Chapter Text
It was hard, at first. He came back to the little town he knew so well and no one knew him (not that they had before, either, of course, but still). Only a quick and careful use of Disguise Self got Tallahassee back from Mr. Octavio.
He was far enough away from the big city that he didn't see anyone who should have known him as Tr8c and that made things... easier? It does, in a way, when he's sitting in the little apartment above the tea shop on the first night that he officially owns it (and he owns it now!) and sentry mode feels too much like- too much like things he can't think about quite yet.
He comes down the next morning and he realizes, suddenly, something he probably should have seen earlier: the walls in the tea shop aren't pink, like his visual sensors had incorrectly concluded earlier. They're a little more orange- really, they're... salmon.
He can live with salmon.
What's in a name? That which we call a rose does not define its essence, or erase the injuries it has caused through nothing other than it's base nature. It might be easier if, in changing the name, you could change the very thing itself. Tr8c would very much like to be Salmon. Salmon probably has less to think about after the tea shop closes.
The first gadget he creates for the sheer joy of it is from page 37 of "My First Warforged"- a little more complicated than the pocket watch, but still something real.
(He still has the pocket watch. He’s never wound it, but it still keeps time as well as it ever has. He wonders, sometimes, if it’s partner is still ticking away out there.)
Page 37 of "My First Warforged" is a diagram: just a fish, in an empty bowl, with a modified version of Levitate fused with half the formal incantation for featherfall to give it the right amount of lift. He puts it in a bowl on the front counter of the tea shop. The Sanderson sisters stare, stunned by the rhythmic circles of the fish.
"It's wonderful," says Mary.
"What's it's name?" asks Margaret.
Tr8c stares at the fish for a minute, watching it go around and around. The bronze fish in the salmon room looks almost like someone just set the tea to steep.
"PEKOE," he says at last. "HIS NAME IS PEKOE."
"He's adorable," says Margaret, picking up her cup of Earl Grey with sugar.
"I love him," said Mary, picking up her cup of Earl Grey with milk.
"THANK YOU."
As they take their seat by the window, Tr8c looks around the room. There are his regulars, of course. Jeremy is waiting at the trough for his terrible, terrible coffee,
chatting with the gnome known as Charlie. An adventurer or two, on a break or hoping for a side quest (he'd tell them about the old mine, if they asked, but only if they were willing to sit and talk for a little while first). This place wasn't perfect yet, but it was starting to look a little bit closer. Something was missing, though and Tr8c couldn't quite put his finger on it (a lot of things are missing, after all, whispers a voice at the back of his mind. He ignores it).
“I like the fish,” says Stacey, another regular, startling him out of his daze.
“THANKS,” he replies, automatically. “I MADE IT MYSELF.”
She smiles at him as she sits down to wait for her regular cup of green tea and the fish keeps swimming in gentle, constant circles