dualityandsuch:

A tired Taako. @internutter inspires me to draw more since ze manage to write such amazing things everyday. 

Once again, @lauren-nicole813 [tumblr isn’t letting me tag you soz] has sent me some lovely sketches of my headcannon for Taako. They keep insisting that this isn’t “real art” and I’m boggling. This is art. It is real. Therefore it is real art.

Edit: Just now realised they changed their handle to @dualityandsuch [sorry, I love your stuff but I’m a bit thick]

[Images Describe: Two sketches of Taako from The Adventure Zone. Taako is a plump Elf with deerlike ears and dappled skin. First image is of Taako from the knees up, he is wearing a fashionable, star pattern robe with a low V neck, a choker and a slightly floppy wizarding hat with a star on the point. He carries a clutch purse and is posed with his right hand to his to his neck in a ‘who, me?’ pose as he looks to the right. His hair is long and wavy. Second image is Taako from the waist up. He’s supporting his chin with his right hand and the elbow upraised like he’s posing for the viewer. He’s wearing a scoop-neck garment with no sleeves and an image of an open umbrella and rain on it. He has two-tone hair that is short in the back, with bangs, and long side pieces in front of his ears. According to the artist, this is a wig.]

“Sir?” Angus poked the Elven wizard, who was sprawled on a bench.

“I’m deep in meditation,” he lied.

“You’re hung over,” said Angus. “I just have one question for you, sir. And then I can help you unlock your suite so you can go back to bed.”

Taako’s baleful glare was full of red veins. “Fine. Ask.”

“What happened to Sazed Baker, sir?”

“Who?”

“Your assistant from Sizzle it Up! With Taako, sir.”

Taako moaned, hauling himself up into a roughly seated position. “He left me. Alone. Didn’t tell me where or why. He just left. He took the horse. He took the gold. He just… left. I didn’t look for him, I’m not gonna…” another red-eyed glare, “and you’re not either.”

“But sir…”

“Nope. It’s in the past. It’s done. Four years gone. Don’t even.”

“Sir, I have reason to believe that you were not to blame for the deaths in Glamour Springs.”

“You also have reason to believe in the tooth fairy. Hold up your side of the bargain, little man. Get me into my suite like you said you would.”

Angus did that, and then decided to do some sleuthing on his own.

People escaping the law tended to take different surnames. They kept their given names, and their birthdates. His first stop was the Neverwinter Hall of Records, looking up Sazed Baker, then anyone else who shared a birthdate who came out of nowhere within a few weeks of the final show of Sizzle it Up! With Taako.

Just as Angus predicted. Two weeks after Glamour Springs, there was a trail of Sazeds with the same birthdate. Sazed Vinter. Sazed Merrow. Sazed Raddler. Sazed Tailor. In every town where he took work, he had a different surname. He stuck to small towns, poor towns, and little backwaters where the news was less likely to reach.

He had been going from town to town, job to job, name to name, for four years.

There was a pattern. Sazed never took a name that encapsulated his actual skill. He was headed progressively further away from Glamour Springs. He always travelled via the back roads and, according to the records, Sazed was due to hit a tiny little village called Pig Wallow.

It was faster to catch the cannon there, following a trip via globe to the moon. He could outpace this man.

Angus didn’t believe Sazed to be a villain. He believed him to be a person of interest only.

That was just one mistake.

Another was going to a place like Pig Wallow in his fancy lad clothes.

*

“He did what?”

“Young Mr McDonald has evidently tracked down someone from Taako’s past.” Madam Director. “Whilst I normally approve of his moonlighting as a detective, he’s taken to solving… you, Taako.”

“What?”

There was a copy of a headline on Angus’ wall of madness. Taako knew it well. He didn’t want to read it again.

“Oh gods,” said Magnus. “That’s why you stopped touring?”

Taako was already out of the room. “Let’s just hurry up and fetch the brat.”

Pig Wallow was exactly the kind of place that lived up to its name. Everything here was made out of mud. The crops grew in mud, most of them were used to feed the pigs that gave the little town its name. The people were muddy up to their knees, and bore an inbred suspicion of strangers.

Magnus, the closest to Angus’ natural skin tone, pretended to be Angus’ father, looking for his son who liked to dress up fancy and poke around asking questions.

Nobody had seen anything, of course. They didn’t trust anyone, until Magnus made an impassioned speech about Angus being the only family he had left after his wife died. Only after that did the fingers of suspicion point towards the newcomer. Sazed Carpenter. Who lived on the outskirts and kept to himself and raised pigs like everyone else.

By all reports, he was a fairly good swineherd. The most important part of those reports was that the fancy lad had last been seen heading towards the Carpenter hut.

Magnus rushed in. Taako summoned Garyl. In order to expedite their journey, he cast Levitate on Merle and towed him along like a weirdly ugly balloon.

The best news was that Angus had got Sazed monologuing.

“…first time’s always hard,” Sazed was saying. “Most times, it’s an accident. I intended to just make him sick. I should have thought things through. Stopped criticising his weight. If he’d just tasted his cooking… Nobody else would have had to die.”

Angus’ voice. “How does that connect with the string of missing persons in your trail, sir?”

A chuckle. “Sir. Nobody ever called me ‘sir’ in my entire life. For a smart kid, you’re kind’a stupid. Can’t you piece it together?”

“Given the victim profiles, sir, I can guess that they were chosen for their wealth. One thing eludes me, though. No trace was ever found of their bodies. How did you do that, sir?”

Taako could hear Sazed’s smirk. “Pigs will eat anything, and I’m a very good swineherd.” Taako could almost hear him preening. “They won’t find any trace of you, either. Nosy boy.”

Magnus rushed in, reducing the door to splinters as he did so. Taako, however, took aim and cast a spell full of tentacles and madness.

“Abraca-fuck you!”

Squirming tentacles summoned from a cthuloid void grappled Sazed. Magnus cut the table that Angus was bound to to shreds and Merle hustled the kid out and onto Garyl.

“Glad to see you alive, pint-size,” said Garyl. “You know you did a very stupid thing, right?”

“I did gather,” said Angus.

“Cool. Cool.”

The Reclaimers were back outside in seconds, breaking off from the fight and focussing on getting the hell out of Pig Wallow before the natives decided not to take a shine to these new strangers.

The Pig Wallow people had a very simple approach to strangers.

Angus didn’t say a thing about how tight Taako held him as they galloped away. He didn’t say a word about the wetness leaking from Taako’s mismatched eyes. He never said a thing about the elven wizard’s pounding heartbeat as they escaped a whole village full of peasants with torches.

He didn’t get to say anything about Sazed until they were in the globe and headed back to the moon.

“He admitted to trying to poison you, sir.”

“Fat lot of good it does,” said Taako. “Whole world still thinks it was me.” He wasn’t really looking at anything. “Could still have been me…”

Angus suspected that it wasn’t Taako at all. The problem was… there was no proof. 

[Continuation in my inbox: “Bed ridden sick but not life threatening. Taako is freaking out though]

Taako avoided the fish without thinking. His heightened Elven senses told him that something was suspicious about that fish. Magnus and Merle each had their reasons to avoid the fish.

Angus didn’t. He was ten. He didn’t know any better. He just thought that it was supposed to be like that and tried it for the sake of trying something new. He’d never had that kind of fish before, and didn’t know how it should smell or what it should taste like or how it should be properly cooked.

He didn’t get sick for a few hours. Food poisoning is a slow and steady infliction. Thus, the connect between the underdone, over-spoiled fish was hard to deduce. Angus didn’t even start feeling sick until after a few fellow employees asked him if he was feeling well.

“Here,” Taako handed him one of his ‘morning after’ mints. “These always help me feel better.”

Angus didn’t make it all the way through a polite, “Thank you sir,” before the fish got their revenge. His guts felt like they were on fire and stabbed and tying themselves into knots.

The fish tasted even worse on the way up.

Taako screamed.

The next thing Angus knew, he was in the Bureau hospital, feeling like he’d been beaten against a rock, wrung out, and hung up to dry. He was shivering and under a fantasy heat blanket.

“It can’t be the mint, right?” said Taako, somewhere outside Angus’ personal aura of pain. “He barely had it in his mouth and everything came up.”

“Sir,” sighed one of the base Clerics as if they were done with explaining this like three conversations ago. “This is due to something he ate earlier. As food poisoning cases go, this one is pretty severe, but–”

“POISON?! He was poisoned? Who the fuck would poison a literal baby?”

Angus tried to say that he was ten and therefore not a baby, but all that emanated from his mouth was an inchoate mumble.

“Do your fucking job,” Taako demanded, his voice harsher and shriller than normal. “He’s still sick…”

“Yes,” sighed the Cleric. “He needs rest, now. Try not to make any further loud noises.”

Angus could hear Taako attempting to steady his breathing. “He’s gonna be okay, right? He’s not gonna die or anything?”

“He’s just going to be sick for a little while. He just needs rest. That’s all.”

Cleric footfalls retreated. There was no sound from Taako’s signature heels. As Angus remained under the thrall of semi-consciousness, he felt an adult’s hand take his.

Warm. There were rings on the fingers and the faint impression of lacquered nails. As the minutes passed, another hand attempted to take Angus’ pulse.

Angus tried to say, “I’m okay, sir,” but again, there was nothing that came out that could be called a word.

“Horseshit,” said Taako. “You were doing constitution saving throws there, kiddo. That’s scary beans.”

Angus tried to say, “I’m sorry.”

“Couldn’t be helped. Those were bad fish. Couldn’t you tell?”

Angus sank into a dreamless sleep. When he next rose up, he could open his eyes and Taako was apparently still there. “…’ve I missed magic day?” he croaked.

“Probably,” said Taako, stretching in his chair. He hadn’t redone his braids in two days, it looked like. He was still wearing the same clothes from the staff meeting when he got sick. He could plausibly clean his clothes with Prestidigitation, but the other signs of just staying there and barely moving were evident. “You can do some make-up shit later on. First, though, you need to learn some shit, nerd boy.”

Angus didn’t say a single thing about how he knew Taako had been right by his side the entire time. “What sort of stuff, sir?”

“How to tell good food from bad food. Seriously. This is basic survival check shit. If it smells rotten, it probably is. And then you don’t eat it. M’kay?”

“I didn’t know it was rotten, sir. I thought it was supposed to be like that.”

Taako rolled his eyes. “All right. Looks like we’re gonna have to start from super noob level. Train that ineffective humanman snootsniffer you got there.” Prestidigitation made the illusion of a fish and a delicious cooked fish smell. Both hovering under Angus’ nose. “Good or bad?”

His stomach still shivered, but he said, “Smells real good, sir.”

“Excellent. A plus.” The scent changed to something really pungently disgusting. “Good or bad.”

“Real bad,” Angus croaked. He covered his mouth lest anything else come up.

“Okay, now we got ourselves a baseline,” said Taako, dismissing the smell for something familiar. The cafeteria fish. “Good or bad?”

“Now that I know what good fish smells like, sir? And also because I think this is what made me sick? I know it’s bad, sir.”

“Gotta make sure.” Taako never said why. He never said why he stayed right there in Angus’ hospital room until he was absolutely certain that Angus was on the mend.

Angus knew better than to ask. He just appreciated it while it lasted.

Tumbl Into TAZ - Chapter 28 - InterNutter - The Adventure Zone (Podcast) [Archive of Our Own]

A follow-up from the allergic reaction that I wrote, the day before yesterday. Because they so kindly asked.

[AN: I got good news for you, Nonny! I’m planning a longer version over in my plot kittens file. So I’m doing a much briefer version here.]

It started on the first Candlenights after the Hunger War. The only time he had had to chill out, snuggle down, and watch Fantasy Television with his main man, Kravitz. Everyone was nearly asleep thanks to the Candlenights feast, and the evening news was playing because nobody had the energy to reach for the Fantasy Remote. Besides, one of the cats was probably sleeping on it.

They were up to the puff pieces. Orphanages receiving Candlenights’ toys. Taako was particularly struck by the faces as they pretended to smile. He knew this ruse. They all had to cluster under the Candlenights Tree and pretend to enjoy opening presents that they had spent all day wrapping before the Fantasy News people stopped by. They all had to smile and pretend that these were the best presents in the world. The ones who actually got on the news got extra favours for a month.

There was a tiny boy in the arms of a gigantic teddy bear, with tears in his eyes. The smile on his face was fake as, but that didn’t matter because he was cute.

“Aaaww…” cooed Krav. “Poor little mite’s overwhelmed.”

“Overwhelmed that it isn’t real,” mumbled Lup.

“We spent some time in places like that,” said Taako. “Babe? I wanna rescue one of those kids. Give ‘em a chance.”

Krav chuckled. “Sure thing, babe. You bring me the paperwork and I’ll sign it. I’ll even come to any interviews you arrange.” He was probably thinking that this would be yet another pipe dream that Taako would soon dismiss as too much work.

He was so very, very wrong.

Four months later, he was attending inspections with Taako to make sure that the eventual home of a child they hadn’t met yet was up to snuff. Considering that this was the twins’ grandfather’s old farm, there was a lot to fix. Starting with the old-fashioned kludgie-holes that they were gradually installing proper toilets over.

Two months after that, they were walking around what looked like the shittiest orphanage in Faerun. Taako kept muttering ‘typical’ over and over again. The clothes were grey. The walls were grey. The linoleum was only black and white by way of a technicality. Heat avoided these places. The boys’ wards always smelled of pee and pinesol. The former because the nasty ones literally pissed on everything they could aim at.

Their tour guide was patiently explaining that things were sterilised with ammonia. Lying through her teeth. Taako kept walking until they were shown the sun room, where the babies were adopted by heteros and the sickly kids were allowed to stay so they’d be warm and moderately healthier.

There, the world’s tiniest child was seated in the window and reading a very thick book. Taako ignored the bloviating about the babies to creep up and see what the kid was reading.

Caleb Cleveland and something-or-other. It had been heavily censored. All the action scenes were left up to the imagination.

This one, he thought. I’m taking this one into my family.

This was a kid who had given up, so he was mostly silent on the first handful of visits. Nervy kid. Terrified of doing something wrong. He saw largesse from Taako as more of the usual glitter that would -to his mind- inevitably get taken away.

Taako spent most of their bonding time in the kitchen. Helping Angus to cook up some delicious shit. Helping him get used to making mistakes. Not being overly concerned when the kid inevitably messed up, as kids could do. Even when he dropped a bowl, Taako’s first concern was that those bare little feet and soft little hands weren’t cut by the sharp china fragments that had scattered around. He hadn’t even noticed it until Angus pointed it out.

Krav bonded with the help of Caleb Cleveland. They bought the entire set so far and Krav used his adorkable Bard skills to do all kinds of character voices. Taako brought in snacks and drinks and took a few turns reading as well.

Visit by visit, little by little, Angus started to believe that he was wanted. Smiles started appearing on his face. He started growing more open to hugs. Thanks to Taako’s cooking, the general prognosis started to look more positive.

It took well over a year, but they finally signed the last piece of paperwork. Angus was his. Theirs. Whatever. He was family.

They would be having a welcome-to-our-home party on the soonest Tuesday. The one day that everyone had off.

“Brace yourself, kiddo,” said Taako. “Now you’re mine, I wanna try kissing your face off.”

Angus giggled. “You can certainly try, sir.” He threw his arms around Taako’s neck for a very successful grapple roll.

Taako, for once, didn’t care who heard him purr or who saw the happy tears in his eyes.

[AN: Oooh, there are so many headcannons flying around about Ango’s parents. I’m going with abuse-by-micromanagement]

“Fold your fingertips under and push with your knuckles,” instructed Lup, who couldn’t coach Angus by physically moving him around.

“Tip of the knife against the chopping board,” reminded Taako. He held his hands behind his back so that he wouldn’t spook Angus by absently touching him. It had taken less than a day for Taako to realise that Angus didn’t like being physically manipulated and adjust his teaching style accordingly. “Just slice and move the zucchini. Slice and move.” He created an illusion of tiny hands doing the motions with the help of Prestidigitation, so Angus could see.

Angus, tongue stuck out of his mouth because he did that when he was having difficulty with a task, focussed so intensely on doing what he was shown that he never saw the two figures rapidly approaching the open-air kitchen that the trio were using for cooking lessons.

He didn’t see them until one yelled, “Angus Fortitude McDonald!”

Angus nearly sliced his knuckles off. He dropped the knife and backed away from his work in progress. “I was only learning,” he said.

“Honestly, this is how you show your gratitude?” chided his mother.

“We give you a place in the best academy in Faerun, and the first thing you do is run away to play detective?” said his father.

“We set you up for a lifetime career. The best career,” said his mother. “Theoretical multiplanar rune research. And this is how you repay us.”

“Uh,” said Magnus Burnsides, bringing in lumber for the fires. “Who are you guys?”

“And you’re associating with ruffians,” sniffed his mother.

“We are going to have a long talk about why you thought it was appropriate to interfere with our memories, young man,” said his father. Which meant that his parents were going to talk and he would have to stand still and listen and answer only when asked to answer, but otherwise stay there and take the haranguing. “Do you even remember any of your manners? Or did you wipe those out through the voidfish as well.”

“Excuse me, but his name is Fisher,” said Magnus. “And the baby is called Junior.”

Angus cleared his throat and ran himself through the mental exercises he did to keep a calm and steady voice even when he wanted the ground to swallow him whole. “Mister August McDonald, Missus Abigail McDonald… it is my pleasure to introduce Lup and Taako, from Tre Llew-Ddion, Magnus Burnsides…” he cleared his throat again because his voice cracked, “late of Ravensroost, and Merle Highchurch,” who was napping in a nearby hammock. “The three men are the team from the Bureau of Balance known as Tres Horny Boys. The lady is… Taako’s twin sister. Everyone? These… are my…” his voice died on the word ‘parents’. He couldn’t say it.

“Ee-NUN-see-ate,” scolded his father.

“Project,” declared his mother. “We gave you elocution classes, at least pretend our money was well spent.”

Merle started awake, peered at the parents, and said, “Who are these assholes?”

“Honestly, the company you’ve fallen into,” tutted his father.

By now, all he could see was his own shoes and a haze of unshed tears. They were going to take him away. They were going to take him away from everything and everyone that he loved and shut him up in the kind of boarding school that was the next best thing to a prison and a poorhouse combined and claim they were doing his best for him.

“Stand up straight,” chided his father.

“Boys don’t cry,” snapped his mother.

“Do I incinerate them now, or wait ‘till later?” said Lup.

Angus peeked towards Taako, who was fidgeting with his KrEbStAr with a speculative look in his eye. Taako caught Angus looking. “Made ‘em forget you, huh?”

Angus nodded. “…’essir…”

“I can see why.”

Magnus put himself between Angus and his parents. He never did like to see any living creature bullied. “Step. Off. Give the kid some air.”

“You think you can intimidate us?” said his father.

“We’re his rightful parents,” said his mother. “If you don’t give him to us, we can get the law involved.”

“We’re the ones who love him,” said his father.

Taako, looking as smug as a cat in a canary farm, said, “Prove it.” The smirk grew smugger. “Not with what you’ve given him, but with what you know about him.”

They set it up so that it could be fair. A kind of quiz show contest officiated by Lucretia with Taako and Magnus on one side and Mr and Mrs McDonald on the other.

Each question was judged by Angus, sitting under Merle’s Zone of Truth. Points arranged on a big board by Carey and Killian.

“Question one,” said Lucretia. “What is Angus’ favourite activity?”

Mrs McDonald said, “Homework, of course.”

Taako won that one with, “Solving mysteries.”

On it went. Favourite dessert: “None, he doesn’t have dessert.”/ “Bananoffee pie with extra marshmallow fluff and chocolate sprinkles.” Magnus won.

Best friend: “Lord Quisling of Bazilforte.”/ “Mavis Highchurch-Roughridge.” Taako and Magnus answered simultaneously and won.

Favourite rainy day activity: “Studying like a good boy.”/ “Reading those Caleb Cleveland books in a pillow fort with at least two cats and a hot chocolate.” Taako won because he provided both cats and hot chocolate.

Most-loved extracurricular activity: “None, all his activities should be curricular.”/ “Magic lessons with Taako,” answered Taako, while Magnus answered, “Acrobatics lessons with Carey.” They both won a point together.

And finally, the destroying, “What makes Angus happy?” which the contestants had to write down.

His parents wrote, He has yet to learn how to be happy. Taako and Magnus conferred and wrote, The life he chose for himself.

The Bureau of Balance obviously won by a landslide, but Lup had to rub it in. “A zero score. Seems to me you don’t know squat about your own kid.”

“This doesn’t prove anything,” protested his father. “We still have a right to our child.”

“Actually,” said Lucretia. “It proves neglect and abuse. By not knowing anything about your child, you’ve proven neglect. By not seeking out his happiness in any way, by enforcing a state of obvious misery, you’ve proven abuse. We could take it to a court of law, but it’s clear you’d lose and go to prison for your extant crimes. However, if you surrender your rights now, we will consider supervised visits–”

“Like fuck we will,” protested Tres Horny Boys in unison.

Lucretia glared at them. “We will consider supervised visits if you can demonstrate learning how to become decent, loving parents inside of a year. Starting with sensitivity training and child psychology classes. I hear Neverwinter University is running some flash courses for the… especially inept.”

“Burn!” Magnus yawped in glee.

His mother and father were lost for arguments. They looked - for the first time in Angus’ memory - completely lost.

Angus turned to Lup, who, as an actual lich, was not nearly as frightening as his own parents. “What just happened?”

“You’ve been adopted,” she said. “Grats. You have the entire BOB staff plus two liches plus probably one Reaper as your parents. You’re never going to run out of love, kiddo.”

That sounded… that sounded just perfect, come to think of it.

[AN: I’m assuming you mean Angus, not their kid]

In retrospect, the IPRE should never have sent along a means by which the crew of the Starblaster could record moving pictures. The extended mission recorded some thousands of moving scrolls, and so very many of them were Taako taking the piss from his fellow crewmembers.

He was imitating Fantasy David Attenborough[1] in this one, camera trained at Lup and Barry having an awkward conversation far down the hall. “The mating habits of the common nerd have yet to be… unravelled. As you can see, both of these nerds are sending clear signals to the other. Both are obviously ready to mate. Tragically, they are also so fucking oblivious to these signals, that mating is not likely to occur.”

“What the–?” said Lup. “Taako what the fuck are you doing?”

There were hundreds of scrolls in a similar theme. All preserved in the Bureau of Benevolence archives. Sorted by mission, seriousness, and coping strategies. There were more than a few vlogs of sole survivors. Teary-eyed and talking to the device as if they were talking to their absent comrades.

Given the sheer volume of Taako’s in-mission shenanigans, it was a really big mistake to gift him with his own Fantasy Video Camera for Candlenights.

He was imitating Fantasy David Attenborough again. Filming Angus arraying his evidence on the Big Table. “We see here the male nerd rearranging a display to attract the attention of his mate. As with all nerds, the display contains a dazzling array of differing information.”

Angus glared at his adopted Papa, rolled his eyes, and got on with his work.

“And here comes the mate, bearing gifts of theobromine in order to stimulate their intellectual pursuits. They will likely talk about the display for hours on end whilst consuming the theobromine.”

Agatha put down the cups and muffins. “Uh… what the hell is he doing?”

“He thinks we’re working too hard, so he’s goofing too hard.” Angus made a gesture with both hands. “Balances things out. Ignore him. He’ll get tired of it eventually.”

“The male has just reassured the female that I am not a threat. Tragically, many nerds have lost their lives from underestimating invaders into their territories.”

“Sir, if you mess up our evidence, you’ll have to tidy it up again.”

“That was a threat display,” said Taako. “Nerds can be dangerous when riled. We are going to resume from a safer, more distant location.”

Agatha giggled. “Is this your dad third-wheeling us?”

“That, or he’s bored and trying to get a rise out of us. It’s hard to tell. Ninety percent of Papa’s motivation is boredom.”

Taako remained in character. “That was a base and accurate truth.” He set up the camera whilst allegedly hiding from his son and his girlfriend. “Let’s watch the interaction as the nerds attempt to impress each other.”

Angus shook his head. “He’s overdue for another adventure,” he said. “This is my evidence. What have you got?”

Agatha dug into her satchel of holding, adding to the array of items.

“Having shown her his, the female shows him hers.”

“Oh. My. Gods…” Agatha whimpered, her dark skin growing darker around her cheeks.

“Don’t be gross,” said Angus, not looking up from the table where two brilliant minds were gathering proof. “We’re making you an adventure, the least you could do is be nice about it.”

Taako shut off the Fantasy Video Camera. “You two kids want some brain food while I wait?”

[1] David Attenborough is definitely a Druid/Ranger with maybe a level or three of Wizard.

Tumbl Into TAZ - Chapter 18 - InterNutter - The Adventure Zone (Podcast) [Archive of Our Own]

So now I do requests through AO3 too.

This took me a while though.

[AN: Why not both?]

Time can make the world strange. Taako could have sworn that when he hugged Angus goodnight, he had been able to rest his chin on top of his curly head. This morning, With Angus limping about the kitchen, their cheeks touched when he gathered his miserable boy up in his arms.

“Should I call Merle?” he asked.

Angus made the ‘I dunno’ noise. Sitting and rubbing his legs with a grimace. “It’s just growing pains, sir. Not a lot to be done about it.”

“Y’know. Apart from stopping with all the growing,” sniped Taako. He cooked up a nutritious meal that could cure anything from a bad mood to a near death experience.

“Don’t think that’s possible, sir,” He audibly winced before snorking down his hot meal like he hadn’t eaten in three days or longer.

“Slow down before you choke, Agnes…”

“Sorry, sir. I’m kind’a hungry. Actually, I’m real hungry.”

Taako rolled his eyes. Humans and their growth spurts. He got his Stone of Farspeech out and called his sister.

“Painful embrace of death,” she answered. “How can I inflict your call?”

“Yo, sis. Got us a growing lad with longer, empty legs to fill. You up for an epic cook-off?” And then winced and pulled away as Lup shrieked down the connection.

“HELLFUCK YEAH! THIS BEATS THE FUCK OUTTA PAPERWORK BRO!” She lowered her voice. “Gimmie ten, I gotta sneak away from Bird Mom.”

“Yeah, you just fucked your stealth check, sis. I’ll give you twenty.”

And while he was waiting, he could fry up something with lots of protein and calcium. Eggs, salmon, some spinach for iron, a spare dash of cheese. Hopefully it would hold his boy over until Lup dropped by and things went really crazy.

–Some Decades Later–

The Raven Queen had hundreds of children. What she never expected was grandchildren. Or great-grandchildren. All of that came from adopting The Twins.

She had made the mistake of calling Lup daughter. Where one twin went, the other was bound to follow. She was mother to two living creatures. And when one adopted Angus McDonald, he counted as her grandson.

And now, there was another generation.

It had been the shock of her… existence… to discover that she had a great-grandchild. This was a first. But then… there were lots of firsts with the Seven Birds in the mix.

She was currently manifesting as a black-robed elderly woman. Naught but a raven tattoo on one cheek to identify her as anything other than mortal.

“Her name is Agnes,” whispered Taako, looking down at the very small human asleep in the crib. “My son named her on purpose. He’s such a little shit.”

Coming from anyone else, those words would be disparaging. Taako, on the other hand, sounded prouder than punch.

The sleeping infant flexed her tongue in her sleep, but otherwise remained unaware that Death was so close. This child was hers by laws written by the hearts of two aliens from a different realm of reality.

A welcome change from the children that ill-advised necromancers sacrificed to her. This child would have a genuine life in the Prime Material Plane. And she was one of her guardians.

“She will have a long life,” said the Raven Queen.

“Good to know,” whispered Taako. “Not gonna stop anyone checking on her while she’s this little though.”

“Of course not,” she cooed. “No decent parent would do less.” And the Goddess reached down to gently stroke Agnes’ head.

Agnes wouldn’t know it for years, but she was the first Human infant to know the touch of Death and be able to tell the tale.