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It's an hour past sundown when a dot of light streaks across the sky. Nobody is there to see it (nobody but a young demigod child at his bedroom window, who points excitedly to the "shooting star" and babbles to his godly father, who simply smiles indulgently at what he believes to be nothing more than a child's imagination). Nobody sees it, nobody notices, and there's nobody there to stare when it breaks the atmosphere. It's something from beyond the stars, something foreign, and it's careening toward the ground at impressive speeds.
It goes unseen but not unheard, especially when it lands. The collision is monumental, the red sand of the mesa flying outward from the crash site while the meteorite - the ship, it's a ship - struggles to hold itself together in its destructive skid across the landscape. It's wishful thinking to hope it won't fall apart with the force of the crash...and then the engine explodes.
In a small town built in the protection of a bowl-like canyon in the mesa, the Sheriff jerks his head up from the reports he'd been filling out. His eyes narrow and his ears perk up and his golden-feathered wings grow tense against his back, the distant sounds of immense destruction reaching him through the silence of the night. When he ducks his head out of his office and catches sight of plumes of smoke rising in the sky against the backdrop of the glowing moon, there is no hesitation. There's no second thought. He abandons his paperwork and spreads his wings and takes to the skies.
Jimmy doesn't have to look hard to find the source of the noises he'd heard. Once he rises above the canyon walls the glow of a burning fire is easy to spot.
And, gods, it's unlike anything he's ever seen.
There's a ship, a spaceship, one like he's seen in toy stores and sci-fi books. There's nothing like that in the real world, he knows that, and yet he's looking right at one. Or...the remains of one. The white hull and dark red detailing are scorched and marred and cracked, chunks of metal and wire and other materials scattered around the crater it had landed in, scattered along the long scar of a path it had gouged into the red dusty earth. An entire fin (wing? He doesn't know-) lies off to the side, and the entire back half is partially detached, and Jimmy...Jimmy isn't sure how safe it is to approach when half of the ship has been caught ablaze by the explosion he'd heard from Tumble Town.
Jimmy lands a few meters off with his wings tense and twitchy behind him, the heat rolling off the fire making him take a step back. He raises a hand to his hat and tugs at the brim, curiosity and worry both clawing to the surface as his eyes rake over the wreck.
It's a ship, and ships normally had captains or pilots. Didn't they? So where...who-
There.
Jimmy's eyes fly wide and his breath hitches and he circles around the wreck to the front, where a window near what he assumes must be the cockpit has been blown out by the crash. And there's a person. Someone in a white soot-tarnished spacesuit is hanging halfway out of the window, and the moment Jimmy spots him his pulse skyrockets. Oh gods.
Ignoring the heat (and grateful that the flames are mostly sequestered to the back of the ship for now) Jimmy lurches into action, clambering up the wreckage on careful feet to try and reach who he can only assume is the pilot. He doesn't give himself time to think. It could be a matter of life and death here and he's not about to let someone die on his watch. Not like this.
(And he knows, he knows, that Empires has respawn mechanics in place. He knows this. But there's that little worry at the back of his mind that this new stranger might not be able to take advantage of that if Jimmy can't save them from the wreckage. What if they're not on the whitelist? What if it doesn't work? Or, maybe worse, what if they respawn back in the wreckage of the ship where they had probably slept last, and they get stuck in a death loop they can't escape from?)
Jimmy pauses in the midst of hooking his arms around the stranger's torso to shudder, the memory of the prank at the jail coming back for a moment.
No. No, he won't let that happen.
He all but drags the mysterious astronaut from the cockpit, waiting until they're on more stable ground before lowering them both to the cool mesa sand. He moves quickly, almost frantically, rolling the stranger over to check for vitals.
Their helmet is broken. His helmet is broken, Jimmy realizes, eyeing the pale face behind the broken glass with ever-mounting concern. The man he's looking at has narrow, pointed features and he looks human enough, though Jimmy has had enough experience with human-ish people on the Empires server to take that observation with a grain of salt. More importantly, it looks like some of the glass from the helmet caught the pilot's face on impact, tiny cuts just barely bleeding...though there could be more he can't see. Jimmy squares his jaw and takes a breath. He can't waste time.
It takes a few minutes for him to figure out how to unlatch the helmet from the suit, but once it's out of the way and he can see the stranger fully, something catches in his chest. He's bleeding. Oh, gods, he's bleeding, red standing out in stark contrast against the blond of his hair and the pallor of his temple. Jimmy yanks at his neckerchief and tugs it off, pressing the wad of fabric against the side of the stranger's head, trying to figure out a plan, trying to think.
Potions. He needs potions. He needs potions, and he knows he doesn't have any back home.
Summoning his communicator from his inventory, Jimmy struggles to type out a message one-handed, not wanting to take pressure off the pilot's wound.
<SolidarityGaming>shelby do yoiu have heasling pots
Jimmy can't help but wince at his own spelling mistakes, but there's not much he can do about it. He's in too much of a hurry to care. It takes a minute or two for Shelby to even see his message, and in that time Jimmy tosses his comm aside, his focus on the astronaut. He's breathing - thank god he's breathing - and when Jimmy presses two fingers to his throat the guy's pulse seems steady, though he's not exactly a doctor. He wouldn't know if it's slow or sluggish without something to compare it to, and his own heart rate is far too rapid to be a good comparison.
His communicator beeps and he scrambles for it, his eyes dancing across the brief message quickly.
<ShubbleYT> I do :) are you looking to trade?
<SolidarityGaming> no time
<SolidarityGaming> eemrgency
<SolidarityGaming> how fast canb you get to tumnbl town
<ShubbleYT> oh wow um maybe ten minutes?
<ShubbleYT> is everything okay?
<SolidarityGaming> someome crash landef outside of town
<SolidarityGaming> cant talk now sorry
<SolidarityGaming> meet me at my housde?
<ShubbleYT> oh gosh okay I'll be there soon
Okay. Okay.
Jimmy casts a look over the astronaut in front of him and nods decisively. Okay. He needs to get this guy inside, preferably on a bed, so he and Shelby can do a better job of making sure he survives this ordeal. He digs into his inventory and pulls out a spare block of wool, shredding a piece into soft padding and swapping his bandana for the new fluff. Tying it around the stranger's head is a little trickier to do but he manages well enough, and once he's sure the makeshift bandage is secure he does his best to hoist the stranger into his arms without jostling him too much. This time when he spreads his wings, he takes much more care in his liftoff, and the return trip is a much gentler one than the one he'd taken to reach the crash site in the first place.
A soft landing, a fumbled doorknob, the creak of worn hinges. Careful steps across a wooden floor and the quiet squeak of mattress springs and gentle hands adjusting pillows and worry concern panic unease and the scrape of a chair across the floor.
Jimmy settles at his guest's side with a crease in his brow and a frown on his lips. In the warm light of torches and lanterns the astronaut's features are easier to make out than they were by the light of the moon and the burning ship. He isn't human. Not that it's too surprising, of course...at least half the members of the Empires server are inhuman, or less human than they appear. But the pointed ears and sharp teeth and the way Jimmy can swear he'd seen flames flickering in the stranger's hair on the flight over - it's new. Unfamiliar.
Or...maybe not.
There's something about this so-called stranger that makes Jimmy feel as if he's seen him before. He seems familiar in the strangest way, though he can't be sure why. Jimmy certainly doesn't know any spacemen. His eyes catch on the patches and lettering on the man's spacesuit as he's wringing out a damp cloth over a bowl, and as he gently begins to clean away the blood from the smaller cuts across the stranger's face, he squints at the text.
The word H.A.S.A. is stitched on a round patch at his shoulder, though the logo isn't one he recognizes. And there's another string of letters across the man's chest - something Jimmy can only assume must be a name.
T. TEK
That, too, feels like something he should know, and it tugs at his mind, at a memory just out of reach.
"...of the Tek variety. Nice to meet ya! So he dragged you into his game too, huh? Heh, should be a good time..."
There's a cocky sort of grin hovering out of sight, and eyes he can't make out the color of that sparkle with a chaotic sort of mischief. He pauses and pulls the cleaning cloth away to stare at the still and expressionless face of the man on the bed. He swears he knows him.
"...welcome, contestants! This is Dare to Flare..."
"...called You Bet Your Life. Basically, what it is..."
Jimmy reached out against his better judgment and runs his fingers over the nametag, the stitching raised beneath his touch. He frowns, chewing his lip, a flurry of familiar words and voices running through his head as he puzzles over what that first initial might stand for. Then–
“Noooo! No, I’m sorry–”
“What happened, Tango? Walk me through it…”
Tango.
Tango.
Tango Tek.
Jimmy lets out a breath with wide eyes, tracing the letters again with his fingertip and letting that revelation sink in. He doesn’t know how he knows it’s right, he just knows. He can’t explain it. He’s still staring in wonder at the soot-dusted nametag when he hears the sound of approaching rockets and jolts from his thoughts.
Oh, void, right. The crash. Shelby. Potions. Gods, he’s being an idiot–
Jimmy carefully cleans the rest of the blood and soot from Tango’s face with all the gentleness he can muster, and he’s only just depositing the cloth back in its bowl when he hears Shelby calling from the front door.
“In here!” he returns, his eyes lingering on Tango. “Bedroom!”
Now that Shelby’s here, he feels a little (a lot) more confident that Tango’s going to be alright. For now, he can focus on helping patch him up. For now, he can shove the odd familiarity of the not-stranger from his thoughts. Later, he can ponder at why he even knows Tango’s name and why his face feels so achingly familiar…but later. Later. Maybe when Tango is finally awake. Maybe he’ll gain some answers to his questions then. Later.
At the maw of a glowing purple rift that cuts a jagged shape into the wall of the massive cave it calls home, an avian with macaw-colored wings stands gaping at its purpureal light. A pair of well-worn goggles is clutched in his grip, flecks of redstone dust rubbing off onto his skin. He’s quiet. He’s quiet, and his eyes mirror the rift before him in both color and luminescence.
Almost half an hour has passed since he arrived to find a friend standing where he now stands, his blue hair ablaze and an untamable emotion spilling off of him in waves. Tango had looked so upset, so desperate…and Grian hadn’t quite been able to talk him out of his insane idea.
“You said it’s a portal to other worlds. Plural. So one of ‘em could be his.”
“Technically, maybe, but - but it’s unstable! Why d’you think I’ve been experimenting with–”
“Screw unstable! You said you sent stuff through, right?”
“Yes, but I haven’t gotten anything back. And I haven’t even tried to send a player through–”
“Then send me.”
“What?! Tango–!”
“I’m going through either way. You might as well collect the data when I do–”
“No! Absolutely not! Xisuma would have my head - Impulse would have my head if I let you–”
“You’re not letting me do anything. I’m going.”
The rest of the conversation had spiraled, had exploded, had careened out of control - and Tango had thrown himself through the rift before Grian could stop him. He hadn’t been able to stop him. So…he’d Watched. He’d kept an eye on his friend, as well as he could when following a speck through an endless and unpredictable schism in space, but he’d Watched.
He’s still Watching.
He sees the connection, the transformation, the way the narrative of the Empires server brings Tango into her fold, morphing a piece of his past into the form he takes in the present. He may have been acting as a dungeon master on Hermitcraft, but on Empires he becomes a pilot. He becomes an astronaut. He becomes the desperate not-quite-hero he’d been at the end of the last season, and he crashes.
Grian keeps his Eye on Tango for as long as he can, or at least up until he watches Jimmy salvage him from the wreck and bring him home. It’s only when Jimmy and a witch from a neighboring empire are arranging potions on the bedside table that he pulls away, letting out a breath and massaging the bridge of his nose.
Voidammit, Tango.
At least now Grian has more reason to rush and finish fixing the rift. They’re going to need to get Tango back eventually…he can only hope the narrative doesn’t affect Tango’s memories too much in the meanwhile. At least he found his soulmate again. He’ll be happy there until the Hermits can reach him. Jimmy will make sure of it, Grian knows.
Soulmates don’t ever stop being soulmates, after all.