A/N - Three cheers for Eret in this chapter! Also quickly going to ask you all to listen to Dream's song and watch his newest manhunt because they're both insane. Green boy is becoming too powerful.
TW: Swearing
"What the fuck?" Eret muttered. They had gotten lost gathering materials to repair their castle. After a few years, the stone was cracking and the wood was starting to creak. While out in the woods, they had looked up and seen a treehouse sitting there. Deep in the forest. In the middle of nowhere. Eret, being a smart person, wondered who had built it and if they were around here somewhere.
Normally, they would respectfully go on their way and not disturb whoever was living here, but this server was invite-only. There shouldn't be a stranger hiding deep in the woods.
Eret pulled out their sword and cautiously advanced. The treehouse looked empty, but like it had been recently inhabited. They crept up the ladder attached to the tree and poked their head through the entrance. Eret was surprised to see small, beady eyes staring back at them, and they jerked away when the creature to whom the eyes belonged to darted out from the shadows and hissed. There were things all over the floor of the little house... orange peels? What?
They slowly looked up to see a sign hanging above their head. "Clementine's House", it said.
"Are you Clementine?" Eret questioned the animal. They thought it was a raccoon, but it was dark and they couldn't be sure.
Unlike her previous aggressive hiss, the animal responded with an adorable chitter and wiped its paws on its nose. Eret almost forgot to be surprised that it could understand them by how endearing it was.
"Aren't you a cutie?"
The raccoon didn't respond, dashing out another entrance of the treehouse that went straight into the air, no ladder.
Clementine landed gracefully on the forest floor and made a dash to the right. It looked back a few times at Eret, almost as if gesturing for them to hurry up.
"Hey, wait!" Eret shouted. They stumbled down the ladder and tried to keep up with the animal darting through the trees. In the daylight, they could see that it was, indeed, a raccoon.
After chasing the animal for a good three minutes, they had to stop to rest and catch their breath. I'm spending a little too much time in my castle, they thought.
After calming down their racing heartbeat, they slowly looked up and gasped. The little raccoon had led them to a picturesque clearing, with a small cottage sitting neatly in the middle. Next to it was a farm, and a chicken coop. It all looked homey and welcoming, and Eret wondered if Niki or Tubbo had come out here and built it - they seemed like the only two capable of making something this nice.
But they were busy in L'Manberg and had been for a while now, ever since Tommy left.
Tommy.
No.
Eret shook their head in an attempt to clear the thought from their mind. They couldn't allow themselves even a sliver of hope; everyone had spent so long mourning the boy's disappearance and Eret was finally smiling and laughing again.
But hope was sneaky and it managed to wiggle its way back into their brain when their eyes landed on an oak bench with a jukebox next to it, and they didn't try to stop themselves from wondering and hoping.
Luckily, their questions were quickly dispelled when a figure came out of the cottage. Eret darted behind a tree and observed.
The figure had a bushy tail coming from his pants and fluffy ears nestled between his golden strands of hair. Clementine made an appearance again by dashing towards the raccoon hybrid and jumping into his arms, and the boy gracefully caught the big ball of fur, wrapping his arms around the creature in a fatherly way. Eret heard a low chuckle followed by a series of chitters from the two and assumed they were conversing. The boy softly scratched Clementine's head and made his way inside, but suddenly stopped.
His nose suddenly went up in the air and he audibly sniffed. His head swiveled, his eyes meeting Eret's without a moment of hesitation. Somehow, even his eyes, which were bright blue, were raccoon-ish in the way they stared at Eret as if he could see inside their soul.
For the second time that day, the ruler gasped, because those were Tommy's eyes. Without a doubt, those were Tommy's eyes and hair and nose and ears and shirt. Tears filled Eret's eyes which were still locked with the blond's.
After a moment of silence, the boy spoke up. "Would you like to come in?" He asked with a gentle smile.
Eret could only nod, dumbstruck, and let themself be led inside the quaint house and into a cushy chair. They plopped down on the comfortable furniture, exhausted from the day's adventures and this discovery.
"You're... alive?" Was the first thing Eret said.
"Sure am! Ran away one day with Clementine and never looked back." The boy, despite being four years older now, still had a youthful lilt in his voice and this time, when Eret studied his face, he didn't look absolutely exhausted. He looked happy and peaceful.
"Right, Clementine. Is she your...?" Said raccoon chittered and made herself comfortable in Tommy's lap, letting out a content chirp.
"Clementine is my adopted daughter. She saved my life. In exile, Dream treated me awfully. I didn't see that at the time, but I knew I wasn't happy and felt like I never would be. So I made a plan to jump off of something tall. A dirt tower, a cliff in the Nether, it didn't matter. But then I met Clementine and she gave me a reason to live, so I ran."
Eret's heart ached with a confusing mixture of pride, regret, and anger. Tommy had brought himself back from the brink of a death that he was about to cause, adopted a daughter, and started a new life, alone and abandoned at just sixteen.
"Tommy, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. If I'd known-"
"It's okay, Eret. I don't like to think about the past, but I forgive you. I reckon I'd forgive everyone, but I don't have time to think about it with this little one." Tommy chuckled and gave Clementine an ear scratch, the raccoon rolling around and chirping in happiness.
"I'm proud of you."
"Thanks, Eret. I've always respected you so much, and you saying that means a lot to me." The boy bashfully grinned.
Eret had noticed changes in Tommy: he was more mature now, his voice had gone deeper, and he was, of course, exhibiting the traits that come with being a raccoon hybrid that he had been told to hide all his life. Now he could untuck his tail and his ears and pad around on his feet instead of stomping everywhere as humans do.
With these changes, Eret wondered how everyone would react. What would they say if they could see Tommy now? Would they be happy he was at peace or upset that he didn't tell them he was okay? Would they be proud of his strength or disappointed that he had run away?
Tommy's eyes had locked with Eret's in that slightly creepy, soul-searching way, and Eret had a sneaking suspicion that the boy could sense everything they were thinking.
"I'm not going back, you now. I already said I don't dwell on the past. It's the past, and this is what is best for me."
"I understand, Tommy. You've been through a lot, and you deserve this."
Eret was telling the truth; they did completely understand Tommy and would never deprive him of his peace, but their thoughts went out to all the people who still wondered every day if Tommy was okay.
"Can I at least tell them you're alright?"
"Hm... Sure! I have paper around here somewhere, maybe I can write them a note!" Eret chuckled as Tommy rummaged through his cabinet for a notebook.
"Aha!" They heard from the ground. "Found it! Okay, I'll tell you my plan. I'm gonna write letters to a few people, and I'm going to give my coordinates to only some of them."
Eret was pleasantly surprised that Tommy would allow people to visit, and waited patiently as the blond scrawled out letters to his friends. How had his handwriting gotten worse?
Finally, Tommy signaled he was done by slamming his pen down on the table and sighing loudly and dramatically. "My wrist is fucking broken, mate. The bone's just jelly at this point." So some things hadn't changed, after all.
Eret didn't want to intrude, but his curiosity got the best of him and he peeked at the names on the envelopes as he placed them neatly in his pack.
Tubbo, Niki, Sam, Puffy, Ranboo, Sapnap, and Vikkstar. Eret chuckled at seeing Vikkstar, but wondered why none of Tommy's family members were addressed and why Sapnap got an envelope. Of course, they didn't voice this out loud, not wanting to show that they had read the names.
"It was really great to see you, Eret. As much as I like my quiet little home, I'm glad you found me. Tell the rest I say hello, will you?"
"Of course, Toms!" With that, Eret pulled the boy into a hug, the blond only reaching the brunet's chest. As tall as Tommy had grown, he still could not beat Eret's impressive height.
And so, Eret made their way back to L'Manberg with a mission to deliver the letters.
(A/N, skip if you're not interested)
Definitely not me thinking I'm going to wrap this up with a part three and then writing a 1500 word chapter that isn't even an ending. I hope y'all want a part four because I'm already writing it! I really do want to keep this series relatively brief since this is supposed to be a oneshot book though, so I'm going to try to keep it under six parts. Hope you enjoyed!