The stuff that I wrote for SWC.

Proof for stuff before I got accepted in. (2,330 words.)

Tommy inhaled quickly, but, remembering what was going on, allowed himself to be pulled to a sitting position. He rocked back and forth slightly, trying to get his eyes to focus on the man in front of him. But as it turned out, he didn’t need to.

“Kid, we’re gonna get you to the village okay?” The man waited for confirmation before lifting Tommy to his feet. “Do you want me to carry you or do you think you can walk on your own?”

Tommy looked up at the villager’s face. He could see details of it of course, but only two thoughts came to mind. “Oh wow he looks like a dad. Not mine, but a dad for sure,” and, “But why does he look so slightly off?” Of course, by that thought, Tommy didn’t mean that the villager looked strange, but he also didn’t mean that he looked… messed up or anything. It only meant that he looked just a little bit… fuzzy around the edges, as if Tommy’s eyes were refusing to see something about him. The boy looked around the world, taking in the fact that well… everything looked that way, and then snapped his gaze back to the man in front of him.

The villager looked at him expectantly, adjusting the placement of Tommy’s arm over his shoulder. It was only after a few moments of compilation that the blond boy answered, “I- I think I can walk mostly on my own, but could you support me a bit?” He laughed dryly, “I want to actually make it to the village,” “Why is everything fuzzy?” he thought privately, “Whenever I freak out back home everything seems normal afterwards,”

The man nodded, “That’s fair, I’ve been in that situation before,” he began to walk towards the cobble walls that surrounded his home.

Tommy walked with him. (Not that he had much of a choice, his arm being held by the other of course.) Their steps began to sync over the grass. Tommy eventually standing straight up again, his strength feeling repaired.

“What’s your name kid?” The villager asked, releasing some of the hold he had had on his arm.

“Oh, it’s uh-” Tommy thought for a moment, it wasn’t always the best choice to reveal a name, he knew that. A beat passed as he decided to ignore strategy, “It’s Tommy,”

The villager paused in his step, “Tommy?” He glanced above Tommy’s head, “Uh, where’s your server thread and nametag?”

Now it was Tommy’s turn to stop. “My what?” He blinked in confusion. The villager looked just as confused as he felt.

“Well, villagers don’t have those kinds of names, but users do, but you don’t have a server thread or a nametag, which is how we can see if you are a user or not,” the villager explained, his voice slightly shaky.

“What do you mean villagers don’t have that sort of name? And what's a user?” Tommy asked, sounding (if possible) even more confused than before.

The man let go of his arm and took a step back. “I mean, it’s in our code not to have those kinds of names,” he paused here, eyes darting back to the wall before finding their way back to the blond boy before him, “Did you hit your head when you collapsed earlier? Do you genuinely not know what users are?”

Now it was Tommy’s turn to step back. Now, instead of being confused, he was feeling a familiar feeling of foreboding and fear beginning to seep into him. “No, I've never heard that before,” he shifted his gaze to the sky above, suddenly scared he would see something there, when he didn’t, he looked back at the man. He hushed his voice before speaking, “Is it like a Watcher? Maybe a Listener even?”

The man shook his head slowly, the movement slightly twitchy and full of concern, “I’ve never heard of those things,” he whispered, “And it’s impossible that you don’t know what Users are, it’s a part of the code Notch put into us all that time ago,”

“Notch?” Tommy thought, “I’ve heard Phil mention him before, but he’s a Watcher, how could this man know about Notch but have never heard of Watchers before?” But instead of voicing that concern, he spoke the other, “Uh, I have no idea what you’ve been meaning by ‘code’ this entire time, but I’m my own person, not some sort of transmitter or communicator, and by the looks of it, you aren’t either,”

The man’s eyes widened, his shoulders visibly tensing as shock patterned his face. Tommy went to step back, but the villager grabbed his arm before he could run. The boy opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by the worried voice of the other, “I need to get you to Crafter,” he said quietly, and when Tommy shook his head slightly, he smiled sadly, “Please just talk to Crafter before leaving, I feel he might be able to answer your questions better than me,”

Tommy thought about this for a moment, he did not trust what was going on here, he was curious and now slightly scared. He wanted to know what was going on so that he could go home and tell his friends about this strange… possible cult he had found. And so, though he wasn’t sure why, he followed the man to the village.

Their boots clicked over the ground, grass breaking gently when Tommy kicked it. (Don’t think he had forgotten about the calming inventory feeling, it was far too nice to forget to remember.) When Tommy sighed at the feeling the villager looked at him weirdly, his eyes silently asking if something had happened. But by the time the boy opened his mouth to mention it, the cobblestone walls were already in front of him.

The man next to him called up to a villager woman on top of the battlements, asking to be let into the town. But Tommy wasn’t paying attention to their words, as he was too busy squinting at the cobblestone of the walls. It looked strange, as if the exact same pattern of stones was repeating over and over again. He supposed that was a choice you could make while building, but it seemed very strange to spend so long on the beauty of something that should be used to protect your home. What sort of village was this?

“Tommy? Are you coming?” Asked the villager, he sounded worried.

The boy tore his eyes away from the strange looking walls. “Uh yeah I guess,” he muttered, and he was mildly horrified to realize that his voice did not sound quite like his own. Even so, he followed the man into the village, the iron doors closing behind him. (In his opinion, it was slightly strange to have simple iron doors as the way into your wall, why not something pulled by ropes? Or even redstone if you felt like it. But he supposed it wasn’t the most confusing part of what he had experienced today.)

“Dad!” Two voices shouted. Tommy looked down at where they had come from, feeling a slight pang in his heart when two small children charged into the man next to him. They were both wearing smocks, one a light brown with a slightly darker grey stripe in the middle, the other was the exact opposite. It was a slightly strange fashion sense he decided, but, looking around the village, he realized that everyone was wearing a similar smock. (Though none were exactly identical.)

Happy laughter sounded next to him, and he focused back on the small family. The villager who he had met with first and his two kids. He could see the resemblance between the man and his children, and that fact was enough to make even his big-man heart melt.

“Topper! Filler!” the man jokingly chided, “I was gone for like six minutes!” One of the children laughed, her short brown hair bouncing around her face as she jumped to hug her father. The other only smiled, his hair was slightly lighter than his sister’s or his father’s, Tommy guessed that whoever the other parent was, they would have lighter hair as well.

“Well, that’s still quite a bit of time,” the girl laughed, grabbing her dad’s hand and standing still for the first time Tommy had seen. The other child snickered at his sister’s words.

Footsteps sounded by the side and a new voice spoke. “Who is this Digger?” they asked. Tommy turned towards the sound, and judging by the sound next to him, the man and his children did too.

When the man did not speak, Tommy did for himself. “I’m Tommy,” he said, smiling in a way he hoped would hide the worry behind his eyes. It was always a good idea to look strong for a first impression, you can’t know what a bit of intimidation would be helpful for until it happened.

The man to his side nodded, and the two kids whispered amongst themselves when Tommy turned to look at their father. “Yeah, he told me his name was Tommy,” his face let in a bit of concern before snapping back to a serious looking smile, “Could you fetch Crafter please? We want to talk to him,”

If it hadn’t been for the near pleading look in the man’s eyes Tommy probably would have retorted that, no, he really didn’t want to talk to whoever this Crafter person was. He wanted to eat the mutton he had picked up and get home to tell Phil and Tubbo about what had happened to him. But unfortunately, curiosity bit back the words for him, perhaps Crafter would be able to tell him what in the hell a server thread was.

The other villager nodded thoughtfully, her blond hair falling over her shoulder in a way that could only be described as animatedly. “I would like to, but he’s currently in conference with Hunter and such,” Digger nodded at this, “I was shocked you weren’t there honestly,” the woman laughed, “You’ve helped us just as much as any of them,”

Digger smiled at her, “I wouldn’t say just as much, but it’s nice of you to think so,” He leaned down and picked up one of his kids, the boy with the lighter hair, “Is Gameknight around here somewhere? I was thinking that he could be helpful as well,”

“That name is different!” Tommy realized, the gears in his head suddenly working at full speed, “Could he be one of those ‘Users’ that Digger was talking about?” However, when he looked back up at the woman villager, and saw her face clouded with worry, he couldn’t quite bring himself to ask about it.

“No, he was scheduled to show up a few days ago, but he didn’t,” Digger frowned at this, hugging his son to his chest before he spoke.

“Well, he could just be a few hours late or something, maybe he forgot about school or something?” Now it was Tommy’s turn to frown at something, what could the villager mean by ‘being a few hours late’ that would make him a few hours late, not days.

The other villager shook her head, “No, he was absolutely certain that he didn’t have anything going on, plus, the Hunter had a dream about it,” normally, Tommy would have scoffed at this, a dream being important to something that had happened in real life? Please. . . . But something was different this time. The seriousness in the woman’s voice, and the way that Digger carefully set down his son. They seemed to be showing that this was actually important.

Finally, in the absolute silence between them, Tommy got up the courage to speak. “If this ‘Gameknight’ guy is so important, why aren’t you searching for him? You must know where he lives if he was ‘scheduled’ to show up,” he kept it to himself that several of his friend’s bases were in secret locations, that wasn’t the most common thing between people who knew each other.

Digger shook his head before turning to his children, a fake smile forming on his face as he looked at them, “How about you run home now? Dad will be there soon enough,” The group of three watched them run off, the daughter waving back to them and nearly tripping over a fence on the way home. Once they were out of earshot, the man turned back to Tommy and spoke, “Well, first off, Gameknight does not come from this world, and secondly, you must know know that people don’t always tell their location to their friends,”

Of course, Tommy did know this, and he was slightly embarrassed that Digger seemed to have figured it out so quickly, but he was mostly confused about what the man had meant by Gameknight not coming from this world. If he had been using “World” interchangeably with “nation” or “SMP”, what did that stop in knowing where he lived? And if he had been using it as something else, did that make a user some sort of fictional being? How would that work?

They stared at each other for a moment, but even so, Tommy didn’t realize he had been meant to respond. “I could go in there and ask Crafter to come up here?” Asked the woman, she sounded unsure, as if she was suddenly concerned about Tommy. He could think of no other reason she would want to interrupt a presumably serious meeting, that could get someone killed where Tommy came from.

But Digger shook his head, “You don’t have to do that,” the woman visibly relaxed at this, “I’ll bring him myself,” As these words, Tommy’s head snapped back to the man, fear and worry finding its way into his soul, what was this village? What was going on?

Digger weakly smiled at him, “Let’s go Tommy,”

More proof. (2,475 words.) Both of these were parts of a fanfic I'm writing on another site, the other chapters were not made this month though.

Hunter looked up at the sound of the ladder creaking. Crafter paused his speech next to her, quietly whispering a question about who could possibly be this late to the meeting. Hunter was wondering the same thing, but she wasn’t quite sure if it was a good or bad thing that they were dragging more villagers into this. Unless of course the person on the ladder was Gameknight, the thought of her friend caused a hopeful little flutter in her chest, but when she saw who’s boots touched down onto the cobblestone and bedrock floor, it was extinguished.

“Digger!” She heard Herder happily yell, and not a moment later the boy pushed past her in a blur of black and brown. A wave of white fur followed him, the wolves happily yipping and howling as they ran the eight blocks back to their master’s side. However, their happy frolicking was cut short as a second person emerged from the ladder. It was someone Hunter didn’t recognize.

“Uh, Digger, welcome to the meeting,” she heard Crafter say, the words getting stronger the further into the sentence they were. But that wasn’t the main thing Hunter paid attention to, it was obvious that the young looking NPC had noticed the new person too. Even so, she felt the need to whip her head back around to him.

“Do you know who that is?” she mouthed, hoping that he would get the gist of her question. Thankfully, he seemed to understand, but not so thankfully, he shook his head back, obviously just as confused about the newcomer as she was. This worried her. If a new villager was here (because he was a villager, there was no other way that he would have both no nametag and no server thread) he could have come over to tell them of war. It was a well known fact that their village was the head of those on the server, and the best at battle along with it. But even she had grown tired of it.

Finally in the silence of the room, she heard someone speak. It was Baker, a younger villager who had really only just grown up. She was here because of her knowledge in foodstuffs, something that a growing village always needs. But none of that really mattered, especially when Hunter should be paying attention to what she was saying.

“Who is that person with you?” She was asking, her voice soft and slightly embarrassed sounding. It was as if she wasn’t ready to be on the council of the village yet. Hunter scoffed under her breath, she would never have the luxury of that innocence ever again, not after being kidnapped by Mallocoda all those years ago. The memory got to her, and she angrily stabbed an arrow into the table, a scowl forming on her face. Hunter wanted to get back at those monsters, but she knew that not every hostile mob was trying to kill her, so she couldn’t just murder them all. She would have to think about it. …and think about it she did, so much in fact that she almost missed Digger’s reply to the question.

“He says his name is Tommy and…” Digger paused here, as if trying to figure out how to phrase the statement. Hunter looked up at him, her scowl dissipating as she saw her friend. After a few moments of all-eyes-on-him, Digger continued, “…well maybe he would like to tell you himself. There was a lot of it,”

Hunter sat back in her chair, back bumping against it halfway up. That was only expected of a stair with two signs on either side, but since Mojang hadn’t given them chairs, it was one of about two options. And personally, she preferred the lower to the ground sign-stair thing. It was better looking and more comfortable for her.

However, her thoughts of furniture were broken as the newcomer spoke, “Well I don’t have a clue what ‘server threads’ or ‘code’ are, and this dude was acting like that was a bad thing,” He scoffed, blond hair brushing against the stone ceiling of the chamber, he was tall. Taller than Digger, or anyone else in the room, “I was thinking that maybe you all could explain them to me and let me go home, I have some revenge to attend to,”

Her stomach dropped, revenge? Sure, she had a lot of that to do herself, but it was never a good thing to hear from someone who was new to your village. Hunter stood quickly, pulling a bow from her inventory and notching an arrow as she spoke, “What is it kid,” she growled, ignoring the fact that she herself was a minor as well, “Do you not believe in them or something? What sort of self respecting villager wouldn’t know about sever threads , are you a virus? Maybe even a monster?”

Behind her she heard Crafter softly telling her that her actions were not needed. Telling her, “Hunter that’s enough,” but she chose to ignore him. Maybe it was because her nerves were frayed from all that worrying about her friend, maybe it was just because this guy was giving her the wrong vibes, but either way, she was happy to see Tommy take a step back. His body knocking roughly against the wall and eyes widening with a sort of panicked fear.

“Aw, is someone scared?” she hissed mockingly, leaning over the half-slab table as she did. Joy stained her heart at the indigent expression that painted Tommy’s face as he realized what she had said. However, she didn’t get to enjoy it for long.

“ Hunter ,” Crafter growled, his hand placed on her back and digging into the iron armor that it found there, “That is absolutely enough of that, we try to welcome people into our village, not scare them off,”

She scowled at her friend, plopping roughly back into her chair. She knew that stuff already, after all, it was told to her every other day. She had just been trying to protect them, didn’t he know that? Her face reddened as snickering sounded from Herder’s general direction and she whipped her head around to glare at the small boy, this instantly quieted him, but it did cause Stitcher to kick her leg under the table. Hunter turned to her and rolled her eyes, taking pleasure in the annoyance that bloomed in her sister’s eyes at the movement. If she couldn’t scare off visitors, annoying her sister was the next best thing.

“I’m terribly sorry for Hunter here,” Crafter laughed awkwardly, “She was really just trying to do what was best for the village, but maybe it wasn’t exactly the best introduction to our society,” Hunter leaned against the chair, throwing her head back until she was staring uncomfortably at the wall behind her, it was better then looking at those around her, even if it looked stupid from their perspectives.

There was a moment of silence, it was awkward for certain, but Hunter didn’t really care to break it. They didn’t deserve her presence, she joked to herself, but yet they have most definitely not seen the end of her anger yet. Oh not at all.

But, sooner rather than later, someone spoke. It was the new guy, Tommy was it? Such a strange name, and not at all something a villager should have. Not that it was a bad name, but it did sort of go against their code, the same code that they boy had nearly scoffed at. The thought made her shiver, and she made a point not to listen to his words, Hunter did not trust this guy. Showing up randomly without the knowledge of what server threads and code were? Especially when he had a non-villager name? It just didn’t sit right with her. She didn’t know how Herobrine had acted when he had first shown his face on the server, but she had always expected it to be something like this.

However, her thoughts were broken by a questioning tap on her arm. Hunter looked to the source of it, not at all surprised to see Stitcher not paying attention to the conversations around them either. It was like schooling all over again.

“What is it?” she whispered, pulling herself back into a normal sitting position in order to speak with her sister.

“I was just wondering if you were doing alright,” her sister responded, sounding slightly embarrassed as she spoke, “You were awfully still and I didn’t know if you were… alive or not,”

Hunter laughed slightly at this, ignoring the annoyed looks of the people around her as she whispered to her sister again, “Of course I’m alive, I never die, remember?”

Now it was Stitcher’s turn to struggle to hold in her laughter, “What was that joke from originally?” she asked, as softly as she could hope to be, “I know that Gameknight told it to us, but who was it about?”

Hunter ignored the pang in her chest at the mention of her missing friend, and she thought about the question. She drew her lips into a quizzical line and stared at a particular block of stone above her head as she pondered. After a moment of thinking however, she got it.

“I think he said it was about a person named Technoblade?” The words came out as a question, but instead of being met with a snarky remark from Stitcher, an unfamiliar voice spoke.

“Technoblade?” Tommy asked, his voice loud in contrast to what Hunter’s and Stitcher’s had been. She jumped at it, not quite happy that the rather scary newcomer had been listening to what she had been talking about. Especially given how stupid it was. She snapped her head towards him, fighting the urge to glare at him, she didn’t want Crafter to tell her off again.

But it wasn’t just her and Stitcher who had heard him talking, this fact became evident as the room quieted down, suddenly interested in whatever conversation had been going on. Hunter felt her face flush, and as she stared into Tommy’s soul, she saw an embarrassed blush cover his as well, and, when she turned to Stitcher, she found that her sister’s face was fiery red as well. It was never very fun to be talking and have an entire conversation derailed in favor of finding out what you have been whispering about. Especially when most of the people asking you about it were adults.

In fact, she was so caught up in her embarrassment, she almost didn’t realize that Tommy had recognized a word from Gameknight’s world. But after a few minutes of being stared at by adults, it hit her, and she whipped back around to the newcomer.

“How do you know that name?” She asked, no longer embarrassed and now full of a curious fear that was normally only present in the Land of Dreams.

Tommy shook his head, the blond hair flinging about again, a single grey streak looking slightly odd as it moved with the rest of it. She wondered where that had come from, but she wasn’t given the time to think about it.

“I was going to ask you the same question,” he said, voice slightly shaky, “It’s not that he’s unknown or anything,” he quickly continued, “But I had been thinking that you guys were some kind of cult, talking about ‘code’ and all that craziness,”

Hunter stared at him and then shook her head slightly, “A cult? What gave him that impression,” she wondered, only pausing her musing when Tommy spoke once more.

“I was just wondering how you know my friend if I’m being honest,” he said quietly, scratching the back of his head in an embarrassed sort of way. A wolf reached up to sniff his other hand.

“Friend?” Stitcher finally spoke, a wavering question floating just beyond her speech. But Hunter could guess what it was, “How are you friends with someone outside of Minecraft?” So, she asked for the girl.

“Do you plan to tell us how you are friends with a man that exists only in the real world?” she hissed, trying to appear threatening enough to get a real answer. She was really thinking that this kid might be something like Herobrine at this point. First his name, then his confusion, and now this? She didn’t really trust it. However, the confusion painted on his face did nothing to fix her worrying.

“What do you mean ‘only in the real world’?” the newcomer asked, his blue eyes darting around the chamber with confused and fearful precision, “The Dream SMP is as real a nation as any server, you have to know this, right?”

“The Dream SMP? Nation? This is a server!” Hunter retorted. It was as if it was only the two of them in the room, two children, stupidly arguing about a serious topic.

“Yeah! A server! Nation, server, SMP, what difference does it make what name you call it by, it’s still the same thing!” Now, Tommy was really starting to scare her, and based on the uncomfortable shifting of the others in the room, they were feeling the same way.

“Uh… what do you mean by that?” Herder piped up, “Nations are things that exist in Gameknight’s world, the real one? SMPs are survival multiplayer servers, and servers are just a part of the server pyramid that all of us rest on,” it was shockingly well worded for the kid, and Hunter distantly hoped that it had helped summarize everything to someone out there, even if Tommy just appeared more confused than before.

“Server pyramid? Does that have anything to do with those weird server threads you guys keep talking about?”

Hunter nodded slowly at this, but the movement was half hearted, he really appeared confused, was there some way that he would be from a different world, without being from Gameknight’s? It could explain a lot, but it was fairly far fetched. . . wasn’t it?

She turned to Crafter, and was not exactly excited to see his face in the “gears a-turning” sort of position. But she couldn’t lie and say she wasn’t wondering if maybe he had the same idea as her.

Hunter turned back to Tommy just as Crafter spoke, his voice shaking slightly as he did, “Do you possibly have the memories of getting here?” Hunter watched as Tommy shakily shook his head, and listened to the frightened sigh of her friend in response to it. She shivered, that couldn’t be a good thing.

“I have a… feeling, that I might know what’s going on,” the young looking NPC whispered, and, if Hunter had the ability to know everything about the world, she would have known that Crafter was right.

Here's some more. (Different fanfic this time.) WARNING!! THIS ONE IS KIND OF DARK, I AM ONLY PUTTING IT ON SCRATCH AS PROOF THAT I WROTE IT. (Also it's not done yet either lol.) 3,451 words so far.

“Ah!” he screamed, stabbing pain shooting through his head. The arrow had hit him right in the face, piercing through the skin easily and passing into his brain.

His knees hit the ground heavily, causing sand getting into the wounds that covered his skin. “Scott,” he hissed, blood filling his mouth as an unbearable pain covered all other senses. He fell forwards, the pressure not only pushing the arrow further into his skull, but also chipping his last life away. It was as if he had been torn from his body and thrown back, the ghostly spirit staying floating for a moment before being dragged down, down, down, until he no longer knew which direction was up.

. . .

Darkness filled his vision, the drowned’s glowing blue eyes burning with tears as he spun through the void. His lungs seemed to be filled with water, the drowning constant and inescapable. Occasionally, he would think he would spot a star, but every time it would be swiftly snuffed out before he got a good look at it, so it wasn’t much of a comfort. He would try to scream, in pain or for help it didn’t matter, his mouth would be filled with some inky substance that choked the words away. Ears rang and buzzed as he tried to focus on any sound at all. There was so much but it was all so far away…

He missed his husband. That man would have been able to help him, he would have pulled him out of the darkness and chided him, “Be more careful around the lake Jimmy, you don’t want to drown do you?” and then he would have pulled him into a hug and run his fingers through his hair, gently asking if he was alright. …and he would be. Everything would be good and he would be fine.

Light would filter through clouds and illuminate the flowers around the lake. The border to their side would have meant nothing, they could just hug and finally be together. Scott could teach him how to build better, slowly helping sculpt his house into slightly less of a mess. He would teach him how to play Chick-Chance and purposely pick eggs to let Scott win. Both of them would pet Daisy, pretending she was still the original. Maybe they could even have won that twisted story. Maybe, in this fantasy, Jimmy wouldn’t have been the first to die.

Dragged back into reality, he let out a pained sob, the inky blackness instantly gagging him, filling his lungs with even more unbearable sludge. It hurt so much. Why couldn’t Scott just be here with him? Why must he suffer alone? Was this what he had experienced on his first “last death”? Was that why he couldn’t remember it or much of what came before? So many questions plagued his mind, but even more pain prevented any of them from being thought about. It was blinding as the stars of night, and as smothering as the smoke from a bad memory. God it was awful.

Until it wasn’t.

He didn’t know when it happened, but at some point, the pain of the void had gone away. He had lost the memory of any cycle of time, and the only memory of “sleep” was too hard to think about. It reminded him of better times, which in turn made him think about why he was here. It was a sort of limbo, and it felt like the end of the world was already here.

But he still told himself it was alright.

- -

Sometime later something interesting happened. There was a loud sound and a huge puff of smoke. Jimmy had tried to swim away from it at first, but his eyes had caught on what was left in that smoke. A man had been left sitting there, shaking and crying, and trying desperately to leave. He seemed to be stuck on some sort of concrete square, while Jimmy could float and swim as he pleased. (However, he couldn’t really breathe, while the man on the platform seemed to be hyperventilating just fine. He wasn’t sure if he was jealous of this or not.)

Eventually, he had worked up the courage to move towards the man, but, as he did, odd things happened. He would be thrown through the blackness at random intervals, always crashing into a wall he knew was not there. He would feel an awful pain in his chest as if he was stabbed through with a sword. He would imagine odd scenes, TNT blowing up over a nation he did not know, a blue sheep walking softly through a nether portal. It had to mean something… but what? That he did not know. Of course, things he did know were shown to him as well. Memories would work their way to the surface, and as expected, they were always things he wished to forget. Bubbles rising slowly to the surface of a loser’s lagon, a church in flames, fire spreading across a cobblestone floor, a definingly loud explosion, an arrow through his skull. . . There seemed to be a sort of pattern here, but he refused to see it.

Even so, he pushed on.

The distance between the two shrank slower than he had thought possible. He would struggle through the darkness as if it was some sort of sticky slime in need of cleaning, but eventually, his squirming paid off.

His feet touched down on the island of concrete, and instantly he felt gravity fall back onto him. But that wasn’t the only thing that was back. He fell to his knees, coughing and retching, trying to get the sludge out of his lungs. He suddenly felt the need to breathe burning through him, and honestly, the scared voice asking if he was alright was the least of his worries right now. He hacked and choked, until, with a loud and wet splattering sound, a hunk of black-ish purple goo hit the ground in front of him.

He stayed that way for a moment, trembling and relishing the air. Even if it was sort of the opposite of fresh, he hadn’t taken a breath in so long that it could have been a newly discovered continent, it felt so good. However, as he stared into the purple-ish goo that he had expelled from his lungs, he became increasingly aware of eyes on his back. After a few moments of frozen fear, he remembered why he was here in the first place. A man, on the edge of a train station floating in the void. He looked up.

There he stood, cowering slightly, pure white eyes staring into his own muted ones. He had on an oversized sweater stained with something blue, and hands covered with a similar shade. The man was a curious fellow, that’s for sure, but Jimmy had already known that. All that struggling through limbo to get to him had pretty much cemented the image in his mind. (Not to mention all of the other curious fellows he had known in his… life.)

After a minute of staring at each other, the man finally spoke, “Who are you?” he asked, his voice was airy and slightly echoey, which would have been weird if Jimmy wasn’t dead.

He thought for a moment, wondering which of his many names would be the best introduction in this inky world. Not Jimmy, no, that might remind him of Scott. (Just the thought of his husband tore an aching hole in his heart.) And not Timmy either, that brought back memories of Grian…

“I’m Ghostbur by the way,” Jimmy looked up, eyes widening slightly at the abrupt speaking. The man didn’t seem to mind though, “In case you didn’t want to go first,”

Jimmy smiled at this, Ghostbur seemed to be a wonderful man, even if he did find it a little odd that he didn’t seem at all disturbed by his entrance to the room. It had been rather odd.

“I’m Solidarity,” He finally said, his voice sounding stronger compared to Ghostbur’s, despite the slight croak in it from not speaking for so long. (Not to mention the drowning.)

“Solidarity? That’s a nice name,” The man smiled slightly at him, his voice and movements seeming to blur around the edges as he walked to a different tile. How strange. It reminded him of how he had been back on his last server, how, instead of having bloodlust, he had begun to crumble away. It wasn’t a memory he liked to think about.

“Thank you,” Jimmy finally said, pausing for a moment before quickly adding, “I find your name quite nice as well,” He felt awkward in the conversation. It had been so long since he had talked to someone.

“Thank you!” Ghostbur replied, happily spinning around once, a drop of the blue stuff falling off his hand onto the floor as he did, “It’s ‘Wilbur’ bur with ‘Ghost’ instead of ‘Will’,” here he suddenly became serious, though the same airly tone was kept, “But please don’t call me Wilbur, I am not him,”
Solidarity nodded, not quite understanding the request but knowing that it was important to follow such things. Who knows? Maybe this ‘Wilbur’ guy had done some really bad things that Ghostbur had gotten blamed for. It didn’t seem very likely, but who’s to say that it wasn’t true?

They stood there for a moment longer, Ghostbur humming to himself quietly, eyes closed as if he was imagining that he was someplace else. Jimmy cocked his head to the side, trying to get up the courage to ask something. What that ‘something’ was was still a work in progress though. Maybe he could ask about the weird visions he had gotten as he tried to get here, maybe ask about the blue stuff that occasionally dripped onto the floor. Maybe Jimmy could even ask if this man knew where they were, or about the train that had dropped him off. It was worth trying.

But before he got too, Ghostbur spoke again. His voice rang across the concrete floor, almost as if there was a large room that surrounded only him. “You have very nice eyes Mr. Solidarity,” he said, “They are a very pretty blue,”

Jimmy smiled weakly at that, “They used to be more so, but… something happened,” of course, he wasn’t going to share what that something was, drowning wasn’t a very fun topic for small talk.

Luckily for him though, the man didn’t press, “I find them very nice,” he said matter-a-factly, “Much better than all of this red,” he shuddered and shut his eyes, the light from them extinguished like a communicator band being shut off. But that disappearance of the whiteness wasn’t that important, especially when held up to what Ghostbur had just said. Red? What red? Solidarity looked around and saw none. Only the blackness of the void and the flat grey of the tiles beneath their feet.

“But you are here!” Ghostbur suddenly said, looking up very quickly as he did, "And you wear blue clothes, and have blue eyes, and slightly blue skin!” The man laughed softly at his luck. Jimmy however, cringed back, yes his skin was slightly blue now, but that was because of his… deaths. (Drowneds tended to have at least slightly blue skin.)

…But what Ghostbur was saying hadn’t been meant to be rude, so Jimmy just ignored the slight pain in his lungs at the memories and laughed along with the other man. (Who, by the way, seemed delighted to finally be distracted by whatever he saw around them. By now Solidarity had guessed it was much different than his own view. Though what that entailed was entirely up for debate.)

“It’s great to have another person here!” The man’s voice cracked at the end of his sentence, but instead of sounding funny or endearing, it sounded like he was trying to keep Jimmy here. Like a small animal searching for a parent. Something that Jimmy could wholeheartedly relate to, despite how sad it may be.

But he wasn’t longing for a parent or friend, he was crying for Scott, and he had a feeling that this Ghostbur wasn’t looking for a family member either. . . . Though he had never been great at interpreting things so he could be wrong.

“It is great to have another person here. I was floating in that void for so long you wouldn’t believe,” Solidarity grimaced, the thought of it reminding him of the icky slime choking him. Painful and disgusting, two of the things you hoped you wouldn’t run into after death.

“Void?” Ghostbur innocently asked, prompting Solidarity to look up at the other man in confusion. He had guessed that he had been seeing things differently than Ghostbur, but he had been thinking like… a shift in color. Not a whole different place.

He nodded slowly, eyes locked on Ghostbur’s. The glowing white of them was unyielding of any emotion, “Yeah the void,” he turned and gestured vaguely towards the inky blackness behind him, “Where I came from?” he looked back to see that Ghostbur had cocked his head to the side. Confusion now painted on his face.

“Mr. Solidarity, that's a wall,” he said softly, “A wall that opened into a door that you climbed out of,” his voice shook a bit more than it had previously, Jimmy frowned at this, the motion only deepening when Ghostbur continued, “The door is gone now, but you definitely did come out of one,”

Solidarity shook his head slowly, eyes kept on Ghostbur’s the whole time, “Ghostbur I swear that I’m seeing blank blackness out there,” he turned to look at the ‘blank blackness’ and stared into it. Yep, that was definitely not a wall. He looked back at Ghostbur in time for the man to speak.

“I see a concrete wall,” he spoke quietly and uncertainly, as if he was suddenly not so sure of it himself, “A concrete wall with windows filled with red,” his voice broke upon mentioning the color, and Jimmy suddenly realised what the man had meant by the, ‘much better than all this red,’ earlier.

“Ah well, maybe one of us is wrong,” Jimmy quickly said, taking a step forward and attempting to set his hand on Ghostbur’s shoulder, but to his surprise, it went right through him. It wasn’t like there was nothing there really, more like a really warm summer day, one where you could have sworn that you were underwater.

They both stared at each other for a moment, but the slightly shocked silence was broken when Ghostbur continued their conversation. “I hope that I’m wrong,” he whispered, taking a step back and causing another drop of the blue stuff to hit the ground. It landed in the crack between two tiles, and spread out accordingly, but Solidarity saw none of this, only thinking about his hand going right through the man. Ghostbur, that was his name, but could he really be… well, a ghost? Jimmy was dead, so maybe this guy was as well?

Jimmy turned and stared at the void behind him, the blackness causing strange patterns in his vision the more he stared at it. He wondered if that was his eyes being bad again or just a trick of the light, either way, it did nothing to comfort the growing worry in his stomach. If this ghost had pulled into this place, could it be possible to get out? Maybe Jimmy could see Scott again.

He looked back at Ghostbur, not at all surprised to see the man standing right where he had been left, shaking slightly and looking about the platform. His eyes reflected a reddish color that Jimmy could not see coming from anywhere else. This saddened him, maybe the color that seemed to scare him so much was really all around him. It was comparable to his swim through the darkness, the sludge filling his lungs and drowning out both his own sounds and everything else's. (Not to mention drowning him.)

“Hey-” he started, taking a deep breath before continuing, “Ghostbur, why is it that you are… here?” he tried, cringing inwardly at the question he had asked, a feeling only magnified by the ghost’s reaction to it. He looked directly into Jimmy’s eyes, sadness visible in the glowing white things even without an iris or pupil to help them.

“I was… killed by someone,” he sniffled angrily, voice shaking violently the longer the sentence went on, “I thought it was going to be oka-y,” he cried, voice echoing around the area while still sounding as non-threatening as it had from the start.

“It’s alright-” Solidarity started, stepping forwards and just barely stopping himself from putting his hand on the other’s shoulder, “I was, um, murdered as well,” he scratched the back of his head, “… so I understand what your going through,”

Ghostbur nodded and inhaled shakily (yet ever so bravely), “Thank you Mr. Solidarity,” he looked to the ground, glowing eyes half-closed and full of tears, “It means a lot that you are here,” he paused for a moment, as if trying to think of what to say, “Thank you for being my friend,” he finally finished, looking up to look at the drowned man.

Jimmy simply nodded, glad to see that the crying seemed to be over, “Thank you for being my friend too,” He smiled, “It’s been so long since I had someone to talk to,”

Ghostbur nodded back at him, his airy laugh filling the void with a warmth that wouldn’t normally be expected of such a place. It was calming, and Jimmy was truly glad he was here. A ghost and a drowned, an unlikely, but hopefully long-lasting friendship.

- -

It had been many uncountable days sitting there, oncationaly comforting his new ghost friend (or the other way around), staring into the blackness and discussing what was seen there (a wall apparently), or even sharing past stories. Ghostbur talked fondly of a blue sheep he had known while he was alive, and Jimmy was happily able to discuss fun stories from X-Life. (Because the wounds were less fresh than 3rd Life.) Ghostbur took delight in the tales of Jeremyism and the Coven, and always had something cryptic to add about his own past. It was nice, but it sure wasn’t comfortable, for, whenever you think about happy memories, painful ones pop up.

That was how they had ended up in this position. Ghostbur leaned on Jimmy’s shoulder (Because he couldn’t lean on him) while both of them thought about sad things. Ghostbur would occasionally sniffle and wipe his face with his arms. But the rising steam off his tears didn’t shock Solidarity anymore, it had become normal. He supposed that was what happened when you were dead and didn’t have anything to do.

Jimmy leaned back, shifting a bit more weight to his arms, and sighed. He felt Ghostbur adjust his potion slightly to follow the movement, the Ghost’s arms were wrapped around him and occasionally clipping just a centimeter or two into his sides.

“What is it?” Asked Ghostbur, his friend’s voice was shaky and brave, as if he was struggling to hold back his tears, which, of course, he was.
Jimmy sighed again before speaking, not really caring that the sound was getting repetitive, there were only the two of them here anyway. “I was just thinking about someone that I miss,” He turned to look at Ghostbur, the man’s white eyes blurring around the edges with burning tears, “I’m sure you have people like that,”

For a moment Ghostbur didn’t move and Solidarity regretted his phrasing, but before he could apologize, his friend spoke. “I do miss many people,” he whispered, “Tommy, Ranboo, Friend,” he sighed, the sound a direct contrast to the recent two Jimmy had just made. Instead of being loud and sudden, it seemed to blend in with the nothingness around the two. Though both seemed just as hopeless as the other. (Maybe that’s just what happened when you were stuck in limbo without your loved ones.)

It was a moment before either continued the conversation, instead choosing to rest in each other’s company. Sure they may not have their traditional loved-ones, but at least they had a friend.

“You’ve talked about them right?” Jimmy tried, staring off into the blank space that surrounded the platform. (Even if he appeared to be staring at a wall from Ghostbur’s perspective.)

“I have,” the man replied simply. He sounded slightly hopeful, but Jimmy really didn’t know why.


Edit: formatting because it copy and pasted weird.

Proof for the weekly activity week one.

Also this is so freaking rushed ack.

In all it is 3,861 words, doesn't count the things used as formatting or this A/N.


Characters:
https://www.bhg.com/gardening/plant-dictionary/water/cattail/
403 words.

The first of my characters for this project is based on the “Cattail” plant. The reason for me picking this specific plant starts with the fact that the plant itself is very pretty, and ends with the fact that because of the name, I could give the character a cat’s tail. (I am a sucker for non-human characteristics on characters, as my obsession with hybrid au and Hetalia clearly shows.) But anyway, this plant database clearly says that cattails are, “Easy to grow in rich, moist soil and full sun or part shade, cattails grow in wet soil and even standing water up to 12 inches deep,” and that “Cattails require minimal maintenance,” the first part of this shows me that this cat hybrid character actually likes the water, but is besides that not very picky about anything. The second part shows me that they are rather independent, fitting well onto the fact that they aren’t picky about where they are. That is four traits: cat tail, love of water, independence, and not being picky about their environment. But I find that I still need more. “If left unrestrained, they will crowd out most other water plants,” I see, they are a very social little character, or, should I say, tall character. ”…thanks to their height (4 to 6 feet)” Now I understand that isn't exactly tall for a person, but compared to most water plants, that is rather large. So there you go, tall. Oh, and the site also said they have “swordlike leaves' which, and I understand this is yet another stretch, gives me the idea that they like sword fighting. This is a cool dude. Also, I want them to like snow as well as water. ( “…which persist through winter…”) …look at this! “Water deeper than 12 inches will also restrain invasive spread.” Maybe this person could like water, but not necessarily be incredibly good at swimming, and therefore they would rather not be in super deep water! …I suppose it is time to choose a gender. And then she saw this sentence, “…familiar cylindrical fruiting spike displayed by female plants after summer flowering and pollination,” How perfect! That’s ten traits!

1. Cat hybrid
2. Likes water
3. Not picky with anything
4. Independent
5. Social little dude
6. Tall
7. Likes sword fighting
8. Likes winter and cold places.
9. Maybe not incredibly great at swiming?
10. She/her


https://www.bhg.com/gardening/plant-dictionary/tree/fir/
489 words. v

My second character for this story is going to be based on a fir tree. This is because I love fir trees and kind of want to be one, and because it showed up after not a lot of searching on the database. (Hey! Don’t blame me! I’m doing this on the last day I can!) But even with this, the plant looks rather promising, “Fir, a tree that is part of the pine family, brings a pyramidal form and and regal mountain magnificence to residential landscapes.” That sounds like it could give me a lot of information. (Also I don’t know why there are two “ands” in there but pop off.) “part of the pine family” maybe the pine family could be a family of people who are named after/representations of trees, because, well, this is giving me the energy of Hetalia I will not lie. And they brind “pyramidal form” and “regal mountain magnificence,” so… a snob? Kind of? At the least they have got to be stylish. Cool, I don’t write a lot of those. When I went to check the bit to see if I could have one I saw this, “There are many shrub varieties…” great! Siblings, and apparently a lot of them. Also, this may be slightly weird, but, “This tree is valued for soft needles,” how can you not see that and think that they should have wings with soft feathers to match their soft hair? I love them already. Besides that, in the “Problem Solvers” section, they say that these trees are “Good For Privacy,” which tells me that this character likes their personal space. (Too bad they had so many siblings I suppose.) Much of the rest of this article is about how to properly raise these trees, but I bet I can get enough traits out of it. (Though, to be fair, I really just want one of these trees in a pot and I want to see the best way to do that.) …I see! They don’t like super hot weather, “Plant fir in early spring, as this group of trees and shrubs does not do well with summer's heat and dry conditions.” . . . “Fir pairs well with a variety of evergreens, deciduous shrubs, and perennials.” Maybe they are polyamorus or something? A friendly snob? That’s it. Friendly snob it is. “Tall, stately firs…” I see! Both characters are tall, but this one dwarfs the cattail. That’s wonderful! My winged child is growing up. Lastly, I see no gendered words anywhere on this page, so they get to keep the they/them pronouns I have been using for them. That is wonderful and I’m proud of them. (That’s ten!)

1. Part of the “Pine” family
2. Sort of a snob?
3. Many siblings
4. Winged bird hybrid
5. Soft hair and feathers
6. Likes personal space
7. Likes winter
8. Lots of friends
9. Tall
10. They/them


Plot
https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/projects/550628944/
131 words. v

The very first fear that auto generated for me was, “Ailurophobia” the fear of cats. Which I had actually been hoping for. I actually can’t believe I got this lucky, anyway, this sort of fear could be applied to either character, but I think I’m going to give it to the first to avoid drawing any unhappy parallels to real life. So, the cat hybrid is afraid of cats, I can certainly work with this. The next I got was “Aquaphobia” or, the fear of water. For a moment I sat pondering, wondering why and how a tree character would be afraid of water and what it could possibly do for the plot, and then, I remembered. “Wait, didn’t I make Cattail like water?” and then, a possible idea was born.

https://www.squibler.io/plot-generator
126 words. v

Though this is not the first prompt I got (I wasted several trying to copy and paste before realising that it wasn’t letting me) I think it works fairly well. “Outside the cabin the wind howled through the trees, while inside, the old woman's fire was nearly out,” I could write a bit of an intro section from that sort of perspective, and then afterwards switch to the normal characters. Oh! I’ve got it! I write either a grandmother telling a story to her children about the trees that are scaring them, or use that sort of story as a “this could never happen” and then have it happen. I like that second option better, but I suppose we will only know after I am done.

223 words. v

Now, I’ve never really liked planning out the plot of stories before I write them (It’s the same with animation, makes the plan too muddled so it ends up turning out worse than it would have if you just winged it) but I suppose this is a required step… So anyway, here we go. Story starts with an old woman staring off into the trees, thinking about something, I don’t really know or care what. But anyway, she’s all, “huh, trees,” and this shifts (hopefully well) into an intro from Fir’s perspective. (This may change but let’s gooo…) So Fir is all, “lol I don’t like water” and “oh my siblings are so annoying I just want my friends here,” and then we transition to Cattail (who I am probably going to end up calling Cat.) and have her thinking about swimming and then get her jumpscared by her own tail because she thought it was a cat’s. Blah blah blah stuff happens the two meet and we get a confrontation about “why do you like swimming????” stuff happens again and then the world is fine and snarky winged-person and cat girl get to have fun. (Fir can be flying overhead and yelling down to Cat swimming or something. I don’t know.) But yeah this is how I plan out stuff lol bye.


Setting
https://vanleeuwenicecream.com/product/raspberry-cheesecake-ice-cream-bar/
311 words. v

I’m choosing to base my setting on a “Raspberry Cheesecake Ice Cream Bar” . . . what has my life come to. …Moving on, I picked this thing because it looks like it has a spikey-ish covering and a light-ish inside. Why that matters is this; the land that the characters live in has got to be decently separated from the outside world for that “grandmother scene” to exist. So, if they are surrounded in, say, protective forests and spiky mountains (which could continue into their land a bit) they would be kind of hidden from sight. (Especially if this was set in a time where that woman’s fire was important to survive.) The icey and light inside are supposed to be all, “it’s really cold here,” because both of the characters I designed like the cold. (…and this isn't one of the times I want to hurt them.) The people around them do not see the point in crossing the mountains, because, when they go around them, they have to travel incredibly far for them to end. Plus, they loop around “plant hybrid” land so that they don’t even know it exists. (The main characters do not know what is past them, but unlike some other people they know, they do not care whatsoever.)

So, in short, they live in a rather large society that is populated by representations of plants that happen to be animal hybrids. There is at least one really nice pond full of cattails, and huge forests surrounding it. It’s always decently cold, but not so cold that baby fir trees and water plants will not grow. There are rocky mountains surrounding it for miles out, so the people on the outside do not see the point in going across them, for all they know, it’s just worthless land full of rock fields and thorny trees.

Story (finally)

2,176 words. v

The woman rocked back and forth in front of her chair, a soft smile stretched across her lips. The fire was dying, but she was still as warm as she needed to be. It was one of the positives about having so many blankets around her. Her family was so considerate, and that made her feel even warmer than the soft fabrics and flickering flames already had. How comfortable she was here, the slowly fading fire, and well carved rocking chair, the wind rushing through the trees outside. It was really rather picturesque, which was nice when no one you knew specialised in painting.

Her mind drifted as a particularly loud “woosh” blew through the trees. She turned to the window and stared out it. They had been lucky to get glass, both because of the warmth it provided, and the view of the forest outside. It was quite beautiful, but so mysterious as well. People had explored the whole of the forest, but no matter where you entered it, you always met the sides of mountains. She had seen them as a young girl, back when her father and mother would carry her behind them in carriers and waggons, a simple time, but one she missed dearly. But among everything she had seen and heard, those mountains were her favorite. Their rocky sides rise up out of the trees with hardly any foot hills. Their steep slopes nearly entirely devoid of life, but oh she loved them. The way they seemed to go on forever, the way they and their forest formed a loop, with no way to tell what was at the center, past those mountains. (If there even was any passing them.) It was all so mysterious and powerful, these protective rings around what only children could dream of.

– - - - - - - -

Fir woke, their feathers all ruffled and their hair a mess. The normally fluffy things felt oddly rough thanks to the length of their sleep. Their eyes traveled over the room, and, finding no annoying siblings in it, gave them the okay to snuggle back into the blankets. However, after just a few minutes of shuffling around under canopies of feathers and fluffy woolen bed sheets, they decided that it was time to get up.

Throwing their legs around to rest their feet on the ground, Fir yawned. They were so tired, yet sleeping was no longer an option. It was time to get up. They stood slowly, wings aching in the way any other limb did upon waking up, maybe they had accidentally slept laying on them. It wasn’t a problem to lay on them for a short amount of time, but an entire night hid blood from reaching the veins quite as well. Or, in other words, their wings had fallen asleep.

They sighed, stepping out the door of their room and making a quick pace down the hall. They would have to hurry if they wanted to get out of the house before their siblings noticed that they were awake, if that happened they would never get out of the house. The little shrub creatures were nice of course, but not exactly as fun to talk to as a friend around Fir’s age. Plus, the little fledglings didn’t have fully grown wings yet, so a lot of their conversation was centered around what age their flight feathers would grow in, and, to be honest, there was only so many times you could tell them that.

Their feet connected with the ground outside their house, the rocks had no snow or water spread over them, which surprised Fir. They hadn’t realized it was summer yet, that wasn’t really a great thing was it, their family, the Pine family, did not care much for summer weather. Of course, they thought, trotting gleefully along the path, it didn’t hurt them or anything, just rather boring and uncomfortably warm. They did know however, that their family’s friend down the road, Mrs.Maple, did not much like the winter, she said it upset her and made her want to go to bed. (To be expected of bear hybrids, as they sometimes choose to hibernate. However, Mrs.Maple was a school teacher, so she didn't have that choice.)

The walk down the path was pleasant, conifer trees keeping much light from reaching Fir. They didn’t mind though, shade was nice, as long as there was access to sun from time to time, and… there it was. They ran to the boulder, it was right in the center of a clearing and one of the best places to jump into the air from. Of course, a running start was always better, but the Pine family did not live near any sort of field to run in, so a tall (and decently long) outcropping of rock was fairly good.

First, Fir stretched their wings, the pretty green and blue feathers dusted with speckles of grey and white, they liked their wings. They were a pretty cool way to show off too, as many other bird hybrids didn’t have such… majestic wings. A soft popping of a joint told them their stretching was done and they flapped the limbs experimentally a few times. When everything seemed fine, they clambered onto the rock and braced themselves for takeoff. After a few moments, they charged forwards, wings outspread, and leapt off the boulder. With just a few beats of their wings, they were off, twirling up and out of the clearing, and rising into the air, soaring happily above the trees. They turned their nose to the sky and smiled, twirling over and over as they got higher and higher into the sky. Fir was careful to stay out of the clouds though, as the fluffy looking things would cover them with water. Water was fine in small doses, but if they were submerged or covered in it, it was less fun.

They flew about someone, the light streaming through the clouds and illuminating the forest, far off, they could see the distant mountains, their rocky faces rising out of the forest like rearing horses. How beautiful.

Fir turned to them, flipping over in the air and beating their wings a few times, the movements propelling them quickly in their chosen direction. With a quick glance downwards, their eyes dragged over the roof of their house. They could see several small children running around the yard. The bird hybrid grimaced and sped up, their still slightly soft flight feathers stiffening against the increasing wind.

After several minutes of wheeling about in the air, something changed. The clouds darkened and Fir felt fear fill their stomach as they realised what was going to happen. They looked below, their eyes only finding forest and one lonely shack. It was far off, but it was going to have to work.

As rain began to fall above, they dove, knowing their speed would not be faster than the droplets of water, but hoping that it would help avoid some of it. Only a few seconds passed before they were above the building, and, dropping through the air, they braced for landing. It was going to be messy, but it would have to do, the water already soaking their feathers was terrifying.

Fir landed, ankles and knees aching from the moment they hit the ground, and not stopping by the moment they were pounding on the door of the small building. They were covered in water, and terrified, they hated it.

In reality the door was opened quickly, but to Fir it felt like hours.

“Thank you so much,” they gasped, racing inside almost before checking if it was safe, but not before looking at the person who had opened the door. She had a long brown cat tail, with puffy looking hair and curious eyes. She also looked to be around Fir’s age.

Once inside, they shook their wings, not thinking about the wooden floor and walls around them, being dry was more important.

“Do you want a towel or something?” Asked the cat hybrid, her voice full of confused yet happy energy. Not something Fir would normally expect when a stranger came bursting into your house, but it was welcome.

“Yes I would,” they hurriedly nodded, shaking their wings about so fast that one made swift contact with the hallway wall. It hurt, but they were not focusing on that right now.

– - - - - - - -

Cat cocked her head to the side. “If you want me to get a towel for you you have to stop shaking first, I need to get through the hall,” she laughed.

“Yes yes,” the person said hurriedly, pressing themselves to the wall and allowing her through.

. . .

“Here’s your towel,” she chirped, handing it to the bird hybrid. They stared incredulously at the embroidered cattails on the fabric before lightly brushing it over their feathers.

“I take it you are of the Cattail family? They asked, shaking their wings once again and ringing their hair and clothing in the fabric. In seconds, it was completely soaked.

Cat nodded, studying their face for a moment before speaking, “Are you of the Pine family? You look a bit like the ones that I know,” she was not really surprised when they nodded in response.

“Yes I am, and thank you for the shelter and towel,” the bird hybrid shook their body once more, sending droplets of water right into Cat’s face. She didn’t mind though, she loved the water, “I’m terribly sorry about all of this, water scares me,” the Pine child explained.

Cat nodded, “Makes sense, I’m afraid of silly things too,” it took her until the person’s eyes on her to realise what she said could have sounded rude. Her own eyes widened, “I didn’t mean like that, I just meant that-”

“Save it,” the Pine child hissed, their wings brisling in annoyance, “I know it’s stupid but I can’t help it okay?

Cat nodded slowly, feeling sorry, “It’s not stupid, I was just saying that because I love swiming,” she admitted.

The bird hybrid stared at her for a moment before shaking their head and going back to drying their hair, “Whatever you say Cattail,” they whispered, looking away from her.

The cat hybrid drew her lips into a tight line and let annoyance of her own surge through her, “You do remember I let you into my house right?” she watched with a newfound grin as the Pine child froze for a moment before going about drying their hair faster.

She cocked her head to the side again, “Do you want to know my name?” she asked suddenly. The other person froze for a moment before looking back at her and nodding. (In a confused sort of way.) Cat grinned and stuck out her hand for a handshake, “It’s Cat! What’s yours?”

The bird hybrid hesitantly took her hand, “I’m Fir,” they whispered, awkwardly holding onto her hand as she shook theirs. As soon as she was done they got back to drying their wings. She smiled at that, it was good to care about your hybrid part. Her tail however, she shuddered, cats scared her, why did she have to have the tail of one?

. . .

An hour or two passed before the storm was over, but once it was Fir quickly rushed home, using the roof of her hut as a place to run from. That was certainly cool, but Fir wasn’t jealous of it, she had water, which, in her opinion, was much more fun to deal with.

– - - - - - - -

Fir shook their wings, deciding that today was a clear enough day for flight. It wasn’t cloudy like that morning two weeks ago. Making their way to the boulder, they sped up, now that their siblings were learning to fly, it was even harder to get away from them. If they found out that they were going to go on a flight, Fir would never escape.

After they had lifted into the sky they did what they normally did there. Cartwheeling over and over, and diving many feet at great speeds, before catching themselves and soaring up with gracefulness that artists could only dream of putting into their paintings. But it felt slightly half hearted, their brain was simply somewhere else. Namely, Cat and her little shack by the pond. Fir missed the cat hybrid and her strange quirks. Not in a romantic way, but that friendly nostalgia you get from time to time.

With the thought on their mind, they headed for the building.

. . .

Fir twilled into a landing on the lawn, smiling at the cat hybrid splashing about in the pond. “Hey Cat!” they yelled. (Noticeably more friendly now that their feathers were not soaked.) As their friend poked her head above the water and waved at them, their smile only widened. Today was a good day to hang out.



(Edited to add something I forgot.)

4,418 words on the Ghostbur and Jimmy thing, it's almost done… I am almost post it on the other site I have been posting these on oh my gosh.

“Were they good friends?” he tried

Ghostbur smiled and clipped a little further into his ribs, “Yes they were good friends,” he paused for a moment before finishing off his statement, “For the most part anyway,”

Jimmy nodded and tried his best to not attempt to hug Ghostbur back. You see, the ghost could touch him, but he could not do the same if that makes sense. It was the intent of the movements. If Ghostbur wanted to shake his hand, they could, as long as Jimmy didn’t shake his hand back. (Because if he did his hand would go right through the other’s.) But he did really want to hug Ghostbur sometimes, as a lot of friends do.

“Not all of my friends were always nice to me,” he comforted Ghostbur, hoping that the words would work in place of a hug. As Ghostbur lessened his grip and smiled at him however, Jimmy’s thoughts were plunged into darkness. Memories of two of the nations he had lived in in the past, X Life and 3rd Life, filled his brain. Scott, Tango, Skizz, even Joel. How could any of them have done that stuff? He forgave Scott of course, as the poor man was his husband after all, but all the others? He wasn’t so sure about them.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by Ghostbur speaking, the ghost’s airy voice blowing away the negative emotions he had been feeling a moment before. “You are very kind Mr. Solidarity,” he said, “And, I know I say this a lot, but I am glad to have you,” The words were so genuine that Solidarity couldn’t help but smile.

“That's great to hear man,” he whispered, “I love you too,” and, when Ghostbur looked at him oddly, Jimmy simply laughed. “As a friend! As a friend,” here he looked at the aforementioned friend and paused for a moment, “Do friends ever say where you are from?”

Ghostbur thought about this for a moment, really pondering the fact apparently, because it was a full 10 seconds before he spoke. (Jimmy counted.) “Yes they did, but,” here the ghost blushed a blue that would have calmed him down if he could see it, “Not many people really said it to me,”
Jimmy sighed and wished for the second time that conversation to just be a ghost, and not a drowned, so he could hug the poor man. “You deserve people saying they love you, don’t ever let anyone say otherwise,”

Ghostbur smiled that soft smile of his and laughed, the sound echoing around the train station that Jimmy could not see. “Don’t worry Mr. Solidarity, I don’t think there is anyone else here to tell me that,” and, though it was a joke, the words made the drowned sad, he laughed along with Ghostbur (because it truly was a funny joke) but inside he was worried. Why were they the only ones here? If this was an afterlife, why weren’t the other people on 3rd life here? He knew he was the first to die in that nation, but surely others had died by now . . . right? Suddenly his heart sank, unless everyone had been released from the spell when he had died.

If that was truly the case, why had the rules of the land been worded that way? And, as an even worse thought, if it wasn’t the case, where was everyone? He scanned the void around for any signs of life, hoping the whole time that Ghostbur didn’t notice his worry. The last thing he wanted was for his only friend here to see him upset. (Sure it had happened many times before, but it was so awful every time.) But no, no more chunks of land in the sky were found. Maybe they were still spiraling through it, possibly with the sense of burning or being struck with arrows? How was he to know their deaths, he had gone first.

Unfortunately for him, Ghostbur’s innocent voice interrupted his thinking, “Are you alright?” he asked, sounding very concerned and decently curious. Both good things if you are looking for comfort, but not so good if you want to bury the emotions and never have them be found.
He looked at the other man, eyes taking just a moment to focus on his friend’s face. Friendly void like eyes with grey-ish hair, he couldn’t name a better duo. (Well he could, but thinking about himself and Scott made him sad.)

“Uh yeah, I’m fine,” he said, hoping to Prime, Jeremy, or any other god out there (maybe even Kristen) that Ghostbur couldn’t tell he was lying. However, they must not have heard him, because a moment later his friend shook his head and frowned at him.

“I can tell when you are lying about something,” the friendly ghost chided him, “and after all that cheering up you keep making me do, I want to help you!”

That was a sweet gesture, but oh it came at such a bad time.

“No really! I’m doing good-” Jimmy started, but he was put to a stop by the other man standing up and grabbing his hand. He could have just pulled away, but he was rather curious now.

“Come,” Ghostbur said simply, leading him away from their spot. As he was dragged forwards, Jimmy smiled slightly at the blue stain spreading to his own fingers, that wasn’t going to come out any time soon. It would eventually fade (As the two had discovered by the puddles of blue about the station disappearing.) but it would take a while. It never seemed to fade from Ghostbur though, he wondered why that was…

“Here!” Ghostbur said happily, pushing Jimmy forwards and what he guessed was some sort of wall. (He couldn’t see it though.)

He looked at his friend in confusion, gesturing to the space in front of him and shrugging. When Ghostbur looked at him with the same expression that Jimmy had, the drowned explained. “I can’t see what’s here, it’s all just void to me,”

Ghostbur frowned at this, eyes narrowing in thought as he did. “He must be thinking about how to show whatever it is to me,” Jimmy thought, “It must be really important then,”

After just a moment Ghostbur seemed to come to a conclusion, carefully stepping up to the edge on the platform and standing on his tiptoes. Jimmy bit his lip, even though he knew that Ghostbur saw a wall there (And for him there really was one, Jimmy had seen him climb it before.) he was still worried. He didn’t want his friend to fall into the void.

He looked away as Ghostbur seemed to teeter on the edge, arms reached up as if to grab something. He was too afraid to check what was going on. RIP! Solidarity looked up, suddenly extremely confused what that sound had been. What he saw however, shocked him.

Ghostbur was standing in the same place as before, but in his hands was some sort of poster style advertisement. It was missing the very top corner of it, and Jimmy guessed that that was what had made the ripping noise. However, he had never been so happy to see such a damaged piece of art.

“Do you like it?” Asked Ghostbur expectantly, handing him the poster with his blue-stained hands. All Jimmy could do was nod, taking the picture and holding it close to him. Sure, it was monochromatic red, and stained with blue from the hands of his friend, but it was a picture of someone he loved dearly. Scott.

After a few moments of stunned silence, Jimmy managed to get a word out, hugging the advertisement to his chest as he spoke, he said, “How do you have this?” His voice sounded weak even to him, it was in stark contrast to his normal tone, which opted to sound strong and confident. But, neither was bad.

Ghostbur laughed, hugging his friend in what could only be described as a pounce. “It was on the wall! Along with several other advertisements for other things that I know. El Rapids, the Egg, things like that,” the ghost pulled back out of the hug, giving Jimmy more room to look at his new favorite thing, “MCC fits in right with them,” he finished. He sounded truly proud of himself, though his voice still echoed around the edges, it was a nice change.

“Thank you so much, how can I-?” Jimmy stared, looking up from the photo of his husband and back into his friend’s face as he was shushed.

“You don’t have to do anything! I just wanted to cheer you up,” the ghost grinned, hands still strongly held on Solidarity’s arms. It was a friendly gesture, and since it only slightly hindered his ability to see the paper, he didn’t ask his friend to stop.

After a moment of happy silence, Jimmy spoke, and, though his voice shook as he did, it was purely joyful. “You certainly cheered me up,” he smiled, turning to his friend with eyes full of newfound appreciation.

Ghostbur only laughed.

– - - - -

Since that last memory, Ghostbur had become more vocal about the train station around them. (Or just him? Jimmy couldn’t really tell.) He explained the staircase that was closed and unclimbable, and was impressed when Jimmy guessed that it was that way because it was off the platform he could see. Ghostbur expressed his distaste for the lights above, apparently, they were a very bright and uncomfortable red. Solidarity expressed his pity for his friend and was sure to try to comfort him. The ghost thanked him profusely and explained that it was starting to hurt less now that they had been here for more than two months. This confused Jimmy, both because he couldn’t believe it had been that long and because he couldn’t believe it hadn’t been longer (not even mentioning how he didn’t have a guess how Ghostbur knew that), but he didn’t say anything.
Or at least, for a while the lights were getting better.

Ghostbur consistently complained about cracks in his vision, in a normal situation, Jimmy would have found this to be nothing to worry about. Sunlight causes vision to wig out, that’s just a known fact, but that didn’t quite explain what was happening with his friend. Probably because, well, there wasn’t really any sun here, and though darkness would also cause sight to mess with itself, Ghostbur wasn’t exactly surrounded by the same void that JImmy was.

“Are you okay?” he finally asked, putting a stop to his friend’s frantic rambling in a way that he hoped wasn’t too harsh. He knew it wasn’t always a good idea to interpret someone while they talked about something important to them. (This was known for many reasons, but a big one for Jimmy was how when, back on Evo of course, Grian was excitedly explaining the best ways to prank people and was rudely interrupted. It wouldn’t normally be a problem to make someone shut up if they were talking about the best way to kill you, but Grian was a different breed. His whole house had been full of traps the next time he had stepped into it. Oh what a time.) But, back in the present, he did know that he deserved to be worried if his only accessible friend was having health problems.

Ghostbur sighed, burying his head in his knees and nodding into them. “I’m fine Mr. Solidarity,” he finally said, “My eyes just hurt a little bit,” (In the last few words his voice escalated in an octave and gained some echo, both of which made Jimmy think that maybe he wasn’t so fine.)

“Are you sure-?” he started, cutting himself off when he accidentally sent his hand through his friend’s shoulder trying to pat him on it.

Ghostbur stifled a laugh and pushed his hand away, “I’ll be fine, things are just feeling a bit bright again,” Jimmy would have accepted that answer had it not been for the slight shaking in the other man’s voice, as it was, the only person he could talk to was this guy, and if he got hurt, well, Jimmy would be plagued with non-ending worry.

He didn’t act on his thoughts though, opting instead to stare into the void with a concerned look in his eyes. It was easier to think if you had the right emotion for the job that was for sure.

But instead of instantly knowing what to do, he was instead plagued with thoughts of all the things that could be going wrong. Was Ghostbur melting away? It seemed unlikely, but he supposed that since he didn’t know how this limbo thing worked, it could work like that. Or maybe Ghostbur was going blind? That wasn’t necessarily a bad option, because he knew that people could still live wonderful fulfilling lives while being blind, but it did take some getting used to. Or- no wait, why was he doing this? Ghostbur could have simply strained his eye for all he knew, he didn’t have access to every emotion he felt. . . .but something in the back of his mind still told him to help.

-and that’s when he got it. The perfect plan.

“What are you doing?” Ghostbur asked, his voice a rather well mixed mash of curiosity, confusion and pain. But Jimmy couldn’t really argue with them, as they all fit the situation perfectly.

“I’m just tearing a bit of fabric off my sleeve,” he answered casually, doing just as he said.

He felt Ghostbur stare at him for a few moments, those pure white eyes boring right through his body the whole time. “But…” He could almost hear Ghostbur blushing as he paused, “Isn't that going to be permanent…? We don’t have a needle or any thread,”

Now it was Jimmy’s turn to flush as his friend’s confused and echoey voice told him things he already knew. “Well I thought that maybe if your eyes hurt it was a good idea to rest them,” he admitted, finishing off the strip of fabric with a satisfying ripping noise as he finished speaking, “So I’m making you an eye mask,”

Ghostbur emited a sound that could have been either one of appreciation or worry. Jimmy hoped it was the earlier option.

“That is very nice of you,” the ghost whispered, and, as Jimmy saw when he looked back at him, closed his eyes and stuffed his head into his sweatshirt. Probably hoping to get some of that ‘rest’ that Jimmy had mentioned earlier.

But he continued to work, checking the fabric for gross looking sections as he went. (Being undead, he had some rotting patches of skin and truth be told, he didn’t really want any of that getting into Ghostbur’s already hurting eyes.) Once that task was done, Solidarity sighed and leaned back on the concrete floor, searching the empty platform for things to make the eye mask look better. Of course he found nothing.

Was the gift done? He wanted to be absolutely sure that this was what his friend deserved. (Which was the best of course.) He didn’t think it was done, but there wasn’t much more he could really do with it. He could probably pull one of the flowers out of his hair to decorate it with, but the two dead men had already figured out that flowers followed in their footsteps when unattached from Jimmy. It was a blessing and a curse really. Having such nice plants right there but not being able to remove them (even to see them) for fear they would be gone forever.

He supposed that the gift must be done if he couldn’t do anything more with it. He looked sadly down at the new torn patch in his sleeve, hopefully Ghostbur would like this eye mask, blindfold thing, because if he didn’t Jimmy would have just torn away part of his sleeve for no reason.

He waited as long as he could, listening to the soft breathing of his sleeping friend the whole time. (Apparently it was effective to sleep with your head shoved into your sweatshirt, who knew.) But after a few minutes of fidgeting, he decided he couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Ghostbur?” he asked, tapping the concrete floor as loudly as he dared, “I think I’m done with the thing,”

Instead of waking up however, Ghostbur simply rolled over, his face slipping out of his sweatshirt and coming to meet the floor instead. His nose came to a rest right over the edge of the border between two tiles. It was almost as if it was made for exactly this situation, that made Jimmy laugh, maybe he should let him rest a bit longer.

He laid back down, though he was unsure of when he had sat back up really, must have happened while he was thinking. The floor was just as uncomfortable and cold as it always was, but as he flattened against it he realised how tired he was, and, closing his eyes, he dipped into sleep.

He dreamed.

He dreamed that he was back in life, but it was a strange sort of life. Many friends he had known were there, and though not all of them made sense to be in that same place (Netty and Lizzy for example,) one stood out past any others. Among all the evolutionists, X lifers, and 3rd lifers there stood one ghost. One ghost among the undead and unknown.

“Hello Mr. Solidarity!” his friend happily called, “I’m so happy to meet all your friends!” Jimmy noticed that his voice was unnaturally strong for him, but he didn’t mind it, instead choosing to indulge in this fantasy of a dream.

“Hey Ghostbur,” he smiled, reaching out to shake hands with his friend, and not questioning when he was able to initiate the touch, “What’s going on over on the Dream SMP?”

Ghostbur pouted and shook his head, “The trains keep pulling into the station,”

If Solidarity had heard such a thing in normal life, he would have questioned why it had been said, however, because this was a dream, he didn’t think twice, instead shaking his head understandingly. “That really stinks man,” he closed his eyes and threw his head back to the sky, “Who’s driving them this time?” It was nonsensical words, but a small bit of logic in the back of his head told him that maybe it was important.

Reacting as if his subconscious was correct, Ghostbur looked from side to side, almost as if he was trying to see if anyone was listening in on their conversation, before he continued. “It’s been Dream most times, but the other day I saw a bunch of blue lambs in the driver's seat instead,”

Jimmy laughed as Ghostbur did, the former serious state of the conversation evaporating as his knowledge of his dreaming state did. Now it was just a fun little brain story, as a lot of things are.

“Say, Ghostbur,” he started, a giddy smile plastered on his face as he spoke, “Have you seen Scott around here?” (If Jimmy was still even a little awake he would have remembered that the dream had placed his husband right beside him, but he was fully asleep by now.)

Ghostbur shook his head, shrugging even as his smile refused to waver, “I have not seen him,” Suddenly, a cold feeling filled the air. Solidarity looked up in fear as Ghostbur put a hand on his chest. “Why don’t you go see him?” The smile twisted as his hand pushed right through him, and pain shot through his body as blankness filled his vision.

Jimmy woke in a cold sweat, sitting up faster than was really necessary as he did. What the heck was that?! A weird dream that’s what. He looked down at his hand, breathing slowing to a more normal pace as he stared at the object there. Ghostbur was absolutely correct, blue could calm a person down. He stared for a moment, evening his breaths and trying to figure out what in the world he had been thinking about a moment before. But, as all dreams do, it was gone in seconds.

He turned to Ghostbur and was happy to see his friend laying half asleep next to him, eyes open halfway and reflecting the red they always did. He looked so tired and Solidarity found it funny, he usually woke up rather fast, but it had already been proven many times that Ghostbur was not like him in that regard. Sure, they may both be dead, but they sure as heck don’t wake up at the same speed.

They stayed that way for a few moments, only stopping when Ghostbur turned to him and yawned, which was so funny that Jimmy simply had to laugh. Ghostbur’s sleepy blinking as he tried to figure out what was so funny acted only as fuel to the fire that was Jimmy’s amusement.

Eventually however, he managed to calm down, taking the chance to hand Ghostbur the piece of fabric and explain what it was for, “This is supposed to be an eye mask,” he started, gesturing at the object now clutched in his friend’s grasp, “You put it over your eyes to block out light. I thought that you might like having something blue to hide all that red,”

It took a moment for Ghostbur to react, but once he did, he was very thankful. Instantly tying the thing around his head and gasping with joy.

“It works!” he yelped, his voice sounding even more echoey than it normally did. (Thanks to his tiredness Jimmy guessed.) “Thank you so much!” He smiled an eyeless smile at his friend, “I am glad that I have this,”

“You’re welcome,” Solidarity grinned, “I’m glad it does,” They sat that way for a moment, Ghostbur happily humming to himself as he stared into the blue fabric. However, Solidarity instantly found it in him to speak again, “But do you want to uh.. See anything?” he gestured around himself before remembering that Ghostbur probably couldn’t tell he was doing it, “There’s the void right over there,”

Ghostbur laughed an echoey laugh and shook his head, “I can’t fall into it remember? Plus, there isn't really that much around to look at,”

He couldn’t argue with that.

– - - - -

Jimmy had grown to like this new home, and (with the help of his fabric piece) Ghostbur had too. They had figured out how to make it comfortable, however, there was no way to deny that it was still limbo. It had been so long since Jimmy had been in the void that he hardly remembered what it felt like, so sometimes he longed for that feeling again, but every time those sorts of thoughts appeared, the happiness in that empty station brought him back. It was so nice, him and a good friend, two people able to bond over shared experiences despite not knowing each other in life. The causal energy of that sort of thing was nothing less than a breeding ground for laziness, and he was glad for it.

But it was in the moments lazing around the platform (staring at his MCC advertisement and being hugged by Ghostbur that is) that he noticed something. Something… new.

He sat up, causing Ghostbur’s arms to pass right through his chest and his shoes to make an awful squeaking noise against the concrete floor, and stared into the void. What he saw there was nothing short of a shock.

There, nestled against the blanketing blackness of nothingness, sat a place he knew. A welcomingly sunny valley with a beautifully built home and a lake that spilled into nothing. But most importantly, he could see movement. Specifically flowers wavering in the wind and a blurry person making their way across the clearing. Could it be?

“What is it?” Ghostbur asked curiously, standing slowly as he removed the makeshift blindfold to get a better look at whatever it was. But instead of cocking his head to the side and complaining about the walls and red lights, he blinked a few times before gasping.

“Can you see it?” Solidarity asked, breathlessly making his way to the edge of the platform. When no response came, he wondered if his friend had responded with a nod or a shake of his head, and he was tempted to look back, but only for a moment. His eyes were too glued to the island to worry about such a thing. (Not that Ghostbur’s input was unimportant, there were just a few more important things happening. Not even including the speeding beating of his heart and the hope spreading through his soul.)

But as Jimmy stood on his tiptoes on the edge of the station, Ghostbur’s response came. “Is this what you’ve been seeing all this time?” He whispered, “It’s beautiful…”

Jimmy turned to his friend, “I don’t know what you are seeing, but if it’s blackness with no stars, then yes,” (He found that paying attention to the person you have spent nearly three months with was sort of important, you don’t want them to leave do you?)

Ghostbur slowly shook his head, happy looking tears spilling down his face and causing wisps of smoke to float off into nothingness. “No,” he choked, “There's something out there,” he gestured to the void, “Out there in all that darkness, there is something bright and blue,”

Solidarity turned back to what he was talking about, happy to see that it was still there. “Well,” he smiled, “That’s a new addition,”

They stood there for a moment, poster and chunk of fabric forgotten on the floor behind them, there was simply something better now. It was a nice moment, a drowned and his ghost friend standing on the edge of everything they could ever want, but it was so far away, how would they get to it? He started at the thought, was that what he wanted to do? Abandon the life he had found here in favor of chasing what might be a lie? It only took a few moments of thinking for him to determine that if he were to leave this station, he would be bringing Ghostbur with him, like it or not. …but how would he do that?

Considerably shorter than the other chunks in it, but here is the last part of the Ghostbur and Jimmy fic!! (1,646 words.)


“What are you thinking about?” Ghostbur asked, his voice still full of disbelief and joy, despite the genuine question he had just asked.

“Home,” Jimmy said breathlessly, despite not turning back around to Ghostbur (He could not tear his eyes away this time.), he could hear his friend respond to the word. He didn’t speak or anything, but only gasped, probably recognising the far away island from the stories he had been told.

They stood there a bit longer, but this time was cut short when a loud sound rocked the station. Instantly, both men looked at each other and then the floor around them. Terror filled Jimmy’s heart as he snatched up his picture of Scott, Ghostbur instantly following in his footsteps and picking up his fabric piece. They had talked about what would happen if bad things happened to their land, but of course, with a loud noise, there were two main options they had thought up. One, a train pulling up to take them out of the station (or someone else in), or, worse really, the land itself crumbling, and well, judging by quickly spreading cracks in the floor, it was the latter.

“Ghostbur!” Jimmy shouted, his heart beating a million miles per hour, “Grab my hand!” His friend quickly reached out and did so. They locked eyes, fear coursing through both of them.

“I really hope this works,” Ghostbur whispered, and, as cracks formed below their feet, Jimmy nodded. He braced himself for just a moment, and only when a bit of the floor fell away did he jump back, back into the suffocating void of nothingness.

They floated in place for a moment, Ghostbur looking relieved when they didn’t instantly fall, but the hopeful expression was quickly gone when he realised that he couldn’t get air in. He looked at Jimmy panic spreading across his face as he clawed at his throat, the bit of blue fabric still clutched in between his fingers. Jimmy simply nodded, himself feeling the effect of the air deprivation, but he was so shocked with the feeling of being there, in true limbo, that he forgot to get them out.

Ghostbur seemed to realise that Jimmy was frozen but after a few moments of struggling against the inky darkness he realised he could not move them. Terror was on his face as the blue stuff began to soak his chest, he clawed at Jimmy, shaking him as best he could in the antigravity, which of course wasn’t that great. …which didn’t matter all that much, because Solidarity thankfully remembered what was happening and began to struggle against the current of the void.

It was like he was drowning again, burning pain filling his body as he did everything in his power to keep his mouth shut. (Because if he didn’t it would just hurt more.) It had been… so long, since he had been here, that he had nearly forgotten how to maneuver in it, and thanks to Ghostbur’s extra weight, and the poster in his hands, it was even more difficult than it needed to be.

But still he struggled, fought against the weight, kicking his legs and hard as he could, willing himself to move, really anything that would work, and, eventually, they began to move. He hugged Ghostbur to his chest, trying to tell the poor ghost that they would get there soon, just to please, please hold on. They began to really move now, and he was hurtling through space again, the familiar feeling of panic amplified now that he had a friend to worry about, as far as he knew Ghostbur might not be able to survive this.

They moved along, Ghostbur’s body shaking as he lost every last bit of oxygen, trying to hold on just a bit longer-

They were almost there, one kick…

Two kicks.

Three kicks. Ghostbur fell limp.

Four kicks-

Solidarity tumbled to the ground, rolling through the grass and staying there. He inhaled so shakily and violently, one could have thought he was actually dying… erm, again. But after just a few seconds of regaining sensation in his limbs, he forced himself to sit up, turning to Ghostbur’s body lying still in the flowers.

“What-!” he heard a familiar voice from behind him, and then running footsteps, but he couldn’t turn to Scott and tell him how much he missed him yet, no, he had to save his friend.

“Ghostbur!” He yelled, his voice gravely and broken, and he gasped as a bit of the dark sludge dripped out of it, splashing pathetically next to the poor ghost. He shook him, not paying attention to Scott’s fraintic gasp and questions as Solidarity tried to wake his friend up.

“Please just… just be alive!” he inhaled sharply and pressed onto Ghostbur’s chest, hoping that the movement would dislodge some of the ink.
Ghostbur coughed and sat up, narrowly avoiding Jimmy’s forehead on the way. He was shaking violently, shivering and gasping for air as blackness poured from his mouth only resting as it mixed with the blue soaking his body.

“Oh my go-” Scott cut himself off, running forwards and pushing Jimmy out of the way to properly reach the injured ghost. As his husband lay in the grass, Scott began to ask Ghostbur questions. Things like, “How are you here?!”, “What happened to your sweatshirt?”, and most importantly, “Are you okay?”

He wanted to ask Scott why he wasn’t asking him if he was okay, but Jimmy knew this was important, so he stayed right where he was, staring at the sky, which was somehow blue again.

Any worry he had evaporated when Ghostbur spoke, his voice still as echoey as ever, despite the clear lack of a station around them. “I’m okay,” he said shakily, before turning to look at Jimmy, and obviously worried, he asked, “Mr. Solidarity, are you okay?”

Jimmy nodded, feeling tears drip down the sides of his face as he did, “Yeah I’m okay Ghostbur,” he slowly sat up, and, looking at his husband and his friend, he realised he never wanted this moment to end, “I’m just alright,”

– - - - -

It had been a few weeks since they had arrived here, and Jimmy had no way to explain to himself quite how much he had missed the sun and the real stars. It was really home, beautifully decorated and exactly what they had always wanted it to be, with the uh, small addition of a little ghost friend. Apparently, Scott and WIlbur had known each other (who Wilbur was Jimmy didn’t know) and because of that bond, Scott and Ghostbur got along quite well. And of course Ghostbur and Jimmy had become great friends over the course of their existence at the train station.

Another thing Jimmy hadn’t known he would miss was real water, and the ability to get out of it when it felt icky. The first time he had gone swimming he was hesitant to get in the lake, explaining that he just didn’t trust himself in it, he would find a way to forget where he was and drown he was sure. And so Scott had gone swimming without him. (Ghostbur stating rather plainly that water burned him, and then heading off to go pick some of the flowers that scattered the grass.) But after a bit of watching Scott splash around, still in his full normal outfit, Jimmy decided that it would be fun.

When Ghostbur returned he found the two flower husbands happily sitting in the water and talking to each other. He had waited there for a moment apparently, unseen and listening to his two friends talk about random things, but had soon grown bored and told them he was there. (Which jumpscared Scott so hard he nearly flew out of the pool.) Jimmy and Ghostbur found this very funny, and decided that it was a point in any future prank war that would start.

…and start it did.

In just a month back in his home, Jimmy had decided to initiate a proper prank war, telling Ghostbur before he told Scott of course, they had gotten a lot of ideas back when it was just the two of them. … So of course they had to be a team against Scott. Everyone found it funny, and everyone found it especially funny when Scott managed to win despite being outnumbered by 50% or something.

Of course, like in all things, it was not perfect, (Every relationship, whether it be friendly or something more, argues from time to time.) but it was pretty darn close. Ghostbur had come up with the idea that when someone wanted to apologize, they would go and get the pufferfish of peace and bring it to whoever they had been arguing with. (It was working shockingly well so far, and made a use for an item that would have otherwise brought bad memories.)

Once, Ghostbur fell into the lake, but he was so quickly saved that he promised them it didn’t hurt at all. Of course they still made sure he stayed far away from the water for a long while after that. (Not because they didn’t trust him, but because they were worried for him.) After they became more relaxed on it however, Ghostbur told them, through laughter’s tears, that he had really quite liked the rule because, “Sometimes the side of things are slippery,”

And that was how they were brought to this moment, two months into being out of that awful void, sitting next to each other and watching the sunset, pure blue flower crowns rested upon their heads (Ghostbur made them.) and a pretty roof built over them… (Scott made it.) It was them that Jimmy realised, he was glad to be on the edge of the universe with these two.

New fanfic let's gooooo

1,959 words so far.

Red grimaced as he raised his axe, getting ready to bring it down on the block of wood again. This was not a bad life exactly, not at all, but the working made him rather tired. He had always wanted to be a warrior dragon rider, but after he had injured his hands, he had been barred from entering that kind of work. He would ask himself why he was cutting wood with an axe, but the reason was fairly obvious, since his hands still worked okay, he was willing to help provide for his family.

His family wasn’t much, just him, his mom, and their small hunting dragon named Pika. This dragon was amazing to have, he thought, wrists stinging as he chopped into the wood, but he would also have loved to have a dragon to ride. He had seen them soaring above, the dragon riders that is, and ever since he was a little boy he had always wanted to be one. His mother had been concerned however, not trusting the larger dragon’s with her little boy’s life. She had told him, “Red, one day you will grow up to be a big warrior, and only then will I let you have one of those beasts,”

Her concern was justified, he supposed, arms aching as he dropped the axe to the ground, it’s wooden handle hitting him on the shoe as the blade buried itself into the earth. If this was one of the least dangerous jobs he could do, he could only imagine what flying hundreds of feet above the ground on a (usually) fire breathing lizard thing would be like. Red sighed. He didn’t mind the danger, he just wanted to fly up into the clouds with a friendly reptile holding him up. Was that really too much to ask for?

He leaned down to pick up his axe, hugging it to his chest as he scooped the pieces of wood into a basket. He was done for now, his hands were really starting to shake now, he needed to go rest them.

After all the chopped up tree bits were in place, he dropped the axe in with them, and, carrying the very heavy objects in loudly objecting hands, he made his way into his house.

He was instantly greeted by Pika, the small yellow dragon making chirping sounds that sounded just a little bit like his name. Red tried to smile at the creature, it’s wings flicking excitedly as it spoofed the wood in the basket, Pika wanted to chew on one.

Suddenly a sharp pain shot through Red’s shaking arms, and he raced over to a nearby piece of furniture to put the basket down. Quickly plopping to the wooden floor Pika made worried chirps after him, as if asking if he was alright, which of course he was not, his hands were not working properly and all he wanted to do was fly. But he didn’t tell the little dragon that, instead gesturing (with his head) for Pika to come sit down next to him. Purring happily, the dragon did just that, settling his little head on Red’s thigh. Spikes poked into the limb, but because it didn’t really hurt that much, the man didn’t put a stop to it.

He stayed that way for a while, his little yellow hunting dragon falling asleep after only a few minutes of relaxation. Red watched his wings, little stripes of brown and black decorated the edges, yes he was jealous of them, but he was so glad he got to see them at all. They were beautiful and effective little flying machines. Picking up the little dragon semi easily, even if Pika sometimes struggled to steer, what with his bent tail and everything.

Red sighed and leaned against the chair behind him, closing his eyes and paying attention to the comfortable warmth of the small dragon against his body. They (him and his mom that is) had found Pika in a snare meant for catching rabbits, but instead of killing him or leaving him there, they had decided to take him in. But, because he had been a rather wild dragon at the time, he had struggled, trying to get away from them, and due to the frantic lashing of his tail, it had hit something a bit too hard and broken. Red and his mom hadn’t had the knowledge to help it heal correctly, so when it finally did, it was a strange looking lighting bolt shape. Red knew Pika was lucky to be able to steer at all, what with the crazy shape it was in and all, but he also knew that dragons were dragly adaptable creatures. (Some had been known to lose the tips of their wings or tails and still be able to fly just fine.) If only humans were too.

He sat back up, Pika jumping into wakefulness at the sharp movement. He looked down at the creature, grimacing apologetically and struggling to his feet. It was difficult when still trying not to use his hands, but eventually he got it. (Pika dumping rather unceremoniously onto the floor once he did.) But the dragon’s annoyed chirping faded as he walked into the next room. (They only had three, and this one was the “kitchen.”)

His mother was also not in this room, but this he expected, knowing that she had most likely gone out to the market, maybe to try and find a job. They always needed those. He sighed, stuck between knowing that that was an important thing to do, and feeling annoyed that he had no one to talk to. Sure, Pika was here, but he couldn’t exactly speak. At least not to Red. He paused, turning his head back to the room he had just been in, he had an idea.

. . . .

“So his name is Pika?” Yellow asked, staring at the small hunting dragon and taking a step forwards.

Red nodded, the movement making his shoulder, (and then Pika) move slightly. It had been difficult to get the dragon to come with him, to the outside that is, but after being promised several treats and protection from any dragon hunters, he had followed him out of the house.

“Is he a hunting dragon?” the girl asked, reaching out and scratching behind the dragon’s ears, which was slightly awkward because of how close that brought her to Red’s face, but he didn’t really mind that much.

“Yes he is,” Red paused for a moment before continuing, “I think you can hold him if you want,” It had sort of been a guess, as Pika didn’t always love being held by people other than Red and his mother, which is why he was so confused when Pika nodded vigorously at the suggestion.

Yellow laughed, reaching out and picking up the dragon, quickly bringing him to a cradling position in her arms. It was as if she was holding a baby, but Pika did not seem to mind, instead relaxing his wings and tail, the appendages flopping down into the air. This even Red had to stifle a laugh at. Knowing that it was perfectly normal for a happy dragon to look like a pile of limp leaves did not stop it from looking funny.

Yellow smiled down at the little dragon for a while, before looking back up at Red. “He’s very happy,” she commented, “You are treating him really well,” Red scratched the back of his head at the compliment, ignoring the slight shaking of his fingers. (He only hoped that Yellow wouldn’t think that he had some sort of crush or something, because he uh… didn’t really do that.)

But lucky for him, the girl didn’t seem to notice, instead talking excitedly about how healthy Pika was, kindly skipping over the bent tail. The whole village knew that Red and his mom had tried their best, so they tried not to bring up the injury.

“Sorry about this,” whispered Yellow, which confused Red until he realised that she had been talking to his dragon. (The realisation only came when the girl peered into Pika’s ear, obviously checking if it looked okay.) After a few moments, Yellow moved away from the dragon’s yellow and black ear and grinned, “Even his ears look really healthy!”

Red awkwardly smiled at this, this interaction was getting rather far from what he had originally wanted it to be. But Yellow was a very observant friend, so as soon as she saw the awkwardness in his face, she stopped. (Though Red did not miss the fact that she was still holding Pika like he was her child or something.)

“I’m sorry,” she laughed, “What did you come here for?”

He shrugged, “I wanted to know how you talk to them,” he admitted, the words feeling slightly stupid now that he said them. He blushed at the realisation, and, for the second time that conversation, hoped to Areus that Yellow didn’t assume it was romantic.

“The dragons, I assume?”

“Yeah the dragons,”

Yellow thought about it for a moment, though when she finally spoke, it wasn’t an answer that Red had expected. “I’m not sure,” she admitted, shrugging, “I just know,”

Red frowned, though it was not an angry frown, he was just thinking. “No offence, but how can you not know how you speak to dragons?”

Yellow laughed, “I don’t know!” she quieted down slightly, “It’s just been that way I guess,” She looked back up at him, an apologetic smile painted on her face, “Even before I could speak english, I just knew,”

Red nodded, pretending to understand, “That’s interesting I guess,” it came out somewhere between a question and a statement, but Yellow nodded gratefully anyway. As if she had been expecting Red to be mad at his little story. He would never dream of that though, he was much too… understanding of things just always being that way. (Sometimes people would ask him what he put in his eyes to make them red, and he would have to hurriedly explain that he was just born with red eyes. They would look him up and down and ask how. He would not really have an answer to that, it just was.)

The two dragon enthusiasts paused awkwardly, obviously this conversation had not been exactly perfect for either of them.

“So um, good talk,” Yellow said, laughing at the awkwardness in her own words before placing Pika back on Red’s shoulder. She turned to the forest and whistled, before turning back to Red and speaking again, “If you want to talk to me later, you know where to find me,”

As if on cue, a dragon burst through the treeline, Red recognised it as Kitty, Yellow’s riding dragon, though he didn’t have a guess why it was named Kitty. It had wings shaped like those of a butterfly, and two horns on its head that resembled antene, he would have named it either “butter” or “fly” but not Kitty.

Pika chirped loudly in his ear, lightning tail swatting him on the back of the head. But Red waited to go home, instead watching as Kitty’s hind legs grabbed onto specifically designed pads on Yellow’s back, the dragon lifting into the air a moment later. The huge beats of the beautiful wings nearly sent Red falling backwards, and, though they blew Pika into flight, he waved after his friend. Only after she was gone did he turn to find Pika, the little yellow dragon fluttering in the air a few feet away, looking rather annoyed.

“Sorry Pika,” he apologized awkwardly, stretching out his arm for the hunting dragon to land on, “I’ll go home now,”

Final word count: 2639 (Not counting things in bold.)



Oh gosh.


First part. (523 words.)

My three objects are a polar bear, a basketball, and half of an orange. (Or a grapefruit. It’s citrus anyway.) Along with the background, which is some sort of Greek or Roman amphitheater, Is it fair to call this bad luck? Anyway, the best I could think of a polar bear hybrid from the contemporary cabin fighting another cabin. Because the window things in the Doctor Strange movie look like basketballs, I am going to stretch this very far and make them both have some Doctor Strange-like magic powers. I will include the orange thing by having the main character throw it at the other one.

I can’t tell if “You must include 500 words for this section” is for this section or for the next, so I’m just going to play it safe and really stretch this “planning” part out. Anyway, this polar bear hybrid is absolutely not going to look suspiciously like my Ethoslab hermitcraft design, they will just look similar. (Mostly because I have no idea how to do any of this.) …I can’t believe that at least two of my weekly projects are going to be hybrid au. (This is going to be a badly disguised hermitcraft fanfic isn't it.)

… Moving on, the Doctor Strange-like magic powers are only “Doctor Strange-LIKE” and not “Doctor Strange style” magic because I’ve never been a super huge fan of the way they seem to need those things on their hands to make the magic. (And also I really hate multiverse things, even if my very favorite AUs all have to do with it.) I really hope I didn’t horribly misinterpret Doctor Strange right there, but it is not going to be the same.

I am starting to doubt that his part was supposed to be 500 words. …Whatever, let's keep going. I guess I’ll publicly figure out how half an orange got into the middle of a magic Scratch Writing Camp amphitheater. (That sentence didn’t make all that much sense, did it?) I guess someone (Probably from the Real-fi family.) could be eating an orange while watching from the crowd, but because it’s not a cookie, their sibling knocks half of it out of their hands, and it lands in the fighting arena. Contemporary cabin polar bear hybrid person (my beloved) launches it at their opponent and then they win the battle. This makes perfect sense and I don’t need to be asked why I know so much about Real-fi cabin lore.

(I just checked and I’m almost done with this thing, aw yeah.) … what in the world is there left to talk about. I guess I could go see what cabin the other person is from? It can’t be a friend of ours of course. *Goes and checks* YES Real-fi it is. *dabs cringely*

…I just checked the words again and I need fifty more words of pain. I bet it makes complete sense why two of the most calm cabins are having a battle in a roman amphitheater, it isn't confusing at all and is explained easily in two words, I am very tired. (That was four words.)


Cabin Character's Section. Look at that I made my cabin the villain. (843 words.)

C had always known about the arts of magic, always been interested in the way the world around them worked. Because of this interest, they had learned how to send spells, they used them to build a cottage in the woods. It wasn’t really the home they had wanted, but it was so well made that they couldn’t help but stay in the building conjured from nothing. That was until more people showed up.

At first they had gotten along with begrudging friendship, however when things began going wrong, it got a bit more difficult. Specifically when things around their house began to disappear, which was strange because the spell was one that should have lasted forever. First it was the stash of infinite cookies in their cupboard (Helpful when all you cared about was reading, not cooking.) and then it was a stack of books, their favorite books. But they didn’t suspect any people of stealing until they had gone to Real-fi’s house the next day.

She was smiling and laughing, and giving C cookies that they recognised. It wouldn’t have been strange to know the taste of cookies, but these were not normal cookies, they were a specific flavor that literally only magic could make. Their magic.

C had stormed out of the house, yelling angrily at Real-Fi on the way out, the woman looking hurt, but as if she had expected it. The house was a strange one, and so was the head of it. C growled and sent a spell at it, making sure that Real-fi could never leave it’s confines. Who would want to live in that suburban looking monstrosity anyway? Certainly not them. C smiled as the sad expression on Real-Fi’s face turned to one of panic as she found she could not follow them. It was what she deserved anyway. After stealing parts of her magic spell? A no go.

Eventually C had felt guilty, but it had taken them a long time to even dream of setting their former friend go. The boundaries had been crossed and they did not expect them to be fixed any time soon. Of course, there was plenty of room for this hypothesis to change, but to be completely honest, they didn’t care. This inner turmoil was punishment enough.

Their little stunt had caused a rift in the already unstable village of people, Sci coming up with the wonderful little idea to head off into the atmosphere, and any other people following in similar footsteps.

…Maybe C’s mind could be changed, but for now, they were sure that they wanted Real-fi to stay just where she was. C was too mad.

…

The rivalry between C and Real-Fi continued, even after their “deaths”. Unlike the other cabins, representations descended from those who had once lived in C’s village, Realistic Fiction and Contemporary stayed truly mad. The family from Realistic Fiction had stayed incredibly angry about the entrapment of Real-Fi all those years ago (despite the fact that she had eventually broken the spell.) and the people in the Contemporary cottage were absolutely infuriated about Real-Fi’s betrayal.

It was angering really, and even though C and Real-fi had made up in the end, (C taking away their spell after only a mere year of it being there.) no one remembered it. No one cared to remember the good bits of history when there was so much bad. C supposed that was alright, it made sense, it had taken Real-fi at least ten years to forgive them. They only wished that their descendants and followers knew that it wasn’t a// bad.

Now they floated with their friends, not dead, only dorment, waiting for history to remember, and then awaken them. Sure, these “cabins” knew about them, but C was talking about the general public, not these word obessed children. These violent word obessed children. C realised looking down at the flyer in front of them.

It advertised some sort of arena battle, which was not something that even C would normally expect from these “campers”. They turned to Real-Fi, the woman looking as concerned as they felt.

“What’s going on?” She asked nervously, “Even in our time we didn’t act like this,”

C knew that was a lie, but they didn’t mention it to their tentative friend, “I know,” they said instead, hands and eyes sparkling with angry magic energy, what sort of descendants were these if they were… killing each other?!

But C knew that that sort of behavior was really just copying their old behavior, which brought C back to thinking about how annoying it was that these descendants did not realise the end to the story. Why they couldn’t just follow it C didn’t know. They turned back to their “friend” and grimaced. “This can’t be good,” C whispered, not at all surprised when Real-fi nodded vigorously, her normally looking brown hair and black frame of glasses both bouncing with the moment. But the jumping wasn’t for joy, but for fear. C felt it too, and they hated it.


SWC, a fanfiction. </3 (Obviously not Hermitcraft no what are you talking about.) 1,273 words.

Snow stared at the sign, ears flattened to their head as he read the words. “An arena battle,” he mused, trying to look outwardly strong even as his claws quivered and his legs shook, “That sounds fun,” he knew this was a lie, but if he was going to be cruelly shoved into a gladiator fight, he at least wanted to be prepared.

He flicked his fingers, the claws extending and sending little shafts of magic dancing across the sign board. They didn’t make it unreadable, but the slight burn marks helped leave a mark that he hoped would discourage others from getting too close. He doubted it was a good idea to go into a gladiator fight unprepared, but maybe death would be better without an entire day of stress. (Okay, the fighting wasn’t to the death, but maybe injury would be better without a whole day of stressing about it.)

He flicked his ear as a mosquito buzzed in it, this is why he hated the Realistic Fiction’s town, the huge family obviously happy to spend their sanity for a measly rivalry. He didn’t understand it, though he doubted that his own cottagemates all agreed with him, Snow had seen the way that some of them acted to other cabins. It was downright scary at some points. …which was good, it left less fighting for him.

He walked away from the sign, not so happily stressing about how much he would get hurt, and who he was going to injure in the coming day. It was safe to say he wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. (Though, again, he knew that he knew many people who must be very happy to inflict pain on the poor family on the other side. Snow wondered if he should even feel bad for them, considering they were the ones who had started this in the first place. What kind of self respecting family plunges itself into danger?! He didn’t know, he had never had one.)

The polar bear hybrid sighed and stepped into the hyperlink back to his cottage (it was courtesy of the Science Fiction crew of course, and, as he spun though nothingness, he thought about how wild it was that they had made this. They had a lot of stuff going on, back on their spaceship, or so he had heard. They were trying to make a colony on a new planet, but were still in this war. And, as he throttled through space, he shook his head, if only two specific cabins could figure out how to act that nice. …even if it was just acting.)

. . .

He inhaled deeply, arms shaking with an unsureness that he would not normally expect out of himself. After he had told the organizers of the event that he happened to possess magic, their eyes had grown bright as they had lumped him in with their only magic maker in their cabin. Honestly, he had not expected someone from a family known for being as true and normal to the world as absolute possible to know how to use magic. Nevertheless, he expected the challenge, knowing that not a lot of people in his cabin were likely to be even a vaguely even match with someone with powers. It was just how book readers go.

Snow stepped into the amphitheater and instantly began to shake as he stared at the opposing fighter. He was much taller than Snow, and much more musically too, so even if he was bad at the whole magic thing, he would probably have no trouble bench pressing the polar bear hybrid out of the way of victory. His ears flattened to his head as he sent a spiral of magic down his claws, the blueish silver a cover for his true power, flame.

Both the shade of his magic, and his “polar bear hybrid” status served as a cover for his fire powers, so when a person tried to fight him with fire, and he had no negative reaction to it, he gained the element of surprise and usually ended up on top. It was a win in his book, however, with the man charging forwards, Snow cowered, feeling like some lost baby, far away from his mama bear.
The man charged, his muscles flexing with extreme precision as he got closer and closer, but snow stayed frozen, still as time as the realistic fiction family member charged at him. Until he remembered where he was, the stone of the repurposed roman amphitheater reverberated with the cheers from the ground, and right now he could hear that it was mostly Realistic Fiction fans, cheering on their friend. He couldn’t stand for it.

Jumping into the air, Snow managed to get over the attacker’s arms, landing on his stooped back and sending the butt of his staff into the hairless head of the Real-fi uncle. Serves him right, he thought, before a blast of magical energy hit him anyway. It sent him flying through the air, hitting the stone floor painfully hard. (The aching of his body only increased by the embarrassment sent through him as the crowd cheered.) He was beginning to think that maybe he could not do this.

. . .

In the stands, a Realistic Fiction girl was eating an orange, it was a good orange but the grumbling of her sister told her otherwise. She was always doing that, being annoyed over little rebellious things like that. What could she honestly care that she wasn’t upholding the tradition of only eating cookies in July? She was tired of them.

“Put that down!” Her sister hissed, “You are embarrassing us,”

“I don’t see it that way-” she started, only being cut off when her sister picked up half of the citrus fruit and flung it away.

“What was that for!?” She yelped, her eyes watching the path of the orange as it fell down, down, down, until it eventually landed in the arena, right next to the Contemporary member. Her face palled.

“What have you done?”

. . .

Snow looked up at the sound of something hitting the ground beside him. For just a moment, he forgot it was just the two of them in the arena, and imagined the source of the “thwack!”-ing sound being one of his friends hitting the ground beside him. He looked to his side, and was only taken aback by the half of an orange that he saw. It was just sitting there, bleeding orange juice out onto the stone. He had never felt so much like a fruit in his life.

But this gave him an idea, who’s to say that one can’t weaponize what he has? He slowly rose to his feet, claws flicking as he levitated the orange slice in front of him. The crowd quieted for a moment before jeering overtook the cheering, it didn’t make him stop though. Just having a big family wasn’t enough to win.

With that, snow flung the orange, it’s brightly colored skin catching fire as it rocketed through the air. He felt a twinge of pride as it crashed into the Realistic Fiction uncle, burns instantly beginning to show across his skin.

It took less than five second for him to surrender, and, once he did, Snow gladly put out the flames. Really just happy to have made his last move such an oddball, it gave a bit of a reality check to “Realistic fiction” the world is a mess out there buddy, why not have a flaming orange wielding polar bear hybrid show it to you.

More of the first fic in here! :D 2,566 words in this part. (ALSO TW for spiders and mentions of losing the ability to fly. No one did, I'm just saying.)


Techno hummed as walked around the house, inspecting the corners of it and all that. It had been a while since he had really tried to clean the thing, but Phil had gone on his first flying trip in well… a while, and Techno had figured it would be kind to clean it up for him. If he had lost something as important to him as flight was to Phil, he would probably want some sort of celebratory thing after it was fixed.

He sidestepped around a stack of books and peered behind a chair. There was a spider in it, but because it wasn’t one of those giant spiders that could actually do damage, he wasn’t super worried about it. Instead, he carefully picked up a book and slowly began to nudge the spider onto it. Now, once he had the spider secured, he didn’t really know what he wasn’t going to do with it, what with the whole “living in the arctic” thing, but he was sure he would figure something out.

But shockingly, even after he had transferred the little thing safely to a cup (stalling putting it outside in the cold) he didn’t have any bright ideas. He stared at it as it walked slowly across the small piece of page it had access to, it looked very confused. He snorted and flicked one of his ears, not for any specific reason, but rather just because. Couldn’t a man want to be picturesque from time to time?

But instead of getting up and bringing the creature out into the snow, he just stared at it. He watched as it’s little legs made contact with the glass of the cup and he watched it’s tiny beady eyes as it slowly spun. It was such a cute little thing, not at all like the bigger ones that prowled the lands. He glazed behind himself, just checking that there wasn’t one there. He knew how to deal with those stupid bugs, of course, but it was never a good idea to get jumped.

Finally, Techno stood, stretching his arms above his head and vowing that he would bring the spider outside eventually, just… not yet. He was sure he could clean up a bit first, right? He was doing this for Phil after all.

He walked down the hall as he pondered what to do next. He knew his friend probably wouldn’t care for all everything being reorganized (despite how much Techno was itching to do that) and would probably rather just a bit of dusting around the place. That was a completely fine thing and all, but he didn’t really care much for that kind of cleaning, it was boring and just made all the dust get into his nose, subsequently making him sneeze. Sure, it was weird to see all over the place, but it was more of a job he would do with Phil, not for him.

He paused in front of the door outside, debating whether he should open it or not. It would be nice to have some fresh air, but… then again… He glanced out the window, red eyes catching flakes of snow falling slowly to the ground. Sometimes water damage on indoor wood wasn’t so fun. He sighed and turned around, water damage was only half of it really, being a piglin hybrid meant that he got cold a lot faster than some people. Of course, not every piglin or piglin hybrid disliked the cold (he was one of them) but it just got to be a bit too much sometimes. Living in the arctic was fun because of it’s challenges, but he wouldn’t just shove himself into one for no reason, that would be stupid.

He walked back down the hall, trying to think of things to do. (Speaking truthfully, there was a lot that he could think of to do, but he couldn’t seem to force himself to do any of it. Oh well.) He glanced at a bookshelf and flicked his ear again. It was a good collection of books, some on the history of other servers, some on the history of the land here, but a lot on the mythology that could be called “Greek”. Really, he didn’t know why it was called that, it wasn’t like there was some SMP called “Greece”, but it was a cool name and it was full of even more interesting stories.

He looked at the book for a few more seconds, buried in the stories of Zeus and Poseidon, of Minotaurs and Sirens, of many more… Buried I said, that’s what he was. No physical no, but in terms of thought, yes, he was most certainly buried.

Techno shook his head, laughing gently to himself, he didn’t have time for reading! He was supposed to be cleaning the house for Phil! For a nice surprise remember? He certainly felt like he didn’t. (Of course, he obviously did, but it was just a bit hard for him to focus okay?)

So he got to work.

…

For a few minutes anyway, as it didn’t take him very long to go back to staring at the spider on the table, it was small and cute, but not at all fuzzy like the big ones. He wondered what kind it was… They probably had some sort of book on spider identification, but did he really want to go looking for it? Not really. The piglin hybrid sighed and leaned onto the table, it creaked concerningly, but did not give in. What to do, what to do. He wanted to clean, but he was doing everything but cleaning! He put his face into his arms, bonking his nose on the table in the process. This was annoying. That was what he knew.

…Maybe he could make some tea for himself. Yes. That sounded like a good idea, just a nice little cup of tea to calm himself.

Techno stood, both the table and chair whined in response to the sudden movement, but he did not pay the furniture any mind, instead moving over to the fireplace to make the drink. For a moment or two, he just stood in front of it, letting the warmth radiate across his body as he tried to remember where the tea leaves were. The chest by the table? Probably not. He remembered taking them out of there, in case someone came by to take them. Maybe the barrel over the sink? Definitely not, that’s where dishes went. Oh! Of course, his inventory. He checked it, and was not surprised, but still happy when he saw them there.

He dumped several of the leaves into the cauldron over the fire, pulling a stick out of his inventory and stirring them into the water. To be honest, Techno didn’t really know how to make tea, but every time he had done it like this before it had gone okay, so that’s what he did.

When he decided it was finished, he stamped on the fire and pulled the cauldron onto the floor. Water splashed around it’s iron enclosure, making pleasant sounds as it tried to get out. The hot metal didn’t burn his hands, but was only a pleasant warm, despite this, Techno could tell that the tea was done.

He left it on the ground for a moment as he stood to get a cup for himself, and, right when he was reaching into the barrel over the sink, he heard it. A knock on his door. He froze. (Forgetting that Phil was out of the house.) Who could that be? It wouldn’t be Tubbo or Ranboo, they were busy with that… that hotel that they were making. If it wasn’t them, who could it be? His eyes narrowed as his ears flattened slightly, was whoever this was here to attack?

A slightly more impatient sounding knock sounded, but Techno still waited. He looked at the spider in the glass cup and then at the tea on the floor. He did sort of want to know who it was, but at the same time, was a possibly unprepared battle worth it? He could just ignore it, could pretend that he wasn’t home or that he was asleep, there were no windows in this room to give him away…

But when a third, even more urgent knock reverberated through the house, that is when his curiosity got the better of him. He padded slowly to the door, tea forgotten on the floor as he slowly drew his axe. It made no sound against his inventory, it wasn’t a physical thing after all, but he kind of wished that it did. That sort of thing could scare away intruders.

Techno stopped in front of the door, counted to five, and then opened it. However at the sight of who was in front of it, his eyes widened. It was Philza, and some kid. It wasn’t a kid he recognized, not someone for any of the local villages or one of the several teenagers who were more politically powerful, instead, it was just a scrawny, brown haired kid. Now, normally, the sight of one of your closest friends and an unassuming child would not be the least bit frightening, but it worried Techno for two reasons. One: Phil was back and he had barely cleaned the house at all, and, two: this random kid was not someone Techno recognized, which could mean that he was a threat.

He raised his sword slightly, ready to bring it down on this new kid. But, before he could, Phil laid his hand on his shoulder and gave him the sort of look that says, “If you hurt this child I will hurt you,” So Techno lowered his sword, leaving the relieved looking child safe. He wasn’t really happy about it though, growling as he let them into the building past him, he did not trust this dude. He trusted Phil and he trusted himself, but after recent happenings, he couldn’t say that there was really anyone else on that list. He growled again, so this kid was not at all someone he would normally want in his house.

As he followed his friend and the mystery child through his house, his thoughts trailed away from trust and over to myth. There were uncountable stories about betrayal, both in his favorite kinds of mythology, and in others he had only studied in passing. He shivered, trying to remember a specific story to comfort him, but he came up empty handed. Of course, his brain wasn’t working in stressful situations again, what a good sign. He guessed that’s what living on this server did to you. Making your instincts take over in the situations that you deemed dangerous. It wasn’t always a bad thing, as it had saved him many times in the past, but he could sometimes be wrong.

He watched as Phil walked briskly into the kitchen, his wings not quite holding up perfectly, but Techno wasn’t worried, he had seen that back when Phil flew too much in the past. Instead, he was actually happy to see that kind of posture back, because it told him that Phil really was doing okay. (He wasn’t worried about Phil losing muscle from overworking either, because after the bandages, they had been sure to properly heal the wings. And, unlike some other bird hybrids, Phil wasn’t stupid or negligent enough to let his wings reach a stare where they would stop working entirely.) His gaze shifted to the new kid and he had to bite back another growl. He still did not trust the small brown haired boy, even if the only thing he had done was walk behind Philza and look scared of Techno. Acting was a thing, remember?

But when Phil called him into the room, his voice sounding slightly worried, the blade had to follow. I saw that Phil had picked up the cauldron of tea and was now dipping cups into it. It wasn't always the most effective method of getting something to drink, especially if you didn’t want your hands covered in it, but because the cauldron was a real one, he couldn’t just pour the tea out. Techno could have, but he chose not to mention it to Phil, not wanting to disturb the tired looking bird hybrid. Instead he sat down at the table, choosing the seat right across from the brown haired boy. The table was small enough that he could reach out to grab him if he went to run, and this way he could keep his eyes on the child.

The child didn’t seem so happy about this, sinking rather low into his seat and looking at Phil as if for help. Techno didn’t really appreciate this stranger looking to his friend for help, but he didn’t intervene. It wasn’t exactly a crime to be afraid of a tall dude with an axe, it made sense really, but the piglin hybrid still didn’t like it. (And he didn’t have to.)

“So,” Phil finally said, sitting heavily in his chair. Nearly instantly after sitting down, he let his wings fall to his sides, letting them rest as he took a sip of tea. Techno raised his eyebrows as Phil downed the whole cup in one gulp, he must be really tired. After the clanking sound of the cup touching the table, Phil continued, “Gameknight here had so idea what’s going on and I think that he might be able to help us find Tommy,”

His heart dropped as Techno looked at… Gameknight, was it? He shook his head to rid it of the confusion before looking back at the boy. He was cowering even more now, obviously afraid, but he also had a confused look on his face. The mention of Tommy had surprised Techno. He wasn’t really close with him or anything, but his disappearance had worried him and made Phil very sad, so he jumped at the possibility of knowing what happened.

The piglin hybrid reached across the table and grabbed himself a cup of tea, taking a nice long sip of the weird leaf water as he continued to think. If this kid had something to do with Tommy’s disappearance, that would be interesting. But what did “think he might be able to help us find Tommy,” even mean in this situation? It could be anywhere from, ‘he saw him passing through the border and came here to warn us’ to ‘this kid kidnapped him and now he’s here to fess up’. There were kind of infinite options, and Techno wasn’t happy with any of the ones he had thought of so far.

He put down his cup, noticing that the tea that had been in it was gone, maybe he was as tired as Phil as well. He shook his head, fighting a bark of laughter at the thought. He was trying to appear intimidating, not human, come on. He shifted his eyes back to the child, successfully swallowing his laughter as he spoke, “Where are you from kid?” he asked, trying to make the ‘kid’ sound like some derogatory insult as he said it.

But instead of responding, the child simply stared at him, his eyes wide and full of fear. Techno didn’t really know how to respond to that.

2,309 more words of the GK999 thing.

“Can he talk?” whispered the strange man, his eyes were still on GK, but he was definitely asking Phil the question. After Phil staring at him for a moment, the other man caught himself, adding, “Not in some rude way, it’s totally fine if he can’t I’m just wondering,”

Phil laughed at this and nodded, gesturing for GK to answer the question, “It’s okay, Techno won’t hurt you,” Techno, that was his name. Gameknight wondered why it sounded so familiar. (Even ignoring the music style, he was certain that the word was used as a name by someone back home. Plus, he could have sworn that he had seen his sister draw this guy before. The dots were there, but he couldn’t seem to connect them.)

So, instead of answering, Gameknight only shrugged, not knowing how to tell them where he came from. (And also still holding onto the fact that he should not give out personal information online.) There was a pause, Techno tilting his head to the side in annoyed confusion, and Phil blinking at GK with an only slightly worried shine in his eyes. Their eyes bored into him, and, though it was not on purpose, the User That is Not a User found the need to look away, face turning red with embarrassment as they stared. 

His eyes flickered over the room again, taking in all the small details of the kitchen. There was a sink made of a cauldron and several bits of metal the GK knew were not in vanilla Minecraft. He ignored it however, gazing out the window for a moment before remarking, “It’s snowing,”

Techno made a sort of growling sound, though Gameknight couldn’t tell if it was annoyed or amused. “You’re deflecting,” the man pointed out, gesturing towards the brown haired boy, “You aren’t telling us where you’re from.”

Phil nodded, and added onto his friend’s statement, “It’s fine if you are uncomfortable, but it would be very helpful if you could answer the question.” At this Gameknight grimaced, turning his gaze back to the table and letting it land on the spider under a cup. The sight made him queasy. Even though the arachnid was only about an inch and a half long, it was still scary. Though it could be the lack of hugeness that was scaring him. He wasn’t afraid of spiders, they were by no means his favorite creature back home or in Minecraft, but in the game they only spawned at about three feet long. (A bit smaller for cave spiders though.) He had already known that this was not a normal Minecraft world, but the tiny spider only emphasized this. It was wrong.

It was then that he remembered that he was having a conversation.“-I don’t know why he’s not talking, he was interacting with me just fine earlier,” That was Phil. The brown haired boy looked up at his winged ‘friend’. (They hadn’t known each other long enough to be best buds yet.) The blond man was looking at Techno, who looked rather annoyed, as if he had some other things other than sitting at a table to do. 

Gameknight was about to speak up when Phil turned to him, his blue eyes instantly widening at the sight of GK watching him. It was as if he had forgotten he was there while he talked about him. “I’m so sorry if I seemed rude,” Phil tried, reaching out a hand before pulling it back. Maybe he had been going to put it on Gameknight’s shoulder but changed his mind for some reason. 

“It’s fine,” he whispered, internally working up the courage to explain his situation as he looked down at the floor. It was only a moment before he looked up again, stomach churning as he spoke. “I’m the User-That-Is-Not-A-User,” he said.

Techno blinked before looking confusedly to Phil, but the winged man simply shook his head, looking just as lost as his friend. “Are we supposed to know what that means?” the man finally asked, but it wasn’t the accusatory tone that Gameknight had expected. It was closer to one of curiosity, with just a twinge of annoyance under it’s skin. But, even that extra shock didn’t make him much more surprised to hear the words. Every NPC he had ever met had known was he was, and sure, maybe these NPCs didn’t seem to know what an NPC was, and the entire world had felt off from the moment he had gotten here, but it didn’t make much sense for them to not know of that prophecy. 

“I’m a user but I don’t have a server thread.” Gameknight tried to explain, but he quickly stopped when the confused faces on the men only exasperated themselves. 

“Server thread?” Phil asked uncertainty, flicking his wings into a new position before continuing, “User? What do you mean by that?” Techno vigorously nodded at these questions, obviously wanting to ask the very same things.

GK999 felt a chill run up his spine as it was finally fully cemented in his mind, this was not the Minecraft that he knew. He felt his mouth flop open and closed as the realization fully hit him. This wasn’t any place he knew, these were not NPCs at all, how would he get home? The timer on the digitizer was set, but the machine had obviously malfunctioned if he had ended up here, so there was no telling if that safety net was still there, and if it wasn’t, then he couldn’t get home. If he couldn’t get home… He felt himself collapse to the side, far off sounding footsteps connecting as hands grabbed his sides.

It was Phil. Phil was holding him. Phil was trying to keep him from hitting his head on the spruce plank ground. GK began to cry, burying his face into the winged man’s arm, he let the cold green fabric soak up the unstable tears. It felt like it had been so long since he had truly let out these kinds of emotions that it felt kind of overwhelming. 

He felt Phil pull him into a hug, and, though he couldn’t really focus on the words, Gameknight could tell that the hybrid was telling him calming things. He let his head get redirected to Phil’s shoulder as his body shook with sobs. The buildup of emotions had been so much, not just from the time he had spent in this world, but a lot of time before that, that he could not control them anymore. 

He felt another hand on his back, and it only took him a moment of panic for him to realise that it was Techno. The idea of the strange man trying to comfort him made him feel kind of amused, but mostly grateful. He hardly knew these guys, and yet they were willing to help a stranger like him. He wanted to thank them, but every time he tried to, nothing came out. He was too busy crying to truly focus on words. It was uncontrollable, but that was okay. He was fine. He was going to be fine.

. . . Even with his positive thoughts, and both men’s efforts, Gameknight stayed crying for a while longer. He didn’t know how long, but as the sadness slowly filtered away, he realised that he had been wearing armor this whole time. The thought brought a stab of humor to his heart, and also even more admiration for the other two. They had hugged him over a full iron chestplate? It was such a nice thing to do that he managed a weak smile. 

They stayed that way for a while, Phil shaking slightly as he hugged GK’s limp body, it was as if he was remembering doing something like this before. The User That is not a User didn’t really want to think about what that something might be, so he tried to sit up a bit more, Techno pulling away almost as soon as he did. He didn’t seem to like touch, and GK didn’t blame him, it wasn’t usually his favorite thing either. (Apparently he really needed a hug.) Phil stayed holding him for a bit longer, the winged man’s shaking only slightly calming down as GK tried to return the hug. 

Suddenly, Techno coughed. The sound reverberated around the room in a way that made it seem purposeful. (Which, Gameknight could tell, it probably was.) He felt Phil’s grip loosen as both of them looked at the man. “I’m really sorry about whatever just happened,” he started, pausing as Gameknight nodded before continuing, “But you seem to be rather confused, and I’ve found that the best way to not be confused is to get questions answered,” GK glanced at Phil before looking back at Techno, who was scratching his head. “What I’m trying to ask is ‘do you have any questions,’” He said, in such a flat voice that it deserved no question mark. (It was still genuine though, a monotone doesn't change intent.)

Gameknight thought for a moment before he nodded. “Where am I?” he whispered, making intense eye contact with a cup in the middle of the table. He felt Techno and Phil look at each other, as if they were debating telling him the truth. But after only a second of silence he got his answer.

“You are in the nation of the Dream SMP,” Phil said, hesitantly, as if he didn’t really want to reveal his location for some reason. Wait. The Dream SMP? GK sat up straighter, eyebrows knit together. But that’s an SMP, he thought, It’s a roleplay game… He looked up at the man across the table. Techno. Technoblade. His eyes widened as puzzle pieces clicked together in his mind. Philza. I’m surrounded by roleplay characters. They obviously were not the real people that Gameknight knew lived in his world, but rather the characters they played. How the heck was he gonna get out of this one? 

He heard someone tapping their fingers against the table, and was not surprised to realise it was Techno. What did he know about that character…? Not much, he didn’t watch the Dream SMP, only knowing bits and pieces for clips that his sister, Jenny, showed to him. But from what he did know, Technoblade was some sort of piglin thing, and he was good at fighting. What did he know about Phil? He racked his brain, only coming up with things that he had collected while he was here. Phil wasn’t Jenny’s favorite character, so of course GK knew nothing about him. He sighed and put his head in his hands.

“Is it that bad?” asked Phil awkwardly. Gameknight looked up at him, confused. “The nation I mean,” he watched the winged man scratch the back of his head, “We don’t really want to be a part of it if it makes you feel any better,” That didn’t make Gameknight feel any better, but he nodded in thanks.

“That’s great that you are, uh…” it was his turn to scratch the back of his head (though the fingers only landed on iron) as he tried to remember any of the plot of the series at all, “Not allied with Dream,” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Techno look down, as if he was allied with Dream. Phil nodded awkwardly. 

“Do they really not know much about us on the outside?” he asked, voice slightly pained. 

GK shrugged, “I couldn’t tell you, I don’t come from around here,” to himself he added, “I’m not from this world at all,” 

Phil and Techno looked at each other, the shared look of adults who thought a child was lying, just a little bit. 

“Where are you from then?” Techno asked, his lower voice a slight shock compared to Phil’s. The piglin hybrid adjusted his stance on his chair, leaning forwards like he was watching some sort of captivating movie, not a child struggling not to say that they don’t come from this universe at all.

“Um.” GK looked to Phil for help, but only found him looking curiously back at him. “I’m from… Earth I guess,” 

“SMPEarth?” Techno asked, “We lived there,” he looked at Phil who nodded back at him.

“No, just Earth,” GK said sheepishly, sinking down in the chair a little further, “It’s um,” he paused as both men stared at him, “It’s far away.” 

Phil shook his head, “Must be a new nation, I’ve never heard of it,” Techno nodded as if he knew exactly what his friend meant by ‘must be new’. GK was just glad to have an excuse, nodding and trying to think of what he would say if they asked where it was.

But he wasn’t done brainstorming when Techno asked just what he feared, “Where is this ‘Earth’?” he asked, putting up fake quotation marks around ‘Earth’, as if he doubted its existence.

GK sank down even further into his chair and shook his head. “I’m bad with directions,” he excused, “Sorry,” Techno looked to Phil with an expression that said, I don’t believe him, and if you do, you may be stupid. Phil seemed to bite the bullet though, nodding as if GK’s lie had been some fascinating guidebook.

“Past the farlands maybe?” he looked at Techno, “I haven’t been there in a long while, and the Bedrock side of the world has different things common than over here,” Techno’s eyes widened as if that explained everything and Phil continued to speak, “Maybe those ‘NPC’ and ‘server thread’ things are laws or hybrid races over there,”

GK nodded vigorously, leaning into every sort of lie he could hold onto. 

Techno looked at him curiously, “You are really far from home kid,” he laughed.

GK grinned awkwardly, “Oh you have no idea,”

In all, this is 4,316 words I think. (Not counting that in bold) And also this is probably going to be my last post for this SWC, so bye?

Contemporary Cabin Lore Time~ (1,036 words.)
(Note: I refer to pencils as “friends” because in real life I call them my friends and get unnecessarily sad when I lose them. And, second note, I talk about the Unfamous in this a few times, which is a series by @Huntedskelly on Scratch. I recommend checking it out!)

Wind chimes sent their flickering melodies through the air as Bats struggled out the door of the cottage. It was a bit packed in there honestly, and even if she had chosen this cabin for the freedom it would present, she had found that it had been rather loud in there. Much better than those awful cities that Void has terrorized in the past. She shuddered, realizing that her follower count was getting concerningly close to the number that, if he ever came back, that monster would get mad at her for.

Bats closed the door behind her, careful not to let her hair get stuck in it’s hinges, before walking slowly towards the lake by which the cottage sat. She slowed down when she reached the edge, debating for a second if she should take her shoes off and step in… before remembering that she had come out here to write.

She sighed and turned to the table and chair set. (Cherrie had set it up after people had complained about having to sit on the grass if they wanted to write by the water.) But did she really feel like writing right now? She wasn’t sure. Normally Bats (and most other people in her cabin honestly) wouldn’t mind sitting on the grass, but the ground was kind of soggy right now. (Both because of the lake and the recent rain.)

She studied the chairs, suddenly realizing that they would probably be wet too… unless- ah yes. One of the four chairs was much drier than the other three, it appeared that someone had accidentally sat in the puddle of water. (And dried off the chair for themselves afterwards.) Bats snickered to herself and made her way over to the chair, using the edge of her shirt to clean off the tabletop near it. It wasn’t super old water, so it wasn’t like it was really dirty.

After that job was done, the girl plopped down into the chair, noting, as she pressed her back to the back of it, that she had forgotten to clear water from parts of it. She was mostly dry though, so it didn’t matter. Some nice cold water soaking through the back of your shirt was sort of nice really, a good wake up call.

She flicked open her notebook and stared over the pages, inside were the things she had already written for this writing camp, as well as some other things she hadn’t logged. Bats sighed as her eyes passed over notes from the leaders of the camp, she was going to miss them once the camp was over. How much longer was there? She turned in her chair to stare out over the lake, leaving her notebook open to a doodle of a Scratchcrafter.

She thought about it for a while, she wasn’t very good at dates. (She snickered at the accidental aro/ace joke. That too she supposed, even if she did mean the “day of the week” kind.) …What was she trying to remember again? She looked back to her notebook, the drawing of Huntedskelly staring back at her. She closed her eyes in false annoyance as she realized that there were no specific conditions of the idea to recreate it with.

Bats sighed and began flipping through the notebook again, twirling a pen in her free hand as she did. Normally, she preferred pencils, but after others in her cabin had started to conveniently “lose” all her sharpeners, she had switched over to pens. She was sure she’d be back to her normal friends soon, the camp was ending soon, and most people would leave the cottage. She sighed and set her pen on the table, did she want to stay in the cottage after the camp was over? Probably not, she had home to get back too, and Contemporary had not even been her first choice of cabin. …But even with that, the idea of leaving made her sad. She had made so many memories here, and had so much fun, even though she had tried to be in Sci-fi. (To help them of course, their mission had sounded difficult, especially when they were behind on schedule.)

She realized she didn’t want to leave. She had loved this cabin, loved this camp, loved everyone else in the cottage. When she had checked out other people’s writing, it had been amazing, and whenever she had handed her notebook to a cottage owner (usually Cherrie) she had been told so many kind words. She buried her face in her hands, and though the movement was sad, the happy memories were keeping her from feeling truly upset. Everyone in this cabin had been so kind, the packed and overwhelming cottage full of warmth and happiness. (In any normal situation, she probably would have disliked living with so many other people, let alone the rather warm temperature in the cottage, but with all the kind energy that filled the halls, she had been able to push aside those preferences.)

Bats let tears slide down her face. But they were happy, happy to have all these memories of this stupid little camp. …Stupid in the best way possible. A wheezing laugh rang out over the table, and for a moment she was scared that someone had been watching her, but when she looked up and found no one there, she realized that the sound had been her own. The embarrassed laughter that she let fly from that moment was enough to make her wipe her face of tears.

Now it was really time to write. But what to write? She racked her brain for a moment, before remembering that there was a weekly. But should she write the weekly? She laughed, heck no, not in this universe, she was always so sure that the people asking for the weeklys wouldn’t accept her writing. (Not that it wasn’t fun, it was fun, just not quite her thing.) She laughed as she imagined herself writing this one. What was it? Writing about your cabin? Her laugh turned into the wheezing bark it did when she was really amused as she thought about, in some other universe, herself writing this experience.


Character time~ (2,280 words)
(Note: Blue is the dude, Green is the girl. This is pokespe fanfic and I read that translation, deal with it lol.)

Blue stared at Red, the other boy appearing to have the time of his life as he drew. Neither of them were very good at art, so Yellow had taken it upon herself to teach them. But after Green had complained about being hungry, their considerate friend had taken it upon herself to cook them all dinner. After several minutes of uncomfortably loud struggling from the kitchen however, Green had excused herself to help her girlfriend cook. (Yellow wasn’t known to be super good at it, and by the clanking of things that should not be clanking that often, it was clear she was having a hard time.)

So now Blue was stuck in a room with Red. This wouldn’t normally be any sort of problem, but with the fact that they were meant to be making art, it was awkward. Mostly because Blue could not draw, but also because Red seemed to be convinced that he could. Currently, the black haired pokedex holder was scribbling with a crayon over the pen lineart that Yellow had left on the page. She was trying to teach him how to shade, but to Blue it just looked like Red had just received a very high quality coloring book.

The green eyed trainer tilted his head to this side as he tried to get a better look at the page. He had to admit that Red was coloring the drawing very well. There wasn’t much of the “shading” that Yellow had wanted, but the colors were all inside of their lines. (With the exception of a small red streak that ran from the Pikachu’s cheek to its ear. It had been created when a loud slamming sound, followed by laugh-crying, had rang up the stairs from the kitchen. It had been there that Green had decided to leave.)

But other than that, the drawing was pristine. Yellow’s lineart with Red’s coloring was a good mix, Blue decided. He watched as Red pulled his crayon back, the yellow wax thing snapped in half from the ferocity Red had been coloring with, but it had worked out. The Pikachu was now colored in. However, even with the fact that the piece was finished, Blue felt something was missing.

“Can I shade it?” He asked impulsively. Red turned to look at him, his red eyes full of a curiosity. Blue blushed as he remembered that he hadn’t drawn anything this whole session.

His eyes shifted to the drawing, and then back to Red, and then back to the drawing. He paused before speaking, “It looks empty without shading,” he admitted, trying (and failing) to make the words sting.

Red laughed and handed the page over, “Sure!” he said, “Just don’t mess it up,”

Blue gripped the drawing, his fingers making slight folds in the paper, “That’s a tall order.” he commented, reaching for the crayon bucket.

Once his hands were around the container, he pulled, his chest lifting from his knees as the blue and grey crayon holder got closer to him. It smelled awful, like old paper and wax. (He supposed that’s really all that crayons were though, so he couldn’t blame them.) Scribbles coated the inside and outside of it, the ones on the inside from crayons scraping against the sides as they were moved, and the ones on the outside curtosly of Green.

Blue looked down at the drawing he was going to shade, ignoring Red staring over his shoulder as he pondered the best color to use. Maybe orange on the yellow? He looked back at the bucket to pick one out, before pausing, his fingers stopping right over an orange crayon.

The other three colors didn’t really have easy access to darker colors, or redder tints, so it would be useless to use orange on the yellow. At least until he could see what it looked like without it. (Plus, as Yellow had told them, once you tried to put too many colors on one spot, they started scratching each other away.)

Suddenly, Red chose to speak. “Why’d you stop?” Blue nearly jumped out of his skin, he had forgotten that his friend was there.

He looked back at him, and was only partially surprised to see the familiar face right over his shoulder. “I’m trying to pick a color to shade with,” he hissed, trying to sound more annoyed than he was. (He was trying to cover the fear that he had felt a moment before.)

Red pointed into the bucket and put his chin on Blue’s shoulder, forcing the other dexholder to look at the crayons. “I suggest black,” Blue fought the urge to look back at his friend, instead only speaking.

“But that’s like… the darkest color,”

He felt Red shrug. “Yellow told me that black works to shade basically every shade of crayon, the only one it doesn’t really work as well for it white,” he paused before giggling, “Were you even listening to her?”

Blue felt his face flush, “No,” he admitted, “I wasn’t listening,”

Now Red was laughing, leaning back away from his friend and lying back across the floor kind of laughing. Blue rolled his eyes and leaned forwards to the crayon bucket. If Yellow had advised it, it must be true, this wasn’t battling- a loud clang rang up the stairs and Blue grimaced it wasn’t cooking either.

Once he had picked out a truly black crayon, he looked back at the drawing, he noticed that the black portions of the Pikachu were actually a dark grey. Still shadeable, he realized, made happier than he was comfortable admitting by the fact.

He brought the crayon down to the paper slowly, letting it rest for a moment on the underside of the left ear before he began to shade. He moved slowly at first, but soon sped up as he got more used to the ‘creating art’ feeling. After a few minutes, he felt Red sit up again, the trainer resting his chin on his shoulder again. Blue found it rather annoying, but was too busy to tell him to stop.

He could feel Red watching his every movement as he shaded the Pokemon. …but it wasn’t unwelcome. He was far too happy with the drawing for his own comfort, and was honestly sort of happy that he had his friend admiring it.

It only took a few more minutes for the page to be filled. Sure, there was no background, but Yellow was the one with the pen, they couldn’t just add one with crayons. He stared at it for a few more moments before sticking his shoulder blades out.

“Off,”

Ren groaned and rolled his eyes, but he moved back anyway. Blue felt himself vibrate with excitement as he looked down at their creation. It looked good! Maybe he could do art. He picked it up and felt a smile begin to force its way across his face, but decided he was far too happy to push it away. …At least for now.

It was only when the scribbling of crayons reached his ears that he looked up. Once he had located where the sound was coming from, he realised that Red was happily coloring in another page. This one was of a bird, but Red seemed to be having a lot of fun giving it the most obnoxious colors he could have possibly chosen. (It wasn’t a pokemon, or a parrot or something, so bright blue feathers didn’t exactly fit it’s robin-like frame. But Red didn’t care about logic, that much was already clear.)

He set down the Pikachu paper again and crawled over to Red to watch him color. He was seriously good at it, and Blue momentarily wondered if he had ever used coloring books when he was small. Probably. There was no other reason he could think of that would leave a person with that exact skill. It wasn’t exactly something that was passed down through genetics.

Minutes passed as Ren skillfully filled in the lineart. Occasionally, a bit of blue would skip into the air behind the bird, but Blue could tell that his friend was just rushing, why he was rushing was a mystery though. They weren’t getting graded on their crayon-work. He leaned back and sat on his heels, watching as the last few feathers were colored in. He noted small bits of shading in the drawing, places where Red had decided to put a bit less pressure on the crayons. (He was one of those people that colored so dark that you could have thought the paper was dipped in wax.)

Red sat back as well, his head narrowly missing Blue’s as the trainer looked back at him. They stared at each other for a moment, confusion obviously painting Blue’s face as his friend smirked at him. “Shade it,” the red eyed boy pointed towards the drawing, and as Blue’s eyes followed his hand, he felt annoyance bubble inside of him. Did Red really think he was some sort of person that would just shade any drawing he came across?

Blue was shading the drawing. To be fair, this ‘art’ business was a lot more fun than he had first given it credit for. He could almost smell Red’s smug smile as his friend carefully shaded around the feathers on the spread wings of the drawing. Again he was using a black crayon, but this time deciding to add some accents of purple and green. So far, it was looking effective, especially because he used the extra colors sparingly. He had remembered that too much of a good thing was a bad thing, and that rule definitely applied to color in a drawing.

He could feel Red looking over his shoulder, so he tried to complete this one faster, but he soon realised that he didn’t really have to try to. He was a fast learner, and that included the use of crayons to make a drawing look three dimensional.

He put the drawing on the ground, not pausing to look at it this time, he knew he was happy with it. “Got anything else?” he asked teasingly, and to his surprise, Red lifted an already half colored drawing to eye level.

“Got a second to wait?” his friend teasingly asked, leaving Blue to try and choke down a smile as Red turned back to his drawing. This one was of a clump of ferns on the ground, there was a bunch of scribbles to the back of the page that Red had decided to interpret as falling leaves. In all ways, it was more complicated than the two Blue had shaded before, and honestly, he was excited to work on it.

He didn’t have to wait long though, nearly tearing the drawing out of Red’s hands in his rush to finish it. …this was beginning to feel like a race. He pulled out his trusty black crayon as Red reached for another pre-lineart-ed drawing. Oh it’s on. He thought, pulling the crayon over the drawing with expertise and speed that he didn’t know he had.

Once he was done, he set the drawing in it’s pile and went to tease Red, but was surprised but the other trainer smiling smugly at him and holding out a newly colored Meowth. He smirked at Red and took the page roughly, placing it on the ground in the time it took Red to choose another drawing. He shaded it in record time, but was still met by a colored page nearly exactly as he finished his part in the process.

Red looked more smug than ever, and Blue was ready to one up him, so he began his work on the fish drawing. It was more complicated to shade than it was to color, he quickly realized, as he noted the three or four colors on it’s scales, and the several detailed scales to shade. He growled in playful annoyance and sped up. But he was still doing the art well, no matter how fast he seemed to shade, he was only refining his craft. Maybe he could get the upperhand in this.

He set his drawing on it’s stack and, without even looking at it first, took the next drawing from Red. He was going to win this unofficial race, that was the only thing he knew.

…

This continued for a while, and as it did, it became a blur, and only when Red let out an annoyed groan, did Blue realise they had run out of pages to fill. He smirked as he set the finishing touches on his, he considered this a win.

The trainer looked over the stack of drawings, they got slightly worse, and then slightly better as they moved on. It was sort of funny. There was the Pikachu with the red line over its eye, and there was the blue bird (Blue bird with a space, not a bluebird.) and then the mostly green forest floor, and then the fish in it’s watery embrace, and so many more. They made a sort of picture really, and, as Red moved to sit even closer to him, he studied it. All this just slightly amature artwork, it looked great. He was proud of it. Heck, even Red’s less than stellar color choices looked okay.

“Good work,” he whispered, and the laugh that he received in response was even more a reward than Yellow’s voice from downstairs calling up to them too, ‘come downstairs and get your food!’

When she continued with the fact that the sandwich bread had only been dropped twice, Blue found it was his turn to laugh.


Fandom Mix Up Time! (1,000 words exactly.)
(Note: VERY out of context au, I’m not going to explain it either. It has Hetalia, Pokespe, and K-on character(s).)

America looked up at the tree and sighed. It was rather tall. …as trees are. But he was very tired and not thinking quite properly. After they had made their way out of the Pokemon world that England had teleported them too, things had felt kind of off. He had to admit, he missed the murderous little magical animals running all over everything.

A ding sounded from his phone, and he dragged his eyes away from the treetop and pulled the small plastic and glass box out of his pocket. On it was a message from an unknown number, normally, he would just delete and block those, but right now he was feeling curious, so he read it, “Hello! I realized I couldn’t talk to you all in person anymore, and I felt kind of sad about it, so I made this group chat! I hope it works across dimensions…”

His eyes widened as he recognized the typing style, and raced himself to open up his phone, unlocking it with speed that couldn’t even be rivaled when he remembered that he hadn’t gotten his daily Hungry Shark Evolution coins yet.

“Is this Yellow?” he hurriedly asked, before pausing for a moment and thinking very hard about the whole situation, “How do you have my number?” he added.

He watched the little typing marks bop up and down for a few seconds before he received, “Yeah, I’m Yellow,” he waited as the circles moved around again, for a bit longer this time.

“England gave me some of your numbers right before you all left.” She must be typing at the speed of light, he thought as he watched the dots dance about their little speech bubbles again, “I just remembered that I had them, so I made a chat,”

America laughed out loud and began to type back, “Are any of your friends in here?” he asked, his fingers fumbling over some of the letters as he wrote. Yellow wasn’t the only one that he missed of course.

It took only a few seconds for Yellow to respond that, no, her friends were not in this chat, but that she could invite them if he really wanted them to be. At this America assured her that he was fine for now, but mostly very happy to be able to talk with a friend that he had assumed he would never meet again. Yellow had sent some sort of happy emoticon in response, and that was about the end of their conversation for then.

…Don’t worry they spoke after that. Eventually, Yellow managed to invite Silver into the chat, and America could almost imagine the embarrassment on the red haired trainer’s face as Russia joke flirted with him. (He had responded smoothly, but sent a few too many “XD”s afterwards. Russia found this very funny.)

The nations (mostly America, but a few others too) continued to talk with the dex-holders over the months that followed, their conversations full of the kind of things that any non-cross dimensional friendships would. Yellow constantly sent them pictures of her six guinea pigs and her pokemon, followed by at least a few nations and one or two dexholders cooing over them through text and emoticons. One day, America decided to send back some pictures of his pet cat, and Yellow went absolutely feral. (In a… positive way.) Apparently, she had always wanted a cat, but in her world, they were a bit more rare than most pokemon, especially in the area of Kanto she lived in, so she had never been able to get one.

America had asked if this was true, and Red had come to his rescue and said that, yes, it was hard to own a pet cat in the Viridian Forest. (America didn’t ask why he knew how it was in a place that he didn’t live in, and instead chose to spam pictures of the cat. (Yellow was very appreciative.)

Only when they added Yui did things truly go crazy. The guitarist chose to explain that she had a concert in an hour and she had broken her guitar string… instead of trying to fix it. (Japan had quickly pointed this out, and the girl had typed a quick little “:0” before disappearing for three hours.)

Once she was back, everyone celebrated her return in the form of cute little fancams of her and her band, After School Teatime. Some had been made in the time she had been gone (Yellow begged for clips, as her form of the internet didn’t have them.) and some had been found on… the bird app. Yui thanked them and explained that she only fell on stage once this time, which received many praises from the general chat. (Because apparently she normally fell a whole lot more than that. She was rather clumsy wasn’t she.)

Occasionally, Yellow would choose to excitedly talk about Pokemon battles that her friends had recently had, before realising that the nations (and Yui) could not have them and apologizing for her excitement. Every time however, someone told her that being told about dragons that were not dragon types and electric rodents fighting was just as good as being there. And then Yellow would continue with the same amount of, if not more, joy than she had been moving with before.

From time to time, Japan would mention the group chat that was only him, Yellow and Yui, but America wasn't exactly mad that he wasn't in it. He could only guess what they talked about in it, and to be honest, he wasn't foaming at the mouth to get it. (Who really wanted to talk for hours about how to properly make cosplay wings and what kinds of art was the best. Animation, sketch or music. (It was music by the way.)) Where he was right now was comfortable enough, and America was very happy that England had accidentally sent them all to a different universe on that random day.