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The raid itself went smoothly. Almost disappointingly so.
Spoke had been hoping for at least some resistance—a decent fight, maybe someone who knew how to swing a sword properly—but the base's occupants had scattered the moment they heard him and Mapic breach the outer wall. Three players, none of them willing to stick around and defend their own home.
Amateurs.
“SPOKE!," Mapic called from somewhere down the hall, his voice carrying the particular cheerfulness of someone who found raiding genuinely fun. "Dude, these guys aren’t that bad with resources!”
"Called it," Spoke said, rifling through a storage room. His edges flickered slightly as he moved fast between shelves, the void bleeding through at his fingertips. "Told you they'd have good loot. Bad fighters always overcompensate with gear." He grabbed a stack of ender pearls, a stack of diamonds, potions. "Oh, nice. Very nice."
Mapic appeared in the doorway, grinning. "We're taking all of it, right?"
"Obviously. What kind of question is that?"
"The kind where I wanted to hear you say obviously." Mapic disappeared again, humming to himself.
Spoke moved through the base, his form flickering slightly at the edges as he went.
He found the bedroom last.
It was a mess—bed unmade, items scattered across the floor, crafting tables shoved into corners without any logic or organization. The kind of room that belonged to someone who spent more time acquiring things than organizing them. Spoke started going through the chests, cataloguing everything worth taking.
That's when he heard it.
A sound, coming from the far corner of the room.
Spoke turned.
In the corner, pressed together like they were trying to take up as little space as possible, were three animals.
A dog—large, scruffy. A macaw, blue and gold, perched on the headboard of the bed with its wings folded tight against its body. And a cat, sleek and dark-furred, with eyes that were an unusual shade of purple-black and a tail that was slightly too thin, slightly too pointed.
All three of them were looking at him.
Not the way animals usually looked at strangers. Not nervous or blank or instinctively afraid. They were watching him. The cat especially, moved over him with an intelligence that made the back of Spoke's neck prickle.
"...Huh," Spoke said. Oh shit they had pets?
He crouched down slowly, keeping his movements careful. The cat's eyes tracked him without blinking. The dog's ears lifted slightly, but there was something tense in the way it held itself. The macaw shuffled on its perch, tilting its head.
These weren't wild animals. They were clearly in decent condition—well-fed, no visible injuries. Someone had been taking care of them.
Someone who wasn't here anymore.
"Your owner just ditched you," Spoke said conversationally. "Ran out the back when we came in. Didn't even look back." He paused. "That's, like, pretty rough, honestly."
The macaw made a sound that was somewhere between a squawk and a scoff.
"Yeah," Spoke agreed, as if it had said something coherent. "Can't exactly leave you here though."
"Spoke!" Mapic appeared in the doorway, arms full of loot, grinning like Christmas had come early. "Bro, you won’t believe what I found—" He stopped, clocking the three animals in the corner. "Oh. Oh, who are these guys?"
"Found them in here."
"Are they okay?"
"Seem fine." Spoke looked at the dog again. "Their owner bailed on them when we raided."
Mapic's expression shifted immediately into something offended on the animals' behalf. He dumped his armful of loot unceremoniously on the bed and crouched down next to Spoke, extending a hand toward the dog. "Hey. Hi. I'm so sorry about your terrible owner, that's awful, you deserve better."
The dog stared at Mapic's hand for a long moment. Then, slowly, cautiously, it sniffed it. But it pulled back after, still wary.
"We're bringing them home," Spoke decided.
"Obviously," Mapic said, already trying to convince the cat to come closer. The cat was not cooperating. It just sat there, radiating superiority. "We can't just leave them here, the place is gonna be stripped bare in an hour once other people find out about the raid."
The cat gave Mapic a look that clearly communicated it didn't need his help, thanks. Mapic seemed completely unaffected by this and kept his hand extended with cheerful patience.
"You know," Spoke said, studying the macaw, "that bird looks kind of familiar."
"How so?"
"I don't know. Just... familiar." He squinted at it. The blue and gold coloring. He shrugged. "Never mind. Probably nothing."
The macaw looked away with an expression that was extremely indignant for a bird.
Getting three animals across the server was, it turned out, an adventure.
The dog trotted alongside them but kept its distance, staying a few feet away from Spoke's heels. There was something watchful about it, something that suggested it was constantly scanning for threats. The macaw had consented to sitting on Mapic's shoulder after some coaxing, though it kept side-eyeing everything. The cat had refused to be carried by either of them and walked at its own pace, several feet behind, with the air of someone doing them a favor by coming at all.
More than that—the cat walked like it owned the path. Head high, tail swishing, completely unbothered by the rain that had started to fall.
"Okay but why does the cat look like that," Mapic said, watching it over his shoulder.
"Like what?"
"Like it thinks it's better than us."
"All cats look like that."
"Not like this though." Mapic watched the cat take a particularly smug step over a forming puddle. "That's not regular cat superiority. That's, like, specific."
"You're projecting."
"I'm observing."
The macaw squawked on his shoulder, and Mapic automatically reached up to steady it. "Easy, you're good. We're almost home."
Spoke glanced down at the dog, who was still maintaining that careful distance. Its eyes flicked up to meet his, and for a moment Spoke had the very strange feeling that there was someone behind them.
He shook it off. Long raid. He was tired.
Their base came into view—significantly better fortified than the one they'd just stripped, though Mapic had insisted on painting the front door which Spoke still wasn't over. They'd had three conversations about it. Mapic remained unapologetic.
"Home sweet home," Mapic announced, pushing the door open. The animals filed in after him with varying levels of enthusiasm. The dog immediately started investigating the living room, nose to the ground but movements careful. The macaw hopped off Mapic's shoulder and onto the back of the couch. The cat walked to the center of the room, sat down, and looked around like it was appraising real estate.
"Make yourselves comfortable," Spoke said, a little dryly.
"I think they already have," Mapic said, watching the dog sniff at his favorite chair with what looked like suspicion. "Okay, I love them already. We're keeping them."
"We don't even know what they eat."
"Dogs eat food, birds eat seeds, cats eat fish. Done. Solved." Mapic dropped down onto the couch, and the macaw immediately relocated to the top of his head. "Oh we're doing this now? Okay. Hi."
Spoke started unpacking the raid loot onto the table, sorting through what they'd taken. A very decent haul, actually—those amateur players had been sitting on enough resources to keep Spoke and Mapic for a day or two, which was saying a lot.
"I'm gonna head to bed," Mapic said eventually. He tipped the macaw off his head gently, setting it on the armrest. "Leave some of the sorting for tomorrow, you don't have to do it all tonight."
"I know."
Mapic stood, stretched, and surveyed the three animals with fond exasperation. "Don't let them bully you," he said seriously to Spoke. "Especially the cat. That cat has an agenda."
"Goodnight, Mapic."
"I'm just saying—"
"Goodnight."
Mapic grinned, ruffled Spoke's hair in a way that made Spoke's form flicker indignantly at the edges, and disappeared down the hall. A moment later, his bedroom door clicked shut.
The living room was quiet.
Spoke turned back to his sorting, the comfortable sounds of a lazy evening settling around him. He started laying out the brewing supplies, thinking about what he needed most. Strength potions. Speed. Fire resistance.
From behind him, the three animals were quiet.
Too quiet, maybe. But Spoke was tired and focused, and the sound of the rain outside was louder than anything they were doing, so he didn't really pay attention.
He pulled out his brewing notes, cross-referencing ingredients. The fire resistance potions would need magma cream, which they had plenty of now. The strength potions were simpler—blaze powder. He started organizing by recipe.
Behind him, very softly, there were sounds from the corner.
Low and indistinct. A soft growl from the dog—not threatening, more like... talking? A short sound from the macaw. The cat made a sound that was almost like words.
Almost.
Spoke glanced over his shoulder. The three animals were huddled in the corner together, very close, heads almost touching. The dog's ears were forward, alert. The cat's tail was moving in sharp, agitated flicks. The macaw kept tilting its head in short jerky movements.
Huh. Weird. But animals did weird things. He turned back to his brewing notes.
More sounds. The cat made a low hiss. The dog responded with a sound that was remarkably close to disagreement. The macaw clicked its beak rapidly.
Spoke looked back again. The huddle had gotten tighter. The cat was clearly in the middle of the discussion, its tail lashing as it made another low sound. The dog's response was immediate—a quiet growl that sounded almost like argument. The macaw interrupted with more clicking.
"...You guys good over there?" Spoke asked.
All three heads turned toward him immediately. Perfect synchronization. The kind of perfectly synchronized movement that took either a lot of training or a lot of familiarity with each other.
Then the cat made a sound that was weirdly dismissive, and they all turned back to their huddle.
"Cool," Spoke said slowly. "Great. Just checking."
He turned back to his notes. Tried very hard to focus on magma cream quantities.
The huddle sounds resumed, quieter this time but more intense. The cat seemed to be directing something—its tail movements were deliberate, and the other two were responding. The dog's growls had taken on a reluctant quality. The macaw's clicks sounded almost... amused?
A minute passed. Two. Spoke was just getting back into the rhythm of his work, writing down ingredient ratios, when something warm pressed against his leg.
He looked down.
The dog was sitting beside him, looking up with an expression that could only be described as puppy dog eyes. Ears down, head tilted, eyes wide and liquid and devastatingly pitiful. It let out a soft whine, pressing its face more firmly against Spoke's knee.
But there was something calculated about it. Like the dog was trying very hard to look pathetic but didn't quite have the knack for it naturally.
Spoke stared at it.
It whimpered. Nuzzled harder. The tail moved in a slow droop.
Something about it shot straight past all of Spoke's defenses and hit something soft. It reminded him, suddenly and completely, of Mapic. Mapic was a border collie hybrid, and Mapic made almost exactly this face when he wanted something and was trying to be subtle about it. The same ears. The same devastating eyes.
Spoke's composure crumbled on contact.
"Oh no," he said, and immediately knelt down on instinct, his brewing notes forgotten. "Hey, hey, what's wrong? Are you okay, bro?"
The dog's ears perked up very slightly, like it was surprised the approach had worked so quickly. Then it recovered, fluffing its fur out to maximum miserableness, and pointed its snout deliberately toward the corner where the cat and macaw were still sitting.
Spoke looked over. The cat was sitting there with an expression of barely concealed smugness. The macaw's wings were doing a very small, very suspicious shaking motion that looked a lot like suppressed laughter.
"They giving you trouble?" Spoke asked the dog seriously.
The dog let out a long, put-upon sigh and nudged Spoke's hand with its nose, then nudged him again toward the corner. Like it was trying to lead him somewhere. Or like it had been told to lead him somewhere.
"Okay, okay." Spoke let the dog guide him, which involved being head-butted gently in the direction of the corner. "Are you, like... herding me?"
The dog absolutely was herding him. It nudged his ankle, circled around to push at his other side, nudged again. Spoke found himself moving toward the corner with his brewing notes still in hand, feeling vaguely like livestock.
"This is very effective," he told the dog. "I want you to know that."
The macaw let out a sound that was definitely laughter. The cat's whiskers twitched.
Spoke stopped and stared at the macaw.
The blue and gold feathers. The clipped wings—he could see that clearly now, up close. The way it held itself, upright and deliberate, with a specific quality of intelligence in its eyes that was becoming increasingly difficult to explain away as normal bird behavior.
He'd seen those colors before. He'd seen that posture before. He was certain of it.
He looked at the macaw for a long moment.
The macaw looked back, completely neutral.
Spoke shook his head slowly. "No. That's—no. That's crazy."
The cat made a small sound that was definitely amused.
"What?" Spoke looked at the cat.
He shook his head harder. "Nope. Not doing this. I'm tired."
He straightened up and patted the dog's head absently while the two other animals exchanged a glance that communicated something he couldn't read. The cat looked particularly pleased with itself.
"Come on. You three should sleep somewhere that isn't the corner of my living room."
He led them down the hall, the dog at his heels. The macaw hopping along the back of the couch before launching itself—with some difficulty—onto Spoke's shoulder. It was heavier than expected.
The cat followed at its own pace. It paused at the doorway of the bedroom, surveyed the room, and apparently found it satisfactory, because it walked in like it owned the place.
The cat jumped onto the bed. Settled into the middle. Curled up with pointed determination.
"That's my bed," Spoke protested.
The cat closed its eyes.
"Right." Spoke looked at the macaw on his shoulder, who clicked its beak in a way that was extremely impatient. "And you?" He moved to the nightstand, lowering his shoulder so the macaw could step off. It hopped onto the nightstand, ruffled its feathers, and arranged itself with the dignity of someone who had decided this was an acceptable perch.
The dog circled twice on the floor beside the bed and lay down with a sigh that was so theatrical Spoke had to question the nature of reality for a moment.
He sat on the edge of the bed. The cat was taking up a truly unreasonable amount of space for its size, sprawled proprietorially across the center. Spoke laid down on the narrow strip of bed that the cat had left him.
The cat shifted approximately half an inch further into Spoke's space. On the floor, the dog's tail thumped once.
"Pain in my ass," Spoke said. He closed his eyes. "All three of you."
He was asleep within minutes.
He wasn't sure what time it was when he woke up.
Early. The light through the window was the thin gray of pre-dawn, and the base was quiet in the way that meant Mapic was still out cold. Spoke lay still for a moment, orienting himself, trying to remember why his bed felt weird.
Right. The cat. Who had taken up the center of the bed, which meant Spoke had spent the entire night on approximately a quarter of the mattress.
He turned toward the door.
Three figures were attempting to sneak out of the room with what they probably thought was stealth.
All three of them had almost made it to the door.
Spoke sat bolt upright.
All three of them froze.
In the doorway stood three humans.
Parrot, Wemmbu, and Flame stood in Spoke's doorway, in various states of dishevelment and caught-red-handed.
Spoke stared at them.
They stared back.
Flame had his blindfold on, his jaw tight. Wemmbu's eyes were sharp, his expression carefully neutral. Parrot had what appeared to be a feather stuck in his hair and was frozen with one foot raised like he'd been caught mid-step.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then Spoke's face did something complicated. His mouth twitched. His shoulders started shaking.
And then he lost it completely.
The laughter that came out of him was helpless and bright, his form flickering rapidly in and out of existence with the force of it. He phased in and out, in and out, the void bleeding through at every edge as he doubled over on the bed.
"Oh my god," he managed between gasps. "Oh my god—"
His form flickered harder, becoming almost translucent for a moment before snapping back. He pressed his hands over his face but it didn't help. The laughter kept coming, his whole body shaking with it.
Parrot's expression cycled through several emotions very quickly and landed somewhere between embarrassed and amused. Wemmbu's jaw was tight, his arms crossed, but there was a faint flush creeping up his neck. Flame had turned his face slightly away, his shoulders rigid.
Spoke flickered out of existence for a full second, reappearing on the other side of the bed, still laughing. "I can't—I can't breathe, bro—"
"Spoke," Parrot said, his voice strained with something between mortification and his own suppressed laughter.
"The bed—" Spoke managed, pointing at Wemmbu while flickering rapidly. "You—the entire—"
Wemmbu's expression went very flat. "Are you done?"
"No," Spoke wheezed, his form phasing in and out so fast he was almost strobing. "No, not even close, dude."
He flickered again, reappearing near the nightstand, gripping it for support. His laughter had reached the point where it was mostly just wheezing sounds and his form was struggling to maintain coherency.
Parrot was definitely fighting a smile now. Wemmbu looked like he was planning murder. Flame was doing an excellent impression of someone who desperately wished to be anywhere else.
"Spoke," Parrot tried again, but his voice was shaking with barely suppressed laughter.
"I'm good," Spoke said, flickering one more time, his form finally stabilizing enough to stay mostly solid. "I'm—" He looked at the three of them again and started laughing harder. "Okay, no, I'm not good."
"We're leaving," Wemmbu said flatly.
"Wait, wait," Spoke managed, wiping his eyes. His form gave one more flicker. "Just—okay. Okay. You can go."
He straightened up, trying very hard to compose himself. Failed. Gave up.
"Just—" He gestured vaguely at them, his grin enormous. "Go. Before I—" Another flicker. "Before I completely lose it again."
Parrot was the first to move, stepping into the hallway with as much dignity as he could manage. "Thanks for, uh. Not leaving us there."
"Anytime, bro," Spoke said, still grinning so hard his face hurt.
Wemmbu swept past without a word, his expression tight. As he passed, Spoke caught the faintest hint of embarrassment in those eyes.
Flame was last. He paused at the doorway, his blindfold turned toward Spoke.
"We good, bro?" he asked, his voice low.
"We're good," Spoke said, and meant it. Then, because he couldn't help himself: "The puppy dog eyes really worked, man."
Flame's expression went carefully blank. "...Right."
He left without another word.
Spoke stood in his bedroom, his form still flickering at the edges with residual amusement, listening to the sounds of three people moving through his base with urgent efficiency.
Spoke sat back down on his bed.
Mapic appeared in the doorway approximately ten seconds later, looking extremely awake for someone who'd allegedly been asleep.
"So," Mapic said, leaning against the doorframe.
"So," Spoke agreed.
"That was them."
"That was them."
"Flame. Wemmbu. Parrot."
"Yep."
They looked at each other.
And then they both lost it, Mapic's border collie ears dropping as he laughed, Spoke flickering in and out of existence so rapidly he was barely visible. The laughter filled the early morning quiet of their base, bright and helpless and completely genuine.
Outside, the sun was coming up over the server.
Spoke phased out of existence one more time, reappearing on the floor next to Mapic, both of them still laughing.
He had things to do.
But first, he was going to enjoy this for at least another ten minutes.