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The day they take Cissan’s son starts out as the happiest one she’s had in a while.
It’s the day after Tubbo’s birthday, the day after she sees her son and his partner for the first time since that gut-wrenching, heart-pounding message from the Syndicate.
-reason to believe there was a potentially deadly crash shot down lost radio contact performing a search and rescue-
The moment she’d gotten that message she’d nearly passed out, collapsing in the garden her and Giulia were tending to, clutching at her sister and sobbing like a baby because her melli and crurito, her boys, they were hurt oh Queens were they dead would she ever see them again?
But they lived, and her messages with Ranboo had given her reason to smile as he kept up with her even as she spent every night worrying about how her son was coping with the crash, how badly the two of them had been injured…
And when she saw them for the first time as they came home for Bo’s birthday, saw the burn scars wrapping their ugly fingers around her son’s face and the way Ranboo’s hands trembled and turned ghostly pale at the ends but worst of all the hurt and subdued light in both of their bloodshot eyes, she couldn’t help but cry.
She seized her son and pulled him close, tucking him under her chin like she could protect him from what had already happened, sobbing sweet nothings into his hair as his antenna traced her face like he couldn’t believe she was really there. She cradled him like she had when he was a baby just over twenty years ago, rocking him and holding his head and hugging him as he wailed into her neck, clutching at her shirt just below her wings.
Ranboo folded into himself, awkward and unsure and so much further from Tubbo than she’d ever seen or heard of him being, teleporting away without so much as a word.
Eventually, Tubbo cried himself out and she hefted him up Queens he was taller than her and over twenty years old turning twenty one today but she’d be damned if she couldn’t try to carry him, supporting him into his room and taking off his boots with one pair of hands as she settled him in his hammock and cradled his face with the other, thumb brushing gingerly over the rough burn scars now wet with tears.
“Oh melli…what happened to you?” she’d whispered as her son’s eyes welled up again.
“I- we got shot down and I- I-I c-couldn’t-”
“Bo, Baby, no,” she’d said softly, brushing Tubbo’s mop of brown hair from his eyes and angling his head so he’d look up at her. “I know that. Between you two, what happened?”
He’d tensed and blushed and reached into his pocket to pull out a small piece of metal, looking away and stammering out something about a misunderstanding and a personal falling out, that it was all his fault and his alone . Her heart had shattered just a little more as she hugged and reassured him again and whispered for him to go to sleep, humming something soft as he sniffled and finally closed his eyes.
Cissan kissed his forehead and ran a thumb over the red forever scars on her son’s face to wipe them of any lingering tears, then she set out for her other boy.
The spot of deep space her son loved so much was sitting on a rock(one she’d dubbed the ‘sulking rock’ after a teenaged Bo had been found there all too often), alone.
The conversation began with a “Got room for one more?” and ended with Ranboo sobbing beneath her chin and crying out for Ama, for her.
Cissan knew his mama wasn’t around anymore, and she was by no means trying to replace her, but he needed a mama. He’d been without anyone for so long before Bo, he needed someone else there for him, and she was happy to be that person, that parent, for him.
The desperate way he’d launched himself towards her, pressing their foreheads against each other so her antennae could brush against his horn like family does, like family, he’s family and almost wailing as he cried only solidified that in her mind. She stroked his hair around his jagged stump of horn and rubbed his back, kissing his forehead and crooning at him in Apian that everything’s gonna be alright, Ama’s here for you, Ama’s here, Ama’s got you, you’re not alone.
Cleaning up from making Bo’s birthday dinner, she gauged both of their reactions after she’d pointed out that he’d called Ranboo handsome with a knowing but sad smile.
She’d seen the way Ranboo looked at her son, the way Bo looked so heartbroken at their misunderstanding and falling out and the sadly adoring looks he’d shot at Ranboo when he wasn’t looking.
Distractions came soon with the relatives and all the children crowding, demanding a game of tag that Ranboo could barely keep up with despite the fact that he can teleport and is at least two heads taller than Bo(who’s somewhat tall for a Mellifera).
She’d glanced out the front window, watching Bo help Ranboo up, their hands lingering for a moment before Ranboo headed off, leaving Bo standing on the hill with a hand frozen in his pocket, heartbreak visible even with the distance.
They both had been so distant at dinner, sitting away from each other with eyes far away and loneliness coming off of them in waves.
Then, Ranboo had slipped out, gazing at the stars alone in the field of grasses.
“Bo, melli,” she’d whispered as she pointed him out, squeezing his shoulder. “Go talk to him.”
He’d pulled the metal piece out of his pocket again, and she could see that it was a bead, intricately carved with different shapes with a steady, loving hand.
He’d left, and she’d kept up conversation, keeping kids inside the house and laying tiny ones on couches as they fell asleep, making excuses to cousins about exhaustion and too many emotions for one day and how they needed some time alone before cake as she took subtle peeks out the window to check on them.
Giulia was trying to pour drinks for people and Cissan was laying another tiny child down on a puffy couch when Ranboo shifted outside, turning bodily and staring at Tubbo in disbelief where they’d been sitting side by side in the field.
Ranboo was frozen, Tubbo was talking, and then a shockwave of invisible joy radiated out of the yard as Ranboo tackled Tubbo, laughing and crying at the same time.
Cissan smiled, watching and tearing up slightly as Tubbo held up the bead and handed it to Ranboo, turning and letting Ranboo pick one out from his own pocket to braid into Bo’s before Ranboo turned around, looking as though he could float away with elation as Tubbo braided a tiny section of hair behind Ranboo’s ear and fastened the bead at the end.
And all was fixed.
She smiled widely for the rest of the party, gently guiding people towards the kitchen to help her get ready for cake so Bo and Boo out in front could laugh and hold each other in peace. Melli and crurito, her boys were alright again, love glowing from them like sunshine during Midsummer.
They’d stumbled back an hour later like they had after the Midsummer festival, drunkenly happy but without any alcohol, sitting next to each other again and holding hands the entire time under the table.
The adoration in Ranboo’s eyes, the new braid matching Bo’s behind his ear and how neither of them spoke much save for giddy laughter for a while, never letting go of the other once…they’d been anything but subtle with their blatant affection and obvious love for each other.
That was last night.
She peeks into their room as soon as she wakes up, one hand at her heart as she watches her two boys, melli and crurito, snuggled up in Bo’s hammock, looking as though the personification of peace and love is their blanket.
She smiles and closes the door, cleaning up the kitchen from the remnants of the party last night so she can make breakfast.
Twenty minutes later, Ranboo’s yelping about having forgotten Bo’s birthday present to loud, boisterous laughter and Cissan has to muffle a laugh beneath a hand as she prepares tea.
And she is happy.
It seems as though a quiet, peaceful joy has radiated across the whole house, the whole town even; it’s the feeling of watching a field of sunflowers waving in the breeze mixing with the changing red and gold leaves of autumn.
It’s home, it’s comfort, it’s peace and joy.
A few more minutes pass and Benson begins to bark, skittering down the hall towards the front door as she chases after him to try and get him to quiet down because he doesn’t seem to be barking for a reason.
It might be Osmo, he’s been complaining about his combine lately and wanting Bo to fix it, but Benson doesn’t bark like this for someone he knows and she has half a mind to call Osmo to ask him if he’s here but footsteps echo down the hall and she opens the door.
Osmo is not standing there.
A plasma rifle is aimed at her head by an Imperial enforcer and she screams.
Benson skitters away to hide as Bo yells for her and comes running, she’s frozen with her heart pounding and someone shoves her to her knees, she doesn’t know who, her eyes are on her son as the Empire stands ready to tear him away from her when he’s just trying to protect her.
In less than a moment he collapses on the ground, twitching and jerking like he’s having a seizure, one of the stone-faced officers holding a taser with an expression of disgust and disdain on their face.
He’s screaming, screaming through a locked jaw and clenched teeth and stagnant lungs and it’s one of the most terrible things Cissan has ever heard.
Ranboo launches himself at the enforcer, and Cissan shrieks, ignoring the rifle aimed at her face as her boy, her crurito tackles the one who tased Bo, claws slashing at their face and dripping blood as he punches and punches and doesn’t stop.
Then Ranboo’s been tased too and she tries to lunge at him but she’s blocked by a hissed ‘watch it’ and the barrel of the rifle pressed against her temple.
“No, n-no, please l-let them go please- he’s done n-nothing wrong- c-crurito, melli, placet, licet-”
She can do nothing but watch as both of her boys lie helpless on the ground, as Tubbo groans and tries to suppress his panic, as the officer Ranboo attacked gets up and begins kicking him in the stomach so hard she swears she can hear something crack as he jerks and seizes still and they curse at him, “Stupid fucking voidling-”
“Reginae , q-quaeso- p-placet, licet melli- please, I’m b-begging you, please s-stop! Stop k-kicking him! You’re hurting them!”
“Hey, Archica, knock it the fuck off,” their partner says. “Go cuff the other one before he gets up.”
Ranboo chokes and coughs, wheezing as Archica sends one last flying kick into her boy’s abdomen before grumbling out “Why don’t you fucking do it, your face isn’t filleted open.”
But they reach for two sets of cuffs regardless and step towards Bo, no not her son please they don’t know how much he regrets everything how much he’s suffered and grown and she finally truly begins to cry as they roll him on his back to cuff his hands.
“N-no! P-please no! Quaeso no, p-per amor delle R-Reginae! S-stop! H-he’s a good boy, s-stop-!”
Ranboo groans on the ground with his arms curled around his stomach and ribs, wincing and trying to get up but she can barely hear anything over the sounds of her own heaving sobs.
“Tubbo Underscore, you’re under arrest for destruction of imperial property, aggravated terrorism, arson, and sixteen counts of manslaughter,” Archica says boredly, and Cissan yells out because they don’t know her son, they didn’t see her cradling him as he sobbed that he didn’t deserve forgiveness, they didn't see her running out to the town center in her pajamas to save her son from himself in the middle of the night and thanking the Queens he didn’t have his blaster because someone had messaged her that Bo was wandering around with the face of a dead man walking just looking for a way out, they didn’t know how she’d held his hands and rubbed his back after he’d woken up screaming and sobbing so hard he was almost sick because he saw the phantom faces of the people he didn’t mean and didn’t want to kill haunting his every moment, they don't see how much he regrets it every moment he lives. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law- well, I mean, whenever you can actually talk again.”
Ranboo’s hyperventilating on the ground, claws leaving dents in the floorboards as he tries to get up and fails again, limbs shaking and spasming against his will.
How could they treat her sons like this-
“Stop dicking around, Arch, we got other shit to do,” the other enforcer drones, the apathy in their voice hitting like a brick to the gut.
All of her hands are trembling, her antennae are reaching for her sons-
“You are such a buzzkill, Evalla,” Archica grumbles, sighing and looping a lazy but strong arm under one of Tubbo’s. “Alright, up on your feet bee, I’m not gonna carry you.”
Tubbo bites back an audible wince as he stumbles upwards and Ranboo’s claws tighten on the floorboards, eyes wide and teary and desperately trying to find a way to solve this mess they’re in. He tries to push himself upwards, arms shaking and bringing his legs below him before the officer Evalla kicks him in the back, sending him right back down; he bangs his mouth on the floor with a nauseating thunk. “Don’t do anything stupid, shithead, you’re on thin fucking ice already.”
Her heart is going so fast she’s surprised it hasn’t burst right out of her chest. “Stop it, please, I’m begging you-”
Ranboo raises his face up, dark blood dripping from between his teeth as he hisses defiantly “G-get your f-fucking foot o-off me. Do y-you have a-any idea w-who I am?”
The heel in his back deepens and Cissan’s heart pounds and Tubbo’s eyes widen, somehow looking even more scared and concerned than he has been as Ranboo pushes himself up as much as he can.
“I am R-Ranboo Zeethotad, third of my name, eighth child of King Z-Zeetho, Ruler of the End and All Things Beyond.” Any reluctance he had at the beginning of the sentence evaporates and he steels his voice further, spitting purple-black blood from between his teeth. “Now get. Off. Me.”
The words slam into Cissan’s chest like the butt of the rifle, and suddenly many things Tubbo has said to her about him and things Ranboo has done make sense, but to hear it placed in front of her on a silvery blood-spattered platter leaves her reeling, head spinning.
Oh, crurito-
Evalla grins meanly. “Oh yeah? And I’m the fucking empress of Nirox, nice to make your acquaintance your highness.” Their voice is utterly dripping with mockery and dark amusement. “You done? Then keep your fucking mouth shut before I decide to take you in as well.”
No, no no no-
Ranboo starts to growl, eyes dark and flashing and blood dripping from his chin, legs still twitching from the taser.
“S-stop!”
Cissan sobs, slapping a hand over her mouth as Ranboo freezes at the sound of Tubbo’s voice.
“R-Ranboo, j-just stop. It’s g-gonna be okay, I-I’ll be okay-”
Tubbo’s on his knees, officer behind him with their taser at the ready even though he’s still shaky from the first shot his voice is trembling and thick with unshed tears, Queens he’s so scared and she can’t protect her baby-
“Tubbo-” Ranboo’s voice cuts off; he’s croaking and spluttering on blood where is it coming from how bad did the officer kick him how bad is he hurt-
“Just- d-do what they say,” Tubbo says forcefully, yet kindly, yet fearfully. “O-okay? C-can you do that for me, maroso?”
Cissan gasps, breath freezing in her lungs as the officers haul her son up to his feet, legs limp and trying to pretend they aren't.
The bead…
That’s what it was.
Oh, she knows how they look at each other, now everything makes so much more sense, that’s what the bead is, it must be the matching earrings of Boo’s planet and culture, a proposal, a question of my love, will you stand by me forever, through the highs and lows of life, the peace and the chaos, the love and the loss, until the end of time.
Maroso.
Husband.
They’d gotten married.
And the first thing that’s happening to him afterwards is this…
They should be celebrating, Cissan should be hugging him and Ranboo, welcoming him to the family, they should be planning when they’re getting their ears pierced, when they’ll hold the ribbon ceremony and what they’ll wear, she should be ecstatic, elated, crying tears of happiness and joy at life and jokingly lecturing Bo for not telling her sooner…
Instead, she’s broken.
Her son is being arrested, and she and his husband are being made to watch, helpless and unable to do anything about it.
“R-Reginae quaeso- I-I’m begging you, do not take him please, y-you don’t need to do this-”
“N-no! No! I-I’m not l-leaving you I’m NOT-”
“C-call Techno. He’ll get it sorted.” Tubbo’s trying so hard, so hard to be brave right now, but he can’t banish the tears that are forming in his eyes as he attempts a reassuring smile that doesn’t fool anyone, much less his mother and his husband. “I- I’ll be okay, p-promise. Just call Techno, h-he’ll fix it, i-it’ll be o-okay-”
“I-I’m not l-leaving you!” Ranboo protests, voice rough and thick with tears and blood. “Please! P-please don’t do this- y-you’ve got the wrong person, y-you’ve got-!”
As one of the officers, the one Ranboo attacked, pushes her son out the door, the last words she hears from him are “S-see you on the other side, Boo.”
The bead on the end of the braid behind his left ear shines in the sunlight before he’s out of sight too.
Her and Ranboo’s wails of protest echo in tandem around the living room.
Ranboo tries to push himself upwards but the other officer is shoving the heel of their boot deeper and deeper into his back, he can’t breathe, let him breathe, please, he presses an elbow below him and then the officer’s expression hardens.
Before Cissan can even blink, the barrel of their rifle is pressed, hard, into the back of Ranboo’s skull.
“I’m not going to tell you again.”
She shrieks, both sets of hands flying to her mouth.
It’s all she can do other than cry.
She can see, it’s tangible how much it kills her crurito to lay still and limp on the floorboards; his claws are digging gouges in the wood and he’s growling the whole time. His eyes flick to her once before he sinks further into the ground, baring his teeth just a little. The officer, satisfied that he’s complying, brings their rifle away from his skull and lifts their foot off his back. Despite himself, she can see him desperately sucking in as much air as he can now that his lungs aren’t being relentlessly compressed.
“Right, well…sorry about the intrusion, but we thank you for your compliance.” The officer walks across the room, heels clicking on the living room floor like a death knell. “Someone will be in contact if there’s a trial date, but given how old the case is, it might just skip straight to sentencing.” Cissain sobs, face soaking wet, clutching at her heart and hair and stomach and mouth, voice low and keening. “All hail the Sun Empire.”
The door is shut.
They’ve taken Tubbo.
They got her son.
Ranboo is pushing himself upwards, crashing down again with force that shakes the pictures and ornaments on her walls, and then he curls up in a ball, elbows braced on the floor and screams.
She cannot tell if he is yelling at the officers or himself more.
“FUCK YOU-! GET UP! T-they took him, get BACK HERE- t-they FUCKING took HIM! G-GET UP! GET UP YOU FUCKING USELESS-!
“M-melli! Melli stop!” she cries, dropping off her knees and crawling over to comfort him, to comfort her son. She has never heard him curse so much before. “You’re gonna hurt y-yourself, I-I know, okay? I-I know b-but just stop,” she begs, rubbing her trembling hands over his back as he howls in anger and frustration and heartbreak and she cries.
She must comfort him, she must, he is her son as much as Bo is, she is not his mother but she is his Ama and what kind of Ama would she be if she didn’t, so she must, because she has lost her son after hugging him for the first time in months and he has lost his husband less than twelve hours after they were married.
Ranboo’s ears twitch and turn towards the door and he rockets upwards, actually making it to his feet this time before he collapses to his knees, shrieking, “NO! N-NO! No no no n-no! H-he’s gone he’s- HE’S GONE-!”
He curls up in a ball again, presses his forehead to the floor, yanking at his hair, and just… wails.
And oh, every sob is a needle in her heart; Cissan winds a pair of hands over Ranboo’s to keep him from digging his claws into his own scalp, brings the other to his shoulders, and she just lays on top of his stuttering back, sobbing and hiccuping as she whispers attempted comfort into his hair.
“M-melli- I’ve got you, Ama’s g-got you, I know, I k-know sweetheart, I know they took him from you, from us, b-but please d-don’t hurt y-yourself, Ama- Ama’s here, I know, I-I know, you’re- you’re n-not alone, okay? Ama’s here… Ama’s here for you.”
Soon, he presses his palms flat into his forehead, and she moves her hands from them to rub at his arms. His panicked breaths slow and he forces himself to take deep breaths, hold them, and let them out as she continues to endlessly spout comforting words that are as warm as icy water in their situation.
He uncurls himself and she melts off his back, clutching at her skirts.
Ranboo’s muscles are still twitching, but he stands. He wobbles, but he bends his legs so he can keep standing.
He will not fall; he can’t. Cissan can see the trembling of his muscles, he is staying up through sheer and bare force of will.
“M-Melli? What’re y-you…”
Her voice is jumping around, cracking and wobbling pitifully, she’s going to truly break soon and she knows it; tears are still rolling unfettered down her face because her son, oh her son, he’s been taken away from her on what should’ve been the happiest two days of this little group’s lives, his birthday his wedding, and the past he regrets so much has come and grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him into the hunter’s pit.
He must be so scared.
He’s alone. Her Bo is alone.
Ranboo lost his husband, just like she lost hers.
Ranboo cocks his head back, rolling his shoulders out and bringing his chin up, steel in every syllable when he says, with no room for argument, “I-I’m going to go get him back.”
He reaches down a hand for her, and she lets out a shuddering sob as she takes it.
He sits her down on the couch and drapes a blanket over her shoulders, squeezing her shoulders once before he leaves and comes back with a violently trembling and puffed-up Benson, placing him in her lap.
Then, he goes about gathering his things and cleaning himself up, face set in a steely calm a hundred-eighty-degree difference from the wailing, tear-ridden figure he was not five minutes ago.
Cissan’s eyes follow him; one hand clutches the blanket around her shoulders, two hold and pet a whining Benson, and one reaches up to the single earring dangling from her right ear: the one she wears out of habit and tradition though her own husband left years ago.
She watches as he spits purple blood from his mouth into the kitchen sink, rubbing at his definitely-bruised abdomen before walking away to do something else she barely registers.
He is deep steel, regal and unmatched in tamed fury and determination that radiates off him in waves.
It must be the royal in him, she dimly recognizes. Then she says no, no this is him alone.
Being of royal blood only gave him a tool to make that determination and loyalty deadly.
He needs this, she knows he needs this, she can’t stop him from going, and all but a tiny part of her doesn’t want to stop him from going on this suicide mission.
She- both of them would rather have hope then have it taken away and the knowledge that Ranboo at least tried to do something than live with the fact that she tried to stop him from bringing him back home. If there is a chance, the slightest and most minute of chances that he could get Bo back, she is going to seize it with every ounce of strength she has and not let go until it kills her because that is her son and she is his mother.
Ranboo is the same, she knows. And he can do something, and he is going to do whatever it takes to get him back.
Finally, he leaves the room, presumably to get dressed and call Techno, and she breaks down sobbing into Benson’s fur.
She can hear him talking, hear the tinny noise of someone responding, Ranboo snapping back and then going silent and then-
“Y-you…y-y- you fucking SOLD HIM OUT!”
And Cissan’s heart stops.
Ranboo continuing to curse Techno out is background noise to her thoughts, already numbing and dumbstruck, being hit in the head with a chair.
Techno wouldn’t, he- he wouldn’t.
He contacted her personally to let her know there’d been a crash, called her to let her know her boys had been found, she could hear the relief and emotion choked in his voice when he told her we found them, they’re alive, both injured badly from the crash but they’re alive they’ll recover, we’ll take good care of them ma’am I promise. He’d stayed on the call with her while she wept and praised the Queens in relief, answered every question about their conditions he could, and reassured her that he’d give them a good long medical leave, long enough for Tubbo to come home for his birthday without a mission.
He wouldn’t. Not unless it was the only choice he had.
And her heart breaks just a little more at the realization, just when all the yelling from Bo’s room ceases, Ranboo lets out a strangled gasp and there’s the metallic clatter of a handheld hitting the floor.
Then he’s roaring again, but not at Techno.
This is desperate and clinging, disbelieving anger and despairing shock, just aimed at himself.
Once she hears Bo’s bedroom door open, she sets Benson down on the couch and stands up, keeping the blanket Ranboo gave her around her shoulders, trying to pull herself together.
A bedraggled Ranboo emerges into the living room, clothes slightly rumpled and hair a mess encased in a ponytail, all but the braid with a bead behind his left ear.
And he bows to her, apologizing for all the noise.
She walks towards him, crouches and lifts up his face, his one green and one red eyes staring into her honey brown; her eyes are starting to sting again.
Cissan just hugs him. She wraps her arms around him as tight as she can, wings buzzing to lift herself in the air as he straightens up and hugs her back. The blanket has fallen, forgotten on the ground. She traces her antennae over his horn and the stump that remains like family does, he is family and trying to bring theirs back together.
She can only muster up the strength to speak in Apian as she whispers to Ranboo, “B-be safe and come b-back to me, okay? A-and I don’t know, Bo hasn’t said anything but if it’s…if you’re…” Her words fail her completely and all she can whisper into his collarbone is, “I-I couldn’t ask f-for a better son-in-law.”
Ranboo’s arms tighten around her as he registers her words; he lets out a low and mournful trill and rubs his cheek into her hair, promising her, in Apian, “I’ll be home soon. I-I’ll be home with him soon, mom.”
When he calls her ‘mom’, she just about bursts into tears all over again.
She doesn’t want to let go but she must, for if she doesn’t let go she will never get her son back, he will never get his husband back, so they must separate, and they do.
He picks up the blanket from the floor and gives Benson a final pat, bringing the blanket around her shoulders, kissing her forehead in one last silent and sorrowful goodbye before he picks up his bag and walks out the door, alone.
The morning breeze is cool, blowing her skirts as she stands alone in the doorway, watching him walk alone back to the Eshachi.
He cuts through the fields.
Soon, he is out of sight, and Cissan finally collapses on her front step, knees giving out as tears leak from her eyes.
Benson waddles out and cuddles up to her, and she pets him, absently staring into space around where Ranboo disappeared into the horizon.
“Cissan? Cissan! I saw the cruiser leaving, what- oh, Queens-”
As her sister Giulia crests the hill her house is on, Tio Osmo close behind, they catch one glance at her, collapsed numbly on her front porch and staring into space, and start flying up the hill as fast as their wings can carry them.
By the time her sister tackles her, she’s once again a sobbing mess and as she clutches at her sister, wailing, she can’t get any words out of her mouth other than “They took him, they took him, they took my baby, Oh, my Queens, they took my son away.”
Their antennae intertwine as the sounds of a faraway engine start and the Eshachi lifts off, shooting into the sky.
“They didn’t take his partner, too?” Tio Osmo asks, face pale and drawn and eyes filling with tears, and Cissan sobs as she shakes her head.
“No, he- h-he went to go g-get him back,” she hiccups.
Giulia takes her inside, giving Tio Osmo firm instructions to keep anyone from coming inside because when she asked Cissan if she wanted more people around, because they were sure to come, in this tight-knit community surely everyone knows by now, she just shook her head and sobbed.
“G-Giulia,” she whispers once a steaming mug of tea has been pushed into her hand. “Giulia, they t-took his- his husband away.”
“Whose husband, Cissan?”
Giulia winds a hand over one of hers, others on her shoulders around her wings.
“R-Ranboo’s husband-” Cissan shudders and Giulia takes the mug away lest she spill boiling minty tea all over herself with all her trembling. “Giulia, they- R-Ranboo and Bo married. They m-married, and- oh, Q-Queens Above, they- they took him away from him!” she wails.
Her sister lets out a shuddering, horrified breath and hugs her with all her might, because she’s been there all along, even when Cissan’s own husband left her without any warning and she was left with a teenaged Bo, suddenly a single mother and floundering with both hers and her son’s emotions, a widow in everything but death.
“You said he’s going to get Bo back, yes?” Giulia soothes, cradling her with every one of her arms as Cissan sobs into her sister’s dress bodice. “He brought Bo back from the crash, he took care of him the whole time even though he was injured too, he’s been there for your son and they’ve been there for each other. Ranboo is a fine and capable young man.” She bends down and presses her forehead to Cissan’s, tracing her hairline with her antennae. “If anyone can bring Bo home, it’s him.”
“Y-you truly-”
“Yes, I truly believe it,” Giulia says firmly.
“You’re-” Cissan sniffles. “You’re not just…s-saying that to m-make me feel better?”
And her sister lets out a small wet laugh. “Come on, Cissan, when have I ever said something to you just to make you feel better that I didn’t believe?”
Cissan sits up and sniffles, and Giulia hands her back the mug of tea, little tendrils of steam still rising slowly off it. “When you sat on my dried-leaf doll on purpose when I was a child, maybe.”
“You were four, you would not have been able to handle being told it was ugly anyway or you would’ve gone crying to Ama.”
“You’re right, I would’ve.” Cissan sips at the tea, and before she can stop herself, her mind is traveling back to when Bo was small, when he crashed the crop duster time and time again, when he’d run in with two scraped knees and four scraped elbows and scratches all over his face from climbing trees outside but a gap-toothed grin all the same, when he just figured out how to fly and she spent all her time buzzing about around him and hurriedly packing away the ornaments on high shelves that had been kept safe when he could only crawl and walk, when she’d finally been handed him by the midwife and cradled him in sweaty hands and kissed his forehead and cried with him because her baby boy was finally here and she brought him into this world and here he was in her arms…
Her mind flickers to her son’s terrified expression as he tried to reassure her and Ranboo, smile not meeting his eyes, face pale and tears threatening to spill.
He must be so scared.
“Oh, Queens, Giulia, he’s so scared- he’s- he’s alone-”
She starts sobbing all over again.
Eventually, once her eyes have run dry, she just starts praying.
Giulia goes, gets a wax candle that smells of honey and lights it, and places it in the window, as is customary when praying to the Queens for someone’s safe return from the stars.
Cissan’s whole house almost stank of honey wax in the days following the news from the Syndicate about her boys’ crash. The area on the window where the candle is usually placed is caked in yellow wax she still hasn’t been able to scrape completely off; the drapes had almost caught fire a few times.
Hours pass in numb cycles of crying and petting Benson and praying with her sister, sometimes all three at the same time. The candle drips down onto the windowsill and exudes the comforting scent of honey and warmth.
Then, after the sunlight has dimmed completely, different uncles have taken turns standing guard after Osmo, Benson’s fallen asleep at her feet, and Cissan thinks she’s slept and eaten something but she doesn’t know, her handheld buzzes beside her.
She’s kept it there to see about any updates and snatches it up as fast as she can when she sees who’s messaged her.
Ranboo:
19:37
>> I got him.
Cissan lets out a shriek and covers her mouth as she slides off the couch, feeling faint.
Tears are pouring out of her eyes again, tears she didn’t know she still had, but this time, they are filled with happiness and relief, and she’s laughing.
“Cissan? Cissan, what happened? Are you alright?”
She has no words as she laughs in relief, thanking and praising the Queens in her mind, and simply shows Giulia her handheld as it continues to buzz.
Ranboo:
19:38
>>At Syndicate headquarters getting checked over. Nothing too serious, but we both got roughed up today and are pretty tired.
Cissan snorts. “Understatement of the century, crurito,” she croaks.
Ranboo:
19:38
>>Full pardons.
>>Be home in a few hours just like I promised, Ama.
One hand goes to her mouth as she lets out a sob of disbelief and utter elation, grinning so widely she thinks her face might split open.
Full pardons.
Oh, Queens be praised.
Giulia hugs her and she hugs back, they’re both laughing in a tangle of limbs on the living room floor oh her melli is coming home her melli is alive and safe her melli and crurito back home back together back in her arms.
A few minutes later, her handheld starts to buzz again, and she thinks she’s pulled herself together enough to answer the call as Giulia takes the candle from the window and replaces it with a lantern(she pretends she doesn’t hear cries of relief and praises to the Queens outside her house as she walks into her bedroom).
Cissan’s eyes ache and her head is throbbing slightly from a day of crying as she sits on her hammock and answers the call.
“Ma’am-”
“Techno, please-”
“No, I-I need to say this now.” Techno exhales roughly with a shudder in his lungs. “I am so sorry. I-”
“Techno, I forgive you.”
He’s speechless for a moment, then swallows thickly and asks, “How?”
“Techno, you have taken care of my son for- for so long,” she says simply. “You have taken care of him in more ways than one, and when Ranboo joined, you took care of him too. I know they are my children and have put you through much trouble-”
He snorts before sniffing a little.
“-and you still sheltered them no matter how much trouble. I know, I know in my soul you would not have done that unless you could find n-no other option. I forgive you.”
It’s that simple. It truly is.
She knows he would not have done it unless his hand was forced, and she was right, he explains how Ranboo’s father threatened to slaughter the whole Syndicate if he did not sell her son out and she does not feel betrayed, she just feels sad that he was forced to be in that position and point the fingers and resign himself to living with the consequences.
And she forgives him.
He tells her exactly what Ranboo said, that they’re in the medical wing being looked over and treated for anything, though he goes into a little more detail just how hurt her boys are from the past twelve hours.
Apparently Ranboo had fought his way into the throne room of Voidfall on Annwyl and the officers had been very generous with their blows to Bo.
But they’re coming home soon, and she can mother her sons.
She sits there in her hammock for a while after Techno hangs up, rocking back and forth and breathing deeply.
Eventually, Cissan dozes off, soothed by the rocking and the reassurances that the Queens are bringing her babies home.
Her handheld buzzing is what wakes her, with a headache slight at her temples and eyes still aching from a day full of crying.
Ranboo:
22:45
>> ama its tubbo
>> left my handheld at home so i stole boo’s
>> boo’s sleepong an im piloting
>> were almost home i promidse
And Cissan pauses.
What can she say back to her son that won’t fall flat?
Finally, she makes up her mind, because all the words she can express cannot be said with her voice, only with antennae and grasping hugs and forehead kisses.
<< Alright mellilia, I love you.
<< I’m so glad you both are alright.
And in the end, that’s all she can say before the faint sounds of an engine- the Eshachi’s engine- prick her ears and she goes running for her front door, shoving her handheld in her skirt’s pocket and grasping the lantern to hang out beside the front door since it’s dark out.
The town has been chased away by all the willpower of her aunts, uncles, and her sister even though she knows it must kill them to stay away in this tapestry community, but they know she needs her time alone with her melli and crurito and they need time to rest after today.
The community can have their reunion tomorrow, and they will.
But for now, it’s just Cissan.
Cissan with her lantern that she hangs on a hook beside her door so the light can shine down the hill, Cissan with her hair still in the braid she went to sleep with it in last night, Cissan pulling her arms and wings through a knitted cardigan because fall is here and brings its chill, Cissan waiting for her boys as the stars they came back from twinkle in the sky like jewels in a matching pair of earrings.
Finally, she sees them walking through the fields, and it’s them it’s them, the red and green eyes, the fluffy brown hair, the braids, the bloodshot faces, they were crying too, they are holding hands, it’s them it’s them they’re real, and her knees give out once more.
Then, the shapes rocket towards her, Tubbo flying a little more sluggishly than normal and Ranboo taking longer to muster up the strength to teleport, but Ranboo blinks into existence, catches her when she falls and Tubbo barrels into her a second after and she’s a sobbing mess in the arms of her boys.
It’s a mirror image of thirty-six hours before; her sons are cradling her this time, comforting her with sweet nothings as she clutches at them, antennae poking over hair and horn and antennae because she can’t believe they’re real.
“Ama- Ama I-I’m here, we’re h-here, we’re okay-”
“I-I got him, I got him, I b-brought him back j-just like I- just like I promised-”
Cissan winds hands around both their heads and brings her sons in close, cradling their heads and backs as they all cry together, united tears saying what the words never could.
They bring her inside, inside with the gouged living room floor and the bloodstains Giulia hadn’t been able to scrub and the tilted pictures, and oh, now she sees the black eye blooming on Bo’s face, the way Ranboo limps and holds his abdomen, and she pushes her boys down on the couch and goes about mothering them.
She presses packs of ice to Bo’s face, fingers lingering on the red forever scars covering it before she goes to fetch some bruise cream she knows she has for Ranboo.
Finally, Bo’s had enough.
She knows he could smell the honey wax when he came in.
“Ama, sit down. We’re okay, I- just sit with us.”
And she does.
She sits between them and sniffles into Bo’s hair as they hold hands across her lap and hug her; Benson jumps up on Ranboo’s lap and wiggles around.
“I- oh, Queens, I was so worried,” she whispers.
“We’re alright,” Ranboo reassures, thumb rubbing over Bo’s hand and his split knuckles. “We- Techno checked us over, we’re- we’re all okay.”
“They t-took my bead when they were-” Bo’s voice breaks a little, he takes a shuddering breath and clears his throat and Ranboo’s hand tightens a little on his. “-um, b-bringing me… in, but I-I got it back.”
Cissan’s antennae trace the bead at the end of Ranboo’s hair, knowing there is a matching one on the end of the braid behind Tubbo’s left ear. Ranboo tenses a little and one of Tubbo’s hands moves from her back to his.
“When were you going to tell me you married?” she pokes, voice mostly flat but a little of the teasing edge Bo loves to banter with breaking through.
Blushes erupt on her sons’ faces as they shift and she starts to laugh.
“W-well, I was going to-”
“Was I s-supposed to ask you first-”
“I- kinda forgot with e-everything going on-”
“D-did we do it wr-wrong-”
“Mellis,” she interrupts them, still laughing and hugs them even tighter. “I am so, so happy for you both.” She presses a big kiss to Bo’s blushing forehead, and he smiles widely. She turns and does the same to Ranboo, who looks just a little surprised but laughs sheepishly all the same.
Cissan can see in their eyes, in the way they look at each other and smile and squeeze each other’s hands, in the way she can see the Eshachi’s plastisteel at the end of Ranboo’s small braid, that they are truly, truly in love.
Then, she gasps, cradling Tubbo’s head as she ruffles his hair. “Oh, that’s why you wouldn’t cut your hair!”
And the newlyweds take one look at each other and crack up laughing, and she joins them.
Eventually, her boys fall asleep on either side of her, still holding hands across her lap.
She falls asleep between them, smiling widely.
Her melli and crurito are here, and they are together, and they will not be taken away again.
The next days are exhausting; relatives parading endlessly in and out could fill a lake with their tears, especially the little ones; Ranboo is too sore to sit up from his beating and one-man fight to the throne room and pulled muscle in his leg, Tubbo is still feeling the effects of the taser and blows he received and still starts shaking whenever he can’t see her or his husband, and she can tell they’re both exhausted to their very bones. She is too.
That night, she asks a wincing Ranboo how he pulled the muscle, and he bites his lip. Tubbo reaches another hand over to his husband, squeezing slightly. Ranboo takes a deep breath and tells what she already knew, that he fought his way through Voidfall to the throne room, and then continues into what she didn’t with a sniffle and brimming eyes and an uncertain smile, saying simply, “I, uh…basically disowned myself. I-I’m never going back.”
Tubbo hugs him fiercely, Cissan’s sure he already knew, but she knows he’ll hug his husband anyways. Ranboo melts into it, tail winding around Tubbo’s waist.
“I’m so proud of you, stelledore, that took balls.”
Cissan’s heart hurts for him, not just for the fact that he had to wrench himself from his ‘family’ like a burr but that his birth family treated him so badly that he had to escape, but she is so proud of him as well.
She reaches up from where she is knelt on the ground below the couch to look at his leg and squeezes his knee, smiling. “I’m so glad you’re here, dulcis.”
They recover.
Slowly but surely, they recover.
Techno gives them as much leave as he can though he and Cissan know they will go back; her melli and crurito cannot ignore the calling of the stars.
They stay through winter, through the first snowfall that Ranboo stares up at in wide-eyed awe from underneath an umbrella while Tubbo looks on with a fond smile, through Midwinter and decorated trees and rambunctious kids buzzing around the town square, through short days and acidic hot chocolate in a colorful mug so they don’t mix it up and heads resting on laps.
One day, after Ranboo decides to take a nap in the early afternoon, Tubbo confesses the whole story to Cissan over steaming mugs of minty tea as they sit out on the porch and stare at the children playing in the snow.
How when Bo had told Ranboo he loved him, the look on his face could’ve lit a thousand suns; how after they left from Midsummer, Ranboo asked to braid his hair with a bead he’d made and asked Tubbo to do his with his mother’s, and Tubbo asked no questions, anything for his partner; how poorly Ranboo’s family had treated him(he assures her that he said it was alright for Tubbo to tell her this); how the two of them grew closer and closer, affection and compassion and reassurances of love traveling freely between them; how much struggle Ranboo went through, through and against his own mind to try and heal and grow(he barely goes into any detail, but oh, from what she can glean, it breaks her heart); how after the crash, Ranboo was concussed beyond belief but the only thing Tubbo can remember from those four days on the planet other than burning, piercing pain is Ranboo, Ranboo taking care of him through the head-spinning confusion and forgetfulness, Ranboo giving himself chemical burns and damaging the nerves in his fingers and hands past repair in water to make sure he stayed alive, Ranboo comforting him when he cried out for her in his delirium.
He starts to cry a little, sinking into the red neck of his Syndicate bomber with shame as he tells her how he treated Ranboo while they were recovering and he was fixing the Eshachi, so wrapped in self-pity and self-hate and so convinced that Ranboo should hate him too that he violently rejected every answer for help Ranboo gave until he finally broke down and wailed every emotion out in his arms; Ranboo had never given up on him.
She reaches across and takes one of his hands as he sniffles and wipes at his eyes.
He stares out at the kids dive-bombing each other with snowballs out in the lawn for a moment, and Cissan keeps holding his hand.
“And then we just sat there…a-an’ after he realized how I felt about…” he reaches a hand up and brushes his right cheek, the pink and fading forever scars that had been so fresh then, “...and after all the- sappy ass shit he said, he called me handsome.” He redid Tubbo’s braid, and then they just sat fitting together like magnets, and no words needed to be said, and something felt complete in Tubbo’s heart.
His face almost starts to glow with a smile as he stares out at the snowy horizon, and Cissan holds his hand, smiling with him.
That, he says, was the moment he realized that he was truly in love with Ranboo.
And then, on a call with Tommy, Jack, studying diplomatics, noticed the braid behind his left ear and pointed out what it was, and Tubbo was deluged in so many emotions he hadn’t known which way was up.
How was he supposed to wrangle the situation, married to someone but he didn’t know it, misunderstandings on both sides, what if they fell out of love would it still be written in the stars(she feels a stab of guilt when he confesses that fear though she knows it is not her fault his father left them, oh, she would rip him a new one if he were here), head not knowing if he wanted it but heart sure that he might?
And now Cissan understands why her son cried himself to sleep in his hammock when she asked him what had happened between them, because he had been so close with his partner, slowly falling in love just falling slower than Ranboo who fell hard and fast, wanting to reconcile and get married now that they were both on the same page, but Ranboo was convinced that he’s manipulated Tubbo, that he’d made up the whole thing, and their love was never meant to be after that.
But it was, it really, truly was, and they know that now, cannot imagine a life without each other.
And then, he tells her that he and his husband have been talking about when Tubbo will get his ears pierced and what gems their matching earrings will have, that they decided they want a summer ribbon ceremony though they’ve been married in Ender culture for a few months already because it reminds them of Midsummer and how happy they were, that they want to keep flying for the Syndicate but are reaching an agreement with Techno that they could fly and stay here, that they want to build a house close to hers and build a quiet, happy life here.
She squeezes his hand and smiles, happiness coming not in a burst of light and drunken Midsummer dancing, but quiet like a sunflower bending towards the sun.
A few months later, when the snow is just barely starting to melt, she walks in from Giulia’s house and finds Ranboo curled up on the couch in the living room. Tubbo’s been coughing the past few days and apparently Ranboo finally managed to wrestle his stubborn husband, her stubborn son, into their hammock to actually get some rest; she can hear his slightly strangled snoring all the way out here. Benson’s probably cuddled up with him, as he usually does when someone’s sick.
The slight purple stain has never come out of the wood, and her toes slip into the still-remaining but sanded-down gouges in the floorboard once she takes her shoes off; it’s still too cold and snowy to go barefoot.
Ranboo’s holding a piece of paper and a pencil, frowning slightly as he holds it up and looks at it from different angles.
“Afternoon, hijo,” she sighs as she sits beside him. “What are you working on?”
“Blueprints,” he answers simply. “For our house.”
And her heart swells with love and pride for her boys, her son and son-in-law.
“Well,” she answers just as simply. “Tell me about them.”
And he does, tells her about the high ceilings he needs so he doesn’t hit his head(they both laugh remembering when he hit his head the first time he came, when she startled him as she was looking at Tubbo’s childhood pictures), tells her how it must be close to the hangar Tubbo’s been planning so they can always be close to the Eshachi and close to town because of the tapestry community Ranboo’s been welcomed with open arms into and isn’t quite used to yet, and all the other little things they both like; tall windows and cozy rooms and a front door painted yellow.
“Why yellow?” she asks.
He smiles fondly, reaching a hand up to the braid behind his left ear and brushing scarred grey fingertips against the bead at the end of it.
Ranboo says that he was absolutely speechless after Tubbo’s proposal to him all those months ago when they were talking outside at his birthday party, and he discovered before then that yellow was his favorite color because it reminds him of Tubbo, sunshine and dimpled smiles and rambunctious laughter and I’ll be there for you no matter what stelledore, and Tubbo made a bead for him from the Eshachi, and the only thing he could ask in confirmation was if they could paint the front door of their house yellow.
“You know, crurito,” she hums. “You never told me what the beads are to you.”
Ranboo looks at her, confused. “Really?”
“No.”
He reaches a hand up to a necklace he made a while ago, with the same bead he says was his mother’s the only thing strung on it.
“Well,” he starts. “They’re cariad beads.”
And he explains, with stars in his eyes, that in his culture, cariads are like soulmates, made for each other when the universe came to be, made from the same stardust and nebulae and whisked to other edges of the galaxy, destined to meet and have their lives and love intertwined forever like the strands of hair in the braid.
It’s beautiful.
She says so, and he agrees, and now Cissan understands how he fell so hard and so fast, because this is no simple love, it’s written in his bones and his heart, intertwined throughout his entire being, the lifeblood of his soul.
And he and Bo feel that way about each other, have found each other from the billions of stardust beings of the universe. The Queens pushed them into place, sat back, and smiled upon them.
Time moves on, and they plan the ribbon ceremony and what they’re going to wear.
They leave for their first mission with the Syndicate since Tubbo’s arrest, and Cissan spends all day at Giulia’s house.
Bo and Ranboo buy the land for their house and the hanger for the Eshachi, and they keep going on missions.
Cissan turns another year older and starts to notice smatterings of grey streaks at the roots of her brown braid.
The snow melts.
Ranboo slips and falls into a small snowmelt stream while he and Tubbo are on a walk. He isn’t hurt too badly but has a terrible burn on his arm and is carried by his flying, sobbing, terrified husband into her house because he doesn’t know what to do, scaring Cissan half to death when he bursts through the door. He doesn’t leave Ranboo’s side. She teaches them both how to treat burns with a little help from Nanna, an older woman in the village with snow-white hair and twittering wings. Ranboo heals. Tubbo walks on the stream side whenever they walk again.
They start construction on the house and the hangar.
She receives word of a shootout the boys were in from Techno, but is personally assured that they walked away without a scratch.
Giulia starts to teach Ranboo how to tend the plants once springtime truly comes, and he comes inside with purple-blushed arms from the sunlight, a grin on his face, and a bounce in his step every time.
Tubbo wakes up screaming from a nightmare of being arrested and taken away once more, sobbing so hard he’s almost sick, and she runs into his and Ranboo’s room to soothe him, because he may be twenty one turning twenty two later this year but he is her son and she’d be damned if she couldn’t comfort him, only to find him cradled by Ranboo, who’s singing a soft tune in a crackling, discordant and oddly beautiful language that must be his native one as he rocks the two of them back and forth, pressing kisses and soft reassurances into Bo’s messy hair. Tubbo hiccups and shakes in his husband’s arms, his cariad’s arms, and Ranboo gives a nod that invites her to join the hug.
They plant that year’s harvest.
She meets Tommy for the first time, Tubbo’s best friend from his time on Nirox and still his best friend even now; her house hasn’t been so loud since Bo was little.
Spring gets sweaty warm, and honeycorn wheat grows with a crackling that startles Ranboo when he first hears it.
Tubbo gets his ears pierced.
The earrings are made by the jeweler, yellow and purple-black and orange and red, tipped with plastisteel from the Eshachi at the bottom. Yellow and purple-black for Tubbo and Ranboo, orange and red for their Syndicate jackets.
She has three rowdy boys in her home, her son, his husband, and his best friend, and she relishes every moment of it, because it is hard-won, it is a long time coming.
Soon, it is two days until the ceremony. Outfits have been hung up, the ribbons have been bought, invitations sent out, and people are decorating the arch in the village square with white flowers for her boys to stand under and say their vows.
And as she watches Ranboo and Tommy work on the house and sends Bo with a basket of food and iced tea, earrings twinkling mischievously from his ears as he runs off, she leans in the doorway and smiles.
It’s home, it’s comfort, it’s peace and joy.
Life is messily beautiful, isn’t it?