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warrioreowynofrohan · 2 months

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Silmarillion Daily - Of the Great Journey (Years of the Trees 1115)

The Great Journey of the Elves to Valinor begins in the year 1105 of the Ages of the Trees, 20 years after Oromë first meets the Elves and 5 years after the Valar defeat Melkor.

It is told that when the hosts of the Eldalië departed from Cuiviénen Oromë rode at their head upon Nahar, his white horse shod with gold; and passing northward about the Sea of Helcar they turned toward the west. Before them great clouds hung still black in the North above the ruins of war, and the stars in that region were hidden. Then not a few grew afraid and repented, and turned back, and are forgotten.

They’re not in a hurry, and are inclined to stop whenever Oromë isn’t there to chivvy them along; despite choosing the journey based on the advocacy of Ingwë, Finwë and Elwë, they’re still not sure about it, and are not enthusiastic about the idea of leaving Middle-earth. The world is still new to them, and they find the new places they stay beautuful, and prefer to stay there.

Long and slow was the march of the Eldar into the west, for the leagues of Middle-earth were uncounted, and weary and pathless. Nor did the Eldar desire to hasten, for they were filled with wonder at all that they saw, and by many lands and rivers they wished to abide; and though all were yet willing to wander, many feared rather their journey’s end than hoped for it. Therefore whenever Oromë departed, having at time other matters to heed, they halted and went forward no more, until he returned to guide them.

It takes the Elves 10 years to reach the lands that we’re familar with from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings: Greenwood the Great, the River Anduin, and the Misty Mountains.

And it came to pass after many years of journeying in this manner that the Eldar took their course through a forest, and they came to a great river, wider than any they had yet seen; and beyond it were mountains whose sharp horns seemed to pierce the realm of the stars. This river, it is said, was even the river which was after called Anduin the Great, and was ever the frontier of the west-lands of Middle-earth. But the mountains were the Hithaeglir, the Towers of Mist upon the borders of Eriador; yet they were taller and more terrible in those days, and were reared by Melkor to hinder the riding of Oromë.

Some of the Teleri decide they like this area, and between that and being intimidated by the Misty Mountains, they decide they would prefer to live here than continue on to Valinor. These are presumably the ancestors of the Wood-elves of Greenwood (later Mirkwood) and of the original elves of Lothlórien, and are distant (or not-so-distant, given the long lives of Elves) relations of Thranduil, Celeborn, Galadriel, and the Sindar who later join them there.

Now the Teleri abode long on the east bank of the river and wished to remain there, but the Vanyar and the Noldor passed over it, and Oromë led them into the passes of the mountains. And when Oromë was gone forward the Teleri looked upon the shadowy heights and were afraid.

Then one arose in the host of Olwë, which was ever the hindmost on the road; Lenwë he was called. He forsook the westward march, and led away a numerous people, southwards down the great river, and they passed out of the knowledge of their kin until long years were past. Those were the Nandor; and they became a people apart, unlike their kin, save that they loved water, and dwelt most beside falls and running streams. Greater knowledge had they of living things, tree and herb, bird and beast, than all other Elves.

This reminds me of a lot of good stuff in The Nature of Middle-earth about the Great Journey, and the Teleri in particular. The Teleri have a less centralized ethos than the Vanyar or Noldor, and it’s Elwë (later Thingol) who stands up for the rights of all elves to choose what they prefer in terms of the journey, and not feel compelled to all act as a single unit. It’s also him who expresses the idea of the Great Journey as a way to see other parts of Middle-earth and decide where they want to live, not necessarily continuing on to Valinor. This lines up with the later patterns of different groups of Telerin elves (Nandor, Sindar, Falathrim, the Teleri who continue to Valinor, and later the Green-elves of Ossiriand) branching off in a variety of directions.

Elwë says, “I will go with my friend [Finwë], but I do not choose for anyone but myself. Let all my Folk do likewise. I do not see what harm dividing the Kindred will do - and it cannot be avoided, unless some are to be forced to do what they do not wish to do (to remain or to go). No doubt (indeed this is guaranteed) we, or any who wish, will be free to return to our homes when the War is over.” Also he says, “We are a great company - the most give n to wandering afar. Let many of us at least go with the safe conduct of the Lord Oromë and see what Endor is like, and the Sea! We need not pass the shores!”

One thing that strikes me from this is the surprising commonalities between Elwë and Fëanor. In the first place, in the attachment to Middle-earth and the desire to explore its ‘wide lands’ - Thingol in NoME, in contrast to the Silm, prefers the starlight of Middle-earth to the Trees of Valinor, and his choice of Valinor at this moment is based on his friendship with Finwë rather than on the appeal of Valinor itself. In the second place, in the emphasis that if the Elves do go to Valinor, they need to be able to return to their homes if they later choose that. The contrast, though, is that Elwë is all about everyone making a free choice of what they want to do, whereas Fëanor (at least by the time he’s wanting to return to Middle-earth) becomes hostile, angry, and insulting to anyone who does not adhere to all his ideas.

#tolkien #the silmarillion #silmarillion daily #elves #thingol #feanor #nandor #teleri

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sprucewoodmpreg · 2 years

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MAYBE im wrong with this one but. was it just me or did 3rd life’s builds feel slightly more impactful? while the other series still had memorable bases, it feels like 3rd life....they were more deeply ingrained in the server; they felt like essential parts of the history of the world. the relation ship + both the southlands and the snowfort were all good, but 3rd life felt like....every base was important. every base was memorable, and felt like a part of the land. monopoly mountain, the crastle, dogwarts, etho’s lava dorito snowbase, joel’s house, the hobbit holes....y’know?

#this isn't criticism or anything. feels more like a result of 3rd life being their first goaround #most of them are builders at their core so. without knowing how much destruction would take place...why not build #it just felt like there were bits of soul in those bases. something that was missing in many of them going forward #again not really. an awful thing. but i think that naivety really helped out in that first season #3rd life smp

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summertideempire · 1 year

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Ok consider this an official poll

#third life #3rd life #life smp #life series #limited life #goodtimeswithscar #grian #flower husbands #desert duo #dogwarts #rendog #ethoslab #uhh #I’m not good at tagging #crastle duo

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lunar-writes-things · 2 years

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3) CHA-CHING!

"And that is it!" Y/n smiled as they finished the makeshift washer and the spider string woven to make a rope to dry clothes "Now to announce my services and prices!"

<Y/n'sHarmony> Clothes washing services are now open at my hobbit hole! Prices can be discussed at my base! Discounts are possible with any good deals!

<Tango> ON MY WAY!

<Etho> same

<Grian> I'm gonna head over

Y/n smiled at the three who typed in chat before placing down a sign and carving out their prices

Full set of clothes: 25 diamonds

Shirts: 15 diamonds

pants: 15 diamonds

Full set Armor: 50 diamonds

Mending clothes: 10 diamonds per piece

"Those are some pretty good deals," Grian said, spooking Y/n and making them clutch their chest in fright

"Grian!" Y/n breathed out in relief "Oh you scared the crap outta me!"

"Sorry!" He laughed "Anyway, I have some mending books and like 4 stacks of quartz ore. I know you need quarts for your megabase and probably some mending for your armor."

"What do you need to be cleaned?" Y/n asked and stood up only to be reminded that they towered over Grian "For that much, it's like a 15-20 diamond discount!"

"Two full sets of my regular clothes please and one I need one of my shirts and pants mended. They got ripped during my fight with the dragon." Grian said sheepishly

"Okay! that will be 50 diamonds! there's a 20-diamond discount." Y/n smiled and took the clothes from Grian who took out the shining blue gems and placed them on top of his clothes

"Those are some good deals indeed!" Tango's voice made them smile and the nether hybrid "And what did you bring for that discount? Huh, Grian?"

"Mending books and Quartz ore!" Grian chirped "Why, what did you bring?"

"My love!" He announced and gave Y/n a wink

"Oh My!" Y/n giggled as they put their hands up to hide the bottom half of their face "Tango! So bold!"

while Y/n laughed along, their eyes closed with joy and laughter Tango watched Grian's expression which turned from shock to confusion to anger, and if looks could kill... Tango would have been dead 100 times over

"Anyways, I'm kidding," Tango said and watched as Grian's face quickly changed from anger to guilt and then back to normal as Y/n opened their eyes with a smile

"Alright, then what do you have for me Tango?" Y/n asked and set Grian's things down on a table she made outside

"I have six netherite ingots and a shulker of glass." He said and handed Y/n the shulker box of glass and the six netherite ingots, "I heard you had plans to play around with stained glass so I figured you'd need it."

"Woah!" Y/n looked up at him with big eyes "I can't take the netherite you worked so hard for!"

"It's fine, I can always mine some more." Tango shrugged "Anyway, I need 4 sets of clothes washed and then 2 pairs of pants mended."

"Okay, that's 120 diamonds total but I'll give you half off for the netherite and glass because that is a lot," Y/n said and took the clothes from him "And Etho! What you got for me?"

Tango and Grian turned around to see Etho arrive with a bundle of clothes in his arms and looking extremely happy with himself.

"Three full sets plus 4 masks that need mending." He said and dumped his clothes on the table "Two of the sets of clothes are Iskall's though, but I figured he wouldn't mind if I used some of his money to clean our clothes!"

"All right! What's 75+40 again?" Y/n asked out loud and started trying to do the math in their head

"115 diamonds," Grian said

"115 diamonds unless you have something to offer me," Y/n gave a sly smile at the masked ninja

"One IOU for whatever you need?" Etho asked nervously before he went to look in his inventory

"Make it four IOU's and I'll let you pay 15 diamonds for this," Y/n said

"Five and it's free?" Etho tried

"Four, Take it or leave it Etho," Y/n smirked

"Deal," Etho sighed and his shoulders slumped

"Perfect!" Y/n smiled and started folding Etho's and Iskall's clothes "I'll get back to you in the order in which you came! At most, it should take a week! Thank you for paying, goodbye!"

As the three males left, Bdubs came crashing in with his new moss jacket off his shoulders and a sad look on his face.

"Bdubs!" Y/n exclaimed and helped him up "What happened are you okay?"

"My jacket is ripped!" He whined and stomped his foot before Showing Y/n where the rip was "Can you fix it?"

Bdubs looked genuinely distressed and with his big pleading eyes, Y/n couldn't say no.

"Would you like me to mend it up?" Y/n asked, "I'll do it for free for my favorite person."

"Wouldn't you be missing out on diamonds?" Bdubs asked, "I can't pay right now but I will be able to eventually!"

"Nah, No need. So long as you don't tell the others. Think of it as me returning the favor from last season." Y/n smiled "Remember when you gave me all that diorite to piss off Iskall?"

"Watch your mouth!" Bdubs said before he smiled and laughed at the memory "And yeah! Ohh! He was so mad!"

"And it also took a bunch of your hard-earned diorite." Y/n said, "And if you really wanna pay me you can help me fashion diorite in my megabase when I get to texturing."

"that works!" the man holding the moss jacket smiled "When's the fastest you can get it done?"

"While I put Grian's clothes in the wash?" Y/n smiled "I have some moss that I can braid into a thread to sew your jacket with."

Bdubs smiled before it dropped and his face scrunched up. It was silent for a moment until he looked up and asked "Can I watch while you work? Keep you company?"

"If you can sing for me?" Y/n offered back to which he nodded and headed inside to make himself comfortable while Y/n picked up the clothes and separated everything from what needed to be washed or mended and then washed.

Y/n headed inside after grabbing all the clothes that need to be mended and placed the rest of the clothes in a shulker box that they would need to wash out afterward to get rid of the smell that may overtake it. Y/n sat down on a pile of moss that was encased with some fabric they found, making a bean bag chair while Bdubs sat on their bed.

Besides them were their sewing tools (Thankfully Y/n packed them from last season) and started braiding a thin but strong chunk of moss to sew into Bdubs' moss jacket. As they sewed, Y/n could see why Bdubs owned the beautiful coat. It was super warm and even as it lay in Y/n's lap Y/n could feel the warmth emanating from it. Now Bdubs was a cold person, not in the sense of his personality but in actual temperature.

Maybe it was the sudden warmth or the gentle singing of Bdubs in the background but Y/n was suddenly very reminded of when they used to spend their days off chilling with Grian in season 7 when no one else was online. The way he would let Y/n sit between his legs and wrap his wings around them as he hummed songs in his hobbit hole and castle when the interior was done. A wave of nostalgia and domesticity washed over them as they finished sewing Bdubs jacket.

"All done," Their voice was soft and sleepy and if they didn't have work to do Y/n would probably sleep the day away "it should hold for the rest of the season. Enjoy Bdubs."

"Thanks, Y/n," He smiled and got up to put on his moss coat and melted in the warmth it gave "I can still stay with you and sing if you want me to."

Unfortunately for Y/n, their communicators beeped and it was Keralis asking where Bdubs was and that he needed him for something.

"Nah, go see what Keralis wants. If anything I can get..." Y/n drawed out the letter 'e' as she looked who was online "Grian or Pearl to join me."

"Are you sure?" He asked but stood up anyway

"Absolutely!" Y/n smiled "Go see what Keralis needs and tell him I said hi!"

"Alright, Bye Y/n! Thanks for fixing up my jacket!" Bdubs left Y/n's house and took off with his elytra

"No Problem," Y/n smiled and watched as he flew off "Now let's get the paid stuff done!"

Y/n sat back on their makeshift beanbag and started mending Grian's clothes. They used the same needle, enchanted with mending, unbreaking, and sharpness, that they used on Bdubs' clothes to sew and used red thread they made to sew up and match the pattern on his sweater and did the same with his grey pants. After Y/n sewed up the clothes, they threw them in the washer with some soap she made last season and watched as it worked carefully cheering when it didn't break down the second the water started draining. As Grian's clothes washed, she focused on sewing up the other clothes of Tango and Etho while humming in satisfaction.

It was just a peaceful day

Masterlist

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hermitcrossovers · 8 months

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School very much be a bitch, I'm agreeing with you there!

Anyway, the 3rd Life dragon riders AU!

I say 3rd Life but it's more like 3rd Life-centric, with Empires season 1 on the side, some very niche helsmit headcanons that could probably get my main blog revealed because of how niche they are, and the smallest amount of canon timeline fuckery :D

I'll focus on 3rd Life for the time being tho

Basically, it all starts with Dogwarts (well, Evo technically but Dogwarts start the main plot). It started with Martyn getting lost at sea after watching his island be destroyed and ending up on the Defenders of the Wing island! Ren quickly follows, as with Skizz. Etho takes longer (by a few months) but they arrive as well. BigB takes the longest to make it, as well as the longest to learn to trust.

The five of them are a close-nit group before long, spending their days adventuring into the woods and sailing around the island. They all came from places where exploration was a must, and it's weird to be contained.

So they leave. They only leave after come newcomers arrive, ones who ride dragons. BigB suddenly isn't alone in being a rider, and Cookie (his speed stinger) makes close friends with the new dragons. Etho wants to learn how to ride a dragon, as with Ren and Skizz. Martyn decides to help the rest of the crew explore the world and try to find the dragon riders from the Edge.

Things don't exactly go to plan, and they get shipwrecked on a (thankfully) friendly island. They decide to make an outpost there, because what else can they do except rebuild the boat?

It's during this stay that Etho and Skizz meet their dragons, a changewing and a triple stryke respectively. Dogwarts doesn't end up leaving, no matter how many times they say they will.

Enter Grian and Scar! Who misread the situation entirely!

You see, Grian, Jimmy, BigB, Martyn, and Pearl are the only survivors of the island of Evo. Grian escaped the Watchers, a group of dragon hunters, by the skin of his teeth. BigB and Pearl took longer, but they got out. Martyn and Jimmy were rushed away before the Watchers attacked. Ever since getting out, Grian has sworn to find his missing friends and protect them.

One day, Grian saw Martyn and BigB from a distance while flying on his sentinel named Watcher. He watched as the two of them attempted to outrun Skizz, who was training Gaze (his triple stryke) to track others. Grian thought that Dogwarts was keeping his friends captive, and didn't think to learn more.

Scar on the other hand, is deserving of Dogwart's wrath. You see, Scar had attempted to gather a bunch of crystals to sell, only to be stopped by Etho and Ren. Those 'crystals' were actually dragon eggs, something Scar didn't know about. Scat got away with one egg, a terrible terror that would soon be named Llama, on his flightmare named Vex.

So basically miscommunication starts a war of sorts. Nobody here has the braincell.

I'll explain more about the Flower Husbands/Hobbits and the Crastle-alinged individuals later, my hands are hurting a bit and the ask box is getting laggy - 🔮🐦(magic bird anon)

(oh and I didn't mention it yet, because it happens later in the plot which I still need to explain, but Ren's dragon is a scuttleclaw named Red Winter, and Martyn's dragon is a slithersong named Listener)

This is so heckin pog! Ok so pretty obssesed with everyone's dragon and also the idea of the Dogwarts gang travelling together is so cool!!!! I love that they're all fighting bc of miscommunication it's so in character!

Was the island of Evo destroyed or is it just left abandoned now that all the survivors have left? 👀👀

Curious abt my dear flowers husbands too 👀

-Mod Jer

#3rd life smp #evolution smp #martyn inthelittlewood #ethoslab #skizzleman #bigb #rendog #grian #goodtimeswithscar #magic bird anon

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july-19th-club · 1 year

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every time you went to hug her she'd try to tickle you (as far as i remember, this wasn't something she used to do when i was younger and she was all there; the tickling was like an exclusively post-dementia thing - maybe as her ability to communicate diminished, it was a way she could still tease people and goof off with them). she lost something like a hundred pounds or more in the last five or ten years of her life, just kept shrinking and shrinking. when i was little she was plump and fat and had a round, full face and round full hair and a bristly chin that there's a copy of on my own face now. she had lost many teeth even before i was born, and lost more throughout the course of my life, but it didn't diminish her tastes or love of wine and food in the slightest. she was the platonic ideal of an italian grandmother to me, big and bustling. i don't remember the smell of her perfume. her style ethos was that if you had your lipstick on, you could go out and be dressed up no matter what you were wearing or how old your clothes were. she never learned to drive (her kids periodically tried to teach her, but she always got the gas and brake mixed up). when i want to think of her now i think of her at the end of the table in my mom's house, with a loud, gap-filled laugh, telling my parents about what such-and-such a neighbor was up to while my grandfather and his bushy tobacco-y yellow beard sat next to her. i will think of the books in her back bedroom, which i sat on the floor to read every visit as a kid. i will think of the way she'd shuffle down the hallway at five in the morning in her delightful, grandma-in-a-cartoon getup - frilly nightgown, fuzzy, worn, blue robe and slippers - to start the coffee. she'd watch the morning over pappy's garden in the sunroom, and my mom would join her - insomnia, so she'd always be up whenever grandma started banging pots and pans around. i'd stay curled up in the guest bed, with the wobbly round post that could pop on and off, and read her giant sherlock holmes anthology that lived on the bookshelf in there. my mother's childhood illustrated hobbit, also on that shelf. a two-thousand-page, enormous, annotated, unabridged shakespeare that is now in my parents' house because it's too big for my own shelves. if appetite for literature can be inherited i know exactly where i got it. my god, to sit at the little glass-top table with the vinyl tablecloth at seven in the morning, all the wide windows in front of us, sun coming up. birds crossing past. balcony and morning glories. the smell of tetley tea.

#the more i think the more i miss her #of course we hadn't really HAD her. much. for years #she was going for a long time before she was gone #but that's why it sucks so bad. she used to be able to tell us about her magnolia tree . she used to be able to gossip #used to be able to drill sargent her way through someone else's kitchen even when THEY were cooking HER dinner and not the other way around #steam and pasta water smell and tomato and basil and the rich dense soft bite of her meatballs #the way her hair used to be iron-grey. she had the same brillo-y perm her whole life. even up to the day she died #she still had a little black in there. most of it was white but she still had a little black hair. never once dyed it #just naturally dark in one or two places #even the silly little sign in her downstairs bathroom. 'if all else fails shut the door'

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pixiemage · 2 years

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Domino Effect - Part 3

[ Previous | Next ]

(For the first time since the time loop began, Martyn contemplates leaving Ren's side. He learns some interesting things by being on a different side of the war.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The conversation with Jimmy was quickly forgotten as Martyn set about laying out the seeds for the path he wanted this run to take. The Hobbits were still worth allying with, at least for the next few runs, and if nothing came of it he would shift gears.

The end remained the same, and so he began again.

Martyn wasted eight or nine runs attempting to gain loyalty from the outliers on the server, from Etho and Tango and Impulse and Joel. They had joined him before in other timelines (individually, of course), but pulling them to his side without having first gained other allies turned out to be an impossibility. They were too flighty and independent at the start of the server to see the need for loyalties, and by the time it became prevalent to have allies they found themselves gravitating right back to their default teams from the original timeline. Tango with the Crastle folks, Etho with Dogwarts, Impulse a spy, and Joel loyal to no one but himself. It seemed that only when Martyn pushed for a complete upheaval of alliances did the indecisive choose other sides.

Then came one of Martyn’s most painful decisions. He had been toying with it for twenty or thirty runs by now but had never been bold enough to try. In every run, in every timeline, in every iteration of this game, Martyn had remained by Ren’s side. He had been the Red King’s loyal Hand, his first knight, his trusted second-in-command. Ren had been a constant, even when his dialogue began to sound less natural and more scripted with each run, even when Martyn was forced to chop off Ren’s head again and again and again and again and again.

It was after the seventy-eight beheading that Martyn actually consider changing his loyalties, partially to see if he had a chance of winning with someone else, but partially because it was becoming agonizing to sever his partner’s head from his shoulders time and time again. It was becoming painful, too, to watch Ren die again and again despite his best efforts. He needed distance. He needed to breathe. He needed to try something else.

Run number eighty-three found him siding with Bdubs and Cleo right at the start. It was strange to see the kidnapping of Pizza from the other side, and it was almost amusing to watch Ren spill the gossip to Bdubs and Etho and himself when he wasn’t supposed to know that Ren would do so. It was also interesting to see that, without Martyn’s wariness of Etho that he had held from the beginning, Ren and Etho became allies much sooner in the timeline. Etho beheaded Ren instead of him but seemed to jokingly refuse to play into Ren’s whole kingdom dynamic he had built up.

(The whole thing was painful to think about. So Martyn chose to ignore it.)

It was strange being on a completely different side of the war. Somehow starting afresh like this felt much more like the game Third Life had once been, had once felt like to Martyn before he had been forced to relive it dozens upon dozens of times. The conversations weren’t so stale, the battles were flipped on their head thanks to him being on the opposite side, and the decisions Martyn had to make were far less robotic and felt more like actual decision-making when the decisions he had to make were ones he’d never needed to before.

He also learned many things about Team Crastle and their story this way. He was there when Impulse first offered to play spy, was there when Cleo expressed her distrust of Impulse and called their team the “Secret Girlfriend”. Martyn laughed along with Bdubs at the nickname and patted Cleo’s shoulder consolingly, already knowing that Impulse would remain loyal to them in the end no matter how strongly Cleo held misgivings about their newfound “ally”.

He learned that, no matter what he did, Bdubs would always lose his first life by falling from the top of the Crastle. Whether Martyn was there or not, whether there was water below or not, whether Bdubs killed the phantoms or not, he would always fall…and he would always die.

Perhaps, he supposed, he had been right to assume that he wouldn’t be able to change Bdubs’ first death even if he tried. Perhaps, he supposed, he had been right in assuming some points on the timeline were absolute.

Martyn also learned that the alliance between Team Crastle and the Sand People wasn’t one that had come easily. Apparently the Crastle folk - or more specifically Bdubs - had been fiercely against Grian and Scar from the beginning, something which Martyn had always been vaguely aware of but had never witnessed firsthand. After watching Bdubs lose his second life to a trap of Grian’s design, Martyn could certainly understand why.

Then Bdubs fell ill as he always did, and Cleo went to apologize to Joel for burning his roof, and a fire set the walls of Hobbiton ablaze, and though Martyn wasn’t there for all of it he began to understand how Cleo had flipped her loyalties so quickly in little more than a few days. From the side of the Red Army, things had been so much more straightforward that week. They had sought out enemies and defended their own, and though Joel being a turncoat took them slightly by surprise and they had almost been blown up by the trap atop Monopoly Mountain, it had still been a victorious turn of events overall. From this side, watching everyone scramble to cement alliances and figure out who their real friends were, it was so much more chaotic and unpredictable.

Martyn wasn’t there when Cleo first met with Scott and Jimmy that week, having opted to stay back and keep an eye on Bdubs for that afternoon. He heard her tell of their burning wall and their investigation and her visit to Dogwarts over dinner that night, and he tried to ignore the pang in his chest at the mention of his old home.

He missed Ren, but he missed his Ren, missed when he had no idea what his friend would do next rather than being able to predict seventy percent of what the man might say or do.

(If he did this right, he could have his friend back, he was sure. He could have them all back.)

Though he missed the beginnings of the Hobbits’ investigation, he was there when Scar approached the Crastle with the offer of an alliance, and Martyn watched on with narrowed, thoughtful eyes from the drawbridge as Tango approached as well. He couldn’t remember when Tango had joined Cleo and Bdubs, but he knew it had to be soon. He hadn’t been there himself, after all, so he didn’t have immediate knowledge to work with, and he didn’t factor in the timeline in which he and Ren had drawn the Crastle folks to their side. Too many differing variables would have guaranteed inaccuracy compared to this timeline.

In the end, Martyn left most of the conversing and debating and allegiance-swearing to Cleo for the first run or two, opting to watch from the sidelines as she joined forces with Jimmy and Scott on an official basis and even accepted a tentative alliance with the Sand People. He watched, and he listened, and he learned.

Something about that phrasing felt odd in his head, but he didn’t have the presence of mind to question it with so much else going on.

It was so surreal experiencing Third Life from this perspective that he almost forgot that the first “battle” in the desert was coming up. He didn’t even realize what day it was until Etho’s death at Scar’s hands lit up his communicator, making him abandon Bdubs’ bedside in favor of equipping his armor and shooting out a message to Cleo.

<InTheLittleWood> where are you? <ZombieCleo> just past the drawbridge <ZombieCleo> was farming trees but I can see Jimmy and Scott over at Joel’s <ZombieCleo> wanna go hunt down some gossip? <InTheLittleWood> gladly

It was the first time Martyn was seeing Ren in person since starting this run, and Martyn wasn’t sure how to feel about it. For the first time since Third Life had begun they were on opposing sides. It felt foreign. It felt wrong. Martyn was standing on the roof of Joel’s house with Cleo and the Hobbits while Ren stood on the ground surrounded by the Red Army. The look Ren was pinning them with was one of grinning animosity, one of a wolf staring down its prey. Martyn had seen that look in battle before, but never directed at him.

After so many years of fighting with Ren, standing against him was making him feel like an imposter in this game.

(And it was a game, he had to remind himself, just a game, because beneath the red ferocity of Ren’s stare Martyn would sometimes catch glimpses of his mask slipping, of the role he was playing falling away as he laughed at a joke or fumbled over an improvised line. They were fighting, but they were having fun, and Martyn had to remember that…even if it had stopped being much of a game to him long, long ago.)

If Martyn thought opposing Ren and Dogwarts at Joel’s was difficult to swallow, the confrontation in the desert was even worse. They weren’t fighting this time but Martyn knew the explosion on Monopoly Mountain was coming and he didn’t know how his lack of involvement would change things as he fled the desert at Cleo’s side.

His history as the King’s Hand begged him to warn them.

His loyalty to Cleo in this run convinced him not to.

The oddest thing about the situation, he realized briefly, was that the voices were simultaneously noisier and more muffled than usual as he and Cleo run through the trees with Jimmy and Scott and Grian in tow. The five of them stuck together and made a haphazard path toward Dogwarts, talk of bobby traps and destruction filling the air on whispers, and all the while quiet words only Martyn could hear cut through it all. He couldn’t make out what they were saying exactly, he only knew they were displeased about…something. Something about this situation was making them unhappy, and it wasn’t the fact that he was on Team Crastle this time around because otherwise they would have said something sooner.

He told himself he would puzzle over it when they got back home safely.

By the time they were home, Bdubs was half-aware and working his way through the food Martyn had left for him, his complexion not quite as sickly and his eyes a little less glazed. He looked exhausted and miserable but less so than he had all week, and Martyn knew he would be back on his feet within a few days.

And then Cleo fell from the roof at Joel’s, and Cleo lost her first life, and Cleo returned with a fury toward the Red Army that cemented their opposition to Dogwarts far more than anything else had thus far, and Martyn forced himself to ignore the displeased chattering of the voices so he could learn what he could about the new timeline he had forged. If he was going to change anything, his attention couldn’t be divided.

Much like the first time Skizz attempted to take on the Crastle alone when he was red, when Cleo went tearing after Ren on her last life Martyn was too slow to stop her. She died the same way she had in the original timeline, ablaze with red rage and recklessness and actual flames, dying at Skizzle’s hands and leaving Martyn to drag Bdubs away to the Crastle for safety. They couldn’t fight the Red Army with just the two of them.

(He couldn’t have fought Ren then even if he wanted to.)

Then when the final battle of Dogwarts came around, Martyn couldn’t help the way he naturally fell back on his habits from the Red Army. He called out “Eyes!” to warn the others of intruders, something only Impulse seemed to recognize from his time as a spy in their ranks, something Tango caught onto quickly enough if only because of how well he knew Impulse. Martyn was so distracted by the annoying and annoyed whispering at the back of his head that hadn’t really left since the joining of the Crastle and the Hobbits and the Sand People, so very distracted that he didn’t see Ren’s axe swinging his way until it was almost too late to block the blow with his pizza-adorned shield. Martyn’s eyes widened and his grip on his sword tensed. He knew he had to fight back, knew he was on his last life, knew Ren could very well take him down there and then - but he couldn’t bring himself to do much more than block and defend as the Red King landed blow after blow against the splintering wood.

He couldn’t bring himself to hurt his once-friend in return. Not this time.

When the Red Winter axe struck Martyn down, his last thought was - strangely - that something behind Ren’s eyes looked shocked and saddened as he fell. It was there for a fraction of a fraction of a second before it vanished, replaced by the red fire of a fighter in an instant, but the expression lingered in Martyn’s mind even as the darkness and the voices swallowed him once again.

He had to have been seeing things, right? His homesick mind had been playing tricks on him in his last moments. It must have been.

“Change is in order. Our will be done.”

On Martyn’s eighty-fourth run, he took what he had learned from the first Team Crastle attempt to try and change things for the better. He shifted alliances, kept Impulse closer, brought Tango in sooner and used him as a second spy like he had sort of intended to be in the previous run. Impulse played spy for Dogwarts. Tango played spy for the Sand People, something that hadn’t been considered the first time around.

Bdubs fell from the tower and Cleo fell from Joel’s roof.

(Much like Bdubs’ first death, it seemed as though Cleo’s first fall was as absolute as her partner’s. The two founders of the Crastle, both doomed to fall from the heavens when they fell to yellow, one step closer to red. It was poetic, in a way, even if Martyn wished he could change it.)

In some runs, Martyn hung closer to Cleo’s side when she went red and managed to dissuade her from her solo attack against the Red Army. She slipped from his grasp a few times, the red rage taking hold quicker than he anticipated, but more often than not Martyn was starting to learn that having Bdubs closer allowed them both to drag her away from the opposing team before she could pass the point of no return. When she managed to survive, she was a great help in the final battle of Dogwarts.

And after that first Crastle run, never again did Martyn allow himself to get close enough to Ren for them to ever engage in combat. Sometimes Martyn would die before him, and sometimes Scar or Grian or Cleo would manage to take down Ren, but never again did they have to lose their lives to each others’ blades. If nothing else stayed consistent, Martyn would be damned if he didn’t ensure that did.

“Change is in order. Our will be done.”

Of course, as all other attempts so far had gone, eventually Martyn came to the inevitable conclusion that something about the Crastle angle wasn’t working. He shifted gears again after a dozen or so tries, his eyes turning to the Hobbits instead. Jimmy may not have been a strong fighter but Scott was, and out of anyone on the server the alliances the Hobbits formed over the course of the game tended to be stronger than most. He fell into the same pattern of watching a first run and learning as he went, then starting a second attempt with that knowledge in mind. It took him two tries before he was able to prevent Jimmy’s second death during the bombing of Dogwarts, and once he did it the first time he never failed to do it again. For the first few runs where Martyn allowed the timeline to flow fairly close to its original turn of events it meant that Jimmy didn’t lose his last life in the battle of the sand bunker, and it meant that Scott wasn’t made a widow quite so soon.

That was the other thing about orchestrating Hobbit runs, Martyn found: basing with Scott and Jimmy meant he was a witness to all their couply behavior, which he spent about a third of his time teasing them for. He had gotten a glimpse of it during prior runs where he had encouraged Ren to bring the Hobbits in as allies, but living with them both was vastly different. It was a bit adorable, a bit of a bright spot amidst the chaos of the war going on around them, and by the time he had spent three or four months on their team stretched out across multiple runs, he began to understand why Scott’s fighting had become so much more terrifying and passion-fueled in the latter days of Third Life after Jimmy was gone.

(He ignored the fact that he had probably come close to understanding it in a past run, the first time Ren had died while Martyn was on yellow and his only thought had been revenge for his fallen king.)

The first time Ren came to the Hobbits as the Red King - with Skizzle by his side instead of Etho or Martyn - the day he came to forge an alliance, Martyn didn’t say a word. He let Scott and Jimmy guide the conversation, let Jimmy burn the red banner, and when all was said and done and Ren left them with a warning in that unidentifiable accent of the Red King, Martyn listened to the husbands bicker while he smiled to himself and reminisced about how strange it was - again - to be on the other side of these situations.

And then Scar and Grian arrived the next day, offering an alliance of their own, and Martyn was surprised by how muted the voices in his head were when expressing their bitter annoyance. He had realized a run or two back with the Crastle folks that whatever the voices kept complaining about had something to do with the Sand People, though he still had yet to figure out exactly what that something was. But it was strange, he mused, that they seemed so quiet now. He glanced sideways toward Jimmy, who was eagerly exchanging gifts with Grian while Scar marveled over the potions Scott had given them. Jimmy’s proximity had quieted the voices before, hadn’t it? He remembered it vaguely, the memories fuzzy, but he knew it had happened. And by now he had spent what equated to months with the man. Perhaps it was a compounding effect. He guessed he might as well enjoy the quiet while he was on this path, for however long he would follow it.

It might help, he later realized, if they didn’t interact with Scar and Grian at all. Not the plot, necessarily - he wasn’t sure what would help him get to the end of this Groundhog Day bullshit and he’d already made a hundred attempts by now - but it would help quiet the voices if he didn’t side with the “Desert Hippies” as Ren often called them. Perhaps it was about time he attempted a shift of allegiances anyway, right? It was worth a shot, and it would stave off some of Martyn’s boredom if nothing else. Perhaps, the next time the members of Renchanting came to call, he’d convince Jimmy to play nice and do some bartering instead of turning them away so soon.

As with every iteration of the game, changing one thing often altered others. The butterfly effect, the first domino, the dropped pebble making waves. Much like how Ren’s second in command was Skizz this time around (the circumstances of which Martyn still didn’t know), when Martyn suggested to Scott and Jimmy that they should side with Dogwarts over the Desert Duo, he knew other alliances would shift. In this case, it meant Etho and Big B found themselves on different teams, with Etho aiding the Crastle instead of attacking them and Big B teaming up with Grian since they were Day One members of the Blue Sword Boys.

Martyn couldn’t fault him for that. After all, he had used the BSB himself in a prior run to join forces with three-fourths of the Evo members on the server, hadn’t he?

With the Hobbits and the Red King on the same side, Martyn found himself avoiding Ren more than he probably should have. It wasn’t Ren’s fault either. It was simply that Martyn had been away from him for so long and their history was now so vast - at least for Martyn - that he hadn’t a clue how to behave around him anymore. If they had begun on the same side, at least Martyn would have known where they stood from past experience and played off of that. But in this instance, things were so different and the circumstances had changed so drastically that Martyn wasn’t sure how to even approach the other player.

There came a night on the seventh Hobbit run that Martyn found himself sitting atop the wall of Dogwarts, staring up at the star-strewn sky and wishing, not for the first time, that the strange voices would just tell him what they wanted from him instead of making him guess and guess and guess and fail and fail. He had lived lifetimes trapped between these borders, trapped within this loop, and he sometimes wished that when he lost his last life he’d just lose it for good. He didn’t really, he’d much rather live, but if this was all life would be for him until the end of time? Well, hell, he’d rather that time would just end. He was on his red life right now as it stood. It would be far too easy to just jump from the wall…for all the good it would do. Even if he had the guts to do it, he’d just be dropped right back at the start again, with Ren and the phantoms and the bloody flooded cave.

The creak of a ladder alerted Martyn to a presence behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder to see a far-too-familiar bloodied crown rising toward him from the wheat fields below. He swallowed and sighed and looked out over the forest as the King of Dogwarts took a seat at his side.

“Hey boss,” Martyn forced out a quip, not really caring that the old nickname wasn’t quite as literal in this run as it would have been in another. Ren was still his king, and he was sure the nickname would be accepted without question.

“Evening Martyn,” Ren returned, and from the way he spoke Martyn could tell he was smiling. “It’s a bit late to be up here alone.”

“Mmm, probably,” Martyn shrugged. He tilted his head back to stare up at the stars again. “S’ppose you’re a bit of a hypocrite for sayin’ that though, hey?”

“Probably.” Ren mimicked him with an audible grin, though when he sighed Martyn could hear that his smile had fallen. “Actually, I was looking for you.”

Oh.

“Oh,” he said eloquently. He swallowed. “Uh - any particular reason, my lord?”

“Yes, actually. There’s uh - there’s somethin’ that’s been bothering me.”

“...alright?”

This was new. This wasn’t a conversation Martyn had ever had before, and the instinctual flow of dialogue didn’t come as it usually did for the more scripted moments of the game. He was alone in this, having to pick his own words, and for the first time in a long time Martyn was actually wishing the voices would just tell him what to say.

“Did I do something wrong, man?”

“What?” Martyn’s focus snapped over to Ren with a frown, only to see the red-eyed king looking almost pathetic with how hurt he looked and with the way his ears were pinned back against his head. “What d’you mean?”

“We’re supposed to be allies, but you’ve been ignoring me since you got here,” Ren told him. “I mean I get that we don’t know each other but Jimmy says you’re a pretty friendly guy, so I’m just - confused.”

Shit. Martyn groaned and dragged his hands down his face, letting out a heavy sigh.

“It’s - no, mate, it’s nothing you did,” he muttered, now feeling a bit shit for forcing so much distance between himself and Ren even if it was a little painful to look at him sometimes. “You just - remind me of someone, I guess.”

“...oh. Sorry, I had no idea.”

Martyn snorted into his hands then let them drop, tossing Ren an exhausted and world-weary smile.

“Nah, you didn’t know,” he muttered. “I just miss him is all. Sorry for being an ass about it.”

“No, no!” Ren insisted. “No need to apologize. I get it.” There was a silence for a moment, but Martyn could feel the prickle of eyes on him as he stared out over the forest again. He knew Ren too well at this point. If he stayed quiet and waited long enough then– “Who is it?”

Bingo.

Martyn was silent for a few seconds, trying to think of a simple answer without saying “It’s the version of you I used to know. I’ve lived through a hundred timelines and seen a hundred similar versions of you but you’re not the same Ren. I miss him. I miss everyone.” So instead, he chewed his lip before responding with few words.

“He’s…something like a brother to me. Family.”

Because that was true enough, wasn’t it? Ren had become something like family to him, much like Jimmy was, much like Grian was, much like half of the people on this server were. They were family, and it was killing him to watch them die over and over again with no resolution. Without the memories Martyn carried over from run to run, they might see it as a game, still joking between battles and bringing up plans for builds on other servers and brushing past conflicts under the rug when given the measly gift of a clock for the entertainment value…but he couldn’t pretend to see it like that anymore. It wasn’t a game to him. It was torture. It was an unsolvable puzzle, unending torment, unresolvable conflict. It was–

“We’ve been playing Third Life for a while, huh?” Ren mused, knocking Martyn from his thoughts. Martyn huffed out a humorless laugh. Ren didn’t know the half of it.

“That’s putting it lightly,” he said, his tone dry.

“Well hey–” Ren clapped a friendly hand on his shoulder, grinning at him over his shades. “–when we win this thing, we can all go home! I’m sure you’ll see him again soon. We’ve just gotta beat those Desert Hippies into the ground an’ then we’ll be home free!”

…beat them into the ground, huh?

Perhaps Martyn had been going about this the wrong way. Perhaps it wasn’t about joining a team that already existed. Perhaps it was about forming one of his own, with members strong enough to win this thing if they were all on the same side. Perhaps that was his next move.

With a determined sharpness back in his eyes, Martyn cast a grin and a wink in Ren’s direction.

“S’ppose you might be right on that, boss man.”

Then he kicked away from the wall and jumped, ignoring Ren’s cry of alarm as he plummeted toward the ground. This time, when he lost his final life, it was of his own doing. He had a plan.

“Change is in order. Our will be done.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

[A/N: Martyn's been at this for a long, long time, hasn't he? I also liked the angle that Bdubs being missing during that one week of 3L could be equated to him literally being sick that week on the server, so he couldn't participate. I thought about having him leave, but it makes more sense if nobody CAN leave until the game is over. Everyone's trapped, Martyn included, and he has to fight to free them all. Granted, the original intent was that everyone probably agreed to stick around for a few weeks of gameplay just to keep things fair, seeing as it's Grian's game, but I also like the idea that they couldn't have left even if they tried. I wonder what Grian would think if he realized that...?]

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