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The first time Lucretia hears Taako refer to himself as stupid, she is all but floored. He says it so blithely, as though this cheerful admission would not have cost him every inch of his pride if he were still the elf she knew a decade ago. He and Lup (Lucretia’s heart aches to think of her now) had been so fiercely, furiously smart and driven, easily the best qualified for the mission after perhaps only Davenport.
“Hey, don’t look at me,” Taako says later that day, hands lazily up in a refusal to take responsibility for someone else’s problem. “I’m kind of an idiot, remember?”
Lucretia had known it would be hard, having them here. She’s gotten used to Davenport now, even though she didn’t want to. She had thought his state would drive her, that every time she looked at him she would feel the ache of guilt that would push her to fix this world. It’s not that she doesn’t still feel guilty; she does. But sometimes she forgets this isn’t normal.
It’s not quite as bad with Magnus and Merle; they are, in their essences, the same men they were ten years ago, just somewhat worse for wear. Magnus has a gravity now that had only just began during their century of travel. He had been so happy after she did what she did - and so young , twenty-three again in body and mind. And now, older again, weary in a way she had never known him to be.
And Merle. It’s faint, but she can still sometimes see traces of the man who stayed behind in Fungston, who willingly met with the Hunger dozens of times. He thinks he doesn’t know about his kids, but she does.
But with Taako, it’s the worst. He looks the same - ten years are nothing to an elf - but there’s something wrong about him. Something unsettling.
Lucretia thinks about what she’d written in the notebooks she gave to the Voidfish. Stories of bravery and desperation and that ferocious intelligence. Fuck, she thinks. Because he doesn’t remember.
His sharpness is still there, the easy arrogance and breezy vanity. He speaks and moves and dresses the same way. He doesn’t laugh, but she assumes that if he did that would be the same too.
It’s that the fire has gone out of him; he’s running on an empty heart and an empty head.
There’s something in his eyes that might be hatred, and honestly she can’t quite blame him. Even if it isn’t, he’s irate; he’s drawn himself up in a way she isn’t sure he even intends to be dramatic, and the hand that isn’t pointing an umbrella at her is clenched and shaking.
A breath startles out of Lucretia, and the recognition hits her harder than she thought it would, deep in the gut. They both know exactly what that umbrella can do now; she should be terrified. She kind of is. But more than that - she’s relieved.
He’s back.