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The night is quiet. Water drips down from the stalactites, the wind rustles bushes outside, crickets chirp. But it is quiet. X is sleeping, his chest rising and falling just too fast to be considered normal, but it’s the speed that E has started to consider normal since they’ve been here.
Their breath is slightly distorted, with the masks on their faces. E can almost pretend like it's there willingly. Maybe they can add some horns onto it later, make it look like it’s supposed to be there. Their eyes close for a few seconds longer, they shake their head and look around. They can’t sleep, not with X asleep, they have to be awake to defend their brother (some part of their mind tells them they won't be much help if they can’t even blink without almost falling asleep, they ignore that part.)
X’s tail hits the cave floor rhythmically, E’s eyes slip closed. Maybe… maybe closing their eyes won't hurt. (X smiles as he hears E’s breathing slow, he doesn’t know how long it’s been since their sibling had slept a full night. He doesn’t think he wants to know.)
-
“We need names.” Is the first thing X says to E when they wake up the next morning. It’s not what they expected him to say,
“We have names.” E doesn’t want to have this conversation again.
“I hardly think ‘X’ and ‘E’ count as names.” X’s tail thrashes behind them.
“It’s what we call each other, I think they are perfectly good names.”
“Go up to someone in a town! They all have real, actual names! Not just some random letter!”
E’s ears flick down, not that X could see them with their helmet in the way. Their tail twitches as they pack up their remaining food, they only have a few chorus fruit left. It’ll last them maybe four more days, if they only eat once a day. What’s the chance an Overworld village will have chorus fruit? (Not as high as they’d like. Besides, they’ve heard rumors of creatures in this forest they don’t want to go near.)
E remembers when they didn’t have to worry about how much food they had on them (which was only about a month ago, they think. Time was different here than it was back in the Void.) They put the fruit in their bag, putting the strap over their head, “Ready to go?” They ask, X’s tail is held low, the tufted tip just above the ground, but he nods. That’s probably all E will get for at least an hour or two.
X hands them a map and they unroll it, the nearest town is about a three hour walk from the cave, best to get going so they can get in and out as quickly as possible.
-
E’s paws hit the ground hard, they clutch X’s hand in their own, they’re wasting so much Void air but they can’t slow down. An arrow embeds itself in a tree just next to E, and they turn. They had found chorus fruit in the village, and they had also found dragon hunters. Dragon hunters . E… okay, E has never met a dragon up close, E was only fifteen years old, but they’ve seen them. Older Voidwalkers and their dragon companions (not pets, not mounts, companions.) E had always wanted to be like them when they grew up. There were people here who wanted to hunt dragons, who made a living off of hunting them? That's… E want’s to go home. (Their mind reminds them home doesn’t exist anymore, just like the dragons likely don’t exist anymore. They ignore it.)
They don’t know how long they’ve been running for, but the arrows have stopped and the sun is turning the sky all pinks and yellows and oranges (it’s one of the most beautiful things about the Overworld, they think.) They aren’t injured, X says he isn’t injured either (E is too exhausted to check, and X wouldn’t lie to them about being hurt. Right?)
They don’t find a cave this time, they just find a tree with moss growing over its roots, and close their eyes.
-
There is a blazeborn watching them when E wakes up. E’s never seen a blazeborn in person, but he’s heard of them. Fiery hair, fire tipped tail, red eyes… They don’t think blazeborn’s have red eyes, but the one in front of them does. The blazeborn’s eyes dart from him to X, still asleep and… his breathing is faster than normal, and dark purple blood seeps out from the cracks in the suit.
E looks at the blazeborn again, there's cloth in their hands, and from the way the ground is scorched under their paws (wait, didn’t blazeborn have furred paws? Why is this one scaled?) they were walking towards X. Not that they’d be able to do anything to him, only two people could take off X's and E’s armor, and that was the two of them.
“What are you doing?” They growl, the effect the mask has on their voice makes them sound both older and more threatening than had they still been in the Void. The blazeborn(?) freezes, did they not think they could talk? “I’m- your… uh… your friend is bleeding,” They gesture towards X with the bandages, “I was seeing if I could, um, heal- er bandage them? I don’t think they’ll make it through the night if I don’t”
E didn’t realize when they were at their brother's side, or when they started to take off his armor. Dark purple blood stained the previously white material of his shirt, they couldn’t see his face (the armor was just that, armor, but they couldn’t breathe without the masks.) They don’t know how they hadn’t noticed earlier, they should have . X said that he was fine, why would he lie ?
“Well then, heal him! ” E’s tail lashes behind them, the blazeborn doesn’t hesitate to wrap the bandages around X, as if they’ve done this hundreds of times before (and… given what E knows of the Nether, which isn’t much , they wouldn’t be surprised if the blazeborn has.)
“This won’t last for long, do you have any potions? Know any healers?”
“Potions? Why would we have potions? You can’t make those without going to the Nether.”
"That's... that's a no, okay. That's fine, it's fine. Just, if you can't get him healed by tomorrow night, he's going to die."
X was going to die. X was going to die. They had escaped the Void, they had escaped the End, they had gotten to the Overworld without so much of a scratch. Only to die, what, after two weeks? E knew they were running out of air, but they thought they had a few more weeks to figure out how to get more. Well, they do, but X doesn't. X is going to die in less than twenty-four hours and E can't do anything about it.
"Hey hey hey, don't panic." The blazeborn is talking to them. They aren't panicking, they aren't. They're just. Just. X is going to die. Their one and only brother is going to die. The only other Voidwalker is going to die and E is going to be left alone and - there's a hand on their shoulder. It's not scorching like E expected it to be, it was warmer than what they were used to but it wasn't bad . It was comforting. "I have a friend, her name is Cleo, she's about your age and she'll be able to save him. I just need you to trust me, alright?"
There's not much more that E can do, is there? They say no, and X will die by tomorrow and they'll be left alone. They say yes, and it happens that this blazeborn just wants to kill them, then they both die anyway. They say yes and the blazeborn is telling the truth then X will live another day and they can… E doesn't really know, keep wandering probably.
They look at the blazeborn, there are scales covering their face and surrounding their eyes, blazeborn don't have scales. They nod.
-
The place where Tango (the blazeborn tells them his name, says it's a trust thing) lives is a cave, it looks small from the outside, but it's not. There are tunnels that go deep into the crust of the Overworld, Tango goes down one of them, X held tightly in his arms, into a smaller cave filled with more plants E thought even existed, and Cleo stands in the middle of the room.
Cleo, as it turns out, is a zombie. An actual legitimate zombie, like the ones that try to attack E and X when they start to far from the light at night. She's about their age, fifteen or so, with green stitched-together skin and bright red hair. (Later, E will learn that the stitches in her are the stems and roots of living plants, and that during the spring those plants will flower, and that none of the skin is originally hers. E will learn a lot about everyone that lives here.)
Cleo kicks them out of her room, saying she has to focus or she won't be able to heal X right. Tango brings E to the bigger cave that they passed through earlier. The blazeborn keeps carefully away from the moss, sometimes even stepping on stones that seem to have been placed there specifically for him.
E doesn't want to leave X's side. They want to stay right there and hold their brother's hand and leave as soon as he's healed. "There's some more of us, five in total right now. Scott is out getting food right now, Bdubs and Etho are here but I'm not sure exactly where. I'm not going to try to find them."
E's only been around Tango for maybe an hour now, but they know some things about him. Mostly, that he's not a normal blazeborn. Blazeborn, from what E knows of them, don't have scales, their eyes are normally yellow or orange, and they certainly can't leave the Nether.
E sits on the couch (which is surprisingly comfortable) and thinks while Tango bruises himself doing… whatever weird not-blazeborn's do. They want to check on X. They're focused too much on their thoughts that they don't realize when someone else enters the cave, at least until a plate is placed down in front of them and they look up to see a starborn.
There is a starborn in front of them. Not a weird not-starborn like how Tango is a weird not-blazeborn, but an actual starborn. With the large galaxy-like eyes, pointed ears that remind them of some kind of fox, tufted tail similar to their own, and the miniature "stars" floating around their head.
E thought starborns were dead, went extinct years ago, turned into the first voidwalkers, whatever. Not still alive, and with one standing in front of them with a piece of chorus fruit in their hand.
The starborn, which E has to assume is Scott based on the previous information Tango had told them, turns away from them and to Tango, "You never told me the kids you found were voidwalkers, I would've gotten more chorus fruit."
-
When X wakes up, two weeks later, it's to E hugging him with tears streaming down their cheeks, "Promise you won't ever leave me." He wraps his arms around them, "I promise." Xisuma says.