Official Character Sketches Of Gargoyles “Seeing Isn’t Believing”

Northern Norway - The Enchanted Land Bjørg-Elise Tuppen

Super Rough Draft of Goliath and Xanatos being grandparents together.

From bitter enemies to doting grandparents. Never in Goliath's wildest nightmares did he think he and Xanatos would share a grandchild, but here they are now.

Fate often had a twisted sense of humor.

She was beautiful. But, oh so fragile and so small. Goliath couldn't keep his eyes off her, his precious newborn granddaughter. Her wings fluttered in her sleep with her tail firmly grasped in her hands as she curled into herself. Surrounded by blankets and warmth. Kept safe in her basin, protected from the outside world.

He wanted to hold her in his arms, but refused as he did not wish to wake her. 

"Still asleep?" Whatever blissful peace he relished in soon crumbled to shambles, Xanatos had returned with his treasured cup of coffee.

"Yes," 

"A beauty isn't she?" he smiled "She'll be a magnificent heir to my kingdom one day" Goliath frowned at the implication.

The thought of his little granddaughter growing up to be a charismatic, manipulative questionably ethical billionaire filled him with existential dread. Young Alexander may have turned out for the better in most cases. Most cases. 

But, he was still Xanatos' son and operated in his own questionable, manipulative ways. And when he wasn't that, he was Goliath's own personal headache. Nonetheless, his daughter loved Young Alexander so, thus condemning him. Never in Goliath's wildest nightmares did he think he and Xanatos would share a grandchild, but here they are. 

Tiwa. 

She inherited Alex and Fox's bright red hair and Aodh and Elisa's dark skin. A strange combination of Human, Gargoyle and fae all wrapped into a singular bundle of joy. 

To Goliath she was perfect from head to toe, only a few weeks old and he was already in love with her. Couldn't imagine now what life would be without her now that she's here. 

And he and Xanatos were both her grandfathers by blood. It was a bizarre notion, bizarre as it was horrifying in retrospect. He thinks back to the time where he desired nothing more than to hurl his pathetic body from on top the castle's cornices.

Goliath did not believe he could forgive a man like him. Even now, he wouldn't call what he felt towards him forgiveness in a sense, but perhaps more than an ally, and something in between that. 

While Xanatos had worked hard to make  amends for his wrong doings, never did an apology leave his lips. Goliath did not know if he even felt an ounce of remorse over his actions. Never did he make any indication if that was the case. 

Xanatos was an incredibly difficult person to understand. Let alone read. 

"What's the matter, Goliath?" He quirks a brow "cat caught your tongue?" 

"No." He says, tail swishing "I'm just not paying you any mind." 

"Oh?" 

"Your childish attempts to get under my skin will not work" 

"Not trying to." 

"Right." 

"I just want what's best for her" 

"And that is what exactly? Her to grow up to be an exact replica of yourself?" 

"No." He takes another sip from his cup "I want her to be better than me" the answer takes him back for a moment. Goliath is not sure if that statement was intended to have a double edged meaning. 

"You don't believe me?" 

"You are many things Xanatos, being straightforward is not one of them" the man chuckles softly wary of waking Tiwa. She's only but stretched out her tiny arms and legs other than that she hadn't stirred from her slumber since being put to bed an hour ago.

Soft snores fill the silence "do you still hate me?" 

"Hate isn't a word I would use" 

"So you do?" 

"Xanatos you broke the spell that me and my clan were cursed under intending to use us, even after I told you about what happened to the rest of my people. You lied, manipulated, even used my own mate against me, you tried to kill what remained of my family and after that took our home, the only thing we had left. Add the plethora of harm you did afterwards." 

More quiet followed "I didn't just hate you, I detested your very existence" 

"I have to ask why let your daughter be with my son? After all the bad blood between us, I know I gave you, your home back, but that did little warrant any warmth towards me" 

Goliath sighed "I wasn't the least bit happy about my daughter and Young Alexander's friendship in the beginning. I understood that they were both children, I understood that the boy was far too young to pose much harm let alone consciously do so. But it still filled me with alarm, I feared for her, I feared that perhaps you would or was trying to use your son to gain some semblance of trust again. To use and manipulate use through the bond of our children. I didn't put it past you. You've done worse.

[]

"What did I tell you about acting like jackasses in front of the baby?" Aodh was uncloth as ever, the added unbalanced hormones didn't help her already severe demeanor.

"Mh, forgive me daughter" 

"We were just having a polite disagreement" 

"You mean jackassery" she corrected "do I have to tell Auntie Fox and mom that you two are misbehaving again?" 

Xanatos self-serving smirk fell right off his face and went silent along with Goliath "yeah, didn't think so." 

“Hey, big guy, can you pass me the washcloth? I can’t reach it”

Goliath blinked. Then blinked again, for a brief second, he cannot remember what he was doing or where he was, he was trying to pass the time by reading, but all he seemed to be doing was staring blankly at the pages, absorbing nothing, lost in the realm of his own mind, yet he cannot recall what he was thinking of-if he was musing about anything at all.

“Goliath? Are you okay?”

“Huh? What?” He blinked again, trying to shake himself from his stupor. Placing the book, he was reading down on the bedside table, he reached for the cloth that sat folded next to the lamp, passing it to Elisa “I apologize, I don’t know what came over me,  I was lost in thought”

“About what? Thank you” she took it from him to wipe Aodh’s mouth, from the looks of it she had spit up the milk she was drinking. Elisa gently dabbed her lips clean. The hatchling twitched, whimpering at the foreign sensation, trying to push the cloth away from her face. Elisa did it with as much ease as she could with another baby in the other crook of her arm suckling from her other breast.

“I really do not know-” he paused “I suppose I wasn’t thinking of anything in particular-let me” he confiscated the cloth from her fingers, before she could try and protest, to finish mopping down the child’s chin and throat.

“Ate too much?” he asked.

“No, too fast.” Elisa huffed “I can’t seem to get her to stop doing that “She was exhausted-that much was obvious. Her hair was in need of a decent groom, the edges were frayed, the rest of it was tangled and knotted. The dark circles beneath her eyes seemed more prominent under the dim light of the small lamp beside them. Goliath had grown accustomed to the large size of her belly; it was odd seeing her back to her previous size, not that he’d tell her that, the topic of her gained weight was a touchy subject-not a bridge he wished to cross at any moment. He knew to keep such reflections to himself.

After he cleaned Aodh the best he could-her baby blue clothing stained(there wasn’t much he could do about that), Elisa nudged her into feeding again “Ouch!” her body jerked “not so hard, little guy”

“Are you alright?”

“Huh? Yeah, fine-“ she grimaced a little, shifting awkwardly, the mattress creaked “she keeps trying to take my whole nipple off” saying such, Elisa shifted again, clumsily readjusting said hatchling, coaxing her mouth around her breast, not on the nipple. Aodh did not like that, she fussed, not enjoying being interrupted from her meal “hey, it’s okay” Elisa cooed at her softly “there you go” the whining stopped, as their daughter continued suckling again, her eyes fluttering close.

Elisa sighed “this is a lot harder than I thought it would be, mom used to make it look so easy” she shifts again “then again-guess I was too young to get that, I suppose.”

“Being parents?”

“Breastfeeding, but that too”

Goliath folds and places the soiled fabric aside. They both fell quiet, but it was a comfortable silence surrounded by the warm, homely atmosphere. It was strange, he was unused to the sudden calmness. He had grown accustomed to the entropy of his new life here in the modern world that he almost forgot what peace felt like. Not that his old life wasn’t without its own set of frustrations, but there always seemed to be long stretches of tranquility in between conflicts-or maybe he was just misremembering it, nostalgia blinding him from what was true. He wasn’t sure, to be fair-so much has changed and continues to change that it’s hard to keep up with every little detail. Yet, he can’t seem to shake the paranoia-everything had gone right-aside from a few complications (if he can call it that-more like a major complication, he glanced at Aila), but it was quickly mended. 

But, still, he can’t-

“Ow!-”

His thoughts circled back to the present “Aodh?”

“No,” Elisa bites her lip, her brow pinched down the center “Aila.”  

“Do you want me to take her?”

“No,” she readjusts their second daughter “no, it’s alright” the baby glances up at them with molten, gold eyes. Aila’s not as fussy as her older twin, so Elisa fixes her mouth around her breast without much of a fight.

Elisa shifts in the bed once more, letting her head fall back against the pillow “Good, god I feel like a cow” blowing a stray strand of hair out of her eye.

It’s his turn to grimace “You’re not a cow, Elisa. You look fine”

“Who said it was about my looks-I feel like one with all this damn milk literally guzzling out of me like a freakin’ faucet even when I’m not feeding. If I move just the slightest bit-look out here it comes. If I sit up too fast, elbow myself, my body turns into Niagara Falls minus the water.” She paused, glaring at the ceiling as if he had somehow offended her “and I’m fat, so it doesn’t make me feel better.”

“You are not fat”

“I’m fat. You can’t see it, but I have all this extra flub that might not go away”

“It will.” He took a cautious step forward “even if it doesn’t. What does it matter?”

Elisa doesn’t answer, Goliath not sure whether that’s an ominous sign or not “because it does matter, god, I feel awful, none of those books really prepare you for any of this.” 

“You’re going to be okay”

“My hair is falling out in clumps-like my uterus”

“Your hair will grow back” he wasn’t sure what to say about the latter part “and you’re still healing”

“Yeah,” her expression soured “doesn’t exactly make me feel all that better about wearing an adult diaper. Or going bald ” she muttered the last part to herself, “Fox told me to think of it as wearing a rather large pad-yeah that doesn’t help, it just makes it worse if you ask me. Kind of like imagining everybody naked if you’re nervous, wherever the hell that came from I’ll never know”

Once again Goliath did not understand just what she was referring to-

“No one will fault you for not looking your best.”

“….I guess….”

“Elisa you’ve just not given birth two days ago” as if it needed to be stated, “I think you’re being rather hard on yourself; no one is going to fault you for not looking your best. Not them and certainly not I. I’m concerned more for your health and the health of our children. The rest will come as you recover.”

“So-you do think I’m fat then?” Goliath snapped his mouth shut. He had hoped that would’ve gone away after her pregnancy-apparently not. He wasn’t used to Elisa being-well-the nicest way he could word it was weepy. Everything made her cry, or upset, or discouraged. If she forgot to replace her precious stash of coffee-she cried. Someone left the toilet seat up-she cried. If she burnt something-she’d cry. It was difficult at first, Elisa did not cry so easily-normally-but her pregnancy was hard on her, both physically and emotionally. The books had warned him, he should’ve heeded their advice more closely.

He did his best to try and console her with soothing words, but she’d find some way to poke a hole in it.

“No, I did not say that.”

“But, you’re thinking it.”

“I am not.”

She sniffed, her voice sounded watery “It’s like that time you called me ugly” Oh, dear god; why did she have to bring that up? That night, hauntingly, comes back to him and he can’t help but cringe in embarrassment. Not one of his finest hours.

“I did not call you ugly”

“You implied it-“

“I did no such thing and what exactly did you expect me to say?”

“I don’t know-something other than oh, look an updraf-OW!” Oh, thank the dragon! He did not relish in Elisa’s suffering, but her erratic emotional state made her more confrontational than normal, often leaving him stuck between a rock and a hard place, as they say, with no way out.

“Are you alright? He concealed his relief with concern, hoping she wouldn’t catch on. Elisa nodded, hissing through her teeth, gently nudging Aila off her breast with her finger, so her mouth wasn’t latched solely onto the nipple.

“god, by the time this is over I’m gonna have either chafed nipples or none at all if they keep using me as their personal chew toy.”

He lets his shoulders relax, chuckling softy.

She glares at him “I’m glad my pain amuses you”

“At least they don’t have teeth.”

“Y’know how about I hand them over and let them chew on your nips for a while and see how you like it”

He knew a threat when he heard one “I’ll pass”

“Ah-huh” she hummed, Aodh squirmed, unlatching herself from her mother’s breast then burped, spitting up once more in the process. Goliath passed the small towel back to Elisa “all finished” she asked softly, as she dabbed her chin.

…….

Aodh yawned before glancing up to look at Elisa.

……

Her face goes blank, she puts the towel down to tap the baby’s nose with her finger.

".......they'll make it-right….?" She doesn't look at him when the words leave her lips. The fear is tangible in her voice, it's edgy as if she doesn't want to sound too hopeful. Goliath just wants to reach out and smooth the frown from her lips, to tell her that everything will be okay.

But…… he's afraid too. Fears that the same thing will happen again and that he'll be powerless to do anything about it. For all his strength, not even he can prevent death. He's not that arrogant. Time is like a river- just like death it is inevitable and unites them all in the end. 

 "They've made it this far. They’re healthy as far as anyone can tell" he eyes the twins barely aware of the world around them. Such a blissful, innocuous ignorance. But even that will fade as they grow into their own. 

"…..So was….nia...she was healthy….until she wasn’t…." it was said carefully. Quietly. Goliath felt an uncomfortable weight sit in his stomach. 

"I know…."

He wanted to say, at least they survived the womb, while Nia didn't. His daughter died before she could ever live. 

No first breath, just silent death. 

A morbid part of him argued that-at least it was quick and quiet, she didn't suffer. She didn't die in agony. It was sad, cruel, almost, but-

"I keep waking up thinking all of this is a perfect dream. Then it hits me, and I know that it's not-" she holds them closer "but, it's so damn terrifying, waiting for every bad thing to happen at once" 

He watched her swallow, already smelling salt.

"Y'know" her voice wavered. Goliath prepared himself for the onslaught of tears. Or an extreme outburst of emotions that Elisa was prone to make these days.

He touches her face with his knuckles, gently brushing them over soft skin "I know" 

"Sorry….." she sniffed, wiping the faint traces of tears away from her eye with the lift of her shoulder "I must be insufferable with my emotions going batshit every second" using his thumb he wiped the rest of her tears from her cheeks, marveling at the small freckles that danced across her face, ear to ear, they had emerged at the second month of her pregnancy-he wonders if they’re permanent or if they will eventually fade with time.

"Not at all.” He pushed some choppy hair over her ear “but, maybe it won’t assuage your worries, yet-“ he pauses for a moment “perhaps, we should take everything one day at a time. We cannot predict the future and we cannot truly alter the past; all we can do is live in the present and do what we can" Her brown eyes were still watery, but she didn't seem as distraught "whatever happens, we'll face it together as we always have" he lifted her chin to kiss the top of her head.

Aila hiccupped. They pulled away as their second daughter followed her elder sister’s lead and sip up all over herself.

{}

"Milk"

Summary: Milk is a symbol of fertility, once thought of as the food of the gods and a nurturer, the lifeblood and lifeline that connects mother to child. And child to mother.

Warnings!: References to Miscarriage/Stillbirth/Unplanned Pregnancy/References to Birth

Chapter One: The First Nights

Canon-Divergence/Canon-Complaint/Post-Canon/Non-linear Narrative

Reality is stranger than fiction, they say, and he was inclined to agree. Life was indeed filled with one oddity after another.

He remembers a story from his youth.

A story, that was ancient he was told, passed from the old to young about a Clan Leader of their own who had taken a human as a mate.

They had a child-who they called, the meaning of an end in the old language. Someone who should never have been-

An abomination-

The child was cursed. And because of it, she cursed the land. Cursed her clan that lamented her existence, cursed the humans who condemned her, and cursed her parents who had birthed her into a world that knew only hate and fear.

They called her- Hillevi.

Goliath never took the story seriously; he knew the ploy by then. The line drawn in the sand, humans stayed on one side and they stayed on the other, they were never supposed to cross it.

Well, he had never been one for superstitions.

{}

The Shower (#15 - Mother and Child in Rain),1800. Helen Hyde. Etching with hand color

This is has peak GoLisa energy.

Imagine Elisa and Goliath having a whole ass baby together and still being unsure about their relationship. Are they friends?-Something more, they don't know.

Gargoyles Season 2 Episode 43 / Future Tense

Remember that time Goliath literally watched Broadway die because I sure do.

Hibernation, Øystein Sture Aspelund