Lup installs herself on Merle’s lap as soon as they all pile in, filling the car with chatter and incessant questions. She’s fascinated by these newfangled things called cars, especially since she and Taako had only ever gone by caravan, she tells Merle eagerly. She pries stories out of every flower in his beard and runs her little fingers through his hair admiringly.
Her fingertips spark with excitement and she yelps, scrabbling backward, but Merle pats out the growing flame with good-natured ease and hoists her back onto his lap.
At that, Taako relaxes. He’s wedged between the front and back seats, one hand looped idly around the hem of Lup’s pants, but he studies Magnus with an intensity that scares him.
Eventually, after Merle’s beard has been extinguished and Lup picks right up where she left off with her questions, Taako pats Lup’s calf and plops himself down on Magnus’s thigh.
“What happened to your eye?” he asks bluntly.
“Uh,” Magnus says eloquently, reminded of a Taako of a hundred years smirking sideburns? Maybe grow ‘em before pickin’ that name, scraggly, because he hadn’t known that humans didn’t pick their own names, back then. “I, uh, got into a fight.”
Most kids, he’d pick ‘em up, maybe regale them with a good story or two of heroics, but this Taako is prickly and untrusting and probably wouldn’t take well to being handled. For now he lets Taako sit on his thigh and glare up at him, arms crossed.
Taako snorts. “That’s dumb,” he says. “You don’t got a sister to back you up.” Then he pauses and squints at him. “Unless you do got a sister that I don’t know about.”
“I don’t really have a sister, but I do have a big family,” Magnus shrugs, and grins. “You’re gonna get to meet them real soon.”
“Who?”
“All of us,” Magnus says, gesturing broadly to the car. “Uh, you already met Barry and Merle, but on top of that there’s Davenport and, um, Lucretia, and me of course. We’re all good people. They keep me from doing dumb stuff like getting scars.”
“Lup only gets scars when she’s too dumb to run away from fights.”
“Lup is a smarter girl than I,” Magnus says, then shakes his head. “Though that’s something of an, uh, running theme in our story, more competent women – you know what, never mind that. So, uh, how old are you, Taako?”
“Dunno,” Taako shrugs. “Old.”
“You don’t know?”
“That’s what I just said,” Taako bristles. “We couldn’t count when we were little ‘n after that we lost track.”
Magnus opens his mouth, closes it. He’d forgotten how long the twins were alone. “Right,” he manages. “D’you know your birthday?”
“No. Dunno that either.”
“Ah.”
Even after their century together neither Taako nor Lup liked to talk much about their past, even when it hurt them, and this – this is an unparalleled opportunity to find out more. To maybe heal some of those hurts.
But it’d taken that Taako, even with decades of constant companionship in the form of Lup, ten years to open up to them. This tiny Taako who, Magnus extrapolates, hasn’t exactly had a good run of life – well. He’s already distrusting enough, and gods know if Taako will ever uncross his arms before Barry finds a cure for this strange spell.
But Taako, as always, surprises him.
He’s jolted out of his reverie by two little hands tugging at his beard. “You’re too tall,” Taako complains, narrowing his eyes at Magnus as if his physical stature were an unpardonable crime. “Gimme your face.”
Magnus is too startled to do anything but comply. Apparently pleased, Taako presses a surprisingly gentle finger to the outside of the scar, tracing it down his eyelid and stopping at his cheek.
“Looks like it hurt,” Taako says. On anyone else it would be dismissive, but Magnus – Magnus knows that voice. It’s as close to concern as Taako gets on most days.
“Eh,” Magnus grins, and is fiercely glad to see Taako’s lips twitch upward in return. “Wasn’t so bad. ‘Sides, it makes me look cool.”
“Makes you look dumb,” Taako bites, but that twist to his lips stays in place even after he pushes Magnus’s face away.
Before they pile out of the car, Merle hands Lup back to Magnus and Taako, groaning as he stretches. “Well then, kiddos,” Merle says. “We’re not gonna force you or anythin’, but if you wanna stay with us for a skip, then our house is your house, as they say.”
Lup and Taako stare, openmouthed, at the house. It’s a bit awkward, the five of them crowded on the grass with two tiny elves gaping at the sheer expanse of it all – the rolling greenery, the ornate spiralling architecture, the gothic-style corner of the house that Magnus built himself, as per Barry’s request. It is Taako’s house, after all; it could never be anything less than ostentatious.
“’s big,” Lup says.
Merle laughs. “Sure is, kiddo.”
Taako grabs Lup’s hand and whispers something indecipherable in her ear. Magnus turns on instinct to ask Taako what was said, so long reliant on keen elven hearing, before shaking himself.
Lup nods and says, “Why are you lettin’ us stay with you?” She points to the house, daunting in scale and mass. “We dunno you ‘n you dunno us.”
Magnus freezes, looks at Barry. Barry shakes his head helplessly; he doesn’t have anything better than Magnus does. They can hardly explain to these children that they’re heroes, and that they’re family, but they aren’t quite yet.
How do you explain Fate to mere children?
But Merle just laughs again, plops himself down on the grass. It rubs his shorts green with nature, but Merle doesn’t seem to care. “Guess we couldn’t hide it from you clever kiddos, now could we,” he says. “Well, lemme tell you the truth. Sit with me for a second?”
There’s a beat in which the only sound is the distant melody of chirping birds and, from inside, the faint sound of piano, before Taako nods at Lup and Lup takes his hand and they both sit.
“Well, truth is, kids, we got a coupla friends. Good friends. I’d – I’d call ‘em my kids, almost. Good people. Anyway, they went on vacation a little while ago, and they said, ‘Y’know, Merle, you’re gonna miss us when we’re gone,’ smirkin’ and everything. And you know what? They were right.
“So anyway, before they pack up ‘n go, they say ‘Merle, you’re gonna get lonely in this big empty house,’ which is kinda true because sometimes these shmucks forget to call me, even on my birthday. So they told me to fill the house while they were away.
“And they didn’t say with who, ‘cause they’re enigmatic, but they were orphans when they were little. Like you two. And you looked lost, so I figured, hey! My kids would love you guys. And here we are.”
Magnus finds himself holding his breath, but Merle looks calm as ever as Taako and Lup glance at each other. A dozen words pass between them without ever making a sound, a combination of looks and touches and an unshakeable bond.
Taako says, “What do you mean, ‘were?’”
“Huh?”
“You said they were orphans,” Taako persists, knuckles turning white around his handful of grass. “Their parents died. How come they weren’t orphans anymore?”
Merle leans back on his arms, tipping his head toward the sky. “Well, I look at it this way,” he says finally. “I love those kids, and they love me, and we’re all just kinda a big family, y’know?”
“No.”
“Yeah,” Merle says, scratching at his beard, “I s’pose you wouldn’t. But one thing those kids taught me is that family ain’t always what you’re born with. Sometimes, it’s what you find along the way.”
Lup tugs at Taako’s sleeve and whispers something in Taako’s ear. Taako frowns and shakes his head, and Lup whispers more urgently, and there’s a beat and a pleading look tossed between the twins and finally, finally, Taako nods.
“Okay,” Lup says. “We wanna see the big house.”
Merle’s face splits into a broad, beaming grin, and Magnus and Barry breathe a sigh of relief. “Good to have you, kiddos.”
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