Bleak meter: Baking chocolate

Timeline: After Season 10/MotO

Context: I think I mentioned this before, but age in the First Realm is measured in "batches," which are 9 months instead of 12. Oddly enough they do have the concept of years as well, but the idea of measuring age in years would just feel bizarre and counterintuitive to them. And I know I did mention about the communal nursery and Redskull being a former nursery worker as well.

Orchid: Hoi! Thamk!

JustRandom: Bah, it's your time you're spending! Don't worry about it. You doing all right there, though?
Pretty good show, yeah. I get that everyone flips out over Jinx and Vi but actually I was a lot more into Viktor. :3
You can get Faith right here! I should warn you though, she's prickly and guarded and you can't send her back. :P
Sounds about right! Apparently in Polish Firstbourne is called "Pra-Matka," basically "Great-grandmother" but without the "grand." The Great-Mother. From the dad's side of the family.
Is that a Conan Gray reference or should I be concerned? . . .
Heh. I keep hearing people and things being referred to as "a mood," but what does that strictly mean? Which mood? I thought it was any nonspecific mood.
I'm slipping. This fic wasn't supposed to be allowed to have any fun. :P
You haven't seen the First Realm ones. They're vicious. And deadly.
Eh, it's fine, their accents keep dropping out for me too, I've given up trying. And all their voices are different in my head. They're evolllllllviiiiiiiing . . .
Oh dear. Well, I'll try to compensate for the excess in future chapters. :P
Eh, it's really nothing different from the content warnings people put on their stories sometimes. I'd feel a little irresponsible just going straight into gore and squicky stuff when there's kids on this archive.
Faith says she knows blankets, thanks, but she worries you might need it more yourself.
Jet Jack, no; she may have a smart mouth but she'd die for Faith without batting an eyelid. Some of the other Hunters, ehhhh . . .
That was going to be Chew Toy's take on it, actually. That and he'd want to fit in with all the other people who still have to drink water. But, y'know, he's not gonna argue with the Chief now that she's got an opinion.
Mom Faith and Sad Faith are also the exact same person, being a mom in this realm is a very sad experience. X'P

Firecloud3: I should also point out that the First Realm's spiders are eeeevilllllllll. Deadly venom and much more aggressive than your average Earth spider.

Redskull had spent his entire life fighting. Even blind, missing the top half of his face, he had clung viciously to his spot within the village, during a time period when all those who were injured or disabled were usually cast outside the village walls. With sound, touch, and somewhat excessive confidence he navigated almost as smoothly as someone who could see. In a way his injury was a blessing, because it meant he had been unwanted anywhere other than the nursery. His gentle nature aligned well with the job.

Blind he had helped raise generation after generation of whelps, and he had ferreted out all their secrets, kept them in line at least as well as any other nursery worker, remembered all of their real names even as they grew up and left for young-adults' training and earned their Hunter names. Even as adults, nobody with self-preservation crossed him. He knew too much.

He was retired from the nursery these days, mostly because bending to pick up toddlers was rough on the back. Now that less of the Hunters' overall time was spent locked in mortal combat with gigantic rabid reptiles, he wanted in on everything. He wanted to help, he wanted to travel, he wanted to learn new skills and be a part of every new project. A lot of the time he got his way.

"Why do you keep bringing him along?" asked Jet Jack once.

"He knows useful information," said Faith, shrugging. "It pays to have someone who knows what things were like before we hunted dragons."

"True, but that's what radios are for. Instead you keep bringing him and then complaining that his nagging is annoying."

Faith started like she'd been burnt and gave Jet Jack a piercing glare. It was a true enough statement and she normally wouldn't have had a thing to say against it; only it got a lot more awkward when Redskull himself was sitting five feet away. Jet Jack smirked, satisfied that she'd opened a can of snappish worms. Meanwhile Redskull himself shrugged.

"You're quite determined that I hear what people have been polite enough not to say to my face, Jet Jack," he said. "Was that supposed to hurt me or them?"

Jet Jack looked a little thrown back on her heels, but Redskull didn't give her a chance to start talking.

"If the former, then you'll have to try harder than that," he continued blandly. "I've been called much worse with much more conviction, in my lifetime."

"Oh, never mind then," said Jet Jack irritably, sensing that this train was derailing.

"Believe me." Redskull continued, impervious. "Hell hath no fury like these eight-batch youngsters when you take away their neat sticks."

"Is that so," gritted Jet Jack, but Chew Toy was already laughing off to one side and the situation was a little past salvaging. She at least managed to create enough of a generalized squabble that Redskull didn't get to talk any further, but it kept her busy most of the afternoon.

Faith did find herself alone with him that evening. She had no clue where to begin and probably wouldn't have, but he did it for her.

"I do appreciate you letting me come along for these," he began.

"Let's not start," said Faith immediately.

"All right, all right." Redskull held up his hands in concession. After a moment's pause he added, "I would say to just tell me directly when I'm annoying you, but generally you already do." He chuckled. "I'm not sure what Jet Jack thought she was going to achieve with that."

"Anything to start trouble," muttered Faith. She teetered in hesitation for a moment, telling herself sternly that she was a responsible, serious adult, act like one. All for nothing, though.

"Ah . . . " She sighed and gave in. "What was that you were saying about sticks? . . . "

She had asked out of spite, but go figure once Redskull had told her the details it just ended up seeming kind of cute. At any rate it made her hate Jet Jack just a little less, at least for a little while.

Redskull did have the tendency to nag, just a little bit. The remarkable part was the degree to which he got away with it. Or the degree to which he got away with everything, really; he was dealing with a pack of scarred-up bloodthirsty warriors with a little too much of both pride and sharp implements. They didn't necessarily take too kindly to being reminded they'd been whelps once.

In some ways that was why he was good for them, though. He kept a lot of egos in check, in the blandest and most non-confrontational way imaginable, and quietly forced them all to see each other as something besides the most recent insult. He smoothed out rough edges and broke up fights in a way Faith could only dream of. He also made full use of the fact that nobody could see him as a threat. Muzzle was easily hurt, but Redskull knew how to talk him through it so he took advice when needed. Jet Jack lived off jangling people's nerves, but one sharp word from Redskull and she'd back right down. No-Legs was all-around arrogant and didn't take teasing well, but a few minutes' quiet conversation with the old man and he'd have cooled right off, and would occasionally even approach being a good sport. Black magic.

Faith appreciated his steadying influence on her bravors, although she was chagrined at the realization that he kept using it on her as well. The nagging she could tolerate, but much more unsettling, he had a tendency to read her much too well, take her temper with way too much equanimity, and listen in a way that forced her to keep talking. She'd coughed up way too much, more than once.

"Oh, dear sands, is he still doing that?" said Arkade, when Faith had obliquely complained once. "He did that when we were whelps too."

"I remember one time I stole a flint set from one of the nursery folks," said Chew Toy morosely. "He asks me if I took it, so I start saying no, and he just keeps nodding and listening and nodding, so I just keep talking, and suddenly I've explained the whole story about how I stole it and why I stole it and where I hid it." He looked at his hands as if still bewildered at the flint set being thus removed from him. "He just stands there till you confess."

"I'm pretty sure I ended up confessing to things I didn't even do," said Jet Jack.

"I'm pretty sure there aren't any things you didn't do, Jackie."

". . . That's fair." Jet Jack tipped a hand in concession. "But the point still stands, Chief. You watch out for him. He's got witchcraft."

Unfortunately witchcraft had its limits. It couldn't undo the fact that Redskull was old. He came along on missions, but he certainly wasn't equal to running around and fighting like Faith and her bravors. He had a little hint of a tremor in his left hand after a long day. Occasionally he would doze off before the conversation had really ended.

Every time these moments happened Faith felt another few chips of her soul fall away.

"Did you find the shears?" she asked one busy morning, looking up from a board full of tally marks Arkade had given her earlier.

"Shears? . . . " Redskull said blankly.

"You said yesterday you were going to dig out the old pair you had in your hut," said Faith.

"Oh." From Redskull's tone it was clear enough he had no recollection of saying this. "Right, of course, I remember. For the . . . the, uh . . . "

"The creepers south of town?" said Faith, more sharply than she'd planned to. "Choking off the teaberry bushes? The ones you explained about yourself yesterday?"

"Oh . . . "

"Get it together, old man!" Faith's pulse was quicker than it had a right to be. Redskull didn't reply, and his expression was hard to read without the top half of his face; but she saw his lips press into a thin line. Swallowing, she looked away. She hadn't meant to snap. She never meant to, the twenty-odd times a week that she did. Always inexplicably quick to anger every time he stammered, every time he faltered, every time he didn't quite hear what had been said. Even as she was continually ashamed of herself she had yet to stop.

"I apologize," said Redskull quietly after a moment. "I'll look for them now, if that's all right."

"I—" Faith groped for words a moment. What was she supposed to say? You keep reminding me that you're old? Every time this happens I wonder how long till your memory fails for good? I only yell at you because I'm afraid of how soon I'm going to lose you and I don't know how else to deal?

"It's fine," she breathed at last. "Not your fault." She stepped back. "If you could look for them now, that would be good."

Redskull left quietly. As far as he must know she was just a young, healthy Hunter impatient with the failings of a frail old man who couldn't keep up. Every now and then Faith realized with an icy jolt that the day it was too late to tell him otherwise was only coming closer. In the same instant she would realize, with a numb certainty, that she would never tell him before it was too late.

Prompt was "Time."