ch.27: lily of the valley, for sweetness and humility

68 1 0
                                    

The camp is nothing more than smouldering embers when you finally return to it. Wilbur manages to recover his netherite armor, but you and Tubbo's iron sets are half melted, warped beyond current repair by the heat. Between them, there's only a chest plate and a pair of leggings left. You consolidate them into one set and, after much convincing, finally get Tubbo to agree to wear it. Worse than the armor, the bag full of your remaining emergency potions lays splattered in the clearing, destroyed entirely. Between the three of you, there's barely enough equipment for a single person.

You collect what little you have and start off toward the south, back in the general direction of L'manburg. You weren't exactly sure where you were, couldn't be certain without a map to reference, but you knew it was going to be a few days' journey just to reach the outskirts. Tubbo takes point, the only one of you with an actual memory of where it was, and you and Wilbur follow dutifully after. You keep your bow at the ready, just in case.

"Tubbo, how are we going to find your friend...what did you say their name was?" you ask, as you and Wilbur finish constructing your shelter for the first night. You sit down next to him as he struggles to light the campfire.

"Ranboo? Oh, well..." he leans back, giving up on the fire as he thinks it over for a moment. "I'm not sure."

"You're not sure?"

"He usually just...shows up." He frowns, looks down at the ground. "He likes to talk to people, but not everyone is...you know how some people treat hybrids."

"Don't think she does," Wilbur jokes, taking over the task of lighting the campfire. "She hasn't been back to the ocean in years, she's forgotten what being one's like."

"That'd explain where the gills went," you laugh, absentmindedly fiddling with the prismarine pendant around your neck. "Pretty sure I would've forgotten anyway, though. But I understand. People can be cruel sometimes." Tubbo nods, looking pensively at the ground.

"He tries to be nice to everyone. He likes people. He just doesn't like to pick sides. And people get really mad at him for it. People in L'manburg used to be really mean to him about it when he would visit me. So we decided to meet up in the woods outside instead, so that they wouldn't bother him." He looks up at the two of you and shrugs. "But I didn't get a chance to tell him where I was going when they took me. I don't know how to contact him."

"Maybe if we go to that part of the forest he'll eventually show up," you offer, and he gives a half-hearted shrug.

"I just realized that I didn't get to say goodbye. He...he has memory problems," he explains. "Not like you two, he forgets recent stuff, not past stuff. But I'm worried that he'll think I just left him because he doesn't...because I didn't explain..."

"It's okay," you soothe, putting an arm around his shoulder. "We'll find him. We'll find him and then you can explain everything to him."

"What if he's mad at me?"

"He won't be. You got kidnapped, Tubbo," Wilbur interjects, as the campfire finally flares to life. You flinch away from it for a second, the hand in your lap clenching hard enough to dig your nails painfully into your palm. "I doubt anyone could blame you for that."

You stay up for a few more hours, sitting by the fire in relative silence, cooking what meager food you'd hunted along the way. You were beginning to really miss fresh baked bread. Tubbo calls it a night first, falling asleep on your shoulder. You fold your jacket into a pillow for him, using your cloak as a blanket and lay him down close to the warmth of the campfire. As you stand to take first watch, you feel a weight on your shoulders as Wilbur drapes his coat over you.

forget me nots are filler flowers (reader x c!wilbur)Where stories live. Discover now