Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Will was getting ready to go off on another one of his adventures, searching through his vast expansion of unorganised chests and barrels, grabbing the scattered food and his tools, double-checking he has everything he needs then finally set out to fill his pockets and come back with stories and presents to share.

He looks outside to check the weather, “Raining, still… you can’t even tell what time of day it is” Will says disappointingly, “I should really make a clock”, he assumes it’s not too late and heads out. Passing by all the ruins of buildings, a rush of all sorts of memories comes flooding back. The masked wanderer remembers Ghosty’s outburst of emotions during the ambush; “You’re just gunna cast me aside!” Ghosty cried, “No I’m not. What are you talking about?” Will explained whilst defending himself, promptly breaking out of that horrific memory.

The masked wanderer looks up at the ruined Ominous Bane tower, its significance looming over the server and its members, he feels his body twitch with the surge of anxiety and dread, thinking of all the things Ominous Bane did, what they did to Haley…

“We can’t change anything… there’s not much point dwelling on it now…” he turns away from the tower and begins to walk away, as he thinks more and more about what Ghosty told him during that fight, his emotions start to bubble, his head becomes filled with lines, repeating over and over again, starting to be enveloped by his emotions, Will starts to run, getting away from that awful place as fast as he can.

Eventually running out of breath, he stops, his feelings consuming him. The wanderer sits, thoughts infested with flashes of the fight, the clashes of swords across Nether blessed armour, sounds of rockets exploding throughout the field and the sounds of the wind being sliced with wings, the piercing of armour with arrows.

Trying to comfort himself, Will pulls his legs towards him, wraps his arms around them and places his head on top of his knees, enveloped by his emotions and tired, decides to nap for a bit in an attempt to calm himself.

His thoughts filled with that day, he pictures more of the exchange between him and Ghosty; Will, totem of undying and trident in hand, fighting Ghosty, royal purple around the eyes, emotions untamed; “Then just leave and forget about me like everyone else did” Ghosty snapped, “I’m not going to do that.” Will replied, trying to comfort Ghosty, “Are you kidding me?”

“You’ll get bored!” Ghosty argued, trying to convince Will to leave now instead of giving them the heartache later. Will, trying to get Ghosty to remember how strong their friendship is “I won’t I won’t I promise! Ghosty, We’ve gone on so many adventures. I’m not gonna fight you.”

Ghosty begins to laugh, gripping his sword even tighter. “Friendships just temporary Will. It’s time you learned that.” Ghosty swings his sword, anger and rage bubbled from all his bottled up emotions, boiling like a potion over a fire charge.

That final blow sparks the totem, a firework of the chance at a second life explodes, particles surrounding Will, healing his wounds, leaving merely the scar on his neck where Ghosty’s blade sliced through him. The outcast, with complete and consuming shock, stops in his tracks, trying to process what Ghosty just did. Whilst the adventurer, back in control of their mind and his eyes appearing normal again, seems dazed and full of emotion, looks at his blade, looks back at Will, it clicks as to the devastation he could have just caused.

The white-streaked boy falls to his knees, drops his sword and begins to cry, continuously apologising to Will, “I-I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”, Will rushes over, realising his friend is back to normal, wrapping his arms right around him and comforting them. “Ghosty, it’s okay… That wasn’t you, I can see that now. It wasn’t your fault.” He puts one hand on Ghosty’s cheek and lifts his face to make eye contact with the man. “I still care about you, I always will. We’re friends, that won’t change. But we need to get up and keep going, I’m right here with you.”

The masked, emotion-filled Will, wakes up from his dream. Processing it wasn’t happening again, decides he doesn’t want to go home just yet so he can distract himself but is now too tired to fully go discover something. He stumbles up, trying to find a cave.

After wandering for a few minutes, and finding an isolated cave, he sets down a campfire he forget he had with him, notices a few sheets of moss and gathers those to use as a pillow and a blanket. “Cold, but, it’ll do, it’s better than nothing.” Will closes his eyes, with the warmth of the fire and comfort of the moss around him, he slowly falls asleep, hoping his next dream is significantly more pleasant than the last.

Chapter Text

The masked outcast wakes up from his slumber, cold with clothes damp from the moss, only the cold ashes of the campfire remain.

“Not a single dream? That’s a pleasant surprise”. Will turns his head, looking out of the cavemouth to see if it’s still pouring with rain.

Clear skies for as far as the eye can see, only a few clouds swimming with the wind.

“Something must have restored the balance” Will stated, still entirely confused about how the weather works.

He gets up and pats himself off, leaving the cave with a shulker box in hand, a gift from his late friend Lucenare, as he sets off on a venture yet again, hopefully without the haunting memories this time around.

Strolling past seemingly nothing new, he reminisces about all the good times he’s had. One particular memory, putting on elytra for the first time. The pure white extremities felt like the wave of euphoria, belonging and comfort he always needed. Rae carefully handed his rockets to Will, making sure they didn’t go off.

Will, feeling like a baby bird learning how to fly, attempts to take off, his feet sweep off the ground, wings extend like he’s done it a million times before. The sense of freedom swelled throughout his body as his body levelled to be horizontal with his wings. With the wind flowing through Will’s hair and rustling his clothes, his eyes widened as he saw clearly for miles. The place he grew to love was in full view and he never wanted to come down.

He had to eventually land on top of the remnants of his towers, perching, taking a few moments to observe his surroundings, reminiscing on the effort he put into his house, the pet he loved so dearly and the memories, good and bad the house bought him. Wanting to go back to help, he glides down and hands the wings back to Rae once safely on the ground.

The memory fades, as a small gust of wind hits him, he smiles just as big as when he spread his wings. Now being cheery, he keeps going, stumbling upon a cosy but busy little village. Workers rushing around, all working in peaceful, unified conjunction.

“So efficient!” Will uttered. Amazed by the union.

Exploring the little collection of houses, he spots a small blacksmith, heading inside, he spots a little chest.

“Nothing much. At least there’s bread!”

The masked man, now stuffed with bread, bumps into a golem, fear filling his body, he slowly looks up for the mechanical giant, the iron beast puts its hand on Will’s head lightly, looking back down at him and making sure not to hurt him, making him know he will also be protected. The shadow of the iron creature could cover his body three times over. Shielding him from the glaring, hot sun for a moment.

The golem takes its hand away and pulls out a flower to gift. Will looks to grab it and just stops. “A… cornflower?” Will asks, rather confused as they only give out poppies, he looks back up and the iron golem. He takes it carefully so as not to damage the flower to alarm the beast.

“Thank you!”

For a moment, he glances back at his flower and then looks back up. The eyes of the giant went completely white, in disbelief, he looks away and back again, to make sure. The golem’s eyes were marron red once again. Only memories of his lost friend are going through his mind.

Once again, the wanderer was filled with emotions, this time positive too. He sits himself down and just allows the emotions to flow through him, crying and crying as he misses his realm buddy more and more.

Snip-bits and flashbacks of Luce’s departure fade in and out like the pages communicating with him. The illusion of the last person seeming so real, he vanishes from his life like everyone else slowly did, while Will can still talk to everyone else, Luce is nowhere to be found.

Split-second moments of the grey-haired being flash before him, the first meeting, Luce taking down all the wither skulls, the first time he saw his cloak and his all-white eyes. All the gifts everyone got, the gift that saved his life…

All he craves is to hug his distant companion one more time…

“Luce… please, just come back…” Will quietly calls out as the painful memories stop.

The golem sits down in front of Will. Lifting Will’s head to look at him, tilting its own head, confused as to why this new person was emotional. Will sniffled, tears flowing past his mask. He bolts towards the golem, hugging it tightly, iron arms wrapping around him.

A few moments pass and Will manages to calm himself.

He slowly backs away from the comforting embrace of the creature. Smiling at the golem, thanking it once again and walking off to continue exploring the village.

Will begins to observe the villagers as he passes through, the residents of the village are working together, farmers passing each other seeds and crops, amorous and weaponsmiths manipulating nature's riches to help protect each other and clerics conversating on ideas and theories.

Upon observing the villagers, Will realised he was an outcast, alone, without anyone else to call upon or cry to, feelings of loneliness bubble up inside of him. Wrapping his arms around himself, he tries to hold back his tears and heads home.

“I think that’s enough adventuring for today…”

Passing by the golem once more, he manages to give a small smile to the golem before he keeps walking, noting down the area to return to when he’s ready and wants to say hello to the golem once more.

The masked man picks up any cornflowers he sees on his way home, hoping that having them around will help him process how he feels. Passing by all the long and mostly forgotten structures, he starts to really struggle to hold back his emotions, plodding along knowing the distance between him and his bed keeps getting shorter and shorter. Only his thoughts of abandonment remain in his head, fighting off any reassurance and comfort.

Will arrives at the collection of houses, all filled with distant memories, the town hall and the meeting before all the issues began, many moons ago, the big void hole that had to be fenced off. He eventually gets back to the entrance of the not much used now Auspicious Boon base, removing and placing back the moss to go down the ladder and into his room. Will upgraded his room from three rooms in one to all five in one as no one else was going to use them.

A vast expansion of maps covers one of the walls, a small shrine to his late friend Lucenare over a bigger part of his room, three sets of lit, light blue candles standing in front of the map Will got gifted, end rods holding up the top part of the quartz shrine and soul lanterns to provide a bit more light. His bed frame matches the shrine, end rods holding up the again, all quartz canopy, light blue beds to match the lit candles around it.

Nearly all free wall space is covered in barrels, lecterns displaying all of the important books Will has in his possession and items frames holding all the notebooks he’s accumulated over his time on the server.

Will slumps down onto his bed, holding the bunch of cornflowers he collected in his hands. His body now came to terms with all the emotions he suppressed on his journey back. As he gets breaks in his mind from his intense crying, riddled with how he got to this point, being so mentally and physically isolated from everyone he ever got close to.

The sound of distant footsteps, possibly a trick on his mind.

“Luce?”

No reply.

A moment passes, footsteps getting louder and louder, then a knock at the door.

“Will? Will, can I come in? Are you okay?” Rae asked, highly concerned.

“Rae?” Will asks, puzzled.

“Why are you down here?” Will questions.

“I wanted to go look at the books and signs that are still down here” The scientist states.

“But I think you’re more important than that right now…” Rae says, trying to assure Will he cares for him

“Y-yeah… you can come in Rae…” The masked man replies, still crying and clutching his bundle of cornflowers.

Rae enters his room, “Wow, you really expanded the place!” Rae states, trying to see if that will cheer up his friend. Nothing in response.

The scientist closes the door slowly, so as to not cause too much noise and upset Will more.

The lonely man looks up at Rae, desperate to not feel this way anymore, and with what he’s already endured on his smaller than expected adventure.

“Rae? Can you sit down? We need to talk…”