hadriel_logs | Event Log: The Hope of a Child

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Event Log: The Hope of a Child

Who: All characters participating in the event
What: The event log for the The Hope of a Child event
Where: All over the city!
When: January 23rd-Feb 1st
Warnings: Youths

By now, the gods have probably done enough weird crap to you while you're asleep for you to be a little suspicious- but it's not like you can just not sleep, especially when there are a few supernatural forces making your eyes droopy and your body feel heavy.

And now, when you fall asleep, you'll wake up somewhere else and you'll likely have quite a different temperament- you'll be younger, maybe a little more naive and innocent, and you won't exactly remember all the wild stuff that's happened to your adult self. Maybe now you'll be a little more trusting and emotional, hm? The gods could definitely use a little boost in power, and what better way to do it than to harness the power of overemotional kiddos!

Or maybe you aren't affected at all and find yourself surrounded by youths. What are you going to do when your best friend doesn't know how to cook for themselves? Or your bitter rival is throwing a temper tantrum because they broke their favorite toy? Nobody asked for this kind of responsibility, but think about what would happen if nobody was around to take care of these babies...

► This log covers January 23rd-Feb 1st.
► Feel free to make your own logs as well!
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you trip over a kid and die, please let us know here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He almost doesn’t take her hand when she mentions that, but does, making sure to grind a bit of the dirt from his palm into hers just to make a point.]

I dunno why you’re bothering’, we’re just gonna get dirty again. Do we have a house here? Is it the place we were storin’ all our stuff? I never got caught by the adults getting in and out, but I guess it’s easier to pretend you’re supposed to be there if you’re an adult too.

[That was three conceptual leaps, but Lup can probably follow it. He talks so heavily in the plural now that she’s here, no him actions, only we. Anything she has is his now. And of course, everything he has is hers.]

Oh, wait, hang on!!

[He breaks from her grip for a moment to sprint back to his fort in the corner of the shop, and retrieves three boxes of crackers that he’s struggling to hold all at the same time.]

I got these! While I was waiting for you to come back.

[Lup knows exactly what he's about to do right before he does it, the woman already laughing out as Taako's palm grinds down into hers, sharing his dirt with her. But she doesn't pull away, just wraps up his hand tighter, refusing to let go.

It's feels like a lifetime since they were children, since the two of them had been so much more a singular unit than the two very different individuals they grew up to be. They're still impossibly close, still can complete each other's sentences and keep their movements in sync enough to freak most people out, but when they were children, they were so much more one person than two. Even though she's proud of the people they've become, there's always going to be a part of her that misses it.]

My magic, my rules, Koko. And yep, got it in one. That's our place. We have our own house now, with our own room and beds and everything. It's pretty wild. We share the place with some friends, but really, we're just nice enough to let 'em stay with us.

[It's been forever, but Lup can follow Taako's train of thought effortlessly, though her brows do arch upwards when he presents the boxes of crackers. They'd lived off of nothing for so long. It's not the kind of memory you ever forget, but as adults, they'd had so much more say in what they had or didn't have. As kids, they just took what they could get, struggling day in and out.]

C'mon, we're moving out of this place and back into the house. [She plucks up two of the boxes and tucks them under her arm, holding her hand out to him again.] I gotta show you the pantry. It's packed.

[He takes it again effortlessly, mind already swimming with the new stuff she's telling him. Okay, food, nice. Okay, beds, even nicer. Owning their own house is wild on a level he truly cannot conceive. But as he takes her hand again, he does look up at her a little quizzically.]

So we're so rich we're like... helpin' other people? We can do that?

[Always been Taako and Lup. Don't need anyone else. The concept of friends to him, even as casually as she says it as fact, is holding him up. People can be nice, sure. There's been funny adults, okay kids- especially in this city he's found himself in now. But sharing their resources like this? People they can trust to help them?

That seems so... foreign. So impossible.]

Why're we giving them free stuff?

[Lup knows what her brother is asking before he even says it. His disbelief is so much less about their status in life than the fact there are more people in it than just the two of them.

That's a much harder thing for Lup to explain. She's accepted her family and friends completely, duh, isn't afraid to show them affection or to even outright say she loves them. But if asked to explain the shift in things? That's just a little beyond her level. It's difficult to quantify the depth of the pair's bond with these people who'd once been strangers in their lives.

It's not that she thinks Taako's too young to fully understand what she has to say, she just doesn't entirely have the right words to say it herself.]

I know, I know. Sounds fake, doesn't it? But they're actually pretty cool. We trust 'em. [With his hand in hers, she starts leading Taako away from his little fort and towards the house.] Things changed when we got older. Adults were less shitty to us after we crushed it in school and got bomb careers as wizards. We made some close friends at work. Those are all the nerds who live with us here.

[He screws up his face a little, pursing his lips as she speaks. This is a weird situation he’s found himself in. He trusts Lup, and she wouldn’t lie to him- but how can what she’s saying be truth? So people started being nice and they thought everything was just okay again? What about just being better than all of them? How was he going to have enough time to spend with Lup if there was all these people in the way?]

That sounds real fake. I’ll keep an eye on ‘em so you don’t have to for a bit.

[That’s… probably the closest he’s getting in the short time he’ll be here. If it took the twins years and years to trust anyone else on the Starblaster, it’s worse now when this Taako doesn’t have the skill to keep up his big game talk. That said, he doesn’t care that much about them. He wants to hear about her.]

So what’d’ya do as a wizard? Do people like come to you and ask for spells and stuff and you do it for ‘em? Do we still cook? But like, just for us, not for other people ‘cause we have to.

[And that is precisely why Lup has zero intention of bringing up either Barry or Kravitz while Taako is this age. Attempting to explain that whole situation just sounds like a headache waiting to happen. If the idea of living with friends baffles the boy right now, the idea of boyfriends, men that the two of them actually loved and trusted with their whole hearts, was not going to be taken very well.

But that's just fine. Lup will give both of the men a head's up beforehand. Just be cool, guys.]

Thanks, Taako. You've always got my back.

[She doesn't bother telling him that she'll handle it all herself. Lup remembers their childhood like it was yesterday. They'd always split everything between them, always taken such pride in watching out for the other. She couldn't take that away from him. So if Taako wants to spy on Merle while he wiggles around in the vents for her, she'll turn an eye and let him.]

Somethin' like that. The nice thing about this place we're in, Hadriel, is shit's pretty free. We don't have to work for anyone but ourselves. Sometimes we'll trade spells for favors, if we can trick someone into doin' crap for us, but we mostly only cast the spells we wanna. Same goes for food. We just cook for ourselves now.

We're really livin' the life.

[Yeah guys, just be cool about the fact that your beloved friend and/or boyfriend is a kid and can’t imagine ever loving you! That’s gonna go over great. Just great.

He works hard to keep pace with her, her strides now bigger, but he’s determined not to fall behind, not to make her go any slower than she wants to.]

Huh. So we don’t need money? We just get to do what we want. How’d we get here anyway? Is it because there’s no money so we could just show up and be, uh, magic kings?

[That seems like it would make sense. They wanted to be rich, but there’s no need to be rich when nobody has any money and they can live in anarchy with their super powerful magic.]

[Lup knows better than to pull any punches for Taako, even with this great gap between them, her hand wrapped up in his. He can keep up, she has no doubt.]

Yep! We're basically runnin' the show all on our own. Most of the other clowns in this place couldn't cast a cantrip to save their life. So we're def sittin' pretty as magic kings. [More or less. Whatever.

The tres horny house comes into view and Lup gestures to it. And, okay yeah, it's sort of fucked up looking on the outside, but it's huge and impressive to someone who has never had their own home before, a real shelter, not just a caravan or a tent out under the stars. Something solid and sturdy and not moving anywhere.] Well, whatcha think?

[It is weird, but Lup's right- to someone who's never had a safe structure to call home, never seen anything so big he could ever contextualize as his, it's huge. He can't stop the way he looks at it in awe, mouth parting just a bit, letting the cracker box in his arms slide.]

This... is ours? We don't owe anybody?

[And just as soon as the cute awe has happened it ends, and Taako is sprinting towards the house, dragging Lup with him.]

Come on! Show me everything I wanna see everything I'm gonna touch all of it!!!

[It's not his till he's touched it. Duh.]

All ours.

[And it's strange that even saying that draws a soft touch of something warm and proud in her chest, but it does. It may be upside down on a strange planet that everyone desperately wants to just leave, but... There's no denying that it's theirs. And no one can take it away. It's not much, but they finally have a real home.

Lup's just coming to terms with her own feelings about this place when Taako quickly drags her forward, nearly startling the crackers out of her arms before she's running with him, laughing as they run into the house. Inside it seems even bigger with all of those staircases going up and up and up, but Lup doesn't pause for even a second, already leading Taako up the stairs to the second floor.]

C'mon, I'll show you our room first. Best room in the place.

[He looks up at the staircases as soon as they enter, not even bothering to hide his awe. It's huge. It's so big it has stairs. That's ridiculous! There's a whole first floor and even more of it!!

He tries to take them two at a time, but he's still just a little too short, so he stumbles up as fast as he possibly can.]

C'mon! Don't wait up I wanna see I wanna see--

[As soon as she gestures him towards literally any room on the floor, he'll burst it open, and then just... stop.

There's stuff everywhere. Clothes in closets and on the floor, shiny baubles from the ceiling, two beds suspended with no supports. He doesn't even enter, at first, two awed to cross the threshold.]

This's... ours? All of it?

[Taako scrambles so excitedly up the stairs that his legs can barely keep up with him, the corner of Lup's mouth twitching upwards, amusement and fondness mixing with surprising ease. But even with their distinct age difference, this is still her twin, her heart. He's always been able to drag more out of her than anyone else.

And really, more than anything, the look on his face at the sight of their shared room is almost worth every hardship they've endured in Hadriel. At least she gets to give him this, the promise of the future they deserved.

Taako stares wide-eyed in the doorway, but Lup brushes past him, deftly stepping over clothing and shoes and so much more that's been left scattered across the floor.] Every. Single. Bit. No one else comes in here. It's all just for us.

Edited 2018-04-09 00:00 (UTC)

[The real punchline of this event is that the adult Taako still has to exist, tucked into a ball on his bed above his younger self’s head. But he’s a little too short to see himself, and especially isn’t paying attention as he finds his feet and just starts touching everything. He pulls a cape off the floor and ties it on, even if it’s too long for his kid-sized frame. He grabs his adult self’s hat, hung from a hook off the edge of his bed that he can barely reach, planting it squarely on his head. He looks so utterly, unbelievably pleased.]

This is amazing! There’s everythin’ here! Do you have really fancy potions n’ stuff? Or cool magic wands??

[Wait wait wait—]

Wait you said you’d do my hair!! Do it do it do it!

[Shhh don't look up there, there's nothing at all to see. It'll get weird.

Lup definitely casts a glance up at her twin's top bunk to where he's peacefully resting even with all this new noise in the room, the corner of her mouth quirking upwards at how dead to the world he seems. It's funny when it's Taako, alright, but she really doesn't want to consider that she's the same way whenever she goes all tiny.]

Pretty sure you promised me a bath first. If we're doing a full-on, glam makeover, you gotta get clean. Them's the breaks, bud.

[It'll get real weird. Thankfully, he is thoroughly distracted, the (now comically oversized) wizard hat tilting over his face, obscuring one eye as it slips and he crosses his arms.]

But I don't wanna. 'Mm just gonna get dirty again!!

[But he does really want cool hair. He wants to match. It's weird enough she's way older than him all of a sudden.]

... You're gonna make me anyway, aren't you?

[He's reaching up to adjust the hat, disgruntled.]

What can I say? Older sisters are always right.

[He makes to adjust the hat and Lup just gives the brim a little flick, grinning down at her twin.]

'Sides, we've got hot water here. You're gonna love this.

You're not my older sister!! Jeez.

[Like okay kinda but-- nnnnnnngh. But he can't hide the way his ears flick at the idea of hot water. They never got that kind of luxury. Half the reason he hates baths is because they're always freezing in rivers or lakes. Not this.]

... Fiiiine, I guess. For you. Or somethin'. But you gotta make my hair cool right after.

Right after. Promise. Twin's honor an' everything.

[And since he's agreed, Lup plops a hand on Taako's back and begins leading him out of their shared room and to the bathroom instead. Once she gets him settled in the tub, she's going to slip away to find something else for her tiny twin to wear so he doesn't have to get back into these rags. None of their clothes really has a chance of fitting, but maybe something of Angus'...]

You wanna go full blonde and match or you want some other color in there too?

Match!!!

[... Actually wait--]

Wait can you put some blue in there. Just a little. Like a streak or somethin'? Maybe you can have a red one.

[Still thinking about the them. But he lets himself be pushed in, taking great care to fold up the cape and hat outside of the splash radius of the tub. He really likes them. Best to keep them nice for as long as possible.]

[While the tub runs, Lup absolutely dumps enough soap into the water to make a ridiculous amount of bubbles. Look, bathing with hot water and soap is an experience that she's gonna get her twin hooked on.]

Sounds bomb. We can def make that happen. Now, hop on in. I'm gonna find you some less ratty clothes to complete the whole makeover.

[He throws off his current shirt and pants combo, just leaving them in a heap on the ground while he peers over the edge of the tub. He sticks a hand in experimentally, still expecting it to be ice cold, but gasps a bit when she's right-- it's not.]

Oh man, you weren't kiddin'!

[And he clambers in, a little uncoordinated, immediately pushing all the bubbles around and ducking his head underneath. He doesn't need to be told how to bathe, already well past the point that he needs a hand, and starts with his hands before moving onto his hair. Wheather Lup is close or not, he hollers out the door, just assuming she can hear him.]

How did you just get this?? All the time, too!

[She never moves out of earshot. Though it's so much less about Taako sliding under the water and drowning than it is about her not wanting him to feel like he's been left alone. This whole new environment is a bit much, Lup won't leave her twin to navigate it all on his own.]

Hey, that's the perk of bein' two of the most powerful magic users in this place. Free hot water whenever we want it!

[When Lup slides back into the bathroom, she's stolen a pair of shorts and a nerdy, collared shirt from Angus' room. Look, it's the best she could find on such short notice.]

Woahhhh.

[He's already impressed. Like, this is already full on "This has to be as good as it gets mode. By the time she's back in the bathroom, he's piled a bunch of bubbles on his head like Wizard Hat 2.0, looking pretty pleased with himself.]

Those look real fancy. How'd you get 'em?

[Because they're fitted in literally any way. Button ups require professional sizing. That makes them fancy. It's a baseline he doesn't know much about yet, but he'll gain a taste for fine clothes later in his life.]

I stole 'em.

[Which is like technically true.]

Might be a lil' snug, but that's what magic is for.

[Lup sets Angus' clothes against the countertop near the sink, right next to a soft, clean towel. This day is going to just keep getting better for him, Lup needs to give this to her brother.]

You wanna soak for a bit? I can go toss together some dinner for us before we get our makeover on.

Oh, cool.

[It's kinda radder that she doesn't need to steal them but she still did. The suggestion is a little harrowing, but-- he can hear her, probably. She won't be far.]

Uhmm... okay. Where can I meet you?

[He just wants to be able to go when he's done. The shortest amount of time from where he is to where she'll be.]

Event Log: The Hope of a Child

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