Hello everyone! This was written as part of the unofficial underrated hermits week project by @boop-ity! Thanks for asking me to be a part of this!
Curiouser and Curiouser
c!Zedaph x gn!Reader
Summary: Your husband is a scientist, and you’re his assistant. One day, he asks you to step into the experiment, and something stranger than either of you expected shows up in the results.
Notes: Established relationship (married), set in Season 8 of HermitCraft, scientific experiments, mentions of loud noises, reader has superpowers (kind of?).
Ever since you learned of Zed’s plan for the season, you claimed the role as his assistant. Not that there was much competition, as your husband wouldn’t have even considered asking anyone else.
When he decided to start experiments on his fellow hermits, you were happy to help with the proceedings. You set up the test chamber and helped to come up with the various parts to the examination, right beside Zedaph the entire time. When he (inevitably) asked you to be one of the subjects, you were more than happy to oblige. You didn’t expect your results to be anything unusual, especially with how arbitrary the tests were designed to be.
How wrong you were.
It started out the same as any other experiment, and you dropped into the testing chamber without ceremony. Soon, Zed’s voice came through the speaker system you’d helped to set up.
The first test was nothing simple item association, and you came up with suitably reasonable items, certainly nowhere near the strangest of answers.
The first unusual thing happened when Zed asked you to create an automatic system. With the materials provided, you figured it would be simple to make an automatic bamboo farm, much like those of previous subjects. Once the structure was completed, you began to lay out the redstone dust. Somehow, though, an observer was not in the provided items, despite you being pretty sure that it had been there for the other experimentees.
“Well, this kind of throws off the plan.” With a slight grumble, you began to painstakingly pull up the strips of redstone dust. Without a power source, you couldn’t even set up a simple loop.
As you thought power source, something twitched in your fingers. Instinctively, you jerked back from the wiring in time to see a red glow emerge from your hands. The wiring began to spark, and you only watched in shock as the circuit whirred to life under your fingertips.
Turning to your husband, he looked just as stunned by this development as you were. After a moment, he began scribbling at his clipboard, adjusting the microphone by his mouth before speaking over the intercoms again. “Fascinating! I take it from your reaction that this hasn’t happened before?”
You shot him a small glare, even you couldn’t help but smile at him. “Zed, you know this hasn’t happened, just as well as I do. You’ve been there every time I’ve done redstone. That’s your specialty, not mine.”
Despite that… unusual event, the rest of the tests seemed normal. At least, until Zedaph asked you to make as much noise as possible using only the items in the chamber with you.
Immediately, you were drawn to the minecart. You’d heard enough people complain about how loud they could get. If only you could get it moving quickly… Kneeling down, you rearranged the track to make a loop rather than a squiggle, then looked around at the other objects. What could you use to power the minecart so it would move on its own?
Again, you felt a trembling in your fingers. Glancing back towards the iron cart, the red glow was back. Sparks flew from your hands to the cart, shooting down into the wheels and the track, and jolting the minecart forward.
The minecart shot forward at a speed that made you jump back with a yelp. It was certainly loud, and a screeching came from the wheels, which were skidding along the tracks at a speed that was just a bit too fast.
Clapping your hands to your ears, you stepped back. A pressurised hiss came from somewhere to the side, and you turned to see Zed moving quickly towards you, the glass wall that had been separating you still sliding to the side. Stepping toward the device you’d created, he took his pickaxe and broke a piece of the track, stopping the cart just as swiftly as it started.
He turned towards you, and the half-panicked look on his face melted into something of reassurance. “Are you alright, darling? You’re shaking.”
You looked down at yourself. He was right. “I hadn’t even realised!” Smiling gently at you, your husband spread out his arms. You practically melted into his grasp, wrapping your own arms around him. “I was not expecting these results when I agreed to be one of your test subjects.”
He let out a chuckle, the vibrations carrying more than the sound as you pressed into his chest. “Well, none of the hermits are exactly normal. I suppose you’re just a bit curiouser than we realised.”
