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Doc leaned against the tree on the edge of the shopping district and cast his eyes out across the fields. The scattered copper golem statues covered the hills, themselves covered in cherry blossom petals. They dotted the landscape like sprouts, all frozen from air seeping into unwaxed joints.
“You,” he sighed, “are a magnet for trouble, Scar. So much so that I can’t even do anything, because you are always dealing with someone else! I thought you had cleaned up Xisuma’s prank already.”
“I did!” Scar protested, tapping his cane for emphasis. “I cleaned up all the little guys on the ground, and even the ones that Grian had put into that cube around ol’ Rusty.” At Doc’s gesture towards the loose golems, Scar coughed. “Those aren’t Xisuma’s, they’re a side effect of my own plans.”
Doc’s good eyebrow raised. “A side effect?”
“Yeah! So, since Xisuma thought it’d be funny to leave so many golems at my base, and it was, I thought the funniest thing to do with all of them was to double it and pass it on to someone else! I’ve been making a bunch of copper golems and letting them oxi-freeze while I’m working on other stuff. But the little hidey-hole I put them in kept overflowing whenever I’d try to show anyone, and I guess one of the times I broke it never got fixed properly. So while I was doing my terraforming on the cliffs, they were sneaking out all over.” Scar shook his head. “I tell ya, Doc, half the time I try to plan a prank, feels like I’m just pranking myself!”
A soft huff from Doc. “Of course, that does not stop you doing it, does it.” Not a question–they both knew the answer.
Scar answered anyway with a laugh. “Oh, c’mon, Doc, you know we’d both get bored if I started behaving all the time!”
Instead of answering that (because they both know Scar’s right), Doc let his eyes move back to the cliffs. They are, as usual, a masterwork of terraforming; the way the palette darkens under the arching bridge, the moss hanging lower where the waterfall breaks through, and–
Doc squinted. “Are those…walls?”
Scar squinted next to him, searching for the spot he’s looking at. “Where are you–oh, yes!” He pointed at the tiled walls poking out of the mud. “I went back and forth on them for ages, but they helped break up the solid block-iness of it all, and tiled deepslate was the closest match I could find to the mud. Think it looks like little bits of light or pebbles in the dark rock. You like ‘em?”
“I do,” Doc hummed, his mind already running through options. “I may, eh, borrow some of them for my ice rocks, to make them look more spiky. I had not thought of them spiking downwards.”
“Oh, yeah, I can see that.” Scar’s eyes flicked upwards, reflecting some of the same visions running through Doc’s mind. “Maybe put a few of them in front of your glowy cracks, so they’re less regular?” Those eyes shifted over to meet Doc’s, and his grin widened. “You do have nice cracks! I’ve been paying a visit every now and then, seeing what’s up.”
Doc’s tone went dry. “Yes, I know. I have to check every time there hasn’t been a repeat of the incident at my iron farm.”
“It was an accident! We just wanted to move the zombie, not kill it–and it was Skizz’s fault for placing the blocks where the golem could spawn!”
“Skizz has received his just reward,” Doc returned evenly. “And I am not so easily fooled into believing your lack of involvement, Scar. If anyone starts to think I am going soft on you…”
Scar held up his hands in surrender. “All right, all right, I’ll be even more careful, I promise! Staying away from your doodads and your hickeymabobbers.”
A moment, and Doc’s voice betrayed the mirth underneath. “And my cracks?”
A peace offering.
The laugh barreled out of Scar, and he leaned into Doc’s side, smiling as the metal arm wrapped around him almost instinctively. “No promises there, Doc. I love your cracks too much.”