[AN: Oh, I could kill y’all with so much angst on this, but nah. We can pretend that Elven biology actually accommodates the horseshit I put into the preamble of Warp and Weft. Let’s go with that.]
Five Months After Story and Song (ASS)…
Taako was wiped the fuck out. This business of his was exhausting. Worse than exhausting. All he ever wanted to do was sleep.
Unfortunately, one of the chucklefucks he’d spent an entire century with and then some, was attempting to batter down the door.
“Taako,” bellowed Magnuts. “Come on, we got a mish!”
“Open up, glamour boy.” Oh shit, it was the alleged cleric.
Taako fought the gravity well of the couch. It would be so much easier if he could use magic, right now. “Fuck off,” he hollered, barely hauling himself up into a sitting position. “Your glass cannon’s out of fucking order.”
Now both of them were using all available fists to thunder on the door. “Taako, stop dicking around!”
Taako growled and levered himself up from the couch. These assholes wouldn’t take ‘fuck off’ for an answer. He shuffled up to the door and opened it between peals of fist-driven thunder. “Your glass cannon,” he repeated, “is out of fucking order.”
“WOAH!”
“Holy shit, you’re pregnant?” Magnuts reached for the bump, but stopped when Taako took a step back.
“Yeeah keep your grubby paws off the alleged precious cargo, there, bullmoose. I’m off adventuring for seven more months and prob’ly more than that. You know pregnant Elves shouldn’t do magic.”
“But… you’re a dude, dude!”
“Yeah, not all dude. It happens with Elves. Not so much with Humanmen.” He didn’t exactly let them in, just shuffled away from the door towards the most convenient privy because getting up meant he needed to pee.
The little nugget within decided to help add pressure on his bladder by dancing on it. On one hand, painful. On the other, sort’a helpful in a way.
When he got back to his nest, Magnuts had some reheated nutritious treats and Merle had some pungent tea.
“I know. It smells like ass,” Merle began.
“Your ass. After an arbour ardour sesh,” said Taako.
“Think of it like medicine,” said Magnus. “You need your natal vitamins.”
Taako growled audibly this time, ears flicking right back. “You’re almost as bad as my actual family.” By which he included Lup, Barold, and Krav. “All three of them are on my nuts twenty-four sev.”
“Looks to me like someone was on more than your nuts,” said Magnus.
Merle waited until Taako was trapped in a chair before he urged a cup of the tea on him. “Drink the ass tea or I’ll tell you all about my sordid affair with a philodendron.”
That fuckin’ worked. Taako shuddered at the aftertaste. Already reaching for the tasty treats to clear his palette. The next thing he knew, he had four grubby chucklefuck hands on his spreading middle.
Magnuts had tears in his eyes. “It’s kicking…”
“Yeah, the little nugget does that a lot,” grumbled Taako. “Please tell me you washed your fuckin’ hands before laying them on me?”
“Yeah, yeah. Antibacterial and all that shit,” said Merle. “You’re fine.”
“Apart from the bit where I got you two idiots groping me…”
“Did Krav help make this?” said Mango.
“No, I held a fuckpile and you weren’t invited. Of fucking course Krav and I…” He had to giggle. The baby was tickling him. “My other name for the nugget is ‘Serendipity’…”
A happy accident.
They hadn’t meant to make this life, but they wanted it.
“So… actual names?”
“I get to name any girls, but Krav gets to name any boys. So… Angus or Lulu. I already got checked out by a competent Cleric and… uh… it’s the first single birth in like a hundred generations of my family, so… It’s the ultimate coin toss.”
“You’d really name your baby after your sister?”
“Shyeah! She’d fuckin’ kill me if I didn’t.”
Mango insisted on talking to Taako’s baby bump. “Whoever you are, I will protect you.”
Merle, a little more grumpy about it, said. “Yeah, I’ll even learn to be a competent Cleric so I can heal it.”
Taako muttered, “You two get any more cute about this and I’ll throw up on you.”
[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 4]
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Thank you so much for enjoying them, friendo. I’ve had a spate of Luume prompts, of late, so you should have extra huggy feels.
The real trick is trying to figure out new ways to write it so it doesn’t get stale for all of y’all.
[AN: It normally isn’t, but I can make an exception with pressures on Taako’s brainspace]
He’d killed a town. Again. At least the survivors of Glamour Springs had been able to bury the dead and pick up the pieces. This was way, way worse. A whole down. Wiped off the map. That which wasn’t black glass or a ring of slag was ash.
He could wheedle his way out of it. He knew he could. He was a pro. If they’d killed that Kurtz kid (a literal child, he couldn’t know what he was doing). Or if they’d just ignored the scavenging raiders (and left a literal child to deal with slavery or worse. He’d been there…) and gone on with hunting down and stopping Cyrus…
He’d killed a town. Again.
All those families. All those lives. All those people.
They couldn’t even be buried.
Then, for an encore, the people who could have helped dragged his sorry ass up to the moon with two other chucklefucks. They could have helped, if only they could literally communicate what the fuck was going on. If he’d known…
If he could tell the difference between Elderberries and Deadly Nightshade on sight…
If he hadn’t cried out and gained the attention of that one archer…
If he wasn’t born with witch eyes…
It was so far down to the ground. He didn’t have the spell slots to run away. But there was still worse news in this shit sandwich.
He’d forgotten entire fucking war. An ages-long, seemingly endless war. Friends. Family. Dying in it, and he’d forgotten.
If there was any worse time to get a visit from Uncle Irma, it was now.
But Taako didn’t know that. All he knew, as the fever rose and his mental capacity shot down, was that he had to protect his family.
*
Taako was looking super-squirelly, searching through the four, tiny bunks as if he were searching for some lost ancestral trinket that was worth more than his soul.
Merle, finding him in the middle of his rummaging, said, “You okay, there, son?” and thereby learned that there was a very rare fourth aspect of luume’irma. Instead of the usual fight, fuck, or feed, Taako had gone to fortify. Which meant he was driven to protect and guard his family.
“Danger,” Taako said, and scooped up Merle faster than the Dwarven Cleric could blink.
The next thing he could make sense of, he was in some soft, cavernous space made out of mattresses. Someone had laid in supplies and there was one exit to a privy and the other–
“No! Danger!” Taako physically shoved Merle back inside. He had a dazed and confused Davenport under one arm and was frantically out of breath.
“Davenport?” said Davenport.
“Danger,” Taako repeated. “Danger.” He repeatedly set the two of them down, repeating, “Danger,” and, “Safe,” until they finally both sit put.
“Davenport,” sulked Davenport.
“Yeah, that kid’s deep in luume. Better to just sit down, shut up, and put up until he wears himself out.”
“Davenport,” he mumbled, still sulking.
Magnus had to be dragged in, half an hour later. He had made the mistake of attempting to fight an Elf deep in luume, and had been knocked the fuck out and tied the fuck up. Taako physically picked up Merle and mashed him into Magnus. “Safe,” Taako insisted. “Live.”
Merle cast Cure Wounds and Taako seemed happy. He left in the blink of an eye.
Magnus moaned as he came to. “What. The. Fuck.”
“Never mess with a manic Elf, kid,” growled Merle. “Now sit tight, play nice, and exhibit some patience. I’m not made outta spell slots, you know.”
Next into Taako’s collection was Madam Director herself. Stunned, but not unconscious. Meerle spent another spell slot on recovering enough of her hit points for passing normalcy to resume itself.
“Well,” she announced on her return to the waking world, “this is a clusterfuck of epic proportions.”
“I don’t know what got into him,” said Magnus. “He managed to overpower me and drag me into… this place.”
“The bedding depot,” said Madam Director. “It seems to be a magnet for Elves in Luume. They like building their own dens.”
“This has happened before?” said Magnus.
“Amongst our Elven population. Some PSA’s go around periodically about procedure… You missed the last one. I must update our administration protocols.” She crawled to a space by the entrance and waited.
Half an hour later, Taako entered again. Frantic. Out of breath. Hyper-aware and freaking out. He counted them all. “One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. One… two… three… four…” he pawed at they air twice. “Need…”
“I know what you need,” said Madam Director. “Come here, I can help…”
“Not safe. Danger… Danger…”
“Just come here. I’ll help you.”
He did, but stopped to pause at every other handful of seconds. “One… two… three… four…” paw, paw. He moved a little closer to Madam Director. “One… two… three…”
Madam Director pounced. Seizing Taako’s head with both hands. Her fingers found his ‘off switch’.
“Danger…”
“Ssh… Hush, now,” Madam Director whispered. “It’s all right, now. I’ve got you. Ssh-ssh-ssh-ssh…”
“Danger…” mumbled Taako, slowly slipping under. “One… two.. three… four…” Paw, paw at the air. “One…”
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you…”
Mismatched eyes rolled back. Luxurious eyelids closed. He trembled from head to toe. His breath shuddered. Then he slumped, purring softly, with his head still in Madam Director’s hands.
“There, now,” she cooed. “None of you try to get back out of here, he’s still aware of us. The slightest disturbance in his environment and there’s no predicting what he’ll do.”
“So…” said Magnus. “We just sit here until he’s done?”
“Davenport,” nodded Davenport. He offered a packet of chips.
[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 5]
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for details on how to support this artist]
30 : Does writing calm you down or stress you out?
A little of each. There’s moment when the narrative just flows and that’s just wonderful. There’s entire days when I can’t drag one word to follow the other, and those SUCK. Nevertheless, I persist.
32 : Do you give your side-characters extensive backstories?
Depends on the side-character. Some get just enough information to get through the scene… some fucking take over and become mains. They grow as they exist.
35 : Is it more fun to write villains or heroes?
I am weirdly proficient at writing psychopaths (and that’s scary). I prefer to do either the heroic type or the villain type, so long as they have a decent personality. Character development counts.
37 : What’s one piece of advice you would give to new writers?
In one word - Persist.
If you keep writing, and write something every day, you will grow and learn and spread some magnificent wings. Take it one story at a time. One day at a time. One day, you might be on the bookshelves and talking at conventions and I hope we wind up on a panel together.
18 : If you could assign your story one song, what would it be?
I have so many stories, it’s not funny. My current novel-in-process doesn’t have any theme music, but I spent a large amount of Clockwork Souls listening to my Steampunk collection. There are some stories that get theme songs, but this time… I don’t have any.
Sorry.
22 : Has your own writing ever made you cry?
Frequently. I’ve also been angered and scared by my own writing. If I don’t feel it, then my audience won’t either.
24 : When did you start considering yourself a writer?
It took me a while. I started doing that when I started writing stories unrelated to fanfic a few years after I left High School, so… around 1992.
27 : Where do you get inspiration from?
90% Spite, actually. I end up yelling at screens about all kinds of things. Some of that list includes: articulated skeletons, daft protagonists, any of the tropes I despise, plot holes as big as a barge, and silly things that make no actual sense that play well on the screen [aka the planar wave in zero-g explosions, the teacup being the first thing that detects danger, etc.] Then I read things on Tumblr and think… that might be cool, let’s try it.
Something… missing. Something wanting. Something gone. Something he had to search for. Something he had to find. Need. Needing hurt. Want. Wanting hurt worse.
Scent. Track. Find. Find baby. His baby. Taako crept closer. Baby sleeping. Quiet. Baby needs sleep. Sniff…
Baby sick!
Taako crept right up to his baby. Sniffing and carefully feeling. Much bad. Hot baby. Exhausted baby. Bad bed.
The thing people forget about the simplified form of the three classes of Luume - fight, fuck, or feed - is that ‘feed’ includes every form of nurture…
Taako lifted Angus - his baby - off the Humanman bed and, stripping most of the boy’s clothes off as he went, carried his baby (a young man, now, but that didn’t matter to Elven instincts) to a cote with a nice through-breeze in the summer.
Careful lips to his boy’s forehead. Still too hot. Need cold magic. Need good food baby will eat.
Ray of frost chilled off the ceiling and sent coolness drifting down on his baby, and Taako purred to hear the sigh of relief from his boy.
Not done yet. Good food. Soft food. Soup! Plenty good things. Ginger. Garlic. Chicken. Vegetables. Herbs. Lots and lots of herbs. Good food makes for better baby.
Poor baby.
Baby needed him.
Taako took a healthy portion into the cote, to a nook charmed to stay warm where at least one cat usually nested. Taako hissed at the one there to drive it off and make room for the soup. From there, smaller bowls of it would be used to tempt baby into eating.
“…sir, please, I’m not hungry.”
Taako didn’t have many words. Not at the moment. “Baby eat,” he cooed. “Strong baby. Good food. Strong food.”
“Sir?” Angus blearily peered into Taako’s eyes, then slumped back and sighed, “Oh no. Not this again…”
“Baby eat?” It was a very small bowl. No trouble for baby. Mostly liquid. Nothing too hard to chew.
Sigh. He accepted the cup and sipped. Carefully. He winced when he swallowed.
Taako pressed his lips to his baby’s brow. “Too hot,” he complained. He found water, found a cloth, and washed down his child. “Poor baby… Sick baby…”
“I just want to sleep, sir.”
Taako uged the contents of the bowl on his baby. Stayed close, but not close enough to crowd or overheat him. He purred a soothing rhythm as he watched and waited for his baby to stir on his own. From there, he would offer another bowl of soup.
In between times, he would wash his baby and purr and maintain the chilled ceiling. Once or twice on the half hour, Taako would press his lips to Angus’ brow to check on his fever.
A fever that broke sometime before Kravitz returned from his work.
Taako purred a little louder the instant he saw his chosen mate.
“Hello, Dove,” his mate murmured. “What’s happened?”
“Sick baby,” Taako cooed. “Won’t eat.”
“I’ll help. You rest, love.” Kravitz ran his chilly hands over Taako’s face, then rested one on Angus’ still-warm brow.
“Th’nk you sirs,” Angus mumbled.
[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 5]
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for details on how to support this artist]
7 : How long is your current WIP?
Which one? I’ve cleared 102K in my current novel, I’m almost up to 22K in my most-active fanfic, and there’s 53K, 38K, and 6K in a few stalled fics I have waiting on the back-burner for ideas.
9 : What do you struggle most with as a writer?
Being culturally sensitive/politically correct/woke. I am a creature from a bygone era and staying tuned to the pulse of modern thought is something I have to work with.
10 : Do you brain-storm story ideas alone or with others?
Absolutely nobody but @dualityandsuch can stand me, friendo. I keep my novel BS to myself and anyone who cares to read about it in my blog and Patreon.
11 : Do you base your characters off of real people?
Bits and pieces. I tend to stitch together parts of people I know, meld them with attributes I need, and come out with a whole person on the other end. It’s kind’a fascinating.
13 : Do you write character-driven or plot-driven stories?
I like character development. The plot kind of happens around them.
21 : Do you finish most of the stories you start?
I honestly try to. Some just end up in a nebulous state of Schroedinger’s Ending. There, I may have already written an end, or I might have more. I don’t know.
Novels, I definitely finish. I’m good there.
28 : On a scale of 1-10, how much do you stress about choosing character names?
12. Some are easy, some require good research. Some are whatever collection of syllables feels good in my mouth that day.
46 : What Hogwarts house would your protagonist(s) be in?
Hufflepuff. Every last one of them. All of my OC’s are “and the rest”. Some would leave little treats (not clothing!) for the House Elves.
Well. Maybe the psychopaths are Slytherin. Barely.
50 : Would you rather be remembered for your fantastic world-building or your lifelike characters?
Both, please? I like to put the effort into some degree of realism in everything I write. Realistic people - even if they’re technically birds - living in worlds that make sense, if only to me.
I want to write stories you could step into if only there wasn’t that darned book/screen in the way. I want you to feel for my peeps. I want them to be alive in your heads as you read the words I put together. That’d be brilliant.
3 : Do you outline according to big ideas or small details?
A little from column A, a little from column B. Usually, I have the vague shape of the story in my head and, when I get into actually writing it, I get little scenes that just HAVE to be in the thing. For fanfic, the reverse happens. I get a Scene and the fic has to happen around it.
4 : Which do you prefer–line-editing or plot-revisions?
Can I say ‘neither’? I hate editing. It is the bane of my existence. I usually try my best to make certiain my whole story is coherent first before I write a line. That way I don’t have to re-tool a plot. Fixing minor errata is better by far.
8 : What author would you be most excited to be compared to?
Sir Terry Pratchett (GNU), Lois McMasters Bujold, Douglas Adams, and possibly Terry Nation. They’re my heroes.
17 : Do you make soundtracks for each story?
Nope. If I was that organised, I swear I’d be further along in my alleged career. Or I’d have more bonus content for my Patrons on Patreon.
They were having a parents’ day in the park. Merle had custody of his kids for the weekend and La’ming… La’ming was learning to be a decent parent by studying others.
Most of the others here at the play park were nannies who didn’t speak the best of Common and used playtime as an excuse to gossip.
Merle… Merle wasn’t much better, but at least he knew something about parenting. Something - even a bad something - was better than nothing. FOr example - Merle sunbathed while Mookie threw himself around the climbing gym like a dervish and Mavis took turns on the swings or the monkeybars. His parenting involved occasional interjections involving the word "don’t”.
“Don’t wrassle kids below your weight class, Mookie…”
La’ming, using his example, kept an eye on the twins and was ready to bolt straight for them if there was the slightest hint of trouble. She also had all the approved snack foods so they’d have plenty to eat.
Food security was still a big thing for them.
Right now, though, the twins were building a sandcastle with one of the smaller, younger children. One would invariably defend the pile of sand from Mookie and other kids who liked to stomp on sandcastles.
That was when she’d need to step in and mediate. Get all involved parties to talk it out instead of fighting it out. Assuming they didn’t talk it out without prompting.
“First kids always make for an anxious parent,” said Merle, apparently from his coma. “You’re always worried about being a failure. Trust me. Kids aren’t that delicate.”
Yes they are, she thought. “I abandoned my first kid with my parents when I was Seventy-two. These are the first kids I’ve actively tried looking after. That I haven’t given up on.”
“Seventy-two? Isn’t that like… way too young to have a kid?”
“Yeah. Like a Humanman sixteen or something.”
“No blame on that one, then,” said Merle.
“Tell that to my daughter. My parents are assholes.”
There was an extended silence between the two of them. Not absolute silence, since they were seated by a playground, but they were quiet. The kids continued shrieking and yelling at each other as they expended all their energies in assorted games.
“Sorry about that,” said Merle. “I assumed…”
“Many do. I don’t talk about it a lot.”
“She doing okay, now?”
“Yeah. We’re almost on speaking terms.” She twitched as Lulu fell off a swing, but relaxed as she rolled and recovered her feet. She’d intended to do that, the little daredevil. “I know how bad it can get. What I need is… how to not get there. You know?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. I know that one. Their mom and I never got along, and… The last straw was Mookie crying because we were whispering at each other. Can’t wake the baby, y’know? So we fought in whispers so the kids…” he sighed. “Didn’t work. So after we got him settled again, I asked, Would you be happier if I left? And she said ‘yes’ and we tried to handle the divorce like grown-ass people. I send her what I can spare and I live in this little room in the loft to save money and… The kids are the most important part. You do what’s best for them.”
At Seventy-two, that had been leaving her baby with the only people she could rely upon to care for her. Now that she was two hundred and thirty… it meant doing everything in her power to make sure something like that never happened again.
“I can make sure they have what they need,” she said. “I got that covered.”
“See? You’re already doing better than like half of the other assholes out there.”
“I already love them to bits.”
“Now you’re up to seventy percent,” said Merle. “Most parents I get in the Bodega? They treat kids like a chore. Something they gotta do and something they gotta put up with like they’re obligated. Not a lot of love.”
Mookie took a tumble off the high bars, landing sort-of okay, but scraping his leg on something under the sand. He stood up and blood started snaking down his leg.
“Duty calls.” Merle got up and cheered Mookie for not breaking his fool neck, and ran a minor healing spell over the injury. “No battle scars for you, champ. But let’s find that sharp thing so nobody else gets hurt.”
Mookie started digging like a dog and making vroom noises while Merle was a little more sedate and cautious. It was a sharp rock, not a piece of glass or a needle, thank the gods.
La’ming toured over to where Koko was helping another kid with their sandcastle. She said, “There’s sometimes sharp things in the sand, so you make sure the littles use their tools so they can play safe.”
Koko said, “You can stop fussing, mom. We’re fine.”
She almost floated all the way back to the bench. Mom. He’d called her Mom.
[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 3]
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