Eyyy FFN (kind of) added a category for TAZ!

Warnings: There is some non-consensual daemon touching but it is not done for unfriendly reasons. Also, really vague description of what could be read as disassociating and super brief depiction of vomit at some point. Super brief. Like two words. The fic is much lighter than this makes it sound. Also, canon-typical swearing, violence, and Stolen Century deaths.

Lucretia: Perspicientia (Perce), a white cat
Taako: Alba, yellow-billed magpie
Lup: Pip, a wolverine
Magnus: Robin, a Caucasian shepherd dog
Davenport: Fennec, a slate grey wolf
Barry: Amanda, a lynx
Merle: Asha, a tortoise

When Lucretia first met Taako and Lup, she was deeply, terribly intimidated.

(Then again, she was intimidated by every other member of the crew, so perhaps that wasn't the best way to start)

Perce, lying comfortably in a sash at her waist, felt her alarm and immediately sprang upwards, claws digging into the soft red fabric of her robe until he sat on her shoulder, fluffy tail held out to keep himself from falling.

He blinked languidly at the pair of twins standing before them. They were identical, with copper skin and bleach blonde hair and bright amber eyes. But Lucretia and Perce had read their files, and they knew that their names were Lup and Taako, evocation and transmutation wizards, respectively. "Hello," Perce said, and Lucretia flushed at the way both twins looked from her face to Perce's.

"Hail and well met and shit," the one with the jacket and the robe and the frankly ridiculous hat said.

"Hey, another girl!" the other one exclaimed. She immediately leaned forwards and grabbed Lucretia's hand in a terrible handshake. "We've got to hang out sometimes!"

Lucretia's skin jumped because oh gods Lup was touching her but Perce rubbed his head against her cheek and she managed to not completely wrench her hand free. "Um, yes," she stammered. Lup's daemon, a surprisingly large wolverine with red and black fur, balanced on his hind legs to peer at Perce. Perce looked down and, to be polite, asked, "What're your names?"

Lup released Lucretia's hand and Lucretia tried not to visibly relax. "Oh, this is Pip." She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "The magpie is Alba. How about, um—" Her eyes flashed from Perce to Lucretia, unsure who to address. In the end, her eyes settled on Perce. "—your name?"

Perce let out a satisfied cat sound. "I'm Perce, and this is Lucretia."

Taako nudged his sister aside, and his magpie daemon—perched on his hat—tilted her head. "Yeah, yeah, we've all read the files." His smile was lopsided and lazy, different from Lup's sharp and intense one. "So you're into writing, my dude?"

Lucretia's tongue seemed to tie itself into knots. Godsdammit, she was a writer. She knew words, scores of words, but all of them quite happily fled her as she scrambled to retrieve them in this moment.

Perce, as usual, spoke for her. "Yes. We've ghostwritten a lot of things, but we've journaled all over the planet before the IPRE requested that we join so that we could write about some of their adventurers."

There was a beat of silence as Lucretia realized how that sounded and quickly added, "We'd applied before."

"Wow," Lup said, eyes slipping back to Lucretia, "'Ko and I used to travel a lot too. 'Course, we weren't journaling."

Taako groaned and draped himself dramatically over his sister's shoulders. "Gods, Lulu, can you imagine us fucking journaling? Like, wow."

Lup tried to duck away, but Taako just sagged limply onto her. "Speak for yourself, I'd be great at it."

Lucretia couldn't help smiling slightly at their antics, although she still couldn't bring herself to say anything. In her ear, Perce hissed, suddenly low and urgent, "Lucretia. Their daemons."

Ordinarily, when siblings tussled, their daemons did as well. But Alba, rather than going towards Pip, hopped down from the rim of Taako's hat and flew into Lup's face. Lup shrieked and caught Alba with her bare fingers. Pip darted into Taako's ankles, and Taako went pitching forwards. His fingers wrapped around Lup's belt, and both of them went tumbling down in a pile of limbs.

By the time they'd sorted themselves out, Taako clutched Pip in his arms and Alba was sitting comfortably on Lup's shoulder. Lucretia knew she was staring, but she couldn't stop. She'd never seen such casual daemon-touching before, especially in public.

The twins' gazes were defiant; they knew very well what they'd done, and Lucretia wondered helplessly at their intentions. Taako dropped Pip and started walking down the hall, saying breezily over his shoulder, "Well, we should get going. Wouldn't want to be late to the press conference."

Lup fell into step beside him, casually handing Alba over. "I mean, it's not like they can kick us off the crew. We've already loaded our bags and everything."

Taako turned, and something sharp and intelligent lurked behind his lazy smile. "Want to come, Creesh?"

Perce lightly nipped the edge of her ear, and she hastily shook herself from her stupor. "Oh, yes, I'm coming. Sorry."

The twins gave no other sign that they knew they'd unsettled her.

The next morning, the crew gathered on the deck of the Starblaster, fighting nerves and excitement and curiosity. Davenport sat at the helm, his wolf daemon, Fennec, lying at his feet and watching the rest of the crew. Leaning against the railing, the twins whispered to each other while Alba teased Pip on the deck. Lup threw back her head and laughed, radiant despite the stormy sky, and Taako snorted and elbowed her. Barry and Amanda, his lynx daemon, stood several feet from them, Barry pretending to watch the crowd gathered below and Amanda openly pacing back and forth, her whiskers twitching. Merle stood next to Davenport, Asha lying very close to Fennec with her front legs tucked into her shell. The two seemed to be talking, Fennec's ears twisted towards the tortoise daemon.

Lucretia at the other end of the deck, her arms wrapped around Perce to keep him from walking on the railing, and watched them. Her fingers itched, and she desperately wanted to take out her journal and start writing.

"Hello!" a friendly voice said somewhere to her right.

Lucretia jumped, nearly knocking Perce off the side of the ship, and turned to see Magnus Burnsides leaning on the rail next to her. Robin stood behind him, her tail wagging rapidly.

Caucasian Shepherd dog, Lucretia's mind supplied helpfully.

She'd read Magnus' files too, of course.

"Hi," she said. Magnus didn't try to touch her, which made her glad. Perce purred against her collarbone.

Magnus looked out over their audience, at the Institute members and the press and the general public, and grinned widely. "Man, this is so exciting."

"I'm terrified," Lucretia said mildly, and Magnus laughed.

"No way, really? Weren't you with the team that recovered the Light?"

Lucretia grimaced. She'd merely been chronicling the mission; she hadn't actually had a critical job. "You already know that, Magnus."

Magnus laughed again. His laugh was loud and booming and thoroughly joyful. It'd scared her, originally, but she'd quickly discovered that Magnus was his daemon through and through: big and intimidating but endlessly friendly. "Yeah, I do." He'd been one of first scientists assigned to guard the Light, and they'd spent many lunch breaks chatting until the IPRE had split up the fighters and arcanists intending to apply for the Starblaster Mission.

"Well, I'm still excited," Magnus said, as if it was a confession, "I mean, imagine all the cool stuff we'll see."

Lucretia hummed in agreement, and Perce said drily, "Wish there was better weather, though." Magnus grinned and Robin butted her head against his hand.

Davenport's voice, clear and commanding if touched just slightly with nerves, called, "You all might want to sit down! We're blasting off in three—" Barry immediately sat down, knees crossed, and Amanda leaped into his lap. "—two—" Merle reached out and placed a hand on Davenport's shoulder; the twins let out caterwauls as their daemons ran at their legs. "—one—" Lucretia looked at Magnus, blood rushing through her veins, and he smiled. "Blast off!"

The Bond engine, already glowing peacefully, began to hum. Light flowered and gravity trembled and the Starblaster took off.

Lup let out another wild cheer, waving her hand at the audience below. Lucretia's fingers trembled in Perce's fur, but she was smiling so widely her cheeks hurt.

The sky fell.

It was darkness, first, dripping from the grey clouds in drips and then streams and then columns. And then it wasn't darkness at all, but a nothingness spotted with pale flashes of color that rushed downwards to consume the world. It was eerie and bright and strange and utterly terrifying.

Lucretia was trembling, and she whirled around. Magnus started across the deck, towards the others, but Davenport was forced to swerve to avoid a column of darkness and all of them were knocked off balance.

Taako grabbed onto the rail with one hand and Alba with the other; his hat nearly flew off. "Hey, Captain? What the fuck is this?"

Davenport wasn't listening. He was punching buttons on the console, calling for the IPRE, but Lucretia knew there would be no reply. She had watched as the Institute was consumed by nothingness.

Around the Starblaster, their home was made void.

"Oh, gods," Perce whispered.

Something happened.

Lucretia could feel herself coming apart, could feel the very matter of her being tearing itself into pieces and scattering into whiteness and suddenly—

Suddenly she was back on the ship, Perce clutched in her arms, Magnus crumpled against the railing beside Robin, the twins hand-in-hand, Davenport hunched over the wheel.

Barry tried to get to his feet, decided better of it, and then stayed sitting. Voice hoarse, he asked, "What– what just happened?"

Lucretia felt just about as bad as he looked, and she had to consciously pull herself away from her emotions, her body, her situation, to avoid hyperventilating. Perce was shaking; she could feel him making soft, scared noises in the back of his throat.

Still holding Taako's hand, Lup scrambled forwards and leaned over the side of the deck. "Where are we?" she asked, wonderingly.

Alba hopped free of Taako's grip and perched on the railing, peering out as well.

Lucretia, theoretically, should be looking as well. It'd be nice to see—wherever it is they are, except her legs refuse to move.

The Starblaster did a full circuit of the strange new planet before Davenport reluctantly concluded, "We must be in a different planar system."

"We have to go back," Magnus said immediately.

"Yeah," Davenport agreed. He reached out and wrenched a lever; the Starblaster turned abruptly. Lucretia, still turned inwards, watched as everyone stumbled again.

"Sorry," Davenport began, but then Lucretia screamed.

"Alba!"

Taako's head snapped around. "What?!"

"Oh fuck," Lup exclaimed, grabbing hold of Taako with her other hand.

Alba, who'd been sitting on the rail, had been thrown off balance—and over the edge.

Lucretia couldn't move, but then Perce bit her thumb and she startled, dropping him to the deck and drawing her wand.

Neither Lup nor Taako could see Alba from where they were, but Lucretia could see her, wings spread to reveal her white primary feathers, flapping desperately to catch up with the Starblaster.

But she was almost a hundred feet away.

Lucretia didn't have time to think. Instincts from her years spent chronicling adventurers kicked in, and she immediately began preparing a spell. "Perce!" Lucretia said urgently, "I'm going over."

Perce threw himself at her, slipping into the sash at her waist, in the same moment that she vaulted over the rail.

Somebody—Magnus, maybe—screamed.

But then Misty Step has taken her thirty feet forwards. Alba saw her, and started flying towards her instead. Two Misty Steps later, and Lucretia caught the daemon in her arms.

For a single, breathless second, she was struck by the sheer intimacy of holding another person's daemon against her bare skin. She could almost feel Taako's heartbeat, up on the ship, could almost hear the way his breath stuttered as her fingers tightened around Alba's form.

It took her four more spells to reach the Starblaster. On the last casting, she overshot and appeared ten feet above the deck. As she fell, Taako surged to his feet, tearing one hand free from Lup's grip and pointing his wand at her.

Lucretia's fall slowed until she landed, lightly, on her feet.

Alba immediately sprang free and rushed towards Taako, who grabbed her and held her tightly. His eyes were huge, ears pointing towards the sky and face ashen, and Lucretia opened her mouth to apologize for so grossly overstepping his boundaries. Instead, the world around her spun and she swayed, tipping forwards. Hands caught her, and she blinked blearily to see Barry, his hands on her shoulders, gently guiding her to the ground.

Perce jumped from her sash and said, only just coherently, "Sorry 'bout that. Didn't know if we had the concentration to Mage Hand her."

"No biggie," Taako replied, although the spooked look on his face said otherwise.

It took Lucretia a second to realize that the Starblaster wasn't moving, that everybody was gathered on the deck around her and Taako.

"Is everybody alright?" Davenport asked.

"Just peachy," Taako said, after Lucretia nodded. And then, "Hey, how come I'm not dead?"

They all looked from him to Alba, who sat shivering in his grasp.

Merle's voice broke the silence, his eyes sharp despite the fact that he was wearing socks and sandals. "How far away can you normally go from her?"

Taako looked at Lup. Lup bit her lip.

"Thirteen feet," an unfamiliar voice said, feminine and touched with an Elven accent.

Everybody looked at Alba. She looked back. Taako seemed to sag, his shoulders dropping and his ears tilting downwards. "Yeah. Just about."

"How many feet did you fall?" Davenport asked her.

"Just under a hundred," Perce replied, and Lucretia felt the need to add, "Misty Step only goes thirty feet."

Davenport's brow furrowed. "We'll . . . look into this after we try to jump home. Everybody, please, stay seated this time."

Alba had the grace to look sheepish.

They weren't able to go home.

In the next days, after the Light has fallen and the strange eyes in the sky had come and gone, the crew of the Starblaster sat on the deck, charts and books spread open. Lup, Taako, and Barry were perusing texts on the planar system, the twins bickering quietly just for the sake of bickering. Alba sat on Taako's shoulder; she hadn't parted from him since her fall. Lucretia and Davenport sat together, comparing the sky above with the star charts they'd brought from home. Merle examined a couple of leaves, snatched on a brief trip to the surface.

Magnus, however, was sitting beside Merle and frowning pensively at Taako and Alba.

Asha slowly turned her head from Magnus to Taako before nudging Merle, who ignored her. Rolling her eyes, she asked, "What's on your mind?"

"Um," Magnus said, "I want to try a hypothesis."

Merle looked up. Across the deck, Lucretia did too. She could read people well enough to recognize and be wary of the slightly reckless note in his voice. "What hypothesis?"

Robin, beside Magnus, sat up. "Can we?"

"Yeah," Magnus said, expression tense, "Go."

Robin let out a loud bark and immediately began sprinting across the deck. Taako yelped and cast Mage Hand to pull as many papers as he could out of the way, but she easily jumped over the ones he hadn't grabbed.

The only sound was Robin's claws on the deck, growing fainter and fainter as she pushed open the door and vanished below deck.

Slowly, Merle turned to look at Magnus. "Well then."

"I can normally do nine feet," Magnus said, a little uncomfortable with everybody staring at him. "Hey! Robin! Come back!"

"Holy shit," Lup exclaimed, rocketing to her feet.

Pip immediately started ambling away from her. Unlike Robin, however, he stayed in her line of sight, merely stopping at the other end of the deck and sitting, looking very satisfied with himself.

"Well. This is an interesting development," Davenport said.

"But we're just stretched, right?" Barry asked, thoughtfully.

"Not severed," Amanda agreed, sitting up and examining Pip with brown eyes.

The sort of uncomfortable silence that occurred after somebody said severed lasted until Lup said, "Um, gross."

Taako snorted and Barry smiled and Lucretia exchanged an exasperated look with Davenport.

Robin came rocketing back onto the deck, and Magnus ran to greet her. "Holy fuck!" she exclaimed, tail whipping back and forth, "Did you see that?!"

"Yeah! Yeah," Magnus said, equally as loud, "That's crazy!"

Davenport cleared his throat, and everybody turned to look at him. Fennec was standing now, his head even higher than Davenport's. "So I suppose it can be assumed that our . . . reach has all been extended after our jump."

Perce looked at Lucretia, blue eyes bright. She could feel his curiosity, knew how badly he wanted to see how far he could go, but she ignored him.

Davenport continued, "But Barry is right. We would know if we'd been severed. It could just be a—" He stooped and shook his head. Fennec finished, "Side-effect of the planar jump."

Perce suggested, "We could try to bring somebody with us, next time. See if it happens to them."

"We haven't seen any people, though," Barry replied.

"Well then." Davenport's brow furrowed as he thought. "I suppose the next step is to make contact with the natives."

Taako dropped his papers back onto the ground and grinned. For the first time since Alba had fallen, it reached his eyes. "Chaboy is fucking ready to learn some animal languages." He nudged Lup and asked, "You in, babe?"

"Hell yeah," Lup replied, holding out her fist for him to bump.

Barry asked, "Can I come? I'd like to see the, uh, daemon situation what with, um."

"The natives being animals," Amanda finished.

"Hell yeah," Lup repeated, holding out her fist for Barry. He bumped his knuckles against hers, awkwardly.

Taako asked, "You in, Creesh? I know you're into linguistics."

"Oh, um." Quite honestly, spending an extended period of time in both Lup's and Taako's company sounded incredibly overwhelming and not a good time. "I think I'll . . . focus on the stars."

Perce added, "You speak plenty of languages too."

"That I do," Taako agreed.

"Alright, then," Davenport said, and everybody snapped to attention, "We'll wait a couple days just for . . . recon and then we'll send you three down."

"Sounds good." Lup grinned at her brother and Barry; Barry flushed red and Amanda buried her face in her paws.

"Interesting," Perce whispered.

Lucretia firmly pushed him down. "Absolutely not."

Fennec looked at them, and Lucretia waved him off.

Merle leaned on Asha's shell and examined the trees below. "I'll head out and check out the general area the Light fell."

"Sounds good," Davenport replied, "But wait until after Taako, Lup, and Barry at least make contact with the natives to ensure that they're not violent."

Asha poked her head out from under Merle's arm and asked, "Does anybody want to come with?"

Nobody replied, because she was looking right at Fennec as she said this. Fennec tilted his head, considering.

"Cap'nport?" Magnus asked.

Across the deck, Taako burst into raucous laughter. "Cap'nport!"

"Magnus, please," Davenport said, but even Lucretia was covering her mouth with her hands to hide her smile.

"Yeah." Magnus grinned and Robin's tail began to wag even faster. "I'm chill with just staying on the ship. You know, for security."

"Right." Davenport put one hand on his daemon's back, thinking. "You know, Merle, Asha, maybe I'll come with you. Fennec might be able to help with tracking the Light."

"Excellent," Merle said, cheerful and casual, and Asha smiled as only a tortoise could.

Magnus looked at Lucretia and grinned his puppy-dog grin at her. "So it'll be just you and me! For a bit, anyways. Wanna train together?"

Lucretia stared at him. "Um. I'm okay, thanks." Perce snorted and her lips quirked.

Davenport started towards the captain's seat but then stopped and half-turned back, smiling. "Well then. I suppose its time to get working."

In the first weeks after everybody had left on their separate journeys and it was just Lucretia and Magnus on the Starblaster, they learned very quickly how little they knew about each other.

All Magnus could cook was stew and pasta with butter. Lucretia could make coffee and tea and scrambled eggs.

Perce clung to Lucretia, frequently on her shoulders or in the sash at her waist, occasionally clutching a spare quill in his mouth. Contrarily, Robin and Magnus immediately began testing the limits of their connection, wandering freely and separately from each other when they weren't exploring the animal planet. When Magnus was out doing pull-ups or chopping wood and Lucretia was sitting in the conference/living room and writing in her journals, Robin would sit on the couch next to her, happily talking to fill the silence.

Perce talked back, and Lucretia was more than happy to let her daemon speak for her.

Lucretia learned how to make fried eggs and, after many lengthy discussions with Lup over their Stones, bread. Magnus learned to make other kinds of pasta.

"Do you think we should learn the animal language too?" Robin asked, once, "If we're going to be living here permanently now?"

Perce looked over at Lucretia, bent over her two journals and pretending like she wasn't listening. Slowly, he said, "Well, we're going to try to go home again, right? The next time the planes get all jiggly."

Robin nodded. "Oh, yeah. That's true."

The ship felt fuller once the twins and Barry started returning at night, giggling and grunting to each other at the dinner table and telling stories about a royal court of animals until Magnus was begging to fight the Power Bear.

(Taako was horrified that Lucretia and Magnus had survived on eggs and pasta for three months and immediately kicked them out of the kitchen to show them "what real food tastes like")

There were sleeping arrangements to be figured out, now that it wasn't just Lucretia and Magnus. Of course, there'd been official sleeping arrangements, back when they'd cared about things like that.

Lucretia and Lup, Taako and Magnus, Merle and Barry, Davenport.

(From what Lucretia could remember, that had lasted all of half an hour before Lup joined Taako and Magnus left to sleep in Barry's room and Merle "accidentally" fell asleep in Davenport's armchair.)

Now, however, without Merle and Davenport, things became a little more informal.

Lucretia fell asleep on the couch in the conference/living room most nights, exhausting herself with writing until she could fall into a dreamless sleep.

That also meant her sleeping schedule was shot as all hell and she had a perfect spot to see all the weird shit people did at night.

Taako frequently wandered into the kitchen in the middle of the night to cook, accompanied by Alba or Pip or both. Lup sometimes came with, but only ever when Pip came.

The light from Barry's lab never turned off, and Lucretia wondered, absently, if he slept even less than she did. Occasionally, as they all became more comfortable parting from their daemons, Amanda would creep into the kitchen to grab a couple granola bars and retreat back into the lab. Sometimes, Barry came out and sat down in one of the armchairs and frowned into darkness until Lucretia said, "Hello," and he jumped.

"Lucretia? Oh my gods, I can't see you at all."

She sat up and Perce leaped from the couch to turn on the lights. "Sorry."

Barry was silent for a little bit. She'd just started opening her journals again when he said, "They've just got . . . no daemons, Lucretia. None."

She nodded, because of course she'd listened to and transcribed all of the reports that the animal language group had sent her.

Barry just shook his head wonderingly, stroking Amanda's grey fur as she curled up in his lap. "I can't even imagine."

Although Lup meditated, Taako never seemed to. He would occasionally drape himself over a spot of floor in the middle of the day and just nap, but Lup would be up and wandering around the Starblaster with Pip in the middle of the night, sometimes with a book or her wand or nothing at all. She sometimes meditated on top of the kitchen counter, eyes wide and glassy and unseeing.

(Lucretia slept in her room on those nights, unsure how to feel about Lup's still form watching her)

Magnus was the only one with a regular sleeping schedule, and he slept deeply enough that he didn't hear any of this. However, he'd stolen almost everybody else's pillows after they'd left and refused to give them back. Taako just transmuted more and Barry didn't care but Lup set his shirt on fire when he refused to return her favorite pillow.

Lucretia had looked up from sketching a couple of flowers to see Magnus run past, on fire and screaming, followed by Lup, wand out and also screaming, and slowly looked back down.

By the time Merle and Davenport returned, Davenport was half-horrified at how little regulations were being followed and half-impressed that they were still following the regulation against starting fires on the ship.

(Nobody told him about the Great Pillow Incident)

(Or the Eggs Incident)

(Or the Great Pillow Incident pt II)

Lucretia learned to live with six incredibly different people and their daemons.

She didn't die.

When the Hunger came again, she was alone on the ship with Robin. They both watched as the color drained from the world around them before looking at each other, eyes wide. Lucretia swore under her breath and sprang to her feet, her journals falling from her lap onto the floor, and sprinted onto the deck. In the distance, she could see Lup shooting fireballs at the darkness as Taako dragged her along. Further behind them, Davenport sat atop Fennec and shouted orders at his crew. Somebody—probably Barry or Davenport—casted Levitate on Asha as Merle casted Enhance Ability on anybody he could see.

Lucretia realized abruptly that they were fleeing.

"Perce!" she called, and he immediately sprinted below deck to start turning lights off to preserve power and do his best to put away things that could be knocked over.

Lucretia spared a second to hope that Barry and Taako hadn't left anything too explosive just sitting in the lab before she, too, whirled into motion. She hadn't flown the ship before, not really, but she knew enough to turn the Bond engine on and prepare the Starblaster for flight.

Taako sprinted up the gangplank, followed seconds later by Lup. Lup was crying, but they were angry tears, and she was swearing violently as opal strands of darkness fell about them.

Taako dropped Pip on the ground and sprinted towards the door leading below deck, Alba flying after him. Lucretia shouted after him, "I sent Perce!"

"Thanks!" Taako shouted back as he slammed the door open and ran in.

Lup just paced back and forth on the deck, shooting spells into the sky that exploded upon impact.

Dark shapes crawled over the ground below, and Lucretia punched the button for the shields.

Robin barked and began running back and forth. "Lucretia! They're coming."

"Got it," Lucretia replied, sprinting over to the railing and casting wards at her crew mates to protect them in case the Hunger managed to strike any of them.

Barry came flying onto the deck and doubled over, wheezing, before limping towards the door.

"Taako and Perce already went down," she informed him.

"Oh, good," Barry said faintly, lying down instead. Amanda licked his cheek to make sure that he was okay before running below deck on her oversized paws to help Taako clean up the lab, probably.

Perce came up just as Fennec and Davenport arrived. Davenport was holding Asha's front foot as she floated behind him. Merle emerged several seconds later, wheezing, when Robin fell completely still and asked, voice faint, "Where's Magnus?"

Everybody stared at her.

"Oh, Pan," Merle muttered, turning around and staring into the darkness that had consumed the animal court. "I thought he was—"

Lucretia heard a thud and realized, distantly, that she was on her knees.

Robin hadn't been moving, either. She'd been standing, head turned towards the court, when her body begin to shimmer.

"Oh," Lup whispered, voice strangely quiet after all her shouting.

A second later, Robin burst into Dust.

Lucretia felt bile rising in her throat and turned away. Perce sprinted to her and began meowing wordlessly, but she just closed her eyes and sat trembling.

"Oh," Barry said, before turning and vomiting onto the deck.

Davenport dismounted and he and Fennec immediately went towards the captain's seat. He didn't even hesitate, simply grabbing the wheel with both hands and slamming the gas pedal down.

The Starblaster swooped into the sky, a spot of silver light against the dark mass of the sky.

And then Lucretia felt herself coming apart.

When she was herself again, she was standing against the rail. The twins were standing across the deck, hand-in-hand. Barry was sitting on the ground with Amanda in his lap, and Merle was standing by Davenport and Fennec, and—

"Magnus!" Lup shrieked, releasing Taako and throwing herself at the burly fighter. Lucretia felt her knees give way, and Merle swore spectacularly.

"I thought you'd kicked it!"

Magnus looked over Lup's shoulder and said blankly, "Yeah, me too."

"Pity. I was gonna take my pillows back," Merle said, but everybody could hear the relieved note in his voice.

"What the fuck," Taako said, but he sounded delighted.

Lup released Magnus and punched him. "You're fucking terrible!" she exclaimed.

Robin licked her elbow, and both Lup and Magnus fell still.

"Interesting," Perce said.

Lucretia thought about Lup and Taako switching daemons and about her own fingers around Alba and Davenport's hands on Asha and asked wryly, "The dying bit or the daemon touching bit?"

Perce merely purred and wiggled out of her arms to greet Magnus, leaving Lucretia alone with the uncomfortable feeling that her daemon knew something that she didn't.

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