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prince-hamlet · 6 years

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Muscle Memory

This is actually a (one week late) birthday gift for @tackyjackpack, who requested domestic Kravitz, which just made me think about how Kravitz was probably a living person once, and how he probably hasn’t done people things in a while...... and it spiraled from there.

Hope u like it

Behind their little cottage, Kravitz insisted they add an altar to the Raven Queen. It was just a simple thing—a rough-hewn hunk of marble with a little alcove carved out, ravens and bones painted onto the sides. It blended into the garden. It was surrounded by basil and mint, and little vines crawled slowly up the sides.

“Don’t you see her everyday? What do you need an altar for?” Taako had asked. Kravitz could only shrug.

“I dunno. It just feels right.”

Even he had forgotten why.

Kravitz died young.

It wasn’t sad anymore, it was just a fact.

It was so long ago, Kravitz couldn’t remember much about his short mortal life. Truth be told, he hadn’t spared it a second thought in centuries.

He remembered his death. He was killed, left in a ditch to bleed out. He couldn’t remember if he was robbed or in a fight, just that his head hit the ground, and his chest hurt, and there watching was a single raven. One he recognized. It might’ve been shock, but he thought it looked…sympathetic? Like it was saying, “I’m sorry, but there is nothing more I can do.”

He thought it was nice that someone, at least, was watching over him.

He died anyway, but it was still nice.

Kravitz made offerings.

Not often, and not consistently, but offhand. Pocket change or a little bracelet he found on the ground or a piece of the thick, fresh bread Taako had just made. It was a habit as natural and as unfamiliar as breathing. It was muscle memory that was built into a body he hadn’t used in years.

He had used a physical, human body sometimes of course. On jobs, on reconnaissance. But he hadn’t just existed on the material plane for… eons, probably. It made him realized that he’d been avoiding it, almost.

He hadn’t been human in so long.

He’d forgotten it all, with a detached numbness that he didn’t even notice until Taako made fun of his cold hands. Until Taako fed him spicy, delicious meals he technically didn’t need to eat. Until Taako sat outside with him in the evening, listening to the subtle, flickering sounds of life and seeing the cold dew settle on the tips of leaves. Until Taako made him “put that twunk body to good use” digging extra plots for their garden, burying his stiff fingers in the warm dirt and staring in wonder at every bold little weed or lovely little worm.

It came back, little by little. How to breathe, how to collect strawberries, how to give good hugs.

Taako had made stew. Kravitz took one spoonful and closed his eyes. He must’ve been reminiscing too long, because Taako called him out on it.

“Lost in the sauce, hon? This isn’t even my best work,” he joked.

“No, it’s… it’s wonderful Taako,” and his eyes shone. “It’s… I think it’s just like mom used to make.”

“Oh?” Taako stirred his stew thoughtfully. “You’ve never mentioned your family before.”

“No, I… I suppose I haven’t.” Kravitz blinked, tried to hold onto the scraps that seemed so solid a moment ago. “Truth be told, I don’t know if I remembered anything about them. I’ve been dead for centuries, and that’s a much bigger portion of my existence than my actual life.”

Taako was leaning his head on one palm, eyebrows raised, curiosity clearly piqued. Kravitz laughed.

“I think… I think I was a farmboy. My mother must have made stew a lot, because it was easy, and we always had ingredients for it.” It was just sense memory, the taste of stew next to the warmth of a fire. Just one memory of one person who’d lived one short life. But he shared it anyway.

Then Taako lost a button. He bitched and moaned about it for an hour because it was his “nice doublet, dammit, the one with the paisley pattern” and without the button the look was “incomplete”.

Without thinking Kravitz said, “Draw a picture then and leave it in the altar.”

Taako stopped his current train of bitching and/or moaning. “What?”

“Draw a picture of the button and leave it on the alter,” Kravitz repeated, like it was the most common-sense thing.

“What are you-why?”

“That’s… that’s just what you do when you lose something small. I don’t know.” Kravitz shrugged. “Make sure you leave some bread or berries too though.”

Taako was curious enough that he did it. He left a handful of blueberries and a little scrap of parchment in the marble alcove. By the end of the day both were gone. The next morning, in their place, was the exact button Taako had been missing. Taako dropped it on the kitchen table, where Kravitz was eating his toast and jam.

“Oh, you found it babe.”

“I didn’t find it, it was left in the alter.”

“Oh yeah, makes sense.” Kravitz bit into his toast and continued to read the New Elfington Times.

“Wait, hold on, you can’t just magic back a lost button without explaining it. Does the Raven Queen collect lost things too?”

Kravitz scoffed. “Of course not. It was the ravens.” Another bite of toast. Taako waited, eyebrows up.

“The ravens? Can you elaborate?” Kravitz looked up at him.

“Ravens are smart, Taako. They understand things like respect, and fairness. More than some people. If you leave them offerings, they remember you, and they’ll pay you back.”

He’d said something like that back then, all those centuries ago. When he’d woken up unexpectedly, already knowing without a doubt that he was dead. In that endless room, with pillars that held up a ceiling as far away as the sky, with marble floors that continued endlessly into the shadows.

When the Raven Queen asked, “Why did you pray at my altar, abandoned as it was?”

He’d said something about ravens, about fairness. And then he said, “Nothing was fair for me in life. I didn’t think any god would even consider me, as insignificant as I am. But when I found your altar…”

He remembered that day, when he had been beaten and hungry and escaped to the woods. Just off the path in a little clearing stood a marble slab with an alcove, faded ravens painted on the sides. Even though it was close to the road, no noise made it through the lush trees and vines surrounding it. It was nearly overtaken by weeds but perched on top was a raven. It looked at him with a sort of ambivalent curiosity. Like it was waiting for him to declare himself friend or foe.

His mother had always said he should make more friends.

He pulled out one of those only things in his pocket—a coin from a strange land, worthless but interesting.

He put it in the altar and prayed.

“When I found your altar, I felt peace. The other gods may have their heroes and acolytes, but you have to consider everyone, and you have to do it fairly. That’s something I never got in life.”

She’d smiled then, under that raven skull mask, and offered him a job. Keeping the balance.

Back when he first found the altar, the raven took his coin and brought back a hardy, thick skinned fruit. It was the first thing he’d eaten in a day, and all it cost was a little kindness.

Sometimes Kravitz would just… sit next to their little altar at the edge of their little garden. When he was out of his suit and just in the loose cotton clothes he’s garden in. For eons he would just lie dormant in between mission, under that endless marble floor. For eons, he hadn’t felt a sun-warmed stone behind his back, or the breeze on his face, or the grass under his legs. Never given a second to sifting through his memories. He had existed for a long, long time.

But he’d only lived for a tiny part of it.

When he got into an introspective mood, Taako would come out with two mismatched mugs of lavender tea and the sweater Angus got him last Candlenights. He’d berate Kravitz for sitting out in the chill and skipping out on doing dishes.

But then he’d sit, and lean his head on Kravitz’s shoulder, and they’d talk about memories of the years they’d forgotten.

#kravitz #taako #the raven queen #taakitz #my fic

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