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“I don't really know how to end this,” Evi says, laughs, and to Betty’s ears it sounds a little broken.
Betty is glad she isn't the only one who feels that way.
She takes a breath, chokes on tears, tries again, until she can say the words in her head. “You can just walk away, Evi,” she says. “You can just walk away. I’m not going to. You made this choice. You walk away.”
Evi flinches. “Hell no.”
“You've got Pollocks here, your teammate.”
Evi stares at her silently.
“You wanna leave? Then walk away.”
In one quick movement, Evi equips their elytra and flies away. Betty is probably the only person who notices how their hands shake. And now she is left alone - it's raining, she realises. She hadn’t noticed.
Movement to her right makes her startle - she'd forgotten they had an audience, four people watching one of the worst days of her life.
Ace takes another step towards her, and Betty flinches back. She can't meet anyone's eyes - Poll, Ace, Seri - even fucking Cogmented is here gods this is -
“Not everything on this damn server has to be dramatic and deadly you could have ended it quietly -”
“I’ve thought about this for a while,” Evi says. “I didn't want to end it quietly. Would anyone have believed me if I had?”
“Did you not think I might have wanted to end it quietly? This isn’t just about you. I might have wanted it to end quietly.” She’d stopped, then, winced. “But would anyone believe it. Yeah.” And that’s the issue, isn’t it? Or one of them - Betty has a reputation for lying. ‘More than anyone’. Would anyone have believed them? Probably not.
Still. She doesn’t - it hurts, so bad, she hates that people are seeing her this way it’s wrong and she hates it -
Betty stumbles back - her inventory is a mess, spare gear and unsorted potions and she's still missing a few items but her unsteady hands manage to grab her e-chest and wrench it open, tug on her elytra and take another step away from all the watching eyes.
“I'm sorry I’m sorry I need to - go -”
A firework sparks against her hand and she's gone, up into the rain clouds above them, away from the staring watching judging eyes behind her.
She can't - how is she - how is she meant to -
The other watchers probably didn’t notice, but it seems it hurt Evi as much as it hurt her. She's bitterly glad of that.
She flies down from the clouds and - her luck. Her fucking luck - she finds herself gliding towards the Jestvu wedding pavilion and oh gods she doesn't want to be here, not at someone else's wedding venue when her own spouse - she lands heavily outside the portal and runs through.
On the nether roof, there's no rain, and the heat makes her face burn - she probably is burnt, the side of her forehead throbbing - respawn doesn't heal all injuries and usually she wears anything she gets from Evi with pride but today it makes her feel sick.
BettyIsBaffled was slain by evi4 using [i'm sorry]
The parallels are haunting - both to her first death, a false betrayal that sent Betty on such a different path than she ever expected, and the death that finally revealed the ruse.
But those deaths she'd asked for. Those deaths she'd - people think she likes dying and maybe she's a little weird about it but it's not the dying she likes it's the trust of it, putting her life and heart in another's hands - and today that trust was broken and there's a missing heart in her chest and she doesn't know what to do.
There's so many furious messages in her communicator, Ace had watched so now the whole alliance knows and Evi and Poll have left the group chat and - she begs her teammates not to seek revenge on her behalf but she isn't sure either is going to listen.
She doesn't know how to explain how much the thought of Evi4 dying for her sake hurts - she understands why he felt he had to leave, he told her before, he warned her so many times he was going to betray, it's not - she's not angry at him.
It just hurts.
She thought - things weren't great, fuck they were kinda awful really, Evi had never been fully on board with the End plan and had been kinda thrown into the alliance without a choice purely by association with Betty, but - she'd told him so many times it was his choice that was what this was all about, really, making their own choices where other people were determined to take them away from them - they talked about it so much and so often she talked to Evi more than anyone other than Sin - how had he decided to do this regardless -
It hurts.
She doesn't think she deserved this.
And that is so wrong because - she's spent so long the last few weeks hurting and hurting and knowing it was her own fault but -
She tried. Betty tried so hard to show Evi that she loves her and she knows that feeling is returned -
“I love you despite this. Despite everything. It just had to be like this,” Evi had said quietly. “I don't agree with anyone's morals - I don't agree with this allyship but I honestly stayed because I wanted to be alongside you.”
And gods didn’t that break her heart more than anything.
“I love you too,” Betty said desperately. “I thought you loved more than just me - I thought you liked being with all of us -” She stopped, shook her head, swallowed down tears. “Maybe I shouldn’t have expected that of you, maybe I shouldn’t have expected you to stay in a place like that but I offered you a way out - I know I said I didn't want to lie again but I would for you.”
And she would. She would - she’d thought, earlier, that Evi wanted that, she thought - she’d realised moments after her death that this was different, something was wrong - she’d seen the mace coming, sure, Evi wasn’t subtle, he even missed the first hit, but…
He’d told her earlier he was going to betray her today. She thought he was joking, or talking about something faking a betrayal. She'd offered to let him kill her, if he really -
It was only after she died and she was sitting in her respawn point after begging for instructions that she realised something was wrong.
evi4 whispers to you: i dont think you even know why i did that
… No. She didn’t.
‘I have a book for you!’ Evi said in general chat, as Betty was rifling through shulkers trying to cobble together a kit from the random bits and pieces of gear she had in her e-chest - she hadn’t had a full spare kit for quite a few deaths now, too busy with other stuff, too uncaring of the consequences - she was regretting that now, she didn’t even have gapples or a water bucket gods why was she so stupid. Eventually she decided what she had was good enough and pulled on her elytra to fly back to spawn.
Betty stepped through the portal. She asked for the book. Evi4 hesitated. “I just don’t think this is the time.”
“I want to read it. Evi I want an explanation.”
“You’ll get one. Later.”
“Evi I want to know I don’t know what to do -”
“There’s nothing you can do this has been doomed from the start. I've told you over and over again I’m betraying this is just how it was going to end.”
Evi never did give her that book, Betty realises.
Does it really matter, though? Evi said enough. They made themselves pretty clear. They - gods.
“I don’t belong there.” ... “I disagree with you guys on so many things. I want to do things in a way that I have control over and honestly so many people in that alliance just. Don't particularly like me.” ... “I want us to find our peace. And I think. Neither of us can find that with the morals we have. We’re such different people.” ... “I wouldn't feel right staying like this.”
Betty feels so - stupid, stupid - she - the worst thing is she knew this she knew Evi felt this way they spoke so much and so often about everything - how had they got to a point that Evi thought this was his only option?
Betty thought they were good at talking - she thought - there’s a sign room, so far away she can’t even remember where and she wishes she could because she hates the thought of that place being found, now. They'd talked, earlier today.
issue #1: COMMUNICATION
They'd talked. Evi had built that place for Betty because they knew Betty needed somewhere to write down all her terrified confused angry thoughts -
She wants to destroy it. She wants to encase it in obsidian forever. It's not the first place she and Evi have built together - it might be the only one that remains.
But she doesn’t know where it is. So it’ll just have to remain.
She’s been flying aimlessly around the nether roof for a little while when she spots a familiar sight - gods, her luck - regardless, some sick masochistic thought has her landing outside the portal.
There’s a stronghold near her day 1 base - months ago, she’d told Evi and Poll the truth about her and Sin. Betty can’t remember why they chose this place now, but Evi decorated it as she spoke and then many weeks later the group that would eventually become the Thousand Suns Alliance met to explain the many weeks of lore Pollock had missed.
She’d told Evi earlier today that she wanted to visit a stronghold. Wanted to see with her own eyes the wreckage of a plan that her teammates had worked so hard on, that they’d all sunk so many hours into, that Betty had relied upon when -
She'd wanted to see. This wasn’t how she was planning to do it, but…
She steps through the portal. The room is empty - five frames remain. The flight across the nether roof had dried her tears but now they start anew.
It’s symbolic, maybe. One of the last remaining remnants of her and Evi4’s time together, gone. A hope lost, a relationship lost.
Betty hates everything about this.
She tries to remember what it looked like - she’d made a platform out of stone. Mossy brick stairs, signs on the walls - glazed terracotta by the portal. A heart on the wall - that one is still there, and she doesn’t know if she’s grateful. But the rest - she can remember elements, she can remember it distantly but thinking of the whole thing is - maybe she doesn’t want to remember. Maybe it’s for the best that this place is gone.
She thought they were good at talking - even if they didn’t agree it didn’t matter because they talked but -
“We won't agree with each other. We don't agree with each other on a lot of things and we've lived so differently I can't understand where you're coming from.”
Obviously not.
Obviously not.
She starts the climb back to the surface - the portal is broken, and it’s far too easy to bump into people on the nether roof anyway. It’s cold, here, the stone under her hands sending stabbing pain through her fingers but eventually she’s pulling herself onto the icy surface of a frozen river.
She’s retrieving her elytra from her e-chest when she glances at her sentimentals shulker. It’s filled to the brim with references to Evi4 - a shield she gave her while they worked on gear together at Animal Crossing, eight pieces of renamed gold, a flower from before they were even allied - Evi’s wedding vows.
Betty hesitates - then slams the shulker lid closed and backs away.
Gods. There’s a wedding ring on her finger - there’s tiny pieces of diorite and emerald inset and it’s so ugly but she loves it so much there’s so much memory there - it hurts. It hurts. She can’t bring herself to remove it, though.
“I hope we can find peace even in a time like this. Even if we’re on opposing sides or I’m not agreeing with what you do, I only want the best for you.”
“This was not what’s best for me,” Betty had choked out.
“I love you,” Evi4 said quietly.
“I love you too.” It was automatic, but… still true.
Betty wishes it was untrue. Maybe then this would be easier.