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

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

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

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

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

“We should do something,” said Magnus.

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

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

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

“Well, maybe you don’t,” Merle began.

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

“Genius,” echoed Alter-Sno.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 6]

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Magnus:

Magnus put the mask on before he was out of sight of the travel orb but definitely after he had ditched the other two. Hood up, inconspicuous clothes on. Nobody need know it was him out here, headed for that place, doing these things.

In the unlikely event that anyone from the Bureau was here, they had enough plausible deniability to say they couldn’t be sure it was him.

Besides, he’d more or less earned this. Tough job, hard work. He really should have a day off like today. No questions asked. And if anyone did ask questions, he could probably flatten them.

He slunk into the side-entrance, taking all the covert byways into the heart of the business. Every city had a place like this, but this one was one of the better establishments.

“Welcome to Goldcliff Day Spa, anonymous sir,” chirped one of the clerks at the desk. “How may we ease your worries?”

Magnus hunkered up to the desk, hunching over and whispering. “I want the full body beauty treatment and that thing where ya soak in a tub of mud with cucumber on your eyes.”

“Certainly, sir. Would you like a mani-pedi with that?”

Merle:

Every now and then, a man has certain needs. It’s even more true for a Dwarf. He’d done everything he could to ditch his teammates in the thick of the crowds and then followed his nose to a discrete establishment down in the darker corners of Hunchback Lane.

Sure, these days, a Dwarf could fish or farm cattle and nobody would think less of them for it, but back in the ancient times? There were only two kinds of meat that a Dwarf could readily lay their hands on. Rat, and… call it ‘tunnel pork’.

There was something instinctual about it. Some kind of ancestral craving. Or harkening back to the remembrance festivals of his origin tribe when it was one of the tastes of his overlong childhood. Sometimes, you just had to go and get it.

They joked about it now. There was some smartass fella who had a whole book series with it as a running joke when mentioning Dwarven cuisine. Nevertheless, it wasn’t a popular joke and drove places like this -ha- even further underground.

He found it at last by the distinctive smell. Following his nose into the deeper-down of Little Khaz-Modan. On the other end of a twisty little alley that you had to know how to look for.

He poneyed up to the counter, put down his gold, and said, “One ratburger with all the mushrooms. And a large pot of mustard.”

Taako:

Nobody should ever know. Nobody could ever know. He’d evaded his teammates with superlative skill. Cast Disguise Self in order to purchase the cursed thing, and now made his way into a discrete Fantasy No-tell Motel where the rooms were rented by the hour and smelled like it too.

Fine. Fair enough. He wasn’t even planning to touch the beds.

He put the ‘do not disturb’ sign out, locked the door. Jammed a chair under the handle. Drew the curtains. Crept into the tiny bathroom and locked that door behind him, too.

Nobody would ever know…

Nevertheless, he ran a full Perception and Insight check before using his body to jam the door shut.

There, sitting on the cold and filthy tiles, he withdrew his illicit prize from his bag of holding. He was a five-star fucking chef. He could make these - and much better than these - in his fucking sleep. Nevertheless, there was something about the ones you could buy.

Maybe it was the mass manufactory. Maybe it was the way they tried to fancy it up with a fucking zigzag of cheap icing. Maybe it was the fucktons of sugar that also acted as a preservative. Maybe it was all the other preservatives.

Whatever it was, he had to have it.

The Fantasy Plastic cover cracked like thunder as he struggled with the ingenious seal. He flinched as it popped open, barely sparing it from the hideous floor.

He didn’t even peel the gigantic patty paper off the outside, just started digging into it with his manicured fingers. Shovelling it into his mouth handful by atrocious handful.

Cheap, yet rich chocolate assailed his senses. Taako moaned in pleasure, still trying to keep it down in spite of it all. The guilt of it. The need for it.

Nobody would ever know that the famous Taako from TV, five-star chef and once star of Sizzle it Up! With Taako had to occasionally indulge in cheap, crappy, store-bought, mass-produced chocolate cake.

He would eat the whole thing, and love it.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 12]

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