This is just gonna be a short little story about the New Order and their new lives, set just a little while before s2
I have no plan for this, as per freaking usual. I'm not sure if this is canon with the Author trilogy or not because if it was, it would be set after WoWE and might have some spoilers. We'll see when I get there though ¯\_ツ_/¯
Couldn't decide who I want the first chapter to be from so let's just go with...Jesse. Yeah.
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Jess had spent hours in that treehouse.
Hours upon hours of training, reading, and simply living. Before the Witherstorm, she, Axel, and Olivia had lived in the treehouse together for years. It had been destroyed by the Witherstorm, but they had reconstructed it. Petra and Lukas had lived with them for a time while the rest of the town was rebuilt, but then they had all moved into their new temple, and Jesse hadn't visited the treehouse since.
She sighed, sitting down on the blue bed that had been hers. It had been years-years-since she had come here. She had almost forgotten what the inside looked like.
Funny how life could do that to you. Hours turn into days, days into months, months into years, and before you know it, your whole lives have slipped away.
Her duties in Beacontown had kept her busy. Very busy. No matter how she tried to deny it, it was clear that she was in charge. She had never had a problem with being a leader, but this...this was different. Leading the charge into a fight or making decisions in the heat of adventure, that was her forte. She didn't have an experience with leading a town.
But the Beacontowners didn't seem to care. In their eyes, she could do no wrong. It was true, she had done some pretty impressive things. And she liked that the stories of their adventures had spread so much, had practically become legends of their own. This blind admiration, however...it made her feel a bit odd. There was no doubt she was powerful now, but from her experience, power always came with consequences.
Was this the consequence? Not having time to herself? Not being able to hold on to the present, much less the past? It hadn't seemed like that bad of a price, but paying it was slowly taking a toll on her.
Jesse laid back, closing her eyes against the gentle dawn sun. This wasn't the first time she had done something like this, crept away at sunrise to get a few moments alone. She couldn't remember the last time she had been totally free, with no responsibilities or worries. When had things changed? Why had they changed?
She had stopped thinking about that, some time ago. At some point, she had just slipped into the haze of a daily routine, and time had completely gotten away from her. Days passed without much or any change, and they all blurred together after a while.
That's why she came back, to the treehouse where it all began. She had gotten sick and tired of the monotony, the years of forgetting who she had been and yet being reminded every day, the constant pain of knowing that everything had changed, but not knowing when or why.
New people had been coming to Beacontown every day, having heard of the town's growing popularity or just wanting to visit the town where the great Order of the Stone lived.
That was a lie.
The Order didn't live there, not anymore. Jesse was the only one who did. Olivia and Axel were in Redstonia and Boomtown, respectively, each living their own lives. Lukas lived by himself, just a little ways outside of Beacontown. Jesse wasn't sure where Petra had gone. She still visited sometimes, but never said a lot. Jesse was a little worried about her, to be honest. She didn't seem like the same bold, confident, dauntless warrior she had been in years prior.
There was so much of her old life that Jesse had completely lost. She wasn't sure of what had happened to most of her other companions from various adventures, where they had gone and what they were doing now. She was still in contact with Ivor, when he decided to grace Beacontown with his presence, but that was about it.
That was alright, though. Jesse had her new life now, no matter how tedious it may be. She had made several new friends in Beacontown, though none could ever come close to her friends in the Order. None of them could come close...but as of now, all she had was them and herself.
Herself, herself. Before, she had never been alone, not for hardly a second. Anyone who said they were better off alone had never felt true loneliness. Being lonely wasn't just not being with people. It was deeper. Knowing that you could be with someone, but that you aren't, either by your choice, or theirs, or some cruel twist of the universe. She, Axel, and Olivia had been as close as siblings, but it hadn't just been them.
Reuben.
The first one to go in the cycle of loss.
Before her friends, before her grip on time, before the freedom and exhilaration of adventurous youth...she had lost Reuben. Her precious pet and almost-closest friend.
He's just a pig, Jesse had told herself, eclipsed by the shadow of loss. He wouldn't have been around that long anyway. But no matter how many times she had repeated it in her mind, she had never managed to believe it. The flood of tears, nightmares, and impractical wishes that came after had seemed to last forever. There had been times she had been inconsolable, crying herself to sleep, not even comprehending her friends' comforting arms and words.
She identified with each of her friends in a different way. She understood all four, was able to communicate easily with them. But Reuben had understood everything she said, and even the things that she didn't say. He may have been 'just a pig', but he was more to her than she ever could've imagined.
Sometimes you don't realize what you have until it's gone.
That was her first real loss. Before him, all the rest of the damage left in the wake of the Witherstorm hadn't really sunk in. Once he was gone, everything hit at once, and the cycle of pain began.
Now she lost little things every day, especially her feelings. She had become almost numb, to the loneliness and sadness and fear that came with being a leader on her own.
Jesse pushed herself upright, leaning backwards and using her elbows for support. She took a good, hard, look around the treehouse. Everything was so familiar, and yet so far away. She didn't remember forgetting...but she had.
The books, chests, posters, Redstone experiments...it was as if they had never left. Never left the treehouse. Never left each other. Never left their lives behind.
Her eyes grew misty as she thought about it all. She was barely twenty-two years old, and yet it felt like she had lived for a thousand years. A thousand lost memories and adventures, gone up in the smoke of change.
Change could be good. It could shape amazing new things out of worlds, make people into heroes and legends in the beat of a heart. But change can chip away too much, and alter a person in ways that they don't want. Then they have no choice but to adapt, and change even more.
Jess didn't yet know if the changes made to her were good or bad. They just were, she supposed. Life was a rainbow of grays, the shades between traditional black and white, and she felt like she was in a gray area now. Not bad. Not good. Just existing, trying to move forward in the fog.
She sighed heavily and got slowly to her feet. She needed to be back in Beacontown soon, before Radar started wondering where she had gone. He was a great assistant, but could be a little high-strung sometimes, and she didn't like making him worry.
She started down the ladder, doing her best to hold onto the memories that had sprung up from visiting her old home.
But even as her armored feet touched the soft ground, and she began her short trek back to the town, the remembered emotions of times before were already slipping away, turning to mist in the morning sun.
Time and memories were the same. They slipped away, into the cracks of a perfect world, and were forgotten. If you find yourself not needing them, they disappear, and you are left with a void deep in your soul. You may not realize what you've lost, but you know you've lost something nonetheless, and the emptiness grows.
Jesse had left a bit of herself back at that treehouse, a piece that she would never get back. New things may come to fill the void that her lost happiness had left behind, but it would never be the same.
You can pick up fragments of a bygone time, but it's impossible to put them back in the right order.
Ever since she left that treehouse, her life had never been the same.
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I mentioned that this was feelsy right
And don't worry, not all of this is going to be as abstract as that part was
-Rush💙