Chapter Text
Illustration of Tommy by this AU's artist and lore writer Chael Meybuyan.
Tommy’s ship sank on the way to the Dreamlands.
No one had expected it. It had been a year since they’d left the harbor on Old Earth, and it had been nothing but sun and smooth water. The quarters were tiny, and the crew were all dicks, but he and his bunkmate had conned their way on, so who was he to complain? At least the captain knew his way around the Great Sea.
Then, days from shore, he was woken from troubled dreams by thunder.
The ship was groaning, and it occurred to his sleep-muddled mind that there were only a few layers of wood between him and the bottomless ocean. If he died here—well. It would take months for the news to reach his father, and then Philza would have to write his brothers to come home because Tommy had gotten killed by the weather, of all things.
Feeling ill, he shrugged on his rucksack and scrambled out of bed, pausing only to shake his bunkmate’s shoulders.
“Schlatt,” he said.
“Go ‘way,” said Schlatt, half-asleep. His breath stank of alcohol, and there was a half-empty bottle of Chipple Rum in his hand.
“Schlatt, we’re in a fucking storm, man!”
“Fuck storms,” he mumbled, batting Tommy’s hand away.
“Screw this,” muttered Tommy, and left him to climb up.
Above, the boatswain barked orders over the pounding of the rain, and every man on board rushed to follow. The sails left unfurled lashed in the wind, so violently that the mates were straining to fix the reefing. The banners had been forgotten, and were tearing as he watched, their red dye dripping onto the deck like pools of blood.
A wave crested onto the ship with a sound like a firing cannon. The ship lurched under the weight of the water flooding in, and then someone was pressing a bucket into Tommy’s hand.
“Use it!” they yelled over the rain, and hurried away before he could ask.
Tommy splashed into the fray with the rest of the sailors, frantically scooping seawater off the deck and throwing it over the side of the boat. But no matter how much water they siphoned away, more waves came crashing in.
“Come on, big man,” he said to himself, as his body began to feel leaden. “Don’t stop.”
A crewmate clambered out of the hatch. “There’s a hole in the hull,” she cried. “I need help patching it!” A few of the men by Tommy’s side abandoned their buckets, and hurried down to help.
Tommy didn’t stop moving water, but Prime, did he want to. The flood seemed to be endless, and with half as many men, they made headway half as fast. His arms, he thought absurdly, better get muscled and shit.
The ship sank lower and lower into the sea, and the wind and the rain and the waves never stopped. The mates who’d been rigging the sails came over and heaved tables over the side, trying to lessen the load; but they never did hear back from the people who went to fix the hull.
Minutes—or hours?—later, the water on deck was knee deep, and the ship was tilting dangerously towards starboard.
Tommy forced his tired body to bend down to get another bucketful, but a sailor only a little older than he clamped a hand on his shoulder.
“I can do this,” he said fiercely, though his body had never felt so heavy.
The sailor shook his head. He had curly brown hair, so in the thick of the rain, Tommy could almost pretend it was Wilbur, or Techno. Prime, he hadn’t seen his brothers in years. He was exhausted enough to admit he missed them.
“It’s over, kid,” said the sailor tiredly. “The hull’s unfixable. Come sit.” He patted a forgotten barrel.
Elsewhere on the deck, the piper played a mournful tune.
Tommy didn’t want to listen to him, but he sat anyway. He was just tired and soaked from the rain; he wasn’t crying at all. This was all just character development so he could show women how buff he’d gotten.
Though, come to think of it, he didn’t think it would be too impressive to tell them he’d gotten buff from scooping water.
He just wished he could see a woman. It would be a terrible end to his life if he died beside a man. He’d never get married, like his father once was.
“That’s right,” said the sailor, patting his back. “Just cry it out.”
The ship tilted into the ocean. The barrel slid towards the edge. Fuck it, Tommy thought, and made no effort to resist gravity.
He fell into the water with a splash.
Elsewhere the mates were singing along to the tune of the pipes, and he would never get to learn their stupid song. He’d never learn any more songs, ever. Maybe if he’d waited to join Wilbur on his stupid bard tour instead of running off to make a name for himself in the famed Dreamlands. Maybe if he’d actually tried, when Phil taught him chords.
Prime, thought Tommy as he sank into the ocean, his breath escaping in bubbles until his lungs seemed to shrivel up in his chest.
If only he hadn’t been such an annoying prick.
Black crept in at the edges of his vision, and he was gone.
Then, a little off shore, he was woken from troubled dreams by the cries of gulls.
“Stupid birds,” he mumbled, drawing the covers over his head to block out the sun.
Wait, the covers were wet. Which meant he was in air. Which meant he wasn’t under the ocean. Shouldn’t he be under the ocean? Shouldn’t he be dead by now?
He sat up.
He was, somehow, on a bed floating on the sea. The mattress and sheets were soaked, but impossibly intact. There was a pillow and everything.
“Holy shit,” he said, kicking the useless pillow off the bed. It landed in the water with a dull splash, and he squinted in sunlight he thought he would never see again.
“I,” he said, drawing one miraculous breath, “am going to be the most annoying prick ever.”
The thing is, he thought as he waded back to shore, he remembered dying. He remembered the breath leaving his lungs, and something like a void in between, and then boom, bed.
Besides, looking back at the flotsam, he couldn’t see how anyone could have survived that. Little had actually made it to the surface; only faded banners, planks, and what might have been a mast, tossed around by the tide. Only his bed was actually recognizable.
It sounded ridiculous even to him, but dying and coming back wasn’t impossible. This world was one where certain mold grew into green creatures that blew up, and untended graves gave rise to ghouls that could move with half-rotted muscle. What was a little resurrection?
Maybe he was a ghoul, he considered briefly, before tossing that aside. He was way too smart to be a ghoul.
He collapsed on the sand, and laughed up at the sky.
He could only be a miracle. A phenomenon. A demigod.
Then his stomach grumbled. Okay, maybe not a demigod, then.
He sat up and began to sift through his rucksack. All his most prized possessions were there: the dagger Wil left him (which Tommy had cleverly named Knife); the turtle shell helmet Techno mailed home; even Henry, the stupid cow doll Phil gifted him when he was six. There was a small bag of Old Earth coin as well, that he’d saved up for starting out as a merchant.
He paused when he found his discs. He’d wrapped Mellohi and Cat in layers of parchment. The water had glued the paper to their surfaces, but the discs were whole and unscratched.
It filled him with relief. His last links to his mother were safe.
But, he had no food. The biscuits he’d stocked were soggy and so salty that he was convinced they’d give him a heart attack. He searched for fruit in the broad-leafed, green-stemmed brush at the edge of the beach, but could not tell what was edible. He’d grown up in the tundra, dammit, he didn’t recognize any of this tropical shit.
Gathering his resolve, he put on the turtle helmet and turned inland, heavy with saltwater but moved by the thought of a hot meal.
It took a little wandering to find the road, but after that it was only a matter of choosing a direction and following it. Sure enough, by the time the sun was setting, he was stumbling through the gates of a village, exhausted by the tropical heat but pleased by his own genius.
It was a quaint little hamlet: just a few thatched huts, a guard post, and a weathered pub. The only splash of color were faded red banners hanging above a sign: Welcome to Saintsend, fief of The Munch.
Not the Dreamlands yet, then. That was fine. He’ll rest for the night, then continue on the road.
The pub’s proprietor was a stout person wearing gold bangles. “You,” they said he entered, “look like you’ve been through hell.”
Tommy tried not to take offense. He looked better now—no longer did he resemble a drowned rat—but his hair was dry and crusted with salt, and he still shed sand wherever he went.
“I don’t have any local coin just yet,” he said instead, trying for his most charming smile. “But I could give you Old Earth money for a meal and small beer.”
They quirked an eyebrow, intrigued. It wasn’t often anyone crossed the Great Sea. “Of course,” they said. “Take a seat.”
He settled on a stool near the counter. The tavern was small but crowded; there were townspeople dressed in the flowing clothes. A handful of adventurers like himself, distinguished by chainmail that he could definitely pull off, were crowded against one wall and spoke to one another in hushed tones.
All except one.
Sitting at the firepit apart from the group was a gentle-faced, dark-haired boy about Tommy’s age. Unlike the rest, his weapons were not on the floor but slung across his back: a scythe, a flask, and a crossbow, each veined with glimmering lapis. Tommy had spent too long helping Phil at the forge to not wonder what enchantments the lapis held: Piercing, Frost Aspect? Not Mending, surely.
There was a thump on the counter, and Tommy jumped.
The proprietor slid him a plate of hot food, and he remembered his hunger. “So,” they said, pouring him a pint, “what brings an Old Earther to Saintsend?”
Tommy slid them a few coins before taking a large bite of his meal: cracked wheat and grilled turnip. It was like he’d put ash in his mouth, but he was hungry enough to swallow.
“I’m just on my way to the Community,” he said.
The name seemed to perk the adventurers’ interest; several glanced over to see who was speaking. Of course they did: the Community was capital of the Dreamlands and the closest city to the Castle of Many Colors, seat of the king. Even half a world away, its name was synonymous with opportunity. Tommy knew how to choose his cities, thank you very much.
“An aspiring merchant, then!” said the proprietor. There was a strange timbre in their voice, like they were nervous.
Tommy opened his mouth to ask, but then they held out his drink, and all thoughts evaporated. He grabbed the stein from their hand, and lifted it to his lips.
The beer was warm, and tasted a little too sweet, like molasses. Techno would have warned him to put it down, but Tommy was thirstier than he realized, so screw Techno. He downed half the pint in one go.
“What I don’t understand,” said the proprietor, “is that Saintsend isn’t exactly on the road between the ports and the Community. Why are you here?”
Tommy wiped his mouth. “Well, I didn’t exactly… come from the ports.”
The pride in his tone lifted their eyebrows. “Oh?”
“My ship crashed near here,” he said. “I survived, alone.”
Was it his imagination, or did the pub fall silent? (It should. He was intriguing, damn it.)
“Oh?” They leaned forward.
“I should’ve been dead, I think,” he said, “The ship was wrecked. I must be some kind of god or something.”
“That’s very interesting,” they said. “Tell me more.”
There was something different about their tone. It reminded him of how Wilbur spoke when Tommy was about to fall for a prank: pleased with himself, and excited for the punchline.
Instead of answering, Tommy spooned some more wheat into his mouth and chewed as he thought. He didn’t come to any useful conclusions, but sometimes that was just how the world worked.
“You know what?” he said finally. “I’d love to. But that will have to wait, because I, er, drank too much too fast. I need to use the privy.”
The proprietor smiled, slow and sweet. Like molasses.
“It’s out back,” they said, tilting their head towards a wooden door behind the counter. “Take your time.”
Tommy stood, heavy from the meal. He stepped around the counter, and closed the door behind him.
The sound of conversation dulled, muffled by the wood. The room behind was lit by a narrow window, too high to reach, and a hanging oil lamp which flickered over the inside: some kind of storage room, with barrels of grain and shelves of liquor.
“Hey,” he said, his tongue leaden in his mouth, “this isn’t the privy.”
He pushed against the door. It didn’t budge.
“Just a moment,” said a voice from the other side.
He chuckled nervously, and fumbled around his rucksack for a weapon. His hand wrapped slowly against Knife’s familiar hilt. “This—this isn’t funny.”
There were footsteps, fading as they moved away from the door. He waited until he could no longer hear them, and moved into action, picking through the shelves for a key, an axe, anything of use.
His sluggish search didn’t turn much, just bottles of liquor. He took the emptiest one, intending to smash it into a weapon, when the label caught the light.
Chipple, it read. Old Earth’s Finest Rum Makers.
With a mounting sense of horror, he realized. He wasn’t the first castaway to reach Saintsend.
What happened to Schlatt?
There was a sharp rap behind him.
With effort, Tommy turned and brandished his dagger. “Who’s there?” he said. His words were embarrassingly muddled, as if he were about to fall asleep. “I’m...I’m warning you, I’m armed.”
The slit of sunlight had been obscured. Tommy squinted in the sudden darkness, through the window, and saw the intruder: a boy with a mop of familiar dark hair, hanging upside-down from the roof.
“You’re not very sharp, are you?” said the boy who'd sat by the firepit, the boy with the scythe.
“What the fuck,” said Tommy, raising Knife.
“Put that down,” said the boy. “You don’t have much time.” He pulled the lapis-lined flask from his back, and held it through the window. “Drink this.”
Tommy snatched it out of his hand. “What’s this?”
The boy pursed his lips. “They gave you a Slowness potion,” he said. “That’ll get rid of it.”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
The boy shrugged. “Right now, the proprietor will be telling the Hunters about you,” he said. “Either you trust me, or you stay here like a fish in a barrel.”
Tommy’s mouth ran dry. “Hunters?”
“The ones in armor,” said the boy. “They hunt people like you.”
“That’s not a problem,” said Tommy. “I can’t be killed.”
The boy sighed heavily. “There are ways. Drink.”
Tommy didn’t understand, but he slowly uncapped the flask, and took a sip. It was only cold milk, but he blinked as it hit the back of his throat: the lethargy that had been dragging him down vanished as if burnt up.
“Finally!” the boy exclaimed. He reached down, holding out a hand. “Grab on!”
Tommy gripped with newfound speed, and the boy hauled him through the window onto the roof.
“Right,” said the boy, taking his flask. “Listen. You have to run. Sleep as little as you can, and whatever you do, keep running until you reach the Dreamlands. It’s the only place on this continent where your kind will be safe.”
“My kind?” said Tommy. “What, Old Earthers?”
“Don’t be stupid,” said the boy, climbing down the roof. “Dreamons.”
Tommy leaped after him. “What?”
The boy ignored him, instead pointing towards a thicket. Tommy frowned; he could see jack shit through the trees. “The Community is that direction. Get a head start now.”
“Wait—”
“Now!”
The boy pushed him forward, and he bolted.
He glanced over his shoulder once, when he pierced through the cover of the trees. The boy still stood where Tommy had left him, but the Hunters—the people who must have done something to Schlatt—were gathering around him, wielding greatswords and axes. He nodded as they approached, unslinging his scythe.
“Where did he go, Tubbo?” he heard them say faintly.
Idiots, Tommy thought as he ran. He was fine. The boy wouldn’t say a thing.
“That way,” said the boy.
He stumbled. He whipped around to look, and saw Tubbo’s finger pointing straight at him.
That bastard!
“He’s armed,” warned Tubbo. “Be careful.”
That was the last Tommy caught before he heard the hunters give chase, their footsteps crunching on the forest floor.
He grit his teeth, and sped up. As he ran, the woods around him thickened, and Tubbo’s guilty face was swallowed from view.