Who: Neal, Tas, and Emma Swan When: Recently What: Tas delivers the nursery furniture he built Where: Neal and Emma's house Rating/Warning: Low/Squeaky Clean Status: Complete
Apparently, carpentry was a lot harder than Tas had thought it would be. He’d spent the last couple of months working diligently on the rocking chair and bassinet he’d promised Neal (well, unless something more interesting was going on, in which case he completely forgot all about it).
But it seemed like no matter how hard he worked, and how far he whittled down the pieces things just weren’t coming together the way he’d envisioned them. After several discarded attempts which really hadn’t worked at all, he’d finally managed to get a bassinet and a chair that looked pretty good if he did say so himself. Of course, as soon as he tried to sit in the chair it collapsed under him, and the bassinet didn’t fair much better. So, after he carefully reassembled anything, he finally went to Raistlin.
After a couple of days of pestering Raistlin non-stop, he agreed to put the final magical touches on the new pieces of furniture, and even when Tas climbed into the bassinet it didn’t collapse under his weight. And, since he doubted the baby would weigh more than Tas did (and if it did, he felt sorry for Emma), he decided his work here was probably done.
He wrapped both of his projects in blankets to preserve the surprise of the finished projects. He found a nice old man with a truck who agreed to bring Tas and his furniture to Neal and Emma’s place, and he even helped Tas carry them to the front door. Tas waited until the man was back in his truck before he knocked and tried the door handle.
Well, at least Tas knocked instead of just coming right in? The door was still locked, security system on the house in place, but hey - it was progress. “Got it,” Neal called as he headed to answer; Emma was around and Henry was at Regina’s. As for the rest of the occupants, the dogs were too busy napping, dreaming with their tails twitching slightly, to be bothered to investigate. “...don’t move, guys,” he added with charming sarcasm.
He didn’t think that he and Emma were expecting visitors but sometimes you just never knew who was going to show up on any given day. Seeing Tas was a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. “Hey, come on in,” Neal waved him inside, then noticed the large, blanket-covered objects. “Do you need any help with that?” Must be the furniture, and recognition flickered in his eyes - it had been a couple of months and the rest of the nursery was finished. He actually couldn’t wait to see what these pieces looked like.
Since quiet time was very limited in the house, Emma tended to use the chance to nap, since nothing else was going on just then, she figured she’d follow the dogs’ example and rest a little. She was making a person, she needed to sleep more, and comfort was a fleeting notion sometimes. Of course it was just a light doze, and when the knocking at the door disturbed her, she didn’t see the point in laying there for much longer.
Rolling her way from the sofa to a standing position and ambling through the house, rubbing the side of her tummy in soothing, circular motions, Emma made her way to the front door, even as Neal declared it taken care of and she started to hear voices. “Hey, delivery?” Had they ordered something?
“Hi Neal!” Tas said cheerfully, and when Emma came to the door he beamed. “Hi! You must be Emma! I’m Tasslehoff Burrfoot, but you can call me Tas! I don’t know if Neal told you at all, but I made you guys some furniture for the baby! I have a friend in my dreams who works with wood all the time, so I thought I’d learn some stuff from him. But I still haven’t dreamed of him telling me how to make a rocking chair.” Tas frowned disapprovingly there. Really, Flint. Way to not come through for your friends when they needed you. But the smile returned in no time. “But I did it anyway! Did you know you can google how to make anything? Well, almost anything. I think I did okay! I’d love some help getting things inside! Did you want to take the chair and I can take the bassinet?”
“Yep, I told her before. We were both looking forward to seeing what you can do,” Neal chuckled, processing that long explanation Tas had given - but he was right, you could use Google to learn how to do damn near anything these days. Bless the wonders of the internet. “The rocking chair and bassinet, for Niko’s nursery,” he added, turning toward Emma - of course she was in such a condition so as to not be hauling around heavy furniture, so Neal was glad to help.
He glanced out to see which was which, and went for what looked to be the chair-shaped lump beneath the blanket. “Can you hold the door open, babe?” he asked his Savior beloved. “We’ll move these inside and upstairs.” That was going to be the fun part, the stairs part.
Tas, she’d been told about, yes. She wasn’t sure this was what she was expecting though. “Yeah, I got it.” She was still working through the explosion of words from their carpenter as she moved to grab the door so the boys could get things inside, maneuvering would be the hard part, so Emma was more than happy to have the easy part of this. At least they didn’t have a spiral staircase of anything like that.
Of course, she could probably magic it up there… “Um, are you committed to this idea of being a strapping man and hauling things up there, or… Should I save you from putting your back out getting our kids stuff to his room?” Magicking the stuff from downstairs to the nursery wouldn’t be all that difficult so long as it was fairly sturdy.
Tas looked at Emma incredulously, and gave her stomach a very pointed glance. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Tas said, a note of firmness in his voice. “I mean, if you tried to carry anything, your stomach would just get in the way so you’d have to carry everything like this,” he said, holding out his hands straight in front of him, looking very awkward. “I think it’d be much easier for Neal and I do to it.”
Well, Neal was kind of a strapping man - he was built sturdily and used to hard labor, given his job at the outreach center. He didn’t sit at a desk all day running the place, no, he dug right in and did his share of the dirty work like when he was simply a ranch hand. But the idea of using magic to get solid, wooden furniture up the staircase was...probably a good one.
He didn’t loathe magic here like he did in those unfortunate memories. It had destroyed everything for him there, had taken his father and also his own life, but here it was literally a part of his family and not to mention it had saved him more than once. So he really didn’t see the harm.
“Oh, no, she means she’d...teleport them, I guess? She’d use magic and move them upstairs without lifting them,” Neal explained. “Emma’s got some magical skills,” he added, with a grin. “Sure, if you want to, go for it.”
The rocking chair had been moved indoors, and it wasn’t very heavy in the scheme of things - just unwieldy, and adding a staircase on top of that to boot, may as well use the advantages you had.
She’d spent a week practising after those dreams, focusing on something other than the weird hole that collapsed in her stomach whenever she thought about Zelena and what happened to Neal, even knowing it would’ve been coming didn’t help matters too much. But it did give her things to focus on, her magic getting better and better. “I make a point of not lifting anything heavier than cutlery to my mouth.” Or a bottle of water, but still, point stood. Big as she was, and as ridiculous as Tas’ impression seemed, Emma just worked out the distance between the bottom of the stairs and the nursery and pictured the clear area of the floor up there to send the rocking chair.
It blinked out of sight, not even a dull thump upstairs marking its reappearance, and Emma smirked that way she usually did, proud of herself for managing the magic. Regardless of how many times she did it.
“I think the bassinet will need to land in the hall and shuffle in so I don’t drop it on something.” And that would just be a shame, breaking it before they get to see it and arrange everything in the nursery.
Magic! Tas had always believed in magic, but it had been the little magic. The magic that happened when someone weaved a good tale, and could make even the saddest of people happy. Of a child’s laughter. Of believing you could do something so hard that eventually you could do it. Of doing good deeds and having good things happen to you in turn. Magic being so real and, well, obvious, was something he was well used to by now. It was everywhere in his dreams, like technology was here, and while it wasn’t quite as prominent in the OC, it was still very much there. The fact that his mind hadn’t immediately leapt to the possibility of magic was one that he reprimanded himself about.
He still gave a delighted gasp when the rocking chair disappeared. “Oh, how wonderful! I didn’t know you could do magic! Is it just up there, in the room now? That’s so convenient! I wish I could have done that to get here. Just poof and there they are on your front step. Not that I didn’t have a good drive with Bill - he just had his fortieth wedding anniversary, you know - but it would have made everything so much easier! And I’m really glad your guys’ first sight of them is going to be in the nursery! I think that’ll give them the best effect! So you can see them in their natural suroundings!”
Their natural surroundings. That made Neal laugh a little, good-naturedly, as he put his arm around Emma and gave her a squeeze. “Nice job, babe,” he complimented her; she was proud of herself, and he was proud of her. “Not sure what the range is,” he added, for Tas’ benefit, since teleporting furniture across town might not have even been feasible anyway - good thing Bill was the friendly type, and not one to hack up passengers in his truck into itty bitty pieces, using a chainsaw. “But it’s definitely handy.”
He also agreed that not squashing anything would be good - the bassinet would be moved to his and Emma’s room from the hallway, most likely, since that’s where Niko would be sleeping for the first couple of months. Then he’d begin slumbering in the crib, when it was a little safer and his parents were less paranoid - the crib was already put together though, thank every deity ever.
“Alright, bassinet in the hallway. You’ve got this.”
This one was definitely cute, and so excitable too. But then, Emma did rather enjoy showing off when she had an enthusiastic audience. “The range is not that far, I’m not that good, sorry.” She gave Tas a small shrug, because it really wouldn’t be safe to try and send them too far. Upstairs was one thing, especially since she knew where she was sort of putting them.
If the paranoia wore off within the first six months, Emma might be amazed. It was less the dangers that came with the fact that babies were so very fragile and needy, and a lot more just making sure he was still there and okay. But they’d probably slowly work up to that anyway. Emma was just avidly awaiting the day he appeared.
A little more attention on the bassinet, picturing the open space in the hall between the nursery and master bedroom, thankful at least that she knew the dogs were sleeping happily downstairs and Henry was out, Emma let the final piece blink out and back into existence upstairs. She still got that smug smile, but at least she wasn’t fist punching the air with yells of joy every single time.
Tas gave yet another excitable gasp when the bassinet disappeared. Some people weren’t impressed by seeing the same trick twice. Tas was not one of them, especially when it was a great trick like that.
“I can’t wait to show you!” Tas said, already leading the charge upstairs. “I had to get a bit of help from my roommate, Raistlin? He can be a little grumpy sometimes, but he was really happy to help!” Or, at least, he had helped instead of turning Tas into a cockroach for bothering him. “He can do magic too! Do you know him, Emma?”
Definitely enthusiastic, most definitely. Since Tas heading for the stairs, Neal followed - he went to the nursery first, for the great unveiling of the rocking chair. Both him and Emma had really wanted one of the baby’s room - it was just one of those ‘essential’ items that every nursery needed, to help with those long and sleepless nights, helping the little shitter get back to sleep.
“Using a little spellcasting to help’s definitely not a bad thing, as you can see,” he grinned, and unwrapped the blanket which covered the rocking chair. “Okay, ready? Ta-da...” And then he pulled it off, for the grand reveal.
A rocking chair held together by magic. Yep, this was definitely a first.
Having the rocking chair, and the bassinet, held a little tighter together with some magical assist was probably for the best, all things considered around this place. But it was at least a reassurance that it wouldn’t be in a heap on the floor with a baby in the middle one day.
With Neal unveiling the rocking chair with a little bit of flourish, Emma just smiled at the creation sitting there. They’d wanted something unique, something just for them, and if Tas had just learned how to make it, that was fine. Magic or not it seemed to sit nicely in place.
“Aw, Tas, it’s perfect.” Hopefully comfortable, but some cushions for her butt and back or blankets and the like would solve that no problem. “Our first official family heirloom.”
The only thing that looked like it was done with any amount of skill on the chairs was the paint job, the chair painted in a bright pastel rainbow. Across the top of the back was a swan surrounded by fire. At least, it was supposed to be a swan surrounded by fire. It could have been a swan carved by someone who had only read of the birds. In reality it looked more like a white blob with a long neck and a orange bill, the paint job being the only thing that actually suggested it might be a bird of some sort. The fire wasn’t more complicated than spikes that were painted in vibrant shades of red, orange, and yellow, and the swan was swimming on a dark lake. The rest of the chair was a bit of a disaster. It seemed to lean to the right, the legs on that side being slightly shorter. He’d compensated by trying to make the right armrest a little higher than the left.
The bassinet in the other room would be revealed to be painted in much the same colours, though Tas had evidently given up on trying to carve in any designs. Instead, painted to the inside so the baby could look at it while it was drifting off to sleep, was be a mural of a series of animals - a dog, cat, cow, horse, and dragon - holding hands and skipping through a field of flowers. It was also constructed with much the same level of skill, though Tas had been more careful to make sure that the legs at least were all the same height.
Tas flushed with pleasure at the praise. “You really think it’s perfect?” he asked, blushing. “I mean, it’s kind of all wobbly looking, but I assure you it’s really tough!” and to demonstrate, Tas took a running leap at the chair. He planted his right foot at the edge of the seat, and then his left foot on the back of the chair. The chair rocked back, almost to the point of no return where it would undoubtedly dump Tas into a pile of hair and limbs, but at the last minute Tas leaned back, placing all his weight on his right foot, and managed to bring the chair back. “So it won’t ever break. I saw some chairs online where there were three seats - you know, one on each arm so that you could have two kids sitting on them - but I couldn’t really figure out how to make it like that. I thought it might have been nice for Henry, but I guess he’ll just have to sit on the floor or something when you’re telling stories.”
A swan surrounded by fire. That was brilliant, it really was - Tas, you kender genius. The look on Neal’s face was one of delighted awe, like he couldn’t believe someone actually did this for them - and sure, maybe it was more Woodcarving 101 rather than carved by expert hands, the skill passed on for generations, but it really was perfect. It was sweet, and the pure heart that had gone into it showed - that was really all that mattered, right?
Besides, he and Emma weren’t strict perfectionists or fancy people. They just wanted their kids to grow up surrounded by people who loved them, and there was no shortage of that in this weird-ass metaphysical hellhole known as the OC.
“It’s amazing, Tas, thank you,” Neal stated, clearing his throat, running a hand along the back portion of the rocking chair. The sturdiness seemed top-notch too, and the magical oomph was important - kind of fit in with everything anyway, right? “We’re definitely going to have to figure out a way to repay you for everything. For our first family heirlooms.” Now he was all choked up.
Neal was such a softy, but realistically speaking, if they wanted something perfectly constructed then they’d have bought something from Pottery Barn or something. But that was the point, wasn’t it. This was something unique, for them. And if it was a little wonky on one side, that was okay, so long as it rocked and held together fine. “I really like the paint job.” Tas might not have the skill of carving, but he’d clearly put a lot of effort into things, and Emma knew she and Neal would appreciate that more than a store bought build.
“It’ll be perfect, and if it won’t break easily, it’ll last a while.” She wasn’t sure where she and Neal stood on adding more to the family, they’d probably attempt to discuss that after they got a run around with this baby and see how things went. But this was something to keep regardless of that.
“Really, Tas, thank you.” Of course she was mirroring Neal’s consideration on just how to thank him properly, or at least well enough that he knew they were genuine with their appreciation.
Tas turned from where he was standing on the chair, and then hopped off. The chair wobbled back and forth, before becoming still again. First family heirlooms?! Tas had made family heirlooms? In Kendermore, a family heirloom was anything that stayed in the possession of a family for longer than two weeks (which was an impressive feat in itself), but Tas had lived in North America all his life and knew that here, at least, a family heirloom packed a little more oomph. He’d had no idea he was doing anything so important. He would have almost felt bad that they looked so shabby, but Emma and Neal both seemed happy with his work so it must have been good enough.
He gaped, momentarily lost for words. “Oh no, thank you,” Tas said, wiping a single happy tear from his eyes. “You don’t need to repay me for anything! Making my very first - and you’re very first - our very first family heirloom is really all I need!”
Damnit, were they all just gonna blubber themselves to death? Emma had an excuse, her hormones were completely haywire on most days. But aw, everything was just so heartwarming (and Neal really was a softie, there was no lie present with an observation like that).
“I’m sure we’ll figure out something anyway, maybe later on down the line,” he promised with one of those happy, crooked smiles of his. “And when Nikolas is born, you definitely have to come visit him.”
He wasn’t sure how well Tas did around babies, but basically not dropping the tiny human on his head was like, the most important rule. Most of it was instinct anyway, or so Neal had read in about a million different parenting books that he’d stocked up on.
If they weren’t careful, Emma really would start blubbering. It was a constant threat this close to the due date, but she did at least try not to weep all over everyone. “We definitely will.” It was less about owing someone something, and more wanting to repay the hard work and kindness. After all, Tas didn’t need to put himself through learning how to woodwork. But he did.
“Do you wanna move the bassinet just now, or wait until this little one decides he’s ready?” It wasn’t like they had a huge room, but it likely wouldn’t take up too much space, inside or out of the bedroom. But Tas was all about them seeing it in it’s ‘natural habitat’ and everything.
“And do you want something to eat or drink?” Emma directed that one towards Tas, “It’s probably a terrible way to say thank you for hauling this over here, but we do have plenty of snacks.” And Emma would part with at least one as a thank you.
“I would love to come visit little Nikolas (and Henry)! I can tell him stories! And babysit! I’d love to babysit whenever you want! Oh, but I guess Henry’s probably old enough to do all the babysitting you’d need. So I guess just visiting is okay!” Tas loved babies. He loved their little toes, and their little hands, and how the grabbed your fingers, barely able to wrap their little hands around even one adult finger, and how they gasped every time he played peek-a-boo with them. The only thing Tas liked more than babies was children, when they were just as filled with wonder as babies but he could actually talk to them. Well, okay, above both those things Tas valued adventure, ale, and his friends, but babies and children were pretty high up there.
“Oh no, I think a drink or two and some snacks seem like a great way to repay me! Isn’t the usual fare for moving pizza and beer? And it wasn’t like I was helping you move everything, just a couple of pieces, so we don’t need to get a whole pizza! But I’ll take a beer!”
“Hey, you never know, Henry’s at that age where he’d probably rather be with his friends than babysit.” Teenagers, they were fun - Neal was gearing up for some battling times ahead, storms to be weathered. “‘Sides, me and Em definitely aren’t going to turn down babysitting offers,” he pointed out. So if Tas wanted to, then hell, why not.
Pizza and beer as a way to show thanks wasn’t too bad either - obviously, they’d go for something more substantial later but it was a good start. “I’ve got beer I can share, and I’ll just go on and order a pizza for dinner - you’ll join us, Tas. Henry will be home by then too,” the proud papa stated - it’d be like one big happy family supper, how sweet. “But yeah, we’ll move that bassinet in here and the nursery will be all complete.”
And clean. And organized, and put together. At least until Niko arrived, then it was all bets off.