Lilliana Marlena Bluejeans is the babyest member of the IPRE & Co. family, created by the timeless love that we all know as Blupjeans | Main: @fandomsnstuff | AO3: fandomsnstuff | Lilliana fics | Feel free to send in prompts & questions!
I have so many different versions of this story, I could do this shit all day
You Got Everything You Wanted
The relics have been collected, the Hunger has been defeated, and the crew of the IPRE Starblaster has been reunited with their memories and each other.
Lilliana Bluejeans spent 98 cycles and 12 years waiting for the timeline to catch up to this moment. She thought that this was when she'd be whisked back to the time and space she's meant to occupy. But she stands firmly in place amidst the cacophonous celebration of the people of Faerun and wonders what the hell she's supposed to do now.
Single dad barry has had ample time in my brain, so now it's single mom lup's turn
This may or may not turn into something i just needed to get them down on paper
~
Lilliana lounges on her mother's bed like she owns the place, happily on her way to becoming Pokémon Champion (again). She can hear the shower running in the adjacent room. Just as she emerges from Victory Road, her mom's phone starts buzzing. Lilli glances at it and sees an incoming call from a contact with no name or picture, just a blue heart emoji. She smirks and answers it. The Elite Four can wait.
“You've reached the desk of Lup Taaco.”
“Oh.” This is the first test. How does her mom's mystery boyfriend respond to suddenly being faced with the teenage daughter he hasn't been allowed to meet yet? “Hello. I'm looking to speak with Ms. Taaco.”
Hm. Immediately playing along with the bit. Alright. “I'm sorry, she's unavailable at the moment. May I take a message?”
“Of course. I was just calling to let her know that I got held up at work and will be late for our meeting.”
Calling his date a meeting to really play in the space? It'd make mom laugh for sure. “I see.” She sets aside her DS and sits up. “And may I ask who's calling?”
“Who are you talking to?” Her mom enters the room, wrapped up in a bathrobe.
She angles the phone's mic away from her mouth. “You tell me. It's a saved contact with no name.”
Her eyebrows raise and she marches over to the bed. “Give me my phone.”
“No.”
She tries to grab for it and Lilli leans away. “Lilli-”
“I'm sorry, sir,” he tries to push her mom away with one arm, “I couldn't hear you-”
“Lilliana Marlena Taaco-”
“What did you say your name was, again?”
They scuffle for the phone and her mom snatches it out of her hand before she can hear the answer. “Hey, sorry,” she says breathlessly, standing up off the bed. She laughs at something he says. “She's something, that's for sure.”
Lilli sticks her tongue out at her, and her mom sticks hers out right back.
“Ugh, gross,” she says, probably in response to Mystery Man only just getting out of work. Lilli shuffles on her knees to the edge of the bed and leans her head next to the phone, trying to hear what he's saying. Her mom playfully pushes her away and she sprawls over the bed. “I mean, you could come straight here rather than going home then turning right back around to pick me up.” She crosses to her closet and flicks through her clothes. She tosses a pair of leggings at the bed, hitting Lilli in the face and making her giggle.
“We don't have to go out. If I order to-go now, by the time we get to the restaurant, it'll be ready. We can just take it and chill.” A sweater joins the leggings. She smiles. “Awesome. I'll see you soon.” Something in her smile changes, like she's biting the inside of her cheek, and she glances over at Lilli. “Yeah. I'll see you soon,” she repeats, her tone gentler.
She hangs up, and Lilli looks at her curiously. “The hell was that?”
Her mom points at her with her phone, “you're an awful secretary.”
She scoffs, sitting cross-legged on the bed. “I'm a great secretary. You stole the phone from me.”
She laughs and shakes her head, setting her phone down and picking up Lilli's DS instead. “Go fight your pokeymans in your own room, kid. I have to get dressed.”
“You know what they're called,” she says, taking her device and standing up. She glances back at the comfortable outfit laying on the bed. “I thought you wanted to get all dolled up tonight?”
“There'll be other nights. Now go.”
Lilli rolls her eyes and crosses the hall into her own, smaller bedroom. She lays on her bed and returns to her game. A short time later her cracked open door widens.
“Hey,” her mom says, “how're we doing?” She nods to the DS in her hands.
“I lost the third battle ‘cause I was stupid and forgot my type matchups.” She looks over at her. She's dressed in the outfit she picked, her hair is pinned back just enough to stay out of her face, and she isn't wearing any makeup. “Are you going?”
“Yeah,” she leans down and kisses her forehead, “don't wait up.”
“If I do, it's not on purpose.”
“Please go to bed at a reasonable time.”
“No promises. Say,” she sits up and sets her game aside, “when am I going to get any details about this guy?” Her mom sighs, but Lilli's had enough being in the dark. “I don't even know his name. Or what he looks like, or what he does, or how old he is. How can I know he's good enough for us without any info? It's been like eight months and there's been no inkling of me meeting him. I know Taako met him. Why does Taako get to meet him and I don't? I'd argue I'm more important-”
“Okay- first off, Taako met him by accident, totally independent of me.”
“Uh huh.”
“Secondly,” she's given a watch the sass look, “I'm not going to bring a partner of mine into your life unless I'm absolutely sure it's endgame.”
“Endgame is a shit movie and you've dated him longer than anybody else.”
She snorts and shakes her head. “You're a nuisance, you know that?”
Lilli beams. “I learn from the best.”
“I'll see you in the morning, and we'll talk about this later.” She turns and starts walking away.
“I'm not calling him dad,” she yells at her retreating back, and her mom's laugh echoes through the apartment.
Sometimes you just have to crank out 3000 words in a day because it's been too long since you've written anything.
Read it on AO3
Lilliana Bluejeans is missing. Her soul disappeared from Faerun, and despite trying every magical and mundane trick in the book, no one could find her. It’s been a year since then, and that luck is about to change.
An au of an au of an au
~
It’s almost a year to the day when the contraption in Lup and Barry’s basement finally pings with Lilliana’s location. Kravitz is just setting the table for dinner when Taako gets the call. They haphazardly throw their half-prepared dinner in the fridge and run across the lawn to the house next door.
“Where is she?” Taako peers over Barry’s shoulder as he scrolls through data on a screen.
“I’m not a hundred percent sure,” he says. “The reading is very, very similar to one of the cycles, with just a few data points difference on the end.”
“Which means?” Kravitz asks. Try as he might, he’s never gotten a grasp on planar magic.
“Which means it could be a reality that’s basically the same as whatever cycle this was, with just a few small differences–”
“Or it could be totally different and we won’t know until we get there,” Lup says, flipping through a notebook. “But assuming it’s the saaaameee…” she trails off, turning a few more pages, “there!” She hands the notebook to Taako, “lucky number 93.”
He whistles. “Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty damn similar.”
All Kravitz sees on the page is a long string of numbers and symbols, and a short description of the reality they supposedly describe. “What’s lucky about it?”
“It was the year after we all learned artificing,” Lup says. “We came up with the relic plan and were hoping we could end it then and there.”
“But we didn’t find the light before the scouts showed up, so it was a no-go,” Taako says.
“We did still find it, though. The world itself was fine when we left.”
“Guys?” Barry interrupts. He’s clicking around on the computer screen. “We better go. The signal’s getting weaker.”
“What?” Lup whips around and leans over him to look at the screen.
“I don’t know,” small indicators light up on the plane hopping belts connected to the system, “but we need to go before we lose it.”
They strap the belts on and in an instant are standing in the midst of a strange wilderness. Thick trees wrapped in vines tower higher than Kravitz has ever seen before, their canopy shading them from a sun just beginning to set.
“It looks like 93,” Taako says.
“Where’s Lilli?” Kravitz asks. All he can see is vegetation.
“I lost her exact location when the signal got shoddy, but she should be nearby,” Barry says.
They head off in pairs. Lup and Taako go one way, and him and Barry go the opposite. As they walk, Kravitz notices some broken branches hanging from the trees, vines torn off the trunks, and just general carnage that doesn’t seem to go with the landscape around them. Barry doesn’t seem to notice. He’s clenching and unclenching his hands, and taking a lot of slow breaths. He’s nervous. “So,” Kravitz says, attempting casual, “was there much for civilization when you were here?”
“Not really.” He scans the trees ahead of them, craning his neck to see further into the woods. “A few small towns here and there, but nothing like Faerun.”
“I think you guys got lucky with Faerun. Not only was it populated, but it had magic just like yours.”
He looks over at him. “Can you sense her?”
“Lilli?”
“Who fucking else, Kravitz?”
“Right. Obviously. Sorry.” He’s also nervous, which makes him ask dumb questions. He takes a breath and closes his eyes. He focuses all his senses on reaching out for his niece’s soul. Usually he can find her in an instant and know exactly where she is. Here… she seems to evade him. He opens his eyes. “I can, just barely, but I can’t tell where she is.”
Barry sighs and keeps walking, drumming fingers against his legs. “I don’t like this.”
“None of us have used our reaper powers in a different reality before, maybe the magic is interacting weird.”
“Maybe…”
They keep walking, keeping their eyes and ears peeled. Barry calls out for her a few times, but no dice. For a while, there’s nothing but the sound of their own footsteps to keep them company. Then, in the distance, they hear loud, jovial voices. They pick up the pace, hoping whoever’s there has seen their precious Lilliana. They come to a small clearing and burst out of the trees without thinking. They stop in their tracks, coming face to face with a silver ship and seven people clad in red.
Barry exhales shakily and takes a step back, “what the fuck?”
The seven members of the IPRE look equally as surprised but not as distressed as Barry. Magnus, younger than Kravitz ever knew him, breaks the ice, “holy shit!”
“That’s fucked up,” Lucretia deadpans. It’s even weirder seeing her so young, even though he knows, logically, that she was younger than Magnus at one point.
“I take it you’re here about your daughter,” Davenport says.
Kravitz’s eyes widen and he looks to Barry. His face sinks into a frown. “What do you know about my daughter?” Captain Davenport shrugs and Barry’s hands curl into fists. “Where is she?”
He crosses his arms. “I wouldn’t know. She tends to avoid us.”
“For good reason,” Merle mutters loudly. Davenport turns to glare at him and Lup shushes him.
“What did you do?” Barry’s demeanor has settled into cold displeasure and he’s on his way to anger. He knows what this crew was like during their voyage, and Kravitz almost doesn’t want to know what he thinks they’ve done.
“Nothing!” Lup defends. “We just– we ran into her sometimes.”
“Lup,” the other Barry says exasperatedly. “Come on.”
“We found her by accident,” Lucretia says, coming forward. “A few dozen cycles back, she died near the ship and we found her. We thought she was someone from that world, but when we went through her stuff we found out who she really was.”
Kravitz can feel Barry trembling ever so slightly at his side. Through clenched teeth he says, “and then?”
“Well… being from the future, she had to know how we defeated the Hunger. We tracked her down on the next cycle and asked her to tell us. She refused. Then…” she hesitates and sighs, “we decided that we would keep trying. So it became a bit of a Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner situation. She avoided us at all costs.”
“But!” Lup steps in front of Lucretia, “with all our perseverance, we did eventually get our answers and,” she spreads her arms out, “it’s over! And it’s over early! No more Hunger, no more realities getting pillaged and absorbed, no one getting hurt anymore, and none of the ‘dark and hard and scary’ stuff that Lilliana said we’d have to go through later on!”
Kravitz can see the lecture rolling around in Barry’s brain. He opens his mouth to give the IPRE a piece of his mind but is cut off by a wail of pure agony deeper in the woods, back the direction they came. His head whips around and he whispers, “Lup,” and takes off into the trees with Kravitz at his heels. He can hear the IPRE following behind them, but Kravitz can’t think about that right now. Whatever made Lup scream like that is far more important.
They enter another clearing, much larger than the one the Starblaster had been parked in. On the far side, they can see Lup’s back as she kneels next to Lilliana, who’s laying on her back. Lup’s curled in on herself, her hands over her mouth. Taako’s next to her with a hand on her back and Lilli’s bow at his side. “No,” Barry says to himself, picking up his speed, “no no no no no.” He goes around the other side of Lilliana and kneels. Kravitz brings up the rear, slowing to a stop and standing at her feet. His chest constricts as he looks down at her.
She’s dead, and it’s not pretty.
There are large, open puncture wounds and fresh blood on her neck. Her red cloak, made from an old IPRE robe, is fanned out underneath her in a cruel mockery of the pool of blood soaking into the ground. There’s some blood on her lips and trickling out the corners of her mouth. Kravitz has seen a slit throat or two in his time, he knows she was choking and gagging, trying desperately to breathe and keep herself alive, only for her own blood to get in her way. Her eyes are open, staring blankly at the clear sky above, not a speck of Hunger to be found.
“We have to bring her back,” Lup says, looking across Lilli’s body at Barry. He nods, his eyes glistening, and summons a black leather-bound book from nowhere. In any other circumstance, Kravitz would question why he felt the need to carry it with him.
He flips through it, then runs his hand down one of the pages and nods. He stands. “You should go find her soul,” he says to Lup. “She’s not from this world, and I don’t know how many times she’s died before this. I don’t want her to get lost.” Her and Taako’s heads whip up, but before she can verbally question him about her daughter dying more than once, he juts his chin towards the other end of the clearing. They turn and see the other IPRE lurking just beyond the treeline.
Lup gasps, and looks back to Barry. He nods solemnly. “Oh, my baby,” she says. She caresses Lilli’s face and kisses her forehead, “my baby girl, I’m so sorry.”
She stands and squeezes Barry’s hand as he passes her, heading for the middle of the clearing. She summons her scythe, tears open a rift, and disappears. Barry draws his wand and starts burning what Kravitz can only assume will be a ritual circle into the hard packed dirt. He can see the IPRE whispering to each other back in the trees, no doubt about Lup’s scythe.
Cycle 93. They were so fucking close.
“Krav.” He looks to Taako, still kneeling next to Lilliana. He nods to the space across from him, “help me get her accessories off.” He kneels as Taako undoes the fastener on her cloak. “Lift her up.”
She’s still warm as Kravitz slides a hand under her neck and cradles the back of her head. He puts his other hand on her chest and angles her up gently, just enough for Taako to remove her cloak completely and lift the strap of her bag of holding over her head and off her shoulder. Her braid is soaked red with her blood. Taako casts prestidigitation to clean it all up, and Kravitz lays her back down. They remove her quiver from her hip, her leather archery glove, and the leather bracer she wears on her other arm. Taako carefully places all her belongings in her bag. Kravitz closes her eyes and places her hands on her stomach. If it weren’t for the gaping holes in her neck, she could just be sleeping.
Taako stands and swings the strap of her bag over his head. “I’m gonna see if Barry needs any help. You stay here–”
A tearing sound right next to his ear makes him jump, and Lup comes marching out of her rift. She ignores them and beelines for the IPRE across the clearing. She grabs the alternate version of herself by the robe and throws her to the ground. The other Lup scrambles to her feet. The part of her clothes that was touched are singed black. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Smoke curls out of Lup’s closed fists and her eyes burn with fury as she advances on herself. “My daughter just screamed at me to go away and leave her alone. She ran away from me. My daughter does not run away from me.” She grabs her again. “What did you do?”
The other Lup shoves her off and pats out the small embers that had caught on her robe. “Nothing you wouldn’t have done. We’re literally the same person. I wanted to minimize as much suffering as I could.”
“I haven’t been you in a long time. I don’t give a damn about what you were trying to do.” Lup points back towards where Lilli’s body lies, “that little girl is my first priority.”
Other Lup crosses her arms. “She’s an adult.”
“She’s mine.” The other Lup looks away from her and doesn’t offer a response. Lup brushes past her, bumping her shoulder more aggressively than she needed to, and walks back over to them. “You have to go get her, Kravitz.”
He stands. “She’s nearby?”
“She was. She ran off when I got too close, but if anyone can find her, it’s you.”
He gives her arm a comforting squeeze. “The dead don’t always have all their faculties. She’ll recognize you when she’s back.”
“Just go. I don’t want her to wander off too far.”
He nods and summons his scythe, tearing a rift with centuries of ease. He steps through it into a copy of this world painted in greyscale. He reaches his senses out for Lilli again, and this time it’s stronger. He heads off in the direction it leads him. He only has to walk for a short time before he sees a faint white glow in the distance. He approaches carefully, and there she is, wandering aimlessly through the trees. She’s all white, dressed how she was when she died. Every now and again the edges of her form flicker and blur, the sign of a soul that’s been through a lot.
“Lilliana?” She startles when he speaks, and whips around to face him. Her eyes are all white. He holds his hands out placatingly. “It’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you.”
Her shoulders relax, and she stares at him. It’s a long moment before she speaks. “Kravvy?”
He smiles. “Yeah, Lilli. It’s me, Kravitz.”
“I think I’m lost.”
“That’s okay,” he takes a tentative step towards her, “that’s why I’m here. I’m taking you home.”
“You know how to get home?”
“I do. Mama and Daddy and Uncle Taako are all waiting for you, just through the woods a little ways.” He holds out his hand, “I’ll show you.”
She looks at his hand, then up at him. She smiles softly. “Okay, Kravvy.” She takes his hand, and her form shimmers and coalesces into a ball of light. He brings her in close and cradles her against his chest as he walks back through this in-between plane. Back where he started, he tears a rift into the Prime Material and returns to the real world with his niece’s soul in hand.
Lilli’s body has already been placed in the center of the ritual circle, outlined with runes and the dust of various gemstones. Barry stands at her head, Lup at her feet, and Taako stands ninety degrees between both of them. Kravitz takes his place across from him.
Barry takes a deep breath, “okay.” He looks down at his book and begins reading an incantation. The runes drawn around her begin to glow, and Kravitz holds out his hands, allowing her soul to float away. It stops and hovers over her body for a few seconds, then sinks down and disappears into her chest. Barry’s incantation continues for several lines, then stops. The glowing dims and disappears, and they all wait with bated breath. She lays there unmoving, and Kravitz worries for a half second that Barry Bluejeans, best necromancer this side of reality, fucked up his daughter’s resurrection.
Then she inhales sharply, and her eyes fly open. She takes quick, short breaths, and Kravitz can see her eyes darting around the sky above her. He steps into the circle and takes a knee next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Deep breaths, Lilli. You’re okay.”
“Kravitz,” she breathes. “You’re real.”
He takes her hand and squeezes. “Real as ever.”
“I’m alive.”
“You are. Do you think you can sit up?” She nods, and he helps her up. She freezes when she sees Lup ahead of her. “Hey,” he says softly, she doesn’t look at him. “You’re safe. Look closer.”
Her eyes roam over the woman in front of her. “Mom?” Lup’s breath stutters and her eyes glisten, but she smiles. Lilli reaches for her, tears welling in her eyes, “Mama.” He steps back to let her in, and she falls to her knees, wrapping Lilli up in her arms. “Mama,” she cries. “Mama, I’m sorry. I tried so hard. I told them over and over and over again. They never listened.”
Lup caresses the back of her hair. “I know, honey. It’s okay. This never should have happened. It’s not your fault.”
Barry drops his book and also drops to his knees next to his family. He wraps both of them up in his arms, silent tears rolling down his face. Lilliana sobs in their embrace, overwhelmed by finally being freed from what Kravitz can only imagine was decades of crippling loneliness.
Taako picks up the necromancy book and puts it in Lilli’s bag. He smiles at him, then walks over to the still-lurking IPRE. He claps his hands together and says in his best Sizzle It Up! voice, “all right, folks! Show’s over! You can get back to whatever sad lives you’re planning to build on this lame planet.” The other Lup rolls her eyes. “Got something you want to say, Lulu?”
“Just because we beat the Hunger sooner than you doesn’t mean our lives will suck.”
“Maybe not.”
“And all of this,” she gestures to the ritual circle and family behind Taako, “just proves my point. The second we destroyed the Hunger, you guys showed up. If she had told us that all it’d take was a shield around the Hunger and didn’t make us spend 40 years and a ton of magic dragging it out of her, then maybe we could’ve learned artificing earlier, and we all could’ve been done with it ages ago.”
“You learned artificing last cycle.” Taako’s tone is level. Too level. Something’s been put together in his head and he doesn’t like it.
“We did.”
“So you knew you were ending it this cycle.”
“We found the Light, we had the staff, Lucretia had the spell. Why wouldn’t we?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t you? You have all the pieces.” The other Lup nods, Kravitz waits for the other shoe to drop. “So why, on Pan’s green fucking Earth, wouldn’t you give Lilliana a fucking heads up, so she knows not to fucking die?!”
There it is.
The other Lup balks. “She runs away from us! It’s not like we could’ve talked to her about it!”
“Message! Sending! Carrier pigeon! Half of you are wizards, you should be able to figure this shit out!”
She throws her hands in the air. “What do you want from me, Taako? Why should our crew have to suffer as long as you did, for the same ending?”
He laughs. “Oh, you’re not getting the same ending out of this, Lulu.”
Lilli, now standing, comes to Taako’s side and takes his hand. “Don’t bother, Koko. I told them over and over again to forget about me and figure it out themselves. I told them that if they just stuck it out, yeah, they’d go through some shit, but they’d find so much happiness at the end of it all. I even told them that all the planes that got consumed would be fine. They don’t care.”
Taako purses his lips, scanning over the crew in front of him. He lands on Lucretia. “You know, I’m not a huge fan of some of the actions taken by certain people in my reality. But even I have to admit that those actions brought way more people into our lives than we would’ve had otherwise.”
“Like Kravvy,” Lilli says smiling.
Taako snorts. “We would’ve met him anyway, we’re all death criminals.”
“Who is he?” Other Taako asks, speaking for the first time.
“I guess you’ll never know,” Lilli says.
Taako puts his arm around her and steers them back towards Lup and Barry. “C’mon peanut, let’s get you home.”
I See The Light - Chapter 1 - fandomsnstuff - The Adventure Zone (Podcast) [Archive of Our Own]
What would happen if you took Tangled (2010) and made the prologue a little more convoluted, took out the princess romance, and turned both Flynn Rider and the hyper intelligent horse into middle aged gay men who may or may not have a thing going on?
Well, dear reader, why don't we find out together?
This is a very big day folks because I, for the very first time in roughly ten years of writing fanfic, have written and completed a chaptered work! The prologue and the first two chapters are posted for your perusal, and the following ones will be posted over the next week or so (because, as I said, I wrote the whole thing already!!!! Go me!)
So, attempt 2 at a self indulgent disney inspired taz au, this time one that's actually completed and will for real come to its conclusion.
Not too far off the coast, a boat belonging to the Institute of Marine Research and Conservation (IMRC, if you will), lazily makes it's way through the water. Davenport is manning the helm, Lucretia's keeping an eye and ear on cameras and sensors, and Lup and Barry are watching the water for anything to break the surface.
Their use of the boat isn't entirely kosher, though. The mission they're on would get them laughed out of the room if they tried to propose it. But Davenport can pull rank and get a boat outside of work hours whenever he wants, as long as it comes back in one piece.
Lup perks up from where she was leaning against the railing around the deck. "Bear," she puts a hand on his arm, "do you hear that?"
He pauses and tries to listen past the sound of the boat and the water. "Yeah," he says, "I do."
Coming from a small cave, they can hear a high-pitched wail, like a baby's cry. Davenport steers the boat to the entrance, close enough to peer in, and all of them feel their breath catch.
The cave is a semicircle, with a few feet of a flat rock floor around the edge, the water in the middle laps up onto it as waves come and go.
Lying on that flat rock, is a mermaid. The fin of her deep orange tail is still in the water, she has more orange fins on her back and forearms, webbed fingers, and gills on her neck. She has a series of bleeding wounds on her side and back, her breathing is laboured and her eyes are closed. In her arms is a wailing human baby, wearing a seashell necklace.
Lup carefully jumps out of the boat. The mermaid's eyes snap open and meet Lup's. Lup holds her hands out to try and placate her. "I'm not going to hurt you," she says, "I want to help." She approaches slowly, and the mermaid draws her baby closer into her chest, and it's cries calm to quiet whimpers. She looks scared, and desperate. Lup stops where she is, and kneels to be closer to her level. "Did a human do this to you?"
The mermaid digests this question, then shakes her head. The movement is lethargic. "My own," she croaks.
"Other merfolk did this to you?"
The mermaid nods. Lup bites her lip as she debates her next question. "Where..." she hesitates, "where did the baby come from?" She hopes the mermaid doesn't take it as an accusation, but the baby looks human. She has to ask.
The mermaid looks down to the baby, then, with what looks like a lot of effort, she twists and leans towards the water. She scoops some up in her hand and pours it over the child. With a small shimmer, the baby transforms to have a bright pink tail and fins. "Mine," the mermaid says, laying her head back down on the stone and closing her eyes, "but illegitimate. That's why... this."
Lup picks her jaw up off the floor and says, "they did this to you because... you had an illegitimate child?"
She nods, her movements slowing even more. She opens her eyes and looks up at Lup. They ponder each other in silence for a few moments, then the mermaid pushes the baby in Lup's direction. "Safe," she whispers.
Lup's taken aback. "What?"
"Keep safe, with humans. Merfolk stay away from shore. I return to the depths for eternal sleep."
"No," she finally comes right up to the mermaid, "no, I'm not letting you die." She twists to call back to the boat, "Bear! Bring-"
"Shhh," the mermaid hushes her, putting a hand on her arm, coaxing her to turn back towards her. "Time is up," she whispers, her eyes lidded. She lowers her hand to rest on the baby's chest. "Take her," she says. Hesitantly, with shaking hands, Lup takes the small mermaid into her arms. The mermaid keeps her hand on the baby and says, "keep safe. Let swim, but keep close to shore. Sea is in her blood."
"I will," Lup says, "I promise."
The mermaid smiles, and her eyes flutter shut. Her hand falls to the ground, and her whole body starts to shimmer. Moments later, all that's left is seafoam. Water laps up over the edge of the stone floor and starts to carry it away. Lup looks at the baby in her arms. The water her mother put on her dries up, and her tail shimmers and disappears. She looks up at Lup with big curious eyes. "I'm so sorry, baby," Lup says, her voice wavering, "I wish I could've done more."
The baby eats her fist and whines. Lup kisses her forehead. "Come on, you're probably cold."
She stands and walks back to the boat, where Barry, Davenport, and Lucretia are all waiting for her with teary eyes. Lup climbs up with the baby, and is handed a towel that she wraps around her. "We'll have to, um," she sniffs and wipes under one of her eyes, "call Kravitz. He can probably get us a- a birth certificate. And stuff."
"Maybe you should sit down, babe," Barry says.
She lets him guide her into a seat. "I should've asked for her name. Both of their names. Now she'll have some- some human name we come up with, and I won't be able to tell her her original name. Or her mother's name. Fuck." Her vision is blurry. She blinks, and she feels tears roll down her cheeks. "Shit."
Barry crouches in front of her, "maybe someone else should hold her for a minute."
"No." Lup holds her closer. "I can hold her." She looks down at her little face as she starts to settle into her embrace. Lup feels her lip quiver and she shakes her head, "this wasn't how I wanted to make this discovery."
"I know," Barry brushes away some of her tears, "but there's nothing we can do about it anymore. We don't even know if we could've saved the mother." He stands and kisses her forehead. "But we can keep the baby safe. She'll grow up happy and healthy and loved."
Lup nods. She looks out over the water as Davenport drives them back home. She wonders how far out the merfolk are. If they're still looking for the woman and her baby. She wonders how long they'll search.
She looks back down to the baby, and notices the seashell necklace again. It's almost comically big, sitting against her little chest. She turns it over and inscribed carefully on the back in neat, swirling letters, is the name Lilliana.
Lup smiles softly and looks at the baby's face. "Hi, Lilli," she says, "I'm going to take real good care of you."
Turns out i already had the perfect ficlet for today's prompt! It's a little old, but I still like it. This is set in 8th bird lilli au, the morning after crystal kingdom.
@taznovembercelebration Jewellery or blanket
-
Snow crunches pleasantly underfoot as Lucretia walks up to Lilliana's house. It's a nice place in a tucked away corner of Neverwinter with lots of yard space. It's almost like a cottage. She reaches the door and stands there for a moment. She needs to just drop the box and vanish, but she gives herself a moment to think about what it would be like to knock and be invited in. Sit around all together and have brunch and cake and shower her with gifts and love.
She shakes the image away, and before she can move to put the box down, the door swings open.
The woman in the door, Lilli's wife Aleena, looks at her with mild confusion. "Can I help you?"
Lucretia wills away her deer-in-headlights shock and says, "I'm sorry, I- I came to deliver this," she lifts the box, "it's a birthday gift for Lilliana."
Aleena looks over the package, and Lucretia sees her eyes skip over the bureau logo on it. She lifts her eyes and takes Lucretia in with more scrutiny than she did initially. Her neutral expression sinks and settles into cold displeasure. Her spine straightens and she crosses her arms. "I take it you're the director, then."
"Um," there's no point in lying, Lilliana must have described her, "yes. Typically I would just wait until she came back on base, but I feel bad for interrupting her break last night with our, ah, predicament."
"So you decided to interrupt again."
Lucretia fumbles for a response, "I- uh- sorry. I'm only here to give her this."
Aleena's frown deepens. "She's still sleeping."
Lucretia may not be the most socially adept person in the world, but she gets the distinct feeling that this woman doesn't like her.
"That's fine!" She holds the box out to her, "you can take it. I don't want to be a bother."
Aleena takes it, feels the weight for a moment. "What is it?"
"A blanket," she's just wishing for this interaction to end. She may be the leader of a secret organization, but Aleena's glare cuts straight through her. "I noticed she doesn't like the cold. I thought it'd be fitting." Her half sun elf genes plus that one time they lost her to a frozen climate turned her into a gremlin for warmth. The blanket is a nice hand-crafted one Barry got her on a particularly cold cycle.
Aleena tucks the box under her arm. "Okay. Is that all?"
Lucretia can see when she's not wanted. "Yes. Sorry again for interrupting."
Aleena says, "sure," and closes the door in her face. The click of the lock feels very pointed.
Lucretia wills her racing heart to relax as she makes her way back down the front path. She's glad that Lilli found the tall protective wife of her dreams, but fantasy jesus is she scary. The way Aleena glared at her, she would almost worry that she knew something she shouldn't about the redaction, but her eyes skipped over the bureau logo, exactly the way they should've.
Turns out i already had the perfect ficlet for today's prompt! It's a little old, but I still like it. This is set in 8th bird lilli au, the morning after crystal kingdom.
@taznovembercelebration Jewellery or blanket
-
Snow crunches pleasantly underfoot as Lucretia walks up to Lilliana's house. It's a nice place in a tucked away corner of Neverwinter with lots of yard space. It's almost like a cottage. She reaches the door and stands there for a moment. She needs to just drop the box and vanish, but she gives herself a moment to think about what it would be like to knock and be invited in. Sit around all together and have brunch and cake and shower her with gifts and love.
She shakes the image away, and before she can move to put the box down, the door swings open.
The woman in the door, Lilli's wife Aleena, looks at her with mild confusion. "Can I help you?"
Lucretia wills away her deer-in-headlights shock and says, "I'm sorry, I- I came to deliver this," she lifts the box, "it's a birthday gift for Lilliana."
Aleena looks over the package, and Lucretia sees her eyes skip over the bureau logo on it. She lifts her eyes and takes Lucretia in with more scrutiny than she did initially. Her neutral expression sinks and settles into cold displeasure. Her spine straightens and she crosses her arms. "I take it you're the director, then."
"Um," there's no point in lying, Lilliana must have described her, "yes. Typically I would just wait until she came back on base, but I feel bad for interrupting her break last night with our, ah, predicament."
"So you decided to interrupt again."
Lucretia fumbles for a response, "I- uh- sorry. I'm only here to give her this."
Aleena's frown deepens. "She's still sleeping."
Lucretia may not be the most socially adept person in the world, but she gets the distinct feeling that this woman doesn't like her.
"That's fine!" She holds the box out to her, "you can take it. I don't want to be a bother."
Aleena takes it, feels the weight for a moment. "What is it?"
"A blanket," she's just wishing for this interaction to end. She may be the leader of a secret organization, but Aleena's glare cuts straight through her. "I noticed she doesn't like the cold. I thought it'd be fitting." Her half sun elf genes plus that one time they lost her to a frozen climate turned her into a gremlin for warmth. The blanket is a nice hand-crafted one Barry got her on a particularly cold cycle.
Aleena tucks the box under her arm. "Okay. Is that all?"
Lucretia can see when she's not wanted. "Yes. Sorry again for interrupting."
Aleena says, "sure," and closes the door in her face. The click of the lock feels very pointed.
Lucretia wills her racing heart to relax as she makes her way back down the front path. She's glad that Lilli found the tall protective wife of her dreams, but fantasy jesus is she scary. The way Aleena glared at her, she would almost worry that she knew something she shouldn't about the redaction, but her eyes skipped over the bureau logo, exactly the way they should've.
Don't @ me about it being too early for soft snowy vibes let me have this
@taznovembercelebration Chilly or cozy
-
Say what you want about feminism and equality, but Barry would rather die than make his girls shovel snow. Every year they offer, and every year he insists he's fine. This is why he only keeps one shovel in the garage.
It's the night of Christmas Eve, the snowfall is the perfect balance not too light and not too heavy, but he wants to clear out the driveway at least once before bed. Like always, Lup and Lilli offered to help. But he's not going to make Lilli shovel snow right before her birthday, and Lup should stay inside with her next to the fire. Enjoy the serenity that comes with this kind of snow.
His cheeks and nose are cold, and he's kinda wishing he'd put on snow pants or something, but it's not unbearable. The sound of plastic against asphalt is almost calming. He's bathed in warm light from his living room window, and the strings of colourful lights all down the street are at their prettiest in the dark. The only thing this night is missing is sleigh bells ringing down from the sky.
Soon enough, the driveway is cleared of most of the snow. A thin layer has already built up again where he started, but that's a problem for later. He stomps his boots off at the welcome mat, and shakes off the snow that's collected on his coat. When he opens the door, the smell of chocolate wafts over him.
"Did you make hot chocolate?" He says, kicking off his boots and shedding his layers.
Lup comes over an hands him a mug piled high with whipped cream and dusted with cinnamon. "Just for you," she says, kissing his cheek.
He walks into the living room and sees Lilli on the couch with a blanket over her lap and a mug of her own. She has a whipped cream moustache. Barry smiles, "you're a mess, kid."
She grins and licks the moustache off. Barry sits next to her, and soon after Lup joins on his other side with her own hot chocolate. A cheesy Hallmark movie plays on the tv, and a fire crackles in the fireplace, warming him.
When Barry walked into his house after being away for a week on a mission, there were a few things he expected. A kiss from his wife, a hug from his daughter, maybe even a warm home cooked meal. What he came home to instead was a grey kitten screaming with all the air in its tiny lungs and two very tired looking family members on the floor with it.
"What's going on here?"
"We found a kitten," Lilliana says, nudging a little syringe into said kitten's mouth, quieting it.
"I could hear it crying," Lup says, her elbow up on the couch cushion and her head propped against her hand. "I thought it was a baby, honestly. It was driving me nuts, we tore the house apart trying to figure out where it was coming from. Eventually we found mom and babies underneath the deck, this little guy was the only one still going."
"I cried," Lilli says bluntly, "a lot."
"So we have a cat now," Barry says.
Lilli puts the syringe aside and cradles the kitten to her chest, "I have a cat now."
Lup leans her head back to look up at him, "I said we'd help with expenses and kitten stuff, but if she wanted to keep him, she has to take care of him."
8th bird bluejeans child and when Lup left, so did she.
Read on AO3
Pain sears through Lilliana’s lower back, and she feels her blood coating the stone floor beneath her. Her mom cradles her and says, “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”
She tries to say something in return, but her tongue feels like lead and her skull is full of concrete. Her vision blurs and she fights to keep her eyes open.
“Go to sleep, baby girl. I’ll fix it,” her own voice starts to slur a bit, having been slashed with the same poisoned knife, “we’ll get you back. Everything will be okay, go to sleep.”
As much as she wants to fight it, she can’t. The poison spreads through her quickly and stops her heart. Everything goes dark for a moment or two, then she opens her eyes on a beach. She looks out over an endless black sea with spots of light scattered throughout. She can hear voices and laughter as waves come in and pull back with those lights inside them.
“Well, well, well,” says a voice from behind her, “what do we have here?” She turns and sees a handsome man in a black cloak. He has a large book open in one hand and is looking down at it. “Lilliana Bluejeans. Seventeen deaths and not one visit to the Astral plane.” He looks up at her, eyes flashing with what almost seems like delight. “That is-” he snaps the book shut and it vanishes- “until now.”
8th bird bluejeans child and when Lup left, so did she.
Read on AO3
Pain sears through Lilliana's lower back, and she feels her blood coating the stone floor beneath her. Her mom cradles her and says, "I'm sorry, sweetheart, I'm so sorry."
She tries to say something in return, but her tongue feels like lead and her skull is full of concrete. Her vision blurs and she fights to keep her eyes open.
"Go to sleep, baby girl. I'll fix it," her own voice starts to slur a bit, having been slashed with the same poisoned knife, "we'll get you back. Everything will be okay, go to sleep."
As much as she wants to fight it, she can't. The poison spreads through her quickly and stops her heart. Everything goes dark for a moment or two, then she opens her eyes on a beach. She looks out over an endless black sea with spots of light scattered throughout. She can hear voices and laughter as waves come in and pull back with those lights inside them.
"Well, well, well," says a voice from behind her, "what do we have here?" She turns and sees a handsome man in a black cloak. He has a large book open in one hand and is looking down at it. "Lilliana Bluejeans. Seventeen deaths and not one visit to the Astral plane." He looks up at her, eyes flashing with what almost seems like delight. "That is-" he snaps the book shut and it vanishes- "until now."
Before she can say anything in response, he summons a weapon and, for the second time in five minutes, she gets slashed with a blade. This time, she opens her eyes inside a square stone room, with a small barred window on one side and the opposite wall made up entirely of bars. A jail cell. The man stands on the other side of the bars looking awfully pleased with himself.
"What the fuck, man?" She grabs the bars and tries to shake them. They stay firmly in place. "What gives?"
"I've been looking for you and your lot. This is the-"
"Are you doing an accent?"
The man splutters. "No."
"That's definitely not what you sounded like on the beach."
The man huffs in annoyance. "This," he says, his voice normal, "is the Eternal Stockade. It's where death criminals and necromancers like yourself are kept until it's decided that you can be released into the sea."
"I'm not a necromancer!"
"Oh- oh really? Did you miss the part where I said you'd died seventeen times? Because, you see, most people only die once. And if you're not a necromancer, how about-" that book appears in his hands again- "Barry Bluejeans, 22 deaths as well as being a lich? Hm? I don't suppose you would also know a lich named Lup Taaco with 26 deaths. Or Magnus Burnsides with 19. Or- or how about my favourite? Merle Highchurch with 57 deaths. All of which appeared in my bounties out of the blue, along with yours, over a year ago. How do you explain that? All that death and not one visit to Kravitz?"
Lilli purses her lips and sucks on her teeth. "It was an accident?"
Kravitz, unimpressed, vanishes the book and grabs the bars too, leaning in towards her. "Where are the rest of them?"
She scoffs. "Like I'd tell you that."
"I might let you out sooner if you cooperate."
"Or I'll get out of here when my lich mom tells my lich dad what happened and they revive me."
"I'll just track them down then. Reviving someone takes a lot of necromantic power, and I can track that."
"Not theirs."
"Oh? Why's that?"
Lilli pushes back off the bars and turns away. "Wouldn't you like to know."
Kravitz is silent for a moment. He says, "I'll come back when you've had time to think."
There's the sound of fabric tearing, and when she turns back around, he's gone. She slides down the wall and sits against the stone floor. She wouldn't think that a spirit would be able to feel physical sensations, but there's a chill in this cell that permeates her, and now that she's been left with her thoughts, there's a dull ache in her lower back where the knife got her. She sighs, tips her head back, and waits to be revived.
She doesn't know how long she's been in there, but she knows it's been too long. They didn't revive people often during their travels, it was a lot of effort for something the universe was going to do on its own anyway, but the few times they did, it never took this long. The one who died always said it felt like no time at all.
She's trying not to think too hard about it when that ripping sound happens again. Kravitz steps through, and grabs the bars of her cell. "Where are they?" He demands, glaring at where she's sitting. She gives him a questioning look and he says, "the liches. Lup's count went up shortly after yours, and Barry's went up a few months later. They're both in their lich forms, they should be practically beacons to my senses. Where are they?"
Her dad died few months after her? How long has it been since then? "How should I know? You locked me in ghost jail."
"Do they have a hideout? A lair? Where would they go?"
She shrugs. "If they're anywhere, they're with all the other mystery bounties." She grins. "Are you sure you're qualified for this? You can't even track down seven bounties in one room. Some patron of death."
Kravitz sneers at her. "There are two more liches in this world at risk of losing themselves and harming countless people-"
"You do realize you're asking me to sell out my parents, right?"
He gives a grunt of frustration and turns back to his rift. "I'll never understand how you necromancers pick your morals."
"I'm not a necromancer," she calls after him. He's stepping through his rift, but she pushes herself up and grabs the bars, yelling at his back, "I didn't even die on purpose! Just leave them alone! Let them-" but he's already gone. She shouts in frustration and unsuccessfully tries to shake the bars. "We weren't trying to die!" Her voice echoes through the haunting stone corridors, mingling with all the other despaired cries of souls in their cells. She falls to her knees and rests her forehead against one of the bars. "Why is this taking so long?" She whispers to herself. She looks up to the small barred window, "what are you guys doing out there?"
She sits back in her spot against the wall and more unmeasurable time passes. She tries to tune out all the anguished souls around her. Sometimes new cries join them, and sometimes she can hear Kravitz talking to other souls. One time, he's walking past her cell, and she doesn't know what comes over her but she calls out to him.
He stops, and looks at her curiously. She stands and he faces her properly. "Look," she says, "I'm never going to sell out my family. But I'm not a necromancer. None of us died that much on purpose. My parents made themselves liches because it was useful to our situation. Can I just- are you the one in charge? Just give me an- an audience, or something, where I can explain everything. This is where we were supposed to be happy and safe. I can't be dead already. We'd only just started our lives here. I should've been revived by now, which I know you wouldn't like, but if you knew our situation you'd have to make an exception."
He just looks at her for a few long moments. The silence hangs over them. "I know what this is," he says, "you're desperate."
She rolls her eyes. "Sure I am. I'm dead and I don't want to miss too much time with my family, so won't you just hear me out?" He raises his eyebrows at her. She frowns. "What?"
"You don't want to miss too much time?"
"Duh. You said my dad died a few months after me. That sucks, I don't want to be away from them for months."
He crosses his arms. "Lilliana, you've been dead for nearly six years."
It's like a slap in the face and a punch to the gut and falling into ice cold water. "You're lying," she says around the lump in her throat.
"I'm not."
"You're full of shit," she starts raising her voice, "you piece of shit motherfucking asshole, you're lying to me!" She tries to shake the ever unmoving bars, "you heartless bitch let me GO! I don't belong here! I'm going to be revived and you can't stop it you shitty lying reaper!"
"I'll leave you be," he says, walking away.
"FUCK YOU!" She screams after him, ghostly tears starting to roll down her cheeks. She stumbles back away from the bars until her back hits a wall and she falls to the ground. She brings her knees to her chest and sobs.
Six years. How has it been six years? She's never even felt a tingle of magic trying to bring her back. Surely they've tried? Her mama said she was going to fix it. She said they'd bring her back. Even if they're being hunted by Kravitz and dealing with the fallout of the war, they must be working on it. But why is it taking so long? Why is she still here? Why have they abandoned her?
She sits there and lets even more time pass without her. She tries to feel for magic reaching for her soul, tugging her back to life, but there's nothing. Just her and her spirit in a dingy cell in the afterlife.
Then there's someone standing over her. She lifts her head, and it's Kravitz. On her side of the bars this time. He holds a hand out to her. She curls in tighter, "what do you want?"
"You asked to explain and-" he sighs heavily- "I just let the biggest bounty I've ever encountered off the hook, so the Raven Queen has agreed to hear you out."
She doesn't take his hand just yet. "How long has it been? Since I died?"
"A little under ten years, now." She would throw up, if she could. "But, hey," he says, looking... oddly sheepish, "better late than never?"
He's got a point, and she doesn't want to be dead any longer, so she takes his hand and lets him pull her to her feet. He links their arms together and walks her through the bars of her cell and down the halls of the Stockade. She can feel the eyes of the other souls all on her. They reach the exit and step out onto the beach. The light breeze over the sea is a welcome break from the stale interior of the prison. With her arm being held by Kravitz, she's able to walk with him over the top of the sea, the lights of free souls dancing underneath their feet. He takes her to another island with a towering, dark palace, then through black marble hallways until she finds herself standing in front of a goddess.
She towers above her, sitting in a tall black throne. She has a raven skull for a head and skeletal hands, one of which caresses a raven at her side. The rest of her is hidden in layers of heavy black robes.
"Lilliana Bluejeans," her voice comes from every direction, "my Kravitz tells me you'd like to explain yourself. I have made some allowances recently, so I have decided to allow you this as well. Don't waste it."
She explains everything. The Institute, the Light, the ship, the Hunger, the cycles, dying, regenerating, dying again. She explains the relics and the wars and how she and her mom left to find and hide the relics, and what went awry. She explains that she expected to be brought back ages ago, but she hasn't been and she doesn't know why. She tells the Raven Queen that she just wants her family to be safe and happy.
"Why do your friends not remember?" The Raven Queen asks.
Lilli cocks her head. "I'm sorry?"
"When I saw them," Kravitz says, "they said they had never died. They were surprised when I read them their bounties."
"They were probably lying to get out of it. Though our style wasn't always very diplomatic so that surprises me."
"Didn't seem like they were lying."
"Then I don't know," she snaps, "you kept me in a cell for ten years, remember?"
"Nevertheless," the Raven Queen interjects, "this is most certainly an exceptional situation. I will grant you a construct and wipe your bounty so you may continue a life on the Material plane, under the condition you work with my Kravitz as a reaper."
"What about the others?"
"...I will allow a respite on their bounties until we may have a discussion at another time."
Lilli bows her head and thanks her. She beckons her closer to her throne, then reaches down and touches a skeletal finger to her forehead. It's like an electric shock shoots straight down her spine, and she feels it tingle all the way through her body. Suddenly she feels so much more solid, feels the familiar weight of red fabric settling over her shoulders. She takes a breath and feels a pair of lungs inflate, pushing a ribcage out, and her chest rises. She exhales, and her chest lowers. She can feel a heartbeat. It's faint and slow, but it's there. She's alive.
Kravitz takes her away. She wants to find her family and hug them and kiss them and scream at them about why the fuck she was left as a ghost for ten years, but he insists on doing training stuff first. He tries to get her to use a scythe and she kindly informs him that if she can't use a bow and arrow as her main weapon, she will use a scythe on him. He teaches her how to sense and track necromantic and undead energy and she says, "I want to find my dad."
He laughs a little bit. "You can try, but I've been a reaper for centuries, and even when I'm actively looking he evades me."
She ignores him and shuts her eyes, reaching her senses out to the world like he taught her. They snake through Faerun, ignoring rituals and vampires and zombies until- there.
It's not the magic of a lich, but it's magic that's uniquely Twosun, uniquely her dad, built to hide away the undead. Kravitz never found him because he didn't know what to look for. But she does. And she found it.
She opens her eyes. "Got it," she says, standing. Kravitz splutters in surprise, but she ignores his questions and is through a rift before he can follow.
Her rift brings her to a snow-covered rocky pathway. She walks carefully along until she can feel her dad's magic radiating out, concealing the entrance of a cave. She breathes deeply, taking in fresh air for the first time in years, and steps over the threshold.
In the cave, there's a chest to one side, a tank filled with green stuff at the back, and a table opposite the chest, covered in papers. Then there's her dad, in all his lichy glory. He's in the middle of the floor, face (or lack thereof) in his hands, red magic crackling around him.
She doesn't want to startle him, he doesn't seem to be doing well, but he needs to see her. He needs to know she's okay. She takes a tentative step forward and says, "dad?"
His head shoots up, and she can imagine his eyes as wide as saucers. "Lilliana?"
"Hi, daddy."
He floats up, "you're dead. I saw your body- I saw both of your bodies," more magic crackles around him, "you're dead."
"I made a deal. I thought you would bring me back, but nothing ever happened and they finally let me explain and they gave me a construct. I'm okay now, I'm back." Her chest is tight and she has to ask, "why didn't you bring me back?"
The magic around him settles as he calms some. "I didn't know- I didn't want to believe you were gone. I never knew for sure until I saw you recently."
"Didn't mom tell you? She said she would."
He quiets and bows his head, "...I don't know where she is."
"She has to be out here somewhere. I know the Astral plane doesn't have her." He doesn't respond and Lilli wrings her hands. "And I'm sorry." He looks up at her and she says, "we never should have left. Especially not the way we did. She was going to go alone and I caught her and we should've waited and had a meeting with everyone, but we didn't and I'm sorry." She swallows around the lump in her throat, "we never meant to not come back, but now I've been dead for ten years and I don't know what's happening." She looks deep into the darkness of his hood, wishing he was corporeal so he could hug her. "Why are you here? Where are the others? Why don't they remember that they've died?"
He seems to calm completely from the distress she'd found him in and he comes right up to her. "I forgive you, sweetheart. I'm just glad you're okay now." He sighs, "as for everything else... Lucretia erased everything."
Her eyes widen. "What?"
"She took her journals and fed them to Fisher, erasing the relics, the war, the Hunger, everything." He reaches a ghostly hand up to cup her cheek, "she even took you and mom away from me."
"Why? Why would she do that?"
"Same reason you two left. To try and stop the wars. She created a whole secret society to collect the relics. And six months ago, she recruited Taako, Magnus, and Merle. I don't know how, but they remember the relics and the wars but nothing else."
"She wants to put up her shield."
"Yeah."
"And Dav?"
"He's a shell of himself, without the mission. He's with Lucretia."
She chews on this for a second, then looks a him very seriously. "I will come and see you again, but I need to talk to her."
She can feel his sad, soft smile. "I figured you would."
"Do you know where she is?"
He nods and moves past her, through his wards to the outside. She follows, and he puts an incorporeal hand on her shoulder and points to the sky. "See that little moon? It's fake. It's the base for her secret society."
She closes her eyes and reaches her senses out in that direction and, yes, there she is. She can feel her soul. She opens them and looks over at her dad. "I love you."
He does the motion to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, but it does nothing. "I love you too, and I'll see you again soon."
"Of course."
She tears another rift, focusing on Lucretia's energy this time. She steps through to an office, and in a fancy plush chair, she can see her best friend and sister. She was going to approach her calmly, but all her emotions bubble over and- "LUCRETIA."
She jumps out of her chair and whirls around to face her. The spell on her hand dies when she sees her and her jaw drops. "Lilli- where have you been?"
"We'll get to my mistakes here in a second, what the fuck did you do? Why did I have to talk to my dad in a cave about how you-" she cuts herself off. She blinks. "Why are you old?" Ten years shouldn't have aged her that much.
She shrinks in on herself a touch. "Do you want some tea? We can talk."
A few minutes later, they're sitting across from each other, warm mugs in hand, the expanse of Lucretia's desk and all their mistakes separating them.
Lucretia breaks the silence first, "how do you remember?"
"I'm dead, Luce."
She inhales sharply. "When?"
“Before... whatever this is. We were stupid. Let our guards down."
Her eyes cast downward. "And Lup?"
"Also dead, but after that I have no idea. She's not in the Astral plane. I thought she'd be with dad but she's not."
"Taako has her umbrella."
"Good."
The silence stretches between them.
"The Hunger's coming," Lucretia says.
"When?"
"The scouts showed up last midsummer."
"You're going to sever the bonds of this world. It'll kill it."
"I have to try."
They go silent again. It's terrible. They used to talk late into the night, giggling between themselves until they passed out. They could tell each other everything. But now Lucretia's 50 and she's 20 and there's ten years of death and loneliness and mistakes separating them.
Lilli sets her mug down, barely touched, and pushes herself up. "I should go."
"So soon?"
She avoids looking at her. "I just wanted you to see that I'm okay. You probably have shit to do."
She tears open a rift and is about to step through when, "Lilli?" She looks at Lucretia, who's stood up now. "I'm sorry."
She nods. "Me too. But I'm not the one of the ones you need to apologise to."
Then she steps through the rift back to the Astral plane, leaving Lucretia to her plan.
Im bored so here's the first two scenes of a fic i may or may not end up writing
Dirt and gravel crunch as the car pulls into the trodden-down parking lot of the Pinemeadow Village Church. Lup and Barry get out and walk to the wooden double doors. Pulling them open, they’re welcomed by warm lighting, hardwood floor, and the original carved pews all facing forward to the altar.
“This is cute,” Lup says, letting the doors fall closed behind them.
“Where’s Merle?” Barry looks around, “not many places to hide around here.”
Lup cups her hands over her mouth and calls, “Merle!” Getting no response, she tuts and walks up the aisle. She hops up onto the altar and cups her hands again, facing the ceiling, “Meeerrrrleeee!!!” Looking around, she sees a door off the side of the sanctuary. She opens it to see a set of stairs going up, and a set going down. Vaguely remembering Merle saying something about living quarters in the church, she shouts into the stairwell, “Merle! We’re here! Better get down here soon, or we’re gonna start digging up graves!”
A faint call of “don’t!” travels down to her. A few creaks of aged wood and old man noises later, Merle’s in front of her. “You can’t dig up bodies before I’ve even started the damn job.”
“Then you should know better than to leave a few bored necromancers alone with an accessible graveyard. We don’t want a repeat of The Incident.”
“That was one time,” Barry says indignantly. “It’s not my fault the spirit gave me the wrong plot. They wanted their watch. I was doing a good thing.”
Lup snickers and walks over to give him a kiss on the cheek, “I know, babe. I jest.”
“So what do you think?” Merle asks.
“It’s nice,” she says. “But more christian than your usual deal. What’s up with that?”
“Sounds like they haven’t been able to keep a guy for the last while. Something about it being haunted.”
“It’s a 100 year old church with a graveyard,” Barry says, “of course it’s haunted.”
“So you didn’t invite us over because you miss and love your family, you just need our services.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
Lup puts a hand to her chest. “You wound me, Merle.”
“Will you do it though?”
She rests her arm on Barry’s shoulder and leans against him. “Yeah, why not.”
“What kind of presence are we talking? Spiritual? Demonic? Apparitions? How many are there?”
“I dunno, I didn’t ask.”
Barry sighs. “Of course you didn’t.”
“I don’t know shit about ghosts! That’s your thing!”
“We’ll have to come back later tonight with proper equipment,” he says. “Do you have a spare key we can take? It might help if you’re not here either. We don’t know how they might feel about you.”
“Yeah, I got one.” He crosses back to the door to the stairs and pauses, turning back to them and pointing an accusatory finger, “and don’t raise any dead while I’m gone!”
~
“I’m gonna head to the basement if you want to try upstairs.” Lup holds a hand in front of her candle so it doesn’t flicker out as she turns to talk to Barry. Using bright white flashlights is a mistake the big-shots always make. There’s a reason rituals and seances are done with candles.
“Sounds good,” he says. The church sanctuary has offered them nothing of note tonight. It’s a shame, because it’s ripe for a haunting. But they’ve been in here for an hour and need to move on. They should try the graveyard later, too. And if they don’t find anything tonight, they’ll just have to try another night.
She walks carefully down the old creaky wooden steps, the flame of her candle flickering with every move. She holds it up once she reaches the bottom, it’s a big stone room that’s been retroactively split in two. The first half, where she stands right now, is a Sunday school room. A little table and some small chairs, a bright carpet to soften the concrete floor, and boxes of toys and art supplies.
“Is anyone here with me?” It’s cliché, but Lup’s never found a better way to start these things. “My name is Lup. I’d like to talk to you, would you like to talk to me? …You don’t have to show yourself, but can you give me a sign that you’re here?”
Silence. None of the teddy bears so much as twitch. She walks to the door that leads to the other half of the basement. This side is storage, shelves and boxes packed with decorations, choir robes, old church records, and god knows what else. She steps over the threshold and her candle flickers violently. It’s promising.
“Are you in here?” She takes another step, and her candle flickers again, much more than it physically should. “You can stay hidden, if you want, but you don’t have to. I’m here to help you.” Another flicker. “I can’t imagine how lonely it must be down here.” The candle goes out. She inhales sharply at the sudden darkness, and blinks a few times to let her eyes adjust. Then, behind a shelf near the back of the room, she sees a faint white glow. “Hello?” She cautiously walks forward. As she gets closer, the glow’s shape becomes sharper, more defined. The spirit of a young girl in a nightgown with curls falling around her shoulders peers out from behind the edge of the shelving. She couldn’t be older than four or five. Lup smiles softly, swallowing the pang in her chest that always comes with the spirits of children, “hi there.” The girl shrinks further behind the shelving when Lup takes another step forward, so she stops. “Hey, it’s alright,” she crouches to put her candle on the ground, then sits. “I won’t come any closer, okay?” The girl peers back out at her, her eyes wide. She’s coloured in greyscale, as all spirits are, but Lup could swear her eyes look like two different shades. “My name is Lup.”
“I know,” the girl says softly. “I heard you.”
Okay, good. This is good. Not only did the spirit appear, but she’s talking. “What’s your name?”
“Mommy says I’m not s’posed to talk to strangers.”
Lup bites her lip, thinking that one over. “Well, your mommy’s very smart to tell you that.” If she can’t get a name, she’ll try for something else. “Where is she?”
“She left.”
The poor baby. “Oh, I’m sorry. That must’ve made you sad.” The girl shrugs, her eyes cast downward. “What about your dad?”
“I don’t like him.”
“Why not?”
“He’s not very nice.”
“Oh…” she doesn’t really want to ask the next part, “did he hurt you?”
The girl is quiet for a long moment, Lup sits very still. “He’s not very nice,” she repeats, softer.
“I’m sorry,” she struggles to find something to say. “I had grownups who weren’t very nice to me when I was little too. I know how bad it can feel.”
“No you don’t,” she whispers.
Damn it. Fuck. Rookie mistake, Lup. Saying you know how they feel when they’re dead. Though she still can’t tell if this little girl knows she’s dead or not. She decides to change the subject. “Why are you hiding in here? There’s lots of nice toys out in the other room.”
She looks up at Lup, then past her to the door. She casts her eyes down again. “They’re for other kids.”
“Well I’m sure they wouldn’t mind-”
“Lup!”
She startles as her name is suddenly called. The girl’s head snaps up and her eyes are wide. “Who is that?” she asks, her voice quiet.
Fuck, she’s scared. Lup tries to placate her, “it’s just my husband. His name is Barry, he-”
She whimpers just as the glow of Barry’s candlelight starts to fill the room, and Lup flinches as her own candle suddenly bursts back to life beside her. When she looks back to the shelf, the girl is gone.
“Lup? You find anything?”
She tuts, picking up her candle and standing. “I did, but you just scared her away.”
He cringes. “Sorry.”
She shakes her head. “It’s fine, let’s go,” she shoves him lightly to get him to step back out of the room. She’s about to close the door but hesitates with her hand on the knob. “I know I don’t know your name,” she says into the room, “but I’ll come back another night and we can talk more, alright? We won’t be interrupted.” She waits for a beat. Two. Three. There’s no response, so she closes the door and heads for the stairs.
Plane hopper au really is just an excuse to make whatever crossovers i want
Anyway a cycle where lilli ends up in a few years post canon gravity falls, but she had met ford in a different reality when he was still trapped in different dimensions and such, so when she shows up ford is like "lilliana?" And lilli's like ?????? And ford says "it's standford pines" and lilli's like omg ford I'd almost forgotten about you! You got old lmao
And then she hangs out for the year, puts protections around the shack. Maybe finds the light. She and ford chat about different dimensions. All that good stuff
