Still Tumbl'd, Still TAZ - Chapter 51 - InterNutter - The Adventure Zone (Podcast) [Archive of Our Own]

TAZ Prompts Remaining: 10

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[AN: You were expecting kink, weren’t you?]

Two thousand and something years before what we know as the present day…

Kravitz woke before the alarm went off, silencing the bell and, in the dark, tidied his bed so that it didn’t have so much as one wrinkle. He washed his face with the ewer and basin and put on the clothes he had left out the night before.

Daddy said, “Early to bed and early to rise…”

Shoes in his hands, he tip-toed downstairs and to the back door. He sat on a little stool to put on his shoes and went out to the privy. Always sure to bring back three logs from the log pile. Almost more than he could carry. After that, it was splitting them into firewood to stock the kitchen and feed the oven.

Of course he was careful to dust off his clothes and wash his hands. That, and remove his shoes because shoes were for the outside only.

His next destination was the one mirror in the Dressing Room. Move the sheet over it just so and make certain he was well-presented.

Daddy said, “Children should be seen and not heard,” and, “A well-presented man is a well-respected man,” and, “Vanity is the root of all sin.”

Therefore, the one mirror was always covered, and Kravitz only checked his appearance in it once, to be sure of his hair. He covered it again and went back into the kitchen.

Ham. Eggs. Sausage. Butter. Into the frying pan and onto the hob, waiting to get a good sizzle. No bread for Daddy, he said bread was for children and dogs, to make them hush. Kravitz filled the kettle from the pump and set it on the hob, too.

The one other clock in the house rang seven. Time for all goodly souls to be awake, Daddy said. Time for practice. Kravitz turned the breakfast and re-entered the Dressing Room, taking the cover off of the piano and turning over the hourglass.

Fifteen minutes of scales. In the keys of C major, D minor, E, F, and G minor.

Five minutes in, the kettle started boiling and whistlng, providing an insistant monotone to Kravitz’s scales. Any minute now, Daddy would come downstairs and make his pot of tea, and serve his breakfast.

It was the way it had always been. It was the way it always would be.

E… up and down. F… up and down. G minor… up and down.

Breakfast was starting to burn. Kravitz started to breathe faster. Daddy would be angry if he let breakfast burn. He would be angry if he stopped playing. He would be angry if he didn’t have his tea…

C major… up and down. The kettle still sang. The breakfast still burned. Daddy’s footsteps still didn’t come down the stairs.

Kravitz snatched the hourglass off the piano and lay it carefully down on the floor. He would play the greater amount of time to make up. He dashed into the kitchen despite Daddy insisting that running around was for gadabout neer-do-wells and never, ever indoors.

Pan off the hob, kettle off the hob. Laying safe and out of potential harm.

No yelling from upstairs. No threatening stomp of feet. Silence there, and nothing more.

Perhaps Daddy was sick. That could be it. Sick in bed and therefore unable to get up and be angry. Listening for every sound, he crept upstairs. Tip-toed all the way to Daddy’s room, and very timidly knocked.

No man was going to hear that knock. Daddy said that a man would announce himself with confidence.

Except… he was a boy of eight.

Five deep breaths. Ratta-tat-tat. “Father. You are late for breakfast. Is anything amiss?”

In the following silence, the tick of the clock sounded like thunder.

Kravitz knocked again. Nothing. He tried the doorknob. Locked. There was a key, but it was on the other side.

He knew what to do about that one, even though he would get a drubbing for acting like a thief. Sheet of paper under the door. Poke the key out from the other side, then drag the sheet back to the side he was on, key and all. Then, he used the key to unlock the door and enter.

“My sincere apologies, Father, but I grew overly concerned,” he said. “You’re late for breakfast and you’re never late for breakfast.”

There was such a scene. His bedclothes were in disarray and Daddy had stripped out of his nightshirt and bedcap. There were pools of vomit on the floor.

“Father?” Careful of the noxious pools, Kravitz tip-toed about to reach Daddy. He was panting like a dog in the sun, and burning hot to the touch. He was also unable to be roused.

Further thievery was necessary now. He opened Father’s bureau and stole a sheet of paper and a modicum of ink to write, Dearest Father. I found you ill after you were late for breakfast, and therefore found it necessary to borrow the horse. I have gone to fetch the town Cleric and should return in good time. I’m well aware that I am overdue a good drubbing for my sins, and will await your earliest convenience.

Signed, Your loving son, Kravitz. He blotted, sanded, and blew the ink dry, sealing the inkwell and cleaning the pen before setting everything else in the bureau to rights. He left the paper where Daddy would see it and hurried out towards the stable.

He almost forgot to put on his shoes.

Kravitz could hear the clock ticking like thunder as he brushed down the horse, added blanket, saddle, and tack. Made certain the girth strap was tight before he mounted. Then he was off at a steady, but rapid, pace.

Daddy always said, “A steady pace is oft faster than racing. You whip a horse, you might as well shoot the thing.”

He was light and Double-Dash was eager enough to run. Kravitz wasted an illogical handful of seconds wondering what it might be like to let Double-Dash run and run wherever he wanted… but that was not the purpose of a horse.

Cleric found, Kravitz had to explain things three times. Once to him, once to his wife, who translated, and once more to him. He had to come. Daddy was very sick. Yes, he has a fever. Yes, he’s thrown up. No, Kravitz couldn’t wake him. Yes, he was still breathing. Yes of course we need to hurry, that’s what Kravitz was telling him! Please!

Kravitz rode with the Cleric. The wife rode behind. Nothing made a horse run faster than another horse running, Daddy said. The Cleric’s wife ran her horse hot and hard, so Double-Dash did his best to catch up. All the way home.

Where Kravitz caught his breath, took a drink of water, and sat back at the piano, setting up the hourglass where it belonged, with the most sand on the topmost side.

C major, up and down. D minor, up and down. E, up and down. F, up and down. G minor, up and down. Check the sand, start again. C major…

Around and around until his elbows ached. Kravitz paid no heed to what the Cleric and his wife were doing. Daddy said, “Let the professionals be professional and don’t pester them with questions,” so that was what Kravitz did, until the sand ran out.

Daddy always had work for him at this point in the routine. Daddy wasn’t here to give Kravitz something to do.

So he sat. Waiting. Stomach rumbling. At the piano.

He had to keep Daddy happy.

That meant doing everything Daddy wanted him to do. Which meant doing what he was told. When that something was absent, he sat. Waiting. Perfect posture. Perfectly still.

For a father’s smile that would never come.

The Cleric’s wife eventually fed him the cold ham, sausage, and eggs, and gave him a slice of fresh bread and a big glass of milk. She said words that didn’t make sense to Kravitz. Inheritance. Estate law. Regency. In loco parentis.

He said, “Father will sort it out. Father will sort out everything. Once he is done, I will receive the drubbing I am overdue. I have acted like a criminal, even though it was for a good cause.”

The Cleric’s wife snatched him off the chair and hugged him tight and said, “You don’t worry about that. You don’t worry about that ever again.”

It would be months before he realised that his father was dying at that very moment, upstairs.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 10]

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Promotions didn’t happen often amongst the Elven portion of the NWPD, so Snocoun’s ascent upwards in the ranks was reason to throw a huge party. Sno hadn’t wanted any kind of public attention, so Avi had arranged literally everything. The venue, the caterers, and the entertainment.

Everything had been arranged by text. Email, messaging systems. He hadn’t known…

He hadn’t known the Bard would be so lovely.

Avi was staring. He knew he was staring. He could feel the blush starting in his cheeks. He could imagine quite a number of interesting futures with that man on the dias.

All dependant on his being able to talk to him first.

“You’re drooling, Burnsides,” Sno murmured in his ear. “See something you like?”

Avi swallowed and quickly looked away from the violinist. “Who? Me? What makes you say that?”

Sno quickly picked up on where Avi was pointedly not looking and smiled like a shark. “Oooh… Lust at first sight… The Bard?”

“Shut up,” he mumbled.

“I think you li-ike him. You want to ki-iss him. So go and hu-ug him…”

“Shut up…” The blush crept outwards from his cheeks.

Sno took a deep breath and fortified herself. “Welp. It’s about time I took a bullet for you. We’re buddies. It’s about time I did you a good turn.”

Avi, who knew exactly how awful Sno was at interpersonal relationships, cringed and blushed harder. “Sno, no…”

“Sno, yes.”

Avi could only whimper and attempt to hide in the crowd. He rolled a nat 1 on his stealth check.

*

Johann had been quietly eyeing the guy who’d hired him half the night. He knew that Elves - even half-Elves like himself - had a certain effect on Humanmen. He was living proof. As the night progressed, the dude was turning increasingly interesting shades of red.

Uh-oh. Here came the partner. Johann had heard the others here calling her ‘the cold front’ half the night and ‘the big chill’ the other half. Judging by the look on her face, she was about to be up to shenanigans. Probably something like requesting Freebird or Louie Louie. Junk like that.

“Hey. Bard…”

“Name’s Johann.”

“Yeah. Uh. Do you, like… have somebody?”

What? This was not what he anticipated. Not at all. He and Redguy had been chatting for a while. Maybe Red was that colour because he knew she was this awful. “Whut?” he said.

“You know like…” her hands juggled invisible balls between them. "A life partner. Significant other. Snuggle buddy. Whatever. Do you come home to a flesh person on the regular?”

Flesh person. Holy shit, that was awful. No wonder Red, over there, was turning vermillion. “…no?”

“Are you looking for someone?”

Gods. She was making it worse. "Uh. Lady. I’m not… You’re not my -uh- cuppa tea…“ How to back outta this gig without being arrested or whatever? Over in the corner, Red was trying to hide inside his own hands.

“What?” she said.

“What?” he said.

“No! I mean. I’m not into you. Not like that. Um. A friend'a mine… he’s been… Look. Do you like guys?” This whole situation could not get more awkward even if they were having an awkward contest.

“This conversation is getting harder and harder to follow,” Johann confessed.

“So… my partner. Not partner-partner, but like, on the job partner? He thinks you’re cute.” Her face twisted weirdly and after a moment, Johann realised she was trying to smile. “He’s my buddy and I’m trying to do him a solid, here.”

Across the room, now valiantly attempting to hide in a corner despite the lack of cover, Red yelled, “DAMNIT, SNO!”

Buzz around the room increased significantly. Johann knew that buzz. Bets were being laid. More than that would be being laid, if he played his cards right.

“That’s him,” said Sno.

“Oh. Yeah.” Johann was certain he was failing to pretend he hadn’t noticed Red. “Kind’a cute…” especially when he was red-faced and cringing in anticipation of imminent disaster.

Sno turned and yelled, “HE SAYS YOU’RE CUTE!”

Gods, it was amazing the poor fellow didn’t spontaneously combust. If the path to true love was paved with soul-crushing mortification, this lady was the gods-damned entire road works. “Lay off the poor fellow, huh. I don’t want him to die before we get a chance to talk.”

“His name’s Avi Burnsides and I will figure out a way for you two to talk to each other tonight if it kills me.” She had a slip of paper ready and tucked it into his shirt pocket. “But just in case, that’s his number.”

Ah shit. “M’kay. Real quick. Favourite song?”

“Istanbul Not Constantinople by They Might Be Giants.”

“Cool.” He pitched his voice to carry. “This next number is at the request of the celebrant…” and then proceeded to play the living fuck out of Istanbul.

*

Meanwhile, over in the corner of Avi’s eternal shame…

“I hate you and I want you to shrivel up and die,” said Avi.

“No you don’t,” Sno handed him another Redcheek Cider. The strong stuff, since they’d either be walking or catching a cab home. Besides, her buddy obviously needed some Dutch Courage. “He said you’d have to pay him in person? Someone’s been stealing his mail.”

Avi didn’t believe it for a second. “We already have each others’ emails, and I can pay him by e-transfer.”

“Nope. You can’t do it. There’s been a SNAFU with his bank. They’re taking too long to give him money people send him. Dude’s running a bit short. He needs to pay rent y’know?”

“Ahuh,” said Avi in his this-is-a-cartload-of-horseshit voice. “What kind of SNAFU?”

_Ah, crap…_ “Uh. Like. You know on Paypal when you get too many payments, too fast? They -uh- freeze your account? It’s like that, only they’re auditing every e-payment. It’s a pain in the ass.”

“Huh. Never heard of that,” he said. “Shouldn’t be a big deal to hand him a cheque.”

“And thank him for a marvellous job at playing tonight?”

“Especially that one. I didn’t know you were into They Might Be Giants.”

“Who isn’t?”

“Sno…”

“I panicked. It was the only violin piece I could think of.”

He patted her arm. “Honesty’s very important between friends, Ton, Sno.”

“I’m letting you get away with that tonight, Burnsides. Thin ice,” she growled. “Drink your cider.”

She sipped lightly - not that alcohol had a lot of effect on Elves - and tipped up his elbow a little to encourage him to drink more.

“You’re an ass, Sno,” Avi coughed, having had some of the cider go the wrong way.

“Yeah, and you’re the only one who can handle it. Drink up. You’re gonna talk to the man.”

“Okay.”

“Tonight.”

“Okay.”

“And say more than two words in succession.”

Now he looked stricken. “Aw, come on…” He was back into turning a fine shade of crimson. “I can’t do that.”

“Not yet, you can’t,” she had a bottle of his finest, richest home brew. “Follow that with some of this, and you might be able to say a few words to him before the end of the evening.”

Avi whimpered.

“Or…” she said. “I act as your go-between all night.”

Avi sank the rest of his Cider in a sudden and desperate thirst.

*

Johann took a break for food and something non-alcoholic. Two more sets, tops, and ninety percent of these cops would be so pie-eyed, they’d be pouring them into their cabs and ubers.

Uh oh. Here came the lady of the evening. Shoving her partner towards Johann with a great amount of reluctance on his part.

“No, no, no, no… I still can’t do it… Sno-o-o-o-o-o…”

“Say ‘hello’,” coached Sno.

Avi, halfway sloshed and very red in the face. “Uhm. Hi? You play real good.”

“Thanks,” said Johann. “I practice daily.”

“Say, ‘I think you’re cute’,” coached Sno.

Avi went even redder. “That… um… youroutfitlooksrealnice…”

“Close enough.”

Johan was starting to feel a little pink around the cheeks, himself. “Yeah, the entertainment company makes me wear it.”

“Say, ‘maybe I should see you out of uniform’,” said Sno.

“NOT LIKE THAT!”

Johann snorted. “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind seeing you off the clock, either. You free weekends?”

“Alternate ones,” said Sno. “This coming weekend is completely free.”

“…eeeeeeeee…” said Avi, cringing in mortification.

“Saturday or Sunday?” said Johann. “You a morning person, cutie?”

“…kyeeee…” Avi gasped. “…yousaidI’mcute?”

“He’s a very annoying morning person,” said Sno. “Pick a day.”

“Saturday’s cool,” said Johann. “I know a great breakfast place on Swine Row. One thirty-four. Know it?”

Sno had picked his pocket and was plugging details into his phone. “He’ll find it. I’ll make certain he doesn’t freak out and dash.”

“I got a quicker way,” Johann said. “Want some motivation, sweetie?”

Avi just kind of squeaked.

Johann leaned over and kissed him. A friendly smooch on the cheek, but he put a lot into it. “See you Saturday? About nine in the morning?”

“…uh huh…?” Avi squeaked.

“Fantastic.” He was a lot red in the face, now. “Got any favourite songs? And please don’t say ‘Istanbul’.”

“Um. Day in the Life by the Beatles?”

“Aw shit yeah,” Johann grinned.

Sno dinged her champagne glass with a fork. “Everyone? Everyone raise your glasses for Officer Burnsides… because he has a date this weekend!”

The entire room cheered as one half paid some money to the other half.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 11]

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“I mean… yeah. Sure. We always argue about stupid stuff. It’s a thing.” Lup shrugged. Trying to act casual about just… not having her brother there. These interviews had to be conducted one on one. Captain evaluating potential crew. She hadn’t thought talking to a rather young Gnome would be intimidating, but there she was. Nervous about talking to a man who needed a booster seat to see over his desk.

“So. Why do you need Taako to be part of this crew? What does he bring that can’t be supplied by any other crewmember?”

His right hand in my left, she thought, but couldn’t say out loud. That was too brief. Too glib. Too easily missed by such a stern and dour man who looked like he’d never had a friend nor a happy thought in his life. He hadn’t had anyone like Taako, that was for sure.

He’d never had…

The someone who was always there. The rock of reliability in seas of uncertainty. The one person she could always turn to. Even in the living hell of Saint Vingo’s, he had been there for her. Always.

He’d never had…

A brother at age five, usually timid of anyone else, shielding her from Mr Bingbong as he drunkenly capered about in the Tre Llew-Ddion streets. Picking up a chunk of hard, mouldy cheese that had been thrown at them mere moments before, and flung it towards the drunk clown with the sad umbrella. She’d followed suit after three such throws, laughing as Mr Bingbong turned and squeaked miserably away.

He’d never had…

Instant acceptance at age ten, when she told him in secret, and then told the world when she defended her identity against some bigger, older kids. When the news had reached their mother, he was an eager font of ideas on how to scratch together one thousand gold pieces worth of gemstones when they could barely keep a copper piece between them. He’d never had someone who worked so hard for so long to help when there was pain like that for every day of existence.

He’d never had…

Someone else purring in her ear to ground her when the nightmares came. Someone to gather herbs and medicines when it was just them on the road. Someone’s shoulder to cry on. Someone’s warmth to share. Someone to warn her of a bad idea. Someone who could sell pig dung to farmers like it was precious gems…

Lup thought long and hard about everything she loved about her brother. How he could sell ice to frost giants. Thought hard about what he’d say to sell her to this stern and stoic man. Then she thought about what he’d want her to say about him.

She took a deep breath. Began with his favourite word. “Listen…” she said. “I may say the words ‘dumb baby brother’ about Taako, but that’s like, a joke on the universe. You’ve seen our test scores, you know he’s not an idiot. Hell, I’m not even sure if he made mistakes on purpose ‘cause he knew I wanted to get in. He’s–” my entire heart. If you take him away from me, I will be a soulless shell. No. Don’t say that. “There’s been entire decades when Taako’s the only reason I got up in the morning, you know? He– We’re twins. You know what that means for Elves?”

“I’m familiar with the superstitions. It’s bad luck to separate twins. They’re two bodies with one soul… all that nonsense.”

Gods it was a fight not to get angry. “For us… it’s almost true. We’re…” Deep breaths, and don’t incinerate the nice man with his finger on the button of your future, Lulu… “You’ve got all our records. You know we didn’t always wash up in nice places.”

“Saint Vingo’s stands out,” he said. “It always does.”

He knew. He’d read all about it. Yet here he was, giving them a chance. “Places like that… have a lasting effect. Without Taako by my side, I’d…” wither away to nothing… “He’s like… all of my impulse control, now. Saint Vingo’s is where I lost the last of my patience for anything. I’m… I’m his sense of restraint. Like, sometimes, he’ll go off on a really terrible idea, and I have to stop him because - he won’t. He stops me. We’re each other’s brakes.” Well. That was this job down the tubes. “He’s my up when I’m down. I’m his warmth when he’s cold. We have a joke, together. As a pair? We make one functional Elf. We’re a team. We’ve been a team since forever.”

He was taking notes. “Mm-hm…”

“We were born holding hands. We’re a team. We’re unit. We’re a package deal. Double or nothing, Captain. And if you need me to tell you how good he is or why you need him and me?” All or nothing. Do or die. There were no grey areas any more. She’d had enough of grey in Saint Vingo’s. “You can just fuck right off to hell.”

She marched right out of there without giving him any form of comeback opportunity. Only imagining her entire future burning to ashes. All the way back to the little place she shared with her brother. Head high, as if she hadn’t just destroyed every single hope she’d had of every having her best dream come true.

She kept her appearances up all the way in to their pokey little living room, where Taako had baked a cake. It was shaped like the ship still under construction, sailing off towards the sky. A tiny fondant likeness stood on the prow, one arm raised and pointing the way. There was a banner across the wall that red, Congrats Captain Lup!

That was when she broke. He hadn’t even put a fondant Taako on that ship. He knew. He fucking knew… He knew they were angling to leave him out of the expedition. Already. That was when she broke.

Taako was wrapped around her in instants. Listening to her incoherent howling about how she’d fucked it up for both of them. “Hey, hey, hey,” he cooed, “I’m the debbie downer in this duo. Stop stealin’ my act. We always knew you were goin’ and -hey- it’s just two months. I’m sure I can survive that long. Taako’s good out here.”

She sighed. “Nah. I fucked it for both of us.”

Taako leaned over the cake, turning the fondant figure around and then changing her hand to giving the entire ship the finger. “Eh, so you get to be captain of the next one. I get to be two eye see. Who needs those losers, right? Remember whats-her-face? Didn’t know we were twins for like two months?”

Lup snorted, pushing him away. “You butt-waffle.”

“If I’m a butt-waffle, you’re an ass-erole.”

He was her ability to laugh when she was feeling her worst. They had cake anyway. And the biggest surprise of their lives when the captain put the both of them on his short list the next morning.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 11]

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Patience is a virtue, tho’ it makes you jump through hoops,
Seldom seen in Humans, and never seen in Lup – A Taako Original.

Life was rarely fair for the twins. Take birthdays. Lup always managed to have hers celebrated, but -thanks to a small matter of forty-five minutes edging into the first four minutes of the next day- Taako inevitably missed out. Lup, as the first-born, was legally entitled to whatever their missing family could provide her. If an inheritance had ever really been in the offing, Taako would have got the scraps.

He was ninety percent of her impulse control, and the harbinger of doom who had always managed to pull her out of some situation her usual recklessness had got her into. He was her back-up, her confidante, her loyal second… her entire heart. She might have been the smart and outgoing one, but Taako always managed to form the bonds with the most meaning. He had the keenest eye and the shrewdest mind for finding new directions to take. That brother of hers could salvage a con gone sour with very little in the way of warning.

Which was why she was leafing through Taako’s cookbooks while he was out looking for interesting ingredients. Looking for a recipe to help add a balm to his battered soul.

They were one hundred and forty-seven. They had been one hundred and forty-seven for thirty years so far, and it showed no sign of coming to an end. He had put up with so much shit in that time, not the least of which was watching her die so often. The first time that happened, he’d just… collapsed[1]. He hadn’t dealt any better with it the other six times.

Not like she’d done any better, watching him die twice during those years. The first time, she’d gone on a rampage of vengeance. Literally blazing a path of destruction across that suck-ass reality that, only in retrospect, she had not been proud of. The other time… The other time she’d followed him into the metaphorical grinder, not seeing a worth to her life if he wasn’t in it.

Which was just one reason upon thousands why she was searching through his recipes. She wanted to surprise him with one of his favourites. Cooked by her own hand. Because food was one thing they had in common, because it was his birthday, because she wanted to apologise for the last time she’d died, because food was one of the thousands of ways of saying ‘I love you’. Good food, especially, between the two of them.

She owed him much more than that, of course; but this was a good start.

The best way to find the best-loved recipes in any cookbook was to look for the one with the most stains. She knew Taako had a whole mouth full of sweet tooths -sweet teeth?- so picked out some of the stickiest pages in there. Sure, many of the ingredients of the original recipes weren’t around any more, but Taako was thorough. In every dimension, he insisted on finding the best substitutes he could and jotting them down. Thus, the books became a near-indecipherable mess that Lucretia attempted to sort out once every decade.

Heer dear, darling, paranoid obsessive brother had one clear favourite that didn’t involve trucking around half of this reality to get the ingredients. He called it a Fruity Tuity and it was somewhere between a figgy duff and a plum pudding. Typical Taako, it involved four kinds of sweetening and -yikes- Fifty-seven steps. Sixty, if you included the time spent soaking it in rum or honey mead, and putting unfinished steps into the cold box to chill.

Two days prep? Fuck that noise.

Surely, there’s a few steps I can skip to speed this thing along a smidge…

*

It had been a long, tiring, and somewhat fun day. Taako returned with his prizes - ninety percent ingredients, ten percent fashion, and some weird shit that was probably unique to this particular reality that might be useful at some later date. He ignored Maggie complaining behind him.

“…why I have to be your beast of burden,” he was whining. “I mean, it’s not like any of it is really heavy, so much, as it’s… awkward…”

Taako sniffed the air. There was sugar, and rum… and… “Dragonfruit?”

Lup appeared with the multiverse’s fakest grin on her face. Which was smeared with flour, syrup, and something looking remarkably like soot. She was wearing an apron that was similarly besmirched. “Taako… You’re early…”

“It’s getting late, actually.” He sniffed the air again. Charcoal? “Lulu, have you been fucking up my kitchen?”

“Me? Fuck up your kitchen? Hahaha! I know better than to make a mess in our kitchen, brother-dear.” Oh shit. Something had gone mega terri-bad. That ‘brother-dear’ was a dead give-away. “I was just tryin’a -youknow- arrange a little surprise for your birthday…”

“Uh… why’d you borrow my apron, there, sis?”

“So I thought I’d just whip up one of your faves…”

“That ain’t aromatic smoke in the air, goofus.”

“…and I might have had a few technical issues…”

“What the fuck did you do, Lulu?” Taako dumped his share of the shopping bags on the handiest patch of floor, sailing down the spiral stairs that lead into the mess.

In this case - the literal mess. This was three times worse than the last time they’d done a fuck-it-let’s-cook-literally-everything gourmet extravaganza because Merle owed them a month of washing up. It was worse than the time Barold attempted to cook the whole crew dinner, which was -by no co-incidence at all- the last time anyone insisted on sharing duties on the Starblaster.

It was worse than the time Maggie burned the Spaghetti and attempted to make up for it with pancakes. Which he also burned. And got stuck to the ceiling.

“Oh my sweet merciful gods…”

“It isn’t as bad as it looks?” said Lup.

“YES IT FUCKING IS!” Taako gestured at the wreckage. “What the fuck were you trying to make?”

“I thought you might like a Fruity Tuity?” She edged past him to release the valve on the pressure cooker.

“…in the presh-pot…”

“I figured it didn’t need to be as complicated as you set it out if I approached it with logic and science on my side–”

“…oh gods, no…” Taako moaned. “The nerdlord’s infected you.”

“Nonsense, Koko. It’s going to be fine. So I was a little bit more creative than usual. So what? No progress without experimentation and this–” she opened the lid at last and took a peek. “–is… not… what I expected.”

Her face said it all. All her best-laid plans, attempts at improv, and possibly five pounds of wasted ingredients had come to naught. Taako peeked anyway.

“Yeesh. Looks like the results of the last time Merle tried to cook.” And by that, he meant the diarrhea. “Is that one of my good pudding cloths?”

Lup was aghast. She knew the ships’ rule. You fuck it up, you’re eating it. “I’m so sorry, Koko…”

“Maybe next time follow all the instructions, hm?”

Maggie, meanwhile, had taken a spoonful to sample. “Mmm. Crunchy.”

“It’s not s’posed’a be crunchy!” Lup wailed.

They were gonna have to send out for pizza and ice cream before they even thought of cleaning up after this one.

[1] See The Worst Year, as chronicled by yours truly.

Avi slowed as he passed the fire escape. It was getting dark, and it was getting chilly, and that little girl that had been up there this morning, was still up there now. Sure, she had a light to read by, but she was looking mighty cold. All huddled up with her knees inside her dress.

Sno, who had marched ahead, stopped and turned back. “What?” she said.

Avi nodded his head in the kids’ general direction. “I think something smells wrong with a situation, here.”

Their chief had them on the shittiest jobs. Enforcing CPS visits, rules, and decrees. Separating kids from the only families they knew. Sweeping kids up off the streets when they’d been thrown out of their homes… sometimes recovering sad, small bodies from culverts, dumpsters, and gutters. They got to have a second sense about things being hinky.

Sno saw it in a second, of course. “Aw shit. D-U-N?” Quasi-forensics code for Dead Upstairs Neighbour.

City life lead to some fucked up shit, sometimes. Like neighbours not knowing that a fellow neighbour had died until the foul-smelling ichor leaked into their own areas. Or children living with the deceased bodies of their parents until something forced the information out into the open.

This tiny little figure on the fire escape was small enough to not know what death looked like. Just like a certain pair of twins in her case file who had cooked for themselves for two months before… Well. That had been a nasty one.

Avi, usually the smiling, welcome face of the NWPD, walked in his patented Friendly Goof manner towards the fire escape. “Hi there, cutie…” he cooed.

She hid behind her book with barely a whimper.

“So much for the Burnsides’ famous rustic hospitality,” Sno teased. She edged around to the kids’ peripheral vision and did her best impersonation of harmlessness. It came off as somewhere between burning fuse, loaded gun, and growling dog with orange eyebrows. “Hey. My name’s Sno. What’s yours?”

She didn’t hide, but rather peeked past her book with one eye.

*

“Hey, up there,” the blue-ish police woman waved again. “Can I come up?" 

Lucretia looked down at the officers. There was the nice young man and the scary blue lady and they weren’t going away like everyone else did. She’d seen the scary blue lady around the neighbourhood, and had once seen her taking down a bad guy at the bodega. She was the good kind of scary. Lucretia nodded. 

She winced when the fire escape shook, all the same. 

"No, Burnsides. You stay down here. If we both come up, we could spook her. She gave me permission." 

The nice young man said, "Okay, but when she screams at you, I’m coming up there for mop-up." 

"Just gimmie one of those lollipops you always have and I’ll try it your way.”

Lucretia watched as the scary lady came up. Watched as she slowed down the closer she came to Lucretia’s sunny spot. Watched in silence and read the name, “Ton” on her badges. There were other words, too. Serve and Protect. 

“Pretty cold up here, isn’t it?”

Lucretia had to agree. She nodded. 

“I see you have an umbrella for rain. That’s smart. Do you have something for the cold? Or would you like my jacket?" 

Lucretia glanced inside the window into her home. She didn’t like going in there if she could help it. The smell was getting real bad. She took a risk and pointed to the jacket. It was nice and warm when scary Ton wrapped it around her. 

"Is it bad inside?” said scary Ton.

Lucretia had to nod. It was very bad inside. 

“Nobody hurts you,” it was more a statement than a question. Police were clever and saw lots of things. Scary Ton would notice things like bruises. Or little stains that weren’t washed out of Lucretia’s cleanest clothes.

Lucretia nodded again. 

“Who’s looking after you, sweetie?" 

You had to be honest with police. Lucretia pointed at herself. 

"Are your people sick?”

Lucretia thought about that one. They were sick. Mom and Dad had been very, very sick. And then they stopped coughing and throwing up and stopped breathing and started smelling bad. She shrugged. 

“Can I go see?” said Scary Ton. 

She couldn’t work out why she wanted to, but Lucretia nodded. 

Scary Ton went inside, and coughed some, too. Then she came back outside. “You’re right. It’s very bad in there. I can take you somewhere that’s better. Would you like that?" 

Lucretia nodded, and when Scary Ton came all the way out onto the fire escape, she latched onto the Police Officer’s leg and wouldn’t let go.

The nice young man down on the street thought this was so funny, but Lucretia just wanted to feel safe. Scary Ton was scarier than anything else in the whole world and would protect Lucretia from everything, she just knew it. 

Lucretia wanted ‘safe’ more than anything in the whole wide world.

“Okay, okay…” Scary Ton cooed. “I can’t take you anywhere like that. Come on… up a bit… up to my hip, huh? I need that foot for later.”

It took some wrestling, but Lucretia wound up on Scary Ton’s hip and the coat got put back on with Lucretia still inside. Scary Ton held her close and patted her hair and she was warm and smelled nice and Lucretia didn’t want to feel scared when she was like that.

*

Sno lowered down the kid’s supplies in a bag with the help of some string. Her coming down the fire escape with the kid on one hip was a complicated matter, but she was agile enough to get them both down without trouble.

“Double ten-fifty-five,” she said. 10-55. Coroner’s case.

She flinched away from Avi’s offer of touch.

“Hey, it’s okay, Lucretia…” she’d learned the name inside the apartment. A name plate on her door plus confirmation via found ID’s gave her name as Lucretia Clarke. Her own attempts at writing practically screamed that she preferred her full name, rather than Luce, Lucy, or any other derivative diminutive. “This is Avi. He’s my friend. And you know what? He’s always got lollipops.” The last sentence had been added in a conspiratorial whisper.

Avi, on cue, used some sleight of hand to produce one as if by magic. This one was yellow, like Lucretia’s pale blonde hair. “Ah? You can take it, it’s okay.”

Lucretia burrowed into the confines of Sno’s coat. “Guess she’s not a fan of candy. Or she’s not a fan of you.”

“Fine, I’ll call it in. You keep her cosy.”

Sno juggled the kid on her hip a little. Amazed at every turn how someone that small could get so heavy. There’d be no getting this kid to let go, that was a white-knuckle grip she had on Sno’s clothes. “You know… if you feel like talking, you can tell me why you like me. I’m not exactly popular with kids like you.”

Lucretia didn’t say a word, just closed her eyes so she could listen intensely to Sno’s chest.

Judging by the condition of the bodies, she hadn’t heard an adult’s heartbeat or breathing for five months.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she whispered. “I got’cha. I got’cha.” One breath to steady herself. Two. Three. And, oh fuck… she was purring for this kid.

Now what?

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 7]

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According to the assessment test, Avi managed to wind up on the ‘dumbass’ end of entrants and wound up with the other slow learners in the Academy - the Elves. As far as society was concerned, they were there to fill in some quotas. A few might have been. One was definitely there to prove the entire world wrong.

Her first words to him were, “That’s a violation of uniform code.”

“I never got writ up for it,” he said, taking the last seat, right by her.

“Of course not,” she said. “You’re Human.”

“What?”

Class began, and Avi soon noticed what was happening against literally everyone else in the class. Elves could get write ups for the most minor of infractions, including uniform code, whilst Avi was allowed to skate by without notice. He was always called on first, regardless of whether or not he had his hand raised… and the Elves were always wrong.

It was his first taste of injustice. It would not be his last.

It took a week of written reports, several interviews with the people in charge and, finally, an ‘anonymous’ hidden camera recording released to the media for that teacher to find himself reassigned and a more fair setting to enter the classroom.

By that time, he’d learned his future partner’s name. Snocoun Ton. She was one of the few cadets who worked herself ragged to make it to the top, earning extra points by helping him study, amongst other things.

Rumours whispered that she slept her way to the top of the class, but Avi knew that she’d never had the time. All of her extracurriculars ate every second she had to spare. Though she was valedictorian of her academy class, the higher brass had it that she was ‘on par’ with the average Human in the academy.

“It’s okay,” she said after Avi had finished ranting about the injustice of it all. “I have the time to play the long game.”

She was a hundred and twenty. A fresh-faced young adult by Elven standards. She could afford to spend his entire life working up to the higher echelons of the rank and file.

“Be proud to see you do that,” he said. “I’m in for the ride.”

“That’s career suicide, Burnsides.”

“I never wanted a career,” he said. “I just wanted to help the law be lawful without being an excuse to become a bunch of bullies.”

“That’s a lofty goal for a Humanman,” she noted.

“Aim high or shoot yourself in the foot, Ton.”

She winced. “Don’t… don’t call me that. Please.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not happy with my family name.”

“Shitty family?”

“Nailed it.”

“Okay if I call you ‘Sno’?”

A rare smile took over her usually sour face. “Sno will do. We’re going to get all of the shit. You know that, right?”

Avi grinned. “You know nothing… Ton, Sno.”

“You get away with that once, Burnsides.”

He laughed. “Worth it.”

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 7]

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Every neighbourhood has a bodega, the corner shops, the convenience store. They have many names, including some brands. Seven-eleven, the IGA, quick-e-mart, shop’n’go… The names change, but the concept remains the same. A little place where anyone living there can walk and gather emergency supplies. Be it a loaf of bread, some ingredients, or the little things that one is always running short of at the last instant. They can be pokey little places with only a handful of shelves, or labyrinthine expanses with claustrophobic confines and items no-one who goes there could ever fathom needing[1].

This evening, just after ten PM, Merle was cat-napping at the counter when one of the regulars came in. One of the Elves who lived around the corner and down the street a bit. She made a beeline for the tourist spot, where clothes claiming the bearer loved Neverwinter despite any evidence to the contrary.

Long experience with this neighbourhood had ensured that this particular bodega stocked pants and skirts as well. They were one-size-fits-most atrocities that owed most of their construction to pull cords. There had been many instances in Neverwinter of the hardy perennial street loonie who managed to misplace all of their clothing before having some kind of loud and public wobbler long about three in the morning.

Merle got most of his business from the average naked creature who happened to be tripping balls. You didn’t have to be crazy to choose a pair of those pants, but it certainly helped. Therefore it was slightly odd to see the relatively sane Sea Elf grab two (size med-to-small) and two I (heart) NW shirts (small), stuffing them into her basket before scouring through areas she had never gone into before.

Merle watched through a mixture of the camera feeds and the special mirrors around the shop as she seized two stuffed toys, a misshapen unicorn and some kind of bizarre purple cow-hippo hybrid. A couple of Little Golden books, some terrible off-brand action figures. Then she stopped at some of the pre-packaged foods.

“Hey Merle… you have kids, right?”

“Technically. They’re off with their mom. I don’t get ‘em until the weekend.”

“Six-year-olds don’t need baby food, right?”

“Yeah, they all have all their teeth by then. They can chew.”

“Uhuh. So… what should I get like… two of them?”

Merle was dimly aware that she had family in distant areas. “You got some little niblings?”

“No. I found a coupl’a babies in the trash.”

Okay. Maybe it was time to hit the silent alarm. Merle decided to humour her and see if it went into dangerous turf. “Who’d throw away perfectly good babies?”

“Exactly my thoughts,” she said. “Dino-chicken nuggets should be fine, right? Are tater tots a vegetable or should I try these bubble-and-squeak thingies?”

“Never had a kid turn down the nugs,” said Merle. “As for vegetables… it’s hit or miss… most usually go for the mint peas, though. Sweet corn. If they only eat potato, go for the sweet potato. That has more vitamins.”

“I don’t think these ones are too picky.” she got a frozen vegetable medly. Handed over a hundred-dollar bill, and scooted off with her bag of supplies into the night.

Say what you like about the loonies, most of them were generous tippers.

*

Two weeks later, he got to meet them. One was clutching the binicorn plushie from that night. Both wore enormous sunglasses, and had their golden hair up in identical braids.

“Okay,” said La’ming. “You don’t like what I got? Go look for yourselves. I got a budget, so stick to the limits, okay?”

The one without the binicorn had the I (heart) NW shirt. On them, it was almost a dress. Six-year-old Elves were nauseatingly cute.

“Ah,” said Merle. “They’re real. Colour me surprised.” He watched as the twins made a bee-line for the fresh produce, each with a basket and a state of terrifying glee.

“What? You thought I slipped my gourd?” teased La’ming.

“Eh. I might’a supplied the weeds dispensary down a coupl’a block some dodgy dandelions. Accidentally planted ‘em in the Psilocybin mycelium. I got a few complaints.”

“I don’t need ‘lion.”

“Yeah every Elf says that. I don’t need Dreamroot, until my sciatica acts up or I can’t sleep or… y’know. I actually need it.”

“Long as you keep your fumes to yourself, we’re fine,” said La’ming.

“Shit yeah! Real garlic!”

“If you’re gettin’ garlic, I’m gettin’ peppers!”

La’ming journeyed into the back shelves, “Whoop. Better stop it before they have a big fight.”

These two preferred fresh ingredients. Fresher than the stuff-in-a-box she used to eat. Judging by the way the kids were plotting, they knew a lot about cookery and were teaching their adult minder.

Well. Good for them.

It wasn’t every day that people found the families that were best for them.

[1] It can’t be helped, some of these tiny little shops seem to stock gimcrack from other dimensions, like left-handed kerning sponges, or hand-cranked doormouse stuffers. They are the most common source of terribly off-model and off-brand toy merchandise. In some other reality, that’s the way it actually was.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 8]

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The entire Precinct called her Officer Sno. Some within it called her “The Cold Front” when they thought she couldn’t hear them and that was just fine, actually. She didn’t need those assholes getting into her life and discovering things. The only one who knew all of the truth was Avi, and he kept things to himself.

It was Avi who had found the twins again. She’d been concerned about them. Poor little tykes. They’d been dealt a bad hand. Absentee father who was so superstitious that the shrink he was visiting insisted he wasn’t ready to be an adult, let alone a decent parent. Their mother had died of a horrible infection and her sister had perished of allegedly unrelated heart problems not long after.

Following that, it was a series of terrible fostering attempts on the Starlight side of the family, and then… then they’d run away.

Considering that their last accommodations had been a plastic playhouse in the backyard, Sno didn’t blame them. Anything could have happened to them in the year between their last known residence and this latest sighting… in the same apartment building as her partner. Two floors up and across the hallway.

With another familiar name.

La’ming Ton.

Sno’s genetic mother. At least this time, she was an official adult and allegedly putting her life together. Though her finances were stable, they came to her bank account through a convoluted system of anonymised transfers that meant her income was one not entirely smiled upon by society at large. Sno had to calculate La’ming’s age.

If I’m a hundred and forty, she’s two hundred and eleven. Seventy-one years between mother and child. Gamgam and Peepums had always blamed La’ming’s youthful parenthood on her. They’d called it a scandal. Sno had spent eighty years believing that before she asked, What about the two hundred-year-old guy who fathered me?

He had sailed through his life without any kind of consequence or expectations towards assisting in the daughter he’d made.

Enough about him.

This was about two other babies left without a family. Now in the alleged care of someone who should -according to Gamgam and Peepums- never have one. Sno had to be certain that La’ming wasn’t letting them play with rat poison or keeping them in the bathtub or something.

That was why she was here. Knocking on her mother’s door. Crisp and Severe in the Neverwinter PD uniform.

Thundering footsteps. The door swung wide open.

Two nearly-identical faces, each with mismatched eyes, stared up at her. Clean faces, good. New clothes, better. Screaming blue murder and slamming the door… nope.

The Taaco twins were the ones screaming, “IT’S A RAID! IT’S A RAID! GO! GO! GO! GO!”

What. The. Shit? Sno knocked a little more forcefully.

When La’ming opened the door, she said, “What the hell did you do to those babies?” Then she realised who she was talking to. “Nono?”

“Snocoun,” she said.

Somewhere in the distance, one of the twins yelled, “It’s the Blue Wave! Gittouttahere!”

“You look… You look amazing.”

“This is not a familial visit,” said Sno. “I’m here on CPS business.” The flat had fallen ominously silent. “Those twins are missing minors and it’s my duty to see to it that they’re safely housed in appropriate accommodations.” She didn’t need permission to enter while children were at risk and La’ming didn’t stop her.

The flat was tidy. Clean. Middle-of-the-road thrift furniture, some shabby chic going on. Books and toys appropriate for minors scattered around. Tolerable. The CPS would give this a grudging pass.

Sno knew for a fact that her grandparents had stopped sending private eyes after her mother when La’ming had a decent enough income to afford rent at this flat and a modicum of furniture.

All the fun of it had gone out when they could no longer let Sno find photographs of the dives in which La’ming was staying. Realising that they thrived off of La’ming’s screw ups was Sno’s first piece of detective work.

Working out that La’ming had illegally adopted these kids wasn’t even enough to work up a sweat.

“So,” Sno picked up a copy of The Tubby Little Puppy and paged through it. “Why them?”

“And not you?” said La’ming. “We both remember that phone call a month before your Seventy-first birthday. You know why not you.”

Because an Elf’s Seventies were the most chaotic, disorganised, misunderstood years of their lives. Perhaps worse than the Terrible Twenties, when the lifespan differentials really started to stick out. Seventy was when a young Elf was handled all of the expectation and none of the respect. Treated like children, expected to react like adults, given choices that could reflect on their entire lives…

And her mother had gone into a terribly early Luume and got pregnant by a man who should have known, acted, and done better…

“Just ‘why them’… mother.”

La’ming fussed around in the kitchen, making tea. She had fresh fruit, and honey in a jar instead of a sugar pot. Fresh vegetables in the fridge, too. “They were living in a cardboard box next to the dumpster. That asshole kid in five B had just chucked some garbage bag down and konked out Koko. Lulu was crying, she… she was acting like her world was ending. I remember that feeling. Too well.”

The night she’s left baby Nono at her parents’ place, she’d said, was the worst night of her life. The entire two years of being underage, pregnant, and then a parent had been two years of the worst days of her life… but that day. That day topped them all. The worst of the worst.

“He,” corrected Sno. “They’re both boys.”

“Lulu says different.”

Oh shit… Sno re-evaluated everything, including why certain foster homes had felt it necessary to ‘drive the devil’ out of the twins. It wasn’t just lingering superstition about heterochromia or ‘witch eyes’. It was lingering transphobia whenever Lulu tried to tell anyone who she really was.

No wonder living on the streets was preferable to being in the system.

“The good news is that that counts as extenuating circumstances,” said Sno. “I can force some paperwork through and get you registered as a sympathetic foster house inside of a month.”

“Great. Now all we have to do is talk two scared babies out of Mak’arune’s place. They’ve probably battened down all the hatches by now. What did you even do to them?”

They’s been three when their mother died, and didn’t understand that the dead body she carried them away from would never wake up. They weren’t much older when their aunt had perished, too. Time and time again, she was on duty to take them away from places where they insisted they were doing okay in. Time and time again, she took them away from family.

“It’s my bad luck to have been on duty every single time they’ve had to be taken away from a situation.”

La’ming handed over the tea. Had some herself. “Right. So they think you’re going to arrest me.”

“I wish…”

La’ming glared at her.

“…sometimes.”

“Fair enough. We’ve all been through shit. Anyway, talking them down from whatever disaster scenario they’ve leaped to. Koko’s really good at those. Scarily accurate for six.”

Six. Shit. They were twice the age they’d been when their birth mother died. Once again, perspective swirled for her. More than the dizzying realisation that she was twice the age her mother had been when… and there was still that sense of anticipating a disaster from Gamgam and Peepums.

Drinking tea gave the twins time to realise that the usual chaos of Sno’s visits wasn’t happening. Therefore Sno drank tea. In silence, because smalltalk with her mother inevitably ended up in an argument.

Then, after the tea was done and the cups were rinsed, it was downstairs to 2D, where Mak’arune made hats for Etsy and babysat the twins when La’ming was working online.

La’ming had to show the twins that she was okay, she was not being arrested, and that Officer Sno -the ‘Blue Wave’ who washed away their lives- was not going to sweep through and turn the world upside down.

The news that Officer Sno was their sister… that just about worked as enough topsy-turvy for these kids. But that was life. Awkward, complicated, and too weird to believe if it were set into fiction. Messy, too.

La’ming’s higher-paying customers were no longer paying for La’ming’s correspondence courses. That money was going to Lulu’s transition fund. The spell to change her body to match her mind and soul was not cheap, nor were the experts who would be working it.

Like it or not, La’ming Ton was working on being a better mother than she had been a literal lifetime ago. That was why Sno chose to help her out.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 8]

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Work fascinated and enthralled Taako, he could watch other people do it all day. Take this ditch, for instance. It wasn’t actually a ditch. It had no real purpose other than to see what was under the soil beyond (a) dirt, (b) more dirt, and © rocks and roots and shit.

Humanmen called it ‘archeology’. Taako called it, ‘digging up stuff and making up stories about it.’ Frankly, he couldn’t see what the fuss was about. So what if there were ancient Dragons whose bones had turned to stone? Everyone who knew the Old Lore knew that Dragons were the first animate beings in the world, intelligent or no.

It was the same way that everyone should know that, though the Dragons made the world, it was the ancient Elves who shaped it. Though the jury was out on which particular sub-variant of Elves were the original, they all agreed that it was the Elves who made other creatures in their own image. With varying degrees of success.

He’d never tell his Humanman friends this, but… the old legends pretty much universally declared Humanmen as something of a failure, creation-wise.

Ango gasped as a section of packed earth crumbled away to reveal something of a cavern inn the side of the stone. He got out some visual helper apparatus and peered through it. “Oh my gosh…” his boy hadn’t got any better at swearing over the years, “This is quite the find. Sir, do you know what this is?”

Of course he fucking did. This was Elf stuff that Ango was digging up. “Looks like a First Era Cote, li’l man. Elves were the first ones to use magic to shape the world around them.”

Ango was already in there with a light source. “Whoah… this is almost unchanged from the cotes in the farmhouse, sir.”

“No sense throwing away a good design,” breezed Taako. It’s comfortable, easily defensible, and you can keep the whole family close so there’s always someone on watch. Hells, bubbeleh, we invented our meditation techniques so that nobody in the tribe would be in danger at any given time. Lots’a history in the Elven race, we go wa-a-ay back.”

Ango emerged, holding a small object with reverential awe. “They had pottery in the First Era, sir. Or perhaps even earlier. Some of this clay was mixed with charcoal to colour it.”

“Yup,” said Taako, effectively disguising his astonishment that something possibly older than Krav could still exist to the point where a genius boy could detect how it was made. Pretty impressive for a broken piece of pottery. “Elves invented the basics of civilisation, hombre.”

“But… this is First Era. Who or what did they have to defend themselves against?”

“The stone-boned Dragons, of course.”

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 8]

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