It starts with macarons.

It's a Candlenights tradition in Taako's family, and his aunt finally decides to show him how to make them. His first attempts are cracked and too big, hard to the bite, a cookie that only counts as such if one were being extremely generous. Taako remembers being frustrated, but his aunt had been so kind about it anyways, even if they were more like inedible rocks than delicious treats. Macarons are hard, she assures him, it takes even a skilled chef years to get it right.

Chef, Taako decides, is the coolest profession in the world. He wants to be that.

The fourth try, he finally gets it right, and he surprises her with his creation. Her eyes light up at the first bite - they're the perfect kind of macaron, crisp on the outside and cakey on the inside. She raves about his talent for days afterwards.

It's the first time he learns that cooking makes people happy, and it's something he never really forgets either.

It continues with beef stew.

It's a crowded caravan, the kind that doesn't really enjoy dead weight, but Taako knows he can't go back to nights in the wilderness. He begs, promises he'll do anything as long as he gets to keep traveling, and the idea comes to him in such a flash that his final plea comes out as an ultimatum - if he can impress everyone with the dinner he makes, he can stay on the caravan.

They like his resolve.

It's the first time he's ever really cooked for a bunch of people. He helps with cooking, but the cooks never let him do anything serious, just chopping vegetables and keeping an eye on soup stock. He'd secretly resented it, but he was a young kid, and everyone had to work their way up the ranks somehow.

This left the problem of what to cook though. Taako goes through the pantries, sees the shit options he has at his disposal, and wrangles up the biggest pot he can find.

Simple was best, and if you couldn't figure out what to do, throwing all that shit in a pot for a stew would work just as nicely.

It's the best meal the caravan has had in weeks, warm and filling with plenty of leftovers to spare. Someone says he should really do something with his talents, and Taako starts to think about what that could mean.

It strengthens with transmutation magic.

Using magic with cooking hadn't really occurred to Taako - in a way, it feels like cheating, and maybe more personally, it feels less satisfying to use just magic - but when one of the wizards he cooks for offers to teach him a couple tricks, Taako's curiosity gets the better of him.

The first spell is a huge fuckup, and everything he drinks tastes like key lime yogurt, of all fucking things, but with time and patience - two things Taako is bad at, he fully admits - he starts to learn how magic works.

And then he gets excited. First it's small things, like turning salt into sugar, but then it turns into bigger things, turning chicken into steak, turning vegetables into fully cooked meals. He does it to pass the time, and fucking around with magic is its own reward, but then the other cooks start watching and applauding, and it gathers its own crowd in time.

The recognition is wonderful, just as wonderful as the looks on their faces when they taste his food. Taako rides on that high long after dinnertime, staring at his hands.

Shit. Maybe he really can make something of this.

It kicks off with omelettes.

Omelettes are easy to make. His first cooking shows are rough - it's hard to get noticed at first - but after traveling a couple towns and putting on a couple shows, he starts getting an audience again. It's hard, being away from the caravans, but freeing in its own way too, never needing to stress about sharing a space with a bunch of strangers.

Everything else, though? Fuck that, he's not intimidating in the least.

But he gains a fan - and after spotting him at a couple shows, Taako decides to ask him for help. Sazed, the guy's name is, gushes about his prowess and showmanship, acts like he hangs the moon and all the stars. The attention is nice, and Sazed looks tough enough to handle crowd control and all that shit that isn't the spotlight.

Nothing could possibly go wrong.

It weakens with elderberries.

Taako likes elderberries, they let off a wonderful aroma when cooked. He likes the way they add variety to dishes, but he's learned to be careful when he cooks them - it's easy to undercook them, and while they're perfectly safe when cooked, they can be a little on the ill-making side when they're not cooked through.

There's also the fact the berries can look like nightshade. The flowers are similar enough and so are the berries.

He scrawls a note in one of his cookbooks, reminding himself to just be more careful.

It ends with thirty garlic clove chicken.

Taako knows this recipe inside and out - it's simple enough. Chicken thighs, wine, a shitton of garlic cloves, onion, rosemary, oil. It's impossible to fuck it up - all you do is throw it in a pot and let it all cook down so the heat of the garlic remains without all the aroma.

He likes to dress it up with rice and an elderberry reduction - it makes the colors of the dish pop, makes it a little more savory.

He's been to Glamour Springs plenty of times. The locals love him, and anyone could smell the chicken.

He'd gotten so into talking with the audience he hadn't tasted the food - he had to keep the show going, it was a long cook.

He'd cooked it so many times before, could practically recite the recipe in his sleep.

And yet…

He doesn't forget the way the first person just stops after taking a bite. The way their smile drops off their face, the way they blink in confusion, and then start staring straight through him. Their breath hitches - and then Taako sees the elderberries and realizes.

He runs.

Sazed doesn't even question it.

Taako doesn't look back.

Two days later, they get far enough away. They stay at an inn, and Taako sleeps a sleep of supremely fucked up dreams.

And when he wakes up, Sazed is long gone, and all Taako is left with is the blood of forty people on his hands.

Hurley asks about the mongoose. Taako decides to be honest, and when Magnus and Merle laugh in response, he can't stop the rant he goes on. No one had questioned it then, and it's one of the things he thinks of as Hurley lies dying in Sloane's arms.

As the poison crawls up her arms, Taako wonders if this is how the people in Glamour Springs died too.

When they return to the base after nearly getting poisoned, Taako holes up in the kitchen and cooks thirty clove chicken. He doesn't eat it - he hasn't ate meat since that entire clusterfuck - but his mind and his hands go through the motions like clockwork.

Once it's done, he torches it to cinders.

He makes macarons again for Candlenights, so wrapped up in holiday spirit that he forgets why he doesn't do it anymore. Everyone raves - of course they do, his cooking is fucking excellent - and there's that familiar high again.

And then Angus asks about his cooking.

Taako makes the mistake of being honest again.

The kid cheers him up in his own way. The cookies are flavorless but the texture's spot on - better than he was on his first try. Something about that makes him think of his aunt, and he can't help smiling a little despite himself.

Taako doesn't offer to give him cooking lessons - he's not sure he's ready for that just yet - but later that night, Angus will just happen to find a fancy box of freshly made macarons in his dorm room.

After Refuge and the first discussion with Kravitz, Taako doesn't go to bed. He feels spent - explaining everything about the Bureau was exhausting on its own, not to mention the whole Glamour Springs fiasco and the dying repeatedly thing all while hoping to whatever deity was still cool with him that Kravitz didn't fucking kill him right then and there - but his mind won't rest either.

It hadn't been his fault.

Well, for the sake of technicality, anyways. He supposed he could get away with saying as much in front of Magnus and Merle, but the truth was...well, it was something he wasn't going to admit aloud.

He'd still fed them their deaths. No matter how he tried to rationalize it otherwise, it was still his fault too. If he hadn't been so selfish, maybe it never would have happened. Or maybe Sazed would have done it anyways, who fucking knew?

But knowing the truth was worth something. He sleeps a little easier that night, and the heavy weight on his shoulders feels a little less so in the morning. It's nowhere near good - quite frankly, that ship sailed years ago - but it's passable, he supposes.

Maybe, just maybe, he'd be open to the possibility of doing a cooking show again.