#kravalicious

Kravitz had rolled his eyes at the time, but now he appreciated having an excuse to sit back and watch Taako and Lup move together in a dizzying frenzy as he distractedly flipped through some semi-important reports. The twins moved like their own miniature planar system, spinning through the demanding dance of holiday meal-making with ease. Even the quivering buzz and flashing runes of the stone on the table beside Kravitz took a moment to pull his attention away.

Shaking himself out of it, Kravitz picked up the stone of farspeech — Taako’s, he was pretty sure.

As he did, Lup raised her voice as she excitedly retold one of the Reaper Squad’s many adventures in condemning necromancy. “The guy had the nerve to lie straight to our faces with the evidence sitting right behind him!” Lup shouted over to her brother, loud enough to be heard over the sizzling of vegetables and hot oil in her pan. Unfortunately, she was also loud enough to completely obscure whoever was speaking through the stone.

Kravitz pressed a finger against the stone anyway. “Hello?” he said, not quite as loudly as he could’ve. He didn’t want to distract the cooks.

“Didn’t even need a Zone of Truth to figure that one out!” Taako said cheerfully and also quite loudly from across the room, drowning out the stone’s response with his cackling and the clang of utensils against a pot.

Dropping the stone from his face, Kravitz gave up on trying to hear over the natural ruckus of the kitchen and called out, “I’m stepping away for a moment!”

Lup glanced over to him, cocking her head to the side as he made his way out of the kitchen. “I thought we didn’t have work—?”

“No, yeah — no, it’s not work related. Just taking a call while you’re all clearly too busy to do so,” Kravitz tossed over his shoulder as he turned the corner and strode down the hall, ignoring Taako’s snorted response.

He headed to the living room, listening to the twins’ clattering die down with distance and the stone’s tones come through more clearly without other obfuscating sound. The hall didn’t stretch too long, before opening up into the room, but it was decorated lightly with small shelves of knickknacks and portraits, shiny things that gleamed and images depicting stars and worlds and the bright smiles of a family with a firm, unceasing world beneath their feet at last.

“—y side of things,” the stone of farspeech chimed in casually from his hand. “We’ve picked up Carey and Killian. Ango said he’d get back on his own, though. Said he didn’t want to bring the Starblaster down in front of the school, it’d cause too much trouble.”

The voice was easily recognizable as Magnus Burnsides. Of course. Kravitz tapped the rune as he brought it closer to his face. “Hey, Magnus.”

“Oh, hey, Kravitz! Thought it was you that picked up a moment ago.” There was a small laugh, and then, “So, I take it that the twins are — super busy, with the meal and stuff?”

“Got it in one. I think they’ve got unseen servants helping out or something, it’s been pretty noisy.”

Magnus snorted. “I’d be surprised if they’d let an unseen servant do more than grab stuff, and that’s what the, uh, glowing hand spell is for. Mage Hand, I mean. Anyway, I was saying that we’ve got everyone except Angus, who insisted we didn’t, so we’ll be flying straight for you and we’ll probably be there in, oh, maybe an hour or so. Actually…” His voice grew a little fainter, as though he were shouting off to the side. “Daven— Cap’nport! Hey, Captain! When’re we landing?” After a moment of indistinct burbling in the background, Magnus’ voice returned in full loud and booming force, declaring, “About half an hour!”

That was plenty of time to get dinner ready. “I’ll let them know,” Kravitz said, just as the air began to tear apart in front of him.

Despite its abrupt appearance, the reaper was familiar enough with this particular type of portal that he only stepped away a bit to make space as Barry emerged from the rip in space. Barry sealed it quickly behind him, his scythe dissipating as he did so.

Kravitz nodded at him. He figured there was nothing wrong, since Barry didn’t look distressed, but just to make sure, he asked, “Everything fine?”

“Yeah, we’re good for the n— the rest of the night.” Barry smiled, and then noticed the pulsing rock in Kravitz’s hand. “Who — who’s on the stone with you?”

“Is that Barry?” Magnus said.

“Magnus,” Kravitz said just an instant too late, unnecessarily. He handed the stone over to Barry with a wry smile. “They’ll be here in thirty minutes. I’m going to update Taako and Lup real quick, be right back.”

Barry nodded, watched him leave, and looked back down on the stone. “Magnus, bud?”

“Yeah?”

“Remind Merle to leave our b— Candlenights bush alone this year, will you? Before you get here.”

Magnus snorted. “Yeah, I‘ll make sure he remembers that that’s off limits. Until it comes time to open the presents.”

“Until after Candlenights.”

“Until after Candlenights, at which point he’ll probably take it off your hands to replant it. I’m pretty sure he knows, but since he’s — he’s. Wait,” Magnus said, a strange tone creeping into his words. “Wait just a second. Holy shit. I just remembered. Merle. Merle is Santa.”

Barry attempted to make sense of the last three words out of Magnus’ mouth and failed miserably, in part because he refused to believe it. “He’s what?”

“Merle is Santa. We accidentally killed the last Santa last year, on accident—”

“You killed who?”

“—and the title, the duty and stuff that came with being Santa was technically passed onto Merle—”

“Oh, gods,” Barry said, somewhat awed of how little he knew of this world despite spending years here, and also somewhat horrified. “There’s a Santa here? And — you killed him?” 

It struck him that maybe — well, he recalled the strange disappearance of that package he’d meant to give the three boys (but had been unable to, due to the lich ward) and the small note he’d found in its place, a tiny slip of a thing that had read, A humble gift for the only lich to ever be on my nice list! It’s rare to find someone’s Candlenights wish to be for someone else to receive a gift, but that’s easy enough to do! —S.C.

Only the distraction of the Philosopher Stone’s eminent danger had stopped him from stressing out about the apparently delivered gift at the time.

It’s been three years since. Barry hadn’t thought about that in what felt like ages, but the existence of Santa cast it in a slightly more reassuring light.

And a slightly distressing light, actually, because Magnus had apparently killed this person — with, Barry assumed, the help of Taako and Merle, because the three of them had often went on strange adventures together even after the Day of Story and Song.

“Does — is Santa supposed to do anything special?” Magnus asked, sounding faintly strained. “I really hope not. The previous guy seemed pretty chill.”

“I-I really doubt not, since it’s Santa on Candlenights Eve,” Barry said. “Oh, shit. We gotta — is Merle with you?”

“On the ship, yeah. Should I tell him?” 

“Yes, absolutely. Go tell him and maybe make — er, come up with ideas for gifts or something. Or we can talk when you get here, I don’t—” 

“I’ll remind him,” Magnus promised. “See you soon!”

Barry shook his head, took a moment to marvel at the insanity his family managed to get themselves into, and then tucked the stone in a pocket as he made his way to the kitchen and poked his head in. Immediately, the smell of delicious food swamped him, but he pushed that aside for a moment. It was quieter now, the stovetops quiet as the cooking wrapped up. “Hey, Taako?”

Taako, who was in the middle of plating another dish with Lup on a line of shimmering others that were probably spelled for preservation, looked up. So did Kravitz, who was nearby. “Yeah?”

“Is Merle Santa?”

“Is — oh. He was a year ago.” Taako shrugged over Lup’s baffled expression, and in that moment of distraction, Kravitz reached over and scooped a bit of mashed potato up with his finger, shoving it in his mouth before Taako could stop him. “Yeah, he got the bag and suit and whole thing. We even delivered a present to a kid in an ice keep. Krav— you’re not going to have any room left for the actual meal, you know.”

“You underestimate me,” was Kravitz’s very self-satisfied response as he licked his finger clean, to Taako’s chagrin. And then, “Since when was Merle Santa?”

“I can’t believe you never said anything about this,” Lup interjected, utterly amused.

Taako huffed. “Listen, it was last year and our costumes faded after a while so we never really thought about it afterwards. What about it, Barold?”

“Didn’t you think that maybe being Santa would come with som— certain, certain responsibilities?” Barry said.

“Yeah, but we did it,” he replied, entirely missing the point. “Gave a kid a gift.”

“Candlenights comes every year, Taako—”

“I know that—”

“And I think Santa gives gifts to more than one kid, so — uh, so maybe there’s something that should be maybe done this evening before the actual Candlenights day comes around?”

Taako narrowed his eyes, looked down at the layout of dishes on the counter, and then back up, and then down, and then up at Barry again. “Nobody’s going anywhere until after dinner, because I spent all fucking day on this beautiful feast,” he declared, swatting Kravitz’s hand away when he tried to sneak another bite, “but after, okay, sure, let’s... get presents from somewhere and throw them at children.”

“Ooh,” Lup said, sitting up abruptly with the sparkle of an idea in her eyes. “If Merle’s Santa Claus, then the Starblaster could be the sleigh.”

“Hell yes.” Taako sounded thrilled by this particular spin on the situation. “Let’s book it at full— at top speed around the whole world, raining down presents from above. I can definitely, deffo get behind that.”

Barry was pretty sure Davenport wouldn’t be pleased with using the ship in such a somewhat irreverent way — and then promptly remembered that their captain loved Candlenights. As serious as he was, he did adore the holiday more than most people Barry knew, so. That might actually work.

Grinning, Kravitz leaned over to press a kiss to Taako’s cheek, wrapping his arms loosely around Taako’s waist, snug and gentle. “First you save Faerûn, and now you’re going to save Candlenights? How generous of you, love.”

“I was already saving Candlenights with all this food,” Taako drawled, but Barry easily picked up on the slight smile tugging at his lips, the utter lack of tension in his posture as he eyed the dish in front of him. Patting Kravitz’s arm with one hand, Taako added, “Alright, bones, help us get this set up — not the food, you’re banned, grab the drinks — and we’ll, I don’t know, figure it out the rest when everyone gets here. You too, Barold.”

Kravitz snorted. “And worry about the Santa problem later? It’s only the joy of probably millions of children on the line,” he teased.

“Have you seen the weather outside? Taako’s good in here. Where it’s warm. Merle can handle that when he gets here.”

With a smile, Barry brushed past Lup and gestured at the plate, causing it to lift into the air as he picked up two more, careful not to tilt or spill anything. “Do you want them to be set in a specific order, or—?”

“Nah,” Lup said. “We can rearrange them afterwards. Thanks, babe.” She topped off another dish and held her hand over it for a moment, smiling at the brush of warm air against her palms for a moment. Then, she traced the edge of the plate with a finger and whispered a quiet spell to pause the steam rising off of the dish.

The front door creaked open as Barry carefully transferred the meal to the dining room, a bit of cold air creeping in before it was quickly shut. “I’m home!” called the familiar voice of Angus, the boy quickly peeling off his thick jacket and scurrying deeper in.

He darted down the hall and beamed upon spotting Barry, his arms full of food.

“Welcome back,” Barry said. “They’re in the kitchen.” And then, projecting his voice, “Angus is here!”

“Dope!” Taako called back. “Agnus, how’s it looking out there?”

“Cold, but no snow yet. Everyone else shouldn’t have an issue getting here,” Angus responded, not bothering to correct Taako on his name anymore; he’d long figured that that was Taako’s way of trying to be subtle about his affection. He trotted over to poke his head in the kitchen, quickly spotting Taako, Lup, and Kravitz. “Happy Candlenights Eve, sirs and ma’am!”

Taako, in the midst of balancing four plates on his arms, grinned back. “Happy Candlenights Eve. Snow or not, it’s gonna be a good one.” He paused, and then added wryly, “Worst case we can just ask Merle to Control Weather or something, I guess.”