TW: SWEARING, YELLING, DEATH, TRAUMA, CRYING
Wrote this quickly, apologies for the errors.
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Everything in me screamed to push further, to get home as fast as possible. The voices were so loud I struggled to hear anything else. As soon as the End was behind us they roared. I tried not to show it, but I noticed Dream's closeness and Techno's knowing gaze.
I lean deeper into Ranboo's side. He couldn't sleep, not that he needed to. He offered to be on watch all night. It so happened that my mind was too busy for sleep as well.
We had stopped at the edge of the first of giants, horses blowing harshly with wide nostrils sucking in as much air as possible. Backs slick with sweat from the gallop and hooved dancing with adrenaline. And still, I wanted to go faster.
Ranboo sighs next to me and I feel the voices force a question to the surface.
"How are you feeling?" We hadn't spoken enough.
"About the End?"
"Yeah."
Ranboo sighs again, this time gentler and with less of a puff. It was more of a long breath than a sigh. The tip of his tail flicks and his ears twitch.
"I don't know, it's nice to know I was loved because I was taken away," I had told him what Kritana said as we walked back to the portal. I gave out the letters too, mine burnt a steadily growing hole in my pocket. The others didn't understand how I'd managed to bring the letters. If I'm honest, I don't either.
"Would you ever go back?"
"No," he shakes his head for emphasis and I frown confusedly.
"Why?"
"Because it's not my home
"But you were born there."
"That place isn't my home. It's the people that make my home," I look up at him intrigued. He had a faraway expression on his face, eyes glossy with an image nobody else could see.
"In the overworld, I have you and Michael and Tubbo. That's all the home I'll ever need," I melt when he smiles sincerely. He was right, in so many ways. I don't think I've ever had a place to call home, but I've had people to call home instead.
"You make my home too," he chuckles as I wrap my arms around him tightly. Although we laughed, we knew we were being completely serious.
Ranboo's light expression darkened as he spotted my bag. I look at it, lying securely by Dream. The corner of the revival book stuck out the side. I couldn't help but be reminded of how early we would wake tomorrow morning to get home quickly.
"How are you feeling about the revival?" Ranboo's voice is gentle. It silently speaks you don't have to say if you don't want to. I shake my head and eye the book again. Anxiety builds in my tummy like bad food and I quickly crawl to the bag and tuck the book in full. I lean back on Ranboo and watch the spot where the book had once been.
"I can't wait to bring Tommy back."
****
The clouds had gathered overnight, I had been watching them until I fell asleep. I nearly kicked myself when I woke up and saw that everybody else was getting ready.
That didn't matter now.
Percy's speeding strides are confident and reliable. He knew we were heading to the house. The wind whips my face as I kick him faster. Carl and Techno lead the group and we were mere seconds behind them. My hands are frozen from the cold wind and the bag holding the revival book bumps rhythmically on my back. I wonder if it will bruise.
As our blurry surroundings become more familiar I feel desperation bubble in my chest. I force back my emotions, now is not the time.
I have to get Tommy out of limbo. The look on his face as I left had haunted me reminding me of how I'd left him. I try to shake the memory off. The screaming, the fire, everything we sought to destroy brought right up to our noses. Tommy's rocking and wailing. I'd never seen him so broken.
I'm reminded of Wilbur's letter for him, in my pocket next to my own letter. The slight pressure on my leg seemed to weigh a thousand tonnes.
The voices in my head yell incoherently, I find myself missing their irritating whispers.
We break the treeline and my eyes are immediately drawn to the field. I canter Percy as fast as I can, skidding to a stop when we reach the stables on the side of the house. I don't bother tying him up as I vault off his back and start sprinting again.
My lungs burned with every breath and my legs felt slow and lethargic. As I run I pull the book from my bag. I nearly trip when a new voice enters the chorus in my mind. I hadn't held the book since I put it in the bag in the End.
It was clear to me now why the book was not meant for mortal minds. The voice was louder than all the others even if it was only whispering. My voices seemed to fight against it but there was too much noise.
Power, it whispered to me. Undeniable raw power in your hands, you could do anything. I shake my head and focus on Tommy's gravestone in the distance, drawing closer with every slam of my foot.
Who says you only have to bring Tommy back? You could resurrect an army for your revolution. You could destroy Schlatt.
A book that should know nothing but knew everything. I block it away.
Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, I focus on the chants of the other voices. The voices who cared about me, who saved me, who lead me and Ranboo to Techno and Phil.
I finally reach the grave and collapse on my knees in front of it. I know Tubbo is beside me when I hear his heavy breathing. I steel myself with a breath and open the book.
Thankfully, the voices silence as I read. It was as if they were watching with bated breath. My eyes widen once the words flow through my mind.
"We have to dig him up," I command and slam the book shut bringing back an onslaught of noise. Thunder booms and Tubbo seems to snap back to his senses.
"What?"
"Dig him up!" I shout and start using my magic to move the flowers around the grave. Tubbo startles and sprints back to the others.
As I slowly shift the roots in the soil I feel small drops of water on my bare arms. I had stripped off my coat a while ago to try and stay cool. The rain comes sticky and warm as summer demands. The voice returns begging me to feed it power, offering me all sorts of treasures.
I finish the flowers as Tubbo, Ranboo and Techno appear with shovels. They start digging and I spot Phil and Dream close behind.
All I hear is the methodical scraping of shovels and then a hard donk as someone hits the coffin. We pause for a moment and then start to scrape the dirt out of the way. Dream and Phil pull the others out of the deep hole leaving the polished oak of the coffin to stand out like a sore thumb. I shove the wet hair that had stuck to my face out of my vision and pull out the book again.
It doesn't surprise me when the water doesn't affect the pages, this is magic after all. I greet the wonderful silence with open arms and skim the page. I feel Ranboo peek over my shoulder worriedly.
"I need everybody to step back," I say finishing the method page. Ranboo only frowns.
"What are you reading?" he asks, it was my turn to frown.
"Instructions."
"I've never seen that language before," I turn my eyes back to the page and suddenly realise that he's right. I hadn't taken in the symbols on the page, only their meaning.
"Please step back," I ask again shocking myself with the starkness of my words. I feel something in my mind smile and I know the voice is getting to me.
Ranboo is surprised but listens. The others follow his lead though Dream is reluctant to let me tamper with such strange magic. This wasn't any ordinary potion.
Reading the book I kneel in front of the grave, right at the edge of the pit. I scan the words with my eyes quickly over and over trying to keep the words in my mind.
I speak slowly trying to get the incantation right. As I speak the world fades away with my mumbling and I feel the voice in the back of my mind take control. I fight it as much as I can looking to my voices for help but they don't seem to want to fight. They accept the new voice as a tool and I understand that I have to as well for this to work.
As the mental wall breaks, I feel an undeniable surge of electricity, a power like the voice described and that Kritana had warned me of. No mortal can ever touch this book.
The rain is relentless and the wind picks up as the words flow faster and faster.
A somno sempiterno, evigila.
Aperi visum tuum, et proice iterum in mundum.
Tempus tuum praeteritum non est, futurum aedifico.
Effingo cor meum.
Surgendum est, respira, iterum ambula.
Over and over I say them. My eyes rip open as a bolt of lightning throws me back and sends the book flying. I grow the grass and catch myself before I slam onto the ground. The grass pushes me to my feet and I quickly reach out a hand to the book and watch as roots erupt from the Earth and wrap around it protectively. I thicken the roots and weave them tightly until I'm sure not even Techno's axe will be able to break into it.
"Y/N!" Dream wraps me in a worried hug. I lean into it gratefully but my mind is elsewhere.
"Are you alright?" he grips my shoulders and pulls away, his green eyes striking.
"Did it work?" I grip his shoulders just as tightly.
"Are you ok?"
"I'm fine! Is Tommy alright?" I demand and Dream shrinks back. Regret hits me smack in the face, I decide to apologise later.
"Y/N, you were..."
I don't hear Dream's words, I shake off his hands and walk back to the grave that everybody surrounds. The rain had soaked me so thoroughly that my socks squelch with every step.
I stand next to Tubbo, our expressions are blank but inside we are hopeful.
"Come on Tommy," I hear him mumble. I think the same thoughts.
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Groaning comes from the coffin.
Tubbo and I leap into the grave. He tears off the lid like it was made of paper and throws it to the surface.
Tommy's body seems to be steaming. His loose cotton shirt and black trousers are quickly soaked by the rain. The flowers that rested in his hands had long wilted. I toss them out too and grip his warm hands.
I'm struck by something else. A white streak in his hair. Like snow in the desert, it was impossible not to see. I knew everybody would be staring at it.
The mark of revival.
Warm hands. His hands are warm. My heart skips a beat and I gently shake his hands feeling myself starting to tremble as I had in his limbo.
Tommy's eyes shoot open, electric blue with contracted pupils full of fear. He sits bolt upright and screams. Tubbo grips Tommy's shoulder to stop him from hurting himself.
"TOMMY THIS ISN'T LIMBO!" I shout to get through to him. Immediately he freezes at my voice and looks around.
His mouth gapes with disbelief and he reaches out a palm to touch the rain. The fat droplets make a little pool in his palm. He breathes sharply and quickly taking in the clammy summer air.
Tommy slowly turns seeing me clearly, my eyes well with tears as his eyes fill with recognition.
I'm yanked into one of Tommy's fierce hugs and I feel the two of us start to cry again. I hiccup through my tears. Tommy must spot Tubbo because he flys from my arms and into Tubbo's. I squeeze my eye tightly shut trying to keep out the tears.
"I'm sorry Tommy! I'm sorry for everything! I'm sorry for not coming to exile! I'm sorry for not being your best friend!" Tubbo wails and I feel my heart shatter as I lean against the dirt wall of the grave for stability. I feel sick as I realise we're sitting in Tommy's coffin.
"It's alright mate," Tommy wheezes out between cries. I couldn't bring myself to look at the two of them before, but now my eyes are drawn to them.
I wish I didn't look.
Tommy's back is covered in blood.
****
"Y/N," Tommy whines as I take another fistful of cool ointment from the bottle.
"Tommy, stay still," I warn him and he shivers as I lather another layer on top of the jagged scars. They start to seal slowly, I wish I had enough time to make more but this needed treatment now. Slime and healing potions took too long to fuse.
"But my face is squashed into the table," his voice is nasal and smooshed.
The storm had done something to the Redstone that powered the house. We relied on the candles that Dream had fished from the basement. Tubbo sits on a chair by Tommy's head and looks up at Ranboo who sits at a window seat.
Ranboo tosses Tubbo a pillow. He tells Tommy to lift his head and then puts it under his face. I hear a muffled thank you followed by a yelp as I run the ointment over a sensitive spot.
"Sorry," I mumble.
"I can't send a crow in this weather to Niki and Puffy," Phil sighs and comes in from the hallway.
"That's fine Phil, we can wait until it's safer," Dream says from the kitchen. He and Techno were cooking and I couldn't be more grateful. From the smells, I was hoping it would be pasta.
"Y/N, your healing shit is fucking weird," Tommy says still heavily muffled by the pillow. I can't help but smile hearing his voice. It was a relief to have him back here with us.
"How do you feel?" I ask.
"Fucked up."
The lightning strike that resurrected Tommy had also scarred him permanently. Lightning scars covered nearly all of Tommy's back and ran down the back of his right arm onto the back of his hand.
As soon as I noticed the blood I noticed Tommy's paleness too. I managed to get Tubbo's attention and we kicked into gear. Techno pulled Tommy out and carried him to the house with us close behind.
I ran downstairs to get the healing ointment whilst the guys put him on the table and peeled off his soaked shirt. It was even more bloody once we could see it properly. It took a regular healing potion to calm Tommy down and stop the pain and then I set to work fixing him whilst the others fixed up the house.
Everyone set off to do different jobs. Ranboo wrote a letter, Phil found Cosette and a crow, Techno and Dream started making food and found dry clothes for everybody. Tubbo refused to leave Tommy's side, so we gave him a towel to try and dry him off.
"What was being dead like?" Tubbo's curiosity gets the best of him. Tommy visibly tenses and I feel my hands hesitate and I look at the floor. I press a stick hand to Tommy's arm offering him comfort in the only way I can. Tommy sighs and is brave enough to answer.
"Fucking awful," he says. That's one way to put it, I think.
"But something strange happened after you left Y/N," I snap to look at Tommy and catch Tubbo's confused expression.
"What do you mean?" he says slowly.
"Y/N was in limbo for some reason, I don't know why."
But I'm grateful for it, his thoughts crash into my mind leaving me dizzy. The memory of the power I had felt in the field lingers.
"Kritana, the goddess of death, told me that only gods can enter plains outside the mortal realm," I offer my explanation, but I still felt the hurt in the room. They didn't understand why I hadn't told them.
"Why couldn't I have come?" Techno's monotone voice echoes painfully. I shake my head not knowing how to answer, I choose the most logical explanation hoping to move past the subject.
"You're half god Techno, a creation of the gods. I am descendant from them and fully a god," the cold words give my tongue frostbite. I hate what this is doing to me.
"Anyway," I thank the gods for Tommy's outspokenness.
"As soon as you left, I didn't go back to... well you know. I was in this metal tube thing with seats in it. It was moving too!"
"What?" Tubbo mumbles and Tommy shushes him trying to continue the story.
"When it stopped, the doors opened and Wilbur was there."
The memory of the train platform hits me like a tonne of bricks. I told the others about Wilbur at least so they understood.
"I remember the station," I don't mean to say the words but they slip from my mouth as easily as butter on a hot pan.
"You were there?" Tommy clarifies. I nod even though he can't see me.
"I went to see him."
"How was he?" Tommy's voice was more than curious. It held worry and thousands of memories and pain.
"It's not safe to revive him," my voice drops so low I thought I was whispering, but Tommy hears me well enough.
"You were right to leave him there," Tommy's words surprise all of us.
"What do you mean?" Phil asks from where he's leaning in the entryway.
"The time I spent with Wilbur nearly made me mad. All his talk of bombs and shit. He's nothing like he was in L'Manburg Phil. He wouldn't stop singing the anthem but he sang it wrong too and it was just fucking awful," Tommy sighs deeply and I return to massaging the last of the ointment into his skin. I didn't want to think about Wilbur that way, not when I had just caught a glimpse of the real him.
"Tommy, Wilbur gave me a letter for you," Tommy rolls his head to the side to look at me.
"A letter?" he frowns and I hum in reply.
"I'll give it to you later, right now you need to rest," my legs ache as I finally step away from the table and move to the bench to wash my hands in the kitchen sink.
As the soap runs off my hands I remember the book that I had left in the field. I feel my whole body tense with dread, I didn't want to hear that voice again. I jump when Dream's hands meet my waist. He gives me a worried look and I just shake my head.
"I need to destroy the book," I mutter.
"Do you need help? I could-"
"No!" I say quickly but then compose myself.
"No, I'll be fine, I just need a lighter and my axe," I smile and shake my hands out in the sink pulling away from Dream. My skin is suddenly cold without his touch. All I want is one of his hugs, but I still have unfinished business.
I slip away to the hall feeling everybody's eyes on me. My feet ache not wanting to stand any longer. I mentally tell myself to suck it up and pick a lighter from the top drawer in the living room. I shut the door to the back verandah behind me and pick up my axe from where I had leant it against the wall.
I trudge through the rain to the thick ball of roots in the middle of the field. I was drawn to it but I had to be stronger than the evil of the book. I eye the roots menacingly and bring my axe down on the base of them. I didn't want to take the book out of its thick casing in fear that the voice would return.
The last root weakens and the ball tips sideways. I strap my axe back onto my back and pick up the heavy ball. I struggle to grip it in the slippery rain as I trudge through the muddy meadow to the house again.
I drop the heavy thing on the verandah and plonk down next to it. My heavy breaths come out stickily in the humidity as I dig through my pocket for the lighter. It was simple and black, like most things powered by restone. Specifically, the same Redstone they use in Redstone torches.
I click the lighter and happily lean it into the side of the ball. It takes a while for the flames to burn past the glossy outside and into the dry parts of the roots. Once it does I kick it onto the dry dirt where the roof of the verandah overhangs the deck so the rain doesn't put it out.
I lean into the wooden stilt next to the stairs that holds up the roof exhausted. I feel my legs quiver as my muscles ache terribly from all the trouble. I watch the smoke from the ball of roots turn black and green and I know the book is burning.
As I watch numbly, Techno comes and sits beside me. He wraps an arm around my shoulder and pulls my shaking, wet body into his side.
"Are you feeling alright?" he asks, I nod.
"How are you and Phil feeling?" I offer instead. He nods too.
"We're alright. This whole situation is crazy."
"I know, but it doesn't matter. We have Tommy back."
We pause for a moment letting it all sink in. I crinkle my nose as the smell of the black smoke hits me. It smells like burning flesh. I push away all the memories I have of that horrid smell. Now's not the time. Techno must notice my unease because he pulls me closer.
"There's a bowl of pasta waiting for you, if you want more than a bowl you should come in with me. I think Tommy and Tubbo might eat it all," Techno chuckles trying to lighten my spirits.
I feel my stomach clench and I know I need to eat. I sigh and nod. Techno helps me to my feet and takes my axe off my back and sets it against the wall again. He also slips the lighter into his pocket and keeps a steady hold on my arm as I sway slightly.
I feel a pang of longing for touch and wrap Techno in a hug. I almost start crying again. Techno means so much to me. He's always here for me, even if he's quiet or if we don't talk all the time, we'll always love each other like siblings. He was more than my brother though, he was my mentor and oldest friend.
"Techno, thank you for always being here for me," my voice comes out strained and muffled in his shoulder.
"Of course."
~~~~
HELOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
HERE'S ANOTHER CHAPTER FOR YA'LL <3
Might write a 100K special for Wilting Marigolds. It might take a while though, got a lot to do and inspiration is running low at the moment.
I HOPE YOU HAVE A FANTASTIC MORNING/DAY/EVENING/NIGHT <3 <3 <3
Don't doubt yourself :)