitz would help, because he’s really good at that type of stuff, and the bank workers would be much more likely to listen to an adult than him.

Being young had its perks when solving cases, but it sucked for his day-to-day life.

It also sucked when his stomach churned for no reason that he could deduce. He’s just sitting in the kitchen, watching Lup cook in her still-slightly-fresh body as she sings a funny folktale song (Barry is sitting next to him, and he’d leaned over when she’s started singing to tell him how she learned this song early on in a world that had no writing system, and the song was about a man who could never remember where he left his pants. Angus didn’t really get it, but Barry kept laughing and smiling like it was the funniest thing in the world. Angus was pretty sure Barry would laugh at anything Lup did as a joke, though. He didn’t need to be a great detective for that).

But despite how good the food smells, his stomach hurts really bad. He’s barely eaten today, so it can't be food poisoning. Not that he’s had that since moving in- the Taaco’s are wonderful cooks and he trusts anything they feed him implicitly.

He tunes out Lup as he thinks.

The stomach pains are probably anxiety. Kravitz was telling him how he used to get them all the time, so it’s possible it’s just that.

But he shouldn’t be anxious . He’s a big kid- he’s just waiting for Taako to get home so he can tell him he’s moving out.

He has already looked for an apartment. Once Lucas' Academy of Arcane Sciences is fully up and running, he should have a highschool diploma and will be able to move on campus to work on his own degree. And be a student teacher while he works on it. It’s very exciting! If he should be feeling any physical effects from his emotions, it should be excitement, not this. This gross conglomerate of mushy feelings he can’t piece together.

He hates this.

Lup is holding a spoon to him, and Angus snaps back to the present to hear her softly ask, “you okay, little dude?” He doesn’t like the look of concern on her face- she’s been through too much to have to worry herself with him (he can’t get the century out of his head, these people are so amazing and they just let him hang around them. He doesn’t know what he’s doing right and he’s scared he’s going to stop doing that and they’re not going to like him anymore).

“I’m fine, Miss Lup! Thank you for asking.” He folds his hands tighter in his lap as he smiles. Whatever is on the spoon smells great, but he’s not sure his stomach is up for it yet.

Lup continues to stare at him for another second before pushing the spoon a little closer, “if you say so. Now, tell me, how’s it taste?”

Angus shakes his head and pulls back, “my stomach isn’t feeling too good right now, I don’t want to infect the rest of the food if it’s contagious.”

A hand appears on his head and he jumps a little, still not used to the casual touch-language of the household, and Barry’s nasally voice joins the conversation. “You don’t feel hot. Want us to call Merle over and give you a check up?”

The spoon is back, “it’s a good soup, Ango. It shouldn’t upset your stomach, and I can just get a new spoon. Barry can call Merle while you give me pointers.”

“You don’t need to, it’s fine really.” He waves his hands at Barry before turning to Lup. “And I’m not sure what help I can be with the cooking, I haven’t improved much these past few months even with Taako walking me through those other recipes.”

Lup snorts, “you’re improving much faster than Barry ever did. And I haven’t been helping Kravitz much with it, but he’s worse than anyone I’ve ever met at cooking. You’re doing just fine.”

Angus straightens up, discomfort momentarily disregarded, “Mr. Kravitz hasn’t needed to eat or cook in a long time, so he’s forgotten a lot of the basics so it’s not fair to judge me against him.”

“Sure, sure.” Lup waves her free hand in the air, the other still holding the spoon. “Still, this spoon is staying in the air until you taste it.” She glances at Barry, “and don’t worry about bothering Merle, he’ll never admit it but he likes the excuse to come over. Barry will pick him up; gives him more practice on perfecting the portal spell.”

Angus frowns, but reaches out to take the spoon anyways, “you really don’t need to call him. I’m sure it’ll pass by tomorrow.”

A hand is now on his shoulder, and Angus glances over to make eye contact with Barry, who speaks. “I won’t call him tonight, but if you still feel bad tomorrow we’ll tell him, okay?”

“Okay.” He’s not going to tell him if his stomach still hurts tomorrow, because it shouldn’t. Because he’s going to tell Taako right when he gets home and there will be nothing making him anxious or sad or excited or whatever that will make his stomach hurt. Because he’s going to do it.

He punctuates the thought by sticking the spoon in his mouth. Lup has turned back around, a fresh spoon stirring the pot, so she doesn’t see Angus’s eyes widen, but she turns back to face him with a smile when he gasps.

“This is really good, Miss Lup! Thank you.”

“Anything missing from it?” She crosses her arms, a new spoon dangling from her fingers as she twirls it around. It feels like a test, and the stomach ache is back.

Maybe it is from anxiety, because he used to get them before really hard tests. But why is he anxious? Taako is most likely going to take the news well, because Angus will finally be out of his hair.

(But maybe he doesn’t want that. Maybe Taako being okay with him moving out would hurt. Maybe the thought of Taako not just being okay, but being excited at the thought of him moving out is making him sick with worry and sadness and-)

“I’m not sure what else. It tastes perfect as-is.” He can’t think about cooking anymore. “I’m going to read on the couch, if that’s alright.”

The twirling of the spoon pauses, before she gives him a smile he knows is a bit forced, “okay, but when Taako comes home complaining that something is missing from the soup we’re blaming Barry.”

“Hey!”

Angus slides from the stool, moving to the sink and placing the spoon in there before heading to the couch. The living room is open to the kitchen and dining room, and he can hear Lup puttering around in there as she and Barry speak quietly to each other.

He’s unsure if they’re talking about him, or just being polite because he said he was reading, but his stomach twists again anyways. He picks up his book from where he set it on the coffee table this morning, and tries to read- he really does.

But he can’t focus.

The words blur together as he stares down at them blankly. He’s so zoned-out he misses the sound of the door opening, and the ensuing whispering in the kitchen.

It’s only when a hand is on his shoulder does he notice someone else is in the room, and he almost jumps out of his skin. Turning his head quickly, he catches sight of the gaudy sequin coat Taako had bought a few months ago. He’s paired it with a pair of jeans with tassels, and Angus doesn’t know much about fashion, but he’s fairly sure that’s not a normal outfit combination.

“Lup said your stomach hurt? Did you eat the so-called muffins Barry made yesterday? Because I told him those were toxic for human consumption. Probably dwarven consumption as well.”

Angus shakes his head, eyes following Taako as he slips his coat off and throws it on the armchair. He’d taken one look at those burnt muffins and slid them behind the milk, hiding them to prevent anyone from eating them. The elf walks around the couch and sits on the opposite side as him, tucking his knees under him as he stares at him with those eyes that are far more observant than most people think.

“Uh-huh. I’m throwing them out anyway. Don’t want to risk it.”

Angus nods, fiddling with the pages of his book. He runs a finger down the edge, finding a temporary calm in the weird texture of the uneven edges. He’s wearing a crease into the sides, he knows, but that’s fine. His grandpa liked to talk about the beauty of a well-loved book.

He’d spent all night planning on what he was going to stay. He wants to make sure Taako knows he isn’t throwing his kindness back in his face, and that he is going to be able to do this mostly on his own. He doesn’t have many belongings, so the move itself would be pretty easy. There won’t be much for Taako to worry about. Angus has always been very self-reliant. He isn’t a pushover, and is fine taking care of himself. While living here has been nice, he’s fine going back to living like that.

A foot knocking against his knee gets his attention, and he glances over to Taako. The elf’s face is pinched, ears flicking back and forth.

It’s a weird expression to see directed at him. Taako speaks, “you with me, Agnes?”

He nods, eyes flitting away. The nickname is an endearment, something he figured out soon after he started living on the moonbase. Their story being projected into his mind only reinforced that knowledge; seeing how Taako interacted with the others (and how the others teased everyone as well) proves that Taako being mean normally shows he cares.

He states instead at the fireplace; it’s still kinda dirty because no one has wanted to clean it out from when Lup caused it to flare up during a particularly intense board game night (they banned board games when the fire was going after that, at least while Lup was in her lich form. Far too much magical energy waiting to be released).

“Angus. You sure you’re feeling okay?”

He doesn’t mean to flinch, but seeing a hand come towards his face after already being stressed all day caused him to react unfavorably.

The hand yanks itself away, and Angus forces himself to look over at Taako, apology already leaving. “Sorry, sir. I just didn’t expect it- I’m fine, really.” He almost says ‘I promise,’ but stops himself. He doesn’t like lying, and it wouldn’t have been a lie but it wouldn’t have been the full truth.

Taako doesn't seem to believe him anyways, as he squints at him. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Angus starts, “I’m not sick!”

“I know you’re not sick, but you’re acting all weird.” He wiggles his fingers, and it almost makes Angus laugh.

He takes a deep, steadying breath. It only makes his stomach clench even more. His face gets hot, and suddenly his throat is tight and he can’t- he can’t do it- he doesn’t want-

“I need to move out.” The words leave him at once, just barely slow enough to be comprehensible.

The soft conversation in the kitchen stops at once, though neither of them walk over to the couch. Taako is staring at him, face blank.

He finds himself beginning to ramble. He hates it, he’s normally more composed, but working a case is much, much easier than navigating people he cares about. “Mr. Miller offered me a position at his school once I graduate, and the school is on the other side of town. I can’t make the commute each day, it’s too far and the walk would be too much. So, I found a small place that’s cheap, and once I get access to my parents money they left me I’ll be fine on that front. And-”

“Miller? Lucas Miller?” Taako cuts him off. He hasn’t done that in a long while, and it shuts Angus up immediately.

“Yes? He’s opening his school, the Academy of Arcane Sciences.”

“And he wants you to teach there?”

Angus' face flushes, and he gets hot with indignation. “I’m very smart, sir. I am very qualified to teach, and it’s not a stretch that he would seek me out and-”

Taako puts his hands up. “Not what I was implying. You’re just young.” He glares off to the side, before pulling his crystal out. “Thought Miller was above hiring a child.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“How old are you, then?” Taako glances back over at him, eyebrows raised in that annoying way he gets when he thinks he’s made an excellent point. He’s typing without looking down, and Angus wants to know what he’s doing.

“I- that’s not what I meant.”

Taako leans back on the couch, looking back at his crystal. “You should be focused on being a kid, not teaching nerds at Lucas’s subpar school.”

The indignation that started when Taako brushed off what he’s been worrying about has been building and building. He clenches his hands into fists, letting the book drop to the floor as he stands and yells, “stop trying to make me have the childhood you wanted!”

He regrets it immediately, but can’t bring himself to look at Taako. The room is so, so quiet. It’s almost worse than if they yelled at him. He runs past the couch, dodging the hand that reaches out as he passes by Taako. He slips into the room he’s been staying in, closing the door and locking it behind him. He sits on the floor, back resting against his bed, and shoves his face into his knees, pulling them tightly into himself.

At least he made it easy, right? He’ll wait for Taako to cool down, finish packing his things, and leave.

He doesn’t even know why he said that. He knows Taako was just being nice, even if he phrased it poorly. He just wants him to be a kid because he knows what it’s like to not have a childhood. Angus had no reason to say that. He didn’t mean it.

The hot press of tears builds in his eyes and he forces them down. He has no right to cry when he was the one in the wrong.

Knowing Taako, Lup, and Barry are in there, talking about him, is almost as bad as the guilt. Not knowing what they’re saying is disquieting.

It doesn’t take long for a soft knocking on his door to fill the room. He says nothing, but looks up at it. He stares at the handle, checking it’s still locked.

“Angus, it’s Lup. Can I come in?”

He considers not answering. They’ve been good about not barging in before, when he makes it clear he wants to be alone. He doesn’t want to be alone, though. He’s just not sure he wants to have this conversation.

“Yeah.” He stands, unlocking the door and holding the handle. Breathes. Opens the door.

Ears tilted down low, Lup stands there with hands in a neutral position at her side. Gods, she’s being so aware of her movements right now so she doesn’t startle him. He turns, walks over to his desk, and stands by it. He’s now very aware of his backpack and small suitcase against the wall, half-packed. Not enough to be obvious, but enough so that when he told them he was moving he could do so quickly.

Lup is staring at it. She hesitates, then goes to sit on his bed. She doesn’t shut the door all the way, leaving it just barely cracked.

He hates being treated like this.

“We’re not mad.” She begins, and Angus can’t bring himself to look at her as she talks, staring instead at his bags. “Taako isn’t mad either. We’re just confused as to why you want to move out.”

Angus furrows his brow, glancing over to Lup for a second before retraining his eyes on his bags, “I told T- I said that it was too far for me to walk there each day.”

“Me and Barry have basically mastered rifts, we could bring you there and back you know. So could Kravitz.”

“I already thought about asking you to, but you’re called to go help the Raven Queen randomly, and I wouldn’t want to be stuck on campus.” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, “I didn’t phrase it very well out there.” He forces himself to make eye contact, “I am very grateful for everything you all have provided me, and I’m not leaving because I’m unhappy or anything. I just know I’ll be fine on my own, and I really want to go to school.”

Lup purses her mouth, “I’m not going to argue that you aren’t responsible or that you couldn’t live on your own. But you are young, there’s no reason you should be teaching at this age.”

“I’m not though! I’m finishing high school, and then student teaching until I graduate from his school. I’ll just be helping the professors until I have the proper qualifications.” He clenches his hands, trying to keep himself calm. He doesn’t like when people don’t understand what he’s saying.

She takes in what he says, keeping her gaze steady. “Okay. That’s better. But, you still shouldn’t be living on your own, little dude.”

“I used to-”

She holds her hand up, “come on, this is a group conversation. The other two people living here should be here for this.” Angus casts an anxious glance at the door when she says that. She continues on, “before we go out there, though, we do need to talk about what you said.”

Panic fizzles through him again. “I know! I didn’t mean it, and I’m really, really sorry. I just got frustrated because he was patronizing me and I don’t like being treated like that. I’m very smart and capable- I’ve done- I’m just-” He feels his emotions begin to well up again, and it only makes him more upset. He knows he’s more mature than this. He’s caught numerous serial killers, solved murder cases, and helped so many people. He can keep up with serious adult conversations, as well as banter with everyone easily. He’s good at words. He hates getting sensitive like this.

“Hey, hey. Angus, it’s okay. Breathe.” She steps towards him, moving slowly to not startle him and he hates how he’s already shown that she needs to do that. “Taako was being rude when you spoke to him, no one is denying that. But what you said at the end was also pretty rude. And we understand needing to take a minute to ourselves, but we have to make sure we have hard conversations. You’re telling us you don’t want us to treat you like a child, and we are not going to baby you. But you are still very young, especially compared to us.” She closes the gap to him and rests a hand on his shoulder, kneeling down. “Being mature means hard conversations. Being nice means having harder conversations. All we want from you, Angus, is for you to be honest with us and listen to us when we want to be honest with you.” She removes her hand from his shoulder and spreads her arms wide, offering a hug.

If he says no, she won’t make a fuss. He knows this.

He crashes into her, smushing her face into her shoulder. Her arms tighten around him as she runs her hand through his hair. “Here’s the plan. We go out there, Taako apologizes to you for being an asshole, you apologize for snapping, and then we all talk about you moving out, okay?”

Pulling his head away from her shoulder, he nods. He knows if he tried to speak, he would devolve into tears. She smiles and pulls him back into the hug.

They stay there for another moment, before Angus pulls away. Lup stands and gestures for him to lead the way.

His stomach clenches again, but some it’s not as intense as it was a few minutes ago.

They walk down the short hallway, and find Taako and Barry sitting on the couch. Both are staring at them as they enter the room, and Angus finds his hands twisting into the hem of his shirt.

“I shouldn’t have said that, sir. I’m sorry.” Angus says it fast. He hopes it doesn’t sound dishonest, the way it tumbled out of his mouth, but he knows if he slowed down the tears would fall too and he doesn’t want that.

Taako moves to stand, but Angus watches as Barry’s hold on his hand keeps him on the couch. Taako, instead smiles. “It’s okay, Ango. I was being an ass first. Should have listened to you all the way instead of cutting you off. Taako’s better than that.”

Lup brushes past Angus, moving to sit on the armchair next to the couch. Angus stays where he is. “I am still moving, though.”

No one speaks for a moment, but all three of them look at each other. After a moment of silent conversation, the type born from living together for a long, long time, Taako speaks up. “Okay. We’ve been talking about getting a bigger house anyways. This one is too close to the city and when the others visit it’s far too crowded. We need more extra bedrooms.”

Angus blinks. Then blinks again. “What?”

Lup sighs. “That’s one way to bring it up. We’ve already been talking about it- there’s a chunk of land just outside of the east end of the city. It’s not far from the school we assume is the one you plan on attending. Magnus has already said he’ll help us fix up the house there.”

He is still wildly confused.

Barry gathers that, and he sighs, “we will all move. So you can be closer to your school.”

He starts shaking his head, “no, you guys just settled down, you don’t need to do that.”

“Do you really think you could make us do anything we don’t want to do?” Taako asks as he begins to walk over to Angus. He mimics the position Lup took earlier, squatting in front of him. “If you really don’t want to live with us, fine. But we had already been talking about getting a bigger place. This isn’t a sudden decision- if Krav wasn’t on some mission he could tell you the same thing. The house we were looking at was empty before the Hunger arrived, and it got fucked up even more during the fight, so the land there is cheap. So if you want to stay with us- and I’m not asking what you think we want, I’m asking what you want- then one of the rooms will be yours.”

The tears he’s been working so hard to hold back begin to fall, so he just nods quickly. He lets Taako pull him into a hug, “I’d- I like living with you. Are you- you sure?”

“When has Taako ever lied?”

Angus just laughs, and does so even harder when he hears a pillow thwack against the back of Taako’s head (it’s a common occurrence in this house).

He feels someone approach on the side, and their hug is yanked to the side, both of them stumbling as Lup pulls them towards her, and he glances up to see Barry hovers right beside them. Taako must see him too, “Come on, Barold. Looks like it’s hug time.”

It’s awkward, and not at all very comfortable, but it’s warm. Angus’s tears have dried up, and he’s about to pull away when the familiar zip of a portal being created precedes Kravitz’s voice.

“Oh, am I interrupting?”

Taako laughs, “just missing out on a group hug.”

“Come on,” Lup speaks up now, her voice coming from just behind Angus’s ear, “it’s a family hug.”

Angus barely has time to process that when Kravitz steps forward. He’s almost as awkward as Barry, but it’s nice.

They separate eventually, Lup heads back to the kitchen to finish the food, with Barry close behind. Kravitz gives Taako a hello kiss, the two of them sitting on the couch, and from their low tones Angus can tell Taako is giving him a quick rundown of… today.

Angus see’s his book was placed on the coffee table at some point, and sits on the armchair once he grabs it, pushing Taako's discarded jacket to the side. Opening it to where he left off, the page is bent with a large crease down the center, from when he dropped it on the floor. He reads for a minute, before Taako speaks up.

“Mending should get rid of that crease, if you like.” Taako says.

Angus just smiles and shakes his head. “It just proves it’s used.”

He shrugs, looking down at his crystal, and Kravitz nudges him. It causes Taako to huff and hold out the crystal. A flyer for a recreational soccer team is displayed.

Join the new Neverwinter recreational soccer league! Ages 10-14. Help your kids make new memories and friends- Create everlasting bonds!

Angus frowns, “what’s this?”

“Soccer team. Was looking for one in the area when we started looking for potential houses to move to. Planned on signing you up.”

Tears begin to well up in his eyes again, and Angus finds himself frustrated. Not with Taako, no, of course not. Not now, not with this. But with himself, and how emotional he’s being.

Because he’s been talking about Caleb Cleveland books at Taako for so long now, and he’d always assumed he’d only been tolerating it. But Caleb Cleveland was a part of a soccer team- it wasn’t even a big part of the books. Angus has probably only mentioned it once or twice. And yet, Taako specifically looked for a soccer team and-

“Thank you, Taako!” He grins, and the way Taako’s ears are flickering, he knows he’s embarrassed.

“Just thought you could use the exercise. You know, you can’t be running around solving crimes if you can’t run.”

The smile doesn’t leave his face as he snarks back, “but sir, you never do physical training and you saved the world.”

“I just transmute my legs to be strong and fast if I need it. Or get Magnus to carry me.”

He leans further onto Kravitz, who smiles. “Or he just calls me to pick him up.”

“Exactly!”

Snuggling back into his chair, Angus holds the book close to his chest, “thank you, really, sir.”

“Come on, little dude. We’ve been over this. The ‘sir’ thing is so formal.”

“Would you prefer me to call you ‘sappy bitch’?” He turns up his fake innocent charm, the one he uses often on cases, as he says it.

Kravitz bursts out laughing, and he can hear Barry and Lup in the kitchen do the same.

Taako flares up, pointing an accusing finger at him, “who taught you that kind of fucking language!”

“I’ve always known curse words!”

“Not in my house!” Taako stands, and Angus climbs out of the chair and starts running. He knows what will happen if Taako catches him, so he runs to Barry, calling out for help.

Barry, the traitor, only holds him still so Taako can grab him and ruffle his hair. He begins yelling at Barry, cursing his name, but it’s hard to get the words out through his laughter.

Kravitz is the one who saves him, pulling him out of their arms and holding him high in the air. “Do not assault the child, please.”

Taako steps towards Kravitz, “you heard what he called me, didn’t you?”

“And he was right.”

Taako’s affronted gasp is so loud, it must scratch at his throat as he begins coughing.

Angus is giggling, kicking his dangling feet lightly in the air.

Whatever Lup is pulling off the stove smells delicious, and he cannot wait to begin eating.

As they sit down, Taako looks over at him and says, "you know, you should be careful about accepting a teaching job at Lucas's lame school. Taako here is working on a much cooler idea, and he could use a smart kid like you, if you can pass the rigorous application process."

"What is it?" Angus asks, getting excited. He hasn't heard Taako talking about anything like this.

"Top secret."

Angus laughs, "it won't be for long!"

"You're pre-emptively fired, then."

"Wait-"

#angus mcdonald #taako #lup #barry bluejeans #taz balance #my works

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jelloopy · 5 years ago

Text

Here There be Gerblins Notes

Previous: Character Creation

Ep 1

The boys got the job to transport good from Neverwinter to Phandalin from Merles cousin, Gundren Rockseeker, over drinks at a bar one night. He said it was the “Last job you’ll ever need.”

Gundren Hired Barry Bluejeans (Originally Sildar Hallwinter, but that’s a whole nother post that I already posted you should go look at it tbh) as a fighter (I also will discuss this in a post later on as I’m going through the series again) escort to Phandalin.

The boys actually were travelling with Gundrens mutt of a dog, Ruby! (I feel like no one mentions this or talks about it)

Merle doesn’t trust Gundren a lot

Taako got the first kill babyyyyyyy

Ep 2

Barry looks like Tom Arnold with a very built Dad bod and is described to be in late 40’s early 50’s (So you’re telling me that my baby Barry. Is almost built similar to Magnus technically? Just smaller? This opens up so many things for another post later on omfg)

Magnus “The Hammer” Burnsides (omg do you think that this could be that Magnus was “The Hammer” and maybe Julia or her father was “Tongs” from the shop he lived’/ worked at in Ravens Roost???!!! Like idk if Travis had the name “Hammer and Tongs” in his backstory and i’m pretty sure he just made up the name on the spot for funsies but like that is so fricking sad and cute omfg)

Taako casts “Charm Person” on Klarg. The spell only lasts 1 hour (This will come up later for me to delv on because currently I don't understand how the stuff later on occurs)

”Let’s turn this Bugbear, into a Hugbear” ~Magnus (I wanna make a shirt with this rlly bad)

When chastising Barry for his name he snaps back saying “Why do you think they call me that?!” (I like to analyze things a bit deeper than they need to go so I’ve already posted another thing on Barry’s name)

Ep 3

As they get back to the cart of cargo to go to find Gundren Merle messes with Ruby for a minute and Griffin jokes around saying that Ruby bites Merles hand off. (Oh if they (Clint) only knew)

”I’ve partied pretty hard before I know I’m gonna have to sleep this one off” ~Barry (What the hell has Barry been up to? Like from a perspective of knowing how the story goes like. Is he just. Going to bars and letting him self go? I mean like same but shit dude)

“Well it’s not my first time at the whole body guard rodeo” ~Barry (So Barry has been able to stay in this body for a while then? And has also taken other jobs as well to get some money while also searching for the Gauntlet.)

Ep 4

When they meet Killian Merle begins to try and preach the word of Pan (Not actually Pan at the time in the podcast but for continuity's sake it was Pan damnit.) she replies with “I’m already spoken for” (So I don’t think that Killian is religious in a way that we know of so when she says this I assume shes talking about the BoB? Makes sense)

Magic Briannnnnn!!!!! (Love that spunky lil german man!)

Taako is from New Elfington (I believe this is just a joke overall but if you do deep dive into it just a lil then it suggests that Lucretia placed him in New Elfington after the Wipe to give him a starting place then from there he went on the road with Sizzle it up with Taako)

Magic Brian knows about the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet. (Ima go deeper into that later on tbh)

Ch 5

“Barry loves his chicken waaaaangs” ~ Gundren Rockseeker (How long have Barry and Gundren been hanging out?)

The skeleton only has a crimson red robe on. Nothing underneath. It is also looking towards the exit/entrance to the tunnel. (Did... her clothes go with her in the lich form?)

The Umbrastaff exudes all schools of magic. (I wonder why... DUH)

Merle is horribly rejected by the Staff and flung across the room (Lup said “FUCK U MERLE IM NOT HERE FOR YOUR OLD ASS”)

When Taako grabs the Umbra staff from the skeleton (*COUGHCOUGH*LUP*COUGHCOUGH*) it looks up at him and then it and the robe it’s wearing disintegrate away (Leaving no bones or anything that was Lup’s... There will be a bigger post on this later on I promise)

Cyrus was head of security for the Wave Echo Cave. When the Orc Marauders came he managed to lock away all the magical and precious treasures. However to do so he had to lock himself in the vault too. This happened about 10 Years ago. (Are you kidding me? Its not like the Orc Marauders are still in Phandalin. Why didnt anyone come to find him any earlier. Like come on Gundren. If you loved and missed your dad that much then why not?)

The Phoenix Fire Gauntlet is Silverish! (I always see it portrayed as being gold so I was v v surprised to hear this! tbh I don’t care what color it is I was just surprised to hear it described at all)

Magnus upon sight of the Gauntlet runs and highfives it (Someone made a post i saw a while back explaining how this is hilarious because you can see Magnus’ and Lup’s relationship within that simple action. Its very cute)

They fight some ruffians/bandits on the way back to Phandalin and they free a young Orc boy.

Ch 6

Merle calms Gundren down when they find him in Phandalin (Yo Merle and Gundren are a lot closer than they let on a the beginning. I wanna meet Aunt Blarg)

The young Orc boy (Kurtze) that they freed shot Gundren (Whoops...)

Gundren crushes Barry into the ground out of pure anger from Kurtze’s attack (Does Barry die from this? or does he just get super injured and die from the Gauntlet at the end?)

They fall into the well and knock Killian out

The entire town of Phandalin is gone and all that’s left is a circle of black glass. Only the hole for the well is open.

“Can we heal her? Its kinda what I do.” ~Merle (Oh honey... no it’s not)

Taako grabs the Gauntlet and puts it in his bag (of course he is the one to grab the relic that Lup made)

Killians Crossbow is named Billups (This is rlly frickin cute ngl)

They do be back on the way to the BoB

Next: Moonlighting, MotRPL, Lunar Interlude I,

54 notes · View notes

anistarrose · 5 years ago

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Summary: Angus leads a virtual book club meeting. Kravitz connects the dots. Taako makes significant updates to the list of people he trusts and things he believes.

Characters: Kravitz, Taako, Barry Bluejeans, Angus McDonald, Magnus Burnsides, Merle Highchurch, Noelle | No-3113, The Raven Queen, The Director | Lucretia, misc. BoB cameos, Julia Burnsides, Garyl

Relationships: Taakitz, Angus McDonald & Taako, Barry Bluejeans & Kravitz, Kravitz & Angus McDonald

Bit by bit, we’re inching closer to the endgame! Lots of plot and angst in this update, but also I think I might’ve implied that Minecraft exists in Faerun, so it evens out, y’know?

By virtue of their trance state replacing sleep, elves were supposed to be good lucid dreamers. Taako had always experienced mixed results, but never moreso than tonight, with a dream that started out all saccharine romantic fantasy — fishing with Kravitz and sharing a kiss after falling into the lake together — before a clap of thunder and an unholy scream plunged the world into darkness and left one single source of light, one last surviving star, cradled in Taako’s unassuming hands.

Then a ripple in the darkness, the invisible maw of some ravenous entity, closed around that final star — and Taako screamed, as loud as he could muster yet still not loud enough to drown the ringing in his ears, as he flailed in the dark against the invisible monster that stole the world from him —

At once, two hands closed around his own, one cold and the other warm. On Taako’s left was Kravitz, aghast but holding himself together, a steely composure to his posture despite the fear in his eyes.

On Taako’s right was a Red Robe — but not Barry, and in fact not anything like what Taako had started to accept as normal for Red Robes. Where Barry had a clouded darkness in place of hands and a face, this lich had pure static escaping from within her sleeves and beneath her hood, crackling and constantly changing shape like lightning, or… like fire.

Taako sat up in his bed covered in cold sweat, heart pounding as he realized his legs were hopelessly tangled in his sheets, and only slightly slowing when he realized there was nothing in his bedroom to run from.

Elves were supposed to rarely awaken late, but Taako’s wizard hat-shaped alarm clock — a gift that Angus that he’d quietly appreciated, even though it should have been redundant — indicated that it was mid-morning, and when he trudged out into the common area, he found no sign of his doormates besides a note written in Magnus’s distinctive scrawl.

I know you were busy last night, so we’re letting you sleep in while we go play Fantasy Kickball on the quad! Killian and Avi are team captains and their rivalry is fierce, so we’ll probably be playing all day if you want to join us! Love, Magnus! (And Merle)

Taako didn’t realize how relieved he was until he felt himself let out a sigh.

He had a sinking feeling that the same dream — or at least, a similar dream — had played out more than once that night, looping over and over again as he repeatedly failed to remember, much less control, where it was going. He felt too exhausted to be operating on even a single minute of dreamless sleep, and didn’t even want to think about holding a conversation with anyone…

Well, with most people. There was someone he’d really been meaning to chat with, before he’d been distracted by haircuts and Kravitz and pottery and stargazing and Kravitz.

He transmuted a mug of lukewarm tap water to a piping hot, high-caffeine tea, then picked up his Umbra Staff, and conjured a familiar phantom steed with twin horns that nearly grazed the ceiling as he reared and whinnied.

“Yooo! Mornin’, Taako!”

“Morning, Garyl.” Taako yawned. “Could you do me a favor, and tell me literally anything you know about the liches you said I used to hang out with?”

***

CalebClevelandFan#2045: All early-installment weirdness aside, I really do think it’s a great introduction to the series! Because of the retcons you’ll encounter later, there are some conspiracy theories that the most recent arc of Caleb Cleveland was ghostwritten to maximize the publishing rate (which I think is hogwash, because continuity errors are going to be inevitable no matter who’s writing) but I guess I’ll let you decide for yourself when you get there! Do you need to stop by the moon again to borrow Book 2?

ReaperAwMan#1672: No thank you, Angus! I think I’m going to try and download the “digital” version, now that I know I can do that on my Stone! Taako told me about that feature and a lot of others last night, so if I can’t get it to work, I’ll just call him and ask him to walk me through it. :)

ReaperAwMan: Did I use the smiley face correctly?

CalebClevelandFan: Yes! :) You’ve picked up on technology a lot faster than my grandpa did.

CalebClevelandFan: Did Taako also choose your username on this app, though?

ReaperAwMan: How did you know? Is it a reference to something? :)

CalebClevelandFan: Um

CalebClevelandFan: Yes, but it’s a long story. It’s not mean-spirited or anything, though! I think it’s pretty funny!

ReaperAwMan: Okay! :)

CalebClevelandFan: Is that all for book club today? If it is, Mr. Kravitz, I just want to say that I’d be happy to talk to you again about Caleb Cleveland anytime!

CalebClevelandFan: It means a lot to me, but I understand if you’re too busy (message edited)

ReaperAwMan: Oh, there’s always time for book club, Angus!

ReaperAwMan: But I admit, I have had a lot on my mind…

CalebClevelandFan: Is it the liches? Since the Reclaimers aren’t in trouble anymore? (By the way, I went to tell Noelle she didn’t have to worry about getting reaped, but apparently she’s visiting family, so I left a message with her teammates Carey and Killain..)

ReaperAwMan: Excellent deduction. (And thank you for that. I hope she gets the message soon.)

ReaperAwMan: You’re right, I’m still hunting Lup and Barry Bluejeans, but… I just can’t shake the feeling that they’re connected to Taako and the others.

CalebClevelandFan: Really? What makes you say that?

ReaperAwMan: Well, I didn’t think much of this for a long time, and now I’m kicking myself for it, but their bounties registered in our system at the same time as Taako’s, Magnus’s, and Merle’s. We figured it was just a widespread detection glitch, which has happened before on a much smaller scale, but now it feels awfully suspicious. The Reclaimers have also encountered Barry at least four times now, without even seeking him out the first three times, whereas finding Barry is my job, and I get a lead on him about twice a year, if I’m lucky.

CalebClevelandFan: That is odd. Did any other bounties show up at that same time? Do you know if they have any kind of connections to Barry?

ReaperAwMan: Only two others, for a couple of people named Lucretia and Davenport. They must be living like hermits, because it’s been 12 years and I know as little about them as I do about Lup. Not a lot of leads there, I’m afraid.

(CalebClevelandFan is typing…)

CalebClevelandFan: Hmm. Huh! I wish I could say those names meant something to me, but I’ve never heard them before in my life! Truly unfortunate, that. But, I do suspect that Barry appearing to the Reclaimers is because the Red Robes made the Grand Relics, and it’s the Reclaimers’ job to track those seven relics down!

ReaperAwMan: You mean to tell me that Barold J. Bluejeans made a Grand Relic, and the Reclaimers all knew that information, but didn’t think it would be important to tell me?! This is simultaneously the most and least surprised I’ve been at any point in my afterlife.

CalebClevelandFan: Well, I guess there’s a reason I’m the moon’s resident boy detective and they aren’t, sir!

ReaperAwMan: Wait. Angus.

CalebClevelandFan: Yes?

ReaperAwMan: Seven relics. Seven bounties.

CalebClevelandFan: Sorry, sir, I’m not following. What’s the connection?

ReaperAwMan: I know this is going to sound impossible, but…

ReaperAwMan: Taako is a transmutation wizard. The Philosopher’s Stone can transmute any material into anything else. Merle is a nature cleric, and the Gaia Sash offers control over natural disasters and the wilderness. Then of course, Barry is a lich like no other, and the Animus Bell is the most dangerous necromantic artifact I’ve ever been tasked with monitoring. I don’t know exactly how Magnus fitz into this, or how the other three bounties have managed to hide from me, but…

ReaperAwMan: I think Taako, Merle, and Magnus made three of the Grand Relics!

ReaperAwMan: Angus? Are you still there?

CalebClevelandFan: Sorry, I just rebooted my Stone, but I still can’t read your second-to-last message! It just looks like static, but I was inoculated, so that shouldn’t be possible!

ReaperAwMan: I’m not sure what you mean by “inoculated,” but if the app is glitching, then do you want me to call you?

CalebClevelandFan: It may not be the app, sir. And if it isn’t, I fear a phone call won’t make any difference… but I just got an idea! I’m going to go check if Noelle is back yet — she should be able to help with this. Please bear with me for a few minutes, sir!

ReaperAwMan: Okay, then… good luck!

Head in his hand, Kravitz scrolled back up to the offending message, reading it over once more.

I think Taako, Merle, and Magnus made three of the Grand Relics!

It made sense, but it shouldn’t have. Despite all the questions it answered, it raised more in their place — and Kravitz had been ready to accept that he was wrong, ready for brilliant little Angus to chime in with a piece of evidence that refuted it all...

Except that message, and that message alone, hadn’t made it to Angus in the first place — and wasn’t that the most damning, of all the so-called coincidences aligning before Kravitz’s eyes?

The Reclaimers made Grand Relics and consorted with liches. The Reclaimers can’t remember making Grand Relics or consorting with liches.

Someone is hiding the truth from the Reclaimers, and from Angus. Someone is hiding the truth from the entire Bureau of Balance.

Is it Barry? Does he have that much power? Is he working with someone? With Lup?

Kravitz summoned his scythe with the full intention of warping straight to the moonbase, and bringing his four friends from the Bureau directly back to the Astral Plane — not to take them prisoner, but simply to get them somewhere safe, somewhere to talk without Queen-knows-what outside forces eavesdropping or interfering. Yet before he could open a rift, Kravitz’s vision flashed blue, and a faint yet familiar tug directed his focus towards a much different region of the Material Plane.

A voice echoed in his head, too distorted to identify the speaker, but the words themselves were clear enough:

Kravitz, help!

Kravitz’s Stone of Farspeech clattered onto his desk as he raised his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes, honing in on the location of the summoning arrow. It was surrounded by undead presences of several shapes and forms, but one aura outshone all the others — one unmistakable red aura, crackling with power, and… desperation.

There was a very short list of people on the Material Plane with access to this kind of summoning beacon — and no matter what dark secrets their pasts held, Kravitz couldn’t bear the thought of any of them being left alone with an incredibly powerful, secret-keeping, Relic-crafting lich who had finally, finally snapped.

With a frantic swing of his scythe, he ripped open a jagged portal to the arrow’s location, and leapt through without even pausing to retrieve his Stone.

Hang on, boys! I’m coming!

***

“If you wanna hear anything about liches,” Garyl declared, “that information comes with a price. Which you know is gonna be oats, ‘cause what would I even do with gold? I’m just a funky little 80’s horse remix, so you gotta hand over those spectral oats, dude.”

Taako sighed. “Garyl. I know you’re not gonna like this question. But before you whine, please consider the fact that I’m not in the fucking mood. Now: does it have to be oats?”

“A pound of spectral oats is worth two spectral carrots or one spectral sugar cube! That’s the conversion rate. If you offer a spectral salt lick, I may be willing to negotiate.”

Taako conjured two floating, semi-tangible carrots with a wave of his umbrella, and levitated them over to Garyl, who took a bite out of both at once.

“That’s the stuff!” he whinnied. “Okay, so. Liches. Whatcha wanna know about ‘em?”

“You said, like — like two days ago now — that you used to get spectral oats from liches that I hung out with. Garyl, I need to know: was that true, or were you just guilting me for not spoiling you with enough treats?”

Garyl’s response was rendered completely indecipherable by the fresh bite of carrot in his mouth, part of which splattered across the floor and narrowly missed Taako.

“This is serious, Garyl! I’ve been meaning to ask you about this for a while, but it keeps getting more serious.” Taako groaned. “I… I didn’t even realize it, until I was talking to Kravitz last night, but… it’s just… okay, look. He remembers his whole life crystal clear, right down to how many stars you could see from this planet eight hundred and twenty years ago, but…”

He lowered his voice, glancing towards the door. “My past has always just been… fuzzy to me. I never really worried about it, but… I’m just now realizing that this might not be normal. And that if it isn’t, then I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Garyl swallowed the last of the carrots. “Yo, your past isn’t fuzzy to me. You really don’t remember your lich buddies — your lich family? Your literal sister and brother-in-law?”

“No, Garold, I don’t remember the sound of getting electrocuted in a fantasy garbage disposal!” Taako rubbed his forehead with increasing vigor, futilely attempting to massage away the sensation of an approaching migraine. “I don’t know how you made that noise with your nasty horse mouth, but it sounded just as bad as the static Lich Barry was speaking when —”

He gasped — and in the ensuing silence, the static kept ringing in his ears, but not as an audible echo. It was coming from within his own head, like a misdirected electric current leaping from neuron to neuron, generated as his mind repeatedly tried and failed to process what he’d just heard… and Taako knew exactly where he’d felt that sensation before.

“Oh, fuck.”

He bolted for the door, locked it, then frantically emptied his pockets until he found his Stone of Farspeech, which he powered down and then magically silenced for extra insurance. “Shit. Shit. Fuck.”

“Yo, what’s the rush?” Garyl asked. “Didja just remember you owe the unicorn mafia a whole bushel of oatsss?”

“What the hell? No!” Taako cradled Garyl’s snout in his hands, standing on his tiptoes to stare at Garyl in the eyes. “Promise me, promise me right now, Garyl, that you’re not gonna fucking snitch.”

Garyl’s expression turned as serious as a binicorn’s expression could turn, given two horns, technicolor eyes, and glittering lashes to work with. “Taako, you gave me life. I’ve always got your back, man.”

“There’s a second voidfish,” Taako blurted out. “And you’re more ghost than horse, I guess, so you’re immune to it, but I’m not. And I — I think I lost something big to it.”

“Huh.” Garyl snorted. “Damn. Geez, yeah. That would explain some things about, man, musta been…” He closed his eyes, nostrils twitching. “The last twelve years? That sound right?”

“Please, Garyl. You — you might know me better than I know me, at this point, so I need you to tell me — who can I trust?”

“I can’t decide that for you, Taako.” Garyl arched his majestic equine neck, as a single tear rolled down his face, and his mullet billowed in a wind that simply shouldn’t have been possible indoors. “Look at what you know to be true in your heart, and begin the journey towards your truth by trusting yourself.”

“I’m not here to listen to your poetry, Garyl — I need names!” Taako pleaded. “Like, I — I can at least trust Kravitz, right?”

“Look, man, I’m sorry! I could tell you who you used to trust, but if someone took a Voidfish-brand eraser to your chalkboard of a brain, that means someone had to betray you, and I dunno who it was! Kravitz is probably chill, because he seems on the level and you haven’t known him long enough for him to be the culprit — but I’m still juggling like six suspects, and I’ve only got four hooves, man! I’m trying my best to —”

Abruptly, Garyl’s voice died out, and he lowered his eyes. “Well, okay, it would be… five suspects. ‘Cause… Lup definitely went missing before any memories got…”

Taako clapped his hands over his ears. “Can you try not to do that? I’m already on the edge of a migraine without —”

A knock at the door interrupted him, and the next thing he knew, he was brandishing his Umbra Staff — never mind the fact that he’d locked that door just a minute ago, and it had since remained closed.

“Taako?” Lucretia called from the hallway. “Are you alright in there?”

After what must’ve been a suspiciously long pause, “Fine!” was the only word Taako could force out.

“Just dandy!” Garyl added in a terrible Taako impression, and Taako elbowed him in the equine shoulder.

“You’re sure?” The quizzical tilt to Lucretia’s head was downright audible. “You don’t sound like yourself.”

Taako bit back a reply of golly, I wonder if that’s because I don’t who I am or how much of myself I’m missing! but managed something more civil, clamping a hand over Garyl’s mouth as he spoke.

“Just had a late night last night! Took some… personal hours. May or may not be nursing a mild hangover now.”

“Oh, we’ve all been there. Merle did mention you were sleeping in.” Lucretia sounded like her suspicion had been sated — unless, of course, she just wanted Taako to think that — because in a much more casual voice that carried far less gravitas, the next thing she asked was: “Do you mind if I come in? I feel like we haven’t talked since Candlenights.”

“No problem!” Taako replied, probably much too quickly. He uttered the word ‘unlock’ under his breath in Elvish, to magically undo his little paranoia-induced security measure before swinging the door open, and hoping Lucretia wouldn’t notice the door had been locked or go on to question why. “Mi casa es tu casa — ‘cause, y’know, mi casa is technically part of your moonbase.”

If Lucretia did notice the unlocking door, she only questioned it silently, because her attention seemed understandably drawn to the binicorn trotting in place in the middle of the dorm.

“Oh, Garyl! Good to see you too.”

“Haha, yeah!” Garyl chuckled nervously. “Imagine meeting you, here, in a place like this! What are the odds?”

Lucretia lowered herself onto the sofa, glanced at Magnus’s rugged hand-crafted coffee table, and pointed to her feet. “Do you mind?”

Taako shrugged. “Uh… knock yourself out, Luce?”

She kicked off her heeled boots and slung her feet onto the table, laying her staff down in her lap. “Let’s get to the point. I did come here for a particular reason —”

“Oh?” Taako forced a smile. “Do tell.”

“Well, Merle and Leon got into a bit of an argument over — actually, let me start from the beginning. At some point in today’s second game, the kickball went over the edge of the moon, and has probably hit the planet Earth at terminal velocity by now.” Lucretia grimaced. “I hope no one was standing beneath it. Yikes.”

“Home run, baby!” Garyl cheered. Taako simply attempted to nod along.

“Actually, by our rules, it’s a foul with a sizeable penalty. Leon was pitching and Merle was kicking, so naturally they got into a fight over whose fault it was, and Merle threatened — let me see if I remember this all correctly — to ask you, Taako, to ask your ‘new friend the Grim Reaper’ to come up here and ‘reap Leon’s ass’ like said Grim Reaper purportedly once threatened to reap Merle’s own ass. So I was just hoping to get to you first, and stage an intervention to make sure the Bureau’s only artificer doesn’t take a one way trip to the heavens above — not to mention, maybe, ask if you had any idea what the hell Merle was talking about?”

“Well, bold statement saying Leon would go to heaven, first of all. Pretty sure he’d head the way of the plummeting kickball and smash through the planet’s crust. Second of all, um, I guess you could say I know the Grim Reaper? Look, we haven’t been seeing each other for very long, but I think we both feel a connection —”

“Oh! Well, good for you! Don’t get me wrong, that’s fucking wild if you mean it seriously rather than as a goof, but I’m still happy for you!”

“Not a goof. That is the whole story there, though. I’m dating the Grim Reaper, what more is there to say?” Taako grinned from ear to ear, and it felt slightly more sincere than every other smile he’d put on in this disaster of a conversation. “But as a… as an aside… uh, Garyl, do you remember those… six, no, five people you mentioned to me, just before Lucretia showed up?”

Garyl blinked at him with a downright hostility, as if to say You’re circling back to this topic NOW?

“Your, um, suspect list?” Taako clarified. “Of… people on the moon most likely to give you oats? I guess it was more like a power ranking, actually, let’s definitely call it a power ranking instead of a suspect list — but my point is, um, was the ‘Director’ here on it?”

“Yee-esssss,” Garyl replied slowly, still giving Taako the evil eye. “You know what I always say about Lucretia: she… she totes got the oats!”

“Okay!” Taako replied, knuckles turning white as he gripped the handle of the Umbra Staff. “Thanks! For letting me know! About those oat facts!”

“Um,” said Lucretia, which was probably the best reaction that Taako could’ve reasonably hoped for. “I… think I misplaced my oats today. Also, maybe my supply of oats for this entire year?” She reached for her boots. “Is this a hint that I should go back to refereeing kickball?”

“Yes!” Taako blurted out. “Oh, I mean, no, it’s not — I mean, you can leave! But you don’t have to. We don’t mind you being here!”

“We don’t not want you to leave but we also don’t not not not want you to leave,” Garyl added, as if it were a verbal Fantasy Rosetta Stone that would clarify and explain all of Taako’s anxious floundering. “Because we trust and cherish you. And oats! Mostly oats.”

Lucretia slipped her boots back on, then rose from her seat in a regal manner that probably wasn’t intended to intimidate the living daylights out of Taako. “No, you have a point. I should go make sure our secret society doesn’t fracture into warring kickball factions — but I’ll be back to chat more, don’t worry. Hopefully on a day you’re feeling better, Taako.”

She winked at Garyl as she turned to leave. “And I’ll try and remember to bring oats. Gotta move up in those power rankings.”

“It was actually more like a tier list!” Garyl called as she closed the door. When Taako magically locked it behind her, Garyl began pacing around the dorm, his tail swishing with enough force to knock several paintings and decorative vases onto the floor.

“Taako! She never has oats and she knows it! She’s onto us!”

“Yeah, you think?” Taako sunk into the couch Lucretia had vacated, burying his head in his hands. “I need backup who can hear through the static, before she puts it together and comes back to throw me in the brig. I’m calling Kravitz.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you do that. I’ll keep working on the tier list.” As Taako began to reboot his Stone, Garyl accelerated his nervous pacing to a nervous trot.

“Garyl, if this turns into a canter, I swear to gods —” Taako muttered, tapping the Stone’s unresponsive screen with a shaky thumb.

“Sorry.” Garyl slowed to a halt. “Hmm. You trust Davenport more, less, or the same as Lucretia?”

“What, you think he just pretends he can only say his own name to disguise his role as the evil mastermind?” Taako’s stomach churned. “Shit. You might be onto something. Put him below Lucretia on the tier list. Or above? I dunno how —”

“Wait, I’m not following you, man. Since when can Dav can only say his own name?”

Taako groaned. “I’m gonna take a wild guess and say since twelve fucking years ago — alright, finally! Here we go!” His Stone of Farspeech flickered to life, and he navigated to Kravitz’s contact page as quickly as his trembling fingers allowed.

When he hit Call, an eerie silence filled the dorm as he and Garyl listened to one, two, three, four short rings — then, a beep, and a horrendous pre-recorded Cockney accent.

Hullo, greetings, and top o’ the morning! You’ve successfully reached the desk of Kravitz, Emissary of Her Majesty the Raven Queen, but I’m away right now, so if you have a zombie outbreak to report, press 1. If you wish to subscribe to our mailing list of anti-necromancy resources, press 2. If you’re dead and in need of an escort to the Astral Plane, press 3. If you just wanted to have a friendly chat, please leave a message after the caw, and I’ll get back to you once I’m able.

A raven cawed, and Taako started talking:

“Hey, babe, it’s me! Your boy. Um, don’t let me take you away from saving the world from necromancers or anything important like that… but if you’re not busy, I could really use your help, so if you could swing by the moonbase, and — and maybe not tell anyone you’re coming here or that you’re coming to see me — then that would be just swell! Everything’s cool, nothing’s wrong — well, no, you’re a perceptive guy, you can definitely tell something’s wrong — but I’m sure you and me, and Garyl, and maybe Angus will be able to figure it out, no problem! Except, now that I think about it, maybe not Angus, because I’ve put him in enough danger to solve my own problems already — but uh, thanks in advance, love you, see you soon, bye!”

Then he dropped his Stone, grabbed the nearest couch pillow, and screamed into it.

“Hey, hey, relaaax,” Garyl told him. “You heard him — he’ll get back to you soon.”

“Yeah. I know.” Taako took a deep breath, letting the pillow fall to the ground. “He’s just a busy guy, with an important job. He’ll be here as soon as he can…”

Garyl nodded sagely. “And you’d do the same, for him, because that’s love. Unless…”

Taako’s heart skipped a beat. “Unless?”

“Unless someone on the lower end of the trust tier list knows about his connection to you, and to keep hiding the truth, they capture him before he can get here!” Garyl sniffed. “Just like the unicorn mafia captured my dear ol’ uncle…”

Taako pressed the Call button again, and when he was once again directed to voicemail, he picked the pillow back up and resumed screaming.

“Hey, take it easyyy, man. It’s not like they can kill him,” Garyl soothed. “And b’sides, haven’t you got that… that whatsit-called, that magic arrow? You can still check in on him that way, even if the bad guys stole his Stone!”

“Right!” Taako sprung up from the couch, and bolted towards the quiver of arrows that Magnus had casually slung onto the doorknob of his room. “I mean, I’m sure his phone didn’t even get taken from him — he’s eight and a half centuries old, for crying out loud! He probably just misplaced it, or accidentally put it on silent, or… gee, we really don’t have a lot of traditional surfaces to jab arrows into here, do we?”

He glanced around the dorm, gaze finally landing on Magnus’s homemade coffee table. “I’ll just… wedge it in one of the seams in the wood, so it definitely won’t be noticeable, right?”

“You asking me? I’m apparently an amnesia-immune ghost horse, man — what makes ya think I’d ever want or attempt to understand woodworking?”

“Guess you’ve never attempted to understand a rhetorical question, either,” Taako muttered as he crouched on the ground. Clasping the arrow between two hands, he took a deep breath, then plunged it into the coffee table. “Kravitz? I could really use your help, I won’t lie, but — but mostly, I’m worried and just checking in to make sure you’re okay —”

For a sliver of a second, everything seemed to proceed as it should, with an electric blue glow flickering to life inside the arrowhead — and then, it exploded, spitting out fragments of crystal and tongues of vicious astral fire. Taako reflexively turned his head and dropped to the floor, but still felt something sharp and burning prick into his biceps like a red-hot needle, and he held his breath until the sound of shattering crystal halted and the sound of burning wood faded to a faint sizzling.

“So, uh…” Garyl slowly backed away from Magnus’s poor table, which was already more ‘smoldering pile of ash and sapphire dust’ than it was furniture. “This ever happen before?”

“No,” Taako whispered. He raised a hand to touch the stinging point on his arm, and pulled away with a droplet of blood and a tiny pointed crystal both resting atop his index fingertip. “Never —”

“Okay, cool, that narrows down the possibilities,” Garyl concluded. “Either he’s really busy, or we’re really fucked.”

This time, Taako didn’t even bother to grab a pillow before he started screaming.

***

End Notes:

thanks for reading, comments welcomed as always!

next chapter: Ghost Fight (or in other words, we get to see what Kravitz has been up to in the meantime)

#taz #taz balance #taako taaco #kravitz taz #taakitz #angus mcdonald #lucretia taz #garyl taz #taz balance spoilers #fic: ftrala #rosalia writes fic

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the-ipre · 6 years ago

Note

Here’s a dark AU: The Hunger has been getting better at sending more realistic spies. It’s latest and proudest creation, a perfect illusion of a little boy named Angus McDonald

- The Hunger looks through all of the planes it contains, and it pulls together bits and pieces from each to make a perfect spy. A child, innocent enough to be trusted. A detective, clever and someone with a reason to be poking around. Alone, with no connections and no one to care for him, to garner pity. He is human, and he is real, and he will be their perfect spy. They make dozens and drop them into dozens of planes, trying to find the one that has the Light of Creation so that they may continue their advancement among the interplanar systems. Each is Angus McDonald, and each has a copy of Caleb Cleveland and the Cursed Cloud, and each knows that he is supposed to investigate for the Light.

- The Hunger’s illusion was almost perfect, and that almost perfection made Angus McDonald almost believe that he really was a little boy. He knew that he wasn’t because he was a scout for the Hunger, he was looking for the Light, and he was made to be a detective, but he also had memories of a grandpa. He didn’t remember that grandpa, he didn’t even know if there was a name to go along with the gray hair and crows feet, but he was a little boy, and little boys had grandfathers. He was alone, and while the Hunger never intended for their plans to go this way he was also lonely. He was only so little, after all, and it is a great wide world for a boy on his own, especially one who had been made to work alone. Although he had a job, and he knew he had a job, and he was good at his job, a small secret part of him wanted silly things like companionship and to be cared for. He boxed that up, because real detectives didn’t need help, and they didn’t need to be tucked into bed at night, and they didn’t cry and they certainly wouldn’t need anyone to hold them if they did.

- When our Angus touched down on Faerun, he didn’t know where to start looking for this powerful light, but he was a smart detective, and so he began looking for clues. He started asking around, and he found that people had gaps in their memories, and that didn’t seem like something this Light could do, but it felt important, so he followed the lead. He was good at following things that felt important, after all, and he was made to detect. This meant that he took on odd jobs that weren’t solely about the Light, because it looked like he would be in this for the long haul and buying things like food and shelter were important, no matter how illusory he was. He ends up taking a job to look for the Rockport Slayer, and even though he knows that it’s not what he’s supposed to be doing he has also been alone for almost three years now, and while he is still looking for the Light a smaller, hidden part of him wants to try to make a home.

- Angus meets three goofs who speak in static sometimes, and that ties back in to people with gaps in their memories, and he knew that things would be connected! Now, he just has to figure out how that fits in with the Light, but he’s sure that he can do it. He’s the best detective on the planet, after all. When the Oculus is discovered he is there, and it’s like a clue was delivered right into his lap. He can feel that draw, and it isn’t as strong as he was told that it would be but that has to be the Light. He bounces up and down in happiness because he did it! He’s found the Light, and he will just have to solve the mystery around it, and then his purpose will be fulfilled, and then...well, he isn’t quite sure what will happen after that. Even though he wants to investigate into that, he has bigger things to deal with, and. Well, isn’t it better to not think about what would happen to a little illusory boy who finished his mission?

- Being the world’s best detective, he manages to find people who dropped down to the planet in a cannonball, and when they went to leave again he persuaded them to let him ride back up to the second moon with them. He tells Madam Director that he would like to know what was going on, please, and no horseshit because he did manage to get up to their secret base. (In the background, Carey and Killian are internally screaming because they had just gone off moon for a date night, a fun time going to stores that weren’t the Fantasy Costco or Fantasy Olive Garden, and now they had brought back a kid who was trying to almost threaten Madam Director, and this was not how they had wanted their night to go but c’est la vie.) He gets a place to stay, and starts investigating the process of how the relics are disposed of – or, to be more accurate, not disposed of. Those pieces of the Light are going somewhere, and his job is to figure out where that somewhere is. He also notices that Madam Director’s staff seems to be growing stronger, and there is almost a draw to it, and he starts to put the pieces together but the longer he stays on the moon base, the longer he wants his investigation to take.

- See, for the first time in his short life, he had a little home. There were people who cared about him, and there were people who tolerated him but still said hello when he greeted them, and he even managed to get one of them to teach him magic! He knew one or two spells that were necessary to his job, but the fact that someone was willing to teach him, was willing to actually spend time with him that they didn’t have to, well that was better than any first level spell. He makes macarons, and that was never something that he was supposed to do, he was a spy and a detective and he had one job, but he made cookies! And they...well, they weren’t great, and they got kind of blown up, but he still made them! He was a little boy, and even though he was an illusion and on a secret mission, he was learning how to be a kid along with it all. Sure, there were some not-so-great things that came with that, like keep-away or people treating you like a baby, but as he stayed on the moon base, he started to feel less like a detective and more like a person.

- The Hunger locks onto Faerun once our Angus makes it to the Bureau, because he discovered the Light. It wasn’t completed yet, though, so their attack did not begin, but they knew where to look, and they could feel when it would be done. As time went by Angus started to wonder if he didn’t want to tell them that the Light was getting more and more complete, but by the time he started to wonder that he had no say in the matter anymore. Things had been set in motion, and the illusory spy was just a little boy, still fake, but simply without a purpose anymore. He found his own purpose, in magic and cookies and companions, but they still felt shallow, and he grew more hollow with every day he tried to ignore his mission. He had been made for it, after all, and it was not so easy to turn away from your job when you had been made with one thing in mind.

- When the Hunger descended, Angus was afraid. This was not unusual, he was afraid of a great many things – after all, he was only a little boy, fake as his origins may have been, and the world is very large to someone so small – but for the first time he had so much to lose. In the chamber where the birds regained their memories, he wrapped his arms around his torso and shook, because this was the end, wasn’t it? He was a spy, and this was all because of him, and the world was ending because he had been so good at his job. The adults were arguing over what was going on, fighting about the memories and people lost, and he couldn’t stand silently anymore. “This is my fault!” He said, and heads turned towards him but he couldn’t make eye contact with any of them.

- “Uh, come again, Agnes?” Taako’s umbrella was still pointed at Lucretia, and Angus’ grip tightened around his chest.

- “The Hunger found us because of me. I’m the- it’s- I’m-” He was shaking, and he couldn’t figure out how to word what he was saying because this was all his fault, and he was going to get cast out, and he would be alone again and the world would be destroyed and he would have fulfilled his mission but he didn’t quite want that to happen, not anymore.

- Magnus walks over and crouches down, putting a hand on Angus’ shoulder. “Hey buddy, uh, take your time, but also, come again?”

- It came spilling out in fits and starts, that he was a spy, and that he had found the Light because he was a good detective, and that he wasn’t really a little boy, he was just made to think that he was, and that he was so sorry, and please don’t make him leave, please, he didn’t want to be alone, and he was so sorry that this was happening but he was just doing what he thought he was supposed to-

- The adults looked around at each other, not sure what to make of it, caught between a crying illusion and the apocalypse happening right outside their windows, and then Magnus spoke, cutting off the spiral of words coming from Angus’ mouth. “Hey, we’ve all done shit that we regret, and that hurt other people.” His gaze glanced to where Lucretia still stood, channeling her shield. “It just matters that we try to make things right, and that we try to do good. Are you Angus McDonald?” Angus gave a shuddery nod. “You’re learning to cook, and you like reading Caleb Cleveland books or whatever, and Taako’s teaching you magic?” He let out a quiet yeah, not sure of where this was going. “Well, you still sound like a little boy to me. And, I don’t know about the others, but I don’t plan on throwing you out.”

- “Hey, Ango, wanna help stop the apocalypse?” Taako said, and Lucretia tried to protest that he’s just a child-, but Taako barreled forwards. “I was teaching you fireball, and now seems like the right time to use it. If you want to fight, that is, and I’m not saying no pressure but I will remind you that apparently Johnny Voreman out there found us thanks to you.” Taako, Barry said, exasperated, before the elf continued. “Kidding. Mostly. Still, though, the offer stands.” He held up a spare wand, and it was mostly just a gesture because Angus did have a wand on the lanyard around his neck, but he nodded anyway, and Taako tossed him the wand. “Well then, let’s kick some extraplanar asses!”

- They fight, and they win, and the world is told of the story and song, and at the end of it all Angus is left unsure. He was the reason that the world was almost destroyed, and the only reason that the birds let him hang around was because he found his way to the moon base and then refused to leave. Without a purpose to find the Light he was just a little boy, and while he had some practice in that he was still left somewhat at odds. He could go back to solving the occasional case to make money, but that was lonely, and he didn’t like being lonely. On the other hand, a little piece inside of him that sounded like a chorus of voices said that it was what he had earned, now that the Hunger had failed in their mission, but he shut that down. He existed in the world, same as everybody else, and the Hunger may have created him but they did such a good job that he wasn’t theirs anymore. He was Angus McDonald, and he was his own person.

- He found a home with the birds and the Bureau members, and while they might have had different living situations he had at many different bedrooms in many different houses. He knew that this wasn’t how most little boys were raised, but he also knew that he wasn’t like most little boys. He was Angus McDonald, fully realized creation. He was Angus McDonald, and he was going to have a real life. He was Angus McDonald, and he wasn’t alone anymore.

#this got long! yeehaw #ask #ash writes #taz #taz balance #the adventure zone #the adventure zone balance #angus mcdonald #the hunger #lucretia #taako #taako taaco #magnus burnsides #Anonymous

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suddenrundown · 5 years ago

Text

All the Time in the World: Chapter 15

Read previous chapter

Once upon a time, the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration was a name for an entire organization and not just a group of seven, the Starblaster was merely a blueprint, and the Light was more of a scientific enigma than an object upon which the difference between life and death hung.

If one were to look back, those times would seem much simpler, but for Barry Bluejeans, whose default state on a good day was nervous and who over-analyzed everything like it was his job (because it was), no task was simple, and certainly not one with as much scientific importance as the one that had been placed before him.

“With all due respect, Captain, I’m not sure I’m qualified for this.”

Davenport smiled patiently. “Well, with all due respect, Hallwinter, I didn’t ask if you thought you were qualified.”

Continued under the cut, or you can read it on ao3

Once upon a time, Barry Bluejeans was actually named Sildar Hallwinter, but that’s a different story.

Not one to argue, Sildar fanned the resumes on the table in front of him and bent to study them as he rubbed the back of his neck. The four folders held the names, faces, and qualifications of the four individuals that Davenport wanted him to approve of for the mission. Strike that, five individuals. Two of them, a pair of elves apparently named Taako and Lup, shared one folder.

“Why do these two have one resume?” he asked without indicating which he meant, assuming the gnome would know.

“They insisted,” Davenport explained with a chuckle.

That didn’t really seem like a good enough reason, but who was he to get hung up on it? “They also don’t have a last name…”

“The boy said it was T-A-A-C-O, but it was unclear if he was joking or not and there was no way to verify it, so we didn’t press the matter.”

“Lup and Taako Taaco,” Barry mumbled quietly to himself with a small shake of his head as he spent a few minutes pouring over the resumes of the other candidate hopefuls: Magnus Burnsides, Merle Highchurch, and Lucretia. The last one also had no last name. An eclectic bunch, to say the least.

“If you’re showing them to me,” he finally said as he looked up at Davenport, “I’m assuming you believe them to be qualified enough for the job. That’s good enough for me.”

Davenport smiled again. “I appreciate your confidence in my abilities, but that isn’t what I’m asking of you.”

“What are you asking of me?”

“Do you think that you could get along with them?”

“Professionally?” Barry asked with a confused cock of his head. “I’ve never had an issue with coworkers before.”

“Believe me, Sildar, we’ve known each other long enough that I know you’re more than capable of keeping up a working relationship with anyone, no matter what you personally feel about them. You have a non-confrontational nature almost to a fault, but that’s still not what I’m asking.”

“Then what is?”

Davenport leaned forward conspiratorially. “Between you and me, the ship we plan on building won’t be run by normal means. Thanks to the Light, we’ve made so many new scientific and arcane advancements, as you are well aware. Bond energy being one of them.”

“Right,” Barry replied, still not following.

“Would it not be most interesting,” Davenport continued, a twinkle in his eye, “if the vessel we built ran on that bond energy?”

This instantly piqued his interest, and he found himself leaning forward in his seat as well in anticipation. “That would be incredible! We’d be the first! Think of what that could mean for the rest of the world if we managed to do it.” The possibilities already raced through his mind, resumes in front of him forgotten.

“Hence, why the question is so important. Do you, Sildar Hallwinter, think that you could get along well enough with this group of people? Do you think that this group plus the two of us would work well enough with each other that we could power a ship for a handful of months? Do you think that the seven us of us could make history together?”

Sildar then understood what was being asked of him. Davenport knew he was capable, but he was really questioning if he was truly willing. He wanted to know if he could overcome his tendency to hide behind his work and not get involved. Could Sildar step out of his comfort zone in order to accomplish something that had never been thought of before on a mission that promised a world-altering future? Would he pave the way for that future with these four relative strangers?

The faces of those strangers looked back at him as he stared down at their resumes once more, and he smiled at them all before meeting Davenport’s expectant gaze again.

“I wouldn’t dare say no.”

This was enough for Davenport, who knew Sildar well enough to tell this meant he was completely committed. The gnome beamed at him as he sat back in his seat. “Excellent.”

Sildar was determined to be as committed as he could possibly be. He would do his friend proud and prove to himself that he was capable of all that Davenport believed him to be and regret not a moment of his part in this adventure. And true to his word, over the course of the following weeks, as he began attending rigorous training classes and helping to run a few of them, he interacted with the individuals he’d be sharing space (both the deep and dark kind and the mechanical kind) with. Or rather, he tried his best. He found each of them intimidating in some way and couldn’t bring himself to actually introduce himself formally the first day. Or the second. Or the third.

The only thing he did manage to accomplish that first day was accidentally offend the elven twins by staring just a little too long when they whirled into the classroom a few minutes late. Neither seemed all that remorseful about their tardiness nor embarrassed by the stares from everyone else and simply fell into two empty chairs a few seats down from Sildar.

As they settled in, everyone else went about their business, except for Sildar, who found himself unable to stop watching them. Perhaps it was the brazen way in which they carried themselves despite committing what he himself would have considered a genuinely mortifying faux pas. Or it was the way in which the boy (Taako, he remembered) exuded a certain grace that didn’t seem possible with how he sprawled out in his chair, looking around the room like he was sizing everyone else up in the most casual way. Or it was how alarmingly nervous and intimidated he felt looking at Taako and his sister Lup, who were so...beautiful.

This was not the sort of thing he tended to fixate on, nor was it something he ever really noticed in general. He wasn’t the sort to care, but something about them grabbed his attention. Lup, who was closest to him, leaned down and rifled through a bag that was slung over the back of her chair, and he wondered if it was how neither she nor her brother looked made up at all, like it was just a natural thing. Something subtle. Was that a common thing among elves? Perhaps it was, but he found himself too distracted to actually recall any other elves he’d ever seen as Lup, with a triumphant smile, lifted two pencils from her bag and began to settle back in her seat. She stopped short as she looked up and made eye contact with Sildar, who realized with a sudden start that he’d been watching for far longer than was socially appropriate.

Still he couldn’t look away, now more out of embarrassment that he’d been caught than curious fascination. He sat frozen in shock as Lup did a double take, his own pencil that he’d been nervously twirling suspended precariously between his fingers. A blank expression replaced her smile as Lup stared back and, after a moment, she raised an eyebrow in a challenging sort of way. Embarrassment heated his face and melted the icy shock, and with a start he dropped his pencil and finally looked away to catch it before it rolled off his desk.

Staring down, he chastised himself for being so rude even as he struggled not to look the twins’ way again, just to be sure that Lup wasn’t still staring icy daggers in his direction. He caved after a few moments and, with great relief, found that she’d gone back to minding her own business, and he followed suit, the fire in his face dying down a bit. That wasn’t at all how he meant his first interaction with one of his crew mates to go, but he could fix it. He’d make it work. He had promised he would. Davenport had trusted him enough to give him a spot on this crew and he would not make his friend regret that decision. There would be no regret on his part, either.

Which is why on that fourth day, when he finally had the opportunity to introduce himself to the whole crew at their very first briefing, he volunteered to do so first, only stuttering once or twice as he stood and explained his role and his excitement at the prospect of what awaited the group over the months to come. The stuttering was embarrassing sure, but he was nervous. Who wouldn’t be? He was determined not to wallow in that embarrassment nor regret his efforts.

Not even when he heard someone snicker as he sat back down.

Instead, he chose to believe that it was his imagination, a product of his lifelong self consciousness. Don’t give in to it, he told himself. No regrets. That became the mantra during moments when he felt out of place, when he worried that a comment here or there was made at his expense, when all of the relative group of strangers seemed to be bonding with everyone but himself. No regrets, no regrets, no regrets.

It was a relatively simple rule to follow; his feelings were not easily hurt, never had been, so as long as he was trying his best, what was there to regret? Not everyone was meant to get along, right? At least he found comfort in Lucretia who, despite being much younger, reminded him very much of himself with her soft spoken nature, thirst for knowledge, and dedication to her craft.

“What led you to chronicling for a living?” he had asked her one day while they ate in the busy IPRE cafeteria.

“I am annoyingly detailed and have really nice handwriting no matter which hand I write with.” Lucretia answered, giggling at her own joke. “Actually,” she continued, “that first part is relevant. I’m fascinated by stories, I always have been. And while other storytellers are able to come up with their own plots using their brilliant imaginations, I have no such gift. Mine lie in my ability to question and dig until I have every tiny piece of the larger puzzle.” She smiled then. “I suppose the ambidextrousness doesn’t hurt with that either. Writing with both hands at the same time helps a lot when taking down stories from other people or my own observations.”

“I’m sure it does,” Sildar replied. “That’s quite a skill to have.”

“This is my first time as an official chronicler, though,” she told him. “It’s so exciting!”

It was nice seeing her enthusiasm for the task before her. From what Sildar had seen, Lucretia was incredibly knowledgeable and at times he forgot how young she was, how young the majority of their group was. Things like this reminded him. No wonder it was difficult for him to engage with them; he was such an old man.

No regrets.

“It is, indeed,” he answered, matching her enthusiasm with a smile.

They then slipped into a more or less comfortable silence as they continued eating, Sildar people-watching between bites and Lucretia occasionally pausing to scribble something down in a little yellow notebook. He thought to ask whether it was work-related or for her own amusement, but lost his nerve when Lup and Taako slid into seats on opposite sides of Lucretia and Magnus plopped himself into the one directly next to him. Sildar jumped a little, startled at the surprisingly quiet appearance of the young man; Magnus was a pretty big guy and didn’t seem all that capable of being sneaky.

Lup and Lucretia acknowledged each other with a smile as Magnus squirmed in his seat and hunkered over the tray of food that he’d brought with him, anticipation clear in his face. “Holy shit, I’m hungry.”

“We know,” Taako said with a raised eyebrow as Magnus stuffed his face. “You haven’t stopped talking about it for ten minutes.”

Magnus seemed unbothered by Taako’s quip, his expression unchanging as he spoke again around a mouthful of food. “How is this so awesome? Cafeteria food has never been good.”

“It’s decent,” Taako replied as if that was as gracious as he was willing to be. Still, Sildar noted, the bite he took seemed to cause him no dissatisfaction. “I’m glad you’re so easily pleased. I guess I won’t have to worry about you hating whatever I make when we’re all stuck on a ship together.”

“Which you won’t,” Lup, across from Sildar, chimed in. “His food’s amazing.”

“Oh, for real?” Magnus asked excitedly.

Lup grinned and nodded as Taako took a bite of his own food.

“It’s alright,” he simpered with a vaguely nonchalant shrug, at least making an attempt to be modest about his skills.

“You should cook for all of us sometime!” Magnus suggested. “I mean, before we take off. It would be awesome!”

“You mean, like, a bonding thing?” Lup giggled.

“Yeah!”

“I’m a busy guy, my dude,” Taako answered. He took another bite before continuing “But maybe if you made it worth my while…”

Magnus cocked his head. “What, like pay you?” he chuckled.

Taako shrugged again. “Might help a little.”

“Ah bummer, I’m broke. Guess I’ll just have to wait!”

Sildar smiled to himself. Apparently nothing, not even a mild attempt at extortion by a crew mate, ever dampened Magnus’s amiable nature.

“It’s a good idea though, Magnus,” he interjected, turning to face the boy, “maybe we could do something similar.”

All four others at the table looked his way, all indicating some amount of surprise that he’d spoken. Magnus took it in stride anyway.

“Oh yeah, nice S-...man, that would be cool.”

Magnus had forgotten his name. To be fair, it wasn’t exactly a common one, so he decided not to hold it against him.

“Well isn’t that interesting,” Taako snickered. “I didn’t think you were the kind to like team building exercises, Bluejeans.”

“Bluejeans,” Lup snorted as an embarrassed heat filled Sildar’s face and he ducked his head to stare down at his own denim-covered lap. “He does wear a lot of jeans!”

“They’re good for lab work,” Sildar insisted,unsure why he was put in a position to defend his choice in wardrobe to Taako of all people, who on occasion looked like he got dressed in the dark.

Lup wiped a tear out of her eye as her laughter subsided. “Bluejeans,” she tittered.

That was the beginning of that other story. Alliteration, repetition, and an unfortunate misprint on a very important, classified document that somebody somehow got a hold of assured that, by the end of it, Sildar Hallwinter, accomplished and distinguished scientist, became widely known solely as Barry Bluejeans, scientist and resident joke.

But a name is just a name and jokes are just...well, jokes, which stung occasionally despite the lack of malice intended behind them. But Barry Bluejeans knew who he was, and he had a job to perform and a promise to uphold, so he chanted his mantra as the next few months passed by.

No regrets.

“Nerd alert!”

No regrets.

Despite his dedication, he might not have made the promise at all had he known what was coming. When the Starblaster finally took off and the Hunger came to destroy everything and set the seven of them on a constant race against time and a force they didn’t understand, there definitely were regrets. How could there not be? He and the others were lost; they had no home. They were terrified. They were alone.

Except they weren’t; the seven relative strangers banded together because they didn’t have a choice. Even Barry, who was used to being alone, stuck with the rest instead of pulling away, despite the teasing that continued, to his dismay. But even that changed as cycles passed and the group dynamic changed from that of a group of coworkers to close friends to something else, something all of them felt needed no definition. Home to them became wherever the seven of them landed with the Starblaster. Slowly but surely, they all felt it eventually, but Davenport had perhaps been the first to notice.

“This is a hell of a ship we have,” he told Barry once in an earlier cycle, maybe 7 or 8, as the pair crawled around the engine room, inspecting every bit of it.

“It’s been good to us,” Barry replied as he bent to check the calibration of one of the monitors. “It’s weirdly more spacious than what we originally needed. And it’s held up way longer than it needed to. Although maybe that has something to do with regeneration…”

“Well, she runs on love, so it makes sense.”

“Wha-ow!” Barry exclaimed as he hit his head on a counter ledge, distracted by the gnome’s statement. “It runs on bonds, Davenport, that’s what we designed it for,” he told him, rubbing his head.

“Is that not the same thing?”

“No, of course not. Love is an idea, you can’t touch it,” he reasoned. “You couldn’t harness it for power.”

“Hmm, you say that, but we’ve done crazier things. We used the Light for all sorts of things, when we first discovered it” Davenport countered thoughtfully.

Barry stared at his captain and friend but said nothing else, sure that it was useless to get into a debate about the science of love. After a moment, the pain in his head subsided and he moved on to the next monitor.

“You know,” Davenport spoke again, “sometimes, when we’re all together, I hear her humming.”

Barry chuckled in disbelief. “You hear her humming.”

“You don’t think it does?”

“Ships make noises, sometimes,” he answered, sure that Davenport had lost it.

“It sounds silly, I know,” Davenport assured him, “and maybe it is. But it’s a comforting thought to me that the ship that I helped build to run on the bonds between my crew might have learned to feel what I’ve come to feel.”

This gave him pause. Barry was aware that Davenport cared about all of the; his actions proved that to be true. But assuming it and hearing it were two different things, and hearing that his feelings went as far as love…

Barry had spent much of his life alone, but he hadn’t really been lonely. He had his work and he had colleagues, and it was hard to feel lonely when you don’t feel that you’re missing anything. But with the way his life had changed, how all their lives had changed, he knew how it felt to not be lonely, and how it felt to connect with others, to care about them. How it felt to be cared about.

Embarrassingly, he sniffled and found it hard to see the monitor he stared at with tears in his eyes.

Once he let himself love, he found it easy to do. It turned out that he was pretty good at it, almost as if he was made just to love those six people he’d been thrown together with, and that love became the force that drove his actions and the decisions he made. It surprised him sometimes, just how much love he had to give and the different forms that that love took, but the most surprising and most life-altering turned out to be his love for Lup.

Being in love with Lup felt as natural as breathing, and although he felt no small amount of guilt for it, he found that he couldn’t stop. He managed to keep the guilt at bay with the promise that he wouldn’t let his feelings be anyone’s concern but his own, but his propensity to think with his heart was bound to cause him to break that promise eventually.

And it did. As it turned out, you can’t spend a year pretending to be married to someone you’re in love with and not slip up. Thinking with his heart was what led him to that mistake, and it was also what led him to put an end to it.

He’d been alone before, but he’d never felt lonelier than when Lup closed the lab door behind her.

“Once upon a time…”

“Shhh.”

“Once upon a-”

“No.”

“A long time ago in a fantasy galaxy far-”

“Oh my god Lup, please,” Taako whined, voice cracking as it had done often lately. “I’m tired!”

“Aw, but I’m bored,” Lup whined back as she peered at her brother through the darkness of the tent, deciding not to call him out for the embarrassing pitch his voice had reached. This time.

“Well you wouldn’t be if you were sleeping,” he argued. “You know they’re gonna wake us up early tomorrow and then you’ll complain that you’re too tired, but it’ll be your own fault and you’re gonna come crying to me and I’ll just say I told you so-”

“Alright, alright, fine. But you gotta listen tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay yeah, sure, now go to sleep.”

In response, Lup blew a raspberry. Then Taako did too, which set off a raspberry fight that was only interrupted by the sound of someone in a tent not far off hollering “Shut up!”. Both did immediately, as neither of them wanted to get in any sort of trouble and get themselves kicked out of the troupe.

Once upon a time, that was how it was.

Once upon a time, before the Hunger, before the discovery of the Light and the seven on the Starblaster, before a $15 bill was stolen by Greg Grimaldis, there was just Lup and Taako and a troupe of caravans travelling nowhere in particular.

They were a little young for it, even by elven standards, and travelling troupes of entertainers and hustlers didn’t tend to let preteens join their ranks as a general rule, but the twins learned to ingratiate themselves by proving their worth in the only way they knew how: being excellent cooks who’d work for nothing at all but the relative safety of numbers. Lup and Taako were pretty independent and used to relying on each other, but even they knew they couldn’t fend for themselves completely. Awesome as they were, they were just kids and had a lot to learn. But damn it if they weren’t trying, and so far, they’d both gotten just good enough at transmutation magic for it to mean something to them, and that was why they were doing what they were doing.

Technically, this wasn’t the path that they had to take; they had plenty of other options as far as living arrangements. A godparent here, a great uncle there, a grandma on somebody’s side, an older cousin three times removed-you name a distant relative, they had it, and they’d been passed around to half of them at least. But none of those places had ever been their choice. True, they hadn’t been all bad. There was that Aunt Pen they really liked; she was the first person they were ever sent to live with. She taught them how to cook, she encouraged their interest in magic and even scrounged up a few books for them, even though she had no magical abilities herself. They were fast learners though, and could do a lot with a little. In fact, at that point their powers combined gave them the ability to go from identical to fraternal twins soon after Lup chose her name. It was a pretty good deal.

But their time with Aunt Pen didn’t last forever, and their relative-hopping over the next few years was exhausting and the instability left little room for learning magic. And if a future in magic was what they wanted, which it for sure was, they definitely weren’t going to reach their goals that way. So they made a choice and just didn’t go to the next place they were sent off to. For the first time, they were calling the shots, and Lup thought that was damn cool.

“Thinking about switching to evocation,” she told Taako one day as they were cleaning up after lunch one day.

Taako rinsed the suds off a dish and handed it to her to dry. “Why’s that?” he asked.

“Uh, well for one it’s wicked awesome,” she answered. “And two, we probably would have a better chance of both getting into whatever academy we wanted if we had different skills to offer.”

“Cool, I like it,” he said, elbowing her in the arm gently. “Look at you being smart.”

“I mean I for sure am, but I can’t take all the credit for this one. I was talking to Leftie and he kinda gave me the idea.”

“Remind me who that is again?” he asked, not seeming at all concerned about actually knowing the answer.

“You know,” she coaxed, “the juggler.”

“Which juggler?”

“Oh my god, Taako, the one that only has a left arm, duh!”

He stuck his tongue out at her. “‘Scuse me if I can’t keep track of all the jugglers I’ve ever met.”

“There’s been like, three.”

“Hmm...well, point stands.”

Lup and Taako were pretty good at cooking and magic, but the thing they were pros at was ghosting everyone they knew. They figured that if they were gonna be sent packing at a moment’s notice, there was really no reason to get that attached to people around them, so they just learned not to. At some point along the way, Taako chose not to make much effort with anyone ever, but Lup found that boring. No, instead she just didn’t get attached, kept the people she met at quite a few arm lengths, and that was good enough. Worked every time, and it left them both with very little to distract them from learning as much magic as they could by themselves. Time, patience, and dedication turned them into powerful wizards in their own right, and they had very little issue getting accepted into their chosen magic academy, and an even easier time excelling in their classes. They destroyed absolutely all of their peers, not that they were keeping track of that type of thing.

Except they totally were and they definitely did.

It was more or less confirmed when they were called to the academy headmaster’s office the day before they graduated.

“What’s this about?” Taako asked after pleasantries were exchanged, a tinge of worry in his voice that gave away the uncaring expression he wore.

“We’re not in trouble are we?” Lup asked, already on the defensive. “Look, if this is about what I said to Greg Grimaldis, he started this whole thing and I only threatened him a little and if he would just-”

“Please, Miss Lup, you aren’t in trouble,” Headmaster Mathers said, holding up a hand. “Well, now I’m not sure...what is this issue with Greg Grimaldis?”

“Literally nothing,” Taako replied quickly, cutting Lup off before she could get going about the whole thing again and throwing her a look.

“Yeah, it’s so not a big deal,” she echoed Taako before forcing a smile and facing Mathers again. “Sorry, continue.”

Mathers looked like he wasn’t sure whether to pursue the issue or save himself the headache. “Not a problem,” he replied, clearly deciding to go with the latter choice. “What I was calling you here for was to offer you an opportunity.” If you’re interested, that is.”

“What kind of opportunity?” Taako asked as Lup leaned forward excitedly.

Mathers grinned. “Have either of you heard of the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration?”

They had not, but it didn’t take much convincing before they were practically begging for a recommendation that Mathers had already been ready to give them. Who wouldn’t want to be involved in a historical mission to space? And after a couple of months of interviews and an application later, they found themselves in an entirely different office.

“I must say, it’s very good to be able to officially welcome you both to the IPRE,” a gnome with an incredibly cool mustache named Davenport told them, shaking first Lup’s hand, then Taako’s.

“Thanks,” Taako replied amiably, “we’re excited to be here.”

“For sure!” Lup agreed. She glanced at a clock on Davenport’s wall. “Um, we’re supposed to be heading to our first class right now…”

“Oh, yes, I know, and trust me, your instructor will not mind if you’re a few minutes late. But I’ll make this quick anyway so as not to take up too much of your time.”

He gestured for them to sit in the two seats on one side of his desk as he sat in the chair on the opposite side, and they wordlessly complied.

“I’m sure you have done your due diligence and done some amount of research on our institution and the mission at hand, but not all of the details have been made public yet, so I wanted to fill you in.”

Taako and Lup listened as Davenport leaned back in his seat and explained the Light and the Starblaster. When he started to explain the bond engine, he paused and leaned forward again.

“I’m curious.”

Lup cocked her head as Taako asked “About what?”

“I have spoken at length with your academy’s headmaster. Mathers speaks very highly of the both of you, to be sure, and it is obvious to me that you are both more than qualified for the job at hand.”

“But?” Lup supplied.

Davenport smiled. “Just as you have done your due diligence, I have also done mine. You see, I have a ship that, amazingly, runs on bonds. You’ll learn more about that over the next few months, but the gist of it is that it is powered by connections. Connections between things and, most importantly, individuals. Personally, I find this to be the most exciting aspect of this entire project, but I also realize that it could be daunting for others.”

Lup was unsure where this was going, and neither did Taako it seemed, as both stayed silent as Davenport continued.

“I don’t pretend to know anything about either of you other than your resumes and what Mathers reported. And I don’t need to know any more than that to trust in your capabilities, so I wouldn’t dare be so invasive as to ask. Instead, I will just say this: we could all learn from a ship that’s powered by the connections between others, and I encourage the both of you to let yourselves learn whatever you are meant to.”

Lup was entirely unsure what to say to that, and both she and Taako stared unblinking at Davenport as the gnome stood from his chair and glanced at the clock on the wall.

“I’ve kept you both long enough,” he said as he walked to the door and held it open for them. “Enjoy your class!”

The twins filed out and watched as the door swung closed. When it clicked shut, Taako chuckled wryly.

“What a weird dude,” he said. “Think his crazy mustache just holds all the secrets of the universe.”

Lup ran a hand through her hair. “Yikes.”

“Yikes,” Taako repeated with a sigh. “Didn’t think I’d need a ‘play nice with the other kids’ speech at this age.”

“I don’t think that’s what he meant.”

“No, I heard what he meant. Not sure how I’m supposed to just…”

She looked at Taako as he trailed off, his stony expression indicating he didn’t know how to comfortably finish the thought. She reached over and squeezed his shoulder.

“Hey, let’s get to class!”

As they raced off, Lup replayed Davenport’s words and decided that the guy was just trying to make sure his mission ran smoothly. They didn’t need to worry themselves over it; he wasn’t really asking for much. If they had to play nice and put themselves out there just a little, that wouldn’t kill them. Plus, this was a short term thing, it wasn’t forever!

She paid no attention to the faces that looked their way as she and Taako burst through the classroom door and easily found two open seats. Beside her, Taako lounged in her chair while she looked through her bag to find their favorite pencils.

It was only day one; there was no reason to freak out over anything yet. If all the people involved in this whole thing were as cool as her and Taako, they’d have no problem getting along.

She pulled two pencils out and looked up to see a guy with round glasses and a mullet looking at her. He looked shocked to see her looking back, like he’d been caught doing something weird. What the fuck’s his problem she thought as she gave him a hard stare until he whipped to face the front, dropping his pencil in the process.

Alright, so maybe she wouldn’t be great friends with that guy.

As the months progressed, it became pretty clear that, while their little group wasn’t as cool as she and her brother were, they were all at least...interesting. Lup liked Magnus and Lucretia for sure. Merle seemed to like plants a lot which might have been disturbing if it wasn’t so entertaining to see it freak other people out. Davenport was pretty chill when he wasn’t dispensing wisdom. And then there was the mullet guy, Sal...Sil…

“Barry Bluejeans.”

Barry Bluejeans.

Barry Bluejeans wasn’t a weirdo, he was just a really big nerd. She and Taako got a kick out of that, and they found that, even if they didn’t want to be lifelong best friends with these people, they enjoyed their company enough to hang around them for as long as the mission would last.

They started to feel differently when everything went horrifically sideways.

“We should just leave,” Taako suggested one day while they were translating the Animal’s language into Common.

“And go where, Taako?” Lup challenged. “There’s nowhere to go! We don’t know what’s out there.”

“So? That never stopped us before.”

She couldn’t argue with that. “I guess that’s true.”

“We don’t need them. It’s safer if it’s just us. I got your back and you got mine. Like always.”

Lup noted the fear that she hardly ever saw in her brother’s face. “Like always, Ko. We’ll leave as soon as we finish translating this and get Magnus an in with the Royal Beasts or whatever. We can’t leave this all to Barry.”

“Fair enough,” he answered, some relief in his voice.

The plan fell apart when the Hunger came again and they were regenerated. It seemed much more dangerous to leave and a lot more awkward if they were just gonna wind up back on a ship with five people they ditched. They weren’t that callous, but neither could shake the feeling of needing to go, for it to be just the two of them once again.

Sometimes, change happens gradually, and other times it happens all at once. In cycle 3, they went exploring for a day and didn’t think to mention it to anyone else. Taako sprained his ankle slipping on a stone while trying to cross a stream, and they didn’t make it back until early morning. When they were within sight of the Starblaster, Lucretia came running out to meet them.

“Taako, Lup!” she cried, “where were you? Are you alright?” She moved to Taako’s other side and supported his weight.

“I’m all good,” Taako replied, perplexed. “Just twisted my ankle.”

Lup leaned forward to look at Lucretia from the other side of Taako. “What’s the panic for?”

“I’m-we didn’t know-you were just gone, and they all left, so I’m here by myself w-waiting and worried that-”

Her voice broke on the last word, and Lup and Taako eyes went wide as she pulled them both in to hug them fiercely.

“I am so happy you’re back,” she whispered with a sniff.

In Taako’s room later that night, after Merle bandaged up Taako and treated a few minor scrapes that Lup insisted she didn’t need anything for and everyone else had expressed their relief at having them back, the twins sat on his bed in silence. After a while, Lup noticed Taako’s eyes were closed, and got up to leave.

“They’re all not so bad,” Taako said softly just before she opened the door.

She turned around and found him staring up at the ceiling. “I think so too,” she replied.

“I’m thinking about making Elderflower macarons tomorrow,” he said.

Lup smiled, suddenly feeling warm and cozy. Taako hadn’t made those cookies for a long time.

Not since Aunt Pen.

“I’ll help you,” she promised.

Lup had always thought she had no room in her life to love anyone else but Taako, but she quickly learned how wrong she had been. She found herself loving the shit out of Magnus and Lucretia, Merle and his love for plants, Davenport and his wisdom.

And that big nerd Barry Bluejeans.

Barry Bluejeans, who was actually a great friend. Her best friend, with his glasses and his mullet and his jeans and his cute little blush and-

Her crush on Barry was never supposed to last. And it wasn’t supposed to get stronger.

It wasn’t supposed to ruin their relationship completely.

When her dumb idea to pretened to be married to her best friend just as an excuse to get what she wanted and she made him uncomfortable as a result, she felt rejected and guilty. As the lab door slid closed behind her, she could only think of one thing to do.

Lup had never found it hard to ghost people. It’s what she and Taako had always done. And she managed to avoid Barry for the rest of that cycle.

And it hurt more than she could have ever imagined.

#blupjeans #the adventure zone #barry bluejeans #lup #taz balance #all the time in the world #barry x lup #lup x barry

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castcharmperson · 6 years ago

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are you going to continue fic about taako's glamour??? because my dude it is JUICY AS HELL and i'm SO about lup (and/or anyone else) finding out

hi ohmygod i love your work and i literally cannot believe you read my fic?? you’re like, a very cool person and i totally freaked out when i first saw this ask??? thank you????

okay okay okay okay, hear me out. First and foremost, this is, perhaps, the most flavorful compliment i’ve been given and i adore it thank you. The juicy drama shall only continue.

also im splitting part three into two chunks, sorry not sorry, part four comes out tomorrow!

This was her first winter on Faerun. Lup had sort of lost track of how many holidays their new home had, but that was fine. She got firewood with Magnus, decorated how Killian showed her, rolled around in the snow with Mookie just to feel how cold it was. She’d had her body for almost eight months now, but every sensation felt so new.

“I’m told you’ve mastered Scorching Ray.”

She watched her brother retreat into the kitchen, Angus chasing after him. There were a lot of new things, she realized, when she couldn’t chase after him too.

Lup wasn’t stupid. Her brother was a world class liar but he couldn’t lie to her. At least, she thought he couldn’t. But everything was new and different now. The old Lup would have rushed in on that summer afternoon, pushed and prodded until Taako told her about every scar. The old Lup had never been as patient as Taako. He could hang back, wait years for the perfect opportunity if he had to, but Lup was made for action.

A decade in an umbrella had changed that. Now, she was patient.

Well, patient to a point. She waited while Angus left for school, waited while Taako got settled with his own school. She waited for months, had to be certain Taako wouldn’t bolt the first time she brought it up. She didn’t even bring it up today! Just hinted at it. She supposed it was foolish to hope he was forgetful in same way he had pretended she wasn’t perceptive.

So she had to wait. Again. That was fine, she tried to tell herself. The cheering had turned into drinking around the fire from the massive keg Merle and Davenport had brought, but Lup wasn’t really in the Solstice mood anymore. This wasn’t her tradition yet, still too new, just like everything else. Barry gave her a look as she passed by. She hoped her smile said enough, and it must have. He gave her a soft smile of his own, but didn’t follow her as she snuck in through the side of the house, not wanting to pass through the kitchen.

“You’ve been hiding a limp all day.” Angus sounded confident, voice echoing through the empty house in the same way he talked about his successful cases with the Neverwinter PD. Lup had planned to curl up in bed, but this… this might be worth waiting to hear. Taako said something, but she was too far away to hear it. Then there was shouting.

“It’s not bullshit when someone’s keeping secrets!”

“Watch your fucking language!”

Then Silence, powerful arcane energy that stopped her midstep, just before the doorframe of the kitchen. She saw Taako and Angus keep talking, but she couldn’t read their lips. The tension her brother had been carrying all day seeped out of his shoulders. Whatever was happening in there, she needed to wait to see its end.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been waiting, but the spell started to crackle out of existence.

“I don’t want that. You shouldn’t even know about this. No one was supposed to know.” Taako sounded just like he did when he told her everyone was dust.

“You should at least tell Lup.” Angus said. Candlenights was late on the calendar this year, but Lup was buying this kid every Caleb Cleveland novel she could get her hands on. She’d kidnap the author and gift wrap them for Angus if she had to.

“I can’t tell Lup.”

A decade in an umbrella, a year of listening to her brother and not being able to say a thing; Lup had patience now, but only so much. Coming out from behind the door frame, she threw on a smirk she didn’t feel and finally rushed in.

She wasn’t really sure what she expected. Taako’s Dex mod used to be higher than hers and she was never really good at Stealth rolls anyway, so it was rare that she could surprise him. Even now, he didn’t jump, didn’t squawk and yell at her the way he used when she and Magnus could prank him. He froze and didn’t even look at her. He looked at Angus.

Lup thought she’d seen every emotion cross her twin’s face, the thousands of matching expressions they shared, but she’d never seen this. It wasn’t anger, wasn’t even surprise. He looked almost empty, filled with nothing but bone deep betrayal. She could almost see his “I trust no one and nothing except Angus McDonald” crumbling to dust in their kitchen and she felt sick.

“He didn’t know,” she said before thinking twice about it. There was a flicker of something and then the hallowed out look of loss was gone and Taako was smirking at her, make up perfect and a hand on his hip.

“Ooh, so you were eavesdropping?” He clicked his tongue a few times, shaking his head. “Davenport would be so disappointed you didn’t pay attention to his Boundaries In Close Quarters powerpoint from cycle seven.”

He was waiting for her to take the bait, to point out the only reason they had to watch the powerpoint that cycle was because of him. As the seconds dragged on though, she could see his smirk falter. The silence stretched further and she still couldn’t speak. Now was her moment, this is what she’d been waiting for! There was so much she needed to say and yet the only thing that came out of her mouth was a broken, “Taako.”

“Nope.” He turned right around, picking up a spoon and furiously stirring something.

“Sir, should I go…” Angus started but Taako just picked up the potato peeler and handed it to him without looking.

“You are staying right here and peeling those potatoes, Agnes.”

“Taako,” Lup tried to say something else but that’s all that could be said. She took a shaky step forward but her brother still wouldn’t look at her. “Taako, please, I know something’s going on.”

“Uh-uh. I am not doing this today, Lulu. I know you’re new to this planar system but this feast is– oof!” She nearly knocked Taako into the counter as she collided with him, wrapping her arms around him in a crushing hug. “Lulu…”

“You’re soft. Need soft.” She murmured into the back of his sweater. When she first got her body, they spent days like this. Taako let her feel every fabric he owned, his softest silk blouses and his most scuffed up leather boots. She ran her fingers through his hair for hours. There were still some nights when she’d sneak into his room, shove Kravitz out of the way, and hold him close just because she finally could. She hadn’t had a bad night like that in weeks, but maybe Taako forgot.

“I can’t do this today, Lup.” He whispered, seeing right through her in a way she used to be able to do too. At least he didn’t push her off, slowly stirring whatever mixture he was working on for dinner. Angus had the peeler on a potato, but hadn’t moved.

“Tomorrow?” She asked.

The silence that followed, she could truly see her brother again. Angus must have seen it too. He relaxed and got through two more potatoes as they both pretend not to watch Taako run the numbers. Could he fake a school emergency tomorrow? What were the odds she’d believe he had the flu? Maybe if he Blinked enough times in a row, she wouldn’t be able to follow him. Anything to get out of this conversation. He slumped a little and Lup tried not to laugh. He couldn’t avoid her forever, they both knew it. At least not everything was new and different.

“Fine,” Taako surrendered. “But I seriously have to get cooking.” She didn’t move. “Are you just going to hang off of me all day?”

“Maybe.”

Taako gave a full body sigh, shuffling them together through the kitchen to put something in the oven. Angus laughed and Lup was pretty sure she could feel Taako smile. “Fine.”

#DMI #taz #the adventure zone #taz fic #taz taako #taz lup #angus mcdonald #charmedwords #charmedanswers #i almost feel bad about splitting this part in half but it works better this way #also im so dang nervous if i don't post /something/ now im worried ill totally chicken out #terezis

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internationalhouseofblupjeans · 7 years ago

Text

Join Together Chapter 2 - Just Another Trick of the Light

In this chapter of the Lup Lives AU: Lup and Taako find a new friend and have a fateful encounter in Raven's Roost. Barry continues his lonely search.

Thank you to Tansy from TFW for Beta’ing!

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 below

AO3 link in the source

Adjusting to sharing a life with someone else should have been difficult for Taako.

But Lup just slotted into everything perfectly. They had come up with a routine on the way to Raven’s Roost. They would cook a three course meal, Lup the first course, Taako the entree, and then both would come together and make the most bomb-ass spectacular dessert.

Raven’s Roost was their test market, the pair parking their cart in the Craftsman Corridor, performing a special three-night engagement. Lup and Taako went over their planned show as they prepared their signage.

“Alright, so I’ll do the breaded cheese and spicy marinara to start, then you'll do the stuffed eggplant, and we'll close with a Baked Icewind?” Lup started. “I mean. I can't believe none of the cookbooks had the name we grew up with for our show stopping dessert but whatever … I guess the memory of Baked Fantasy Alaska died with our hometown, huh?” Lup chuckled.

“Yeah,” Taako grinned. “I think its it's a perfect closer too! I can transmute the merengue and you torch it with your flames!”

A knock at the door of their cart alerted the pair. They stuck their heads out to see a tall, broad shouldered man with a beard, bushy sideburns, and a kind smile.

“Hail and well met!” he smiled.

Something about him struck both of them, but they couldn't quite place it. He felt familiar. He felt like home.

He felt like pure, rustic hospitality.

“Hail and well met, m’dude!” Lup grinned. “Here to get a good seat for our show?”

“Yeah!” the man crowed. “You're serving up free samples, right?”

“Of course, m’dude!” Taako purred, leaning in to greet him. “I'm Taako. You know, from TV?”

There was a flicker across the man’s face, as if he was trying to figure out a puzzle that was missing a few pieces. He blinked rapidly and shook his head.

“Sorry about that,” the man chuckled. “I just … something about that was familiar.”

Lup looked between the man and Taako. The elf’s ears twitched slightly.

“Uh … anyway, yeah if you need help setting up, I'll be free all afternoon! I've got a break from my apprenticeship and, well, you look like you might need some help!”

Taako grinned.

“Well, I've always hated lifting heavy shit so sure! I'll show you what we need set up and you can have first dibs of the free samples!” Taako chuckled.

“Hey ‘Ko,” Lup teased. “You didn't even ask the dude's name! It's like, a thing people do when they meet new people!”

Lup clambered out of the cart and strode beside Magnus.

“My name is Lup! And you are?”

“Magnus,” the human grinned. “Magnus Burnsides!”

As he helped the pair set up their stage, Magnus was struck with a familiarity that he hadn't felt for the last month. He hadn't known too many elves, not even growing up, but these two seemed special and he couldn't tell why.

“You know,” Magnus started, “I could maybe see if my teacher could let you stay with us. It's not perfect accommodations, but if you're looking at staying a few nights, it will be cheaper than staying at an inn.”

Taako and Lup exchanged a glance. Originally, they had decided to stay in their cart while they moved from town to town, but if their first stop was this hospitable …

“Hell yeah, Mags!” Lup smiled. “We’d love to stay with you!”

Magnus grinned and beckoned for the pair of elves to follow him.

“You are looking for either a Sun Elf or a lich in a red robe. If she is a lich in a red robe, then she will remember everything. She will remember you, even if you don't remember her. If she isn't a lich then …God, I don't even know … I had a lead on one of the places she could have gone which is why you're here …”

Barry rested on a rock, surveying his next move. He didn't know why, but he felt like he had to believe in his own voice. He supposed things like this were common. In his quest to be a perpetual student, the middle aged man had gone to his share of college parties.

Waking up in a tank inside of a cave had been new.

And this coin. He had never seen anything like it before, but apparently he had felt the need to leave himself a message on it.

He felt the weight again and nearly crumpled from grief, but he still couldn't place it.

He had to keep going.

He sighed and rose to his feet. He had to figure out this weight that he felt.

Even though he couldn't remember anything about it, he knew it had to be the most important thing in the world.

As Magnus sat between the elves, he felt an odd sense of familiarity.

He supposed it was just part of his upbringing. He had always been good at forming strong bonds with people, even when they had just met.

It was what he had told himself when he had almost instantly fallen in love with Julia.

Not that he would ever tell her, of course. He had only just recently started the apprenticeship with her father and he didn't want to betray that trust. Besides, he was a human and she was a half elf. There was no way she would want to spend the next few decades with a human.

He was content to just keep his feelings to himself.

Unfortunately, his new friends didn't feel the same way.

“Wait, you mean you haven't asked her out?” Lup gasped through a mouthful of potatoes.

Magnus turned beet red and looked, helplessly, across the table at the equally blushing Julia and his amused mentor.

“Uh … I …”

“You're a human!” Taako cried out. “At best you have only a few more decades before it's it's too late to tell her!”

“Well, I …”

“Hey Jules?” Lup leaned over, a glimmer in her eye. “What do you say? Isn't Maggie here a catch?”

“I…”

Lup and Taako exchanged a glance and then Taako looked to Julia.

“Well. whatever. I've only known Magnus here for a few hours but I can say, he’s a decent guy,” Taako began before his ears began to twitch, saying “Seriously, if I didn't know he was so into you, I would take him myself.”

“Koko!” Lup's ears sprang up in surprise and she patted Magnus on the back.

“What?” Taako responded, his ears flattening. “So Magnus, were you planning on staying in Raven’s Roost? I mean, we could always use a bodyguard!” “Tell him not to leave. That you are meant for each other!”

“I … erm …” Magnus stammered. What the hell were these elves doing? It was bad enough that they had been so insistent on announcing his crush. Now they were trying to egg this on in elvish?

Even stranger, however, was the fact that neither Julia nor Stephen seemed to understand.

Huh …

“I wasn’t really planning on going anywhere,” Magnus started. “I mean, after I finish my apprenticeship, I suppose I could build myself a house but I think I'll still live here in Raven’s Roost.”

Magnus did not miss the blush that deepened on Julia’s cheeks.

“Now you have to be careful with the merengue,” Taako grinned, gently scooping some of the merengue into his piping bag as Lup placed the dome of ice cream on top of the cake. “We want it to hold its shape because this is the finale and neither of us will settle for just a lump of merengue so …”

Taako cast mage hand and then looked to Lup.

“Damn, I forgot the rum.”

He ducked underneath the table as Lup winked to the audience, producing a flask from thin air. She produced an umbrella from next to her and prepared to cast.

“This is why I always keep a little extra on hand,” she chuckled as the mage hand piped the merengue into a wizard’s hat. Lup grabbed the piping bag and swirled the dessert around so that the front faced her as she feverishly piped something else out of view of the audience. “Now, you want to make sure that you have enough rum on the merengue, but also not too much. I like to use coconut rum with this particular recipe. Then you can have the tropics in the arctic! For you keen eyed viewers, you may notice I’m not using a traditional focus. Well, only stodgy wizards believe that you have to have a dinky wand like my associate has when you’re a low level wizard. In reality, anything can be a focus! Including this umbrella!”

Taako popped back up and Lup tossed him the flask of rum. Taako grabbed a ladle and poured the rum into it.

“Ready Lulu?” he grinned.

“Hell yeah!”

With a point of the umbrella, the rum was blasted with fire. Taako drizzled the flaming liquid onto the Baked Fantasy Alaska as Lup spun it around, revealing the words “Sizzle it Up With Taako and Lup” emblazoned in the merengue.

The uproarious applause was music to the elves’ ears and they happily handed out samples to their audience. They had never expected to be so beloved at their first stop. It was tempting to just take up a permanent residency (and really, they had many more recipes to share with the town), but they could only stay for a few more nights. After Raven’s Roost, they needed to travel to Bottlenose Cove for a few nights and in order to do that, they needed to brush up on dwarven cuisine.

Magnus had insisted they continue to stay with him until their residency had ended. He could blame it on his rustic hospitality, but in reality he felt a pull to the elves. He didn't want them to leave.

Something about them felt like home.

Unfortunately, the week ended and so did Taako and Lup's first tour of Raven’s Roost. Magnus helped them load up and watched as the pair started off for their next destination.

He waved them off and then went to his room above the workshop. He needed to make something special for them for the next time they came.

As he walked into the Hammer and Tongs, he overheard Stephen talking with Julia.

“Maybe next time they come back, we can set them up with better lodgings. I know they said they were alright with sleeping on the floor in Magnus’ room, but they deserve better.”

“Yeah … It was so nice having more elves in the house though!” Julia smiles wistfully. “Though, I had a hard time telling who was who outside of the show. I felt so bad calling Lup by Taako’s name -”

“Oh! That’s easy!” Magnus chimed in with a grin. “Lup has dimples when she laughs whereas Taako doesn’t. Also, Lup always wears her hair up while Taako likes his hair down. Though, if they dyed their hair, that would probably make it easier …”

Julia and Stephen stared at him. “How …” Stephen started.

Magnus opened his mouth to respond but he realized he had no idea how he had been able to tell them apart.

Lup’s hair hadn’t even been up that often but … somehow he knew she wore hers up more.

He shook his head and laughed in spite of himself.

“I dunno,” he laughed. “I guess I’m just good with Sun Elves?”

He looked around the workshop, trying to distract himself as Julia and Stephen continued their conversation. He needed to go back to his original task. He needed to make something for the elves.

He took two twin blocks of wood and took them up to his room. As he sat down, he tried to ponder why Lup and Taako had felt so familiar. As he sat, he idly began to carve two ducks.

Barry sighed as he collected the blood from his body. He had gotten lucky, being able to gather his own blood. He would have to add something new to his instructions on the coin.

He quickly phased away from the mountain, knowing that he had to get back behind his wards. He couldn’t risk being caught just yet. He needed to find Lup.

He hovered around the maps. Lup hadn't been in the mountains. He couldn't imagine that she had travelled far from the last glassing, but she must have. She must have travelled as far away as possible.

It made sense, he supposed, but if that was the case, then now she was wandering, lost and alone, with an extremely dangerous weapon.

One she didn't remember making.

The thought chilled him to the bone. Would she still be resistant to the thrall of her own creation? Would she be safe from anyone else who might fall under its thrall?

He didn't want to think about that. He wanted to believe that she had hidden it. That she was somewhere safe.

That she remembered.

He began to plan a route. He would search the entire world if he had to.

He didn't care how long it took. How many bodies he created.

He would find her.

“Sorry, ma'am, but rules are rules and there's a new performance tax, instituted by Governor Kalen himself,” the human guard grinned.

The cart had been stopped on the road from Raven's Roost, Lup having taken the first shift of driving while Taako read through recipes in the back. Lup didn't want to disturb Taako, after all, she had dealt with asshole guards before, but she also wanted to make sure they could still come back to visit this town.

“Huh. That wasn't in the travel guide,” Lup hummed as she rifled through her coin purse. “How much is the tax?”

The guard laughed.

“Much more than in that little coin purse,” he grinned. “I'm sure you can afford the tax with all of the gold you made off of the village.”

“Lup, what's going on out there?” Taako called from inside the cart.

“Oh, uh … just need to pay the performance tax, Taako. Apparently it was instituted recently -”

Taako burst through the dividing curtain, peering out at the human guard.

“Um. That sounds like a lot of bullshit, m'dude,” he glowered. “We earned that money, fair and square and why would you need to tax visiting performers? Especially ones who feed your village better than -”

“Taako …” Lup warned, her ears flicking at him to say “We don't want to piss off a governor when we're just getting started.”

Taako grumbled and ducked inside the tent.

“It's sixty percent of your earnings,” the guard barked.

Taako wanted to come out and tell him off then and there. After the earnings were split, Taako was going to put that money towards his own, eventual schooling! He had to finish learning transmutation. He had to finish learning those runes.

“Oh … shit … well, ok,” Lup started. “I mean, money isn't really as important,” she smiled weakly as the guard stared her down impatiently.

“Come on, lady,” the guard growled. “I don’t have all day!”

“Um … my business partner is getting the money right now!” Lup shot back. “Uh … Taako?”

Taako stared at the money.

They could always earn more. They could earn more and Taako could find a place to hide his share so that the next time they came to this town (if they ever came back to this town), then they could at least have half of the money they’d earned stay safe.

Lup looked back at the guard. He was uncomfortably close now and eyeing her in such a way that she felt bile rise to her throat.

“Well, if you can’t pay with gold,” the guard began, grabbing her left hand roughly, “then maybe I can help myself to this ring! I’m sure it will pay for at least half of your tax!”

Lup felt sick as her heart hammered in her chest and her face flushed. She couldn’t give this ring up. She didn’t know where it came from or why she had it, but she knew she needed it. She knew someone had given it to her for some reason. It was her main source of comfort, even if it hurt to look at it for too long. She tried to snatch her hand back, feeling it grow hot with an internal fire that threatened to explode out at the guard.

“Hey!” A voice called out from down the road.

Lup spun around and froze.

At the end of the road stood a wall of a man. He was at least six feet tall and stocky with shaggy, dark blond hair. Glasses were perched on his nose and his bright blue eyes were narrowing in concern. Something about him sent pangs of grief through Lup’s heart. Grief that she couldn’t quite place.

She looked to the guard who went for his halberd.

“Who are you?” the guard growled.

“Better question is, why are you bothering her?” The man snapped back.

“Governor Kalen wanted me to collect the performance tax-”

The man laughed bitterly.

“Really? A performance tax? What, was it added last night?” The man stepped forward. “You know that your own town’s charter allows for a five day grace period after a new taxation law is passed, right?”

“Well -” the guard stammered.

Lup watched the man step closer and her heart hammered in her chest. Had she seen this man before? He seemed so familiar, but yet there was an itch in her brain. Something telling her that this wasn’t who she thought it was.

Which was a ridiculous thought because she had never met anyone like this man. She had never met a human who would be so willing to stand up to an armed guard for a pair of strange elves.

I doubt Magnus would have stepped in for us, Lup thought, though she instantly felt ashamed for even thinking that about the carpenter who had welcomed them into his home.

“Lulu? Toril to Lulu?” Lup heard Taako shout in her ear, his copper hand waving in front of her face.

Lup blinked and noticed that the guard was gone. In his place was the kind human who had stepped in. He looked at the pair of elves and smiled.

“Sorry you had to deal with that asshole,” he laughed. “The name’s Sazed.”

“Taako,” Taako grinned, sticking out his hand, his ear twitching teasingly at Lup. “The stunned one here is my business partner, Lup. She forgot that it’s common courtesy to introduce herself to people.”

“Heh, I watched your show back there, actually,” Sazed started, rubbing the back of his neck. “I uh … I’ve been traveling around doing odd jobs and stuff and found myself in Raven’s Roost for a bit too long. I doubt I’m welcome back anytime soon now.”

“Fuck ‘em,” Taako laughed. “Hey, where are you heading? Maybe we can give you a ride?”

Lup blinked, tilting her head at Taako.

“Um … What the hell, Koko?”

“Come on, we obviously need a bodyguard. Maybe we can convince him to stay on!”

Lup looked back at Sazed who watched their secret conversation with confusion. Truth be told, she wanted him to join them. Something about him felt so familiar and safe, but at the same time, it felt wrong. She supposed it was just residual stress from their encounter with the guard but there was something else that she couldn’t put her finger on. Something about him just wasn’t right, even though he was definitely the type of human she had been historically attracted to.

Whatever it was, she was both pulled to and repulsed by Sazed.

She hated it.

“Where are you two headed?” Sazed asked as he climbed into the cart.

“Well, I asked you first,” Taako started, “but we have a show in Bottlenose Cove.”

“Do you mind if I come with?” Sazed started. “I was coming back into town from a rather unsuccessful hunt but, like I said, I’m probably not welcome back so …”

“Hell yeah!” Taako grinned. “You know, we could use someone like you to be tough and intimidating! Hey, Lulu? We’ve got a bodyguard now!”

“Well …” Sazed started.

Lup’s ears flattened.

Yep, she absolutely hated this.

#The Adventure Zone #blupjeans #Barry Bluejeans #lup #taako #magnus burnsides #taz sazed

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violetandstarlightgirl · 7 years ago

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Berceuse- TAZ Fic

The last fic in the accidental triptych that features my earlier fics Senses and Memento. This one is about Taako and his experiences with a childhood lullaby. (from my twins headcanon post)

This fic contains spoilers for The Stolen Century and Story and Song from the Balance campaign of TAZ, and this fic in particular also contains nudity in one scene.

Also available on AO3, and all three fics are groups in a series now!

You don’t have many happy memories of your childhood before you were passed down from relative to relative. While it wasn’t an abusive home you and your sister were born in, it was still broken and small. There were things from that life that took you decades to heal from, and things you’re still in the process of healing from.

But one of the happiest, and earliest memories you had was of the lullaby your mother used to sing. You still remember being curled up against your mother’s chest next to Lup, and hearing the soothing cadence of your mother’s voice.

The song was an ancient Elvish lullaby, so old you’re certain there isn’t a proper translation of it to common anymore, but you understand it to be about putting all your worries aside in order to rest, and the morning sun will always heal and bring new opportunities. Now, if you think about it, it’s cliche as all gets out, but it was a children’s lullaby.

Even so, the words and melody have always held a significant meaning to you. Both you and Lup would hum or sing the song to yourselves or each other when you needed to organize your thoughts or calm down after a stressful day. It was something you didn’t share with anyone else. No companions on the road, no students at IPRE, or crew on the Starblaster.

At least until Cycle 47.

That was the cycle where Lup and Barry Bluejeans confessed their love to reality through their own song. You couldn’t have been happier for either of them. You thought it best not to pry too hard into this chapter in their lives, so you didn’t ask any questions unless Lup wanted to share something.

So to say the least, it surprised you a cycle or two later when you could hear the old lullaby being sung aboard the Starblaster one night.

You followed the sound and it led you to the room now being shared by Lup and Barry. The door was open slightly and you could just look into it.

Lup was sitting upright on the bed, her hair down and her chest bare, and she was looking down at something on the bed. Her mouth was open and the song spilled from her lips, as beautiful as it was when your mother sang it a long time ago. She was stroking something, and as you followed the path of her arm down, you saw it was Barry’s head.

You couldn’t see Barry’s face from where you stood, but you did see how his body shook and could hear muffled sobs. A pang of sympathy struck you in that moment, and it melted your heart a little knowing Lup was taking this relic from your childhoods to soothe her lover’s pain. It even seemed to be working; as the song continued, Barry’s sniffles grew quieter and his body eventually relaxed.

As this happened, your eyes met with Lup’s. Only now did you feel like an intruder. But Lup doesn’t do much when she realizes her twin brother is standing outside. A smile crossed her own face and she nodded briefly to you. You give her an awkward wave and smile in turn, and return to your own room on the ship.

You were only a little upset because you were reminded you didn’t have that to share with someone.

That was how things were for a while. Even after your memories of your sister were wiped, you still remembered the melody of that lullaby. Lucretia never heard it or knew where it came from, so it was one less thing she could take from you. You didn’t get close enough to Sazed to share it with him, even when things were good between the two of you.

You only jokingly referenced it to Magnus and Merle when the three of you were in Lucas Miller’s lab. While it was still true you had a childhood lullaby to recite to yourself, it was more personal than the words you uttered in surprise at the sight of Killian and Carey demolishing the robots in the sealed room. Honestly, it was the first excuse you could come up.

When you started dating Kravitz, that was when things felt...different. He actually truly felt like someone you could trust this relic from your past with. It was just about finding the right opportunity to share it with him.

It came not long after the day of Story and Song. He was visiting one evening and he was the most stressed you had ever seen him, continuously shifting in and out of his reaper form.

“Krav-” You grabbed him by the wrists in the middle of his frantic pacing. “Krav, babe, sit down for a sec. Collect yourself.”

Kravitz sat down, perplexed, but shifted back out of his reaper form.

“I know you’re really stressed out right now, and I just had an idea. Just take a breather, babe, and leave it to me.”

He did as you told him, folding his hands in his lap and looking at you with a perplexed expression.

You took a deep breath of your own, since you were attempting to banish the butterfly sensation in your stomach. You didn’t consider yourself that good of a singer; that honor definitely went to Lup, but you had to try.

You began to sing.

It was shaky and uncertain at first, but you gained more confidence as you went on. You closed your eyes about halfway through, lost in the old melody and baffled you were able to reconjure the magic with your own voice.

When you finished, you heard a light gasp and opened your eyes to see Kravitz’s eyes swimming with tears.

“Shit...I made it worse, didn’t I?”

Kravitz shook his head, moving out of his seat to throw his arms around you. His embrace was warm.

“Taako...that was beautiful! That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard!” He pulled away and you saw the smile on his face. Pure, unbounded joy. “I could barely understand what you were singing about but it was absolutely amazing.”

You felt your cheeks become hot. “It’s...an old lullaby my mother sang when I was little. Apparently the dialect of Elvish is ancient or something, and the song is cheesy as hell when you translate it to common.”

“I loved it, Taako. Thank you so much.”

All you could do at that moment was smile back. Knowing you had made his worries melt away with that old song was the most wonderful feeling in the world. Maybe this was how Lup felt when Barry was soothed from his panic attacks, or even how your own mother felt a long time ago singing her babies to sleep.

Or, perhaps, this was a special feeling just for you.

♫ Rest, my precious star Let your worries fade away Like the sun at the end of day Let your courage return Let your strength renew To aid you in new ways

Even the sun must rest For the moon to play its part The world is strange Under ivory light Compared to the sun And its golden rays

When you wake, my star You will be ready then To face your fears head on But now, you rest So you may rise To greet the dawn ♫

#leopard does the author thing #the adventure zone #taz balance #taz spoilers #taz fic #taako #lup #barry bluejeans #kravitz #taakitz #blupjeans

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thereisnoyellinginfantasycostco · 7 years ago

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“All That Lives Must Die” Part 5

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]

The night following alerting the two Bird’s about an issue was tense. Taako had prepared them a dinner. Kravitz merely stared after him dreamily from the kitchen table, flicking the end of his undone tie over two fingers. Completely tone deaf to the mood of the room.

Magnus and Angus shared looks, and sat down on the opposite end of the table (as far as they could without seeming rude or conspiritory) and watched Taako and Kravitz with careful eyes. Their napkins were already on their laps and their plates were cleared for the main meal.

Angus watched him cook, making careful notes of what he was putting in (he had a brief thought, of a happenstance years ago, of a dash of nightshade in his food and forty cadavers). He had to tamp down on a shudder, tamp down on the fear of the possibility that he might die at his own father’s hands. (He expected to die at his father’s hands, but not these father’s, neither of these father’s, not like this.)

Magnus was absorbed with focusing on Kravitz, every so often waving his hand in front of his face to see if he reacted. He never did, merely kept staring at his husband with paled out purple eyes the color of his husband’s magic. Glancing out of the corner of his eye, Magnus raised his eyebrow at Angus, but it went unnoticed.

It was more tense minutes before the dinner (steak, spiced and cooked to perfection as always) was set in front of them. “All done, sorry for the wait.”

“Oh it wasn’t any bother.” Kravitz smiled and pulled his chair out for him, “Come on, sit down with us.” When his husband sat down, he leaned into him, kissing at his neck.

Taako flashed Magnus a grin (those teeth could be seen sharper than they were hours ago), and carefully pushed Kravitz away from his neck, “Later dearest, eat my dinner I’ve so lovingly prepared for you.”

Kravitz sank back into his chair and nodded, “Okay.” Before carefully taking the steak knife and portioning out the meal to the four of them.

Angus and Magnus didn’t touch their food, waiting for Taako and Kravitz to eat it.

“What? Do you really think I’d poison you?” Taako’s voice was light, but all Angus could think about the underlying threat: Do you really think I’d be so obvious? But still, he proved his point and cut a piece off of his meat to eat it, “See? All safe.”

“No, dad, of course not.” Angus smiled as realistically he could be before he himself cut off a piece of the steak, “Delicious as always, sir!”

Magnus cut a piece of his steak off, and ate it, “Yeah, fantastic Taako.”

“Well, I was a world famous chef after all.” Taako was never modest, even before this.

“Right...not like you ever let us forget about it.” Magnus chuckled.

Taako didn’t. His smile tightened at the corners, “Let’s...eat our dinner before it gets cold, okay?”

At the sheer awkwardness, Angus couldn’t stifle the snort that exited his mouth. Stuffing another piece of steak in his mouth to muffle it, he gently kicked Magnus’s shin under the table.

The mood never recovered, and they spent the rest of dinner in silence (only interrupted by the sound of metal scraping against ceramic). A flick of his wand and Taako got the dishes doing themselves as he gently tugged on Kravitz’s tie.

“Another fabulous dinner, courtesy of me.” Taako focused his gaze on Kravitz, “You two can entertain yourselves, I trust. I’m going to retire, come on Kravitz.” Giving his husband no real option, he slowly led him to the bedroom. The door slammed shut, and the click the lock made was audible.

“Merle better get here soon.” Magnus said, voicing what both of them were thinking.

Merle was the first to arrive (Angus didn’t find that surprising, Lucretia was very important), a day after he was called. Magnus and him were talking in his room as they saw that a wind picked up and the flowers seemed to brighten up, “Merle.”

Sadly, Angus and Magnus couldn’t get to him before he rang the door. His familiar gruff voice calling out, “Taako, Reaper man! Open it, your favorite cleric is here!”

Magnus huffed and stood up, “Cleric, as if he ever fucking did anything cleric-like.”

Angus chuckled and stood up, “Let’s see if we can get to him before Taako and Krav, I wanna explain-” His words cut off as he heard his dad’s door open.

“Kravitz?” Taako was barely masking the steel in his tone, “I know you didn’t expect Magnus, but did you not tell me about Merle coming to visit.”

“Of course not.” Kravitz reply was immediate.

Angus opened the door and motioned for Magnus to follow him, and Magnus in turn motioned for Johann to stay. They made their way into the living room and saw Taako and Kravitz.

Kravitz’s pupils had disappeared, instead becoming purple like his iris. His shirt was rumpled as ever and he was leaning into Taako with his arm wrapped around his waist.

Taako’s tendrils had dragged themselves further over his face, staining his lips dark purple and curling around his right eye. “Then let’s say hello to yet...another uninvited guest.” He left Kravitz alone (Krav stayed where he was left and merely smiled passively after his husband), and opened the door, “Hello, Merle.” There was a new sharpness to his smile, even though his teeth hadn’t changed.

Merle, for all his worth, recovered better than Magnus did, considering he had no warning. “Oh...well I’m so sorry if I showed up without your permission, your highness. Besides, I heard Magnus was in town and figured I’d reunite the Tres Horny Boys.”

“The wh-” Taako’s face betrayed his confusion, before recovering, “Right...right. Tres Horny Boys! Back at it again!” A cheery smile near split Taako’s face and he grabbed Merle, nails digging into his shoulder just like he did to Magnus. “I hope you won’t mind either sleeping on the couch or sharing a room with Magnus.”

“Please, we were all sharing a room on the moon base, I think I can handle sharing a room with the big lug for one or two nights.”

“Well.” Angus noticed how Taako’s grip and his smile tightened, “Please feel free to stay as long as you want. I mean, really Merle,” Purple smoke curled around his fingers and Angus could see Merle’s hands tighten into fists as he resisted the charm. “You’re more than just a friend, you’re family.”

“Right...thanks for that, buddy.” Merle brushed Taako’s hand off and moved to where Angus and Magnus were standing. Craning his neck up to look Magnus in the face, Merle scowled, “I think we need to catch up.”

“Yeah, we do.” Magnus clapped Merle on the back, pushing him forward as they walked him into Angus’s room (where they had set up a sort of base). Shutting the door behind him, Magnus gestured for Angus to cast silence.

A flick of his wand and Angus collapsed into his chair, allowing his tiredness to show on his face, “Well, I’m sure you can see, sir, but something’s wrong with Taako.”

“Yeah, I’d fuckin’ say so.” Merle hopped onto Angus’s bed, “What happened to him.”

Angus sighed and ran his hand through his hair, “Well, it happened two days ago, when Aunt Lup came holding Taako’s dead body and-”

“Hold up!” Merle held his hand up to stop Angus in his verbal tracks, “He died?”

“Yes he died, please do not interrupt me sir. There’s a lot of information and I don’t think that we have an infinite amount of time for me to tell you every single detail.” He figeted in his chair, chewing on his bottom lip, “So as I was saying, sirs, Aunt Lup came to our home holding dad’s dead-”

“-You call Taako dad?”

“Merle! What did Ango just say?” Magnus looked over his shoulder at the door, as if he was expecting Taako to bust in.

“Right, sorry, continue.”

“Aunt Lup came home, Taako’s dead, and she begs Kravitz to bring him back. Kravitz...dad...he went to the Astral Plane and brought Taako’s soul back, but I think something’s wrong with it. I mean, sir you can see his face. The tendrils and the goop,” Angus broke off, shivering and twisting his hands together.

Magnus sighed and set a hand on Angus’s shoulder, “And you and I both saw Kravitz. Something’s definitely up. Ango here figured out that it was Charm Person that was affecting him, which explains his weird eyes.”

“It also explains the feeling that I got when he put his hand on my shoulder. Knew he was trying to do something bad to me.” Merle scowled and tugged at his beard, “Charm person, huh? Ain’t that a thing you can resist.”

“Of course you can, sir!” Angus spoke up, patting the hand on his shoulder with one of his smaller ones, “He hasn’t tried to charm me, but he tried the same thing with Magnus and well-” He gestured to the obviously non charmed Burnsides.

Magnus, in turn, gestured at his necklace, “Gift from Lucretia.”

“Yeah, you always did suck as Wisdom saves, haven’t ya?” Merle laughed (one of the only ones to be echoed in this house since Taako’s change), “Do you have any theories about what could be wrong with Taako?”

“None, sir. I haven’t learned Detect Magic yet, I was supposed to in a few months. So we called up you and Madam Direct- I mean Miss Lucretia to help us.” Angus fiddled with his tie, “Please, try to see what’s wrong with him.”

Merle sighed, letting his eyes slip shut, “Alright, kid, I’ll try my best.”

“Thank you.” Angus opened his mouth as if he was going to say more, but was interrupted by another ring of the door bell.

[Part 6]

#taakitz #taako taaco #taz #taz fic #kravitz #taz kravitz #magnus burnsides #taz magnus #angus mcdonald #merle highchurch #taz merle

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waitineedaname · 7 years ago

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Parties and Pretty People

it’s a fuckin miracle I got this posted today. I wanted to do every day for @taakitzweek but this was the only one I managed to finish bc uhhhhhh life is chaos

Modern AU + “Pretend I didn’t just say do that.”

also on ao3

Are you sure I won’t be imposing?

(Barry)

Yeah, don’t worry about it. Everyone’s happy to meet you.

I sure hope you haven’t exaggerated any of your college stories.

Should I bring food?

(Barry)

Definitely not

Lup and her brother are cooking, whatever you bring would just end up in the trash

Just come to hang out, don’t stress yourself out

Kravitz sighed down at his phone, buttoning up his shirt. He hadn’t seen Barry since college, but work had brought him to the area, so he’d asked if he wanted to meet up sometime and catch up. When Barry invited him over for dinner, he’d imagined they’d be going out to some local restaurant or at least just a small dinner at his house, possibly with his fiancee. He didn’t realize until he’d arrived in town that he was in fact invited over to a large family dinner, featuring Barry’s extensive family of in-laws.

Not that Kravitz was unhappy to meet them, but… he wasn’t sure what to prepare himself for.

Barry’s house was small and welcoming, and it sounded like it was already bursting at the seams just from outside the door. Kravitz rang the bell and someone’s deep voice yelled “Door!”, followed by a peal of giggles and the continued sounds of conversation. Kravitz sent out a brief prayer that whoever answered the door wasn’t a complete stranger, and he let out a sigh of relief when the door pulled open to reveal Barry’s familiar face.

“Hey, you made it!” Barry stepped aside and let him in. “Find your way okay?”

“Yeah, my hotel’s not too far away. You have a lovely home, Barry.” Kravitz smiled, trying not to reveal his anxiety.

“Thanks, I’ll let Lup know you said that.” Barry grinned and took his coat from him, putting it up beside the door. “C’mon, everyone’s in the kitchen.”

The volume increased as they went down the hall until they walked into the kitchen and it reached its zenith. Crowded in the warm kitchen was a group of all shapes, sizes, and colors, all chatting happily. A few noticed their entrance and gave him a warm greeting.

“Kravitz, this is Magnus, Lup’s adopted brother,” A burly man with sideburns shook his hand eagerly, “These’re Merle and Davenport, their dads,” An older dwarf and gnome gave him a friendly nod, “That’s Lucretia, she’s Magnus’s cousin,” A young woman with white hair waved from where she was leaning against the counter, “And these are the twins, Lup and Taako.”

Kravitz’s attention was finally drawn to the two elves bickering at the stovetop. They were a whirlwind of action; he could barely see what they were doing, but whatever it was, it smelled delicious. They were so busy that they didn’t seem to notice him initially, but after a moment, one of them glanced back and gave him a bright smile.

“Hey! Kravitz, right? Bar’s told me a lot about you.” That must be Lup, then, and beside her-

Kravitz liked to think he wasn’t one to be too dramatic, but holy shit, when that elf looked up, his heart stopped. He’d never seen someone so stunning, from the way the loose pieces of his brade curved around his ears to the highlight on his cheekbones to the warmness of his skin. If Kravitz didn’t know any better, he’d say the man’s eyes had widened slightly when he saw him too, but the surprise was morphed into a smirk so quickly that he could have imagined it.

“Sup, Krav. We were beginning to think Barold made you up.”

“That was one time.” Barry complained, and both twins snickered. Lup leaned over to give Barry a peck on the cheek, but Taako was still staring Kravitz down, an odd look his eyes.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Kravitz asked, feeling awkward just standing there. Taako looked like he was about to answer, but Lup shooed him away before he could.

“We’ve got this, you catch up. Babe, get him a beer or wine or something.”

Kravitz was absorbed into the rest of the group with a wine glass in hand before he knew what had happened. Magnus dragged him into his conversation with friendly enthusiasm and it wasn’t long before Kravitz’s worries of it being an awkward night were assuaged. They were a weird group, but they had a way of making someone feel comfortable and at home. Plus, having a plethora of stories about the embarrassing things Barry did in college certainly helped.

Their conversation only paused when the twins announced that dinner was ready and they were ushered into the living room with plates of delicious smelling food, and then the chatter picked back up again, only interrupted by pauses to take a bite.

Kravitz was in the middle of a passionate discussion with Davenport on the opera he was conducting for during his visit when he took his first bite of the food. The pleased moan that spilled out of his mouth as soon as the meal touched his tongue was completely unintentional and way louder than he wanted, and Kravitz froze, catching Taako’s eyes on him.

“Um.” He swallowed. “Pretend I didn’t just do that.”

“Oh no, homie.” Taako grinned, delight sparkling dangerously in his eyes. “I’m ingraining that into my memory forever. How would you describe that noise? Would you say it was orgasmic?”

From below him, he heard Davenport mutter “I can’t listen to this” and walk away, but Kravitz was too focused on hoping his blush wasn’t too obvious. “I wouldn’t go that far. It’s just very good food.”

“If that’s the noise you make when eating lasagna, I can’t wait to hear what it sounds like when you try the cookies we’re making later.” Taako winked.

“I think I might have to pass, don’t wanna hit my embarrassment quota too early in the night.”

“Oh, trust me. Your sex noises aren’t going to be the worst thing that happens tonight. Merle’s only a couple gins in and Lup forgot to clear out all the potted plants.”

“...Should I ask what that means?”

“You don’t wanna know.” Taako waved him off. “So you’re a conductor, huh? Gotta say, I dunno how someone so hot, goth, and musical ended up being buds with the denim science nerd over there.”

Kravitz laughed softly, not sure how to address the compliment. “We had some mutual friends. He’s musical too, you know.”

“Shut up and let me compliment you.” Taako stepped imperceptibly closer, now ever so slightly closer than the normal conversational distance.

“Your compliments sound awfully close to teases.” Kravitz said, not stepping away. If that’s where Taako was gonna take this, Kravitz wasn’t going to complain.

“I’m not gonna ruin my image just to woo a hot boy.” Taako speared some of Kravitz’s side salad and stared him dead in the eyes as he slowly put it into his mouth, as if daring Kravitz to stop him. Kravitz struggled not to laugh.

“Right. I’m new here, what’s that image supposed to be?”

“Oh, y’know.” Taako flipped his braid over his shoulder and gave him exaggerated bedroom eyes. “Gorgeous elf chef that’s too good for you.”

“I see.” Kravitz decided to lean into the flirty air Taako was giving him and reached over to tuck a loose curl behind Taako’s ear. It took all his willpower to not look smug when Taako’s eyes widened imperceptibly. “Well, you’ve definitely got the gorgeous part down.”

“Y-Yeah.” Taako quickly cleared his throat. “Hell yeah, I do. This is Taako’s natural state, baby.”

“You spent an hour doing your makeup, Ko.” Lup suddenly appeared next to them, and they both jumped slightly. She smirked and took a bite out of her baby carrot. “Leave some space for Pan, alright? This is a family event.” Kravitz took a half step back, and Taako did the same, both of them realizing they’d slowly been getting close enough to touch.

“I didn’t hear anything about a family event when you and Barold were making out in the corner earlier.” Taako snapped back, recovering awfully quickly.

Lup just shrugged as if to say ‘guilty as charged.’ “I’m gonna go get the cookies started. You wanna come tell me your bullshit argument about why walnuts shouldn’t be in a dessert?”

“Desserts are supposed to be sweet, nuts have no fucking place in a cookie!”

“Sure. I mean, you’re wrong, but sure.” Lup grinned, already walking towards the kitchen. Taako huffed and stormed after her, but not before giving Kravitz’s arm a brief squeeze.

By the time the two had returned, Fantasy Cards Against Humanity had been pulled out and the living room was filled with groans of disgust as Merle won yet another round. Taako plopped himself down directly in Kravitz’s eyeline, the spot next to him on the couch already filled by Lucretia - who had won far more rounds than Kravitz expected for such a quiet woman. It was hard to focus on the game with Taako giving him bedroom eyes the whole time, but Kravitz managed.

The Card Czar title made its way to him, and he pulled a card. “What never fails to liven up the party?”

Barry grimaced from where he was leaning against Lup. “If any of you assholes actually liven up the party with these, I’m kicking you out.”

“No promises.” Taako sang, putting his card down confidently and staring Kravitz down with a smirk. Kravitz quirked an eyebrow back at him and collected the white cards.

The responses ranged from nonsensical (“I didn’t have any good cards left!” said Magnus) to horrifyingly sexual (“Merle fuckin’ Highchurch, if that was you, I’m revoking all of your card game privileges”). Nothing stuck out that much, until:

“Tentacle porn?” Kravitz glanced around the room and saw Taako sit back on his elbows. “What kind of parties are you going to?”

“Hopefully one that you’re at, tiger.” Taako winked and the room erupted into disgusted shouts. Lup kicked at his legs, and Taako burst into cackles. Kravitz had to bury his face in his hands to hide his giggles, which only delighted Taako further. Laughing helplessly, he slid the black card across to Taako, who whooped. “Suck on that!”

“Maybe later.” Kravitz said with a wink, doing his best to hold himself together.

“Ohhh!” Magnus shouted, shoving Taako and laughing raucously when Taako suddenly looked embarrassed, like he hadn’t expected the flirt to get thrown back at him.

The game grew steadily more flirtatious from then on, both Taako and Kravitz trying to outdo each other while simultaneously grossing out the rest of the room. Any other time, Kravitz would be embarrassed, but their teases only goaded him on. He only laid off when Taako had to get up to pull the cookies out of the oven, and that ended up digging him into an even deeper hole; he tried not to moan again, but the way his eyes rolled back when he took a bite certainly didn’t help his case.

It was past midnight way sooner than he would have liked, and he hated to leave, but the logical side of him told him he had to be up at a reasonable hour. He was here on a work trip, after all. So, he said his goodbyes, told Barry he’d text him more, got a hug from Magnus, and started to leave.

“Wait! I’ll walk you to the door!” Taako hopped to his feet, at his side in an instant.

“But it’s just- Oh, I see.” Kravitz grinned and let Taako take him by the arm and lead him down the hall. They lingered at the door and Taako shifted his weight back and forth.

“So,” Taako said airily, “This is where I’d say ‘hey, wanna go to the opera tomorrow’, but I’m pretty sure you’re gonna already be there.”

“Chances are high.” Kravitz smiled, liking where this was going.

“Natch. But I was thinking, maybe you’d wanna… Grab dinner afterwards? There’s a fancy restaurant like a block away and you can listen to me talk about how I’d make their dishes better.” Taako glanced at him hopefully and immediately started backtracking. “Totally chill if you say no, though, no skin off my nose-”

“Taako.” Kravitz cut him off. “I’d love to.”

“Oh. Hell yeah. Course you do, I’m a fuckin’ catch.” Taako grinned, relief obvious on his face.

“You wanna give me your number? That way I can let you know when I’m done after the show.” He said, already pulling his phone out of his pocket. Taako put his number in his contacts with more eagerness than he would probably admit, and the purple heart he put after his name definitely didn’t escape Kravitz. And then he had his phone back and they were left standing there again, neither of them wanting to step away.

“So… I guess I should let you go, huh?”

“I guess so.” They still lingered at the door. Kravitz hesitated, then went for it, diving in to kiss Taako’s cheek. Taako stared at him, dumbstruck, as Kravitz opened the door and stepped outside. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Taako.”

“Y-Yeah. Sure thing, my man.”

Kravitz had never been more excited to finish an opera in his life.

#taako #kravitz #tazb #taakitz #taakitzweek #barry bluejeans #lup #davenport #magnus burnsides #kat don’t look #my writing #okay to reblog #everyone else is there too but i only tagged the ones who had a speaking role #background blupjeans bc i'm a blupjeans mess

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miamaroo · 7 years ago

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Northern Migration Chapter 15 (Notes + Preview)

We’re finally inside Wonderland, so you know what that means! I hope everyone is ready and geared up for what is ultimately going to be a very strange version of everyone’s most painful taz arc. Like always, these notes are going to contain spoilers for the new chapter, so make sure to read that first before giving this a read. You have been warned.

Spoilers Ahead!

I think that given the fact that both Taako and Lucretia were wandering Faerun at the same time in search of the same person, it would be a little strange if they didn’t run into each other at some point. I think this scene kind of highlights one of the things I find to be the most interesting part of Taako—how little of a grasp he has on his own emotions. He seems like someone who is guided by really strong feelings, but he doesn’t want to be so he has to twist his logic around to make it seem like he’s in the right. He sort of knows deep down at his anger towards his family has reached irrationality, but it’s easier on himself to just believe that he still has a reason to be upset. This is probably a bonkers interpretation of his character, but it’s a tad too late for me to back out on it now.

Ren doesn’t remember meeting Lucretia because, honestly, it was a long time ago. She hasn’t really put two and two together yet.

Sorry for all the sudden scene changes throughout this chapter. If I wrote out everything in detail like I usually do, we wouldn’t have gotten to Wonderland this chapter.

Carey isn’t gone! We’ll come back to her!

I am legally obligated to have a Magnus and Julia scene every arc where they’re just being a good couple.

FYI, Davenport got a new wand off screen. I was supposed to have mentioned Magnus and Stevie picking up a new wand for him when they were shopping a few chapters back and I forgot like the damn fool I am.

Fun fact, originally they were going to meet up with Killian, Avi, and Ren outside of Wonderland via realizing that they were being followed. I cut this out for logistical reasons, but there was going to be a gag where everyone got a billboard with their chosen reward on it. Ren’s was going to be an image of one of the Wonderland elves holding a finger over their lips that says “you know” (like the Griffin meme) in order to imply that Taako’s life could be won back. I’m sad that this joke was cut, but ultimately the chapter works better this way.

Okay, this is going to be a whole can of worms. But let’s talk about the actual changes to the Wonderland formula I had to make. As we know, I try not to do a retelling of the podcast. I think it’s both boring to read and impossible with how many changes I’ve already made. So I felt like I couldn’t do Monster Factory again. This time around, our heroes haven’t had forty odd episodes of hunting down monsters. Having a tournament where they can go up against characters that we already know the motivations and abilities of works better thematically. And, honestly, the added drama of that is going to work better in print than a straight up DND fight will. Luckily, in canon we know that the trials of Wonderland changes based upon who’s competing so I hope that this at least isn’t coming out of nowhere.

Trust and Forsake was also met with an unfortunate cut from the story. I tried making it work here, but the fact that it wouldn’t be anonymous really detracted from its effectiveness. It ended up just making the whole process feel bloated. Hopefully, the tournament style will make up for the lost drama.

Also I will mention now that I’m going to do my best to keep the whole tournament MBMBAM themed.

And, finally, we’re at the wheel spins for Killian, Avi, and Ren. As mentioned in the chapter, Avi took one of Ren’s spins because he didn’t want her to lose any more than she already has. So he got hand and brain which means he lost his left thumb (which will really hurt his ability to do his engineering work) and the knowledge of why he wanted to try to become a member of the militia in the first place. We haven’t really covered much about that yet in his backstory, but just know that he did some things he regrets in order to make it as far as he did in the process. Killian, meanwhile, landed on eye. She sacrificed her ability to see color.

One final note: yes, the spins are going to be a lot meaner than they were in the show. This was still a fairly nice round, though I did try to raise the gravity of it by having Edward not give glasses to Davenport and having Lydia take Avi’s thumb (which is a very important finger). It will get worse, trust me.

And that’s that. That was a whole heck of a lot to go over. Wow. Anyways, here’s your preview for the next chapter. Until next time!

Music that rattles the space between their bones pulses through the air, matching the flashing neon lights as the crowd roars their enthusiasm. Lucretia still tries to yank her feet out of the metal binding her to the ground as Davenport keeps a wary eye between where the Wonderland elves lounge on their thrones to where their enemy team stands in a similar state of frantic confusion.

Julia has her shield in one hand and her sword in another, taking a step back so that she can hear over the music. “Guys, what do I do?” she asks. “This is sadistic.”

“I don’t think they’re going to attack us yet,” Davenport says.

“I can’t get this to…” Lucretia groans and pulls out her wand, muttering angry words under her breath as she fires a spell. The blue sparks of her magic zip over the metal before crackling, turning black as it ricochet’s up her leg. She yelps, dropping her wand as she tendons go rigid.

“Careful.” Julia scoops the wand off the ground and hands it back to her, smoothing her hand over Lucretia’s cheek and shoulder. “Istus all mighty—are you alright?”

“Yes. Thank you.” She winces, squirming as she continues to try to free her legs. “Damn it. That was supposed to be an unlocking spell.”

Up on the elevated dais. Edward throws a lazy head back as he holds up a goblet of wine. “Dear Lydia,” he says. “This is getting a bit boring. I don’t think either team is taking this game too seriously.”

Lydia hums. A wicked grin curls through her lips. “I think it’s time we raise the stakes a bit.” She rises from her throne, coming to the edge of the dais so that the spotlight can shine on her. “For this game, we’re going to need some volunteers from the audience.”

From the audience encircling the arena, beams of light arc through the air—about half a hundred. They strike the ground like meteors, bluish smoke wafting into the air as humanoid figures rise from the wreckage. “A quick rule change—now we’re going to have some new participants playing alongside you guys. If any of them hit either button, then you both will lose and face the penalty.” She flicks her half curtain of hair. “I suggest you protect your button very carefully.”

#the adventure zone #taz balance #taz taako #the suffering game #magnus burnsides #Davenport #taz lucretia #julia burnsides #taz fanfic #taz fanfiction #updates #notes #taz nm #taz northern migration

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fernpost · 4 years ago

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Cycle 7 - Light-year

[link to ao3]

[first] - [previous] - [next]

To say Magnus was bored would be a massive understatement. The only reason he was here was to hang out with the rat they found.

It was really cute with it’s little nose and whiskers and squeaking.

Point was, Magnus loved Barry. However, he didn’t trust him not to necromancy the rat (which Merle had named Templeton, and it wasn’t Magnus’s choice, but he lost the stick pull. He maintains that Merle cheated, but he can’t prove it.)

So Mangus was holding Templeton, while Barry muttered under his breath at the rat, and Lup and Taako sat together pitching in whenever Barry spoke up enough to be heard.

“So we still don’t know how each cycle actually resets us back to our positions and bodies, and I think-” Barry straightened, walking back over to his notes and looking around.

Lup held out her free hand (other clasped with Taako’s), handing Barry a paper Magnus assumed he was looking for.

Taako butts in, “are we really going with ‘cycle’?”

“What?” Barry asks, squinting over at him.

“I’m with Taako,” Magnus speaks up, rubbing his finger delicately on Templeton's head. “Cycle is a little boring. Why not… uh, light-year. We’ve been doing this for seven light-years.”

Lup chuckles. “Light-year? That’s already a thing, Mags.”

“Better than cycle!”

“I’m with Barry,” she begins, and Magnus mutters to Templeton that of course she does. She continues, a flick of her ears saying she may have heard him. “Cycle makes sense. Each plane’s year is a little different in length so ‘year’ isn’t fully accurate. ‘Cycle’ implies repetition, and fits nicely. It’s short and simple.”

“But light-year! We’re looking for the Light and we have a year.” Magnus is now going to die on this hill. “Taako! Side with me.”

The elf just shakes his head, leaning onto Lup, “Sorry. Gotta side with Lup. It’s the rule of being twins.”

“Boo.”

Barry looks up from the paper he’d begun scribbling on, “so can we continue doing actual work? I want to figure out why Templeton stayed with us and the people from cycle two didn’t.”

Magnus does, of course, mumble “light-year” as Barry uses his boring and bland word. He also does not contribute to the conversation. All he knows is he gets tingly and ends up near the railing of the ship with a black eye.

“Can we assume it’s the Light’s doing that set our ‘base state?’ And not something from the Hunger?” Lup sits up, leaning towards a paper just barely out of her reach from her seat on the table next to Taako. Magnus watches as Barry, without even looking up from his own notes, picks up and hands the paper to Lup.

Now, Magnus is not a romance expert. He’s sought it out few and far between in his life, and even then, the other person had to really bluntly tell him they were interested. He’s not the best at romantic social cues. But whatever weird flirting and crush thing Lup and Barry have going on is so, so obvious.

Magnus places Templeton in the large enclosure they set him up in, watching him run around as he decides he doesn’t want to talk science. “So you guys like how we called it the Hunger, but light-year is too on the nose?”

Barry finally looks up from his notes, glaring forcefully at him, “we are not starting that back up again. I can’t deal with it again.”

A broad smile stretches across his face. “Oh, but I can.”

#magnus burnsides #barry bluejeans #taz balance #the stolen century #taako #lup #my works

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jelloopy · 5 years ago

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The Forgotten Bird

What if our favorite Plane Jumping Embezzling Janitor was more than just that?

Here’s my crazy long one shot of Clint McElroy being the Forgotten 8th member of the IPRE Crew. Be warned it is 8.2k.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No one really knows who Clint McElroy is.

He seemingly popped up out of nowhere one day and continues to show up at random times and places. Little did the IPRE gang know that Clint was also on that mission with them. He was with them every cycle, every attack from the Hunger. He just disappeared after 48 long years when he learned about the Voidfish.

Like the others, he was chosen for the simple 2-month excursion into space to explore the outer reaches of the planar system to potentially see what lies beyond it. He shadowed under Davenport in the year after finding the Light of creation. Helping him figure out how bonds work and assisting him with any sort of research. He met Barry while he worked at the institute as well. Never got to know him too well but worked alongside him in a few research projects. On the Mission, he was “Lieutenant”, second in command under Davenport.

He knew the mission was risky but his family supported what he did and urged him to go. So he waved his goodbyes from the hull of the Starblaster and went to his room as they took off. He is thankful most days that he didn’t see the attack as they exited the atmosphere. The last thing he saw of his homeworld was his family’s smiling faces and that’s all he needed. So when they reentered the atmosphere only to see a planet that wasn’t their own he didn’t know how to feel.

When Magnus died at the end of the first cycle as they retreated from the Hunger and he was so afraid of what that meant. Just as the sinking feeling of losing a member of his crew began to set in they all were repositioned. Magnus was back. Clint was in his room on the ship. Everyone was still in their Red Cloaks from the first departure. How was this possible? No one knew. But as the next few years went by they fell into that routine of trying to find the light before the Hunger could.

Some years they found it before the Hunger others took months and the Hunger had already spotted it. But every year within the first 2 weeks the sky would be filled with eyes for just a second. Those eyes, filled with fear, hunger, and hatred, burned into the crew. At that moment the clock started to tick. They had one year. In one year’s time, the Hunger would fill the sky and decimate the planet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

47 years they had been doing this. 47. This cycle was fun though. They were at a place called the Legato Conservatory. The locals said that the light of creation was in the mountain. So to follow their tradition on the planet the crew decided they could spend some time mastering certain arts to appease the mountain in order to get the light. They could have some fun. So everyone got to work. Magnus worked on carpentry, Merle danced, Taako gave motivational speeches, Davenport sang, Barry played piano, Lup played the violin, and Lucretia and Clint took painting lessons.

The year passed and they all submitted their works with pride. There was a moment with Barry and Lup that Clint saw growing over time and was ecstatic to see it coming to fruition. Everyone’s submissions were accepted and yet there was no Light of Creation. This made everyone in the crew on edge. Later that night Clint saw Magnus go for a jog probably from the nerves.

However, the next night after the crew submitted their pieces Clint went to investigate the cave himself. When he peered into was greeted by a weird sort of jellyfish. The creature somehow gestured in a way as if to say “follow me” to him. So he did and it lead him into the cave. Looking around he notices a bunch of other creatures like the one he was following that start to float towards him. They are larger than the one he is following but stop short and float away as the smaller one in front of him hums and glows as if saying ‘he’s cool, he’s with me’.

As they make their way further into the cave he spots another smaller creature with the duck that Magnus submitted in its tendrils and chuckles. Finally, they reach a back corner of the cave and Clint understands why the jellyfish brought him here, the painting he submitted leaned against the wall. He smiles as he approaches it.

The painting pictures a park from their home planet. Three boys are playing around in the sunlight, laughing. The smallest one in a blue shirt chasing what seems to be his older brother in a green shirt grinning ear to ear the whole way with joy in their faces. The last one who looks to be the oldest in a red shirt is hiding behind a big tree watching the other boys chase each other. Sitting in the foreground on a blanket leaning against one another is a man and a woman watching the whole scene take place.

“That’s my family. My wife ‘n I, then my three boys running around,” he says.

The creature hums softly. And floats closer to the painting touching a tendril to the man in the frame.

“Yep, that’s me alright,” Clint assures. The tendril moves over to the woman.

“That’s my wife Leslie. An absolute wonder of a woman. Always supported me. Took care of the boys. Never failed at bringing a smile to my face,” Clint tells the creature. Some tears start to well up in his eyes as he talks, smiling the whole time. The creature hummed a soft tone and glowed blue for a moment, brushing up next to Clint. It then pointed towards the Boy behind the tree.

“That’s my oldest Juice. His real name is Justin but when he was like 10 he had an obsession with drinking juice for a while so it just stuck. He’s such a good kid, always lights up a room when he enters, crazy funny too,” He explains, now sitting on a rock next to the painting. A few tears have begun to fall. The creature now points at the boy being chased in green.

“Ahh, Travis. He’s very passionate. Horribly afraid of spiders though. Insanely funny too. He and Juice butt heads some times but that’s what brothers do am I right?” He wipes a tear from his cheek as he chuckles. The creature finally points at the smallest boy in blue.

“Now that’s baby Griffin. Spoiled Lil shit he is. Never will not bring up the fact that he has his “own birthday”. See Justin and Travis both share a birthday but they were born 3 years apart oddly enough. But Griffin got his own. He’s a little ball of energy. Used to help me out with stuff for the Institute before the Mission.” Clint can only smile looking at the painting now. He wipes a few final tears from his eyes and stands up.

“Thank you for bringing me here to see this.” he turns to the creature, “I was hoping I’d see it again. Before we left this world.” He begins to walk away when the creature grabs his wrist and seems to hug him. Clint is very confused but goes with it. The jellyfish hums and glows bright colors but eventually let’s go.

He visits again the next night but doesn’t tell the others about where he went the night before or tonight. This night as he is leaving he trips. He trips into the pool of water that most of the baby ‘voidfish’, as the crew wants to call them, are chilling out in. They all shine bright and hum a shrill note as they scatter away from him. He sits up in the pool wiping the hair from his eyes and spits out some water.

“Damn I knew I was old but not that old!” he chuckles, looking at his voidfish friend while getting up. The voidfish hums another tune and glows what he can discern as happy colors. He leaves the cave making sure to not trip next to the second pool of voidfish on the way out. He only goes back once in a while, especially after he sees Magnus with another voidfish a few nights later.

The last few days of the year go on by, the crew is searching for the Light of Creation still and everyone is on edge. He tries to keep the peace as much as he can.

However, about a week after his last visit to the cave he notices something weird while attending another submission ceremony. When the students offering was taken he still remembered the offering while everyone else forgot. Then when it was accepted and everyone remembered he still never forgot. He was very lost for a while and decided to attend a few more to test this. It wasn’t until a student’s submission was declined that he realized that he was in fact not under the effects of the voidfish. He tested it some more and asked Magnus if he could remember the submissions. When he got a very quizzical look from Magnus and an offer to take him to Merle to get his head checked out he also became very confused.

It wasn’t hanging out around the voidfish that made him immune to their effect. Magnus was proof of that. So he brought it up in conversation one night. He slipped the question into the conversation about whether Magnus had drunk any of the water from the pools in the cave. Magnus denied ever having done so to his memory and Clint had his answer. If you drank the water that a voidfish has been in the effects of the memory alterations is nullified! He didn’t know what to do with this information. It was all so fascinating.

He didn’t tell anyone. Not yet at least. He knew his crewmates and its not that he didn’t trust them it’s just that they could become very thoughtless and reckless at times and he didn’t know what they would do. Plus nothing would come of it since when they would leave this world the Voidfish wouldn’t even be in their grasp. He would just wait until the next year to tell anyone about it.

That was the plan until Magnus smuggled Fisher onto the Starblaster and didn’t disappear. That changed everything. Still, no one knew what Fisher was capable of anyway, besides wiping memories and sometimes giving them back.

Halfway through the next cycle, Clint hit a very grim point mentally. He was deeply depressed. He missed his wife and kids so much it pained him beyond belief that it had now been almost 50 years without them. Had they survived the Hunger’s attack? Was Leslie alright? How old were the boys now? Had they gone to College? So many questions he would never know the answer to. In this time no one really knew what to say or how to act. Clint was really the only one with any attachments back on their homeworld. Besides Davenport or Merle, everyone was really too young to have really set in stone a family. Davenport tried his best to comfort him, Taako made him his favorite meal one night in an attempt to cheer him up, Merle offered some medicinal options to help him out a tad, and Barry tried to offer his condolences but they fell on flat air.

To Clint, he was utterly alone at this moment. He had memories yes but he would never get to hold his wife again. He wouldn’t get to see his boys grow up.

In a spark of inspiration after seeing Fisher while walking about the ship, he realized what he could do by the next cycle. He could wipe everyone’s memories of him and just disappear every cycle. Being around the crew reminded him too much of what he left behind. Plus he would just respawn the next year on the ship if he died or not so what was the difference. He can live a little. Thankfully he was in his room when the ship left their homeworld so he didn’t have to worry about respawning in the same room as everyone else. That was the new plan.

He spent the rest of the year writing down every memory possible that he needed the crew to forget. He didn’t mind if he would run into them in the years to come because they wouldn’t know who he was. He could say “Hi” then disappear. When the last few days came around he was finally finished with the journal full of memories of himself.

Standing in front of Fisher’s tank he made sure he drank a little bit of the water just in case. He hesitated for a moment. Should he do this? It’s a drastic decision but if it was needed it could be reversed. He could just have a good few years and when he decided he could sneak some of Fishers water into the tap and bam they all remember him no big deal!

He did it. Right as the Hunger made its first appearance. He dropped the journal into the tank and waited.

No one called his name to make sure he was alright. So he waited. He would have to until they re-entered the atmosphere and landed when he could see if his plan actually worked. So that’s what he did.

Upon finally landing he ran from his room with a bag of personal belongings and jumped ship. He ran into the nearby woods but stayed close though, just to make sure it had worked. Merle was the first one to exit the ship and was alone, he decided it was time to test it out. He set his bag and cloak on a low nearby branch and walked out. He acted as a curious native to hopefully catch Merle’s attention. And it worked thank the gods. Merle called out to him,

“Hello, sir! Do you speak common?”

“Oh! Uh hello! Yes, I uh, speak… Common?” Clint replied acting startled by the dwarf, trying to seal the deal.

“Ah! Well, that’s great! I guess you’re wondering about our ship here! Do not worry we are just humble explorers!” Merle explained.

“Well, that’s nice. I suppose… I’ll be on my way now don’t want to disturb your eh… exploring. Nice to meet you though!” Clint said walking back into the woods away from the ship. He needed to get away quickly. Merle shouted a goodbye as they parted ways.

When Clint traveled far enough away he cheered with excitement. His plan had worked! They don’t remember him! He felt a pang of loneliness for a moment but shrugged it off in favor of finding shelter. He was free to live life as a tourist, a nobody.

Clint repeated this for the next 18 years. As soon as they would land he would jump ship as fast as possible and live his life whether it be in a new town or out in the woods. He would have his own adventures.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When they went into cycle 65 something extremely unexpected happened. The ship was attacked and they went down, hard. When Clint woke up he was thankfully on the ship and only had a few bumps and bruises. He was shaken from his hazy stupor when he heard Lucretia’s voice ring out through the ship calling for everyone. When no one answered Clint began to get worried along with Lucretia. He ran out and found her in front of her room with her own cuts and bruises. She saw him and backed away already preparing an offensive spell.

“Wait wait wait! Don’t attack! I’m not an enemy! I can help you!” he shouted holding his hands up. She eyed him up and down and dropped the spell for a moment.

“Don’t move. I swear to the gods I will magic missile your ass so fast if you do.” she threatened. Clint swallowed and nodded his head. He was with them for about 50 years he knew what she was capable of. She began to back away and call out for the rest of the crew while running around the ship. She came back into the hall minutes later extremely flustered. No one was with her and Clint hadn’t heard any responses from the others.

“Have you seen anyone else on this ship?” She demanded.

“N-no I swear.” He answered hands still up in the air. “I can help you through. You don’t know me but I know you and I can help.”

“What the hell does that mean how do you know me.” She faltered.

“It’s really hard to explain. I don’t know where everyone is but we obviously need to last the year until we can regenerate next cycle.” Clint offered.

“How do you know about the cycles… what is going on? Who the fuck are you?” She has tears in her eyes. Clint feels so much sorrow for her. She was only 16 coming on this mission. She’s too damn young to have been going through any of this. She reminds him of Travis though and he can’t just leave her stranded like this. He would have to just wipe her memory of him from this year when the Hunger comes around at the end of the year.

“Look we need to get this thing into the air and away from here I can explain more later but we need to not die for now.” he tries to compromise with her. She looks him up and down again and breaks.

“Fine let’s go but you better fucking explain what the hell is happening or you’re not going to like how you end up.” She starts to walk towards the helm of the ship. He follows in-suite and takes a moment to survey the situation before getting to work.

He is able to start the engines but is unable to get in the air. He takes a lap of the ship, making what repairs he can. The worst was the Bond engine at the stern of the ship. Though it could start up it there was no power going to the thrusters. He was able to fix it enough to get them in the air for a while and that’s all he needed. Someone obviously knew that the ship was here since the rest of the crew was missing. They needed to hide.

Lucretia watched in confusion as Clint bounced around the Starblaster working on the repairs. How the hell did he know how to fix the bond engine let alone anything about the ship at all? While he worked she cleaned up the helm and readied the ship for the ascent. They made it a good distance flying around the planet aimlessly until they were attacked again. He made quick repairs as they flew leaving the steering to Lucretia. She could at least aim away from the enemy. Obviously neither of them were as good as Davenport but they survived.

Once in a while, they would find a place to hide and make semi-proper repairs to the ship but as soon as they had any downtime they were back on the run from this relentless attacker.

In the short resting periods, that they did get, he tried to explain his situation as simply as he could to her. He took these times to write down their experiences as well, so he could wipe her memory in the new cycle.

He loved his team. He really did. But he was having a blast living his own life from the non-stop mission that had stolen his family away from him. He had time to cope without the concerned looks from his crewmates. Most likely he would do this for a few more years then let them remember everything and deal with their wrath then.

For now, he had to make sure Lucretia survived the year. It was drawing to a close and they were still on the run. He taught Lucretia everything he could about the ship in that time. So when the Hunger appeared in the sky he gave her the order to fly out of the atmosphere as he went to “check on the engine”. Really he ran to Fishers tank and dropped the small journal into it and waited.

When they re-entered the atmosphere he heard Lucretia’s cry of relief. They- She had done it. She survived on her own the entire year. The crew was so worried about her. She was more than just a mess at this point. She had to live an entire year on the run, ‘alone’ without anyone to help her with the ship.

Clint hid in the ship for the first day to figure out what the hell happened to everyone in that last cycle. He overheard them debriefing with Lucretia, saying that four giant statues killed them? They judged them on the sins they had committed? That’s insane. After he learned what happened he jumped ship and continued his lonesome adventures.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The end of cycle 82 threw him for a loop though. When the hunger appeared he saw a humanoid figure in a red cloak fly up into the air and destroy the first tendril from the Hunger. He couldn’t believe what he had just seen. But before he could even begin to process what had happened he respawned on the ship.

He grabbed his small go-bag and went to his normal spot where he jumps ship as soon as they land when he overhears a conversation in the helm. Davenport is yelling at Lup and Barry about something. He finally hears something about them becoming Liches when he has to jump because someone was walking down the hall near him.

When he found a place to settle down for a little while he tried to process what he heard. Barry and Lup became Liches? What does this mean for his disappearing act? How did the Voidfishes powers work with undead beings? I guess he will figure out when that comes to pass if ever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Something weird happened around cycle 90 though. He doesn’t stray too far from the ship this time and see’s Barry die within the first week. He makes sure to distance himself a little more just in case anything with memories pops up with Barry being a Lich and all. That was until he was laying in a big grassy field one day and a Lich in the IPRE robe appeared over him.

“Clint.” It says.

“Uh who?” he replies. His heart jumped into his throat and his stomach sank.

“Cut the shit Clint what the fuck did you do. Why does no one remember you?” It demands.

“Ahh fuck. Barry?” Clint asks quickly.

“Yes, it’s fucking Barry now answer the damn question, they all think I’m insane.” Barry shoots back.

Clint sits up and sighs. There was no escaping it now. He spilled the beans and told Barry everything. There was no point in hiding it.

Barry now sat next to him. Seeing him in a Lich form was very odd but he got used to it after a while. A sigh came from him after a minute of contemplation.

“Well fuck… Shit man. That’s a lot. How long were you gonna keep this up for?” Barry asked.

“I don’t know. As long as I needed I suppose. It’s been fun living out here on my own. None of yall really had anything to leave behind. That’s why you all were chosen to go on the mission besides your expertise. Me? I had a wife and kids. I left them behind. I don’t know if they survived that attack, Barry. I know you all know about them but I can’t just not miss them. I miss Leslie’s hug, reassuring me the mission would go fine and that I’d be back home in no time. I miss my boys. Justin’s big ol’ smile, Travis’ dumb jokes, Griffin’s insane laughter. I miss them. I never got to see them grow up if they were able to. I don’t get to be by the love of my life anymore. And being out here alone has let me cope in my own way.” Clint explained, looking down at his hands.

“God damn Clint. I’m… I never thought of it that way. I knew you missed your family but. Damn, I’m so sorry man.” Barry tried his best. He didn’t know what to say.

“This is kinda why I left Barry. I know you mean well but it makes me feel broken and weak when you guys don’t know how to deal with me. I’m not trying to be the stereotypical guy who has to hide his feelings it just got to be too much. I wasn’t going to be gone forever. I’m gonna come back one day. I just want it to be on my terms. Please don’t take this as me blaming you because by all means its the opposite. I made this decision on my own. Plus you have Lup now and I can only hope that she makes you just as happy or more than Leslie made me. You two are amazing together.” He doesn’t know what to say anymore either.

Barry lets out a small “thank you” before they sit in silence for a while. Later on, just as the sun is about to set, Barry turns to Clint as he gets up.

“Well. Your secret is safe with me Lieutenant. I appreciate you telling me all that. Just come back when you’re ready alright?”

“I will bud. Thank you.” Clint nods at him as he floats away.

For the rest of the year, Barry and Clint meet once in a while to talk. It’s pleasant. Clint is happy to have someone to talk to again that he knows. They exchange all sorts of stories over the next few months. One day though Barry rushes into Clint in the woods. He talks so fast it’s a blur. Once Clint got him to calm down Barry explained.

“I don’t know what it means or how it works but when Lucretia and I sing a certain tune the rest of the crew hears static. I don’t know if its a big deal but its wicked weird.”

“Alright, that is really weird. What is the tune?” Clint questions him. Barry hums the tune and Clint can hear the notes just fine. He grunts and leans against a nearby tree, thinking. How is this possible and what does it mean.

If Lucretia drank Fisher’s water that would mean she remembers Clint but she obviously doesn’t. Did she ever go in the cave with the Voidfish? Yeah! With Magnus that one time near the end of the cycle. So was it possible she accidentally drank from the pool too? Well if she did she would remember Clint. Then it clicks for him

He fell into the smaller pool of voidfish. That must be where the baby voidfish swim. It’s possible that when Lucretia was in the cave with Magnus that she accidentally drank from the Adult pool and can remember music from the conservatory. The adult voidfish must stay in one pool while the babies stay in another until they grow up.

Clint turns back to Barry and lies to him. He doesn’t know why but he does, “I don’t know how she knows the song but can’t remember me. I already told you what I know about Fisher. So it is pretty weird. I’d let it go though I doubt there’s anything to worry about.”

Barry nods in agreement and begins to float away. “Yeah your probably right. It is pretty weird though. Oh well, I’ll see you later!”

Later that night the Hunger entered the atmosphere and then cycle 92 began.

This next time around he watches them as they all learn artificing and get to create their own magical items.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the next 7 years, he lays low and lives out his own adventures. Staying in various Inn’s in nearby towns, learning different trades here and there, and overall just having fun

Cycle 99 was different right off the bat though. He hadn’t even had the chance to jump ship when the crew found the Light of creation and began discussing how to split it up. He listened in and learned what their plan was. It was actually a really good plan that could end the chase. He still jumped ship though and was awestruck with how similar to their homeworld it was. The only difference was the sky and the lack of one sun. He found a village to live in fairly easy and chilled out in a nice Inn for a while.

After 10 months of being on this planet, Clint heard word of some war for a powerful item start to spread. Everywhere he went that’s all anyone could talk about. He realized that it was probably from the plan of splitting the Light of Creation. After a year passes and the Hunger was nowhere in sight a dawning realization fell upon Clint. He could settle down again! Not start a new family, he was too old for that nor was he ready, but to find somewhere permanent to live out the rest of his years.

Another year passes and he finally settles down in Phandalin. He lives on the outskirts of town and works with the local authorities to make money from time to time. Within the first few days of being in town, he hears word of some man falling out of the sky on the outskirts of town. Other than that he lives in relative peace.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Then after 10 years Barry, Taako, Magnus, and Merle roll on into town talking about some guy named “Gundren”. Clint follows them into the bar and spy’s on them trying to figure out how they’re doing. When Taako, Merle, and Magnus leave Barry behind Clint decides it’s time to figure out what’s going on.

“You and those guys here to look for those powerful relics?” He asks, approaching Barry who turns and looks him up and down.

“Not to my knowledge. Don’t know anything about ‘em personally. Just here on some escort business.” He replies and gestures to the bartender for a drink.

“Well, you ever wonder about who created them? Some say its a group of powerful wizards, others say it was an evil Lich. What do you think?” Clint prods. Barry obviously isn’t going to just come out and say that he made the relics. So Clint has to try and trick him into it.

“Look pal, like I said I’m just here on some escort business. I could give less of a shit about those stupid relic things.” He snaps at Clint.

Clint moves away and leaves him to be. Something isn’t sitting right with him though. There is an odd feeling in his gut so he heads home and packs a bag.

About two days later he looks out his window to see a trail of fire leading into town. He grabs his bag and a nearby horse from the stables and ditches town. Whatever that was, wasn’t good.

By nightfall, the entire town has been reduced to a sea of black glass. Clint watches though as three figures crawl out of a hole in the glass lugging a fourth behind them. He watches as they talk for a while then a glass ball comes from the fucking sky and flies them away to somewhere. Nearby though he spots movement in the woods and sees a flash of red. He knows that color anywhere. Must be Barry.

Clint mounts his horse and shouts for Barry as he rides towards where he saw the cloak. A few seconds later Clint and his horse are frozen in place. A red-robed figure comes out of the woods. When the figure sees Clint the spell is dropped and Clint calms the horse down.

“Clint, what the fuck are you doing here?” It asks.

“What am I doing here? Barry? What the fuck are you doing here?! What just happened with Taako, Magnus, and Merle? Why aren’t you with them?” Clint pressures.

“Listen you need to come with me. I’m not surprised that you don’t know yet. I’ll explain when we get somewhere safe. I can’t have her listening in somehow.” And with that, he simply turns around gesturing for Clint to follow him. So many more questions flood Clint’s mind but he gives up and just holds them for later.

After a long trek, they arrive at the entrance of a cave in the middle of nowhere. Clint ties the horse away to rest and goes in with Barry. The inside is insane. Papers everywhere, words scribbled on the wall, a fucking human floating in a tank?!

“Now I hope you’re going to explain all of this, because… What. The. Fuck.” Clint says just staring around the cave taking everything in.

Barry does explain. He explains everything that happened in this cycle. What Lucretia did, what she's created. How he is trying to stop her and what he has to do, to do so. Clint is in awe. Lucretia knows about everything now. What Clint did. And she is using it against the crew too. This is why he didn’t want to tell anyone. Something bad was bound to happen with that information.

Barry turns to one of the cave walls where the seven relics are listed and crosses out the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet.

“Holy shit. You were the guy that I heard about falling from the sky? Oh, fuck Barry. and Lup? I’m so sorry man. I’m sure she’ll turn up. But that’s a lot to take in holy shit.” He begins. They discuss all the implications behind everything that has happened.

“Wait there’s something I still don’t understand. Did you say that potentially there is a second voidfish? Not just Fisher?”

“Potentially yes. So everyone in the Bureau drinks Fisher’s ichor and they are able to learn about the Bureau and the Relics. But they just went to the base with one of the members of the Bureau so I don’t think Lucretia is going to let them drink Fishers Ichor unless she has a backup to keep everyone from remembering the mission.” Barry posits.

“But if there is a second voidfish then how am I able to remember everything. I haven’t drunk any of the second one’s ichor, as you call it.” Clint pushes.

“Well, that’s the question really. Because obviously Lucretia drank Fishers Ichor meaning she remembers you. But I think what happened was that she didn’t write you into the first story because she couldn’t remember you just like the rest of us. Maybe she just wanted to leave you be when not writing you in the second time around? It could be possible that she worded the journal to be that just the crew forgot each other. No one else in this world knew who we were so there wasn’t a point in deleting us from the world. So I guess she just left you out of the crew as you kinda wanted?” He shrugs. Clint hums in agreeance, thinking of the implications that this means for him.

They spend the next few days together talking about potential plans for Barry. Clint ends up leaving and goes to search for a new place to live. He liked living in a peaceful town. He misses the crew dearly but there was obviously too much drama for him to get involved again. After about a week Barry has a rough plan and Clint leaves to find another place to settle down.

He ends up in Never Winter and is chilling out in a nearby Inn when he hears screaming. He runs out of the building and follows some people down to the train station where he sees the tail end of a train seemingly disappear out of thin air. He looks over into a nearby field and sees about 6 figures get up after a while. Once again he recognizes Taako, Magnus, and Merle. He keeps his distance and instead works on keeping the peace around the town. As he debriefed with the local militia he met a young boy named Angus who claimed to be the world’s best detective. It was odd, but he reminded Clint of Griffin back home. Always curious and a bit vain at times, it brought a smile to his face.

He ended up not liking Never Winter that much so he skipped town and headed towards Goldcliff. A Town he had heard nothing but praise for. It was now no surprise when all of the sudden vines began causing havoc around the bank. So he stuck around and met Captain Captain Bane who brushed him off. Yet no more than five minutes later those three boys came rolling up. Clint watched from a distance as Magnus tried to chop the vines, then as Merle sweet-talked the plants and got them inside. He saw when someone jumped from the top floor and flew away, he watched a few minutes later as the boys got carried out looking like actual shit.

He never got to see them race but he heard stories of what happened. He was too busy helping clean up the dead vines from around the Bank and repairing what he could. He did go and visit the cherry blossom tree that sprouted from the race though. He saw the two women at the base of the tree and he knew that they had made sure that the boys were safe. He thanked them and made his way out of town.

On his way out Barry in his Lich form appeared out of nowhere and lead him back to his hidey-hole. Barry explained what had been happening. The Oculus and the Gaia Sash had been found, he was suspecting something was happening with the Philosophers stone soon so he has been combing radio signals for any word on it.

Clint found it funny but fulfilling that he ended up running behind the boys and helping clean up after them. He just happened to be where ever they were. He talked it over with Barry and decided that he would make it his job. When he could he would follow the boys and clean up what he could in their wake.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He couldn’t do much when the incident at the Miller lab happened but he was watching, just in case. He followed them with Barry to the town of Refuge. He watched in the woods while the four of them stood there talking about the town and what was happening. The statue of the boys in town was so amazing it made him tear up a little bit. He watched the reunion after the town caught up with the timeline, smiling the whole time.

When it came time for Wonderland Clint became very anxious. Barry told him what he knew of the place and it worried him. This was Barry’s relic after all, but the two Liches that ran the joint where a force to be reckoned with. It was decided that Clint would deter anyone from coming into the area, while Barry followed the boys inside to try and help them out. When they finally came out and he didn’t see Magnus but a fucking mannequin in his place he became extremely worried. He stays behind a-ways and follows them to Barry’s cave. He overhears everything Barry tells them. This was not in the original plan but it might just work.

He listens to Barry now in his body forget everything and Merle and Taako talk to the Mannequin about the Bureau. He stays and just listens to what’s happening. He figures something big will happen when they go back to the base so when they leave the cave Clint chooses to go back to Goldcliff. It seems like a fortified enough place to be if hell breaks loose. He doesn’t know what is going to happen but he does know it isn’t good. The sky has been becoming darker and darker by the minute. Not only that but the saturation of everything around him has been sucked away.

He makes it to Goldcliff faster than he thought was possible, but he makes it in time just as the first wave hits the city. It’s the Hunger. It’s back with a vengeance. He runs through the town and banging on doors urging people to weaponize themselves and run for the Trust. The Hunger’s tendrils strike the earth and hundreds of Black opal Soldiers come flowing out of them. The insane and horrible noises already has enough people running throughout the streets. He sees the Hunger’s soldiers grab people from their families. What’s weird is that people seem to be running into the creatures. Clint can see them though, so he starts pulling people out of the fray and pushing them in the correct direction. He tries to gather the attention of as many of the figures as he can. He fights well with what weapons and spells he can.

He takes out dozens as he makes his way towards the Trust himself. He reaches the Cherry Blossom tree from so long ago and finds the two women who are actually dryads protecting a young girl from the Hunger’s soldiers. He helps the taller one defeat a few before he shares a moment of comradery with her and he takes the young girl to the trust.

When he gets to the Trust he finds out the doors are closed but manages to get the girl inside after a lot of convincing people through whispers. He turns and goes back to fighting the soldiers. There’s a small lull of enemies until four figures come tumbling towards him. He readies himself for the fight when his heart sinks.

He recognizes them.

He can’t even begin to process it when Justin lunges towards him, hands like knives swiping at him, slashing with animalistic movements. He can’t hurt him. Not his son. He plays on the defensive side, trying to figure out what to do.

In the meantime, Leslie has grabbed broken pieces of wood from a nearby rubble pile and is beginning to advance. Travis and Griffin are following in suite.

Seeing them like this brings all of Clint’s worst fears to light. They arent is family. But they are. Just corrupted. The Hunger took them. For the last 111 years, he has been mourning for them. He’s had time to cope but this changes everything. They didn’t die. They were taken by this evil world eating being that’s been chasing his crew for 100 years.

And here they are. His family. But not like he remembered them. He can’t do it. He isn’t strong enough for that. He can’t hurt his boys. His wife. He can’t. He won’t.

He quickly casts hold person on all of them, and immediately starts to prepare to cast Imprisonment. He won’t have to fight or hurt them. They freeze in place and barely move when the hold person spell wears off and the Imprisonment spell takes over.

Clint falls back and catches his breath. He looks up at his family tears flowing. All he wanted to do was see them again but not like this. Whatever was going to happen this time around needed to happen quickly. He hopes to the gods that he either dies now and stays dead this time time around or that the crew figures out to start over in the next cycle.

He slowly gathers enough strength to stand back up. He walks over to Leslie. She is just as beautiful as the day he left her. Her face is filled with rage as shes frozen in place from running at him. Clint caresses her cheek one last time and kisses her forehead. He moves over to his boys one by one and does the same. None of them deserved this fate. He will figure out how to avenge them. In the meantime he leaves them be. They don’t need to die a second time.

He walks back towards the two Dryads from earlier and joins them in fighting the Hunger’s soldiers. One by one they all work together slaughtering the figures. Back to back, throwing weapons back and forth, and covering for eachother as they prepare spells.

He doesn’t know how long he has been fighting for but it feels like hours when the Hunger creatures just stop in place. They begin to glow white and slowly float into the sky turning into nothing. He takes a moment to catch his breath. Sitting down he looks around. Hurley and Sloan, as he now knows, join him in sitting down. No one knows what the hell just happened but they do know that they fought long and hard. They deserve to rest.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While helping slowly repair someone's home in Goldcliff Clint feels a tap on his shoulder. Wiping sweat from his brow he turns around to find Barry. They embrace, laughing about how they survived. Barry explains that they did in fact finally win. That the hunger was gone for good and they were safe.

“So does everyone… you know… know?” Clint asks as they walk back to his makeshift house.

“Clint, buddy? The universe knows, about everything.” Barry replies slapping him on the back. They make their way to the newly named Bureau of Benevolence.

When they arrive Clint sheepishly greets everyone and is surprised to be met with a dogpile of hugs. Here is nothing but smiling and laughter filling the room.

“Holy shit Clint it is so good to have you back.” Davenport exclaims, releasing him from a hug.

“I would say that its great to have all of you back!” Clint jokes, “Barry told me the basics of what happened when we arrived here. We have a hell of a lot to catch up on.”

Lucretia nervously laughs, “I suppose we do, huh?”

Clint walks over to her and scoops her up in a deep embrace. “Its alright. You know? Everyone fucks up. You just happened to follow in my footsteps and then out do me.”

Once everyone is settled down in what seems to be a very luxurious lounge area they begin to tell their own stories. Lup’s is very brief , Barry and Taako sit next to her acting as guards. Very understandable. Clint already knew Barry’s story but there were a few things he had forgotten to mention before so it was a bit eye opening. There wasn’t much to Davenport’s story though he was most impacted by Lucretia’s wrong doings. Everyone already knew Lucretia’s story too, she just filled in some small blanks here and there even though she wasn’t very keen on talking a lot. What she had done was still pretty fresh and she didn’t want to make her case worse.

Then it came to Taako, Merle, and Magnus’ stories. Those three idiots had everyone rolling with laughter and crying within two minutes. Taako mainly joked about his whole experience, but that was just his way of coping and everyone knew it. He had gone through a lot of shit that he wasn’t ready to talk about and they all understood that. Magnus and Julia’s story hit home for Clint, he was silently bawling as Magnus explained it. He felt Davenports hand on his back as he cried. Then Merle with Mavis and Mookie, how he spoke of them resembled how Clint spoke of his own boys. Clint smiled, he knew how Merle felt.

“Did you say Mavis?” Clint interrupted a moment.

“Yeah that’s my daughter.” Merle affirmed.

“No shit? She have red hair, teenageish, glasses?” He asked.

“Uh, yeah actually. You know her?” Merle questioned.

“Surprisingly yeah! She was in Goldcliff on that day and lost her glasses. Sloan and Hurley Protected her from the Hunger and I lead her to the Goldcliff Trust.” Clint explained.

“Holy shit. Thank you Clint! Thank you for protecting my baby. I had no idea that you were the one who did that!” He jumped over to Clint and bear hugged him.

Last but not least Clint shared his story which was shorter than everyone was expecting. The only thing they were really surprised about was him helping Lucretia during the Judges cycle. Other than that it was a bunch of jumping from Inn to Inn, meeting new people, catching low life thieves here and there, and so on. The night continued on with Taako and Lup cooking everyone a big dinner. They stayed up until the late hours of the morning joking and just being family once again.

“We really need to go to therapy huh?” Clint jokes at some point and everyone agrees. But life goes on. Clint is back with his family. Sure they grew apart and started living their own lives but they still talk and that’s what matters. Taako has his school, Merle has his camp for adventurers, Magnus made a school for dogs, Barry and Lup are now Reapers with Kravitz, Lucretia is helping people, and Davenport is doing what he loves.

He may have been the Forgotten bird but at least he isn’t lonely anymore. He gets to live on his own still in a cottage out in the woods with a nearby town that calls on him for help every once in a while. Life is good.

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anistarrose · 6 years ago

Text

Don’t Hang Up Yet, I’m Not Done (TAZ Balance AU)

Summary: Tres Horny Boys have the Red Robe’s phone number, continued. This time, Merle and Taako make some calls.

Warnings: Dissociation

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18979621/chapters/45066238

A sequel to this fic, which was in turn inspired by this art by @mspainttaz!

***

The next call Barry gets is in the late afternoon several weeks later, and once again, something tells him exactly who’s going to be on the other end of the line before he even moves to pick it up.

(Then again, it’s barely been an hour since he gave Merle that cryptic nod, so it’s not exactly difficult to guess the reason for the call.)

“You saved my kids,” Merle whispers, sounding dumbstruck even now. “Why?”

“I — I just — why wouldn’t I? I had the power to stop innocent people from getting hurt. Of course I saved them.”

“Well, that’s real altruistic of you,” Merle murmurs. Bit by bit, his normal enthusiasm creeps back into his voice as he continues: “Not sure how you’re supposed to reconcile that worldview with making the Relics, though. Too bad I can’t cast Zone of Truth over the stone, ha!”

“Yeah, it’s a real shame,” Barry replies. “Anyways, you need to teach your kids to be more careful. Odds are I won’t be around during the next… freak accident.”

“Yeah, their passive perception stinks,” Merle agrees with a sad laugh. “Or at least Mookie’s does, as much as I love the little fireball. Mavis is a bright little thing when she’s not busy looking after her brother — she reads at a college level, you know! Probably gonna make a hell of a wizard one day!”

“Give it to me like you would under Zone of Truth, Merle — did you call me just to brag about your kids?”

“Don’t tell my boss,” Merle answers in a hushed whisper. “I’ll get my employee phone plan revoked!”

Barry struggles to stifle a laugh. “Merle Hightower Highchurch, calling up the enemy to have a friendly chat? What would the Director think?”

Merle laughs too, the irony lost on him. “You know, you’re a much better conversationalist today than you were the first couple times we met. What’s up with that?”

“Uh… I dunno, social anxiety? How’s life on the moon treating you?”

“It’s got its perks. Apparently the gravity is low enough up there that my spinal cord decompressed, so now I’m a millimeter taller — and trust me, I know it doesn’t sound like much, but we dwarves have to take what we can get!”

“I can imagine.” An idea occurs to Barry — it’s a long shot, but worth a try. “How about the gnomes — are there any gnomes up there? How are they doing with the gravity situation?”

“Well, Leon doesn’t ‘like’ me or ‘the crew I hang with’ so I don’t really talk to him. And Davenport, well…”

Barry very nearly short-circuits his Stone of Farspeech as sparks of magic course through his form and down his sleeves. “What about Davenport? How is he?”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line, and Barry gets a bad feeling that he came across as a little too invested in Davenport’s well-being.

His fears are confirmed when Merle asks: “What, do you know him?”

“Just heard the name in passing,” Barry lies. “Never met him, but most names from the Bureau that I hear in passing end up belonging to pretty important people. What’s his — what does he do for your operation up there?”

“You know, I’ve never really thought about it before, but — if we could make this our little ‘Truth Zone’ here, for just a second — I’m not really sure why Lucretia hired him in the first place. All he can say is his own name, and he always seems kinda anxious about one thing or another — again, I never know what, since he can’t really talk.”

Barry doesn’t know how to reply.

“Damn good at cards, though! You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find a good game of yooker these days — or even chess, for that matter. You play either?”

“No.” Barry’s pretty sure that Merle and Davenport are the only people in the planar-verse who know how to play the game they’ve dubbed “yooker.” And he doesn’t even want to think about that chess remark.

“Darn. Well, I should probably get going — I can’t miss karaoke night with the boys. We’ve been trying all month to get Lucretia to join us, and she finally let it slip that she hasn’t got anything going on this evening!”

“Oh. Well, uh… don’t let me keep you from that, then. Nice talking to you.”

After he switches his stone off, Barry adds in a whisper: “Wish I could join you.”

***

“Sup, Little Red Riding Robe?”

“Don’t call me that,” the Red Robe groans. From the other end of the line, Taako hears the faint rustling of papers — his call must have interrupted something. He doesn’t feel too bad about it, though.

“What, would you rather be the Big Bad Wolf?” Taako asks. “I thought I was doing you a solid and painting you in a sympathetic light!”

“You know what, fine. Little Red Riding Robe it is,” the Red Robe replies. The hostility in his voice begins to dissipate as he goes on. “Tell me, Taako — is this just another prank call?”

Taako chuckles. “Oh, you wish. See, I stumbled across a piece of info that might just interest you…”

He pauses, waiting to see how the Red Robe reacts, but he’s met with silence.

“I’ve got your number, Riding Robe, idiomatically and literally. So this afternoon I took a quick vacay to the Stone of Farspeech service provider’s offices, cast a few Charm Person spells, and figured out just what name that number was registered to. Pretty clever, huh?”

It might just be Taako’s imagination, but it feels like the silence grows a little more tense.

“Now tell me, who’s this Sildar Hallwinter guy?” he asks. “Is that an alias, or did you just mug a dude and take his phone?”

The Red Robe chuckles. “Huh. That’s some genuinely impressive sleuthing — then again, I should’ve expected as much from you, Taako.”

“Well, uh, to tell you the truth… it was technically Angus’s idea — you ever hear about him? The boy detective? Little snoop was going through my dresser and found the paper I jotted down your number on, and dragged me into this quest to track down your true identity.”

“And does he think this case has been cracked wide open by this new info?”

“No. He’s pretty sure Hallwinter isn’t your real name — and don’t tell him I said this, but I trust him on that one-hundred percent. He’s pretty good with this stuff.”

“What did you really call me about if you’re so sure, then?”

What if she’s just gone?

“Well, I —”

Who?

“I…”

I can’t remember her face, Taako!

Whose face?!

Please, Taako, just kill me!

“Taako? Taako, are you with me?”

He doesn’t feel like he’s with anyone. Even lying on his bed, beneath a pile of heavy blankets he doesn’t remember arranging, he still can’t stop shivering. He’s so cold, and so, so alone.

He clutches the Umbra Staff close to his chest, close to his heart. It’s the only warm thing he can feel.

“Please, Taako, can you say something?” the disembodied voice continues. It sounds like it’s trying very hard to stay calm, and mostly succeeding. “Tell me what’s happening? I have Merle and Magnus’s numbers — I can call them if you need someone to come help —”

It also sounds very familiar, but trying to place it makes Taako feel like he’s teetering over the edge of a void, about to lose his balance and plunge into darkness.

“W-who is this?”

“It’s me, Taako, it’s… it’s the Red Robe.”

Taako’s eyes finally land on the Stone of Farspeech at the corner of his bed, and hesitantly extends a hand towards it. It’s not quite as warm as the Umbra Staff — but it’s certainly not cold, either. He pulls it closer, wrapping his fingers around it.

The Red Robe lets out a short, sad chuckle, which the speaker garbles a little bit. “There are some who call me Little Red Riding Robe. Or Sildar Hallwinter.”

“Sh-shit.” Their earlier conversation returns to Taako quickly, as he tries to sit up in bed. His teeth are still chattering slightly when he tries to speak. “I — I dunno what just happened. I just b-blacked out —”

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re gonna be okay. It’s not your fault.” There’s a pause. “Hey, do you think you can you tell me a little more about Angus? He seems like a bright kid —”

“He is. B-been picking up magic real fast too. He’s a nosy little shit who never stops asking questions to all two dozen of his adoptive moon parents and I’m so glad Lucretia hired him.”

“He was right about Sildar Hallwinter being an alias, you know. Did he say what tipped him off?”

“He’s got contacts in the police force planetside like you wouldn’t believe. There was hardly anything in any of their files about Sildar, so we talked to Johann and he told us that name never got fed to the Voidfish. From there, Angus just figured that no real person would have that little info about them floating around.”

“Huh. That makes sense. Did Merle and Magnus come along for this adventure, or was it just the two of you?”

“Nah, Magnus was hanging with Carey and Merle was napping. I could hear him snoring from a room away.”

“What about the Director? I’m assuming you didn’t mention this to her?”

“Oh, hell no. She’d throw us straight in the brig if she ever learned how long we’ve had your number without telling her.”

“Yeah, I figured. I trust Merle and Magnus are doing well?”

“Yeah, they’re… well, actually… okay, look. I probably shouldn’t be telling you of all people about this, but something’s been off about Magnus lately. I thought I was imagining it at first, but now I’m pretty sure he’s trying to avoid the Director — which is actually kinda hard these days, since she’s been overseeing our training more and more. And he’s been really awkward around Johann, too. I’ve never seen him like this, and… I’m kinda worried.”

The Red Robe goes silent for a moment. “Well… what happened in Refuge must have been hard on him. I’m sure he’ll feel better soon.”

“Yeah, yeah. He’s pretty tough…” Part of Taako feels guilty for revealing so much to the Red Robe, but part of him doesn’t want to hang up. Magnus and Merle are already fast asleep — what if he blacks out again, and no one’s on the phone to talk him out of it?

Then again… is that what the Red Robe is aiming for? To gain Taako’s trust, and act so supportive that Taako can’t help but reveal sensitive information during a late-night, emotionally vulnerable ramble?

No, Barry wouldn’t do that. If he wants information, it’s just because he’s worried about you.

“Well, this has been a great chat, Riding Robe,” Taako says with an exaggerated yawn. “But I’ve got to get to bed. You never know if tomorrow will end up being a long day of saving the world.”

“You do that,” the Red Robe tells him. “And remember, you can always call me back if you need to.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. G’night.”

***

Magnus’s body is gone, and it’s Barry’s fault.

(Strictly speaking, it’s the fault of the Animus Bell. It taunts him even now, tucked safely away in the possession of the Reclaimers, calling to him and promising to ensure his family survives when the Hunger comes. To bring Lup back from whatever worse-than-undeath fate she met. But Barry recognizes enough of his own voice in his Relic to know that it’s lying.)

Barry made the bell, he put it out into a world that was not his own, and both that world and his family paid dearly.

I’m going to find a way to get your body back, Magnus. I promise.

“I think we deserve some answers from you,” Magnus slowly declares, still holding his detached mannequin arm in his remaining hand. Surprisingly, he doesn’t seem angry — just tired.

Oh Magnus, you don’t know the half of it, Barry thinks. He doesn’t say anything, but he nods to Magnus and then holds out his hand, creating an illusory Stone of Farspeech in his skeletal palm.

And one by one, without exchanging any words between each other, the three Reclaimers hand their stones over — first Magnus, slowly and solemnly; then Merle, with a guilty look on his face; and finally Taako, hesitant as he begins to raise his hand but resolute by the time he plucks the stone from his ear.

Barry flicks his hand, and the devices shatter.

“I’ll buy you new ones soon,” he promises. “But let’s get you those answers first.”

#taz #taz balance #barry bluejeans #merle highchurch #taako taaco #magnus burnsides #taz balance spoilers #rosalia writes fic

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