~The First Step~ a Hermitcraft AU

Chapter 46

wc: 1848

"I don't know what to write," Grian complained, leaning back in a chair and covering his face with his hands.

Joel frowned. "Aren't you supposed to be the glorified leader?"

"Doesn't mean I wanted to be," Grian grumbled, picking up the pen and staring at the empty paper. "I don't think the people will appreciate me telling them that 'everything's gonna be okay', right?"

"It's a little cheesy," Joel replied, wrinkling his nose.

It had turned out that this little base tucked underneath a mountain was where much of communications were run. Newspapers, messages, Gemstone Cavern seemed to house all of it.

"It's a mountain, so if we pop an antenna up there, we'll have signals for miles," Joel had said with a smirk.

While most of the Listeners that had escaped the main base and its battle were off training for war, Grian was stuck in a little room with Joel, writing an inspirational article.

"Okay, how about I go train, for a few hours, and be back after lunch!" Grian tried. Joel shot him an icy glare.

"You are pathetic," he said jokingly, shutting the door and leaning against it. "You're not leaving until you have at least a paragraph."

"..I need to use the bathroom."

"Pee yourself for all I care."

Grian glared at the paper. Words did not magically appear, to his chagrin. "If it's short and sweet, the people might like that better."

"Depends how short you define that to be," Joel replied.

Grian wrote down a sentence, scratched it out, and threw the pen across the room. "Don't you guys have article writers?" he complained. "This is not a job for me."

"We're not going to lie," Joel told him, poking the back of his head and getting his hand swatted away. "Just come up with something and sign it."

"Okay, okay," Grian muttered. He thought for a moment, then wrote something down and handed it to Joel. "How about this?"

Joel took the paper and brought it closer to read. "The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. What does this mean?"

"It's what's written on the Staff," Grian replied, summoning the staff to his hand and tapping the carved symbols on the end. Joel's eyes widened.

"Oh," Joel breathed. "You're- You're the-"

"Yeah," Grian said, closing his fist and letting the Staff disappear. "I don't know if, uh, corporate up there is gonna let me share that, though."

Joel huffed. "I'll go ask Xerion. You make sure the people understand what this is saying, and we'll go from there. If he says no, have backups." With that, he left the room.

Grian glanced down at the galactic symbols on the paper, thinking, before finally writing "This is what the Staff has to say. Today we begin to conquer fear.

So poetic, Grian thought amusedly.

When Joel returned with approval from Xerion, he seemed to think so too, although not as enthusiastically.

"It's even cheesier," Joel told him with a giggle. "People are going to write songs with this as the lyrics and stuff. Gosh, this is perfect."

The sudden approval at the end made Grian's eyebrows raise. "You like it?"

"No, I hate everything and anything that you would ever do," Joel replied easily.

"I could fry you like a potato right here," Grian told him with a grin.

"You wouldn't dare," Joel said, giving him a cheeky smile. "I would completely destroy you. It's not even a question."