theninthmember:

forever and a day

@taakitzweek

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

“So did Lucas tell you anything important? When you gave it to him?” Lucretia asks the next morning over breakfast. (Oatmeal. The best damn oatmeal any of these fools will ever eat, but still fucking oatmeal.) “You were gone a long time.”

“Nope,” Barry replies. “He said he wanted to examine the texts, and that we should check in tonight. We were gone a long time because Taako took a detour on the way home.”

“A detour?” she repeats, looking between them.

“Can we just—can we fucking eat breakfast in peace?” Taako grumbles into his spoon. Barry doesn’t pay him any heed.

“Yeah, Lucas mentioned some priceless religious artifact they keep in that big tower outside the kingdom, and Taako wanted to see if he could steal it.”

“Why?” Magnus asks, cocking his head like a confused puppy. “We’re good on supplies, right?”

Taako groans, dropping his spoon. “Yeah, we are, but listen, he—Barry didn’t tell you how much it was worth. Which is a fucking lot. Like, Ivald’s Crown levels of wealth we’re talking.”

Magnus and Lucretia both freeze, skeptical comments dying on their tongues. Greedy little shits.

“Did you get it?” Lucretia asks after a moment.

Taako shakes his head, and both of their faces fall. “Nah. There was—it was empty up there. No chanvey or whatever in sight.”

“Cjevei,” Barry mumbles.

“What was the plan here?” Lucretia asked. “Fence it?”

“The plan was ransom,” Taako says. “Which—don’t make that face, it would have fucking worked. Barry, tell them the thing.”

“Oh, uh, there’s—Lucas told us about, um—apparently they have this ceremony about every thirty years, where they throw this thing, the cjevei, off of a cliff on the southern shore, into—L-Lucas called it The Deep? It sounded like some kind of underwater cavern.” He pushes his glasses from where they were slipping from his nose. “It’s pretty interesting, actually, they’ve apparently been doing this for centuries, as a—a sort of tribute to their gods, which means the bottom of that cavern must be piled with—“

“Barry.”

He pauses, looking up. “Oh. Right, sorry. The—the point is, the ceremony is this year, in two days. The royals probably would have paid a fortune to get it back in time for the ritual.” He frowns. “I mean, y’know, if we’d actually gotten it.”

Taako scoffs. “You sound pretty disappointed for someone who was whining about this plan so much last night.”

“Well, I mean…” he says, idly stirring his oatmeal. “it probably should have been a four person job, and you tried to pull it off by yourself.”

“I was scoping it out!” he insists. “Plus, you—it’s not like any of you could have come.” Taako points across the table. “You two suck at climbing,” he says, before wielding his finger at Magnus, “and your big dumb sausage fingers wouldn’t have fit in the handholds.”

“Rope,” Lucretia says under her breath. Magnus snorts loudly.

“This is insubordination,” Taako complains. “The point is, there was nothing up there, nada, zilch, so the plan was a lost cause anyway.” He doesn’t mention Tower Boy. It’s not really important, and also Taako still thinks the whole thing was a bit weird. What was he even doing up there?

“So Lucas was lying?” Magnus said.

“I guess. I dunno.”

“I don’t trust him,” Barry says suddenly.

Taako blinks. “Wh—Lucas? Where is this coming from? You talked with him for almost half an hour straight about religious ceremonies.”

“I dunno, he—he seemed shady, though. I don’t like how he was looking at The Light.”

Taako glances at Lucretia and Magnus, who look back at him with thinly veiled concern. Barry had grown… possessive of The Light, ever since Phandalin.

“We’ll check in with him tonight,” Taako says quickly. “Make sure he’s not hurting that weird bright dog of ours.” Barry doesn’t respond. “Anyway,” Taako continues. “Back to the chovey, or whatever. He said it was silver, right? I’m not making that up?”

Barry looks up from his oatmeal, thoroughly distracted. “The cjevei? I think—didn’t he say adorned in silver?”

“Adorned in silver,” Taako parrots, pretending to contemplate it.

A sudden thought enters his mind.

“Yeah,” Barry says. “Yeah, no, it was adorned, definitely.” Taako barely hears him, because now that one thought has divided itself into separate details about last night, all of them swirling together in a weird idea soup. “So… so I’m thinking it’s not made entirely out of silver, but they attach something decorative to it…”

“Hey, I gotta check on something real quick,” Taako says, standing abruptly from his chair.

“Taako?” Lucretia says.

“I’ll be back s—I’ll be quick about it, promise, I just—I remembered something on shore I kinda wanted to get, so, uh…”

They all exchange one of their looks, one of those Taako’s not a very good captain looks, but Taako doesn’t even have time to be bitter about it as he scrambles up to the deck. He spins in a full circle before his eyes lock on the tower.

He thinks of the room, with no stairs or doors. With a bed and a chair and a mirror but no artifact in sight. He thinks of the man, his strange accent and his assumption that Taako would kidnap him and his willingness to lie to protect the chenvie.

He thinks of all of this at once, boots clicking hollowly on the wooden dock as he makes his way to the road. He doesn’t take his eyes off of the tower for a second.

Taako has questions.