Chapter Text
how long had it been, at this point? years, definitely, but just how many was another question. ranboo had sat on this grass block for at least a decade, they knew that much. surrounded by water, haunted by the fading memories of the only people he’d ever known and managed to remember who cared about him, who loved and trusted and cared for him, even though he was nothing but a lost cause, a ticking time bomb. they’d been repeating the names of their family, their friends, their own likes and dislikes, what they knew of their history, over and over to themself for a while, a few months at least. then things started to get jumbled around. suddenly, a man with blue-stained fingertips was there in the van with him making burgers outside a country he thought was maybe called kinoko, and a sense of dread, that something wasn’t right, filled his stomach whenever he thought about it. his son’s chicken was named gertrude, wasn’t it? ranboo had been killed the final time by… water? they remembered the burning, excruciating fizzling they felt as their blood seeped into the…. pond? puddle? he knew it was shallow. wasn’t it? was it manmade? it must have been. but he knew he died in water, so his armor must have broken, leaving him exposed. he’d died alone. that’s why they felt so uneasy thinking about it. that was how it happened. they had to tell themself it did, even though it felt so wrong. everything, everyone, feels like that about some events, that’s why the old anxiety gnawed at them whenever they tried to recall a face to match a name only to find nothing there, felt like they were losing themself whenever they tried to revisit the place they took their final breath in their mind, only to hear sizzling, shouting, and feel nothing but uncertain about something he really should remember in clear detail. and so, ranboo didn’t spend their days repeating what little they thought they knew anymore. it only caused more distress.
but if nothing else, even if he forgot who he was when the sun rose next, if they looked at their reflection in the water and didn’t recognize the face, couldn’t put a name to it no matter how hard they tried, he remembered that he had been loved. he remembered fear, and he remembered panic, and he remembered an endless dread that seemed to eat him from the inside out some days, but he also remembered feeling warm. fuzzy. nervous, in a good way for once. he remembered feeling proud. feeling home. feeling loved. they were loved. at some point, in some place, ranboo had been loved, by someone. someone had looked at him like he was the best thing that ever happened to them, someone had told him they wanted him in their life, no matter what. someone had laughed with him, someone had built with him, someone, thought they were worth fighting for. someone, at some point, somewhere, had fucking loved him. that was the thread they clung to when every place, every name faded into messy, horrible obscurity. someone had loved him. ranboo had been loved. someone had cared. and maybe, just maybe, someone still did. maybe, just maybe, there was still a chance he could see that someone again.
their ghost evidently did not agree. the weeks between contact stretched into months, stretched into years. ranboo could feel the connection between the two halves of himself being slowly severed, and he felt so stuck. there was absolutely nothing he could do. he could write in the book, he could scream into the void, he could try to swim to a shore he swore he remembered visiting once, but none of it did any good if his ghost never responded back. he knew this would happen, it always did. clearly, his ghost had finally realized they were happier without him. that he was a waste of time, a drag on him and everyone he knew, a full-fledged failure. ranboo knew this would happen. it always, always did. everyone left them eventually, everyone woke up one day and looked at them differently, responded to them with a slightly different tone, rejecting them over and over until finally the attempts to reach out dwindled to simple small talk. sometimes they wouldn’t even look him in the eye anymore when they saw each other around the server. everyone left. it was a simple, hard truth. there had to be a reason, ranboo thought, and the only conclusion he could ever draw from the pattern was that he must be the problem. so his ghost leaving him out to dry only made sense, really, when he looked at it. things were better this way. with a happier ghost, who remembered everything, replacing him in the overworld, and ranboo alone once again. it was bound to happen. it always did.
not everyone forgot about him, though. kristin didn’t.
of course, ranboo didn’t know who the figure in black was when she showed up to his little grass block in a flurry of black gauzy fabric and crow feathers. something faint sparked in his brain, like this had happened before, just a little differently. maybe a boat? maybe someone had visited him before on a boat? he got the sense they made fun of him, but as always, the memory was torn and soft from wear and time, like the old maps of l’manberg he’d seen in the museum. but it didn’t matter now, because there was a figure in front of him, talking to him, rather hurriedly actually. he hadn’t seen where they’d come from, it seemed as if one second there’d been endless ocean just as there had been for decades, and then the next there was a person in front of him. they had a full, feminine figure, and wore a black sunhat with a veil fuzzing out the features of a pale face, with worried eyes and black lips (did lips look like that, or had they not seen a real person’s face in years? they couldn’t tell). the dress was form-fitting, with a skirt that flared from the knees out into a massive train that seemed almost illogical, and sleeves that did the same flaring out from the elbows. they had stopped talking. shit, they were waiting for a response. all of ranboo’s neurons fired at once, and they were sure their face morphed through a dozen different expressions before settling into confusion and remorse for not hearing the person the first time.
“s-sorry, what?” they managed. the words sounded unnatural in the air. scratchy. alien. not their own. maybe it was the screaming. maybe it was their first time fully aware in decades.
“there’s not much time,” the person said, not missing a beat. at least they didn’t care about ranboo’s slip up. that was nice of them. “you don’t know me, maybe of me, but I know you, and phil knows you, and the world’s going to end,” the words tumbled out of their black-lipped mouth, and suddenly ranboo got it.
“you’re HER ! you’re phil’s woodland lady!” they said. at the mention of phil, the woman lit up.
“yes, the woods were my doing,” she said with a small smile, “but call me kristin, please. we really don’t have much time,”
“y-yeah, what - what do you mean the - world’s ending? why are you here about it? I - I’m not the world, this - isn’t the world, this is just a limbo,” ranboo sputtered.
“I know. I can’t save the world, ranboo, but I can save you. phil cares about you, and so do I. there’s not much I can do, but I pulled some strings and I can do one of two things - I can bring you back to your parents, in the end, and you won’t have any of the-” she paused. mulled her words over for a second. resumed. “- issues you had living in the overworld.” did she mean the memory problems? the enderwalking? he didn’t have time to think about it, because kristin was already moving on: “or, I can bring you back to life, back to the family you made there, and you can take them with you to someplace safer - not entirely safe, not entirely stable - but away from the death of the world as you knew it.” and kristin looked at him (not in the eyes), and waited for his response.
family. born to or created. a world with no difficulty he knew nothing of, or a world he knew plagued by hardship. ranboo had always wondered what it would be like to remember himself, his life, his parents . he had a chance, here, to meet his parents again. to know himself again, start a life over, leave everything he wished he’d never said, or done, or made to do, behind. but then there was his family . even through everything, the years and years they’d spent alone, the repetition slowly falling apart, there were some things they never stopped repeating. they had a husband, who they loved very much, and they had a son, who they both loved even more. michael . that name was repeated for years on end, his little face seared into ranboo’s brain. their son. michael. michael. michael. his name was michael. he was their son. he was a piglin they’d rescued from the nether with their husband. they were raising him together, and they loved him. they’d do anything for that kid. the choices were weighed, briefly, but there was only ever really one answer. they may have had a blood family, but they did not remember them. this family, that he’d made for himself, he remembered. through it all, he had been loved in full by them, and he remembered that love. maybe he didn’t remember the route home or the treeline or the layout of the house anymore, but he remembered the love. he remembered the names. he remembered what mattered, and his family fucking mattered. ranboo did not hesitate or stutter, his voice did not waver, and neither did his resolve, when he looked to kristin and said, “take me to michael.” she smiled, nodded, and began working.