Work Text:
Ros was staring blankly at the enchanting table. The gold boots and lapis were both in their places, but she couldn’t bring herself to do much more than glaze over the words on the page. Sure, it didn’t matter what they were enchanted with, but she liked checking to see what she’d been able to do. Depth Strider IV. Protection V and Unbreaking V. The words all blurred together into nonsense. Depthtection IV VI. Unbreathking Falride VI V.
It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. Enchant. Put away. Enchant. Put away. Enchant enchant enchant enchant—
Clown could do all of this better. Sneeg could do this better. There were so many more people on the server who were already better at enchanting who could put better enchants on these stupid golden boots that nobody was even going to use. The boots’ only purpose was to be fodder for her to try to get better, but there wasn’t a point to getting better when it seemed that everyone else was already better than her.
She slammed the book shut, earning a curious noise from Clown, who was on the other side of her basement at the brewing stands.
“Sorry, I just—uh…”
She stared at the table, unchanged. Why was she even doing this? It didn’t matter if she was good at enchanting. All she was good at was building. That was all she was good for, and it wasn’t even a unique skill. If Foolish came out of retirement, he could easily push her aside, not to mention Clown and his tower. Her chest tightened as the thought crossed her mind: She wasn’t really good for anything, was she? So what was the point of being here?
She glanced over to Clown, who was patiently waiting over a brewing stand. “Hey, Clown? Can I ask a silly question?”
Clown didn’t even look up from his brewing stand to reply. “No such thing, Ros.”
Ros glanced back at her enchanting table. She’d already said the first half of her thought, she might as well complete it. “Have you ever thought about, like, leaving?”
He paused and turned to look at her. “Leaving? Leaving where?”
She stuttered, then gestured outwards. “The Realm, the Kingdom, here. Do you ever think about what it’d be like to just—just start over?” She sat straight in her chair, refusing to turn to look back at Clown. Her throat felt tight as she kept speaking. “Nobody to bother you, no quests to complete, you don’t need to study or grind or—”
Clown cut her off. “Can’t say I have.” She heard the soft little jingle of the bells on his hat as he drew closer. “Is…everything alright?”
Her face suddenly felt very, very hot. “I’m—I—” She doubled over as a sob suddenly ripped out of her. “I’m so tired, Clown,” she choked out.
She felt a hand settle on her shoulder, and she buried her head in her arms.
“I’m so tired of grinding. I’ll never be good enough to help my friends, I’m not even enough to help myself, and I’m so scared all the time, Clown, and I can’t—” She choked on her own breath and dug her nails into her scalp. “I can’t do anything because nothing I do matters!”
Clown’s hand on her shoulder tightened. “I’m…not sure what you mean?” he asked. “You’re more than enough, you’re learning a lot and—”
She screamed into the table. “Nobody else thinks that! I can’t do anything useful, all I can do is build. I can’t fight, I can’t enchant, nobody respects me and they think they can just—just walk all over me, because I’m the weakest member of the Kingdom, and you’d all be better off without me anyway—”
Clown shushed her. “Hey hey hey, none of that.” He always sounded so calm, so sure of himself; he always had everything put together. Ros had none of that. “If you ever feel scared, you know I’m just one message away, right?”
She wailed and threw herself out of her chair, uneasily standing up. “That’s not the point!”
She tried to blink her tears away to look at Clown, but failed horribly. All she could see was a bleary red and black blob, standing a few blocks away from her.
“Everybody needs you! But nobody needs me!” The world was spinning, and she couldn’t see through the tears in her eyes. “I just—I just…”
Clown closed the distance between them and stiffly pulled her into a hug. She sniffled and tucked her head into his shoulder.
“I just want to be left alone, Clown.”
A few moments passed in relative quiet, with her head buried in Clown’s shoulder as she cried. Clown stood rather still, letting her have her moment, which she was very grateful for. He gently ran his fingers through her hair, pulling it out of her face and uncatching it from where it had gotten stuck in her armor. The sensation was easy to focus on.
When her sobs finally trailed off, she shakily breathed out, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t be,” he said. “Even the strongest people need to break sometimes.”
Her eyes felt hot again, and she pulled back to meet his eyes through the holes in his mask. “Do you ever break, Clown?”
There was a heavy pause before he answered. “That’s not important right now.” He trailed a hand down her arm and took her hand in his. “Do you need anything?”
She stared at their hands, clasped together. He never really touched her, she supposed, through his satin gloves. Nothing touched him. He had all his layers, and his legendary netherite armor, and the mask he always wore. Nonetheless, his hand was warm. She carefully unclasped their hands and tugged on his glove.
He froze in place, but he didn’t fight her. It slid out from under his sleeve, and once his hand was uncovered, she gently set the glove aside. She clasped their hands together again, and brought them up so she could study his fingers. Even being covered all the time, his hand was littered in scars; burns, slashes, places it looked like they’d broken. Hers weren’t quite that damaged, but still she had callouses from building, from gripping her pickaxe and spear alike.
He didn’t need her. Nobody needed her, but especially not Clown. She was just another yellow name. She was a sink of incompetence. And yet. And yet, his hand was in hers. And yet, when no one else had her back, Clown was standing behind her, ready to fight her enemies with her.
“If I gave you the word, would you leave with me?” she whispered. “Leave everything, everyone behind?”
It was a tall ask, she knew that. But there wasn’t anyone else she could even consider.
Clown took in a sharp breath and lowered their clasped hands. “Do you remember, way back before this all really started, you said you’d build a second, secret castle, in case everything with the Kingdom went to hell?”
She frowned. “Yeah?”
Clown put his other hand on top of theirs. “I’ll help you build it.”
The weight of the world flew off her shoulders. “Really?!” she exclaimed, lighting up.
He giggled, holding her hand tighter. “Yeah!”
“That’s amazing, Clown!” She swung their hands back and forth; her trajectory swung a bit too high, and Clown played into it, doing a silly little spin. The bells on his hat jingled and swung around, hitting his mask. She giggled as he spun back around to her, and she pulled him in and bonked her forehead into his mask. “Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
He laughed, pulling back. “Of course, Ros. You give me the word, and I’ll be there.”
She used her free hand to wipe the remaining tears off her face. She sniffled, getting the last remaining snot out of her nose. “I—” Another apology caught in her throat. There wasn’t anything to apologize for. “Thank you,” she breathed.
Clown tilted his head, and she could see the tiniest glint of something in his eyes.
“Uh, do you want to get out of here? Get some fresh air?” He paused again, squeezing her hand. “I need to work on my tower, if you want to make a group call we can build together.”
She giggled. “I’d like that, yes.”