#there were so many different ideas i could have gone with here like mumbo trying to teach grian redstone and getting so frustrated that he | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

votederpycausemufins · 3 years

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-slams fists on table- part two! Notes are that I miss Grumbot and I feel like Scar gives off worried dad vibes and Scar and Grian feel like they’d be bickering siblings. again a ping to @petrichormeraki for making this au.

In spite of the revelation of this bee apparently somehow being Tubbo, Tommy did not react with yelling or screaming. Instead he started by just staring at the hive where he had fallen after tripping, thinking about the new knowledge. And then he screamed.

Responding to the scream, the bee, uh, Tubbo. Tubbee? Yeah Tubbee. Tubbee popped out of his hive and flew over to Tommy. Tommy, still not completely okay with what was going on, scrambled back a few blocks. Tubbee didn’t care and just flew all the way until he settled in Tommy’s lap. He nuzzled against Tommy, the spinning compass that was now on the floor once again pointing towards Tubbee before returning to spinning wildly.

“Okay. Fuck. What the fuck. Tubbo I know you like bees but this?” Tommy gave a nervous chuckle. “This is too fucking far.”

Tubbee buzzed happily, not seeming to realize Tommy’s distress about his current form. He then started to fly around Tommy, bopping against him happily as Tommy pulled out his communicator to send a message to all the Hermits that were around. ‘Something really fucking weird happened and I need help. Even from Xisuma if he can come back.’

Almost immediately a new message came in with a buzz. It was from Stress scolding Tommy for his language. The next was from Scar who was surprised Tommy needed Xisuma’s help and asked what was going on. As Tommy typed a response, just along the lines that it was hard to explain, Xisuma replied in the chat saying he was on his way.

Tommy set his phone back down and just sat on the ground in silence as he waited for the admin to arrive. The phone buzzed a few more times, but Tommy ignored it for the most part. There was a distant sound of a firework launching and the teen figured that would have to be Xisuma. Tubbee also seemed to hear the noise, because immediately after it sounded, he flew and hid inside the nearby hive.

A few seconds later, the door opened to Xisuma. He started to speak but was pushed aside by a panicked looking Scar. “What happened?! Why do you need X’s help?”

Tommy shoved away the second hermit who was already looking him over for any injury. “God, stop acting like my fucking mom. I just have a weird bee.”

“A what?” Scar pulled away suddenly, causing Tommy to almost fall over. Tubbee decided this was the perfect time to come out of his hive and fly over to Tommy for comfort. “Oh, that kind of b.”

Xisuma looked between Tubbee and the hive. “It looks like it’s using the hive correctly, though it is still attracted to you. Are you sure you don’t have any-”

“I don’t have any fuckin’ flowers. And it’s not a normal bee.” As Tommy talked, he wasn’t really paying attention to the fact that he was now subconsciously holding Tubbee and petting him. “I think my friend died and is a bee now.”

Both Scar and X just stood there, staring at Tommy and Tubbee. Before either of them could speak, the door slammed open again. “What happened?! Why do you need X’s help?” Grian shouted.

After a bit of calming down and making sure no more hermits would come racing over out of nowhere, Tommy explained about his friend who really liked bees, how the two of them had special compasses pointing to each other, how they would be in different servers but the compass was pointing to this bee. As the various Hermits talked, Tubbee decided it was a good time to explore and buzzed about the old hobbit hole.

“You’re saying this bee is your friend… reincarnated or something?” Grian asked skeptically.

“That’s the best clue I have.” Tommy answered with a shrug. “Not like I have much to go on. I’m not gonna drop back home and ask around saying ‘Hey, Tubbo die while I was gone?’ cause no matter what they wouldn’t let me back.”

“I can try and get some of my old magic crystals and try them on him.” Scar piped up before getting a shove from Grian.

“Those things don’t work.” Grian chided before being shoved back.

“A man-!” “Teen.” “-Teen has been turned into a bee, I doubt my crystals are that useless in a time like this.”

Xisuma carefully separated the two other Hermits. “Before you do that, I’m going to try having a look at his code. See if there’s any truth to the claim first.”

The comment hurt Tommy. “What, you don’t believe me?” Xisuma tried backtracking but Tommy stopped him. “Of course there’s something! Bees don’t just fucking act like that and compasses don’t just point at bees.” Tommy grabbed his compass from the floor and held it up. It spun wildly for a few seconds and one of the hermits was about to point that out when the needle changed its mind and pointed to Tubbee for the same amount of time before spinning around again.

Grian’s eyes widened and he managed to speak first. “That is bonkers. I’ve never seen that before! X, what does the bee say?”

“Can’t say much of anything.” Scar half mumbled, getting a jab in the ribs from Grian.

Xisuma turned his gaze to Tubbee and carefully grabbed him. Tubbee panicked for a few moments, but realized he wasn’t in any harm and let himself be held by such a large and kind looking bee.

X didn’t usually take advantage of his admin powers, at most messing with the end files every so often so the Hermits could get more shulker boxes. This was much different than that. Still Xisuma looked at the code of the bee. There was nothing there that directly seemed to be player code. There was something that resembled it, but nothing concrete. It just seemed like a, pardon the pun, a bugged bee.

“There’s something off, but it doesn’t seem like this bee is another player.” Xisuma informed Tommy, letting Tubbee go.

“What? Of course he is! This has to be Tubbo!” Tommy was taken aback by X’s claims. “Isn’t there someone else that’s better at this than you.”

“Tommy...” Scar spoke gently, but Tommy just turned and yelled at the mayor.

“Shut up! And don’t try using any magic mumbo jumbo on him!” Tommy grabbed Tubbee as he tried to explore again.

Grian tried holding in a laugh, but Tommy noticed and glared at him. “Look, I know some hermits had some machines last season that could tell fortunes or whatever, but we don’t really have that many here this season. I mean, there’s Grumbot, but he’s…”

No longer glaring, Tommy nearly jumped happily at the words. “Who’s Grumbot? Is ‘e another admin here?”

“No, no. He was uh, so I had Mumbo run for mayor and we built this robot to give us information on how to actually help him run for mayor and give mayoral advice, but he didn’t really-” Grian was scratching the back of his head, not sure how to explain it all to Tommy when the teen cut him off.

“Tubbo was president back home, maybe that’s close enough to mayor. Where is he?”

“Tommy, slow down.” Scar chimed in. “ I mean, uh, I’m the mayor, so Grumbot didn’t really help. Plus, didn’t you have to pay him diamonds for every question.”

Grian groaned. “Yes. I don’t know why that was ever a good design idea. He also had a mental breakdown when he thought Mumbo lost so we kinda… lied to him and told him Mumbo did become mayor and now he’s living in a virtual reality box.”

Tommy wracked his brain, trying to remember why that sounded familiar before he remembered. “You mean that mustache box off the coast of the shopping district? I’ve seen it a few times boating back home from there.”

Grian tried to backtrack, but it was obvious anything else was a lie. Tommy ran to the various chests, rummaging around until he found a spare lead.”C’mon Tubbo, let's go see this Grumbot.

Grian tried talking out of it, but Scar stopped him to talk with Tommy instead. Pulling the teen over to the side, he started to scold Tommy before lowering his voice. “Look, I don’t know if that machine is gonna work for you or not, but this seems important to you. From what I can tell you need to put the diamond in and press the buttons in order or something.” As Scar pretended to go back to scolding Tommy, he slipped a diamond into the boy’s hand. “Well, hopefully he’ll listen to reason.”

Getting what Scar was trying to do, Tommy put the lead away and sat down. “Yeah… guess I’ll just have to use what I know right now.”

Grian looked a little suspicious, but Scar managed to lead him out. Xisuma started to follow them out, but turned to Tommy and asked him to send updates. Tommy nodded and pet Tubbee, trying not to get too restless as he sat there to wait.

After waiting so long that Bdubs had to call the sun back, Tommy pulled out his lead again and built a boat. Carefully tying the lead around Tubbee, he climbed into the boat and tied the other end to one of the oars before paddling towards spawn. Eventually, he reached the large white box, and noticed that the mustache was not actually on the box, but a different building further on. Because of that, Tommy doubted about if Grumbot would be here, but when he found an opening and went in with Tubbee, he saw the computer.

Tommy expected something much smaller but Grumbot was huge and a bit overwhelming. He seemed to be staring off into the distance, and when Tommy looked that way, he saw recreation of the shopping district.

Pulling the diamond that Scar gave him out of his pocket, Tommy waked to the base of Grumbot and looked at the labeled buttons. He pressed the one labeled prime Grumbot and flinched at the slight grinding noise that came from the machine. While that made Tommy reluctant about the idea, he had already come all the way out here and started the process, so he might as well finish it up.

Next he pressed the boot load brain button and then the flood mayoral reservoirs one. More noises sounded from the machine and then Tommy looked at the last label. ‘Deposit Question Diamond.’ He was about to just put it in before he saw the anvils. After dying the other day, Tommy didn’t have many levels, but he had at least one.

Putting the diamond in an anvil, Tommy renamed it with a question and placed it in the machine and pressed the final button. Trying to help, Tubbee also bopped against the button as Tommy stepped back to look at the screen of Grumbot. The happy eyes changed to standard ones, and then they looked down as a paper dispensed.

Tommy ran back over to the machine and grabbed the paper to read it. There were only four words on it and just seeing the number nearly made Tommy tear it up, but then he actually comprehended the words. ‘Use the fourth button.’

Tommy looked back at the buttons and noticed the 4th one was made of a block. Pulling it out, he then placed it into the nearby mechanism and pressed the other three buttons. It took a bit of finagling to use the fourth button, what with it now missing. But then the screen glitched and then it glitched again. Tommy looked between the screen and the answer printer, angry to see no response. With that anger, he kicked Grumbot, and then the screen stopped glitching.

“Ah, just what I needed. A good kick to the ribs.” Tommy swore and fell to the ground at the booming voice that came from Grumbot. Tubbee was also scared by it and cowered next to Tommy. Looking up, he saw the screen no longer glitching and the previously stiff face looking very animated as it looked around, eventually looking down at Tommy.

“So, you’re the one who wants my help, yes?” The booming voice spoke again, making Tommy cover his ears this time. “Oh sorry, I guess I’m a bit too loud.” Grumbot apologized as he lowered his voice.

Tommy, having no clue how Grumbot was supposed to act, didn’t find his voice and much more emotive face odd. “Yeah, uh. So Grian told me that you did mayoral stuff and while it’s not the same, I have a friend who is, or was , a president and wondered if you could help with that?”

Grumbot’s face tilted as his computer head could not. “Your first diamond was asking about the status of a ‘President Tubbo’. While I have been here with only the occasional visit, I’ve had time for my redstone brain and so to upgrade and find new databases and reservoirs.”

“Uh… does that mean you know that-“ Tommy started to speak but was cut off.

“Yes. I know now my dad did not win the election. At the time, that was my only purpose. I was upset when I learned the truth when you activated me, but I have new purpose and my dads just did what they could to care for me.”

Tommy just nodded, not completely sure what all of that meant, more from not paying attention. “Okay, well I think my friend who was president elsewhere got turned into this bee.” And Tommy held up Tubbee.

Grumbot ‘leaned’ closer to see Tubbee and then looked at the data he received about a president Tubbo. “Your friend was not turned into a bee.”

Tommy frowned at the answer, arms falling to his sides, Tubbee now free to do more exploring. “What do you mean, my compass is supposed to point to Tubbo and it points to this bee, so it has to be Tubbo! He loves the things so much it makes sense he would become one.”

Grumbot added the new information to his data. “Well, that is neither your dead friend returned to life as a bee, nor your friend disguised as one. It is instead something else.”

Protests Tommy had been about to sling at the robot died in his throat and was replaced with a new question. “What is it then?”

Grumbot paused, making sure he could get all the data he had access to and could help. “Your world is… different.” The AI started slowly. “You can lose lives and eventually truly die. But you don’t just die and decide one is a true life lost. When that happens, you… lose a piece of you. Enough times and what makes you you can’t exist in a body anymore.”

Tommy interrupted Grumbot. “So Tubbo is a ghost possessing the bee?”

The AI glared at Tommy for a few seconds, screen background turning a certain shade of red. But then he calmed. “No, your friend is still alive, but he has had one of those special deaths happened. It was before you arrived here in Hermitcraft. That death broke off a piece of his soul and it managed to end up here. Whether the piece was active the whole time or it only activated once you, a familiar being, drew near, I cannot say.”

Tommy processed the information before asking a clarifying question. So, the bee is only like a piece of Tubbo?”

A piece of paper was printed out and then Grumbot’s screen went dark. Tommy grabbed the paper and read the word ‘Yes.’ There was also a post script asking for Tommy to kill Scar for the AI which Tommy laughed at. He then got the lead back around Tubbee and headed home.

Even if it wasn’t really Tubbo, Tommy found Tubbee comforting. Maybe even if this piece of Tubbo was here, Tubbo could feel Tommy on the other end, trying to care for his friend. Xisuma came to visit Tommy again after a few days and heard from Tommy what Grumbot had said. Grian came later that same day and freaked out when he learned about Grumbot, leaving almost immediately to go find Mumbo who was also online.

Scar was the last to show up. He was glad to find out that Tommy had piece of mind, but was also a bit salty about the fact he was stabbed and killed the moment he walked through the door, though it was his own fault for getting there at half a heart from crashing into so much while flying.

#hermit!tommy au #hermitcraft #hermitblr #tommyinnit #grian #goodtimeswithscar #xisuma #dream smp #tubbo #tubbee #grumbot

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mamahersh · 3 years

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The Road to Hell (is Paved with Good Intentions) Chapter 5

“Season 8 was well underway, and the server’s first conflict is bubbling just under the surface. But BDoubleO can’t worry about that right now because he has an Etho to find so they can work on the Horse Course together. However when Xisuma calls a surprise server meeting on behalf of EvilXisuma, BDubs gets his answers about where Etho’s been in the worst way possible.”

(CW: angst, blood, gore, torture)

Chapter rating: M

Back to the rescue team and those left behind, focusing on BDubs and a surprise Mumbo Jumbo! (Bet you weren’t expecting Mumbo angst.) Thank you all again for your interest! As previously mentioned, if you enjoyed this, I was directly inspired by this fic over on AO3.

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 6

BDubs knew it was going to be hard trying to find where Etho and EvilX were hiding, but he neglected to remember how nerve wracking it would be with the added challenge of hearing his communicator go off every time someone died. Admittedly, it had only been the two times thus far, but checking and seeing they were both Etho made him want to go insane. The only boon they had, paradoxically, was the same curse keeping Etho stuck in that hell hole: that they were able to respawn in the same place they had died in. This at least meant that their progress wouldn’t be undone at a moment’s notice because someone died and got sent to their base halfway across the map in the opposite direction they were searching.

After he had checked his communicator to see the death message, “Ethoslab was slain by Ethoslab whilst trying to escape EvilXisuma”; BDubs decided he would stop watching chat completely. If someone died, he knew they would be fine, and he really didn’t need to know how else Etho was going to suffer till they found him. Plus, he had Doc keeping an eye on Etho for him. And he had Beef by his side, plus the Big Eye crew supporting him. He just had to keep reminding himself he wasn’t alone, it wasn’t the jungle again, he had his people with him.

“Hey BDubs, you see anything yet?” called out Tango, flying by on his own elytra. BDubs startled in the straps of his elytra, and focused more on the ground below.

“I got nothin’!” he called back, swooping to the back of the formation the big eyes crew had made to check the area stretching from the girls’ southernmost border to the northernmost border of Cleo and Joe’s shared territory. They had decided to first fly over their assigned strip of the x coordinate line to see if there was anything obviously wrong from a bird’s eye view. After that, depending on the results from the other search teams, they would dig down in strategic intervals to be as thorough as possible. They had calculated the size of the room based on the video feed before they had left, and so they planned on digging straight down every 9 blocks along the axis. As crazy as that was, they were hoping with forteen hermits all doing it at the same time equally spaced along the line, they would be able to find Etho within an hour or two. (This all assumed that EvilX hadn’t been lying, but this was the only thing they had.)

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Mumbo hated every decision that had led him to this moment. He hated every decision that others have made on his behalf that had led to this moment. (That was a lie, he blamed himself completely. Even though Grian had had the idea to institute him as the CEO of Boatem, it was still his final say as to whether he would actually complete the role assigned to him. It was his decision to step up to the plate and lead them at this critical time. Everything that was happening was entirely his fault.) As he watched, horrified, Etho having to stay strong without anyone by his side; Mumbo thought he would throw up. If he didn’t faint first that was. (How pathetic of him, that he couldn’t handle the consequences of his actions.) He stood miserable in front of the screen, promising himself the least he could do was watch every moment Etho was without help and in pain because of him.

Beside him, Xisuma frantically typed in his admin console, seemingly trying in vain to undo whatever EvilXisuma had done to the respawn mechanics. To his other side, TFC stood stoically, seemingly unaffected by what he was witnessing, though Mumbo was sure that if he looked over, he’d be able to see the disguised pain in TFC’s eyes. Behind and a bit to the side of Xisuma was Joe, who’s pain was obvious to see, but stood strong despite it. (Mumbo wondered why Joe was here at all, till he remembered how close Joe was to Xisuma). To TFC’s other side stood Doc, who looked about one more Etho death from finding a way to crawl through the screen and detonating in EvilXisuma’s face. And to Joe’s other side stood Scar, sympathetic tears trailing down his face and holding himself in a way that Mumbo knew he did when he was particularly missing the comfort of Jellie the cat.

Mumbo watched as Etho poofed back into existence, arm that he had mangled looking noticeably more mangled than before.(Though there was something off about the restraints and his arm’s relation to them that Mumbo couldn’t place. It didn’t help the camera’s resolution wasn’t quite perfect clarity, and a bit of a wide shot, so details were a little difficult to pick out. Though it didn’t stop them from seeing the next part just fine.) Once Etho was back, EvilXisuma punched him in the face, hard enough they could see a tooth fly out of his mouth.

“You will regret that,” stated EvilXisuma, just barely loud enough to be picked up by the camera. (Mumbo knows Etho would normally have replied with something like, ‘you already said that’, but, well…)

“Any updates Xisuma?” questioned Doc, still staring intently at the screen looking for any clues as to the whereabouts of the the torture room.

“He’s still goin’ strong Doc,” replied Joe instead, peaking over Xisuma’s shoulder to see what he was up to. “You got any new clues?”

Doc growled under his breath. “No.” He sounded bitter to Mumbo, all acid and sharp edges.

“I can’t tell, but there’s something different about his arm I think,” said Mumbo hesitantly, nervously watching as the rest of the group stared intently up at the screen to see what he meant.

Scar spoke up, “I think I see what you mean. His arm isn’t quite aligned correctly with the chair arm, right?”

Mumbo nodded, pointing at Etho’s arm on the screen where it seemed to almost intersect with the cuff and was bleeding profusely. “I don’t know how, like if it was just a natural consequence of trying to move his arm in that direction as he died and respawned, or if it was just a one time fluke; but he seems to have gotten his wrist intersected with the cuff on the armrest and the stake from earlier seems off center.”

As Mumbo was trying to explain, EvilXisuma had begun to focus on Etho’s fingers, and starting on the opposite hand to the one they were observing, he began to break them individually. Mumbo was selfishly happy that he didn’t have to focus on Etho’s pain for a moment as he allowed himself to fully focus on the potential puzzle in front of him.

TFC suddenly spoke up, voice coming off as gruff. “Hrm, this is good and all, but it depends entirely on EvilXisuma not noticing this little update; which we’ve done a pretty poor job at not letting him on. What with him more than likely able to hear us, and all that.” Doc muttered a quiet, “fuck” under his breath in response, and they all held their breath as they waited to see if EvilXisuma would say anything.

Instead of saying anything, he continued to methodically snap more of Etho’s fingers, causing the group to flinch in varying amounts at each wet snap. However, as Mumbo was trying to take in details not relating to Etho’s pain, he could tell that the mic was picking up EvilXisuma’s muttering. But Mumbo didn’t have the super amazing hearing that someone like Ren or Grian had; but he wondered if one of the other people in the group here had more sensitive hearing. “Anyone able to make out what he’s saying?” muttered Mumbo.

Doc hissed a quiet affirmative, and muttered back, “Yesssss, but I need to focus. Please everyone be quiet, thanks.” Everyone but Xisuma nodded back, who was too busy still trying to figure out what EvilXisuma had done to the code to notice anything else around him.

Mumbo did his best to both suffer the consequences of his actions, while at the same time he couldn’t stand watching one of his fellow Hermits in that much pain. He could no longer distract himself, as he couldn’t make out what EvilXisuma was saying, and there were only so many times he could try to determine how many pixels on the screen related to the walls were just stone or his imagination trying to give him impossible answers. EvilXisuma had finally finished with Etho’s left hand, and he now moved to the right before he took a noticeable pause. Mumbo held his breath, hoping beyond hope that EvilXisuma somehow hadn’t noticed Etho’s weirdly placed hand. But that was an impossible wish after all.

“Well well well, how have you managed this then?” Evil Xisuma appeared to poke the part of the wrist that seemed to be poking part way out of the cuff. Mumbo couldn’t help but notice that Etho seemed so gone that he barely flinched at what should have been an incredibly painful jostle. “I’m interested in seeing how you struggle with this.” Evil X nodded at Etho. “Yes, I shall let you struggle. But we still have about 9 more bones to break, so on we go.” With that, he kneeled in front of Etho and started snapping the fingers on Etho’s right hand. Each wet snap ended with a muted whine and shudder from Etho, who seemed to have zoned out far enough that any reactions seemed mostly involuntary at this point. EvilXisuma seemed quiet for the first few snaps, before he went back to muttering in a just barely audible way. Mumbo could only assume that EvilXisuma was unaware that his mic sensitivity was set too high, and thought he was muttering in such a way as for those of them watching the stream would be unable to hear him. That, or it was an unconscious habit, and didn’t even realize he was doing it. Either way, Mumbo continued hoping he would continue to do so, so that maybe he would let something slip and Doc could post it in chat.

Meanwhile Doc had been listening closely to what EvilX had been saying, but none of it thus far had led to a clue. Most of what he was muttering were curses and the terrible things he planned to do to Etho. Honestly Doc wished he couldn’t hear what EvilX was saying, just so that he wasn’t obligated to continue listening to see if that scum slipped up. But the chance of catching something important was too high, so he went back to diligently listening to the stream, mentally cursing at every suppressed gasp or whine or wet snap from Etho.

EvilXisuma made quick work of Etho’s fingers, and seemingly tired of Etho’s lack of responses decided he needed to kill him. However, because he was feeling particularly vindictive, he gutted Etho, guts spilling over his knees before he disappeared in a flash of red. Mumbo, morbidly curious how the game would register the death, looked down at his communicator. “Ethoslab was slain by EvilXisuma.” He was selfishly grateful that the server messages were that generic. He watched further as Etho poofed back into the chair, though as before his killing blow hadn’t followed him through respawn, but all his previous wounds did. Mumbo looked very carefully at Etho’s wrists and saw that he had managed to get his wrist farther out, and the stake seemed almost completely out of his arm. Unfortunately for Etho, respawn managed to break him out of his trance, and he seemed far more present and aware (and in pain) for the moment. The only positive that Mumbo could see was that EvilXisuma seemed to have either turned off the speakers on his end, or was ignoring them completely. But Mumbo could only hope that either Doc would hear something soon, or the search parties would stumble across the hidden room soon; because he wasn’t sure how much more of this he could watch.

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stitch1830 · 3 years

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What If

Happy Kantoph Mondangst! :D

I have some ideas to add to this, but perhaps I'll save that for next week ;) Thank you for reading as always!

......

Time moved, whether slowly or quickly wasn’t up to Toph, but it moved. The sun rose and fell and the days began and ended until there were too many days since she last felt him, last heard him. Almost two years, to be exact.

And time left her numb.

She lived each day to survive, and she hated that she could barely function without him. To make matters worse, Lin suffered the most from Toph’s hollow presence. She needed and wanted attention that sometimes Toph couldn’t provide, and she just knew that she was letting her daughter down.

But how could she move on? How could she just… let him go?

She didn’t know. And she feared she never would.

Her friends continued to check in with her almost everyday, and it was nice to have company, but their burden felt heavy on Toph’s shoulders, too. They should be living their lives, not babysitting her.

But time wouldn’t shake them off her back. They were a constant in her life, whether she wanted it or not.

It was probably for the best, if she was being honest.

Still, they always dragged her into saying yes to dumb shit that had absolutely nothing to do with her. Hence, the mission.

She wasn’t sure why she agreed to the mission. Toph didn’t even know why they were all gathering for this task. But based on the debrief, it was a stupid mission. It was stupid to spend so much time in the Swamp for them, and Toph specifically, to look for spirity mumbo jumbo when she couldn’t see. But the group insisted that she tag along, and it wasn’t like she had anything better to do.

When all the children were settled in Gaoling with her parents, the group flew off just like old times. And throughout the journey, everyone warned her of the visions of the Swamp, of the people she may hear or visit with.

Well, there was really only one person, but they kept that part open-ended.

For that, she was grateful.

…….

It didn’t take long for Toph to end up on her own in the Swamp.

Seriously, though. What was a blind woman doing on a mission that required having the ability to see? Only the spirits knew, and Toph went off on her own out of spite and boredom, and because she was partnered with Zuko and Katara and well…

Sometimes it was hard to hang out with the both of them. It reminded her of what she could’ve been with…

Toph shook her head and kept walking.

She casually trekked through the muddy forest of the Swamp, focusing on the sounds and vibrations around her to keep her friends within her sights so she wasn’t completely lost in a mysterious murky forest. Probably wasn’t the smartest thing for her to be on her own, but she just had to get away.

As she walked and kicked small pebbles in her path, a soft breeze arrived that alleviated some of the humidity of the swampy air. The wind had a liveliness to it, dancing around her and playing with her hair and loose clothing as she kept her brisk pace. It felt familiar to her, the wind. Almost like how someone would come up to her and tug at her clothes to get her attention, or how someone would push her bangs out of her face. As if the wind knew her thoughts, it managed to push her hair enough to tuck it behind her ear.

Suddenly, she stopped.

The breeze was laughing. His laugh. Soft, faint, teasing her to come closer. And the air left Toph’s lungs, she stood frozen in place, trying to figure out what tricks her mind was playing with her.

But then it wasn’t playing tricks with her. She heard him.

“Hey Chief.”

Her heart burst with joy and broke all at the same time, and she didn’t know what she should’ve been feeling at that moment. So she stood there, mouth agape, tears freely flowing, and her lips daring to say his name for the first time in two years.

“Kanto.”

“It’s good to see you, Toph.”

She sobbed. His voice was as warm as she remembered, and she could still hear the smile in it. But it was lighter, more airy, as if it would disappear in a moment. It didn’t ground her like it used to. If anything, it dared her to fly away with him, wherever he was.

Toph loved it, but she also hated it.

He was a ghost or a spirit, that much she knew. And that meant that she couldn’t hold him or touch him or feel his heart or his breath and she ached to feel him. But she couldn’t. So she stood there openly crying in the middle of a swamp, extending her arms and wishing she could reach out and feel him.

The breeze danced around her and she heard him speak again.

“Hey, don’t cry, Chief! I hate to see you cry, you know that.”

“I—” she sniffled, wiping her eyes and nose with her damp sleeve. “I’m sorry. I just...fuck, Kanto. I miss you.”

“I know,” he whispered. “I miss you too, Angel.”

“I just want to hold you,” she gasped. “It’s unfair.”

He sighed, or she thought he did. Every word and ‘breath’ he took gave her strength, but Toph yearned for more.

She knew she was so close to feeling him. As if one step closer would reach him, or if her arm was long enough, she’d find his soft but strong hands, or if she leaned her head, she’d find his forehead there.

But she couldn’t do any of those things. He wasn’t there. Not really.

He changed the subject. “How’s our little Linny?”

“She’s uh, she’s good,” Toph whispered. “She—she really misses you. Calls for you every night still.”

“I’m sorry I can’t be there.”

“I know.”

For some reason, Toph kept her hands held up by her waist with her palms up. She felt the wind tickle her fingers and palms, and it almost felt like his hands were holding hers again.

Almost.

“Kanto I—” Toph bit her lip, resisting the urge to burst into tears once again. “I miss you so much. I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You’re doing amazing, Toph. And you have your friends to help you.”

“But I don’t want them!” she cried. “I want you!”

“I know, but I can’t be there. Not physically, at least,” he replied, his voice calm and sad. “I miss you too.”

“Kanto—”

“Tell Lin that I love her and miss her, will you? If you want, that is. I know it might be hard to talk about me since she won’t remember me—”

“Of course I’ll tell her,” she interrupted. “And she can’t forget you. She—she won’t. I’ll make sure of it.”

He went silent, and she hoped he was smiling. She couldn’t tell anymore.

Her fingers danced with the wind.

“There’s a reason I’m here, Toph,” he spoke again softly. “I think you know why you called me here.”

Toph frowned. “I didn’t call for you, though.”

“Not exactly,” he admitted, “but you haven’t been able to let me go—”

“Why should I?” she snapped. “Am I just supposed to move on like you didn’t exist? Like you didn’t make me fall in love with you, like you didn’t give me the happiest days I’ve ever lived, like you didn’t die and break my heart into a million pieces?”

“Letting go and forgetting are two different things, Chief,” he explained. “But you haven’t been able to talk about me or even sleep in our bed.”

“Because all I can smell is your cologne and when I wake up I still reach for you. How am I supposed to survive if I keep doing that??”

“Please, Toph,” he begged, and her anger withered away when she heard the pain in his voice.

This was as hard for him as it was for her.

“You were always so much stronger than me,” he cried. “I wouldn’t be able to do what you have to do.

“But this isn’t about you or me. You have to do it all for Lin.”

“Everyone always says that,” she replied bitterly.

“Will you do it for me, then? Will you hold our baby girl when she cries at night and rock her to sleep?” he asked. “Please? I just—I hate seeing you this way over me.”

“Yeah.” Her voice caught in her throat as she attempted to laugh. “I’m a sap and it’s all your fault.”

She heard him choke out a laugh too, and the wind rushed into her.

He was so close, just a little bit further, and perhaps she’d feel his forehead against hers.

“Promise me you’ll take care of yourself and Lin,” Kanto said, his voice as intoxicating as she remembered. Her resolve disappeared with every word he spoke.

Toph let out a tired sigh as her fingers continued to dance with the breeze. “I was never able to say no to you.”

“I know."

She actually smiled. A small, weary smile, but it was nice to hear him say that again, to remember all the different things that phrase meant to each other.

The smile faded as quickly as it came when Kanto spoke again. “Toph, we’re running out of time.”

Her stomach dropped and tied itself into a thousand knots. “No,” she replied through gritted teeth. “Please, not yet.”

“We don’t get to choose. Please, Toph, you have to say it.”

“Say what?”

“You know. You have to say good—”

Toph’s eyes grew wide and she shook her head vehemently. “No! I don’t want to!”

“I know, but I’d hate myself if you lived with this regret.”

“Everything about that day I regret!” she shouted. “I should’ve told you I love you more! Made you stay at home! Or I should’ve gone to work with you! Anything that would’ve changed the outcome.”

“It wouldn’t have changed, we can’t mess with fate, babe.

“Just… do this for me. Say it all to let me go on some level. Say it before you can’t. I don’t have much time.”

“Kanto please—”

“Toph,” he interrupted urgently. “If there’s anything you want to say, now’s your chance.”

Spirits, where would she begin? She lived the last two years of her life in agony over it all, the fact that she couldn’t save him, the fact that she didn’t show him how much she loved him, the fact that she was failing as a mother when he was the very best father, all of it broke her each and every day.

There were fleeting thoughts of regret for even falling in love with him. That this wouldn’t be an issue had she just kept it professional, and she hated she even thought that way. Because without them, there wouldn’t be Lin, and even though it pained Toph to recognize Kanto in Lin, she was Toph’s everything. The earth beneath her feet, her foundation, her whole world.

She hated that she wished she was dead instead, that Kanto and Lin would’ve been better without her, or perhaps, in a deep, dark, part of her heart, she wondered what she would’ve done if Lin wasn’t in the picture… Would she even be alive?

What if she had gotten to say goodbye to him on that day? Would all of this have been easier? Toph doubted it, but what was she to do but ponder all the scenarios that told her she was living her current life wrong. That if she was stronger or smarter or more empathetic, none of this would be happening.

She resented every single “what if” that crossed her mind, because none of it mattered.

All that mattered was now. The present.

There was a rustling of leaves behind her, and his presence in the wind flickered for a moment.

They really were running out of time. Again.

“Kanto, I—I love you,” she cried out.

“I know, I love you too,” he replied quietly. Too quietly.

“Please, I just want more—I don’t know how to do this without you!”

“You’ve got your friends, your family. You have Sokka—”

“But they’re not you! I want you! You need to see Lin walk and earthbend and she does this thing when she’s mad that’s just like you—”

The rustling was getting closer.

“Toph—”

“Kanto—”

Her concentration broke for a second, because she recognized the footsteps.

“Toph!”

He was faint, so faint.

“Kanto! I—” she hesitated when Zuko broke through the vines.

The wind began to move away from her, and she ran after it. And with every last ounce of strength and breath she had, she reached out for Kanto one last time and said,

“Goodbye.”

#kantoph #toph #toph beifong #kanto #atla #lok #writing #the long winding road to you #the chief and dep series #like a boomerang i always come back to you series #kantoph mondangst #sorry the beginning is dumb #it really be like that lmao

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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Um one thing i wanna ask is why do you want penny to stay a robot? She would have been hacked again as it wouldn’t make sense for someone not to try it again... ignoring the pinnochio allusion thing cause of course RWBY shouldn’t follow fairytales like a script, but just thinking about practicality as the problem would just occur again.

Also, people complaining about how its a problem they cured her illness (having the virus)... why would you want her too keep the virus when its literally about to kill her and the cure is right there???? I dunno some of the complaints have me a bit confused and i need clarity on them.

Like, If they didn’t grab the relic for themselves, they would have been hunted by ironwood for penny, she would have been killed for the powers to open the vault etc... if they went to the vault with penny without their plan, she would have died... its all a lose lose for penny to me at least

Questions are genuine and I’m not trying to be rude or anything :)

Happy to explain, anon! :D

I’m going to break this up into three parts: The claim that people are upset about Penny’s virus going away, the idea that she’s in more danger as a robot, and the assumption that she had to be made human to fix this problem.

The first is the easiest to tackle simply because I haven’t seen any of this myself. I don’t know why someone would “want her to keep the virus when it’s literally about to kill her.” My guess would be that there’s been some miscommunication at play. I’m not saying just because I haven’t seen these takes doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but rather that I have seen a lot of critical takes since Saturday and they all boil down to the fans being upset that Penny’s android identity was removed, not that the virus was removed along with it. Of course we’re happy about that additional outcome, we just believe it would have been possible — even easy — to achieve that same outcome without taking a core part of Penny’s identity along with it (more on that below).

Secondly, if one of the main arguments for Penny getting a human body is “It’s less dangerous” then I personally don’t find that persuasive. Yes, it means no one can try to hack her again... but it also means Penny can die all the horrible, messy human deaths that she was previously immune from (within the boundary of how long Pietro can give her aura, anyway). We saw it happen on screen. Penny was able to go from this

to this

purely because she was an android. Penny, due to her synthetic body, was able to be torn apart and then — pretty casually it seems, based on Pietro’s comments — be put back together, given more aura, and booted up with absolutely no downsides. Penny shrugged off death with a smile! No human body can do that. So yes, she’s vulnerable to hacking as an android, but she’s vulnerable to everything else as a human, things like Nora’s scars and Yang’s lost arm, things that android!Penny would have shrugged off. Each body has its benefits and its downsides, with my personal belief being that, from a combat standpoint, a synthetic body has far fewer downsides and far greater benefits. But that opinion aside, objectively I don’t think a human body is intrinsically safer for Penny in the long run, especially not after her biggest moment in the series was coming back from the dead. She can’t do that anymore.

Which then touches on our third topic with the question: Why couldn’t the show have fixed android!Penny in a way that ensures she can never be hacked again? See, we have to remember that RWBY is a constructed, fictional story. Nothing “has” to happen. Or rather, nothing has to happen until the writers impose limitations on the text that the viewer expects them to adhere to. For example, if you impose the implied rules of 1. “Our four main characters will make it to the end of the series” and 2. “A character, without aura, will die from a spear through the gut,” then RWBY has to find a way for Weiss to survive Cinder’s attack (rule #1), but that solution can’t be, “Weiss is just randomly okay after a deadly injury, I guess” (rule #2). Hence, we get the solution of “Jaune unlocks his semblance and heals Weiss for her” and it works! It’s a solution that viewers like because it obeys all the rules, both overt and implied. Meanwhile, the problem with Penny’s solution is two-fold. The first is that it contradicts the entire journey she’s been on of “Android girl learns that she’s real and human just the way she is,” which I’ve already spoken about extensively (there are other posts on that), but the second problem is that the show ignores other possibilities and makes up new rules solely to reach this ending.

Why is Penny made human? Because of Ambrosius’ rules. Why do those rules exist? Because the writers said they do in this episode. It’s not that they introduced these rules episodes or even whole volumes ago, thereby requiring that they adhere to them once Penny’s life is suddenly caught up in them (like with the Jaune example). Rather, the viewer only learned these were limitations while Penny was being fixed. So the writers could have just... not included those. There’s no reason why, in developing Ambrosius’ abilities right then and there, the show couldn’t have made them into something a little different. Have Ruby go, “We want you to magic up an anti-virus program that will heal Penny completely, with no chance of the virus returning. Thus, when you create something new, it doesn’t matter if that program disappears. The virus is already gone!” If the response to that is, “But Clyde, Ambrosius can’t create something he doesn’t understand” that’s a rule that the writers just made up. No one forced them to suddenly impose that limitation. It was a choice. Or even if we have to have it for some reason, you’re telling that the group gets to have the schematics for their escape route — essentially inventing a teleportation system because Whitley looked at airship flight paths for a few minutes — but they can’t have Penny or Pietro draw up an anti-virus program? There’s no reason why these rules couldn’t have been tweaked to cure android!Penny.

There’s also no reason why Ambrosius needed to be involved at all. As just mentioned, Pietro exists and many fans (myself included) thought he would be the solution. Imagine for a moment we had a slightly different version of these events. Penny’s virus is briefly halted by Jaune and, finally given a moment to breathe, she asks where her father is. Last she saw, he was floating in a dead Amity after Cinder’s attack. This reminds Ruby that hey, Pietro made Penny! He’s just as smart as Watts and is far more knowledgeable of her systems. Maybe he can help? So the group heads to Amity and, due to the same techno mumbo jumbo that launched Amity in the first place, or had Klein heal Penny after her crash, Pietro says yes, he can get rid of the virus. Better yet, he can slightly redesign Penny so that she’s made un-hackable in the future, using (again, mumbo jumbo) parts from the now useless Amity. But it will take time. It’s then that the group receives Ironwood’s message and learns that they don’t have time. The reality that Penny will not be cured before the hour time limit necessitates that they come up with a creative way of dealing with Ironwood. Enter Emerald. Her semblance can make it seem like Penny is there, despite her being fixed by her dad miles away. We get an extended fight with Ironwood and, at episode’s end, the new and improved Penny catches up, ready to open the vault for them, this time of her own free will.

Now, obviously I just made this up off the top of my head — far from perfect — but a scenario like this:

Remembers that Pietro exists and lets him/Maria as an assistant do something for the plot

Re-uses Amity now that it’s just a floating pile of junk metal

Creates a scenario where we get to see Penny and Pietro confront the fact that she was created to be a tool (sorry I originally made you so easily hackable/put a self-destruct in your brain)

Maintains all the main story beats like Penny’s near escape, Ironwood’s message, and using Emerald’s semblance

Makes space to tackle other issues like the complaint that Ironwood was taken down too quickly

Achieves the desired result of healing Penny without taking away her android identity

Proves that, because we can easily come up with another solution, the idea that she “had” to become human is inaccurate. There were always other options

Hell, we can even ask why the story bothered with a self-destruct threat in the first place. Seriously, why did Watts do that? I have my own headcanons, but the show never says. This act is the entire BASIS for Penny’s conflict and the show didn’t bother to a) say why he’d do this or b) explain why he’d do this when Salem would presumably like having a Maiden to control. It’s counterintuitive and the show never grapples with that. We have no canonical answer here. More importantly, what else changes if Penny’s self-destruct order is taken out of the narrative? Absolutely nothing. She’s still hacked and struggles to keep Amity afloat, still flies to Ruby, still wakes up and needs to be calmed down by Nora, still tells Whitley her order, still fights the Hound, still tries to escape, still tells Ruby to kill her so she doesn’t open the vault, and Ruby still realizes that opening the vault might be the answer. They could have taken Penny to the door and nullified the virus by letting her do what the virus ordered. Penny is fine now, they snag the Relic, and the group proceeds to save all of Mantle and Atlas. The only thing this self-destruct sequence brings to the narrative is a reason to give Penny a human body. That plot-point was introduced solely as an excuse to give Penny a human body. That never had to happen. It’s not that the writers had a story where, by the rules already in place, they truly had to change Penny to ensure they didn’t lose her, it’s that the writers carefully crafted a story that existed to justify their desire to change Penny. That was always the end goal. They decided they wanted this to happen and that’s the problem here. That they took a character who has spent her entire, fictional existence learning to love herself as she is and crafted a bunch of unpersuasive, needless, and contradictory scenarios specifically to get Penny to a place where they could erase all that.

There’s no version of Penny that exists who truly had to get a human body to survive because Penny is a fictional character. Everything she does and experiences is thought up by our writers. Thus, at some point they thought up the idea to erase her android identity for a completely human one instead — the part a lot of people are upset by — and then made some messy attempts to write a story to justify getting that ending.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #mymetas #Anonymous

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writing-the-end · 3 years

Text

LoL Chapter 56- Ancient Quarrels

Masterpost

A Wizard Hermits tale (AU, designs, ideas belongs to @theguardiansofredland)

Ex returns home with new friends, but struggles with the reality that his old stomping grounds have grown up without him, all while learning more about the history of dark magic.

-----------------------------------------

“I thought I told you to come alone.” Xisuma states, staring at the rainbow haired twins. No matter how much the two try to blend in, the ever shifting colors of their locks always stand out.

“I thought you could use the help. You clearly need it if you reached out to me.” Ex steps off the pirate ship, followed by the king and his brother. Ex tries his best to keep his gaze on the ground at his feet, the grass, sand, and dirt. He doesn’t want to see what Xisuma and all his friends have done to the safe haven they found together. As brothers. He doesn’t want to see what he's missed, what he’s been too afraid to claim for his own. He doesn’t want to see how much time has changed the island he once called home.

But Ex stumbles over a rock, his books scattering from his arms, while he plummets to the ground. He could let go of his remaining scrolls and books, but these articles are ancient and invaluable. He’d rather break his nose than let go of them.

Lucky for Ex, he doesn’t have to choose. One of the hermits grabs him before he gets a mouthful of dirt. Ex opens his eyes, forced to look at the island. And he sees everything.

It looka exactly the same. It looks completely different. The grounds were the same- the same rocky shores, soft beaches, hills, forest, even the lake at the center on the north side of the island. The grass the same green color, the sky the same blue, the distant mist and waves dancing together. But dotting the island now stood a menagerie of buildings. Where there used to only be the tower of stone he and X built, now a glass biodome rests on one side, a barn on the other. Smoke rolls free from the chimney of a weaponsmith’s house, and just off the island a cloud floats low, the white tower upon it open to the breeze of the sea.

Ex collects his books, and slinks off to the guild hall. Sor follows Grian to help with Apatia, to make the decision on how to move forward with his recovery. Tris follows behind Ex, taking in the open sea and sky. So unlike Milliara.

It was exactly that which drew the void twins here in the first place. They dared enter the Ashioll sea because it was quiet, peaceful, unlike Milliara. Back when there were only two- they didn’t need anyone more. They didn’t want anyone more. In the end, Ex got to be alone, moreso than ever. Without even a brother.

Being back on Eremita was painful, but as a healing wound would be. For the first time in years, his brother reached out to him. For the first time, they were putting aside the argument so long ago and working together. Like they did when they were young.

At the same time, both X and Ex set out their books on the same table. At the same time, like mirror images of one another, they set out their maps, their inkwells, their quills, even their books ordered the exact same way. The similarities between the two were uncanny, leaving the hermits baffled as they watch them. If it wasn’t for Ex’s white hair, it’d be impossible to tell them apart.

Ex speaks first, pulling the red fabric of his cloak away from his face so the hermits can hear him. “The last known insurgence of dark magic was over a thousand years ago. Before Lairyon became a kingdom, near the end of the ancient ones’s time. As we all know, Addows is the only place that still has significant and readable history of the ancient ones. Everything disappeared just like them.”

“And no one knows why.” Tris adds in, sitting down and plucking a book. He flips through the pages. “The ancient ones had magic more powerful than most wizards. Very few forms of ancient powers survive today- including angelic magic.”

The hermits look at Grian, but he simply shrugs. He knows nothing about the ancient ones, just that they’re… well, ancient. Iskall speaks up, resting his cheek on his hand. “Could it be that it was the dark magic that wiped them out?”

Both of the void twins and Tris shake their head, and begin to answer at the same time. Ex and X glare at one another, and Tris takes the moment to answer instead. “No, it’s not like there’s a sign of a fight, or a struggle, or anything. Just...one day they were all over this kingdom, and then- poof, gone.”

“But the ancient ones weren’t the only people here. The kiplings have been living in these waters longer than anyone. And if we cross reference the information King Sormena gave me access to in the royal library, and the deep sea libraries of the Kiplings, we can start to get an inkling of understanding.”

“My gods you’re so boring even now.” Xisuma groans. “We dont need the whole story, and Lairyon doesn’t have time. What did you learn and how can we use it to defeat Dolios?”

“Well…” Ex bits his lip. “We didn’t learn how they defeated the dark magic all those times before. But we did find the location of one of their lost cities. Tris and I believe it could even be the ancient capital of theirs.”

The hermits groan, some even dramatically flopping back in their chairs. It seems all they ever have are breadcrumbs, leading them around in circles all across Lairyon. TFC speaks up first, though even he seems exhausted. “It’s better than nothing. It’s our only hope at this point. So where is it?”

“Tris had pinpointed the general location of the lost city in the Ashioll Fjords, but together we were able to determine the exact location.” Ex plucks a quill from the table, dipping the tip in the ink and marking one of the many divots and crests of the northernmost part of Lairyon. All the hermits lean in, peering at the location. It looks no different from any other part of the fjords, or even the rest of Lairyon.

“If anyone knows how to defeat Dolios’s dark magic, it has to be the ancient ones.” Etho states. “They did it before, we just have to do it again.”

It gives the hermits hope to know this isn’t the first time, they aren’t the only ones in all of history to face dark magic. Ex looks up at the hermits, a question that’s been dancing in his mind finding its way to his tongue before he can stop it. “Why did you guys ever decide to do this? What in the world made you guys think you could take on a dark wizard? Be the chosen few like the ancient ones?”

The hermits look at one another, as if they’d find an answer in the stares and faces of their peers. But no one has the answer. Though Joe is more than willing to come up with his own. “Perhaps, in this story, there are no chosen ones. No destiny or prophesied heroes. Perhaps it is just by the choice of normal man, who chooses to make a difference, who chooses to stand up and fight, that is really what makes a hero?”

“Is this what I missed when I left?” Ex questions Xisuma, who nods solemnly.

“What will we find in the lost city?” Grian questions.

“I dunno, it’s lost.” Tris quips, causing Grian to blush when he realizes his question. “But if it’s anything like Addows, you should be prepared for ancient ones magic and the stone buildings they made their cities from. Apart from that- you just gotta look in the right place.”

The hermits realize they’re going in on this blind. Once again, they have little more than a hope, a thread of a lead, taking them somewhere in search of answers. Whether it was Gildara, or the Champion’s Cup, or even the Forest of Memories, they’ve always been chasing the same specter of knowledge. Hoping to find something more.

“But you won’t be alone this time.” Ex points out. The hermits turn to face him, his face so familiar, yet so vastly different. “King Sormena volunteered to go along with you, to give aid on your search.”

Tris averts his gaze, his jaw set tight at the mention of his brother joining the hermits. Doc raises his hand, almost condescending. “Won’t Dolios notice the king is gone?”

“He’s not in Milliara right now. The Wanderers informed me of that- where he is, I don’t know, but this is a rare opportunity that we can’t waste. You’ll need every mind and magic to figure out the puzzles and clues that the lost city may have. I’d best get packing if i were you guys.”

Groups disperse off, back to their homes, caves, ships, and clouds. Once again preparing, as a whole guild, to go off on another adventure. Even Tris disappears, either to go find and argue with his brother, or get a pint of beer from Cleo. But one person stays behind.

Xisuma doesn’t ever look directly at his brother, but he always turns his head just slightly to be able to see Ex shuffling papers. His body is aimed out from the guild hall, looking over, across the island of Eremita. After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, X speaks up. “Will you be able to take care of Apatia while we’re gone? I don’t think he can go back to Milliara with you.”

Ex raises an eyebrow. It almost sounds like an invitation to stay on the island. Almost. “I guess if no one else will, I can offer my help. And glean information from him about the magistrate. Perhaps I can talk to Ian about engineering a prosthesis… Kiplings aren’t really meant to live without their fins.”

The void mage shakes his head, listening to his brother continue to ramble on under his breath. So many years apart, and yet the same old Ex. For the first time in years, after so long hating his twin, refusing to talk to him, removing every sign he ever existed on this island, now he’s standing in their guild hall. And for the first time in years, Xisuma feels like he can let go of the anger and tension from that fight so long ago.

Ex steps up beside Xisuma, and the two gaze over Eremita. They watch as Keralis and Zedaph round up sheep for their midday meal, Iskall, Mumbo, and Grian arguing over what kind of redstone they could possibly need on their journey, Wels and False sharpening the blades of their own weapons and others.

He doesn’t want to admit it, but Eremita looks more alive than it ever was when it was just the two of them. The colors of all different wizards, from all walks of life. All a part of this guild that Xisuma has found. All this, that Ex was afraid of. “You’ve done a good job building yourself a home. Finding yourself a family. Guess you didn’t really need me.”

Xisuma turns, and removes his mask. For the first time in years, Ex can see his brother's face. They can both see the scars they left on each other. On their skin and in their hearts. Xisuma’s fingers run along the scratched out marking in the metal. Wishing he could take that fit of anger back and fix it. “I didn’t do this without you, though. When I wasn’t sure what to do, it was always your annoying voice that guided me to the right decision.”

“We have the same voice.” Ex points out.

“Exactly. No matter what, no matter what I did, you were still with me, a part of me. But when I didn't know what to do, I thought about what you would choose. And it always led me in the right direction. Even though you weren’t here, I still needed you. I still needed my brother.”

To hear that word come from Xisuma’s mouth, to hear him call Ex that- brother. All these years, all he ever wanted was his brother back. To have a family again. Ex can feel tears stinging at the corners of his eyes, but he doesn’t want his brother to see him crying over such a simple thing. “I think it’ll be nice to have a family again. It...it feels good to be home.”

#hermitcraft #hermitcraft au #light of lairyon #wizard hermits #wizard au #hermitcraft fanfic #wizard xisuma #wizard ex #xisuma #evil xisuma #wizard tfc #wizard etho #tinfoilchef #ethoslab

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wenevergotusedtoegypt · 3 years

Text

It has been a DAY, let me tell you people

After waiting for almost an hour after our appointment time at the pediatrician we finally got in and had the pleasant surprise of actually getting to see my son’s doctor instead of another doctor at the practice, he promptly diagnosed the ear infection and wrote a prescription for antibiotics, great.

Normally we use a pharmacy that delivers, but when the prescription came through shortly afterwards, they had no delivery windows open til tomorrow afternoon. Which like...no, not waiting that long to start antibiotics. This actually happened to me a different time, also with antibiotics, and that time I called customer service and they were able to squeeze me in that day. So I decided it was worth a shot trying that again.

They were not able to do that this time, so they offered to transfer the prescription to a different pharmacy so we could get it today. I gave them the information for the closest pharmacy to us, which was a mistake, because I should have KNOWN something would go wrong. At least some small minor thing has ALWAYS gone wrong every time I’ve used that pharmacy, which is why I stopped using it and switched to this other one. But we had a cranky as heck toddler to deal with, and going further out of our way to a different pharmacy seemed inadvisable.

That was all in the car on the way home. After we got home, my husband went to do some errands near that pharmacy and stopped in to see if they had the prescription yet. They told him to come back at 5:00. This was about 3:15.

At 5:00 I called the pharmacy. I said, “Hi, I have a prescription that was being transferred to you and I wanted to see if it was received yet.” The woman asked for the date of birth, which I gave her, and the last name, which I gave her. She said, “Yes, I see it, it came in today.” I said, “Great, when will it be ready?” She said that it has to be mixed so I said ok, when will that be done, and she clarified that it has to be mixed at the time of pickup so whenever we come to pick it up they will mix it and it will take about 5 minutes for it to be ready.

At about 5:45 my husband showed up at the pharmacy to pick up the prescription and was told they did not have it. One of the employees claimed that I called and asked about the specific medication, and coincidentally they had just received a different prescription for the same medication, but I never gave my son’s DOB or name and so they didn’t realize it wasn’t for him (which was framed as my fault). Which, first of all, if that had been what happened, that still would have been a screwup on their part? You should not confirm that you have received a particular patient’s prescription without finding out who the patient is?? But also, it’s not what happened. It played out exactly as I wrote above. I DID give his DOB and name and I DID NOT ask about the medication by name, mostly because I do not frickin know how to pronounce it so why would I try.

Anyway my husband keeps trying to talk to various staff for a while and Pharmacist 1 (of 2, to be relevant later in the story) then adds to the story to be that they have been trying to get in touch with the original pharmacy and have not been able to and that my husband should call them. So my husband calls the first pharmacy and they say that they left a voicemail for this pharmacy, which Pharmacist 1 says was not received. Pharmacist 1 then proceeds to give the other pharmacy a completely different phone number than the one publicly available for this pharmacy.

My husband waits a bit longer and then Pharmacist 1 tells him that he needs to call back the first pharmacy because they haven’t done some administrative mumbo jumbo with the prescription that would allow it to go through with the insurance. By this point it is after 6pm and the first pharmacy is closed. Pharmacist 1 tells my husband there is simply nothing they can do today.

By this point I was flaming mad and in full mama bear mode because my husband had been telling me about the whole thing and I couldn’t believe the way they’d lied about my 5pm call and were taking zero responsibility for things (if they had told me at 5pm that they didn’t have the prescription, we would have had 45 extra minutes to sort it out with the first pharmacy, but no, I was told we could walk in anytime and walk out 5 minutes later with the medication). I was also staring at a second night in a row of basically no sleep with a toddler in pain taking up half my bed thanks to this incompetence. So I grabbed my son and ran out of the house with him, met my husband halfway to hand off the toddler so I wouldn’t have to take him into an enclosed public space, and headed into the pharmacy.

At this point I had no hope that we were going to actually get the antibiotic today, but I wanted them to own up to the fact that they screwed up and at least make some attempt at rectifying the issue (like, “we’ll get on this first thing when we open tomorrow morning and call you the moment it’s ready” or something along those lines). Now, there were 5 staff in this pharmacy, 4 of whom could theoretically have answered the phone per their positions. Of those 4, 2 were men and so definitely did not tell me at 5:00 that they had my prescription, and 2 were women. One woman had a heavy accent. It was not her who I spoke to. So I basically 100% knew when I walked in the door who was responsible for this issue (this is not a place that has a zillion staff running around, and they close at 7, so it wasn’t a new shift from 5:00).

I waited in line and when I got to the front, to the woman who told me at 5:00 that they had the prescription, I said, “Hi, my husband was just here asking about a prescription for my son and I need to follow up with someone about what happened.” This woman acted like she had no idea what situation was being referred to even though my husband had left maybe 10 minutes ago max, and politely requested my son’s information like it was the first time she was dealing with it. She then told me they did not have his prescription. When I related the 5:00 call (without letting on that I knew I’d spoken to her - and now I was even more sure because I recognized her voice), she just said she didn’t know who I’d talked to but they didn’t have it, and refused to take any responsibility either personally or institutionally for what I’d been told.

At that point, Pharmacist 1 jumped in and related the same story she’d told my husband and told me that she couldn’t fill a prescription that she didn’t have. I told her that I understood that at this point it seemed we were not getting the prescription tonight, but what I wanted to address was the fact that I was told at 5pm that I could walk in and walk out 5 minutes later with my son’s medication and now he was going to start his antibiotics a day late. She continued to tell me over and over that she couldn’t fill a prescription she didn’t have, no matter how many times I reiterated that what I wanted was not for her to do that, but for the pharmacy to just take responsibility for the fact that they screwed up and because of that my toddler was going to have to suffer an extra night. This kept going back and forth with no headway being made, just getting more and more heated, until she got sick of talking to me and handed me off to Pharmacist 2. With whom I initially proceeded to have the exact same exchange of “we can’t fill a prescription we don’t have” “I’m not asking you to do so, I just want to speak to someone who will take responsibility for what happened here” “well we can’t fill a prescription we don’t have” “I KNOW I AM NOT GETTING THIS PRESCRIPTION TONIGHT, I JUST WANT SOMEONE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHAT HAPPENED AND RECTIFY IT”

....and then suddenly he’s like, “well if you just give me the doctor’s name and number, I can try to get the doctor to send a new prescription directly to us.” OH. OKAY. IS THERE SOME REASON THIS IDEA DID NOT OCCUR TO ANYONE BEFORE I HAD TO DRAG MYSELF OVER HERE AND TAKE THE TIME TO YELL AT ALL OF YOU??? Like, you know, when my husband was there?? I don’t actually enjoy yelling at pharmacy staff or just at people in general! This is not a thing I go around doing! In fact, I had never done it before and if the medication were for anyone other than my sick small child I probably still wouldn’t have! And apparently you had this super sensible, doable, easy solution the whole time but we had to go through all of this crap and me making a giant scene* to get there??

7 minutes later they have the prescription and 8 minutes after that I’m walking out the door with the medication. 🤦🏻‍♀️Pharmacist 1 rang me up at the register and told me that it was ok that I yelled at her because she would have done the same thing for her child in my shoes. People. We didn’t even need to do this!!! You literally could have just called the doctor when my husband was there without my ever setting foot on your awful premises! Why!!!!!!

Anyway then I FINALLY got home and my son was a cranky, exhausted, snotty-faced mess and we still had to actually get him to take the medication, which did not go well. I’m not sure how much he actually swallowed. Really need to figure out a new strategy going forward, but he has no appetite so mixing it into something is unlikely to work. So I asked for advice in a group and while I did get some workable suggestions to try, I also had a rando stranger ask me why he was prescribed antibiotics, as if perhaps her judgment might be that they were not necessary depending on the reason and perhaps I might weigh that more heavily than our literal doctor 🙃(I responded that he was prescribed them because our doctor deemed it necessary)

*my husband’s friend, who knows me as a relatively quiet, calm, and collected individual, was in the pharmacy for the duration of this encounter and I’m sure he was like WHAT THE HECK who knew she yelled like this??

#really more than a day it's been a few days #in conclusion if this ever happens again we are going however far we have to go to use a different pharmacy #🙃#and it's a good thing we're going out 2/4 yontiff meals because today was supposed to be my main prep day #and i did exactly zero cooking #and my husband has class from 9-5 tomorrow

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snelbz · 4 years

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Lost Time {14}

A/N: Co-written as always by the love of my life, @tacmc. Sorry that this chapter was so delayed, life got a little hectic. Chapter 15 will be up on Sunday!

Elain’s phone vibrated on her nightstand and she was instantly awake. Still snuggled into Azriel’s arms, she took a deep breath before slowly wiggling herself free. Azriel rolled onto his back, still sound asleep, snoring quietly. She tried not to laugh at the adorable sight of him, his mouth hanging open and his hair an absolute mess.

After taking a mental image, she crossed the ball to the bathroom. After a quick, warm shower, she tip-toed back across the hall, determined to let Novan sleep as long as possible so that he wasn’t cranky once his day full of play began.

Azriel was still passed out in their bed, although now he was laying sideways, his feet hanging off the side. She never knew how he could stay sleeping in so many interesting positions. With the slightest movement, Elain was up and alert. Azriel could be sleeping upside down in a chair with a tornado outside and still stay sound asleep.

She crept downstairs, stepping over the sea of legos that Az and Novan had left in the hall way - it’s lava, mama, Novan had explained while Az nodded behind him - and turning on the coffee pot. The kitchen immediately smelled amazing and Elain closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her life was so different today from how it had only a month ago.

A month ago, she’d been a single mother, trying to fit herself in a relationship that just wasn’t meant for her. She thought she’d never know true love again.

And then Az came barreling back into her life and throwing everything out of proportion and she’d never been happier.

She sat down in the chair she’d sat in all those weeks ago, when Az had come to talk to her. She had almost kissed him that day, she knew how easy it would have been, to fall back into him then and there. But that wouldn’t have been fair to Lucien, not after everything he’d done for her and Novan.

After pouring herself a cup of coffee, she made her way back up the stairs, her damp hair curling at the ends. She put on a light dusting of makeup, content to let her hair dry naturally on its own and got dressed before creeping down the hall to Novan’s room.

He was out, sleeping in the exact same position as his father. After picking out his clothes and kissing him on the forehead, she gently shook his little frame until his hazel eyes were blinking up at her.

He yawned. “Morning, mama.”

“Good morning,” she whispered. “Are you ready to go to Meme’s?”

A sleepy grin spread across his mouth. “Yes.”

“Good,” she said. “Let’s get up and going.”

He did as he was told, yawning as he got dressed and brushed his teeth. When Elain came from her bedroom, putting her pearl studs into her ears, she found him sitting on the top stair, his backpack on and his camera around his neck.

He looked up at her and said quietly, “Is daddy still sleeping?”

“Yes, he is, so be real quiet, okay?” Elain whispered, taking his hand and walking down the stairs.

He nodded, but then he asked, “If daddy is home, why am I going to Meme’s?”

Elain poured a cup of coffee into a travel mug and said, “Daddy has some important stuff to do today, so he’ll be going to Uncle Rhys’ office in just a little bit.”

She reached for her keys hanging by the door and saw Azriel’s, the old puzzle piece keychain still hanging on after all these years.

Her hand flew up to her throat and Elain realized she forgot to put her necklace on. Telling Novan she’d be right back, she hurried up the stairs and got the dainty necklace from where it laid on her nightstand. She clasped it behind her neck and leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to Azriel’s check. He stirred, but didn’t wake, snuggling up to her pillow and Elain softly chuckled, playing with the chain of her necklace.

The necklace wasn’t the first piece of jewelry Azriel had given her, by far, but it was the only one she had. It was the only one she’d kept. Everything else he’d ever given her had been trashed once Nesta got ahold of it.

All but one very expensive ring.

It had been years since she’d even looked at the intricate ring. It caused her too much pain, but she knew she’d never be able to give it up. She hoped to one day give it to Asher, to give to the girl of his dreams.

Quietly opening her underwear drawer, Elain reached into the very back, behind stained maternity bras and never worn lingerie, until her fingers closed around the velvet ring box. She pulled it out and ran her thumb over the soft lid and took a deep breath.

She had no idea what capacity of their relationship Az wanted to pick back up on. It obviously couldn’t be where they’d left off at the altar, but after four years, were things too different to seriously consider marriage already? Things felt the same, but she worried.

In the end, she only wanted to look at it, to see it sparkle in the morning light.

Elain flipped the lid back - and she froze.

Her engagement ring wasn’t in the box.

She moved her hand around the back of the drawer, thinking it may have fallen out, but there was nothing but scraps of fabric and lace. She must have misplaced at some point, although it sure didn’t seem like something she would do.

She had always been so careful, and even when she was miserable and pissed after he had left, she had cherished it.

One look at the clock, though, was telling her she had to get going or she was going to be late. After putting the box back in the rear of her drawer, she looked at Azriel, laughed quietly at the image of him all snuggled up and cozy, then left.

——————

At just after eleven, Azriel walked into Rhysand’s law firm. The secretary greeted him, and told him she’d let Rhys know he was here. Nodding, he sat down in one of the soft, leather chairs in the waiting area. He wiped his hands down the front of his jeans, his palms clammy and slick with sweat.

He had no idea why he was so nervous, anyone who had eyes could see that Donovan was his son. But the legal system didn’t care about that. They needed definitive proof. And Rhys wasn’t cutting any corners. He was having a nurse come to his office to draw a sample of blood from Azriel.

He closed his eyes and began to take deep breaths, in and out. It was less than five minutes before the secretary was saying, “Mr. Draeven?”

Azriels eyes flew open to meet her kind smile. “Hmm?”

“Mr. Lunasa is ready for you. Go on back.”

He nodded his thanks and trudged into the office with Rhysand’s name on the door. He was leaning back in his desk chair, his arms folded on top of his abdomen. “Good morning, little brother. You look like you’re going to puke.”

Azriel sighed, plopping down in the chair across from him. “Your office is so fancy, it has that effect. I’m afraid to touch anything. Might break it.”

He laughed quietly. “Yeah, that’s it. Not the life changing decision you’re about to make.”

Azriel shook his head, his eyes locked onto the fancy, gold name plate resting near the edge. “The decision is already made. He’s my son. I know he is. I’ve never doubted that or Elain for a second. This just...makes shit way more permanent.”

Rhys leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his desk. “Az, you don’t…have to do this. He’s yours, regardless, and you can adopt him whenever you and Elain get married-.”

“I’m not going to adopt my biological son, Rhys. Not when his mother is the love of my life. Not when we’re together.” Azriel sighed. “I’m not going to delay something that should have been done right four years ago and something that will tie us as a family.”

Rhys nodded and was about to say something when his desk phone lit up and his secretary’s voice floated through. “Mr. Lunasa? Ms. Towers is waiting for you in the conference room.”

Rhysand pressed a button and said, “Thank you, Cerridwen.” He looked up to Azriel. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” he said, meaning for his voice to be light, but the one word cracked.

Rhysand chuckled before rising to his feet, clapping him on the shoulder, and walking toward the door. When he noticed Azriel wasn’t following, he cleared his throat, forcing Azriel to rise to his feet and trail after him.

He only wanted to be added to the birth certificate. Legally, he had Elain’s last name. After he’d left, and Azriel didn’t know of Novan’s existence, he hadn’t been added to the birth certificate at the time of Donovan’s birth. It made sense, of course. Azriel didn’t blame her. If the roles were reversed, he would have most likely done the same.

But now, he was back. He was a part of their lives, and he wasn’t going anywhere.

When Elain asked if he would like to be added to Novan’s birth certificate as his father, Azriel had cried for hours at the thought alone.

Now, he was going to be added, but to do that, he had to be tested, prove to the courts that he was the father.

Naturally, he’d gone to Rhysand, but when he followed his older brother into the conference room, his nerves spiked.

Ms. Towers, he assumed, smiled at the pair as they entered. “Good morning, gentleman.” She was dressed in a pair of light green scrubs and her curly hair was pulled back from her face. “Mr. Lunasa, nice to see you again.”

He shook her hand and said, “I’ve told you, it’s Rhysand, and you, too, Yrene. This is my brother, Azriel.”

Az shook her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Alright.” Rhys clapped his hands together and said, “I’m going to read all the legal mumbo jumbo to you in a minute, but here’s the gist.” He looked at Azriel. “Do you give her permission to take a sample of your blood for the express and solitary purpose of a paternity test?”

He laid out a piece of paper in front of him. Azriel nodded and signed the paper.

After sanitizing the table and her tools, Yrene had Azriel sit in front of her and roll up his sleeve.

It was ironic, because of how many tattoos he had, but Azriel hated needles with a passion. He turned his head and looked to Rhys as a distraction. “So how do you know Yrene?”

He laughed, somewhat awkwardly, as he leaned against the wall. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to say. HIPPA and everything.”

Yrene shrugged from where she was cleaning Azriel’s arm. “You can say, I just can’t.”

“Fair enough,” Rhys nodded. “Yrene is Nesta’s OB. Feyre’s been seeing her, too.”

Yrene was good, she didn’t warn him of the needle with a countdown, he just felt a sharp prick and pinch and she said, “Don’t turn around if you don’t like blood.” Azriel nodded, keeping his eyes closed. “Tell me about Novan.”

Azriel blew out a breath. Where to begin? “He’s very gentle, very kind. Inquisitive, for four. A fan of legos, cars, getting muddy.” Yrene chuckled as she pressed a cotton ball against his arm. “I hear he looks a lot like me.”

“And Rhysand is his favorite uncle,” Rhysand added, once it looked like Azriel was about to faint.

“That’s not what Cassian says,” Yrene sang, releasing the band she tied around his bicep. “He said it’s one of the whole reasons they want to have a baby.”

She was smirking when the two men looked at her, Rhysand’s face incredulous, but Azriel looked at the three small vials in her hands, a purple top screwed on each. “Shit, is that my blood?”

Rhys chuckled and said “ You’re covered in tattoos but you can’t handle having blood drawn?”

With his eyes closed and head leaned back against the plush office chair, Az mumbled, “An itty bitty needle scratching you isn’t the same as a big ass needle going directly into your vein.”

With a shake of his head, Rhys said, “Fair enough.” Az leaned forward and held his head between his knees as Yrene packed her supplies up. “I might have left one bit out of Yrene’s introduction earlier.”

“Yeah?” Az mumbled, half paying attention.

“She birthed Donovan,” Rhys said slowly, waiting for his reaction.

Azriel tensed, then slowly looked up. Yrene was looking at him, now, her eyes soft. A thousand questions flooded his mind, but his lips had forgotten how to move.

She was there when Azriel hadn’t been. Azriel had missed the greatest day of his life, but she had been there to witness all of it.

Azriel cleared his throat as he asked, quietly, “You did?”

She nodded, gently. “I did.” She smiled at him, though her eyes were sad.

Rhys cleared his throat. “We figured, since we’ve pretty much come full circle at this point, it was Yrene who officially made Elain Novan’s mother, she should be the one to officially tell us you were his father.”

Azriel bit the inside of his cheek and let his eyes fall shut. His family, his supportive, loving, amazing family, had thought of everything. He felt a gentle hand rest on his shoulder. He looked over to find Yrene’s kind eyes on him. He covered her hand with his own. “Thank you.”

“No thanks is needed,” she said, with a genuine smile. “Rhys, I’ll call you with the results in three days, give or take.”

He nodded. “Thanks, Yrene.” She packed her supplies up, while Az messed with the bandage in the crook of his arm, and as she was about to leave, he added, “Oh, and the other results? From last week?” Azriel glanced at his brother, confused, but Yrene paused and turned back to him. She looked between the two and Rhys added, “You can speak freely in front of him about our case.”

She nodded and sighed. “The results were inconclusive. Feyre’s tests seemed typical, but when the labs sent me yours, they were...off. Call my office this afternoon, they’ll give you the number of the specialist we were discussing.”

Rhys nodded, but Az couldn’t see his face. “Thank you.”

Yrene smiled and left, but Rhysand still didn’t turn around. Azriel slowly rose before pushing, hesitantly. “Rhys?”

Rhysand cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. “Um,” he began, but his voice was quiet. When he didn’t turn to meet Azriels gaze, Azriel went to his side. The look in Rhysand’s eyes was distant.

“Feyre and I have been trying for a while,” he said, quietly. “It hasn’t been happening. I think it might be me.”

Azriel’s heart fell, but when he said nothing, Rhysand went on. “We both got tested, but I knew it wasn’t Feyre’s fault.”

“Rhys, I’m so…” Azriel paused. He didn’t just want to tell him he was sorry. He was sure that was the last thing he wanted to hear, but he didn’t know what else to say.

Rhys nodded before he could continue. “Me fucking too. Ever since Donovan was born, Feyre’s wanted a baby. I wasn’t ready, so...we waited.” He cleared his throat and weakly laughed. “All that money we could have been saving on condoms.”

The joke was half hearted, but Az couldn’t find it in himself to laugh. Instead, he carefully said, “There are other ways. You could adopt.”

The way Rhysand shook his head, he could tell that this was not a new topic. “She wants to be a mother. She wants the...entire experience. She wants to be pregnant, to build that bond. Novan and Elain, they don’t act differently now that you’re around, but before you were back… It was just the two of them against the world. And they were each other’s world.” He shook his head. “And if her body isn’t the one that’s fucked up, how could I deny her of that?”

Azriel couldn’t stop the silent tear that ran down his cheek as he listened to his brother. “Then what about a donor? Or a surrogate?”

“Are you offering?” Rhys chuckled dryly at his joke at his own expense.

Azriel frowned. There was nothing he could say to make it better. It was too fresh a topic for there to be an answer that was comforting.

When you found out you can’t reproduce, can’t have biological children when it was always a dream to do so, it was heartbreaking.

Instead, Azriel took Rhysand into his arms and hugged him tight. Rhysand didn’t say anything, but after a moment, his arms wrapped around Azriel, too.

——————

Elain was humming quietly to herself as she sanded the small table. The playlist she had chosen for the day was a mix of hits from high school and she was constantly taken back to memory after memory as the songs played.

A bell rang over the door as a customer walked in and she brushed all the spare sawdust off of her shirt. She walked out from the back and said, “Can I help-?”

She froze.

Lucien stood there, his hands in his pockets. To her surprise, he smiled at her, although the gesture never reached his eyes. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said, quietly.

She hadn’t seen him since the day she had left to look for Azriel, when he had asked her to choose between the two of them.

“I, um, was cleaning up the other day,” he began, taking a deep breath. “Found some of your stuff I thought you would want.”

“Oh,” she breathed. “I mean, yeah, sure.”

He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “It’s in my car. I can put it in your car or I can...bring it in?”

Elain blinked. “The car is fine, that way I don’t have to bring it out again.” She chuckled lightly.

He smiled again, but it was forced. “Great. If you just want to grab me your keys.”

Elain nodded and hurried into the back room, where her purse was tucked beneath a desk in the corner. After fishing her keys out of her bag, she froze, closed her eyes, took a deep breath. No, her and Lucien did not belong together, but he wasn’t a terrible man.

Elain sighed, grasped her keys a little harder, and walked back into the store front.

“Here,” she breathed, holding them out.

Lucien stared at her hand for a few seconds before reaching up to take them. He walked out without a word and Elain waited, leaning on the counter that held the antique jewelry that the shop had acquired and she heaved a sigh of relief as realization washed over her.

When the door reopened, she hurried around for her keys, stepping around him for the door, and he raised an eyebrow and asked, “Something you’ve been waiting for? You could have called to get it sooner.”

She blushed and said, “It would have been awkward asking my ex-boyfriend for my engagement ring from my ex-fiancé.”

Lucien’s face paled and he looked off to the side, where she’d hung a large rug on the wall the morning before. “I don’t-.” He cleared his throat and looked at her “I don’t know anything about your ring.”

Elain stilled, and raised a brow. “You're lying.”

“No, I’m not,” he countered, crossing his arms.

“Lucien,” she said, her voice quiet. “I’ve known you for a long time. I know when you’re lying.”

Lucien just shook his head, slowly. “Look, I came here to be nice and bring you your stuff after you shittily dumped my ass, okay? I didn’t come here to argue.”

“This isn’t something to argue about, this is something for you to tell me,” she said and then back-pedaled. “I shittily dumped your ass?” Lucien didn’t say a word. He just stared at her. “I’m not the one who gave an ultimatum.”

“I never should have-.” Lucien stopped, realizing his voice was raising. “I never should have had to. He was your fucking ex, Elain.”

“He’s also the father of my child,” she replied, laughing for whatever reason. It made her feel unhinged, but then, the fact that Lucien didn’t understand why she’d had to leave that day.

“You were going to dump me regardless. You were already with him, what difference does it make.”

Elain’s eyes closed. She knew that he’d assume that. She and Azriel had discussed it while they’d laid in bed that day in the hotel.

Let him assume, Azriel had said, his lips dragging across her collarbone, his thumb rubbing circles into her hip. He was in the way anyways.

Az! She’d laughed, trying to push him away, but not trying too hard. What they’d done afterwards was proof of that, too.

Elain looked at Lucien now, at the hurt in his eyes, fully aware that anything she had to say would not ease that pain.

“I’m sorry,” she said, at last. “But, he’s my person, Luce. He’s who I’m supposed to be with-.”

“Stop,” he breathed, begged. “Please.”

Elain closed her eyes as she frustratingly closed her lips. But then, when he said nothing more, she asked, quietly, “What happened to my ring?”

His jaw locked and his eyes flashed. “It’s gone.”

She blinked and waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, she breathed, “What do mean It’s gone?” Her voice was deathly soft.

He sighed. “I mean, it’s gone. I pawned. I sold it.”

Elain hadn’t thought she heard right, had thought it was a joke, even though the look in his eye said otherwise. “You pawned it?”

Lucien didn’t say a word, but his shoulders tensed, his jaw locked.

With her hands shaking at her sides, Elain asked, her voice loud in the quiet store, “What gave you the right to do that?”

Lucien shook his head, completely unaffected by her rise in volume. “You should be thanking me.”

Elain barked a laugh. “Should I?”

“You kept your ex’s ring, who left you at the fucking alter,” he spat, through gritted teeth. “I was doing you a favor so you could finally move on!”

“You had no right. You had no fu-.” Elain’s head swam and she leaned back on the counter. “What pawn shop? When?”

Lucien ignored her questions. “Are you okay?” He rested a hand under her elbow. She didn’t pull away, so he knew she absolutely wasn’t.

“I’m fine,” she snapped. “What pawn shop was it, Luce?”

The nickname hurt him, but he said, “Elain, what’s wrong?”

She gripped the edge of the counter and screamed, “Lucien, where is my fucking ring?”

Lucien tensed, although his hand still lingered beneath her elbow. “The local one down on fifth, across from the bakery.”

Elain’s eyes shut as she let out a quiet sob.

“Elain-.” He started, but was cut off.

“Get out.” Her words were quiet, but powerful. A wave of nausea overwhelmed her, her knuckles white as they gripped the edge of the countertop.

Lucien didn’t move. “You’re not okay.”

“I’m fine,” she said, unsure of whether it was a lie or not. “Leave. Please.”

Lucien’s eyes narrowed. “Fine. Don’t take my help. But when he leaves you again, don’t come crying to me. You did this to us, Lainy.”

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, swallowing harshly. “There is no us, Lucien. We’re done.”

Lucien didn’t say another word, just turned on a heel and walked out.

Elain let her head fall on the small glass top of the cabinet. She pulled her phone out of her back pocket, dialing a number that she had never forgotten.

She told him to come to the shop, something was wrong. She was lightheaded and nauseous and the aching in her abdomen…

Azriel was on his way before they’d even hung up the phone.

Putting her phone to her ear, she made one more call. Nesta’s voice floated through the receiver.

Elain could barely get the words out by the time she answered.

Ring.

Pawn shop.

On the square.

My ring.

She hoped Nesta got the gist, because less than two minutes later, Azriel was picking her unconscious body from the floor and rushing her to the hospital.

#snelbz lost time #snelbz tacmc collab #snacmc #elriel lost time #acotar #acomaf #acowar #acofas #acosf

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pixelfun20 · 4 years

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Flower Fields, Ch 1

Summary: Season 7 of Hermitcraft has begun, and their newest and youngest member, Tubbo, is more than ready to prove himself in the eyes of his friends. New memories are made and friendships are forged, but old ghosts from the past still linger, and Tubbo will soon discover that fate has a way of letting things come full circle.

Notes: This an fic idea I legitimately came up with yesterday, based off of @give-grian-rights ‘s Watcher!Tubbo and Watcher!Tommy AU (I hope you don’t mind! I just loved this idea). I wrote this a single evening, let it sit for the night, and decided to publish it today. I hope you guys like it! Just to note, I haven’t finalized a title (or plot, besides some major points) yet, so if y’all have any ideas, let me know!

Chapter 1:

I'm not yours, and you're not mine

But we can sit and pass the time

For a moment, he floated in darkness.

Then in the next, he was falling through the air.

He didn’t fall far, thankfully, and his impact was cushioned by another body right underneath him.

Tubbo groaned, blinking against the bright rays of the sun as he tried to adjust from the darkness that had just encompassed him. He shifted, feeling rough cloth underneath him, and realized he was lying on someone.

“Oh! Sorry!” He exclaimed, swiftly moving off the other. He looked down as he saw a man with dark brown hair, a beard, and a leather jacket sit up, rolling his shoulders with a wince. “I think I spawned right on top of you, xB.”

xBCrafted just chuckled, pulling himself up to his feet. Tubbo followed him, cracking his back as he went, and looked around, trying to discern where he was.

Ah, man. It seemed like they had spawned on a small, sandy island, that was, worst of all, completely devoid of trees. Already it was crowding with the arrival of the other Hermits, with a few more pairs repeating the same situation as he and xB, spawning one on top of the other in the enclosed space. In the distance, he could see a large mooshroom island looming above the waves, but besides that there was nothing in sight.

“Looks like we’ll be going for a swim today!” xB chirped as Iskall spawned a foot or so away from them, landing face-first in the sand. “X wasn’t lying when he said we’d have a tricky time starting the Season.”

“And here I was hoping to stay dry,” Tubbo sighed as Iskall shot up, spluttering sand in the air. The two of them laughed at his sorry state.

“Very funny, you two,” the elder man grumbled. Iskall85, or Iskall as he was commonly known, looked considerably older than the two friends, perhaps in his early thirties. He had semi-long, scraggly brown hair and a cybernetic eye, as well as a green sweatshirt and brown vest.

“Oho, is that Scar?” xB exclaimed. Tubbo followed his gaze, and sure enough, a man in a purple bathrobe and dyed-white hair had just spawned, half in the water. Ah, GoodTimesWithScar was an odd one, alright, he thought with a laugh.

“What did he do?” Tubbo giggled. Scar turned towards them, seeming to hear his comment, and put his hands on his hips.

“I’m sorry, Tubbo,” he announced semi-solemnly. “The wizard life has chosen me.”

Iskall nearly cackled at that, throwing his head back, and xB and Tubbo joined him. Trust Scar to find new and creative ways to start the season! Tubbo made a mental note to drop by in a few weeks and see where this new bit got him.

“Looking good, Scar!” Stress said, coming up behind him. The shortest of the Hermits, she wore a pink jacket and kept her straight brown hair short and to the chin. “How’re you doing, Tub?”

“Great!” Tubbo chirped back. “Excited to start the Season right.”

“Let me know if you need anything, love,” she added, clapping her hands together. “That goes for all of you! I’d chat for longer, but Mumbo and I have some plans we need to discuss. See you all in a bit!” And with that she was gone, hopping over to the other side of the island. Scar went right on her heels, jogging over to Cubfan135 (a balding man in a lab coat around Iskall’s age), who was standing next to Mumbo Jumbo.

Tubbo scanned over the rapidly growing group of people, grinning once he caught sight of a flash of black-striped yellow armor in the crowd.

“Hey! X!” He called out, waving. A man fully covered in armor, painted to resemble a bee, looked over to them. Through his vizor, Tubbo could see the corners of his brown eyes crinkle in the tell-tale sign of a smile, and he approached the trio. “Love the outfit!”

“Thank you, Tubbo,” XisumaVoid replied, patting him on the shoulder. “I’m quite liking your new design, too.”

Tubbo fought back a blush, looking down at himself. Like the elder man, he’d changed up his usual outfit to celebrate the newest mob addition to Season 6, the bees. He’d changed into a yellow jacket with black stripes on the sleeves over a gray shirt, as well as black pants with a yellow stripe down the sides.

“Alrighty, I’ll be leaving you two to your father-son bonding,” Iskall cut in, waving a hand as he walked off. “I’m going to go catch up with Keralis.”

“Oh, will you stop with that!” Xisuma said good-naturedly as Tubbo really did his best not to blush. xB laughed again. Iskall just whistled, walking over to where Keralis, a man in his late thirties in a blue shirt and jeans, had just spawned. The server’s admin turned back to Tubbo. “Sorry about that. You know how he can be.”

Tubbo just shook his head a bit, trying to suppress a smile. Ah, it’d been far too long since the Hermits had all been in one place like this. He’d missed the action of it all.

He, Xisuma, and xB chatted together for a few minutes as everyone spawned in and caught their bearings. It seemed everyone had big plans for the Season. While he and Xisuma had gone with a bee theme, xB was apparently planning to really Hermit out the season, far away from spawn. Scar was certainly embracing the wizard part of himself, and rumor had it BDubs and Doc were going to be neighbors, which was a recipe for disaster and, more importantly, funny stories.

“Okay, everyone!” It was Keralis’ shout that drew the twenty-some players out of their respective conversations. Almost unconsciously, they’d formed an oval around the perimeter of their tiny spawn island. “Intro time! Let’s go, X!”

“What? Why me?” Xisuma protested, but Keralis just laughed and took his place back in the circle.

“C’mon, admin,” Tubbo teased him with an elbow to the side. Xisuma sighed, rolling his shoulders, then stepped out into the center of the island.

“Alright everyone. Welcome to Hermitcraft Season 7! Go!” He clapped his hands together and dashed back towards the shore, the circle immediately breaking up as the Hermits split into their groups and dove into the ocean. Tubbo laughed as he waved goodbye to xB, who took off in a different direction as he went to follow X.

The water was nice and lukewarm, and soon enough Tubbo was backstroking over the ocean. He looked up at the bright blue sky, and smiled.

~~~~~~~~~

They spent most of the first day collecting supplies.

As it turned out, both FalseSymmetry, Hypnotizd, and ZombieCleo had decided to go in the same direction as he and Xisuma, so they ended up gathering their first bits of wood and stone together. Then there was some issue with the server that caused Xisuma to have to dive deep into the server code, in the open, at midnight, so their first night went without much sleep and with a lot of mob fighting instead.

“Well,” Cleo said the next morning, twirling her axe as Tubbo set to cooking some meat for breakfast. “That could have gone better.”

“I think the first night went just fine, thank you very much,” False shot back, sharpening her newly-minted stone sword. “I’m going to be honest, though, I’m not used to going out at night without an elytra. Or armor. Or a decent sword.”

“Hey, but did you see how many mobs I killed?” Tubbo put in, pulling out some pork chops and tossing one to Cleo. “I’m a god, I tell you.”

“Yes,” Xisuma replied. He was still sitting on one of the beds they’d made, and was double checking some of the code. “God of giving me heart attacks.”

“Not my fault you messed up part of the code! I saved your life!”

“I’d suggest you remember who bandaged that arrow wound, kid.”

Tubbo’s hand flew to his shoulder, where his jacket was torn slightly, and he blushed. “I’m not a kid!”

Everyone turned and gave him a flat look, and Tubbo blushed harder, looking down. It was no secret that he was, by far, the youngest person on the server. Most players were in their late twenties, like False and Impulse, to their late thirties, like Scar and Doc. Even the youngest before he’d arrived had been Mumbo and xB, at 24 and 19 respectively. At just barely 16, Tubbo was, well, a child compared to them.

Loathe as he was to admit it. It had been hard enough in the beginning, when he’d arrived unexpectedly at the beginning of Season 6. No one had been expecting any new players to join that Season, much less a mentally scarred 14-year-old, and he’d ended up being coddled for the first six months or so. Heck, he’d lived with Xisuma until he’d grown so tired of it he’d had to run off and make his own base without asking him, because the answer would have been no.

He was perfectly capable of living on his own! It was just… well, Tubbo knew he wasn’t as good as the others. He couldn’t make the huge, rolling complexes or over complicated redstone machines that did everything for you like the other hermits did. Of course, it made sense; he had a lot less experience and was still learning these things. But it didn’t help the fact that the others, well, they didn’t look down on him, per se, but they were always a little too willing to help, a little too protective.

“Sure,” Cleo was drawling teasingly, drawing him out of his thoughts. Tubbo snorted and looked down at his breakfast with a shake of his head, starting to eat.

“Oh, let him be,” Hypno put in, grabbing some food for himself. “I remember being that age. Young and ready to take on the world. At least he doesn't have any creaky old bones. I’m already feeling my back in the mornings.”

“Alrighty then!” Xisuma announced after a moment of silence, rising from his bed and closing the admin screens. “Looks like all the post-spawn bugs have been taken care of. I’m ready to head out for the day.”

“I guess this is where we all say goodbye, then,” False replied, twirling her sword. “I have the best idea for my base this season, but I gotta go north from here.”

“Tubbo and I are heading east.”

“West for me,” Cleo put in.

Hypno just shrugged. “I figured I’d wander for a bit before settling down.”

“No planning?” Tubbo asked, then grinned, glad for the change of subject. “I like your style, Hypno.”

The bandana-ed man inclined his head at him with a smile. He wasn’t a new player to the server, not at all, but from what Tubbo knew he hadn’t been around for a few years. Prior to the last few days as they’d prepared to jump Seasons, he’d hardly even heard of the man before, and thus didn’t know him too well.

Xisuma clapped Tubbo’s shoulder, eyes crinkling from that helmet-obscured smile of his.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

Tubbo whooped. “Bees, here we come!”

~~~~~~~~~

Perfect.

That was the only way Tubbo could describe the place he’d come across. He sat in the branches of one of the tallest trees in the area, looking out to where the forest he’d been traversing ended and the plains biome, scattered with flowers in small patches around, with gentle hills rolling even further in the distance.

It was an idyllic location, and perfect for his plans for the Season.

Another day had passed, marking it Day 3 of Season 7. After that first somewhat disastrous night, he and Xisuma had separated from their initial group and travelled to find a base together. Xisuma had decided, for some reason, that he was going to build his base in the middle of the jungle, so they had set up camp there for the night. Come dawn, however, Tubbo was ready to go and scout for a place of his own, and with a promise to check in with Xisuma every day or so, he’d set off that morning.

It was early afternoon, now, and honestly, Tubbo was pleased with how quickly he’d found his spot. It was only a half-day’s journey, while walking, from Xisuma, so once he’d gotten elytra he’d be able to visit whenever he wanted. Besides that, news had it that Keralis and Beef were only a little ways out, which would be fun since Tubbo didn’t know them too well.

Humming quietly, Tubbo reached into his inventory and took out the only belonging he’d taken with him from Season 6－a medium-sized notebook, filled with sketches and notes on what he wanted to build and how to do it. Last Season he hadn’t been ambitious enough; Tubbo had started late thanks to living with Xisuma and then had focused on just having a base of his own that by the end of the season it had looked puny compared to the many buildings his friends/guardians had made.

He wasn’t making that mistake again. Tubbo had grand plans for this Season’s megabase, and he was going to make sure it blew everyone else out of the water.

Okay, maybe that was an over exaggeration. But Tommy had always said to aim high.

His heart twisted a bit, as it always did when he thought of his old friends. Back then, he’d known people his own age, and Wilbur and Techno had rarely held back against him when they’d interacted with him, whether through words or PvP.

He wondered how they were doing; it’d been almost two years since he’d last seen or heard from them. He wondered if they’d moved on.

He wondered if they knew he was still alive.

Tubbo shook his head, chasing the depressing thoughts out of his mind. He’d found himself thinking of his old friends less and less over the last year and half, as he’d settled into life in Hermitcraft and begun to heal from what had happened to him. Not to say he didn’t miss them, that he wasn’t missing something in his life, but, well. Even though he thought of them every once in a while, the numerous letters he’d written to Tommy, unable to be sent, had been left behind with Season 6, in a way of really starting anew.

Doc had explained it best. Life moved on, and sometimes it was best to just hold onto the old memories and work on making new ones.

He’d taken that advice to heart. Tubbo flipped open his notebook to one of the middle pages, holding it out and comparing his sketch to the open plains before him.

Yes. This biome would do quite nicely.

Season 7 was going to be something great.

#tubbo #tubbo_#xisuma #xisumavoid #xbcrafted #iskall85 #hermitcraft #hermitcraft season 7 #watcher tubbo #watcher au #fanfiction #fanfic #hermitcraft fanfic #Hermit!Tubbo AU #I have no self control #And no idea how long I'll roll with this #but I"m quite liking it so far

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hermitcraftheadcanons · 4 years

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Hello Internet, welcome to GAME THEORY, where instead of putting a joke here I want to ask you a question. It's time to talk UNDERTALE.

Now I don't think I've ever gotten this many requests to cover a theory, (no requests times no requests is still no requests.) Anyway, across my tumblr dashboard, NO ONE has asked for this. And honestly, I'm disappointed. True loyal theorists will know that Undertale is my favorite game of all time.

Undertale is a game where every character, from goat mom to grind fodder has a sympathetic design and a unique personality, motivations, goals, fears. Whether you're saving or slaughtering them, the game makes you feel something every time you enter an encounter. But to me, one character stood out amongst all the rest. SANS. A skeleton named after the font, Comic Sans. ANYWAYS, Sans is, well, there's a lot of mystery around this guy. And before we get into it, let me put up a very special spoiler warning: UNDERTALE is a game best experienced blind. So if you haven't played it, pause your reading of this and come back after you've finished. I PROMISE YOU, I PROMISE you won't regret it. Alright, so everyone out of the pool and ready for the adult swim? Good. Because I'm feeling pretty determined to get to the bottom of Sans' mystery. So just to recap for those of you who haven't played the game and ignored the SPOILER WARNING, or just need a refresher, Sans is one of the two skeletal brothers who appears in the game. His partner is Papyrus, a loud, goofy trap lover also named after a font. But in the world of Undertale their origins are a big question mark. All you really know is what's given to us by a shopkeeper in Snowdin, who explains that Sans and Papyrus, quote, “just showed up one day and asserted themselves.” Weird, right? What's more is that, well, Papyrus is just kinda the goofy sidekick. Sans is much more complex.

He likes fart jokes, but he's also incredibly powerful and deadly serious. Not only is his boss battle the hardest in the game, he's one of the only characters who has knowledge and power over space and time. He can take shortcuts around the world through ridiculous routes. Even is walking through walls. He also acknowledges that he's only one of infinite versions of himself, making self-aware commentary of the various timelines that you've played through in the game. He can even count the number of times he's killed you. He acts like an arbiter of this world, passing out judgements on the player's actions in the game, even explaining the secrets of EXP and LOVE, or EXECUTION POINTS and LEVELS OF VIOLENCE, just to clarify. In short, he just doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the world of monsters. But then, what, or who, is he? Well, the idea that he doesn't belong in the underworld seems to be correct.

The evidence seems to point to the fact that he WAS, in fact, formerly a surface dweller. In the true pacifist ending of the game, as the group looks out onto the horizon, Papyrus asks Sans about the giant ball in the sky. Sans says, quote, “we call that the sun.” This is important because A, the usage of the word WE, and knowledge of the sun shows that Sans has a kinship or knowledge with other humans, and B, that despite he and Papyrus both being skeletons, or, supposedly, brothers, and apparently appeared in underworld at the same time, they CLEARLY have two very different histories. Why would Papyrus not know the name of the sun but Sans would?

We get further clues to Sans' origins as we hear him say multiple times he wants to "go home" or "go back." He says as much during his dinner date scene at the Mettaton hotel. He notices that the player wants to go home and says, quote, "I know the feeling." He then continues, "maybe sometimes it's better to take what's given to you." As though he ended up in the underworld by accident. AND in a genocide run during his boss fight he says, quote, "look, I gave up trying to go back a long time ago." End quote. And before you say he means going back to the surface world, that's clearly not the full story. His very next line of dialogue is, "and getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore either." Key word here is “EITHER.” Yes, he seems to hail from the surface and wants to go back, but based on his dialogue he no longer considers it his home. It's as though the surface world he once knew is gone, as though he's from a different time. It's pretty intriguing. So we're left with a being that appeared out of nowhere, presumably from being from the human surface, but from a different time period, who seemingly has the power to teleport. That's a lot of questions and not a lot of answers.

But here's where things get REALLY interesting. Sans has a hidden workshop that takes a fair amount of searching to find. You could say it takes a lot of DETERMINATION to unlock. Anyways, obligatory determination references aside, as you start to look for this easter egg Sans gives you a key to his room and says "it's time you learn the truth." After some searching you find the workshop which contains items that leave even more questions. A photo album featuring Sans and a bunch of smiling people you don't recognize, a badge, blueprints with illegible handwriting, and a broken machine hidden behind a curtain. In the latest update, one more detail was added. A hand-drawn picture of 3 smiling faces with the words “don't forget.”

So, what does it all mean? Well a lot of Undertale theorists have been linking these details to a feature to a character named W.D Gaster. A ghostly character who never truly appears in the game. Honestly, covering him is a theory all unto itself, and probably one best saved for another day. Even still, none of the Gaster theories I've seen have been able to explain all the details. In particular, the photo album, and the badge. And that's what kept nagging me as I researched Undertale. A badge? That one in particular really stuck out to me. Why would such an oddly specific item to be hidden in the huge easter egg of a room? Something that supposedly reveals the truth about Sans? Badges just aren't important in Undertale. Then it hit me. What if this badge isn't from Undertale? What if this badge is from a completely different series? And was, in fact, the most important badge in the history of gaming? One of the Iskall patreon badges.

Now, for those of you wondering what I'm talking about, the Iskall Patreon Badges are a pivotal item from Iskall’s patreon. You know, the one on Hermitcraft. Anyway, the Iskall Patreon Badges are a really important part of Iskall’s character. So I asked myself; what if the badge in Sans' drawer was ONE OF THOSE EXACT badges? Well first off, it made Undertale connected to my favorite youtuber, thereby making it even COOLER, but that's still a pretty big logical leap. I needed more. Let me tell you, as I started looking, more and more pieces started to fit into place.

In Hermitcraft Season 6, there are three Architechs. (This was before Stress joined in season 7.) These 3 were Iskall, Grian and MumboJumbo. And what does Sans happen to have in his other drawer? A photo album with pictures of Sans with people you don't recognize. Of course you don't know them, they're not characters present in Undertale. And note the word that's used here, PEOPLE you don't recognize. Not underworld monsters. So that's 2 items oddly linked to the Hermitcraft series.

But then, how do the blueprints and broken machine fit in? Well, in the final stretch of Hermitcraft, Iskall is the only one who hasn’t died since the Demise game, so he sells his own body to the highest bidder. Except, it comes with a cost. Everyone is poor. As a result, and with the help of ImpulseSV, the Architechs (minus Mumbo,) are forced to finally kill Iskall, ending his streak since the beginning of demise. I watched this episode in 2020 and I'm not ashamed to admit that when I first saw this scene, I cried. It's DEVASTATING.

Iskall says goodbye to his friends, his co-workers, this character you've grown to love and care about is suddenly promising to sacrifice his life. For all he knows, there is no possibility of him being able to come back after his Demise. It's this incredibly dark departure in the final moments of what was otherwise a fun, quirky, and colorful Season 6.

So what does all of this have to do with Undertale? A LOT, actually. But the first thing you need to know is that the hermits are known for their, let's say, unique written linguistic style.

That would explain the illegible handwriting on the blueprints. And the machine? I think a broken infinity portal is behind that curtain. Now that may seem like a stretch, but it actually explains a lot.

If Sans wound up in Undertale via whacky infinity portal hyjinx, it could provide a reason for why he's a skeleton. He used the machine as organic matter and suffered the consequences. Not killing him, but turning at least a part of him into a pile of bones. That could also explain why Sans has given up hope for going home. Remember the infinity portal is a time machine. By being in the underworld, he's not only in a different place, but based on how he talks, he's also in a different time, with no hope of travelling back to the time he came from. This could theoretically happen. It turned Scar into a wizard and completely disintegrated Welsknight, so the rules are… Flimsy at best.

But the crossovers between Hermitcraft and Undertale continue. In Grian’s episode, (EDIT IN TIMESTAMP) he mentions he’s amazed that Iskall only escaped his demise with a lost arm. He says Iskall had “a lot of determination to not die for real,” and that he’s going to continue to study this. Seems awfully similar to the same experiments happening in Undertale around the trait of determination, no? Especially since so much has shown that Sans was a key player in those experiments.

But I'm sure you also want physical evidence right? Well don't worry, because I have plenty. Take a look at Iskall and Sans side by side. Iskall’s left eye is replaced with a diamond loupe. Sans’ left eye glows blue when he’s mad. Both have extremely chill yet are known for their jokes and, dare I say, laugh.

In short, we have some incredibly strong proof that the Hermitcraft Cinematic Universe, (HCU) is somehow connected to the Undertale world, which brings us back to our initial question, WHO IS SANS?

Well, what if we took it one final step and said that Sans happened to be Iskall from Hermitcraft? Sent through the Infinity Portal at the end of season 6 to go to Season 7, carrying an Iskall Patreon Badge and his photo album. Not only do all the items in the workshop suddenly fit, but so does Sans’ behavior.

Remember, Sans can seemingly travel extremely quickly. And Iskall just happens to have an elytra, a device that allows people to travel hundreds of metres extremely quickly. This even explains why Sans bleeds when you finally hit him. He is, or at least, WAS, a human.

Oh and finally, Sans shares two out of five letters with the name Iskall. That's just a fun one. I thought it was worth mentioning.

But if there was any doubt, we have to look no further than the creator's previous work. Toby Fox, the man behind Undertale is actually DocM77, the creator of every hermit (besides Scar.) Now, if Toby Fox, the creator of Undertale, is also DocM77, creator of Iskall, we know they will most definitely share a universe. Which brings us back to Undertale. 2 faces, with “don't forget” written on it? It's Iskall, trying to remember his 2 friends. In short, Undertale is a continuation of Toby’s version of Hermitcraft Season 6, with Iskall never being able to get home, adopting the name Sans. The pieces all just seem to fit. Now all we need is an appearance from Ethoslab and we’ve got ourselves a true sequel.

But hey, that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY! THANKS FOR WATCHING!

#hcraft #hermitcraftheadcanons #iskall85 #iskall #TheScience!#posted 11.05.20 #long post #please note this is literally a copy paste of the actual script #with some changes #but yeah actual cred to Matt on this one

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votederpycausemufins · 3 years

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The bots are all fixed!!! Well, they are physically. Mentally is another question which we’re not covering hahahahahaHAHAHA! also wack, no smp members. @petrichormeraki @helleborusangel

“There, that should do it. We might want for someone to test it out in the near future, but it does look like it’s fixed.” Xisuma spoke as both of the bots powered back on. “I can see why we had trouble before. It looks fine if you’re not actively looking for that problem specifically.”

“Thank you very much Xisuma.” Mumbo said, checking both of the bots over for his own peace of mind.

“Of course. I also got a response from Biffa in the middle of it all, and while he’s not willing to share all the details of his past, he was willing to give a few notes. As these two are player entities, natural world magic is going to help them adapt more to that. He’s willing to come visit in a few weeks to see the two of them if you’re all okay with that.”

Mumbo looked over to Grian who nodded. “That’s more your guys’ call. You both knew him much longer than me. I mean, we interacted of course and he seemed nice, but you know better.”

“Well X, I think that would be lovely.” Mumbo replied, looking back to the admin.

“You know, is it just a family thing to like people in pink, or is it just coincidence.” Grifter spoke up, making everyone look over at him exasperatedly.

“Did you have to follow us in here?” Mumbo groaned, and Grifter just nodded, feathers coming off of him as he moved from stray ones sticking to his clothes.

“Too many chickens outside. Inside’s safer. Besiiiiiiides it’s less boring in here. And I’m the one who even knew what was wrong with your kids. Also yeah, you fixed it, no need for testing.”

“You’re not lying, are you?” Grian asked, crossing his arms.

“Of course not. What would I get out of lying about it?” Grifter shrugged. “They also look like my little pumpkin rolls, so why would I want to hurt them?”

“Didn’t your version of Jrum try killing ours?” Mumbo said with a frown.

Grifter just scoffed. “I told him about the bug! He was going to make sure your kid respawned correctly. I just needed some help and for you not to know. It worked out in the end, didn’t it? It only didn’t work out for those asshole admins and me.”

“Speaking of, Tommy’s old world has a console now. Well, a console other than Grum. Is the hels version the same?” Mumbo asked, genuinely curious, though the smile that Grifter gave worried him.

“Weeeell, the short answer is no, it’s got a new admin. The longer answer is that the new admin is meee!”

“You?!”

“I’m sorry why you?! I’m not the admin here! I’m not even opped!”

“I know you’re fucking not.” Grifter rolled his eyes, pulling a stray feather off of his sweater. “Our worlds are parallel but they aren’t one to one equals, dumbass. And we’re not just influenced by the shit that happens here. May I remind you that I was a Listener when Deevo and Evo started while you only became a Watcher when it ended. Or at least close to the end. And my boys were born before you built these two. The worlds sometimes force themselves together, like NPG staying around when I was gone and my boys not functioning until yours were around or… you know… Tommy being pulled to Hermitcraft after Theseus ran off to Helscraft.”

That got everyone’s attention. “Wait, is that why Tommy doesn’t know how he got here?”

Grifter smirked. “Yeah. After Nightmare got killed, Thee got the admin powers. He was pissed over things and ran off looking for me. Of course I was imprisoned and Dad wasn’t letting anyone near me, so the best he could find was season five. Member changes are always a forced thing, so I guess something pulled Tommy here to fix it that way.

“But wait, won’t that…” Grian trailed off.

“Shove you into the SMP? Fuck no. I’m admin, but I’m not gonna live there. I’m a Listener, I can check on things while living in Helscraft. Besides, things are different with NPG around. I mean, unless I kill him-”

“Don’t you dare!”

Grifter huffed. “I wasn’t gonna! Despite how much I hate him, he was the one person caring for Sense when he was all alone, so I’ll give him that. So no death, maybe just some torture. Anyway, I’m sure you’re visiting, so it balances out. Probably.” He finished with a shrug.

“Oh joy of joys.” Mumbo groaned while Grian looked so done with the world.

While all of this had been going on, both of the bots had completely powered on. At first they just took in their surroundings, staying quiet since it was clear others were in the middle of important conversations. Then they saw each other.

With everything that had happened, the two bots had barely been in each other’s company, and when they were, they were at each other’s throats. Jrum was the first to look away in shame as he could remember most of what happened clearly, but Grum was a bit fuzzy on a number of details. He hesitated, reaching out towards his brother a bit, before just pulling his hand back.

When it seemed the conversation was coming to a close, Grum got Jrum’s attention and used his screen and hands to signal something before looking over to their dads. “Um, Dads?”

Mumbo and Grian both looked over to Grum when he spoke up. “What is it Grum?”

“Could… Could Jrum and I have a bit of time alone? To… talk with each other?”

The pair looked to Xisuma since it was his place. X nodded before helping to lead them as well as Grifter out of the room and to somewhere else.

For a few moments, both of the bots were quiet, just sitting there, unsure what to say. Then Jrum started up the conversation. “I’m sorry for being mad at you. I got all upset at Dad getting upset at family, but then I was doing the same thing.”

“You don’t need to apologize. I was the one who started things. You reacted to my actions and were influenced by those red plants.”

“Yeah, but Dream was messing with you and made you be mean!”

“No he didn’t.” Grum replied, which confused Jrum for a few moments before Grum elaborated. “I started realizing something was weird and I panicked. I was worried I would do something really bad and hurt you. I didn’t know what exactly, and I also wasn’t sure if I could safely tell you. I knew if I said something kindly or nicely asking us to distance ourselves, nothing would work until I explained more. And I didn’t want to have to deal with you asking to stay because I didn’t want you to go either. So I just sort of… let myself be mean. I can’t even blame it on someone else. It was me and only me.”

Jrum was quiet, just processing what his brother had said. Then, after a few seconds, he scooted closer and hugged Grum. “Then that’s not your fault! You didn’t know what was safe to say, and that’s because the admin was - don’t let Daddy know I said this - Dream was a piece of shit!” Grum paused before giggling a bit, not expecting his brother to say that. “What? It’s true!”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just… nice to be with you again.”

Jrum smiled and hugged a little tighter. “Yeah, and now we’re gonna be closer because we went through trauma together! Speaking of which… how long do you think we can milk this?”

Grum pulled away from the hug to rub his ‘chin’. “Well, Dad is more likely to notice we’re up to something, so only a week or two with him. But if we play our cards right, we can keep things going with Daddy for a month. Maybe even more.”

“What? That long?”

“Well, we sort of got stuck in a time displacement bubble for a month all by ourselves and got controlled by different things. We would need to be careful and not make it seem like we’re having a relapse, but if we have a, quote unquote bad day, we can definitely get a lot out of it.”

“I’m going to build a new shop.”

“Good idea, so many people will want to support us. We might even get a discount on some land in Aquoo town. From Scar and not Bdubs of course.”

“Of course, we have more sway over Scar.” Jrum nodded.

“The question is what to sell.”

“Yeah, that part’s gonna be a bit harder. Hmm, maybe a gardeni-”

“Nope! Absolutely not!”

“Ugh, rude. Hmm… Odea two?”

“Ooo, good idea, good idea. It also sounds like we could get some interaction with the SMP after this, we could outsource there. I mean, we already have the connections.”

“Oh definitely. Speaking of, I kinda said Fundy could come visit Hermitcraft a while ago. Do you think that would be allowed?”

“Oh easy. We can even get Michael and his dad to come too.”

“Yes! I’ve always wanted an actual playdate! And this time I won’t be almost killed by a clone!”

“Let’s find our dads and ask?”

“Definitely!” Jrum nodded, and the two bots jumped off of where they were sitting and went looking for their parents.

“Leave me alone Lynn.” Grian grumbled, wings puffing up.

“Not until you tell me what a Listener is doing here!” The other Watcher gestured to Grifter, who was giving her a smirk.

Grian sighed. “Basically I’m making sure he doesn’t destroy everything by keeping an eye on him. Unfortunately that means he needed to come here while I change some records.”

“Really? You changing records? I thought I’d never see the day.”

“Oh shut it. Remember that Watcher I asked about? You couldn’t find anything but I kept looking into it and found two unknown Watchers.”

“And let me guess, you figured out who they were. Was one of them Eyes?”

Grian half shrugged. “Yes and no? Uh, so both of them are my kids and Eyes is like… part of my one kid?”

“Oh you’re an idiot.”

“Hey hey hey! He’s not just an idiot, he’s also a dumbass!” Grifter spoke up, getting glares from both Watchers.

“But seriously. You used Watcher magic to build them?”

“I didn’t think I did! I mean, I guess maybe? But Mumbo was in charge of the redstone and the redstone was the mayoral reservoirs and that’s what was technically using magic.”

“I’m going to have to tell someone about this.”

“Okay. Can you just try to make sure it’s someone that’s not going to completely freak out?”

“Hmm, no promises.” Lynn replied, and then walked off before Grian could say more.

“Oh I like her.” Grifter smiled. “So how do you know each other?”

“She’s the Watcher that was in charge of at least part of the world I grew up in.”

Grifter nodded. “Well I would love to hear the stories she got from there. But that can wait. Where are we going now?”

“Records room. I need to officially list my boys as Watchers and then get their data transferred to their names.”

“Ughhhh that sounds boring. Where’s the cool stuff?”

Grian just groaned and led them to the records room, needing to give excuses to a few Watchers here and there on the way. He was able to quickly grab the needed files since he already knew where they were. Correcting the names was easy enough since they were currently unknown and waiting for the answer. Correcting other forms was harder though. Normally a Watcher had their name officialized before doing much work. Maybe once or twice based on the situation, and that was the case with Jrum seeing as how his only real use of magic was when Grian himself had triggered it. But Grum had a lot more.

Every time Grum accessed the mayoral reservoirs, he was really looking into all the political data that the Watchers had gathered over the years. That alone would be a hassle, but the fact that there was extra paperwork for accessing certain sub categories was causing more issues. Normally you needed permission for data on destroyed worlds, but of course Grum managed to bypass any blocks and get right into the data. And since he was unlisted, it had caused some more logging errors.

Grian half contemplated just flipping the table he was at. It would send paperwork everywhere, but a quick bit of magic would fix it, and it would feel gratifying. But then again, Grifter was here, and who knows how he would react. And Grian expected a worse case scenario there. “Okay, can I trust you for like three minutes to go tell Mumbo it’s going to take a while here?”

Grifter’s eyes lit up a little and he nodded. “Three minutes! Got it!” Grian immediately regretted it, but before he could say more, Grifter was gone.

Mumbo glanced at his communicator for the time. He expected Grian would take a while, but he also hoped he wouldn’t be gone too long. Plus, he was also worried that if the bots were left alone too long, they could get into trouble. He was just about to go check on them when he heard the sound of them running in his direction.

Mumbo couldn’t help but worry about why they were running until he actually saw them. With everything that happened the past few days, his mind kept trying to jump to the worst outcome, but the moment he saw the boys smiling, it calmed him down.

“Daddy! Can we invite people over to play?” Jrum asked, looking hopeful.

“Even with everything that happened, we managed to make some friends. It would be nice to thank them by letting them get to visit here.”

“And I kinda said someone could come visit and they’re kinda our cousin and he knows Auncle Iskall so please please please can they come visit?”

“And Michael was nice too. I didn’t get to interact too much, but he seemed rather nice.”

“Pleeeeeaaaaaaaase!”

Mumbo tried to get them to calm down. “Alright, alright. I’m sure the two of you could use some time to relax and have fun. We just need to wait for your dad to come back so he could get them. It may also be a while since I’m sure he wants to wait for Tommy to want to come back too.”

“Okay! We can wait!” Jrum agreed. “Can we go check the shopping district until then?”

“I’m not sure. I should wait for your dad to come back.”

“But we are perfectly able to go on our own.” Grum pointed out. “And even if something were to happen, the shopping district is so commonly filled with others that another hermit would assist us should there be trouble.”

Mumbo hesitated, but then agreed. “Alright, but see if Iskall is home and then ask them to take you there. I don’t want something happening on the way there.”

Jrum was happy to agree, but for a moment, Grum hesitated, their screen changing a bit. “Could we possibly ask Uncle Scar instead?”

“I’m… not sure he’s around. Grum are you sure you should be going?”

Grum nodded. He didn’t want to leave Jrum alone again. “No. It’s fine. W-We can go see Auncle Iskall.”

Mumbo didn’t look completely convinced, but Jrum’s pleading look got him to look away for just a moment. “Alright, alright. Go on before I change my mind again.”

“Thank you!” Jrum smiled and started pulling Grum away. Grum followed behind, though he still looked reluctant, so once they were in the air, Jrum looked back to his brother. “Oh come on, we’re not actually gonna go get them. We’re just going to say we couldn’t find them and since Daddy didn’t give us a second option, we’re just going on our own.”

Grum nodded. “Thanks.”

“Oh don’t worry! To be completely honest, I completely agree with Grifter about chickens right now and feel like I’ll strangle and turtles I see! I sort of don’t even want to see Professor Beaks any time soon!”

“Is that about the-”

“Yeah it’s about the flipping egg!”

“Sorry.” Grum apologized and Jrum made them land so they could hug each other.

“It’s fine. We already went over a bunch. Life sucked, but apparently that’s like… a family thing. I kinda want to give Daddy trauma though just to make it equal.”

“I think he has enough from dealing with us all.”

“Hmmmm you’re probably right. Okay let’s go scam Scar!”

The two of them eventually reached the shopping district and Aqua Town. It took a little bit of searching, but they eventually found the mayor. He already wasn’t the best and giving good prices for his land, but the fact that he was also up against two traumatized children, one of which he slightly feared, didn’t help his case. In the end, he got seven diamond blocks from the bots and Grum happily started building the new shop.

Jrum went back and forth between the plot and Odea to figure out prices and stocking the place. He was glad to see Grum was happy, and then even more when he saw their dad flying their way. “Dad! Dad! Over here!” Grian heard Jrum and flew down, landing next to the bot. “Look! We’re making a new shop!”

“Oh really? What are you going to sell?” Grian responded, and Jrum had to keep from frowning. The tone of Grian’s voice sounded off. Jrum’s best guess was that something bad happened with whatever he had been doing and he was upset at that, but Jrum also couldn’t be sure.

“Well, it’s going to be a branch of Odea. I’m hoping that if we’ve got lots of people visiting that aren’t all amazing builders and redstoners like everyone here that they’ll want to buy Daddy’s designs! And since everything is moving to Aquway Town, we’re having a place here so it’ll get noticed!”

“Oh, that sounds like a great idea! And it looks like someone’s gotten really far with building already.” Grian looked up to where Grum was standing on the scaffolding, placing blocks down.

“Yeah! I’m glad he looks so happy! Oh! By the way! When you pick up Tommy, can you also ask if Michael and Fundy want to visit? I kinda said Fundy could and then I think Michael would like it too. If his parents have to come along, I wouldn’t mind. And they’re Tommy’s friends so that way he can have people visit too!”

Grian smiled sweetly. “Oh of course we can do that! I’m sure Xisuma would be fine with it all!”

“Yay! I can’t wait!”

“Welp, I’m going to go check on the rest of Aqua Town!” Grian said, starting to walk off. “I don’t want to get too far while I wait for Tommy’s message.”

“Yeah oka- wait. Dad, what did you call this place?” Jrum asked, catching that Grian used the real name of the area.

“Uh… well I better check on Barge Co.! Eep!” Grifter started to back up, but then jumped as an egg was thrown down next to him, followed by another, and then yet another. “AHH! It’s Poultry Man! Run away!!!”

Jrum looked up to see that the eggs had come from Grum, who quickly signalled a sorry to Jrum, which the bot quickly accepted. Grum ended up gliding down to join his brother and the both of them dealt with Grifter, somehow managing to send the helsmit back to Grian, unintentionally making their Dad groan as more paperwork appeared for him.

#hermit!tommy au #hermit!tommy #xisumavoid #xisuma #grian #watcher!grian #grian xelqua #avian!Grian #mumbo jumbo #grumbot #jrumbot #hels!grian #the watchers (evo)

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zallano · 5 years

Text

The HereAfter, Chapter 4

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, read on AO3!

Full Chapter under the cut

A few days had passed since Mumbo arrived in hermitcraft. He settled down on one of the islands and made some sort of “tree house”.

The tree house wasn’t bad for his first build but each time he looked over at the massive base next to his island, he would feel inspired to build a base just as big. The only issue was that he had no idea how.

Mumbo sat against the tree’s trunk and watched the sunset. Xisuma told him that if he slept frequently he wouldn’t have to deal with phantoms. Although, he didn’t know how frequently that was. Though, Mumbo felt safe. He had placed down way too many torches around the island than what was required to keep mobs from spawning. He assumed that Phantoms spawned like other mobs.

The sun set quickly and Mumbo still hadn’t yet found a crafting recipe for a bed. He held a torch in his hand. The small flame illuminated his face and kept him warm. He heard a familiar gurgle come from the water a couple of blocks away, but he wasn’t concerned. He learned that the water zombies couldn’t get you if you were on land- if they didn’t have a trident that is.

Mumbo sat against the tree for a couple of moments. He closed his eyes at one point, trying to get himself to fall asleep again. He wasn’t successful. It didn’t take long for the effects of going a couple of days without sleep to kick in. He held the torch closer to his chest, his eyes struggling to stay open though he knew once he closed them, he wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.

It took another minute or two until Mumbo heard a terrifying screech. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He placed the torch down next to another. “I have torches everywhere!” He yelled at the few Phantoms that were already beginning to swarm. Not nearly enough as there were on his first night, but still enough to scare him.

Mumbo stood and climbed up the ladders to his treehouse to take shelter. He watched the Phantoms circle in confusion, wondering where he had gone. “Ha! Stupid sky-demons!” He yelled.

A Phantom must have heard him. The swarm immediately turned around and began swooping down at the tree house, trying to find a way in. Unfortunately for Mumbo, he had left a giant gaping hole in the house and the mobs were able to get in. They snapped and bit at Mumbo as he struggled to get back down his ladder. Possibly a staircase would’ve been easier.

Mumbo looked around, trying to find a way to escape or take shelter. His eyes laid upon the ocean. Surely Phantoms couldn’t swim. He dashed toward the water and dived in. He had to be safe in the water. He was wrong.

A Phantom dived in after him and was making its way over to attack him. Mumbo panicked, he nearly inhaled water once again. More phantoms flew into the water, their glowing green teeth only inches away from his face- that is, until Mumbo saw a quick glance of aqua zooming past his face and hitting one of the Phantoms, knocking it dead.

It was a trident.

The trident launched itself back into the air and then came speeding back down, hitting two other Phantoms in the process. Soon, all the Phantoms were gone. Mumbo swam back to the surface to breathe and saw the beholder of the trident.

A man with red and blue wings was flying in the air. He shouted something before heading down, landing on top of the treehouse. Mumbo swam to the island and walked over, curious but also Cautious. The stranger peeked over the edge of leaves.

“Hey, new Hermit! Thought you needed some help,” he spun the trident in his hands. The guy had two heterochromatic eyes, left one red, the other blue. The wings- or ‘elytra’, was different from any of the other hermits Mumbo has seen. Instead of purple-ish grey, it was blue and red. He had what appeared to be an iron hand. And finally, the man had an identical clock necklace like the one Mumbo had.

“Uh- thanks?” Mumbo knitted his eyebrows in confusion. “Who are you?” He asked. The other put the trident away and jumped down. “Oh! Right! I’m-“ he was cut off the moment his feet touched the ground. The sun on his clock spun around and ticked louder than Mumbo had ever heard his clock tick before. It took a few seconds before his clock did the same. “What-“

Both of their clock’s suns spun in unison. Mumbo could barely keep count at how many times it went full circle. It appeared to get faster. Mumbo went to grab his own clock to get a better look at it but the metal burned at the touch. He immediately pulled his hand away and watched as his clock blared nonsensical noise. No longer was it fast pace ticking- it was clinking and clanking, sparking and whirring. The other clock did the same. The two exchanged a glance with each other and began to back away slowly.

With step away from the other, the clocks would seem to calm down a bit more. They were back to normal once the stranger was back on top of the tree house again. Mumbo went to touch the clock and it was ice cold. No longer did it feel like it was going to melt his fingers off. “Uhh-“ Mumbo began, looking up at the other. “I guess our clocks don’t like each other!” The guy exclaimed. Mumbo chuckled slightly. “I suppose not.”

“As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted by our clocks, my name is Grian,” he smiled. “Oh, hello Grian, I’m Mumbo.” Mumbo introduced himself. “Oh, I know who you are, Mumbo Jumbo.” Grain swung his legs over the edge of the tree branches and kicked involuntarily.

“You’re the talk of the town. Every hermit won’t stop babbling on about you and where you came from in the chat,” he pulled a small black device out of his pocket. It had sloppy white words on the side, labeling it ‘T-Chat’. “Did you get one of these?” He asked and Mumbo shook his head. Grian tossed the T-Chat to Mumbo. It crashed into the sand next to him.

“You can have it. I don’t need one.” Grian pointed to his blue eye. Mumbo picked up the device. It appeared that all the hermits were talking in there. Xisuma asked something along the lines if someone could sleep and then five other hermits replied that they couldn’t. All of those were sent a few moments ago. He shoved the T-Chat into his own pocket.

“I’ve noticed you’ve set up base next to mine.” He gestured to the massive building. “No way-“ Mumbo looked over at the base he had been admiring for a few days. “Is that building yours?” He asked. Grian nodded. “I spent months on that project,” he continued to kick his legs. “I don’t mind you being here. I was never probably going to use these islands anyway,” he shrugged.

“Another thing is that I couldn’t help but notice that you came from the past,” he stated. Mumbo froze for a second, before speaking. “I guess so?” He shrugged. “Not completely sure though.” He continued. Grian nodded and then glanced down at his own clock. “Yeah..” he frowned slightly then shook his head as if to clear his mind from a particularly painful memory. Mumbo didn’t notice.

“Anyway, Mumbo Jumbo, I've brought you a ‘New Hermit Gift’ because you’re the new hermit and I’m no longer the new hermit and I thank you for that,” he was about to jump back down but stopped himself. “Er- hold on a second.” He pulled some sort of red torch out of his inventory and held it near the clock. Nothing seemed to happen. Grian jumped down and surprisingly, the clocks didn’t begin screaming at each other.

“What did you do?” Mumbo asked and Grian shrugged. “I have no idea, it just works. Redstone is weird.” He laughed. Mumbo frowned slightly ‘Redstone?’ He thought. Grian pulled one of those weird shulker box things and placed it on the floor. “Voilà,” he smiled and opened it. Mumbo stared at an entire inventory worth of eggs. “What-“ he began but Grian shook his head. “It’s your new hermit gift,” he grabbed a few eggs and tossed them to Mumbo. Mumbo panicked, not really understanding what they were, and didn’t catch them. Sixteen eggs fell on the floor and two baby chickens spawned. “Oh my goodness- there are baby versions?”

“Do you not know what eggs are?” Grian laughed. Mumbo, still confused, shrugged. “I’m not sure I understand,” he chuckled. Grian grabbed a few more stacks of eggs and threw them on the ground. He wasn’t as lucky with the chicks. “There’s a small chance a baby chicken will come out of eggs when thrown,” he explained. “That doesn’t sound very good for the chicken.. forced to be born and all,“ Mumbo pointed out and Grian just shrugged and continued to throw eggs around. Mumbo took a few stacks of eggs and carefully dropped them on the floor.

Grian threw an egg at Mumbo when he wasn’t looking and it hit his face. Raw egg dripped down his forehead and down the side of his face. “Gross-!” Mumbo laughed and threw one at Grian. A chicken spawned in Grian’s arms. “I’m a father!” He exclaimed. The baby chick flapped its wings and tried to get out of Grian’s grasp. “What does that make me? I’m the one who threw the egg,” Mumbo pointed out, laughing. Grain looked over at Mumbo for a few moments before breaking down laughing, dropping the chicken in the process. The chick fluttered down, clucked at the two idiots, and ran away to join their two siblings.

The two newest hermits continued throwing eggs around the island until the sun was rising in the distance. Maybe it was lack of sleep talking, but Mumbo found himself laughing at whatever silly thing Grian would say or do. They were currently on the top of the treehouse, throwing the last remaining eggs onto the beach below.

“Why’d you come over here? Surely it wasn’t just to conveniently save me and give me a bunch of eggs” Mumbo asked. “Well, we’re the newbies here, right? Even though I’ve been here for quite a few months- but that’s besides the point. We gotta stick together.” He placed an egg on a few leaves for Mumbo to grab.

Mumbo modded, agreeing. He picked up the egg and threw it somewhere, not watching if it spawned a chicken or not. Grian threw the last egg on the grass directly below the treehouse and amazingly, a baby chicken emerged. There were a lot of baby chickens running around the small island. Though, Mumbo didn’t care. He was happy he was able to make a friend so quickly.

“Speaking of being new, how did you arrive here?” He asked. Grain’s smile faltered slightly and mumbo worried if he said something wrong. “I think..” Grian paused, thinking over the next sentence he was about to say.

“The same way you did.”

#w0ah writes #these wholesome lads #minecraft #hermitcraft #hermitcraft fanfic #fanfic #hereafter au #grianmc #grian minecraft #mumbo jumbo #the hereafter #au #fic #future au #mineblr

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maxs-muses · 5 years

Text

Tailor

A small ficlet I made for @ask-elementalhermitcraft ‘s AU!

This is just how I picture Rendog’s reskin would go in this universe.

Mostly just a slice of life, and hermits being hermits. (And Wind being Wind.)

___________

It’s been a while since the war ended.

In fact, it was more than ‘a while’. It was a good deal of time that had passed, and the majority of the hermits had taken the time to relax in whatever way seemed fit-be it working hard, “retiring” (and subsequently, un-retiring), or legitimately relaxing.

Time didn’t mean much to The Wind. Sure it was aware of its existence, and its passage, but its main concern was usually itself. However, for its partner, Grian, things were a little bit different. He was alive, and fully ready to continue with his most recent projects, alongside Mumbo: The Sahara Project. Of course, he can’t do it alone-and so they had made the decision to invite Iskall to Architech, their group.. it had gone swimmingly, and the new addition to their group, he knew, would ensure that things go even better. Yes, things were going great-and that wasn’t even taking into account his new ‘Sherlock Grian’ thing. The Wind seemed to think the name was fitting... Well, at least he was able to custom tailor a suit fit for his wings. He’s had to get good at that... as these thoughts ran through his head, Grian received a notification on his communicator:

[Renthedog: Hey, Grian? May we speak for a bit?]

Grian blinked in confusion. He hasn’t spoken to Ren much-apart from helping him deconstruct the fatal rollercoaster on the railway station.

[Grian: Sure thing! Let’s meet in over at my base?]

[Renthedog: Sounds great, be there soon!]

Grian paused, thinking. What could he want?

_______________

Grian awaited Ren in his base, wings twitching ever-so-slightly. He doesn’t know why he feels so nervous... The Wind swirled around him comfortingly, and he felt himself relax slightly. It would all be okay-the days of animosity are behind them. Ren’s arrival was heralded by a firework going off, and he slowly swooped down into Grian’s base. Grian smiled at the sight of him-but then paused. Ren’s clothes were... not in the best state, to put it kindly. Rips, tears, and hastily stitched-up seams marred his ensemble.

Grian furrowed his brows. “Hey Ren! What’s up?”

He continued his examination of his clothing. Ren shifted, adjusting the sunglasses gifted to him by Mumbo. “Well... you see, I’ve been wearing these clothes for a while now, and they-well-you know-aren’t in that great of shape...” Not in that great of shape was putting it kindly, in Grian’s opinion. “And-I noticed that you have a lot of outfits, and I was... I was wondering if you could help me make one.”

Grian paused slightly, thinking. Then, a smile broke on his face. “Sure thing! I’m down to help.” It would be nice, having a non-building project going on... a nice change of pace.

The Wind, particularly, was excited. It had been the one to help Grian design his many outfits using various materials they found. The only thing it seemed to lack was utterly awful fashion sense-thankfully, this was usually tempered by Grian. The Wind snapped its attention back to reality as its Favored began to speak. “Why don’t you come on up to my greenery room, and we can think things over better there? It’s got much better atmosphere.” That it does...

_____________

Ren breathed in the fresh air of the top floor of Grian’s base. It was a stark difference from the rest of it, with grass and trees all around opposing the aesthetically pleasing, but harsh, concrete, the happy chirps of the parrots and somewhat out of place clucks of a chicken contrasting with the rushing water and vaguely technological background noise of the other levels. Privately, he thought this was a great addition to his base of operations... Ren turned at the sound of a swooping set of wings, and smiled at the sight of Grian-fittingly, dressed in something somewhat resembling a tailor.

“Lookin’ good, dude!”

Grian beamed. “Thanks! Now.. let’s get started!”

__________________

The wind churned, spreading its awareness out in boredom. Happy though it was its Chosen was interacting with the ‘Hermits’, it was always so much fun to go on flights with him... but at the moment, he was simply helping one of them reconfigure his outfit. The Wind turned its ‘gaze’ for a moment, and couldn’t stop a feeling of amusement at the sight of the hermit in a... cow outfit, of all things. Grian was, it seemed, equal parts disgusted and amused, and seemed to be struggling with the choice of laughing or being sick. He settled for a cough, and for telling the other to get that abomination off.

The Wind felt proud of its Chosen-goodness knows it was hard at first to get interactions going... it spared a chance to brush up against Grian’s side in an almost playful manner. He in turn chuckled, slapping at the air slightly. “Pff. Hey. Where ya been?” The Wind ‘laughed’, and didnt reply. Grian, in turn, huffed. “Fine, be that way... ah. Also, I’ve had some ideas for materials we might need, and I’m gonna go over them with Ren... can you go gather them while we work here?” The Wind hummed in acknowledgement and whooshed off to locate said materials...

__________________

“Aaaaand.... finished!”

Grian beamed at their handiwork. Ren, in particular, felt like a new man-who wouldn’t, when one’s ensemble underwent such a dramatic change.

“Grian, this is awesome! Lovin’ the wristwatch.”

Grian and the Wind chuckled. “At the moment, it’s essentially just a block of fakeness-but if you want you can try to combine a Clock with it, well, who knows!” Ren laughed as well. Grian grinned and continued. “Also, the threads were coated in some special slime I got from Iskall-it shouldn’t tear very easily. By that I mean, very few things can rip through it.”

Ren’s eyes glittered under the shades. “Sweet, I’m immortal.”

Grian did a comical double take. “A-Wh-No wait!”

Rendog, who had his trident out jokingly, laughed. “Kidding, dude, sorry.”

Grian exhaled, shaking his head. “Ahh.. right. Seriously, though, be careful.”

Ren smiled. “Of course, dude. This diggity dog ain’t gonna just stab himself to see if the threads would hold up.” Grian nodded. “Yeah...”

A small silence fell momentarily. It was surprisingly comfortable. Ren yawned. “Well... I should be headin’ back home. This whole clothing marathon worked me out!”

Grian smiled. “Heh, same here... see ya, dude!”

Ren smirked, and tipped his shades. “Seeya!” And then, he was gone. And Grian let out a tired breath.

The Wind carefully took hold of him... then sent multiple well angled gusts to throw Grian down the hole, around the bottom base area, up just because, and plummeting down only for Grian to land an inch from the ground on a comfortable patch of air. Grian, understandably windswept and shocked, took a moment to recover before shaking his head in mirth. “Someone’s feisty tonight, eh?” The Wind ‘chuckled’. “Ah.. thanks for helping me out with Ren, by the way.” Grian’s eyes glinted teasingly. “Of course, when anyone else is involved, you immediately go and collect ingredients... and when it’s me, I suddenly crash into hillsides and builds for no reason.”

Grian was shoved off of the air pillow, and he promptly laughed. “Heh. Love ya too.” Yawning, he headed to his bed.

____________________

As Ren flew back to his area under the peaceful moonlight, he noticed that this was the most streamlined and least danger inducing elytra flight he’s ever had.

#elemental hermits au #hermitcraft #grian #rendog #my writing

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jadekitty777 · 4 years

Text

Cram Session

Alright, the final day is here – and you better believe I’m ready to burst with excitement! I have not been able to calm down all week!

So, to cap things off, let’s go for a ‘feel good’ one, yeah? This one’s all about friendship and teamwork.

Rating: K

Word Count: 2200

Summary: With the looming threat of his entire team being failed if he does, Tai finds himself desperately trying to absorb every bit of knowledge he can before the big test. Unsurprisingly, it’s not going well – but at least Qrow’s there to offer some moral support.

Ao3 Link: Cram Session

The fluctuation of hormone levels from pure dust injection in the human body was found to have different effects depending on many factors including the following: Age, weight, aura level,…

The tapping of his pencil kept time with the ticking clock as Tai read through the scientific journal, trying to absorb as much as he could. He needed to get a good grade on this test; he was doing horribly in his Analytical Dust Chemical Bonding class. Just the name of it was daunting – but the actual lessons were brutal. He’d never gotten so many bad marks in his life. One more and he was going to fail the class. While that wouldn’t be the end of the world on its own, there was just one teensy-weensy, itty-bitty little problem:

If he failed, the rest of his team did as well.

No pressure there or anything.

He believed that the dire consequences was all about promoting teamwork – some philosophical mumbo-jumbo about how if they let a partner fall behind in class, they’d let them fall behind on the field too. He wouldn’t even say he disagreed with the idea, but it certainly didn’t account for people like Qrow and Raven, who had virtually no prior schooling experience. Not to say they were dunces – put them on the field and they’d ace nearly any training exercise. But the minute a pen was in their hand and a book in their lap, they suddenly seemed like the stupidest people in all of Beacon.

It was Summer who had figured it out. Their history teacher had called on Qrow to answer a question on the board. He had squinted for a few moments, before saying, “I can’t.”

“You don’t know the answer?”

“Nah, just can’t read your handwriting.”

At the time, Tai hadn’t thought anything of it; but as the teacher read off the question, Summer sat up straight in her seat, looking as if she’d just solved an enigma. Later that day, she called for an impromptu ‘team meeting’.

He remembered how she paced, looking troubled, before finally whirling on the twins. “Look, I’m just going to be direct about this. You two can’t read, can you?”

Tai was so caught off guard by the announcement his mind was struggling to catch up. The siblings, however, had no such issue, going from bored to alert in a blink. “What nonsense are you spouting? How do you think we filled out our transcripts?” Raven counterargued.

“Bribery.” Summer replied without missing a beat. “Just like you’re doing with Oobleck.”

“It’s called working smarter, not harder.” Qrow quipped.

“No, it’s called cheating.” She retorted. “And it’s not going to carry you through the next four years.”

“Don’t know if you don’t try.”

“And anyways, last I checked, we were here to fight Grimm.” Raven added. “Who cares about the written stuff?”

Summer started ticking off points on her fingers. “How are you guys going to write the papers? Do the presentations? Take the finals?”

That seemed to knock out some of their bluster as they shared an uncertain glance. It seemed the exact scale of what they needed to worry about had never occurred to them – but how could it of? They couldn’t read the lesson plan. “We’ll figure it out.” Raven finally said, shrugging it off.

Summer looked between them, huffing like a bull about to charge.

Tai was the one who found his voice first. “Are you sure that’s the decision you want to make?”

“Oh great, now you have something to say?” Qrow snipped, his casual tone shifting to something more caustic.

Deliberately avoiding the obvious goad, he continued, “Look, there’s no shame if you don’t know how to read or write. There’s only shame in not being willing to learn.”

“You’re a regular ol’ walking proverb, you know that?”

“I have a book filled with them. I’ll let you read it when you can.” He finally shot back, getting to his feet. “But you’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t try. So, either you lower your pride and ask us for help, or you fail. Your choice.”

Summer intervened, gentle yet firm. “You guys must have come to this school for a reason. You have to decide if that reason is worth working hard for.”

Nothing had happened right away, and after a few days, Tai was pretty sure the twins were going to stick it out on their own. Then, one day, while he and Summer were studying in the library, the two had walked right up to their table and demanded their ‘supplementary lessons’ (Raven absolutely refused to call it help).

As it turned out, neither of them were completely illiterate, but their handwriting was atrocious and the level they could read at was on par with a seven-year old’s. So, Summer got them comprehensive reading books to strengthen their vocabulary and stencils to help them with their letters. It was torturously slow-going at times, and he had worried the whole process would be agonizingly painful, as he’d expected every lesson would be nothing but their attitude dialed to eleven – and it had been. At least, at first.

But as the weeks passed, the twins seemed to be less focused on irritating their teammates and more focused on actually learning. Qrow had an insanely good memory, so he was picking up new words and how to apply and spell them by the buckets nearly every week. For Raven, what she lacked in memory she made up for in pure fortitude as she rewrote and reread until she got it right. And though he’d never dare tell them, it was kind of adorable seeing one of Raven’s little smiles or hearing Qrow’s soft ‘Oh’ whenever they understood something.

To his own surprise, Tai discovered he had a bit of a fondness for teaching. There was just something so uplifting about helping the twins work through a problem and see them get it and realizing it was him who helped get them there. It made him really look forward to their time together. It was nice, just being able to sit down together, just the four of them, laughing and helping one another. It finally felt like they were a team.

More than that even - like they really were friends.

He wasn’t going to mess that all up by failing this exam.

The mesolimbic dopaminergic system seems to have a habit of creating new pathways in the ventral striatum…

“The what in the what?” He groaned, letting his head thump onto his desk. How was he going to get all this by Monday?

The door opening had him shooting back up. He expected the rest of his team to walk in, but was surprised when it was just Qrow. He was polishing off the remains of a cookie – Summer’s idea. She thought a reward system would be a good motivator. The twins had rolled their eyes about it, reminding their leader they weren’t children; yet, every cookie earned was mysteriously gone by the end of the session.

“Yo.” He greeted around the mouthful.

“Hey. Done already?” Tai replied, glancing at the clock. It wasn’t even late afternoon yet.

“Nah.” Qrow said, dropping his book bag onto the desk adjacent Tai’s. “Flowerbud called for a break. So, I came back for a nap.”

“Where’d they go?”

“Where else? Training room.”

He snorted softly. From the way she behaved, anyone would have expected it to be Raven’s scheme – but it was actually Summer who loved to unwind by kicking the crap out of them. Rae was just too stubborn to back out of a challenge.

“Isn’t that the same chapter you were reading when we left?”

Tai looked down, covering part of the page. “I was just going over it again.”

Qrow hooked his ankle around the leg of his desk chair, pulling it out and plopping down. “So you know all about the transcriptional mechanisms that develop over time from dust exposure?”

He stared. “Do you?”

“I mean, I don’t actually know what I just said, but I know that basically people get addicted to the stuff.” He replied with a shrug. “So when you see those words, that’s the answer you’re looking for.”

His brow furrowed, trying to make sense of that suggestion. “Is that how you’ve been taking these tests? Just correlating words with the answers you hope will be there?”

“Well yeah. It’s not like I’m gonna be able to read at an academy level anytime soon. Gotta make do with what I got.” He stretched his legs up onto his desk, tipping his chair back. “Don’t need top marks, just passing ones, right?”

“Yeah but,” Tai tried to argue, but when he realized he really didn’t have one, he merely sighed, slumping over some. “Well, I guess it works for a guy like you. You’ve practically got a photographic memory.”

“Or just nothing’s up here.” Qrow joked, tapping his own temple. “An empty mind makes room for more genius.”

“Oh yeah you’re a real prodigy.”

He popped his collar. “Glad you noticed.” With a clack, his chair landed back on all four legs and he popped out of his seat. “And genius like this needs rest.” He put his palm against Tai’s forehead, pushing his head back. “Come on sunburn, you need some too.”

Tai shoved him away. “Maybe later.”

He shrugged, walking across the room. “You know it’s not that big of a deal if you fail, right?”

“Of course it is!” He turned, draping his arm across the back of his chair. “What if I get us all held back?”

“Oh gosh!” He exclaimed sarcastically, falling back onto his bed. “Another whole semester of free food and a bed so soft it’s like sleeping on a cloud? What ever shall I do?”

Huh.

Well, when he put it that way, Tai had no idea why he was trying so hard either.

As if he could read his thoughts, Qrow continued, “See? It’s all in the perspective.”

He couldn’t help it. “So you’re giving me the ‘bird’s-eye view’?” He rose his arm to guard from the pillow flung his way, cackling madly.

Not quite as amused, his roommate only rolled his eyes. “Whatever man, you’re stupid.”

“Don’t worry, our chemistry teacher agrees.” He joked, turning back to his textbook. He underlined the bit about transcriptional messages.

Too lazy to fetch his own, Qrow snatched the pillow off of Raven’s bed. As he got comfortable, he spoke up again, “I still think you’re stressing too much.”

He wrote a note in the margin beside the paragraph. “I just don’t want to disappoint you guys.”

“Sorry to tell ya this bud, but you’re sharing a space with me. Disappointment is guaranteed.” As if Qrow’s words were a cue, the lead on Tai’s pencil suddenly snapped.

He sighed, tossing it down. Alright, maybe a break was in order.

Tai got to his feet, stretching out some of the kinks that had settled. He fetched the pillow off the floor, nailing Qrow in the face with it. He laughed as the other squawked indignantly, turning away to pick up his scroll. He flicked off the lights and headed for his own bed, ducking under a retaliatory throw, the pillow hitting the door and flumping uselessly to the ground. “Nice try.”

Not willing to sacrifice his other, Qrow just grumbled over his failed attempt, kicking off his shoes. He twisted onto his side, facing Tai as he laid down on his own bed. The smirk he gave him was borderline lecherous. “At least I finally got you into bed.”

Tai threw his pillow. And Summer’s for good measure. “You’re the worst!” He ignored the way he laughed at him, focusing on his phone as he set an alarm for them. He placed it on his nightstand. “Alright, give it back. Alarm’s on for five-thirty.” He caught his pillow when it was tossed back at him, burying his face into it.

He heard Qrow shift around before he said, “Hey so, I can’t help you study, but if it means that much to you, I can help you cheat.”

He turned his head, “What?”

“Yeah. I’ll write you tiiiny little notes and we can slip them in the lapels of your jacket.” He pinched his forefinger and thumb together to accentuate just how tiny he meant. “They’ll never suspect a thing.”

Despite knowing it would expel him if he got caught, the fact he was legitimately considering it was probably not a good sign of where his moral compass was going. “I’ll pass, but thanks anyways.”

“Alright. If you change your mind I got plenty of ideas.”

Tai smiled, knowing just how much it said about Qrow that he was at least offering – or trying to cheer him up at all, for that matter. Six months ago, they could barely stop themselves from flinging insults if they were in the same room together; now, he merely ribbed him for fun. Things had definitely changed.

As he drifted off, he figured Qrow was right. It really didn’t matter if he failed some silly test. He’d made some good friends along the way and that was the best success he could ever have.

A/N: Prompt was “Are you sure that’s the decision you want to make?”

#taiyang xiao long #qrow branwen #Summer Rose #raven branwen #strq #rwby #fanfiction #100 Days of Taiqrow #Chase Firekitten's Tale

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writing-the-end · 3 years

Text

LoL Chapter 35- Pinnacles of Darkness

Masterpost

A Wizard Hermits tale (AU, designs, ideas belongs to @theguardiansofredland)

Following their discovery, the hermits descend into the Evernight forest in search of more answers, but are only guided deeper into Dolios’s dark web.

_____________________________________

The evernight forest was exactly that- ever and always night. The canopy is so dense, no light can escape to the forest floor. But, as Scar, Doc, and Zed know, the forest is not complete darkness. What the sun cannot provide, nature does.

“The legends say the evernight forest was a place for the god of life and goddess of the dead to meet. Limal created the forest to be dark and comfortable like Natasiel’s underworld.” Xisuma’s voice is the only noise cutting through the air, apart from the brushing of leaves and ferns from the march of the hermits. Everyone came along- they need every last person. “And she created the bioluminescent moss and fungi to brighten the life with Limal.”

“It feels like we’re sinking into the abyssal plain of the ocean.” xB notes, jumping as a distant roar permeates the massive forest. Was that a cockatrice, or a dragon? He’s not sure which is worse, or which he’d rather have to meet in the darkness of the forest. The darkness is inescapable, and the surface is long gone. “Of course Dolios would put whatever those crystals are for in here. No one in their right mind would wander this deep into the Evernight.”

“Scar, how’re we doing on the groundcover?” Cub peeks over his friend’s shoulder, eyes squinting in the darkness. Scar’s the only one who can track the leylines, though both Ren and Joe are working on creating a spell that can follow the dark magic as well.

“It seems to be getting worse, and look- I can see more leyline tracks coming in. We have to be close.” As soon as the words pass across Scar’s lips, he runs headlong into a solid mass. In the darkness of the forest, with only glowing mushrooms and ferns to light their way, no one notices the towering monstrosity nestled between trees. But as Scar bounces off the sheer, smooth surface, sigils illuminate across the material.

Glowing white, as bright as the sun, an eerie and disarming sight in the depths of the Evernight forest. The hermits turn away from the ebbing light, until the world around them is bathed in the soft glow of bioluminescence once more. Tango looks at the tower. “I think we found it.”

“Question is, what is it?” BDubs circumambulates the pillar, fingers running across the ebony material, dancing over the sigils. It reminds them of the day they found their first corrupted crystal, what feels like so long ago. How naive they were, believing that the Magistrate was going to give them everything he said. That he wasn’t tricking them.

But this time is different. They know how to break Dolios’s magic, they know how to handle corruption. It towers over the hermits, disappearing into the dense foliage far above them. Xisuma steps forward. “It’s not crystal. I- I don’t know what this is. And I don’t know what these symbols are.”

“They look ancient.” Grian blinks, feeling a pull towards the written sigils. He knows angel magic has existed since the time of the ancient ones, are these sigils from that era long gone as well? Grian steps forward, his curiosity getting the better of him, until both Iskall and Mumbo grab him by an arm, pulling him back. White bandages still peek out from beneath his robes, and Mumbo can’t help but notice the scar running across his friend’s throat. Its been a week or so since their last run in with dark magic, but the moment still haunts Mumbo.

“Whatever it is, we have to destroy it. Without this, whatever those crystals are for can’t keep helping that mega-douche Dolios.” Iskall snaps his fingers, bright fluorescent green appearing as his magic scrawls outward. At the crack of Iskall’s radioactive lightning, Impulse jumps in and bombs the ground beneath the obelisk.

It doesn’t break. They try again, with more magic thrown against the obelisk, but the pinnacle of darkness only absorbs the magic. Scar jumps to the side, watching with shock and horror as the very magic that his friends have thrown against the obelisk goes shooting from beneath his feet. Another leyline. This time a massive highway of dark, corrupted power.

Behind Scar, Beef’s horns scrape against the blackstone, meeting with TFC’s cautious hand on the rock and bouncing off effortlessly. “It’s immune to all magic. It’s just taking the power and sucking it in.”

“What the hell does Dolios have a need for this, though?” Mumbo shakes his head. What could a dark mage need from a giant obelisk, taking the magic stolen by the crystals? Are they reservoirs? Implants? Some sort of weird flex?

“They’re just junctions.” Scar whispers. He grabs at Ren, pulling the imagination mage over by the tail. “Do some kinda spell that’ll show the leylines.”

“That’s one tall order, but…” Ren cracks his knuckles and rolls his neck, making a display of his stretching. The motions of summoning his magic are more fluid, wagging his arms and clawing his fingers, and the detailed circle appears before him. Ren has to focus on this magic, imaging a whole spell from nothing. He imagines the ground lighting up beneath them, turning a bright red- his favorite color. Like staining the leylines with dye, he draws up a picture in his head.

When Ren peeks through his eyes, the ground beneath his feet is awash in the color of sunset. In every direction, thin leylines radiate out from the obelisk, straight lines like spokes of a wheel. So many crystals, stealing life and power all over Lairyon. And this is only one of the three hotspots. Are they all like this? Siphoning power from the crystals, and… and doing what with them, exactly? To what purpose does this obelisk have?

One leyline is brighter and larger than other spokes. While the crystal paths are as thin as a Qilin trail, this one could be wide enough for a whole grootslang to meander down. Ren kneels in the dry, crusted ground that this leyline highway runs through. “Can I have the map, brother?”

TFC passes the scroll to Ren, who rolls it out onto the glowing floor. The dark ink and charcoal appear as shadows against the watercolor map, illuminated from beneath by the red magic radiating from the eerie black obelisk. Ren scoots across the forest floor, until north in real life matches north on the paper, and he begins to draw a line that follows the tangential highway.

He keeps running the line, following through the Evernight forest, across the plains and marshes of central Lairyon. Over rivers, past Milliara and a dozen other small towns. Right into the heart of the magical kingdom. Where is this leading him? Where is all this power going? Whatever this leads to has to be hidden, much like this obelisk.

Ren’s pencil stops when light green turns dark, the paint so deep and inky it nearly blots out the light. Over his shoulder, the other hermits groan and gasp. The one place in all of Lairyon, the most dangerous, most powerful, most secretive part in the entire kingdom. Long before recorded history there was this place. Was it always a part of the landscape, a knot of magic that no man nor creature can begin to understand? Was it created by the gods as some sort of hidden land, forbidden for all but the bravest? Or maybe it’s a dumping ground, something that the ancient ones left behind, cursed to protect or keep other people away. No one has ever mapped this place before- no one is stupid enough to go in there. It makes the mysterious dangers of the Ashioll sea look like a cakewalk.

But if there was anywhere Dolios would hide something, put whatever this power is supplying to, it would be where no one- not even a hermit- would dare go under any circumstance. Somewhere dense and protected by magic, shrouded by secrets and torturous, arcane curses. Somewhere as old as the ancient ones, as mysterious as the long lost civilization that called Lairyon home.

“The Forest of Memories.”

#hermitcraft #hermitblr #light of lairyon #lol #wizard hermits #wizard au #hermitcraft au #hermitcraft fanfic #wizard xisuma #wizard iskall #wizard ren #wizard scar #xisuma #iskall85 #rendog #gtwscar

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rendiggitydog · 5 years

Text

Blast From the Past

-Chapter 4/7-

Grian: Come to my base ASAP!!!

It had taken MJ some time to figure out how to turn on his phone, but even then he wasn't sure how to respond to Grian's message. Instead, he boated to Grian's base as quickly as he could, hopeful it wasn't an emergency.

"I'm here, what's wrong?" MJ yelled down in the base.

"Come on down, we're just waiting for Ren!" Grian called back.

MJ looked around, quickly realizing there were no stairs or ladders to be seen. "How do I get down without dying?"

Grian just laughed. "Use the elytra I gave you, silly!"

MJ rifled through his things, finding the silvery wings gifted to him nearly a week ago. He hadn't touched them, in fear of flying by accident and dying. "I dunno how!"

Grian flew out of the basement with a laugh. "You still haven't figured it out? I learned by myself in a day!"

"To be honest, I haven't really tried.."

What?" Grian gasped. "How do you get anywhere? Let me help you, cmon."

"I walk just fine," MJ defended as Grian pried the wings out of his hands, strapping them onto MJ's back for him.

"Now, grab a rocket, like this. You see that little string? Jump in the air and pull the string at the same time, and you'll take off! Just be sure you're pointing towards open air so you don't crash! Here, follow my lead."

Grian showed MJ how to place his feet, and how to jump to get the best air time. Then, Grian pulled his string, shooting into the sky with a whoop.

"He really is a greaser without the grease..." MJ mumbled. He carefully held his rocket, prepped to activate it, and jumped. In an instant, he was soaring, wind tearing through his hair and making his eyes water.

"You did it!" Grian cheered. "Isn't this way better than walking?"

"I guess," MJ laughed nervously. "How do I get down?"

"With much difficulty!" Grian laughed. He looped around the base one last time before elegantly touching down. "Now you!"

MJ tugged on his elytra, trying to slow his fall as gracefully as Grian did. Quickly, he realized his touchdown would be more like a crash landing, and screamed.

Grian simply watched and laughed as MJ crashed into the glass, but instantly panicked as he received the message:

Mumbo Jumbo fell from a high place.

Grian: SOMEONE GET TO SPAWN

Grian: MJ DIED

Grian: I'M NOT SURE IF HE'LL RESPAWN HERE

Zedaph: Are there any supplies at spawn? Nether portal?

Xisuma: He likely doesn't know how to use a portal

GoodTimeWithScar fell from a high place.

Scar: He respawned here! :D

A wave of relieved texts flew past, and Scar assured that he would bring MJ to Grian's base immediately. Five minutes later, a wobbly MJ flew into Grian's base, accompanied by Scar.

"Oh I'm so glad you're okay! I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't respawned here!" Grian cried and threw his arms around MJ.

"Ah, I'm glad too." In that visceral instant before he died, MJ had the thought he might respawn at home, and in that instant, he was happy.

Did he want to stay here?

"So, your full name is Mumbo Jumbo, huh?" Scar giggled behind his hand.

MJ rolled his eyes with a grin. "Yeah, yeah. And you wonder why I go by MJ."

"You could have so many fun nicknames!" Grian bounced. "Like Mumbo, or Mumby, or Mum! Well, that one sounds like I'm calling you my mother..." Grian laughed.

"I'll stick with MJ, thanks. And thanks for helping me fly here Scar!"

"No problem! Good to see you're coming around to the idea of elytra." He winked. "I'd better get going, good to talk to you, MJ!"

"So Gri, what did you call me here for in the first place?" MJ shifted back to Grian.

"Well, while you were gone Ren came, so we can get started!"

"What's crackin, MJ?" Ren stood up from his seat on a chest, where MJ hadn't even noticed him. The man wore an expensive watch that matched the silver buckles in his suspenders, and had an air of cockiness about him. "Let's use the aviary, eh G?"

"Let's go!"

The trio carefully flew up into the cozy bird room, which held a strange fold out wall, blocking part of the room from view.

"What's with the..." MJ gestured to the wall.

"That's the changing room! There's a couple premade outfits back there already, you should try them on!" Ren herded MJ behind the wall, where a comfortable changing room had been set up. And, as Ren had said, there were a few outfits hanging on the wall. "Which one do you wanna try first?"

"Why do I have to try any? What's wrong with my outfit?" MJ protested.

Ren looked him up and down. "Baby, have you seen yourself lately? You look like a Steve that got mauled by phantoms."

MJ examined closer, and did admit his jeans were basically tattered, and his shirt wasn't really blue anymore. "Fine, fine. How about this one?" He grabbed a simple shirt with shorts curiously.

"Sure, we'll start there."

"...ah, do you mind?" MJ flushed, waving Ren away.

"Fine, fine! Just saying, we're both dudes, you didn't have to make it weird." Ren muttered.

"You made it weird first," MJ mumbled to himself. Ren was a weird guy, but overall one of the more approachable hermits he had met so far. He quickly changed, stepping out from behind the wall to display his new outfit.

"Ah, you look like a different person!" Grian clapped.

"Eh, the shirt is a little plain. Who wears plain white tees anymore? And the shorts are a little too short for your long legs." Ren criticized. "Go try another."

MJ shook his head, and went back to try another outfit. This one was definitely a Ren selection. "I don't wanna show you guys this one. I feel stupid." He called over the wall.

"It'll be fine, we won't judge!" MJ could hear the smirk in Ren's voice. He shuffled into view, just enough that Ren and Grian both burst into laughter. "It's so much better that I thought!"

"The- The ruffles really compliment your eyes!" Grian choked out through his laughter.

"You guys are the worst." MJ hid behind the wall, throwing the cotton candy outfit onto the floor. He pulled on the last outfit hanging up, and felt it was the best option yet. "Well?"

"Not bad!" Ren complimented. "I'm glad we kept my old outfit, it looks good on you!"

Grian nodded slowly. "I like the suspenders... I've got an idea. Ren, you take measurements while I grab fabric." Grian exploded out of the room, flying quickly to the shopping district.

"By chance do you know your armspan?" Ren quizzed.

"Uh, isn't it supposed to be the same as your height? I'm six foot five inches tall."

Ren tutted, pulling out a measuring tape. "Come here." Ren wrapped the tape around MJ's head, arms, legs and waist before Grian finally returned, arms full of fabrics.

"Let's get down to business!"

Four hours later and Grian appeared, exhaustion evident in his eyes. "Done! I'm so glad I finished today, this will be perfect! Go try it on!"

MJ eyed the outfit as he changed into it. "It's a little formal, ain't it?" MJ tugged at the tight starched collar.

Grian's eyes shone. "You look INCREDIBLE!!"

"Wow, with some hair gel you'll look perfect!" Even Ren seemed impressed.

"It's just..." MJ unbuttoned the suit coat and collar, loosening the red tie. "That's much better!"

Ren was beaming now, a light blush covering his cheeks. "Stunning! The handsome rouge, the ladies will love it! Let's give you a haircut!"

Almost an hour of hemming and hawing later, and Ren deemed him ready for the public.

"Do you guys have a mirror?" He wasn't keen on the makeover at first, but now MJ was excited to see how he looked.

Grian procured a mirror, and MJ nearly gasped when he saw himself. He was like a different person, who had really good fashion. "You sure with this much hair gel no one will think I'm a beatnik?" MJ teased.

"I don't know what that means, but you look incredible!" Grian grinned ear to ear. "Let's go to the shopping district and show everyone!"

"Ah," All of a sudden the full day of activity caught up with MJ. "Maybe tomorrow? I need to get back to Z's digs before night."

"You're staying with Zed? Nonsense, I have an empty island right here! Come be my neighbor!" Grian was bouncing with excitement, rambling about all the fun they would have as neighbors.

MJ laughed. "Man, now people are really going to think I'm a beatnik, hanging out with a greaser like you!"

Grian froze, confusion filling his large eyes. "What's a greaser?"

"Uh... I guess, it's someone who gets into trouble a lot, because he wants to fight authority." MJ withered when he saw tears well up in Grian's eyes.

"Like, a criminal? Do you think I'm a criminal, MJ?" Grian didn't move to wipe the tears rolling down his cheeks.

"No! Not at all, it's just that- you've got your preps, and they follow the rules to a T, and you've got the greasers fighting the norm. It's not good or bad, it's just different!" MJ scrambled to save himself, but evidently only made it worse.

Grian fell into Ren's arms, who eyed MJ harshly. "I don't know what things are like where you come from, but you could at least be nice about it. Cmon G." Ren and Grian took off, leaving MJ alone in the aviary.

MJ flew. He couldn't quite see where through the tears, but he hadn't gotten far when he crashed into a sandy beach, and sobbed. "I just want to go home! I don't belong here. Lord, science, however I got here, send me back. I just want to go home..."

But you are home!

"Huh...?"

MJ opened his eyes to find his forest, with his half-finished house tucked neatly on the outskirts. His animal pen was full as well, pigs oinking loudly for his attention. MJ rose slowly, and walked through the door. The house was unfinished, but he quickly noticed his inventory filled with wood.

"But I thought... But it was all gone! What is happening?"

A hiss from the front door sent MJ scrambling across the floor, throwing the back door open and sprinting away. "Not again! Not my house!"

Clattering bones came from the trees, filling his brain. "Stop! Leave me alone!" He cried.

Arrows whizzed past his head, snagging his sleeve. "Hey! Grian made me this! STOP!" He tripped in his distraction, scratching his face and palms.

Then the zombies. As much as creepers annoyed MJ, zombies were the worst. They moaned, grabbing MJ's clothes, tearing it to pieces. Their strong grip was impossible to resist once they had a hold on MJ's arms, dragging him in opposite directions. He screamed, but he couldn't hear it over the clattering and groaning in his brain.

"GRIAN!! GRIAN PLEASE, SAVE ME!!"

It's okay MJ!

"STOP STOP STOP I CAN'T DO THIS, STOP STOP-!"

A swift slap to the face shut him up quickly, and he shivered, crying silently. "You good, man?"

MJ pried his open, finding an unfamiliar face. He had a beard lining his strong jaw, and wore a large green jacket. Most notable however, was his left eye, which was made of iron, and glowed green.

"Oh good, I thought you would never wake up! That must have been some nightmare, you butt-dialed me in your sleep! It's lucky you did so I could come wake you up!" The man laughed, and it made MJ want to laugh despite the fact there were still tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Thanks, I think. What's your name?"

"Iskall! The redstone half of Architech, since you already know the builder half. You were yelling Grian's name a lot, what were you dreaming about?"

MJ shivered remembering his nightmare. "I was back home, but there were so many mobs..."

"Huh, wonder what caused that." Iskall's gaze made MJ wither.

"Oh yeah. I know what."

"What happened, man? You called Grian a criminal?"

"I guess Grian told you? I didn't call him a criminal, okay? I was asking if he was a greaser! It's not bad, I was just wondering what I was getting into, being his friend!" MJ defended.

"A greaser? Dude, Grian did not tell me that's what you said!" Iskall laughed. "Oh, sweet Grian, so oblivious sometimes."

"Wait, so you believe me?"

"Why wouldn't I? Everyone's been texting about how nice you are for the last week, and you think I'm not going to believe you?"

"How can I apologize to Gri? As much as he's a weird kid, I wanna be his neighbor..." MJ smiled slightly at the thought.

"Eh, he'll get over it. Buy him some tnt or something." Iskall waved. "More importantly, we need to get going! You've got an appointment with Impulse in ten minutes!"

#rae writes #blast from the past #hermitcraft #big oofs all around #iskall #grian #rendog #goodtimeswithscar #mumbo jumbo

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