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Tommy carefully layered the sand on top of the original base, taking great care to not let the sand separate and go back to the original shape. He took a little toothpick and gently carved all of the minor details in with the sharp end of it.
He made two great turrets and a sweeping moat, already coming up with battle plans that those inside the castle could use to defend against intruders.
“Tommy, what are you doing?” A voice asked exasperatedly.
Tommy looked up at his best friend, his partner in crime, his brother in all but blood. And smiled.
He swung his arm up, uncaring that he was flicking sand everywhere but careful to make sure that none of it got in Tubbo’s eyes.
“Just making a sand castle.”
Tubbo glanced down at Tommy’s ‘sand castle’ where the blonde had made turrets, a moat, and was that a trebuchet?
“I get that you’re making a sandcastle, I mean, we’re on a beach, everybody makes sandcastles at the beach! But, Tommy, why do you have a working cannon made out of sand.”
Tommy huffed, pouting as if he was clueless as to why Tubbo didn’t get it. “What are they going to defend their castle with if they don’t have any weapons?”
Tubbo appeared to ponder Tommy’s impeccable logic for a second, then they finally got it.
“Oh yeah!”
They happily joined Tommy, though it appeared they hadn’t needed much convincing in the first place. Tubbo and Tommy were the clingy duo, two halves of a whole.
So of course they got each other with ease.
Not to mention, Tubbo was a capable builder, the only reason Tommy had been able to get that cannon to work in the first case was because he had overheard Tubbo one night. (They often shared a room back before they joined the Dream SMP, and during Pogtopia they may as well have been inseparable.)
Tommy had been trying to get the trebuchet to work but he had been largely unsuccessful before Tubbo joined.
Now they could implement everything.
______________
The SMP was slowly gathering at the beach, which had become overtaken by a single sandcastle. Even Technoblade had come to see what the commotion was about.
This was strange to the entire SMP, so they all just ignored him.
Even Quackity was too focused on the sight before him to start a fight with Techno, which the latter was relieved by, given that he didn’t want to have to deal with that today.
Because Tommy and Tubbo had essentially made an entire base of operations. The castle, because that was what it was, was big enough to fit all the people of the SMP comfortably. Phil would even be able to spread out his wings.
There were cannons, at least five, on every wall. And Techno had a strong hunch that they would actually work if one of them fired them.
The drawbridge made entirely of sand, Techno had checked, slowly lowered.
“Welcome to the big men sandcastle. I see that you would like a tour?”
“Uhh, yes, if that would be okay with you.” Phil said.
They all entered, an unspoken truce between all of them as they all entered the impossibility that the two teens had managed to create in a few hours.
“So here’s the sandnt. Be truly careful because it explodes when dropped,” Tubbo introduced.
Everybody was speechless, but instead of questioning the claim that it could explode. They just moved forward with the tour. (Actually somebody did test if some of their mechanics could work, they used the trebuchet and it created a literal crater in the ground, nobody decided to test anything after that)
They went to another room, where a tree stood, it waved its leaves proudly and stood tall. Grass swayed in the wind and the entire room looked alive. Or it would’ve looked alive if everything had not been made of, you guessed it, sand.
There was also no wind in the room.
How was the nonexistent wind, swaying the not-real grass, made entirely up of sand that shouldn’t have held any form? Nobody knew.
“Excuse me for asking but how the f-”
Whoever asked that received no answer as Tommy and Tubbo gleefully continued their tour, either unaware or ignoring them on purpose as the group tried to get them to explain themselves.
When they were done with the tour, Techno asked a question that had been plaguing him the entire time, something that he had wracked his mind for and still gained no answer.
“Sandnt?”
“Yeah, sand-tnt, Sandnt,” Tommy said, as if it should’ve been obvious.
Technoblade nodded. I get it.
Everybody else never got any of their answers.
____________
Tubbo had finished making all of their augmentations to the castle, and now they were bored. Tommy was also bored.
“What should we do now?”
Tommy looked up at the castle, and realised what had happened.
The castle, it is too much sand, too much power. We must prevent it from spreading.
The two nodded solemnly, too much power was never good.
With heavy hearts the carves images of dying souls into each block of sand and set it in the shape of an upside down T, Courtesy of Tommy. They then made a small wither skull out of sand and put it on top of the little sculpture.
The sandither came to life, and the two sang a song as big man sandcastle was slowly destroyed.
The rest of the SMP could only look on in confusion. And they never got the answers they were looking for because when all was said and done, Tommy and Tubbo never brought it up again.
And thus the story of the big man sandcastle remains just that, a story. For none in the SMP would ever admit that they came together for just one moment.
And perhaps that was the magic, for a period of time they had not fought, they had not suffered, there had been no explosions, it was just Tommy and Tubbo and a Sandcastle.