firequeenofficial

[firequeenofficial]

I'd like to imagine all the winners with wings. Like, Every time someone wins, they gained wings.

Grian with parrot wings; Scott with azure dragonfly wings with star patterns; Pearl with dark blue and red lunar moth wings; Martyn with red dragon wings with magma cracks; Scar with mossy wings with flowers growing from it; Cleo with skeletal wings;

And Joel with car doors taped on his back.

[firequeenofficial]

Docm77 (the lawyer) GETS SENTANCED TO THE SKYBLOCK ONCE MORE !!!

[firequeenofficial]

In consideration of Skizz's tendency to ABSOLUTELY lose his mind once he's become a red name in the life series:

A built in safeguard for Third Circle/Beacon angels that Skizz has never overcome is that when hostile (or perceived hostile) attacks bring him to the edge of death/respawn, he goes absolutely fucking berserk.

He literally cannot help it. A switch is flipped and any rational thought is overridden by the instinctive need to Kill And Kill NOW.

Thankfully after the wars petered out there's only been a handful of times this has ever come up, and Impulse is pretty good at talking him down long enough for food or potions or natural regen to bring him back to sanity.

But you know and I know that Skizz has ABSOLUTELY let it happen on purpose to give others an advantage- when he and Impulse were running with Etho and Tango, during the lost years after the respawn that separated him from them, a couple other times.

Impulse hates it, of course. He wants Skizz to value his life.

And Skizz does! Moreso now than he ever did before he found Impulse! It's just- too powerful a thing to not use, even if it means he gets hurt or respawns. You gotta do what you gotta do, you know? At least no one has to eat his wings for it to work.

[firequeenofficial]

I have to say I love your angel Skizz au, and your giggs phasmophobia one. I just can't get enough and I have to know, how did Skizz and Impulse meet Tango and Etho. We know it was during some sort of war, but what specifically led the four to meet?

They met because Etho coughed all over a door.

No.

Really.

Skizz and Impulse were basically running like hell from The Consequences Of Deserting Once The Brass Find Out You Didn't Actually Die (the First Circle in Skizz's case and the Five Houses in Impulse's case) when they landed on a contested server that the First Circle was attempting to wrest from the -redacted-.

Etho, a human 'recruited' by -redacted-, was beginning to feel the effects of the redstone that would eventually lead to his Very Dry Angel Wing Meal. This led to him having a bit of an explosive redstone coughing fit near one of -redacted's- super smelters.

Which was being powered by one very, very unhappy blaze demon.

And when the door lock melted off because Etho was not coughing politely and had sprayed it with redstone laced saliva, said blaze demon dragged Etho along in his escape.

This raised all sorts of alarms in the camp they were in.

Alarms that Skizz and Impulse thought they tripped in trying to move around said encampment seeking the neutral territory that would let them access another multiverse server.

So I'm not saying it was a little bit of a benny hanna influenced scooby dooesque chase sequence where -redacted- forces were trying to capture a deserter and an escaped fuel source and kept running into a beacon angel and a Fifth House Prince, but that's basically exactly what it was.

After a few false starts (the false starts being Tango trying to burn Skizz's wings off, Impulse Taking That Personally and attempting to melt Tango's bones, Etho trying to be the voice of reason but not being very good at that overall) it was concluded that safety in numbers was probably their best bet.

They traveled through that server for almost a year before getting caught in the barrage that stuck them in that foxhole.

UPDATE: the story of Etho freeing Tango is in my minecraft tags, titled 'Strange Bedfellows'!

[firequeenofficial]

Strange Bedfellows

"Was it worth it?"

An angel asked Etho that- one of the ones with wings everywhere, at the edges of her eyes and sprouting from behind her ears, at the sides of her neck and on her elbows she'd been covered in the things.

He hadn't answered her. He'd just cut her throat like he'd been taught. Easy. Like killing a deer.

They hadn't been wrong about that. Killing anything- angels, demons, the things that looked like shadows but were not- is easy, if you can survive it. They bleed just like people do. Like Etho does.

Did.

His blood is running a little sluggish now. Better, the medic who had patched him up said. Not as much strain on their supplies.

The medic had not looked Etho in the eyes when they said it.

Where do redstone demons come from?

It's a question you ask when two new units meet, to see who laughs and who looks haunted. To get the measure of the people who are supposed to help keep you alive but four times out of five will either wind up dying on top of you or killing you in a frenzy. Etho's last radio operator had sworn up and down that she'd seen genuine redstone demons- elegant things with no eyes and beautiful red spiraling horns. Who wouldn't want to be that?

It hadn't surprised Etho all that much when she died in the next skirmish, cheeks splitting at the edges. He'd had someone check and their redstone was two or three rations light. She'd been skimming, trying to see through the fog.

To see the thing that whispers.

Maybe Etho cared about that when he was conscripted. About survival, about the whispering of the redstone, about who the fuck was actually in charge. Now he just cares about the bubbling in his gut and the way everything is slowly becoming rose-tinged.

He cares about how shitty he feels, how long it's taking him to get back.

Etho leans up against a pillar for a rest, staring down the industrial sector. Clever place. It's modular. Any bit can be picked up and moved without disturbing anything else. They must really want to hold this position because they brought in the supersmelters, and those are difficult to handle.

Like this one in front of him- looks like it's seen its fair share of trouble. There's not a single unmelted rivet on the whole thing, which is impressive. Did they leave it in the Nether for a while?

Etho contemplates it and attempts to gather strength for the next leg of his trek. He shouldn't be lingering here. He should be on his way back to his unit's assigned area. He should be ready to hand the new assignments to his commanding officer. He should-

The damn coughing comes back and it's worse this time, gripping Etho by the base of the throat and not letting go. He hacks and wheezes and no one comes to check because everyone is either too keyed up, too drugged up, or too busy to care.

He stumbles blindly forward, trying to find the end of the blockage in his windpipe. If he can just-

His hands hit his knees as he tries to keep from putting them on the supersmelter because even trying to eject a lung for unknown crimes Etho isn't an idiot. He coughs and coughs and a chunk of something that could be phlegm, if phlegm was crimson, finally clears his mouth and lands smack-dab on the already-shaky looking bolt of a failing supersmelter door lock.

He has just enough time to think about how it tastes like the water that flowed over the iron deposits in the village that isn't there anymore before the world explodes.

Now, let us explain something.

The world did not explode. In fact, what Etho experienced in this moment was simply the decompression and then the opening of a very small, very hot space getting fresh air for the first time in- well we can't really say how long- due to the direct application of some incredibly potent redstone to its shoddily-maintained locking mechanism, which melted it like a blaze rod through butter. See? Hardly server-shaking.

Here and now, though, it's enough of an impact to knock Etho off his feet and into the mud, skidding a little before coming to rest on the far side of the path.

Etho looks up, one hand already on the knife on his thigh, to find he is looking at a person he has never seen before.

Now Etho is not (currently) the most well traveled man, and wherever he's gone people have wound up dead. So it's not much of a stretch to say that he's never seen a type of person before. This type of person, however, is not ever seen save by the Master Engineers, hunters and builders.

And a fair amount of those souls are lost in the seeing.

Credit where credit is due. The person staring at Etho does not immediately immolate him. Instead he- and it's obvious he's a he, since any clothing he might have been wearing is streaks of soot on his body- says something in a wheezing cracking tongue that makes Etho think, irrationally, that this fellow is also suffering from a redstone cough.

"Pardon?"

The man- tall but built slight, with skin that seems simply yellow toned one moment but an ombre red shift the next, with pointed ears and something that passes for hair if hair was a cheerily crackling blaze- repeats himself, and this time tiny rods of crystaline fire appear around to circle around his head.

No, not man.

Demon.

Etho shakes his head again. "Sorry, buddy, didn't get that."

It's the 'buddy' that saves him. He won't find that out for- oh- maybe twenty years, but it's okay for you to know now.

The demon tries one more time, and this time the words are- while gutteral and hoarse- recognizable. "way out?"

Etho blinks a couple of times.

He looks at the open door of the super smelter, and then closer at the man on fire. He looks at his wrists (scarred) his legs (scarred) and his neck (is that a collar?)

He looks in dawning realization at the long line of supersmelters. The rest of the world begins filtering in and Etho realizes he can hear an alarm bell. Someone heard the explosion of the smelter's door being opened. Someone will come.

Someone will put a new collar on this demon's neck.

Etho has not cared about much since the redstone really got into him. He doesn't remember beyond a few weeks back at best without putting in some serious effort. The upper brass like their soldiers like that, unquestioning and plodding forward. Etho has realized that he is going to die a wretched death like his radio operator, like his last CO, like the cook in training camp.

Etho doesn't remember if death meant something before the redstone. If how one lived or died was important to the clan he's forgotten.

It's important now.

It's the most important thing in this or any other world.

So he staggers to his feet and says, "Follow me. We'll find it."

Because no one is going to put another collar on this demon, force him back into being a living fuel for a goddamn super smelter. There is a line, and Etho has not eaten enough redstone to cross it, not yet.

He'll die splitting into a monster, but that will be another day.

"I suggest we run," he says, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "I'm Etho."

The demon says something in the wheezing language, then frowns, and says, "Tango."

"Tango." Etho nods. "Okay, Tango. They're absolutely gonna kill us. Follow me."

Tango has no more reason to trust this redstone poisoned human than the human has to trust him, but he had let Tango out. He had given him freedom.

(This isn't true and someday- far away from now, in a peaceful, beautiful place neither Tango nor Etho ever thought they'd live to see- it will be a funny story. Right this second it is a convenient misunderstanding. A stroke of luck, maybe.

Or a blessing.

Depending on how you look at it.)

So Tango does as Etho says and follows after, feet boiling the mud to dirt behind him.

"Keep an eye out for pants," Etho says, and Tango laughs in a wheeze like the tongue he keeps trying to speak.

They slip away, the human and the demon, and they are not caught.

It's a long trek and a strange one, with a Prince of the House of Sulfur and a Third Circle Angel, a pilfered apron two sizes too big and more than a few close calls.

All of that is another story.

This one ends here: with Etho who is dying slowly and Tango who is coming back to life running between the tents and lean-tos and shacks of a war camp full of ghosts in the making, trusting one another because each is too desperate to wonder what might happen if the other is lying.

[firequeenofficial]

In an earlier post, you described a scene where Skizz found Mumbo "doing research", and he seems to already know about it via Impulse. What were both of their individual reactions when they first found out about Mumbo's "research partner."

Etho tries to warn Impulse, he does.

"Mumbo Jumbo is..Mumbo might remind you of some pretty bad times," he warns his friend.

"There's a lot of things that remind me about bad times," Impulse had responded. "I manage just fine."

And because Etho is Etho, he figures that's enough.

He knows it wasn't enough when Impulse and the other hermits meet- in an official 'he's joining the server' capacity, not in a 'we summoned him in a cave' kind of way- and Impulse meets Mumbo Jumbo, shakes his hand, then turns around to fix Etho with a look that is a vibrant, acid yellow.

They discuss it in Tango's base that evening.

"Might remind me?" Impulse is hissing, not the sound of a creeper but the sound of a demon whose saliva can eat through cobblestone if he thinks about it hard enough. "Might remind me?!"

"Yeah the wording was bad," Tango defends Etho, "but you get it."

"How? WHEN?"

Etho shrugs. "I don't know. If you ask him about life before Hermitcraft he gets really vague. Apparently there's a- cult? Somewhere?"

"I already checked the coordinates," Tango assures Impulse. "It's not the server we met on."

"That doesn't make me feel any better." Impulse drops heavily onto a seat, running a hand through his hair. His companions can see the nubs of his horns- filed all the way down. He had wanted time to think about what to say, if anyone asked him. If someone decided he didn't belong.

This is apparently not nearly as much of a concern as it was this morning.

"He- it's- it's a pure connection, isn't it?" Impulse looks up. "Isn't it, Etho?"

Etho nods with great reluctance. "As far as I can tell it is. It talks and he understands."

"It talks." Impulse says flatly. "So he's got one to one communication."

"Yeah," Tango says. "apparently it's mostly whispering."

"Shocker," Impulse mutters.

"But!" Tango holds up one finger. "It's really distracted."

"By WHAT?"

"All the work happening on Hermitcraft," Etho says. "I think Mumbo uses all the redstone inventing as an outlet for it."

Impulse stares. "Okay that's all well and good but that can't go on forever!"

"Maybe not," Etho says, "but it's been going on a long time. Realistically, what does it matter if there's a perfect Conduit? It's not like it can do anything. Its resources have been dragged across the entire multiverse and there's no raising an army like the old days. Besides there are too many new players- think about the Watchers, or the Broken Circle."

"I swear, Impulse," Tango says, "Mumbo's a good guy. He's got it under control."

Impulse laughs and the laugh is a little manic. Etho puts a hand on his shoulder and Impulse looks at him. One eye is permanently red now; beneath the habitual covering his old friend's mouth is a gaping maw of needle teeth and drilling tongue, his upper lip a thin black cover for an abyss.

"If we need to," Etho says, "we will. All of us."

Tango nods. "Yeah. It'll suck, but then again- valley of death."

"Fear no evil," Impulse whispers, and spends that night at Tango's.

-

"Skizz?"

"Yeah, homeh buddeh?"

Impulse grins but the grin is there and gone. "There's something you gotta know about one of the Hermits."

"I mean there's a lot I've got to know," Skizz says. "You're dropping me in the deep end, Dippledop, and I can't just crash land. I'm liable to actually break something important here."

"Yeah. Try not to do that, but." Impulse sighs.

"Spit it out," his friend says with a small smile. "Don't think, just do."

"That only works for one of us and only then half the time," Impulse snarks, but he says, "Mumbo Jumbo's a Conduit."

There is a moment.

Two.

"He's a what?" Skizz asks and there is no humor in his voice, no almost joke or promise of laughter.

"He's only really opened up to me about it in the past couple years," Impulse says. "Apparently his parents are a part of a redstone cult? Fashioned after, like, a research lab? Never been to their server- never want to, but they did- something. They perfected the ritual."

"Oh. Oh is that all they did. Perfect the ritual. We wade through thousands of bodies, Etho eats my wings, and someone just- did that but BETTER?"

To Skizz's credit the aforementioned wings have remained hidden away, but nothing can stop the spiraling of his halo or the fierce glow of his eyes.

Impulse knows he can't feed into his friend's freak out and so he doesn't, continuing, "Yeah. Mumbo got the hell out as soon as he could."

"Not soon enough, apparently!" Skizz says.

"No. Not soon enough. But it's- I know you're not going to believe me because I didn't believe Tango or Etho but it's okay. He's okay. All the inventing, all the redstone work, it keeps everything level. He's been a Conduit the entire time I've known him and he's never split or shifted or attacked anyone unduly. He's- a little loose with his own lives, but that seems to be all."

Impulse squeezes Skizz's shoulder. "Mumbo is a hermit, like me- like you. He's got his issues. But he's a genuine guy, and he's trying his best. Etho and Tango'll both vouch for him."

Skizz inhales slow and exhales. Impulse instinctively counts down with him, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine- and then the halo stops its whirling and fades, the glow of his eyes disappears.

"Have you talked to him about it?" Skizz asks hoarsely.

Impulse shakes his head. "Not with context. He- he'll refer to It as his 'research partner'. He talks about everything like it's mechanics, engineering. I think it compartmentalizes everything for him."

"So if he mentions research he's communing with the scariest fucking thing the multiverse has ever known?"

"There's like a sixty forty chance, yeah."

"Okay," Skizz says. "Okay. Great. No. No this is not great. Yes it is. No it isn't."

"Skizz you're doing the thing," Impulse says gently.

"You said he was a Conduit, a real live not dead not poisoned Conduit. How can this be a good thing?"

"It's good because it's Mumbo," Impulse says firmly. "Believe in Mumbo, Skizz. Just- believe in him. Have faith. I know you've got that in spades."

The angel sighs so hard he shrinks a couple inches. "Okay. Okay I- heh. Glass houses and stones, I guess. Should keep my mouth shut."

It's not the same, and Impulse knows it, but he also knows Skizz needs to hang on to that, so he tugs his friend into a tight hug and says into his shoulder, "You okay to go in the morning?"

"Dippledop? I have never been more ready in my life."

[firequeenofficial]

What's In A Name

It is almost midnight, it is raining, and there is an angel sitting on his platform.

Doc has been waiting about three minutes for said angel to notice him, and is debating the best way to politely say 'please get the hell off my property', when the angel turns his head.

"OH. Oh, hi Doc. Sorry. I was- I was on a flight and..well you're higher up than the nearest trees. Easier to land."

It is very clear that Skizz has been crying, though he seems to have run out of tears; now his frighteningly blue eyes have red puffed frames.

"I've probably been here long enough. I didn't touch nothing, I swear!" the angel laughs and holds up his hands. "Cross my heart, not even a finger on the wool."

Doc ignores Skizz's chatter and instead looks at his raised hands. You can tell a lot about a person by their hands, or hooves, or gripping appendages. The permanent red stains on Etho and Mumbo, for example, or the callouses on False's palms.

Callouses that are built up- and older- on Skizz's palms.

"Out with it."

"Out with what?"

Doc gestures broadly. "You are clearly upset, Skizz. Likely you shouldn't be flying at all. So out with it. What is it?"

"Ah- haaah. You know Doc for a guy who plays a ruthless mad scientist you're kinda sweet? I'm fine."

"You absolutely are not and never speak those words about me again."

Skizz laughs. "Okay, okay. I- I've been having..dreams. Since the beacon."

Doc snorts. The beacon. Ren's brilliant idea. He could have told him it was going to go badly, especially since anyone old enough with eyes could see that Skizz was a beacon angel- a caliber above the remains in the nether and their convenient if much reduced nether stars.

But then there are so few hermits who have been alive as long as Doc, as long as Etho and Tango and Impulse and Skizz. Why would they know? Why would they care?

Some small part of Doc rejoices at the ignorance even as another part grates, what if it happens again? Are we not doomed to repeat what we do not remember? Should vigilance against the dark not stand above all?

He thinks these things and says, "Why did you agree?"

Skizz's laugh is short and bitter. "You know Impulse asked me the same thing. Can I say I don't know?"

"No. Because you do."

Skizz lets out a heavy sigh. The water falling on his halo is flash-boiling with tiny shouts, skizz. skizz. skizz.

"I mean I wanted to be helpful? I guess? Way easier to build a beacon and, and call me instead of having to fight withers and get soul sand. Just sit down and shut up, Skizz, let us get to work, you know?"

"That is not all of it." Doc says and Skizz's wings- only the two largest, Doc notes, the ones he uses to fly when he isn't wearing an elytra- curl in. Water falls on glass for a bit without Skizz speaking and Doc is about to nudge him off the edge when he says, "You know how Impulse asked permission to invite me? Sort of out of the blue?"

"It was sudden," Doc agrees. The hermits had convened and with Etho and Tango as character witnesses there hadn't been much of a question of acceptance. Doc will admit that it was a good choice.

"He wanted me to stop doing what I was doing. And he wasn't wrong. Insanity's doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, right?"

"That depends on who you are asking. Why is this relevant?"

"I was fucking around with the Broken Circle."

Doc blinks, his red cybernetic eye refocusing as he says, "What?"

"Hah. Yeah. That's- yeah. I'd done enough damage that they weren't gonna get up again for a while, and Impulse said you can't do this anymore, and he was right, and I thought maybe this time, if I could get up on that beacon, if I could just- just hang on-"

Skizz grits his teeth so loudly Doc hears it over the rain.

"But I can't." He says. "It doesn't matter how long it's been, or how many other angels I've killed, or how many machines I've wrecked. Put me on the top of a beacon and I'm a battery. I'm not Skizz, I'm-"

He cuts off, licks his lips, starts again. "I'm someone else. And in my dreams I can hear people- people I know are gone, respawns not even dust, and they're all calling for me because when I'm on the beacon I Know them and they Know me and we can all hear one another, but they're calling the wrong name and I keep trying to tell them no, no that's not me anymore, stop calling me that and then I wake up."

He wraps his arms around his knees. "Stupid, right?"

"If it hurts you, it is not stupid." Doc says sharply. Skizz blinks and looks up at him.

"but," the goatman continues, "in your case, you are letting it have power it should not."

"I- Doc that's not-"

"Let me finish," Doc says. Skizz falls slient.

"It is a name that is hurting you. Alright. You give out many names, Skizz. Some are- stupid. Some are funny. All are given with that big heart of yours, so we accept them. Even Cleo."

"Hey Clebert loves her nickname."

Doc rolls both eyes, the flesh and the machine. "Aside from Impulse, I have not heard anyone do the same for you."

"Well, no," Skizz says, "but what-"

"Skizz. I ask this with the utmost respect, knowing and accepting if you do not wish to answer. Before you were Skizz, who were you?"

For a moment Doc thinks Skizz might refuse to answer. The rain seems louder. Then Skizz sighs. It's not a heavy sigh. It's the sigh of a soldier obeying an order he does not want to obey.

"Sarandiel." It's almost a whisper. "I was Third Circle Sarandiel."

"Hm. Too long. Too rolling. No wonder you didn't like it." Doc thinks for a moment. "Saran wrap."

Skizz blinks. "What?"

"Saran wrap," Doc says simply. "If you need to take the bite out of a name, you make it ridiculous. Saran wrap."

"Doc that's-" but Skizz is grinning and Doc knows he's won when the angel bursts into giggles, his halo beginning to rotate and turn with its strange blue gemlike protrusions making their own circles in a little waltz. "Saran wrap oh my god-!"

"The dreams will come." Doc says. "They come for all of us. You can reduce their power." a pause. "without becoming a terrorist. Again, presumably."

"Ahh fourteenth time's the charm, doc." Skizz says. His halo slowly fades from the visible spectrum. "Hey- I am sorry for hanging around on your stuff, I know you've been having update issues."

Doc huffs. "I would have the issues with or without you sitting on my platform, Skizz. And as long as you are here, and the night is- young- you may as well come with me."

"Oh yeah?" Skizz stands up and carefully shakes his wings over the platform's edge, trying not to get water anywhere else on Doc's massive machine sorter. "What for?"

"I have a deck of cards and you promised me a poker game."

"Oh yeah baby let's go! Lead the way, Doc!"

"I am going to have to. I do not trust anyone named Saran wrap to make it into my base in one piece."

"Oh that was low, man, come on-!"

"You have already confessed that redstone injuries have limited your fine tuned flight capabilities, I am just being practical."

"You're being a JERK man I'm gonna fleece you."

"No one fleeces this goat, angel."

"You wanna bet?"

Doc's cybernetic eye whirrs and he smiles. "Yes. But let's get out of the rain first."

-

A/N: Sarandiel (pronouned Sar-ahn-dee-el) is entirely made up gibberish from one of those name generating sites because I wasn't willing to pick an actual biblical name.

Doc you are very hard to write and I don't appreciate it.

This is attempt number THREE at conveying Skizz's personal aftermath of the Beacon Incident, so I quit. Here it is.

I couldn't shoehorn it in here without it being super awkward, but Doc's cybernetic eye can see various spectrums of light, so when he looks at Skizz he's sort of seeing ALL of Skizz-the biblically accurate Skizz, as it were.

[firequeenofficial]

Can't believe Impulse forced Skizz to join hermitcraft to stop him from being a terrorist against his fellow angels

"Force" isn't really the right word, honestly. Encouraged. Begged. Those are closer.

So the problem with writing a fictional version of characters, when characters in minecraft SMPs are of course friends mostly doing things for the lulz, means that (almost) all of the Truly Serious things are fandom-built.

If you were to go and watch the final fight between the iconic Desert Duo- Grian and GoodTimesWithScar, the only two survivors of what would become the life series- and you were only vaguely aware of Hermitcraft fandom? All you'd see is two guys having fun in a computer game. Doing it for the bit. For laughs.

The angst comes when the fans get a hold of it.

The current life series is a good example, as well.

-spoilers past here for those who don't watch-

Of course Grian didn't take Skizz's death seriously. Skizz dies early in every Life series he's in. Of course their interactions when he and Mumbo returned from the dead to serve Cleo were stilted and funny, it was a BIT.

Every amazing emotional moment you can think of, that fandom has created so much for? Was a BIT. A joke. Friends having fun. A literal case of 'not that deep' that fandom then dug a trench for.

Which is not to say there is no point in what fandom does because Oh my god, what can be woven with the threads that content creators spool is truly something. It's beautiful. It's amazing. It's so much fun.

It also means you have to come up with an excuse for why two dudes who have been best friends forever haven't actually been on the same minecraft server for like twenty years.

So do we all remember when Etho cut off Skizz's smallest pair of wings (a direct reference to Skizz giving up the last of his time to the neediest of his teammates in Limited Life) and he, Tango and Impulse took off while Skizz took to the sky to distract a Circle barrage?

Skizz did not survive that flight.

Oh he did good! Without anyone to worry about, he was damaged so severely that his safeguard activated and he took out three other beacon angels before they finally put him down.

When he respawned, back at the now empty base that he and the boys had been using, his smallest set of wings were...wrong.

Not gone, no, just stiff, unresponsive. It was harder to control his direction, harder to adjust in the air. Etho's redstone knife had caused permanent nerve damage that carried over through respawn, and it affects Skizz to this day.

So he couldn't follow.

And Impulse lost track of Skizz for almost a hundred years.

Tango and Etho parted ways with Impulse after they escaped the server, mainly out of fear that if they were in a group they'd be easier to track down. When Impulse did find Skizz again he found him systematically tracking down and killing other Beacon angels.

(remember how when Skizz said to Doc that when he was on a beacon, he Knew the others, as they Knew him? Try not to think about that too much.)

At the time, it made sense. Impulse and Skizz worked together for a long time, foiling the First Circle's plans and dealing with the fallout of the loss of the Five Houses. Impulse did go home, but there wasn't much left, and he didn't stay.

Then he got word from Etho and Tango about a safe place. Impulse didn't want to leave Skizz but Skizz told him to go, man, you've lost your home, go, be safe, I'll be fine. I can contact you now. I'll always find you. I promised, didn't I?

So Impulse goes. He joins Hermitcraft, and there he heals and relaxes and comes into himself and he keeps in contact with Skizz, of course, pops off to help him every once in a while but the longer they're apart the more clear it becomes that Skizz is slipping somewhere he won't be able to fly out of. Not a dark spiral like a bad anime protagonist but rather someone who has flown so long and so far that he's almost ready to crash, and there's nothing below him but ocean and darkness.

So when Impulse offers a place on Hermitcraft it is with the understanding that he is afraid of what will happen if Skizz says no. Because you can't be the rogue Beacon Angel who has survived thousands of years tracking down other Beacon Angels without someone, somewhere, looking for you. It's like that quote from Emily Carroll.

"Oh, but you must travel through those woods again and again, and you must be lucky to avoid the wolf every time. But the wolf… the wolf only needs enough luck to find you once."

Skizz, bless him, knows that too. He was tired and spent and whatever it was Impulse was getting by being on Hermitcraft he knew he needed it so he accepted.

And Skizz never plans on leaving Impulse again, so. That's that.

[firequeenofficial]

In The End

The first time Impulse met Skizz, he had been separated from his brothers in arms and thought he was hallucinating.

It wasn't an unfair assumption; trapped on the endless cream colored stone expanse that the damnable dragon had sent him to, too weak to slay one of the black monsters for their pearls to even make the leap to the next island of purgatory, Impulse was fading fast. His food stores had run out two days before, if days could be marked in this endless abyss.

So seeing a man- a human man!- gathering...fruit? From the tall, spindly purple trees was as clear a sign as any that Impulse was at the end of his mental facilities.

Then the hallucination caught sight of him.

"OH! Oh, shit."

Did fruit pickers in hallucinations swear?

"Oh no. Buddy you're looking bad." the man approaches and as he does Impulse- who has not moved from where he slumped beside one of the great purple trees- can see that he is only human at a distance.

Up close, there are black ribbons that move through his skin, like the markings on marble. His ears are oddly shaped- longer and cut flat on top, like a docked hound. His eyes are strange, as well. Like his ears their shape is just slightly wrong, and there is a depth and intensity to them that human eyes lack.

They are also purple.

Purple like the fruit, like the gaze of the black monsters, like the dragon.

Impulse goes to draw his sword but the monster in the sheathe of a man mistakes it for a fumble. "Woah! Hey, hold on, let me come to you."

He kneels down, takes Impulse's arm in one large hand. He is warm like humans are.

"Tried to fight the End Mother, huh?" the fruit picker asks. "Well you're probably one of the lucky ones. Got any ID?"

Impulse coughs. He tries to form words, to introduce himself. Sir Impulse, of the Order of- lord but he's tired.

"Well, you look knightly, so come on, Sir Knight," the fruit picker says, and hefts Impulse up with a truely frightening strength. "Let's get you somewhere safe, huh?"

-

There is a village in this abyss.

An honest to the gods village, with a market and a bell and beds and people.

People like Impulse, yes, but also people like his savior- some with more black ribbons than not, some with even stranger markings and bodies.

There are also the black monsters, carrying blocks here and there, unbothered by anyone. Some are called by name. Some are touched, affectionately. Some return that affection.

Impulse sits on a chair on a simple porch and tries to bring his mind into order.

"Definitely tried to fight the End Mother," he dimly recalls hearing someone- a healer?- say to his savior. "His head's all over. Probably got teleported mid-fall, the poor bastard."

"Hey buddy," says his savior, sitting down beside him and offering a bowl. "Potato soup?"

Impulse looks at it and then up at him.

"I promise they aren't gonna teleport you anywhere," says his savior with a smile. It's such a genuine smile, warm and welcoming.

Impulse takes the bowl.

"That's it. Get some food in you and then we can talk about next steps."

Impulse chews on a piece of potato and swallows. "What is your name?"

"Huh?"

"Your name. I am Impulse." It seems pointless to include all the other titles now. If the Order hasn't been shattered by the dragon, then they too are lost in the dark.

"Oh! Oh, you definitely couldn't pronounce it," his savior says. "But my friends call me Skizz."

Skizz? Odd. Yet somehow fitting. "Skizz," Impulse says with a nod. "Thank you, for saving me."

"I mean I couldn't leave you out there. It's been ages since we had anyone land here after trying to fight the End Mother. Might even be someone's great great great great grandpappy."

Impulse watches one of the black monsters go by, followed by a small child with large black patches around their purple eyes, chattering eagerly as if to a parent. "Is that where all of you come from? The lost?"

"Some of us," Skizz says. "Some people came here willingly, that's why we have cool stuff like potatoes."

Impulse can't help but laugh. "And- I presume those who came willingly came for..?"

It's Skizz who laughs this time. Like his smile his laugh is all heart. "You know I could just let you talk around it, it's pretty funny. But I'm not that mean. Yeah, the town founders were Overworlders who shacked up with Endermen."

"Endermen?"

"Yeah." Skizz points to one of the monsters. "Enderman." he points at himself. "Enderkin." He points to another child, this one carrying a basket full of the purple fruit and scolding a sibling. "Enderborn."

Impulse blinks.

He blinks again.

"It's okay. Let that sink in." Skizz says with the air of a man who knows exactly how much sand he just threw in the gears.

"I. Wasn't aware that- Endermen- were sapient."

"Well, you learn something new every day, don't you?"

-

This village, as far as Skizz is aware, is the only one in the End- this Abyss of floating islands above nothing.

"There are End Cities, but those are different. They're remnants of people older than us. Most of the scholars figure they came here from the Overworld and turned into Endermen, that's how we can cross contaminate, but nobody knows for sure."

They are very far from the Altar of the End, which is what the wretched place with obsidian towers is apparently called.

"Happens every once in a while, a group of Overworlders or one really ambitious one will pop out of nowhere to try and fight the End Mother. I take it that's what happened to you?"

Impulse tries to find a way to explain. About the dark spreading fungus that was eating their server, about the rise of the mons- the Endermen coming at night, the discovery of the stronghold in the deep. The portal.

He settles on, "Yes." because that is the truest answer he can give.

"Hey, don't feel bad. Fighting a dragon sucks on the best of days."

It sounds like a joke, yet there is a weight to Skizz's voice as he says it. For a moment he is far away.

-

It takes a month, as the people of the village reckon it, to find another portal.

"If we're lucky, this will take you home," Skizz tells Impulse as they pillar. "If we're not, well. I guess you keep going."

When they are within jumping distance of the strange hovering column with its stardust center, Impulse readies his pack. It's well filled now with food and knowledge.

Impulse makes the jump and crouches on the stone before the stardust. True to his heart name, he impulsively looks at Skizz. "Will I see you again?"

It's such a strange question, yet he needs to know the answer. It is the most important thing he has ever needed to know.

Skizz only smiles.

"Good luck, Sir Impulse," he says, and disappears in violet bits of light.

-

Sir Impulse of the Order of Pillared Stone was the only known survivor of the expedition into the stronghold portal. His return to the court threw the Monarchy into an uproar, and when he refused to budge on his knowledge that the Endermen, if not incited to violence, were not to blame for the kingdom's troubles, well.

He leaves swiftly and at night.

Which is, it turns out, a good thing.

Because when he feels someone behind him on the long and lonely road, and he turns with steel drawn, he finds himself offered a familiar purple fruit.

Skizz, dressed for traveling, grins at him.

"Hey buddy. Where are we going?"

Sir Impulse formerly of the Order of Pillared Stone takes the offered chorus fruit, laughs, and says, "Wherever the road will take us."

"Sounds good," Skizz says. "Let's go."

-

A/N: THE CANONICAL MONSTER FUCKING IS STAYING.

I'd love to expand on this one (yes I know the jump from Impulse's rescue to him returning home is abrupt and feels like something was cut) but I'm fresh out of steam. I hope to return to that period later, to expand on how Skizz and Impulse became real friends.

We are clearly playing VERY fast and loose with how the Ender Dragon, the End, Endermen, and everything of that ilk works. I apologize for nothing.

[firequeenofficial]

Tides

When Impulse tells Gem that his friend Skizz is coming, she's excited for him. Impulse talks about Skizz a lot- his closest companion, his partner in good times and bad. They're about to start a new world, which means it's the perfect time for him to join their group.

"I really think you'll like him, Gem," Impulse says, and Gem doesn't disagree. Impulse is a good judge of people, and anyone who has been friends with him for so long must be special.

The day their new world starts, Gem feels- antsy. Keyed up. Not in a fight kind of way, or a flight kind of way, or even a dance around the meadow kind of way. No this- she hasn't felt this way in a long time. Like she can feel a riptide about to pull her down, and she's getting ready to launch back up through the water. Like there's a storm rolling overhead and if she can be in just the right level, it will carry her laughing for a thousand miles.

She's a little unnerved by it, to be honest. She's spent a long time out of the water, and she's not used to that sort of pull anymore. What's worse is she can't figure out where the feeling is coming from.

At least, she can't until she sees Skizz.

It has to be Skizz- she's seen Joel before, briefly on other worlds, a mischievous builder with a knack for kindness wrapped in insults that have about as much barb as a dethorned rose.

Therefore it must be Skizz standing beside Impulse, shifting from foot to foot. He's big, and brawny. Gem gets the feeling his sleeves are cut off more for comfort than to show off.

He's also battle scarred. All up and down his arms are tears and slashs and..and little triangular marks that seem so...familiar.

His ears are pointed, not like any of the elves she's known or the goblins or any number of other fantastic people. The point is curved and then immediately cuts straight, giving triangle, giving pyramid, giving- giving fin.

His eyes are different, too, rounder than normal and a little like Grian's in that they are dark from edge to edge, black schlera with irises so blue they could well be glowing.

He and Joel are introduced as the newest members of the server.

"Happy to be here," Skizz says- around a mouth full of razor sharp serrated white teeth.

Then he catches her gaze across the lava pit of spawn.

He winks.

-

She finds him as soon as the mountain is staked out, knowing he'll follow Impulse's lead. He's surveying the area he's claimed, a crack in the mountain that leads back into the massive dripstone cavern that is its hollow center.

She approaches, then slows. He looks up from where he is setting down a chest.

"Hello, Princess," he greets with another toothy smile. "what can I do for you?"

Gem looks at him and immediately bursts into tears.

She doesn't mean to. It startles her as much as it startles him, and he yelps and tosses the chest aside to come to her side. "H-hey- I'm sorry was I wrong? Bad memories? Democracy, did you have one of those? Ahh Skizz you idiot-!"

Gem shakes her head, laughing even as she sniffles. "No, it's not- no one's called me that for a very long time. How did you know?"

He takes her hand and squeezes. "It's all in the carrying, Princess. Is- that okay? Do you want me to call you something else?"

"Call me Gem," she says. "Everyone else does."

"Gem. Well, my Lady Gem, I'm Skizz." He does a theatrical bow and she giggles some more. "Would you like to look at my crack?"

"Oh my god," she says, the giggles becoming another full blown fit of laughter. The tears are soon forgotten.

-

"It dried up." She tells him. They are sitting together on Grian's dock, since he's taken a break from his fishing quest. Skizz had offered to go down himself and look but Grian had refused, since the matter of fishing up a Mending book had become incredibly personal.

"Suit yourself," the shark man had said with a shrug.

"Something happened to the sun," she continues, "and it all just..started to dry up. My whole world was water. There were a couple islands, but mostly it was just open ocean."

"I'm so sorry, Gem," Skizz says. "I'm glad you got out."

"Me too." Gem looks out over the water. "It hasn't been bad, you know? Being on land. There's always water around, even if I have to head into the desert. But it's not my water. It's not my ocean. All the monuments here- they're shadows. The guardians can't talk to me and if they did I don't even know what they'd say."

"I mean they'd probably say, 'hello strange girl, what do you plan on doing with all that sponge?'" Skizz says. "and then you'd say 'none of your business, jerk!' and then you'd fight."

"I'd win," Gem says, and Skizz says, "Yeah. You would."

"What about you?" Gem asks. "I mean you don't have to answer, if you don't want to, but."

But why would a shark man ever come on land?

"I got caught," Skizz says. "On my server. Dumb, really. I should have known the nets were there. I figured they'd throw me back but then they started talking about arenas and fights the next thing you know I'm who knows how many servers away biting people for money."

Gem winces.

"I mean I was pretty good at it but you don't make a lot of friends being the bite guy, right? Then I met Impulse. He cut me loose and asked if I wanted to come along. It's not like I had anything back home, so I said yes. Always swimming forward."

Skizz kicks his feet in the water. "It's been pretty great. The multiverse has been good to ol' Skizz. Only- I missed Impulse. I missed having a home. Even back on my old server, there was this one coral reef? It had this gorgeous scarlet frond, great for back scratching, and the dolphins weren't total jerks."

"Amazing," Gem says with just the right measure of sincerity and sarcasm.

"I know, right? So when Impulse said that Hermitcraft might be a fit, well- I thought he was full of shit."

"Skizz!" Gem laughs.

"What? This place is amazing. What everyone does here is amazing, and I'm- I'm the cards bite fight guy. I can do a hut, Gem, that's about it."

"Your crack is looking good," she says reassuringly and Skizz laughs. "It doesn't look like total crap, sure, but it's nothing compared to what you're doing, or Joel, or- you get my point."

"I think you fit just fine," Gem says firmly.

"Thank you, Gemmy. You know what? So do you."

In the stunned quiet he continues, "I think you fit here just fine, even if it's upriver of the sea."

Gem looks down at her hands, summons the iridescent webbing. She holds her hand up to the slowly rising moon. "Tide'll change soon," she says.

Skizz raises his own gray hand with its claws and darker webbing, holding it beside hers. "Yeah. But it'll come back in, too."

"Skizz?"

"Yes, Princess?"

"Let's go for a swim."

He grins with all his teeth. "Last one to kill a Drowned is a rotten clownfish!"

He jumps into the water and Gem shrieks with laughter and follows, watching as his tail grows and his gills open up. She can feel her own gills open, the delicate fronds filtering the water as she kicks.

The Princess follows the card shark out to sea, pulled along by the tide, and thinks, he's right. I am home.

Don't all rivers lead to the sea?

[firequeenofficial]

When Grian finds out that Skizz is terrible at landing- at least when he's not landing ON something with Intent to Destroy- he spends fifteen minutes laughing until he's crying.

He then spends the next fifteen utterly mortified as Skizz explains, cheerfully as ever, that of course landing isn't his best area of flight. His landing gear hasn't worked in centuries.

"I mean I was real good at it once! Could land on the head of a pin. But, you know how it goes. Wars. I have fun elbow dropping zombies though!"

Grian doesn't know how it goes.

He doesn't know at all.

And that- concerns him.

-

It's not that Grian is nosy, no. Not even a little bit!

He just- likes to know things. Blame it on the touch of the Watchers, or just his particular species of Avian- after all False minds her own business perfectly well but False is a falcon, she's meant to float above in solitary wonder.

Parrots?

Not so much.

'landing gear hasn't worked in centuries'.

Hmmmm.

-

"Why are you obsessing over this?" Gem asks him, placing a flower and then scowling at it like it personally offended her.

"I don't know! It's just." Grian scuffs his talons over the dirt path. "Gem he lands so hard. I thought I was imagining it but."

"You're worried about him."

"It's stupid. I know it's stupid."

"It's not stupid, Grian," Gem says, "but the way you're going about it is. If you don't want to ask him you ask Impulse."

"But Impulse won't talk about it either."

"He won't talk about HIMSELF, sure, but you aren't asking about HIM are you?"

Grian blinks. "No. No I'm not."

"Well then," Gem says with a satisfied nod, "go away. I'm about to have a fistfight with a lily."

"I'll visit you in hospital."

"GRIAN!"

-

Impulse is guts deep in redstone and clearly doesn't want company, but that's never stopped Grian before and he's not going to let it stop him now.

"So. Skizz."

"What about him?" Impulse asks as he shifts a redstone line.

"He lands hard."

"Yeah, he always has," Impulse says.

"No he hasn't. He said so himself."

"...did he?" Impulse sounds weary.

"Could land on the head of a pin, were the words," Grian says.

"I mean. Things change."

"Impulse."

"Grian."

Impulse looks up and Grian's feathers fluff ever so slightly to see the acid yellow tinge that has seeped into them. Then Impulse sighs. "It was an injury. He got it for a squad mate."

Grian thinks about this new information. "Must be an old one?"

"Yeah. Pretty old. Look, Grian, I'm trying to get some work done."

"Yeah, sorry. Good luck with the redstone!"

Grian retreats to consider.

-

An injury.

What kind of injury would carry over on an angel? Grian doesn't know a LOT about the First Circle- about any of the major forces of the Server Wars, honestly, aside from the Watchers, but he knows about as much as anyone else who might look into it.

He knows how hearty Third Circle angels are. He's seen it in action- Skizz cutting through the TNT they were dropping to hollow out the mountain with a precision most fliers could only dream of, making loops and turns that had Grian wasn't even sure HE would try, with his much smaller wingspan. And Skizz had all three sets out!

"All three sets," Grian says, and it clicks.

-

"Skizz?"

"Yeah, G?"

"Which of your wing sets would you call your landing gear?"

Skizz shrugs, sets down another iron block. "Smallest," he says. "Second one up is for turns and the biggest set's for getting up and staying up."

"But you don't always have them all out, right?"

Skizz chuckles. "It's like you said, G. An angel flies because they have wings, right? So I can do all three with the big ones. It just doesn't look as cool."

Grian grumbles. "Infuriating."

"Yeah, yeah, so I got the fancier sets. Look mister you got me beat in literally every other department let me have this!"

Grian laughs. "I do not have to let you have this!"

"Where would you even put another set of wings?" Skizz asks. "You'd have to stop wearing shirts altogether!"

"Look just because SOME of us have stupid magic wings that make our shirts work around them-!"

By the time either of them notice Joe laughing at the base of Skizz's pyramid Grian has a handful of iridescent white feathers and Skizz has a parrot's claw-rake on his face.

"I can come back!" Joe calls.

"I've got him on the ropes!" Grian calls back, just to be tackled out of sight by a rush of white feathers.

Joe does eventually get the help he needs, and Skizz tells Grian to keep the feathers.

"Good luck, so I've heard!"

"but if I take them how will you get anything done? Your luck stinks, Skizz."

"Ah, that's okay, bud. I've got Impulse for luck."

-

Grian is examining one long white feather while sitting on top of Willy's Woodyard when he hears, "Grian?"

He looks down and grins. "Mumbo!"

"Hello! Why are you holding a skizz feather? Where is the rest of him?"

"I took it off fair and square," Grian says as he glides down to his friend. "I was asking him about his wings and we got into it a little bit."

"Not in a bad way, I hope?"

"No, no. Just. Did you know he uses all three sets of wings for different things?"

"Not the last set, though." Mumbo asks.

"Why would you say that?" Grian asks as he tucks the white feather away.

"Well he's got redstone scarring, doesn't he? Right at the base."

"...he does? How can you tell?"

Mumbo shrugs. "My research partner. Saw it the first day. Faint, but it's there. Surprising amount of power, honestly, could at least run a piston off his back if you had to. Old stuff, very potent- Grian? Where are you off to?"

"I need to talk to Etthhhoooo!" Grian calls back, voice fading as he flies.

-

"It was me."

Grian blinks. "It was?"

Etho nods matter of factly. "Yeah."

"Etho." Grian says. "Etho why would redstone scarring on Skizz's wings be your fault?"

"I cut them off."

Grian's wings snap out in alarm, his tail flaring. "You did WHAT-?!"

"He asked me to!" Etho says, holding up his hands. "Well, told me to, more like it."

"I'm so confused. Why would he tell you to-"

Etho takes his mask down and says, only a little clearer than when he had it up, "because if he hadn't, I'd be dead. The real kind of dead."

Grian's mouth snaps closed at the sight of the rent-cheeked red maw with its thin sharp teeth. Not a familiar sight, but not entirely unknown, either. Etho's face isn't a secret any more than Cleo's exposed organs or what Doc looks like when he doesn't have his arm on and eye in.

Yet there is something about the way Etho is looking at him now that feels- like he's intruding.

Flown too close to the sun.

Again.

"Forget I asked." Grian says quietly.

-

Figuring he's in deep enough already, Grian makes a stop at Tango's base before he heads home.

Tango, blunt and efficient as ever, sits him down on a chest and offers him a drink. Grian politely refuses- never drink and fly. Tango pours himself one and says, "Etho ate them."

"The- the wings?" Grian squeaks.

"Yeah. Eating angel flesh could stop the transformation, or at least slow it down, but not a lot of people knew that." Tango takes a long swallow, the liquor making his hair burn just a little brighter. "and you needed a high ranking angel for it to work. Any lower than a fourth circle and you were screwed."

"But Skizz is a Third Circle," Grian says with dawning realization and horror.

"Right. Beacon Angel, just two steps down from the- ugh- purest angels there were," Tango says with distaste. "So he told Etho to eat them."

"I- Tango you don't have to-"

"I don't have to. But I will. It was bad, Grian. All of the server wars were bad. That's why no one wants to talk about them. Nobody was a hero, nobody came out of it on top, and nobody even knows what was left in the rubble. Sometimes you have to leave well enough alone."

"I mean I get that."

"Do you? Caus' sometimes that little purple spiral gets the best of you, buddy."

Grian looks down at his feet. Tango sighs. "Yeah, Etho used a redstone knife. Redstone was- more powerful back then. And it fucked Skizz up good. We didn't really know how good until he got here. Impulse knew, but Impulse..he can be really greedy when it comes to Skizz info. They've been together since almost the beginning of freakin' time."

Grian thinks about this.

"Tango?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think- if I offered..that I could help Skizz? Not land so hard?"

Tango grins.

"You know what, Grian? I think he'd take you up on that in a heartbeat."

-

Grian waits at the top of Skizz's pyramid. They're the only two around, right now, and that's- that's good. Grian figures he'll wait another week before he flies past Impulse's slowly rising city.

"Hey, G!" Skizz makes one of his awkward half-falls, landing on his knee in a way that makes Grian habitually wince. "Sorry, I was buying Mumbo outta iron blocks. What's up?"

"I, ah, had a thought. About your landing gear."

"Yeah?"

It's the way he says 'yeah' that lets Grian know that Skizz knows exactly where he's been and who he's talked to. It's just as friendly as ever, but there's a backbeat to it. A lower tone that in another avian Grian might take as a warning note. Who knows, despite their differences maybe angels and avians have similar unspoken languages.

That's for another time.

"Do you want to practice new ways to land with me? "Grian blurts. "Maybe something that's not so abominably hard on your knees? Skizz it's a miracle you can walk anywhere."

Don't be mad at me. Don't hate me. I'm sorry. I just wanted to know.

Skizz smiles, and Grian knows he is forgiven.

"Can you believe I'm too embarrassed to ask anyone?" He says, sitting down beside Grian. "I mean have you SEEN False? Just-" he makes a swooping motion with one huge hand. "Gorgeous. And even people WITHOUT wings, all they've got is elytra and they land better than me! I'm like a chicken. A drunk chicken!"

Grian can't help his laughter any more than he can help leaning in towards Skizz. "Well, I don't know if I can sober up your chicken," he says, "but I bet I can show you some things. After all I've only got the one set. I'm pretty good with them!"

"You are, G," Skizz says. "You really are."

Then he grins. "Wanna use the back end of Scar's railroad as a landing pad?"

"Yes!" cackles Grian, and he takes to the sky. The great weight of the angel comes up under him, and Grian opens his wings to the air that Skizz sends up to him without another thought.

He thinks of Etho, of Tango. Of Impulse, tight lipped and yellow eyed.

He looks down at Skizz, at the length of his back, the place where the smallest pair of wings would be if he had them out.

"Skizz?"

"Yeah, Grian?"

"I'm glad you're here," Grian says, and has never meant anything more in his life.

[firequeenofficial]

Impulse hoards Skizz info like a dragon hoards gold. Because info about Skizz is something that can be used against him

In a clearing in a grove in a spruce forest, a dragon waits for the arrival of his hoard.

He is, for comfort's sake, curled around a rock near the center of the clearing, but he keeps lifting his head to the sky. His black claws have already dug deep furrows in the earth, and his yellow scales- which are shined particularly well today, a job he'd enlisted help to achieve- glitter with iridescent shimmer as he moves. He is as coiffed as a dragon could reasonably be and yet he is filled with a nervous energy, not unlike a young suitor waiting for the proper moment to ask a partner for a dance.

The sky goes- momentarily- dark.

There is a flash of light, a single pillar that cuts through the darkness. The dragon surges forward to where the light touches the thick velvet moss, curling in a yellow cyclone around-

A man.

He is tall and brawny, marked with scars on his face. His eyes are a blue that puts lapis to shame, and the armor he wears is dirty and worn. There is a thin golden circlet around his head, holding back his messy black hair peppered here and there with threads of silver gray. In the wall the dragon has made of his great yellow body, the man holds out his gauntleted hands.

The dragon puts his long face into the touch, breathing out an affectionate cloud of steam. The man laughs. Oh, his laugh is as warm and bright as the sun. It's a beautiful sound.

The dragon nudges him, once, twice, impatient.

"Okay, okay," the man says, voice burred and thick. "Give a guy a break."

Another huff and the dragon stills. The man climbs atop his back in a manner which suggests he has done so before, many times. He hangs on to the thick black spike before him, seated back against another, and before he can even speak a word the dragon has coiled himself into a spring and leapt into the air, wings snapping open to catch the wind as it rushes down from the mountain and into the valley below.

His passenger whoops and the dragon soars, doing loops and curls, feeling the smaller warm body on his back cling and trust him not to falter.

The dragon and his most prized possession fly over many things- a grove of trees floating a hundred feet over a crystal clear lake. A citadel cut from the rock of the mountain, lit with lanterns filled with blue fire. A garden of such size and beauty that were all the green gods in all the worlds gathered together they could not match it.

And, at last, they come to a house.

It is a grand house, yes. A manor, made of stone, with towers and a lovely garden of its own. Plenty of room for a dragon to land, and for animals to be raised.

A good place to return to after many, many journeys.

The dragon carefully touches down in the courtyard, and his passenger disembarks. When he does so the dragon shifts ever so slightly and between the space of one breath and another, is a man.

He is shorter than the man in armor, but not by much. Broader, with a rounder chin but sharper eyes. The man looks at him, then up at the house.

"It's not finished," the dragon who is a man now says. "I wanted you to- you know. Have at least a little say. There's still plenty of room to expand, too. And it's- it's safe. I'll show you the layout later, I asked Mumbo and Etho to help with trap placement, there's so much redstone under the back half I had to change where the retaining walls went."

"Impulse."

"And I've spoken to Keralis, he wants to meet you first but he's got horses who won't run off when they see me- at least they don't run off with Gem, and her teeth are scarier than mine, not that I'll ever actually tell her that-" "Impulse." "Xisuma wants a formal introduction and I figure you can meet Doc then, he'll have some questions but once all that is over and done with-" "IMPULSE." the man blinks out of his stream- and melts as the man in armor pulls him in close for an embrace, setting his chin on top of Impulse's head. "I just wanted everything to be perfect," Impulse whispers. "I wanted to make sure you were happy."

"How many times have I said it, Dippledop?" The man in armor says and it's a ridiculous nickname, hardly appropriate for the size and grandeur of the dragon hiding in the skin of a man, but the sound of it makes him light up even as it draws a dry sob from him.

"A million times." he says in a call and response that has clearly been a part of their lives so long it has become akin to sacrament.

"And I'll say it again a million more," the man says. "As long as I'm with you, I'm happy. I am so happy, Impulse." The dragon's name is almost a sob then, and it is his turn to embrace and comfort as the man in armor cries without shame against him.

"Welcome home, Skizz," Impulse murmurs, kissing the other man's brow softly. "Welcome home, treasure mine."

We'll leave them here, Impulse and his Skizz, the Ochre Terror and the King he claimed long ago. We'll leave the dragon to settle his hoard and make his excuses to friends and companions who are going to have more than a few questions about- well, everything.

All that is for later.

Right this moment there is a grand manor house, lovingly built, and two souls long separated weaving together again. There is a dragon and his hoard, a King and his most loyal guard, an ending to a story all wrapped up in a new beginning.

There is Impulse, and there is Skizz, and they won't ever be parted again. --- A/N: This is not what you wanted, Anon, but this is what you got. A bit more clearly skizzpulse than anything I've put together thusfar- I love all aspects of their relationship and this particular version trended more romantic.

The grand garden Impulse flew over is Gemini's hoard. Thusfar the only other confirmed dragon on this server is Zedaph. Whose hoard is sheep. He herds them himself.

[firequeenofficial]

How was Tango captured? How does one restrain a being of fire and energy to use as a fuel source? The number of casualties as a result of this endeavor must have been immense, if it was done by force. If not by force, how was he tricked.

They get to talking shop, after a while, when it becomes clear the dust storm isn't going to be over in a night. It starts when Tango asks Impulse, "Did those bombers really run on recycled hydrogen?"

This leads into the industrial district of the House of Sulfur, and Impulse's rise in the ranks until he was named Prince of the House.

"No idea if any of it's still standing," he says as he gazes at the torch on the far wall of their hastily dug bunker. "The smelters, the tunnels, the break rooms. Is it weird I think about the break rooms the most? I slept on those couches more than I did in my own apartment."

"They made you a prince and you still had an apartment?" Etho asks. "That's got to rate a house, at least."

"I mean space was at a premium in our level. I did get a BETTER apartment."

Talk of apartments leads to homes, or at least structures that served as homes, which is how his companions find out-

"What do you MEAN you slept on the beacon?" Tango asks, aghast.

Skizz shrugs. "It was wide enough that you curled up, kept one set of wings under you and put the other set over. When the morning call came there was another Third waiting with food so you could leave to clean up. I can take a five minute shower with the wings out."

"And the Third that got left..?"

"Would either take over beacon duty or just hold out for you."

Talk of the beacons turns to the massive amount of materials needed to build even one.

"Tango?" Etho asks. "I wanted to ask...how?"

"How what?" the blaze demon asks a little too casually.

"I mean, how?" Etho gestures. "I understand me not knowing you were in there, none of the rank and file do, we just assumed they ran on- I don't know supercharged lava."

"You mean the supersmelters?" Impulse asks. Tango nods shortly. "My home away from home," he says with a bitter edge. "Paradise in four blocks."

Skizz winces. "At least I had air," he says.

"Oh I got air. I needed air to burn." Tango looks somewhere far away. The bunker is realistically bigger than anything they might need. Skizz had claimed it was to fit 'him and all his stupid wings' but they all know better. Tango had not done well that first night, when they all dug down to hide until daylight.

"To answer your question, Etho," Tango says, coming back to himself after a moment, "Snow."

"Snow?" Etho asks, bewildered.

"Yeah. I was- it doesn't matter now, but. My home, I was a part of the guard. We patrolled outside the walls, kept an eye out for angels, rogue brutes, that sort of thing. A kid had gone missing and I was tasked to help find them."

"Oh no," Impulse says.

"Yeah. The fear was they'd gone through a portal, or were taken. We had a group that specialized in breaking them down but a new one had popped up just over the border of our territory. The idiot next door wanted to leave it, thought it was good to have a direct link to an overworld where, you know, a war was going on."

Tango's tail lashes once, twice. He continues, "So I'm searching as close to the portal as I can without setting off any alarm bells in the next village over because we want to avoid an incident, and I hear someone calling for help. It's just on the other side of the portal."

This time it's Skizz. "Oh no."

"Yeah. I thought I'd dash through, have a quick peak, maybe 'accidentally' knock a block out on the way back."

Tango snorts. "They were waiting. At least ten of them, in fire-resistant gear- redstone panels. I started lighting up and then someone on top dropped snow on me."

"They were waiting on TOP of the portal?" Impulse asks. "That's- what if they'd MISSED?"

"They'd all be dead and I'd have never met any of you," Tango says. "but they didn't miss."

He doesn't remember much, just the white and then the pain- a sting like nothing he'd ever felt before. He couldn't get air, couldn't light, couldn't spark. A lot of it was like that, pain and nothingness and then more pain.

"When I woke up properly I was inside the super smelter. Nobody much felt like answering questions."

When Tango opened his eyes on the inside of the obsidian-lined prison, he had beaten himself almost bloody on the walls by the time they cracked the grates to let the air in. He'd gone for them immediately only to be burned by a flash freeze against the bars.

"And that's where I was," he finishes. "Until Etho had his coughing fit."

Etho chuckles. It's a dry, wheezing sound. "You're welcome."

"Tango.." Skizz starts, hesitant. Skizz isn't really sure how to talk to Tango yet, and Tango's enjoying making the angel struggle. "if we got you to a portal..could you find your way home?"

"No chance," Tango says. "I don't even think this is the same server. Even if the single Nether theory is true- and I don't believe it is, we had guys working on it- then there's no way I haven't traveled thousands of blocks away. It would take a lodestone to get me home and would you look at that," he makes a show of emptying his pants pockets, "fresh out!"

"You and me both," Impulse says gloomily.

"I could tell you the coordinates," Etho says, "but there's nothing left there to see. The whole area took a barrage the first day the First Circle posted up. Three whole towns, gone. Or maybe not." He squints outside. "Could be particles of my house out there."

"Yeah," Skizz says quietly. "Yeah, we're...pretty good at that whole..annihilation thing."

"Skizz?"

"Yeah?"

"You didn't have anything to do with it, man," Etho says.

"I-..thanks, Etho." Skizz looks at the dust.

"I'm gonna get you guys out of here," he says suddenly. "I promise."

"Don't go making promises you aren't sure you can keep, Skizz," Impulse says gently.

"Oh no lie to me more, baby," Tango teases. Etho laughs and Skizz laughs too but he doesn't lose that flinty edge in his eyes.

The storm breaks after the third day, and they move on.

[firequeenofficial]

I honestly think everything makes a lot of sense to me, even backwards. Idk if that's because of me or you (apparently it's Not Normal to understand The Matrix first time, idk, it may have something to do with that lol) but it's pretty easy to tell which au is which. The only one I mixed up once is the Watcher Skizz one and the Beacon Skizz one, but that was only once for a few seconds so I don't really count it lol

Hello. You will know me from your notifications from the past ~2 hours. I would like to formally thank you for the joy you brought to the first hour and a half of my day. All your aus are perfection. I never thought I'd be obsessing over Skizzpulse like this, but here we are xD. From one writer to another, thank you!

Nah man thank YOU I got up to bake like 12 dozen gingerbread cookies by myself and not only did I get guess the builds I got someone loving my writing and screaming about it in their tags. Day TRUELY made.

I do see that you're basically reading backwards and I am The Worst at tagging so if you got questions I (might) have answers!

[firequeenofficial]

Fly By

There is a tranquility that can only be found in the gardens of Geminitay.

It is the work of centuries. Of long years spent on a single tree where another, less capable (or simply less long-lived) gardener might falter. There are lilies in the perfectly sculpted ponds that are the many times great grandchildren of those first germinated in the muck when those still and starlit pools were mere swamp water. There are roses that bloom once in a lifetime, marigolds that whisper in the voices of the dead, and a series of apple trees that remain always in the four seasonal stages, surrounding a singular tree that grows fruit made of gold.

In this garden, which is as dangerous as it is beautiful, Geminitay- who will allow close friends to call her Gem- is repotting a lavender plant when the peace of her garden is broken by a jubilant call.

“TODAY’S THE DAAAAAYYYYYY!”

Gem huffs, but she cannot keep the smile from her face. She sets aside her pot and slides serpentine out of her work shed and onto the terrace, where she can see the source of the shout preparing to land on the sturdy wooden rail that had been constructed for just such a purpose.

Gem curls her long pink body into coils, tucking her back feet under and resting her front paws on her foremost coil as she watches her friend come in for a landing. Grian is an excellent flier, but sometimes when he’s over-excited he can under-correct. It’s always fun to watch, presuming he isn’t too seriously hurt.

Today, though, Grian seems to be focused. Her harpy friend sticks the landing on the post without a problem and pulls up his goggles. “Gem do you know what today is?” He asks as he checks over his red, yellow and blue feathers for any nicks or debris he might have picked up in flight.

“No, Grian,” she says.

“Yes you do you’re humoring me,” Grian accuses with no heat. Gem’s smile gets bigger. “Alright. I know. Tell me anyway.”

“Impulse’s week is UP!” Grian says with triumph, one clawed fist curled in the air. “He asked for it, we gave it to him, and now I get to bother him and if he tries to kill me he’ll be in actual trouble!”

Gem shakes her head. “Grian, you should probably wait a little longer.” She scratches at her crest. “Just to be sure.”

“I will not.” Grian says. “I CANNOT. Gem. Gem, it’s been so long.”

Gemini can’t disagree. Impulse- and his hoard- has been the talk of the server for almost three months. When word had spread that the house Impulse had been painstakingly building was done, the talk about what would go into that house started immediately.

The dragons of hermitcraft are a unique lot, and their hoards are too. Gemini’s garden is her hoard, and the whole of the server knows about Zedaph’s precious herd of sheep- lovingly dyed every imaginable color and a few never seen outside their server that Zedaph has bred himself.

Impulse, older than them both, had simply stated when he arrived that yes, he had a hoard and no, it wasn’t jewels or gold or old tech. He would bring it when he was ready.

Then he’d started building.

That building? Is done.

And it’s not a vault, or a deep cave, or a fortress. It’s not a garden like Gem’s or the cultivated pastures that Zedaph tends. It’s a house. A beautiful house, as far as Gem can tell, each stone cut and placed with the utmost attention to care but still.

A house.

Impulse has a humanoid form, and it’s a good one- he’s old enough to have mastered it. Gem’s is alright but sometimes her hair’s still a little too spiky, and Zedaph just can’t let go of his vibrant pink and yellow coloring even as a human.

Impulse?

Unless he wants to make it obvious- keeping his foremost horns, letting the amber remain in his eyes, aesthetic scale patches- he can be a perfectly ordinary man, so boring that he’s never had a problem navigating the nearest world hub even when it was covered in anti-mob propaganda.

Which is to say, theoretically, Impulse could live in the house.

It seems out of character, though. Impulse built the house with archways big enough to allow movement when he’s draconic. He’s comfortable in either form, has shifted between the two to help with builds or participate in games. His current base is built into the mountain that the manor on, and it suits both forms fine. So why would he move?

“Have you already bothered Xisuma?” Gem asks Grian, who is hopping from tile to tile of the veranda.

“Of course. He told me to mind my own business and Impulse would let us know when he was ready.”

“He makes a good point,” Gem says. “Remember how Zed gets during lambing season?”

Grian winces. Zedaph becomes a snapper for the early spring months, and no one can get anywhere near his pastures or his sheep without the sherbet-colored dragon scuttling over the grass, hissing in rage.

“Yeah,” Gem says. “And Impulse? Breathes acid fog.”

“But I want to knnoooowwww,” Grian whines. “I can do a quick flyby. I’ll bring False.”

“No you won’t,” Gem laughs. “False has sense!”

“I’m going,” Grian says stubbornly, pulling his goggles down. “Just a quick flyby. In and out. I’ll report back!”

“Please don’t,” Gem says dryly. “I don’t want an angry Impulse spitting acid all over my garden.”

“I would never, ever, bring an angry acid dragon to your garden, Gem,” Grian says, hopping up on the rail. “Wish me luck!”

“You’re gonna need it!” Gem calls as Grian takes off. She watches her friend rise into the sky and turn expertly towards Impulse’s mountain.

-

Grian really does only intend to do a quick flyby. Everything’s been quiet on the mountain, and Xisuma has a point- Impulse will let the other hermits know when he is ready.

So it’s supposed to be a swoop and gone.

Only when Grian comes down over the upper balcony, the one that Impulse had spent an entire day retiling when he decided he didn’t like the marble, there’s a person leaning on the carved railing.

Who isn’t Impulse.

It startles Grian enough that he jerks upwards and off the thermal he’d been boosting off of, losing altitude with a surprised yelp. He can feel the spiral begin and tries to work his way through the roll. If he opens his wings at just the right time he can catch the next updraft and-

Warmth runs through Grian, like the sun has suddenly turned all her attention to him. He realizes with a start that he’s stopped rolling- he’s stopped moving entirely, wrapped in some kind of- field of golden light.

He blinks a few times, then drops his head down.

“You okay, buddy?” The man on the balcony asks. He’s wearing a thick blue robe like he just got out of bed, with mussed black hair marked with silver and a five o’clock shadow that has strange clear parts- scars on his face. He’s got one hand outstretched, and it is glowing the same soft gold as the shield.

“I- yeah.”

The man smiles. “I’m gonna set you down beside me, okay?”

“That would be great,” Grian says, and the man gestures. He is drawn gently down and onto the balcony, where the golden light dissipates and he is free to move around.

He stands cautiously, shaking out his wings and tail. The man backs up to give him room.

Grian pulls up his goggles and blinks.

He blinks again.

No. No he is not imagining the still-present- if FAINT- golden glow that suffuses the man’s skin. It’s not possible. It’s not.

“You’re a bloody aetherian!” Grian yelps.

The impossible man laughs. “You must be Grian. I’m- you can call me Skizz.”

“Skizz? What kind of- oh no. Oh no where is he?”

“Who, the angry yellow dragon coming up the stairs behind you?”

Grian shrieks and scrabbles to his feet, half-up on the railing before he sees that Skizz is bent over in half laughing.

“Oh you cheeky bastard you nearly gave me a heart attack!” He scolds.

“Oh your face, dude!” Skizz cackles. “Impulse is downstairs in the kitchen. He’s making coffee.”

“Oh. So that’s. Um.” Grian hops down the railing, eyeing Skizz suspiciously. “….is it you?”

“Am I what?”

“Are you Impulse’s hoard?”

Skizz chuckles. “Let me guess. You thought I’d be prettier?”

“I didn’t know what to expect at all!” Grian flaps his wings. “None of us did! Impulse never SAID what he was building for, we just all sort of- assumed?”

“Well you know what they say about assumptions,” the man says. “Are you a coffee drinker, Grian?”

“Ah. Sometimes?”

“Well, follow me!”

And Skizz the Aetherian turns and heads down the balcony towards the airy stone stairs, not waiting to see if Grian follows.

-

“Impulse we got company!”

“No we don’t,” Impulse says immediately.

“Really?” Skizz asks. “So I’ve got a new pet parrot then?”

“Impulse your hoard is incredibly rude I would like to lodge a complaint with the hoard office!” Comes a voice Impulse knows. His jaw tightens.

Before he can turn, before he can allow ancient instinct to override sense, Skizz is there. He’s curled his arms around Impulse’s back and settled his chin on the dragon’s shoulder. He squeezes, just once, a reminder.

Impulse exhales slow, a soft cloud of yellow that dissipates harmlessly as Skizz lets him go. He turns and gives Grian- who, to his credit, is shuffling nervously in the hall with his shoulders down, looking chagrined- a magnificent Look.

“Hiiii,” Grian says meekly.

“Don’t be too mad at him, Imp,” Skizz says as he takes a coffee mug from the tray Impulse is holding. “He was just gonna do a flyby and I scared him.”

Impulse frowns. “Scared him?”

“Well it wasn’t like I was EXPECTING anyone but you to be here!” Grian says. “Then I come up over the roof, and I’m just going to bank around and head for Tango’s place only there’s a man in a HOUSECOAT on your balcony!”

“What's a housecoat?” Skizz murmurs.

Impulse sighs. “Grian, look. It’s- fine. Yes, this is Skizz, he’s- he’s-”

“He’s a smart kid, Imp,” Skizz says. “He figured it out.”

Impulse’s hands tighten on the tray.

“And,” Skizz says, “I might have maybe kept him from dropping out of the air.”

Impulse’s concern changes gears immediately. “Grian you were falling?!” Grian doesn’t fall. Grian is the best harpy trick-flier Impulse knows, and that includes False. Not even she, with her precision and speed, can match Grian in maneuverability.

“As I said, I was surprised by Skizz here and I lost the thermal.”

“And I didn’t want him to splat on the courtyard you spent lord only knows how long obsessing over,” Skizz says. “So I caught him.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh. Sooooo. Were you ever actually going to mention that your hoard is a living aetherian, or..?”

“That’s not why he’s mine,” Impulse snaps and Grian backs up a little quicker than he normally would. Impulse sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Grian, I- I’m trying, I really thought a week would do it.”

“We spent all of the first day with him wrapped up around me in the garden,” Skizz says as he sits at the breakfast nook and drinks his coffee. “Which was nice, don’t get me wrong, but the grass stains are real.”

Impulse sighs. “I- we’ve been apart so long. I don’t- it’s stupid.”

“You don’t want to share,” Grian says, “because you’re afraid of letting him out of your sight.”

“Yeah. Basically. It’s dragon stuff.”

“Yeah, Gem said- I’m sorry I really didn’t mean to intrude it WAS just supposed to be a flyby.”

“No, no, it’s a good thing you did,” Impulse says. “Good benchmark for how I’m doing. Answer is ‘not as good as I hoped’ apparently.”

“You’ll adjust, Impulse,” Skizz says. “Truth be told I don’t much like the idea of you out of my sight, either.”

Grian looks between them. “How long have you been apart?” He asks.

Both men sigh heavily enough that Grian hastily says, “Don’t tell me.”

“What, don’t want to hear all the intricate details of dragon courtship?” Skizz asks.

“No,” Grian says, “I just don’t want to bring up unpleasant memories. Already feeling enough like an ass, thanks.”

“Ah you’re just a little one,” Impulse says, and at Grian’s outraged squawk both men laugh. “You’re right, though,” he says, “it’s been a very long time. The right thing to do, and we knew it, but.”

“That didn’t make it any easier.” Skizz says quietly.

“No,” Impulse says. “It didn’t.”

Grian looks between the two men, then nods. “Right. I’m off to see Keralis.”

Impulse frowns. “That’s a long way, what for?”

“Well,” Grian says, “you’ve got this lovely big house and a lovely big aetherian in it, seems like you should throw a lovely big welcome party, doesn’t it? And Keralis is the man for the job. Planning that will take at LEAST another week, maybe two if someone has to fight Gem over providing flowers, so that’s time. THEN you have to consider how many hermits will be able to make it, and that will push it out another week, and by the time we get to Cub and his fireworks I figure you’ll have had a solid month!”

Impulse bursts into laughter. So does Skizz. Grian grins at them both. Making Impulse laugh with his antics has always been a pleasure, but this- this almost makes him proud.

“Now that,” Impulse says, “is a plan. Thanks, Grian.”

“You’re welcome I’m a genius. But I do demand a favor in return.”

“Oh?” Skizz asks. “And what’s that?”

Grian hops a little. “Tell me the whole story? Not now, of course, but- sometime?”

“What is it Mumbo’s always saying, pesky bird?” Impulse asks.

“Guilty as charged!” Grian says.

“I don’t have a problem with it, dippledop, if you don’t,” Skizz says with a look at Impulse. Impulse, ignoring Grian’s look of absolute incredulity at the nickname, thinks about it for a moment. Grian has never asked him for a favor- he knows how dragons are with favors, regardless of origins.

“How about this.” Impulse says. “We’ll tell you the long version. Not the easy one I’ve got prepped for everyone else. So you’ll know details no one else does.”

Skizz grins at the way Grian’s face lights up. “Oh he likes that, dude.”

“Grian likes knowing things,” Impulse says. “It’s sort of his- area of expertise.”

“That almost makes me sound important, Impulse,” Grian says. “I think I like it. Right! Deal. Off to see Keralis- maybe Joe, too? I bet Joe would make a good party planner.”

“As long as the music doesn’t suck I’m good with whatever,” Skizz says and Impulse gives him a look. Grian catches it out of the corner of his eye. It’s soft and adoring and more emotive than he has seen his dragon friend be in all their years together.

“You want a biscuit for the road?” Impulse asks him. “They’re shortbread.”

“Like I would ever refuse food,” Grian says and when he departs the house on the mountain he is both munching on and carrying a handkerchief wrapped bundle of cookies, as a presumptive thank you for Keralis. He hears Skizz say, “We should get some landing rails,” before the blue has embraced him and he is amongst the clouds.

Grian flies. An Aetherian. An honest to goodness Aetherian.

He recalls Skizz embracing Impulse, Impulse looking at Skizz.

A hoard indeed.

-

A/N: What is Roo's version of aetherians? Why is Grian so surprised? Does Zedaph EVER let anyone shear his sheep? Answers to all these and more at some point, sometime, somewhere!

[firequeenofficial]

“You gotta work a little harder, Grian.”

Grian, who has just materialized in the Red Room- who can still hear Joel’s jubilation and disbelief- blinks. “Wha-” he turns.”Skizz?”

Because it is indeed Skizz standing behind him, though the other man should be long gone from the Red Room- back on Hermitcraft, the memories of the game fading. Safe.

“Skizz why-"

“You did pretty good in the second half,” Skizz continues as though Grian didn’t address him at all, “but the superpowers were a close call.”

“Skizz what are you talking about?” Grian asks. He should be fading, too. Joel’s headed for his trap, all of this should be melting away why isn’t it what is happening what-

“I can only cover for you so long, Grian,” Skizz says. “Management's been on my case since Limited and I'm running out of excuses."

“Management?” Grian asks. Then he blinks.

He blinks again, with all his eyes.

He feels his breath suck back down into his lungs, which have become a pit of endless black.

Skizz tilts what probably counts as a head, the wings that are eyes that are all over what was once his face blinking.

“Come on, dude,” he says in a thousand voices, “you didn’t think they wouldn’t send an auditor?”

“B-but you die,” Grian protests weakly. “Every time, you’ve barely made it halfway, why-”

The space between them is gone and he is staring into the burning depths of a lapis hell as the Thing that is Skizz hisses, “I. Can’t. Keep. Covering. For. You.”

Grian drops back, landing hard on the dock of his fishing pier. The Red Room is gone. The Life server is closed.

For now.

The thing that is Skizz looks up towards his own base, then back down at Grian.

“Figure it out, dude,” the Thing says, and then breaks like a cathedral window into rainbow shards. Now it’s Skizz- Skizz in his ridiculous suit with its absent sleeves. He looks tired and worried.

“And soon,” Skizz says- pleas, really- then is gone.

Grian stares at the space he occupied until Gem finds him there, tears of panic and betrayal running down his face.

“Grian?” she asks. "Hey, are you alright?"

“I’m fine. It’s fine. Joel won.”

“He did!” Gem says, bubbly and happy, already forgetting. “We should do something nice for him!”

“Yes,” Grian says, looking up at the mountain. “We should.”

--

A/N: your guess is as good as mine.

[firequeenofficial]

After Grian has flown away and the coffee pot is empty, after Skizz has real clothes on, Impulse takes him to the unfinished courtyard that is behind the house.

There are a few chests there, waiting on the flagstones, and Skizz watches as Impulse glances nervously between him and them.

"So I said when you got here that there was room to build more."

"You did," Skizz says, willing to let Impulse flounder. It's a rare reversal of roles and he's enjoying it.

"I, uh, got all of this together for you. I thought- this is a nice spot." Impulse looks up the mountainside. "There's a path above that leads to an overlook. I should have left all this up there, but. You wanna check out the materials first?"

Skizz steps up to the nearest chest and opens it.

It is full to bursting with lapis blocks.

In the sudden, close quiet he opens the next chest.

Cut stone, iron, and- calcite. So much calcite.

"I..I thought maybe you'd like to build a little temple," Impulse says. "Like the one you made at the crossroads, you remember." He chuckles, scratches the back of his head. "I, uh, found a really good vein of calcite, and no one else was laying claim, so."

Impulse finds his arms full of aetherian. Skizz holds him tight and Impulse stands firm, a sturdy column that Skizz can rest against as he quietly weeps into Impulse's shoulder.

"This is really it, isn't it?" Skizz whispers into his neck. "No more running. No more hiding. We're home."

"We're home," Impulse promises. "We're home, Skizz. And no one is going to take it from us." He nuzzles the side of the other man's head. "It's not a castle in the sky, but."

"I don't need a castle," Skizz whispers. "You're right here." He straightens up, rubs at his eyes, lets Impulse dab his tears. "Yeah. It's gonna suck, but. But I'd like to build a temple again."

Impulse smiles. "It's okay. I know a whole lot of people who are really good at building, and who would really, really like to meet you."

"Well since it seems we're having a party," Skizz says, "we can blindside them with how bad I build then."

Impulse shakes his head, smiling. "Skizz? They're not prepared."

"Oh, dippledop. I know. Now how about you show me this overlook before someone else drops by?"