Chapter Text
There are rules, of course. The rules are very simple, but this land is full of people who will come charging in without reading the signs. Every so often someone stumbles across Friendship Town- a warrior clad in full armour, looking for loot, or if they can't get loot, a fight, or if they can't get a fight, at least something to blow up and leave smouldering behind them. They kick in doors one by one, growing more and more frustrated by the contents therein. What use do they have for a chest full of flowers or a tropical fish swimming round and round its bowl? Where are the damn valuables? Then, just as their boot is raised to break down the last door, they lose their balance as it opens on its own. Looking up at him from the mud, the founder of Friendship town is an imposing figure. He wears no armour and his expression is unreadable behind his wire-rimmed glasses. Sitting by his side is an enormous polar bear, licking its paws. With one hand, he scratches its ears. With the other, he reaches out to help the traveller up. This is usually where warriors turn and run, dropping the items they stole in their haste to leave.
The founder of friendship town watches them go, tucking a stray curl behind his ear and stooping to pick up the debris. These days, his back hurts when he bends down. Untidiness is the enemy of peace, however, and he can't sleep without knowing that everything is in its place. He turns to his polar bear and it turns to him in return, its ears perking up as though to listen.
"There goes another one," the founder says, to the polar bear or just to himself. "Why are they always in a rush to leave? Do they not like the decor?"
The polar bear goes back to licking its paw.
The founder, whose hunting grounds are remote and whose reputation precedes him, spends his days unbothered by the unending wars and petty squabbles of the world. While the inhabitants of the surrounding camps drop anvils on each other, he heads down to the caves to look for glowberries or copper or another axolotl for his pond. There are zombies and skeletons, obviously, but they don't give him too much trouble. Who can withstand the magic of friendship? Nobody has ever pointed out the irony to him that the founder of friendship town is the loneliest man in the world. How could they? Polar bears can't speak.
Today he's collecting wood for another house. He wants to try out a different kind of roof, something a bit daring and asymmetrical, mostly in the hopes that it will finally attract somebody to want to stay in the town. His axe swings through the air and hits the trunk of an oak. Swish, thunk. Swish, thunk. It's lulling him into a sort of meditative state: the rhythm of the axe, the sunlight glinting through the trees, the pleasant ache in his muscles that comes from doing labour. He loads another stack of logs into his inventory and begins the long walk home. On the way, he's distracted by all kinds of things- a wolf (he tries to tame it and gets a bite on the hand in return for his trouble), a sweetberry bush (it pricks him when he reaches down to take its fruit) a cave entrance in the ground (he makes a mental note of its location to explore another day) and a ruined portal by the shore. The sun is almost setting, but he takes a few minutes to crack open the rusted chest that rests at its foot, careful to avoid the surrounding magma. From the chest he pulls a flint and steel, a fire charge and a golden helmet. It fits perfectly. Something rustles in the bushes: a fox or the wind or a memory. He takes off the helmet and, after holding it in his hands for a minute, looking for- what? A crack? A reflection? Some kind of hint as to who it once belonged to? He gently places it back in the chest. There's no need for armour in friendship town. The only rules are a) you have to be a friend and b) you have to be in the town. His footsteps wear down the grass beneath him, creating a path where once was none, and, when the daisies spring back up behind him, there never will be again.
A vacation, maybe. He could go to a taiga village, if there's such a thing as villages left in this torn up land. They've all been looted, probably, their golems killed, their inhabitants shipped off in boats. How far away from spawn would he have to travel to find an untouched structure or an unturned stone? Still, he's heard rumours of mushroom islands and ferns the size of old growth trees. Unlocking the door to his home, he unties his hair and trades his jacket for an apron. Thoughts of leaving return to him whenever his hands feel particularly sore, which is more often than they used to. The furthest he's gotten is putting some apples and a bed in his inventory, then taking them back out again. If he leaves, who will look after the animals? They can't follow him. They wouldn't want to. He kneads dough and leaves it in the cupboard to rise, pulling out the remainder of the loaf he baked yesterday and slathering it with sweetberry jam. Outside his window, the last sliver of the sun finally dips below the horizon line, replaced by a ripe round moon. The polar bear yawns, and the founder yawns with it. Bedtime then.
***
"How do you get to Friendship Town,
To Friendship Town,
To Friendship Town?
Wait for a bell and follow the sound,
That's how you get to Friendship Town"
That's how the skipping rhyme goes. It's been around forever, just sprung up one morning along with the dew on the grassblades. The dubious rhyming scheme and wonky phrasing suggests that it was once a different song entirely until somebody changed the words to make it their own. Now it's the soundtrack to shrieking children and scraped knees. Those who sing it don't even know that Friendship Town is a real place. Why would it be? It sounds like something out of a fairy story, one with a condescending moral at the end about how you should always be good to your parents. It's the kind of tune that enters your head and sticks there for life, so that you'll find yourself humming it in a moment of distraction, then wondering where it's from.
It takes a little more than aimless wandering to find yourself in friendship town. It's not on any maps, and if it is, they're drawn in crayon and incomprehensible to any eyes other than those of the child who drew them. The paths to it are overgrown and the signs that point there have long since rotted away. It does have one thing, though. A bell at the very centre, chiming every so often when the wind hits it in the right place. Some people hear it in their dreams, then wake up to find themselves standing by the window, looking out towards the north, no clue of how they got there. Of the few who hear it, even fewer heed its call.
This is a story about Jumper, known commonly as "Jumper who?" when her name comes up in conversation. The answer to that question is complex and ever-changing, but for now we'll say it refers to the young woman standing on the founder of Friendship Town's doorstep, hand shaking as she's poised to knock. She's travelled a long way to be here, she reminds herself, so she can't chicken out now, no matter how terrifying the founder is said to be. No matter if he eats babies, which he probably does. Who else would live all the way out here in this abandoned town surrounded by deep caves and creeper craters? Although, it's a little too tidy to really be called abandoned. There are no cobwebs in any of the houses, and the animals in the field look brushed and well-fed. In a way, that makes it all the spookier. Who builds a town for nobody?
Then, the door swings open and Jumper finds out.
Jumper and the founder stand appraising each other, the founder through his broken glasses and Jumper through her rose tinted goggles. I'll let Jumper go first. Here are her thoughts.
- Wait, this guy is tiny!
- How does he eat babies if he's tiny?
- Oh fuck. He can probably unhinge his jaw.
- I'm not babies, so I'm safe, right?
- Right????
Meanwhile, the founder is thinking exactly one thing:
- OMG, a new friend!
Wait, actually two things.
- I'm almost out of sweetberry jam. Gotta get on that.
Out loud, he says:
"Welcome to friendship town! There are only two rules. One, you have to be a friend. Two, you have to be in the jam. I mean the town. You have to be in the town. Frick."
Jumper just kind of stares at him.
"You're not here to steal my stuff, right?" asks the founder, suddenly suspicious. "It's okay if you are, but, like, you legally have to let me know, I think."
Jumper slowly and mechanically shakes her head. The founder's face breaks out into a beam again.
"Excellent! Come on in, then. I was just about to take the mayor for a walk, but that can wait."
The what? For a what? Still, though, Jumper is brave. She follows him in.
Inside, the house is terribly cosy for a serial killer's lair. That's probably how he gets people, though. It's built of good, solid wood (spruce?) and it's full of all the touches that make a house a home. Candles, paintings (did he make them himself?), comfortable red carpet, potted plants and flowers, even a jukebox in the corner. The sound of wind rustling through the trees and axolotls gently chirping makes its way inside.
"You have a lovely home," says Jumper, because she was raised to be polite, even to murderers, but also because she genuinely means it.
"Thank you," says the founder, and, oh shit, is he going to cry? Is she responsible for the emotions of this random old man now? But he blinks away the tears and busies himself with pulling items out of barrels seemingly at random. Half of them fall on his head.
"Sorry- ow! I'm just looking for- ouch! Where did I put- yowie! No, I'm stupid, it has to be here somewhere. Just give me a minu- yowza! Oh, here it is. My nice crockery!"
His 'nice crockery' is a crudely sculpted clay bowl, emblazoned with a wonky daisy. He catches Jumper staring.
"My niece made it!" he explains. "Isn't she talented?"
"So talented," says Jumper, flatly. "Look, I can't stay long, I just came to ask-"
"It's perfectly alright," interrupts the founder, pulling bread, jam, milk and sugar out of his infinite cupboards. "Perfectly, perfectly alright. You're not imposing on me at all."
"That's good to hear," says Jumper, "but I really have to ask my question and then be on my way before the sun sets. I need to get to the next town, you see, and there's zombies about, zombies everywhere, and they bite people. That's what they do."
"If it's night you're worried about, there are plenty of beds in Friendship Town," says the founder, handing her a bowl of suspicious-looking stew and a steaming mug of tea.
"Oh, no, I couldn't possibly-"
"I think you'll have to," says the founder, his tone suddenly firm. "Look out the window."
Jumper looks. He's right. The sun is already almost gone. She slumps down in her chair.
"Hey, hey, no, it's okay," says the founder, fidgeting with a tea towel. "It's not that bad here, is it? And you can be on your way first thing tomorrow. I won't keep you."
He takes a long drink of his stew, then makes a face.
"I'm not much of a cook, I'm afraid. I don't get a lot of guests."
Jumper drinks hers, too, then makes the same face. Not poisoned, just bitter. Still, though, it's the most nourishing meal she's had all day, so she finishes it quickly and then waits for seconds. The founder pours more into her bowl without being asked, then refills his own. She gets the impression he's trying not to look too eager. It's not working. His smile keeps slipping out.
"You said you had, um, a question for me?" he asks, staring down into his soup like he's trying to read something in it.
"Right. Yeah, I do," says Jumper. She tries to breathe deeply, calming her heartbeat back down to resting pace. It doesn't work. Her whole future relies on the answer to this question. "Um, do you have any information about, uh, the great wizard Couriway? I heard that you might."
I heard you killed her, is what she doesn't say, but it hangs in the air between them anyway, refusing to dissipate.
The founder stills.
"Information?" he asks. "What kind of information? And for what purpose?"
What are you willing to pay for it? is surely where this conversation is leading. Everything, Jumper readies herself to say. Everything.
"I wanted to speak to her. I thought she could help me," says Jumper.
"Help you with what, exactly?" asks the founder.
"I need to kill a dragon."
There it is. The truth of the matter. The founder lets out a sudden, harsh laugh, the kind without any humour.
"You're out of luck. She doesn't do that anymore," he says.
"Well, I'd like to hear that from her myself."
"You have," says the founder. "She's me. Do you want bread to go with your soup? I was so excited to have a guest that I forgot to offer it."
Oh my god. Maybe I'm a bad person, Jumper reflects. She never considered that the wizard could be- well, that's okay, right? That's beautiful, even. It's so beautiful to see people embracing their true selves. Nobody ever mentioned it, though. Why would they? It's not like it changes anything. Love is love, and all that. She should be supportive.
"I'm so sorry, miss Couriway, ma'am." Jumper begins. "I didn't realise that, um… I didn't realise."
Shut the fuck up, Jumper! Says a voice in her head. Good advice, voice. I should listen to you more often.
The great wizard Couriway grimaces. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Mr. Couriway, if you must," she- they- he? says. "Just Couri is fine, though. I'm nothing special."
Oh. Ohhhhh. Oh, she's so stupid.
"I guess that's why nobody could ever find you," Jumper says, brain-mouth filter temporarily broken.
"I guess it is," replies Couri.
At least it's better than "I guess that's why you're so goddamn short," which is what he usually gets.
"They all think you, like, killed her, you know."
"I guess I did," says Couri, clearing up the empty bowls to dump them in the sink. "Is that a bad thing?"
"It's not. It's not."
It's not, right? What is she supposed to say?! The night ticks onward, punctuated by the clanking of skeletons outside. An arrow sails past the window. Couri doesn't even flinch, just keeps scrubbing dishes. As expected of the fucking dragon warrior. Jumper assumes the conversation's over until he speaks again, almost too quiet for her to hear.
"I still can't help you, though," he says. "I'm serious."
"Why not?"
"I told you, I don't do that anymore. I'm the founder of Friendship Town now. I need to stay here and keep things in order."
"Nobody lives here!" Jumper says, trying to keep herself from shouting. Quiet words, echoes the voice of her mother in her head. Gentle hands. Listening ears.
"I live here," says Couri.
"Just you. Alone."
He doesn't reply to that. Outside in the night, a skeleton falls, shot by one of its own kind. Zombies descend on the corpse, then, finding no meat, shamble away. A wolf howls in the distance. The smell of smoke drifts through the open window. Over the hill, something is burning. Something is always burning.
"Sorry," says Jumper, laying her head on the table. "Sorry."
"It's okay," says Couri, not looking at her.
It takes a long time for him to finish the dishes. He's so gentle with each of them, like he'll never get one back if it breaks. Did those same hands really shoot the bow that killed eight thousand dragons? Who the hell is this guy, and why is he being so nice to her? Finally, Jumper can't take it anymore. She stands up, retrieves a dish towel and joins him at the sink. Silently, he passes her a plate. She dries it.
"You can stay in the house next door," he says, still looking down into the sink. She's getting the feeling he doesn't like eye contact. "It's, um, it's my friend's house, but you can use it until he gets back. He won't mind."
A friend. Does he have those? Is it another dragon slayer? If so, she should stay here and wait for this supposed friend to return. He might be more willing to teach her than Couriway.
"When's he coming back?" she asks, her tone forced-casual.
"Any day now," says Couri, in a tone that invites no further questioning. "Any day."
Good. The house next door is smaller than Couri's, likely because it doesn't have to fit a polar bear inside. It's clean, too clean, maybe, and the floorboards are suspiciously shiny. If she didn't know any better, she'd say nobody has ever lived here, nobody at all. However, there are fresh flowers in a vase, and there's a jacket hanging in the closet, the fabric half pink, half blue. Too big for Couriway and certainly not his style. She's only met the man once, but she gets the impression he's always dressed like a gay, aging professor. The bedspread is also pink and blue. What kind of person lives here, and why are their tastes so gaudy? Wondering this, she drifts off to sleep.