Thiago was not expecting to be dad. Not now, nor anytime in the future. He knew how he was, and the life he led. Neither of which were suited for parenthood even though since his own father passed the idea of what kind of one he would be refused to leave his head.
Would he be able to give them half as good as a childhood as the one his father gave him? Would he leave them grieving and wondering how much of their father they knew like he did?
Should someone that shot a 15 year old in the foot be trusted with a child at all?
In the end these questions didn’t matter. Because he had a kid now and she was a sentient egg.
Fortunately, his work on the island was much less dangerous than it was back in brazil. So he could bring hope with him on his daily rounds. She seemed to like it a lot, which was a good thing because he wasn’t sure what he would do with her if she didnt other than leave her in the house with cesar but she spent more than enough time with the hacker already.
Before they had learned what liz had been up to and saved hope, thiago had been spending a lot of time with one badboyhalo. After he had saved dapper bad insisted on giving him a gift, which ended up being a whole thing of enchanted gear. He took some of it but he kept a couple pieces of his old set that liz and cesar had enchanted on, and the rest in an unsorted chest somewhere in his room like everything else he couldn’t get rid of.
He kept hanging around bad after that. Mostly because he was a real good source of information on pretty much everything happening on the island, but also because something he said to Thiago once wouldn’t seem to leave his mind.
Bad was asking about what thiago did before the island, around a month into their stay here they decided it would be ok to tell people the truth as long as they didn’t go into too much detail, so he did. Only for bad to reply “why would somebody marked by death want to fight her creatures?”
Bad tiled his head like some kind of owl. His pure white eyes staring through thiago from under his hood. “Or at least i think it’s death. Maybe not our goddess but something similar.”
He looked thiago up and down once more. “Do you not feel it?”
The urge to throw off his hoodie and run to the nearest mirror to double check that the symbol of that fucking place was still gone was tempting. But thiago knew he didnt need it. He knew what it was like for his hand to not be his hand and this wasn’t it.
He shook his head, forcing his tongue to move from where it had glued itself to the top of his mouth, “No.”
Bad made a noise of curiosity in response but moved on. Thiago wasn’t sure if it was out of noticing his discomfort or something else entirely but he thanked the change of pace.
Unfortunately, the fact that he even got that bit of information in the first place meant he needed to go back and continue to prod for more
So far hed gotten out of bad that only the rest of team was “marked” like this. Some clearly were by an entity like thiago, cesar and arthur (bad upset about blood), but with joui and liz it was unclear. Same went for the mark itself, which bad described as almost being fuzzy. Like fog was obscuring his vision of it.
He was pretty sure that this was all bad knew, but bad was bad and liked to be a tricky little shit. One of his coworkers once wrote an article just for fun about creatures from folklore across the world. He was bored on his break and read it which was a good thing because he was not unconvinced that bad wasnt some sort of Irish fae creature. It definitely wouldn’t be the strangest thing a person was on the island (that was etoiles).
Even if bad didnt know anything else about their team, he definitely knew a lot about what happened on island, Especially when it came to politics, or as liz liked to call it, a telenovela pretending to be politics. Which was a blessing in disguise as it made writing about it much less boring on thiago’s part.
Hope was with him today since her quests had already been completed for the week. They bounced across the map as he handed out the latest information about the islands happenings as well as gathered it.
Cellbit and roier were off being sickeningly romantic somewhere and hope asked very politely if she could go say hi to him. Not that thiago would ever say to no to something asked as sweetly as that, he told her yes since Cellbit was technically also her dad even if it was only like 5% since he helped in the investigation to find her.
They then headed to pierre’s to restock on some potions, only to find him and maximus… maybe arguing? Thiago wasnt really sure but it could have also been flirting, or manipulation. It could go many many different ways with those two and honestly even though it was his job to know, thiago didnt wanna know. Neither did he want hope to have to witness it. So he quickly sweeped her up into his arms and turned back around to the teleporter.
She gave him a look of silent curiosity but didn’t ask. He was thankful for it today as opposed to usual worriedness. She had been alone in one spot for so long, and had so much curiosity about the world. Thaigo (and the rest for the team) wanted her to be cautious of the what she was getting into yes, but he also wanted her to feel safe enough to be able to run up to a flower she liked without asking if it was ok first.
Deciding to foster her curiosity at the cost of having to try and find a child friendly way to explain whatever the fuck pierre and max had going on, he told her that they were having a private conversation that he didnt want to interrupt. Hope, who knew all about private conversations because of her secretive ass parents, nodded seriously at this and thaigo took a mental note to explain to her at some point that not all private conversations were matters of life and death.
Next they headed to bad’s, who thaigo knew had a good stock of potions he wouldn’t mind missing if it meant keeping an egg safe. He wasnt there and a look at the map told him he was off on some adventure with dapper most likely in search of creature that the kid wanted to tame.
There was a couple other people awake but he really didnt feel like crossing thousands of blocks to go and find them, so instead the two wandered about spawn. Hope taking the lead and investigating the different buildings up close. She already knew at this point that her pais and mae where not the people to ask about how crafting materials worked and seemed happy just to silently investigate.
In the past he would have expected it to be a good break from taking care of a kid, a time to collect his thoughts. Instead he just watched her and his heart felt warm. No thoughts of the what he was gonna write about next, or how everyone back in brazil was doing drifted through his head. All he could focus on was the way hope would walk up to block, completely transfixed by it, bend down to get a look at it better, maybe tilt her head or touch it lightly before moving on to the next one.
Or at least it was all he could focus on till a sound caught his attention. Mentally, he praised the fact that his still functioning ear worked perfectly if not better than that before turning to look in the direction of the sound. In it’s place he saw “charlie” slimecicle teleporting off somewhere.
This was odd for a couple of reasons. The first being that slime did not wake up often. The second was that when he did he usually hanged around big groups of people and the third was that thiago wasnt sure where he got enough exp to teleport in the first place.
Ok, maybe that last one was a stretch but still. Call it investogators intuition or whatever you want but there was something odd happening here and thaigo wanted to know what.
A light tug on his pants brought him out of his head. He read hope’s sign pai, who was that?
“He’s another islander my dear” he replied
She broke the sign before placing down another, Where is he going?
Hope stared at him. It was a stare she most definitely learned from cesar and liz because it screamed bullshit
“He really could be going home,” hope’s stare persisted in intensity “buuuuuuuuut your instinct is right. Theres something fishy about this. I feel it too”
Are you gonna go check? she didnt have to write the and can i come for thiago to know she was thinking it.
“Yep. Do you wanna go teleport to pai cellbits and go hang out with him and tio roier while i do?”
I can go there if you want.
He frowned. A sentence like that was the hope equivalent of saying no. She was just too afraid to say that was what she actually wanted.
Still. There was a possibility, however slim, that whatever awaited them on the other side of that waystone was dangerous. If something ever happened to her and thiago knew he could have prevented it he wasnt sure what he would do with himself outside of that it wasn’t good.
He had a enough innocent peoples blood on his hands already, but to have a child’s?
You don’t know if there were any children in the holy cradle, a voice whispered. It swirled around his ears and even though the non-functioning one was well non-functioning, he swore he could almost hear in it and yet you burned them all the same.
Now wasn’t the time for thoughts like this. Hope was still waiting for a reply and who knew what slime was doing.
“You can come with if you promise you’ll teleport away when i tell you too”
Hope beamed up at him nodding vigorously before placing a sign down quickly writing I promise! And then beginning to run over to the waystone excitedly.
“Woah woah woah slow down my dear!” He called out after her. Once he caught up he added “let me go first and hold my hand the whole time.”
Trying to contain her excitement hope gave one strong nod. It seemed to be an attempt at showing she was serious.
Smiling at this and taking her hand into his, thiago and hope teleported to charlie’s base
There wasn’t much there outside of a small shack which thiago assumed was Charlie’s house. The two investigating the outside area a bit before thiago used his still functioning ear to listen to the door. After hearing nothing inside, the two carefully proceeded to enter the building with thiago leading the way.
He didnt notice anything odd at first glance until hope gently tugged his hand in the direction of something, a small opening made of dirt.
Traveling into it, they found a large cavern filled with various plants and some sort of train system. Ignoring it, thiago and hope stealthily made their way down till they could see charlie standing in front of what seemed to be. a house. Only, he wasn’t alone.
There was an egg with him. One that thiago hadn’t seen before.
Grabbing a sign of hopes he had stored away he wrote out do you know them? Before breaking it and passing the back sign to hope.
No, Was the response he got. So not another test subject egg, which meant considering how Charlie was treating this egg (with warmth and excitement), they were most likely Charlie’s egg.
Only issue was that Charlie’s egg, juanaflippa if thiago remembered right, had died months ago.
“Stay right here,” thiago whispered to hope before giving a light kiss to her head and letting go of her hand. “I’ll be right back.”
Hope nodded and stayed in her spot as thiago got closer and focused his eyes on the outline of this egg. It was times like this that he missed the range of his gun but sword and shield would have to do.
The dead don’t come back. Thiago had known this as fact since the day he learned about the “airplane crash.” But it wasn’t till he joined the order that he learned the second half of the statement.
The dead don’t come back, so when they do. It’s not them anymore. Whether that meant they were a hallucination or a creature, thiago wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was the fact that he wouldn’t let slime be killed by whatever was pretending to wear his child’s face.
Thiago jumped down ready to strike but just as he did, the egg ran back into the house with Charlie sprinting after them, leaving thiago’s sword stuck in the ground. Cursing, he ran after them, only to see the egg disappear into specks of code as Charlie cried out for it.
Code meant code monsters. Thiago was not prepared for code monsters, he was prepared for paranormal bullshit even though none had ever appeared on this island before.
Regardless, he needed to write all of this down while it was still fresh on his mind. It didn’t matter if this wasn’t paranormal, it was still dangerous even if that danger had momentarily passed.
So, thiago turned and quietly walked out the house, back to hope and then the two teleported back home.
Pai, hope wrote upon arriving what was that?
Thiago bite his lip. God what he wouldn’t give for a cigarette right now.
“We’ll figure it out.” He crouched down to her level “So for now let’s not worry about it. Okay my dear?”
Worry crossed over hope’s face for a split second, and it landed sharp like a stab in thiago’s chest.
“This scar?” Arnaldo said pointing at a long scar that wrapped around his upper arm. Usually it was hidden by long sleeve shirts but he had rolled those up to be able to kneed the dough of the bread he was making, “It’s just from a stunt that i messed up once. Nothing to worry about my dear”
Thiago took a deep breath in. No nicotine hit his lungs but the oxygen worked just fine. “How about this? I’ll let you know everything new i learn about this case. After all i need an expert on eggs, and who’s a better expert than the best egg on the island?”
Hope looked down at her feet bashfully, but with a glow of praise, “you promise?”
Extending out his pinky finger, thiago smiled gently, “of course my dear.”
Hope wrapped her own around it, and the promise was sealed.
