#leaving spawn

[stuckontheslowpath]

Imagine the hippies a few weeks after they learn they're stuck in alpha. They've been surviving, but it's not going to last long without a real sense of purpose—right now they're just drifting.

When they finally realize they're going to be here for a long time, they decide it's probably best to head away from spawn. There's no need to leave more of a sign of their presence than they need to, even if they haven't exactly been subtle about it.

Hadn't Xisuma mentioned something about having to come to the world early to fix some chunk generation errors around spawn, though? They can't remember the details, but they start to realize it was probably the results of their time here.

They wonder if X found their house, because as horrible as it is they can't bear to tear it down yet. Besides, Grian still needs to be able to reference his signs, they can't ruin it until he has it properly replicated. The book and quill doesn't exist yet, after all, and signs aren't exactly portable if you need their message to stay intact.

They travel as far from spawn as they dare, walking in the direction of the rising sun. Everything looks the same, alpha doesn't exactly have a ton of terrain variety, but the important part is getting away from world spawn.

They know, deep down, that the trail of alpha terrain will lead straight to them. They ignore it. They can always move later—they probably will, if only to inhabit some nicer terrain—and if they're lucky X will just reset a certain radius around spawn without following the trail to its end.

Eventually they settle on an area and get to work. Grian starts on a house, Ren starts on a farm, and Impulse vanishes underground to carve out a mine (it's not funny no matter how many times he says it, but the wordplay is familiar and soothes a shared ache so he won't stop).

It's not great, but they're doing okay until Ren misses the water he's aiming for when his hearts are lower than he realized. The gravity of the situation doesn't really hit until he wakes up at world spawn, alone, thousands of blocks away from his friends.

It's going to be a long walk back.

[stuckontheslowpath]

At first, they stay near spawn. What else would they do? There's no point to leaving, nowhere else will be more beneficial than here.

By month three, once they begin to internalize that they're going to be here for Quite Some Time, they realize it's not a question of somewhere else being more beneficial. It's a matter of not being here, at spawn, leaving massive indicators that someone was here before the start of season six.

So they pack up the essentials and they leave. They can't tear down the house yet—they still need the signs, since the book and quill hasn't been added yet, and they can't bring themselves to anyway. It's cramped and ugly and altogether horrible, but it's theirs.

It's all that's theirs anymore.

They'll come back and destroy it when they don't feel quite so fragile and lost and small, they tell themselves. (They never do.)

They can't decide which way to go at first. On a whim, Impulse says east. Ren and Grian agree because it's the first time Impulse has made a request in weeks, and they walk towards the rising sun.

And they walk. For hours, for days, for weeks. In the daytime, they walk. They don't need to break when they don't get tired, when they don't need to eat. When the sun begins to set, they dig a hole in the dirt or stone and bury themselves underground, listening to the undead shamble around the surface until morning comes.

As the sun rises, so do they, dragging themselves from their could-have-been grave day after day after day.

They reach an ocean and consider stopping. Grian pushes them to go further, something like fear in his countenance.

They swim.

They reach the shore, and they walk. For thousands of blocks, they walk.

One day, on a whim, they stop. Here, someone says. Let's build here.

And they do. They build a house, and in time they build a home.

And in time, they find something like happiness—ringing hollow and incomplete, but happiness all the same, all the sweeter for the undercurrent of bitterness it holds.