Chapter Text
Choice and fate: two distinct currents, splitting time like a pair of rivers that flow together towards a sea called destiny. Although their destinations are similar, they branch into a myriad of stories through small, critical moments in time that are capable of changing the course remarkably.
When Lup left, it was without warning or fanfare. She simply disappeared, leaving only a short, handwritten note behind—but she didn’t leave alone.
Without his sister and his brother-in-law, Taako was alone in his endless search to find his family. Ultimately, he was so wrapped up in anguish that Lucretia didn’t have the heart to proceed with her plan.
What was the point, really? Either way, Taako would be alone, but if Lucretia continued with her plan of redaction, Taako wouldn’t have the precious memories of his family to keep him going.
Lucretia—well, Lucretia made a painful choice. She kept her story close and those left of her family closer as the world below them was shattered by the cruelest war it had ever experienced.
Endless forests stretched in the east, devouring once-lively settlements in tendrils and roots. Entire towns were transmuted overnight: streets once full of life were converted to precious metals, gemstones, even peppermint as far as the eye could see. There were tales of monsters born from the imaginations of the cruel, lurking in the depths of the sea and atop the highest mountains. Circles of black glass scarred the lands where great battles were fought, appearing every few months and burning another army into ashes.
Not everyone sought the Relics, of course. In remote, secluded places, people formed small communities that did their best to survive, building their homes in caves or in settlements surrounded by high walls, hiding from the destruction and greed that threatened to consume the world.
The Goddess of Fate looked down on her tapestry, battered and scorched and coming unraveled, and made a decision that would prove to be monumental.
No more.
From a tapestry shining with love and joy, Istus plucked two threads that gleamed as bright as stars and sewed them into the ruined tapestry before her. Although she was an omnipresent goddess, Istus could only hope that this one would be saved.
-
Angus McDonald, twelve-year old and boy detective extraordinaire, was winding down after a long, hard soccer practice. There was a case that he looked forward to starting in the morning, so before heading to Taako’s home for dinner, he decided to crash at Magnus’ much-closer residence and take a nap. There was a room reserved for him in almost every Bird’s home, so it was really just a matter of where he chose to stay.
Magnus was outside and talking with a neighbor when Angus arrived, but he still managed to grin at Angus when he noticed the boy sprinting towards the house. Two of Magnus’ big dogs started circling around his ankles as if to greet him.
Angus waved to Magnus with a cheery “Hello, sir!” and then immediately made a beeline for his room, practically collapsing on the bed. “Kravitz, take me now,” he muttered, face pressed tightly against the pillow.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of stale air. Wait, that wasn’t right. Angus blinked in disbelief. For a moment, he wondered if the power was out because he was surrounded by complete darkness, but that wouldn’t explain the stuffy quality of the air.
“Sir?” Angus tried to call out, but he started coughing almost immediately. His throat was suddenly sore and dry, even though he’d been feeling fine a moment earlier.
Maybe he had fallen victim to some kind of spell, and his body was transported somewhere else while he slept. To test this hypothesis, he extended his hands to the side, but they quickly collided with a smooth, wooden surface. He tried to sit up, and his forehead painfully met the same fate.
With growing panic, Angus moved to explore the space around him, only to realize that he was trapped inside a very small container. It was big enough that he could lie in it comfortably, but his movements were extremely restrained. It almost felt like…
He remembered reading something like this in a Caleb Cleveland novel, where a woman was betrayed by her lover as she attempted to re-enact the Romeo and Juliet trick and the traitor left her to be buried alive.
Angus’ surroundings felt indisputably like a coffin. He closed his eyes again. Don’t panic, he told himself repeatedly. If he panicked, he’d just use up more air. Screaming wouldn’t do any good either.
When he’d finally calmed down, Angus started thinking of a plan. Angus was smart. He could get himself out of this. Average person was 66 liters, average coffin was 886 liters. There were around 820 liters of air in the coffin with him. Breathing completely normally. Angus would use 23 liters per hour, meaning he had about thirty hours to get out of this if he played his cards right. It was more than enough.
Angus grabbed the bottom of his shirt—weirdly enough, the clothes he had on didn’t feel familiar in the slightest—and pulled it over his head. That would serve as a mask to make sure he wouldn’t breathe in dirt.
It seemed that he was buried in a cheap coffin—thanks, family!—but at least it would lessen the difficulty of creating a hole.
(In the Relic Wars, no precious material would be wasted on something that would end up in the ground forever, much less a coffin for a child. Of course, Angus had no way of knowing that.)
Angus easily kicked a hole through the middle of the coffin, figuring it to be the weakest structurally. A bit of soil leaked through the small crack that formed, relieving some of the pressure the ground was putting on the lid. Angus pushed the dirt to the bottom of the coffin and repeated, eventually making the hole big enough to push himself through.
Patiently and slowly, he started digging upwards. He had no way to figure out exactly how deep he was buried, but since he had well and truly proved his coffin hypothesis, he would guess about ten feet. After what felt like hours later, his hands finally broke the surface. Angus let out a relieved sob before pulling himself out and taking a grateful breath of fresh air.
It was night and his glasses were dirtier than they’d ever been from the experience, so it took Angus a while to truly take in the unfamiliar surroundings: as far as he could see, the barren ground was littered with hundreds and hundreds of makeshift graves stretching to the horizon.
Angus let himself fall, his back to the ground, and took in a few shuddering breaths. Now he allowed himself to panic. His entire body shook like a leaf beside the large hole in the ground that he just dug himself out of.
“Angus!” a familiar voice called. Shooting up to his feet, Angus nearly screamed as he frantically looked around for the source, right up until his eyes landed on a familiar black robe.
-
Although his skull form made it hard to tell, Kravitz was pretty pleased as he watched Lup and Barry pummel the latest necromancer fool into the ground.
The in-laws were annoying to work with in the beginning, but Kravitz had to admit that his job had gotten significantly easier since Lup and Barry had joined the retinue of the Raven Queen. He also found himself enjoying his life much more than he had ever hoped to. Kravitz had a husband that he loved immeasurably, and a large family of people who couldn’t care less that he was the literal embodiment of death and loved him anyway.
“I’ll leave the rest to you two, then,” Kravitz told his partners as he saw Lup tear out the necromancer’s soul and open a portal to the Astral Plane. She grinned and gave him a thumbs up before disappearing through the rift.
Kravitz dusted off his clothes, let his appearance shift to the handsome face he regularly wore at home, and teleported to the busy streets of Neverwinter. He knew that Taako had been extremely busy up at the school this week, and therefore, he would be exhausted come evening, so Kravitz was determined to make dinner and surprise both Taako and Angus.
In Neverwinter, Kravitz purchased the ingredients he needed, as well as a large bouquet of flowers to decorate the center of the table. He teleported back home and temporarily deposited the groceries and flowers on the kitchen counter before heading towards their bedroom, door left slightly ajar, to check on his (most likely napping) husband.
And then the door disappeared—or, to be more precise, the entire house did. Instead of his home, Kravitz was standing in the ruins of an abandoned castle. Beyond the crumbled walls and a few still-aloft pillars, he recognized a forest that he vaguely recalled as being a pilgrimage of several necromantic cults south of the continent.
It wasn’t likely that this was a trap. There were no signs of any magical symbols or runes that could’ve summoned him. Was it a prank? A teleportation spell that Taako put on the door to stop people from waking him up?
Confused, Kravitz dug through his pockets to get his Stone of Farspeech, but he couldn't find it anywhere. Realizing he left it on the kitchen counter next to the groceries, he let out a colorful expletive.
Kravitz summoned his scythe. He was about to open yet another portal to take him home when he felt a familiar sensation at the back of his head. It wasn’t common for his Goddess to contact him directly, but when she did, Kravitz never failed to answer. Maybe this unusual summon had something to do with the mysterious teleportation?
Kravitz extended an hand, palm up, and summoned the Book of Bounties. Without him needing to turn the pages, they flipped on their own and stopped on a certain page, on a certain name. The one the Raven Queen pointed out to him.
“Is there something weird with this—” Kravitz wondered out loud, assuming his Queen could hear him, but the words died in his throat when his eyes actually landed on the words.
Name: Angus McDonald. Full years since birth: Twelve. Death count: One. Times visiting the Astral Plane: One. Currently in: the Prime Material Plane.
"What in the name of Pan's holy goatee is
this
?!" Kravitz exclaimed with a grimace.
His Book was telling him that Angus McDonald, Taako’s kid in all but name, had died and escaped from the Astral Plane? The mere concept was ridiculous, especially because Kravitz had seen the kid in question that very morning. Angus was supposed to be at a soccer practice near Magnus’ house that afternoon; what kind of trouble could he have gotten into?
Kravitz dismissed the Book. Instead of heading home, he opened a portal to the Hammer & Tails, Magnus’ house and dog-training facility, only to find himself on top of an empty hill, with no sign that there had ever been a building there. He looked around, confused and getting a bit scared.
"What is going on?" he murmured, voice wavering slightly as he took another look at the bounty on Angus. Where was he? The Hammer & Tails had seemingly disappeared, and without knowing where the kid was, there was only one way to get close to his location.
Summoning the Book again, Kravitz let the Bounty on Angus guide him towards his location. He sliced down another portal and stepped through, looking around at the unfamiliar view.
The dim light and barren land turned the immense graveyard into a disturbing sight, more so than it would’ve been under a usual set of circumstances. A quick look at the stars told him that he wasn’t far from Neverwinter, but Kravitz had never heard of such a large graveyard nearby. Maybe it was built after the Hunger’s attack?
In this miserable landscape, there were no living beings in sight, not even of the animal variety, so Kravitz’s eyes immediately darted towards the only source of movement, several yards away.
Kravitz started running towards the small grey bundle of dirty clothes, which revealed itself to be a small, dirt-stained, yet fancy boy, who was heaving on the ground.
“Angus!” Kravitz called, and the boy immediately shot up to his feet. His eyes landed on Kravitz just as the Reaper finally caught up to him. The boy looked absolutely terrified, so Kravitz, without as much as a second thought, dismissed his scythe and cloak and kneeled down to embrace him.
“What’s going on? What are you doing here, Angus?” Kravitz asked, pressing the boy for answers while simultaneously trying to reassure him.
“I—I don’t know!” Angus’s voice was broken and interrupted by frequent sobs. “I woke up and—and I had to dig myself out—out of a coffin!” It took him awhile to get the whole sentence out, between the stuttering and the searching for words.
Kravitz let Angus go in order to examine the hole in the ground. He looked again at the boy.
"This has to be a joke..." Kravitz said. He stood up and walked towards the tombstone, brushing away the dirt only to uncover the same name that appeared in his book.
Angus McDonald.
Beloved son and grandson.
"A very cruel joke, maybe," he murmured. Kravitz turned back towards Angus. "Come on, kiddo, let's get you home. I'll have Taako make you something warm while I try to figure out what's going on."
Angus was still shaking, but he nodded with determination. “That sounds like a logical course of action. And warm food sounds amazing right now…”
Kravitz smiled and put a hand on Angus shoulder, partially wrapping him up in his coat before he summoned his scythe and cut a portal to… home? The location was right, he was sure of it, but the house where he'd been living with Taako for the past year was in ruins. It was uninhabited and dusty, and frankly, it looked like it would crumble to the ground at any moment.
Angus spoke before Kravitz could process what he was seeing. “Where’s-—where’s Taako, sir?” he asked weakly.
"I don't—" Kravitz’s eyes darted around in panic. This was the right place—the house even had the little green water faucet that Magnus's dog Johann adored—but it looked like no one had lived there for a very, very long time.
Kravitz looked at the kid. "Angus, what's the last thing you remember?"
“I went to take a nap at Magnus’ house after a really long soccer practice.” Angus stuck close to Kravitz, nails digging in the feathers of his cloak.
"On the 6th of Eleasis, right?"
Angus nodded.
"I was just here . This isn't a time spell or anything; the stars..."
Kravitz frowned. There was something weird in the night sky, something he couldn't quite understand...
And then it dawned on him. "Where's the Bureau of Benevolence? Where's the Moonbase?"
Angus’ head shot up and Kravitz saw the exact same look of panicked realization he was probably wearing himself. “It’s not there! Should… let’s try and go into town?” Angus squeaked. “It’s late... we can get info there... I didn’t die, did I? I didn’t die in my sleep, right?”
Kravitz patted his head reassuringly. He wanted to comfort him, but… Angus had died and somehow came back to life. The bounty wouldn't have appeared otherwise.
"You're here now, Angus. You're going to be safe," Kravitz decided to say in the end. "Let's go to town, shall we?"
He opened a portal to Goldcliff. Kravitz was beginning to tire, with the recent mission and the quick succession of portals he had summoned in the last few minutes. After this, he would need to sleep before he could muster the strength to open another shortcut. When he looked up, though, he didn't see the tall golden buildings of Goldcliff. Instead, he found himself in the heart of a rich and luscious forest, with trees so tall they obscured the sky.
Angus looked around. “What…?”
"I'm sorry, I'm—" Kravitz looked around, absolutely appalled. "I have no idea what’s going on with the portals today! It's like the world has gone mad!"
Kravitz’s panic quickly turned into rage as he shook his scythe like it was a broken remote. He stopped only when he saw Angus’ distress.
"I'm sorry..." Kravitz said, careful to maintain an even tone. “I...don't know what—I can't open another portal before taking a long rest; do you know any spells to light a fire? I'll, uh… I’ll find somewhere we can sleep."
“I—I know Produce Flame.” Angus affirmed, more thankful than ever for the magic lessons. “It’s kind of cold out here...”
From nearby, there was a loud SNAP followed by a soft “ Fuck! ”