BLIND | DreamSMP

XXVI - The Tide Comes In

Tommy wanted to scowl at the man desecrating his father's name, clench his jaw, spit at him with fury, but the knife was too close; any such movement would draw blood, and Fundy was still holding his arms, preventing him from lashing out.

The worst part was Quackity probably knew all that.

Techno coughed, a deep, choking kind of cough that was followed by hacking and spitting. In his mind's eye, Tommy could see the dark red that must be staining the snow before his brother.

The coughing drew Quackity and his knife away.

"We're done here. Fundy, retie Tommy's hands. I'll take care of Techno. Ranboo, finish up with the horses."

Tommy didn't struggle as his wrists were clumsily bound behind his back and he was led to the canoes again. His mind was still reeling from Quackity's words and his brother's pain, replaying everything over and over again, rewinding back to relive the fear and panic.

When he resurfaced from his head, he was already in the canoe, sandwiched between two bodies, the waves rocking him gently as he was rowed out to sea. 

----------

Tubbo felt fuzzy.

His vision was blurred and doubled, shapes flickering at the edges in a phantasmic sort of way, colors flattened and smoothed so everything took on a cartoonish, 2-D look. 

His hearing wasn't quite right either, heavy and slowed, like he had dipped his head underwater and gotten the liquid stuck in his ears, sloshing around in his brain and making him dizzy.

He was rocking back and forth too, as if he was in a boat, water lapping against the sides and making the craft tilt rhythmically. He told that to Ranboo, wanting to share the odd experience.

"That's because we are in a boat, Tubbo."

"Oh."

He had a migraine, a bad migraine, one that made him feel like he was an egg that someone had cracked against a countertop. Sometimes he got migraines when he stayed up too late working at the office. This was a lot worse. It persisted, unwilling to be ignored, ornery and defiant as it pounded against his skull. He tried to reason with it, but Ranboo told him to hush and lie down and stop talking to himself.

Tubbo did his best to follow his friend's instructions, closing his mouth and shifting around until he found a semi-comfortable position to curl up in. That seemed to make the two Ranboos that were actually just one very blurry Ranboo happy.

He began to float away when the Ranboos shook him awake, slapping gently at his face to drag him back to himself.

"I told you Tubbo, you've got to stay awake. Please stay awake."

There was a desperate tinge to his voice which made Tubbo worry. He wanted to keep his eyes open so his friend wouldn't get anxious, but soon he found himself slipping again.

"Ranboo?" Tubbo said, yawning widely. "Can you talk to me please?"

"Yeah, I can do that. What do you want me to talk about?"

Tubbo thought for a moment.

"Talk about right now."

"O-ok. Well, um, right now I'm rowing this boat. It's a canoe, the same one that you rode over here in. We're going back to L'Manberg now, which'll take a few hours."

"Why?"

"Why will it take a few hours? I mean, it takes time to travel distance–"

"No, why are we going back?"

"We got what we came for. Techno is in the other boat, with Quackity and Tommy."

"Then where's Fundy?"

"Right here." Fundy said tiredly.

"Hi Fundy."

"Hi Tubbo. How's your head feeling?"

"Not good. Hurts."

"I bet. You got hit pretty hard."

"I did?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

A silence fell, in which Tubbo stared up at the dark sky filled with glittering stars. They winked and twirled and danced, swimming across his vision like a school of tiny silver fish. It occurred to him that he must be seeing twice as many stars as usual, and how lucky he was to have the privilege of viewing them doubly.

"Tubbo, do you want me to keep talking?" Ranboo asked.

"Yes please."

"Alright."

Ranboo spoke for a long time, retelling everything from when they had arrived at Techno's cottage to now, going over every minute detail he could recall. 

When he ran out of words and out of breath, Fundy joined him, spinning tales of extravagant emperors and empresses of far away kingdoms who bathed in the purest of spring water and dressed in gold-spun garments embellished with jewels, heroic feats accomplished by dazzling men and women of myths, animals that could speak and aided their human companions, who in turn aided their bestial friends.

And when Fundy couldn't remember any more stories, Tubbo would ask Ranboo to tell him about things.

"Tell me about the moon." He said, gazing at the two overlapping pale yellow circles above him.

Ranboo obliged the request with a small smile, taking a deep breath before listing the things he knew.

"Well, it's pretty big. Sometimes it's round and full, but other times it's a thin crescent that barely gives any light at all. Once a month it disappears completely."

"Why does it do that?"

"I suppose it needs to rest for a little bit. I would too, if I were the moon."

The chatter continued until Ranboo became too tired to talk and Fundy was asleep, the relaxed expression on his face somewhat odd, seeing as the fox-man was always tense and anxious when he was awake.

There wasn't much to do, but he had to stay conscious, so he thought about all the things that were bothering him, like the spot just below and to the right of his neck, which thrummed with a dull pain that bordered on intolerable, or his awful headache, or the fact that Tommy was apparently in the other canoe, which was of course, impossible. Dream had specifically told him Tommy was dead, had killed himself in exile a week ago. 

So why the hell was he still alive? 

Had Dream not known he wasn't dead? Had Tommy staged his suicide to escape exile? 

Or had something else happened, something much more sinister and malicious that made Tubbo crease his brow in worry and tighten his lips. 

He didn't want to think about it anymore, though he knew he would soon have to confront his fears. He let his eyes drift upwards towards the gray sky, a few brave stars still holding tightly to the folds of night like soldiers that refused to retreat even as their companions disappeared into the dawn around them.

To Tubbo, the approaching sunrise was a sign that they were nearing home. It meant that soon he would be able to sleep in his own bed instead of the curved floor of the canoe. Soon he would be facing even more work as president. Soon he would take part in a trial he didn't fully believe in.

And to Techno, it meant he would soon have to rouse Tommy from his shoulder where the sleeping boy's drool was creating a small damp spot. Soon he would arrive in L'Manberg. And soon, because he was not at all naive enough to think that Quackity had come all this way just to put him on trial, he would face his own execution.