Herobrine prodded at the sling that held his right arm, then scowled.
"Why couldn't you give me wings?" He complained.
"Because you are not a valkyrie." Notch straightened up, setting aside a bag of medical supplies. "I could have given you wings, I just chose not to. What I did give you was common sense, and you chose not to use it."
"But they make it look so fun," Herobrine moaned, scrambling up from his seat as soon as Notch's back was turned and running to the window.
"You're lucky to have made it out of that with only a sprain. If-" Notch stumbled over his words momentarily when he realized that his patient had gone missing. "-if you intend to jump off the roof again, at least ensure that someone is there to catch you."
"Mmh..." Herobrine rested his good arm on the windowsill, gazing out through the glass at the floating islands and sunny skies beyond. Notch came up behind him, setting a hand on the boy's head and ruffling his hair.
"I understand." He told his young charge. "It's not fun to be excluded from an activity. But there are things that you can do that they can't, as well." Herobrine tilted his head back to look up at him, then lifted his good hand and a flame appeared in his palm.
"Like this?"
"Not indoors, please." Notch said hastily. "But, yes." He went on as the flame winked out. "Like that. Your teleportation, too."
"Yeah, well..." Herobrine plunked his chin down on his arm again. "Even Steven's powers are more fun than mine."
"You will gain nothing but discontent by comparing yourself to others, Herobrine." Notch told him. "You are unique and special in your own right, and nothing will ever change that. You may as well be at peace with it." Herobrine sighed, but didn't argue.
"Do I have to stay in here while my arm heals?" He finally asked. Notch considered this for a moment.
"No," he said at last, "But I will be assigning Aries to keep an eye on you and ensure that you do not jump off any more roofs." Herobrine made a face.
"...alright."
**
Y/N coasted over the uneven terrain, her sharp eyes scanning the basalt cliffs below her for any sign of the rest of their group. She had hoped that perhaps they would set up some kind of signal that would allow themselves to be found more easily, but she had yet to see anything of the sort. Maybe she was just looking in the wrong place.
Eventually, she was forced to turn back for fear of getting lost. Looping around a basalt pillar, she glided back the way she had come, and it only took about a minute for her landmark to come into view.
Herobrine and Alex were waiting for her at the base of the tallest warped mushroom. "Anything?" Herobrine asked as she landed.
"Not that I could tell, but I'm not particularly well-versed in tracking over this terrain." Y/N folded her wings, then paused to shake them out, attempting to dislodge the ash trapped between her feathers.
"I would hope that they would stay put anyway," Herobrine mused. "Unless they were in immediate danger. At the very least, we should assume that they got out of the forest."
"The nearest exit from the forest is that way." Y/N pointed out the direction. "Do you two still know where we are in relation to the capital?" Both her companions nodded.
"Alex, you are welcome to return to the castle if you wish." Herobrine addressed their young guide. "If Sirben should be behind this - as seems very likely - I will not be able to guarantee your safety." Alex gave a firm shake of her head.
"The queen put her trust in me, counted on me to lead her." She said stubbornly. "I'm not going back until she's found."
"Very well." Herobrine nodded impassively. "Let's go, then." With that, he started to walk in the direction that Y/N had pointed out.
None of them said much as they walked through the quiet forest. Y/N remained constantly alert for the sounds of hoglins approaching, even though she was certain that if they were attacked, Herobrine would hear them first. Other than their footsteps, their surroundings were all but silent.
Y/N peered through the huge mushroom stalks as they passed through them. The distance had looked much smaller from the air.
"Alex," She murmured. When Alex looked up, she went on. "You said that hoglins don't live in this area. Why is that?"
"They don't like the mushrooms." Alex looked down, prodding at a teal mushroom with orange spots with the toe of her boot. "Don't know what it is... maybe they're toxic to 'em. But if you bring one near them they run away, and I've never seen a hoglin go into a warped forest of its own free will."
"And yet, they attacked us, and hardly seemed bothered at all by the flora." Herobrine stated from where he led their little procession. Y/N considered this for a moment.
"Perhaps that was why they were so agitated, maybe they were brought here somehow and couldn't find their way out?"
"No, they're always this hostile." Alex shook her head. "Trust me, you don't ever want t' be in a crimson forest without at least three men and a hoglin spear." She paused for a moment. "...or a warped mushroom."
"Alex is right, they always act like that." Herobrine accorded. "But... something else must be at work."
"Or someone." Y/N murmured. Herobrine nodded quietly.
The three of them walked in silence for a little while, musing over their circumstances. Both the hoglins and the piglin that Alex has encountered had shared the same aggressive, animalistic behavior, though apparently that was not out of character for the hoglins. Even though they had attributed the piglin's death to Sirben, his behavior was... not at all like what Y/N had observed in the zombified valkyries. The closest they had come to it was Meryl, the day after Sirben had sent her to kill them.
It seemed that a zombie that was not under active control was feral and aggressive... unless it just affected piglins differently. Or it was something else entirely. Maybe it wasn't Sirben at all, maybe it was someone else, or maybe it was a toxin or rare disease that had caused the piglin to act such... and maybe the hoglins, too.
Y/N rubbed at her forehead, then shook out her head to clear it. There were too many unknowns to come to any sort of conclusion yet. For now, their highest priority was to recover the queen and get her safely home.
A strange sound came from the forest off to their right, and Y/N turned to look, but she had only caught the barest glimpse of a black shape when Herobrine clamped a hand over her eyes.
"Don't look." He growled, nearly making her stumble as she jerked back in shock. She heard a low warble from the direction of the shape, and she let out a shaky breath.
"Enderman." She breathed.
"That's right." Herobrine confirmed. "Look down - anywhere but its eyes." Cautiously, he removed his hand, and Y/N tilted her chin down before blinking open her eyes.
She could make out most of the creature in her peripheral vision, a towering frame that stood about nine feet tall as it picked its way through the nylium. As she watched, it knelt down, and Y/N fastened her gaze firmly on a mushroom.
"Unlike the hoglins, endermen seek out and gather these mushrooms." Herobrine murmured, standing just too close to her. "I don't know why, but they leave us well enough alone unless provoked - or if you look them in the eye."
"I've heard tales... though few and far between." Y/N murmured back. She tracked the enderman as it moved over to another patch of mushrooms. Amazingly, despite its size, the creature's footsteps were all but silent. "Where do they come from?"
"We don't know. No settlement or gathering place has ever been found. Perhaps they don't come from anywhere." Herobrine shifted his stance, placing himself between Y/N and the enderman with his back to it. "Though they're clearly intelligent, we've never been able to find a way to communicate."
"I see..." Y/N's mind conjured up images of how she imagined the being's face. Its fingers ended in sharp, elongated claws where it plucked at the mushrooms, and its feet resembled hairless paws with claws that gripped at the moss. She could see a purple glow that came from its face, did it have eyes like Herobrine's-?
Just as quickly as it had appeared, the enderman vanished in a shower of purple sparks. Y/N warily lifted her head.
"Is it gone?"
"Maybe." Alex looked up as well, having been shielding her eyes with one hand. "It could be elsewhere in the forest."
"Either way, we are free to keep moving." Herobrine stepped back from Y/N. "If it should reappear, all we need to do is pass it without looking it in the eyes."
"Right." Y/N nodded, feeling a bit foolish about her reaction. They could have easily just passed the creature by.
She recalled how Herobrine had gotten between her and the danger, and flushed.
"Come on." Herobrine started walking again, and Y/N hastened to follow. It was probably instinct, she rationalized, nothing more. After all, he had spent the last forty years as the Nether queen's bodyguard - of course it would be in his nature to protect.
She sobered again as she remembered their mission. The queen was stranded in the wilds of the Nether with no way home, Y/N could hardly waste time pining over Herobrine. Especially when he clearly had no interest in her.
"Look," Alex pointed, and Y/N followed her gaze to where the nylium ahead thinned out to reddish rock. "We're almost out."