Chapter Text
Flame stands in the front of the room, hands clasped together. "Alright everyone. This will be where we honor her, ever since t-the void claimed her," the words looked hard to get out, nobody was taking this well.
Arch walks up to the makeshift gravestone and gently places her hand on the cardboard."We'll miss you, lover," she whispers, before stepping back while barely holding in a sob.
Khon sniffles and wipes their eyes. "I miss you so much, you were gone too soon. May the fae claim you again. Uh, unless that's bad, then may the fae never claim you,"
It's quiet as everyone takes in the loss of someone so special; however, that moment is quickly broken.
The camera centers on Mikey's face.
"Sooo.. who's gonna tell her family?" he asks awkwardly.
"A nuke," Flame says with a completely dead-pan tone, although her face is full of sorrow.
Mikey blinks. "You..you want to nuke her family?"
Behind them, Virgil quietly sets a vase and fresh bouquet of flowers on a pedestal near the makeshift grave, meticulously arranging them until they're to their liking.
Ell rolls their eyes. "No, mikey. We're just going to nuke near her family," they say it as if it's obvious, "the bomb will have 'Freya died. RIP' on it".
Flame looks away from mikey, now turned towards Ell, and furrows her brows. "What—no! We're going to nuke them with grief."
"I like my idea better," Ell grumbles under their breath.
(Cuts to a confessional of Ell with a book open next to them like they were in the middle of reading before the shot started. There's a bar on the side of the screen with text that says 'Ell' and right below it is 'potential pyromaniac' in smaller text.)
"Introduce myself? Don't they already know who I am? You guys have been filming us all day."
The camera-person coughs awkwardly, they never knew a 5ft 15 year old could be so intimidating. "Yeah but this could be going at the beginning of the episode so the audience might not have gotten a feel for you yet. It's really just a formality so…" They trail off.
Ell sighs. "Fine. I'm Ell and I'm 15, they/them pronouns," they pause, "Was that good enough?"
The person smiles and gives a thumbs up behind the camera. "Yeah, that was great! Okay so, moving onto the topic, in the first scene you're in you say that you want to," they check their notes with a furrowed brow, "uh, send a nuke to Freya's family?"
"Correction, near her family. Besides, it was a great idea and one that I'm taking zero criticism on. I'm sure Freya would've liked it if she were here!"
There's a gasp in the distance; it's impossible to tell who it's from but it's clearly a sound of horror and disgust.
Ell throws their hands up. "What? It's not like she's actually—"
(Cuts back to the camera pointed towards the 'grave')
Connie walks forward and places her own flowers next to Virgil's. "Rest in peace, Freya," she says with a soft smile before stepping back.
Crawl, on the other hand, was not taking it so gracefully.
The room that Freya's shrine, for lack of a better word, is held in is an unfinished room in the compound. The floors are more of a conceptual idea than a physical reality but Flame thought it fit in well with Freya's whole 'woodland spirit' vibe. That is to say, once everything calmed down, Crawl would regret this decision since her jeans are now covered in dirt.
Crawl drops to her knees in front of the 'grave'."I- I miss you so much!" his worlds are barely understandable through the sobs. "You would've loved planning Donald Trump's death." After that he goes right back to crying, but now with Ell standing next to her supportively, nodding in agreement.
The camera zooms in on a notepad in Ell's hand, most of the writing is blurry but it's able to make out "DT Dead In MineCraft" at the top of the page.
(The camera cuts to another confessional of Ell, it seems like it was filmed at the same time as the first one. This time, however, it says 'Master Crochet Champion' under their name)
The camera-person is more relaxed now and their voice is less hesitant. "Next, the notebook."
Ell stares past the camera into the person's eyes. "What notebook?" they ask with a slight edge.
"This one." They show Ell something off-screen.
Ell nods. "Oh, yeah. What's the big deal?"
"Anything you'd like to explain, or…"
"Sometimes certain actions need to be done to certain people. In Minecraft."
"Okay then, well uh, thanks for your time!"
Ell nods and goes back to their book.
(The camera cuts back to the previous scene right where it left off)
Arch is about to step forward to comfort Crawl when Smell comes barrelling in the room. "FREEEEYYYYYAAAA," she howls, skidding to a stop in front of the grave.
Caff, paying no mind to either of Smell and Crawl's crying, steps forward and pulls out a Kazoo. "Freya, we miss you so much," she chokes out, but takes a deep breath to pull herself together. "In honour of you, I play the kazoo."
(The camera cuts to a confessional of Arch. She's sitting at a wooden picnic table thats setup in front of a lake. The text on screen says 'Tim/Arch' and below, in smaller letters, it says 'Puget Sound's #1 Yearner'.)
"Wow, it's nice out here," the camera-person says.
"I mean, it's no Puget sound, but it'll do." Despite her words there's a fond smile on her face as she watches the sun slowly disappear behind the lake, as if it's going to take a nap under the water.
They nod understandingly despite not having a clue what she's talking about.
Arch snaps back into focus and sits up straighter. "Sorry. I heard you've been wanting us to introduce ourselves?"
"Yes, please, if you don't mind."
"Of course, no problem. My name is Tim, a few of them still call me Arch but the numbers are dwindling. Crawl is going strong but I've heard her call me Tim a few times too,"
"So…should I call you Tim?" They never thought a question like 'what's your name' could get such a confusing answer.
Arch sighs defeatedly, "Yeah, I've accepted the psyop at this point."
"The psyop?" they can already feel a headache coming on.
"It's like a-"
"You know what, I don't want to know. But before we move on, I think you forgot your pronouns."
"I didn't."
"Oh, my bad. What were they?"
"N/A"
"Like, your pronouns are the letters N and A…?"
"No."
"Ookay then, let's just skip right past that," they say before muttering, "I am not getting paid enough to unpack that landmine.." under their breath. "I wanted to ask about the Kazoo thing,"
Arch sighs, "I'm gonna be honest, I have no idea, I'm just as confused as you. Even from our perspective it was like she pulled it out of thin air. I swear she didn't even reach into a pocket or something," There's a slightly haunted look in her eye that to some, might seem concerning, but the people who know her well know that that's one of her default states. "Anyways, it was actually really good. I never thought a kazoo could be used to make actually good music but here we are,"
(The camera cuts back to the room, the same time as the previous scene but just a different angle)
Khon is sitting on one of the benches in the room, tracing an invisible pattern on the stone before sighing longingly. "I miss her everyday—and why am I hearing kazoo noises??" she looks around the room confused.
The camera-person speaks up, "Hasn't it only been a few hours—"
"Anyways," Khon cuts them off. "In honor of her we should all go touch grass! She loved doing that."
Smell glances up with a look of disgust, "Ok, let's not be rash."
Flame nods solemnly "Yeah, I agree with Smell. What if I get a rash?"
(The camera cuts, there's been a time jump and some of the people in the room have changed but it's clearly been no more than 30-40 minutes)
Khon walks up to Caff with a smile and shows her her phone. On the screen is a GIF of a boy holding up a kazoo and at the bottom is yellow text reading 'This is not an option, friend. If you do not kazoo this then we have a problem'. They're both giggling in the corner at Khon's phone when Smell's eyes snap up. "FREYA'S DEAD! FREYA'S DEAD AND YOU'RE LAUGHING," she cries out.
''I'M COPING!!" Khon shouts back.
Crunchy sighs and shakes its head. "Guys, it's been what, six hours?"
"SIX WHOLE HOURS!!" Khon sobs.
"What if we all take a biiig deep breath? Doesn't that sound fun?" Crunchy asks encouragingly.
"It feels like it's only been 30 minutes, like she was just here.." Khon whispers.
Crunchy nods sympathetically and rubs Khon's back. "Hey, it's gonna be okay. It's not like she's actually—"
(The camera quickly cuts to the next scene)
(It's much later in the day. The room is darker, the sun has gone down, and candles litter the room. Interestingly, some are taper and pillar candles—what you'd expect for a shrine/grave like this— but some are container candles that seem to be from a mix of stores like Yankee and Bath and Body works. It's quite a collection)
Crawl re-enters the room, many people had been coming as it's now a bit past dinner time.
"I just tried a new food for the time in forever and Freya isn't here to know!!" she exclaims as she drops back to the ground in front of the grave, ignoring the lesson she learned earlier about getting her jeans covered in dirt. He looks about half way to waving his fists in the air and demanding "them" to bring Freya back.
Khon pats Crawl's and tries to distract her, "What food did you try?"
"Umm, it has a weird name. Something like chicken ziti with broccoli in a pot. My grandma gave us the recipe, she said she got it from something called Test Kitchen America." Crawl pulls up a photo on her phone and shows Khon.
"Oo, congrats! I'm happy you like it."
"Thanks!" Crawl smiles back at Khon, the earlier breakdown quickly forgotten
(The camera cuts to Crawl laying across one of the couches. On the screen it says 'Crawl Berry' and under that, in smaller letters, it says 'pink fanatic')
Crawl looks up from her phone and smiles, quickly sitting up. "Nice! Is it finally my turn?"
The camera-person lets out an audible breath of relief, hopefully this one won't be as..interesting, as the last two. "Yep! Just state your name and pronouns for me."
"Cool. My name is Crawl Berry, everyone calls me Crawl, it's actually a pretty funny story, you know—"
The person behind the camera coughs.
"Right, sorry," he smiles sheepishly. "Anyways, my pronouns are She/He, that's actually a pretty new thing I'm trying out. I'm gender-fluid but She/he just covers all the bases so—"
(Cut to several minutes later)
"Thank you for all of that wonderful detail, Crawl," the person behind the camera says with a slightly strained voice.
"Yeah, no problem, anytime dude!"
They sigh but move on. "It seems like you've been taking Freya's absence pretty hard,"
He nods solemnly. "Yeah, It's definitely not easy. She's in a better place now though, finally re-united with Bruce,"
"I suppose there's always a bright side when you try to find it," they laugh softly.
Crawl's expression becomes serious, "This is no laughing matter. What is wrong with you??"
"Huh?? I just—I thought we were—"
Crawl laughs and shakes her "Nah, don't worry, it's fine"
The camera-person gets intense whiplash but tries their best to remain professional. "Right, um, well this is actually what I wanted to ask you about,"
"Oh?"
"The uh, very quick mood-changes you seem to have. I have a feeling that once the episode airs the audience might be a bit concerned," they try to say it as sensitively as possible.
"Ohh, I see. Yeah, no need to worry about me. They're not real or anything," he says with a bright smile.
The camera-person freezes, "Um, you're not really supposed to admit that. You can try again and we can cut this part out—"
Crawl laughs again. "No, no! I don't mean they're fake for the cameras. I mean that I dramatize my reactions because I think it's funny,"
"So..you're lying about being upset?"
"I wouldn't call it lying," she scoffs. "I'd say that I'm taking creative liberties with my emotions for maximum comedic affect."
"I see. Well I guess that's it then."
"Alrighty! Let me know if you need anymore clips. Oh, by the way, have you heard of Lilsimsie—"