Canon

There was an impossibly small boy writing in a notebook. The pencil seemed to be moving too fast for a child of his apparent age. Officer Snocoun Ton boggled at the boy. He was smaller than some dolls she had seen for sale in the fancier parts of Rockport.

He looked up from his work, noticed her, and waved. “Hello, ma’am. Are you the officer sent by the Rockport Militia?”

Sarcasm bubbled out of her. “No, I’m a serial child molester and now you’ve told me everything I need to know to abduct you.”

His smile was relentless. “That’s a pretty good goof, ma’am, but that uniform is too old to be a rented costume, and too well-kept for that as well…” he spent the next twenty minutes detailing every last tell that showed how she really was a Rockport officer and not -for example- someone attempting to impersonate one.

“Okay. I get it. You’re a genius. Why can a literal child help the Rockport Militia?”

“I have a fascination with crime, puzzles, and mysteries, ma’am. I’ve run out of the normal ones, so I’ve taken to reading the Watch Blotters and… well… I think I have something that might help find and apprehend the serial murderer known as Cheerful Charlie.”

Sno was tempted enough to peer at the notebook over this child’s shoulder, and found weird little sigils within. “That’s… scribble,” she said.

“It looks like that to the untrained eye, ma’am, but this is a form of code. I’m only three, so writing is a little complicated, so I used this code to write things faster. It’s a variant of Elscrypt, and each of these symbols is a whole word. I cut my time down even further by cutting out unnecessary bulk words.”

“Uhuh,” she said, doubting this in its entirety. It wouldn’t be above the Chief to send her out after a crank witness. “And what does this Elscrypt tell you about Cheerful Charle?”

“Well, ma’am, he only seems to have a random attack pattern because he strikes in the streets. I’ve plotted all the confirmed murders on a map and they all happen between two districts. The Crumbledowns, and the Meat-packing factories.” He turned the pages towards a map with a number of red ink dots.

Sno felt a chill. Seeing it like that… It looked really obvious.

“I posit, ma’am, that Cheerful Charlie strikes on their way to and from their place of employ. I’ve outlined the likely travel routes in green.”

Holy shit.

“And you want how much for this?”

“Oh, I don’t want money,” he said. “I just want to help the constabulary apprehend this offender.”

Glass Canon

It didn’t take a genius to see that Snocoun Ton, misplaced Elf from a different dimension, was not a happy camper on the moon. The Sno he was used to ordinarily had her pointed ears drooping downwards, but this Sno had hers almost all the way down and more often back than not.

She was separated from her family, from her home, from people she loved and from people who loved her. She was worried about everyone she knew, and surrounded by bizarre doppelgangers that just threw everything into sharper and deeper contrast.

There was little he could do to be concrete help. What she needed was something a little boy could not provide - a way home. What he could provide was company - however strange it was to her. Or some form of… bonding activity.

Sno - his Sno - took more than a little time to warm up to anyone. She seemed to treat time here on the moon as an unnecessary distraction. What he needed to do was help her find it necessary.

Sno was always devoted to her work.

So. He had some plans. Bonding over Steamwork Fiction - or as she called it, Steampunk - or bonding over solving a mystery. He could help with either, so he prepared both.

He found a couple of volumes of Fantasy Jules Verne, and a file of arcane activity in recent months. Clutching both of these prizes, he took them to where Sno was sunning herself in the quad. She looked close to tears.

“May I intrude, ma’am?”

She opened her eyes, stared at him, and shrugged. “I know you know me as… a different kind of Angus, but… I know a different kind of you. I thought… maybe these could help… if not help you feel better, then at least help distract you from the stuff that’s making you sad.”

She upgraded from depressed to melancholic. It was a slim sort of progress, but at least it was progress.

Three Gremlins

Angus was pretty darn good at hiding. It came from being small. He was almost due to turn seven, which meant that Nono was seven and a half. She shot up like any Beach Elf in an environment of love and care. Therefore, she looked to be in her early teens at a stretch, and late tweens for sure.

It was bad enough that she couldn’t act her age, what made it worse was that she had decided to use Taako’s show to search for her birth mother. It had been months, and there wasn’t any sign of her.

This was definitely a case he could take on. Therefore, between shows, he got Nono to tell him everything she knew about her mother. Most of it was hearsay from her grandparents, who disapproved of her, but there had to be some truths in the vile rumours they were wont to believe.

He had a few pieces of information he could attempt to confirm. One: Minmin Ton was seventy-eight years of age. If she were living and working with Humanmen, then she could easily be pretending to be one hundred and one. Taako had said, more than once, that he had pulled a similar ruse when he was underage. Some were even fooled.

Minmin Ton had a sketchy reputation ever since Nono’s conception was confirmed. The rumours were so varied and so disgusting that Angus discounted them all.

Interestingly, it was Taako’s drunken horror stories that were most informative. Whilst he couldn’t give the exact address where Minmin might live, as most of them were gentrified by now, he could give the shape of the area where she might be. In Rockport, they were called the Crumbledowns, in Goldcliff, they were called the Shanties. In one distant city, its name forgotten by Taako, they were called the Shades. Here in Neverwinter, they were called the Shambles.

Every town had them. They were the areas where the flotsam of the city tended to wash up. Because the rents were cheap. Because the landlords didn’t ask questions. Because the entire place was full of folk who were scraping to get by. Because bigger criminals called the lesser criminals who lived there ‘scum’ and ‘villains’. Because birds of a feather flocked together. Because the miserable loved company.

Places like that didn’t have citizens. They had denizens. They grew gangs like reefs grew moray eels, sharks, and octopi. It was a dangerous place. Even the little fish had sharp, sharp teeth.

Angus didn’t dress fancy to go in there. Neither did Nono. They knew damn well that, in a place like that, nobody would pay any attention at all to two more grubby kids in their braies and tunics, so that was what they wore.

Roaming through the Shambles, they found her. Walking the streets in a skirt made out of something gauzy and starfish pasties on her breasts. She had a distinctive chain around her waist and an equally distinctive amulet around her neck. Earning money with the only thing she could sell. Working a job that she clearly hated.

She recognised Nono in an instant. Looked to Angus in brief horror, and then to his ears in relief.

She said, “What happened to Gamgam and Peepums?”

Nono said, “They were assholes,  so I ran off. I’m in a better home, now.”

“Here?”

“No… With a travelling show. The dude’s nice.” Considering Taako’s stories, Nono knew what was up with Minmin’s work. “Come on and at least meet him. He might be able to help.”

Minmin shrugged. “Eh. I can’t make rent today anyhow.” She threw on a cloak she had hidden in a junk pile. “I’ll tell my story and you can tell yours.”

“Deal,” said Nono.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 2]

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The coffeepot in the fantasy percolator had been allowed to boil almost to dry. Merle stared as Taako refreshed the coffee grounds and filter, and filled the boiler with more water. It was nine at night, and Taako shuffled towards his bedchamber.

“Uh. You didn’t clean out the pot,” said Merle.

“Shyeah. Duh. I want some really strong fuckin’ coffee, my dude.”

“That’s gonna be almost boiled dry by the morning,” he warned.

“That’s my plan.”

He got up early enough to see Taako stumble out of bed and refresh the grounds and filter again before adding even more water to the fantasy percolator before re-crashing onto the couch.

“Just how many more times are ya gonna do that?”

Taako gave him the finger.

Snocoun Ton, rooming with Magnus for reasons, emerged from her bunk and busied herself with some seemingly random things. A middle-sized pot, some tea leaves, herbs and spices, a healthy chunk of lemon. All of that went into the pot and she added a lot of water.

She set that on the hotplate to boil.

“That’s… not how you make tea,” said Merle, feeling weak at the knees.

The fantasy percolator finished its current round and Taako rose from his near-coma. He stirred up the hellaciously caffeinated mess and poured the resultant thick, black mess into a large mug with the legend, Yes, I do need this much coffee.

Next, while Sno was poking herbs in her boiling water, he approached the sugar bowl. He extracted two lumps with the delicate tongs and poured the rest of the cubes carefully into his pitch-black mud.

Sno’s concoction was so aromatic that it offended the wallpaper, and she poured hers into an equally large mug that read, Warning: undertow.

Neither Taako nor Sno looked at each other as both raised their mugs to their mouths, and drank.

The world closed in as Merle’s legs gave out from under him. He never felt the fall. All he knew was that his head stung and Magnus was leaning over him. “You okay, old man?”

“I dunno what’s got him fussed,” said Taako from the kitchen as he put on a new pot of coffee for the same cycle all over again. “I’m just havin’ my coffee an’ Sno’s having her fuckin’ tea.”

“…the horror…” Merle gasped. “…the horror…”

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 2]

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The longer Alter-Sno remained on the moon, the worse she seemed to be. Her mood just kept on dropping to the point where there was a guard set up around the edges of the moon. Not that it was needed, she seemed determined to remain alive no matter how much hell she had to go through to do it.

Taako couldn’t fathom how she could be so bummed out. He had never needed anyone or anything, and failed to see how anyone else could need more. However, he could feel the sadness oozing off of her like a chill, cloying fog. Such as right now.

He didn’t even know she was passing behind him until the gooseflesh overtook his entire body despite the footie pyjamas, the shawl, and the hooded cloak he was wearing against the morning.

“Brrr… I dunno about you guys, but she is bumming me out.”

“Yeah, that’s a definite cloud of doom she’s got, there.”

“We should do something,” said Magnus.

“Naaaah,” said Merle, “Put three drops of Dreamroot extract into her ‘lion and she’ll be fine. Right as rain.”

Taako glared at him. “Just one question,” he said. “What the FUCK?”

“I have the same question,” said Madam Director, apparently manifesting spontaneously behind Merle. “You don’t mix Dreamroot and smoking weeds, Merle.”

“Well, maybe you don’t,” Merle began.

Taako tuned out of the incipient argument. Things were headed down the tube, for sure. The only question was how deep and how fast.

*

Merle sat down beside Alter-Sno as she stared up at the stars. “Thoughts of home?”

Tears remained unshed in her eyes. “Yeah. My baby’s waiting for me. I dunno how much time is passing back home. She’s gotta be so worried… I promised her… I promised…”

“Here,” he offered a rolled-up cigarette paper that was lumpish in odd places and smelled… familiar. “Smokee this, you’ll feel better.”

She knew that stink, and tried not to inhale very much. “You shove that in my face again, I’ll shove your entire arm up your own asshole.”

“Oh… kay…” Merle quickly made the joint vanish. “I’ll keep it handy in case you need it.”

*

Magnus had thought hard about this. Obviously getting her a puppy was a bad idea. Dogs wouldn’t remain on the moon. Giving her a puppy that would only run right off the dang thing would not help her overall mood.

He had spent quite a lot of time working on this. The creature inside the travel cage just had to make her smile.

“Hey,” he said. “I know this isn’t your kid, but… it’s company.”

She lifted the cloth. “It’s a pigeon.”

“It’s a homing pigeon,” said Magnus. “It won’t take fall damage if it wanders off the moon and it’ll always come back to you.”

Sno stared at him. It was a look Magnus was used to. It was a Look that said, he can’t possibly be as dumb as he seems right now. She said, “Thanks… I think.”

The pigeon just cooed and rolled ones at comprehending the world.

*

Taako launched straight into his thoughts the instant Alter-Sno opened the door. “So I can’t give you the baby of the base, right. He’s like annoyingly smart and shit. He’d come up with fifteen different reasons why it’s illegal. So I didn’t bother.” He swanned into her apartment. “Then I thought - food basket? But I have no fuckin’ idea about your favourites, so that’d be a wash. Then - a stroke of genius.” He started making tea.

“Genius,” echoed Alter-Sno.

“Yeah. See. You know a younger version of me, and you’re… so very worried about how my other self turned out. So I’m gonna tell you my backstory. Any step forward from where I wound up is bound to raise your spirits about my other self.”

Alter-Sno fussed with giving some seeds to a pigeon. “You figured that out, huh?”

Taako poured some tea. “So let’s start at age three. The genetic donor responsible for fathering me was a superstitious shit and took my heterochromia as a sure sign that I was both bad luck and demon-made. He and Mom fought a hell of a lot before her an off…”

Considering what she knew of her Koko’s past, there were a few key points in common. Absentee father who suffered under the burdens of superstition and immaturity, a mother who died too young, some portion of life with relatives, some of whom were assholes. And, as she listened, a lot more of life on the streets.

Taako had nobody and nothing, and he still managed to become something of a hero. The Koko she knew had a much better foothold on a better future.

The Koko she knew had a sister. He had a family who cared. He had an education. He was… he was doing okay. Further, he would be there to help Lucretia when Sno couldn’t return home.

For the first time, she was starting to feel like things could be okay.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 6]

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Still Tumbl'd, Still TAZ - Chapter 93 - InterNutter - The Adventure Zone (Podcast) [Archive of Our Own]

In this chapter - there’s Sno place like home…

TAZ Prompts Remaining: 7

She had thought that she had stronger willpower. That she was immune to spells like Friends. Apparently, mourning can bring those defenses crashing down.

She didn’t know about that until Brian had the staff within reach.

“Zhat’s it, my dear. Chust a liddle closer… and I vill have all ze power in ze relics!”

“And then I go home?” It was the one desire more powerful than the whisperings of the staff itself. The need to get back to her little girl.

“Vhat? No. Zhen you die. Zhis is Brian’s time to shine, darling.”

The sure-fire end of Friends is when the caster causes damage to the victim. That particular statement was at least five psychic damage. Sno shook out of the spell, backing up away from this… this fiend.

She had the staff. She could…

She could protect everyone…

No. This thing had different wants to hers. Right now, she wanted to see this fiend suffer. As a cop, she had numerous spells that could delay, capture, or otherwise render harmless a purp. There was one that was desperate circumstances only, and this fucking counted.

She cast Circle of Death.

Frankly, Brian was lucky that she didn’t cast Tsunami.

The ravens of the Reapers swarmed the area and Sno heard other people talking for the first time.

“Hey, babe. Can’t even get one day off, can we?”

“Now is not the time, Taako…”

Sno blinked her tunnel vision of rage away. Tres Horny Bois and Team Sweet Flips were there. So was Director Lucretia.

“I’ll take that, now, thank you.”

“Sure,” Sno handed it over without a second thought. “They were lying, weren’t they? About that thing being able to send me back home?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” said Lucretia. “This staff… can’t do that. We’re still working on a solution to your needs, I promise.”

Back where she started, then. In a strange world without a friend and without a hope. Sno broke down on the spot. “I just wanna go home…”

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 6]

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Her name was Jakaranda and she was a necromancer and a Tiefling. What she had been trying to call a spirit back into the mortal realm for was a moot point. She had forgotten a key element of the ritual - the vessel in which the soul was meant to reside. It could be anything. A golem of clay, bone, wood or flesh. I corpse fresh in the grave. A doll for the spirit to haunt. Anything at all, as long as parts of it could move and it was vaguely human-shaped.

Her name was Jakaranda, and she gave Magic Brian a door from the Astral Plane. An opportunity that he didn’t hesitate to grasp at with both currently ephemeral hands. Without a vessel, there was only one thing to possess.

Her name was Jakaranda. It’s Brian, now.

He looked at the lavender skin and the pink hair and the very tall horns care of the bathroom mirror. “Not exactly my first choize, darlink, but I guess ve can’t be ze choosers vhen ve are ze beggars, ja?”

The fading remnants of Jakaranda, trapped in the back of her brain, said, No, no, no, I didn’t want this…

“Too late,” said Brian. “Ve can’t alvays get vhat ve vant. But I… am gettink revenge…”

He could remember. Even in a living body. Interesting. The remnants of Jakaranda heard static when he said things like ‘Bureau of Balance’, but he could hear a subtle little hiss under the words that came through just fine.

Excellent. He went through Jakaranda’s wardrobe and threw together something nice and devastating. Next up, cruising some popular cities for some members of the Bureau who were so new that they wouldn’t remember him. Or, failing that, some of the consults. Yes. Being allowed around the base without a tracer bracer would be most beneficial.

*

It was almost a joke. An Elf, a Dragonborn, and an Orc walk into a bookshop/cafe…

Two of the three were wearing Bureau bracers, but the Beach Elf wasn’t. She looked like she was suffering an immense loss, and perhaps an equally high stress. She looked ready to snap, an impression not helped by her whip-thin physique.

Target acquired.

Brian had a few variations on the standard Bureau tailing technique, so that even a Bureau member wouldn’t catch on that he was following after the Beach Elf. She spent random moments crying. She’d lost someone. Recently.

Brian arranged to be in the aisle next to where she was sniffling and picked any old book so he could peek through. “Oh,” he said, “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” she lied.

“You look very upset, zough. Are you in trouble? Are zose ozzer two menacing you? I can help.”

“No, they’re fine. They’re helping me, I… I’m not from around here and I’m just trying to get home. My little girl needs me.” Tears sprang forth again.

Brian had an ‘in’. He reached through the gap in the bookshelf and said, “It’s goink to be okay. I vant to help.” A touch to her cheek, and the magic words. “I just vant to be Friends.” He cast Friends on her, and she, unsuspecting, went under the spells influence.

“Of course we’re friends,” she said. “My name’s Sno. What’s yours?”

“Call me Jakaranda,” Brian cooed. “Tell me about gettink home…”

She really wasn’t from around here. She’d come from an entirely different reality where some adults here were still children, and Madame Director was a tiny three-and-a-half-year-old child named Lucretia.

Just imagining Madame Director as a tiny child almost blew his borrowed brain.

Nevertheless… “The other Lucretia, she has somesink interesting, ja? Somesing… special…”

“Of course. She has a really magic staff. It’s magic as hell.”

“If you could borrow it,” wheedled Brian, “and bring it to me… I could help you. I could send you home.”

“I want to go home.”

“Zhen you vant to help me. Find a vay to bring me ze staff…”

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 5]

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Alter-Sno was staring off the edge of the Moon again. It was her posture, more than her permanently-down ears or the look on her face that made Madam Director Lucretia journey over to her and say, “Please don’t jump?”

Alter-Sno took three measured steps away from the edge. “No. I wasn’t thinking about it. I was just… the me who belongs in this world is down there somewhere. Isn’t she?”

“It’s not advisable that you try to find her,” said Lucretia. “We don’t know what energies would be released with the encounter between the two of you.”

“Of course we don’t,” sighed Alter-Sno. “That’s the perfect topper to my fucked-up week. Of course there’s no progress in getting me back or reversing whatever fucked-up thing that globe did. Of fucking course you have no idea if time is passing back where I came from… I promised y– her that I’d never abandon her.”

Lucretia could hear the words that Alter-Sno had not said. The pieces slotted together. “You… promised your universe’s version… of me?”

“She’s almost four years old and… the summer fever got her parents. It was months before we found her.”

Oh. Yes. City life and staying out of everyone’s business, and being too busy to care about their neighbours… There were other factors that could lead to children living with the corpses of their parents, but that was the one most common. “I understand you’re worried about her. We’re doing our best, I promise.”

“She’d only just started talking,” said Alter-Sno. “I let her down. I broke my promise…”

“We don’t know that, yet,” said Lucretia. “Come away from the edge… there’s a tea-house here that does some acceptable shortbreads…”

Alter-Sno didn’t come for the shortbreads. “They do dandelion tea?”

For an Elf, that was pretty much equivalent to asking for a sedative. Something to knock her the fuck out so that she wouldn’t have to suffer being awake. “Only under medical supervision. You do want to keep your promise, don’t you?”

Sigh. “Yeah. It’s just… I worry about her.”

Lucretia may have made a mistake when she said, “Tell me about her.” On the other hand, Alter-Sno came back into the realm of the living when she was talking about her adopted daughter.

Unlike most Elf-Human adoptions, this one didn’t involve Luume’s interference. It involved a scared and selectively mute child only trusting Alter-Sno as the toughest person she knew, and therefore the safest one.

Like Lucretia, her tiny counterpart enjoyed reading and other quiet activities. Like Lucretia, her alternate had a reluctance to speak born of being almost criminally shy. Unlike Lucretia, there was family willing to work to help her overcome that shyness. A version of Taako who had his sister - this knowledge was classified and kept away from the rest of the base in general and Taako in particular - and was therefore much warmer towards the rest of the world. A version of Lup who could gently wheedle any close-mouthed child out of their shell.

In another world, Lucretia had careful and gentle relatives who were already shaping her confidence and capability. In another world, Lucretia had a caring family who worked around her quirks and found ways to help her communicate when she wasn’t in the mood to speak. Instead of a mother who wept and a father who yelled when she chose to be quiet and retreat, Lucretia had a family who was willing to whisper and would fetch flashcards so she could still tell them what was wrong.

Lucretia was almost jealous of a four-year-old child in another reality. It was a very strange thing to hear that one had a better life in a different dimension. Not that she wished her own parents dead, but… hearing about this could almost make her do so.

Then Alter-Sno started showing her the baby photos.

Her alternate transformed, from swipe to swipe, from the shy and retreating baby self Lucretia was familiar with, to an increasingly happy and confident little girl. Including being able to do public speaking at her school, if the photo of her at a podium (standing on a step-stool) was any indicator.

It had taken her years, one year in particular, the efforts of her crew, and this wild-ass plan of hers to acquire the gravitas and inherent power that she had today. This junior version of herself was going to have it all much sooner and without all the suffering.

Lucretia wished her well.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 5]

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[AN: As part of April Fools’ (which was yesterday here in Aus), @dualityandsuch and I swapped roles. She was the writer and I was the artist. None of y’all noticed so I guess that was a flop]

They called the Snocoun Ton from another reality Alter-Sno. It saved everyone the fuss and bother of saying “Sno from another reality” all the time. Alter-Sno had come from a vastly different Faerun, with vastly different technology, which she had in her possession.

The operative word, here, being ‘had’.

Because Taako had managed to filch her peculiar Stone of Farspeech and was now twiddling around with it and figuring out how it worked.

“Uuuh, Taako? Maybe you shouldn’t be messing around with that,” Magnus worried.

“Eh, if she wanted it kept away from us, she wouldn’t have kept it in her pocket like that,” murmured Taako. “Ha! What a loser passcode. Who the fuck uses 1-2-3-4?”

“I gotta change my luggage lock,” said Magnus.

“Don’t bother, I only take what I n–” The rest of his thought went unspoken. He had found something… interesting. Or, by the expression on his face, horrifying.

Magnus peeked. “Holy shit…”

On the screen was a six-year-old Taaquito showing off a gap in his teeth, next to someone who looked remarkably like La’ming Ton, over in the Dirty Tricks Department.

“Aaaw, you’re an adorable kid,” said Magnus.

Taako moved his finger across the Stone, showing an image of Merle being carried Fantasy Yoda-style across some finish line by a sweaty and triumphant La’ming. There was another swipe, and Avi with what looked like a six-year-old Magnus. Another, and there was a miniature Lucretia in a sailor-suit school uniform.

Another, and Merle was on a platform, clad in skin-tight exercise shorts, his hairy back to the camera and flirting over his shoulder at the person taking the shot. Kneeling beside him was La’ming, looking suitably proud of herself whilst presenting Merle to the viewer.

La’ming was in track pants and a loose shirt. Merle was wearing the aforementioned shorts and a criminally short sleeveless top.

“That is more hair than should be allowed on a humanoid,” noted Magnus, who had seen far too much of it on various occasions.

There was another. Little Taaquito photobombing Merle as Santa and La’ming as a Candlenights Elf. He was wearing a shirt with the legend, Where the Elf are my presents?

“Holy shit,” they said together, stopped in the middle of the quad and looking from the Stone to Merle, and back to the Stone again.

“Something horrible had to have happened to Mak’arune…” murmured Magnus.

“Fuck her, something horrible must’a happened to La’ming…” said Taako. “How the fuck else could she stand to be near such a horrible misshapen joke on the rest of the Universe?”

“Worse than that,” said Magnus. “He’s your dad, dude.”

Taako’s hair frizzed right up from stress shortly before the Elf himself fainted dead away.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 5]

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Sno could usually set her calendar by her Luume. Every decade on the dot since she, like her mother, had been Seventy years old. Fortunately for her, she had pretty much locked herself indoors with close relatives for the entirety of that year, until her Luume passed in the company of decent adults.

This… was not the same circumstance. She should have had four more years to go. Unfortunately, the forces of fate had different ideas.

It hit in the middle of the day, as she was training with Team Sweet Flips. She went down fast and hard. Tumbling from a throw and planning to tackle as she rolled, to recovering on all fours and glaring in hurt confusion at two people who smelled like friends.

Need. A great and building need. A desperate want not easily slaked.

Dragonborn-friend halted, as did Orc-friend. They looked worried. Sno - what was left of Sno - scented the air. They were bonded with each other. Not wanting Sno.

“You okay?” said Dragonborn-friend.

She only had one word. “Want.”

“Aw shit,” said Orc-friend. “It’s Luume! Grab her!”

The part of Sno remaining understood ‘grab her’ and the fact that this would stop her getting what she wanted.

She succeeded her Dex saving throw.

*

Need. Want. Need what? Something. Somewhere. Run. Scent. Find.

Find babies! Scent! Little one! Lost little one. Follow-find. Make safe. Keep safe. Keep well. Keep fed.

Big edge! Long fall! Baby not safe! Runrunrunrun find!

“Baby!”

Baby grown up. Didn’t matter. Snatch-grab. Take away. Safe place. Soft place.

“What the shit? Sno! I am not a baby…”

All of that entirely missed the bit of Sno’s brain that was busy actually thinking.

*

Sno had built an Elf Nest out of the cushion and pillow storehouse in the moon. In it, she stowed: Lucretia, Magnus, Taako, and Angus.

She’d also dragged in a good amount of packaged food, so her current captives were okay. For limited definitions of ‘okay’.

Unfortunately, thanks to efforts of the Bureau staff, Sno was in aggressive guardian mode. Not letting anyone else in, and certainly not letting her ‘babies’ out. She also didn’t let anyone close enough to activate her “Off Switch”.

Not that Taako hadn’t been trying.

Sno wasn’t exactly rough with repelling her captives, but she was definitely firm. She’d bite ears enough to sting or, if ears weren’t available, the most convenient limb.

For Taako, two bites were plenty. He made himself comfortable and doled out packages, finding one that hadn’t been anywhere near peanuts.

“Aaannnd this is mine. Might as well settle down for the long fuckin’ haul.” He started munching. “Bathroom’s down that tunnel and no, there’s no avenue for escape.”

“Well, shit,” summarised Magnus.

Angus found one of his preferred treats. “Might as well make the most of it.”

Taako and Magnus tutted and rolled their eyes.

Lucretia voiced a very subtle groan.

Magnus raised a hand. “I’d like to talk about how we’re her babies all of a sudden. I mean. Three of us are grown-ass adults.”

“Didn’t she know us in her home dimension, sirs?” said Angus.

“Yeah. Baby versions of us,” Taako’s finger isolated himself, Magnus and Lucretia. “She must’ve picked on you ‘cause you’re a real baby.”

Civil conversation only devolved from there.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 5]

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[AN: This is an AU of an AU that Duality and I are calling “Glass Canon”, mainly because Sno would fucking shatter the established canon with the least little twitch of causality.]

Lucas Miller warned, “Don’t touch tha–”

A flash of light. The sensation of falling.  A dizzying sensation like being inside-out without being inside out. Then something resembling reality restored itself with dizziness, disorientation, and debilitating nausea.

Snocoun Ton passed out without any realisation of what had gone wrong.

She would realise it as soon as she woke.

*

“I’ve called the four of you here today because of an unexpected event. Our arcane energy detectors found a spike in energy similar to a relic… here on the moon.” Lucretia watched their faces with a stab in her heart. Taako didn’t seem to care. Magnus was instantly alarmed. Merle was wearing his, This shit again, face. Angus was intensely shocked.

“But… every relic that comes to the moon is destroyed. Right?” said Magnus. “I mean, we’ve seen three go down.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes you have.” Better a plausible truth than a definite lie in front of the world’s greatest detective. “That’s why this arcane energy spike is so alarming. I’m afraid it only gets worse. The epicentre of the spike was in the Miller’s moon-base laboratory, which has been left vacant since the incident with the Philosopher’s Stone.”

“Fuck,” summarised Taako, not even looking anywhere but his nails. “That’s some bad beans.”

“Indeed. I need the four of you to get your asses down there and find out what the shit is happening. If you can contain it, do so. I doubt it’s a relic, but… if it seems like it could be one, Mr McDonald, I want you to retreat the hell out of there at all possible speed.”

“Yes’m.”

“I want you to find out who’s responsible for this and, if you can, bring them back to me alive. If you can’t - at least find out what they were doing, why they were doing it, and how they got that idiot idea in the first place.”

*

Sno moaned as she sat up. The world was still spinning as she tried to make sense of what had happened. The globe she had picked up from Miller’s desk was on the floor beside her. Cracked. Dull. Dead.

The lab around her was covered in a fine layer of dust. Everything here had lain undisturbed for quite some time. Not quite as she last recalled. Someone had thrown a sheet over some things, but not all of them. Her body print and the print of the globe were the only signs of recent life.

What did this idiot thing fucking do, Miller? She was still recovering her wits when the door blasted open.

“MAGNUS RUSHES IN!”

She was used to hearing that from a six-year-old boy adopted by her partner, Avi. He used it whenever he raced into anywhere. This speaker, though, was a grown-ass Humanman of thirty-something. Behind him was a smaller, stouter figure of an older Dwarf, and a slighter figure of a Humanman boy.

He looked a hell of a lot like Angus McDonald… but he’d had a daughter, not a son.

Behind all of them was a puzzling figure. Elven… a Sun Elf. Golden hair, dappled skin. It was the prominent front teeth and the gap between them that made everything click for her.

“Koko?”

“How the fuck do you know my childhood eke name?” he demanded.

But… Elves picked their adult names at one hundred. If he was an adult, then Magnus couldn’t be alive and– “Who’s the kid?”

“Hello, ma’am, I’m Angus McDonald,” he said, and offered his hand.

That was the exact moment that she knew everything was fucked up. It only got worse when they dragged her and the globe back to their Director.

The last time she’d seen Lucretia Clark, she had been bade farewell on her latest day at school. Because she was six years old and still combatting her elective muteness. Sno had kissed her adopted daughter on the forehead and gone to work.

This Lucretia was fifty if she was a day. Regal and authoritative, dripping gravitas from every pore.

Sno couldn’t help but start weeping. “Something’s gone very wrong,” she said.

Old Lucretia cocked an eyebrow that stabbed Sno through the heart and said, “Indeed.”

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 6]

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