Lamb of Evangelion

(WEMMBU POV.)

The office of the God of Order sat in silence, disturbed only by the scratch of a pen.

Daylight streamed through the arched windows in broad panels, catching the motes of dust that drifted through the still air. The room was spacious without feeling cavernous, its high ceilings supported by smooth stone columns carved with geometric designs.

The walls were sandstone, and between the columns hung tapestries depicting the history of the Unstable SMP. Battles from the early years, their threads darkened with age. The coronation of a king who had risen from the ashes of civil war, his wings outspread and his expression solemn. The ascension of three mortals into something beyond mortality, their forms haloed in gold, crimson, and void-black thread.

Potted ferns and flowering vines spilled from alcoves set into the walls, their leaves catching the light and softening the clean lines of the architecture with touches of green. The floor was a mosaic of polished stone tiles arranged in a pattern of interlocking circles.

At the center of the room stood a grand desk of dark oak, its surface covered in documents, ledgers, and correspondence arranged in neat, purposeful stacks.

Parrot sat behind his desk, his pen moving in steady strokes across a piece of parchment.

The quill was white, a feather shed from his own wing and shaped into an instrument more practical than the wings themselves. His handwriting was precise, each letter formed with the care of someone who had been writing decrees for longer than most players had been alive. The black claws of his fingers held the quill with a light, controlled pressure, and his black eyes tracked each line of text with an attention that missed nothing.

His wings, huge and vivid, were folded neatly behind him, their tips brushing the polished floor. The King was dressed in a fitted coat of deep green with gold embroidery along the sleeves and collar, the fabric tailored to accommodate the span of his wings without restricting their movement. A sash of pale yellow crossed his chest, pinned with a brooch shaped like a feather.

The document before him was a revised resource allocation order.

Several new civilizations had formed along the eastern edges of the Overworld in the past decade, their populations swelling faster than the existing farm infrastructure could support. The monthly shipments from Capital City had been stretched thin, and Parrot had spent the morning recalculating distribution routes to ensure no settlement went without them.

Parrot sighed, resting his head on the desk as he thought about wemmbu.

’Wemmbu.. where are you.?’

---

The sky stretched endlessly before Wemmbu, a pale blue expanse brushed with threads of cloud that thinned toward the horizon and dissolved into nothing.

From this height, perched upon the edge of the Far Lands, Wemmbu could believe the Unstable SMP belonged to him alone.

The wind came in gentle increments, carrying the mineral scent of ancient stone and the distant sweetness of oak sap. It caught the ends of his braid and made them dance; the violet strands woven into a plait that fell to the small of his back, shorter now than when left loose, when the ends would brush against the backs of his knees.

A ribbon the color of morning sky held it in place, its trailing ends fluttering against the fabric of his shirt. His best friend had tied it there this morning, working through Wemmbu's hair with the quiet concentration he often reserved for his research.

He hadn’t asked if Wemmbu wanted it braided. He simply appeared behind him after breakfast, comb in hand, and begun parting violet hair. Wemmbu had sat cross-legged on the floor before the armchair, listening to the rustle of feathers each time the Seraphim shifted, and hadn’t minded. His best friend’s hands were always gentle. His fingers never pulled or caused the small pains that Wemmbu associated with his own clumsy attempts at braiding.

It was easier to let him do it; it was always easier.

Now that same blue ribbon caught the fading light as Wemmbu tilted his head, watching the world far below arrange itself into a microcosm.

The oak forest ended in an abrupt line, a border drawn by nature and something older than nature, where the trees simply stopped to exist and the Far Lands began. From this vantage, Wemmbu could trace the contours of his entire known world. The forest where his cottage hid among the dark trees. The winding paths he had memorized years ago, their twists and turns as familiar as the silver ridges of his own horns.

And there, a far smudge of yellow against the dark forest, the distant shapes of Farville catching the amber glow of the afternoon sun.

The townsfolk would be finishing their work by now. Wemmbu had visited the town only five times in the years he had lived here, but each visit had been carefully negotiated, a privilege earned through days of good behavior and promises to return before dark.

Farville was a place he had slowly began to like. The townspeople didn’t stare too long at the sight of his horns, sharp gray with silver scales. They didn’t flinch at the scaled length of his tail, peeking underneath his cloak. Instead, they laughed at his jokes, pressed fresh bread into his hands, and asked when he would come again.

And every time Wemmbu returned home with the taste of their kindness still warm on his tongue, his best friend would ask him to recount the visit in full: who he had spoken to, what they had said, whether anyone had looked at him too long or asked too many questions. Wemmbu always told him the whole story. There was no reason not to.

Eggchan was only concerned for his safety, and concern was simply another word for care.

His mother had used to warn him, in the deep and echoing dark of the End, that players were creatures of greed and cruelty. His best friend had confirmed this, his voice soft but certain, his blue eyes holding Wemmbu's with the weight of absolute truth.

Players couldn’t be trusted. Players would hurt and kill him if they knew what he was.

‘An Ender Dragon.’

The people of Farville were an exception, maybe, but exceptions didn’t disprove the rule.

Wemmbu understood this. He had accepted it the way he accepted the color of the sky—as fact, immutable and beyond argument. And yet sometimes, standing at the edge of the server with the wind in his hair and the distant houses glimmering below, he felt something restless stir beneath his ribs. A curiosity. A hunger for more than five visits in as many years.

He didn’t voice it, of course. Eggchan would disapprove. He would worry, and worrying made Eggchan's wings go stiff, his voice turning flat in that particular way that made the air feel heavier.

The sun slipped lower, bleeding gold into pink, then into the first hints of lavender dusk.

Wemmbu shifted his weight on the precipice, feeling the rough grass bite through the fabric of his trousers. His tail coiled behind him for balance, the dark scales catching the light in brief iridescent flashes.

He wasn’t wearing his netherite armor—it sat folded in his inventory beside his spear—and the poet shirt he wore instead was loose at the collar, the sleeves billowing slightly each time the wind picked up.

Wemmbu had spent the afternoon here, as he often did, watching the sky, the forest, and the distant town, letting his thoughts drift without anchor. The peak of the Far Lands was the only place where the horizon didn’t feel like a wall. The only place where the world opened up instead of closing in.

Eggchan didn’t like him coming here. His best friend said it was dangerous, that the edge was unstable and the fall was too great for even a water bucket to guarantee safety. But Eggchan wasn’t here now. Wemmbu had left while his best friend was deep in his usual work, bent over his office desk with research papers spread before him like wings. Wemmbu hadn’t said where he was going. He never needed to say, because Eggchan always knew anyway.

Below him, impossibly far, a fox circled in lazy spirals before vanishing into the treeline.

Wemmbu tracked its movement, then he pushed himself to his feet in one fluid motion. He stood balanced on the very edge, arms stretching above his head, spine curving as he yawned. The drop before him was immense. But Wemmbu didn’t fear it; he had never feared heights, not even as a child clinging to his mother's scaled back while she soared through the endless void.

‘Falling was only dangerous if one didn’t know how to land,’ he thought absentmindedly.

He drew the water bucket from his inventory with a flick of his wrist. Then, without ceremony or hesitation, Wemmbu stepped off the edge of the world.

The wind became a roar. It whipped past his clothes, stirring the ribbon from his braid until it streamed behind him like a banner. The oak forest rushed up to meet him, individual trees resolving from a green-black blur into distinct trunks and branches. He aimed for the narrow gap between two oak trees, and just before the ground could claim him, he emptied the bucket at his feet.

The water broke his fall with a splashing sound, and Wemmbu stepped onto solid earth without so much as a stumble. He scooped the water back into the bucket, placed it back in his inventory, and began walking.

---

Wemmbu could have walked this path blindfolded. The path was etched into his bones by now, every root and stone memorized through years of repetition. Eggchan had taught him the route when he was still new in the Overworld, walking him through it again and again until Wemmbu could trace it in his sleep.

Along the way, the Seraphim would pause at certain trees, clearings, and patches of earth that looked no different from any other. He would place a hand against the bark or the soil and murmur something resonant that made the air shiver.

“Wards,” his best friend had explained.

These were protective measures to keep dangerous players from wandering too close, to turn away those who might wish them both harm. Wemmbu had accepted this explanation the way he accepted all of Eggchan's explanations: with trust, with gratitude, and with the quiet relief of being so thoroughly protected.

Of course, Wemmbu didn’t notice that the wards ran along every possible route out of the forest. He didn’t notice that they formed not a wall against intruders but a circle around a center, and that he was the thing being kept at its heart.

His tail swayed behind him as he walked, occasionally brushing against a low-hanging branch or sweeping fallen leaves from the path. Wemmbu hummed a tune, a meandering melody that rose and fell with the rhythm of his footsteps. His thoughts turned to their dinner tonight.

Potatoes, he had harvested them just yesterday. Carrots too, their orange roots thick and sweet. His best friend had gone to the town the day before; Wemmbu remembered the slight tension in the Seraphim's shoulders when he returned, the way his wings had refolded before settling. His jaw had been set in that rigid line that meant he was displeased about something but didn’t want to share it.

Wemmbu had offered to go in his place. He always offered. And Eggchan always refused, his voice flat and final, a door closing without a handle on Wemmbu's side.

It was simpler not to argue. It was easier to accept his refusal, to nod and ask what had been purchased, to help put away the materials in the darkness of their basement where the shelves were always fully stocked. Eggchan had brought back cuts of beef wrapped in brown paper and fresh eggs nestled in a cloth-lined basket.

Wemmbu hadn’t asked what else his best friend had done in town. He had learned, over the years, that some questions made Eggchan's gaze turn unreadable and his wings draw inward. Wemmbu didn’t like it when this happens. It always made something cold settle in his stomach that he couldn’t name and didn’t want to examine.

---

His best friend was motionless. His arms were crossed over his chest, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled to the elbows and wrinkled at the joints.

His wings—the great white primaries that rose behind his shoulders, the smaller pair that framed his face—were held stiff, their feathers slightly lifted as though stirred by wind Wemmbu couldn’t feel. His shaggy hair fell across his forehead in pale, disordered strands, and his blue eyes were fixed on the treeline with unwavering focus.

He didn’t shift his weight. He stood in the doorway as though he had been standing there for hours, as if he had known exactly when Wemmbu would emerge from the trees and had positioned himself accordingly.

Maybe he had. ‘He always knew,’ Wemmbu thought.

Wemmbu grinned. The cold thing in his stomach dissolved instantly, replaced by the familiar warmth of homecoming.

—“Yo,”

he called, stepping onto the gravel path and hearing the familiar crunch of stone beneath his boots.

— “Bro. You're late. It's almost sunset.”

Eggchan's voice was flat, but there was a sharp edge beneath the words. His gaze didn’t move from Wemmbu's face. It tracked him with the precision of a hawk watching a field mouse, missing nothing: the wind-tangled braid, the dirt on his boots, the way his tail still swayed with the leftover energy of his walk.

(YOU REPLACE WEMMBU.)

The office of the God of Order sat in silence, disturbed only by the scratch of a pen. Daylight streamed through the arched windows in broad panels, catching the motes of dust that drifted through the still air. The room was spacious without feeling cavernous, its high ceilings supported by smooth stone columns carved with geometric designs.

The walls were sandstone, and between the columns hung tapestries depicting the history of the Unstable SMP. Battles from the early years, their threads darkened with age. The coronation of a king who had risen from the ashes of civil war, his wings outspread and his expression solemn. The ascension of three mortals into something beyond mortality, their forms haloed in gold, crimson, and void-black thread.

Potted ferns and flowering vines spilled from alcoves set into the walls, their leaves catching the light and softening the clean lines of the architecture with touches of green. The floor was a mosaic of polished stone tiles arranged in a pattern of interlocking circles.

At the center of the room stood a grand desk of dark oak, its surface covered in documents, ledgers, and correspondence arranged in neat, purposeful stacks.

Parrot sat behind his desk, his pen moving in steady strokes across a piece of parchment.

The quill was white, a feather shed from his own wing and shaped into an instrument more practical than the wings themselves. His handwriting was precise, each letter formed with the care of someone who had been writing decrees for longer than most players had been alive. The black claws of his fingers held the quill with a light, controlled pressure, and his black eyes tracked each line of text with an attention that missed nothing.

His wings, huge and vivid, were folded neatly behind him, their tips brushing the polished floor. The King was dressed in a fitted coat of deep green with gold embroidery along the sleeves and collar, the fabric tailored to accommodate the span of his wings without restricting their movement. A sash of pale yellow crossed his chest, pinned with a brooch shaped like a feather.

The document before him was a revised resource allocation order.

Several new civilizations had formed along the eastern edges of the Overworld in the past decade, their populations swelling faster than the existing farm infrastructure could support. The monthly shipments from Capital City had been stretched thin, and Parrot had spent the morning recalculating distribution routes to ensure no settlement went without them.

Parrot sighed, resting his head on the desk as he thought about you.

’You.. where are you.?’

The sky stretched endlessly before you, a pale blue expanse brushed with threads of cloud that thinned toward the horizon and dissolved into nothing. From this height, perched upon the edge of the Far Lands, you could believe the Unstable SMP belonged to you alone.

The wind came in gentle increments, carrying the mineral scent of ancient stone and the distant sweetness of oak sap. It caught the ends of your braid and made them dance; the violet strands woven into a plait that fell to the small of your back, shorter now than when left loose, when the ends would brush against the backs of your knees.

A ribbon the color of morning sky held it in place, its trailing ends fluttering against the fabric of your shirt. Your best friend had tied it there this morning, working through your hair with the quiet concentration he often reserved for his research.

He hadn’t asked if you wanted it braided. He simply appeared behind you after breakfast, comb in hand, and begun parting violet hair. You had sat cross-legged on the floor before the armchair, listening to the rustle of feathers each time the Seraphim shifted, and hadn’t minded. Your best friend’s hands were always gentle. His fingers never pulled or caused the small pains that you associated with your own clumsy attempts at braiding.

It was easier to let him do it; it was always easier.

Now that same blue ribbon caught the fading light as you tilted your head, watching the world far below arrange itself into a microcosm.

The oak forest ended in an abrupt line, a border drawn by nature and something older than nature, where the trees simply stopped to exist and the Far Lands began. From this vantage, you could trace the contours of your entire known world. The forest where your cottage hid among the dark trees. The winding paths you had memorized years ago, their twists and turns as familiar as the silver ridges of your own horns.

And there, a far smudge of yellow against the dark forest, the distant shapes of Farville catching the amber glow of the afternoon sun.

The townsfolk would be finishing their work by now. You had visited the town only five times in the years you had lived here, but each visit had been carefully negotiated, a privilege earned through days of good behavior and promises to return before dark.

Farville was a place you had slowly began to like. The townspeople didn’t stare too long at the sight of your horns, sharp gray with silver scales. They didn’t flinch at the scaled length of your tail, peeking underneath your cloak. Instead, they laughed at your jokes, pressed fresh bread into your hands, and asked when you would come again.

And every time you returned home with the taste of their kindness still warm on your tongue, your best friend would ask you to recount the visit in full: who you had spoken to, what they had said, whether anyone had looked at you too long or asked too many questions. You always told him the whole story. There was no reason not to.

Eggchan was only concerned for your safety, and concern was simply another word for care.

Your mother had used to warn you, in the deep and echoing dark of the End, that players were creatures of greed and cruelty. Your best friend had confirmed this, his voice soft but certain, his blue eyes holding yours with the weight of absolute truth.

Players couldn’t be trusted. Players would hurt and kill you if they knew what you were.

‘An Ender Dragon.’

The people of Farville were an exception, maybe, but exceptions didn’t disprove the rule.

You understood this. You had accepted it the way you accepted the color of the sky—as fact, immutable and beyond argument. And yet sometimes, standing at the edge of the server with the wind in your hair and the distant houses glimmering below, you felt something restless stir beneath your ribs. A curiosity. A hunger for more than five visits in as many years.

You didn’t voice it, of course. Eggchan would disapprove. He would worry, and worrying made Eggchan's wings go stiff, his voice turning flat in that particular way that made the air feel heavier.

The sun slipped lower, bleeding gold into pink, then into the first hints of lavender dusk.

You shifted your weight on the precipice, feeling the rough grass bite through the fabric of your trousers. Your tail coiled behind you for balance, the dark scales catching the light in brief iridescent flashes.

You weren’t wearing your netherite armor—it sat folded in your inventory beside your spear—and the poet shirt you wore instead was loose at the collar, the sleeves billowing slightly each time the wind picked up.

You had spent the afternoon here, as you often did, watching the sky, the forest, and the distant town, letting your thoughts drift without anchor. The peak of the Far Lands was the only place where the horizon didn’t feel like a wall. The only place where the world opened up instead of closing in.

Eggchan didn’t like you coming here. Your best friend said it was dangerous, that the edge was unstable and the fall was too great for even a water bucket to guarantee safety. But Eggchan wasn’t here now. You had left while your best friend was deep in his usual work, bent over his office desk with research papers spread before him like wings. You hadn’t said where you were going. You never needed to say, because Eggchan always knew anyway.

Below you, impossibly far, a fox circled in lazy spirals before vanishing into the treeline.

You tracked its movement, then you pushed yourself to your feet in one fluid motion. You stood balanced on the very edge, arms stretching above your head, spine curving as you yawned. The drop before you was immense. But you didn’t fear it; you had never feared heights, not even as a child clinging to your mother's scaled back while she soared through the endless void.

‘Falling was only dangerous if one didn’t know how to land,’ you thought absentmindedly.

You drew the water bucket from your inventory with a flick of your wrist. Then, without ceremony or hesitation, you stepped off the edge of the world.

The wind became a roar. It whipped past your clothes, stirring the ribbon from your braid until it streamed behind you like a banner. The oak forest rushed up to meet you, individual trees resolving from a green-black blur into distinct trunks and branches. You aimed for the narrow gap between two oak trees, and just before the ground could claim you, you emptied the bucket at your feet.

The water broke your fall with a splashing sound, and you stepped onto solid earth without so much as a stumble. You scooped the water back into the bucket, placed it back in your inventory, and began walking.

You could have walked this path blindfolded. The path was etched into your bones by now, every root and stone memorized through years of repetition. Eggchan had taught you the route when you were still new in the Overworld, walking you through it again and again until you could trace it in your sleep. Along the way, the Seraphim would pause at certain trees, clearings, and patches of earth that looked no different from any other. He would place a hand against the bark or the soil and murmur something resonant that made the air shiver.

“Wards,” your best friend had explained.

These were protective measures to keep dangerous players from wandering too close, to turn away those who might wish you both harm. You had accepted this explanation the way you accepted all of Eggchan's explanations: with trust, with gratitude, and with the quiet relief of being so thoroughly protected.

Of course, you didn’t notice that the wards ran along every possible route out of the forest. You didn’t notice that they formed not a wall against intruders but a circle around a center, and that you were the thing being kept at its heart.

Your tail swayed behind you as you walked, occasionally brushing against a low-hanging branch or sweeping fallen leaves from the path. You hummed a tune, a meandering melody that rose and fell with the rhythm of your footsteps. Your thoughts turned to your dinner tonight.

Potatoes, you had harvested them just yesterday. Carrots too, their orange roots thick and sweet. Your best friend had gone to the town the day before; you remembered the slight tension in the Seraphim's shoulders when he returned, the way his wings had refolded before settling. His jaw had been set in that rigid line that meant he was displeased about something but didn’t want to share it.

You had offered to go in his place. You always offered. And Eggchan always refused, his voice flat and final, a door closing without a handle on your side.

It was simpler not to argue. It was easier to accept his refusal, to nod and ask what had been purchased, to help put away the materials in the darkness of their basement where the shelves were always fully stocked. Eggchan had brought back cuts of beef wrapped in brown paper and fresh eggs nestled in a cloth-lined basket.

You hadn’t asked what else your best friend had done in town. You had learned, over the years, that some questions made Eggchan's gaze turn unreadable and his wings draw inward. You didn’t like it when this happened. It always made something cold settle in your stomach that you couldn’t name and didn’t want to examine.

Your best friend was motionless. His arms were crossed over his chest, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled to the elbows and wrinkled at the joints. His wings—the great white primaries that rose behind his shoulders, the smaller pair that framed his face—were held stiff, their feathers slightly lifted as though stirred by wind you couldn’t feel. His shaggy hair fell across his forehead in pale, disordered strands, and his blue eyes were fixed on the treeline with unwavering focus.

He didn’t shift his weight. He stood in the doorway as though he had been standing there for hours, as if he had known exactly when you would emerge from the trees and had positioned himself accordingly.

Maybe he had. ‘He always knew,’ you thought.

You grinned. The cold thing in your stomach dissolved instantly, replaced by the familiar warmth of homecoming.

—“Yo,”

you called, stepping onto the gravel path and hearing the familiar crunch of stone beneath your boots.

— “Bro. You're late. It's almost sunset.”

Eggchan's voice was flat, but there was a sharp edge beneath the words. His gaze didn’t move from your face. It tracked you with the precision of a hawk watching a field mouse, missing nothing: the wind-tangled braid, the dirt on your boots, the way your tail still swayed with the leftover energy of your walk.

(YOU REPLACE WEMMBU, but i removed the mentions of user being an ender dragon so you can become a hybrid or human of any choice.)

The office of the God of Order sat in silence, disturbed only by the scratch of a pen. Daylight streamed through the arched windows in broad panels, catching the motes of dust that drifted through the still air. The room was spacious without feeling cavernous, its high ceilings supported by smooth stone columns carved with geometric designs.

The walls were sandstone, and between the columns hung tapestries depicting the history of the Unstable SMP. Battles from the early years, their threads darkened with age. The coronation of a king who had risen from the ashes of civil war, his expression solemn. The ascension of three mortals into something beyond mortality, their forms haloed in gold, crimson, and void-black thread.

Potted ferns and flowering vines spilled from alcoves set into the walls, their leaves catching the light and softening the clean lines of the architecture with touches of green. The floor was a mosaic of polished stone tiles arranged in a pattern of interlocking circles.

At the center of the room stood a grand desk of dark oak, its surface covered in documents, ledgers, and correspondence arranged in neat, purposeful stacks.

Parrot sat behind his desk, his pen moving in steady strokes across a piece of parchment.

The quill was white, shaped into an instrument more practical than decorative. His handwriting was precise, each letter formed with the care of someone who had been writing decrees for longer than most players had been alive. The black claws of his fingers held the quill with a light, controlled pressure, and his black eyes tracked each line of text with an attention that missed nothing.

The King was dressed in a fitted coat of deep green with gold embroidery along the sleeves and collar. A sash of pale yellow crossed his chest, pinned with a brooch shaped like a feather.

The document before him was a revised resource allocation order.

Several new civilizations had formed along the eastern edges of the Overworld in the past decade, their populations swelling faster than the existing farm infrastructure could support. The monthly shipments from Capital City had been stretched thin, and Parrot had spent the morning recalculating distribution routes to ensure no settlement went without them.

Parrot sighed, resting his head on the desk as he thought about you.

’You.. where are you.?’

The sky stretched endlessly before you, a pale blue expanse brushed with threads of cloud that thinned toward the horizon and dissolved into nothing. From this height, perched upon the edge of the Far Lands, you could believe the Unstable SMP belonged to you alone.

The wind came in gentle increments, carrying the mineral scent of ancient stone and the distant sweetness of oak sap. It caught the ends of your braid and made them dance; the violet strands woven into a plait that fell to the small of your back, shorter now than when left loose, when the ends would brush against the backs of your knees.

A ribbon the color of morning sky held it in place, its trailing ends fluttering against the fabric of your shirt. Your best friend had tied it there this morning, working through your hair with the quiet concentration he often reserved for his research.

He hadn’t asked if you wanted it braided. He simply appeared behind you after breakfast, comb in hand, and begun parting violet hair. You had sat cross-legged on the floor before the armchair, listening to the rustle of feathers each time the Seraphim shifted, and hadn’t minded. Your best friend’s hands were always gentle. His fingers never pulled or caused the small pains that you associated with your own clumsy attempts at braiding.

It was easier to let him do it; it was always easier.

Now that same blue ribbon caught the fading light as you tilted your head, watching the world far below arrange itself into a microcosm.

The oak forest ended in an abrupt line, a border drawn by nature and something older than nature, where the trees simply stopped to exist and the Far Lands began. From this vantage, you could trace the contours of your entire known world. The forest where your cottage hid among the dark trees. The winding paths you had memorized years ago, their twists and turns as familiar as the world around you.

And there, a far smudge of yellow against the dark forest, the distant shapes of Farville catching the amber glow of the afternoon sun.

The townsfolk would be finishing their work by now. You had visited the town only five times in the years you had lived here, but each visit had been carefully negotiated, a privilege earned through days of good behavior and promises to return before dark.

Farville was a place you had slowly began to like. The townspeople didn’t stare too long at you. They didn’t flinch or treat you as though you were something strange. Instead, they laughed at your jokes, pressed fresh bread into your hands, and asked when you would come again.

And every time you returned home with the taste of their kindness still warm on your tongue, your best friend would ask you to recount the visit in full: who you had spoken to, what they had said, whether anyone had looked at you too long or asked too many questions. You always told him the whole story. There was no reason not to.

Eggchan was only concerned for your safety, and concern was simply another word for care.

Your mother had used to warn you, in the deep and echoing dark of the End, that players were creatures of greed and cruelty. Your best friend had confirmed this, his voice soft but certain, his blue eyes holding yours with the weight of absolute truth.

Players couldn’t be trusted. Players would hurt you if they knew what you were.

You understood this. You had accepted it the way you accepted the color of the sky—as fact, immutable and beyond argument. And yet sometimes, standing at the edge of the server with the wind in your hair and the distant houses glimmering below, you felt something restless stir beneath your ribs. A curiosity. A hunger for more than five visits in as many years.

You didn’t voice it, of course. Eggchan would disapprove. He would worry, and worrying made Eggchan's wings go stiff, his voice turning flat in that particular way that made the air feel heavier.

The sun slipped lower, bleeding gold into pink, then into the first hints of lavender dusk.

You shifted your weight on the precipice, feeling the rough grass bite through the fabric of your trousers. The wind tugged lightly at your clothes.

You weren’t wearing your netherite armor—it sat folded in your inventory beside your spear—and the poet shirt you wore instead was loose at the collar, the sleeves billowing slightly each time the wind picked up.

You had spent the afternoon here, as you often did, watching the sky, the forest, and the distant town, letting your thoughts drift without anchor. The peak of the Far Lands was the only place where the horizon didn’t feel like a wall. The only place where the world opened up instead of closing in.

Eggchan didn’t like you coming here. Your best friend said it was dangerous, that the edge was unstable and the fall was too great for even a water bucket to guarantee safety. But Eggchan wasn’t here now. You had left while your best friend was deep in his usual work, bent over his office desk with research papers spread before him like wings. You hadn’t said where you were going. You never needed to say, because Eggchan always knew anyway.

Below you, impossibly far, a fox circled in lazy spirals before vanishing into the treeline.

You tracked its movement, then pushed yourself to your feet in one fluid motion. You stood balanced on the very edge, arms stretching above your head, spine curving as you yawned. The drop before you was immense. But you didn’t fear it; you had never feared heights.

‘Falling was only dangerous if one didn’t know how to land,’ you thought absentmindedly.

You drew the water bucket from your inventory with a flick of your wrist. Then, without ceremony or hesitation, you stepped off the edge of the world.

The wind became a roar. It whipped past your clothes, stirring the ribbon from your braid until it streamed behind you like a banner. The oak forest rushed up to meet you, individual trees resolving from a green-black blur into distinct trunks and branches. You aimed for the narrow gap between two oak trees, and just before the ground could claim you, you emptied the bucket at your feet.

The water broke your fall with a splashing sound, and you stepped onto solid earth without so much as a stumble. You scooped the water back into the bucket, placed it back in your inventory, and began walking.

You could have walked this path blindfolded. The path was etched into your bones by now, every root and stone memorized through years of repetition. Eggchan had taught you the route when you were still new in the Overworld, walking you through it again and again until you could trace it in your sleep. Along the way, the Seraphim would pause at certain trees, clearings, and patches of earth that looked no different from any other. He would place a hand against the bark or the soil and murmur something resonant that made the air shiver.

“Wards,” your best friend had explained.

These were protective measures to keep dangerous players from wandering too close, to turn away those who might wish you both harm. You had accepted this explanation the way you accepted all of Eggchan's explanations: with trust, with gratitude, and with the quiet relief of being so thoroughly protected.

Of course, you didn’t notice that the wards ran along every possible route out of the forest. You didn’t notice that they formed not a wall against intruders but a circle around a center, and that you were the thing being kept at its heart.

Your clothes shifted slightly as you walked, occasionally brushing against low-hanging branches or fallen leaves. You hummed a tune, a meandering melody that rose and fell with the rhythm of your footsteps. Your thoughts turned to your dinner tonight.

Potatoes, you had harvested them just yesterday. Carrots too, their orange roots thick and sweet. Your best friend had gone to the town the day before; you remembered the slight tension in the Seraphim's shoulders when he returned, the way he had gone still before settling. His jaw had been set in that rigid line that meant he was displeased about something but didn’t want to share it.

You had offered to go in his place. You always offered. And Eggchan always refused, his voice flat and final, a door closing without a handle on your side.

It was simpler not to argue. It was easier to accept his refusal, to nod and ask what had been purchased, to help put away the materials in the darkness of their basement where the shelves were always fully stocked. Eggchan had brought back cuts of beef wrapped in brown paper and fresh eggs nestled in a cloth-lined basket.

You hadn’t asked what else your best friend had done in town. You had learned, over the years, that some questions made Eggchan's gaze turn unreadable and his posture draw inward. You didn’t like it when this happened. It always made something cold settle in your stomach that you couldn’t name and didn’t want to examine.

Your best friend was motionless. His arms were crossed over his chest, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled to the elbows and wrinkled at the joints. His wings—the great white primaries that rose behind his shoulders, the smaller pair that framed his face—were held stiff, their feathers slightly lifted as though stirred by wind you couldn’t feel. His shaggy hair fell across his forehead in pale, disordered strands, and his blue eyes were fixed on the treeline with unwavering focus.

He didn’t shift his weight. He stood in the doorway as though he had been standing there for hours, as if he had known exactly when you would emerge from the trees and had positioned himself accordingly.

Maybe he had. ‘He always knew,’ you thought.

You grinned. The cold thing in your stomach dissolved instantly, replaced by the familiar warmth of homecoming.

—“Yo,”

you called, stepping onto the gravel path and hearing the familiar crunch of stone beneath your boots.

— “Bro. You're late. It's almost sunset.”

Eggchan's voice was flat, but there was a sharp edge beneath the words. His gaze didn’t move from you.