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It’s another gorgeous day in New L’Manberg. Tubbo’s stilted streets of deep toned spruce and honey-touched oaks are warm under his feet from the sun, and a sign and a small banner proclaim the country’s name in front of his face. Wilbur is so happy to let the ‘L’ roll of his tongue as he says it, ‘Manberg’ was harsh and too guttural, but the two extra syllables make it something that could fit on a melody, a four-note beat he could set the pace of his unbeating heart to.
The citizens of New L’Manberg track him with cautious eyes at first, until Tubbo changes his eyes to slightly sad ones, listening along to Wilbur’s rambles, warming up to the truly soot-grey sight of his face and sunshine yellow of his ever-present sweater. The rest of the population soon follow, laughing at Wilbur’s strange innocence and telling him what he’s done with only a little bit of spite in a pitying mask and fixing their mouths in a line when he suddenly forgets what he’s doing or stares into space or laughs at nothing.
But all the people who get sad when Wilbur starts laughing after shock-still silence are dumb.
Because Wilbur’s not laughing at nothing.
Schlatt’s right there saying some cynical comment, sticking his fully-transparent hands through his own torso or mirroring every one of Tommy’s gestures while he speaks.
Wilbur doesn’t know why nobody else can see Schlatt. They match, now, a pair of grey figures younger than anyone else had seen them, identical sweaters except in colour; gold and blue. They match, like sun and sky and water and flame and sapphire and citrine and terracotta and another tone of terracotta, probably.
There’s no scars from explosions on their limbs, no shiny pink from lava poured, no chipped teeth of fists or gouges from swords left on their expanse of skin.
But there is a string wrapped around their pinkies and it is an intertwined thread of blue and yellow, and sun and sky and water and- stretching as they move apart and winding close when they meet.
The string, that fragile connector, has been there ever since they had huddled together in endless rain, became loose and languid as they bantered, frayed at the edges during magma, and became wisp thin, so easy to pretend didn’t bind them both, during war.
It tugged them both into leadership, the same heavy weight on their neck, a waiting sword, and then as they made their deal, shook their hands, the string wrapped tight around and sealed them once more, yellow and blue and a fuse and a trigger and- binding their lives and deaths and a country.
Schlatt had injected the poison in his veins and waited.
Wilbur felt it seep through his veins as it happened, still talking with Dream. There was black slowly oozing over the blue string and Wilbur had frozen in terror where he stood. In the camarvan, he’d wanted to rush at Schlatt and hold him and scream at him in anger at the same time. But everyone was there- and Schlatt immediately turned his eyes to Wilbur’s and stared, until Wilbur made the slightest incline of his head- a nod.
After Wilbur blew up his symphony, his home, L’Manberg, he laughed, glancing at his own fading string. It was over, and now he could be too. So he pulled out a sword by the blade and let it break his skin and gave it to Philza, blood running down his hands and onto his greying string.
As Philza plunged the sword into his chest, he let out a shaky breath and held his hand up, pinkie extended and eyes fluttering in pain.
Philza- Phil had reached out to cradle his face and caught him as he fell, and the last thing Wilbur saw was his string flicker a brighter shade of yellow- tangible, now, and Phil’s wide eyed stare as he could see it too.
Wilbur’s forgotten most of that by now, except for the sweet relief of a sword in his chest and a glitter of a string.
Phil is now the only person who doesn’t question Wilbur’s strange new tendencies. When Wilbur meets Schlatt’s eyes and listens, Phil tries to look where he does, goes silent as if trying to make out a whisper. Schlatt appreciates it, and if Phil tries hard enough, he can almost make out a glitter of a string on Wilbur’s hand, arcing to another point in the air.
When Wilbur greets Tubbo and Quackity, he waits for them to acknowledge Schlatt until the blue-clothed ghost tells him not to worry about it and whispers the last topic of conversation into his ear. Wilbur had forgotten.
Wilbur doesn’t know why Schlatt doesn’t just- walk on the floor as he does, but the thought slips from his mind when Schlatt gives him another idea to build. Schlatt doesn’t build himself, but directs the ideas.
“Tell me what you remember,” Schlatt asks, watching in midair as Wilbur assembles the paper lanterns. Wilbur blinks up at him and then back down at the lanterns, eyelashes low and jaw clenched in concentration.
“Well- I mean.”
He stays silent for a moment. Finishes the last lantern.
“That’s alright, we can do it afterwards. Wanna light ‘em up, Virgo?”
Wilbur grins at Schlatt and rummages through the chests in New L’Manberg, blocks of all sorts but no fire starting materials. Wilbur wonders why aloud and Schlatt winces. The search for a flint and steel is useless until Schlatt points out smaller lanterns they could place inside.
Wilbur attaches each lantern to a thread as silvery as his own and ties them to the stilts so the lanterns bob and drift in the breeze but don’t fly away.
“How did you know how to make these? They’re like the ones I used to make with Phil,” He breathes, and blinks at the hovering shape of his friend in the air.
Schlatt laughs, almost ruefully. “Yeah. You told me that.” He sighs before a smile pulls at his eyes. “Now, tell me what things you can remember today.”
Wilbur’s memory slowly gets better as the days pass. He still never directly knows what really happened after the election asides from what people tell him, and he really doesn’t want to know, so he doesn’t listen, and lets Schlatt distract him by doing little bits or pretending to get mad when someone else can’t hear him speak. Schlatt is very good at knowing when he wants to be distracted.
Schlatt also gets into the habit of reminding Wilbur where he was in a conversation, or telling him what to say when the visible ghost is at a blank. He also hushes Wilbur and tells him to reply ‘I don’t know who that is,” when they ask if Wilbur remembers Schlatt. Wilbur gives the empty space beside him a narrowed glare before returning to conversation.
But sometimes Wilbur wakes up and is surprised to see Schlatt- He hadn’t told Wilbur he was going to visit DreamSMP. Other times he thinks they still lived in SMPLive and was confused at his surroundings. A few very bad days Wilbur doesn’t remember Philza had adopted him yet and looks the age he was before then- and Schlatt looks that young too, horns not even a crown around his head, taller than Wilbur, and as if they should be squabbling over Ward or a nickname and as if they’d never wear a suit or military uniform.
The one thing Wilbur never forgets is the string and Schlatt. They’re yellow and blue, and how could you forget yellow and blue?
One day Wilbur is almost asleep, leaning on Schlatt’s shoulder and eyes drooping. He thinks he hears the familiar American accent mutter something before he drifts off. It sounds like ‘You lose your mind and I lose my body, huh?’
He doesn’t remember it in the morning. The pair of yellow and blue and a single twined string instead sink in the river and crack up laughing.
When it’s the day of Schlatt’s funeral, Wilbur and Schlatt stay far away, instead chatting away with Tubbo, and after a while, they take a small break from building and sit in the library, the three of them, actually Schlatt just stands upside down on the ceiling and makes dumb shadow puppets behind Tubbo’s head and Wilbur and Tubbo share stories. Schlatt whispers a few of his own into Wilbur’s ear to recite.
Tubbo then- in a slightly shy voice, asks if Wilbur knows any of ‘those stories about the strings? That tie people together ‘n stuff?’ Wilbur replies a simple “Yes.”
Tubbo’s parents had told him about the strings, long ago, and he’d fall asleep before taking in a single word, but the threads of the lantern’s tethers had reminded him, and he’d just wondered-
Wilbur tells Tubbo about how one day, with one person, it only takes that feeling of being so inplace, so intertwined, and both of you blink and lock eyes and then flickers the string- It doesn’t even have to be a long time, maybe a stranger or co-worker or a boy who got locked in a god’s own godless prison for a few days with you, and your string lights up around your fingers and meets the other’s hand. If you let it. You have to let it, reach your own hand and touch each other’s. Then there’s two colours, and they’re bound together and so are you.
“You can change your mind, hate the person, hate the string- it’ll still be there, fraying away and just staying there makes you want to cut off your own hand, but it’s there and it binds you still. You both bind yourself to a place, to a role, and in the end you might shake hands and let the string twine strong once more- And death when it’s twined is a siren call to both.”
Tubbo gives his own pinkie finger a glance and then a curious one, a theorizing blink, at Wilbur’s.
After that, Wilbur helps shore up the canyon with Tubbo and Schlatt hovers and they give Tubbo their advice on being president.
How it’s best to get a pillow to scream in at night when nobody’s around, (Wilbur) and to not sleep but watch from the halls how everyone hates you behind your back (Schlatt) and that you may be the bad guy, (Yellow) and that you should probably sweep your office everyday because dust bunnies repopulate like real ones, (Blue) and that everyone will always think you have the answer, so you have to give one, (Sun) and that getting drunk makes any sting go away eventually, (Sky) power makes you want to die and that what once made you scared should be how the thing turning you mad dies. (YellowandBlueandLemonsandOceansand)
Tubbo says he thinks he’ll learn a different way. Wilbur and Schlatt nod.
Wilbur wakes up one day and begins crying. He doesn’t like being alone and Schlatt must still be down in his home and he’s going to drown and-
“Wilbur? Hey, Wil, come on buddy, I’m right here. I was just outside and looking around, it’s alright.”
Schlatt reaches out in spectral form, yellow and blue intertwined string the brightest part of him.
“Why’re you floating? I thought you were still underwater in that stupid house of yours.” Wilbur is still sniffling and wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater.
Schlatt seems to wince and tugs Wilbur up to his feet. “A really bad ‘bad day’, huh. And you’re- young.” He looks down at his own strange visage and seems surprised. “So am I. Well, we’re not gonna get flooded, see?”
Schlatt pulls Wilbur through a tunnel- a pipe? And then outside is a city of wood on stilts and overlooking a canyon, almost, of stone and rocks and rubble looking as if it’s been mostly cleared away.
“No, don’t worry, we’ve got a completely normal water level. High and dry.”
“Oh.” Wilbur follows Schlatt and they sit on the grass, both of their hands strangely grey beside their strings and well- Actually Schlatt’s entire face and hair and- everything but his sweater, really, is grey.
“What do you remember?” The question is sudden.
Wilbur fiddles with the grass between his fingers, those fingers that look like the colour was drained and are just ever so slightly see-through.
“I’m pretty sure when I woke up I’d thought we were in- that place- you know, where there was floods, and I’d thought you were still in your dumb house and we were fighting- But we aren’t, are we?”
“Nope. We , you and me? We’re all good.”
Wilbur gazes at the strange new city and fixes his gaze on a familiar flag.
“Isn’t that the L’Manberg flag? Is- Are we in L’Manberg?”
“Yeah. They’ve started calling it New L’Manberg. Hey, do you want to go inside? It might be a good idea, I mean, you’re not doing as well today as-”
A distant shout of Wilbur’s name steals his attention from Schlatt’s nervous speaking.
There’s a blond man in a red and white shirt and broad shoulders running towards Wilbur, something outstretched in his hands and a glittering wide smile.
Wilbur stands and Schlatt’s face freezes, going to grab Wilbur’s hands and starts to tug until the man comes up over the grass on the hill.
“Wilbur, I have your-” His warm and husky voice cuts off and he halts in his steps, eyes flitting over Wilbur’s frame. “Wilbur?”
“Hullo!” Wilbur tilts his head up to look at the man, who seems very shocked and slightly worried. He comes up to the man’s chest.
Schlatt takes in a quick breath and scrubs a hand into his hair and over a nub of a horn.
“Fuck.”
“Wilbur? Is- are you?” The man’s voice has taken an incredulous tone. “You’re fuckin’ short!”
“You’re tall.” Wilbur replies.
Just then, another blond man, this time with slightly worn crinkles at his eyes and a swishing robe of some sort walks to the group, face soon turning like how Blond Man #1’s did.
But he stumbles forwards and falls to his knees, an open mix of horror and pity and- love? in the set of his mouth and the slope of his eyes.
“Wilbur? You’re so young…” He blinks and searches for air, and upon a moment his eyes lock onto where the twist of yellow and blue wrap around Schlatt’s finger.
“I’m Phil, Wilbur. This is Tommy. How- How old are you?” He asks.
Wilbur’s smile brightens. “I’m 13 and Schlatt is 11! But he can float.”
Taking Wilbur and Schlatt away from a spluttering Tommy, Phil lets Wilbur eventually take a nap on his couch, where Wilbur wakes back to the standard height and doesn’t remember why he’s there.
Schlatt learned how to nearly manipulate a pen to almost his exact handwriting.
Phil relaxed Tommy the next day about Wilbur and being a ghost and forgetting. He doesn’t tell Tommy that Wilbur is followed by his once-mortal enemy. Tommy returned Wilbur’s book about what he’d remembered (it was a bad day, that one,) and Schlatt told Wilbur not to try and write them down anymore.
New L’Manberg is gorgeous in the early light of a sunrise, Wilbur finds, a rising glow of yellow melting the night into pinks and reds and eventually a wash of blue.
Schlatt walks to his side and slumps down into the long fronds of grass that tickle Wilbur’s chin. Tubbo had planted grass seeds and flowers in a patch of dirt he’d remembered Wilbur used to play his guitar on. There’s now a garden of daffodils and cornflowers and sunflowers sit with blueberries and bees drift past butterflies on the wind.
Schlatt’s able to whisper his jokes and greetings to Phil and Tubbo if he tries hard enough, and he’s getting better at throwing things into Tommy’s head.
Wilbur’s memory only needs a little jogging from time to time and he doesn’t wake up thinking he’s about to be swallowed by lava or water or fear.
They think Tommy and Quackity have noticed flickers of their blue and yellow, yellow and blue, intertwined strings. It’s all rather okay and good.
Wilbur is still thought of as strange for talking to himself, and is seen galavanting and laughing at nothing, but it’s alright. He isn’t alone.
He’s intertwined, intertwined with yellow and blue and sun and sky and butter and jam and two colours of the New L’Manberg flag, isn’t he? Blue and yellow may have meant drowning and bruises or fireworks and a box or a blade and a fuse all that long ago, but now they’re both the colours of parrot feathers and the night sky and the morning sky and the garden they like to sit in.
Two sweaters.
Two strings.