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I.
Sing, O Muse, for the fate of the women destined to witness the cruelty of the world,
To those who are unable to take the fates into their own hands,
Sing of those who witnessed the birth of the world,
And left their fate to be forgotten.
Sing of those who witnessed the rage of man,
And were not able to live until they held the fire themselves.
Sing of those who witnessed their children be destroyed by their own hubris,
And continued to make monsters out of men.
Sing of those who witnessed corruption come from the world itself,
And made roses to bloom.
Sing of those who witnessed a home become empty,
And still lit the hearth.
Sing, O Muse, for the women who will witness the End,
And tell no stories of the death.
II. Nyx - Alyssa
i.
Alyssa was one of the First. She was there when Dream took his closest gods and whispered in their ears telling them of a way to create a world of their choosing. She was there when Sapnap and George did not hesitate, but Sam did. Bad rolled his eyes and Ponk laughed at the notion. She said nothing, but stepped forward.
Dream brought them to where the End was its most silent. An obvious hidden nook for the others to not witness what they were committing. It was a crime against their brethren, but it was nothing compared to the mad chaos in Dream’s eyes. They knew that if the others dared to come, it would be bloodshed that was victorious on their side. Dream chose his six, not for love or friendship, but a signal to the others that the strongest sided with Dream. They may be young, but they were vicious enough to kill and it was all Dream needed.
She felt the End curiously push at her hand, demanding to know what she was going to do. Alyssa simply let it roll around her hand, she would not let it speak to Kristen about their plans before Dream could do what he needed. She lightly tightened her hold allowing her soul to choke the abyss that surrounded them. It shrouded them more and more into the silence of the absolute End.
Alyssa stayed in the outskirts of the group happy to watch at this moment then actively trying to figure out what Dream was doing. She kept her hold tight on the End and noticed how Dream seemed to grasp what she was doing. Although she could not tell if Dream was smiling due to the mask that covered the bottom of his face, a false protection for his enemies. The thought of the monster underneath being leashed by a simple white porcelain mask typically made her laugh. Still she knew he was smiling towards her with whatever mouth was under his mask.
Finally it seemed like the show started as Dream turned to the others and spread his arms. Alyssa softly chuckled at his dramatic nature, taking influence from those he tended to surround himself with.
“We can be gods!” he exclaimed. A little too confident for someone who is one of the gods of creation already. Alyssa and Ponk couldn’t hold their chuckles, while the others just sighed at Dream.
“We’re already gods, Dream,” Sapnap told him. He still ran to Dream’s side to throw an arm around him. All of them knew that Sapnap just wanted to tease Dream, “or did you lose your powers and not tell us?”
“No,” Dream said, “you don’t understand, we can be the gods of gods.”
“If they find out we are planning to overtake them, we will be destroyed,” Sam started. An obvious statement, but no one is turning back or threatening to tell yet. Alyssa knows that they were chosen for their ability to say yes to chaos and accepting the consequences that came afterwards.
“They won’t,” Dream stopped Sam. He seemed a little too confident for Alyssa and she knew that Sam felt the same way. It was different to create and play on a world, but what Dream was hinting at was a complete takeover. Dream got shrugged Sapnap’s arm and got close to Sam, “they won’t, because we have each other.”
“We might not be enough,” Sam said.
A statement that would have been true if they were not the seven with some of the strongest planes. With Alyssa, Dream, George, and Bad alone, they were a scary group for anyone to dare to challenge them. Adding Sam, Sapnap, and Ponk only confirmed that their strength was unparalleled. The only ones that would dare to possibly beat them was the Sleepy Bois and they were too busy with Tommy at the moment to even think of war.
“We are,” Sapnap said. “The seven of us are smart enough to control the world and c’mon Sam, we got you to keep us safe.”
Alyssa could still feel the hesitant emotions that lingered around Sam, but he settled down. “I’ll keep you safe until the end of the world.”
Dream laughed, “Till the end of the world! The seven of us are until the end!”
The seven of them broke into laughter, starting to tease both Sam and Dream for their dramatic nature and need to confirm their bond. It was almost strange for them to gather around in this tiny corner of the End. The seven of them were committing the worst crime they could, yet they were standing around talking and laughing as if they were simply playing a prank against the Elders. In that corner at the End, the seven of them were the closest they ever were. Children playing pretend and grabbing the power they were told to run away from.
In the End, seven gods stood around. Dream was in the center with a mask hiding his smile from the others, Sapnap pulling at him and George rolling his eyes at him. Sam stood, confidence growing as Ponk spoke to them about the precautions they were taking to ensure if something bad were to happen and how he would handle the injuries. And Bad was staring at Alyssa.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “He won’t let you go easily.”
“I’m sure,” she said. “And he will. He’s Dream and he loves us.”
As if to challenge Bad’s statement, Alyssa tightened the End surrounding them. Creating their own space for them to commit the worst crime that the seven of them could.
ii.
The next step was shared amongst them with stars above and under them the End beckoned them to their death. Alyssa teased at it, slowly allowing it to pull at her soul. She could feel the rush of the abyss enter her body. A familiar sensation brought on from her studies under Kristen. Alyssa could feel its curiosity and need to know every single element of what they were doing. She smiled at its almost playful nature. She was lucky that her plane was kind, she could not imagine having Technoblade’s plane that keeps demanding blood. At that thought however, it seemed like End got excited at the thought of death entering its abyss.
Alyssa quickly poked at it, not finding Kristen anywhere, but instead a high anticipation rising throughout the End. She poked at it in confusion, but it did not dare to say anything. She felt like it knew something more than she was capable of finding out.
“Alyssa?” Dream asked. She shook her head, pulling away from the End and got closer to Dream and the rest of her friends.
Dream brought them closer until they were huddled up with not even a sliver allowing to be shown to the outside. Dream’s eyes brightened as he turned to each of them one by one, then he pulled out a knife. The knife was a stark white bone, rumored to be from the bone of the XD and Kristen’s goddess, Prime. The knife belonged to XD and Kristen, a shared knife establishing Life and Death’s connection to one another. Dream having this knife was going against Prime, the one goddess no one ever dared to go against. She knew Callahan was the last to hold it under his apprenticeship under XD, but Alyssa knew he would still not willingly hand it over.
She felt the End challenge her, questioning why she was daring to go against its mother. She quickly tightened her hold on it, Alyssa realized that if they were discovered this would create more destruction than any of them originally thought Dream was capable of.
“You didn’t,” she said. Her words were slowly shadowed by the others’ yells at Dream. She listened to them just yell at Dream for answers as she just kept looking at the knife. It felt like she was staring at her doom that was yet to come.
“How?” she finally spoke up.
The others became silent, they all turned towards Dream asking for answers to the impossible. Dream just stared back at her as if he knew every single thought running through her head at that moment. She pretended for a moment that he would turn away from his impossible goals, that for once the unachievable was not a challenge for him but an obvious end to his mischief. She pretended that she was not curious of his own destruction and her own need to witness it. Alyssa may have been one of his favorites, but she was never one to fear the End like him and many others.
“I stole it,” Dream said. “Callahan may have purposefully let it out for XD for me. I can’t let you back down if you decide this is too much for you. We are doing this till the end of the world”
“Then we set rules,” Alyssa replied. “If we do this, then we control every element of what we create.”
“Rules? C’mon, Alyssa!” Sapnap exclaimed, but he was quickly shut down by an elbow from George.
“I agree,” George said. “If we’re doing this, we need to ensure nothing is out of our control. Easier for us when others come in.”
“Others?” Sam asked, but no one listened to him.
“Fine,” Dream sighed. “Can’t let me have fun. Let’s hear them.”
“Three lives,” Ponk spoke up. They moved away from Sam’s side, “Ensures that mistakes can be made, but death cannot be a commodity. The only way for it to occur is if a life is taken, no other means. Death must have a meaning.”
“Just like how Kristen would have phrased it,” George replied. A smile towards Ponk with a knowing glance that told of knowledge that Ponk hated he knew. “A community house, where everything is shared and safe from destruction.”
“Are you scared of your stuff being destroyed?” Sapnap teased.
“I’m scared of your inability to keep your flames to yourself. You really should learn self control,” George bit back. “It’s a place where the seven of us are meant to be. Together.”
“No farms,” Bad finally spoke. “Would slow down the world and make us lose grasp of our control. Easier to ensure it doesn’t happen.”
“Is that all?” Dream asked.
“No End,” Alyssa said. She felt the others’ eyes on her, but she focused on Dream’s.
“No End?”
“No one is allowed in the End, unless it is the end of all. Afterall, we cannot be split until the end of the world, so let’s make sure it never happens,” Alyssa watched as Dream slowly realized what she meant. He threw his head back and laughed. She felt proud for causing it for once. “We are together until the end of the world, so let’s never end.”
“Till the end of the world!” Dream yelled. He clapped and brought the knife back to attention.
Each of them held their breath as Dream slowly brought it up to his hand. He closed his hand around it and let it slide out of his hand. Blood poured from where the blade used to be and it slowly poured to the floor. It seemed to weave within itself, the blood becoming string as it created the base for its piece. Alyssa felt her body push against itself for abandoning her morals for excitement. They were committing a crime that was against every single atom within their own body and Alyssa couldn’t wait.
Once Dream’s blood settled into a woven piece, he passed the knife to Sapnap who took it eagerly. She watched as his blood seemed to clot far more than Dream’s did. His blood seemed to light itself, the same way that the flames surrounded him. She watched as the blood merged into Dream's, settling itself in gaps where it was the hottest. Alyssa heard George laugh at the notion, saying how his hotheadedness followed into his creations. But she was fascinated by the notion of the bright flames never burning Dream’s blood and creation, but instead combining itself to fit it. They were the perfect example of the two people whose world seemed to merge into one and never allowing the other to destroy one another.
George was next, his blood coagulated into the plants and created itself within grasping the other two’s creations. He was the trees that surrounded all they created, a life that bound itself in giving what it could to those that he loved. She witnessed how he tended to be the protector and a giver with cold eyes that never betrayed his emotions. Sapnap teased him back about how he was going to burn George’s creation down, but they all knew that he would never.
Sam’s blood formed the ocean, a clear pool of blood followed around, giving access to lands that would have taken too long to trek. Alyssa noted how he seemed to be proud of it and she was surprised there was no disappointment for being the creator of the mines and the depths. She knew that this was purposeful and feared what it could mean in the future.
It was Bad whose blood turned the darkest and fell through the other’s blood. Heavy in its own right due to his origins, but an obvious marker for what comes below. She felt his blood settle within the others, giving a new path below and through the portals that would be created. It was a piece she recognized and accepted, knowing that it was the basis of his soul.
When Ponk’s blood settled, it became the lives of those around them, both good and evil. Mansions and homes appeared in biomes created by the others giving them access to items they could not previously have. Ponk gave them what they could not get from the others. She smiled at the feeling of entering a world that had life outside of the seven of them.
Finally, it was Alyssa’s turn. The blade was heavy against her palm, the weight of knowledge she should not know, but would demand to. It was her last chance to get away from what they were doing, turn back and never be found out for her crime. She did not hesitate. When she slid it against her palm, she winced at the pain, but accepted it for what it would give to her.
Her blood turned the darkest out of all of them. It settled outside of all the other’s, instead it settled around them that moment. She was their piece to the End, back towards the other gods. Alyssa was their escape and their end. She was the witness to the destruction and the creator of their doom and it was glorious. She felt the others stand up a little straighter as she turned to all of them.
“I thought you said no End?” Dream asked.
“I meant that we are not meant to go there, but not that it wouldn’t be there,” she said. “It’s mine to control. I will choose when the game ends.”
iii.
When they entered into the world, Alyssa felt the heat of the world they created. It was hotter than the cold of the End and she instantly hated it. She wished for the cold that seemed to linger in her bones from the End. She was never one to find respite when the weather got hotter. If she could, she would have demanded a colder environment, but as she witnessed the others settle into the sunny area she accepted her fate.
George found himself on top of a small hill as the others wandered slightly away taking in the world of their creation. He seemed to see something that none of them could see which she blamed for whatever blessing XD placed on him due to being the god’s favorite. One manifesting in a physical form, that being the white rimmed sunglasses that always framed his face. Alyssa never understood their purpose, but she knew it must be important enough for someone like George to keep them on.
“I think this would be a good community house,” George announced.
“Finally, we could take a break from this heat,” Ponk complained. Alyssa smiled at how she kept complaining even when Sam got closer and tried to quiet them. Ponk was always one to be stubborn even when they shouldn’t be and Sam was always one to try to placate them. It was always her favorite entertainment to watch when it came to Ponk interacting with their elders.
Elders that wouldn’t be here anymore to save them from their mistakes.
“You know it’s going to be hotter in the Nether right?” Sapnap teased. Always one to highlight how he could handle hotter climates. No one would dare to exclaim that Bad came from even hotter and how Alyssa could handle the ultimate cold. It was a shared thought between the other six to keep Sapnap happy whenever he bragged to them. It was easier, they joked. It was better to see him smile brightly at them, they all thought.
“Then Sammy can handle the heat, while Alyssa and I stay in the community house,” Ponk snapped back. They wrapped their arm around Alyssa, stopping her from attempting to cut down the tree in front of her. She rolled her eyes at him and elbowed them off. “You know we can’t handle the heat.”
“Exactly, I expected Alyssa to complain, not you,” Dream noted. He looked towards her. “How are you handling it?”
Alyssa swung at the tree, “I can deal with it. Not like we can get to the End. I’ll find a mountain or something high.”
“There should be some colder biomes,” George brought up.
“Too far,” she replied. “I want to stay close.”
“Better for us to be close than be far away in case anything happens,” Bad continued. “We should start the community house if we don’t want to be out too late.”
“Can’t we explore more?” Sapnap asked. When the others said nothing, he turned towards Dream who laughed at his sad eyes. “Dream, c’mon. We could do a manhunt!”
“I am not doing a manhunt against six people,” Dream replied. He lightly pushed at Sapnap. “That would be too easy for you guys to win.”
“Is that a challenge?” Sapnap seemed to light up at the thought of beating Dream in a manhunt.
Alyssa laughed at the blank face Dream created and she was not the only one. George could not help his chuckle and Bad shook his head. It was always so hard for Dream not to accept a challenge, especially from Sapnap.
“I feel like that is a bad idea in general,” Dream shook his head. He turned to Alyssa which surprised her. He seemed to watch her for a few moments before he said, “and the End is closed, how do we decide who wins?”
“Can’t we open the End for one manhunt?”
“It's never one manhunt for you,” George replied. “If we open the End, that's the end of this world.”
“C’mon, Sapnap,” Dream threw his arm around Sapnap. “We wouldn’t want our fun to end so soon, because of a manhunt would we?”
Sapnap nodded in disappointment. Alyssa smiled softly to herself and shook her head. The axe felt lighter in her arms as she heard the other start to pick out resources, with many debates going on about what the community house should be made of. Each swing felt as if she was releasing any remaining tension left in her.
Alyssa was surprised that she was not scared of what could happen next. The elders could decide to go against them and attempt to punish them. She knew that her title was an honorary one, one that held power but not enough at the elder she was learning from. Each of them were in a similar situation with the only exception being Bad who was slightly older than him and close to an elder named Skeppy. All of them could lose everything so easily, yet Dream was willing to take the chance and break all the rules they were taught.
Once she was done clearing a few trees, she turned around to find George by himself at the top of the hill that he claimed.
“Where’s the others?” she asked. Curious how she let herself be controlled by her own thoughts.
“They’re mining,” George replied. He looked up at the sky, “Dream wanted to kill Sapnap’s extra energy off.”
Alyssa shook her head, “I’m surprised he’s still so energetic, I feel like creating this world took all my energy.”
“Sapnap is the epitome of energy at times,” George suddenly tilted his head back down to stare at her. “I’m surprised you said yes.”
Alyssa felt herself straightened before she answered, “I thought it was a good opportunity, I feel like I’m missing out on them with you guys.”
“You typically are more happy watching on the sidelines,” George said. “It’s nothing bad, but it's rare that you say yes when Dream asks for something crazy.”
“I knew this was different.”
“It is,” George agreed. “What it is, is a mistake this time.”
Alyssa froze at the confidence of George’s statement. She was so used to seeing the man that was one of the main parts of the so-called Dream Team being so unconfident of his friend’s idea. Previously she would have thought the same, but she knew now that Dream’s plans have a habit of being better than she expected.
“I’m surprised that you say that, typically you’re happy to join Dream. Why did you join him if you think it's such a bad idea?”
George sighed, “There's nothing stopping Dream from continuing his plans without me. I can’t let him and Sapnap possibly destroy themselves without me being there to attempt to save them. I needed to be here, you didn’t.”
Alyssa smiled at him. “You know you don’t always have to be here to save them right? One day they’re going to need to find out what to do without you there.”
“That day is not today,” George said. “And if I can, that day will never happen. I’ll be by their side forever if it exists.”
“We’ll make it exist,” Alyssa told him.
George hummed at her statement, then turned back up to the sky. Alyssa rolled her eyes at his dramatic nature and turned to creating what they needed as the foundation for the community house. She could never understand the Dream Team’s dynamic without feeling like an outsider, but she was happy enough being in their circle long enough for them to bring her in.
It took a few hours, but when the others came Alyssa and George perked up at the large amount of resources they somehow brought. Ponk quickly came to Alyssa’s side and complained about how it was torturous for them to be in the mines for that long. Alyssa laughed at her dramatics and teased them back with Sam.
In the middle of the conversation, she turned to look at George who was sitting between Dream and Sapnap listening to them talk about their fights within the mines. He looked up and stared back at Alyssa. He was smiling, but for the first time she felt like he was not smiling for fun but for the sake of it.
Alyssa turned back into her conversation with Ponk and Sam. Laughing at their tales of the others.
That night the seven of them quickly built the community house and lit up the area to ensure their safety and a way back home. She sat on the outskirts of the building and laughed with the others as they recounted stories she heard a thousand times before.
Alyssa later would say this was the last time she could remember feeling like the seven belonged by each other’s side and being happy in each other’s company.
iv.
The problem started when the first group of new gods joined. As much as she would like to admit that Tommy did annoy her and how she did not understand his shenanigans with his friend Tubbo, she still believes what Dream did in stealing his discs was cruel and she wasn’t the only one.
“You should give them back,” Sam said from across the room from her. The seven of them were in the community house without either of the teenagers being nearby for the first time in days. “He’s just a kid, Dream.”
“I think it’s fair,” Sapnap said. “C’mon kid needs to know that he can’t get away with things with no consequences.”
“Consequences don’t involve taking discs that obviously mean a lot to him,” Alyssa countered. “Just sit him down.”
“You think that Tommy will just sit down? Kid is a walking chaos machine!” Sapnap replied.
“Look who's talking!”
“You said you sided with Dream!” Sapnap threw his arms up, “whose side are you actually on?”
“I’m on Dream’s,” she felt herself tensing. “But maybe this ‘war’ should end soon. We’ve been at ‘war’ with this kid for days, it’s starting to feel a little petty at this point.”
“I’m not giving it back,” Dream stopped their arguing. Alyssa stared at him in disbelief. She could not comprehend how Dream was willingly fighting with a child. “It’s like a… game to us, Tommy understands.”
“Can’t you play the game with something else then?” Alyssa asked him. “He actually seems sad to not have his discs.”
“He is not,” Dream said confidently, pulling out the discs and waving them out. “These are replaceable and we both know it. He just wants to be dramatic, after all he is the so-called brother of Wilbur Soot, and this is giving me the control I need for him to calm down and listen. It’s nothing more than a game, think of it like a reward system. You do not deserve desert if you don’t obey.”
Alyssa could pretend that she understood his side of the story, but the more she pretended to be willingly capable of fighting a teenager, the more she hated herself. Especially as Alyssa watched as Tommy yelled at Dream from across the river. Dream’s mask hid any smile that might be behind it, but she could still see the uptick in his eyes. He was enjoying aggravating Tommy to a point that it almost seemed obsessive. She and the others obeyed Dream’s ideas willingly, but Tommy made it his mission to disobey him. They might try to fight in order to make Dream realize his one mistake before he made them, but Tommy always wanted to fight on anything possible.
It reminded Alyssa of the others that Tommy previously surrounded himself around with. Wilbur, the ever dramatic one that had a knack for creation similar to Dream; Technoblade who preferred fighting others in games and tournaments; and Philza who was typically in his own edge of the universe with his own powers of creation but using them to create statues for his wife, Kristen. All three of them, however, tended to be the most stubborn and aggressive gods when it came to it and Tommy seemed to grab random aspects of each of them and raise them to ten.
In another situation, Alyssa would have been proud. He was truly growing up to be one of the best gods around. However in this world with Dream constantly watching over him and demanding that Tommy listened to him, she was worried. Worried that the spark that has not been realized would be destroyed before it could ever be again.
She watched as Tommy threw his arms up and ran off presumably to Tubbo’s side. Another member said that she did not truly understand their reasoning for being here. Tubbo seemed like he would follow no one’s steps and instead recreate the system completely. It seemed like he was wasting his time here.
She pretended to wonder what brought the two here and wished that she did not know the answer being Dream.
Alyssa crossed the river and stood by Dream’s side. The two of them watched Tommy until he slid out of their view.
“Is he obeying you?” she asked.
“This takes time,” he replied. She could tell he was annoyed at her for even daring to ask.
“Time is what we have,” Alyssa told them. “That’s not what you’re wasting here.”
Dream looked down at her, “and what am I wasting here?”
“Our energy,” she looked at him. “You know we won’t stick around with you for long if all you want to do is bully gods that don’t even have titles yet.”
“You don’t have to be here.”
Alyssa felt her anger rise. How dare he pretend like they weren’t here to be with him. She was confident the others agreed, with the possible exception being Sapnap, with the notion. It annoyed her that they seemed to take second place to a petty fight.
“You’re right,” she bit back. “I don’t.”
Alyssa turned back. In a kinder world, he would have called her back and Dream would apologize for getting lost in the obsessive thoughts of control. In a kinder world, she would have rolled her eyes and punched his shoulder at his actions. In a kinder world, they would have gone back to the community house and the disc matter would have been resolved.
This is not the kinder world.
v.
There was a tension between the two of them for days to follow afterwards. Alyssa hated how the others now gave her space. Saying that Dream told them that Alyssa was considering leaving. She saw how Sapnap looked at her in disgust and Sam looked like if she left he would follow. She knew Sam had his own problems with the world and it did not help that Dream was acting like this. But Alyssa hated how Dream was capable of creating distance between her and her friends.
It took her a week to finally catch him alone and corner him. She knew that he was annoyed at her and that he knew she felt the same about him.
“I’m considering leaving?” Alyssa demanded. She didn't care about pleasantries, not when he finally had the decency to look at her.”What did you tell them?”
“You said you didn’t want to be here anymore,” he replied. “Is it a lie?”
“Yes, it's a lie, Dream!” she threw her arms up in anger it felt like Dream was made just to make her angry. “I was angry and trying to get a rise out of you! I don’t want to leave, but the way you are acting is pissing me off.”
“Oh, please don’t act like we didn’t all think you would bail at the first chance.”
Alyssa felt colder than she ever did in the world. It felt like she was back at the End again, in the solace of the stars without nothing but gods in sight. “You guys thought I would bail?”
“Alyssa,” Dream started, almost in a mock sincere tone. “We all knew you wouldn’t last. Why do you think I let you have the End? It's yours to decide when we end. I couldn’t trust anyone else, because they would want to go on forever or end it quickly with a manhunt.”
“So you let me make the rule,” Alyssa said. “Because you thought I’d bail after a while and end your game.”
“Games aren’t fun without an ending.”
“I don’t want it to end . If it does we’d get punished, it's better to stay here. We can be happy!”
Dream waved her concerns away. “Only you and Ponk would really get in trouble. They know that they can’t destroy the rest of us.”
“We were collateral?” Alyssa asked. “You didn’t care about us?”
“I care about you two,” Dream argued. “I just know the result. I wanted you both here, because I enjoy your company.”
“What about Tommy and Tubbo?”
Dream laughed, “c’mon Alyssa, they were just here for amusement. I needed something to do and they brought in some excitement. They’ll get bored and leave and we can bring others in.”
“They will get punished too for being with us,” Alyssa said. “They’re much younger than all of us.”
“And?”
“I can’t believe you,” Alyssa told him. She felt sick to her stomach. Alyssa almost didn’t recognize the man in front of her who was willing to throw kids’ lives away for his own enjoyment.
She turned away and walked towards the community house. The lights were off and she knew for a fact no one was around for miles. No one wanted to be in her company any longer.
It was easy to pull the End into her hands. It felt cold unlike the world she survived on. She let it take a bit of her energy, before she let it twist into a butterfly. The stars seemed to be painted on its wings and it fluttered in the false wind. It flew out of her hand and out to the sky.
Callahan would be here soon.
vi.
She felt Callahan enter with the others. Unlike Tommy and Tubbo’s introduction which felt like a slight breeze, Callahan felt like a push against Alyssa’s soul.
Alyssa turned and saw Dream stiffen when he recognized who it was. Callahan was someone all of them feared naturally. He had both XD and Death as his Elders and was training to be the god of the Gods. He was someone who could take away titles freely and limit their power. He was the only one capable of ruining Dream’s power rush and ending whatever destruction he could cause. It was why Alyssa called him and beckoned him towards where she could pull him in.
“Who called Callahan?” Dream asked in a cold voice.
Alyssa said nothing, but noticed George and Bad staring at her for a split second before turning away. No one dared to say anything in the light of Dream’s anger. Each of them just stood still looking at the floor as Dream seemed to try to figure out who it was. When Dream finally got too angry and left the community house, no one spoke up for a few minutes. Instead they preferred to turn to one another to see what the others thought.
“Callahan might chill Dream down,” Sam spoke up first.
“Dream won’t let him without a fight,” George replied.
“We’re not doing anything wrong! We just wanted some fun,” Sapnap complained.
“We’ll see what happens,” Alyssa said.
Sapnap continued to complain as the others continued doing their chores around the community house. Each of them preferring to stick to their own corner rather than trying to make conversations as usual. Alyssa knew it was, because no one wanted to say that even if they didn’t call Callahan, they would have if they were given the chance.
It was not for a couple of hours until Dream came back. He was still angry with a few more bruises and bloody knuckles.
“Alyssa,” Dream said. “Come with me.”
Alyssa put down the wool she pretended to be working with and walked with Dream out of the community house. She followed him quietly as he walked them farther and farther away from the others. Alyssa knew that whatever happened now would be the end of anything they once had.
“You have been a problem in this world,” he started. “I am surprised that you have somehow managed to be worse than Tommy.”
She laughed, “I’m surprised I’m annoying you more than him.”
“I don’t want you to be here with us anymore,” Dream said. “I believe it is better if you settle somewhere else.”
“Okay,” she agreed. Surprised at the simple notion. She expected more drastic measures from him. It was as if he was capable of realizing when he went to far.
“I want you to be in the End.” She immediately dismissed her previous thought, this was the reaction she expected from him.
“What? You don’t remember the rule we made in the beginning, one you still won’t break?”
“You made it, it’s fair you have to stay there.”
“I want to stay here! Everyone is here!”
“You don’t understand, I banish you to the End.”
Alyssa stopped. She did not want to dare to think Dream was capable of destroying any friendship that remained between the two of them.
“What?” she gasped out.
“I banish you to the End,” Dream said. The conversation turned colder than it ever previously was before. The world she once believed was capable of being their new haven was suddenly being deconstructed by Dream. Someone she once saw as her friend and someone she wished she still could. But his notion of banning her made her laugh. It was as if he forgot every single thing all their elders told them as they taught the six of them how to control their new god powers and how to control a plane.
“Do you forget who I am, Dream?” Alyssa suddenly understood every single element of the world she helped create. It was as if the abyss opened to hold her in its grasp and it tightened its hold on her. She knew that she was his destruction and his bane of existence. He regretted ever allowing her to come with him and they both knew it. “I am the goddess of the End. It is my plane and I control it.”
“You called Callahan,” he said.
“I did,” she confirmed.
The two holding the moment focusing on each other, they both knew that out of the two of them she held all the power in that instant. No longer could he pretend that he was the most powerful god amongst his First.
“No one will remember you,” Dream told her. “When the rule is brought up, no one will remember it was your decision to ban it. No one will utter your name except as a footnote in the creation of my world.”
“ Our world, Dream. It will never belong to only you, not when all of us still live and we both know you can’t handle bringing that blade down yourself.”
“I could,” she laughed at his sincerity. She knew it would be rare when he dared to lift his axe or sword to kill, instead it was just another fear tactic to control every element of the world he believed should be his.
“I can’t wait for the day that you barely remember me yourself, when even you cannot remember why the End is closed,” Alyssa smirked at him. “I can’t wait till every fiber in your body demands you break the rule yourself and you enter it. I cannot wait to see your face when you realize I am still here waiting to give you the end you deserve.”
“I’ll never see you ever again.” he said.
But both Alyssa and Dream knew that he would, they were tied by fate the moment he gave her the knife in the beginning. She felt the world already begin to shift as it began to realize the equilibrium that once was held between the seven of the First was suddenly broken. She felt every single thread that demanded to be held together suddenly break apart from one another.
Her own blood boiled as suddenly the world got colder and demanded for something none of them ever dared to achieve. She knew that Dream would stay awake at his lowest point and realize every single destruction, war, and insanity came from her willingness to cut the threads that she once held on this world.
“You will, Dream,” Alyssa began to pull at the End, demanding to be allowed in. “After all, we’re together till the End? I promised you that and I keep my promise. I’ll see you when you’re finally rotting like you deserve.”
And so Alyssa was gone. She would become another note in the creation of the world, but never brought up again.
Both Dream and Alyssa knew that she was watching from the End of their world, waiting for Dream to make enough mistakes to finally fall to his own demise. She made sure he always knew that she was waiting for him.
Dream laughed maniacally at the poppy that appeared in his prison cell. A reminder of all that he lost.
III. Ariadne - Niki
i.
The first time Niki bleached Tubbo’s hair, it was in the Camarvan a few days after she joined. She was redoing her bangs now that her roots were coming in and had let the door open, so that she would not choke on the bleach. That was when Tubbo came by and watched her for a few moments as she just focused on her hair.
When she saw him from the mirror, she smiled. “Hey Tubbo, I should be done soon. I need to let it sit for a bit before I can wash it out.”
“Can you do my hair?” he asked. He was rolling his feet against the floor as if he was nervous.
“Sure,” Niki said brightly. “How much do you want to bleach?”
“All of it.”
Niki raised her eyebrows at him. Surprised that he was daring enough to bleach all his hair. “Do you want it to be another color or just blond?”
“Just blond,” he nodded. Then entered the bathroom and sat on the toilet. “I want to be like the characters I saw when I was watching the humans back in the End.”
Niki laughed, but started to grab the bottles she needed to combine the bleach. She looked at his hair and added more, his hair was too thick for her not to need a lot.
“Blond will be interesting, you’ll look a bit like Tommy,” she told him.
Tubbo wrinkled his nose, “I don’t want to look like Tommy, everyone already confuses us for each other. I just want to look like the humans, we don’t really get to change our appearances like them. The only times we do is when we get our titles and I still don’t have an Elder.”
“You’re not going to ask Wilbur?” she asked. Niki assumed most of the teens were going to ask him especially since he was already training Fundy.
“No,” Tubbo paused and looked down at the floor. “Don’t tell him I told him, but I don’t think it would be a good idea especially after Tommy rejected him.”
Niki looked at Tubbo in surprise, “Tommy rejected him?”
“He thinks that Kristen or Prime are going to come soon and be his Elder,” Tubbo sighed. “I don’t know who to ask. Niki can’t you just be my Elder?”
Niki laughed. “I don’t even have an Elder yet, I can’t be yours for a few more years after I do.”
Tubbo whined, “who am I going to find for an Elder? No one is as cool as you and my only options are Wilbur or Jack and I want neither of them.”
“You can ask someone else.”
“Like who?” Tubbo asked. “Dream hates us, George hates us, Sapnap hates us. Whoever isn’t them hates us too or will never want me to be their god, because of their political position. I’m just going to rot and suffer and die a tragic death as my own soul tries to kill me, because I have no one!”
“You’re still young,” Niki told him. She twisted him around so his back was facing her and she began putting hair clips in his hair to divide into sections. “You still have time, maybe someone will come and ask you when you least expect it.”
“I don’t want to wait,” Tubbo whined. “I just want to prove that I am better than Tommy.”
“Well,” she began. “I think you’re better than Tommy.”
“Thank you, Niki… Now say that in front of him so he knows too.”
Niki shook her head at their antics and began putting bleach on his head. She let hands go through the motions of bleaching his hair. She remembers when she used to do this for Minx as one of the only few that used to dye their hair back at the End. She misses Minx, but knows that here she will finally be able to do all the things she ever wanted to.
The two of them settled on a quiet silence for a few minutes as they let the motions take over. Never picking up another conversation and instead just relaxed in each other’s company. Niki smiled whenever she checked the progress and saw that it was lightening.
“Tubbo! Oh,” Niki looked up to see Wilbur standing by the doorway. He was in his uniform, but there was a large piece of soot on his face that made her chuckle. Tubbo turned to face Wilbur too and laughed. “What?”
“You really put the soot in Wilbur Soot,” Tubbo told him and pointed to the spot. WIlbur shook his head and rubbed the soot off with his sleeve.
“Listen when you go through your own Elder training, then you get to know the glories of trying to show someone how to bend their soul properly. Fundy is in his stage of creating fire and needs to burn everything in a five foot mile radius including his father.”
“You know,” she started. “I feel like you should have expected this from your own training and knowing who Sally is. I don’t know why you didn’t expect this from the child of the goddess of Shipwrecks.”
Wilbur sighed and knocked his head against the doorway. “I feel like there should be more water and a bit less fire then. When I went through training, my problems involved making too many of the weapons that Techno was asking for. I never caused any real dangers.”
“Didn’t you tell me that you once leveled a mountain, because Phil said that you couldn’t make a pond?” Tubbo asked. “Or how you made a small mole colony out of humans?”
Wilbur laughed awkwardly then just grimaced, “maybe I am lucky he is just burning grass and me.”
“That's the spirit,” Niki laughed at his pain. She loved to hear about Fundy and Wilbur’s training sessions as they gave her insight to how Wilbur was training compared to his own. She knew all about the stories that he wouldn’t dare tell the rest. Stories about Phil expecting more and more from someone who was daring to be one of the ten gods of Creation. How his training leaned towards how to annihilate gods, because his training would end by killing one in order to take their place. As much as she knew that he was disappointed Fundy wasn’t following in his footsteps, Niki knew Wilbur was secretly glad. Although what Fundy would be was still up in the air with the fox not wanting to say anything yet.
“I was coming in here to tell Tubbo though that I need his help with setting up for my next big announcement,” Wilbur looked at the two of them. “But I’m guessing I won’t be able to steal him for a couple of hours.”
“Nope,” she agreed. “I just started and it's a full head. He still needs to go through toning for his hair to look nice.”
Wilbur sighed, “I’ll make Tommy and Jack help me. Fundy is resting and I don’t want him to have to get up. I’ll see you two later.”
Wilbur nodded to them and walked away.
A couple of hours later, Niki would present a freshly blond Tubbo to the rest of the group. Tommy would tease Tubbo for trying to copy his style and the two would wrestle on the floor of the Camarvan.
ii.
She joined the election as a joke with Fundy. The two decided to run against his father as a joke and a way to prove themselves. Niki laughed whenever Wilbur turned to her and Fundy in anger.
“You know,” Fundy said to her one night as they were talking about their political promises. They were sitting on a couch outside staring up at the stars mimicking those in the End. “Everytime we do title training together, he just sighs whenever I mess up and tells me ‘if you weren’t too busy pretending to be running against me, then you would be better than me.’”
Niki laughed at Fundy trying to mimic Wilbur’s voice. He was completely off, but she could still hear Wilbur saying those exact words. She knew that Wilbur was bitter, but to bring it up to their father-son bonding time was too funny for her. She was proud of Fundy being able to not care about Wilbur being angry at them and letting it not affect his training with Wilbur.
“Have you thought about what you might be the god of?” Niki asked Fundy.
“Probably something like technology like Sam, I like messing around with redstone. Dad wants me to go into Creation too, but I can’t challenge one of the other eight for one of the ten positions. I know I won’t be able to beat Dad or Dream,” Fundy shrugged. “I can create enough for me with just technology.”
Niki nodded. She knew what Fundy was capable of when given a good set of resources and redstone. “I can see it.”
“What about you?” Fundy asked. “You still haven’t chosen an Elder or a title. You know Dad is still hoping you will ask him.”
Niki shrugged. “Probably the goddess of Baking or something. I like running the shop. I won’t ask Wil until he’s done with your training. He would go mad having to be the Elder for both of his enemies .”
Fundy laughed, “you’re right.”
Niki leaned back against the couch, “do you regret being here?”
Fundy shrugged. “I mean, kinda. Tommy and Dad talk so highly about Mom, Grandpa, Grandma, and Techno that I wish that I wasn’t stuck here and I could meet them. Sometimes Tubbo will ramble on about the challenges the gods used to do to entertain themselves and I wish I can fight someone without it being life and death. But here I get to fight in a war unlike any of the other gods that are in the End and I have the freedom to explore and destroy a world when other gods are limited to what Prime allows them to create and to the whims of humans. Here, we get to be humans kinda.”
Niki thought about all her experiences in the End, how she would hang out with Minx and the two of them would talk about all the other gods. Gossiping about whoever and whatever and not worrying that it would create a backlash that could lead to a war. Or how the two of them would join other girls just to talk about anything and nothing for hours over wine.
It was easier back home, but here she was a resident of L’Manburg and going against Wilbur for power, something that would have been seen as impossible in the End. Here it felt like all the gods were equal and could do whatever they wanted to.
“I do miss having the stars underneath my feet,” Niki admitted to Fundy. “It is the most sensational thing, especially when compared to those above you. With them underneath you, you actually feel like a god. It makes everything feel more magical.”
Fundy leaned against her shoulder, “one day when this world ends and Dream finally accepts the consequences I will see them and fight you on if it's better above or below. For now all I will say is that it’s nice to have something to look up to.”
Niki laughed and looked up at the stars.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
iii.
The night before the election, she sat in the same spot as she did with Fundy weeks ago. The two huddled up, but it felt like she was farther away from Fundy this time. Wilbur had come up to her in anger about what she and his little ‘champion’ were doing by putting themselves in the election. A part of her was angry that Wilbur was becoming more and more aggressive towards them the closer it got to the election. She knew that it was probably the stress from Quackity and Schlatt, but she hated how they seemed to get his anger. Before it seemed like a petty thing to laugh at, now it just reminded her about the distance between her and Wilbur.
It probably didn’t help that Fundy finished his training and was titled the god of Technology.
Usually in the End, the titles were given after the god had completed a challenge that dictated their strength and ability to handle certain planes. Other gods would come together and watch as they witnessed others fight for the right to be true gods with the potential of being Elders later. Gods with similar titles would bring the new god into their circle and finish their training with more specifics. But the god and their original Elder would always have their souls tied.
In Dream's world, it was close to impossible to follow the same traditions. Niki instead witnessed as Wilbur watched angrily as he was forced to bring Sam from the Badlands into helping Fundy complete his challenge and be accepted into the same branch as Sam. It was a mimicry of what a true challenge being with stakes and a chance to die, instead Fundy simply had to prove he had the mechanical ability to complete certain tasks. Something that she felt like even she could do, but she heard that Sam’s abilities were limited due to whatever agreement was had with Callahan. It was a sad excuse for a challenge, one she knew every other god would have not accepted if it was due to their situation.
It didn’t help that Wilbur’s and Fundy’s souls weren’t tied in the end.
Something she only found out from Fundy in the end. He told her that whatever Callahan did to limit Dream’s influence made it so that Wilbur’s soul essentially be limited the same way. Wilbur was unable to push his soul towards his son, tying them together and proving that Fundy would be the first and last god he could be an Elder for until he left the world.
Something she knew that Tubbo and her were disappointed about. They had hoped that Wilbur would be able to handle the three of them, but now they realized that Wilbur couldn’t even handle Fundy.
“Do you ever think of who you want to be your Elder now?” Fundy asked, looking up at the night sky.
“No,” she said. “I think I’m still stuck on the idea of Wilbur. I’m sure I’ll figure it out soon.”
“He wasn’t even a good Elder, he cared more about stopping me from joining the election, not about my abilities.”
“He loves you.”
Fundy sat back, “doesn’t feel like it sometimes. It's more like he wants someone to follow every single thing he does. He cares more about L’Manburg and Tommy than me.”
“He doesn’t,” she shook her head. “Whatever happens tomorrow will prove that he doesn’t care about L’Manburg more than you. It’s just the stress.”
Fundy looked her straight in the eye and said, “I want him to regret ever thinking I don’t mean more.”
The loss of losing the political battle against Wilbur felt like nothing when Quackity and Schlatt announced their decision to put their political votes together to ensure Wilbur lost. Niki grabbed Fundy’s arm as Schlatt took the stand as their new president and announced the exile of Wilbur and Tommy.
The two of them just watched as Wilbur and Tommy ran for their lives and they could not do a single thing to attempt to help them.
“Dad,” Fundy whispered.
“Fundy,” Niki whispered back.
Then they heard the ringing that they haven’t heard for a few months. Niki closed her eyes and waited for another to ring out. She let her breath out at the silence that followed, it was the first time that she took in the silence eagerly.
She didn’t bother to take in Schlatt’s commands, barely registering that Tubbo was now somehow the Secretary of the State. She just wanted to ignore his commands to destroy her home and pretend that it would be the same as it always was. That he was not in control of anyone within the walls of L’Manburg and surely a rebellion was in the making. She just had to wait a little longer.
Fundy pulled away from her, however, and she watched as he looked at her for a second before turning away. When she noticed him walking closer to the flagpole and the flint and steel in his hands, she ran to stop him.
“Fundy, stop!” Nike grabbed his arm trying to pull him away from what he was about to commit.
“I need to do this.”
“What about Wilbur?” she asked desperately. Fundy seemed to stop before he pulled away from her. She didn’t stop him from getting closer and closer to the flag. A part of her wanting to do something, but knowing she was essentially powerless in this situation. “You’re really going to listen to Schlatt?”
“If this is what makes him notice me,” Niki heard the click of the lighter and did nothing when the flag lit into flames. “Then let’s make him notice.”
“This will kill him.”
“No,” Fundy said. “It will kill whatever he believes is important. He’ll realize that he can’t just throw me away, because he failed over and over.”
“He loves you.”
“Then let him prove it,” Fundy walked away. Niki was just left standing there wondering what happened to those she once believed in.
L’Manburg’s flag was alit with flames within seconds. She felt the smoke enter her lungs. Each small piece of soot and ash made her want to laugh. She was witnessing the burn of her home and she could do nothing to save it.
L’Manburg had fallen.
Niki could hear Schlatt’s loud cackling as his commands started to go into action. With the soot of the freedom they had previously and the destruction of the wall they built to protect them.
Manburg had risen.
iv.
Niki was going to kill Schlatt if it was the last thing she could do. She was going to make sure he regretted every second. He dared to put a tax on her for being the only woman, then he made the prices so insane that she couldn’t even get any profits for her bakery. Everytime he came by asking for his taxes, she wanted to jump over her counter and just choke him to death.
Unfortunately for her all she could do was put her anger into her dough. Each time she punched it she was hoping that it was him and she could just beat him to death like he deserved. The day that he died, she would be happy.
“Oh, I see this is a bad time.”
Niki turned around to see Tubbo behind her. She put down her dough and turned to him with a smile while wiping off any extra flour on her hands.
“Tubbo, welcome to my bakery,” she said. She quickly looked around and grabbed a slice of cake to hand to him. “On the house!”
“Thank you,” Tubbo smiled and started eating the cake. She looked at him and noticed every single part of him screamed someone else now to her. His hair had finally gotten to the point where only the ends were blond and his suit looked like it was from the closet of Quackity or Schlatt from the way it was simply too oversized for him.
“You know,” Niki started. She was a little nervous to bring this up to Tubbo, the new secretary for Schlatt. “I was thinking that we need a new president.”
Tubbo put down the rest of the cake and looked at her in frustration. “I know that you think Schlatt is a little too harsh.”
“Harsh? I have no money to keep myself afloat! He takes everything from me, because I am the only girl!” Niki yelled. She was so annoyed at Tubbo for following Schlatt so badly without caring for what she was going through.
“Niki,” Tubbo paused for a few seconds. He seemed to be struggling with something, but was unwilling to actually say what he needed to. Then he settled on, “can you bleach my hair again?”
She let her anger settle. Niki knew that it was not worth it to make Tubbo be at the receiving end of her anger, no matter how much she needed to let it go. He was a child stuck in a terrible situation just like her, Niki could see it in his eyebags and his messy hair that said he hadn't slept in days.
Niki just nodded and led Tubbo to the back. Her bakery was just a little nook, so her bathroom was no bigger than the Camarvan’s. It felt like she was back in the past staring back at Tubbo in the eyes as she went through the layers of his hair to bleach it back blond.
But this time when she looked through the mirror, she saw herself fully blonde and more tired than she did the first time she did this. Tubbo’s blond hair was just at the edges of his hair with the rest back to brown and in an oversized black suit rather than the blue uniform he used to love. A part of her hated that she immediately thought of him as a mini Schlatt in that moment.
They looked completely different from the kids that once bleached their hair in the Camarvan’s small walls. Instead she could recognize both of their aging after the war and the suffering they felt.
It wasn’t until Niki had finished bleaching a layer that Tubbo finally spoke. It surprised her to the point that she managed to put a clump of bleach on his hair by accident.
“Quackity wants to be my Elder,” he said. He was staring at her through the mirror. She knew that he was waiting for her reaction. A statement to be against everything that he used to represent back when he was by Wilbur and Tommy’s side.
“Oh?” She let her hands continue with the bleaching by habit. A part of her wanted to scream about previous talks. Another knowing that those hopes were ruined the moment Fundy revealed Wilbur’s incompetence to be an Elder. All previous talks and hopes were ruined the moment reality settled on the world they were in. “What is he the god of?”
“Luck,” he looked down knowing the implications. A lucky god could have been the tilting force against the election for them. Maybe Fundy’s attempt to take over the election was foiled by Quackity’s own title. Luck had the same amount of control and wariness as Victory gods did. The only Victory god she knew, however, was Techno. Both would be fighting for control in any fight they were in the opposite side of, but together they would be a force to be reckoned with. Their shared enemy would be on his knees in seconds with them together.
“Oh,” she let the word linger for a few moments. “What are you thinking of being?”
“Fate,” he finally looked up. “I want the chance to decide what I get to do in life.”
Niki let her hands continue with the motions. Having a god of Fate was meant to highlight the gods of the End and Death, but both were currently missing. There were no gods of Death with many of those still seeking a title most likely not going to contest for it and the one goddess of the End they had was missing. Having a god of Fate without those two branches meant Tubbo was going to challenge the stars themselves for his right to stand amongst them. He wouldn’t have a difficult challenge, because no one could properly challenge him so his title would essentially be free.
It felt like she was witnessing the demise of everything she has known and the world would change in that moment. It was fate deciding how their story would end in Dream's world.
“I think it's a good title for you,” Niki smiled at Tubbo. In that moment, she felt her soul unsettle but it did nothing to change her position. “When do you say yes to him?”
Tubbo looked a little ashamed and Niki knew what he had done before he even said it. She was a little bitter that she wasn’t the first one that Tubbo rushed to tell, but she knew that their relationship was strained since the election.
“We started a few days ago, but he said that he would be willing to help you get your title!” Tubbo brightened. “I’m sure it would be fantastic with good fortune, but I guess you could get revenge if you want.”
Niki shook her head, “I don’t think I’m meant for fates and fortune.”
“Then who would you ask? There has to be someone you want as your Elder.”
Niki just smiled down and put the clear cap on Tubbo’s head. “I think I’m fine being nothing for now.”
A few more conversations about nothing and Tubbo finally was able to wash his hair out. The two looked at each other in the mirror, Niki thought they looked like siblings in some twisted form.
Tubbo smiled and walked out of her bakery after some goodbyes. Niki was once again left to simmer in her anger for Schlatt. She forced all her attention on her baked goods and hoped one day she would be able to punch Schlatt.
The next time she saw Tubbo, he was in a box on a stage and she was screaming at Schlatt to stop. Niki couldn’t do anything as Techno lifted his crossbow at someone she considered her brother.
All she felt was the ringing when Tubbo finally died at the second shot.
Niki couldn’t even tell what she was yelling at Schlatt after the shots were finished. But she heard his banishment and the rising of weapons aiming to fire at her.
By the time she was in Pogtopia, Niki was still feeling the emptiness of witnessing what she did. She felt cold for the first time on her time in this world.
It was made worse when still patching Tubbo up, Tommy and him told her all about Wilbur’s plans.
v.
Niki never found out when Quackity showed up, just that he was there the next time she was there. Tubbo once again by his side like a lost duckling. She knew that the Elder bond tended to have strange effects in which both gods tried to be as close as they could to each other. She was glad they were finally able to be in the same room and continue the training.
Niki could see in Techno’s eyes that Tubbo was close to corruption.
It was something rarely spoken about with many lightly tiptoeing around the subject. It was rare for training to end and the last one that happened resulted in whatever Techno’s condition was. She just knew that he was talking to someone that wasn’t there.
Niki was worried that it might have affected Fundy, but luckily he never had an everlasting effect from the lack of bond from him and Wilbur. Secretly she thought that Sam might have placed one between him and Fundy in order for there to be no corruption, but she didn’t dare to say anything.
At this point it was better to say nothing from the way Wilbur was acting. He was treating everyone as if they were a traitor in the waiting. Every slight comment against her, Tubbo, and Fundy made her flinch. She knew that he wasn’t of actual sound mind from what she heard from Tommy.
So instead she made a home out of the darkness of the walls of Pogtopia. She accepted Techno’s training offer and found herself against the god of Victory when they both had time. He was different than what she was expecting, more in control than the rumors said he was.
He would go through sword motions with her quietly, lightly tapping her on the wrist with his own sword when she was in the wrong position. “Left is to lead, right is for power.”
Niki let herself settle into the correct position focusing on his words. With another few taps, she was finally into a position that made him happy. The next was going through the range of motions that she needed to learn in order to be able to follow the sword in the way she needed to. The two went through this routine for hours, until Techno looked up to see Tommy and Tubbo watching.
“You two should be going through your stances,” Techno said. He pointed his blade at Tommy. “Especially you.”
“I already know everything, I can beat you and Dream easily!” Tommy announced. Both Niki and Techno just looked at him incredulously, while Tubbo just chuckled to the side of him. Tommy suddenly got quieter and looked deeper into Pogtopia, “I need to help Wilbur anyways.”
The three of them watched as Tommy ran off towards where he believed Wilbur to be. None of them were willing to speak about their willingness to let him run off to the side of someone willing to blow everything up.
Techno topped on Niki’s arm again. “Get back into first position.”
She instantly got back to her position, then lifted her blade ready for Techno to attack her. He was much slower than she knew he could be. Niki had watched him fight through other gods with no hesitation. His fighting style was similar to dancing, she noted, one where only he knew the steps to. Here though he was letting his movements be obvious, something she was instantly grateful for, but knowing that if this was a real battle then she would be dead.
“Would you be Niki’s Elder?” Tubbo asked randomly. Niki accidentally got too spooked from his sudden words that she let Techno’s blade cut her on her cheek. She felt his soul rush to her in order to heal it in seconds, then it was gone.
“I can’t,” Technoblade shook his head. He looked towards where Tommy should be, most likely mining whatever Wilbur demanded now. “Since Wilbur can’t be Tommy’s Elder, I have to be.”
“But you can be afterwards right?” Tubbo seemed a little too eager to be willing to throw her at any possible Elder or god.
“Bruh, you think I can handle more than Tommy? ” Techno shook his head. “Sorry, Niki, but I don’t know if you want me to be your Elder?”
“I think you’d be a good one,” Niki smiled at Techno. “You’re amazing at teaching me right now.”
Techno shook his head. “Being an Elder is different. It’s more…demanding of what you know about your Elders. It expects the two of you to be on the same wavelength, so that your soul could be an extension of your Elder.”
“I think Niki would be a good fit,” Tubbo said. So confident in her abilities to be something that she did not know that she could be.
“No,” Techno looked at her apologetically. “You need someone calmer, your soul is silent compared to Tommy’s and mine. It would be forcing you to go outside your comfortability than you want.”
“Its fine,” Niki just lifted her sword again. “I know that one day I’ll find an Elder that can handle me.”
“If everything goes right, I think I know someone,” Techno looked back towards the depth of Pogtopia. “He can handle anyone.”
Techno looked back and nodded at Niki. The two went back to training, following steps to a song Niki didn’t know the lyrics to but she was getting the beats down. It went on for hours without the two noticing Tubbo leaving or Wilbur visiting for a split second before turning back around.
When Niki finally was able to get a strike on Techno, it seemed like the world stopped. Techno had reached out to touch the cut on his arm. When he seemed stuck in motion as if listening to a world outside from the two of them. Niki reached out for Techno to grab her tightly on the wrist.
“Techno…?” Niki was hesitant to make any more movements. She was afraid of angering him or for him to attack her.
Techno got out of his head and shook his head a few times, before he let go of his arm.
“You have a nice swing,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he stared at her for a few seconds. “I think you will be a good fit for the Elder, I’m thinking of.”
vi.
The ringing seem to never end after the first bomb went off. Niki forced herself to stand up choking on her own blood. She could feel her flesh burn and quickly try to heal itself back as it was not used to a large amount of wounds at once. Her breath was coming in too quickly and she knew she had to calm it down before she fainted.
She couldn’t faint not now when everyone was trying to figure out what happened and she needed to help her friends. Niki forced herself to get up, leaning on a piece of rumble and quickly cutting her hand open even more.
Nik turned back to the disaster that was Manburg and she wanted to scream.
Barely anything survived, including the people that made up L’Manburg. She saw Tubbo and Tommy pull each other out of rubble. Quackity and Fundy were huddled up together as they looked around to see if anymore bombs would go off. Schlatt’s body was completely crushed by the rubble and she was disappointed that he had already been dead and couldn’t feel pain anymore. Technoblade was still facing against all of them, tossing another wither skull in his hands, but even he looked a little confused.
She was surprised that he wasn’t the culprit for the bombs. Niki looked around for anyone that was trying to take credit when she saw a large chunk missing out of a craven and Wilbur on his knees laughing. There was a figure with wings stretched over him.
“Wilbur!” Niki screamed. She watched as the figure seemed to be talking to Wilbur pulling at his shoulder. Her scream alerted the others, especially Tommy and Techno who seemed shocked at the additional person that was there.
“Phil?” Tommy yelled. Quickly rushing to the two before a sword blocked by Techno stopped him. Niki couldn’t hear the two of them yelling at each other, but she knew that Tommy was angry.
Niki turned back to Wilbur and Phil, the god of the North Winds and Wilbur’s own Elder. Wilbur told her in the late nights of L’Manburg about how the Sleepy Bois were always meant to be tied together. They had wanted to be bonded, but similar to Dream’s rumored attempt before them, they were rejected. It was too taboo and dangerous to have the most unpredictable gods being tied together. He told her about how sometimes it felt like they were actually tied and that everytime Tommy died it was like he felt his pain.
She witnessed it first hand when Philza ran his sword through Wilbur and both Techno and Tommy clutched their chests. Phil had no reaction that she could see as he moved to hug Wilbur without ever taking his sword out. She pretended that she didn’t see the sword twist or how Wilbur’s arm eventually fell from where it was previously holding Phil’s.
Instead she just stood around and felt nothing.
She did nothing when Techno pulled away from Tommy and began using his wither skulls forming monsters that she was only told up in stories. She just watched as the withers began to destroy her home again. There were no sounds, just the utter destruction of her home and her friends and family fighting for it.
It wasn’t until Tommy grabbed her arms and shook her out of her daze. “C’mon Niki, L’Manburg still stands!”
She just looked down at the person she knew Wilbur once believed was his little brother and nodded. She pulled out her bow and knocked it aiming for the withers who dared to destroy her home.
Then she let the arrow fly.
When the last wither finally fell, Niki looked out at the bloody landscape. She refused to acknowledge Wilbur’s possible death, but instead just settled on the notion that surely his Elder took him far away for him to heal.
So she did the same. Niki just turned her back towards L’Manburg or Manburg or whatever it would be and just walked away.
vii.
She was only back for a week when Tommy ruined the peace in New L’Manburg.
Niki just wanted to go on her date with Puffy, but it was foiled by Tommy’s inability to be still for a second. The two arrive to see George’s houses burning and Tommy and Ranboo attempting to fix their mistake.
She was surprised at her own rise of anger. It was like every single frustration had risen to the back of her throat and she just wanted to scream at Tommy. For once she had a good thing going that had nothing to do with Wilbur, Tommy, or L’Manburg. Instead she was finally happy being able to focus on her and what she could be with Puffy.
But Niki watched as the end of her happiness seemed to end with the fire.
It was like the fire had to burn everything else as Dream came by looking for Tommy and a reason to finally make Tommy deal with the consequences of his actions. The drama that occurred felt like it was a statement on the peace that barely managed to settle.
All of the government members of L’Manburg were forced into a room to talk about what Tommy had to be punished with. Puffy was there in order to give her testimony of what she witnessed with Niki, but clearly she felt uncomfortable with being there from the looks she kept giving Dream.
Instead Niki focused her attention on Tommy who was seated in the middle looking like a child getting ready to be punished for taking candy out of the jar. Tubbo had a habit of looking at Tommy with concerned eyes whenever he forgot his position at the table. Something she witnessed as something Dream took stock of and used to his advantage.
“It was Niki!” Tommy yelled.
Niki just stared at the god she once believed to be her friend in betrayal. Tommy dared to throw her under the bus when all she was trying to do was help him. Every single piece of her was screaming to go after Tommy right now.
“It wasn’t her,” Puffy argued. “We were together the entire time.”
Niki said nothing, but just watched as Tommy got more and more uncomfortable with her staring. She watched the way his face turned more and more guilty, the same way Wilbur’s once did whenever he ate too much of her cupcakes. They were truly like brothers in the way they seemed to be fine with destroying the lives of others for their own enjoyment.
“Tommy, stop lying,” Dream just said. Not bothering to argue with Puffy’s statement, they all knew who was to blame here.
“You didn’t even check? How do you know she is telling the truth?” Tommy demanded.
Dream just looked at Puffy for a split second, then turned back. “I just do.”
Tommy looked angry, but when he looked at Niki’s eyes he finally deflated. It was like the situation finally caught up to him. He screwed himself over and would spend the time doing whatever Dream thought was a suitable punishment.
Tubbo just looked at his best friend sadly and turned back. “What do you believe is a fair punishment?”
“Exile.”
Everyone sat up straighter, even Tommy who was slouching enough to nearly fall out of the chair. Niki and Tommy turned to Tubbo with the same question in their head. Tubbo had been fiercely protective of Tommy recently, but exiling him may be his final straw.
“Or I just destroy L’Manburg again. I mean you guys don’t really have much for me to destroy,” Dream leaned in close towards Tubbo. “What is stopping me from making sure that Wilbur’s goal of L’Manburg burning to ashes and soot ?”
All three of them flinched at the reference to Wilbur, especially one highlighting his need for destruction and fire. Niki watched as multiple emotions went through Tubbo’s face before settling on cold acceptance. He didn’t even look at Tommy once when he was deciding.
“Fine,” Tubbo agreed.
Tommy stood up in anger. “Tubbo, please. You can’t let me go with Dream!”
Tubbo just continued looking at Dream. “It’s for the better of the gods residing in L’Manburg.”
“What about me!”
Tubbo finally looked at Tommy. “I can’t change the fates, Tommy. This is the better option for everyone.”
“You’re willing to leave me?” Tommy asked in a tiny voice. “We were supposed to be together till the end of the world.”
“You need to accept fate,” Tubbo swallowed his words. Every single word she knew was killing Tubbo inside. “Tommy, you are exiled from L’Manburg.”
Niki watched as Tommy was pulled away from a smug Dream. She let her nails dig into her hand, she wanted to rush out and yell but she didn’t know if it was towards Dream or Tommy. Both have forsaken her, especially with Tommy throwing her under the bus for a split second.
“Meeting dismissed,” Tubbo announced. Immediately the room erupted into pandemonium.
“You’re just going to let Tommy go like that?” Quackity asked.
“What would you have me do?”
“Fight! We have the numbers, Dream has no one!”
Tubbo punched the table. “You told me that there is no way of challenging the fates!”
“That doesn’t mean you have to accept it, you can still fight till your dying breath!”
“Till our dying breath, you forget if I fight it's everyone fighting too!”
“Tubbo is right,” Niki interjected. “We can’t fight, just let Tommy learn his lesson and I’m sure he’ll be back making more problems for us.”
“How could you be so willing to throw him out?” Quackity demanded.
“Didn’t you do the same thing under Schlatt?” she bit back. Angry that he was making her into the villain.
“I learned from my mistake,” Quackity countered. “We all know Dream is not the good guy here!”
“He won’t hurt Tommy,” Tubbo promised. “It’s just an exile for now.”
Both Quackity and Niki kept glaring at each other until Puffy pulled Niki away. Niki didn’t bother to give goodbyes, she just followed Puffy out of the room.
“Do you honestly think it's a good idea?” Puffy asked. SHe looked nervous about the situation, but Niki just shrugged it off.
“Didn’t you say that Dream is a good guy,” Niki said. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Tommy will be kicked to an island and be forced to get his own resources. It’ll finally teach him to not rely on everyone giving him everything.”
“Are you sure?”
Niki rolled her eyes. “Tommy can survive anything. He doesn’t die when it's easy for everyone else.”
viii.
It was a thought that appeared out of nowhere.
Maybe not nowhere, because it appeared when Niki looked at her fleshy blonde hair and hated it. She was blonde and there was no one to share it for the first time in awhile. It had been ages since Tubbo had come to her asking to bleach his hair. Instead, it was as if he was finally accepting his brown hair.
So for the first time since she arrived in the world, she did not pick up her typical toner and instead she got the material ready for her hair to be pink.
When she was done, she stared at herself in the mirror and for once her reflection did not remind her of an era long past. No more blonde bangs met that she was not the girl that she was when she first showed up and came into the world. No more complete blonde in order to match Tubbo with the two joking that they looked like siblings. Instead she had pink hair and the only thing reminding her of her past was the torn up pieces of Wilbur’s old cloak.
A part of her was happy for recreating herself, but another piece hated that once again she had to be someone knew in order to survive.
When she walked into New L’Manburg, she found herself surrounded by people she once knew like the back of her hand.
Tubbo smiled at her, but quickly turned his attention back to Ranboo. The latter smiled nervously at Niki until Tubbo pulled him away.
Fundy and Quackity were arguing about something that she knew dealt with the issues they were having with Technoblade, but she paid them no attention. It wasn’t like either were willing to talk to her recently, instead they had the habit of pushing down any ideas that she had that did not match theirs.
In fact when they finally sat down for their meeting, she let the arguments roll over her. Whenever she dared to say anything, it was as if she shouldn’t have even tried. No one wanted to listen to her. She wanted to go back to the days when she was capable of feeling like one of the important people.
Back when her title of being one of the first in Wilbur’s trusted circle meant something to those that were attempting to recreate his legacies. Niki wanted to go back to the days when there was something that bonded each other together.
It was as if there was nothing left holding her here.
When she joined, she had hoped that Tubbo, Fundy, and her would be able to figure out everything together. Especially with Tommy finally being gone, the three of them could hold the peace that they gained and ensure everlasting safety to all their residents. It would have been perfect.
But instead, Niki just sits in the meeting room with no plans of saying or arguing for anything. It was like all the passion that came with L’Manburg died when it fell that day.
She could see L'Mantree from her spot, a sight that would have previously given her excitement for what it meant for L’Manburg, now it just made her tired. It was a fake tree as the real one died years ago and it was as if it was a metaphor for all that was fake in the New L’Manburg. There was no sense of honor or pride in making sure L’Manburg could stand another day. Instead it was the most pointless thing to care about.
When she looked at those in the room with her, all she could see were people that had no need to fight. Instead their own greed for power was causing them to ruin everything for them.
After all, Tubbo looked too much like Schlatt without her helping him dye his hair. Instead he just let the brown grow out and said nothing to Niki. There was no more companionship in Tubbo or Fundy for her, instead both preferred to watch her deal with all her own problems on their own as they ran off to do essentially nothing. She would have preferred a mad Wilbur to the ambivalent Tubbo.
Neither even looked at her or talked to her enough to comment on her pink hair.
It was why she said yes to helping Technoblade for Doomsday.
It hurt her to argue with Puffy, but she knew that Puffy was too moralistic to understand what she was doing. She wanted to rush back and tell Puffy that she would understand later, but she knew that Puffy wouldn’t see it like that.
Instead Niki just grabbed what remaining TNT she had and made sure to blow up whatever Dream, Techno, and Phil didn't. A part of her laughed maniacally at what she used to call home, years ago.
For once, she understood what Wilbur was feeling when he pushed the button. It was exhilarating to feel the rush of what you used to love be destroyed by your own hands. Each new burn running through her hands just made her light the flint and steel a little closer towards her hands. She no longer cared for her soul as it was rushing to heal what it couldn’t. It felt just like another reason why she couldn’t be worthy enough in other’s eyes.
Each bomb placed felt like a reason to just crush and destroy all the bridges she once had.
It wasn’t until she reached the L'Mantree that she finally hesitated. In front of her was the symbol of everything she fought for and loved and hated.
With fire flicking at her fingertips, she put the flint and steel near the tree and just let it burn away.
“It was never meant to be, huh Wil?”
The ghost by her side said nothing as usual.
ix.
Niki’s underground city was quiet compared to L’Manburg and Manburg and Pogtopia and every single city and town that she lived in before. She was no longer listening to friends, family, and stranger’s voices any longer. Instead she let her pickaxe make the only sound.
Her axe when she needed to chop wood.
The slow crinkling of fire.
The rush of water she can’t find.
The slow but steady flow of lava underneath her feet.
None of the sounds reminded her of her previous cities or wars. No, she was no longer bound to anything.
It was just her and her collection of rooms that she made overtime. Niki didn’t have to worry about running behind someone in fear that she could not save them from their own death. She didn’t have to fear losing her life unless she made a foolish mistake, but those were rare at this point of her life.
Niki did not have Puffy or Ranboo or Tubbo or Jack or Fundy or Tommy or anyone to worry about. She was by herself just like she liked it.
Her soul was being ripped apart.
It was a common thing amongst gods who were too stubborn to choose a title or Elder before they got too old. Their souls began to rebel against their nature. As much as gods and people on this world like to pretend, the gods and Elder system was based on the notion that they were a collective force. They did not need to follow family setups like humans, but they still wandered into each other's arms for comfort.
Even back in Pogtopia, Techno and Wilbur would still find themselves side by side whenever they were not thinking about it. In Manburg, Tubbo followed Quackity like a lost duckling and not even Schlatt dared to say anything knowing that Elders were incredibly possessive of their new gods, especially since all the new Elders forming on the world had never gotten experience of being an Elder before under careful watch of their own Elders.
Niki wondered if Tommy was feeling his soul rip apart yet. Then she started to wish that he did. That way he would finally die and she could be free of him or he could find himself someone to take care of him and take him away from all the damage he could do.
Niki wondered between the two of them who would die first. She wanted to believe that it wasn’t her, but she was afraid. She knew that people like her were typically seen as lesser for not knowing exactly what they wanted to be. For being abandoned by having no Elders by her side that wanted to teach her.
It was sad. Something Wilbur would have onced cheered her up for. He always believed that she was capable of the impossible before Pogtopia happened. She wished that she could go back to the boy she once saw as her closest friend before he turned to the monster that he was. Niki wanted to go back to when it was normal and she was happy with her friends.
She forced herself to pick up her pickaxe and cut at the wall in front of her. The Underground City was beginning to mimic her mind, a labyrinth of a messy girl who could not figure out if she was angry or if she was sad or if she was just plain disappointed.
Sentences ran through her head of all the things she wished she could say.
“Why won't you just die?” To Tommy.
“Why can’t you just leave him alone?” To Tubbo.
“Why were you so pathetic that you could not pick yourself up the moment you did not get what you wanted. I had to constantly be disappointed by all the men in this goddamn world and I didn’t blow up the one home that I had because it said no once! Why did you prove that you were exactly what everyone thought you were? A spoiled child that was only capable of everything that he ever had, because of his Elder? Why couldn’t you just settle down for once and take the word no like I had to! Why can I not scream whenever you said no, whenever someone said no to me like you? Why did you bring me to this damn world and abandon me over and over just for your own satisfaction of power? Why didn’t you allow me to just be happy and powerful and be everything that I ever wanted to be? Why did I have to always be in your shadow? Why did all of us have to be in your shadow for you to be happy? Why weren’t we enough for you to be happy? Why wasn’t I enough for you to be happy?” To Wilbur.
“Why didn’t you come with me?” To Fundy.
It was as if every smack of the pickaxe to the wall just showcased just how angry and full her thoughts were. She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t bring the tears to her eyes.
It was as if the entire world was black and white and she could not bring herself to attempt to bring any color back herself.
Niki sat down on the floor of her city and curled up against the wall. She hated every piece of herself that was still beginning for someone to come save her again. She just wanted to go back when she thought it was all a game and that sword fights were nothing more than typical child’s play.
She just wanted to stay in her Underground City and let it cave on herself. An epilogue to a girl who was never seen, just always in the background of the mighty.
She let her eyes follow the shadows on the wall, not yet forced away by candles. Sometimes in Niki’s mind, the shadows felt like ghosts of people she once knew. It was as if every single life that was taken took refuge in her little maze. She found herself following them with her eyes as if they would reenact previous wars and battles for her.
Niki could pretend that she heard Wilbur laughing to her about whatever Tommy and Tubbo did that day. Or Eret telling her about all the options for clothes that she was testing whenever they were allowed out of the L’Manburg outfits, a rare thing seeing they had to hide their secret hatred of the uniforms from Wilbur. Or Fundy reading to her as she tested him on his reading capabilities.
If she let herself go more into the shadows, she can hear Wilbur screaming in Pogtopia about whatever he was hearing. Or Tommy trying to hide from Wilbur, yet attempting to help him in any possible way. Or Tubbo talking about how his suit was too large for him and Schlatt was getting angry. Or Techno reading myths to Wilbur whenever he was capable of sitting Wilbur down.
Even more and she can hear the ringing of weapons hitting one another. Fireworks hitting skin and the screams from the victim. Bombs blowing up the one place she thought of as home. Swords going through the person she called her best friend once.
The sound of a flag burning.
x.
When she finds Techno’s cabin, it’s by accident and when she is angry. A part of her wants to go and lash out against Jack and Puffy for not listening to her. Puffy doesn’t even seem to care as it’s been months since they spoke, but Jack was betraying her and for once she just wanted to pretend that she could make friends and not expect them to go against her back.
So when she stops through the icy arctic after angrily walking away from Jack, she did not expect to find a cabin. Nor was she expecting to see Phil staring back at her in confusion too. The man looked tired, much more than she was expecting an Elder to. It was like he allowed himself to age like the humans. It was a strange feeling to see an Elder looking bad .
Phil raised his mug at her from his porch, “Nihachu.”
“You can call me Niki,” she clutched herself finally feeling the cold as she was forced to think of something other than her own anger towards the world. “How are you?”
Phil tilted his head like a bird. He stared at her a few moments and she put her arms around herself tighter. She hated the feeling of him examining her and seeing all of her faults.
“Your soul is breaking,” he finally said. “I’m surprised you don’t have an Elder.”
“I’m surprised you care,” she bit back. Niki was not in the mood to play any of his games. Wilbur and Tommy were the same, a little too knowledgeable about what everyone was feeling and willing to bend it to what they wanted.
“Come in,” he offered. “We have a fire running.”
“And your outside?” she asked.
“Takes a bit more than freezing temperatures to kill me, mate,” Phil turned around and entered his house. A part of her wanted to just turn back and not handle either Phil nor the possible Techno and Ranboo. She just wanted to be petty in the world and hate it.
Niki followed him inside.
It was warm, she had to admit. A part of her wanted to say some snarky comment, but even she knew that it was bad to challenge Phil. It was said once that he and Kristen met eyes in a bloody field and instantly fell in love. She knew that his sword does not discriminate, not towards allies and enemies, strangers and family.
The house was different from what she was expecting. A large part of her expected the two most bloodthirsty gods of the world would hang their killings on the wall or at least some weapons.
Nope it was a few photos of Tommy and Wilbur, some even the ones she took back in the heydays of L’Manburg. She glared at the one of Wilbur with him showing off his uniform for the first time. Niki could hear him gloating about how official it made him look and dapper.
The house was a simple wood cabin past the photos, a large polar bear sat in one corner without lifting its head even once. Phil instantly walked to his stove when he noticed her behind him.
“So,” he started. “No Elder and no title?”
“What is it to you?” Niki asked. “I didn’t think you of all people would be so worried about me.”
Phil hummed as he set a tea kettle down. “I thought Wilbur claimed you. You two were close even before you showed up here. You two seemed to fit well.”
“Well, he didn’t.”
“Nor Puffy,” he continued. “I heard you two were close. Schlatt wouldn’t have dared to force you, but he had practice from being Connor’s Elder. Other gods have enough experience to be your Elder and no one asked?”
Niki absolutely hated every member of the Sleepy Bois now. Their group title reminds everyone that even without a bond, they can encapsulate the best and worst traits of each other.
“No one,” she admitted, but glared at Phil. “Again, I don’t know why you care. Plenty of gods have died from it, I’m sure you witnessed it enough times.”
“I have,” Phil agreed. “But when I have, it was a method of torture, mate.”
Niki stood up straighter. She did not want to have any type of conversation that Phil was hinting at.
“How old are you? You must be older than Tommy, right? So roughly twenty thousand years old? Certainly enough to gain the attention of Elders and anyone attempting to be. Yet here you are dying, because your soul is slowly rotting inside and any that hasn’t rotted yet is trying to eat the rest to sustain itself,” Phil walked closer to her. Niki realized that entering this cabin was the worst thing possible. Here she was with one of the most feared god, the one that stole Techno from his previous Elder by force and shaped Wilbur until he was happy enough with it. Even Tommy was rumored to only be babied, because he wasn’t one of Phil’s but one of Kristen’s. Niki does not want to know what kind of person even Phil is afraid of and what Kristen and Tommy’s relationship was like compared to Phil’s. “It is quite fascinating.”
“I am not one of your subjects,” she said. Pushing some distance by getting closer to the door. “I am not Techno nor Wilbur.”
“No, you’re not,” he agreed. “You are your own person.”
He whistled a bird song for a few seconds as the tea kettle finally yelled. He moved to it and made some tea for Niki. Passing her the mug when he returns to her.
“You should sit,” Phil told her. “Techno will be home soon and I would love to talk about an opportunity with him when he does. And I want to give one personally.”
Niki stared down Phil for a few seconds before obeying. She sat in the farthest chair away from him. Wanting to put as much distance as she could.
“Do you know what the plane called Labyrinths entails?”
“No.”
“Hmm,” Phil hummed. “It entails a god that has been betrayed so severely that their own mind breaks into itself. The gods of Labyrinths tend to be… a little hinged on the idea of revenge and betrayals. They focus on the aspect of going mad, because of the cruelty of others. Some of my favorite torturers were gods of Labyrinths.”
“And?” Niki asked. Every single moment of being Wilbur's Elder was killing her.
“You would make a good fit,” he offered. “A perfect one, you fit the mold to a T.”
“I can’t torture people,” she said.
“You don’t have to, but let’s not act like you don’t have a streak of violence in you, mate,” Phil took off his hat and put it on the table in front of him. “Techno told me all about your tendencies.”
“Well seeing that you figured out, what is your point?”
“I can be your Elder,” he offered. “ I have enough experience with Wilbur and Techno.”
“I don’t think Techno counts,” she told him. “And Wilbur is dead because of you.”
“Wilbur’s death was a tragedy,” Phil started.
“Wilbur’s death was not a tragedy,” Niki laughed at the notion. “When a fledgling falls out of the nest and can’t fly on his own. That’s not a tragedy, that’s a disappointment.”
Phil tilted his head, but Niki could see his jaw tighten at the statement. “Wilbur’s death had to happen. He is better off with Kristen who can help him handle everything that he went through.”
“And who can handle what I went through, because of him?”
“I can,” Phil leaned in. “I will be your Elder and I will help you get the revenge and blood you need. After all, I helped Techno when his Elder proved to be useless.”
“Why me?”
“Techno and Wilbur talked well of you and all that I heard made me curious,” Phil said. “You show possibility, the same type I saw in my boys.”
“And Tommy?”
“Tommy,” Phil paused. Niki watched as his face went through multiple emotions before settling on disappointment. “Tommy and I agreed that I shouldn’t be his Elder, he is too bright for my tastes and I am not what he needs.”
Niki watched as he gritted out the statement. His face slowly became more and more angrier at his own words. She had a feeling Tommy and him did not agree, but Tommy simply just rejected him. Now she was curious on how bright Kristen must be for Tommy to prefer the goddess of Death over the god of the North Winds.
“Plus,” Phil continued once he finally calmed himself. “I believe that a goddess of the Labyrinth fits perfectly in what Techno and I are building. We need someone who can handle the mental baggage of what we are doing and is willing to do everything she believes is right.”
“And what is that?” she asked.
Phil smirked and the door slammed open. Niki turned to see Techno stumble in, almost too tall for his own door.
“I brought food,” Techno stated with a hoglin over his shoulders. Niki watched as he turned to Niki in confusion, then Phil. “Bruh, I wanted a quiet night.”
Phil smiled and titled his head towards Niki, “I believe she would be a good fit for the Syndicate.”
Techno tossed the hoglin on the floor. Niki watched as it dripped blood onto his wooden floors, not jealous of whoever is cleaning that later.
“What’s the Syndicate?” she asked.
Techno and Phil looked at each other, speaking a thousand words through their glances. Another feature that made her hate the Sleepy Bois, Wilbur and Tommy did the exact same thing. Techno turned back to her with a smile.
“How do you feel about dismantling all the governments of this world and being an anarchist?”
Niki laughed at the question, “I love it!”
Phil smiled at her, “Welcome to the Syndicate, mate. We’ll start your training in the morning and begin putting that soul to use.”
IV. Ceto - Puffy
i.
People were always surprised when they discovered Puffy and XD were close. Neither were willing to reveal why, but she let the rumors go especially when she sent Foolish to have XD as his Elder and Dream was given to her until he was of age to get his title.
Both of them agreeing that Puffy was better at raising gods than XD ever would be and both knowing that Puffy hated the idea of being an Elder to a god, barely being able to complete being Sally’s. Plus XD was better for what Dream and Foolish wanted to be, so she let her son and duckling go back to XD whenever they needed help in getting their title. She helped whenever she could, but she tended to prefer wanting to be in the action unlike the three of them.
But whenever the four of them were together, many people questioned what the relationship was that Puffy had with XD. When in reality the truth was extremely basic, XD was exactly like his son.
XD and Dream follow her after she proves her ability to beat them once and decide that she was the most capable woman that knew everything in the world.
When she beat XD, they were both barely a few decades old and Kristen, Scott, and Xisuma were still being trained by Prime. The two of them had to entertain themselves when there was no one around, so they dared each other to a swordfight. Puffy won and afterwards all XD attempted to do was beat her.
Later after their training with Prime and they both got completely different titles, XD challenged her to their last sword fight. When he beat her, she wasn’t surprised instead she smiled at him proudly. Happy that he was finally good enough to beat her and stop following her like a lost duckling.
Of course he didn’t, even after she twisted her soul to create Foolish. Around that time, she finally accepted being the Elder for a goddess named Sally who ended up being chaos incarnate with her ability to sink ships in whirlpools and Foolish loved to watch, so she had her hands full. Puffy was the first one to make fun of him when he showed up with Dream in his arms about his inability to be alone for two minutes.
Afterwards, they traded their sons like the good fathers they were. Puffy was in charge of raising Dream and XD was in charge of helping Foolish become a reality god with him.
When she beat Dream, it was not as dramatic the first time. Instead she simply managed one good push against him and he fell to the ground. He barely had any muscle mass at the time and when he pulled himself up, she immediately recognized the look in his face.
So Puffy had another duckling and this time she made sure the duckling knew what he was doing. Everytime she called him a duckling, his nose would wrinkle and he would argue against it. Then he continued to follow her around.
It was not a surprise when his features began to change due to his connection to XD.
The first time she saw XD’s ‘face’, she was shocked. Puffy had accidentally broken the porcelain plate covering his face and Puffy ended up looking at nothing. Where XD’s face should have been, there was a large hole in the place of where his face should have been.
Puffy heard him laugh, but there was nothing moving and she could not tell where it was coming from. XD simply had grabbed the pieces of the plate and let them reforge into one another, the cracks being replaced with gold. The mask simply went back to XD’s face and he titled his head. She laughs incredulously at him before continuing with their sword fight.
It was harder to witness that change than the aftermath.
Her little duckling was stuck in his room for hours at a time screaming in pain. Puffy tried to sit in as often as she could or have Sally or Foolish sit in. She hated feeling like she was useless when her son was in pain.
Puffy just held his hand as he felt the bottom half of his face rip apart from the rest of his face. She said nothing when she had to clean up the constant flow from his face as his body could not figure out if it was meant to have a mouth. When the half finally ripped out and he was left with a void where his mouth and neck were, Puffy called XD.
XD finally arrived after days of his son suffering and Puffy taking care of him. He came by and Puffy simply sat outside waiting for whatever conversation they were having was finally done.
The two of them came out with Dream having a matching porcelain mask on the bottom half of his face and a long black turtleneck. He had pulled on one of Puffy’s extra green jackets and seemed to be attempting to hide in the large jacket.
XD nodded at Puffy, “Foolish should have his title in a month.”
Then XD left Puffy and Dream alone. She said nothing as Dream sat with her and leaned against her.
She said nothing when Dream began to demand more fighting training.
She said nothing when Dream found friends that were willing to cause chaos.
She said nothing when Dream finally went to XD to get his title.
She said nothing as she watched Dream kill a god in order to become the god of Creation.
She said nothing when Sally came by and warned her that Dream was planning something foolish.
She said nothing when in the middle of peace, seven young gods with fresh titles disappeared with the Prime knife.
She said nothing as XD angrily ranted about his son.
She said nothing when a message reached her about how to get to Dream.
She said, “Duckling!” when she hugged him for the first time in years.
ii.
It was strange to be in a world of her duckling’s creation after hearing all about the horror stories that must occur on it. All she cared about was hugging the god in front of her, still sticking to green jackets after all this time.
He pulled away and she smiled at how his eyes wrinkled up to signify that he was smiling. He looked exactly how she saw him all those years ago before he decided to cause chaos amongst the gods and Elders.
“You know Sally and Foolish are going to be bitter that you didn’t invite them,” Puffy said. She continued to just look at Dream in amazement about how he survived this long. “They really miss you.”
“I miss them too,” Dream sighed. “I’m planning on sending an invite to Foolish, but I don’t exactly want to send one to Sally and have tsunamis every two seconds.”
“Listen, Sally is getting better,” Puffy pretended that the last time she spoke to Sally, the woman didn’t destroy eight ships, because her and Foolish were playing a realistic version of Battleship. “I’m sure Wilbur and Fundy would let her settle some more. She easily gives up whenever they give her puppy eyes.”
Dream looked down sadly, “Wilbur is dead.”
“What?” She knew that if Sally ever found her best friend was dead that she would wreak chaos for days. Whenever Sally and Wilbur were in Puffy’s radius, the two were in the habit of creating destruction as a prank to any of the gods in their circle.
“Phil killed him,” Dream scuffed his boots against the floor. “Apparently Wilbur told him to do it.”
That was surprising, yet not. Normally Elders would hesitate to kill their gods, but Wilbur was lucky enough to be the god of the husband of the goddess of Death. She was sure that Phil had some plan that involved Kristen taking over Wilbur, but it was still surprising to find that Phil was just willing to kill Wilbur.
“I’m sure there's something we don’t know.”
“Yeah,” Dream looked out in the distance. “You need a house.”
Puffy laughed at his bluntness. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
Puffy once again found herself being followed by her duckling as they collected the resources she needed. Whenever she noticed him mimicking her footsteps, she laughed. It was like back when he was younger and willing to follow every single thing she was doing.
She pretended the two of them were still in the End and he was watching her and Sally managed the oceans for the humans and all the monsters that were below the ocean. She would bring some up for Dream to awe at and Sally would retort about how many of Dream’s favorite fishes it ate. Puffy hated dealing with the aftermath of Dream being sad about his favorite fishes having a short lifespan and Sally laughing at his pain.
She did not want to accept the reality that when they went back to the End, she would be forced on the council to discuss Dream’s annihilation and who would take over his position as the tenth god of Creation. For now, she accepted that as long as they were in Dream's world, he would live a long lifespan.
iii.
When she found that Dream and Techno were planning on destroying L’Manburg again. When she went to go find out what was happening at the community house, she was surprised to notice everyone surrounding Tommy and Tubbo in the middle of its rubble. A part of her was heartbroken at the idea of a staple figure for the community being destroyed, but she was more interested in the fight inside.
A part of her wanted to go and shake Dream away. This was different from the duckling she knew, instead he seemed to be mimicking his father with a smiley full face mask unlike his usual ones that he had.
Instead Puffy just let herself watch as Dream and Techno announced their warning to the rest. The others quickly panicked, but seemed to settle into one another as they knew they were fighting until the end. She let herself just stand around watching as she debated her own morals on the situation.
She stopped by Niki’s who seemed excited for the end to come for Tommy. Puffy had noticed how Niki seemed to be a little crueler in the coming days as if she had somehow gotten more bloodthirsty in the time of peace. Niki just held her hand and smiled at the notion of the end of days for those who lived in Doomsday. She asked Puffy to come with her and be safe. To watch the show as it unraveled in destruction.
Puffy took steps back. “You know I can’t do that.”
“You know L’Manburg can’t stand,” Niki said annoyed. “Wilbur made sure of that.”
“People deserve homes to come back to,” Puffy argued.
“They will rebuild again,” Niki threw some items into a chest. “We always do.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to?”
“You think having Tommy there means anything?” Niki yelled. “He destroys everything by being too immature to realize his actions have consequences!”
“If you don’t fight for people’s right to live and make mistakes, what are you fighting for? What are you willing to die for?”
“Me,” Niki said. She looked at Puffy, then turned around. “I’m fighting for me, because no one seems to care for me enough to stay.”
“Then I hope you are happy when you’re alone,” Puffy turned around.
That moment she knew what she signed up for and got her armor and weapons ready for when Doomsday finally happened.
When the bombs began to drop, Puffy felt her breath leave her body as she witnessed Dream casually walking on the grid on top of L’Manburg. He seemed so cold and completely different from the boy that she knew from earlier. A part of her knew what she was witnessing was not cold calculations on how to drop bombs down to the city below, but a giddy excitement at the thought of creating destruction.
Dream and Sally had the same mannerisms when it came to calculated but exhilarating destruction. Both would put their hands behind their back and rock their body with their heels. A habit that Sally only picked up from her habit of wearing heels to trick sailors into believing she was a naive rich passenger aboard. Puffy and Sally used to laugh when Dream somehow picked up the same mannerism, especially when witnessing it whenever he decided to challenge his friends into a swordfight, one that he knew he would win.
Dream was doing the exact same thing as he walked on top of the grid. Kicking whatever machinery he needed to drop more bombs before continuing his light walk. A part of her wanted to go and scream some sense into him.
Except she knew what she needed to do as she lifted her sword and shield and ran to save residents of L’Manburg. She could feel the shake of the world when a new bomb struck nearby, but she didn’t stop at her mission. Puffy quickly pushed Ranboo and Quackity into higher ground. A part of her annoyed at the thought that she had to deal with the consequences of what her duckling did and another getting ready to attack whatever was possible.
Once she noticed everyone was finally safe. She finally pulled out her bow and started targeting Technoblade’s hounds that were rushing to attack anyone who wasn’t their owner. A few went down with some whines and she could not bother to feel bad when the withers began to appear.
She kept firing until the bombs started to wane out and she could catch her breath. She looked up at the sky and saw Dream once more. He was standing still staring down to wear Techno and Tommy were fighting. A fight she certainly knew that she should be focusing on, because as much as that young god annoyed her at times, she still wanted to make sure he was okay, but the large part of her was wanting to make sure her son was okay.
Then she was going to shake him and demand why he was so interested in creating chaos in a world that deserved to be peaceful. It was meant to be his haven, one she would have protected till her dying breath trying to make sure that he never learned what was waiting for him on the other side.
“Puffy!” she turned away from her duckling to Tubbo. “ Can you help us with the withers?”
Puffy nodded with a grimace and pulled her bow out once more. She wanted to pull at the water nearby, but knowing that all she would do was destroy the homes that people built. Even after everything, all the good and the bad, Puffy still believed that they deserved a place to call home and she was not going to destroy it too.
Puffy didn’t realize when the battle was actually done. She only knew when the last wither fell and the long period of silence that followed. She fell to the ground trying to catch her breath after hours of being demanded to kill monsters that seemed to never end.
When she turned to her side, she watched as the rest of the residents seemed to catch one another. No one was standing up straight, instead they were leaning on one another trying to figure out what they were going to do.
She didn’t bother to attempt to join. Puffy was fine on the ground trying to figure out her emotions around what just occurred. She wanted to go and demand that Dream answer for the destruction he just caused. She wanted to go to Niki and hug her.
Puffy wanted to go home, back where all she did was control water and her children.
“Niki destroyed L’Mantree,” Tommy spoke up. He was covered in soot and bruises leaning against Tubbo.
Puffy turned to wear the tree used to stand and looked at the burnt tree. She knew that it would never grow again somehow. She felt nothing within the world, there was no water for her to attempt to help the tree. Instead it was just dead and burnt like the rest of L’Manburg.
She knew then that L’Manburg would never be reborn again.
iv.
Snowchester was a little too cold for Puffy’s tastes, but she followed Tubbo and Ranboo to where they decided to set up shop. She felt more free being close to the ocean, a part of her feeling out for the fish that was nearby.
She accepted Tubbo’s offer pretty easily. It was not like she had anywhere else to go with no true emotional ties to anyone or anywhere. Puffy wasn’t the type to cry over where she lived.
So she put her own roots down in Snowchester and walked into the icy ocean any chance she could get. When her feet finally felt like they would freeze off, she would close her eyes and imagine a better world.
One where she could have protected Dream a little better from XD. She shouldn’t have trusted him with Dream, not like she did with Foolish, and just got over her own fears of being an Elder once more. Foolish only ended up okay, because he knew that if anything happened he could go back to Puffy and she would take him corrupted or not. She wondered if she screwed up with Dream, not telling him that she would have been there forever if he just asked her to come.
“Puffy?” Ranboo called up from the shore. He had a fear of water which was weird for her, but she allowed herself to walk back towards him. She was completely soaked, but luckily her fur coat was still dry. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I just wanted a dip.”
“What were you thinking about?” Ranboo clutched his hands around a small pile of dirt. He seemed to be compressing it more and more until the dirt was forced to stay together.
“My children,” she answered. For once she felt a little more open to talk about her past and it helped that Ranboo tended to forget all the rumors that ran in the End. He was an open book that she could just ramble to without any fear of it being leaked anywhere.
“Your children?”
“Yeah, Foolish is my son from when I split my soul, I was the Elder for Sally, and I helped raise Dream.”
“You helped raise Dream?” Ranboo looked confused about that. “I thought he was the son of XD?”
“He is,” she said. “I just raised him until Dream could start his title training.”
“Why?”
She paused for a few moments wondering how she should phrase it. A part of her wanted to be honest about her opinions about her closest friend, another told her it was better to keep it away from Ranboo. “I was his dad’s friend and his dad trained my son while I raised his.”
“So,” Ranboo started. “Dream is your son.”
“Not technically, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t see me any more than an uncle or childhood friend,” the words made her want to split her hand open with her nails, but instead she waved her arms around. “I don’t even know if he really cares about me.”
“Do you know what he did to Tubbo and Tommy?” he asked. The mound of dirt getting crushed with a more anxious and tighter grasp.
Puffy titled her head, “what did he do to Tubbo and Tommy?”
“I think you should ask him,” Ranboo nodded to himself. “I have to go.”
Puffy watched as he walked away. A part of her wanting to ask more, but another feeling like he would just explode on the spot out of anxiety.
So she went to the one person that would answer all her questions, Tubbo. He was looking through his chests for something when she walked up to him. They both knew that he knew she was next to him, but both just let him ignore it until he couldn’t.
“Ranboo said you have something to tell me about Dream.”
Tubbo finally stood up and turned to her. “Yeah, he’s a dick.”
Puffy chuckled. “What did he do to you two?”
“Past making me exile Tommy and making Tommy hate himself?” Tubbo angrily turned to her. “He made me lose Tommy, because he said that he would hurt L’Manburg if I didn’t. Then he made me think Tommy was dead when he wasn’t, just that Tommy wanted to kill himself!”
“I didn’t know.”
“No one ever knows!” Tubbo yelled. “We have to pretend that what Dream is doing is okay, because he is the creator of the world. I have to be scared every moment of my life, because Dream is hunting me and Tommy down!
“I just want to be okay,” Tubbo said. “Ranboo told me you’re his father.”
“I raised him,” she said. Puffy knew that going closer to Tubbo would ruin whatever corrupted sense of peace they had between him. “I don’t know if he thinks of me as his father or anything else.”
“I am going to make sure that he dies,” Tubbo looked up at her. “You can’t stop me. I won’t stop until he is dead and I don’t care who else falls with him if it means Ranboo and Tommy are safe.”
“I know,” she choked out. Knowing that this Dream is nothing like the duckling she raised, it was as if this was a new man that was willing to destroy everything. “I won’t stop you, but I won’t let him die if I can stop it.”
Tubbo and Puffy just stared out into the distance. Then Tubbo turned to her, “you’re not who you say that you are, are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“It feels like even the fate that ties you is afraid, death and the end is afraid of you.”
Puffy just smiled and ruffled his hair. He pushed back his brown hair to its natural state glaring at her.
“They aren’t afraid of me,” Puffy turned towards the ocean. “I just know their secrets.”
All of her debates about her duckling ended when she was called by Punz to help Tommy and Tubbo. All he told her was that the two were at risk of dying to Dream and they needed all the help they could get. Of course, she ran out but not before hesitating grabbing her sword.
When it came to arriving with the rest of the members of the world to fight Dream, Puffy felt a force that felt a little too much like Death watching eagerly. She knew the others could feel it too when they stood up a little more straighter. Ghostbur wasn’t there, yet she could feel a sickly presence that was too familiar for when he was nearby. But this one also felt stronger and more eager for death unlike Ghostbur’s usual presence. It felt like someone wishing for death to follow and were excited to watch.
Dream himself felt it from the way she witnessed him smirk and perk up. It was as if he knew who he was challenging and wanted to make sure that it, she, didn’t get satisfaction in the end.
Dream grabbed his axe and it went into pandemonium. Puffy could barely keep track of those who were fighting by her side and where Tommy and Tubbo were at. She just let her motions follow into what it was trained to do, stop the blade wherever it was planning to strike.
It helped her for the one instance both she and Dream faced off one another. Puffy saw his obvious hesitation in the way that he was not willing to put more force on his axe in order to hurt her. So she did the exact same thing that she did when he was a small god asking her to help him train him, she kicked him directly in the chest and forced space between the two.
The days where he would just fall were years, decades, behind them. Dream easily got his stance stable again and titled his head.
“You know, I didn’t think you would join them,” he said. “You weren’t really willing to hurt me or the others. You play the protector, but can rarely make the killing swing.”
Puffy didn’t bother to respond, but instead just stabilized her grip more. She was the one to teach him everything he knew about fighting.
The two were sadly unable to continue their fight when Sapnap and Tommy came rushing towards Dream. Instead she let herself fall back towards Tubbo who was trying to right himself with his bleeding wound by his shoulder. Ranboo was holding him up, but he could barely handle the weight.
Puffy started pouring her soul towards his soul to help him fix his own injuries. She let herself settle in the act of healing until she heard chains and the two in front of her gasp.
Puffy turned around to see Dream in chains with Sam standing next to him. She wanted to run up there and demand to be the one in charge of Dream’s care, but she knew that it was not her place to deal with him.
Instead she just listened to the group debate about what they should do about him. Her soul ached at the notion of her duckling dying, but she knew she couldn’t fight on this.
“Puffy?” Sam asked. His eyes were knowing about her relationship with Dream seeing that the two met when he was still in her care.
“He deserves to be in Pandora’s Vault,” she said. The others nodded, but there were still a few people that were wanting to witness his death. One being Tubbo behind her, yet he did not speak against her and instead just let her soul heal his.
When Sam took Dream away, the rest of the crowd just seemed to release all their tension at once. Puffy let herself walk away from Tubbo and Ranboo, especially since Tommy had joined them. She didn’t want to interrupt their moment of relief at the notion of them living.
She didn’t go towards Niki and Jack who were talking to one another in a corner with Niki especially being very angry. There was a new air around her, one that pointed at the notion that she had finally gotten an Elder. Puffy wanted to explore the curiosity of finding out who it was or what she would become, but Puffy knew that she wasn’t welcomed in that moment.
Instead she let herself exit to the outside towards the beach, eagerly taking in the air and the feeling of a presence she can’t see yet. One that she recognized from her long talks with Kristen and whenever Alyssa would visit her home. Puffy said nothing, but she took the Poppy that seemed to appear next to her.
Puffy knew that if Alyssa wanted to be seen or heard, she would have done anything to. Instead the two just sat next to each other on the coast and let themselves think about the person they loved and what he had become.
v.
The prison was constricting.
It was on top of her domain with her own monsters surrounding and ensuring the safety of those within and outside of it. And yet she felt constricted in being in Pandora’s Vault. It felt like every piece of her was trying to escape and destroy anything that it could. She hated the nature of it and how it just seemed destined to break what made them gods by limiting their soul until it was constrictive in her body. It had none of the normal freedom of being able to pull any bodies of water inside of her. It did not even rise to try to take from her own blood.
Her own soul was just sitting.
“Are you sure?” Sam asked. A rare instance of himself letting his true nature pierce through the Warden.
“Yeah,” she said. “I need to talk to him.”
Puffy walked closer and closer to where her duckling was chained up until they could decide what to do with him. When the lava fell and she could see Dream’s surprise form from the other side, she knew this was a terrible decision. She let herself get on the platform and let it take her to the one child she raised.
Once she was there, the lava rose once again creating a curtain of death to protect Sam and the others from her son.
Puffy walked to Dream and stared him down from where he was sitting.
“Captain Puffy,” he greeted. She constrained herself from wanting to flinch from the distance he was creating from her.
“Duckling,” she destroyed it as quickly as he put it up however. He did not have the same control as she did and flinched at her words.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I shouldn’t,” she agreed. “I just wanted to see for myself what you become.”
Dream banged his head against the wall. A part of her wanted to stop him and another realized there was no way she was going to touch him again. He looked up at her with bright green eyes through shaggy hair.
“You know XD told me that you had a secret title,” he said. Puffy closed her eyes and knew the next time she saw XD, she was going to kill him next. “The goddess of the Sea Monsters.”
“I prefer sea creatures, I don’t have the power to define what a monster is.”
“No,” he agreed. “You just have the power to create them. You know he told me that he hated being around you after you got your title for the first few moments. He said that he felt like he cursed you, because he made you raise a monster. Then he gave me to you, because he knew there was no one better to raise a monster.”
“You weren’t a monster,” she argued. “You were a god that had the power to create anything he wanted and you created a world. No one else could say that, especially one as young as you were. You just couldn’t control yourself and I didn’t stop you. I should have.”
“Do you wonder if its your fault that I’m like this?”
Puffy sighed, “It is my fault. I didn’t teach you what I should have and let you get destroyed by your own hubris.”
Puffy looked at Dream. The young god that she nursed back to health after his own body got destroyed. The one she let be called a monster without her knowing. The one that she let go into the world without knowing his own power.
She thought back to Sally and how she wondered the same questions when she was Sally’s Elder. The goddess was a little wild to everyone’s liking and a little too similar to the corrupted god that Phil raised. Sally was a little too similar to Puffy, the two of them taking pride in being the most feared goddess when it came to the sea. Even when the humans confused them to be the same, Sally would just laugh to Puffy and tell her it was better so that they could show them true fear when it's two goddesses.
Foolish was a monster in the sense that his appearance seemed to favor the monsters she created. His shark teeth and thick skin proved that she would never leave the ocean out of her veins. It was a mistake that she did not mimic him and instead favoring the look of pirates that once roamed her territories. Foolish was lucky to not have a title that linked itself to a monstrous connotation, instead he was the god of Architecture. An image that did not make sense in many until he built her thousands of underwater cities.
Dream was a monster, because him and XD were favored by the depths of the world. Where Kristen has stars in her hair mimicking the End, Dream and XD’s monstrous qualities favored the unknown elements of exploration. The shot in the dark with no idea of glory or death on the other side.
Each of her kids were monsters in their own right and she made a mistake raising and training all three of them.
“I should have let you go,” Puffy said. “I should have let you go and follow thousands of other gods as they raised themselves.”
“You would have abandoned your duckling ?”
“Yes,” she said confidently. “If it made you not think you were a monster and you did not follow your father’s footsteps of believing control and power is how you rule.”
“You don’t believe in that though,” Dream laughed. “Unless you were hiding more from me.”
“I am, also, not your father, I just raised you until your father decided you were worthy enough for his attention. My children are Foolish and Sally.”
“You didn't raise Sally,” Dream laughed but she could hear his anxious nature underneath. “You raised me! Not XD!”
“A mistake and Sally would always be my child more than you ever will be,” Puffy stated. She let herself hate herself more and more, if it let Dream destroy any perfect image of her then it was perfect. “My children wouldn’t have hurt kids for his enjoyment. He wouldn’t have helped death come sooner than it should have. My children are monstrous, but they aren’t monsters. Not like you.”
Dream reached out, but she quickly moved away.
“You will always be my duckling, but now I hope you rot ,” Puffy turned around. “Sam! I’m ready!”
“Puffy, please,” Dream begged. “You were the only one I could trust, the one I could count on. You said you would always be here for me! I’m sorry!”
“I know.”
The lava fell and Puffy walked towards the platform. She turned back and for a second she could see the young god XD brought to her one day. He was wearing all black with a green cloak that was too big for him. Dream looked at her in awe as Foolish introduced himself to him. The two quickly running in the background with a conversation about something she could barely remember now.
Puffy turned to XD and just looked at the porcelain plate that hid the face of a monster. “He’s going to hate you one day, you can’t keep expecting people to become the person you want them to be.”
“I think I can,” XD argued. “Afterall, you became the person I wanted you to be.”
“And who is that?” she asked. A little annoyed that XD believed that she was not capable of creating her own decisions and that he had any impact on them.
“A protector,” XD nodded at her. “I’ll see you when Foolish is ready to be trained. I really don’t know why you don’t train him.”
“Because I can’t be the Elder to someone and ask them to accept being called a monster for the rest of their life,” Puffy thought about the goddess she barely finished training. “Sally is being ignored by everyone, except the people that may be more monstrous than her. I can’t Foolish to be the same when he has so much more he could be.”
“Do you think you’re a monster?”
“I know I am,” she turned back to the gods playing. “After all, I can’t say no to my own greed for them to be happy over anything else.”
Then the present Dream came back to her vision. She smiled at the god that was reaching out and calling out for her.
“I love you, but I can't watch my son turn into a monster.”
vi.
The last good thing Dream did was bring Foolish to his world.
When she saw her son waiting for her arrival, Puffy couldn’t help but rush at her son excited to finally see her son after so long. The god of Architecture seemed to feel the same way as he clutched his father eagerly. All Puffy needed was a teasing Sally and a quiet Dream for this to seem like it was before she left the End. She wanted to peace and comfort she used to get watching over her kids in the End and not stuck her watching as Dream threw his life away.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she let her hand touch his cheek. The shark skin felt like sandpaper under her hand, a little more dried up then she would have preferred for him, but she knew he could handle it.
“Where’s Dream?” Foolish asked. Looking around for his brother, the one who invited him. Puffy pulled her son closer to the ocean.
“Dream is in jail,” Puffy said lightly. He watched as the news went through her son ending with his face settling on a sad energy.
“Oh, geez what did he do?”
“Just make some gods question their entire existence.”
Foolish shook his head at the situation. Puffy knew that even he understood the chaos of the situation even with just being here for a few moments. Although Foolish and Dream never spoke about their training under XD, she knew that it had to be terrible from the way they seemed to make sure she was not with him for too long. Puffy used to laugh at their antics, but now she knew that they had seen and gotten the worst parts of XD.
“He did some really terrible things, Foolish,” Puffy wanted to pretend that it wasn’t the same god she raised all those years ago acting like a monster. “XD told him what I was the god of.”
Foolish shook his head. “He told me the same thing when we started training. He wanted me to accept the monster you ‘made me to be’. I didn’t think Dream would be manipulated by him.”
“He thinks he’s a monster, because of me.”
“You know, he doesn’t,” Foolish argued. Puffy loved the way that Foolish thought she was some god with the highest morals instead being the goddess of Sea Monsters. It was probably easy to believe it when he was so unwilling to kill most of the time, but she knew that wasn’t a promise of pacificity instead a choice to not hurt who he believes doesn’t need to be.
“Maybe, but instead I made sure he knew it and how I was a monster too.”
“I told him I hated him,” Puffy closed her eyes the moment the words left her mouth. She knew that Foolish would be surprised at her willingness to throw her duckling away.
“What, why?”
“I needed him to hate me, so I can make sure that I’m who he wants to kill next.”
“Dad, are you sure?” Foolish tried to grab her arm, but she just pulled away.
“If I know Dream, then I know that he’ll come after me,” Puffy looked out towards where the sea met the sky. “If it means that I can stop him, then I’ll make sure he hates me until the end of the world.”
“He loves you,” Foolish argued. “You know he would do anything in order to make you happy.”
“Do you think I want kids to be hurt over and over in order for me to be happy?”
“He’s being Dream right now,” Foolish said. “He thinks that if he controls everything that means he can make those he loves happy.”
“If this is Dream, I don’t want him,” Puffy hated herself for saying it, but it was true. There was nothing truly tying the two together. “I just want to stop him until he truly hurts someone more. Tommy and Tubbo are kids and Dream put them through hell for discs.”
“If you need me, I’ll help you stop him,” Foolish promised. “But maybe we can help him too.”
“I don’t know if I want to help him anymore.”
V. Persephone - Hannah
i.
Hannah was known in the competition sphere of the gods. Always wrapped with roses and a pink and red outfit to match. She never cared for the glory, she just loved the feeling that came with beating other gods by being smarter than they could ever hope.
When she heard Purpled had left to follow his brother, Punz, onto the banned world. She was curious and disappointed that one of her favorite rivals was gone. She continued playing against Boomer and many others, a part of her was constantly curious about the notion of going onto the world and discovering what made it so secretive. One that pulled Purpled and Technoblade away from the champion’s field onto a world with cruel rumors surrounding it.
Once she asked Boomer about his thoughts as they were waiting for the game to start.
“You really want to talk about that here?” he asked.
“Scared?” she teased.
“No, it’s just everyone thinks its a curse. Haven’t you heard about Kristen?”
Everyone had heard about Kristen at that point. The elder was beside herself with her husband and children missing. Apparently not even the goddess of death could grab onto her loved ones. Many said it was a blessing, a signal that her family wasn’t dead. Others said that Dream broke death on his server, many questioning if the goddess of the End on the world had decided to challenge Kristen.
“I think it probably isn’t as bad as it is,” Hannah told him. Confident in her beliefs.
When she stood on top of the glass cover over Manburg’s hole, she knew it was worse than she thought. The server was in disarray with the impact of war still lingering. It let itself be known in every single part of where you stepped on the world.
Wilbur’s death confirmed the corrupted world, however, a death that could not be accepted by his mother. A signal that the world was slowly eating at itself.
And the goddess of flowers simply put another stone town to line her path. She had sealed her fate. A part of her wishes she could still dare to run to gods and challenge them to games with no intention of truly hurting one another. She would have loved to be playing games versus Purpled once more and trying to beat Technoblade. She misses the combat the most, but here she knows that if she dares to wield her sword or axe it must have the intention of killing or else she would be killed.
So Hannah let herself be overtaken by flowers and basic things that were expected of her position as the goddess of everything that bloomed. A small piece of her hated the idea that she had to continued with her expected nature, but she took care in building her house, putting down a path from her house using leaves and roses that she somehow could still bloom, and baking cakes to let everyone else have it.
For once, Hannah’s life was not centered around the idea of a challenge and it was nice for the moment. She sometimes sat in her house and stared outside wondering what Boomer thought she was doing and how everyone else was so blind to what was occurring in the world.
She remembered the rumors that came out, how Dream has forsaken his goddess of the End which was the last clear information they received from the world. A message that caused the Sleepy Bois to panic at the thought their youngest was stuck in a world they no longer could get access to without inside knowledge. Till this day it was unsure how the four of them managed to break in without someone letting them in. Hannah personally guessed it was Wilbur with his habit of being very possessive of his projects. She knew it couldn’t have been Tommy, however the small glimpses she got of the youngest member showed that he was being slowly drained. He wasn’t meant to go without his title being given to him, but Tommy was too stubborn to accept any of them as his Elder. He seemed too confident in the notion that Prime would accept him the first moment she could.
It was a curious notion about how the world was framed. Every single god seemed to throw away their planes for the basic notion of what they were meant to rule. In Hannah’s eyes, many were acting as if they were worshipers of themselves instead of gods.
She wondered if it was the goddess of the End’s fault, a purposeful challenge towards any gods questioning their ability to survive without what made them gods.
The silence of the server grew until she met a few of the other members. Sam was the first one she met, his gas mask covering her chances of seeing any of his features.
“So,” she started. Walking by Sam’s side, bored out of her mind but listening to him drone about his plans about a bank. “Where's the fun?”
Same stopped in his clear attempt to try to make Hannah work for him for his bank, “fun?”
“Like do you guys do anything for fun?” Hannah asked. She was getting a little bored of the montonty of the world, but did not bring it up. She felt like saying it was asking for another war and she couldn’t think of what could beat Doomsday. Maybe a nuke, she thought.
“We don’t really have time for fun,” Sam said. She rolled his eyes at his statement. Another boring piece from the Warden who had two phases, neither were good or entertaining.
“Well is there any drama? I mean I heard something about a casino and a failed marriage, but like nothing more. I want to know what people talk about.”
Sam sighed, “don’t go to the casino.”
Hannah stopped in anger at the statement, annoyed that he was stopping her from the one thing that seemed to be brightening up the world for once.
“Why not?” she whined.
“I don’t want you to be caught up with Quackity’s plans,” he looked at her for a few seconds before sighing. “Theres a problem that you might be able to help us with.”
She brightened up. That sounded like the possibility for something to finally happen in which she could get some action without causing a war in boredom. “What is it?”
“Do you know Skeppy and Bad?”
“Yeah,” she remembered Skeppy from his status as an Elder by being one of the youngest. In control of a mineral which was rare for gods, most choosing the grasp at a larger sphere of power. Then Bad, one who threw away his Elder status in order to join Dream in his creation of the world. Both were known not for what they have done, but what they were to one another. Rarely do gods dare to bond their souls to one another promising death if they’re partner died. A shared soul and only a few others dared to commit to the process, Philza and Kristen were the other major ones. “What about them? I thought you three were in Badlands together?”
“We were, but we discovered a corruption in the world that affected both of them. Puffy and I are planning on destroying the corruption.”
“Corruption,” she asked. They were rare, most resulting from a god losing control and breaking their plane into fine bits until all it could do was consume. The last one was rumored to be Technoblade’s original Elder. She thought about all the gods that were in the server and which ones could do it. “Is it Dream or the goddess of the End’s?”
Sam stopped at the question. Hannah watched as multiple emotions seem to run through his head. She had known that the Firsts had been close at one moment, but it seemed like her question struck him personally as if he still cared for the wellbeing of them.
He shook his head, “with Dream in Pandora with Callahan still holding onto any of his power and… and Alyssa being gone it most likely isn’t any of them.”
“Alyssa?”
“Our goddess of the End, that was her name. Did you not know this? She was pretty popular when we were still around,” Sam seemed distraught at the notion that Alyssa was forgotten.
“I mean,” she started. “No one likes to talk about you guys back home. I mean you guys went against Prime and Kristen, both goddess being pretty popular with the rest of the gods and Elders.”
“Against Kristen?” Sam turned around at her in confusion. “We never went against Kristen unless you mean the knife. Even at that point, XD should also be furious.”
“Oh he is,” she said. “But Kristen can’t touch this world. It’s like you guys are going against death. That’s why everyone believes its the goddess- I mean Alyssa’s fault. The End and Death are typically tied.”
“Alyssa wouldn’t,” Sam said a little too confidently for someone who has not seen her in decades. However she could tell this conversation was getting a little too personal for her to handle, Hannah did not think she was capable of handling a sad Sam and instead left that to Ponk.
“So Skeppy and Bad?” she asked.
“The corruption is referred to as the Egg. It seems to have taken over them and a few others. It tries to convince people to join its cult and anyone who has seems to get pretty violent against anyone who isn’t. The only one so far that isn’t affected is Tommy.”
“So its affecting gods with titles?” she thought of all the others who could not possibly have a title, but even at this point Tubbo and Ranboo have managed to get their Elders secured through the other gods. Only Tommy was sticking around and not letting anyone be his.
“Possibly,” Sam sighed. “We can’t really test it without another god without a title, but all of them already do.”
“Well,” Hannah smiled at Sam. “Just give me a target and I’ll help you destroy it.”
ii.
One of her flowers was dead.
The rose had wilted into itself overnight and Hannah just poked at the flower in confusion. For once her powers were unwilling to cause even the most stubborn of roses to bloom.
The day before, she had been introduced to the Egg with Sam and Puffy. The two looking sick at being near the Egg, but Hannah just found it interesting. Of course heard the voices beckoning her to get closer and to become on with its cult, but instead she focused on the part that fascinated her the most.
She felt the tension underneath her through a web of vines. Each vine seemed to be possessively trying to get every single inch of the room. It grew and grew, more dependent on the Egg the close it got to it. But interestingly, the farther they got the more they seemed to consume the environment around her. Where she had previously had to transform the dirt in order for the flowers to bloom, the vines belonging to the Egg seemed to take nutrients from anything.
She felt stone being sucked up of anything it possibly could have in order to allow the vines to grow, in fact it was more beneficial if they broke because it gave space for the vines to grow. Hannah could map out each element of the vines and it knew it. In fact it seemed to tease at this notion by starting to grow vines near her house.
“Hannah?” Sam asked. He and Puffy were by the exit waiting for her. She nodded and started heading towards him.
Hannah let go of her connection with the vine, but she couldn’t help but feel the creeping nature of it slowly growing around her. It was as if the Egg suddenly focused all its attention on her, focusing on the fact that she could feel every time it dared to grow and what material it was taking from.
The fact that one of her flowers was dead was another taunt by the Egg. She just poked at it trying to figure out if she could try to fix it, but it seemed like the Egg made sure that it took all that was possible from Hannah’s rose.
She kept poking at it until she finally accepted her fate. She would not let a dumb egg ruin her fun and her roses. Hannah knew that if she could sense the vines as well as she could, then there was a chance that she could simply make it obey her wishes. She would have to be careful though and had to make sure Sam did not find out or else he would worry over her. She knew he had enough problems centering Pandora, Tommy’ hotel, and the Egg. She did not want to create more issues when at times she was sure that he was two seconds from exploding. An actual probable feat from him seeing his habit of holding gunpowder a little too closely when he was angry.
Hannah grabbed onto the closest vine near her and simply tried to push it away. The vine took that as a challenge and seemed to wrap its surrounding piece of stone closer, then tried to force itself into Hannah’s personal garden. A feat that annoyed her more.
“You can’t beat me,” she whispered to the vines. “I will kill you and burn you and make sure even your offspring do not exist.”
And now she was talking to a corruption, one that took the form of an Egg. She was truly down bad from her days running around beating other gods. She misses the days she could just take a sword and stab her enemies.
‘Wait’, she stopped, ‘that was an idea’.
Hannah quickly ran back to find her sword and immediately smiled down at the vine that was attempting to come closer and closer to her. She hated every single piece of it and she was going to ensure that her sword cut off any vines that dared to go closer to her house.
The sword swung down and successfully cut off the vine that was attempting to get closer to her house. She laughed maniacally, happy of her success and excited to get the vines away from her house. She would ensure that it did not harm the rest of her house.
Two roses had died the next day.
This was personal obviously, Hannah took her roses seriously. A little too seriously in Boomer’s opinion, but he was not here and he was not going to tease her about how furious she got over her roses dying. Even three flowers was the worst that Hannah ever let herself lose.
She pushed herself to find as many vines and to cut them down. She snipped them further back than the previous day. A fact that she believed would help in stopping the roses from wilting more from the vines.
She joined Sam and Puffy on more adventures in them trying to discover how to end the vines. She never spoke up about her new found tactic, fearing that it was just something to help her state of mind instead of actually doing anything.
On her way back, she adopted two dogs that were wandering the forest near her house. She took them inside her house and decided she would wait on a name. She had a couple in mind, but wanted to see how they would be before she would decide anything.
All her roses were dead the next day.
The air seemed tighter when she woke up that day. She knew that it was not going to be a good day and when she opened the door to find a graveyard of flowers, she was sad.
She sat down on her porch staring at the gray path that now lined her house. No longer was it surrounded by her red roses, it seemed to highlight how Hannah was incapable of helping her flowers. A piece of her questioned if her title was even worth anything when she couldn’t keep anything alive and help Sam and Puffy when they were essentially battling a plant.
Hannah hated every single moment of being stuck here watching her plants rot. She leaned back and let herself feel the vines. In an odd way they seemed to be breathing, not like plants in which their breathing felt like a constant air flow from both sides. The vines felt like they were breathing to the beat of a heartbeat. She could feel it attempt to grasp at any life force, hers especially.
It knew that she could feel every instance of it slowly growing and challenged her to do something. She knew that it did not matter that she could cut them down if they were just going to grow over time with an obsession of absorbing any life force around it. It wouldn’t stop until it killed or controlled everything in its circle.
It kind of reminded her of Dream. An obsessive god that was possessive of his world’s members and the control he had over them. But this one was actively trying to ensure the ending for everything and not just a traumatized teen god who still would not let anyone teach him anything.
She knew that Sam was hoping Tommy would ask him, but she held her breath. Tommy did not fit the energy that came with being the god of Technology. Nor did he truly fit anyone else’s realms with many choosing a strict aspect that did not fit Tommy’s chaotic nature.
Hannah amused herself by imagining herself as Tommy’s Elder. Tommy would be a fine Flower god. He fit the picture of a chaotic being that controlled one of the smallest life forms. He would be happy with blossoming flowers, being able to collect all of the moths and butterflies he could with them. He wasn’t like her who chose it as a challenge towards all the other gods who remarked that the title was useless. Tommy would truly fit in with her and Astelic(?), all three of them would ensure that no one messed with Flower gods.
She wished him all the best, Hannah truly did not want to hear about another instance that traumatized him and she wished she was close enough to give him a lending hand. For now she heard about him second hand from Puffy and Sam.
Hannah sat up and breathed the thick air. Throwing any thoughts with the exception of what she will do about her flowers. She could not replant with the knowledge that each of her roses would be rotting the next day. She could not let them suffer for her need for beauty near her house.
She stood up and held her hand out. A ring placed there by Astelic before she left, reminding her place among the group of champions. Hannah wished she wasn’t alone and that she was fighting by her friend’s sides or kicking their butt in the games they played.
But she was and none of them were coming to save her. Not even Purpled was willing to talk to her nowadays, he stayed up in his alien ship trying to ignore the world as much as he could.
No Hannah was alone and all she had was herself.
Hannah let her hand lead her mind into clutching at all the vines near her. Then she pulled.
She instantly stole all the life from the vines in a hundred meter radius around her.
She turned back in her house slowly as she was forced to use the walls to hold her steady. The blood in her mouth was attempting to choke her, but she simply spat it out. It was nothing more than when she previously would blow herself up to get ahead of her enemies. She laid on her bed and fell asleep.
iii.
Hannah woke up cold the next day. It was almost as if all the air had left her house. When she stood up, she noticed all her walls seemed to fade out of color. A part of her wanted to lay back down and sleep forever. It seemed like the world just turned gray overnight and her mind would not let it go.
Instead it seemed to echo a sensation of being tossed around. Previous times when Hannah had pulled at her power across a large scale, she was fine the next day. Astelic would bring rose milk tea and Hannah would get on with her day.
Unlike those instances, Astelic wouldn’t be coming by and Hannah knew it was more than overusing her powers. When she held out her arm that was previously covered in a vine of roses, a red vine mimicked the previous pattern with pink roses taking the place of red. She hated it, but the more she stared at it she could swear that it was beating to her own heartbeat and the flowers had eyes that were watching her.
She laughed at the notion. A part of her thought about all the times Astelic would bring up venus fly traps and she couldn’t help but feel like the roses on her arm were exactly like them. A small need to feed them meat caused her to smile. It was a joke, one that no one else would get except for her. Afterall what rose would eat meat, it was unnatural.
She continued to push herself off her walls in order to get around until she finally got to her mirror. Her hair was flat and frizzy, any curls that were held before was gone. Her eyes were bloodshot and her skin was pale. Blood was crusting near her mouth and she could swear that she could still taste iron. But physically she looked fine, she did not look like any of the members of the Eggpire. If she could ignore the creeping feeling coming over her eyes. Hannah could pretend that nothing had gone wrong.
A knock surprised her out of her thoughts. She quickly walked towards her sink and washed out the blood in her mouth. She held herself there for a few more beats until another knock shook her out of her mind once again.
“Hannah?” Sam asked from the other side of the door.
“Coming!” she yelled. Hannah pulled herself together. She was fine, a little sick, but as long as her hair looked fine in a messy bun and she straightened her skirt, she would be fine and Sam would not ask any question.
Hannah swung open the door with a bright smile, “Sam!”
He looked back at her in concern, “are you okay?”
Hannah’s plan failed. She should have known that it wouldn’t have happened when her only idea was to tie her hair up.
“Yup,” she stupidly replied back.
Sam looked at her in disbelief, “your roses are dead and you look like you haven’t slept.”
“The vines are near my house,” she told him. “It's making me feel sick.”
“Do you want me to help you clear the vines and the dead roses?”
She smiled at his question and nodded, “that would be nice.”
Sam led Hannah to the front. The two of them began to cut away the vines, a feat at this point Hannah knew was worthless, but she did not say anything. She wanted to pretend like everything had a simple solution.
The fact that everything she did yesterday seems to be pointless made tears swell up in her eyes. She felt so useless when all she was doing was fighting what seemed like a giant flower.
The feeling was made worse as the two of them began to pull out the roses. Hannah remembers the first day in which she planted each of the roses carefully making sure each had everything it needed in order to bloom without her help and now they were dead. She was trying so hard to not cry in front of Sam. She couldn’t help, but stop when they were only halfway done pulling the roses.
Sam turned back at her, but said nothing as he continued to pull out the flowers.
“I’m sorry,” he offered.
“It’s not your fault,” she told him. “None of us thought there would be an evil egg and a cult trying to kill us and destroy our home.”
Sam laughed, “I still don’t know if this tops any of the wars.”
“I wish I was there for the wars, so this seems ordinary.”
“No, you don't,” Sam said. “They were pointless and each of them proved that everyone on this server is obsessed with power.”
“And you’re not?” Hannah asked. “Usually that’s gods’ favorite sin, hubris.”
“I just want order,” Sam stopped for a few seconds. “I want for you and Tommy and Quackity and George to not be destroyed by the bad things that happened to you guys. I want you to be happy.”
“Why don’t you guys just close the world?”
Sam sighed. “We made a stupid agreement when we first created this world. Each of us believed that we would be happy with the seven of us. I wouldn’t have agreed if I knew this would happen.”
“Why did you?”
“I,” Sam stopped again. “I used to believe that Dream was my best friend. I doubt they tell you, but the seven of us were originally considering making a soul bond. If Bad could join was debatable, but all of us were so confident that we were the perfect group to become bonded. Each of us brought our own talents and each of us trusted one another more than we trusted any other god. Ironically, it was George who brought it up first and it was Alyssa who said yes immediately afterwards. Ponk and I were more hesitant than the rest, but it didn’t take long for us to agree. I mean Ponk and I were discussing it beforehand becoming bonded to one another, but this seemed to be better. We could all be together forever.
“The Elders said no and Dream told them they would regret it. I mean who would say no to Dream? We all thought it was a great idea and hated the Elders. I think I said yes, because I wanted all seven of us to be together for the rest of time and I hated the Elders from stopping it.”
He sighed, “I regret it all now.”
Hannah stared at him for a few seconds. Sam had never allowed himself to talk about the others that he joined with. She wished that his friends did not instantly break their bonds with one another and turned their back against one another. She wished that he was capable of looking back at his friendships and talking about them happily instead of being sad.
Hannah looked down at her ring, back home there was a group waiting for her to come back to. In her mind, she thought the same as Sam once did about his friends. She could not imagine a world that did not encompass them and where they were willing to kill each other to prove a point. She wishes she could have Boomer, Astelic, Wallibear, Squidkid, and the others by her side, but now she secretly wonders if this world was what broke friendships and bonds. Purpled doesn’t talk to her anymore and any chance she tries he shuts her down.
But she can’t pretend that she had a close bond to Purpled when she compared it to the others. The Sleepy Bois are a mess, no longer the collective force they once were, but instead a broken connection that seemed like it could never be repaired. She could not believe these were the same people that once seemed so protective of Tommy were the same to throw him away in a heartbeat. She knows that Philza didn’t even ask if Tommy wanted him as an elder, even when he already was for Wilbur.
All the bonds seemed to crumple underneath the force that was this world. She wondered if one day she would hate Sam even when she cannot imagine hurting him now.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay,” he told her. “It was no one's fault, but ours.”
Hannah silently watched as Sam took the rest of her flowers out of their spots. A part of her was still mourning over them, but acknowledging that at this point there was nothing more that she could do.
Footsteps stopped both Sam and Hannah. When she looked up, she saw the cloaked figure of Bad and Antfrost. Bad was frowning rather comedically at the pulled out vines and roses.
“What happened, don’t you like red, Hannah?” Bad asked. Hannah felt cold at the question. Sam instantly placed himself in front of her.
“Bad,” Sam started, almost delicately. “The vines are making Hannah sick, I think she’s allergic.”
“Oh no!” Bad cried out. “That is so tragic that you are allergic, isn’t it Antfrost?”
“Tragic,” Antfrost repeated. “But we can’t exactly have you pulling those out, you know?”
“Hannah can’t be around things that make her sick,” Sam said. “She could get really sick and I know Ponk won’t want to deal with it.”
“Ponk will be happy to help with any problems that involve the Egg, afterall he has accepted it as the most precious thing on the server,” Bad replied. “He wouldn’t mind helping Hannah with any problems that she has.”
Hannah turned to look at Sam, she knew that the two of them were very close, but recent times have strained them. Another dark mark on Sam’s records of his friends leaving him. Sam straightened up.
“I don’t think that is wise.”
“I believe it is Hannah’s choice,” Bad argued. “I mean she is the one feeling sick, unless you are too? After all, I'm sure your last visit went so badly so sadly.”
Sam’s throat seemed to get tense, “I am feeling fine , I got over it.”
“You’re right, can’t be the Warden with any weaknesses,” Bad teased. “What do you say, Hannah? Do you want to test your allergic reaction, to make sure it isn’t your roses making you sick?”
Hannah knew that her roses wouldn’t dare, but now she feared that he did something to them to make them make her sick. Bad had lingered on that strange line of not being a god of the End and not the god of Death, but instead the god of the Depths. There was an understanding between all the gods that Bad knew more than any of them and him never getting the title of Elder was just out of his own violation and not because he couldn’t. People used to joke that he knew more than Kristen, because he saw something that hasn’t been met in decades.
“Sure,” she said. A little scared of the possibility of going in there, but willing to find out more about the Egg for anything.
Hannah leaned close to Sam and whispered, “just clear as much as you can as I distract them.”
“Hannah-” Sam started, but Bad’s loud clap stop him. She was shocked that she quickly jumped away from Sam’s side allowing Bad to take her wrapping an arm around her shoulder.
“Don’t worry Antfrost and I will protect Hannah, Sam!” Bad called out.
Antfrost quickly took to her other side. A hand on his sword, a silent threat if she ever saw one. Hannah quickly thought back to her pull of the Egg and feared any repercussions that could come from it.
She just wished that if anything happened to her, Sam wouldn’t believe it was his fault.
They passed by her new dogs trapped by the vines on their way to the Egg room.
“Oh look at your dogs enjoying the Egg!” Bad said in delight. But she was not sure if she was seeing what he was.
The dogs have been completely wrapped by the vines with the same heartbeat that followed hers. They were completely tied with no ability to move any of their limbs, Hannah felt bad for introducing them to the vines.
She pulled out her knife and slit their throats.
When she stood up and went back to Bad and Antfrost’s side, they were shocked but Bad had a strange smile on his face.
“Why did you do that?” Bad asked.
“I put them out of their misery.”
iv.
Antfrost and Bad led her to the top of the Egg, a strange thing to do to someone who believed that she was allergic to it. But she wasn’t exactly going to battle it out with two cult members of a glowing red egg if she could help it.
She sat on top of the Egg looking down at Antfrost and Bad. Hannah just knew that this was not a situation that was going to end up fine if she was already on top of the Egg and she barely showed up.
“You know,” she began. “I don’t really understand your reasoning right now.”
“More exposure would help us figure out if the Egg is truly the issue, after all it could be many things like environment, people you hang out with, and your mind,” Bad told her. “The Egg will help us realize that.”
“I feel like none of you were in medical school long enough nor gods of Medicine in order to know if that’s true,” Hannah watched as Bad waved his hands around.
“Neither were you,” Antfrost pointed out.
“Damn,” she said. “You got me there.”
A part of her wanted to jump off the Egg and pretend that she could get away from Antfrost and Bad, but her odds weren’t looking good and Sam needed time to keep clearing the vines. At this point she was just waiting for something dramatic to happen and nothing was.
She was really becoming more and more disappointed in this world. Maybe she should start a war for fun.
Hannah could feel the return of her dizziness and headache from earlier this morning which gave her the perfect excuse.
“Y’know I do think its the Egg, I mean I’m so dizzy I might just fall !” she yelled down at them.
“Hmm,” Bad hummed. “Can you hear it speaking to you?”
“What?” she laughed. “Eggs can’t speak!”
“It is,” Bad looked at her in all seriousness.
Every single thing that Sam and Puffy came rushing back, how they spoke about the Egg acting as if it was sentient and telling them all their wishes. But she never heard anything, all she felt was the wrapping of the vines everywhere and the feeling that it was mimicking her own heartbeat.
“What is it saying?” she asked.
She watched as Bad just nodded at Antfrost who walked towards the Egg. Every single footsteps made her fear for her life more and more. She remembered his hand on his blade and the more her throat seemed to swell up.
“Is it telling you to kill me?” she asked Bad desperately.
“Of course not!” He exclaimed. “The Egg loves you and it just wants you to love it back.”
She patted the surface of the Egg, “well I love it, haha, good Egg. Listen Bad, I really do feel sick, I think this proves that I am allergic.”
“You just need to get used to it,” he told her.
“Well, I think I shouldn’t.”
“You will.”
Hannah felt Antfrost’s presence behind her and a sword to her throat. He forced her to rise until she was standing and slowly walked her off of the Egg.
“Please don’t,” she begged. She didn’t want to die, not now. “I don’t want to die, please.”
“You won’t,” he said. “You are just getting exposure therapy, nothing more.”
Hannah felt like that was somehow worse than dying. At least dying, she could quickly get back to Sam, but here she was stuck with Bad and Antfrost.
“Take off all your weapons,” Antfrost demanded. He grabbed the knife from her side holster. She slowly pulled out her other knives and a small axe. “That’s it?”
Hannah nodded and felt him drag her closer to the Egg. The vines began crawling around her and tightening their hold on her. She felt herself being crushed slightly at the force and reached out for Antfrost and Bad.
“Please, don’t leave me alone here!” she cried out.
The both of them said nothing as they turned around and exited the Egg room.
She screamed out for them, but no one came. She kept screaming and screaming until she passed out surrounded by vines. They slowly crawled up to her and tightened every piece of her.
Her last thought was wishing for someone to put her out of her misery.
v.
Oh, hello. I have not seen a flower goddess in awhile. They’re always so afraid, but you came just for me didn’t you?
What a sweet little fairy.
She has no wings, Alyssa.
Oh, but she will.
Alyssa don’t get close to my followers, they might want to go to you and we can’t have that.
Because you fear Ant will follow me to the End? You’re so possessive, Velvet.
I have to be when everyone misses you.
I want to be forgotten, not missed.
You’re impact--
SHUT UP
Testy aren’t we?
Hannah felt her roses slowly pop out of her arm, each causing more and more lesions on her body. Once she can’t heal, not now. Not when the EGG wanted it to bleed until it could no longer form any roses. No the EGG will chose her flowers, because Hannah was theirs, she was no longer just a little goddess of Flowers, she was his goddess and she would obey the EGG until he decided that it was enough not her
Our goddess of Flowers.
I am the one being slowly DESTROYED, because you don’t want to admit your mistakes.
No, you’re slowly being destroyed, because I want you here and you demanded to be here to be near Ant. It was your own fault that you came already corrupted because you missed your bonds.
Corrupted because of missing their bonded then--
No, little fairy. Don’t bother, they know their mistakes already, it is nothing you have to fix. No you are our little fairy destined for greater things.
You know if Dream finds out--
Please, not even Sam can figure it out. They are running like headless chickens without me.
Alyssa--
Obey, Velvet or I will kick you out. I don’t need you here.
Hannah could feel tulips, I believe is a flower that you deserve if we’re getting rid of your roses, growing from her arm. She wanted to scream and wish for Astelic or Sam or even Bad to help her with the pain. She remembered how horrifying it was the first time. As it seemed to pull at her veins and bones in order to bloom her roses and for vines to rip her arm apart until it formed enough to put it back. She remembers screaming and looking at her Elder… who was her Elder?
Don’t bother, soon everyone will forget the outside anyways.
Her Elder told her it was natural and that it was a symbol of a very powerful goddess, but she did not feel powerful. She felt like a scared child that could not help, but sob at her pain.
Now now it felt much worse somehow. It was like the vines got thicker in anger and each pulsating heartbeat.
Hannah couldn’t tell if she was screaming or if she was lost within her own darkness of the mind. A set force seemed to be swallowing her until she could not feel anything more than her pain. Then--
Ah fuck
VELVET
She was staring up at someone she only heard in stories. He was smoking and looking down at her. Hannah was confused as she looked up at Wilbur Soot who has been dead for ages.
“Am I dead?” she asked.
“Nope,” he replied. “But you’re going to wish you were.”
“Ah,” she said.
Then she was back at her own abyss, an own ending of her creation. For a second, she could pretend that a woman was patting her head in pity of the pain she was going through.
Hello, little fairy.
Hello
You almost scared me, breaking our rules and seeing Limbo too early.
I’m sorry.
It’s okay. You’ll stay here on this world until I’m done, won’t you?
Sure.
The pretty woman smiled down at her.
Good little fairy.
Hannah was back to staring at the floor of the Egg room. Her head hurt like crazy and she couldn’t help but let out groans of pain. She could feel blood dripping from her mouth again, a sensation she has felt too often recently without having the chance to blow herself up for fun.
Every piece of her hurt and when she turned to her arm where roses typically bloomed, it was covered in blood. She could still see the bright, red pulsating vines that wrapped around her arm ensuring that her arm did not suddenly just break off. She laughed at the notion of being the first member without an arm. The white tulips were currently covered in blood, but she knew that once it was cleaned the would be stark bone white reflecting the pieces of her bones that were sticking out due to their growth.
She leaned back against the Egg and wished that she was back in the cold darkness. She could barely remember her dreams except for a few voices that appeared. Hannah wondered if they were of the Egg and if so why were they not telling her to kill people.
“Hannah!” Sam appeared at the entrance covered in his usual Warden get up.
KILL HIM. he should not be here. HOW DARE HE COME NEAR ME. kill him. KILL HIM.
KILL HIM.
‘Oh,’ Hannah thought. ‘There was the rumored murderous rampage of a sentient bloody Egg.
“Sam,” she choked out. “SAM!”
Sam rushed to her side, quickly grabbing his knife and cutting through the vines. She watched, almost in slow motion as each vine was cut. It felt like he was cutting into her and her own arm tightened at his actions causing her to cry out in pain.
KILL HIM .
“Sam, I’m so sorry,” she cried. “I’m so sorry.”
“Shh,” he shushed her. “It was my fault I let you go. I shouldn’t have let you be taken away by Bad and Ant.”
“No, no, no,” she shook her head over and over. “I thought I could be the hero. I thought that I could help you in defeating the Egg.”
“Hannah,” he straight into her eye. “It’s okay. I’m here now.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said again.
“I know,” he smiled at her, but it was grim. He pulled her up and forced her to put her weight against him. She was thankful, because she could barely feel her legs, nonetheless attempting to walk on her own. The two of them walked out of the Egg room.
Each step felt like hell, it was like she needed to run back to the Egg room. There was a sudden need to be close to it again, but each time she just clutched tighter to Sam and prayed that it would go away.
When they finally got outside, it felt like she could breathe again. She could mentally feel all the flowers that were barely in their germination eras and seeds that were planted only a few hours ago from roaming birds. But any flowers past those stages seemed to be wilting and dying.
It was like everything was being killed by the Egg and she could not help, but want to scream. This world was nothing like the rumors that went around in the champions field. It was treated as if it was a paradise, after all there's no way that it was not filled with games constantly with Dream, Technoblade, and Tommy.
“Would you go to Dream’s world if you had the chance to?” Hannah asked Boomer two weeks before she left for the forbidden world.
“Hmm,” he was sharpening his sword before the next game started. “I think I would have a lot of fun blowing it up.”
“Okay,” she said. “Okay, welllll… I think I would. Imagine the glory and the honor!”
“Yeah, they’re going to give you glory and honor,” Bommer laughed. He pulled his sword away from the whetstone. “Especially after I beat you in this game.”
“You wish,” she taunted.
Neither won that game, instead they had to watch Wallibear cheer for his victory after their beds were destroyed and they were eliminated out of the match.
Hannah really wishes she had her friends by her side once more. She leaned her head against Sam’s shoulder as they walked to her house.
She wishes she could go back home.
vi.
Hannah looked like all life was taken away from her. She stared at herself through her mirror. Her hair was so flat that not even putting her hair up would look like a reasonable human being. Her clothes were washed out of its color somehow, a fact she did not want to find out why. In fact there seemed to be no color on her except for the bright pulsing red vine that went through her arm.
She twisted her arm around noticing how unlike before when it was her typical roses and vines, this time she could actually see her muscle and the occasional blood that would spurt out from a broken vein. She had chipped off the pieces of bone that were sticking out earlier to Sam’s disgust, but she knew that her arm was never truly her arm ever since she took her title.
It had gone through the same process before, although much tamer than this time, and the rose vines had ensured that even had it ripped through her muscle, tissue, veins, and bones that they were still together enough to mimic a normal arm. The Egg’s version had assured itself that it wasn’t the case this time, instead it seemed to destroy everything, except her most vital parts like her arteries. Anything assuring that she would not die of a loss of blood, but nothing more.
Her house seemed to follow the same pattern with its color drained to a gray and only red vines being the only color. It was like every single piece of her was being destroyed. What was worse was she was noticing herself losing her memories.
One moment she and Sam are pulling out the new vines that grew around her house with Sam trying to make sure she did not faint. The next moment she is staring back at herself in the mirror.
More and more events began being forgotten. Hannah could remember standing in front of a cat cafe, then arguing with Niki and Hbomb about whose fault it was. She can remember Sam talking to her about a bank and terms they had jokingly agreed on, but she cannot remember the specific conversation. She felt as if herself was decaying like all the plants around her.
It did not help that she would lay in bed and swear that there were voices all around her. Some arguing and some discussing how they would cut a person up in front of their loved ones.
Weirdly some were talking about their love for Antfrost, but she pretended even more that she did not hear those.
It was worse whenever she would meet up with Sam or Puffy, the voices would get louder and louder demanding than Hannah just killing them so they could be food for her new plants, the vines.
That was the worst part of the whole experience, realizing that she could not grow any more roses or flowers by will. Instead it felt like her own soul had been cut off from the ground. Anytime she attempted to, vines would come closer at a faster rate than previously before. She had to stop herself from screaming at the notion of not being able to.
Hannah just wanted to be normal again.
She pulled her fist back and faced the mirror in front of her. She swung as hard as she can towards the glass and--
Sam and Puffy were talking about the Red Banquet that Bad was hosting in honor of trying to keep peace between those within the cult and outside. Her color had gone back to normal, she was finally tan once again and no longer pale as a corpse. Her outfit was a simple slip on pink dress highlighting that she was better than she was previously.
“We should hide weapons in the banquet hall,” Puffy said. “I don’t trust Bad and his Eggpire.”
“We should,” Sam agreed. “We need someone to sneak in and put weapons in.”
“I can do that,” Puffy told him. “I think I am the most neutral out of us three. Foolish can probably help with anything I need.”
Hannah kicked at one of the vines that was coming closer. “What if they find out?”
Sam and Puffy turned to her, before looking at each other. They were still treating her as if she was delicate. She wasn’t, Hannah knew what it felt like to be stabbed and having her arm be obliterated by her own power and an evil sentient egg. She didn’t say either of those things. Sam was still moping about cutting off Ponk’s arm.
Hannah doesn’t remember when he told her, but that’s okay. She’s getting better.
“They won’t,” Puffy said. “Unless there’s a traitor within us.”
Hannah laughed, “an imposter.”
She hummed a little jingle from a game she used to play with her friends back when games were a thing and she didn’t have to worry about dying, but not really because death was not capable of coming to this world and reaping those who died. She didn’t have to worry about limbo which was probably the closest thing to death, but it didn’t have the same impact.
“Yeah,” Sam said after a few moments. “An imposter.”
Hannah looked away from the vine, “I have some extra weapons if you guys need them.”
Sam smiled and replied with--
Hannah was facing Bad and Antfrost. Her arm hurt as if she was still wrapped around the Egg’s grasp. It felt like someone else was controlling her body and she could not do anything about it.
“They’re planting weapons and armor for the banquet,” she told them. Hannah doesn’t know why she is talking to him, but as long as the pulsating pain was slowly getting less and less, she did not care.
It was hard to think about the pain and the constant yelling in her head.
Sometimes she liked to pretend that she was in Pandora’s Vault itself yelling for Sam to save her like Tommy yelled for him to save him. Both times Sam failed as she knew that he was incapable of doing anything right.
Bad smiled, “thank you for telling me.”
Hannah turned around towards the exit. She was singing the little jingle again laughing at the concept of being the imposter.
vii.
Hannah’s dress was an off shoulder pink dress that she had commissioned from Eret who just smiled at her and said that they knew the perfect person to send it to. A little more mysterious than she would have liked from someone that was making her dress, but she pretended that it was nothing more than their energy. She knew that Eret was known for her dramatics afterall betraying their closest friends for a crown screamed dramatic.
At least she got a pretty dress out of it.
Hannah let herself twirl around in front of her mirror. It had been a mysterious thing to see it broken into tiny pieces when she came back home, but she just blamed it on the dogs that she hadn’t named yet. She really had to start thinking of names for them if she was going to keep them. She also had to figure out where they were, she hadn’t seen them in awhile.
She let Sam and Puffy in after their knocks--
No, she walked with them to the banquet after they knocked. She wouldn’t let them in, they weren’t trustworthy.
The banquet started, but she felt like she had been talking to Eret and Puffy. Hannah looked around, but saw them in separate places talking to other people.
Hannah stared down at her heels, bright red ones to match her typical theme. She wore red and pinks, because those were her favorite two roses.
Red was also the color of poppies that someone gave once to someone. As an apology.
Bad introduced the dance floor, Sam said he was going to talk to Ponk who was missing an arm and glaring at him. Sam really needs to not cut off anymore arms or he’s going to get a reputation.
And--
And--
And--
And Hannah was alone at the dance floor when she felt a hand clutch at her arm and twirl her. Niki had pulled her in to dance with Hannah. A curious action, because Hannah was half convinced that Niki didn’t like her too much. Might have been related to a certain bombing of a cat cafe, but she didn’t want to poke that bear if possible.
“Sorry,” Niki said. “You are possibly the only person that I can handle dancing with at the moment. I don’t really like my chances at a cult banquet.”
Hannah smiled, “no problem. I don’t have too many options myself.”
The two slowly waltz along with the others dancing. Out of the corner of her eyes, Hannah could see Sam talking to Ponk. Both of them were talking furiously with Ponk showing off her arm occasionally. She did not want to hear their conversation and she was glad she was dancing with Niki now.
“So,” Niki started. “I used to hear about your wins. Not so often a Flower goddess picks up a sword.”
Hannah rolled her eyes, “ I don’t get why people think it is some amazing feat. I just beat their asses and did it without taking a war or fighting title.”
“It’s impressive,” Niki told her. “Not many would go against what they are told to be.”
“And what are you the goddess of?” Hannah asked.
“I am the goddess of Labyrinths,” Niki said. Hannah was surprised. She knew many others would be too. Niki had this aura of being the goddess of something simple, she did not think Niki would become a goddess of one of the most forsaken titles. It was typically given to those that were too complicated to settle on one title. It allowed their gods to choose how they were going to be defined, but gave the air as someone willing to let people die for their loved ones.
“Oh?” Hannah twirled Niki around. “And who was your Elder? Most would not want to be tied to it.”
“Philza.”
“Philza? I thought he’d be done after Wilbur,” this conversation with Niki was just showcasing how little Hannah had known about people outside her general circle.
“Me too, but after everything I did not have many options. I was already feeling my soul leave soon after Wilbur’s death,” Niki said. She looked so dejected and Hannah felt bad for causing it with her question. “He gave me a way to continue living and I think it was the perfect title for me.
“You know,” Niki looked straight into Hannah’s eyes. “If you ever need an escape from all of this, I can take you to my labyrinth. You can live there as long as you want.”
“Oh?” Hannah thought back to her recent weeks. “I think I am fine for now actually. Past the Egg. There isn’t too much that I can complain about. I really am happy where I am, especially because its harder for me to be underground.”
“You know I thought it would be harder for you with all the rot near your house,” Niki pointed out. “Your house seems to be the breeding ground for decay recently.”
“Decay is a part of the process of flowers,” Hannah told her. For some reason that statement seemed to strike a chord and annoyed her. “Flowers slowly rot and crush into themselves as they no longer can get nutrients from the ground below them. It's a slow process at times, but when it begins you can just watch as it slowly dies. You can stop it of course, but sometimes you have to realize their purpose is over at that moment. Sometimes it becomes more important to let them become food for the new flowers that bloom there.”
“So, you’re putting something new there?” Niki asked. They stared at each other for a few moments. It was as if they knew a little too much of each other for them to be comfortable with, yet were unwilling to stop the other from destroying everything around them.
“Of course, death is the natural process for the new to survive. We live off our dead, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Are you saying I am living off Wilbur’s death?”
“I am not saying anything except talking about the process of life and death with flowers. But are you?”
“I don’t care for Wilbur anymore, he’s dead and he’s better off rotting.”
“So you can survive?”
Niki glared at Hannah, but she only smiled back. It was so easy for them to read one another. It made for a fun conversation. For a fun little challenge, so they could ignore what was occurring in the world around them.
“I live without him, alive or dead, perfectly fine,” Niki pulled away and bowed to Hannah. “I have to go, the show is starting.”
“Don’t you mean dinner?”
“Don’t you mean show?” Niki retorted back. “After all, we know none of us will be eating, will we?”
“We’ll find out.”
Hannah watched as Niki walked away from her. She made a mental note to ignore Niki for the time being until Hannah could find out what Niki was hiding. Afterall her being connected to Philza meant that she was probably connected to Technoblade and that could be a problem if the two of them actually started fighting.
Hannah walked towards Sam who seemed to be moping with no Ponk around, so that probably did not end well for him.
Then she was sitting down with everyone else. The dinner had begun and George looked a little confused at the entire thing. She laughed at the idea of George not finding her memories, but stopped when Sam elbowed her.
Then Puffy and Sam had gotten up yelling at Bad, Antfrost, and Ponk.
She got up, but when she realized what was going on the Eggpire already had her weapons in their hands she just yelled, “And I was the imposter!”
A little jingle rang in her head.
Then Foolish was dead.
Then Antfrost was dead.
Then Technoblade and Quackity and Purpled were here on Puffy and Sam’s side. A notion she honestly thought was impossible with all their morals.
She also hated that the first time she saw Technoblade was when she could not tell if she was breathing or if there were stars on the ceiling.
There were explosions.
Then-
Then-
Then Wilbur Soot was in front of her again. The End surrounded them and she could smell his cigarette and the burnt smell of his jacket burning. He was sitting down criss cross on the stars, which was the strangest sight for her.
“Are you real?” she asked.
“Do you want me to actually answer that?” he asked.
“No,” she answered.
Hannah sat down next to him. She was in her normal plaid skirt and pink top. “I feel like I am losing myself.”
Wilbur smiled at her. Something that she never wanted to happen again.
“You know? I felt the same way before,” he told her.
“That’s not good for me, I don’t really want my Elder to stab me in the chest.”
He burst out laughing and she couldn’t help but follow. The two of them fell down and laid across the stars of the End.
“You know?” he asked.
“What?” she asked.
“I don’t know if I’m real.”
Then she was outside of the Egg room staring at Sam who was panting covered in blood.
“Sam?” she asked.
“Oh, you’re okay,” he looked so relieved and hugged her tightly.
“Did I die?”
“No, no,” he repeated. “I locked down the Egg, it should stop affecting you soon. The vines started dying, so you should be okay.”
“Sam?” Hannah asked. Then she burst out crying to her dismay. She didn’t stop Sam from hugging her tightly even when Puffy and the other guests got out. She didn’t stop when they got to her house and Sam asked if she wanted him to sleep over, but she refused.
viii.
It was strange, the days after the Red Banquet. It was like Hannah was a new person. She suddenly did not feel like she wanted to hurt those around her and felt calm once again just sitting around in the world.
She once again sat in front of her house, putting back rocks and stone to fix her path. She let her soul push at the ground around her creating A pattern of grass and leaves to appear to give it more shape. Her roses were settling back in their original spots, taking like from those that came before them. It almost felt like she was back to her first day in the world and yet she also felt like she aged a thousand years.
Her arm was resettling. She could feel her vines coming back thicker than they were previously to compensate for the gaps that the Egg put when it ripped open her arm. Her roses seem to somehow be closer to blood red than their previous shade. Something she did not tell anyone. She was scared that Sam would freak out and try to figure out if they had to cut off her arm to help her heal.
He was still tense around her after the Red Banquet, but he seemed to be settling after she started to act normal. More normal than she did when she was still under the Egg’s control. It was like everything was settling for once.
Hannah pushed her soul and watched the rose blossom. The feeling sent tingles through her body, something she missed.
Hannah could pretend that her roses weren’t beating to a different heartbeat than hers or that her vines had gotten thorns and are slowly tearing her skin off her arm. Both were things that she now had to deal with after the Egg.
Just side effects, as long as she wasn’t losing her memories again. Hannah was fine.
Hannah blossomed another rose to prove her point.
ix.
Hannah’s wings were lighter than she expected. She laughed as she felt them flutter in the wind. For once it felt like she got something that would give her a bit of happiness after dealing with the Eggpire twisting her head.
She twirled for Sam who was watching her just in case she injured herself with her new wings.
“Congrats, Hannah,” Sam told her. She beamed brightly and he responded with a smile of his own. It was the first time she witnessed him smile in awhile. After the banquet, Ponk’s…arm problem, and Tommy’s fight with him, he seemed pretty depressed and sticking to the Warden’s mentality. But she managed to pull him out of his own head for once. “How did you get them?”
“Oh, magic,” she made a fist and popped them out as if to showcase the suddenness of the magic.
She wouldn’t tell him about the skulls that were buried along her path holding her roses’ roots. She wouldn’t tell him about the cold feeling sweep over her in the middle of the night and how it made her stand up. She wouldn’t tell him about the knock on the door and when she opened it, a small necklace shined back at her. She wouldn’t tell him how the small crystal in the center reminded her a little too much of the End and home or how there was a blond woman starting back at her with the bottom half of her face being covered by a black porcelain mask as if it was capable of hiding the monstrous nature underneath. She wouldn’t tell him that woman raised her pointer finger to cover where her mouth was and how she disappeared.
“After all, I earned it,” she told him.
“Oh, yeah?” he laughed.
“Yeah, I challenged the rest of the server and competed in a high stakes match in order to get these wings. You just weren’t there, “ she teased. “Too busy being the Warden.”
Sam sighed, “you know I can’t just leave especially after what happened to Tommy.”
“You need a break,” she said. “Especially with the bank that you’re building.”
“Well, I need some employees,” he looked at her with raised eyebrows. “And you don’t have a job.”
“You want me,” she pointed to herself incredulously. “ Me to work at a BANK? ”
Sam threw his arms, “you can say no.”
“No,” she nodded to herself. “I will work at your bank , because I am a good friend.”
“Okay,” he laughed at her dramatics. “You know you and Tommy would make really good friends if you just talked to him.”
“Like you do?”
Sam stood up at that, “I got to get back to work.”
“Sam,” Hannah tried to stop him. “You know I wasn’t trying to be cruel.”
“I just can’t right now,” Sam told her. “I can’t go begging for forgiveness when I won’t be able to beg properly.”
“I can handle Pandora’s Vault if you want,” she said. Even though every inch of her didn’t want to. “Just for a couple of days.”
“I can’t ask that of you,” Sam started walking away. “Bye, Hannah.”
“Bye!”
Hannah laid back down on the ground. She felt finally at peace after everything had occurred. It felt like the server was once again calming down and she was happy. Although she missed the action and adventure elements of the recent few weeks, she was enjoying having her head be her own again.
Hannah let herself push her soul onto the earth surrounding her. She felt as flowers began to bloom around her with an obvious preference for roses with no tulips blooming. It felt good to finally feel herself grow things when previously all that she could were colorless tulips. She closed her eyes and let herself be in peace in the middle of a random field.
“So you’re Hannah?” Hannah sat up and turned to Tommy who had been sitting a few feet away from her. He was nothing like the stories she heard. She heard about a loud teenager that took up all the space he could, but here she was witnessing one that seemed to huddle into himself and clutch at the blue cardigan around him. She did not let her eyes linger on the stark white lock of hair on his head.
“I am and you’re Tommy,” she replied. She pushed her soul to start blooming flowers around him which he gasped at. She laughed when he turned to coo at all the flowers that were popping up near him.
“Can they hear if I sing to them?” he said suddenly.
“I think they can, I mean I talk gossip to my roses and I swear they perk up a little each time,” she told him. Leaning in as if she was telling him a secret. “Honestly all flowers are nosy bastards that will listen to anything.”
Tommy gasped and clutched at his chest, “they’re not bastards. They are precious flowers that should be protected forever!”
“Bastards,” she nodded. “All of them.”
Hannah laughed as Tommy fell backwards in dramatics, then quickly sat up when he realized he laid on one of them. He instantly began apologizing to them which caused them to laugh louder.
When she could finally stop, she smiled at the boy across from him, “so you sing to your plants?”
“I think they grow better if I do,” he said confidently.
“Well as the supreme goddess of Flowers, I have to agree with that notion.”
“Exactly, only a supreme woman like you would understand!”
“And I am the most supreme woman.”
“Other than Prime.”
“Other than- okay.”
“Say it!”
“No.”
“Say it!”
“SaY iT.”
“I don’t sound like that!”
“Oh, you definitely do. Trust me I am the most supreme woman after Prime,” she laughed at his cheer when she finally admitted it. “So you agree you sound like that?”
“No,” he refused. “I am the mightest man to every man. I sound big and strong, not small and high pitched. Small and high pitched people cower to me”
“I am small and high pitched,” Hannah looked him straight in the eye. “I am not cowering.”
“You will cower when we fight for honor!”
“Bet?”
“...bet.”
She beat him easily with a wooden sword and kept wacking him until Tommy admitted that Hannah was the biggest out of the two of them.
When they finally calmed down from their mighty and long fight, Hannah and Tommy laid side by side on the floor. It was like a part of her was finally calmed after being able to complete a challenge after awhile.
“So?” she started. A little unsure where she was going with this. “Have you decided on an Elder?”
Tommy blew out air, “everyone is always asking me. No, I haven’t.”
“Why not?” she was a little unsure if she wanted to continue this conversation, but she definitely forced herself to.
“I was supposed to follow Kristen and I always wished that she would help me choose Hope. I was so confident in this until Pogtopia, but after Wilbur and Technoblade… I couldn’t be the Hope that we always spoke about, the one that followed them to their planes and creations and challenges and cheered them on. I was hating the people they became and I knew that I couldn’t continue blindly following them. Then I thought Prime would help me, because I built a church for her, but she doesn’t really answer my prayers anymore. I thought that it was my fault, but when I was in limbo I knew that it wasn’t.
“Neither her or Kristen came. We are always told that if we somehow meet our end that both would be there as a farewell, but they never came and instead I just heard Wilbur and Schlatt and Mexican Dream and I hated every instance. I just wanted what I was promised and when I came back I knew that I didn’t care anymore.”
“You know,” Hannah began. “Kristen was creating such a fuss for all four of you at the End. No one would dare to mention any of your names, because they knew that she would blow up on them. She really does love you and misses you. I think someone broke access to Kristen.”
“I figured,” Tommy replied. “She used to say Limbo was where those who cannot see her yet wait, but Wilbur, her favorite, was there for forty years and she never came once.”
“Well what do you want to be the god of now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well,” Hannah started. She pulled one of her arms out in front of her. Her ring from Astelic shining back down at her. “How do you feel about being the god of Flowers?”
“That would be pretty bomb, I’d get all the women,” he smiled brightly. She couldn’t help, but smile back. “No one will be able to resist me with all my flowers. They’d be like ‘who is that with all those pog flowers?’ and I’d be like ‘me, obviously .”
She burst out laughing. “Oh, all of the women will flock for you, because of your pog flowers.”
“All of them,” he nodded. His face turned serious once more, “you really want me?”
“Course,” she knocked her shoulder against his, “where else could I find some pog flowers?”
VI. Hestia - Tina
i.
Those who witnessed Tina, witnessed her alone. When she settled on the land for the first time, her first thought was that it was very hot. Compared to the shelter of the cold where many other gods call home, Dream’s world was sweltering in the heat.. The sun seemed to stay in the sky constantly to her dismay and delight. It was the perfect world on paper, yet it was the worst in reality.
When she settled at Kinoko Kingdom for Sapnap and Karl, she was disappointed to find herself constantly alone. On her first day, she was pulled by Sapnap warning her of George’s sleep tendencies and Karl’s mysterious disappearances. He was unwilling to explain more about the two residences’ disappearing habits. However, he did not warn her about his own habits of going off on his own. So she found herself alone inexplicably a few days into her first week.
Kinoko Kingdom, for its beauty and elegance, was strangely creepy to Tina when she was by herself. The mushroom seemed to grow and fester on the walls when only she was watching. In the dark it reminded her of a war zone, covered in red and silent as if the ghosts were still mourning too.
She spent the nights wandering, chasing off any lingering ghosts that demanded a quiet place to sleep in. It felt like they knew that nothing of this world could be holy for so long without falling to its annihilation. They seemed to beckon war closer and closer to her home, until she lit the fires of each of the houses. Reminding them that this was not somewhere fallen to the devastation of war yet.
Then in the daylight it seemed to contradict itself, almost as if no one had ever lived in the kingdom. There were no scuffed marks from accidents, nothing has been needed to be replaced. The ghosts never existed if no one has ever dared to die, nonetheless live in Kinoko Kingdom.
There was nothing to hint that someone ever stayed in. It was as if it was a tomb waiting for its people to die in order to finally rest. She would linger around the flowers, watching the living in the quiet nothingness. Tina felt like a gravekeeper, waiting to bury the next victims of the world and keep their peace for all eternity.
In its silence, she pretended to be the ruler of the kingdom. However the more and more she pretended, the more Tina realized that she hated every part of Kinoko Kingdom in the silence. A part of her hated every meeting with any member from this world and how she could not handle being by herself. She wanted the world she was promised and she wished she could demand but there were no words to be spoken in this broken world.
When she walked away from Kinoko, it was as if she could breathe finally. There was no tether tying her to Kinoko, yet it seemed like it was constantly clutching at her throat. Like she could not breathe when she was near Kinoko at its most silent moments.
However the closer and closer Tina got to the main area of the world. She felt chills run through her body. Here , she noted, here were the ghosts all along. The path was silent and once again she was alone, but this time it felt like the world was focusing on her. Here, there was no camaraderie, instead the world focused on its own violence. Here there was death and war wounds found all along the path. There was wood pathing that did not match occasionally, instead it pointed out all the times it needed to be replaced over the years. Here there was a history and it made itself known. This was where the life took place and instead Tina was hidden away in Kinoko.
The walls seemed to get tighter in the morning, instead of being an open place she could explore it was as if the walls wanted her to suffocate within Kinoko. It was so desperate for some semblance of normalcy within the world that Kinoko started begging for death rather than accepting the one life it had within its grounds. Tina would enter new buildings and empty homes to replenish their food and wilting flowers and would wonder what type of person could live there one day.
And she hated it.
It was as if the world was transformed for the Kinoko Kingdom in order to keep its beauty. If she was crueler she would blame Sapnap and George, there was still the shine of their love from Dream no matter how much she knew the two refuse to go near him in recent years. The mark of being the First still lingered to their disappointment, a mark of their crime and the friendships that were destroyed over the years.
She could pretend that she understood their hatred for Dream, but in reality she couldn’t. She remembered how Dream was the first time they met outside of the world he created, a suave guy with a heart of gold always going for what was thought to be impossible. She remembered staring at him from far away, jealous of the seven that were able to stand by his side. Tina remembered the stories of how Sam disappeared for years until returning with rumors surrounding his goal to punish Dream, and Callahan's own decision to overtake Dream, but unable to do more than control Dream’s ability to create.
Tina could not reconcile this was the man that once did what everyone says they did. Dream to her was always someone meant to look up to even when he broke the forbidden rule and created a world for gods to pretend they are mortal. But she kept her head down, because she knows the thought lingers in everyone’s mind of if he escapes then he could only destroy the rest of them. She never understood it, but she never went against it publicly. She knew better than to fight the rest of her brethren.
Instead Tina just stood in the path, one that slowly had shifted into cobblestone and roses. A house was across her way, one that she only knew could be Hannah’s from the excessive amount of roses surrounding it. However, the house was not in its typical form, with pieces broken off after a bomb seemed to go off. With said girl crying in front of it with soot around her and her new wings that were ripped apart from an explosion.
Tina slowly walked towards Hannah and sat by her side. “What happened?”
Hannah looked up at Tina with her eyes red from tears and anger, “what happened is I am going to kill Boomer.”
Her tears suddenly burst out again and she began sobbing, “I lost my wings!”
“He ripped your wings,” Tina’s own tears began to form and she reached out to hold Hannah. Tina clutched at Hannah wanting to make sure she didn’t think she was alone, “my little fairy.”
“I want to fucking kill him,” Hannah said through her tears. She leaned her head against Tina’s shoulder. “I hate him! I'm going to rip his frog legs apart!”
“I’m so sorry,” Tina just said. She felt so useless, there was a piece of her that hated Kinoko even more. Forcing her away from protecting those she considered close and those she could be close with one day. Then witnessing their destruction from Kinoko for her own safety,“If you want, I can take you to Kinoko as you heal them.”
Hannah sat up, “what is happening is I am going to hunt him down! He forgets that I was one of the best where we trained.”
Tina watched as Hannah seemed to maniacally plan out everything she was going to do to Boomer. From killing him to destroying his house too. She couldn’t understand what Hannah was saying, but she knew that whatever it was that she settled on wouldn’t be good for Boomer.
Hannah stood up, she looked back down at Tina, “I’m surprised you’re here.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re usually at Kinoko Kingdom, not here,” Hannah noted.
“I can leave Kinoko!” Tina said.
Hannah laughed, “it feels like you can’t sometimes. Like your soul belongs to Kinoko.”
Tina stood up, “it doesn’t belong to Kinoko! I can leave!”
“Obviously,” Hannah said, “but can you stay away?”
“I love being in Kinoko, it's where Sapnap, George, and Karl are. I have no place to go if I leave.”
“That’s a lie,” Hannah told her. “You can live with me.”
“But-” Tina started. “I want to stay.”
Hannah smirked, then she leaned in, “what are you the goddess of, Tina?”
ii.
The first time Tina witnessed Sapnap come in bruised, she was alone in the kitchen staring at the stove wondering how many times it was used. Surely the number was low as it did not even have burn marks from a mistake or the paint on the knobs have not been rubbed off from two uses. Similar to everything in Kinoko, the stove was almost too perfect to be one that survived being used. Another mental note for Tina reminding her of her place in a deserted kingdom.
She seemed to be entranced with the stove, so when the door slammed open with Sapnap leaning against the doorway she jumped. Tina turned around as watched as a bruised and bloody Sapnap seemed to walk and throw himself on the kitchen chair.
“I didn’t think you would be here,” he said. “Was it quiet?”
“I don’t think I ever heard any noise here whenever you weren’t with me,” she replied. Tina watched him from the kitchen and moved around continuing to move things around so she could mimic the chaotic nature of someone living in the house, “what happened?”
“Dream,” he bit out. It was still tense between the two of them ever since he found out her dismay for their willingness to throw Dream away as if he did not give Sapnap everything he ever wanted. “He was hunting Tommy down and I had to stop him.”
She did not voice any of the words she wanted to say like ‘did you?’ or ‘why can’t you try to understand him?’, instead she said, “Do you need me to help you?”
He nodded at her, “I think he broke my ribs.”
“I don’t understand how. You have netherite, isn’t it supposed to be the strongest material?”
“Dream likes to do the impossible,” Sapnap looked out of the window. He seemed to be watching for something that was never going to come. “It was quiet?”
“I don’t know what you think Kinoko Kingdom is, but it does not get many guests here,” Tina stood up and walked closer towards him. She pulled at her soul letting it recognize a connection to the god of Fire in front of her in order to let it heal him.
“Nothing from George or Karl I mean?”
Tina stopped, but grabbed the seat next to Sapnap and readied her soul for fixing Sapnap’s injuries. Once she finally was able to pour some of her soul to fix Sapnap’s injuries she said, “I haven’t seen anyone except you since I arrived here. I thought they forgot about me.”
“Karl wouldn’t forget you if he could,” Sapnap said. He looked down, “maybe it's better if you don’t see him.”
“If he could? ” Tina exclaimed. She was worried for the person she considered one of her first friends and the reason why she came. “What does that mean?”
Sapnap was too silent for Tina’s liking and she hated every single moment of it. “I came because of him. What happened to him?”
Sapnap leaned into his hands, “he’s been forgetting us all. He calls us different names and he won’t let Quackity near him. I don’t know why, he’s not telling me anything.”
“Where is he, maybe I can help him?”
“I thought he came back.”
“Came back from where?”
“I don’t know!” Sapnap pushed the chair away from him and punched the table. “I don’t know where he goes, but everytime he leaves he forgets me more and more. I hate it!”
Sapnap stopped and put his hands to his face “I hate it and I can’t fix it. I can’t ask Dream, because he wants control no matter how he gets it and George is always sleeping! Bad is gone after whatever he did with the Egg and Sam is too obsessed with the prison, Ponk is not talking to any of us after Sam chopped his arm off. Callahan is gone, because he can’t let Dream get to him. Alyssa is banished, because she said no once to Dream! And I’m alone! And I can’t do it. I can’t be the only one left out of us.”
“You’re not alone,” Tina placed her hand on his back. “I’m here and Karl will be back. We will find out what’s wrong with him.”
Sapnap shrugged her arm off and turned away. Tina watched as the potion did its job, slowly the bruises faded to nothing and cuts closed with not even a scar left behind. It was strange to witness and she never was comfortable with the way the magic existed in this world.
“I was the youngest out of the seven. George and Dream used to joke around that I could never be alone and I had to be with someone.” Sapnap said as if he was remembering a time when that was true. He stood up and started heading towards his room, “I’m going to bed, can you watch over Kinoko for me?”
Every ounce of her hated what he asked of her, Tina wanted to ask why couldn’t she join the fights or help the others. She wanted to scream and demand why she was always stuck waiting for people that did not even bother to show up half the time. Instead she smiled, “I’ll keep Kinoko’s hearth steady for you.”
“I know why I love that you live here now,” Sapnap replied. “It finally feels warm.”
iii.
The first time Tina saw George was when she was alone exploring Kinoko Kingdom and its secrets. It took awhile, but she decided to explore the place she was calling home. She finally settled with her emotions about being stuck in Kinoko, but after hearing the tales from the other kingdoms that once rose in this world she decided to find out every single element of Kinoko.
It was then when she discovered a door that seemed to go to the bottom of the world. There was a staircase that seemed to go on forever until it finally reached its destination. A door stopped Tina’s exploration for a second until she settled on the thought that no one else was in Kinoko except for her. She was safe in her own little adventure.
So she opened the door to find a bedroom. Unlike any other room in Kinoko, the room was not designed purposefully through Foolish’s architecture style, but rather was centered around the clutter one person can make without thinking. The bedroom was small with only a bed in its center.
She slowly walked around the room noting the small mushrooms that mimicked the style of Kinoko above. Moss seemed to grow in every single corner of the room until barely any wood popped out. Tina slowly walked around pieces that were on the floor, broken and in disarray until she got to the bed. In her mind, she was only curious about the large amount of moss that seemed to collect in the center. She was not expecting to examine and find the sleeping body of George.
From what she was told, George’s sleep was unnatural. Rumors popped up that it was revenge for the crimes he committed against the gods, that it was punishment for being the third to take the blade to his hand. Some whispered and did not dare to speak louder that it was XD calling his favorite prodigy and taking him out of Dream’s grasp without him noticing.
She just thought it was George’s own peculiar nature that forced itself to shut down when it was dealing with thoughts it did not want to deal with.
Tina sat on the corner of the bed and stared at George for a few seconds. Sapnap spoke to her about how George would never wake up unless it was by his own violation. He would sleep through the end if he did not think that it was important. Tina knew that Sapnap meant in the way that George would never sleep through seeing them together once more.
“George,” Tina started. “ I know you can’t hear me or you’re ignoring me, but Sapnap really needs you.”
Tina waited for a few more moments. She pretended that was enough for George to suddenly spring awake. For her to finally have a friend that was always there in Kinoko and not gone. But as usual, Tina was alone in her thoughts in Kinoko.
She curled up and pulled her legs up to her chest. “Sapnap is really worried about Karl and I am too. I haven’t seen Karl since he came here, but everytime we meant he would tell me that he saw something special. He would tell me all about his adventures in this world and how I was destined to come and have my own adventure.
“I don’t think either of us thought without the other. Although, I guess he always had a way of knowing more than I ever could. I think he knew that I would come and that I would be needed. After all, most people thought I was the goddess of a worthless plane. Unlike you and unlike Sapnap and Dream.
“I mean you three were the ones they told legends of. The Dream Team who always beat the impossible and always tried their hardest to do the unachievable. I mean when everyone heard that you guys stole the knife no one was surprised. I mean we all knew the seven of you were made to do the worst. I mean it was kind of destined that you and the others would challenge fate.”
Tina settled down in her thoughts. Settling on the feeling that she was being watched even though she knew that George's eyes were closed. It was as if something else was watching over her, obsessed with her words. The choking feeling came back stronger than ever before. Tina settled her hand around her throat.
She knew this feeling and she felt as if she knew that the other six connected to George knew. There was a possessive feeling that seemed to grasp at her hand acknowledging her place in George’s circle, but hating it. No, it hated everything about this world and it hated that it dared to hold George in its grasp. George was destined for greater things, not worse things. It was all Dream’s fault.
The force seemed to push harder against her daring her thoughts of how good Dream is and how much she hated to see him being destroyed by his friends. No, he deserved it. How could he not when not even his creator hated what he had become. Simply an element of his own destruction destined to slowly kill everyone around himself and then destroy whatever was left behind. Dream was a force that was meant to be put down.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND? It demanded out of Tina. She could not feel her own thoughts over the rampaging impact that it had against her. It hated her for what she loved, it hated her for what she was. Not something Tina was unfamiliar with, no Tina had handled the cruel thoughts from her brethren and those that pulled her worshippers away from her temple. But it demanded it through her veins and her atoms. It wanted every single piece of her to hate Dream the same it hated her and to GET OUT.
“I won’t,” she grasped out. “I need to make sure he lives.”
It laughed at her naivety, her simplistic thought process of loving her friends and expecting but not demanding the same. Afterall, she is left alone in Kinoko with nothing and no one. No one would remember her if it simply took what it gave and if people did then no one would find out for days.
It let go.
Not out of kindness nor out of guilt. No, it let her go, because George was daring to wake. It let her know this and demanded she stayed silent.
The two watched as George settled in the bed, falling deeper in sleep again.
“I’m not afraid of you, XD,” Tina whispered. “You’re not the scariest thing I have encountered.”
It seemed to laugh at the notion. It grasped on her throat again, a threat but at the moment not a promise.
YOU’RE RIGHT, BUT DON’T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE AS YOUR ELDERS. REMEMBER YOU ARE HERE, BUT NOT DEFINED BY IT.
Tina stood up. Her throat felt bruised and she felt shaken up, but she still leaned down and patted George on the head. “I’ll see you later, but I’ll make sure to add a fireplace here so it’s not so cold down here.”
Tina walked out with her head high and she did not cry as she walked up the steps. She did not cry when she found no one once again in Kinoko. She did not cry when she felt no ghosts watching her and when the mushrooms looked like mushrooms. She did not cry when she entered her room and laid down.
She did not cry.
iv.
The first time Tina sees Karl, she’s alone and he is wandering Kinoko as if he was never here before. She ran up to him and hugged him.
“You’re finally here!” Tina laughed in excitement, but it slowly died as the arms never hugged her back.
She pulled away to look at Karl who was looking at her in confusion. His eyes were brighter in color, but somehow seemed dimmer as if he saw death he cannot explain. It took him a second for his eyes to light up in recollection.
“Tina!” he exclaimed and hugged her finally. “You’re here!”
“I’m here,” she hugged back. She could feel her tears slowly drench his sweater. “I’ve missed you.”
Tina pulled away and noted the more differences from the Karl she knew back in the day. His jacket seemed to be fading in color, but she reasoned that it must be due to living in the world for too long. She wanted to pretend that it did not take him minutes to finally recognize someone that he promised he would never forget.
“I’ve missed you too,” he smiled brightly. “Where’s James?”
Tina looked at him in confusion. She knew that she was not completely familiar with all the gods in the world, but she knew that was not someone that was living here. “James?”
“Yeah, he’s a butler,” Karl looked down. “We got really close at a masquerade and I thought he was here.”
Tina just looked at him in confusion. “There’s no James here. I don’t think there ever was.”
It was Karl’s turn to look at her in confusion. He turned to the side and seemed to mumble to himself. She watched him silently as he seemed to go through his own thoughts out loud, but she never could tell what he was saying. When Karl turned back to her, his eyes were golden. Tina could not hold her gasp as it slowly faded out.
“I meant Sapnap,” Karl exclaimed brightly. “I keep forgetting the name that he goes by, did you know it was almost Pandas?”
“No,” she said softly. “What happened to your eyes?”
Karl laughed, “nothing, I feel fine!”
“Karl-”
“Tina,” he said in the coldest voice that she never believed could come from him. “It was nothing.”
“Okay,” she breathed out. She did not want to say another word. It felt as if the Karl in front of her was someone stronger than she ever encountered in this world. It was as if her moment with XD meant nothing when staring back at Karl in front of her. She never feared her life in Karl’s friendship, but right now Tina was wondering if their previous encounters were the only thing stopping Karl from killing her.
“I can’t remember where my house is,” his personality changed back to the bubbly nature she was familiar with. He hit his head softly, “I keep forgetting.”
“I know,” she replied. “Sapnap told me.”
Karl laughed. “I’m sure Sapnap complained all about it. Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
Karl rolled his eyes, “always adventuring with Dream and George. I never knew their obsession with manhunts. I don’t know how they convinced Bad and Sam.”
Tina said nothing. Sapnap and George have not been near Dream in years and Bad and Sam were names she barely heard spoken pleasantly. There hasn’t been a manhunt in years and when the last one took place before Karl and Tina ever met.
“Do you want me to help you go to your house?” she asked.
Karl smiled brightly at her. He mock bowed to her, “lead the way, astronaut.”
A nickname she did not understand the reference to, but she still walked the path she walked hundreds of times alone. Yet every time she was wishing for another person to finally join her on her walk, Tina never imagined a version of Karl that seemed to know more and less than the one she once knew.
She led him to the house she knew belonged to him and witnessed him examine every nook as if it was his first time ever seeing it. Karl turned around with a bright smile, “it’s almost as if no one ever lived here.”
The words shook Tina at her core. It was as if she was ashamed that no one has ever lived in Kinoko long enough to make an impact on the land around her. There was a part of her that hated herself for not convincing more to join her and keep her company. All she was there for was to keep the houses warm enough for those who came to call home.
And she hated that it was not enough for anyone to stay long enough to.
A part of Tina wanted to scream at Karl. Where was the bright brunet that spoke to her for hours about anything and nothing. Who wanted to explore everything that they could and who told her about his invitation to a world that other gods did not dare to speak about.
“Yeah,” she laughed. “It feels like I’m the only one living here sometimes.”
“I’m sure you still throw the biggest parties, afterall I could not get over the hangover the next morning,” he told her. Tina noted how confident he seemed to be about his remarks. As if he knew them for truth when they seemed like a part of his imagination.
Karl reminded Tina of George, both fated to be stuck in their own worlds never allowing themselves to see reality. She wondered if she would ever be the person he spoke so proudly about or if she was stuck being the girl that wandered Kinoko Kingdom. She wondered if she was the ghost that she imagined in the end and every other ghost was what was meant to be happening if she was ever good at her role.
“I don’t really throw parties,” she told him. “I just tend to be by myself these days. I’m sure that now that you’re here, we can have company.”
Karl shook his head. “I need to be in my library. There's books that need to be written.”
“They can wait,” she almost begged. “Why don’t I fix you some food and you can tell me where you’ve been.”
Karl smiled at her, ”bye, Tina.”
Tina watched in silence as he turned into his house and disappeared out of her sight. A light never turned on and as Tina sat there for a few moments, she never heard a noise that originated from the house.
Tina turned back and walked home alone. She thought to herself at least I’m not alone .
Tina never saw Karl again for a while.
v.
Tina was alone when she noticed a reindeer wearing a mask on the top of one of the mushroom houses. She knew instantly who he was, Callahan the fated one that did not join the creation. The one to take Dream’s powers of shifting reality and the one that controlled the world as long as the other six allowed him to.
A cruel thought reminded her that the others probably have no choice. There was no way they would ever agree to one another again.
“Hi there!” she yelled. “I don’t think we have met before!”
Callahan said nothing and she never expected him to.
“I’m Tina! I’m the resident of Kinoko Kingdom. The others are gone right now if you’re looking for them.”
He titled his head, then shook his head and pointed at her.
“Oh? You’re here for me?”
Tina watched as he nodded yes and jumped down. She was slightly shorter than him, only a few inches which surprised her. In her mind, he was tall to match his greatness, but he was nearly her height.
“Well,” she said looking down at the basket she was holding. “I was just going to gather some stuff from the houses before they rot or wilt. Wanna join me?”
When Callahan nodded, Tina started walking on the path she took a hundred times by herself. She instantly compared it to the difference between the vibes compared to when she walked with Karl on the same path. It felt kinder, almost as if she was walking with one of her pets. A peaceful serenity centered around the quietness of Kinoko Kingdom.
“I usually drop new plants off at each of the houses, but today I forgot to bring any. I feel a little foolish,” she laughed. “Don’t tell Foolish.
“Afterall, even though no one comes, I was always told that if a house is not ready for guests that it is bad luck. Also bad manners and how no one will ever show up again. But the idea of it being bad luck always stuck with me, after all it was your own curse that you placed upon yourself that no one visits an expecting house. No one wants to feel like they’re intruding. Flowers say that they can come in and stay for as long as they want.”
Tina paused in her thoughts, “no one has come in months anyways. No one except the three residents and they never seem to stay or care about hanging around. Perhaps there is already bad luck lingering around Kinoko that keeps people away. No one ever remembers it exists.”
Tina stopped completely. Forgetting Callahan by her side, instead focusing on her loneliness that lingered throughout her time in Kinoko. No one cared and no one wanted to visit her. It was as if she was in her own little island that she created when she only just came to see her friends. There was no wars that she could participate in and become a woman of myth. Instead the world was silent and uneventful. It seemed to focus on ensuring that Tina would forever be lonely in a world she was promised friends in.
Tina shook herself out, “I’m really sorry I-”
She turned towards Callahan and cut herself out. In his hands was a bouquet of red roses, he pushed them forward into Tina’s hand. She knew about the powers he stole from dream, but she never expected to witness and receive an item he created out of nothing.
She smiled brightly at him. “These will surely brighten all the houses. There will be no curses here in Kinoko Kingdom. Afterall, we have the prettiest flowers.”
Tina skipped amongst the path that she always hated whenever left to her own thoughts. Everything seemed to finally become lively once again in Kinoko. It was as if the weight of keeping life going on in the kingdom was finally lifted as her job was finally completed.
Tina let herself ramble about nonsense to Callahan as the two visited all the houses in Kinoko. She ignored the emptiness of Karl’s, of Sapnap’s, and of the one George will never enter unless he wakes. Instead she focused on the company she had by her side.
“You know,” she began towards the end of their journey. “You remind me of my dog, staying by my side as I walk and protecting me from anyone that may come and try to hurt me.”
Tina let herself smile as wide as she could. “If you ever need company, I will gladly hang out with you. All the houses are available if you want to sleep in one, after all we put fresh roses in them and I lit the hearths.”
Callahan slowly nodded towards her. He led her to her door and pointed at a house. She knew instantly what she meant and her smile somehow seemed to get brighter as she nodded back. Callahan waved goodbye as he headed to the house.
And Tina turned back in brighter spirits than she ever was previously. She lit the hearth in her own house and watched the fire slowly rise. Finally she could relax as there was finally someone in Kinoko Kingdom that was willing to spend time with her.