driftfleet | 'cause it's better than nothing

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'cause it's better than nothing

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(last updated: 1/25/19)

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It had been meant as a bit of a tease, so Thor's surprised to see Taako take it so badly. Thor half-raises his hands in apology before making his way to the front.

"Oh, right, of course." All the seats look the same, so Thor picks one at random and sits in it. He smiles back at Taako, no harm done, even if he's busily wondering just what is going on here. "Go ahead then!"

Go ahead - it should be easy. Taako's got his usual air of confidence back, the wand ready in his hands. He has unlimited spell slots for some reason, so it's not like having the magic at the ready is an issue. He knows his spells like the back of his hand. He's got components for days in the pouches that hang at his side. This is easy. It should be easy.

He raises his hands and starts the spell - a swirl of magic rising from his feet as he goes through the last bit of the incantation. It's easy. It's super easy. He's done this how many times before? It's a higher level spell, but not that complex.

The swirl turns dark and he points to a place on the stage, the magic flowing out of him and into a square, turning the area black. Dark tendrils of magic start to pull their way out, eldritch things like tentacles, emerging from another plane of existence. It's so simple. He's got this.

And then he catches sight of Thor watching him amid all the other empty seats. He sees the emptiness around him and the spell breaks, errant energy zipping off into the crowd. Black bolts of lightning scorch the ground, barely missing Thor as they carve a path through the empty chairs.

Taako drops his wand, horrified, and takes a step back.

Thor's not usually bothered by strikes of lightning. It would be a huge impediment for a God of Thunder to have. Only - something is clearly not right here, the inverted shade of lightning being the least of it. He jolts upright in his seat as one arc of lightning rips past just inches to his left, twisting to watch its path. Glancing back at Taako it's obvious that this wasn't intentional. He would be wearing a smirk if it was, or laughing about it.

That look he has? It's the furthest thing from okay.

"Taako?" Thor gets to his feet, uneasy once more. Does nothing in this place work as expected? He's getting the feeling that they don't. "Was that meant to happen?

"Don't!" he snaps when Thor stands and backpedals as quick as he can. The power dissipates as it finishes its arc, the tendrils melting way into smoke. Taako seems caught between wanting to run and needing to stay, his eyes darting from Thor to the wand to the wagon in a panic.

"It- It's fine. It's fine! Just-" Thor isn't hurt. He doesn't look hurt? He's fine, right? He didn't hurt him. He shouldn't have been doing this, not here, not in this place of all places. "Just-- don't."

He doesn't pick up the wand, but instead turns on his heels and heads back for the wagon, slamming the door behind him hard enough that it bounces back open.

"Wait!" Thor calls after Taako, but it's too late, he's already banging through the wagon door. Gods, maybe Thor should figure out a way to leave. He seems to be causing a lot of problems in this place.

He needs to follow him, only he glances back towards the wand first. That isn't something that should be left lying around. Still, Thor approaches it as one would a snake - or as a normal person would approach a snake, at least. He nudges the wand with his boot first. It'd be just his luck if this triggered something.

Thankfully, the wand doesn't seem to do anything when Thor nudges it with his boot. It rolls harmlessly away across the ground, not even a spark coming from it.

But at the top of the stairs leading out of the amphitheater a doorway opens, made of pure light. It swings open in the same way the wagon door does, offering an escape from this world.

Thor scoops up the wand and then pauses as he sees the door appear. That looks more like an exit than anything else does in here. It's enticing, the idea of getting out before causing more problems. Thor stares at it for a moment, then back at the wagon. Back to the door of light.

...like hell he's running off without a word.

Turning on his heel Thor walks back towards the wagon and bangs on the door. He knows it's open, but he's not barging in right now.

"Hey, Taako! Are you well in there?"

There's silence for a long time after Thor knocks, almost quiet enough that it seems like Taako isn't even there. Then, just before he turns to leave or open the door, Taako lets out a shuddering sigh from inside.

"Mmhm, just peachy. Shit went haywire, no biggie. You can uh," he pauses again here for awhile, the last syllable hanging in the air. "You can uh, leave. If that's what you want. No big. Just, uh, don't-- It's not a big deal so just forget about all this. It was a bad show. Not particularly on brand for Taako."

Thor had been about to yank open the door when Taako speaks at last, his hand hovering above the doorknob. It drifts back down to his side as he listens, a frown on his face. 'Not on brand' is an understatement but perhaps it's not as surprising as it would have been back before the ice tree. Before the failed magic spell.

He leans his shoulder against the doorframe and talks into the gap.

"Do you want me to leave?" he asks. If recent times have taught him anything, it's that failing to ask the right question will just end up further botching the conversation. Loki had asked Thor to leave hundreds of times and he only occasionally responded the right way. Right now, Thor doesn't get the impression Taako really wants him to go.

"Because I don't care about the show, really."

The answer to that is immediate, but silent. Of course he doesn't want people to leave. He never wants people to leave, but it's what he expects them to do. Everyone leaves eventually, especially when you're an elf and you're long-lived. Most people just won't live long enough to be a part of your life for any significant portion of it. And when you live a life like Taako has, the likelihood of people sticking around is even slimmer. He's used to it, sure, but that doesn't mean he likes it.

So when Thor asks if he wants him to leave, he has to bite his tongue to stop from saying anything. Even in this world where he's more honest and less guarded with his memories right on display, it's not in his nature to ask for help. There's a long pause before he shakes his head where Thor can't see it.

"I could have killed you?" He's killed people before. Errant magic is a dangerous deadly thing. Even if it wasn't his fault, it wasn't his magic that did it, those people... The people who should be in those seats right now? They were still all gone. "Why would you even want to stick around, right? The door's open, so go on through."

"You didn't though," Thor replies. Simple enough. He shrugs to himself then, and adds confidently: "Also you can't kill me with lightning, that's impossible."

Granted, Thor doesn't know what the properties of black lightning might be, but he's reasonably sure it wouldn't hurt him that much. Even if it had different properties. If recent history has proven anything it's that nothing really kills him.

Thor lets out a grunt when Taako says he can go again. He heaves a big sigh, straightening up from the wall. "Well, since you said so," he says.

...before he opens the wagon door and just barges in.

He'd explain that it wasn't "lightning" that went flying at Thor and that magic drawn like that and let loose without restraint is dangerous to anyone, even gods, but he doesn't really have it in him to do that. It's a lot of technical explanation and more information that Taako has the energy to give. It involves arcane explanations that he doubts Thor would understand or care to learn. Magic wasn't his thing, after all. He was the more smash them in the face and go type. Like Magnus.

"Yeah, see yo--" He can't finish the sentence before Thor is suddenly barging in, and Taako jumps pressing himself against the far counter of the kitchen like he's looking for an escape. His ears are pinned back against his head and he grabs the closest thing to him - a jar of beans - and lobs it without thinking right at the door. "Shit! What're you doing?!"

It's a good thing Thor has battle-reflexes born of hundreds of years of experience, because a lesser man might have gotten clocked in the face by those beans. And wouldn't that be a mortifying way to end a dream.

Instead he sets foot in the wagon, sees something hurled towards him and pivots sharply, slamming up against the door as the jar goes sailing past his nose and out into the amphitheatre. He's still looking that way when they both here the distant crash of glass breaking.

Turning back to look at Taako, Thor is offended. "What the hell was that for!"

"Shit!" He actually has the good sense to look horrified for a moment, almost letting out a quick apology. The 'S' gets past his lips and then he clams up again. Thor looks mad and isn't that a good way to get him to leave? Prove himself right?

"W-well, you shouldn't have just barged in here!" He goes for another jar and hefts it into his hand, holding it aloft and trying to look intimidating even if melee isn't exactly his forte. It probably isn't working with the way his hands are shaking and his ears are pinned back flat against his head, but it's the thought that counts....?

Oh, that's how this is going to be? Thor steps away from the door into the middle of the space, looking from the jar in Taako's trembling hands to his distressed face. There's something ludicrous about having jars winged at him as though it would do anything more than wreck the jars - and possibly his face, but he would get better.

Thor crosses his arms and stares Taako down. "Probably not, but here I am anyway," he replies, still with some annoyance. "If you actually throw that at me we're going to have words."

As though they aren't having words already.

"Like we aren't already," he snaps back automatically, echoing the thought in Thor's head. But Taako slams the jar down onto the counter and crosses his arms over his chest, trying to build a wall between him and the god through sheer force of will. It keeps himself from shaking, from remembering the errant magic that ripped through the arena, and that's the best he can hope for right now. Distraction is his only method of coping.

"So? What do you want? You had a way out." He jerks his head toward the open window and the still shining doorway out of this hellhole of his mind. "There's nothing else here."

"You are," Thor says, with all the force blunt truth can muster. "And I'm not going to leave right after you run away."

If nothing else, Thor is concerned. Taako isn't okay right now. He can bluster and throw jars all he wants but it's written all over his face.

"Uh that's the point of running away?" He sulks further, withdrawing into himself as he looks away. He tries to look out the window, but the black scars of magic are still plainly visible. He looks inside and he sees the garlic on the counter, the berries still sitting on the plate. Taako turns his face toward the opposite wall, concentrating on the pots and pans hanging there.

"It's fine. I'm fine. I just didn't want to stand around while you made that weird face all 'concerned' or whatever."

Good call on turning away, because Thor's making that very same face again. He heaves a sigh through his nose, leaning against the counter. He picks up another empty jar just to pretend to scrutinise it. Taako still hasn't outright told him to leave, so he won't just yet.

"I don't think my face is the problem," he says, musing aloud. "Since it rarely is. What happened out there, Taako?"

"Right now? It is."

He shrinks in on himself, his fingers flexing into the fabric of his shirt at Thor's question. He doesn't want to talk about it. It isn't even his fault? It--well, no, this time it was his fault. He'd lost concentration and the spell had gone awry. But the last time? It hadn't been his fault. He shouldn't still feel guilty over this. He'd absolved himself of those feelings.

Taako goes quiet for a moment, then points to the objects on the counter. Specifically, he motions toward either the chalice or the berries.

"You want to know, you can see for yourself. This place we're in- it isn't good for me."

Thor looks as though he's about to argue. He'd asked a question for an answer, not a demonstration. It fades into something more considering though as he looks at the chalice and berries. He knows by now what's likely to happen if he touches one of those things. Taako's saying 'see for yourself' and it will be literal.

Casting a glance at Taako, he steps over to where the chalice is and takes it up. If that's how he'd prefer to do things, so be it.

Thor goes for the Chalice and Taako watches him, his face carefully schooled into detached displeasure. "See you on the other side."

Picking up the silver chalice, it feels like being pulled backward through a veil. The air becomes hot and humid, and in front of Thor are two people standing and facing each other. Weirdly, this entire space is white - like an endless void, but made of a light so expansive that you can't tell where the floors or ceilings or walls meet each other. Taako stands watching a woman about 60 years old who is holding the silver chalice. Taako's life flashes around him and everyone and large swatches of it are just static. An endless long stretch of static until it stops at a town called Glamour Springs. The set-up is familiar: it's the same wagon and amphitheater that Thor found himself in a moment ago.

However, instead of empty seats, there are about 40 people occupying the once vacant arena - teens and the elderly, young housewives and househusbands, a few children, and a couple looky-loos hoping for a free show. Taako stands with the woman, watching the scene next to Thor, but separate from him. And Taako is in the window of the stagecoach, calling out to the crowd, entertaining them with magic and cooking. People are having a great time and Taako is cooking thirty garlic clove chicken with gusto - meanwhile the Taako standing next to Thor looks green in the face, hands clutching at his shirt near his heart.

Taako starts to offer samples and talks with the crowd, laughing and passing them out as he also starts selling merchandise. He goes to eat the last sample of the chicken when a young child reaches up and asks for seconds. Taako sighs and then hands it to the kid, patting him on the head - he does everything for his fans, after all.

The scene freezes and the woman turns to Taako.

"You remember what happens next, don't you?"

Taako looks pained, watching the crowd surge around the other him. His voice is hoarse as he finally speaks, "...They died. They all died. Every one of them. Everyone who ate the chicken, they all died. I should have sampled it first, I usually do? I just... I got distracted." He bites his lip. "And they died."

The woman takes his hand. "Come with me."

And she leads Taako away behind the stagecoach to a smaller wagon and passes right through the wall of it, dragging Thor along with them. Inside is a bigger man, larger than Taako, who had been moving around in the background during the show. It's his assistant/bodyguard/right-hand-man, Sazed, and Taako looks confused for a moment. Sazed is sitting on a small crate and looking extremely nervous, gripping his hair and staring intently down at the ground. In his hand is a bottle with an apothecary's note on it that reads: ARSENIC.

The woman looks back up at Taako and continues, "Well I-- I guess this must come as some small relief, right? All this time you thought your transmutation, your reckless magic, is what killed the town of Glamour Springs. In actuality, it was, you know, plain ol' jealousy. But....still, all those people died."

She snaps her fingers and they're all back out by the stagefront, where Taako is handing out the samples.

"The people of this town died all the same and you fed them their death."

In the crowd, someone starts coughing and wheezing. The color drains from the memory like ink slowly leeching away. Someone else starts coughing. And then another. Ad another. Someone yells for help and Taako's head whips around as a young mother clutches his arm, grasping her chest as both she and her child start suffocating. The uneaten plate crashes to the ground as the boy from earlier starts to choke next to Taako. The cry for help turns into a wail and then screaming as everyone in the audience starts to wheeze and retch, their bodies convulsing, people clutching at their throats. Taako steps back and pulls out of everyone's grip, confusion turning to horror and horror to panic as the audience reaches toward him, crying for help. He stares at the for a moment, eyes darting over everyone's faces, hands up as his mouth tries to form words - then he turns and flees into the wagon, banging on the secondary car off the back.

"Sazed!! Sazed! We have to go! We have to go now!"

The larger man from before bursts from the car and jumps into the driver's seat. Without even asking why, he gathers up the reigns and they're off, Taako hiding out in the back of the wagon as it disappears down the road. They drive and drive for almost two days until they get to a different town, the horses needing a rest. Sazed stops and says something about going to find new horses to a nearly catatonic Taako, and then he slips into the crowd and disappears. A day passes and he doesn't come back. Then two days. And then Taako realizes he's been abandoned.

And they're back at the wagon again, the samples not yet being passed out, but ready. The woman turns to Taako, whose face is just a mix of shock and anger and something else entirely as he watches this scene unfold.

"This is the worst thing that ever happened, Taako, in your life. And you can fix it. If you claim me, claim the Chalice, none of this ever happened. Glamour Springs lives and you can keep doing your cooking show and you won't have this -- you won't have this horrible black mark on, what is otherwise, a heroic legacy." She holds the silver chalice out, her eyes glowing white and it's obvious this woman isn't a person at all anymore. Her voice expands as the entire scene bleeds into a bright white light. "Take the Chalice, Taako, take the cup, and you can fix it all."

The scene ends as Taako stares at the silver chalice held out to him. The wagon fades back into view and Taako has his arms still firmly gripped across his chest, refusing to look at Thor or the Chalice.

It's hard to understand at first what he's seeing. This strange white realm, a hectic trip through memory, then Taako watching himself in the past, both of them watched by this strange-- woman. Though she's clearly more than that. Soon enough though Thor realises that this is a memory within a memory, something she's doing. And it doesn't take long after that for the sickening horror to set in as he watches all these people start to die. It isn't just Taako's feelings, it's his own - to know that this was deliberate, to know nothing could be done.

More than that, Thor feels it reverberate with his own guilt. The situations aren't the same at all. Not even close. But that knowledge of responsibility for it, even if someone else's hand did the deed, is hard to dislodge from a heart. Taako had said it himself... this place isn't good for him. And now he wonders if he means his own soul.

When the wagon returns Thor is silent, staring at the chalice in his hands. After a long moment he speaks, only to ask a question.

"What was your answer? To the chalice."

Because something in him wants to know how Taako responded. Thor finds himself unsure, frighteningly unsure, if he would reject the same offer made to him.

He knows the moment Thor comes back, the memory fading from him as well. The world refocuses itself back to the two of them and the empty, scored amphitheater. Out there forty people died, crying for help as he ran away. Taako's ears are dipped so low, they almost brush his shoulders.

"I thought...I thought for a long time it was because of my magic, y'know." He'd spent every moment of every day for the first month trying to figure out what had gone wrong. His eyes cast over the blackish blue berries on the plate resting on the counter and he looks away. He still can't bring himself to use elderberries in any recipe. Garlic is...better now, but too much of it makes him ill. "So yeah, I thought about it - about taking it."

Until he'd seen Sazed. Until he realized what had gone wrong. Until Magnus and Merle both refused the cup. He'd been on the cusp of taking it, of reversing the worst moment of his life because what was Taako if not selfish?

But he couldn't do it after seeing both of his companions refuse. He wasn't going to do that to them. So he'd joked and laughed it off, made it seem not all that bad. It wasn't, really, if he actually thought about it. The whole thing wasn't his fault (mostly). It wasn't his magic that killed those people.

"I spent my life thinking it was 100% my fault, but turns out it was only like 50%. Maybe 40%? 30% my fault, if we're bein' real generous. So?" Taako finally looks at Thor, his eyes darting to the Chalice and holding there for a moment. He gives the cup a grin that's a mix of anger and contempt, flipping it off. It's easier to pretend at confidence when he has something else to focus on, someone else to pretend for. "So I told it to fuck off. Taako's in the best possible timeline for me, so I ended up staying."

Even if it meant consigning everyone to death. They were already dead. What good would it do to go back and change it all and probably fuck it up anyway?

Resolutely, Thor puts the chalice back down on the bench. What he'd like to do is lob it out the door and watch it clatter away into the amphitheatre, but he's not quite that ready to fuck around in Taako's mind. Dream. Whatever this happened to be. Something tells him it isn't Thor's role to get rid of Taako's baggage - that's something the man has to do himself.

"I hope he met justice for what he did," he says at last. "If he didn't, I'd be glad to go give him some myself." Thor's not above vengeance. Hell, two of his teams are named after it in some way or another. He scowls to himself as he thinks over Sazed's actions again, and the death and misery they had caused.

Looking back to Taako, deep thought falls over Thor's face. He knows it's not so easy to abrogate responsibility for something you were involved in, even if it was not genuinely or wholly your doing. Was that not what Loki had called him out on within his own dream? 'Hoarding guilt' he had called it. Life is rarely easy enough that guilt is cleanly distributed.

"I don't think it was your doing - not after what I saw. But it isn't about what I think, is it?" he asks, leaning back against the counter. "It's about how it feels for you. And that I know all too well."

Folding his arms over his chest, he half-smiles then. "I don't know that I could have made the same choice in your position."

'cause it's better than nothing

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