Chapter Text
Endra didn’t know what she’d expected Herobrine to be like. Actually, that was wrong. She’d expected something out of the fan animations she used to watch. Herobrine, Minecraft’s bogeyman, white eyes gleaming technicolor as he led armies of mobs to attack unsuspecting players. Or perhaps (she shuddered) the possessive, yandere demon from some of the animations that her mother took one look at and wouldn’t let her watch. Maybe she’d expected him to be scarier? Maybe she’d expected him to be more heroic?
She’d definitely expected him to be more present.
It felt, sometimes, almost like a cruel joke. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t used to being alone. That was the problem. She was. She didn’t really blame Mom, Mom was always busy, it wasn’t her fault. She worked in the daytime and then worked somewhere else at night, and the rare times she was home she was always exhausted, stringy blonde hair messy under her work hat. She’d take a shower and then they’d have maybe half an hour to eat dinner—usually something you could cook in the microwave, or with Mom’s big electric kettle, when she got old enough Mom let her touch it. Mom didn’t let her touch the stove, and she didn’t like cooking on it, so that didn’t get used very much, unless Mom’s sister came over.
Aunt Clara made the best clam chowder. Aunt Clara also wasn’t invited over anymore, but Endra never learned why.
Anyway, Mom and Endra would usually just eat dinner in front of the TV and then Mom would lay down for about an hour before she had to get dressed in her night uniform and go out again.
Sometimes she would only work one or two days in a week, but the weeks where that happened were the weeks she’d sit at the scuffed up kitchen table counting crumpled bills and piles of Adult Mail, with serious things like “tax return” and “insurance” and “foreclosure” written on them, and then she would cry until Emma E̷̥͓̯̩̤͙͎͙̟̻̩͉̞͂̊̒̉͐̇̾̾̕͠͠ͅͅń̵̨̛̤͚̝̹̭̹̟͍̼͉͊̿͑͊̚͠d̴̛̩̩̺̘͛̃̇̓̿̓̋̆͛͆͜r̵̪̱̳̰̞͚̩̫̜̬̐́̀̅͊̕͘͜͝a̴̳̟̪̞̞̅̓̊ came in, and she’d pretend everything was fine.
Sometimes she’d be gone for days or weeks at a time. Sometimes she’d be there…but not. Those were the weeks when she took a lot of medicine and cried a lot and didn’t answer the phone.
The point was, Mom did her best. Endra felt mean for even thinking of blaming her, so she didn’t.
She DID blame her Dad. She had only a few memories of him—he was tall, he had a voice that boomed when he was happy or mad and cracked when he was sad, he always wore a silver spiral earring in one ear, and when she’d been three he walked out the door and never came back.
She remembered the day because he’d promised to bring her some sour jelly beans, and he never did.
Anyway, she was used to being alone. She didn’t know why it hurt, now, being alone in Herobrine’s big stone brick and jungle wood house. She was the one who always had to wait on the bus alone, when her friend Elena got her mom to wait with her. She was the one who had to get the second-to-last seat on the bus, that no one wanted because the window was cracked and so it was freezing in the winter and hot in the summer. She was the one who always got the seat with globs of barely-cold gum underneath, and who had to work alone when group work came around—or, worse, had to be the teacher-enforced third wheel. She sat alone at lunch, she climbed trees during recess so she could pretend she was a loner by choice instead of, you know, the weird transfer student who acted funny and kept switching schools and didn’t have a dad to show up on Picture Day and Father Daughter Friday.
Not to mention that Mom’s mom…wasn’t a good person. Every time Endra settled down and got comfy in a school or neighborhood, they’d have to move again, and then Mom would always panic about rent and jobs, and that always meant there wasn’t enough money for snacks after school and her birthday and Christmas presents always ended up being something like socks.
She liked socks, but she’d wanted a Fairy High doll for two years now.
It was just…she was in a world that was literally out of a video game, and she’d never felt more at home (in the worst way). She couldn’t even read to take her mind off of it like she usually did, because the words just didn’t compute in her head, and even if they did, she doubted there would be a public library in Minecraft.
She knew she wasn’t being left ALONE alone—outside, she could hear the random vwoops of the enderman who Herobrine must have assigned to be her babysitter. She’d only understood maybe one word in ten—partly because she’d been eavesdropping from the other room, partly because words didn’t quite…work anymore, but she knew he’d told it to keep her safe and make sure she had what she needed.
But what she really needed was to talk to someone. The enderman warbled at her, and sometimes she felt almost as though she could understand it, but at the end of the day it was an enderman.
Herobrine, on the other hand…
Well, first of all, he was awkward as anything. He obviously tried to be kind and chill, but he really seemed to spend most of his time either gone, hoeing weeds out of the beet field, or making her food. Sometimes he would creep up to her door at night, and while that really ought to have been creepy, he would just, like, sing lullabies and then leave, and she didn’t ever feel afraid. But she would give all of the good food, and even that rich, soft voice for him to actually spend a day hanging out with her, maybe teaching her…whatever a Minecraft dad was supposed to teach?
Well, unless he was going to be a creep, of course, but she’d had to deal with a lot of creeps, especially at the gas station by the last apartment, and he didn’t act all gross or starey or offer her candy or try to touch her when she wasn’t looking.
But he wasn’t there. Like, ever. She got so lonely sometimes she made up conversations with the parrots she heard outside, sometimes. Once, she thought she saw something bigger than a parrot out there, too. Something like a spider jockey, but with ghostly white eyes, like Herobrine’s. But when she looked again, it wasn’t there.
Herobrine had left a jukebox in her room. It drowned out the white noise and eerie music she always heard in her head, now, but while she liked the music, she wished, sometimes, that they had words, even if they were in another language. She could have killed for an Ikimonogakari album. Instead, she wore out ‘melohi’ and ‘cat’, discs going thin and wavery.
The point was, Herobrine was nice, and she didn’t want to presume more—he probably didn’t want to put up with her more than he had to, but sometimes the empty spaces in her skull would ache, and she wished, so much, that he would actually talk to her. She knew now that she was slow and maybe hard to talk to and all that, but she would have liked even just to listen to the rumble of his voice, like when you’re little and your parents stay too long at an Adult Party and there are no other kids to play with and they’re all talking about adult things that no one cares about and your pretty purple polka dot dress itches, and you sneak into a back room, dark except for the ray of golden light spilling in from the open door, and you fall asleep to the sound of adults talking.
Not to mention she didn’t like the jungle. It was pretty, maybe, but she didn’t like the sandy weirdness of podzol under her feet, and she didn’t like that the mobs tended to spawn during the day—yes she was living in Herobrine’s house and no mobs would get past his defenses, but she didn’t like hearing bones clattering in the morning.
And it was WET.
She never used to mind the summer rain—she used to listen to Minecraft rain ambiance ASMR to go to sleep.
Now, it reminded her of her new, strange body, of wet air that got in her lungs like she was breathing in tiny droplets of acid, of the fact that her hands weren’t her hands, and her body wasn’t her body, and her eyes were big and purple and doll-like and wrong in the mirror.
She’d laid down, trying to wait for the rain to go away so hopefully she’d hurt less. When she woke up, it was early evening—syrupy, like when you come home from school and fall asleep without taking your uniform off and time doesn’t make any sense anymore—and she woke to hear voices in the kitchen—Herobrine’s deep rumble, enderman warbling.
Then she heard the clunks of Herobrine presumably taking armor off, the scuff of iron-toed boots, and a knock on the frame of her door, which she’d left cracked so she could hear beyond it.
“Endra”, he said, or, well, he thought, words all mixed with pictures in his head, even as he spoke meaningless words, “Are you awake?”
She sat up. “Yes? Am I.”
He paused. “It has come to my attention that I’ve been…neglecting ignoring not being here away,” he began, his thoughts a flurry like a poorly-made collage. “I don’t…I’m not good at this. But, I. FadedEcho—that’s one of the endermen” she got a picture, momentarily, of an older enderman with big magenta eyes “were talking, and they think we should be teaching you enderman language, since it’ll be easier for your brain. Would you want to do that?”
Would she want to learn how to talk to endermen, so she wouldn’t be alone all of the time? She barely took a second to think it through. “Yes!”
“We also thought, FadedEcho and Dusklight could help you control your new powers.”
“Have I powers?” As soon as Endra managed to get it out, she felt instantly stupid. Of course she had powers! She could teleport, and apparently read minds. That wasn't something a normal person could do.
Herobrine just smiled though. “Yes. A lot of entities have powers, but yours are most like an enderman’s, so I don’t think I’d be much help. If you suddenly were able to summon down lightning bolts, maybe I could help, but we thought perhaps we they could tutor you. I also want to help you with your English—FadedEcho told me that when you started to turn into an enderman, it basically made your brain half enderman. Which is why speaking might be harder for you now, since your brain wants to think in English and speak in Evohlo—that’s enderspeak.”
She blinked at him. That was what was going on?
“For now, though, both endermen are out doing errands for their Mother, and I assumed wondered hoped thought you might want to help me make dinner. That way you could pick what I make, and I won’t accidentally add something you’re allergic to again”. He ducked his head a little, seeming almost bashful for a man about six feet tall who looked like he could bench press a horse and could definitely see in the dark.
“Uh, yeah?”
“Perfect. Do you want anything special? I—I’d say be careful with meat since I’m not sure if its still safe for you, but I have a full pantry, so we can try if you think/if you want/ if you would be ok with that.”
She hesitated, studying the knit of the wool blanket she was wrapped in. “Can we—not I’ve had cake years. Make cake?” She blushed at how the words came out, but Herobrine's face just went all soft.
“I’ll make you a salad and a shot of chorus juice first, so I we can pretend this is healthy, but then we can absolutely make cake. Follow me.”
She hopped down from the bed and followed him down a hallway she hadn’t been down before, and he led her off to the side to a kitchen. It was a little messy, and he frowned as he looked at it.
I’m sorry.
Oddly enough, since he was speaking in her mind, him having his back to her as he began to gather dishes and put them in the sink didn’t change his voice at all, and she was willing to bet, if he turned around, his lips wouldn’t even be moving. He gathered up bowls, bottles, a sword, and so on, piling them in a big iron cauldron to be washed.
I forgot to do the dishes before…his mind trailed off. She had a momentary flash of images in her head—a tiny, scrawny, nervous looking boy, with big green eyes. A creeper. The ender dragon. Something big, scrawny, and creepy looking with eyes just like Herobrine’s. Before I got busy.
He quickly washed the dishes, then pulled out some carrots, beets, and fruits, chopping them firmly. When she, full of half-realized words she couldn’t express, made a sound, he smiled at her, then motioned her closer.
“You’ll probably need to know this for the future, anyway—might as well start now. You see this carrot? You could technically eat it as it is, pulled right out of the dirt and washed off. But it’s much better nicer to peel it, like so. You hold the knife in this way, so you can shave off just the peel,” he spoke and thought at the same time, “and when you’re done peeling it, you cut it in quarters like this. That’s how my l—that’s how N̶͕̈́͋̀̋͗̚ư̸̧̪̬̹͕̥̇͊́̔̿͑͒̐̈̋̀͘l̶̩̈̌̃̋̑̇̉̾̐͘͝l̸̡̨̛͕̜̩̟̥̣̬͇͇͂̔̈́̆͌͌͌͒̇͛̀̕ͅ used to cut them. Easier to eat, less mess. You try.”
She hesitantly held the knife over the slab of wood, eyes wide—Mom never let her near anything sharp—and started to peel it. Herobrine gently caught her fingers in his own, which were…surprisingly rough. Like he’d worked with his hands for years and years.
“Peel it away from your body. Not towards your body. That way you won’t get cut.”
She hesitantly did once he lifted his hands away.
“Now hold it still, like so, and cut it in half. Keep your fingers away from the sharp edge.”
She slowly cut, and the carrot separated in two orange halves on either side of the blade.
“Perfect, kit.”
“Kit?” she managed to ask.
Herobrine flushed a little. “Sorry. Old habits.” For a moment, in his mind, she saw flashes of a tiny baby arctic fox, squeaking with a mouthful of glowing berries. It was tiny, and fluffy, and for a moment, its white fur stuck up. This was accompanied by a mental picture of her hair, all fluffed up and sleepy.
Herobrine hastily bent his head, and she got the sensation that he was forcing himself to focus on cutting vegetables.
“Now I don’t suggest you peel the beets, because it’s difficult annoying frustrating hard, especially when you’re young—I’ll handle them. They’re very slippery, and you could cut yourself. I’ll do that part.”
He peeled shavings of wet, slippery beet skin off with the knife, then cut the thing in rings, then cut heart shapes out of the rings. Hesitantly, she reached out and grabbed a curly bit, chewing on it. It was crisp and definitely stronger than she would have liked, but it wasn’t sweet, and after having lived on pretty much just smoothies, potions, and chorusfruit juice, it tasted like a breath of fresh air.
Herobrine served her up chopped vegetables, and another bowl of fresh fruit, and then, hesitantly, pulled out a big, healthy-looking chorusfruit.
His hands shook.
For a moment, his mind filled with so much chaos and noise that even when she wasn’t actively reading it, it spilled over.
Hazy purple aftershines around everything. The taste of chorusfruit drying her tastebuds. Music, mad, eerie music, like what she always heard in the end. A vast, enormous dragon, towering high above her. HEROBRINE, YOU HAVE TO STOP, she heard, and the voice- not Herobrine, or the endermen's, or even hers- sounded like it was reverberating through her bones.
She was flung out of his thoughts, then, to see Herobrine cutting the fruit just a little too firmly, so it leaked chorusfruit juice onto the makeshift cutting board.
“Are…ok?”
Herobrine shook his head, more like a golden retriever shaking water out of its ears than in a “no” motion. “I’m…I’m f̶̧̡̮͓̤͉͍̮̺̠̮̄̈͌͐͋̈́͜i̵̳͍͙͋ͅn̸̘͈̟̹̝͈̲̞͈̫͎͖̅̇̆̌͗̋̓͝e̴̹͕̔̌̍̓͐̽͒.” A pause, as if even Herobrine realized that was a flat lie. “I just remembered some things.”
Herobrine scooped the pale purple flesh out of the chorusfruit he’d been cutting, placed it in a bowl, and macerated it until the glowing, pale-purple juice flowed. Then he poured it smoothly into a mug and handed it to her. She drank it, and instantly felt more alive, like she imagined dandelions might feel after a rain. She could think, and her whole body stopped hurting as much. Herobrine flinched a little as the purple juice ran down his finger, but he washed it and the bowl off and took what was obviously a bracing breath.
Right. Let’s make that cake, shall we?
Endra thought it best not to mention just how much the look on his face had reminded her of her mother, trying to “kiddify” just what her old boyfriend used to try and do to her.
…if Herobrine was afraid…who on EARTH was scarier than Herobrine?
Endra decided it was best not to think about that, and she focused on watching Herobrine as he ground wheat to flour, mixed eggs with milk, added sugar and honey, and mixed up a cake, which he poured into a pan and from there put in the furnace-oven-thing.
“Do you want to help with the frosting?”
Endra helped Herobrine powder sugar and mix it with milk and sweet red berries, and in the sensory overload of the mixing and the tasting and the smelling and the emotions she sensed rolling off Herobrine—
Concentration/happiness/sadness (for some reason)/pride/a weird undefinable something…
She almost forgot her loneliness, and the feeling of seeing a being who was almost a god looking just as lost as her mother on those late nights when she thought Endra was asleep.