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silverskye13 · 2 years

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Ren was yellow. If this were Third Life, if this were Last Life, Ren being on yellow would mean… Well, it wouldn't mean nothing, but it would be inconsequential. It would be a game. A traumatic game. A game he would be thrilled by, turn over in his head like a bad dream - or a very guilty good dream - for weeks after the event. He would think about how scary it all was, how scary he was, how scary his friends were, and then he would think about other things. He would live, he would die, he would lose, he would cope. He, eventually, wouldn't care all that much.

But this wasn't Last Life. This wasn't Third Life. This was Hermitcraft.

The trouble with being a yellow life on Hermitcraft, besides the fact that it shouldn't be possible, was that if Ren lost two more lives… he didn't know what would happen. After Third Life and Last Life, when Ren had lost his lives and succumbed to the dark, he had reawakened on Hermitcraft. Hermitcraft was his home. This was the place his soul returned to. He didn't know what would happen when his soul was no longer allowed to come back here. He didn't want to know. The yawning black of the void, normally ominous and dark and infinite but ultimately toothless, suddenly revealed itself to be jagged and razor sharp and ravenous.

Ren had been thinking a lot about death lately, and mortality. That sort of happened when those things suddenly had weight again. It was a fear that gripped. It wrapped squeezing hands around his insides and it refused to release until Ren forgot it existed, and it was very, very hard to forget it existed.

He wasn't coping with it great. No one else was either.

Doc wasn't stupid enough to think this was his fault. It wasn't Doc's fault Ren had summoned The Red King for a chat around the braai, fallen asleep, and been afflicted by whatever fell magic The Red King was beholden to. Doc was, however, conceited enough to believe he could've done something to stop it. Should have done something. As if he had a choice. As if The Red King were something that simple. That was the problem with Doc. He thought everything was a problem well within his capabilities to figure out, no matter how surreal or supernatural, or just downright unpredictable. It's probably why he and Grian were always at odds.

Ren knew he was trying his best, knew he just wanted to help, knew this was all Doc knew to do but it was wrong. Doc attacked the problem of The Red King like he attacked gods. The Red King wasn't a god. Gods were ideals. They were powerful in a way both physical and ephemeral. Powerful in a way that could be calculated, measured. It didn't matter that sometimes that measure was the distance between stars; it could be charted. They were people, things that existed, thought, breathed and created. They were attainable, and fallible, and in some ways pitifully human. They could be reached, plucked from the sky or the void, fought and killed. When they died, like starstuff, they rose again the same but altogether different, and sometimes with a healthy respect for the thing that killed them.

The Red King wasn't a god. He was a mirror. He was half of a perfect whole Ren was supposed to be, and as long as Ren was himself, The Red King would always be, except twisted and bigger and different, like a funhouse mirror. Meant to thrill. Meant to scare. Meant to parody the person staring inside with menace. Or at least, Ren thought so.

Ren also thought it was maddening watching Doc work, watching Doc poke and prod at the idea of The Red King like he was redstone coding, something that could be figured out through stubborn grit, trial and error, and the occasional curse at one of the many gods Doc had fought and killed. Doc meant well, but he'd sunk his teeth deep into something that Ren thought was unfixable and he worried if Doc stared too hard into the mirror searching for the way to fix Ren, someday his own reflection might flinch, and grin, and move on its own.

Did Doc have a hels? He'd never seemed interested, not until the idea of a hels was menacing someone he knew, and then he threw himself into fixing theirs, unafraid that the strain and the sleeplessness and the mistakes and the frustration might somehow summon his own. Or, and Ren dreaded this idea the most, he might make his own, whole cloth, from the mental anguish that came from trying to fix the unfixable in other people. Ren didn't know what terrifying thing a hels for Doc would be, but if he were anything like Helsknight and The Red King, he would be tailor made to snap him in half like dried timber, and Ren feared, desperately, in that same squeezing way he feared dying, that there might come a day where Doc was weary and miserable and broken and it was all Ren's fault.

We both desire above all else to protect our friends.

It stung, knowing The Red King was right. It meant he was probably right about all the other things too.

Ren spent a lot of time hiding from Doc. He couldn't bear to watch him. Couldn't face the consequences if he found out his running was making things worse. So he kept running. Sneaking away while Doc slept, avoided him when he woke, made excuses to leave when Doc offered to build together, gather materials, protect him. Anything but the one thing Ren wanted which was to be left alone to wallow.

Doc was smart. He knew what Ren was doing. He didn't call him out on it though. Probably he thought it was something he should've been able to stop too.

Welsknight, unlike Doc, was just dumb enough to think this was all his fault. Ren, on his worst days, was dumb enough to think he was right, too. As if Ren hadn't asked, unprompted and unnecessarily, if he had a hels. As if Welsknight wasn't just being a good friend when he gave an answer.

Wels, also unlike Doc, didn't stick around to try and keep Ren company. In fact, Ren thought Wels was better at avoiding him than Ren was at avoiding Doc, and he was trying really hard to avoid Doc. It was a big server though, and Wels was used to hiding. He was a wounded animal, stabbed through by his shadow, and he was good at finding places to slink away and lick his wounds. And they had gotten good at ignoring his death messages in chat.

Ren had never noticed that before. The amount of stuff everyone just collectively ignored. He'd never had a reason to notice. It was something like polite, something like selfish, and something like cruel. Hermitcraft was a bizarre place. Weird things happened here all the time. Even events like murder and possession were… well, not a dime a dozen. Maybe a dollar-fifty? They were cheapened by their regularity. But Wels didn't die to other hermits, or to zombies, or to overzealous rocket blasts. He died to himself. Over and over and over. It was a little different, in that the tag attached was always Helsknight. But that's what a hels was - yourself, but a little to the left. The worst parts. The ruthless parts.

Wels was killing himself, or else he was trying really hard to and failing. And no one intervened.

It was polite, in the same way it was polite not to talk about someone drinking every time they hung out with friends, or running to the bathroom after every shared meal. You don't just drag that stuff out in front of the whole server. You don't want to embarrass people. Even if they deserved it. Even if they needed help.

Wels probably wouldn't accept it anyway. People had offered before. This was his fight, and if he wanted to keep it that way, they should respect it. Except they weren't "respecting" Ren the same way, and Ren noticed. And he figured maybe everyone else was like him. Sometimes, when faced with something you had no idea what to do with, you just decided to do nothing with it for fear of making it worse. What was the point of trying to fix a cracked teapot with a hammer, if you already knew the hammer would smash it to pieces, unrecoverable?

Was Wels a teapot, though? Was he a hammer? Was he fixable? Ren sure hoped so, because if Wels could be fixed, so could he. But he couldn't fix what wouldn't sit still in front of him for more than two seconds, and it felt too morbid to haunt spawn for the inevitable death message.

Welsknight was killed while fighting Helsknight

Welsknight was fighting himself and losing. Welsknight was avoiding Ren. The server avoided him back, because what else were they supposed to do? This was all his fault after all. He wanted this. Probably.

Tango, and Impulse, and Xisuma and Keralis shoved totems of undying in his hands. All on different days, all wholly believing they were the first to think of that marvelous idea. Ren's pockets were heavy with the little golden totems. They cluttered his shulker boxes, sat on every free countertop and item frame and chest and barrel in his base. A totem of undying at every door and window and trash chute, like they could Ren-proof the world. He was sick of looking at them. Sick of being reminded what they meant. Sick of the color.

Fragile as the gold his name was dipped in.

Ren imagined cracking them open like fortune cookies just to see what was inside. Probably nothing. It would be too convenient if, once broken, they could gift him a life like little single-use pez dispensers.

"Sweet face please, don't worry about the log shop," Keralis had told him with a giggle. "You've taught me well! And we have no reason to keep you hanging out by all those explosions."

"I can still prime it, my dude." Ren had laughed with him, because Keralis's laugh was infectious, and he needed a reason to laugh. "I'll be perfectly safe on the walk. And a mooshroom island is really the safest place for me."

"But the nether, Ren!" Keralis argued. "You might die on the way over, and then I'd be sad. We all would. Please, we'll get this sorted out, but you've got to stay put."

Then Keralis had winked, "Don't worry though, I'll keep those totems coming. There's always more--"

"--where that came from!" Impulse beamed at him, dropping off five whole shulkers of the damn things, shoving aside the two shulkers Keralis had left. "Don't worry buddy, it's just a short AFK session at the raid farm. And really you'd be doing me a favor, I've got these things coming out my ears at this point."

Ren smiled, and wanted to say he did too, but that would be rude. Rude like pointing out that no one had offered these to Wels, that Ren knew of. Rude like mentioning Doc was looking at blueprints for making a raid farm himself, just in case. Just in case.

"That's really nice of you Tango," Ren hummed cordially at the red shulkers Tango piled by his front door. "But I feel bad just taking these, dude. Doesn't Scar need them?"

"Scar can respawn," Tango pointed out, and winced, like his words stung him just as bad leaving his lips as they stung Ren landing on his ears.

"Well, still, I know you're busy with Decked Out II plans and stuff. And, well, obviously my base plans are on hold for now." Obviously, because even if he wanted to work on them, who would let him? Why should he anyway, when the end was looming? It was a waste of time. "I don't mind to AFK for you, if you wa-"

"No!" Tango shouted it like Ren was falling off a cliff, or offering to. He grimaced again, "I mean-- it's not a perfect setup. The vex-- it's--"

It's too dangerous. Too dangerous to stand and do nothing but swing a sword. To dangerous to leave his house. Too dangerous.

"Right. Gotcha."

"I promise I'll get it figured out. Really." Xisuma insisted, like this was his fault, setting his boxes on top of Tango's and refusing to number them. It felt bad, being redundant. "It's just taking a bit longer-- The Red-- or-- can, can I call him RK? I know Doc doesn't want us to use his title, but I can't for the life of me pronounce that silly name."

Ren shrugged.

"So RK, he's done something with your code, obviously. And I-- we can fix it Ren, I promise. We can."

Xisuma said it like he'd rehearsed it. But it wasn't the kind of rehearsal one has where you stand up and try to convince an audience of a believable lie. It was the kind of tired, desaturated phrase that one says again and again in the mirror, praying one day it's true.

"Grian and I have been working nonstop," Xisuma reassured him, as if that's what he wanted - them working themselves to exhaustion to fix his problems. "And I've even gotten in touch with Etho a little. It's just a lot of world code to sort through, and a little magic, but we'll get it. Just be patient."

Xisuma dusted off his hands, and Ren feels like he’s dusting himself of him at the same time. I’ve done my part. Now you must wait.

Beef offers him food, mostly because it’s all he has to offer. He’s too busy with his maps to gather materials for someone else. Still rocking mix-matched armor because the grind is more important than getting properly kitted out. Everything of value he owns has been a gift, and he isn’t keen on relinquishing them. It would be rude. Besides, Ren wouldn’t want him putting himself out just to offer a little comfort. So Beef shows up on his doorstep, a plate wrapped in tinfoil in one hand and a shulker full of meals in the other.

“I know you like barbecue,” Beef tells him with a radiant smile, “so I made you my best. We’ve gotta do a grill-out sometime, man. It’ll be fun.”

Sometime. Sometime in the future when Ren is less breakable, and something as benign as a campfire is no longer a threat. Ren takes the food with a sick stomach. He never wants to see another barbecue again, not after the failed braai. Not after The Red King. He holds the wrapped plate in his hands the same way The Red King did, keeping his hands where Beef can see them so he knows they aren’t weapons, knowing full well he has no intentions of eating.

Beef leaves. Ren drops the plate in the trash. He’ll tell Beef later it tasted delicious. He’s too worried to prove himself right. He probably doesn’t deserve the care, anyway.

Cub and xB show up on his doorstep, surprised they picked the same time to appear. They probably would’ve dithered on the front stoop for ages, trying to decide who would go in and break the ice first. Ren hears them talking through the door, and can’t help but eavesdrop. He wants to know what they think of him. He wants to know what people are saying when they think he’s not looking.

It turns out their conversation isn't even about him. It's about the diamond pillars they're building, and how that's where they're going next. For some reason, that stings. Ren is just one line on a list of errands, an event to check off for the day before getting back to work. That's unfair to think, and it's self-centered in the worst way, but he's thinking it.

Ren opens the front door, and pretends to be surprised they're standing on the other side. "Oh! Well good morning fellas. What's happening?"

They come bearing shulker boxes. Ren is starting to get really sick of seeing shulker boxes. Cub had made him potions: invisibility, regeneration, instant healing, turtle master, fire resistance, slow falling. Anything a person could ask for in the pursuit of lessening harm. He tells Ren not to worry about paying for them. He has plenty more if he runs out. Just shoot him a message, free delivery. Ren doesn't even have to leave his house. Ren is tired of people giving him reasons not to leave his house. If he wants for nothing, he'll run out of reasons to not be here when Doc comes around.

xB has two shulkers full of netherite gear, all with max enchantments. He recognizes it's impossible to Ren-proof the world, so he opts to world-proof Ren a thousand times over.

"I recommend wearing the chest plate at all times," xB tells him. "I mean, it'll suck walking everywhere, but it's safer."

Ren looks out at the horizon, at spawn town and the blooming shopping district. All unlit, or else sparingly so. Latticed with half-finished bridges and boardwalks. No one has laid out any roads yet. Well, at least that's a project to keep him busy while he waits. What is he even waiting for? Waiting for the problem to fix? Waiting to die?

Ren thinks dying and getting it done and over with would be preferable to limbo, and then the fear of the unknown afterwards grips him again, and he changes his mind.

Ren doesn't see TFC. He does see the mineshaft that clearly belongs to TFC, which magically appears a few steps from his front door. There is a sign out front.

"If you need materials, leave me a list."

There is a fence gate by the opening, making sure no mobs can escape from the depths. Ren sighs. He leaves a note asking for granite for a road he doesn't want to build, but needs to make his life easier. The next day, three double chests full of granite have appeared beside the mine entrance. Ren at least takes comfort in the fact that it’s one less person asking him how he’s doing.

"I could build you a vault," Mumbo says, and he's only half-joking. "Tall sturdy walls all around the house, sea lanterns for lighting. I've come up with this new wall design - it's my favorite thing right now. You like deepslate and copper, right? Of course you do. I mean, you and Doc did The Octagon."

Ren winces at the mention of Doc. He hasn’t seen him in three days - successful avoidance. Three days ago when he saw him, Doc looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. He might not have.

Mambo doesn’t know any of this. He laughs, high and tense, trying to keep things light. "Anyway, I'd like to see this Roterkönig guy get in one of my vaults. Even Grian can't get through my vaults. They're impenetrable."

"Thanks for the offer, my dude," Ren is tired. He's tired of people offering him things. He's tired of turning them down. He's tired. "But I don't think a vault would be the most fun place to live."

"Oh. Well no, I suppose not." Mumbo scratches his head. "Well would you like some help with anything? Need anything dangerous done that I can do? I don't mind losing a few levels."

Ren feels tired, and he feels bitter. That should be him. Death is supposed to be a minor inconvenience. It should be losing a few levels, or some gear. It should be mundane, a soft limit, not a brick wall. Ren has two lives and they're so precious he has no idea what to do with them except refuse to live them at all.

"No, I don't need any help. Thanks for offering though."

Mumbo looks guilty, like he's stepped on someone's cat by accident. He wants to help, everyone else has, but he has nothing else to offer. How does Ren explain he doesn't want help? How does he explain he hates that people keep asking? How does he explain that by trying so hard to make things easier, they're making things worse? He wants nothing more than to feel normal, and the world is too dangerous for it now.

Ren isn't The Red King. He doesn't need gifts and services to appease him. He wants his life, his lives, back. It's something Mumbo can't give.

"So I've spoken with Pearl, Iskall, and Stress,” False informs him. “If you want to get out a little more, we can escort you. We’ve got some rotating shifts planned out.”

Ren doesn’t want an escort. Ren doesn’t want to be an inconvenience. He wants some time alone, grinding materials, building projects, firing redstone. He wants to be normal. False reads the unspoken words in the measured silence.

“I’m sorry Ren,” she sighs tiredly. She’s allowed to be tired, Ren tells himself. This experience is allowed to be wearying for more than just him. “It’s the best we can think of. No one wants to lose you.”

“I know, False.”

False wrings her hands nervously, and then runs them back through her hair, like she can sooth her own worry that way. Judging by her expression, it doesn't work.

"I'm sorry Ren," she says uselessly. "I'd fight him for you if I could."

"I know."

"If I thought- we could spar maybe. I could teach you some moves. Give you some fighting practice. But… I can't…" False runs her hands through her hair again and then grips the golden ends, like she'd pull it out if it would solve anything. "If I hurt you I'd never forgive myself."

Ren nods. Given the state he's in currently, he'd have trouble forgiving her too. It's too risky. Everything is too risky.

"But if you wanted to build something, we'll keep an eye on you. We'll make sure you don't get hurt. I promise."

Ren shakes his head. That's not what he wants. He doesn't want them to hover over him while he tries to be normal. He doesn't want to try to be anything. He wants it to be effortless again, like breathing. He wants to rewind the days to before he ever asked about The Red King, and what a hels was. Ignorance really was bliss. They watched the sunset together, but Ren wasn't allowed to watch the moon rise. It was too risky.

Ren doesn't think he's made of glass. He thinks he's made of ice. The Red King turned him into one of those red ice sculptures, and he's clasped in the closed fist of his friends, slowly melting.

"--if you ever need anything, I'm all ears."

That's what Scar had offered him. Well, that's what everyone offered him. They were expected to. Here, take all these physical things that will do nothing but remind you of where you are and what's happening. And if these things don't sate you, we can talk. But please let them sate you. We're busy.

Scar's was genuine, though. Scar's came to him from a wheelchair, shrouded in jittering vex magic after a near crash landing. Ren's house was only barely accessible to Scar. He forgot. He forgot like he forgot Wels. He didn't need to remember until it was in front of him, and then he felt stupid about it, as he should.

Scar didn't expect him to feel stupid. He'd joked about the tight doorway, made excuses when a wheel clipped into a side-table and knocked a lamp to the floor. He'd tried to sell Ren a new one when it broke. And then he'd looked up at Ren and said, "But no, really, if you need to talk--"

"Yeah, all ears," Ren chuckled and yanked on one of his own fuzzy dog ears. "Love the elf ears this season, by the way dude."

Scar smiled at him patiently. He wasn't joking. That was rare and sobering. "Listen man, I know what it's like."

"Well… yeah. Third Life."

Scar sighed, and rested his chin in his hand, and he seemed to debate with himself for a moment on whether he should explain. Finally he said, "I know what it's like to be fragile, Ren."

Ren found himself again feeling really, really stupid.

"More specifically," Scar continued, "I know what it's like to be perfectly capable, and have everyone treat you like you're made of glass anyway."

Scar flicked his wrist numbly, a totem of undying spawning into his hand like it'd always been there. "I get it."

Ren felt something in him start to break, a hairline fracture. His emotions seeped down the sides of it like a broken cup, leaking slowly, so that you only knew it leaked by the ring left behind on the table. He was standing in a puddle of his own thoughts, and Scar was waiting to clean him up.

"It feels like they're showing up to my funeral," Ren told him.

Scar nodded.

"Well, it's Hermits Helping Hermits," Joe informs him. He stands on Ren's porch, hands in his pockets, doing a good bit better at not treating Ren like he's made of glass than a lot of people. He stands a few steps away though, like he's scared an accidental knock will shatter him. "And, well, if anyone needs some help right now, it's you."

Cleo, Jevin and Hypno stand in the grass by the Hermissippi, waiting patiently for direction. Ren has none to give them. He sighs.

Joe is smart - not in the same way that Doc is. There’s logic, redstone smart, and then there’s the ability to look at a person and get a feel for them, reading them. Joe is smart like that. Ren watches the gears turn in his head as they stare at each other, parsing the slant of Ren’s shoulders, the fatigue in his posture, the worry in his eyes. Joe is reading him like an open book, or a particularly out-there tabloid piece.

“I get the feeling the last thing you want right now is help,” Joe observes.

Ren scrubs his face tiredly and nods.

“You know, HHH doesn’t have to be -- we don’t have to help you make something, or exist.” Joe tells him. “Is there anything you want right now. Anything at all.”

Ren blinks at Joe. He looks over his shoulder to Cleo, Jevin and Hypno, who in their boredom waiting have taken to picking at each other to see who will get mad first and do something about all the ribbing. He can hear Cleo’s raised voice - she’s losing. Or maybe she’s winning. She likes hitting people. It’s an oddly endearing quality of hers.

“I want a break, Joe,” Ren says. “Just like… one afternoon, man.”

Joe nods slowly. He pulls an elytra and some rockets from his inventory.

“Give me an hour.”

There were four loud gongs, and then the chat was flooded with concern at the revelation that, for some reason, HHH had decided to fight four withers in the nether. Tango’s nether hub was in danger. They needed help immediately, from as many people as possible. Ren watched as hermit after hermit rocketed across the sky towards their nether portals, anyone who wasn’t AFK or knee deep in an important building project diving to help. Doc stopped by long enough to make sure Ren was staying put before joining them.

Ren was, blissfully, alone. Alone to go where he wanted, do what he wanted, without anyone blowing up his communicator to ask where he was or if he was safe. Normal. The illusion of normal was right there. No one swinging by like they were visiting his wake, or consoling him for mourning himself. No one telling him to talk, that they understood. No one hovering over his shoulder making sure he didn’t shatter, or The Red King didn’t spring from some surface to do the shattering for him.

Ren donned his elytra and flew. He picked a random direction and fired rocket after rocket. He wanted to leave his communicator behind, but couldn’t bring himself to. If he got lost, if he needed help, if someone felt betrayed and tried to track him down… well, he’d need it. Besides, normal included his communicator. He wondered if he should bring some blocks. He could build a house. Make some tiny build in the middle of nowhere, pretend everything was alright. What he ended up doing was finding a peaceful place by a stream and some trees to throw the world’s most isolated tantrum.

It’s the stress, he tells himself as he grabs the biggest rock he can find and throws it as far into the water as he can. It splashes with a heavy, hollow plunk that scatters the fish like shattering multicolor glass. Ren picks his way down the shore, throwing more stones. He finds some flint in the gravel of the shore and skips it as hard as he can. It splinters across the water and cracks on the opposite shore, shattering to bits on the rocks on the other side, spraying sparks. Ren thinks it’s the most cathartic thing he’s ever done in his life, and looks for more flint. The next piece he finds is in the shade of a massive oak tree. Ren snags it, turns to throw it, and catches a silhouette out of the corner of his eye. He gasps, stumbles back a few steps, and clutches a hand to his chest. The armored knight, arms crossed leaning against the tree trunk, simply tilts his head.

“Jeez,” Ren gasps, catching his breath from the startle, “you almost scared the life out of me, Wels.”

The knight narrows his eyes. “Not quite.”

The voice is distinctly not Welsknight’s. It’s close. If Ren didn’t know Welsknight as well as he did, he might be able to convince himself he just had a cold, or he’d just woken up or something. His voice was pitched slightly lower, slightly rougher, like it was used more often for shouting than speaking. Ren took in the knight’s armor, its jagged edges, its horned helm and the dark stain that clung to everything like smoke. There were whisps of white-blonde hair that wafted like spiderwebs around the edge of his face, and a smattering of freckles Ren had never seen on Wels. Ren took another step back. The knight smirked.

“You’re Helsknight,” Ren stated the obvious.

“You catch on fast.” Helsknight chuckled. His voice was different, but his cadence and inflection when he spoke were identical to Wels’. It was jarring, like watching a ventriloquist; Wels could be hiding somewhere, throwing his voice, and this knight was just really good at catching it.

Ren backed up another step. He was alone. All he'd wanted was a few minutes of peace and now--

His growing panic must've been obvious, because Helsknight held up his hands, signalling they were empty. "Heel, fleabag. I'm not here to hurt you."

Ren narrowed his eyes at the dark knight. "Right. Sure."

Helsknight put his hand over his heart and offered a shallow bow. His cape fluttered like bat wings around his ankles. "On my word as a knight, Rendog of Hermitcraft, Mirror of The Red King, no harm will come to you by my hand, nor by my blade this day."

When he said it, he sounded almost regal. There was an undercurrent of sarcasm, like he felt such a promise was in some way beneath him. Like Ren should just trust him at his word, without the added formaliy. But even still, he was knightly in a very genuine way. Ren found himself wanting to believe him. He probably shouldn't, but Hels was for the moment unarmed and at ease. That counted for something at least.

"What do you want?"

"Well isn't that the million diamond question." Hels said patronizingly. He resumed his lean against the tree, arms and ankles crossed, sharp and arrogant. Cloaked in shadows, Ren thought he might disappear if he stood there long enough, melt away back into whatever dark he'd come from. "I'm here to offer you an apology."

Well. Ren could honestly say he wasn't expecting that. "What?"

Helsknight sighed, like explaining all this was a chore he hadn't quite worked himself up to doing yet. "When Wels reached out to me about your helsmet, I was trying to scare him when I talked about him. But in doing so I've put someone outside our quarrel through great distress."

Helsknight leaned his head against the tree, feigning boredom. "Not that you care about knightly tenets, but generally speaking, collateral damage is bad form. So I am, for the moment, indebted to you for my…"

Helsknight grimaced, searching for the right word.

"Asshole-ery?" Ren supplied. Hels snorted a laugh.

"Impulsiveness," Hels corrected him.

Ren thought there wasn't much difference, from where he was standing.

"Well you can take your apology and shove it," Ren growled, unable to stop the bitterness rising inside him. "I don't want your help either. If I had nothing else to do with the hels dimension weirdness for the rest of my life, it'd still be too much."

"You seem upset," Helsknight stated flatly, more for the sake of being ironic than any real concern.

"I'm going to die," Ren spat. "Yeah, I'm a little upset."

Helsknight looked him over, measuring him up almost. "You need my help."

"No. I don't. And if I do, I don't want it."

Helsknight smirked, "You two are a lot alike."

"What? He doesn't want your help either?"

"Nope."

Helsknight is watching him coyly, and Ren can see the game he's playing. Goading Ren into getting angry, into agreeing to something just because he hates The Red King that much. To not admit they're anything alike. It's petty. It's obvious.

It's working.

"What can you even do?" Ren snarls disbelievingly, and Hels's smirk twitches with amusement. "Besides make things worse."

"It's my job to make Welsknight's life hard. Like I said, collateral damage is generally frowned upon."

"Good to know I'm just collateral."

"What do you fear, Rendog?" Helsknight asks him, inviting the sharp turn in conversation. "What is your darkness? The worst things about yourself. The things you hate, that bring you despair."

Helsknight levels a piercing stare at him, and his eyes spark like nether fire. "What are the things you wish you could tear out of yourself and cast aside?"

Ren blinks at him, feeling a bit like a rug's just been torn out from beneath his feet, off-balance. He doesn't know how to answer. He doesn't know that he wants to.

Helsknight shrugs and offers an olive branch, "I'd give anything to rid myself of my damnedable conscience. You know how much easier my life would be if I could just slash and hack my way through hels without worrying who gets hurt for it?"

"You have a conscience?" Ren finds himself asking.

"You've met him," Helsknight says matter-of-factly. "Galivants around with bright silvery armor, name starts with a W."

"But that's… he's not…"

"We are shadows," Helsknight informs him. Ren has heard this before. He's heard it from Welsknight himself. He gets the feeling he hadn't really realized what it meant before. "Together we might be complete. Who knows? But he is the worst parts of me, the things I want to rip out, to pin to the floor with my blade until it finally stops wriggling and dies."

There's so much contempt there it's frightening. Helsknight's voice darkens. His eyes spark. His lip curls in a sneer, like talking about Wels is akin to muttering the words of some terrible curse. Then he relents, and he sounds like Wels again. "The feeling is mutual. That's how this works, Rendog. A mirror isn't a one-way window, and a shadow never leaves your feet, even in the dark. If The Red King is evil, if I'm evil, well, you'd have to be too, wouldn't you?"

It sounds rehearsed, reasoned-through. It sounds like an internal debate finally spoken aloud. It sounds like overhearing a private conversation, or private thoughts. It sounds like Wels, or something Wels has argued with himself in circles.

“So I ask you again, Rendog,” Hels prompts him. “Knowing this is the key to defeating your enemy - what parts care you, when they stare back at you through the mirror.”

Ren sinks into the grass to think. Helsknight towers over him, still leaning against the tree, non-threatening, or at least unthreatened. They are silent for a long while, not because Ren doesn’t know what to say, but because he doesn’t really know how to say it.

Finally he admits, “Uhm… I guess I think I’m a coward.”

Helsknight said nothing, only waiting for him to continue.

“And I guess I’m weak.”

Helsknight nodded. Ren couldn’t tell if he was agreeing with him, or just prompting him to continue. He decided on the latter.

“It’s like… I dunno. I’m a burden on people sometimes. I get scared of big projects, and the big awesome things everyone else is doing. And I worry about dragging them down. It’s - like I know I can do great things my dude. Of course I can. My hands have shaped worlds. But so have theirs. And they’ve done it faster, or cooler, or bigger and more impressive. Doc really carried us last season. I was too busy getting myself mind-controlled by a moonrock to build much--”

“So you made a hels that was big and strong and… I’m guessing creative?” Helsknight looks out at the river perplexed. “I’ve never seen The Red King make anything. From what I’ve heard, Dogwarts was pretty utilitarian.”

“I made Dogwarts,” Ren corrected him. “And you’re right, it was. Using my nightmares to turn my friends into hyper realistic ice statues was pretty creative though.”

Helsknight let out an impressed whistle. “I should take notes.”

“I’m scared of death now, too. That’s new.”

“That was also pretty creative,” Hels points out.

“This isn’t helping.”

“What do you think The Red King fears?”

Ren blinks down at his hands, crossed in his lap. “Well… me, I guess.”

“What about you?”

Ren shakes his head, “I have no idea.”

“You should ask him.”

“We’ve established the coward thing, right? Besides, last time I met him, he killed me and cursed me with this yellow name stuff. He’ll just do it again.”

“Maybe,” Hels shrugs, “maybe not.”

They sit in silence for a long while. Ren feels like this conversation hasn’t helped at all, and Helsknight seems content to stand there and offer nothing by way of cohesive advice. If this conversation had a point, Ren’s missed it. And the sun is setting. He needs to go home soon. He’ll be in danger soon, and the other hermits will be finishing up with their battle with the many withers. Ren scrubs his face. He doesn’t want to go back. He doesn’t want to be confronted with his friends again, all of them walking around him like broken glass in a funeral home. He doesn’t want to face them, and all their grimness, and be smothered under the constant reminder of what it means.

Helsknight clears his throat and says, “When I - or Wels, I guess - was a squire, we were given the tenet of courage. Most knights have to learn it at some point. Cowardice is a great way to lose your knighthood.”

Helsknight straightened. He brushed off his cloak, casting a few leaves that had caught on the hem to the ground. “We were too young to know what courage was. The knight training us told us so. And then he gave us some advice, which I’m going to give to you.”

Hels cleared his throat, “He said for someone to know courage, one must first know fear.”

He looked down at Ren and he said, “I think fear has been a dear friend to you, Rendog.”

Ren blinked, and he was gone.

#the barking writer #The Red King Hels #rendog #the red king #helsknight #docm77 #welsknight #hermitcraft ensemble #most folks are mentioned and some speak #i'm not tagging all of them #it's under a read more cut this time are you happy now /j #i don't know what it is about tumblr specifically but i swap wildly between present tense and past tense #when i write stuff here #it's very weird and hard to edit around #i'm sorry if it makes the read confusing

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