Harvey (Team Crafted)

The Horsemaster

Seto and Deadlox had gotten two horses with the money they earned from turning in Zexy, who was still unconscious from Deadlox'sgreat blow the last they saw him. Deadlox had never ridden a horse before, but he rather liked it; his was an average-sized chestnut mare, while Seto's was a huge horse, bigger than his, and darker brown with a black mane and tail.
The two had decided together that they would keep traveling as companions, essentially looking for trouble and stopping innocent people from dying. They were on their way to the village called Broxy, in the winter forest not far from where they were.
"Ten minutes, tops." Seto said, turning in his saddle to face Deadlox, who was slightly behind him. "Then we'll reach the forest."
Deadlox gave him a thumbs up in answer. Neither noticed the snake slithering out in front of Seto's horse. The horse, though, saw it and whinnied loudly, making Seto look ahead in alarm. Before he could register what was happening, the huge horse reared up. Seto gasped loudly and his grip on the reigns fell and so did he. He waited to feel his back hit the ground painfully, but then he felt someone catch him instead.
Someone strong slid under him, catching him ungracefully, but securely. Seto yelped and scrambled out of their grip instinctually as the horse ran off.
"Seto!" Deadlox shouted in alarm from atop his own horse
"Are you okay?!"
Seto looked at the stranger as he spoke, and both stopped. Seto was on his backside, hands placed on either side of him to balance him and knees tucked in close. The stranger, a man with harsh but gentle golden eyes and curly brown hair in a short, low ponytail, was looking at him with concern from on his knees, hands held out cautiously.
Deadlox looked at Seto, then at the stranger, then back to Seto again. He slowly smirked.
"Th... Thanks..." Seto said softly.
The man smiled. "No problem." He stood up, holding out a hand. Seto stared at him warily before he gently reached out and took it. The man pulled him to his feet, careful to keep him stable because his legs were shaky. "That horse was way too big for you." He said, looking out after the horse that had abandoned them, then looking back to Seto. "I think I have a good one you could use. I have a lot of smaller horses, actually."
"W-Wow, you really know horses, don't you?" Seto said, smiling a little and tucking a bit of his hair behind his ear.
The man smiled softly. "Yeah, I do."
For a moment, the two stared at each other, like they forgot about anything else and it wasn't strange at all. Then Seto jumped when he returned to reality. "O-Oh, um... Sorry, what was your name?"
"Oh, it's Sky." The stranger, Sky, shook his hand in a friendly, casual way. "Sky Does Minecraft."

As soon as he put one foot out of the snowy forest he had called home for a significant amount of time, True groaned. "Nope, I changed my mind, I wanna go home."
Deadlox rolled his eyes and grabbed the back of his collar, half dragging him a few steps. "No take backs."
"Oh, c'mon!"
"You can go home as soon as Harvey doesn't need us anymore."
True scowled. "I don't feel like traveling. I just wanna go home and take a nap."
Harvey snorted. "Me too."
True and Deadlox both looked at him sympathetically, forgetting to argue. "You'll get there soon, bud." True said, patting his shoulder gently.
Harvey nodded and smiled just a little, but he didn't say anything. After a few minutes of walking as Deadlox told True about everything he and Husky had done since they last separated, Harvey piped up again. "So are we walking this whole time or do you guys, like, have a car or something?"
True snorted. "What's a car?" He looked at Deadlox, who shrugged. "I guess it's just something from his world. No, we don't have those, but we won't have to walk too much longer. The guy we're going to see next is crazy good with horses. I think he's even the only person in the world who can tame and ride a horse without needing a saddle. He's a genius."
Harvey blinked. He didn't think that was really possible in Minecraft. You could tame a horse without a saddle, but riding one bareback just didn't happen in the game. "Are you talking about Sky?"
Deadlox nodded. "He might seem a little... Rude. But, don't worry about that, it's not personal. It's just how he is. He'll warm up."
"If he even agrees to come with us." True murmured.
"He will." Deadlox said. "This is Harvey, he'll help us because of Seto. And I think Sky took Seto's robe after he... Y'know." He looked at Harvey. "So you can wear a real actual Sorcerer robe. Maybe it'll help you feel the magic or something."
Harvey smiled a little, and was quiet a moment. "The Soothsayer said he wasn't dead, so... Where do you think Seto went...?" It felt weird, him calling someone else Seto. It felt a little like he was talking in third person, and even though he hadn't been called by his username in a long time, it was still very familiar.
True and Deadlox both sighed in answer to his question. "Kid, if we knew, we'd have found him already." True said.
"How long... How long's he been gone?" Harvey asked.
"About... Man, three years?" True said rather incredulously, looking at Deadlox.
Deadlox nodded in agreement. "We kept it together almost a month after Seto disappeared, but then we had a meeting and... We just decided we would be better off if we split up."
Harvey sighed, running his fingers through his hair. "I'm still not really convinced that this is actually happening."
Deadlox put a hand on his head in a brotherly way, like he was reminding him he was there. "You're gonna be just fine. Me and True and Husky and everybody else, we won't let anything happen to you. We're not sure how this is really possible, but-"
"Oh, I could go into detail telling you about the possible equations explaining the multiverse and all the theories about travel between them, but that would probably take up the entire time it'll take us to get Sky and then make it back to the guild." True said.
Harvey blinked. "Guild? What guild?" True and Deadlox exchanged glances. Harvey stared between the two, getting quite sick of feeling confused. "What is it?"
"The place we're going... We call it a guild, but by definition, it's not." True said. "It's actually just a walled town, a fortress. We, Team Crafted, were the only people living there. We called it the guild because it was kinda like we were a guild, or a team. So when we say we're going back to meet up at the guild, that's where we're going. Back to that fortress."
Harvey nodded. "Okay, I get it... Can I see it on the map?"
Deadlox smiled a little and nodded back to him. He pulled out the map he had copied from the version Husky currently had. He pointed to a section of grassland. "That's where we are now." He pointed to the edge of a desert area on the map, across the grassland they were in and partially through the desert itself. "There's the guild."
Harvey nodded thoughtfully as they walked along. "So how big is th-"
He was cut off by the very sudden sound of loud hoofbeats and he turned around just in time to see a very wild, very angry or perhaps just scared horse charging towards the three travelers across the plains.
Harvey heard True shout and he and Deadlox sprinted away readily; but for the moment, they forgot how bad their human companion's reflexes were. Harvey's face filled with terror, frozen to his spot as the big black horse stampeded towards him, ready to trample him to the ground like a blade of grass. He finally grew capable of using his motor skills and he used them to cry out in fear and shielding his head with his arms, cowering in a hopeless effort to not be crushed by the huge horse's mighty stride.
"HEY!"
After the shout was made, there was the sound of skidding hooves on dirt. All the sounds across the grassland halted. Even the birds in the distant trees had gone quiet. Harvey looked up and his eyes widened as he saw who was between him the horse, which had stopped running before it hit him even though it had been extremely close. "Whoa, whoa!" He shouted to the horse. "Down! Bad! Down!"
The sun was behind the man who shooed the horse off in the direction it had come. He turned, but all Harvey could see was a dark, silhouetted figure. The man, however, could see Harvey very clearly. He took a step back, before his head rose to face True and Deadlox's direction, who were both watching with wide eyes.
He slowly looked back down at Harvey and for a moment, he was silent.
Then he turned and stalked off like nothing had happened.