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Her first thought was that he was going to kill himself. It could’ve been completely wrong, technically Aphmau had not met many (if any) suicidal people in what she could remember of her life. Despite that, something in her very bones told her the second she saw him that he was willing and ready to plunge into the lava below.
Her second thought was how exhausted he looked. Neither of those were good things to be in the Nether, no child should’ve been exposed to the horrors that transpired in that place and exhaustion was the easiest way to get yourself killed.
The mission she was on wasn’t supposed to be easy, with her and Laurence both being there with the intent of saving Castor the Chicken Shaman using the portal made by the werewolves.
Though, Aphmau didn’t have the best frame of reference for ‘easy’. Sure, fighting her way through would’ve not been pleasant, but neither was interacting with Logan, and she did that regularly. Still, the heat of the Nether wasn’t enjoyable (or the monsters that resided there) and she’d rather get in and out as soon as possible.
(She was aware that her nonchalance tended to unnerve people in serious situations so she was working with Garroth to make it seem more like stoticism. Judging from the look on Laurence’s face, it was probably working.)
She had been sprinting toward the fortress as fast her legs could take her (while trying not to leave Laurance in the dust) when she saw him. Aphmau didn’t have the best frame of reference for what was ‘normal’ so if she only saw him wandering, she would’ve thought he belonged there and wouldn’t have given him a second thought. But it’s what he was doing, what he looked like that caught her attention more than anything else and made her realize what was wrong with the picture painted in front of her.
The woman made a full stop, making no noise as she did so, causing her companion to continue running without her for a moment.
“Hey…” the woman cautiously started haltingly. Though her voice was a bit too low for the man to hear her words, it was audible enough for him to hear her speak. “Laurence...?”
The red-haired man instantly turned around and realized that she had not followed. Instinctively, he unsheathed his sword and began frantically searching for a possible danger. However, his eyes did not intimately latch onto what she saw as hers did, and he searched for a danger she did not sense.
“Aphmau?! What did you-” Laurence began but cut himself off in shock once he saw her pointing,
“Do you see him too? Or is that just a side effect of this place?” The Lord asked calmly. It was rather easy to remain calm when you faced much more confusing and stressful situations like raising a kid. Parenting and not knowing anything about the world you lived in (or yourself) was much harder to deal with than simply seeing something unexpected. Being able to remain calm was a skill hard earned and one that she had the utmost pride in. Plus it wasn’t as if she had the best framework for ‘normal’. Laurence nodded once, being much more surprised by the peculiar sight than she was. Ah, so this wasn't normal. That was good to know.
The sight in question was a child. Well, not quite a child but a teenager (Aphmau barely knew how the distinction mattered. Levin would still be a child in her eyes long into adulthood anyway so it didn’t matter much). The boy must’ve been in his late teens though the exact age wasn’t clear to her. He had dark blond hair, matted with dirt and mud with dull blue eyes. He was sitting near the edge of one of the cliffs that the Nether had, looking completely at ease.
However, what caught the woman’s attention was the fact that he looked as if he was about to jump. No, not jump, ‘Fall’. Jumping would imply active movement and he was leaning over the edge, the lava reflecting in his eyes as he looked at nothing. If went into that lava, he’d lean forward and fall face first all without changing expressions.
Aphmau recognized that look in his eyes. She didn’t know from where but she did. That was the look of someone who cared for nothing anymore. That didn’t have anything left to tie them down.
Despite quite a bit of self-training for the opposite to become true, Aphmau was a woman who acted on instinct. This helped quite a bit with ensuring Levin didn’t accidentally get hurt by falling objects or stuff of the like, but Zoey always preached the importance of entering situations with a logical mind and Zoey was incredibly smart so of course she listened to the woman.
Still, all that’s to say is that whenever a child was in danger, all logic left her mind and she was left to rely solely on instinct. And her instinct told her that she should do everything in her power to save that boy.
After all, before she was a Lord, she was a mother. And what good mother would let a child be in such a dangerous situation?
“Kid!” Aphmau shouted suddenly, startling both the boy and Laurance, “Watch your-”
Her words were cut off by an arrow grazing her, barely managing to avoid shedding blood. The boy had tried to shoot her. Incredibly impressive instincts, all things considered. It was barely a second or two before he was on his feet and shooting, she could use a marksman like him in her village.
However, judging from the tremor in his hands and the look in his eyes, it wasn’t necessarily on purpose; it was more instinct than anything else. Ah, a soldier, she assumed. She was distantly aware that this was common among soldiers and guards, to jump to attack at the first thing that startles you. This realization that it was merely instinct calmed her already placid demeanor, and she motioned for Laurance to take a step back from where he took out his sword.
For all the man's jokes, he could be serious when he wanted to, and he was already gearing up as if to fight the young boy. This wasn’t necessary. She could hear Laurance cursing her stubbornness, but he backed up regardless so that was fine. The boy merely attacked out of fear, something she had also done more than once, it’s what she did to Emmalyn, and she had scared Emmalyn far more than this boy scared her.
Though, it seemed that the boy was much more level-headed than she was, as regret filled his face and he was scrambling to his feet. He was a decent distance away so he was unable to see if he had truly hit her or not, but was clearly attempting to gauge if he had with a worried expression. How cute. Against her will, she smiled and only barely remembered to smother it.
Zoey always told her to not smile when children were upset, even if they did look quite cute, and that it only made them more upset to be looked down on. Like always, she did her best to do what Zoey told her to.
“Sorry about that, Lady!” The soldier(?) yelled, eyes frantically darting between her and any possible escape route. He looked ready to bolt at any moment and Aphmau knew from experience that any wrong move would cause him to do so.
She smiled as comfortingly as she could, raising her hands up in a universal surrender gesture, and she slowly moved closer to the mystery boy, “It’s alright. Didn’t even hit me!”
As she got closer, she was able to get a better look at the boy. He must’ve been 16 or 17, but the more important part was the amount of scars he was covered in. Aphmau had only seen that level of scarring on corpses or seasoned guards. To see it on someone so young made her heart ache with sympathy. Though, he was a soldier. She’s not sure what told her that so resolutely since she’d barely even met many soldiers, but it was her gut response and her gut rarely lied to her.
Even if he looked young, he could still go to war. No one is too young to die if their nation demands it.
His shirt was covered in rips and tears as if he had been in a fight and never bothered to change his clothing, and he had odd red things in his ears. She had no idea what those were but she still didn’t know what a lot of things were so she gave it no mind. His exhaustion looked even worse up close. It was only the lord training she received from Zoey and Garroth that reminded her to school her expression into one that couldn’t be recognized as pity.
The boy looked at her with distrust and Aphmau did her best to look as if she was trustworthy, “What’s your name, kid?”
The young man glared, moving away from the edge only slightly. At the question he stuck up his chin, “Why do wanna know, hah?!” then, as an afterthought, “Bitch.”
Laurence gasped in offense behind her as Aphmau had to stop herself from doing the same. Okay, so this kid might’ve been a bit of a dick, but that’s fine. So was Logan, and she had to be nice to him regardless of how much she wanted to push him into the ocean.
(The last time she did that Garroth nearly laughed himself to death and Zoey looked disappointed and she refused to ever make Zoey look like that again.)
The Lord did her best to remember what Zoey would do in this situation before deciding to partially wing it. She replied as soothingly and calmly as she could, still moving towards the boy slowly as if he were a stray cat, “You don’t have to tell me…” then with a dramatic pause, she continued, “..I’ll just call you child until I figure it out.”
The boy looked deeply offended at the name just as Aphmau thought he would. For some reason children really hated being called children, she hadn’t really figured out why yet since she didn’t remember her own childhood. The boy looked as if he was on the verge of going on a rant about something, most likely about how he was not a child before he noticed the armor that both she and Laurence bore.
Ah, dang it. Hopefully, he didn’t have anything against Meteli or Phoneix Drop.
After a moment of deliberation with himself, he stepped away from the edge, “Tommy. The name’s Tommyinnit.”
Laurence’s eyes crinkled despite himself, “Irene, that’s a shit name.”
The boy’s previously calm demeanor disappeared in an instant as he immediately began yelling,
“Okay, bitch boy!” The boy exploded, taking both Aphmau and Laurance by surprise with the sheer volume and anger, “ You can’t say shit about names when you’re literally a ginger!”
Laurence scoffed and Aphmau distantly remembered that he had a sister, this must be what having a sibling is like, “Oh, come on! Your name is literally ‘ToMmYiNnIt’! What defense could you possibly have about that?!”
Tommy somehow looked even more enraged before Aphmau stepped in once again, an amused smile on her face before she could remember to tamper it down into a look of neutrality,
“As amusing as this is. What are you doing here?”
Tommy looked confused, as if she asked why the sky was blue so she continued, “In the Nether? It’s very dangerous here, we’re here to help save a rather annoying man-”
Before she could finish Tommy’s eyes lit up, “Oh shit, you guys are doing a drug quest?!”
Aphmau sputtered as Laurence seemed torn between cackling and being mortified landing in the middle section of surprised wheezing,
“That’s not what I said- We’re not doing drugs!” The Lord stuttered, still flustered at the comment, losing the look of composure that she wanted to portray.
Tommy walked closer to them and badly winked several times, “Sure , Wink, Wink, Wink. ”
Laurence only laughed harder at the boy audibly saying ‘Wink’ before Tommy caught sight of the Nether Fortress,
“You bitch boys going there?” He asked calmly as it was a normal question as if a Nether Fortress was a completely normal place to go before amending himself, “Sorry, bitch boy and lady.”
Aphmau glanced at Laurence and couldn’t help stifling a snort of amusement at the offended look on his face. It was almost impressive how he went from laughing to being offended in a few seconds.
She managed a single nod of confirmation before the boy spoke once more, and Aphmau came to the realization that he was quite fond of talking. That was alright, she was quite fond of his voice so far.
“Anyways, I’m going with you two fucks. I’ve got nothing better to do.” Tommy said calmly yet firmly, taking out a stone sword in a smooth motion before beginning to walk towards the Nether Fortress without looking back at the two of them.
Aphmau glanced over to Laurence who appeared to be gaping at the, still walking away, young man. He looked over at her as if to tell her to ‘do something’ but she shrugged in response.
Tommy seemed competent enough to be doing this. Probably. When she got back to the village, she’d need to have Zoey explain what people can do at certain ages and if she accidentally just did the equivalent of letting a child run into a hoard of zombies.
Eh, she glanced at the boy once more and looked at his hands which were clasped around a stone sword. She should give him one of her spare diamond ones for the time being. He was a soldier so he definitely knew how to use one, it'd be better if he was armed during this affair.
Plus, the safest place for him to be, if he couldn’t handle himself, was by her side. With the decision that this would hopefully be fine if worst came, she could just keep Tommy away from danger, Aphmau began walking after him. Laurance looked between the two and sighed heavily before following as well.
“Hope you can fight, kid.” He muttered grimly and a bit childishly under his breath.
The response was a scoff.
-
The kid could fight.
The kid could absolutely fucking fight.
To say Laurence expected nothing from the kid was too generous. Laurence expected this kid to be a minor hindrance at best and a self-sacrificial nuisance at worst. What else could you expect from a rather loud child that they (Aphmau) found looking dully into lava?
(Laurence still didn't know why the kid was sitting there and honestly, he didn't want to know. He had a feeling but he didn’t want to unpack it until everything was fine. Until this was just a story he’d tell his fellow guards.)
Laurence didn’t expect the kid to be good at fighting, not to mention probably better than him. It hurt his ego a bit, to see someone young enough to be a Guard In Training take out monsters with more ease than him.
He even fought better than Aphmau and that was a woman Laurance once witnessed single-handedly take out an entire horde of zombies and skeletons with only a few scratches! In ten minutes!
The boy, Tommy, was oddly skilled in a way that could only be compared to a more honed version of Lord Aphmau’s impressive abilities. With his help they managed to get to Castor quite quickly, he and Aphmau managing to create a cobblestone barrier in time.
Admittedly, when it began to look like the Shadow Lord would break through the barrier, Laurance attempted to sacrifice himself only for Tommy to punch him directly in the face and shove him back. For a horror-filled second, Laurance thought that Tommy would sacrifice himself instead.
Then, Tommy took out obsidian from literally nowhere and reinforced the wall with a speed that he’d only seen Aphmau manage. The woman herself only looked mildly surprised and that lasted for all of a second before she seemed to accept it and focused on getting Castor out. However, that in of itself wasn’t surprising as he’d seen all of five facial expressions on her since meeting her.
Once he blocked off the exit with obsidian, he and Aphmau hauled ass (with Aphmau dragging Castor by the arm). It always surprised Laurance how fast Aphmau was, and it surprised him, even more, to see how fast Tommy was. Laurance was by no means slow, he was a guard, after all, a slow guard meant a dead guard and a dead lord. Despite this, Aphmau and Tommy ran fast enough to leave him in the dust.
Unfortunately, while obsidian was much more effective than cobblestone at keeping the Shadow Lord from coming after them, a literal hell creature is not completely deterred by it. Which is why Laurance is currently nursing his leg (and pride) after the fucker got in a lucky shot when chasing after them.
This turned out to be even more effective at proving how skilled this random teenager was as he wasted no time in grabbing Laurance by the collar and pulling him along. The kid barely even lost any speed!
With that said, he did feel a sort of sardonic relief at the reactions of the werewolves. Their shock at seeing a fourth human with them when they only expected three was only multiplied when Tommy, using a diamond pickaxe that Lady Aphmau casually gave him in the castle to help get through the walls, immediately broke the portal.
Laurance completely agreed with the decision at the time though he didn’t localize it as he was too busy making sure his injury wouldn’t somehow let the Shadow Lord materialize in the Overworld or something like that.
Still, it did help his nerves a bit to watch Tommy instantly get into a screaming match with Castor once out of the portal.
In the end, Tommy impressed the hell out of him. Although he wouldn’t admit it to his face, he’s grown a bit attached. It was so easy to treat the kid like an annoying younger brother and not like a weird hyper-competent teenager that he found staring at stuff in the lava.
The kid saved his life. Without him being there…Laurance can only imagine what would’ve happened, what he would’ve done to make sure Aphmau and Castor got out of there alive. Like it or not, Laurance owed a debt to that kid…a kid that he was sitting across from in front of a fire pit in the werewolves' village.
Aphmau had remained quiet, but she rarely liked talking anyway, preferring to be stoic and aloof. She stared quietly into the fire, decompressing from the events that happened earlier.
Tommy sat next to her, quietly speaking to her under his breath. Once the shock had passed and everything settled down, he seemed quite rattled by what happened which was reasonable. It was also shockingly human. Laurance tended to forget that people as competent as Tommy or Aphmau could be human.
Once everything was settled, he sat down next to her at the fireplace and just started talking. After 10 or so minutes, the talking became almost whispers verging on mumbling. Watching Tommy speak quietly to Aphmau, almost close enough to resting his head on her shoulders, while she simply listened without making a sound, was sobering for the guard.
Still, Laurance had always been rather bad with silence and tension.
“So, um, Tommy was it?” The man started awkwardly, politely not mentioning how both Aphmau and Tommy flinched at the sound of his voice. Laurance continued, doing his best not the let the awkwardness of the situation get to him, “You…got anyone back home that you ideally don’t hate too much to talk about?”
The look Aphmau shot him told him very clearly that she thought he was being an idiot but he couldn’t tell if that was for his phrasing, his awkwardness, or for even bringing up the topic in the first place. Much to his relief, Tommy snorted.
“I mean, yeah, of course I do, dumbass.” The kid said before he could even think about the words before doing a full body pause as if just realizing what he said. Laurance would’ve made fun of him for it on principle but he could see the… fear? No, that was definitely fear in the teenager's eyes.
Laurance recognized that type of response, he was trained to recognize that response. He'd seen in the faces of dozens of people; Children paling with a fear they shouldn't have once they realized they spoke casually to an adult, people with bruises over them who flinched premeptively as if to brace for a strike.
Guilt filled him and Laurance instinctively opened his mouth to apologize when Aphmau lightly nudged Tommy on the arm, spurring him out of the state of stillness that he’d be in.
“I mean, there’s Ghostbur and he’s pretty pog.” The boy said with renewed enthusiasm as if he never stopped in the first place. A part of Laurance wanted to bring it up but a single glare from Aphmau soundly shut up any ideas of that.
The teenager turned back to Aphmau and grinned at her, “I told you about Ghostbur, right?”
Aphmau nodded solemnly in the same way she did whenever anyone asked her a question. (It had the fun effect of making adults feel respected and children feel delighted).
“Wait, ‘ Ghost’ bur? That’s his actual name?” Laurance cut in, incredulity in his voice.
Tommy scowled at the interruption and Aphmau looked…well Laurance wanted to say confused but as he said earlier, she barely deviated from one of five expressions and now was no exception.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Aphmau said simply as if that was an answer.
“What-? Because no reasonable parent names their child that,” Laurance turned back to Tommy from where he had unconsciously begun facing Aphmau (it wasn’t like he needed to turn much, Tommy was basically attached to her side with how much he was leaning against her), “Why’s he called ‘Ghostbur’?”
Tommy rolled his eyes as if that was an odd question, which in turn made Laurance want to throw something at him (like he said earlier! It’s so easy to treat this kid like an annoying younger brother), before speaking, “Because he’s dead. Obviously. Anyways, the next dude that doesn’t want to pave my skull into the concrete-”
Tommy continued without much of a hitch, ignoring how Laurance’s jaw dropped in shock. The guard looked over to Aphmau to see if he could find some solace in the mind-blowing implication that this kid apparently could speak to the dead only to see her calmly nodding along.
Right. Amnesia that made her forget literally everything. Including the basics of the world. As stoic as she could be, he once accidentally stumbled upon her trying to hunt a butterfly while her guard frantically tried to tell her that they were not typically hunted for food.
“-there’s also…Fundy. I guess. He probably doesn’t hate me…” The teenager trailed off, a dark look that Laurance couldn’t immediately recognize coming over his face.
Aphmau nudged her head lightly against the boy's arm and spoke in the same even tone she almost always had, “That’s your…nephew, right?”
Tommy nodded while Laurance’s eyebrows raised. This kid had blood relatives?! Honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised if he was created in a lab!
“Oh wait, pause! You have to tell us about your siblings now!” Laurance interjected, a grin on his face before catching the look Aphmau was sending him and rushing to add onto his sentence, “O-Only if you’re comfortable with it!”
Tommy didn’t speak for a moment, simply staring at Laurance with an expression that made the guard squirm in his seat. Irene, he hopes he didn’t accidentally stumble onto some trauma.
Right when Laurance was about to apologize, Tommy started cackling leaning into Aphmau more as if for support so that he didn’t fall over.
Little shit.
“Prime, the look on your face!” Tommy said in between laughs, not noticing the look he and Aphmau shared at the name ‘Prime’.
She was the goddess of a much smaller religion that Laurance remembered learning about in his history lessons as a child but he’d never actually encountered anyone who worshiped her in real life. Or anyone familiar enough with the religion itself to invoke her name instead of Lady Irenes.
Tommy managed to catch his breath and waved a hand around,
“But yeah, I have two-” He paused for a second, “One and one-half brothers.”
At that, Laurance thought about it for a second before nodding. He’d seen complicated families often enough that someone classifying their siblings through fractions made enough sense.
“The oldest is Techno,” The young man continued, scowling as he spoke, “And he’s a fucking pig-faced jackass.”
Aphmau winced a bit at the insult, and Laurance whistled,
“Damn. So I’m guessing you and him don’t get along? Though, now you got me curious if he’s actually as ugly as a pig like you said.” Laurance joked, trying to get Tommy to release some of the tension from his shoulders, which he partially succeeded at.
Today was a horrible day for his pride as a guard but at least he could try and keep the mood light.
Tommy raised an eyebrow (which seemed like it took effort for him to do) and snorted in amusement, “He’s not ugly like a pig, he is a pig. You know, a piglin hybrid and all that junk?”
What.
“What?” Laurance said involuntarily, his mind going a mile a minute.
Tommy looked at him as if he was being stupid and grinned mockingly, “What, you don’t know what Piglin Hybrids are?”
Don’t know what they are? Don’t know?! Anyone who’s read any sort of goddamn book on mythology or has been within spitting distance of a church knows what Piglin Hybrids are! They’re just not real! With complete earnestness, this kid just told Laurance that his brother was a literal boogyman that they made up to tell kids to eat their veggies.
“Ah, like Kawaii-Chan,” Aphmau said seriously, having no reaction to the fucking tactical bombshell that was just dropped. It was times like this he envied her amnesia and lack of knowledge of the world around her.
“Did you just say the words 'Kawaii-Chan’, ” Tommy started with a distinct disgust in his voice, looking baffled and clearly about to explore that before Laurance cut in,
“Wait, can we get back to the brother thing?” The guard said, trying to keep the hysteria from his voice. If this kid was gonna say and do insane shit, damn it, Laurance is gonna enjoy it, “If he’s a Piglin-”
“Hybrid.”
“Yeah, my mistake, Piglin Hybrid , then how the hell are you two brothers?” Laurance continued.
Tommy looked at him as if Laurance had been dropped on his head repeatedly as a child,
“Have you heard of a-dop-tion?” The teenager said slowly while sounding out the word ‘adoption’ as if speaking to a particularly daft child that you wanted to know that you didn’t like them. Laurance didn’t know how to convey the fact that the problem wasn’t how they were siblings but how ‘Techno’ existed.
Tommy continued to rant about his brother, including insane facts as he did so, which left Laurance wondering if he was on drugs. Did he get drugged somehow? Fortunately, he was completely sober and was able to enjoy this ‘conversation’ while it lasted.
The guard pushed some of the hair out of his face to listen more intently as Tommy finished a rant about how his brother used to freak him out as a kid by almost pushing him into lava pools and then pulling him away at the last second. However, at the end of that rant, the light in Tommy’s eyes dimmed in a way that suggested that those ‘happy’ days with his brother had ended. They ended a long time ago.
“Hey,” Laurance said, surprising himself. In a split second, he tried to think of something, anything , that would get this kid back to talking, “What about your other sibling?”
Tommy looked surprised that Laurance remembered that, and the older man felt the urge to punch anyone who ever made this kid surprised that someone asked about the things he spoke about. Like he said earlier, annoying younger brother.
Some of the tension leaked out of his shoulders and he smiled slightly before starting, with renewed energy, “If you’re so eager for me to talk then, fine ! Alright, so Wilbur’s the brother that fucked a fish-”
With that, the rest was history. Or rather, the start of their history.