Ranboo angst for the soul

book seven: respawn

tw: talk of death, drowning, vomiting, panic attack, self-harm. also this gets philosophical so yuuuuh

When you respawned, you weren't healed just like that.

When you died, a poem would play. "...with melting wax and loosened strings
sunk hapless Icarus on unfaithful wings;
Headlong he rushed through the affrighted air, with limbs distorted and dishevelled hair; His scattered plumage danced upon the wave, and sorrowing Nereids decked his watery grave. O'er his pale corpse their pearly sea-flowers shed, and strewed with crimson moss his marble bed; Struck in their coral towers the passing bell, and wide in ocean tolled his echoing knell."

Some knew their poems by heart. Like his, the story of Icarus, who flew beside the stars but fell like one, too.

Some had never heard theirs. Some knew theirs, but never dared speak of them. Like Techno. He had only heard his once, the story of Odysseus.

Ranboo had slipped into the lake and burned in ice cold water. His lungs ached and tried to find oxygen, his limbs scrambling to hold something, anything, for enderman were never taught how to swim given it was dangerous. They were taught to teleport away, sometimes to places they had never seen, yet..the hybrid could not teleport.

He respawned with scars, constant itching, and his skin was gone in places, the tissue suffering a mass genocide.

His stuff was collected by Technoblade, who also gave him a potion for his wounds to help them along. It wasn't instant, as those were hard to perfect, but it was better than nothing.

It warded off the itch for a while and forced his very cells to undergo mitosis, to split and rebuild his harmed body. It took days for his voice to return, for his lungs to stop coughing up the liquid that seared his esophagus like hot lava. Water was something that decorated the heavens yet hurt like hell.

Two strikes. One more, and he's out. How could he be so stupid? A life, wasted, because of his clumsiness. He sank down to the cold, wooden floor, against the wall he built with his own hands and he shrank. To an outsider, seeing someone as lanky as him shrink like that- frankly it would be hilarious. His legs were too long to comfortably set his head atop of- but his arms wrapped around his legs fine.

Twin spots danced in his vision. It does take two to tango. He scrunched up like that and didn't even need to close his eyes for the world to go dark.

When he opened his eyes again, he was sweaty and he was laying down. His nose was running and his face burned. He must have been crying again. The pain was so much, tears pricked his eyes yet again and he sniffled.

He was able to sit up against the wall, head tilted back against it, and he looked up at the ceiling. He stared, looking at the design. His tail suddenly flicked and his ears perked- he thought he heard a creak on the porch.

Then, there was a light knock. Not scared, just waiting for approval.

"Uh, one second-" he croaked, getting up off of the floor and clearing his eyes of tears. He shuffled over to the door and opened it.

But, when he opened it, nobody was there. So he closed the door, climbed upstairs, and shut himself in his room.

The story of Icarus was about a boy who flew too close to the sun. Ranboo, he stepped too close to to the water, greedy of the gift of a fishing rod fashioned from old dark oak and spider-spun string. That rod was his wax wings.

He was alive, but it hurt. It hurt to be alive, but being dead would be far worse. He wasn't afraid of death, no, but what came after.

The evil the men do lives after them- the good is oft interred in their bones, so let it be with Ranboo. What would Ranboo be? A spirit, roaming the earth, tortured by lost memories and people who remembered the worst parts of him.

People that plauged him. A plague of rats, biting at his ankles, chewing away at his skin. Sometimes he submitted- he licked the rats. Sometimes he let them gnaw at his skin, raised bumps of memories on his skin along the raised bumps of old scars. They complimented eachother. Sometimes he shooed the rats away.

Icarus wasn't necessarily wrong in his greed. He wanted to escape the troubles of real life. Maybe his flight near the sun wasn't a mistake, yet intentional. Some unconscious decision that his time on earth was finished, for a man born in a prison could not be a free man.

Maybe slipping on that dock was meant to be. His unconscious decision that it was time rest on his marble bed, adorned with moss and weeds.

That farmer that plowed the fields paid no mind to Icarus' death. He meant nothing to him, and Ranboo feared that everyone around him were farmers. Farmers that still harvested their browned and half-dead crops despite knowing that they wouldn't sell.

Icarus' fall from the sky was seen as a tragedy. Would Ranboo's inevitable death be seen as the same? When he hit the water, would it make a sound? A splash? Would the water silence his cries for help? Or would he even cry at all?

The story of Icarus was his poem. Technoblade's was the story of Odysseus- what did that say about him? Or his death? Would his Telenogus come one day bearing a sharpened spear, barbed with the spine of a stingray? Or what about Tommy, who's poem was that of Theseus'- would his king Lycomedes cast him off a cliff? Wilbur's was of Ajax, his sword plunged through his chest like a skewer does beef.

When you die, a poem plays. It's a goodbye. A person that you connect to, that their story could be applied to you. A tangled and frayed red string of fate, that binds your wrists, cutting into the layers of skin like a knife into layers of cake.

If you knew how you died, but couldn't change it, what would happen? Would you try desperately to avoid that cause, even though it would make no change? Would you try to forget about it, even though it would linger like bad breath. What if you succeeded in forgetting it? Would it come back to you late at night when you couldn't sleep, like that one time you replied "you too" to a waiteress who had said "enjoy your meal." Would you take matters into your own hands, tying a noose with that red string because you wouldn't let fate win?

Or would you make peace?

Supreme excellence consists of breaking down the enemy's resistance without fighting. Ranboo's thoughts often broke him down. Ranboo was something akin a rug on the floor.

The rug didn't look nice. Its thread was pulled up in places, it was faded from the sun, it had old stains from spilled liquid. There were kinks from being rolled up, and there were rat-eaten holes in places.

But the rug was, somehow, important. It laid in the sun room of someone's house- and that was its place. It didn't move. Its absence may not be noted, but in ways if it was moved it would be missed.

When you respawned, you weren't healed just like that. Of course, the physical would happen eventually. But mentally...

That doesn't heal.

Ranboo wished he hadn't respawned.

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a/n: okay i worked really really hard on this one! I hope you guys like it!!

The poem is not mine, obviously. "The evil that men do lives after them..." is from Shakespeare's play Julius Caeser. There's a Sun Tzu quote. I talked about the bubonic plauge for a solid paragraph. It's hidden but I also snuck some Dear Evan Hansen in. And the red string of fate. And like- all of Greek mythology.

I really really want feedback on this one! What did you like or not like? Please, tell me- i need it

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