Chapter Text
The Beacontown marketplace was louder than usual.
Vendors shouted over each other for attention, the smell of fresh bread and redstone dust mixed heavy in the air.
Children darted through crowds, shrieking with laughter.
Somewhere in the distance, a creeper exploded — the telltale boom followed by a chorus of groans.
Petra adjusted the heavy crate in her arms, biting back a grunt.
Farming supplies. Building stones. Fresh gear from the blacksmith.
Stuff she hadn’t needed before.
Stuff she hadn’t planned to need.
Because she wasn’t supposed to stay.
Not really.
When it was over — when the Admin was defeated, when Beacontown was safe again — Petra thought she’d leave.
She thought she’d strap her sword to her back, pack a few supplies, and walk out into the endless world like she always said she would.
She thought she’d be free.
Instead… she stayed.
And she still wasn’t sure why.
⸻
Maybe it was Jesse.
Maybe it was the way Beacontown felt now — bruised but breathing, full of people trying so hard to rebuild.
Maybe it was the way the streets still had pieces of her in them — her repairs, her walls, her hand in every stone.
Maybe it was the way her house, patched together with cobble and wood, actually felt like a home for once.
She didn’t know.
She just knew she was still here.
Carrying supplies.
Pretending like she belonged.
⸻
“Aw, struggling, are we?”
Petra stiffened.
That voice — sharp, smug, painfully familiar — sliced through the buzz of the crowd.
She didn’t have to look to know who it was.
Stella.
Once the self-proclaimed ruler of Champion City.
Now… something else.
Friend-ish to Jesse.
Foe-ish to everyone else.
Occasional pain in Petra’s side.
Petra sighed, adjusting her grip on the crate.
She kept walking.
“Go away, Stella.”
⸻
Footsteps — lighter than her own, quick and clicking against the stone — caught up beside her.
“I’m serious,” Stella said. “You look like you’re about to collapse under that thing. Wouldn’t want Beacontown’s esteemed hero to get flattened by a box of carrots.”
Petra rolled her eyes so hard it hurt.
Ever since Champion City had started crumbling — without the Admin’s influence, without Stella’s tight grip — Stella had been spending more and more time in Beacontown.
Officially, she said she was “building alliances.”
Unofficially… Petra suspected she didn’t have anywhere else to go.
She hadn’t brought her guards.
She hadn’t rebuilt her throne.
She hadn’t even demanded her own house.
Instead, she hovered around Jesse like a lost cat.
Snapped at everyone trying to be friendly.
And — for some reason Petra couldn’t fathom — kept trying to talk to her.
Petra didn’t trust it.
Not for a second.
⸻
“Go bother someone else,” Petra muttered, shifting the crate higher.
“Pretty sure Jesse needs someone to polish his armor or something.”
Stella huffed.
“I’m trying to be helpful, you stubborn—” She cut herself off, pressing her lips together tight.
Petra glanced sideways.
Was it her imagination, or was Stella… fidgeting?
Before she could figure it out, Stella grabbed one side of the crate.
Without asking.
Without waiting.
Just steadied it with both hands, muttering under her breath:
“You’re going to drop it and break something, and then I’ll have to listen to Jesse whine about it, so really, I’m saving myself trouble.”
Petra’s instincts screamed at her to yank the supplies away.
To snap.
To fight.
But… the crate wasn’t as heavy anymore.
She hated that she noticed.
Hated that it helped.
Hated that Stella was looking everywhere but at her, like she was waiting for Petra to shove her away.
⸻
They reached Petra’s house — squat, sturdy, a little crooked — without another word.
Petra set the crate down with a thud.
Stella eased her side down carefully, brushing imaginary dust from her sleeves.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
The marketplace noise seemed distant.
The street felt too wide.
The silence stretched too tight.
Petra crossed her arms.
“Alright,” she said, voice low. “What do you want?”
Stella blinked at her.
“What?”
“You don’t do anything unless there’s something in it for you,” Petra said, biting the words like they tasted bad. “So. What is it? Favor? Bragging rights? You want Jesse to pat you on the head?”
Stella’s mouth opened — then closed.
Her hands curled into fists at her sides.
Not angry.
Not defensive.
Just… hurt.
Real.
Raw.
For a second, she looked like she might say something.
Might explain something.
But instead, she just shook her head —
laughed, brittle and broken —
and muttered:
“Forget it.”
Then she turned on her heel and walked away.
She tripped over a loose stone halfway down the street.
Swore under her breath.
Kept going without looking back.
⸻
Petra stood there, watching her go.
The anger burned bright in her chest.
But underneath it — softer, slower — something else twisted.
Something she didn’t want to name.
She kicked the stone Stella had tripped over, sending it skittering down the road.
Then she turned, slammed her door, and told herself it didn’t matter.
It didn’t.
It couldn’t.
Because people didn’t change.
And even if they did… it was too late for people like Stella.
Wasn’t it?