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Fundy looked out over the Dream SMP and wondered how it had ever felt like home.
His feet were aching and dirt smeared his fur, so he headed to the river. As he met the water, it felt like all the marks of travel were being washed away. Sighing, he let himself sink.
He knew this river, like he knew all the rivers of the Dream SMP, but he didn’t know its name. Now that he thought about it, none of the rivers had names. They had always existed in the Dream SMP. Which, he supposed, made them not important enough to name.
Until now he had mainly seen just rivers and forest. The one exception being what he could only describe as a mushroom kingdom. He hadn’t bothered to investigate it. The old Fundy – the idiot Fundy – would have let his curiosity get the better of him. But he knew better now. New builds meant someone had made them, and that someone – or someones -- might be still hanging around. And he didn’t feel like seeing anyone. Not yet.
Fundy let his eyes drift to Eret’s castle. Its walls were visible from the water, as was the lights of its beacons. Was Eret home? That castle had nearly been Fundy’s home. But Eret hadn’t shown up for the adoption and then Doomsday had happened and it hadn’t mattered anymore. Fundy remembered being devastated when Eret hadn’t shown up. He had poured his heart out to Philza, had forced himself to hold back tears. The Philza had taken him fishing. That had been the silver lining – for once, for a brief moment, it was like his grandfather was actually his grandfather – but then.
Then Doomsday.
Anyway. None of that mattered now. Wibur, Eret, Philza. He should have anticipated it all. It was his lot in life.
Fundy looked at a salmon swimming past. He really needed to stop looking for familial figures.
The river, once refreshing, now felt cold.
Fundy got out. Clouds littered the sky and the sunlight was weak. Shivers ran up and down him.
He followed the river till he reached the Community House, where he grabbed a blanket and made himself some hot soup. Luckily, no one else was there. As he sat and waited to dry, he couldn’t help but notice how much of a stranger the building was. He remembered what it was like as a kit. He would sneak out of the walls and come here. Hiding, until Wilbur or Tommy or Tubbo or Eret came to grab him, or until he got cold and tired; the latter happened more and more as tensions grew with Dream.
That Community House was not this one.
Honestly, he wouldn’t care if this place was blown up again. Dream had already made sure it was free of memories, of ghosts. It didn’t matter. It was just a building.
Fundy stuffed the blanket in a chest and left.
The Prime Path looked much the same. He could see the Holy Lands, but Fundy didn’t stop to visit. What would have done? Pray? Give tribute? Not like the Primes had really helped him. At least not in anyway that stopped his life from going to shit.
The rest of the Dream SMP also passed him by. Some builds the same, some different. They really had just got on with their lives. Without L’manberg. Without Fundy.
You know this, he told himself. You know you didn’t matter.
Eventually the path let him to it. He knew he had to face, had to look it in the eyes like a man. But knowing that didn’t make it easy.
Someone had placed glass over the crater. Fundy could see the bedrock at the bottom, glaring up at the sky. Hesitantly, he stepped onto the glass. Walked across its length. Starring at a destruction.
He had destroyed the supplies to make things more even. What a joke. What a fucking joke. Those supplies wouldn’t have done jack shit. Dream and Philza and Technoblade may only have been three people, but they might as well have been gods on Doomsday. Hellfire had rained from the sky. What could armour and weapons have done against that? Like always, his actions hadn’t mattered at all.
The exposed stone, raw and jagged, filled his sight. Unbidden, memories of green pressed at him. A van. Trees. Flowers and singing. Someone scooping him up and holding him tight.
Fundy forced them away. This… this hole wasn’t his home. Niki was right. It hadn’t been his home for a long time.
The only thing that had been destroyed on Doomsday was a corpse. A bloated, rotting corpse. Left in the open air, treated as if alive, when it should have been buried months ago.
And Fundy would prove that to himself.
He went back to the edge of the glass and burrowed down into the dirt. His fur, just cleaned, rapidly became tinged brown. After a few minutes, he hit stone. And then after a few minutes more, bedrock.
He headed to the middle of the crater. Used his memories – the facts, not the feelings – to find the place. Traced the stone with his claws.
He brought out his comms and checked the cords and yes.
This was the place.
Fundy looked at the mottled stone and bedrock. It was strange. He had lived his life above these blocks and yet had never seen them till now. They had held up the blocks which had held up the van, and now they were the only things left.
The van was gone. The Camarvan. The Hotdog Van. Or, Fundy’s favourite, the htodog van. His fath- Wilbur had so many names for this place. And now it was gone. He repeated the line in his head, let it rest on his tongue. The van was gone. It was fact. Not even a particularly interesting fact. It had already happened before, after all. It wasn’t a new phenomenon.
The van was gone.
A keening pierced the air. It took Fundy a second to realise it was coming from him.
He had been born here. This had been his home. And it was gone.
He could feel tears start to stain his fur. He wiped them away furiously.
Unbidden, a thought – a memory – came to him. Dad used to wipe away your tears.
“Well, he doesn’t anymore, does he?” yelled Fundy at no one. “So… so I have to do it now.”
Still crying, he looked at the stones accusingly. “This… I shouldn’t be crying. This doesn’t matter.” He pointed at the stones furiously. “Hear that stone? Bedrock? You don’t matter.” To drive the point home, he drove his foot into the nearest bedrock, only to yelp as the jolt travelled up his leg.
“Oh, so that’s how you want to play it, Mr. Bedrock?” he demanded. “Well, I can play!”
He gave it a kick. And then another one. And another one. Again and again. Each time a shock of pain was sent through his foot.
He knew it was pointless; you can’t break bedrock. But that was fine. It just meant it fit with the rest of his life.
Finally, he collapsed to the floor. His foot was throbbing. He was still crying.
Then it started to rain.
Fundy sat there. In a way, it was almost nice. The weather being as miserable as he was. It felt like solidarity. Like he wasn’t alone.
As the rain soaked into his fur, he couldn’t help but think of Ranboo. He hoped he was safe. That he was huddled up some place dry. With someone he trusted. Happy.
People, not sides. He had thought he had understood it, but the more he ran the words through his head the more they had become jumbled and confused.
Weren’t sides made of people?
Hadn’t L’manberg been made of people?
Maybe he was just too messed up to understand. Maybe Ranboo had figured out someway to have friends without making it a team thing. Maybe that was Fundy’s big problem, the reason everyone left him. That he couldn’t be around people without turning it into a team thing.
He would… he would just stick to himself. It’s not like any side, any person, would want him anyway.
It was a new Dream SMP, and a new Fundy. He would be smarter this time.