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“Fifty-five and feelin’ alive,” Taako sighed as they reconstituted. “Hey, someone remind me to do that when we hit fifty-five. That’s a keeper.”
“Feel like you could do something with fifty…fifty and nifty? Thrifty? Maplifty?” Magnus suggested, stretching his hands out and poking at his black eye like he always did.
“The fuck’s a maplifty? Stick with carpentry, let Lucretia do the wordsmithing,” suggested Lup. “Speaking of—give us a good goof, Lucy, we need it.”
Lucretia thought for a moment, realized they were all looking at her, and shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”
Barry and Magnus politely looked away, but Taako and Lup had sensed weakness.
“Come on, you don’t wanna leave us with maplifty, do you? We need you,” Taako wheedled, draping himself over her. Lup approached her other side, relieving her of her journal and leaning in to her face.
“You know words, ‘Creesh, you can think of something better than Magnus,” she made sad eyes at Lucretia, who after fifty years with the twins was not as impressed as she could have been. Still, the unusual amount of elf in her face was having an effect, and Taako was leaning most of his weight on her so she couldn’t step out of the way without dumping him on the floor.
“Lup, Taako,” Davenport said without turning around. Taako slumped and stopped holding up any of his own weight.
“Dav,” he whined.
“How about shifty? I think you might be feeling shifty.” Lucretia decided, trying to deposit Taako back onto his own feet. Taako stayed limp and pouted.
“Shift on you,” he muttered. Lup raised an eyebrow.
“I think you might be asking ‘Cretia ‘cause you’ve forgotten how to make goofs of your own, brother mine,” she said. Taako glommed harder onto Lucretia, pulling her away from Lup.
“’Creesh, do you hear this? My own sister, so cruel to me…my flesh and blood…comfort me,” he gave puppy dog eyes his own try and Lucretia rolled her eyes at him.
“I’m sure you’ll survive somehow,” she said as he was lifted away from her with an undignified squawk.
“I’m here for you, buddy. You can take refuge in my big, beefy arms,” Magnus patted him on the back and maneuvered him over his shoulder before settling on carrying him like a kid.
Taako groaned and hid his face in Magnus’s (big, beefy) shoulder.
“I was drunk,” he whined. “You can’t make fun of me for what I say when I’m drunk.”
“I’m just glad you feel safe in my muscly, strong embrace, Taako,” he could hear the laugh Magnus was trying not to voice. The shoulder he was hiding in was beginning to shake with it.
“I dunno, I think my favorite part was his pet bookmouse,” Lup laughed and he lifted his head to glare at her.
Lucretia piped in, “I liked the fun-sized boss bit. That or the, what was it, when you called us all plants? But you couldn’t remember any of the names?”
Taako switched targets back to his favorite bookmouse.
“I’ll not forget this betrayal,” he intoned. “I know what you did in cycle sixteen.”
Lucretia shut right up and went so far as to hide behind Lup, and then, thinking better of it, Barry. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Lulu,” Taako sang. “You wouldn’t believe what our—”
He was cut off when he switched abruptly to hanging upside down by his ankles. He squinted up at Magnus.
“Sorry dude, human solidarity,” Magnus rebuffed. “I had no choice.”
“No no, do tell, I want to know now,” Lup peeked around Magnus’s shoulder to check on (laugh at) her twin before turning to harass Lucretia. “What did you two get up to on sixteen?”
Taako was moved back to Magnus’s shoulder for good behavior, so he could watch Barry gently redirect his sister with a sappy look and a loving embrace. He blew them a raspberry.
“No PDA ‘til I meet the love of my life and we look better than you,” he complained. Magnus patted his back. He’d had siblings back on the Homeworld, he understood.
“Or you get distracted by a gorgeous man while we’re on a job and blow us all up trying to be impressive,” Magnus rumbled. Taako changed his mind, Magnus understood nothing of the affairs of wizards.
“Merle, you’re the only one on my side, save me,” Taako said. Merle snorted. That’s fine, he didn’t like any of these people anyway.
“Save yourself, I got shit to do,” Merle said, sitting in his chair next to Davenport and pouring a glass of wine. Yeah, real important.
“I’m disowning all of you.” Taako pouted.
Lup cooed “Poor baby,” and Magnus patted him on the back. What a bunch of fucknuggets.
Being stuck in space forever wasn’t so bad. Couldn’t beat the company.
Taako was soon to change his mind, however.
“I hate this cycle, this is the worst cycle and I hate it,” he muttered to Magnus, leaned against him through the bars. Lup’s bare feet pressed against his and she leaned against Lucretia’s cell where their bookmouse was trying to sleep off a persistent cold. She had a brave face on but he could feel their soul flutter in fear every time the guards approached their cell block, relax and expand every time they passed them by.
“We’ll get out of here,” Davenport said for the thousandth time. “We just have to be smart about it.”
He was in with Merle, the seven of them arranged based on basic physical similarities. Taako wasn’t sure why Lucretia hadn’t been put with the other humans except that she was smaller and darker and their captors didn’t seem too interested in learning the finer details of their biology. Their fuckin’ loss, Taako’s body was a fine-tuned machine, baby.
“You sure you’re not gonna let me…?” He made a stabby motion and looked hopefully at Lup.
“No, Taako. We still don’t know if you’ll be okay after that,” she said, also for the thousandth time. “We’ll find another way.”
He had some abilities for a situation like this. Mostly he was a one-use commodity as far as going berserk went, though. He’d been upgraded for this job to go ultra-mode once and only once, when Lup got into the kind of trouble he’d been assigned to her for. This sure seemed like that to him, though.
“We’ve been here forever,” he said. “When we all die here ‘cause you wouldn’t let me let us out I’m telling you I told you so.”
“You do that, sorry for keeping you alive,” Lup hissed, taking her feet from him and curling more firmly into Lucretia, who mumbled in her sleep.
“Don’t fight,” Merle said, but even he was tired of this conversation. Magnus didn’t even say anything, just grabbed Taako’s hand through the bars. Restraint or comfort, he didn’t know. The guards were walking towards them again. Taako stared them down as they approached.
They kept walking.
When they passed by Lucretia’s cell without incident, everyone relaxed. Not yet, then. They heard and screaming whimper as one of the other cells unlocked, followed by unintelligible babble as some other creature was brought out. The door at the end of the hall let in blinding light for a moment as the guards moved through with their chosen prisoner.
The babble got higher, louder, more frantic, not totally eclipsed by the rumbling of the crowd. It took horribly long, and Magnus’s hand tightened on Taako’s. It had to be killing him to see so many people die without being able to protect them. Lucretia was stirring and Taako prayed that she wouldn’t wake up until it was over.
The babbling stopped, replaced by a scream. And then the scream stopped.
One more day. Lup put her feet back to Taako’s.
Lucretia coughed wetly, once, and then again, and then jolted into a coughing fit that sounded more like choking. Like dying.
“Lucretia, breathe,” said Merle, like she wasn’t trying. Lup turned and reached through the bars to try to get her to sit up, but she remained curled and shaking. Her coughs were getting shorter as she ran out of breath to cough with.
Taako clung to Magnus’s hand so tight it shook. Or maybe it was shaking anyway. He stroked the back of it with his thumb. We’ll get out of here, big guy, he thought. Gods, he hoped they’d get out of here.
“It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay, ‘Cretia, just breathe for me I need you to sit up, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Lup was whispering. Still trying. That was his sister. Lucretia took a rattling breath in, stopped halfway through to give a final, weak cough. She was up, though, leaning heavily on Lup.
In any other circumstances the two of them would’ve looked ridiculous, Lup twisted to keep a foot touching Taako while she tried to get her arms around Lucretia through the bars and Lucretia curled like a child into Lup’s relative warmth and safety. Lucretia let out a sob the tore Taako’s heart. He looked away. She wouldn’t want them seeing her like this.
“We’ve gotta get out of here,” Taako said, sounding quiet and strained even to his own ears.
“Shut up,” Lup said. He could feel her heart breaking.
It was a terrible thing, to have to choose who to save. Taako was glad sometimes that he didn’t have that responsibility.
Well.
Well, if he was thinking about it.
There was…some wiggle room in his coding. More, now that Barry and Lup had got all up in it. He was meant to keep Lup functional above all else, to carry out her desires second.
He hadn’t been meant to ever meet the situation, but…if he decided that what she wanted was directly counter to her continuing functionality, he could…there was a gray area there.
As long as he was sure that this would prevent her from doing what she was meant to—and she couldn’t exactly be a hero stuck in a cell or dead—he could—maybe he could—
Well. Something to keep in mind.
Lucretia rasped out a tiny cough. It barely passed through her lips. Taako ached to be with her, but he’d never been good with sick people. Best leave her to Lup. Lup would take care of her.
Soon.
Hours later, or days, Lucretia was a bit better. Lucid and talking, though quietly. She didn’t look too good, though. She was burning hot but she wasn’t sweating. Taako almost wanted to put her out of her misery, knowing she’d be back once this was all over, healthy and safe. His weapon wasn’t magic; he could do it. He could make it painless, quick. He was good at doing the dirty work.
Lup was scraping her hours of meditation together, so Taako was on Lucretia duty. He didn’t want to pat her back for fear of starting a coughing fit, so he was petting her hair with more gentleness than he’d ever shown to the worlds he’d held in his palms.
“Taako, I’m not gonna make it out of here,” she whispered. He tugged on her hair.
“Don’t say that,” he said. “Who’s gonna write this shit down if you’re dead? What, do you expect Magnus to do it? I can’t, I got shit to do. Gotta count the bars again, we’d be lost without it. You gotta live.”
Suddenly her death was unthinkable. Had he really been thinking of killing her just a moment ago? No, this was Lucretia, he could never. His favorite bookmouse, shy and wordy with a spine of steel. He could never.
“You have to live, Lucretia. I need you to live.”
Lucretia turned a bit to look at him. Her eyes were bright with fever and pain. She had to be in agony; but she’d stopped talking about it…probably days ago? Weeks? Could it have been months? Davenport would know.
“Taako, it hurts to breathe. It hurts not to breathe. Taako I can’t do this.”
He clenched his fist in her hair, far enough down that he wouldn’t hurt her.
“I swear, I swear, we’re getting you out of here. Merle says he can fix you if he could touch you, he just needs his bible. We’re gonna get you outta here. I just need you to hold on for me, just a little while longer, okay? Just—just give me, a day. Please, ‘Creesh, please hold on for a day. Promise me, just one day ‘Creesh, I need you to, please.” He’s not like this, he doesn’t get desperate like this, doesn’t get involved, but he needs her to live. He needs her to live like he needs Lup to live. He would give anything.
And, well. If he gives everything, it might just be enough.
“Taako I can’t.” Lucretia was almost begging, too, but tough on her because Taako had been there first.
“Lucy I need you to. If you can’t do it for me do it—do it for Lup, okay? Lup wouldn’t give up. Lup would spit at this stupid cold and set shit on fire.” Taako couldn’t imagine anyone not doing something for Lup. He knew how much Lucretia admired his sister, too. She would do it for Lup. She had to.
“Taako.” Lucretia put a shaking hand up to meet his in her hair. “I’ll hold on for you. If you—need me to—I can hold on. A little longer. A day. I’ll hold on one more day.”
“I swear ‘Cretia you’re not gonna regret it. We’re gonna get you out of here, just hold on for me sweetheart, just stay alive a little longer, it’s okay, it’s okay,” he soothed, stroking her hair a little too fast and fighting tears. If he got any more broken up about this Lup would wake up.
Lucretia’s energy must have been spent even from that short conversation, and Taako wasn’t sure she would recover even if he got her out immediately, but he had to try. Clerics could heal some crazy shit. He gave her hair one last gentle pet, but she was already unconscious. He looked up across his cell. Barry was leaned up against Lup.
Perfect. Taako had some last words for him.
He scooted over to that side of the cell and poked Barry hard, holding his shoulder in place with one hand so he wouldn’t wake Lup. Barry’s eyes snapped open and locked on him immediately.
“Lucretia?” He asked frantically. Taako shook his head.
“No, not yet. Listen, Barry, I got something I need from you.” He kept his voice low and soothing so Lup wouldn’t wake up, but she seemed to be pretty deep in meditation. Good. Maybe he could keep her out until he was done.
“Of course, anything. There’s not much we can do here, though.” Barry straightened, gently soothing Lup when she frowned with the loss of warmth. “’s alright, babe, just talkin’ to Taako.”
“Yeah, that’s kinda what I wanted to talk about,” Taako said. He backed away to sit on the other side of Lup. It was surprisingly hard to keep eye contact. He’d thought talking about his potential suicide would be easier than this.
“Taako, no,” Barry whispered. “I thought—you can’t do that without Lup anyway. Taako you can’t.”
Taako shrugged, worrying the edge of his tunic with his fingertips. “There’s ways around that.”
Barry’s hand went to the bars of his cell, but Taako had stayed out of reach for a reason. “Taako, Lucretia’s going to come back. It—watching her like this sucks, I get it, I do, but she will come back. She’s going to be okay.”
Taako shook his head. “It’s not just her.”
Lup coughed in her meditation. Taako focused on the calm of having a mission, the soul-deep peace that came with knowing he was doing the right thing, and she relaxed again. Barry looked at her, and then back at Taako.
“No.” He whispered.
Taako met his eyes. “Yeah. She hasn’t noticed yet, but—it’s the same thing, I think. ‘Cretia had a week or so between when she started coughing and when it got bad, we don’t have a lot of time.”
Barry took Lup’s hand in his. It was already cooler than it should be, easy enough to miss in the drafty cells, but in a few days her temperature would skyrocket and she’d be getting worse for—weeks? How long had it been? Before getting to Lucretia’s stage.
Maybe it would be faster. Lup had never had a strong immune system. She’d always hated being sick, too. She was the worst patient.
“We should tell Davenport. Someone. We need to find a way out of here.” Barry was on the same level as him now. Good man. When Taako could count on nothing else, he could count on Barry’s love for his sister.
“We’ve got one. I fucking kill everyone here and we walk out no problem. Worst that’ll happen is we get a little gore on us on the way out. We all take baths later, it’s a party.” Taako manifested his weapon impatiently, dismissed it again just as fast. He didn’t need anyone seeing the bright shiny blades and causing a ruckus. He wanted to pace, but Lup had promised if he started pacing any more she’d knock him unconscious until they escaped and he didn’t need her to be any more pissed than she was going to be when she woke up.
“Taako, we have no guarantee you’ll survive that. You’ve never done it before and you could be fighting an incredible number of people.” Barry wasn’t saying no, though. He was clutching Lup’s hand. Taako approximated a smile, though it came out sharp.
“These people put my sister in a cage,” he said.
Barry frowned. “Be rational about this. I’m not letting you go if you can’t keep a level head.”
“You can try to stop me, little man,” Taako mumbled, but shook himself obligingly. “Fine. Rational. Calm. I’ll just kill what needs to be killed, a guard or two, get their keys and let you out. There won't even be as many people here, it's the middle of the goddamn night, they're all sleeping. I’ll get a lay of the land while I’m out there, you can just follow me right to the exit. I’ll cover our backs. Might not even need to get crazy.”
“If it were that simple you’d have done it before,” Barry said. Taako still wasn’t hearing a no. He shrugged loosely. If Barry didn’t ask, he wouldn’t bring it up. This was why he’d gone for Barry in the first place—Magnus would have tried to save him; and Davenport, the only other member of their crew willing to be realistic about it, was too far away.
“I might be able to keep Lup out of it for most of the time. Twin stuff. Magnus’ll have his arms full with Lucretia, though. Can you carry her?” He put his hand on Lup’s shoulder and looked at her face. It was his face, too. She’d shared so much with him.
Barry nodded.
“Yeah, I can handle that. You doing this now?” he asked.
“Yeah. Fewest guards at night, there’s a chance that whatever’s out there—” He gestured to the door they’d seen people leave through so many times. None of them, not even the guards, had come back.
It was a long shot to hope that it was just a public execution. It wasn’t much more likely to hope that whatever was on the other side was something that wouldn’t kill them just because it wasn’t the usual murder time. Taako figured he had about even odds on distracting it long enough for his family to get out before it killed him.
Gods did he wish he could still teleport people. Maybe once they’d gotten out of the cells. Maybe.
Barry looked grim. “Lup’s gonna be pissed.”
“That’s why I woke you up. You remember why I’m with her?” Taako asked. He’d wanted more badass last words than this, but now that the time had come he couldn’t think of anything.
“She’s gonna beat the Hunger someday,” Barry said, which, okay, not necessarily true, but close enough.
“She’ll be a deciding factor, anyway. I was supposed to get used up when our aunt died, but she kept me alive, wouldn’t let me die. Now I’m just paying up what I was made for.” Gods, what a downer. Taako hoped he could haunt them after this. Probably not. That sounded like something you’d need a soul for.
“Anyway. I was made to help her. I’m supposed to make sure she has everything she needs to do what she’s meant to, and hopefully, to survive. This mission is the core of my being, this is more important to me than anything. It’s the only thing that matters, Barry.” He stared Barry down, and to his credit, Barry met him head on. He looked like he understood, as much as a human could understand.
“I am trusting you to do that if I get destroyed here. It has to be done and you’re the one I’m trusting to do it. Do you understand?” Taako pressed. Barry nodded.
“I’ll keep her safe, Taako. You have to know she’ll keep herself safe, too.”
Taako laughed softly. “She never has needed me as much as she thinks she does.”
“Or she loves you, and she doesn’t want you to die on her,” Barry said. “She’ll live without you but she’s never gonna forgive me for letting you go. Is there nothing I can do to change your mind?”
“No. I’ll do what I have to, like a fucking badass. It’s, uh. Well, hanging out with your nerd ass hasn’t been so bad. Don’t let Magnus come back for me.” He smoothed Lup’s hair behind her ear, careful not to get too close. He stood, and Barry stood too.
“Come here for a sec before you go?” Barry asked, reaching his arms out, and Taako smirked.
“Hell no my man, I’m not letting you stop me this late in the game. Tell Lup I love her and tell Lucretia to make me sound cool in the biography.” Without getting near Barry’s side of the cell, he approached the door and focused.
His existence wasn’t technically related to this reality through magic. He was made of the fabric of reality itself, in a way more real than anything around him. He was of the universe that had created this one and however long he spent in one place or the other, he would never belong here. He would always be other.
It wasn’t impossible to slip back through the fabric of reality. Whatever was suppressing their magic made reality wrong here, knotted and tangled instead of neatly woven into the art that his masters made, but he had walked between worlds before. He allowed himself to slip between the cracks and, with difficulty, pressed himself back into the thick knot of this planar system a bit after he’d left.
In Lucretia’s cell.
“Well damn, let me give that another shot,” he muttered to himself. He did take a moment to put his red robe over her like a blanket, and his jacket under her for a pillow. No point in getting them all gory, and blood still showed up on them even though they were red, which was a load of bullshit in Taako’s opinion. Made it harder to look like a badass when everyone knew you were bleeding.
“You’re back?” whispered Barry, almost disbelieving. Thanks, guy. Real vote of confidence there.
“No, I haven’t left yet. This shit ain’t easy,” Taako hissed back. He stepped through again, taking a stab at a different part of the knot. Almost the same, because he didn’t want to end up in the middle of goddamned nowhere, but a string’s width away.
He stepped in again in the very corner of the cell that had been emptied earlier. The door was still open. Perfect. He slipped out and brought out his weapon, giving it a couple swings while he got used to this level of existence again. It went through a couple of cells while he was still too ethereal, and then got heavy as all hell as he became too real, before he settled on a happy medium.
“I’ll be back,” he whispered. “Wake the others up if you hear anything, otherwise I’ll get some keys and we can wake them up then.”
He still didn’t get too close to the cell door—couldn’t be too cautious—but he gave Barry a little wave as he slipped down the end of the hall away from the door. There were chirps, slithers and mumblings from the cells as he ghosted past them, but no guards.
Well, until he rounded the corner. Then there were three guards waiting patiently for him.
Sorry, Lup, he thought, and then he thought about her coughing and the cut-off screams they heard every day and how she couldn’t be a hero from a prison cell and then he didn’t think anything.
Time passed. It was difficult to quantify. He’d spent a lot of time in this little world. He had saved many lives in it and now he was ending lives in it. He had to kill everyone.
No, no, he had to—he had to let everyone out. Lup was here and he had to let her out.
His eyes wouldn’t focus, or they were too focused, he was probably too real but he couldn’t help it. He had to kill everyone outside of the four cells and then he had to open the cells. The creatures in the other cells didn’t fight as hard as the creatures outside of them. There was probably a reason for that, but it didn’t matter. They weren’t Lup and they weren’t with Lup, so they had to die and that was all that counted.
The creatures with Lup were making noise. He looked over at them, irritated. He? It. It stared at them, awaiting instruction. They were asking him to do things that weren’t his mission. What use was talking to them? Telling them that he was here? They could clearly see him for themselves. Why did they want him to look at them?
“Wait,” he instructed them. They were not his masters. He felt out his connection to Lup and sent comfort and love down it. He had to keep her deep in meditation. She was confused, she would try to stop him from doing his job. They all just had to wait.
There was another life outside. He had to end it. He was leaking. He had to release Lup and her creatures from the cells. Lup would fix him or decommission him once he was done.
He made himself more real than the stickiness on the floor and didn’t slip in it. He looked at the cell doors.
“Taako? Taako, that’s it, come here,” said a creature. He wasn’t supposed to get close enough to grab. These creatures were shortsighted, foolish, would try to prevent him from doing his job. They would help him once he did well enough.
He could make them not real if they tried to stop him. He approached once more step. They would be able to touch him now, grasp at the clothes he was wearing. He stayed close to the smaller ones. One of them was the master of the others, though not Lup. Lup didn’t have a master. She was the master. He needed to kill everyone and let her out.
No one grabbed him. The taller of the two short ones reached out slowly, but he just rested his hand on its hip. His hip? What was he? What had she made him?
“I will kill the other,” it said. “And then I will let you out.”
It moved its hand forward and hit the forehead of the one that was touching him. He touched it again. Two more times. Comforting.
“How about you let us out now, and then you can go kill the other guy, huh? We can kill as many people as you want, you just gotta let us out of here first, sound good?” Why was the creature asking him? He looked to Lup, but she was still meditating. It had decided to do this on its own, because Lup was foolish and attached to it and wouldn’t see the solutions clearly.
With no master to guide it, it was uncertain. Letting the creatures out before or after killing the other life…was that important? Would that make a difference? Probably not.
It looked to the right, at one of the larger creatures.
“You are like me,” it remembered. He. He remembered, he had made Barry promise. To continue his job. He had not been made like it but he would serve Lup…no, that wasn’t how these creatures lived, he would…accompany Lup. He would do well enough.
The creature was agreeing, cautiously, hands out as if he’d suspected him of hiding something.
“Will you bring Lup out? I have to kill the other life,” he told the creature. Barry Bluejeans. One of the lives he had to keep alive.
The creature agreed. He was happy to share tasks. He’d done that before, with another like him. Many others? At least one. They were built to be cooperative and efficient.
He was broken, though. It was hard to concentrate. Lup had broken him. What was he meant to be?
It looked at the cell doors and it wanted them to not be real. It erased them from the artistry that its masters had entrusted it with. The creatures paused to make gestures and exclamations, but the one it had passed its job onto was moving to Lup. Good.
It walked unhurriedly to the last life before realizing that it was being inefficient. It dropped out of the world and back in next to the nearby life. Was he supposed to kill every life on this world? In this planar system? Just the building? Its instructions hadn’t been clear. He just had to keep those six alive.
The life in front of him watched him. He watched back.
You would have killed my charge. The thought leapt unbidden to his mind and he was startled. You won’t touch my sister.
It was the truth, so he let it pass. He sent the strongest wave of calm, of peace, that he could muster towards Lup. She was stirring, becoming aware that all was not as it should be. She quieted when he soothed her.
The life in front of him ripped his stomach out.
He stabbed it until it ended.
One part of his jobs was done. It needed to see to the other part. It did not know where the creatures had gone but it could feel Lup, bright and burning and unlikely to stay under much longer no matter how much it soothed. She was concerned. Something did not feel right from his end of their connection and it was disturbing her.
He tried to rip it out.
It would not go. She had given it to him and taken measures to ensure that he would not take it out. He needed to do what she wanted.
He left it alone. He didn’t think—it didn’t think it could walk between again to her. It tried to stay real.
Tried. It had never tried before Lup.
Lup’s people were with her, coming out the doors to where it had ended the last life. They stopped again to make exclamations when they saw the corpse. It was a large corpse, and Lup’s people liked to make useless stops for exclamations.
Lup was waking up, groggily. She only got groggy when she was getting sick. Taako wanted to pet her hair and tell her it would be okay but he wasn’t very real right now. He stumbled.
He’d—he’d gotten Lup out. He’d killed, Gods, he’d killed everyone. That was something to unpack later. Fuck. He wanted to look behind him at the—it didn’t bear thinking about. Fuck. He brought his hand to where his stomach usually was.
Fuck.
“Lup,” he croaked. “Lulu, Lup, Lup.”
Barry was shaking her awake. Fuckin’ douchebag, he’d told him to let her stay under until it was done.
Taako fell to his knees and he had to admit to himself, he felt pretty done.
“Koko?” She muttered, and he heard her even across the distance. Twin stuff. He wanted to bury his face in her hair and cry.
She looked across the coliseum to him like a homing beacon. Looked behind him and saw what he’d killed. Grinned at him.
“What the fuck, Taako, you killed a fuckin’—” their soul jerked. Hah, dying spasms on the metaphysical level. She doubled over in—pain? He hoped she wasn’t in pain. He hadn’t ever wanted her to be in pain.
He blinked and she was right in front of him. How long had he been on his knees? Well, it was probably fine. Wasn’t like blood could pool in his knees when it was busy pooling on the ground. Kneeling too long was the last of his worries.
“Lup,” he said. “Lup?”
His first word. He’d always been an odd baby. Not really a baby at all.
“Taako, Koko shhh, shh please,” Lup cradled him close to her. He tried to bring his arms around her but they wouldn’t leave his stomach. He buried his head in her hair.
“Lu,” he said. My sister, my best friend. I don’t want to die alone.
Their soul fluttered frantically as she tried to push it into him. Souls didn’t go into the dying.
“Gonna be whole,” he said. He tasted blood on the words. He didn’t know what happened to him if he got killed in this world. He had a strong suspicion that it wouldn’t end with him coming back.
He’d served his purpose. Done his job. He’d been sent to die for Lup and he was dying for Lup.
It wasn’t the worst way to go.
It hurt so much.
Lup was yelling and Magnus was there, he didn’t have Lucretia anymore.
“Lu?” Taako mumbled, rousing a bit. Had he lost time somewhere? They weren’t at the edge of the coliseum any more. They were walking to the exit. Magnus was carrying him.
“Lup? He’s asking for you,” Magnus called, slowing down. He was walking very carefully, but every breath was agony.
“No. No, where’s—‘Cretia. Where is she?” He had to know. He had to know if he’d failed.
“It’s gonna be okay, she’ll be okay. We just need to get back to the Starblaster and you’ll both get healed up, and Lup too. Just gotta relax in my big, beefy arms,” Magnus soothed. Someone smoothed back his hair.
“Lup’s hurt?” That was bad. He couldn’t die while Lup was hurt. He was gonna kill Barry—he hadn’t even left yet and Lup was hurt.
“I’m good, bro-bro, you just worry about yourself,” said Lup. She would definitely lie about that if she thought it would make him feel better, though. He squinted at Magnus’s chin and the bloody strands of hair getting in his eyes.
“Don’ lie to me,” he accused.
“Not lying, I swear. I’m good. Totally fine. Gonna kick your ass when you get better from this,” she said. He spared the energy for a smile. She always knew how to make him feel better.
“’kay. Just gonna…muscly embr—brace. Just gonna. Lup?” It was getting hard to think. He was pretty sure he was losing time. He pushed at Lup through their connection.
And then he didn’t do anything.
Lup screamed.
She didn’t care about alerting anyone to the six of them, didn’t care about letting Lucretia sleep to save her strength. She saw the glow of their soul leaving her brother, felt her whole soul return to her for the first time in a hundred years. It had grown to fill the gaps in her and Taako and was too much for her alone, too bright and burning, but that wasn’t why she screamed.
She could feel her brother leaving the world. She could see him slipping out of any world. He’d never gone anywhere without his soul since he’d gotten it. They hadn’t been able to test it, but they’d been pretty sure nothing could separate him from it.
And it was with her now. The whole thing was with her and he wasn’t.
There was no more Taako to have a soul.
Magnus had stopped when she’d fallen to her knees, was shaking Taako and yelling and crying, Davenport was talking to her, Barry was holding Lucretia as she stirred, Merle was trying to talk to Magnus, but Lup could barely understand any of it. She refused to understand it.
She didn’t want to live in a world without her brother.
Their soul—just her soul now, there was no them to share with—was spilling out of her, sparking around her. It was probably dangerous. What did it matter, though? The only one who mattered was already dead. Her heart was gone. Her brother was—was a lump of flesh in Magnus’s arms and an indistinguishable piece of her soul now. She couldn’t even take out the part of her soul that had been his. It was seamless.
She didn’t want to be whole. She didn’t want to be one soul in one body. She’d rather be broken forever, she just wanted her brother.
Something warm hit her.
Barry was there. He was bleeding. No, no, she couldn’t lose him too. Not now. She couldn’t lose any more tonight.
“Babe, please, look at me, please, Taako wouldn’t want this babe you’re hurting yourself,” he was saying, and she didn’t care.
“I want Taako,” she told him. “I—I don’t—Taako.”
Her grief was ripping up the dirt around her. She idly recognized her crewmates seeking shelter. Barry had run through a hell of a dust storm to get to her in the center of it.
So what? Her brother was dead.
“Lup, baby I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have stopped him. I’m sorry, Lup.” She almost laughed. Then, because she could, she did laugh. No one could stop Taako once he set his mind to something. If he thought it was for her better good he’d rip the world apart. It was how he was.
It was how he was made.
She stopped laughing.
Her soul stopped storming.
“Barry,” she said.
“Lup?” he asked. He did not sound hopeful.
“I’m going to kill Jeffandrew.” She smiled. It was perfect. He’d made Taako. He could remake him. She’d provide the soul; he’d provide the rest. And then she would kill him for making her brother what he was. She would kill all of them.
“I’m pretty sure if you do that, our world is gonna eventually die with no one to take care of it,” Barry said cautiously. “Also, we can’t get to the outer universe without Taako. And—”
“Babe,” she interrupted. “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to rip apart every one of those brain-melting, slave-owning sons of bitches. I will dance on their ashes and I will free every last damn one of their ‘servants.’”
Barry was looking at her like he was wary of her, and maybe he should be. She felt dangerous. She felt unstoppable. She wondered if this was what it felt like to be Taako, to wake up every day with a purpose that she knew was the right thing to do.
“Okay, Lup. Okay. You know I won’t stop you. You’ll let us help you, right? Taako told me to help you, please let me help you, babe.” He took one of her hands in both of his. She smiled at him and stood. There was no reason to be on her knees. No reason to cry.
“Of course. We need to get back to the ship. We’re going to kill those sons of bitches.” She led them back to the Starblaster.
Let the Hunger consume this world. Taako had been the one who’d wanted to save it; if his ‘bosses’ wanted it taken care of so badly they should have taken better care of him.
Lup stood at the helm of the Starblaster and smiled beatifically. She had the rest of her family with her, they were going to get her brother back, they were going to avenge him. She was a woman on a mission.