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Zephyrus calls a Syndicate meeting. “Nothing urgent,” he says, with something light and playful in his voice. Harpocrates maintains his traditional silence but the others all come: Protesilaus carrying a book under his arm, Lethe rail-thin and somehow cowering, Nemesis with her burned cloak wrapped tightly around her shoulders. Zephyrus is already in the meeting room, sandal-clad feet propped on one of the strange circular holes around the edges of the table. “We’re having a sleepover,” he says.
“Excuse me?” says Nemesis.
“We’re having a Syndicate sleepover. We need to learn to work together as a team and also Techno’s not willing to play any more Hearts with me."
Protesilaus startles. “Do not play Hearts with Zephyrus. Please do not play Hearts with Zephyrus.”
“Why?” says Lethe, from behind Protesilaus’ chair.
“What are you writing?” says Nemesis.
Lethe’s quill stops. “Oh, uh...”
Protesilaus reaches across Lethe to point at Zephyrus. “Does that man look like an, uh, a, a gentlemanly loser?”
Lethe and Nemesis look at Zephyrus, who has stacked his striped hat on top of his feet on top of the Syndicate Meeting Table. “Uh, no, I guess,” says Lethe.
“What’s Hearts?” says Nemesis.
Zephyrus flaps a hand. “Aaaah, it’s just a card game, don’t worry about it.”
“What’s a sleepover?” says Lethe.
Nemesis sits up. “Oh, I know this one! It’s a party where friends stay up very late at someone’s house, and then they all sleep there for the night.”
Zephyrus coughs. “Yeah, basically.”
Lethe looks at Protesilaus. “Ohhhh. Okay. Um, that doesn’t sound like usual Syndicate business, though.”
Protesilaus says, “Well, clearly it’s Syndicate business, ‘cause we’re doing it. Unless you don’t want to come.”
“I’d like to come,” says Lethe.
“Great!” says Zephyrus, and the planning begins.
***
After the meeting, Niki is outside the Nether portal when Techno stops her. Niki doesn’t quite know what to expect from Techno, but it certainly isn’t for him to hold out a bottle of pink nail polish.
“I’m sorry?” she says, one hand leaning against the portal frame.
“Uh, do you want this? Do you wear nail polish?”
“I do, sometimes, but...how did you get it?”
Techno gestures vaguely with his hoof-hands. “Did Phil—uh, did Phil tell you about his crows?”
“I know about them, but I don’t understand how they would have nail polish.” There are a few crows scattered around the tundra behind Techno. They don’t seem to have any nail polish.
“They bring Phil all kinds of things. He paints his nails sometimes. Black’s his favorite, though, he doesn’t wear a lot of pink. But, uh, you have the hair, so…”
Niki looks at Techno’s mane of braided pink hair, much brighter than her own faded dye job. “So do you, don’t you?”
Techno holds out his hoof-fingers. “We tried, but nail polish doesn’t really work on my hooves.”
“Oh, that is so sad,” says Niki.
Techno makes a face that Niki thinks is a grimace. It’s hard to tell with his snout. “It’s okay,” he says. “But, could I, uh, can I paint your nails at the sleepover? Of course it’s okay if you don’t want to—”
“That would be wonderful!” says Niki. “But I should do something in return, if you’re all right with that.”
“Sometimes Phil helps me with my hair,” Techno says.
“That would work, that would work.” Niki suddenly has an idea, sitting up slightly from where she’s leaning against the portal frame. “Oh! Can I put flowers in it?”
Techno kicks his boots in the snow. “I’ve never done that before. Have you?”
“Oh, a few times, with some old friends from before I came to this server.” Niki has fond memories of quiet nights in caves and mines with Sylvee and Sophie and even Ranboo, laughing while furnaces crackle softly. “It’s not too hard, although it is easier with dried flowers.”
“I have some flowers back in...did I leave those back at my old base? Yeah, I have some flowers there. I dried out a lot of them for, uh.” Techno’s voice falters. “For making fireworks.”
“Would you like to go and get them together?”
“I should probably go and feed my dogs—” Techno waves a hoof-hand in the direction of his house and kennel. “—but we could meet up before the sleepover?”
“Oh, yes! Where?”
Techno flicks his ears when he’s thinking, Niki notices. It’s kind of adorable. “We could meet at the Nether hub around midday?”
“That is good! I am looking forward to it.”
“I’ll see you later, then.”
“Goodbye!” says Niki, and she steps into the portal, waving. Techno waves back.
***
Techno hates visiting his old base.
The walls were bare even before L’manburg came back to take everything. The piston door that Techno had been proud of is broken. The bookshelves have been stripped clean, the reeds in the bunker trampled. Hubert and Moon’s chambers are empty. The whole place is almost as dead as Pogtopia. Techno would like to leave as soon as possible.
Niki throws open a chest. The smell of gunpowder billows out, thick as honey in the still air of the underground room.
Niki coughs. “My goodness, that is a lot of gunpowder.”
Techno leans over her shoulder. There are the flowers, alright. The chest is mostly full of poppies, daisies, cornflowers, and dandelions, but at the bottom are a few stacks of gunpowder. “Uh, it’s not really that much? The flowers are probably going to smell, though.” Niki’s face falls. “We can, uh, we could go get some more flowers from the—”
“No, no, it’s fine,” says Niki. “It’s alright. I don’t mind the smell, it’s alright.”
“Okay, I’m, uh, used to it by now, so if—yeah, it’s fine.” The fine cloud of gunpowder-dust has reached Techno’s side of the room. He fights the urge to cough.
Niki starts picking up flowers and sorting them into her bag. “Why do you even have so many flowers?”
“Have you ever made fireworks, Nemesis?”
Niki frowns. “Do we need to use the codenames?”
“I mean. This is Syndicate business.”
“We’re getting flowers, Techno.”
Techno doesn’t want to draw this out. “Alright. Have you ever made fireworks, Niki?”
“I have made the hollow—you know, the little paper rockets, if that’s what you mean.”
“Well, if you want to make the kind of fireworks like I had at the festival, the kind that I use in my crossbow? The big, colorful ones. They, uh, they do a lot more damage than the others. You can’t just fill them up with creeper gunpowder, see, it’s too fine of a powder to burn fast on its own. It needs something to spread the fire.”
“Like using straw as tinder so the flame can spread up it to light the fuel faster.”
“Exactly, exactly!” Techno probably shouldn’t ask how Niki learned that. “Now, as it happens, flower petals are the perfect size to spread fire fast through the gunpowder.”
“That makes sense,” says Niki. “Do you think this will be enough?”
Techno walks over to look in the bag, flinching slightly at the smell of gunpowder and flowers. It smells like war. Niki has carefully stacked several handfuls’ worth of dried flower blossoms in a hard-sided leather box she must have brought just for this purpose. Techno cannot possibly imagine how Niki could put that many flowers into one person’s hair, even if it’s as long as his pink braid.
“Yeah, sure. Are you ready to go?”
Niki looks up at him. “Techno, are you all right?”
Techno has no idea what she’s talking about. Through the smoke—the smoke? no, the gunpowder dust in the air—Techno can see that his hoof-hands are shaking. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.”
And then Techno is dripping wet, sitting down at the riverbank near the entrance to his old base, desperately trying to smell anything but smoke and gunpowder and flower petals. Over the familiar roaring chorus of blood for the blood god blood for the blood god blood for the blood god blood blood blood blood blood in his ears, Techno can half-hear someone trying to talk to him.
“Techno? Techno, are you all right? Do you hear me?”
The afternoon sun is clear and bright. Techno is shivering. “Y-yeah. Everything’s fine.”
Niki rests a hand on his knee.
“Hi, Niki.”
“Hi, Techno.”
“We should...we should get different flowers.”
Niki looks worried. “All right.”
Techno stands up, voices echoing in his ears. blood blood blood blood flowers for the blood god /rainbowchat E blood for the L L L L L blood god Technosupport blood blood E Technosupport blood for the— Techno shakes his head. His pink braid arcs through the air and slaps him in the face, sopping wet. Techno ignores it. “Do you know anywhere we could pick flowers?”
“Of course I do. My city is below a flower forest.”
“Right. Yes. I definitely remember that.” Talking to Niki is helping a little. Techno wracks his brain for a topic to keep the conversation going, but he can’t find anything.
“Shall we head over, then?”
“Lead the way.”
***
Niki walks with Techno in silence for a while. Techno is still quiet even when Niki empties the dried flowers out of the leather box, but as Niki is gathering small pink daisies he speaks again. “Hey, Niki?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you…” Techno seems like he isn’t quite sure how to ask. “It helped, earlier, when we were talking.”
Niki turns to face Techno. “I have been feeling quiet today, but please don’t—I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“No, no, of course not. But, do you have any ideas for things we could talk about?”
Niki thinks for a moment. “How do you get such a bright pink in your hair?”
Techno perks up immediately, ears flicking. “I bleach it before I dye it.”
“Oh! How did you find bleach?” Niki is delighted.
“I made it! Well, I made hydrogen peroxide. Hold on a minute, I can show you—” Techno takes an ender chest out of his inventory and opens it. “Here.” Techno is holding a small vial made out of a strange, white-marbled glass.
“What is that?” asks Niki.
“It’s quartz! Melted down and blown into shape in the Hypixel glass-forges.”
“How did you bring it here?”
“Oh, I asked Dream and he said it was fine.” Of course. Of course Technoblade of all people could just do that. “And the other piece.”
“The other piece?”
Techno unwraps a tiny, fragile-looking lightbulb. “The mercury arc lamp.”
Niki tucks away another few daisies. “How does this make bleach?”
“Well, technically it isn’t bleach, it’s hydrogen peroxide. But it works the same way on hair when you mix it with ammonia from dry-distilling beetroot greens. Anyway. You put water in the quartz test tube and just shine the light from the mercury arc lamp on it for a while and it turns into peroxide.”
Niki suddenly realizes exactly what this is. “Oh, alchemy.”
“Come on, alchemy isn't that scary!”
Techno’s wrong: Niki isn’t scared, she’s disgusted. “It’s a waste of good money.”
“It was for my potato farm!”
“How could alchemy help a potato farm?”
“Putting hydrogen peroxide in the water helps oxygenate the soil and prevent root rot!”
“How could you possibly have found this out?”
“I read a lot."
They pause, for a moment. Techno isn’t shaking anymore. Somehow, during this whole mess of a conversation, Niki has picked enough pink and white daisies to fill the leather box up again.
Niki says, “The next time that you make—whatever it was called, the quartz-water and whatever it was from the beets, would you please bring me some?”
“Sure,” says Techno.
“Are you feeling any better?”
“Yeah, but can I tell you about how I got the mercury arc lamp?”
Niki packs up the flowers. “Of course.”
“So a long time ago, Hypixel established trade with the Lands of Education…”
***
Most days, evening in the tundra falls quiet and silent.
The sky turns deep cornflower-blue and the snow reflects it, especially in the thicker drifts at the base of the mountain that still haven’t melted after the blizzard. The dogs nestle into the kennel straw for the night. Even the polar bears settle in to sleep.
But tonight, instead of the great empty space of the sky, there are warm golden lights in a tent of blankets and pillows. Steve the polar bear snores gently, Phil’s wings spread across his back. A game of Monopoly is abandoned on the floor. Ranboo is laughing, his socks mismatched and tie untied, and Techno’s hair is full of flowers and he is painting Niki’s nails pink. Just for tonight, the tundra is bright and warm with love.
