Work Text:
From a notebook in Betty’s echest:
Reasons to Stop Dying So Much:
- It upsets Sin.
- It upsets my partners and friends.
- I don’t want to be deathbanned.
- There are people who want me dead. I’m spiteful.
- I don’t want to be seen as weak.
- Being on low hearts makes me a liability more than I already am
- I promised I’d try to look after myself.
March 21st
When Sin returns to Betty’s house in the sunflower field, she’s not asleep. Instead, she’s sitting outside, back against the stone wall, staring at the starry sky.
He doesn’t say anything, just sits beside her, leans against her side. He hasn’t been this exhausted in a while.
“How many hearts are you on now?” he asks eventually. “Cog gave you two, right?”
“Mhm. Seven now.”
“Good.”
“Yeah. I am. Trying. To - not die. I - I know I almost died to a creeper earlier but that was just after I left Evi and I wasn’t really thinking I am trying I just -”
“I know. I know.”
After a long moment of silence, Betty shifts, wriggles until she’s facing Sin. She grabs her hand in both of hers, and stares at her. “I don’t think we deserved this,” she says. “Not just - Evi. But everything.”
Sin misses the End. “Yeah. I don’t think we did.”
“It’d be easier, I think, if - if we were just doomed from the start. Then it wouldn’t be - our fault, that everything - it’d be easier if we’d never had a chance in the first place. Maybe. I don’t know. I can’t really - think.”
“You should sleep.”
“Will you? I put three beds in the house for a reason.”
“It’s a tiny house.” The three beds, yellow orange blue, are pushed together in the centre of the single room.
Betty giggles. “I didn’t have time for anything bigger.” She pauses, a little softer. “Or energy… we need to sleep.” She stands up, still holding on to Sin’s hand, and tugs him up with her, then pulls him through the door and into the bed. They end up in a tangle of arms and legs and wings, and that makes Sin laugh, a little, shifting until they’re both comfortable. He’s not really sure who’s holding who, but they’re together, and sleep comes easily.
March 22nd
A binary star or binary star system is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other .
Somehow, Betty finds titling the book the easiest part. It’s a metaphor Sin’s used before.
Writing the book is another matter. Betty knows what she wants to say - she loves him, she’s not leaving, please don’t leave me -
But she can’t say that.
She can say I love you - those words are easy, if insignificant. She can promise not to leave - she might be gone for a week, but she’ll return, she’s not leaving -
Except she already did - Betty left for three months, three months of lying, of never seeing each other - can she promise anything when she chose to do that?
Sin stayed, though. He waited.
Betty breathes, places the book back down and picks up the quill again. Sin will understand. He always does.
She starts to write - pauses a couple of pages in. There are words that need to be written, and she doesn't know what to say.
She glances out the window. Nothing but tall sunflowers waving in the breeze, as far as the eye can see. She tugs off her armour briefly, runs her fingers across her collarbones, counting the stars embedded in her skin. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
It’s been a while since she last had seven hearts.
She’d been at six for… a little while. It wasn’t awful. ‘It’s something.’ Better than five, or four… she cringes a little, thinking of that, and pulls her armour back on, redoes the buckles with shaking fingers. She’s doing okay now - she’s not - she’s trying . To stay alive, to -
Except two of these hearts weren’t even hers in the first place. Two of the seven hearts in her chest were a gift given by an enemy yesterday, atop a frozen river. She’d been so cold - numb fingers picking them up off the ice - it didn’t feel like a kindness but she’d pressed them against her skin regardless, not really registering the pain of it against the chill. She hates being pitied, but it’s not just cold that made her numb - her head ached, bruises from a recent death, and the wedding ring on her finger felt so terribly wrong - how are you supposed to live with a betrayal from the person you gave your heart to?
The same way she’s been living the last few weeks, she guesses. By remembering the person she doesn’t ever want to leave.
She knows what to write now, at least. I want to live for you. She’s not stupid - she knows what Sin’s been thinking of doing. Betty… doesn’t know what she’d do if Sin - wasn’t there. What’s a binary star without its companion?
But what can she do, other than write this book, and pray it’s enough.
What a time to have to leave for a week. The day after their four month long plan went wrong, the day after Betty’s husband betrayed them all, their alliance is still reeling and fractured and Betty won’t be there for any of them, other than through distant messages.
It reminds her a little of a few months ago, when they rarely saw each other face to face, instead communicating through daily messages and words of love and warnings and information. She survived that. She can survive a few days.
sin — 23/03/2025, 01:07
i cried a lot today over my book too
Betty — 23/03/2025, 01:08
sorry
sin — 23/03/2025, 01:08
rlly cruel thing to ask me to stay alive
but i cant deny you anything
Betty — 23/03/2025, 01:09
oh
i didnt realise it was that bad
sin — 23/03/2025, 01:09
it really was
Betty — 23/03/2025, 01:09
i dont wanna make you stay if it hurts you that much
sin — 23/03/2025, 01:09
i mean i was gonna wait until after the wedding anyway
Betty — 23/03/2025, 01:11
youd better
sin — 23/03/2025, 01:11
^_^
i might feel better by then
Betty — 23/03/2025, 01:11
i hope so
if its really whst you want i wont stop you
sin — 23/03/2025, 01:12
T_T
Betty — 23/03/2025, 01:12
i just dont know if i can do anything. on my own
sin — 23/03/2025, 01:12
i feel like i cant do anything regardless
Betty — 23/03/2025, 01:13
yeah
yeah
i dont think any of us can
im only staying for the people
sin — 23/03/2025, 01:13
its the one thing i feel like i have some agency in
Betty — 23/03/2025, 01:13
yeah i understand that
i dont like it. but i understand
i just want you to be okay thats all ive ever wanted
sin — 23/03/2025, 01:16
its all ive ever wanted too
for you
Betty — 23/03/2025, 01:18
yeah. i know. i know. ive always known
March 28th
The first thing Betty sees when she returns to the server is a sign that says “Cogmented was here”.
It makes her laugh - she doesn’t expect that. The time away hasn’t made many things easier - the ache of losing Evi is still raw, and the world is ending soon - and well - she’s still managed to fuck things up even while she’s been away.
She’s good at that, really. She doesn’t get why Cog and Void have been so… insistent she can do things, she can be ‘resistance’, she can fight back against a threat she doesn’t even understand… it’s terrifying and it’s exhausting and she can never do anything right.
But someone built a tiny pond outside her house, a cherry tree and a seat. It’s beautiful. It stops her falling too far into self-recrimination.
She sits there for a while, thinking. Her allies have… ideas, and plans, they’ve been enacting while she’s been gone, but… they leave a sick taste in her mouth.
It doesn’t seem worth it. She doesn’t really know what would be, right now.
March 23rd
The day after Betty left, she woke up to messages in the Thousand Suns groupchat.
seri — 23/03/2025, 06:29
evi4 asked me to leak the serapy signs
There were pictures attached - scratchy, scattered handwriting scrawled across dozens of signs.
She can’t stop staring at one in particular.
ISSUE 6: BETTY LITERALLY WOULD NOT TALK TO ME they keep telling me that except she wouldn’t talk to me about things that would literally get her killed didn’t talk to me about any of her problems. like she was a part of it and yet i’m going to be killed for this betrayal repeatedly. i didn’t do anything to anyone on the alliance except betty i didn’t want to leave on bad terms
… She knows what Evi’s referencing- or she thinks she does. Their deaths at the Gameshow was a bad day for the both of them. Evi had told her to leave, even before Void did. Betty hadn’t. She’d stayed. She’d died there.
WHY DIDN’T YOU ASK she types out into her communicator - she’d have told him more if he’d asked, if anyone had asked - she was acting weird and reckless and she wasn’t really trying to hide it, she just couldn’t bring herself to take the step of talking about it - she just needed someone to ask.
And these aren’t just her secrets Evi is asking of her.
A list of items that can never leave Betty’s e-chest:
- 1 unsigned book
- 6 signed books bound together at the bottom of her heart materials shulker
- Five renamed items:
- A heart: SHOW SOME CONCERN FOR YOUR OWN WELLBEING
- A head: YOU ARE YOU ARE YOUR TEAM ARE YOUR ALLIES
- A sword: KEEP YOURSELF SAFE
- A helmet: THINK ABOUT CONSEQUENCES
- A chestplate: PROTECT YOUR HEART
She’s failed at more than a few of those.
It’s typical for Betty, really. She never succeeds at things, she can never meet the expectations people have of her. It’s why she’s never been able to bring herself to eat the heart.
She wants to. She wants to care for her life, she wants to stop worrying the people who love her, she wants - but she can’t. She says she's trying her best to stay alive but it’s purely performative - and that’s Betty all over, isn’t it? She can’t help but lie about everything.
March 11th
When Sin next sees Betty, there’s a book in her hands. “Got a response from Void!” she says, holding it up. It’s faked cheeriness. Betty has been crying. “This really isn’t a good day,” she adds on, pained. “Amazing timing, as usual.”
Earlier, Jay left Atlahua. Sin knows Betty’s been struggling with that.
“Doesn’t - explain anything about the comment he made to you. The - ‘Betty dies too easily one’. I don’t understand why he cares. Still.”
Sin rolls his eye. “Of course. Why would he use his words.”
Betty laughs shakily. “Well he does. Fourteen whole pages of words. However they’re mostly - words to hurt me rather than anything else.” She smiles - it’s weak. “Which is fine! He’s right - but still.”
Sin doesn’t say anything, but he thinks his disagreement is made very clear.
Betty winces, stares at the book in her hands then flicks through, landing on one specific page. She reads it aloud, and trips and stumbles over the words.
Sin wants Void dead. “Stop caring about what your enemies think of you,” she says instead. “He’s lashing out. Yeah - you hurt him, and he’s trying to hurt you back. That’s what this is.”
“True,” Betty says, looking away. “But he’s not - wrong. With any of the things he’s saying.”
“You’re trustworthy to people who matter.”
“Except I wasn’t, really. I didn’t tell Ace. Our entire relationship was founded on - she wanted to help me because of what she thought you did to me -”
“You’ve talked to Ace about that now. What matters more than the mistakes you make is what you do to try to fix them. Everyone messes up. Not everyone tries to make things better.” He starts pacing. “Why the fuck are you the only one getting shit on for lying I’ve lied just as much if not more than you.”
Betty giggles, almost like she doesn’t mean to. “I talk to people more,” she says quietly. “I’ve built relationships that are completely based on deception. It makes sense I’d get the most backlash.”
“You don’t even like lying -” He pauses in the middle of the sentence. “I wouldn’t say completely. At least not referring to Ace - maybe Void. But with Ace those feelings are genuine even if they got the initial push from a lie.”
"Maybe. She’s not even angry at me for it though. This is - part of the stuff we spoke about the other day she doesn't. Expect anything from me and - and she should expect a bare minimum of honesty from me. So I don’t think my relationship with her is a good example really.”
“Betty…” She changes course. “Can I see the rest of the book? I need to know how much pain and agony to psychically project onto MercurialVoid.”
That makes Betty laugh properly, not the scared half-giggles from earlier. “Maybe later,” she says eventually.
Sin sighs. “Please just reset your spawn.”
Betty won’t meet her eyes. “... Maybe.”
Sin wants to punch a wall - or Void. That’d be more fun. “Please,” he says, with an intensity that would have surprised him a few months ago. “Please just - prioritise yourself over your relationship with Void - please.”
Betty flinches. “It’s not - prioritising my relationship with him it’s more - feeling like I don’t deserve to feel - safe. Right now.”
Sin stops pacing, turns and holds out his arms. Betty collapses into the hug, tucking her head against his shoulder, and Sin wraps his wings around them both like it’d make him be able to hold her any tighter. “You do,” he says. “You do. Gods - my heart is aching.”
“I’m sorry,” Betty says quietly. “I don’t wanna hurt you. That’s the last thing I’ve ever wanted.” There’s a shake in her voice that Sin hates because how dare anyone make her feel this way -
“I want you to be as safe and as happy as this server will allow,” Sin says instead. “And I’ll bend the rules of the universe to make it so.” She means it - they both know what she isn’t saying out loud, the plan that breaks so many rules of the game, rules of reality.
“I know,” Betty says. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” The words aren’t enough - but he knows Betty gets it anyway. It’ll never be enough, but it’s the best they can do.
28th March
[22:37:41] [Render thread/INFO]: [CHAT] sinoptics whispers to you: wya
[22:38:06] [Render thread/INFO]: [CHAT] You whisper to sinoptics: roof portal near vanjay wedding
Betty’s sitting on the beach when Sin lands next to her - a few hours into being back on the server, a wave of dizziness had hit her, and it hasn’t really dissipated. Bodes well for the meeting they’ve got soon. Still, despite the lightheadedness that returns full force the moment she climbs to her feet, Betty immediately pulls her into a hug.
It doesn’t feel like they’ve been apart for a week. Gods she missed her. How the hell had she survived three months away?
It’s different now, she guesses.
She’ll see Deli too, soon - it’s been longer since she’s seen their third teammate - she thinks the last time she saw her Deli was asleep at the gold farm, and Betty had had to chase Blue away from her - one day Deli will be able to afk without fear of being kidnapped…
It’ll be nice to see her awake this time. Without other people around - they might have to speak to Pathogen in less than half an hour, but… it’ll be good to be a team again. Thousand Suns are nice, but Betty has missed her teammates.
“This place is pretty,” Betty says, for want of anything better. “It must have been a nice wedding.”
“Yeah. Our’s will be nicer, though.”
Betty giggles. “Yeah. Yeah.” She thinks of the wedding dress she’s making, how her hands had shaken over each stitch but still kept going, kept working, because this is important -
She wonders what Sin will think of the sleeveless design of the dress. He hasn’t seen the eye tattoo he inked into her shoulder since the day it was finished - mean, maybe, but Betty wants it to at least be somewhat of a surprise.
She’d been so nervous about asking him, at first - it makes her smile now. She doesn’t know what she’d expected other than the response she’d gotten - Sin’s always been possessive. Betty is too, a little. Maybe.
A wave of dizziness hits her suddenly, dragging her out of her thoughts. Betty takes a few short steps back to one of the dark oak trees, leans against it with her head pressed against the bark. She’s so fucking tired. Sin doesn’t look much better than she feels, too.
Betty wishes things could be easier.
“Are you worried?” she asks.
“About the talk?”
About everything. “Yeah.”
“I don’t think we’re going to get jumped.”
“I hope not. I’m not - doing the torment nexus if they do,” she says bitterly.
“Definitely not.”
“I don’t think they will either. But I still don’t understand -”
“Yeah. What’s the point of - any of this? It feels like this is all to hurt us. I just don’t understand why they did any of the things they did. What do they want -”
“I guess we’ll find out later. Or we won’t.”
“Yeah. I guess we will.”
28th March
[23:57:53] [Render thread/INFO]: [CHAT] BlueTheSquirrel whispers to you: it's an art project!!
“I think we’ve all hurt each other too much for this to come to any sort of satisfactory conclusion,” Sin says.
Betty doesn’t register much of the conversation after that. Sin’s right, she thinks - she can’t visualise a way out of this. Not in a way that doesn’t - it’s sickening to think of everything Arch said. Had they really misunderstood everything so badly? Had they really - had they really done all this to fight against an art project ?
She doesn’t want to believe it, but -
“I believe Arch, I think,” Betty says quietly. “I don’t think he’s - trying to lie or manipulate us.” She breathes shakily. “And - I don’t want an ending where they’re unhappy. I don’t want an ending where anyone’s unhappy.”
She’s still… angry. But - she’s so tired. She’s so tired and she has been for a long while and she never wanted any of this. She didn’t want to be the “resistance” she didn’t want to be a person people look to with expectations of something stronger something better she spent so long trying so hard to prove herself and she’s tired -
“I’m very uncomfortable with the way Thousand Suns has been going at the moment,” she admits, not looking at either of them. They’re next to the spider farm, Betty standing in front of the chests - while she’s not concentrating on them one manages to bite her hand where her sword is a little too close and she swears, shakes out her hand.
“Yeah. I’m not happy with it either,” Sin says.
Oh. She - yeah. This is why Sin’s her other half. She doesn’t know why she thought he’d disagree.
They talk a while longer, but - it’s late, they’re tired, and this… hasn’t made anything easier. Eventually the three of them just build themselves a bolthole to sleep in - they don’t have a base anymore, but this is alright. It has to be.
March 16th
EXT. THE DROWNED FARM - DAY
SINOPTICS is mindlessly killing drowneds. BETTY flies in from above and TRIPS on landing, almost toppling off the side of the farm. She looks TIRED.
BETTY
Hi.
SIN.
Hi.
BETTY
I’m sorry for worrying you. Last night. With Cogmented. I tried to run away.
SIN (FONDLY)
I know.
(louder)
Please craft a heart. Two, preferably.
Sin knows about the heart in Betty’s e-chest, the one she refuses to use.
BETTY
Yeah. Yeah. I - I will. I can.
Sin watches her as she places the materials against the crafting table. Betty’s hands SHAKE as she holds the two glowing hearts. She’s CONSIDERING something. There are many ways to consume hearts.
BETTY
I really thought it’d get easier.
She’s still wearing her elytra. She fiddles with the straps, then places the first heart against her collarbone. Immediately, there’s more colour on her face.
SIN
Yeah.
(exasperated, fond)
Please apply the other one oh my god - you’re scaring me.
BETTY
Sorry.
She presses the second heart against her skin.
March 29th
“Usually when someone says they’re sorry they change their behaviour and don’t repeatedly do the thing they’re sorry for,” Sin says. She’s not mad - not at Betty at least - but can she stop setting her spawn in front of MercurialVoid it’d make life so much easier for everyone involved.
Betty cringes. “Yeah…” She looks away, off the side of the platform. “That was a - weird conversation. I’ll tell you about it later.”
Sin sighs. “I’ll fill you in. We’re making a torment nexus for Pathogen. With a theme of reconciliation.”
“ Oh .”
FACT:
The world is ending in a week. This is the first time a lot of people have felt hopeful.
April 4th
God powers suit Sin, Betty thinks as she watches him hover above the build. Builds? She’s not really sure what’s going on here, and doesn’t want to fly over to find out. She’s never been the greatest at flight, even when the wings are her own. Creative mode scares her a little. It’s easier for her just to stay on the ground.
She’s not sure why she’s still so… easily lightheaded, in this world. She had spun around too quickly while trying to work out where to put the second maze floor plan, and almost fell flat on her face at the wave of dizziness that hit her. For a long moment after, the world had warped and flexed around her, and even when she crumpled to the ground and pressed her hands against the soil it felt like the surface was tilting under her.
She’s not on seven hearts here. It feels a little unfair.
It’s good to see progress, though. She’s not sure how they’re going to build any of this in the time they have left, but - what Seri and Sin have made so far is incredible, even if the supplies list is slowly driving Betty crazy. She can’t wait to see it on the server - she can’t wait to see her teammates back on the server again.
But this is - Sin has never looked more angelic, all glowing halos and eyes and feathers. And Betty is married to him - the thought still makes her laugh, giddy. She’d worried it would never happen. She’d worried that he would - but he hadn’t, hadn’t left, had stayed and things had got better and -
Sin flies out of view, holding his communicator in one hand and some piece of redstone machinery in the other, and Betty realises she’s been staring instead of building. She has another maze to build, and materials to gather. Betty gets back to work.
Excerpts from a book titled ‘Birmingham’:
Rooms / Challenges
- A blind maze
- Parkour
- Something with allays
- Two stages?
We need allays
Please no one make me wrangle wardens
Important Coordinates:
Supplies location 1: 863 64 747
Nether roof access portal: -212 -164
Betty — 04/04/2025, 12:39
okay so
i have a plan for evi4 and neither of you are going to like it bcos there is a chance i get deathbanned
aka. my spawn is set in the walls of the stronghold which is hugely significant to us both right. and evi keeps asking me to set my spawn for him. and has also said he wants to deathban me to which my response was no im terrified of being deathbanned. well. im planning on offering him a chance to and praying he doesn't take it. if he does i'm going to ask whoever is online to give him coords to divorce papers but. uh. fucked up trust exercises ig
also uh. @deli i need to know what to write for divorce papers....
deli — 04/04/2025, 13:18
YES
Okay will write you up summit fierce 🔥
Wait what
…
sin — 04/04/2025, 13:30
WTF
BettyIsBaffled has been eliminated by evi4!
BettyIsBaffled left the game
BettyIsBaffled joined the game
Betty counts her hearts.
She’s been on four hearts three times. Never for more than a day - the most recent for no more than an hour.
Three seems different, though.
She’s not completely connected to her body even as Sin takes her hand and drags her through the portal and onto the nether roof. Betty really doesn’t want to stay in the stronghold - it’s probably a really stupid idea, anyway.
They end up going through the closest portal - it’s Betty’s day one base. It’s also the first place she and Sin ever spoke - Betty thinks of that day now as Sin pulls out shulkers and pushes gapples and nautilus shells into her hands - far below them in a now disused villager hall, she and Sin had met to exchange enchanted books, only a few days after becoming teammates. Funny that they end up here, now.
Crafting the hearts is automatic, robotic - she feels a little like a ghost puppeteering a corpse. She wishes she felt less numb - it’s a painful dichotomy - her body is cold and aching and so so weak, but her mind is racing, a hundred thoughts a second.
It’ll get better.
She hesitates before applying the hearts. She doesn’t want to take her armour off again - she doesn’t want the pain of applying them through her wrists - eventually she tugs off her mask, presses them one by one against her lips and swallows them down.
When Betty is regeared, Sin hugs her fiercely. It’s unusual to see this much emotion from him.
Betty almost can’t breathe. She apologises, again and again and again - she wishes the thought that it’s over now made it easier.
Betty made her decision. She divorced Evi. She just wishes she hadn’t had to be deathbanned to choose that.
“I’m sorry,” she says again. She doesn’t think she can say it enough.
April 5th
Betty regrets her choices the moment she steps into the stronghold portal room. She really doesn’t want to be here, but she’s already sent Void coords and - she’ll be fine. She’ll be fine. She feels alive now, at least - the hours and hours of material gathering and glow lichen placing and running about rescuing VIPs has helped with that.
She’s not a walking corpse. She’s alive. She’s alive.
Void steps through the portal as she’s pacing the room - she freezes, then steps back a little, so they’re on opposite sides of the table.
She’s not afraid of Void. She’s done lying to herself about that. Maybe she should be. But she’s not.
She still needs the space. She thinks she’d be scared of anyone in this room, anyone but Sin.
They look tired - Betty can relate. It’ll be nice to be done with building, but she doesn’t think they’ll be done anytime soon
“I saw what this portal was and was like - yikes ,” Void says.
They’re probably referring to the remnants of the end portal that make up the table between them. She wonders how it felt - breaking it. Did they feel powerful?
Betty laughs weakly. “Yeah… I got banned in here.”
“ Oh. ”
This is the first time she’s ever really seen Void shocked.
She explains, briefly, the story of this place. Why it is decorated like it is. Why she chose here to die.
Void probably doesn’t care. They listen quietly regardless.
She appreciates that.
FACT:
The world ends in 10 hours.
And Betty is procrastinating. They both have more important places to be.
She can’t look at him as she says the next words, but she starts pacing the room regardless.
“You gave me my heart back, after you killed me at the Gameshow. You renamed it. ‘Show some concern for your own wellbeing’. And I’ve been hesitating over using it ever since because - I haven’t felt - able - I’m sorry, this stupid sign -”
There’s a sign in the middle of the table - Evi left it there. ‘I’m sorry.’
“Sorry doesn’t fix anything, Evi,” she says bitterly.
She did wonder, for a little while, if Evi would apologise for banning her. Then Boston happened and -
“It doesn’t, really,” Void says. He pauses. “Well - Evi and Pollocks… they?”
She doesn’t know what’s going on with Hamhams. Or well - she can guess. Pollocks was stubborn enough to stay. And that was what Evi needed.
Betty wasn’t.
She’s never enough.
She needs to concentrate. She has things she needs to say.
She explains. “The first time I set my spawn for you…” The second, the third time. She explains each. It’s the end of the world. She wants to be honest. She’s not sure why she cares so much - she’s going about this wrong and disjointed and out of order but she can’t think of a way to say it right.
She explains why she set her spawn for Evi, yesterday. Why she offered her husband the choice to deathban her. She tells him how much she didn’t want to be deathbanned and her voice breaks a little on the words.
“And. Well. I really wasn’t - showing much concern for my well being yesterday, was I?” she says. She can’t help but fail to reach expectations.
“Not really, no.”
“I know I said I value death to the extent it gets me things but being deathbanned is - something else and I wish I hadn’t had to go to those lengths to decide if I wanted to stay married.”
It’s so stupid when she puts it like that. All of that just for a yes or no decision.
She breathes. Continues talking. “I don’t think I can ever use this heart.” She got the heart out of her e-chest before Void arrived, but she hesitates before pulling it out of her pocket.
He glances at it, then back at her. “Why not?”
Is it not obvious?
“Because I just - failed - really badly,” she says, then wipes tears from her eyes with shaking hands. “Like I - usually do, I guess.”
Void doesn’t say anything.
Betty stumbles over the next words. “I’ve - uh. Got a flint and steel. If you don’t want it back I’ll just burn it but -”
He steps closer to her, holds out his hand. “Give it back.”
She gives it to him, and he steps away, turns his back on her for a moment. When he turns back, he’s still holding a heart, but he presses it against her palm until she closes her fingers around it.
It’s not named.
“Not the same heart. No concerns, no strings, no taking care of yourself.”
For a moment, she’s so shocked all she can do is whisper “Okay.”
“I’m guessing you’re not on that many…” Void muses.
She doesn’t hesitate before saying six. It wasn’t really a question, but she’s not scared of Void knowing that. Void’s had the chance to hurt her before - she’s given them the chance to hurt her, so many times, in so many ways - if they wanted to hurt her they could have.
But still. “I do - want to. Try. I am - trying,” she says. “I want to stay alive for them. I don’t want to - and maybe a little for myself, now, too.” She laughs. She wonders how fragile it sounds.
“Good.” Void nods at the heart in her hand. “You going to eat it?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” She pulls down her mask, presses it against her lips. For the first time in a while, she doesn’t feel sick as the heart settles in her chest.
The rhythm is slightly out of pace. She can tell it’s not hers, but it rests more easily than the hearts he gave her before.
Seven hearts.
When she leaves the stronghold a few minutes later, her first instinct is to tell Sin.
She’s at the build site, so Betty flies over. She doesn’t bother removing her elytra, just pushes the buckles out of the way and asks her to count the hearts along her collarbones.
“If I die again, I’ll craft it back,” Betty says, glancing up at the build she still needs to finish covering in glow lichen. The chances of her falling to her death are… relatively high. She’s never claimed not to be clumsy. “I promise I will. It doesn’t scare me as much anymore.”
She’s not - alright. She doesn’t think she will be for a long while, and the world is ending in a few hours so she doesn’t even have that. But she’s doing better. And Sin’s doing better too - there was a while when she thought they wouldn’t see the final day together, that Sin would -
But Sin’s here, and they’re building something that won’t fix anything but it might help, a little.
It definitely won’t make things worse, and really that’s all they can ask for.
April 6th
Sin knows Betty fell asleep some time after dropping off her essay response - she’d handed over an armful of books a little while before leaving with instructions to “read through and use bits that work I have no clue where any of these would go I do not understand this place” - she’d somehow managed to smear ink on her face, and was almost falling asleep on her feet as she said this. Sin could relate. It’s been a long night.
He gets a message from her three hours later - ‘I’m awake!!” and thank gods for that because Sin is far too tired to stay around much longer.
They meet on the nether roof. He holds her close for a long moment, then steps back, grabs the sword from his inventory, and holds it out to her. Betty takes it gingerly, stares at the writing.
“Oh,” she says quietly.
They both know this sword very well. It’s the sword that took Betty’s first life, her first heart.
Sin’s pretty sure Betty knows what she’s asking, but she says it anyway. There’s no other way she’d want to end the server than like this. I took your first heart. I want you to take my last.
Betty nods.
Their final moments together are quiet, and for them alone.
sinoptics has been eliminated by BettyIsBaffled!
sinoptics left the game
Betty finds her final hours pass quickly. What’s a binary star without its companion? At the end of the world, with the knowledge she won’t be alone for long - it turns out not too awful.
I feel like you’re haunting me sometimes , Betty had thought, once, a long time ago, when she and Sin hadn’t been able to see each other face to face. Now it feels… true. She doesn’t mind it too much.
Betty has goodbyes to make. She ends up getting married to Ace, on a whim, but it’s funny and sweet and it makes her cry again but she holds her amethyst shard and fox heart tightly as she flies away. She visits Birmingham, meets the entirety of Friendship, together for the first time. She talks to Evi. She receives the apology she’d hoped for. She visits the Panopticon, and is stunned by the beauty of it.
But she’s tired and the world is ending soon, so when she asks for someone to deathban her and Nara volunteers Betty gladly accepts. She doesn’t want to be at the end of the world without Sin - she wants to move on.
It’s been a while since Betty has been able to view dying as fun, but at her brother’s hand she knows it will be gentle, and she wants to be with her wife now.
A while ago, Betty described her ideal ending as one where she is with her loved ones, and they are happy.
She’s happy with this.