Work Text:
It had been a while since Magnus had seen Taako. Properly seen him, that is. He’d been tasked with keeping up with him and Merle both, making sure their lives were continuing as normally as they possibly could. He hadn’t been there for Glamour Springs - only heard of it from news a few weeks after - but as soon as he did, he and Lucretia dropped everything and tried to find him. A few days of searching later, and here he was, in a gimy looking bar in The Underdark, drinking what seemed to be the cheapest beer possible.
He slowly made his way across to the dimly lit bar, taking a seat beside Taako. Magnus wasn’t the most discreet person in the world, and that fact was only accentuated by being a human in a place not at all designed for humans, so he caught Taako’s attention pretty quickly.
“What do you want?” There was no emotion in Taako’s voice besides dull resignation, and Magnus’s heart dropped.
“What do you mean?” He asked.
“You’re here for me, aren't you. There's no other reason a human would be so far underground. Are you with the militia? If so I can and will fuck you up and I won’t regret it.” Taako didn’t look up from his glass as he spoke.
“I’m not here for you. I was just passing through the area, I’m a woodworker you see, I-”
“I don’t need your fucking life story, pal.” Taako said. “Just get a drink and leave me alone.”
“I don’t think my lawful good heart could do that.” Magnus said, and Taako rolled his eyes. “Something’s up, and I won’t leave until you tell me what.” God he hoped he rolled high on that charisma check.
There was a few seconds of silence before Taako spoke. “My career is ruined.” He said simply. “I lost my- I don’t know what he was, but he was something, and I poisoned-” he stopped, his voice dropping as if he feared being overheard, “I poisoned forty people.”
“You didn’t mean to.” Magnus said. He knew Taako well enough to know that as little care as he seemed to have for other people, he wouldn't willingly hurt someone who hadn’t hurt him first.
“That doesn’t change the fact that they’re dead. That their families are missing them and mourning them, and that it’s all my stupid fault.” He wasn’t yet crying, but his voice was weak.
“Hey, where I come from, we worship The Raven Queen.” Magnus started, placing his hand on Taako’s shoulder and once he was sure Taako wasn’t reacting negatively, started gently massaging that one spot that he knew was always hurting. “She overlooks the passage of life and death. We know that there's something after. That people are never truly gone. Those people can see their families again. However long it takes, it’ll happen. Bad things happen, yeah. Really, really shitty things happen. Things that we don’t think we can live with, but you can. You have to. You can make things better, and make up for your mistakes, The Raven Queen likes people making the most of their life.”
“I don’t give a shit about what any god says,” Taako said, “but I guess I could make things better. If I don’t get a job soon I’ll not be able to afford food. What’s an elf gotta do to get some work around these parts?”
Magnus stayed there for a while. Talking with Taako about what he could do, and learning about him in the process. The new him. The one that did not, and never did, have Lup. The one that wasn’t a master wizard. The one who has the blood of forty innocent people on his hands. At the end of the night, Taako had laughed. He had smiled. He had said that he’d get to work on finding somewhere better to be, somewhere better to drink, and the bartender had glared at him for that one, but that just made Taako laugh more.
Magnus returned to the surface, to a worried Lucretia, to questions about how he was, was he coping, was he healthy. Magnus answered them all, and Lucretia’s worries eased. Her decision had been a difficult one, and there was nothing Magnus could do to truly erase guilt. But he could be there. He could listen, and he could help, and slowly, they could heal.