Chapter Text
She hadn’t realized what she’d been missing.
That is until desperately needed dry air filled her lungs and Cleo finally could breathe again.
They’d forgotten it was possible for things to feel dry. Oh how her skin ached for the rot to be carved out of it, the moisture that had run deep and far into her flesh to be dried up. It pressed against her bones as they screamed for new flesh to be sewn in.
She looked around where she'd spawned, she’d succeeded in one way or another. This didn’t look like season 8, she was in a birch forest, a slow moving river babbled nearby, a small stone ruin peeking out from behind the trees on the other side.
The necessity of wading through the river becoming increasingly more clear they sighed and reached up to run their fingers through their hair.
Cleo froze.
Her hand met the cool smooth scales of a large snake.
She tried not to flinch. A snake of this size. It could do real damage, it could be poisonous for all she knew.
Venomous. Her brain unhelpfully corrected her in a voice that sounded a bit too close to Joe for her liking. Now was not the time for semantics.
In one quick motion she grabbed the snake and pulled, trying to throw the snake far away from her.
But she pulled and her head jerked with it, it felt like she was going to tear off her scalp. There was a chorus of hisses as Cleo swore, “OW! What the fuck was that?”
The snake they were holding began to wrap around their hand as their hair shifted on its own accord. A plethora of orange snakes came into her field of view, staring at her. They didn’t look angry, but that didn’t stop Cleo being paralyzed by fear.
She stared at them as she slowly made her way towards the river.
This couldn’t be… This wasn’t…
The river was slow, but as she looked down into it, she still wished for a mirror. They could see the vague mass of orange on their head, reminiscent of her hair but as she brought her hands up and gently pushed through layers and layers of snakes she knew it was not.
She exhaled sharply, “This is fine, this is fine.”
Her hands were shaking as she took them out of their hair or… snakes.
The snakes were growing out of her scalp. That was new. That was definitely new.
She took a breath. The snakes begin to coil themselves around her neck.
One problem at a time.
She fixed one of them with a hard stare, “If you all do not behave I will drown you in this river. Got it?”
Could snakes even drown? She didn’t know but she didn’t waver.
There was a pause, and then the snake began to relax and let up from their position around her neck.
“Thank you.” She said pointedly before taking off her boots and socks and walking into the river.
It was cool and lapped gently against her thighs as she waded through it. The smooth stones were covered in a thin layer of moss that made every step precarious, but she was careful, digging her toes into the mud beneath the pebbles and going slow.
The fish gave her a wide berth as she rippled through to the other side, and when they got to the rocky shore, up and out of the water they relaxed. As much as she could with a head covered in snakes.
They didn’t bother trying to put their shoes back on, instead they enjoyed the grass between their toes as they moved towards the ruins.
It was nothing remarkable. Not really. Just a few pillars bordering a stone platform.
But what really confused Cleo was how old it looked. The overgrown grasses poking through cracked stone, roots of ancient trees growing around it.
She traced the carvings set deep into the stone in a language that felt familiar but she couldn’t quite read, and then she heard something, a bit further in the forest.
“Hello?”
Cleo paused, squaring off her shoulders and trying to make her look larger than she was. “Is someone out there?”
The voice was clearer now, “Yeah- I’m not entirely sure where I am?”
Cleo frowned as she tried to identify the voice, “Keep walking this way, you sound closer. Is that Etho?”
“Yeah yep! Oh good, this is Hermitcraft. Who are you?”
“You can’t tell? I should be offended. It’s Cleo.”
“Ah- should’ve been obvious.”
After a moment Etho broke through the trees and she melted in relief. She wasn’t alone here. This was probably season nine. Pearl had probably made her way through the portal and ended up around here.
The guilt she hadn’t realized she’d been holding onto from abandoning Pearl in the end eased and Cleo took a proper breath.
Etho waved as he walked into the clearing and Cleo grinned. “Took you long enough!”
His eyes flicked up to her snakes, then down to meet her eyes.
And Etho froze. Cleo’s smile fell.
“No no no no no!”
Etho’s eyes turned wide as he realized he couldn’t move, and Cleo could do nothing as the stone crept up his legs.
She rushed down to him, her hands shook as she went to cupped his face, but she couldn’t imagine feeling his skin turn to cool rock under her fingers so she pulled her hand back and turned away as the last of him was consumed with stone
“I’m so sorry.”
There was nothing Etho could do to give her reprieve. He was cold. He was still.
She didn’t even know if he was alive.
Cleo sat down in front of him and buried her face in her hands.
Her world was falling apart.
And she sobbed.
She cried as the snakes intruding on her body curled around her neck, reminding her of their existence.
She cried as the day turned to dusk.
She cried as the monsters of the night hissed and groaned around her.
And in the morning as the sunlight bathed the forest, new stillness of all that had tried to hurt her, all that had tried their luck, surrounded her in her grief.
Statues flooded the land.