spellslots | riverview; ic contact & friendr

'Course.

(The little clearing is actually very picturesque, and Lucretia's unsurprisingly remorse to blow any part of it up, so. Sitting is fine. She sits down next to him and reaches for the bottle, uncapping it and offering him the first sip. 'Tis only polite.)

[Taako has a decent sized sip before handing it back to Lucretia.]

Fuck, I shoulda brought weed.

[A tragedy.]

Or one of the fucking dozen potions Rin left me, one of 'em has to be good for this shit.

[There's the 'chill out' one that he was given for Hygge, but that's a bit more special.]

I didn't know you ever stopped carrying it on you.

(She has a sip too, then digs the bottle back into the ground so it stays upright between the two of them. Is it good that they've made it into Rin territory already, and with zero yelling? She can't tell.)

What other kinds did you get?

(Yes, she's already experienced the infamous chill potion.)

Gave my last joint to Poe, he's gonna get Finn and Rey to try it.

[It's well worth sacrificing the last bit of weed he had (at least until he can buy some more).]

Couple healing ones, purification, some skincare. Pretty glad he didn't toss any actual poison in there, I guess he knew better.

[He can't remember if he ever told Lucretia the whole specifics around Rin seeing him with the ghosts but - it doesn't matter now.]

You must introduce me to Poe so I can ask him exactly how that goes down.

(Lucretia has no idea they're all from the same place; she simply thinks it's a very odd little group.)

Oh. Good. (She wasn't aware that Rin knew about that, but Taako's just alluded to as much. Lucretia thinks she's underestimated how close they really were.)

I'm sorry, Taako.

[Taako nods a confirmation that he'll make sure she knows how it goes, one way or another. But while he's trying to keep this chill and easy, he can't help but somber up a little now.

It would be easy to read something into what she's saying, try to make it out to be a jab at him or Rin, but he doesn't want to pick a fight right now. He just wants to take his friend at face value.]

I mean... I get it, you know? It just sucks, I miss him. Sif's gone, too. I don't-- did you know her? She was really cool.

[And he misses her as well, even if it's different.]

Yeah, I talked to her a few times. She was really cool.

(It seems like a lot of people have been winking slowly out of existence here lately. Lucretia sighs, and pinches the bridge of her nose.) Bill is gone too.

(She feels like she fucked up with Bill. It's something that won't be resolved; she's gone. It seems naive to simply assume she'll come back while Lucretia is still here.)

You know, I never thought I'd be here long enough to form attachments with anybody. (She snorts humourlessly, and plucks the bottle from the grass to have another sip.)

Yeah...

[Taako hadn't been super close with Bill but he'd liked her enough to notice that she'd disappeared into the ether, as it were.]

And fuck, same. I know I had that thing with Eddie and uh, he's a nice dude but I wouldn't have cared if he'd left, you know? [In retrospect, while Taako had used words like boyfriend, it was closer to a FWB thing. He just didn't care that much, not the way he does about Rin.] I think Clark was the first.

[The first person he cared about that left.]

Oh, Clark was good, (she agrees, smiling slightly despite the more sombre tone of the conversation. Like Taako and Bill, they hadn't been super close but she'd appreciated his company, his effervescent kindness.)

I suppose even if you go in closed off, people find a way to dig their fingers into the cracks anyway huh.

(Reminds her of the IPRE, honestly. She'd gone in there knowing it was a mission, that she had a job to do, and she'd come out of it with a family.)

It was easier during the years on the Starblaster, you know? Cause everyone was gonna die.

[Closing himself off was a survival tactic and while it's carried over to how he operates now, it's different when he knows that people are going to keep on having lives without them. He doesn't need to keep those walls up as high.]

(She nods, looking at her hands.)

I feel like I don't know how to have relationships any more, (she admits, twisting her fingers together,) with anybody I mean. Is that– do you know what I mean? I feel like I'm out of practice.

(She has six friends that she'd jump in front of something for them if any of them ever needed her to, and now she has lots of friends but it's not at all the same. She's not sure how to reconcile it all. Sometimes it makes her feel a little bit lost.)

[The look he gives her is a little bit dry, not out of annoyance but almost a really because this is Taako that she's asking, of course he knows what it's like.

He reaches for the bottle, taking a drink before answering.]

Our shit is kinda fucked up. It's like... listen, everyone's got their own stuff going on but we spent a fucking century with no one else and then a decade alone. [There's no heat in it. Maybe there should be, but Lucretia was alone as much as he was.] Of course we've got no idea how to do this.

(She gives him a look back; she's just saying what comes to mind, letting her words go unfiltered for once.)

Yeah. Yeah.

(She exhales slowly. Of the six of them, Taako probably understands this the best: they both have trouble truly connecting, and it's reassuring to hear him repeat everything back to her. It's like he's reading her thoughts out loud, pulling them like ticker tape out of her head. Maybe he is, considering everything that's been going on recently.)

Why does everything have to be so complicated all the time.

I'd give you some bullshit about that being life but uh, I do not remember shit being this complicated when it was me and Lup.

[Sometimes things were shitty and painful, he'd try to form some kind of connection with people and something would get in the way until eventually he just gave up on it. But it wasn't as messy, not like it is here.]

Things have changed a lot since then. For better, and for worse.

(Maybe more for worse than for better. The thought of that pains her, so she searches for a quick subject change.)

I wish we could all go back together, instead of one at a time. It's hard to lose people in increments.

[Almost unceremoniously, Taako scoots a little closer so he can drop his head onto Lucretia's shoulder.

If she makes a big deal about it he's going to bail, so he hopes she doesn't.]

I dunno if it'd be worse to leave Lup or have her leave.

[At least he knows she's not totally gone, but it'd still be hard.]

(Hopefully her dropping a hand down between them to cover the back of his doesn't count as making a big deal about it then.)

Mmm. (There's a small, awful part of her that selfishly hopes she leaves first, so that she doesn't have to be without Lup again. It's the same for Taako and Magnus. She doesn't want to be without any of them if she can help it.)

I... feel that way about Beverly.

[That's allowed.]

Take it from me, bubbale, this is one of those you wanna be selfish on.

[He's... not actually sure he believes that, especially not know that he knows Rin loves (loved?) him.]

(She chuckles, and shakes her head.)

Leaving her here alone would be worse than being here without her.

(Fuck's sake. Saying that out loud feels really startling. Lucretia closes her eyes for a moment, and sighs.) I'm starting to... uh, wig out. Is it really apparent that I have a handle on absolutely none of this?

Fuck.

[It's a quiet sort of curse, just a recognition of the fact this is a big thing.]

I mean, uh, this is the point where I'd be thinking about bailing so I dunno if you want my advice on this. Seems like you've got it figured out alright.

I hope so.

(She... knows what she wants, and what she doesn't want. It's the enormity of it that's starting to scare her. These are big emotions. Where will they go after the dust settles?)

Can... could we talk about something else?

What do you wanna talk about? Can't say there's a whole lot of interesting shit happening in Taako's life.

[It's sort of sad, he hasn't gotten out much except to deliver orders and buy groceries, but social event are sort of beyond him at the moment.]

Yeah. There haven't been any wild parties in a while, huh.

(Probably isn't the best time for one anyway. Even though it's hard for Taako right now, Lucretia privately thinks it might be better for him have to work through some of this instead of throw himself head-first into distractions.)

Hey, haven't you been here for almost a year now?

Fuck, don't remind me. In like two? Three weeks? Some shit like that, I didn't write down the day I showed up but it when Sampremi was happening.

[It's strange to think about how different things were back then; he didn't know about Lup, about the Hunger, he was just muddling his way through trying to figure his shit out. That was when he met Clark and Bryn, two of the first people he really befriended.]

(She gives his hand a gentle squeeze in sympathy.)

Are you impatient to leave?

(They haven't really talked about this before. Lucretia thinks of when she first arrived, fresh out of her third decade into the cycles, so blissfully unaware of anything. When she leaves, will she be returning to that time? Or to the last moment she knows now, to Wonderland? She has no idea.)

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