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Puffy was walking up the prime path towards the community house, heading to Foolish’s summer home to give him some of the gold she had collected while on her latest mining trip. To be completely honest, she didn’t really have a use for it, and her son needed it for his build, so she was happy to give it to him. That’s when she noticed an extremely nervous Sam exit the community portal.
“Sam?” Puffy asked, causing the creeper hybrid to jump. Puffy’s voice softened only slightly at his reaction. “What’s got you all worked up?”
Sam cleared his throat, stumbling over his words. How would he explain this to her? There’s no way that Puffy would take kindly to him saying that he was scared by her son. “Um, it’s nothing. It’s definitely nothing,” He said quickly, moving to walk past her.
Puffy sighed, grabbing his shoulder to stop him from leaving. It was definitely something. “Sam?” she said sternly, like she would scold a child.
Sam groaned. “Listen, you aren’t gonna like this, but Foolish did some freaky stuff at the temple and I do not have the time or energy to process how much that scared me, okay? I have to go help Han-” he started, speaking fast and nervously once again.
“What do you mean ‘freaky stuff?’” Puffy asked.
“The man can summon lightning! He practically smited Bad, Ant, and Ponk right in front of me because they-”
“Wait, wait, wait! What were Bad and the others doing there?” Puffy asked, concern growing in her voice.
Sam shrugged slightly. “I don’t know, apparently Ponk threatened Foolish or something and-”
“Did you know about this?” She asked, growing angry. Did Sam know about this and not tell her?
“No, Puffy! Of course not!” Sam said, growing increasingly exasperated with how long this conversation was taking. He began to walk off, turning around to talk to her. “Listen I don’t exactly know what happened, but your son is really strange and slightly terrifying, okay? I have to go. I have to find Hannah. I have to make sure she’s okay. I have-”
“Sam?” Puffy called, setting aside her anger for a moment. He stopped talking and moving, looking up at her. “Good luck.” She said gently. Sam nodded before taking off.
Puffy stopped for a moment, trying to comprehend Sam’s words before she realized that she had places to be. She had to get to Foolish, and if Sam was telling the truth, she had to move with some urgency.
She navigated through the Nether, trying to hurry through the harsh terrain as fast and as safely as possible. She needed to get to her son as soon as possible, but if she fell into the lava below the bridge, that defeated her sense of her urgency.
Once she exited the Nether through the Portal that led to Foolish’s summer home, she instantly knew something was wrong. The hair on her arms stood on end like there was a static electric charge in the air. There was also a strong smell of gunpowder and smoke. In fact, there was still some smoke hanging in the air.
And then it hit her. There was a sudden absence of the large, towering statue of Ra that normally stands out over the landscape. Why did it take her so long to notice it? Now there was only a pile of rubble where the statue once stood.
As she moved closer, the static electricity grew stronger. The hair on her head began to stand on end. She smoothed it down with a quick gesture. Looking down at the path, she noticed a large scorch mark in the cobblestone path along with a large fissure in the path. This definitely confused her. Nothing she knew of could have caused such a fissure. It definitely wasn’t from TNT. She pressed on, making sure to not get any of the ash on her boots.
Puffy looked over the statue once more before heading towards the Temple. She figured that’s where he would be if he was even still here. She also noticed the absence of her son’s cat, Nefrekitty. The cat usually found its way to Puffy and rubbed against her legs as she headed into the temple, but she assumed that the cat was comforting Foolish at the moment rather than waiting for visitors.
She entered the large entrance of the temple, looking around for a moment to take in its grandiosity. It took her breath away every time visited. She could never begin to comprehend how long it took Foolish to build all of this. It was exquisitely crafted. The sandstone was carved with such precision that she would have assumed it was the work of a machine, but she had seen her adopted son carve the stone with his own two hands.
Her eyes were drawn into the center of the room, where usually a beacon shined brightly in the middle of a pile of riches mortals could only dream about obtaining in a lifetime. Instead, the beacon was shut off, and the totem sat with his knees pulled into his chest, sobbing quietly.
Puffy saw red instantly. What did Sam do to him? Who made him this upset? She would get to the bottom of this no matter what she had to do.
But then she took a deep breath… getting angry wouldn’t fix anything. In fact, it would probably only upset Foolish more to see her that upset. She took a few centering breaths before approaching him quietly.
She opened her mouth to speak but paused, realizing she had no idea how to approach the situation. She didn’t even know what happened! How was she supposed to help him when she didn’t know what she was helping him with?!
Puffy figured that her son was unaware of her presence, but that obviously proved to be false as he reacted to her hesitation.
“Let me guess, you’re scared of me too?” He asked, his tone bitter. Much more bitter than he had ever spoken to Puffy before. It was almost like he realized how harsh his tone was, as only a second later he started crying harder. He gripped his knees tighter, not able to do much other than cry.
Puffy tensed up slightly. She didn’t even know where this came from. Was this her fault?
No, now wasn’t the time for that train of thought. She could self reflect later; she needed to help comfort her son. That was her job, and she needed to do it right this time because maybe, just maybe she can stop Foolish from going down a similar path to her other son.
She dropped to her knees in front of him, wrapping her arms around his trembling frame. He reacted almost instantly, hugging her tightly and crying into her shoulder. She rubbed his back lightly, trying to comprehend the amount of emotion he was displaying. She’d never even seen Foolish cry since he was much younger, let alone full out sob like this.
“I would never be scared of you Foolish,” She said softly. She gripped him a little tighter, as if punctuating her sentence. “I could never be-” she started again before he pulled away. He scurried backwards away from her, not looking his mother in the eyes.
“You don’t know what I did! You don’t know what I’ve done!” He yelled. He held his head in his hands, choking back a sob. “I thought I moved on; I thought I changed. I’m not like that anymore.”
“Foolish-” Puffy started, a slight scold to her tone. She figured he was being dramatic. She had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.
“I’m a monster, Puffy!” He shouted in between sobs. He gripped his hair in his fingers, pulling on it lightly. “I thought I moved on from my past, but today I was right back there. Today there was a flicker of who I used to be and I-” He started, getting cut off by another cry erupting from his throat.
Puffy was absolutely frozen. She had no idea how to react to this. “Foolish?” She started, her tone much softer this time. The totem looked up slightly, sniffling softly. “Do you want to talk about what happened?” She asked. There was no way she would be able to help him if she didn’t know what was happening.
Foolish took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself enough to speak to her. He wiped the tears from his cheeks, sniffling before getting to explaining the events of the day.
“Well, Ponk, Bad, and Ant came over to harass me about that stupid egg again. I tried to ignore it for so long but it just came back with a vengeance. They kept putting TNT in my builds and threatening to blow it up. And then they came while Sam was visiting and-” He started before getting visibly upset again. Tears fell from his eyes once more.
Puffy leaned forward, putting her hand on his shoulder gently. He looked up at her, being greeted by a soft smile. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to Fool,” She said, using her nickname for him, “I just figured it might be beneficial to get this off your chest.”
Foolish nodded slightly. Deep down he knew she was right, but he didn’t want to tell her at all. What would happen if she found out what he did and was scared of him? Rightfully, she should be scared of him, but the last thing he wanted was for his own Papa Puffy to be scared of him. Because then who else would he have on the server… other than Junior of course.
“They blew up the statue, and-” he started, pausing when his breathing hitched, although his voice stronger than before, “ and they killed my cat and they kept threatening me and-”
He stopped, contemplating if he really wanted to tell Puffy this.
“And?” She ushered gently.
“And then I just got so mad. I was so angry and upset and I-” he started, choking on his words. “I struck them with lightning.”
Puffy didn’t outwardly react knowing that would elicit a negative response from Foolish, but that surprised her. Foolish was generally a pacifist, letting his words fight his battles.
“I just got so mad and I didn’t mean to, I promise. I didn’t mean to do it, Papa, I promise.” He sputtered out, just now looking up at her. His emerald eyes pleaded for her to say anything.
Puffy grabbed his hand gently, but Foolish pulled it away, He didn’t want to hurt her. She was really all he had left. He didn’t want to make her leave too.
“I know you didn’t mean to, Fool.”
“It was an accident. I know they aren’t bad people. They don’t have control over their actions, but I just got so mad and it just happened and then Sam, he-”
“What did Sam do?” Puffy asked, tensing up just enough to be noticeable.
“He was so scared, Puffy. He ran off without saying anything but I knew. He thinks I’m a monster. And I am! Bad, Ant, and Ponk aren’t perfect but they didn’t deserve that!” He said, his voice growing increasingly upset as he rambled on.
“Hey, hey, hey.” she said softly. She reached for his shoulder again, but he lunged forward and pulled her into a hug. Puffy instinctively wrapped her arms around him once again, letting him cry softly into her shoulder.
“Foolish, you are not a monster. You weren’t then, you aren’t now, and you never will be, okay? You didn’t mean to hurt them; it was out of emotion and that’s okay sometimes.” She said softly, rubbing his back gently. “The fact that you can acknowledge that deep down they didn’t mean to hurt you means something right?” she asked softly. Foolish nodded slightly, hugging her tighter.
Puffy sighed softly. “I’ll talk to Sam, okay? He’s… really overwhelmed right now, and he definitely didn’t react correctly.” She said gently. After a few moments, she ruffled his hair playfully. “In the meantime, let’s get you something to eat okay? You must be drained from all that. I’ll make you some of my mushroom stew and you can tell me about your plans to rebuild the statue.”
Foolish perked up. It was hard to tell whether he was happy about the stew or getting to talk about his builds, but he pulled away from the hug, wiping the tears from his cheeks. “That would be nice.” he said, his face regaining a bit of the smile that was usually plastered onto it.
The two could talk about Foolish’s past later, if he even wanted to talk about it at all. For now, they walked out of the temple hand in hand as Foolish rambled about the next statue he planned to build.