I headcanon maya to be ace. I’m not sure if I think she’s aroace or ace panro, but either way I think I headcanon her and Kreig’s relationship as queerplatonic. dunno why it just strikes me like that.
so i wrote a lil thing. takes place post-fuster cluck
i like ava and her potential for development and growth as a character. i know a lot of people hate her, and even though i don’t know why i do, i like her. i know she’s not well written. i already know so please don’t come at me with that. idk why but i don’t really care how she’s badly written. i like her okay. alright i just wanted to get that out of the way
‘Wait.’
‘What is it?’, Zane asked, rubbing his head.
‘Maya was there? In-in his mind?’ Ava pressed.
The vault hunters paused.
‘Ava,’ Tannis spoke, ‘She’s not… really there. She’s about as real as the margarita in my hand.’
‘But… you don’t have a margarita...’
‘Exactly. I want to have a margarita, and I can visualize the margarita, think of what it looks and tastes like, but it’s not really there. The Maya in Kreig’s mind is just as material as she would be if you pretended she was standing next to you.’
‘Actually, she, uh…’ Amara started, ‘Well, the… the things that were happening in that… in there, were pretty independent of his intentions.’
‘He’s not exactly in control of the place,’ Moze finished. ‘Everything in there kind of has a ‘mind’ of its own.’
‘Ironically.’ FL4K added.
‘Hold on. Let me grab an echo.’ A recorder flew across the room and stopped to hover beside Tannis. She clicked it on. Without touching it, of course. ‘Are you saying that, memory though she may be, Maya is functioning as an entire consciousness within Kreig’s mind?’
‘It seemed like--’
‘I don’t care!’ Ava cut Amara off. ‘I don’t care if she’s ‘really real’ or not! Let me see her!’
Tannis sighed. ‘Fine. Ahem--Kreig? Do you mind hosting another guest for a little while? ………Good. Because I don’t know if I’d be able to keep her from trying to worm her way through my technology, misusing it, condemning you to permanent and debilitating brain damage and erasing her own existence from the universe, anyway.’ She turned back to Ava. ‘Alright. In you go.’
……………
‘Uh, welcome, I guess--’
‘Where’s Maya?’
‘Hold on--Ava?’
‘MAYA!’ The girl immediately sprinted off toward the sound of the Siren’s voice.
‘... Nice to meet you too.’
‘FRIGID FROGS.’
‘Yeah, that was a little rude…’
Maya nearly fell over from the force of Ava’s tackle-hug.
‘MAYAAAAAAHAHAAAA!!’
It was a good five minutes of sobbing and borderline strangulation, if that was even possible for, as Maya put it, ‘whatever this is,’ before Ava let go.
‘You-hic-you look weird. I don’t-hic-I don’t care!’
Maya snorted, but was holding back ghostly tears of her own. ‘Observant as always. Did you miss me?’
‘Don’t… don’t tell anyone I cried, okay?’
‘Won’t tell a soul.’
……………
The two Sirens were sitting side-by-side on the ground, leaning against the tree outside the portal to Maya’s memory.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t take your training as seriously as I should have. I just wanted to be a Vault Hunter so bad...’
‘Well, now that you’ve got my powers, now that you are a Vault hunter’ Maya grabbed Ava’s left hand and held her arm up, ‘How does it feel?’ A little snarky, she added, ‘Is it everything you dreamed?’
‘Yes! It’s amazing! It’s everything I’ve ever wanted since… well, ever! I love it!’
Maya almost seemed taken aback for a moment, but then covered it up with a grin. ‘I’m glad you’re enjoying it.’ Her smile fell. ‘But… about how I left you on Sanctuary when the Vault Team and I went to Promethea.’
‘I don’t want to talk about that.’
‘We need to talk about it.’
‘...’
‘I’m sorry for leaving you behind. Honestly, though, for the Vault on Promethea, if I had to make that choice again… I’d do it. But just because that was a very specific situation. In general though--I never wanted to leave you out, or deny you adventure. But you do know why I did it, right?’
‘You were trying to protect me… but I can hold my own! I could--’
‘Ava. It’s not that I don’t trust you or your abilities. It’s just… danger is everywhere. Troy and Tyreen took Lilith’s powers. They overwhelmed even me. Both of us were experienced, seasoned fighters, Vault Hunters, Sirens. If they can do that, I don’t even want to think of what they could do to you. But I do. I can’t get it out of my head. I tried to keep you out of the fight because I didn’t want those things to happen. You’re not invincible.’
Ava looked down.
‘But... I should have taken you with me. Not to Promethea--but everything else.’ If they had been together in battle, then Ava could fight, practice, learn, but Maya would still be there to keep her safe. Ish. Safeish. Safer, at the least. ‘I just want you to know that if I could do that over again, I would. So, I’m sorry.’
Ava leaned more onto Maya’s shoulder.
‘I’m sorry too. I should have listened to you more.’
‘Yeah… I feel like I had to cut so much out of your training… buuuuuut, now that we can talk, even if it is in Kreig’s crazy Psychoscape… ’
‘We can continue training?’
‘Yep.’ Both smiled.
‘We can’t do this, like, all the time though, because Kreig’s brain--hold on. Have--have you even met Kreig yet?’
‘Uh… not really.’
‘Oh. My goodness. Okay, come on.’ Maya stood up and grabbed Ava’s hand and towed her over the the area where Kreig’s split psyches were chatting.
‘Alright. Favorite person number one, meet favorite person number two. Kreig, this is Ava, my apprentice. And Ava, this is Kreig. Vault hunter, Crimson Raider, and my boyfriend.’
‘Oh,’ Blue Kreig stood up. ‘So you’re the kid she told us about? Huh. Nice to finally meet you. I’m the sane side. And that guy over there is the--’
‘SQUISHMEAT FLESHSLAYER!’
‘Yeah. That.’
The three talked so long that they lost track of time. Not that time could be tracked easily in the weird void-like space anyway. But they shared stories of that one time, that one guy, the place with the thing. Tannis is a Siren, by the way, got her powers from an ‘Angel.’ Troy and Tyreen are dead too, the Great Vault was real. They opened two more vaults, went to Nekrotafeyo, met Typhon DeLeon, used an ancient Eridian Machine. The Destroyer was destroyed, Lilith blew up the moon.
Eventually, Tannis decided that it was time for Ava to come back to the real world. The reason being that Team Vault was meeting to discuss plans, and you should be there, since Lilith technically passed leadership down to you, but honestly leaving planning up to the group was one of the best decisions you’ve made, no offense to you of course,
‘It… it was really nice to see her again. Hey, Kreig,’
