Work Text:
Twelve years took a toll on a person.
Whether positive or negative, twelve years would change a person.
Twelve years changed them both. And she wasn’t sure it was for the best. Her brother, her Taako wasn’t hers anymore. He was different. More reserved. Too afraid to bake with her anymore. Too afraid to talk to her about what was going on. Reserved to a point that she didn’t feel like she knew her brother.
She was different too. His sister, his Lup, was weaker. She had panic attacks regularly. She couldn’t sleep alone. She held it together as best as she could but sometimes she broke.
This was one of those times.
Lup sat on the couch of her brothers and her shared apartment. After the day of the Story and Song they decided it would be better to live together. After being apart of so long it was almost necessary. She needed him and he needed her, almost more than they both needed oxygen. Back to where she sits, on the couch, curled in on herself. It was 3 in the morning and yet another sleepless night. Her loving husband in the room to her right, her brother and his undead lover in the room to her left. She had turned on a small lamp that sat on the coffee table beside the couch to keep her from being entirely alone in darkness. She didn’t want to disturb anyone with her problems. Lup found her heart racing, the ability to breathe becoming harder and harder to the point she felt she was being choked, tears forming in her eyes as everything came rushing back to her.
Twelve years Lup had spent in an umbrella. She couldn’t feel in there. She lost all her senses, all her ability to be her. She lost her family and little did she know, they had forgotten her. She screamed, loud and piercing. Moreso a shriek than anything else. She had lost. Someone would eventually get her relic. Another glassed city. She had failed. She had lost. But surely someone would come for her. Barry? Taako, her own brother, of course! Why hadn’t they come for her yet? It had been ten years before Taako, Magnus, and Merle found her. But why didn’t they recognize her. Come on! It was her, Lup, their sister! Taako picked up the Umbrastaff, examining it before declaring that he now had an umbrella. How had he not remembered his sisters creation. How had he not remembered her?
The world came crashing around her as she tried to remain silent on the couch, sobbing, unable to breathe, the blackness surrounding her. She was back in the umbrella, wasn’t she? Eternally stuck in that hellish place.
Something was touching her. No. That’s impossible, she was left alone in the Umbrastaff. Unless that horrid lich Edward had somehow joined her again. Someone was calling her name. That wasn’t right either. She was alone, no one remembered her.
“--Up!” The voice called, as though they had been calling her multiple times. Her eyes blinked shut and she looked around. The grey couch. A white fluffy blanket. The light. Her brother. Her brother! Taako was standing in front of her, slightly crouched over her, looking her in the eyes.
“Lulu, can you hear me?” Taako questioned, noticing the shift in demeanor the other elf presented. Lup nodded, her eyes meeting his before filling with tears again. Her arms quickly wrapped around him and she pulled him down into her lap, appreciating the pressure of someone on her keeping her grounding and appreciating the fact her brother was still here. He wasn’t gone. Taako was here.
Twelve years passed and they still were ever the same.