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“Oxeye daisies.” Reina held the gentle flower between her fingers. “That’s what you used to help me.”
Zoe sat across from her in that fated field, cross-legged but a little lopsided, as if her legs were ready to move at any given moment to jump around and explore and have that beautiful smile on her face. She was twirling a daisy between her palms, nodding tenderly.
“Yeah,” Zoe peered at it, thinking. She looked up and gave Reina that patient smile she always offered when Reina was on edge. Which was all of the time. Reina wondered if part of her was doing it just to see Zoe smile at her. For her.
Zoe ruffled a patch of daisies with her other hand as if she was playing with them. “They’re nutritional and beautiful. Thank you, little flowers!”
Zoe suddenly reached over and slid the stem of her daisy between two strands of Reina’s black hair. Reina touched it gently, like it would wilt with any more than a light brush. It was a sacred flower now. Too bad it was so horribly delicate.
Reina sat like Zoe did—like she could get up at any moment. But she wasn’t like Zoe, who did it to explore and chase after her curiosities. Reina did it to run from other players. From the people who wanted to kill her, to steal what little food she had. From the people before Zoe. The people who had left her to die. This time she didn’t run. She curled her leg in, sitting herself firmly in the field.
Zoe looked at her and tilted her head slightly, that look she got when she was noticing things and trying to pick it apart. Reina knew so much about her mannerisms, spending hours watching her and wishing she could be more like her. Maybe Zoe would like her better if she smiled like the sun just like Zoe did, and if she loved the world as much as she did.
Reina was just poor, boring old Reina. The Reina who jumped at every corner and shied away and met her bubbly attitude with cold, closed walls. How she even thought that Reina was anything more than just a starving New player was beyond her. She might have been the only person left in the server who would save someone as hopeless as Reina.
That was why Reina clung to her. Zoe was so perfect and she never wanted to let go.
“Have I ever told you,” Zoe asked, snapping Reina back to her senses, “that you remind me of irises?”
“Irises? Like the part of the eye?” Reina asked, fiddling with her scarf.
“No, they’re a kind of flower. They’re blue and purple and so pretty. Like your scarf. And you.” Zoe looked away slightly in embarrassment, but she was grinning all silly.
“Wow,” Reina said, leaning back. “Maybe I need to learn more about flowers. For what it’s worth, you remind me of a daisy.”
“Wouldn’t that be biased?” Zoe met her eyes again, putting a hand over her mouth to cover her laugh. “That’s, like, the only flower you know.”
“I know roses,” Reina protested. “And I’ve seen a lily of the valley before. But you’re not a flower with thorns, and your name’s not Lily so it wouldn’t make sense.”
Zoe laughed again, full on, throwing her head forward and running her hand through her hair. “You know what? I appreciate it. Thank you. I’ll teach you about flowers sometime, how about that? We’ll do it at home with my botany book.”
“Home,” Reina echoed, looking behind her towards Skymore, where just the tips of the tallest houses were peeking from the hills. She didn’t ever think she’d have a chance to call it home—or a chance to call anyplace home. Reina snuck a look at Zoe.
Come to think of it, she had never had the chance to call anyone home. But she knew deep down that Zoe was her home.
“There sure are a lot of flowers here. I want to know all about them.” She finally said, putting her own daisy down and ruffling her fingers through a patch of soft, white flowers she couldn’t quite name.
“Right?” Zoe said learning forward excitedly. “Just a day in and it’s already beautiful. I knew this would be a good idea. I knew bringing you along would be a good idea.”
“Thank you,” Reina murmured, looking away to hide the smile that crossed her face.
Zoe turned Reina’s head back to see her smile. “Don’t hide that smile of yours. I think it’s cute.”
Reina nearly threw Zoe off her, turning around and flopping into the grass face-first to disguise the stomach-flipping feeling that was certainly showing in her face. She heard Zoe giggle and lay down next to her, and when Reina eventually turned to her right, Zoe was there, laying on her back, looking at her with the most whimsical expression she’d ever seen on a player’s face. Reina buried her face in her scarf.
“Don’t be so embarrassed!” Zoe laughed as laughed. “It’s true! You should smile more!”
“Oh, Zoe,” Reina sighed. “You have no idea what you’ve done to me.”
-
“Reina? Reina,” there came that grating voice again, and Reina was torn out of her daydream. “Hey, Reina, are you AFK? Reeeeinaaaaa. Earth to Reina! ReinaDrop! Rainnndroopppp!”
“What do you want, Theobald?”
She was stationed on the edge of camp, their soldiers sleeping inside, their commanders planning for the next battle restlessly. A quiet creek trickled in front of their little cluster of green tents, snuggled into the mouth of a cave. In one hand, Reina held a netherite spear, in the other, Zoe’s book. A certain commander was deciding to bother her vigil, and it just had to be the most annoying one.
“Well, you’re sour,” Theo (which she would refuse to call to his face because she deserved to annoy him, too) put his hands on his hips, sniffling theatrically. “Anyway, it’s time to swap positions. Go sleep or something.”
“I can’t,” Reina said. “I’ll keep up with it.”
Theo looked at her with a face hidden behind his sunglasses, like he was trying to pry her cold face apart. “It’s like you don’t like me.”
“I don’t,” she said bluntly, and Theo laughed, as if he thought it was all just a joke.
“Ha-ha. Whatever. I guess if you’re going to stay here, you might as well get company. How about a bodyguard hangout? Eh? We’ve got something in common.” Theo positioned himself right next to her, pulling out a spear of his own and leaning his head far into her personal space.
“We aren’t anything alike,” Reina told him, taking her hand and shoving his head back without breaking her intense stare at the hills ahead, past the creek. “You’re an annoying wreck.”
“And you’re an uptight jerk, so what’s the difference?” Theo asked, rubbing his neck and giving her a goofy grin. “Man, you and Parrot both. Sent from the heavens above just to annoy me.”
“Parrot annoys you?” She made somewhat of a snorting noise, but made sure to keep her mouth flat. Theo would forever hold it above her head if she let herself laugh at how stupid he could be. Theo gave her an incredulous look.
“Have you met him? Parrot’s the biggest idiot you’ll ever meet! I always have to go along with his stupid plans!”
“You could just leave?” Reina looked over at him with a scrutinizing look. Whatever got him ending the conversation faster.
“It’s so much more than just that,” Theo said, to Reina’s surprise. “He’s still my best friend. I owe everything to him. I’d follow him to the ends of the earth if he wanted me to. I think part of him being my best friend also means I have to criticize him so that he doesn’t get it into his head that he’s the biggest bird. Because we all know who that is.”
“I think it’s that one, that’s the biggest bird,” Reina said, pointing to a heron that was flying overhead the creek to the south. Theo paused, watching it with a dumbfounded expression, and then barked, “Wait, HEY! I hate you! You’re so annoying and snarky just like Parrot!”
Reina watched him, watched the way he talked about Parrot. She could tell he was dedicated to Parrot the way she had been dedicated to Zoe (though she hoped that she and Zoe had been a little bit more than just friends).
“It’s in our nature to make you mad,” Reina shrugged, her armor rattling. “It’s really easy and it’s funny when you start yapping trying to defend yourself.”
When she looked away to sweep the environment, she came back to Theo looking strangely gleeful at that.
“You think I’m funny,” he said wistfully, nearly dropping his spear.
“That’s not what I said.” Reina looked at him with her eyes scrunched up in confusion. “It’s funny to make fun of you. I don’t think you’re funny. I think you’re stupid.”
“A win is a win, Reina!” Theo threw his wings up. “We’re fighting a literal war right now, so you should know that better than anyone.”
Reina grumbled and hunched her shoulders up, shifting back into focus.
Theo kept his eyes on her for just too long. “You still kept that book?” He asked. “The one from your friend?”
Reina’s eyes shifted down to the leather book in her hands, shifting her thumb over the grooves. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“It was her last message to me. I was supposed to find it, find her.” Reina looked away, anywhere but Theo and the book. “This is really all I have left of her.”
She’d lost that daisy in her hair when Cindercrest had burned down Skymore. Zoe had walked out somewhere far away and died before anyone could find her, and all she had left was that book and Reina’s memory of her. All Reina had left was the memory of a thousand players like her whose story would never be able to be told by anyone else.
“Oh,” Theo said slowly, as if he was walking on eggshells around her. “I forgot about that part. You know, it’s pretty sick that you survived.”
“It should have been Zoe.”
She meant it. If Zoe was there, in her position, she wouldn’t be the wreck that Reina didn’t want to admit she was. Zoe would find a way to make everyone like her and end the war and move on with her life. Maybe she’d miss Reina. Maybe Reina would forever just be the girl she met at spawn who unfortunately died. But either way, Zoe would learn to let go.
Reina would never let herself let go, no matter how much she wanted to. Now she stood, too on edge, too closed off, just at arm’s length, just waiting for the chance to plunge her spear somewhere into Billy and kill him, and then leave, and never come back. Zoe had been her life, her purpose to keep going. She was just living long enough to see Zoe rest peacefully.
Theo went quiet for a long time at that, nervously looking out and twirling his spear.
“Saps and Billy’ll be dead by the end of this. I promise,” Theo said. “Then you can go and avenge her and log off or whatever it is you told Parrot you wanted to do.”
“That’s the plan,” Reina said, and looked ahead.
She didn’t want to live in a world where there was no Zoe and where Reina was alone. Without Zoe, nobody truly loved her.
Theo gave her one last, scanning look, and said, “you know, you could be our friend. There’s so much to do on this server, there’s places to go—“
“Builds to see, people to meet,” Reina cut him off, reciting what she had heard before. “It’s what you all say. I don’t really see a point. I wanted to have fun with Zoe.”
Theo gave her another one of his looks. “We’ve all lost people on Unstable. I guess if you change your mind—maybe we could be friends. That is, if you promise to not gang up on me with Parrot. Then I might say no.”
Reina looked at him for a long moment—how hopeful he looked. He seemed so sure it would sway her.
Just to get him off her back, she said, “I’ll think about it. Let’s win this war first.”
-
Unlike Theo, there was something about the great King Parrot that made him seem more like Reina than anyone else. Even if Parrot was nothing like her, the way he wanted to help everyone just like Zoe. It was a fruitless effort considering all the hardship of the server, the hardship that had been thrown on his shoulders when he’d become king. Parrot never seemed to mind. He always said it was all worth it in the end, because then the server would be better for everyone.
Of those tens of thousands of players he’d sworn to help, he’d taken a particular interest in Reina. Maybe it had been her situation, being the only survivor of a massacred city, having previously been starving and hungry and resourceless, the poster child of the people he wanted to help. Maybe it was because he felt that familiar feeling, too.
Parrot was so much like Zoe it hurt. So generous, too generous for their own goods. So willing to give up their lives as if it was just another gift, another good deed like any other. If not for Theo and Reina being his bodyguards, Parrot would have died at every turn in every battle.
“Have I ever told you why I do what I do?” Parrot asked one day as they paddled down King’s river, Parrot at the oars and Reina tucked safely behind, heading straight for their next battle. Theo paddled in his own boat beside them, looking away as if he was trying not to listen. Reina shook her head, and Parrot looked back at where he was rowing. “Why I keep trying to save the server?”
“No, you haven’t,” Reina said.
“I’ve been on this server longer than anyone here. Longer than Theo, longer than Fymada, longer than Billy and Saps.” Parrot said, lifting his head to watch the stars above them. “I’ve seen just about everything. People dying, leaders assuming power, empires rising and falling, builds built and destroyed. You know. You’ve heard about it all.”
Somehow, Reina wondered if it would be interesting to see it, too. She brushed that out of her head; she could do that on any other server. Maybe she’d see Zoe again on one of them and not have to care about starving. Nothing about Parrot and Theo was going to convince her to stay in Unstable.
Parrot paused. “I’ve seen people so selfish that they destroy themselves over it. The point is, everything bad happens when there’s not a balance in power. When the people in charge just want to be the last and biggest and the best and they leave nothing for anyone else. I don’t want to be that. I don’t want to see that ever again.”
“Why are you telling me this?” If it was supposed to move Reina, she wasn’t impressed. That wasn’t what she was fighting for. They all knew she just wanted Cindercrest gone.
“Cindercrest does it too. Too much power and too much hogging and not giving me enough time to fix everything,” Parrot said in slight annoyance. “I want you to know that I really do mean this whole thing is genuine. I want to defeat Cindercrest so nobody has to go through what you did anymore. I care about it as much as you do, and I want you to know we care about you. And we want you to stay on this server.”
“I know,” Reina said. “I don’t think you would be fighting this war otherwise.”
Parrot gave her a small smile, one that made Reina look away.
It only reminded her of Zoe.
Zoe, who had broken down her walls and made her feel loved and cared for.
Zoe, who had left her an entire trail across the entire server for Reina to find.
Zoe, who had died hoping Reina would find her.
Parrot, who had taken her along like she was one of them.
Parrot, who was so painfully selfless.
Parrot, who Reina could feel had lost someone too.
But Parrot was never going to be Zoe.
“Please stay,” Theo added.
“See?” Parrot said, gesturing to Theo. “Even he wants you to stay. That’s something new, even for Theo.”
“Congratulations,” Reina said sarcastically, leaning against the back of the boat and looking up towards the sky, the back of her hair fluttering out of the boat and dragging in the water behind her. Theo came up behind her and playfully stuck an oar in her hair, stirring it around like soup. Reina flipped over and smacked him in the face.
“Actually,” Parrot snorted as he watched the whole thing happen. “Theo, you ruined it. Go paddle behind the fleet.”
“Yes, your majesty,” Theo drawled, stuck out his tongue rebelliously, and let the boats behind them circle in front.
“That’s treason. You should hang him for it,” Reina suggested, peering through the crowd with the spyglass that Parrot had gifted her and locking eyes with Theo, who looked away and defiantly held his stance.
“I’ll consider it,” Parrot huffed. Reina let out a giggle, and though he was trying to hide it, Reina could see the way his eyes lit up when she did. He really did care about her; he really did want her to live. Which she did find a little strange, because even though he wanted to help everyone, he seemed to really be set on making her live. Somehow, it made her feel a little better. If she really did stay, there really were going to be people for her.
Parrot was never going to be her Zoe, and maybe Parrot didn’t have to be a replacement for her. Maybe Reina wasn’t a replacement for whoever Parrot had lost. Reina could just be Reina and Parrot could just be Parrot and Zoe could just be Zoe.
“Like I said,” Parrot continued. “I promise there’s stuff out there for you after this war. You can come with Theo and I after we win–which I promise we will–and we can explore and show you what this place has to offer.”
He leaned back and looked at her searchingly, as if she was supposed to make a decision right there and then. “It’s more than you think.”
Reina’s blurry reflection passed over ripples and waves as she contemplated. She looked back up and tilted her head, catching sight of a field of daisies on a rolling hill above.
Was that what Zoe would have wanted her to do? Stay with Parrot, stay with Theo, stay alive? Reina closed her eyes, thinking hard. Zoe really had told her never to mention logging off ever again. That Reina deserved to play no matter what people said. She guessed that applied to her even after Zoe was gone. She would have looked at her in horror if she knew what Reina was up to. Would she even want Saps and Billy dead like Reina did?
She opened her eyes and looked into Parrot’s, at the crown set upon his head, at the fleet of soldiers around them, at the stacked equipment with her, at all of the food she had. Maybe two weeks ago she had been starving at spawn.
“I’ll consider it, too.”