Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first day, he asks Loppezz if they are siblings.

It happens casually, he's just a Jungle soldier and so is she, and he feels the click, almost instant, and wonders if she'd be okay with him protecting her with his life. The words are just what comes out instead because he thinks for too long.

Loppezz laughs. "Are we that alike?" They bat their eyes, poke at him, then lean back against the wall. The mines are dark, but it's still not that hard to see their splat of pink and white and brown next to his mostly dark skin, about as different as they can be.

"No, I guess not." He grins. The mask on his face twitches with the motion. Loppezz nods, satisfied, and roams off into a new branch of the mine. He can hear her breathe on the radio, sometimes. Calm. Like they don't really care.

It's the moment he swears to himself to drop it.

He already told it to himself before, multiple times, maybe, but this time he swears, and Sven never breaks promises. Probably. He wouldn't actually know that much.

He guesses it'll be a good test and laughs again. Loppezz snickers back and asks what he wants to do.

Sven stalls, and then almost sets his feet on fire with stray lava.

"I'm not... I, huh. I don't know how it'll go." He drawls.

Loppezz just wants to survive, and that's fine.

Sven himself really doesn't know what it is he signs up for. If he did, back then, day one, the answer would've been easy, and it's already in his head.

"Let's survive together, then." He says, for now. Lop stutters for a second, like they didn't expect it, then does their almost-laugh, that he's not sure is happy anymore.

"Yeah, sure." They say. "Sure."

They seem to work alright, as a nation. At least, Sven suspects it could have been worse. Ray tells him so, humors him, and from him and Loppezz and others the rumours crawl through the nation of Jungle slowly.

At least that confirms it, the blatant favoritism, that his hunch about Loppezz isn't wrong and Ray knows her as well. Which means Sven knows her. Had history with her.

Ray actually asks him, that evening, and Sven isn't sure he knows his every thought, but hell, he may be right. His look's just that deep and invested, more of a scientist than any concerned friend, but if he was Sven suspects none of them would be here right now. Ray's just not the type of person to worry.

What he asks openly is, is he alright. Just floats down to his bed, literal coming of god, admin, everything.

Sven stares back.

"How does it feel?" Ray says lazily. He means, do you need anything?

He's already gone through questioning how the Jungle settled, and he needs no info. Sven guesses that's the closest Ray can get to caring, here, a god to a player. He appreciates it. A little.

"I chose this. I'm fine." He tells him, raspy.

Ray could probably solve most of these problems in an instant, stop his head from spinning, make everything infinitely easy. He just needs to ask. It's so strange.

Ray nods with a smile of someone clearly satisfied with the result. "Alright, then."

Sven is, and isn't. He runs for leader with no clear goal in mind, as he realises hearing the speeches of some of those coming up after him. They all want war, power. He just promises a hand to lead. He understands that's not enough for them.

Sven dies.

It happens casually, gruesomely. There's just a group that stands up as the world's quiet, during a monologue at the elections, Aj's, and then there's something sticky on his mask, and he can't take it off to check what it is, so he just turns slowly and expects a mutter of a sorry. Then it gets to him.

Sven isn't that much of a fighter. He still wishes he could go down differently than being chopped open by someone he feels like he sees for the first time. Feels like a waste.

Loppezz drags his... body? Him? He doesn't know. He shouldn't be alive.

Sven lies numbly through the whole speech jjkay gives them, or the people that killed them, after he resurrects them, and he never actually figures what's said there. He thinks there were some rebels. He detests the thought.

Loppezz drags him out and away and shakes him until he answers with an incomprehensible mutter, and then sits by him, something between a shiver and tremor wrecking her.

He looks up into the sky.

"'m sorry." He says. The grass is soft against his back, and it hides how his face shakes when his mask can't.

"Did you send them? The rebels." Loppezz drops with half a laugh, half a hiccup. When he doesn't answer, because he doesn't need to, continues. "Then shut up." They try to keep their voice even, and it doesn't work much. "I thought I was going to freaking die there." They say after a few more seconds of silence, and silence never sits well in the jungle.

At least it means it won't be that easy to find them, if someone tries.

Sven moves, pushes himself by the elbow, and hugs Loppezz by the waist. They hang their head.

"I think I did freaking die." They mutter.

"I'm sorry for that." He breathes out.

Their palm falls in his hair, and they don't reply anything, this time.

The leader the Jungle picks is Erkku, because he steps up and protects them, with his sword and skills and everything Sven doesn't have and doesn't want to have.

Sven just looks at the sword he holds and doesn't really feel sick, but doesn't want to move it. Then he lets the handle go and locks his hands in a grip, shaking his head.

Ray visits them again, makes sure they're rather damn sane for what he's done. Sven just turns his head at him when he makes a noise and doesn't pick the sword back up.

"I didn't know resurrection was an option." He says, and he already sounds tired. It's not even a week in.

Ray pretends he doesn't notice and goes on about totems of... whatever. Recall. It's so simple to adopt a new rule into his worldview, that hey, he'll find a golden trinket that he doesn't think exists the way it does here, and he can bring someone back. ...Loppezz, back. He knows they're alive, still. Doesn't feel like it, sometimes.

He might've lost them, at one point in the back.

It's just another time he doesn't ask Ray to return his memories. He thinks Ray knows, and maybe even understands, but only a bit.

"I don't want to fight." He says instead, plainly. Ray grins at him, and it feels automatic.

"Oh, what? You..." It gets to him then, and he stops for a moment. "Interesting. We'll see... how that serves you, in the future." He settles.

"I just don't want to... Do you think it has to be like this, end in war?" He looks up from where he's staring at his knees, where all his weight goes, hunched over in a chair, almost crumbling.

"It's what we're here to see." jjkay shrugs. "I'll just say one thing." He sighs, a little. "Good luck to you, Sven."

Sven stares at the purple particles swarming the room when he doesn't have anyone else to look at. He doesn't respond to Ray's words with anything, wouldn't even if he were there to listen.

When there aren't any enemies in the lands, that he knows of, there's always others, other nations, and he's never even really thought of them before. Hadn't thought of the people that might be there, what they can mean the same way Loppezz means the world to him.

He never leaves the Jungle, himself. There aren't any laws against it, nor is it frowned upon publicly, he just... hangs onto the lands like an anchor. He's loyal to Erkku, even if he knows he's never seen him before this world and will likely never do again, and he has no point. He's only a little bit curious.

Erkku points him out when he really shouldn't have reason to, asks him to talk. Sven assumes it's whatever reputation he's gotten here, which's not much.

Erkku asks him to become his general. Sven refuses.

"Wh... What's your reasoning?" Erkku frowns. His hand's always on the blade. It's what differentiates them, easily.

Sven just shakes his head again. "I don't want war, ...King. My King." It doesn't roll off the tongue well. "I'm just not made for that."

Erkku makes some kind of broken noise, and Sven can read nothing on his void-ridden splat of a face. "Well, maybe we need someone who doesn't want war." He gestures his weapon, and Sven's look locked on it follows easily. "Don't you know what happened here? Right here."

Sven stares at the pool of lava and can see the occasional obsidian tracks, an especially dark splat on the opposite side from them.

"They tried to kill me here." Erkku says easily. "Again. So yes, Sven. Maybe what our nations needs is someone like you, too. I'm... I'm trying to change my ways up, a bit."

Sven takes a step along the obsidian, doesn't look at Erkku when he answers. The walls of the volcano feel secure, like he can hide away in them, get away with anything. All of Jungle's like that, really.

"I'm not sure what I am yet, myself." He mutters to the lava.

Erkku steps closer, holds out a hand. "I understand. I'm asking again."

Sven agrees.

He becomes Erkku's tail after, and it's not that they complete each other, he really doesn't matter so much, but he's always there a silent shadow, and the way the Jungle never doubt him so come to other nations.

He still asks himself what he's going to do once he has to pick up the sword.

It's not what almost makes him break. Not even the memories that are simply not there, not by themselves.

He thinks it's good he never sees many Plains and Desert soldiers, because he's not sure he could live through it again, when he meets Ivory. Casual, as the borders have fallen a while ago and the alliances are finally formed, Jungle joins Snow and so he has to look a Snow in the eye and know she knows him, and it's the only thing he does know.

He walks over to her on shaky legs and greets her like a soldier would greet a soldier of a friendly nation, and her look's heavy.

"I didn't expect you here." She says. "Sven."

He grins. It's broken and he might actually mean it. "I don't know what you're talking about." His hands hang empty.

"I... killed you." It's light and lost, (and that's everything he is, too).

"I'm sorry if I doubt that." He laughs. "I'm very alive. Thank you." She's right. He knows she's right. It was probably a kind of death you never come back from. Definitely that you don't want to remember.

The fragments make sense, and he doesn't want them to.

Ivory takes a small step and hugs him, and he presses his head against her shoulder to muffle the hysteric laughs. Her hands shake.

He tells himself he was so good for never, ever asking jjkay to return his memories.

"I think I missed you." He says. "I really, really don't remember though."

"It's... it's okay." Ivory mutters.

None of it is, but he endures.

He and Ivory, Jungle and Snow, come together and fight the cunning man in a white mask that's always creeped him out because he knows there is a living person behind it by the mannerisms, but then Clownpierce will still and draw a sword, and he's not one anymore.

He wants them as slaves, and Sven laughs inside, at every unfair proposal, at how Erkku screeches his teeth and the void moves in his face, how Woogie spits back and must be bluffing out of his mind. The laugh's bitter and aching, and he's glad nobody else can hear it.

He doesn't want to shed blood. He's made to stand behind his leader a colossus with feet of clay. He wants to intrude, say something on how this is foolish and purely impossible, but point is they all already know.

Sven only takes a shield and pots to the Exile island.

Twenty people die in battle, or so he thinks. He could ask Ray. He doesn't care to. Ray's too busy being happy.

Clown kills Erkku, King of the Jungle.

Sven hugs himself and sits on the island's shore. The water feels different here, not thick in some way, covered by greenery. It's barren. Just like him.

Neve finds him there. It's okay, because it's not like he remembers him, but Neve is still a friend. He feels safe.

"Hey, Sven. Sven."

"I was thinking." He says flatly. "If I was there for him, if I protected him, would he still be alive?"

Whatever Neve wanted to tell him turns into coughs. "What the heck, Sven." They say instead. "I was gonna ask if you know what we're going to do now that the King's dead. Not this, erm. Sorry if I walked off on a moment of self... whatever it is."

"Nah, nah." He shakes his head. "It's really not as deep. We... I don't really have any other options. I'm following my leader, that's left." He gives Neve a shallow smile. "I'd think you'd do the same."

Neve nods in a jerk. "It's not... that I wasn't going to." She sighs. "It's just hard now. I never thought Erkku could just. Although..." She sits down awkwardly next to where Sven's sprawled, on the shore.

Sven could swear the water looks pitch black under the foam.

"It was enough, what he did was already." Neve mutters. "I guess we just gotta live on now."

Sven pats them on the shoulder. He's just empty.

"It's really... it feels wrong." He says, low. Neve doesn't look at him either. "I'm gonna miss him."

Neve hugs himself and pokes at the water with his shoes.

They leave to search for Woogie in the night, and they find him in the morning already, which tells Sven enough. He welcomes them in like nothing's happened.

Sven tells him he won't kill a player for him. Woogie says he can do whatever the hell he wants, then adds with a chuckle, unless it's turn on him.

Sven is content protecting him, except for the fact that he really can't do anything.

The world grows over with ice for him, and he knows the white in his hair is only snow, but it might as well be the same tone Ivory's and Snow's and Woogie's is, because he thinks he learns loyalty to an idea.

Maybe it's just drive for revenge. He doesn't feel much for Clownpierce, though, as much as he'd killed his first and favorite King. It's just that there's only one way for him to live now.

The cold settles in his bones and he feels just a bit like he's leaving behind his own nation, but the borders have fallen so long ago and they've all mingled.

Winsweep tells him this is nothing like what being Exiled feels like. He says back that he hopes so.

Ivory leaves. It feels like death. Maybe this is how she kills him.

She should have. Sven knows he's going to die and he wants someone to kill him who matters. Now, maybe what will get him will be the cold.

He shouldn't work, shouldn't be able to get up in the morning like this with an empty head and too few regrets for the life he must've lived outside, but he does. He feels wrong, split in half like this. He still thanks himself for not asking Ray, even when Ray's near and can probably hear every thought.

Clown finds them too awfully easily, just the same they found Woogie. Sven thinks this is how it was supposed to be, now, and whatever Ray thought, they won't win.

Woogie doesn't blame him for having given up.

He says he hasn't. He just feels so cold. He wants to pick his weapon up and push and hit, draw blood, break something open, but all he can do is drag Loppezz's body on the ice, and it's so easy, her boots slide making almost no sound.

He doesn't have any way to bury them except drown in the icy water, and that's unfair, it's one thing he'll say. He doesn't cry behind the mask because the tears will freeze over.

He sits down and shivers, instead.

He thinks he can hear footsteps coming closer.

He leans back and up, and his breath bites his lips and comes off so white he can't see it in the snow. His grip on the sword shakes.

He doesn't think he can kill Clownpierce, or anyone of his soldiers who'd come after him, and maybe it's what decides it, when he strikes. It's parried easily, the next hit goes on the shield, and he thinks he's being played with.

"Why." He says, broken. "Why, why, why."

Sven doesn't really need an answer.

There's something dripping from his eyes, and he can swear it's not tears because it's too hot and sticky and a little disgusting, so the clown mask leans away for a moment even, as if assessing.

Sven puts a hand up to his face, shaky, and he feels like he's being ripped apart.

The prints on his finger are black, and half of his vision's tickling down to nothing, and he coughs.

Then he's torn apart for real, somewhere, he doesn't know where, it just hurts, and maybe it's a sword or an axe or his own mind that can't handle anything anymore.

He steps back, and he thinks he falls. The water's cold.

Splats of black float up from his eyes, and he stares, hypnotized.

Chapter Text

I'm happy. I'm free.

These are not his thoughts.

He finds who he's looking for in the middle of a world, broken world, and her face is bloody with shards of it passing through, and she is so happy he thinks he's never seen a sight more beautiful.

He floats closer, like a moth to a flame. In the back of his mind he knows she's not going to hurt him, or he hopes so.

"Can we talk?" He asks chilly. "God to a God."

She turns her head, and a new line of blood forms on her skin, like marble shattering. Her look is dead calm, and he knows it's fake, can feel it in the blur of her thoughts that he can't really access but can feel.

"Ray."

Her wings flap for the first time.

He has to duck because more shards ring, and he thinks one jabs his ear, because something's ringing in his head and there's the pain. He hisses but tries to keep his face neutral the first second he catches himself.

"Hey, em..." He makes a vague gesture.

"Ivory. My name is Ivory."

"Of course." He breathes out. "I... you know, Ivory, first thing I'm gonna tell you, I forgive you." He holds his hands out.

He looks so small in comparison to a world breaker.

Her smile breaks into something more... something different, mocking. Ray thinks he shouldn't have said that, but he needed to.

"I've figured out many new things while I was off-world." He continues.

"Do you think I care?" She drawls, and with another chime of something like glass, she draws closer. He can see every ring in her bloody horns.

"I want to make you a proposition." He pushes.

She smells of blood, he thinks it's what her whole dress is drenched in, and holding her look costs him a lot of his nerves, but he wants to. "I know you don't care. I give you the option... Nevermind that. I'm aware you can just leave me here. You can try to dismantle me as well. You may succeed."

She crosses her hands and he thinks he catches the claws on them.

"Okay." Ivory says. "Okay."

"I'm making a world. Hmm... potentially many worlds. We'll see how it goes." He shrugs a little. "Me and Netti, ah, you probably don't know... Me and a couple more people." He looks at her as much as he looks at the shards of memories and experiences gently floating around them, and sometimes one will catch in her hair. She doesn't care, she's listening.

Ray smiles a little, relieved.

"We offer stability." He tells her. "By that I mean, a world that will have death, sandbox death, but I will be there. Netti..." His smile grows. "She'll be there, and it will all be fine. Just a little experiment of mine. I think you'd like that. It's a world of nations, you see, the people are divided into..."

She laughs. It sounds like a ring of broken glass, itself.

"I'll... look into it."

There's something light back in her eyes.

"I wanted to make an offer to everyone I know here." He adds, unsure. "I don't know if that's... I mean, okay. Void, Mush, Loppezz, you." He goes on quicker as her look turns sharp. "Sven, Snow. That's it."

"And nobody else." She breathes.

"Yeah." He nods. "That's it."

"Sven is dead." Ivory says lightly. He can feel the twitch in her heart and jerks away mentally before it turns into a heavy wave. He thinks it could drown him.

She goes on. "I killed him."

Ray does a double-take.

Ivory flies up in two strong beats of her wings in a space between worlds that has no material except those shards that she does send in his face, but they catch onto her feathers too. He understands she doesn't care at all, even if it hurts her.

She leans down slightly. "But he's of no concern to me anymore. You can do whatever you want."

Ray squints up.

"I'll find you again, alright!" He shouts, and there's something stuck in his throat but he works through it and adds, quieter. "When it's done."

She doesn't answer.

He chases her for a little while in the void, just because they're alone in the nothing, and he's never coming back here, until she's gone in a white spark because he doesn't really try, and he's alone with the stars. One of them might be Ivory.

He just falls then. His shoulders sag and he just wants out, and he makes himself not think about anything that's gone down here. He... almost misses it. He doesn't think about what would happen if he did, either, doesn't let himself.

It's not that he cares that much about Sven.

He doesn't think it's Sven, in the first second. When he's closer to the curled up body, skin and bones and a bloody jacket with a white splat of a messed up yin-yang sign, he knows he is right.

Ray settles down on the void, right against the stars, and pushes on, turns him over slightly. Sven... is somewhat corporeal, definitely not as well off as Ivory, and the only thing he feels from him is empty coldness, so he digs in further, and he can now, he's a god and Sven is... he doesn't actually know what. He feels like a clean slate.

The feeling's wrong, just smooth skin when he needs to dig deeper, into the guts, to find and see if he can put his friend back together. In the guts there are shards, so many shards he yelps and jerks the hand back, and not-Sven shuffles slightly, mutters something, takes in a deep breath that's half a gulp, like he's drowning. The chatter comes to the surface, no-no-no, and I did nothing wrong, just touches of resentment bleeding out of him. Ray thinks there should be more.

"Sven." He mutters. "Sven, hey, here. Come back to me." He holds onto his shoulders.

Almost-Sven's eyes are pure white behind the splits.

He makes a gurgling noise as Ray pushes him up, slightly, helping him sit.

Sven grips his hand like he's trying to break it and stares head on. Shards fall from his hair and end up like those stars in the void. Ray thinks, in passing, maybe here everything's stars.

Sven shakes his head. His mind vibrates like a thread ready to snap, and his lips are bloody and bitten. "M... make it stop." He mutters. "Please. Just make it stop."

Ray sighs, and then he puts his hands in his hair and brushes it clean of the shards. They bite against him, bringing bits of images he doesn't want, that aren't his in any way, and he cringes, but Sven starts to shiver less and less. Ray stops. He's not sure this isn't going to kill him.

"Make it stop." Sven says, and it's light this time, almost relaxed.

Ray does what he knows best then, what he's already tried so many times he's gotten good. He guts Sven is what he does, really. Takes all of his... all he remembers, that's left, and takes it for himself.

It screeches on his teeth and feels uncomfortable and raw.