Chapter Text
Being a baby is boring, sometimes.
Like, yes, obviously, there’s the horrific grief and the weirdness and the wonders of the ancient world to keep him occupied, and there’s no lack of people queuing up to pay attention to him - spirits included - but still. There’s a lot of time that Mahanon spends just sort of lying in the nursery crib that his new ‘mamas’ give to him, with nothing to occupy him accept for his thoughts.
And his awkward motor control.
And trying to figure out where exactly the poop must be going whenever he soils himself.
…Look, it’s better than thinking about everyone being dead and crying and then having Nurevas or Tarensa come in and fuss over him. Usually. Sometimes.
Sometimes usually.
Point being, once he’s settled in to this situation enough to get bored, he starts making mental lists.
Pros to the Ancient World:
- Lots of magic everywhere, everyone is magic, no one cares that he’s a mage
- Apparently pretty good childcare systems, orphaned forest babies are well-looked after, at least
- Shiny
- Immortality (a tentative plus point, he’s pretty sure it’s probably a neutral)
- Not currently a smouldering wreck
Cons to the Ancient World:
- He is a baby
- Some very troubling structural issues seem to be afoot
- Evanuris are everywhere
- He is a baby
- Too shiny
- Definite lack of familiar friends and faces, because everyone but him is dead
- Now he’s gotta decide if he’s going to let this world go to shit just so his own might have another chance
- He is a baby
- Emotions are visible now why how is he supposed to repress them until no one can notice them anymore?
- Also he is a baby
It’s a pretty comprehensive summation, he decides. He really hopes Solas wasn’t envisioning a hasty time limit to all of this, because so far he’s managed to master making awkward noises, blowing spit bubbles, holding his bottle himself, and grabbing his own feet. And sitting up. But not much else. The Keeper always said he was a prodigy, but there’s only so much he can do as a small, doughy little ball of pudge.
Was he this chubby as a baby the first time around?
That doesn’t seem right.
The only consolation - and it is a mixed bag he does not mind saying - is that somewhere out there, is Solas. Well. Or maybe he hadn’t been born yet. Mahanon doesn’t know for sure, but either out there right now, or shortly to arrive, is Solas. Who might be just about the only person he cares about who isn’t completely doomed in all of this.
He’d be deeply suspicious of that, except he knows too much to think that Solas wanted it that way.
Still, as he manages his first toddling steps in the ancient world, he adds to that first mental list he made. Pros - ancient elves are really pretty. Cons - ruffly baby clothes are apparently A Thing, and chubby toddler legs can only get him so far when he’s trying to escape. Pros - no one really seems to mind nudity all that much. Cons - everyone notices babies, though, and so the sight of a naked toddler streaking down the halls draws a pretty big audience. Pros - toddlers can run faster than Mahanon thought. Cons - on balance, crashing into Solas’ legs whilst butt naked and fleeing from an outfit that looks like Josephine’s sister would wear it on a hat is not how he envisioned meeting Solas again.
For the first time.
Again for the first time.
All thoughts of escape and tactical evasion fly out of his head as he stares up at Solas, and Solas blinks down at him. He falls right onto his butt, and just looks up and up. It’s… he’s…
He’s wearing crystal hair toggles.
And lots of white floofy bits.
And he looks all… so… all…
Young.
“Are you alright, little one?” Solas asks, in that steady, concerned voice of his.
Mahanon bursts into tears.
So, to summarise - his glorious reintroduction to his former friend slash mentor slash ally involved running into him naked, staring at him in unabashed fascination, and then bursting into tears. Not his best first impression, he can admit. He’s rarely glad to be a baby, but as he’s not sure that this wouldn’t be his reaction even under non-baby-fied circumstances, right then he is.
Nurevas picks that moment to come racing around the corridor, and Solas offers her a lot of apologies and looks at Mahanon with a worried frown, while Nurevas tuts and picks him up, and tells him thatthis is why good little boys don’t flee from their changing tables while their mama’s back is turned.
She moves to carry him away, and Mahanon abandons whatever shred of dignity he has left to let out a watery ‘nnnnn!’ noise and make grabby-hands at Solas.
Nurevas pauses.
Solas blinks at him, again.
“Nnn! Sa!” Mahanon insists, not even sure where he’s going with this right now, except that he’s choking down an irrational fear that if Solas leaves his sight as things are, he might never see him again. He strains over Nurevas’ shoulder until she obligingly moves closer to the other elf.
Mahanon pats a tiny hand against his cheek. Solid enough that it’s nearly a smack; but soft enough to allow for plausible deniability.
Coming from a baby, and all.
“Sa!” he manages again. “Sala!”
He huffs at himself.
Nurevas’ eyes widen, though, and she jostles him a bit in her arms. Getting his attention back on her.
“Little one, are you trying to say ‘Solas’?” she asks. Then she glances over at the elf in question, her gaze narrowing a bit. “When have you met?”
Solas shakes his head, obviously at something of a loss.
“Never, to my knowledge,” he says.
Mahanon frowns and concentrates, summon up a few spit bubbles as he tries to get his mouth to cooperate. Who knew talking was this hard? And here he used to do so much of it.
“Saaooo. Ssso. Sollla. Sola!” he manages, clenching a fist and then smacking at his mouth in irritation, until Nurevas gently pulls his hand back.
Both she and Solas are gaping now, though.
Mahanon settles a determined glare onto the man of the hour, and points a pudgy finger at him.
“Solas!” he declares.
Yes!
In your face, infantile motor functions! Ha! He got it!
For a moment, though, in the wake of his triumphant giggling, the corridor goes quiet enough to hear a pin drop.
“…That was not his first word, was it?” Solas finally asks, looking a little bit worried and a little bit intrigued, too.
“No,” Nurevas says, and lets out a breath of her own. She leans in and kisses his cheek. “Though your sister probably would have appreciated it if you’d managed her name before a stranger’s. How does he even know it?”
“Perhaps a spirit somehow conveyed it…?” Solas suggests, obviously clutching at straws.
I heard it in a dream, Mahanon thinks wryly back at him.
He can’t even bother to worry about whether or not that was too conspicuously weird of him, though.
Solas.
He found Solas.