Tasslehoff Burrfoot is not a thief (tas_wanderlust) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-05-18 13:30:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, killian jones (captain hook), tasslehoff burrfoot |
Who: Killian and Tas
When: Shortly after Killian's return from the dead (first weekend of May)
Where: Killian's houseboat
What: Tas visits his recently deceased friend.
Warnings/Ratings: Low/none (talk of Killian's unfortunate brush with death?)
Status: Complete
Tasslehoff could barely believe that Killian was back. Well, that wasn’t strictly true, because he’d believed it would happen from the very first moment that Kenzi had told Tasslehoff that it would happen. But that had been forever ago, and when they hadn’t brought Killian back the very next day, Tas had begun to worry that everything had gone very wrong. It wasn’t that Tas had been waiting for long. It was just that Tas had no patience.
But then he’d seen Killian’s post on the Network, and Tas felt like his heart would burst from joy. And he had so many questions he wanted to ask him. Questions about the afterlife, and what it was like, and if Killian made any maps of it or if he could because Tas had always wondered what the afterlife was like. He’d always thought that it would be something like a great adventure, but he’d never had anyone he could ask before. He’d barely been able to contain his excitement when he baked Killian’s cake, and the result was that it was misshapen and slightly undercooked, though Tas realized neither of those things before he’d crammed it into a cake dish.
And now he did! He could ask Killian everything there was to know about being dead, and he could see one of his very best friends in the whole world again, and he could see Killian again. That was the worst thought of it all. Tas had lots of friends who he was fairly certain he’d probably not ever see again - they were spread all over the world, after all - but there was always the possibility that he might happen to run into them again. After all, he’d managed to run into them at least once already, and what were the chances of that with millions of people in the world? But when someone was dead, that possibility was gone, and that left Tas feeling somewhat empty.
Killian coming back from the dead changed all that though, and as quickly as he could, Tas found his way to Killian’s house boat. “Killiaaannn!” Tas called at one of the windows. “Killian, are you home? I hope you are! I guess if you’re not I can just wait for you inside, but Raistlin tells me that I shouldn’t just let myself into people’s homes when they’re not around.”
The windows were open, because it seemed like a crime to live literally on the ocean and not let in all that glorious sea breeze, and Killian had been in the kitchen organising things - something he rarely did, but the monotony helped him keep a grip on his sanity, and made him feel like he was treading water rather than drowning in it, after being tossed back in. A month was a long time to be away - especially after leaving due to such dire circumstances. Like being impaled by Excalibur, most famous sword of all time.
“Hey mate, I’m here,” he chuckled, going to the front door to open it and invite that excitable kender inside. “Well, come on in, then. I’m sure you’ve got a lot to catch me up on. Feels like ages since we’ve seen each other.” Killian still had the map Tas had given him though, from before things went to shit; he’d hung it up in his living room, since it really was quite nice. And from such a fantastical land at that.
It wasn’t that Tas was speechless, but he had so many things to say that the all seemed to get jammed up in his throat and he couldn’t seem to get anything out when Killian opened the door. Instead, he went to throw his arms around Killian’s torso in a tight bearhug, overcome with all sorts of emotions.
“I’m so glad you’re okay!” Tas managed after a moment, and it was only then that he realized he was crying. And then the word vomit happened. “What was dying like? Did it hurt very much? I hear you got stabbed with a sword, which I think would probably hurt a whole lot. Did you hurt even in the afterlife? What was it like? Did you draw a map? Or will you draw a map? What’s there to do in the afterlife anyway? Did you do lots of gardening? I mean, that seems like a kind of boring way to spend the afterlife, but I think sometimes people just want things to be boring when they die which doesn’t make any sense to be because an eternity of boredom sounds awful! Or maybe you got to sail the seven seas of death! Are there seven seas in the afterlife, or is there more? Or less? Did you get to talk to anyone? I hope you weren’t all alone up there! Were there lots of harps? All the pictures I see of heaven have a ton of harps, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard harp music before. Was it pleasant? It always looks pleasant in the pictures. The music, I mean. Though, I guess you can’t really see music in pictures, but I can’t imagine that they’d allow unpleasant music in Heaven!”
Harps? Wait, what? This was all a lot, and Killian felt a twinge of guilt for making the fellow cry. Tas was an emotional sort, clearly, so the pirate tried to comfort him best he could - just kind of patting him on the back when he was hugged to death, assuring, “It’s alright, I’m fine, really.” Physically fine, but psychologically there was a shitstom to work through - when was there not, however?
“Kenzi took care of my garden here while I was gone. Being impaled hurt, yes, but it didn’t hurt in the afterlife. I was trapped in the Underworld, it’s kind of the in-between for souls who have yet to move on to Heaven or Hell,” he explained, shutting the door behind his blubbering friend. “I had...unfinished business, you could say. Everyone in the Underworld did, and it looked just like Orange County only flipped around. The nice spots were sleazy and the sleazy spots were cleaned up.”
Also the red tint, skies that looked like they bled, but that was neither here nor there. “Do you want to sit down?” he asked. “I could get us drinks or something.” Booze always took the edge off - though granted, Killian was still trying to cut back.
Killian had no need to feel guilty, since the tears that ran unfettered down Tas’ face were from pure joy. Tas had never seen the point in trying to hide his emotions. First of all, it never felt good. It always kind of felt like he was just storing something icky inside of him until one day it would just burst out like those aliens in those movies. He’d made an honest effort to try to temper his emotions when he moved near Raistlin and Caramon as a teenager, trying to repress them just made him feel sick and he’d given up after two days. Besides, sometimes people had to feel sad so they could really appreciate when they were happy, and Tas accepted all of that.
The tears had stopped by the time that Killian had finished answering some of his questions, and he wiped the remaining tears from his face with his sleeve. “Really? So all the rich people hung out in dive bars and all the criminals hung out in City Hall?” Then Tas giggled. “Not that that would make much difference, I guess, though maybe they’d be a little more honest. But that’s kind of disappointing. I would have thought the Underworld would be a whole lot more interesting than just a red backwards Orange County. They could have at least thrown in some harps and flying horses for you guys. Do you think there’s anyone we can complain to? Because I know when I died I’d much rather go somewhere that’s nothing like earth! ”
“I don’t think I could sit down right now,” Tas answered happily. Even now when he stood still he bounced on the balls of his feet. “But you bet I’d love a drink!
Well, at the very least, Killian offered his emotionally expressive mate a couple of tissues so he wouldn’t have to wipe those big puppy eyes with his sleeve. Not sitting was fine, whatever made Tas comfortable, and he went to be a good host and find something to drink. He recalled that Tas liked chocolate stout (and with good reason - how fucking delicious was that stuff?), though unfortunately, Killian didn’t have any. But rum, he did have rum - of a fine quality, so it was good enough to serve neat and at room temperature. Drinking it meant you’d be whisked away to some Caribbean island, or potentially onto an imaginary pirate ship.
“Here you are,” Killian passed him a glass after pouring them each a bit, “And I hope that when your time comes you move on swiftly, and aren’t even stuck in the Underworld with unfinished business at all. I’m sure you’d end up in Mount Olympus with no trouble - it’s kind of like Heaven, I suppose.”
“Mount Olympus?” Tas said, eyebrows furrowed. The name tugged at some memory he had somewhere, but it obviously wasn’t that important or well known because he couldn’t for the life of him figure out where he’d heard the name before. “Do you think we just go to our dream afterlives? In my dreams there’s the Abyss where Takhisis the Dark Queen rules, and I’ve always wanted to visit! I bet it’s really exciting.”
“Thanks!” Tas said cheerfully, taking the glass in his hands and taking a sip. “Mmm, that’s good rum! I bet you were happy to get to come back to this!”
“Oh, I don’t know, perhaps everyone goes to a different afterlife? Because the ones we dream of, those people are us...” And Killian wasn’t even certain what Orange County was supposed to be - a new life entirely, a cursed one like how Storybrooke had been? So there was likely not one, absolute answer. “We do live in a melting pot, don’t we.”
The taste of rum was certainly well missed; it slithered down his throat and warmed him from the inside out. How he loved that fine cinnamon burn to it, words couldn’t even convey. But he’d sip it carefully, and not guzzle like he once used to. “I’m happy to be back to this, to lots of things,” he noted, taking a seat on the comfortable sofa. “Really kind of helps you not take life for granted. I heard I missed a few things while I was gone though?”
Like Stormtroopers, or whatever the fuck. Gods, what a headache that must have been.
Tas nodded. “Oh yeah!” Tas said. “Raistlin and I switched bodies which was a lot of fun! I tried to do some magic and I made a bit of flame appear, but it was a whole lot of studying and it wasn’t as easy as I’d been hoping it would be. Raistlin wouldn’t even let me jump off the roof to see if I could do featherfall,” he gave a somewhat annoyed sigh, as if asking to jump off the apartment building was a perfectly reasonable request. “And then Raistlin’s big sister came by which was exciting! And a bunch of guys in white armor tried to take over the Orange County, but they didn’t do a very good job of it. Oh, and I had a house fall on me which was kind of exciting!”
There was a lot about Tas’ word ramble to process, but Killian would sort everything out at some point. One thing at a time, so he focused on the oddest bit of the cobbled-together story, swirling the rum in his glass. “You had a house fall on you? Are you secretly the Wicked Witch?” he smirked, finding that funny for some reason.
Also probably a good idea that his roommate intervened - if Tas jumped off the roof, it was likely he’d break every bone in his body and hospital life just didn’t seem to suit the kender very well. Too much...lack of movement. But who knew, perhaps he had some tricks up his sleeves after all.
“Are you magical too, then?”
“No,” Tas said, sighing. “I didn’t have the red shoes, so I don’t think so. It happened in my dreams! A bunch of dragons attacked Tarsis when we were trying to get back to our friends, but then boom! A house fell on me! And then the next thing I knew Elistan - he’s the first cleric of Paladine in centuries! - he healed me, and then he called down a bunch of fire from the sky and blasted the draconians that were going to attack us. It was all very exciting!” It was a little less exciting in the dreams since he thought Raistlin and the others had died at the time, but Raistlin had since assured him that they hadn’t.
“I wish I was magical though. Wouldn’t that be exciting? But no, still not magic. Just a little when I was Raistlin. What about you? Did going to the Underworld make you magical? Like, impervious to death or super strong or able to see ghosts?”
Oh, that’s right, body swapping. Apparently, Killian had missed more than a few things. Tas would find that to be a grand adventure, wouldn’t he? “Me, magical from the Underworld...not that I know of,” the pirate laughed roughly, remembering the feel of all that dark magic twisting and turning through his veins, tempting him with power and all sorts of promises.
“I used to be able to do this - “ He flipped over his good hand, palm up, “...and make a fireball, but now I can’t, obviously. That was just the Dark Curse. It gives you an instantaneous knowledge and acclimation to practising magic.”
He’d known how to concoct potions too, and all sorts of other things - the knowledge was still there, but his connection with the darkness being severed meant that he was relieved of the burden of the power it brought. Thank the gods.
Tas opened his mouth as, completely prepared to talk about how exciting it was that getting the Dark Curse also meant that you were magical, but he snapped it shut again. The Dark Curse was the reason why Killian had been killed in the first place, and if it involved the people Tas cared about dying, well, Tas didn’t want anything to do with a Dark Curse. No matter how exciting it would no doubt be.
“Doesn’t sound worth it,” Tas said, and he was almost a little surprised to realize that he really meant it. “I’d rather you be here and you instead of magical and kind of creepy and dead. You were kind of creepy, you know. I’m not sure if anyone’s told you that yet.” If not, it was no doubt Tas’ sacred duty as Killian’s Very Best Friend in the Whole Wide World to let him know.
“It’s not,” Killian shook his head, and he had never wanted to become such a monstrosity anyway. Not at all - the Dark One was a creature he’d hunted for centuries, his most hated enemy, why would he want to be that? “But creepy as I was - “ No doubt he was tipping the scales into ‘extremely,’ what with his walking dead appearance, eyes ringed with shadows and red-rimmed - and there was his personality, how he’d shifted into something resembling a demon. He’d cared very little about taking lives or taking hearts. He’d almost ripped his sister’s heart out, and crushed it for use in a spell.
These things would haunt him, for awhile. “As creepy as I was, the curse is gone forever,” he assured. “It’s been around in Orange County a few times, it’s taken different hosts, but I did away with it for good. So we can just focus on the future, yes?”
It hadn’t even occurred to Tas that the curse might come back. Now that he thought back, he vaguely remembered Regina mentioning that people had been taken by the curse before, and the more he thought about it, the clearer Regina’s words came back to him. Entire villages taken, eons of darkness as the Dark One ruled over the all lands with an iron fist, the curse bound to stalk the land until one day a hero could rise up and vanquish it. He pictured Killian standing in front of the wall of darkness that no doubt made up the Dark One, dwarfed by its side, with only Regina and Kenzi standing at either side before he rose against it and took it down. “That makes you a hero!” Tas said excitedly. “I guess you and Kenzi and Gigi are all heroes! Was there a big final battle before you finally vanquished the evil? What was it like? Was it a big dragon with five heads?”
Did it make him a hero? That was nearly laughable, the idea of him being a hero - seemed like no matter how hard he tried in the dreams, it just ended up being tossed back in his face somehow. Or exploding in a fiery inferno. Here, he’d just wanted to stop everything once and for all - and to begin to make penance for all the wrong he’d done as the Dark One.
“There was no dragon, just the sword called Excalibur,” he said, weaving a tale. Or trying to. “It was the only thing that could kill me. So I used it to absorb the essences of all the other Dark Ones, because we were all tied to that blade. Then when I did that, it glowed kind of this eerie red colour, and it...Regina used it to kill me. Since I died, so did the curse because my soul was tied to the blade like I said. It was vanquished entirely. The sword disintegrated.” Perhaps no one had mentioned it before, and he supposed he couldn’t blame them - no one wanted to relive that scene very much.
Tas sat so he could better absorb what Killian was saying. The tale didn’t have nearly as many dragons and monsters as Tas usually liked in stories, but he still listened attentively, even gasping when Killian said that Regina had killed him despite the fact that he obviously knew that that was how things had gone done. “Wow,” Tas breathed when he was done. “And then they came to save you from the underworld, just like Persephone! How romantic,” he sighed. “Gigi’s kind of mean, but I’m glad that she came to get you! Oh! I met your sister! She was really nice.”
Gigi’s kind of mean. Oh, bless this tiny kender - Killian started laughing, a hearty chuckling sound. Because he really had no idea, but in all fairness, Regina had made a lot of strides forward since her days of being the Evil Queen. “I hope you don’t call her Gigi to her face,” he grinned - that might ensure a few fireballs were lobbed in Tas’ direction. “I’m glad she came to get me too, though I knew she would. She’s all sorts of determined and lovely. And Kenzi too, I’ve got one interesting and wonderful dysfunctional family.”
That also included his friends he thought of as family, in addition to the godson he would soon get to meet - the boy’s parents too, he loved them also. For a pirate who once believed his heart was nothing but a creaky and hollow mass, he had managed to fill it quite well while here in this stupid place known as Orange County.
Tas wasn’t entirely sure why Killian was laughing, but he was pleased nevertheless. “Oh, doesn’t she like it? Kenzi told me it was the name she prefered.” Well, Kenzi had said something more along the lines of ‘it’s a nickname I gave her,’ but what was the difference? “I thought it was a really good nickname. It makes her sound a lot nicer. Like she’s inviting you to try something dangerous and new and exciting instead of like she’s threatening you. Though, maybe she wants to sound threatening. I guess if it’ll upset her I won’t call her that.”
Still, it was a waste of a perfectly good nickname. Maybe Tas would keep using it in his head. After all, she’d saved Killian, which meant that Tas was determined to like her whether she liked it or not.
Kenzi tended to give everyone strange nicknames - it was just a quirk of hers, and Regina probably was used to it by now. At least ‘Gigi’ was better than ‘Her Majesty McTits’ or whatever clever moniker his sister came up with in that head of hers.
“Well, I suppose you can look at it that way if you like,” Killian mused, still amused. Tas always had an interesting way of viewing the world, didn’t he? “At any rate, it’s good to be back, mate. We’ll have to head to that pub from before, get a pint or two of the chocolate stout to properly celebrate.”
Just without the snogging this time - hopefully there wouldn’t be any evil mistletoe around. Knock on wood.