#loner squad

[comradelup]

both taako and lucretia are well written fully realized creations with rich characters and i love exploring their strained dynamic post finale but i really wanna play in the space of them being friends post finale and every time lucretia is annoyed at taako minorly inconveniencing her he goes “what’re you gonna do? erase my memories??”

[stonedpanda69420]

Cause day and night. The lonely stoners seems to free their minds at night. They’re all alone somethings will never change. The lonely loner seems to free their mind at night.🖤✨

[comradelup]

Lucretia isn’t avoiding Taako. She’s not seeking him out, either. He seems to be avoiding her though, and she’ll respect it. It hurts, but she’ll respect it.

Then one day Taako’s in her office. He comes in, floating in the chair Magnus made him, looking anywhere but at her but still with a determined look about him.

“Hello, Taako,” she says. She doesn’t know what else to say.

“We need to talk,” he says. Right to the point, classic Taako.

“Of course,” Lucretia says, putting down the papers she was reading. She gives him all her attention in the otherwise empty room.

“I…” he starts, then sighs and tries again, “What you did was… inexcusable.”

Lucretia knows that, and she’s deeply, deeply sorry. But she doesn’t interrupt him.

“I know you’re sorry, and I know you’re cool with me not accepting that. It’s just… how?” He says that last word as he makes eye contact with her for the first time in months. She’s blown away by the raw emotion in his gaze.

“How what?” she says. She doesn’t know what else to say.

“I…” Taako cuts himself off and looks down, hands balled into fists on the arms of his chair. “I look at you and I…” He cuts himself off again with a sigh. The next words are said in a rush. “I feel so sad because I love you but I also have been hurt so badly that I don’t think I can forgive and forget.”

She sits there, gaze drifting from him to her hands folded over each other on her desk. She remembers when they first started to wrinkle, and she wondered if she’d be recognized by her family at this age. Her nail polish is new, a glossy purple olive branch extended to her when Magnus wanted to have this talk. Like teenagers gossiping at a sleepover, except the conversation topic was betrayal and the apocalypse.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” she says. It’s what she told Magnus too, and everyone else. “And you don’t have to forget what happened.”

“But I fucking miss you,” Taako says. He’s looking at her hands too. They’re shaking. “I want to get past this.”

Lucretia’s voice wobbles a little as she says, “Then why haven’t we?”

Why does she stay up late thinking about the tip of an umbrella pointed at her face? Why do the words “You fucking took everything from me!” echo in her brain? Why can’t she think of a kitchen, or a mongoose, or a stone without wanting to cry?

“I dunno,” Taako says, voice quiet.

Lucretia takes a deep breath in and lets a deep breath out. She repeats it a few times, letting those thoughts pass so she can refocus on the question. How do we get past this?

“Let’s talk about it,” she says. She’s talked about an entire decade five times now, but she knows this will be the hardest.

Taako sighs, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “I don’t want to. Not now. Can we talk about something else?”

“Of course. What did you have in mind?”

He opens one eye and cringes at her. “Did you hear what Merle did the other day?”

Oh, how couldn’t she? She nods “That was… wild.”

“Wild? That was borderline illegal!” He slaps his hand onto the arm of his chair and his incredulous expression makes her laugh before she can stop herself.

“He’s insane!” Taako says, voice pitching up in that way that clearly tells how distressed he is.

“Yeah, that was… bad.”

“How did his kids turn out normal, Lucy?” Taako asks in a distressed stage whisper. “He’s so fucking weird.”

“I have no idea,” Lucretia admits.

Her smile comes easily to her in this moment, which hasn’t happened for a while. And with the tentative promise of more in the future, the weight on her shoulders begins to lift.

[comradelup]

64 Lucretia and taako?

Taako’s angry. And he’s angry at that. When he’s angry— when he’s stressed in general, he bakes. Everyone likes cupcakes, right?

He forces himself to unclench his jaw as he’s frosting, focusing on the repetitive motion of swirling it around each one over and over. He blinks and raises his eyebrows, moving his face in order to stretch and relax the muscles.

“What are yo—”

Taako jumps, letting out an involuntary yelp. One of the cupcakes is smudged and imperfect now, and he scowls at it before turning to scowl at the source of the distraction.

Lucretia looks like a deer in headlights. “I-I’m sorry I was just seeing what you were up to I didn’t mean to—”

Taako presses a finger to the tip of her nose, effectively silencing her. Her eyes go crossed as she stares at it.

“It’s all good,” he says simply. He drops his hand and goes back to work, ignoring the messed up one as if it wasn’t even there.

“…Oh,” Lucretia says, “Okay. Is… is everything okay?”

“Yes?” Taako says, hackles rising. He doesn’t need anyone prying, certainly not this nerdy human who barely saw the world before this mission.

Okay edgelord, calm down, Taako tells himself, Luce isn’t the guilty party here.

“I just… you only bake this much when there’s something going on,” Lucretia says, unaware of Taako’s internal monologue. “Usually it’s a party or something, but I remember that giant cake you made when Lup died one cycle.”

It’s been… about five decades now. Taako’s much older than that, but he’s never spent five decades with a person— besides Lup, that is. Still, it’s a long time. He should’ve guessed that in that time these people would get to know him.

“Yeah. Yeah okay,” Taako says, putting down his tube of frosting and bracing his hands on the countertop. “I’m… kinda goin’ through it right now.”

Lucretia finally moves to sit down in one of the island chairs. She eyes the cupcakes before her but doesn’t take one without permission from him. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Taako says. No way. “I just need to get over it. …This stupid— this is stupid! I don’t need to be jealous, she’s my sister! She’s not gonna fuckin’ drop me because she’s got a boyfriend. I’m being stupid!”

Whoops. Making a promise in one breath and breaking it in the next, way to go Taako. He glares at the counter, at his frosting covered fingers, then up at Lucretia.

“I won’t tell anyone, promise,” she says, which Taako didn’t know he needed to hear. “But I think you should talk to her about it.” That, less so.

“Okay, yeah, I’ll just take advice from you, Only Child,” he says.

“I may have been born an only child but I’ve lived with Magnus for fifty years, I get what having siblings is like,” Lucretia says, with that gently joking tone of hers, “My Cain Instinct has never been better.”

When Taako doesn’t respond, she says, “Do you want coffee? I could go for some.”

He sees the olive branch, in all its caffeinated glory. Usually he’d push it away, snap it in half, even. But this time, he sighs. “Yeah, sure.”

Lucretia smiles as she stands, and Taako manages a small smile back.

<><><>

Raven’s Roost is in a constant state of sunrise. The early morning feel of being awake when no one else is yet defines Magnus’ house, and it’s a strangely good look on him. He’s grown up, with his memory of the century tied with his memory of Julia; Taako’s kind of pissed that she made him mature in a few short years when the six of them couldn’t do that in ten decades. “I guess that proves she’s one hell of a woman,” he said to Magnus, who agreed with a loving look in his eye.

Taako’s been couch surfing. A nomadic childhood plus a career in running away made him permanently restless. He’s long since worked through his jealousy of Barry and Lup’s relationship, but he’s now jealous of their work. Lup gets restless like him, but she can just go out, kick bad guy ass with her husband, and be back in time for dinner.

The reapers can teleport, so Taako’s traveling hasn’t impacted the four of them much. Whenever Taako misses one of them (or all of them…) he just picks up his stone and a portal (or three…) is carved into the air.

Right now, he’s staying at Raven’s Roost. After Wonderland, his legs have been slowly getting better, and he’s finding that he doesn’t need his wheelchair as often as usual. So Magnus is cooking him up a personalized pair of crutches that should get him back on his feet, literally.

There’s just one complication: Lucretia. (At some point she stopped being a sister and started being a complication and Taako’s getting used to it, even if it makes him want to break whatever he’s holding at the moment.) She’s staying in Raven’s Roost too, apparently this is her second home. Whenever she takes a break from her job of rebuilding the world they broke, she comes to be protected by her brother, and Magnus welcomes her with open arms. And of course he takes in Taako at the same time. Magnus is a man with a heart full of love, but a head empty of subtlety.

Taako watches the coffee pot do its thing, the smell of caffeine and drowsiness a perfect accompaniment to the dozens of windows letting in the morning light. Everything is still, and Taako’s too aware, so he notices when footsteps creep quietly into the room.

“Good morning,” she says, voice low. She’s careful not to be loud, but even her tendency to silence speaks volumes.

“Morning,” he says, much less careful. His tired voice cuts through air and stabs ears. His own twitch in annoyance at himself, but not everyone can carry themselves with as much gravitas as her.

He hears Lucretia take in a breath, about to speak, and she sighs. “Taako, I’m sorry.”

She’s said that a lot. They’ve fallen into a pattern of her trying to talk about it (it: an unspoken thing wafting between them like the smell of rotten garbage) and him ignoring her; she still hasn’t stopped trying every so often, but he still hasn’t stopped refusing her.

At his silence, she continues, rambling, “I don’t even know what to say, I know I shouldn’t have done it and I know I was cruel and I’m not asking you to forgive me or even like me but please I just want to talk.”

He doesn’t have to turn to see what she’s doing. Even when she looks and acts different, he can pick up her habits; he knows her too well. She’s probably holding up a hand, trying to hold onto a staff that isn’t there. He perfectly times his mental image of her dropping it in frustration with the sound of her hand colliding with the fabric of her clothes.

When he’s still silent, she says, “Please?”

“Do you want coffee? I could go for some,” he says. He’s already rising up in his floating chair to pull out two mugs, setting them on the counter.

“…I’d love some. Thank you.”

He looks over his shoulder at her as she sits at the island. The kitchen is similar to the one on the Starblaster; seeing as Magnus built the house himself, Taako guesses it isn’t coincidence. She offers him an uneasy smile and he manages a small smile back, unable to make eye contact.

“It’s two sugars, right?” he asks, as if he doesn’t have it memorized.

“Yes,” she says, as if she doesn’t know he has it memorized.

[comradelup]

IDK IF ANYONE ELSE IS INTO IT BUT I'M HAVING A GREAT TIME, whenever you've got the headcanon juice, I wanna know about the personal relationships in that BOTW au! How does this family get along, I NEED TO KNOW!

I’M SO GLAD YOU ENJOY MY BULLSHITTERY! the relationships i have developed the most include taako, since he’s the main character, but i can probably come up with things to say about anyone akdnakdj

it’s under the cut! since i always have a lot to say about my botw au apparently

a big one is taako and lucretia, which i explored in the ficlet! she’s trying Very Hard to keep the world safe and he’s trying Very Hard to save it. she also kinda plays the role of king rhoam in the sense that she’s the first person he meets when he wakes up, so their relationship is instantly strong to taako, even when he remembers next to nothing. they love each other 🥺

another big one, possibly THE biggest one, is taako and lup, obviously. even when he first wakes up and is just hearing her voice, he knows she’s incredibly important to him. she feels like home, he feels safe at the mere mention of her name, all that poetic sappy junk. to him, saving his sister is more important than saving the world. they grew up as the only person the other could truly confide in, as they both understand the weight of a royal legacy to uphold. a lot of the memories taako recalls are of them being goofy, but there are definitely a few genuine ones in there :’)

a relationship i really like in this is taakitz, because of kravitz’s unique role in taako’s life. kravitz grew up with a functionally immortal mom who taught him of seven brave heroes who were destined to save the world. unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out, but he learns that one is sleeping and will soon wake up? and he’s the former king of faerun? what?? that’s so cool! so of course, when he meets the king taako, he has to get over a little bit of hero worship— which taako hates. but even after that, he starts to go from adoration of a hero figure to crushing on a friend. as taako starts to take shape in kravitz’s mind as a real person and not a walking myth, he starts to genuinely respect him. it also doesn’t hurt that kravitz likes to research dead guardians that turn out to be not-so-dead, so taako is constantly jumping in and saving his ass. kravitz can only handle so many “taako looks away from an explosion all cool-like” before he tells him how he feels. luckily for him, taako’s equally as infatuated with the genius, sarcastic scientist with the bad fake accents

(wow that’s a big taakitz paragraph. anyway…)

blupjeans is another good ship in this au! barry’s a nerdy scientist researching ancient technology and lup’s a nerdy queen fabled to carry the blood of a goddess in her veins. it’s a classic story, of course. he was a boy, she was a girl and all that. to make it angsty tho, there’s a botw post going around about how there is a hard to hear SOS signal in all the divine beast theme songs. i like to imagine barry’s is in piano keys. also, in his final moments, he definately feels bad for making lup fight the hunger on her own. …but it’s all good in the end! lup brings her boy back and smooches his brains out and they live happily ever after :D

a lotta relationships stay the same tho! angus is an adorable little magic apprentice no matter what au he’s in, the IPRE are as inseparable and familial as always, yadda yadda yadda. and OH I FORGOT. in the og post i didn’t even include it, but the great deku tree is replaced by the fischer and junior! taako gets along well with them once he actually gets through the lost woods. speaking off, after you’re through the fog it starts to take on a real galaxy effect thanks to them, which is fun. also, i like to imagine the koroks are instead tiny little living wooden ducks :-)

and uhhhh… that’s about all i have! i’m sure i could think more closely about specific relationships if anyone was curious, but these are the main ones that i’ve thought of on my own

[thatcrazeything]

You know what’s great. When somebody asks you if you wanna eat lunch with them out of pity. I’ll just stay in my loner corner.

[emptyh]

Nobody fucks with me.

[guiltybodiesx]

I swear to everything good and holy I'm going to be lonely as SHIT this year I have like no fiends bc I've been realizing how shitty all my "friends" have been on top of that, how shitty i am. they've all moved on to different people. but can I really blame them. I'll be lucky if I even have someone to sit with at lunch when my boyfriend isn't at school. someone be my friend we can sit in the grass and listen to cool music and talk about our day.