PRINCESS ANARCHY | DSMP

44. A Celebration of L'Manburg

AUTHOR'S NOTE !

stela's plot is gonna be so open and i'm not even gonna do anything about it lmfao, i'm so sorry.

   RANBOO IS A STRANGE BOY.

   Stela watches him with curiosity in her eye as he treads through the steep path leading from Technoblade's cabin to the Dream SMP through the nether dimension.

   He looks around every now and then, shooting smiles at every pigman or piglin they pass, ignoring the deathly glares from the latter, as if the threat of them possibly attacking him doesn't matter to him.

   He's unfazed by nearly everything. Not due to indifference, but due to his trust in every action, no matter how insignificant, that happens around him. Like he either knows it was meant to happen, or he thinks it's none of his business. He still has the wonder of a young teenage boy whose perception of the world is yet to be warped.

   Stela has also noticed that Ranboo keeps a book in the inside pocket of his suit jacket, the leather cover being scratched on the front with the text: DO NOT READ. They've stopped several times already, just so Ranboo could note something down in it.

   He's been mulling his thoughts over ever since they stepped into the nether, and Stela wants to ask him what's on his mind, but she's also not sure if he'd trust her enough to tell her the truth.

   So instead, they've been walking mainly in silence, Ranboo throwing in a sentence or two, expecting answers no longer than five words, just so they're not engulfed by awkward silence. Besides the occasional sounds of piglins, pigmen and the cracking of fire.

   Stela can't help but feel strange anyway. The boy before her reminds her of a cousin she used to have. Before she appeared near the Dream SMP, she used to live near a Stronghold. One of the few with an activated end portal.

   Stela hasn't been honest when she told Sara and Nia that she doesn't know anything about DreamXD. Or, well, she wasn't honest because she didn't even mention her knowledge of the god. She pretended not to know him rather than relive a scarring memory. For she does know him. He was the one who kept the portal near her village active, after all.

   But as her village has or had — she doesn't know anymore — an active end portal, they've had many visitors from the dimension. Including her father, and her cousin. She was allowed to visit the End as well.

   The problem is, however, that she watched her cousin die; she failed him. The last time she had visited the End, she witnessed DreamXD pushing her cousin off an island into the endless void. A darkness that engulfed the boy, a darkness that would never return him back. He fell along with the rest of his family on that fateful day. Stela watched her father die.

   They used to rule the End. It was their kingdom. Until DreamXD decided to take over.

   Yet Ranboo stands before her. Unbelievably similar to her dead cousin. The only difference between her cousin and Ranboo is perhaps the fact that her cousin was a pureblooded enderman. Or that Ranboo has two horns and a mess of a hairstyle, while her cousin usually wore a crown atop his head and his hair was always well kept. Still, even with these physical differences, there is more painful resemblance.

   "Are you okay?" Ranboo asks Stela. He stands next to her, they both stopped by the portal that will take them to the Dream SMP. She just hasn't moved since.