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

It had taken Angus an entire year to talk freely to his dads. When he did, he expressed his worries about his one friend in the entire, dingy, dismal, depressing grey coldhouse that was the orphanage.

Her name was Agatha Tremaine and she was maybe a year older than him. She smuggled the outdoors inside for Angus, much to the horror of the nurses and the consternation of Mr Thud. They never could prove that she was the source of dandelion flowers, stick insects, or grasshoppers that managed to turn up in Angus McDonald’s presence and he never ratted her out, no matter how much time they made him sit in the Quiet Room.

This caused Papa some immediate concern, and the rest of the family some Stone calls. There were a lot of Stone calls.

There were more than a few moments when Angus feared he had done something wrong. A feeling that was quickly dispelled by one or more of his new family scooping him up into a reassuring hug.

Then came the Trip.

Papa and Dad and Aunty Lup and Uncle Barry all piled into the cart with him and Garyl took them on a whirlwind trip. But they weren’t taking a trip to Neverwinter.

Angus fought past his elective muteness. “Sirs. This isn’t the way to the orphanage…” He pointed the way they should have been going. “We’re headed the wrong way.”

“Right and wrong, baby,” said Papa. He wrapped an arm and part of hus ruiana around Angus. “Yes, this is not the way to the orphanage. But no, we are not headed the wrong way.”

“This is the way to the Aunties Fangbattles’ place…” said Angus.

“Correct again, little buddy,” said Dad.

“You said we were going to see Agatha.” Just like that, the pieces slotted into a bigger picture. “Did Agatha get adopted by my Aunties?”

Uncle Barry handed Aunty Lup five gold. She laughed and said, “I knew you were a smart little cookie, kiddo. You got it in one.”

The Aunties Fangbattle - also known as Team Sweet Flips - had a little country cottage with a neat little garden that always seemed to be full of flowers. Angus liked the times he got to stay with them because he could help out with the chickens and play with the butterflies and birds that were too bold to fly away from his careful touch. They always had warm bread or a gooey sweet pie fresh out of the oven.

This time, the cottage looked quiet and still. Even the birds refused to coo or call from the branches of the fruit trees. No butterflies spread their wings in the sunshine. Therefore he feared knocking on the door.

Dad did it instead.

Aunt Killian opened the door. “Oh great. You’re here.” She turned and called, “Agatha…”

There she was. Hiding under the table and clinging to furniture legs like a prisoner at the bars.

Angus was over there before he could blink. “Hey, remember me?”

Her dark eyes were fearful. “Angus? They said you died.”

He knew who ‘they’ were. The bigger kids. The mean ones. “You know they lie.”

She crawled out to hold him, and this was the first time Angus remembered being bigger than her. “I’m glad you’re alive.”

“I’m glad you got a family,” said Angus.

“Are you kidding?” she whispered, “That’s an Orc and a Dragonborn. They’d eat me if I fatten up…”

Angus detected the not-so-subtle influence of Them again. He joined her under the table and had a hushed conversation while the grownups talked grownup things literally over their heads.

“They’re careful with you, aren’t they?” he asked. “They’re not rough or mean.”

She had to agree.

“They’re kind, right? They try to make things right by you.”

Another nod.

“They keep making better food so you can have enough to eat?”

“They wanna fatten me up…”

Angus had to think his way around that one. “You know… if you’re strong, you can run off if they start measuring you for a basting pan.”

She snorted at that one. “I gotta admit their pies smell delicious.”

“So have some, pumpkin,” Papa had a small plate with a slice of rich, glistening pie and a fork. “This one’s one of my recipes, so you know it’s great.”

“Yeah, and it’s my herb and spice mix that makes it even better,” said Aunt Carey.

“Excuse your scaley ass, it’s the gravy recipe I got from my mother,” objected Aunt Killian.

Angus giggled. “Anyway. If they’re going to eat any kids, they’d be after my marbled flesh, not yours.”

Agatha relented, and started to eat without fear.

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[AN: Oh, I could kill y’all with so much angst on this, but nah. We can pretend that Elven biology actually accommodates the horseshit I put into the preamble of Warp and Weft. Let’s go with that.]

Five Months After Story and Song (ASS)…

Taako was wiped the fuck out. This business of his was exhausting. Worse than exhausting. All he ever wanted to do was sleep.

Unfortunately, one of the chucklefucks he’d spent an entire century with and then some, was attempting to batter down the door.

“Taako,” bellowed Magnuts. “Come on, we got a mish!”

“Open up, glamour boy.” Oh shit, it was the alleged cleric.

Taako fought the gravity well of the couch. It would be so much easier if he could use magic, right now. “Fuck off,” he hollered, barely hauling himself up into a sitting position. “Your glass cannon’s out of fucking order.”

Now both of them were using all available fists to thunder on the door. “Taako, stop dicking around!”

Taako growled and levered himself up from the couch. These assholes wouldn’t take ‘fuck off’ for an answer. He shuffled up to the door and opened it between peals of fist-driven thunder. “Your glass cannon,” he repeated, “is out of fucking order.”

“WOAH!”

“Holy shit, you’re pregnant?” Magnuts reached for the bump, but stopped when Taako took a step back.

“Yeeah keep your grubby paws off the alleged precious cargo, there, bullmoose. I’m off adventuring for seven more months and prob’ly more than that. You know pregnant Elves shouldn’t do magic.”

“But… you’re a dude, dude!”

“Yeah, not all dude. It happens with Elves. Not so much with Humanmen.” He didn’t exactly let them in, just shuffled away from the door towards the most convenient privy because getting up meant he needed to pee.

The little nugget within decided to help add pressure on his bladder by dancing on it. On one hand, painful. On the other, sort’a helpful in a way.

When he got back to his nest, Magnuts had some reheated nutritious treats and Merle had some pungent tea.

“I know. It smells like ass,” Merle began.

“Your ass. After an arbour ardour sesh,” said Taako.

“Think of it like medicine,” said Magnus. “You need your natal vitamins.”

Taako growled audibly this time, ears flicking right back. “You’re almost as bad as my actual family.” By which he included Lup, Barold, and Krav. “All three of them are on my nuts twenty-four sev.”

“Looks to me like someone was on more than your nuts,” said Magnus.

Merle waited until Taako was trapped in a chair before he urged a cup of the tea on him. “Drink the ass tea or I’ll tell you all about my sordid affair with a philodendron.”

That fuckin’ worked. Taako shuddered at the aftertaste. Already reaching for the tasty treats to clear his palette. The next thing he knew, he had four grubby chucklefuck hands on his spreading middle.

Magnuts had tears in his eyes. “It’s kicking…”

“Yeah, the little nugget does that a lot,” grumbled Taako. “Please tell me you washed your fuckin’ hands before laying them on me?”

“Yeah, yeah. Antibacterial and all that shit,” said Merle. “You’re fine.”

“Apart from the bit where I got you two idiots groping me…”

“Did Krav help make this?” said Mango.

“No, I held a fuckpile and you weren’t invited. Of fucking course Krav and I…” He had to giggle. The baby was tickling him. “My other name for the nugget is ‘Serendipity’…”

A happy accident.

They hadn’t meant to make this life, but they wanted it.

“So… actual names?”

“I get to name any girls, but Krav gets to name any boys. So… Angus or Lulu. I already got checked out by a competent Cleric and… uh… it’s the first single birth in like a hundred generations of my family, so… It’s the ultimate coin toss.”

“You’d really name your baby after your sister?”

“Shyeah! She’d fuckin’ kill me if I didn’t.”

Mango insisted on talking to Taako’s baby bump. “Whoever you are, I will protect you.”

Merle, a little more grumpy about it, said. “Yeah, I’ll even learn to be a competent Cleric so I can heal it.”

Taako muttered, “You two get any more cute about this and I’ll throw up on you.”

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 4]

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One year After Story and Song (ASS)…

Taako was looking… demented. His pupils had almost obliterated his irises. His face was flushed and, mere moments before, he had been turning the place upside-down as if searching for something desperately needed.

“Sir?”

Taako took one look at him and smiled as if he had found the solution to every problem in the world, all wrapped up in one weddy pre-teen boy package. “Baby,” he cooed.

“I’m baby?”

Taako pounced.

*

Five years ASS…

He’d come down to see what the fuss was. Taako had cooked more than a spread. This wasn’t an anxiety bake-off. This was Taako going through every ingredient at his disposal and every recipe in his noggin.

“Are you… okay? Sir?”

Taako turned. “Baby!”

Sigh. “I’m baby,” he grumped. This sort of thing was only supposed to happen once a decade, damnit…

*

Nine years ASS…

He woke with Taako sprawled across him and purring voluminously. How long he had been under the influence of Luume was anyone’s guess.

“Baby…” Taako singsonged.

Yawn. “I’m baby,” he sighed.

* 

Nineteen years ASS…

“Sir, I’d like you to meet Miss Agatha Tre–”

Whump.

“Baby!”

Angus, ass knocked flat on the floor, sighed and looked pleadingly around to where Agatha was lurking and hiding. “I’m baby,” he growled.

*

Twenty years ASS…

This time, he grabbed Agatha with a cheerful, “Baby baby!” and whisked her off to the cote.

“Agatha! Go limp!” It was a mere handful of moments after that that that he had to wonder, “What the actual shit?” 

But in a minute, Taako was back. “Baby!”

Ah. Now things were back to what passed for normal. “I’m baby…”

*

Twenty-four years ASS…

This was the first time he hadn’t called Angus ‘baby’ since… since forever. He was more interested in baby time. On one hand, it did give Angus the freedom to call the doctor and help resolve a mere few of the issues.

On the other hand… he kind of missed being the baby.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 5]

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[AN: It normally isn’t, but I can make an exception with pressures on Taako’s brainspace]

He’d killed a town. Again. At least the survivors of Glamour Springs had been able to bury the dead and pick up the pieces. This was way, way worse. A whole down. Wiped off the map. That which wasn’t black glass or a ring of slag was ash.

He could wheedle his way out of it. He knew he could. He was a pro. If they’d killed that Kurtz kid (a literal child, he couldn’t know what he was doing). Or if they’d just ignored the scavenging raiders (and left a literal child to deal with slavery or worse. He’d been there…) and gone on with hunting down and stopping Cyrus…

He’d killed a town. Again.

All those families. All those lives. All those people.

They couldn’t even be buried.

Then, for an encore, the people who could have helped dragged his sorry ass up to the moon with two other chucklefucks. They could have helped, if only they could literally communicate what the fuck was going on. If he’d known…

If he could tell the difference between Elderberries and Deadly Nightshade on sight…

If he hadn’t cried out and gained the attention of that one archer…

If he wasn’t born with witch eyes…

It was so far down to the ground. He didn’t have the spell slots to run away. But there was still worse news in this shit sandwich.

He’d forgotten entire fucking war. An ages-long, seemingly endless war. Friends. Family. Dying in it, and he’d forgotten.

If there was any worse time to get a visit from Uncle Irma, it was now.

But Taako didn’t know that. All he knew, as the fever rose and his mental capacity shot down, was that he had to protect his family.

*

Taako was looking super-squirelly, searching through the four, tiny bunks as if he were searching for some lost ancestral trinket that was worth more than his soul.

Merle, finding him in the middle of his rummaging, said, “You okay, there, son?” and thereby learned that there was a very rare fourth aspect of luume’irma. Instead of the usual fight, fuck, or feed, Taako had gone to fortify. Which meant he was driven to protect and guard his family.

“Danger,” Taako said, and scooped up Merle faster than the Dwarven Cleric could blink.

The next thing he could make sense of, he was in some soft, cavernous space made out of mattresses. Someone had laid in supplies and there was one exit to a privy and the other–

“No! Danger!” Taako physically shoved Merle back inside. He had a dazed and confused Davenport under one arm and was frantically out of breath.

“Davenport?” said Davenport.

“Danger,” Taako repeated. “Danger.” He repeatedly set the two of them down, repeating, “Danger,” and, “Safe,” until they finally both sit put.

“Davenport,” sulked Davenport.

“Yeah, that kid’s deep in luume. Better to just sit down, shut up, and put up until he wears himself out.”

“Davenport,” he mumbled, still sulking.

Magnus had to be dragged in, half an hour later. He had made the mistake of attempting to fight an Elf deep in luume, and had been knocked the fuck out and tied the fuck up. Taako physically picked up Merle and mashed him into Magnus. “Safe,” Taako insisted. “Live.”

Merle cast Cure Wounds and Taako seemed happy. He left in the blink of an eye.

Magnus moaned as he came to. “What. The. Fuck.”

“Never mess with a manic Elf, kid,” growled Merle. “Now sit tight, play nice, and exhibit some patience. I’m not made outta spell slots, you know.”

Next into Taako’s collection was Madam Director herself. Stunned, but not unconscious. Meerle spent another spell slot on recovering enough of her hit points for passing normalcy to resume itself.

“Well,” she announced on her return to the waking world, “this is a clusterfuck of epic proportions.”

“I don’t know what got into him,” said Magnus. “He managed to overpower me and drag me into… this place.”

“The bedding depot,” said Madam Director. “It seems to be a magnet for Elves in Luume. They like building their own dens.”

“This has happened before?” said Magnus.

“Amongst our Elven population. Some PSA’s go around periodically about procedure… You missed the last one. I must update our administration protocols.” She crawled to a space by the entrance and waited.

Half an hour later, Taako entered again. Frantic. Out of breath. Hyper-aware and freaking out. He counted them all. “One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. One… two… three… four…” he pawed at they air twice. “Need…”

“I know what you need,” said Madam Director. “Come here, I can help…”

“Not safe. Danger… Danger…”

“Just come here. I’ll help you.”

He did, but stopped to pause at every other handful of seconds. “One… two… three… four…” paw, paw. He moved a little closer to Madam Director. “One… two… three…”

Madam Director pounced. Seizing Taako’s head with both hands. Her fingers found his ‘off switch’.

“Danger…”

“Ssh… Hush, now,” Madam Director whispered. “It’s all right, now. I’ve got you. Ssh-ssh-ssh-ssh…”

“Danger…” mumbled Taako, slowly slipping under. “One… two.. three… four…” Paw, paw at the air. “One…”

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you…”

Mismatched eyes rolled back. Luxurious eyelids closed. He trembled from head to toe. His breath shuddered. Then he slumped, purring softly, with his head still in Madam Director’s hands.

“There, now,” she cooed. “None of you try to get back out of here, he’s still aware of us. The slightest disturbance in his environment and there’s no predicting what he’ll do.”

“So…” said Magnus. “We just sit here until he’s done?”

“Davenport,” nodded Davenport. He offered a packet of chips.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 5]

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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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Papa was all dressed up fancy. So was Dad. Angus couldn’t explain why this worried him, but the worry lay trembling under his heart nevertheless.

“It’s just tonight,” Papa was saying as he braided his hair. “There was quite the brawl to babysit you while your Dad and I are out.”

“Can’t I come?”

Papa sighed. “Baby… You know we love you. It’s just… We need to re-enforce our bonds with each other. A night where neither of us can pay all of our attention to each other.”

Angus knew about this. Sometimes, parents needed one night where they didn’t have to be parents. “And I’m not going back to the orphanage.”

“Hell, no, Ango. Naw. You got your Uncle and Aunty Bluejeans coming down, then there’s the Fangbattle Aunts and Uncle Magnus.”

Uncle Magnus almost always bought Mitzy with him. That sounded like it could be fun.

“All of them at once?”

“It was better than holding a raffle for the privilege of your company.” Papa pinned up his hair. “Dad and I have our Stones, and if you need us, we’re only a call away. You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

It was easy to believe when they were home. Less so when they weren’t around. He had three Aunts and two Uncles watching over him and Mitzy to play with and that was enough to keep him distracted for a good two hours.

The third hour, when he and his Aunts and Uncles were cooking together, was when it hit him like a bully twice his weight class. Aunty Lup had her eyes the wrong way around. Everything was wrong. Everything was going wrong.

*

The call came before the mains, and they picked up instantly.

“Ango needs us?” came out of their mouths in stereo.

Taako dropped some gemstones on the table and Krav tore them a portal all the way back to their home.

Dinner didn’t matter. The night out was less important than their kid. Taako rolled badly on passing through the Astral plane on the way, but that didn’t matter either. He rolled and recovered before Krav could even offer a hand.

“Daddy! Papa!”

They landed on him in a hug, Taako already purring.

“It’s okay,” soothed Krav. “You’e okay.”

“I didn’t wanna wreck your night. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, you needed us, kiddo. We can have a night out anytime.”

Lup, hovering nearby, said, “He called me ‘Papa’ like twice and then freaked out. I’m not upset about the confusion, sweetie, I promise. You’re okay.”

“I thought… I thought… I thought you were never coming back an’ I kept seeing you outta the corner of my eye an’ it was only Aunty Lup an’…”

He and Krav covered him in kisses. “It’s okay. We’re here, now,” they said, wrapping their little boy up in their arms.

They never saw their show, and their dinner was what the family had cooked up that night. They watched one amongst many of their collection of their moving scrolls.

The important part was that Ango had his family. That he knew they would be coming back. That he could be braver next time.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 5]

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Still Tumbl'd, Still TAZ - Chapter 84 - InterNutter - The Adventure Zone (Podcast) [Archive of Our Own]

In this chapter, the baby twins meet little lucretia.