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Ren was Imagination.
Sure, most hermits had large imaginations. They had creative visions of huge sprawling structures that could cover chunks of land and ever-changing ideas that shaped worlds.
But they weren’t Imagination.
If Ren had to explain it, embodying imagination was about being free. Free from the pressures of norms that society placed upon players and allowing him to think outside the box. Free to explore and create and act. Free from the embarrassment some others may assign to the constant roles he played, making stories and visions and engaging everyone he came across. Imagination was what he lived and breathed, something that trumped every other value he could embody.
It’s what made players who they were. That one value they defined throughout their life. Sure, it might not explain everything about them- players were much too diverse and strange to be fit into one box- but they all had something that stood out more than any other. Something that made up their very soul, inextricable from their being.
It was what drove players, what allowed them to create worlds and build and mine and play, and it was what allowed them to fuse.
By tapping into the very essence of their being by embodying their value, they would be baring their soul for the world to see. In doing so with someone else, two souls could be joined into one, formulating a greater whole than just one person could achieve.
Everyone agreed that fusion was something necessary to the player spirit. Something inside players yearned to join with another, to know them as well as they knew themself. It was the ultimate form of connection, but it also meant the ultimate form of vulnerability.
To Ren, it was everything.
---
“Is it time to take bets on who Ren is gonna fuse with the most this season?” Keralis asked the group of hermits resting in the meeting room, broken in for the first time in Season Nine. All the hermits were sitting around in their temporary town hall, chatting in groups while they waited for the first official day of the season to begin before they parted ways.
Keralis, Ren, Bdubs, Jevin, Pearl, and Cleo had all ended up settled together by the fireplace to keep warm, and together they were deciding amongst themselves who wanted to start out together and planning out collaborations further on. Of course the topic had then strayed, and fusion was brought up as lips loosened on drinks that probably should have been stopped by that point.
“My bet is on Xisuma,” Jevin piped up.
Pearl shot him a confused look. “Not Doc? After last season, I doubt anything could tear them apart.”
“No, no, no, you haven’t been here for other seasons Pearl. Ren is a serial fuser.” Keralis laughed. “Season four he was with all secret with Sashwambam, five he was with Iskall, six he jumped around so much no one could even keep track, seven he tried to go more solo but he still fused more than most, and eight was obviously Doc. Who knows who he’ll snatch up next!”
“Come on guys, I’m not that bad.” Ren dragged a hand down his face in an obvious attempt to hide the blush dusting his cheeks.
“There’s nothing wrong with it. Ren’s just got a lot of love to give!” Bdubs said, hugging his arms around the man in a show of affection that one might attribute to the alcohol if they didn’t know how much Bdubs loved to touch to show he cared. Ren extracted himself from his grip as quickly as he could without hurting his friend’s feelings, pushing his chair back slightly.
“But we miss your beautiful face Ren!” Keralis joked. “Pearl has probably seen more of Octo than she has of you!”
Pearl giggled. “I think this is the first time I’ve been able to have a face to face conversation with just you.”
Ren sunk deeper into his chair like it would make him disappear, not making eye contact with anyone else as they all laughed.
“Maybe save a little for the rest of us this season,” Cleo ribbed.
“You’re one to talk, always hogging Joe,” Jevin retorted before subsequently being punched in the arm by Cleo.
The conversation devolved into more bickering between Cleo and Jevin, and eventually the conversation turned somewhere else, leaving Ren to stew in his thoughts. It was all in good fun, but tonight the comments on his more liberal fusing habits were enough to make him want to disappear from the room.
The hermits all meant well. They didn’t look down on his attempts to fuse, and were more than happy to join in every once in a while, especially if they were basing together like Ren and Doc had been. The jokes just hit a deeper nerve than any of them might have realized.
Any other day Ren would’ve been able to recognize the ribbing as what it was: harmless banter between friends. But for some reason today it was hitting harder than it otherwise would’ve. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the uncertainty of a new season. Maybe it was just the fact that the words hit a bit too close to what his negative thoughts had been whispering recently…
He had been with Doc a whole season. A whole season where he spent most of his time fused. And he loved it! It was amazing to be Octo, to experience the world with four arms and double the brain power, to create the Octagon and feel endless supplies of Doc’s Determination and his Imagination, strong enough to shape the world to their will.
And that was the problem.
A little secret shared only between Ren and Doc.
Their fusion caused the end of the world.
It hadn’t been intentional. Some fusions just weren’t right for each other, the core values meshing in ways that had unintended consequences. And for Octo, the endless determined imagination was more than enough to break the world apart under his might without much thought to the consequences of his actions. Especially when they rarely defused to be able to think it through.
The memory of staring up at the large moon crashing into the earth and realizing that it was all his fault rattled around his brain, the despair and anguish at the forefront every time he thought about what he was going to do this season.
Both him and Doc had agreed to never fuse together again, and perhaps that was the worst part. Even more than the guilt that he had ruined the Season Eight world, it was the knowledge that he couldn’t share fusion with his friend anymore that tore him up inside.
And he couldn’t even explain that to anyone because they both agreed to never talk about it again. To not mention they caused the world to end, fearful of the consequences it might bring.
Ren really just wanted to disappear from the room completely and stop thinking about fusion, maybe go hide in his little starter shack and plan to go full hermit this season despite the fact that he really didn’t want to be alone.
It was better that way.
—-
Bdubs was Loyalty.
It was the kind of loyalty that always pulsed beneath his skin, buzzing to help out his friends, to support them however he could. It was the loyalty that drove him to stand by them and trust that they knew what they were doing and wouldn’t lead him astray.
Before Hermitcraft, Bdubs wasn’t Loyalty.
He still cared about his friends of course and still supported them whenever he could, but he never truly understood the value of standing by someone through thick and thin until he met the Hermits.
He never felt truly complete before. He always felt like he fell short, like what he had to offer wasn’t enough. And then he found a family that made him feel truly needed and loved, and he knew that he would do anything for them.
That was why he was also the kind of loyalty that wouldn’t let him stand by when he knew a friend was hurting. Because loyalty meant being there through the good and the bad and knowing when someone needed you by their side.
Ren had disappeared halfway through the night without much word, leaving the rest of the hermits behind unnoticed in the general chaos of the meeting except for one.
Bdubs frowned, drumming his fingers on the table, wallowing in his ruined plans for the night. So much time spent trying to get up the nerve to ask if Ren wanted to base together that season, just for him to run off before he could ask! Because some people decided to be too nosy and not pick up signals!
Ren had been weird ever since the end of Season Eight, that much was clear to see. Even if the whole thing was some weird simulation (Bdubs still didn’t totally understand that one), it still left a lot of hermits feeling confused and understandably a bit afraid of what might happen next, and clearly Ren had been hit harder than most with those complicated emotions everyone was trying to push down.
On the Hermitheus Ren had spent days by himself, shutting out even Doc who had sat outside his door trying to get him to come out. Finally after days he had let Doc in, and then hours later he came out and was all smiles and an easy going attitude. But underneath it all was turmoil.
Maybe it was hard to pick up on for others when they were all preoccupied with forgetting everything about the moon, but Bdubs was more perceptive than people gave him credit for, he liked to think.
So, Bdubs decided to slip out of the meeting to be met with the cold night air. It wasn’t that far before he caught sight of Ren sitting on a rock and looking up into the night.
“I’m just not feeling it tonight my dude,” Ren said, not bothering to look back to see who it was.
Bdubs sat down next to him, shoulder touching his. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told them off for you. ”
“No no, you didn’t need to. It’s not like they meant any harm, man.” Ren waved him off. “I’ve laughed at the jokes before.”
“Yeah well they should’ve realized you weren’t laughing this time.”
“It’s not their fault. I’ve just been… thinking a lot recently.” Bdubs traced Ren’s line of sight, landing on the normally sized moon hanging above. “I was kind of planning on going solo this season. Y’know, try to cut back on the fusing a little bit.”
Bdubs frowned, furrowing up his brow a little in confusion. “But you love fusing!” He threw up his arms. “Why stop doing something that makes you happy!”
“I mean, you heard everyone.” Ren rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “I’ve kind of been overdoing it lately… Last season got kind of out of hand, y’know?”
“But you and Doc were amazing together! You did so much you wouldn’t’ve been able to apart.” Bdubs stood up, towering over Ren with his hand on his hips and a determined look on his face. Not-so-coincidentally, he also was blocking his line of sight to the moon. “Listen Ren, I don’t know what you’re going through, but I know that fusion is your love language! It’s how you show you care! You shouldn’t get rid of that just because you’re worried how other people might feel.”
“It’s not that. I’m just… going through a lot right now. I don’t want to burden anyone else with that.” Ren hunched in on himself uncharacteristically.
Bdubs’ train of thought came to a crashing halt in a fifty car pile up that threatened to break his brain trying to process his words. If there was one thing Bdubs loved about Ren more than anything else, it was just how open he was to sharing parts of himself with others, the good and the bad. The way he fused at the drop of a hat, ready to bare his soul like he didn’t care about the consequences of someone using it, or fearing someone poking around in the dark recesses of his mind just because they could. He had never cared about someone taking advantage of him, because the alternative of never sharing himself with the world was worse.
In a lot of ways Bdubs wished he could be more like him, but fusion had never come easily to the shorter man. When he did it, it always felt great! But it was always so hard to work up the nerve with someone new, even if he trusted them one hundred percent. It was always his own insecurities that seemed to get in the way. The worries that he wasn’t enough, not when compared to someone like Ren who burned so bright it threatened to envelop him. It was that worry that made it take so long to ask Ren to fuse this season, and possibly the worry that would make him lose his chance tonight.
But Ren was the exact opposite of that, and so to hear him say that he was worried about burdening anyone… it felt wrong.
“Isn’t fusion about letting yourself be vulnerable?” Bdubs asked quietly. “About letting other people shoulder all parts of yourself, the good and the bad? No one fuses expecting it to be totally perfect.”
Ren looked down at his hands, staring at the fuzzy paws with a mixture of complicated emotions painting his face. “I think a lot of people do with me.”
He wasn’t wrong. There was a certain expectation that came with fusing with Ren, usually of the more carefree laid back persuasion. Ren was someone you fused with to have fun, to let go for a little while and allow the fusion to do the heavy lifting.
“Well that’s on them then.” Bdubs held out a hand to him, grabbing the paw in his own and pulling him up. “You shouldn’t have to be worried about burdening people. Sometimes fusing is just how you process your feelings. It’s about letting other people help you, because they care about you and don’t want you to be alone.”
Hermits were always so ready to help other people but never themselves. It was practically a requirement to be on the server! Be driven and creative and friends with the other hermits, and also be an emotionally constipated mess that refused to accept help. And Ren was always willing to lend a hand (or a paw) to other people, it was inevitable one day he’d need it for himself and not realize it, because he was always so focused on everyone else’s feelings.
Bdubs may not know what it was about the moon crashing that had caused Ren to be so out of sorts, but he knew that his friend was on the precipice of bottling up all those feelings and never fusing again so he didn’t have to worry other people rather than just taking the time to address it. So it was his turn to snap him out of it!
“Listen, Ren…” Bdubs paused, taking a deep breath to work up his courage. “I wanted to ask you tonight if you wanted to base together this season.”
Ren snapped his head up, ears perking up in excitement for a second before flattening out, as if he thought that he had to deny what he so desperately wanted.
“Dude, I-”
“None of that!” Bdubs cut him off. “I had an idea, you see. We could do a whole storyline! I could crown you king of the server, and we could make a big castle, and then make our own rules! And we could have all these quests people can do!”
“But-”
“No buts! Don’t worry about burdening me or whatever! I want to help you. I’ve wanted to do this idea for so long! So don’t make me wait another season. I trust you.”
Ren’s ears perked up again, a hopeful look crossing his face for the first time that evening. It seemed like there were thousands of thoughts running through his head at that moment, but it was obvious that the idea had sparked something inside him. Ren couldn’t deny a good story. And he couldn’t deny his friend who wanted to share that with him, no matter how much fear and doubt swelled within him.
Bdubs closed his eyes, letting that spark of loyalty inside of him burn like a fire growing bright. The insecurity of not being enough that threatened to douse the flame inside him burned away leaving only loyalty to his friend. The kind of loyalty that fueled his ideas of bolstering other hermits’ creativity by standing by their side, like he had done back with Scar in Season Seven. He wasn’t going to leave his friend to deal with this on his own.
And Ren? He let himself think about all the ideas he could make come true if he acted as king of the server. Perhaps playing into the idea of being a tyrannical king like he had done in third life, giving the hermits mini games and challenges they’d all enjoy. For just a moment he let the fear stop constricting his heart, giving it over to Bdubs for them to handle together.
As one.
—-
The Moss Boss opened his eyes, wolf ears perking up under a moss cloak that fell on his shoulders like a king’s cape. On his head lay a crown, along with shades over his eyes and a smile on his lips.
“Oh, that makes sense.” Moss Boss spoke, his voice a weird mix between Bdubs’ and Ren’s, settling on a higher pitched South African accent.
He sorted through the myriad of emotions and memories before him, sifting through the fears that Ren held that felt so overwhelming before and now felt so manageable.
“We can make it so that things don’t go too far again. Set up support systems. Bdubs is good at that kind of stuff.” Moss Boss hummed to himself.
He sat down on the same rock Ren and Bdubs had sat on before, looking up at the moon.
Fusing for the first time was always… weird. It was like trying to walk for the first time, stumbling and falling and getting back up again. It was said that the first five minutes of being a fusion and handling those challenges was what determined your long-term success. It would solidify who you were when you’re together and who you wanted to be.
Moss Boss just wanted to be happy.
Both Ren and Bdubs were full of fear. Worries about being vulnerable, about opening themselves to being hurt again. But being like this? It felt worth it.
He laughed.
Together they were unstoppable.