Chapter Text
Hours later, the echoes of the alarms were still ringing in Tina's ears.
The alarms themselves weren't going on anymore, of course, but they'd been loud enough when they were that Tina couldn't get them out of her mind. And she's been trying— she's been listening to music for hours now, trying to drown it out, to no avail.
(She’s really hoping the outdoors will do her some good. When the alarms had started ringing, Hannah came to her first to warn her of the danger. But then, after she was already thoroughly unnerved, Sapnap showed up at her door, full armor on, expression mutinous, and told her to stay inside, to not open the door for anyone. Usually she would’ve questioned him, but– she’s never seen him look that way before, never seen him so serious. If it wasn’t Sapnap saying so– the guy who challenged her and George to a marshmallow eating contest, lost horrendously, and spent the rest of the day sulking, the guy who yelled often but rarely, if ever, looked this serious– she would’ve disregarded it after a few hours. But it was Sapnap, and he did look that serious so… she stayed inside. And she waited, and she waited, and finally Sapnap came back, looking exhausted in a way she’s never seen him before, and told her it was safe enough to leave. Well, his exact words had been “Dream’s probably going to target Kinoko, and you can’t stay inside indefinitely, so…” but she’d taken that as the closest she was going to get to an all clear. At least while Dream was still out.)
She still has no idea what Dream could’ve done to warrant this reaction from one of his best friends– everything she’s heard doesn’t line up with her own memories of Dream at all– but she has no idea where to even begin to get more information. The most she’s heard was from Karl, and well… Tina still has no idea what Karl meant when he said that "Dream is having an extended nimrod November." Plus, Sapnap following that up by saying that “Karl forgets” didn't exactly raise her confidence levels in his assessment of things.
(She also doesn't understand what Sapnap meant about a day off from prison to go to a wedding. But, she supposes that it doesn't really matter anymore. Dream is out, after all, and Sapnap’s wedding seems… relatively off the table, at least for now.)
(Seriously, how did he fumble it that hard?)
So now she’s wandering the server, and there are still alarms ringing in her mind despite how she’s had Corpse’s music looping for a while now.
It’s the frustration from that which leads to her turning off the music, a bout of spite fueling her. Kinoko is nice, the server is nice– even if it’s kind of weird– but she’s getting sick of not knowing things, of having questions and them not being answered. And in the sudden silence–
A rustle in the prairie, too large to be a mouse. Tina pauses, furrows her brow, listens closer.
A whisper. “Fuck.”
Yeah, she’s definitely hearing something. Or rather, someone.
“Hello?” she calls out, cautious, curious– her feet are moving before she even thinks about it, bringing her to the source of the noise.
And that’s definitely a person.
An unfamiliar face stares back at her, eyes wide. He's wearing full Netherite, and she can just barely see a few strands of long, white-blond hair poking out from underneath it.
She doesn’t have time to contemplate the stranger for long though, because suddenly his hand is on his axe and she’s flinging her hands up into the air to show that she means no harm.
"Hi!" she squeaks out, voice high with nerves. "Hi, sorry, I didn't mean to surprise you."
Silence. The hand is still on the axe. She frantically combs through her memories of everyone on the server, tries to place the unfamiliar face.
"I'm Tina," she says upon failing to figure it out. "I'm, uh, I'm new here. It's nice to meet you!"
Silence again. Fuck. She's really not making a good first impression, is she.
"Uh, who are you? If you don't mind me asking."
Silence again. There's a part of her that's starting to get irritated, when—
The axe is out, and she's throwing out her hands in front of her face like it'll do anything, fuck, fuck, she should've ran—
But the axe doesn't come down on her head, it just switches hands. And then… he pulls a sign out of his inventory?
Terror keeps her frozen, and she watches in stunned silence as he places the sign, writes something on it. Then he's turning, giving her a… grin? Sending her a quick, two fingered salute?
What?
It's baffling enough that she nearly misses the ender pearl appearing in his hand, and she whirls around when she hears the sound of it being thrown. It goes far enough into the distance that she can't see where its going to land, and when she turns back around—
Tina gets one more quick glance at the man, and then he's gone.
She stands there, stares at the place he used to be. It's not until she feels herself getting lightheaded that she realizes she's holding her breath, that she's been frozen in place ever since he left.
Oh god. Oh christ. What just happened? What did she just survive?
He didn't seem malicious, probably, but… that was terrifying. And—
And there's still that sign sitting there, angled just so that she can't quite read what's on it. So that she'll have to move to check it out.
It's dumb to do so. It's so dumb to do so. He was in full Netherite, and she's not even carrying iron anything— she should not be investigating this further. Not without like, Sapnap or someone here, someone who actually has combat experience.
But… she's curious, okay? And it’s not like a sign could be that dangerous.
Tina finds herself moving before she thinks twice about it. Fuck it, you know? She walks, and turns, and looks down at the sign–
:)
—---
"Hey Tina," Sapnap says when she gets back to Kinoko. He looks a little less frazzled than earlier, though that’s not saying much. “Sorry I was…” a pause. “Well, sorry for just… earlier. I probably should’ve explained things more to you, but… anyway, you okay?” Another pause. She’s about to answer in the affirmative when he asks– “Did anything happen when you were out? You were gone for a while.”
The pang of guilt hits her before she even says anything. She feels bad for lying. She doesn't feel as bad for lying as she probably should.
Sue her, she's curious, okay? The vibe she's gotten from Sapnap is that he'll kill Dream the moment he finds him. Tina would like to have at least another conversation with him before that, figure out what's up. See what could've happened to make a man change as much as he supposedly did.
"It’s fine,” Tina says, “and, uh, no, nothing happened. I just went on a walk.”