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It wasn’t intentional, not at first at least. Taako had never been very vain in regards to his body, but after Glamour Springs he just couldn’t bring himself to eat. Sure some days while on the run he would have to forage something, some berries, some bark, something he was familiar enough with and he knew wouldn’t kill him. Other days he would spend in more hours of deep meditation than necessary to stave off the feeling of hunger gnawing at his bones for a while. A cooked meal was something he didn’t eat for years and years after the incident, and it was even longer before he could take more than a few bites before throwing up.
Instead the feeling of hunger made itself a home in his stomach.
As the years went on and the fear subsided the deliberate actions morphed into more of a habit; Taako braids and unbraids his hair, Taako bites his nails at night, Taako swings his feet when he sits, Taako doesn’t eat.
So Taako didn’t eat. At least not more than what was strictly necessary to keep himself alive. He grew used to this, used to having to bundle himself up even when it wasn’t cold outside, used to the way his ribs and hipbones would protrude unhealthily when he lied down.
It’s surprisingly easy to keep others from catching on. Before Magnus and Merle and the B.o.B. he didn’t have to worry about it, but he found it was exceedingly easy to distract them from the truth. He would be up and out before them, saying he already ate, he would crack a few jokes and play with his food at lunch, then go head in early to meditate before they ate dinner. No one noticed that even for an elf he’s strikingly small or that the biggest thing he eats in their presence is the shard of crystal that was just for a laugh. Once Angus joins up he keeps as much of a distance as possible, Taako knows he’s smarter than all the other bozos there put together.
Taako thought things might improve when he got the salt shaker, no need to worry about poison anymore, but old habits die hard and if he’s being honest most of the time he just forgets he has it.
Things actually start to change when they get back from Refuge. For the first time in a long time Taako feels like he can breathe again, like maybe food doesn’t have to be viewed as a weapon. It takes a while but Taako starts to eat. He’ll crack open an egg from the mess hall for breakfast with the boys, he’ll actually eat the half of his food that doesn’t get involved in some sort of magic trick during lunch, and he’ll even buy a Reece’s Cup at fantasy Costco, even though he can’t bring himself to eat the whole thing.
Most days this was the norm, he felt better and didn’t punish himself for it. Most days he didn’t crave the empty feeling in the pit of his stomach and most days he didn’t run his fingers over his sides, looking for the divots in flesh that are no longer there. Of course, some days he did.
He doesn’t know why it’s affecting him so badly, the weight gain, the healthy weight gain. Taako can remember the years before Glamour Springs, when he was soft around the middle and lived by the words “eat, drink, and be merry” He would fall into bed with a stranger or Sazed, usually Sazed, and he wouldn’t give his body a second thought, not his wine swollen belly or fleshy hips. He liked the memory of large hands pressing into his love handles, that’s what they were there for, right?
But now it seemed that every pound that packed onto his small frame was taunting him. Every time he felt his belly crease when he sat down or noticed the difference in the way he felt casting levitation on himself made his stomach churn no matter how empty or full it already was.
It probably didn’t help that his hips seemed to gain the brunt of it, filling out in a way that he could cover with a skirt or baggy breeches during the day, but when he stripped himself down the difference was unmistakable. The sight brought back memories of when he was younger, too young to know why the new flesh his body grew made him want to crawl out of his skin, too young to know that it was okay to feel that way too.
That was before he spent large chunks of his life in caravans of performers and artists that never got close to standing on one end of a made up binary, and way before his body was so devoid of any kind of curvature that he forgot what it felt like to feel sick at the sight of roundness.
And how quickly he did remember.
Small mercies came in distractions, and one of Taako’s favorite distractions was Kravitz. Kravitz found his quirks amusing and was disarming enough that his gentle questioning didn’t feel like an interrogation. Kravtiz either didn’t notice or was nice enough not to say anything when Taako no longer fit in his favorite sweater.
All in all, Kravitz made a very good distraction.