So in the new movie about IVF, "Joy", Louisa Harland and Ashna Rabheru are seated next to each other and it made me think of a Renegade Nell x Joy head cannon. Spoilers for both shows ahead.
After Nell saved the world several times over she and Polly crossed paths again, and this time Nell was ready for it. They fell in love. Billy Blind's powers, as he switches between them, protect them both from all harm, even at the hands of Father Time, making them essentially immortal. They've survived well into the 1960s. They change their identities every so often to avoid being clocked as immortals, but they always stay together. They long to have a kid but, as lesbians, they can't. IVF is the best way to get a kid that doesn't involve any sort of relationship with a man. They decide to both apply, that way they don't have to decide who's going to be the biological mother of their kid. When the IVF doesn't work for either of them they are, understandably, devastated, but they get through it and live another 50 years, by which time IVF is a widely succesful program that has helped millions of women have children. They've both recovered from the issues they had the first time and decide to try again. This time both of them get pregnant. Polly gives birth to a beautiful baby girl they call Roxy, and Nell has a boy they name Billy on the same day. They raise the twins together into adulthood and Billy becomes a writer like his mother, while Roxy goes on to serve in the army like her mum. When Roxy comes home one year, wounded from a battle but determined to go back, Nell and Polly have Billy Blind protect her instead, knowing it means they can no longer be immortal. Together they grow old, Polly writing Nell frequent love letters and poetry, and Nell doing her best to protect her family from the occasionally horrid world, even without her sprite. Nell dies at the age of 346, looking as though she were 89, in a knife fight in the streets of Cambridge, over a throwaway homophobic comment made by some students when they saw the couple walking hand in hand. Polly holds Nell in her arms as she bleeds out, the tips of her white curls staining red. Polly weeps as she takes the knife from Nell's ribs and thrusts it into her own, and they take their final breath together, just as they took so many breaths together, for three hundred years. Three hundred beautiful years.
Sweating and panting, Grian woke. He looked around, momentarily disoriented. He saw Scar lying to his left, fast asleep, cuddling his makeshift moss pillow. To his right Grian saw Mumbo, turned away from him, equally oblivious to the woken world. Grian tried his best to calm his breathing, taking big gulps of humid, tropical air. He closed his eyes and thought back to his dream. He had been flying, beautiful, parrot-like wings sprouting from his back. The wind had rushed along his face, he had flown through the clouds… All of a sudden he’d heard a loud crack, he looked back and saw that his wings had snapped. He tumbled down, down, into the depths of the ocean beneath him. He couldn’t breathe, he tried to call for help but water filled his lungs. He saw the faces of his fellow hermits, all drowning and flailing, but he couldn’t do anything to help them. With that feeling of terror and helplessness, he had awoken.
He shivered. Suddenly, the realisation that he had almost died washed over him. And even worse, that his friends had almost died. They were incredibly lucky to all have survived. He started to shake a little and realised he was crying. Tears streamed down his face and onto his sweater, leaving dark blotches on the wool. He sat curled in a ball, shivering and shaking, for a solid ten minutes. When he could weep no more, he wiped his tears and stood up. He knew he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep anymore that night, so he emerged from the hut he shared with his two best friends and mindlessly wandered towards the ocean. When he got there, he continued walking, not caring that the hems of his pants got wet, or that his shoes, which were still damp from the day before, from the crash, would not dry for another day. He just wandered further and further, letting the waves crash against him, until he was waist-deep. The sky was light, though the sun hadn’t risen yet.
“Can’t sleep either?” a voice from behind startled him out of his trance. He turned around to see Cleo approaching him. She waded through the water until she was level with Grian. The tips of her flaming red hair hung in the water. She didn’t look at him, but instead stared out into the distance, where the horizon was gradually getting brighter.
Grian chuckled humorlessly. “I had a nightmare,” he admitted.
“Me too. I think it’s safe to assume it was about the same thing?”
Grian nodded. “How did the crash manifest into your imagination?”
Cleo snorted. “I was driving with Joe and we hit another car. We flew off the road and into the sea below us.”
Grian nodded again, picturing it in his mind.
“What about you?” Cleo asked.
“I was flying- with wings- and my wings broke.”
Cleo hummed in acknowledgement.
The first of the sun’s rays now peeked over the horizon. They watched it rise together, feeling it warm their faces, seeing it illuminate the sky. Neither of them felt like talking much, so they stood there in silence, just enjoying each other’s company. After a while they headed back to shore and decided to do some of the things that needed to be done. They went into the forest and started scouring for the day’s breakfast.
The rising sun woke a few other people. Scar, for one. He saw the sun shine through the leaves on the roof of their makeshift hut, and it shone through his eyelids into his dreams. When his eyes flickered open, his first thoughts were, Where am I? Am I still dreaming? Then he remembered what had happened the day before. He shivered, reliving the terrifying memories that hadn’t yet dulled with age and were still fresh in his mind.
He shook himself back to the present. Glancing to the space Grian had occupied about twenty minutes before, and then to the still-sleeping Mumbo, he shivered again. Not with terror this time, but with relief. He was so incredibly grateful that everyone had made it out of the whole ordeal alive. With that positive attitude, he left the hut.
He had to shield his eyes momentarily as they adjusted to the brightness of the outside world. Once they had, he looked around to see who else was awake. He saw a sleepy-eyed Doc just emerging from the hut he shared with Etho and Beef on the other side of the beach, scratching one arm with his prosthetic one. In the hut next to his own, Scar heard rustling and a loud thump, followed by some muffled cursing. Shortly thereafter False walked out, rubbing her head. She caught sight of Scar giggling at her and gave him a pained smile.
“Good morning Scar.”
“A very good morning indeed, Falsie. The world is wonderful and we are all alive. Just think of how amazing that is!”
To give Scar credit, his words did cheer False up a bit. She smiled again, less pained this time, and said, “It really is.”
At that moment, Cleo and Grian emerged from the trees, their arms full of berries, cinnamon and mushrooms. They walked over to the least sleep-cranky looking person: Scar.
“Is Stress awake yet?” Cleo asked him.
Scar shook his head. “Haven’t seen her.”
“Could you identify these plants then?”
“Absolutely! Ooh, you’ve found lactarius indigo! One of my favourite mushrooms. Delicious.”
Grian looked down at the blueish mushrooms in his arms. “So… they’re edible?”
“Yep!”
“Huh, I expected them to be poisonous, being so colourful.”
“Nope, they’re very tasty.”
“That’s good then. What about Cleo’s berries?”
“Those look like Jamaican berries!” Scar sniffed the reddish berries carefully. The sweet, musky scent confirmed his suspicion. He happily popped one in his mouth and tasted the popular flavour of cinnamon, nutmeg and clove all at once. He hummed contentedly.
“Are you sure they’re safe to eat, Scar? Shouldn’t you… test them or something? Stress said you should press them against your arm to see if you get a rash.”
“Jeez, have some faith in me Grian, I am a good friend of mother nature myself, I think I know my berries.”
Grian sighed. In a leap of faith, he, too, ate a berry. The smooth, tender skin split between his teeth to release the sweet, juicy pulp in an explosion of flavour. “Mmm…” he closed his eyes, enjoying the tropical fruit.
“Falsie, try one!” Scar insisted.
So she did.
Cleo watched them, one eyebrow raised, and decided, ah, screw it, and had a berry too. A small smile played at the corners of her lips.
Scar’s eyes brightened as he suddenly had a thought. “I have to go show these to Bdubs!” he yelled, grabbing a handful from Cleo’s arms.
He skipped across the beach in search of Bdubs. Obviously his friend liked to sleep, so he didn’t expect him to be awake yet. But just as he thought that, Bdubs emerged from the hut he shared with Keralis and Xisuma, rubbing his eyes. Scar’s face lit up at the sight of him.
“Hey, Bdubs!”
Bdubs stopped rubbing the sleep from his eyes to look at him. “Hey Scar! ‘What are you up to?”
“Cleo found these amazing berries! I want you to try them!” Scar said, maybe somewhat overenthusiastically.
Bdubs smiled brightly, all his sleepiness forgotten with the joy of talking to Scar.
Scar ate another three berries, and with his mouth half-full, he said, “Try dem! I promise dey’re worf it.”
Bdubs, gathering all his courage, replied, “I bet they taste better in your mouth,” and kissed him.
Surprised, Scar almost choked. He gagged, pulling away and spitting out the berries. Bdubs backed away, going red in the face.
“I’m sorry Scar… I didn’t mean to- I mean, I meant to, but… I shouldn’t’ve kissed-” His words were cut off, because, though surprised, Scar had very much liked Bdubs’ act of bravery, and definitely wanted it to continue. So he kissed him back. It was Bdubs’ turn to be surprised. His dark eyes widened, but his heart beat rapidly against his chest, and he let himself succumb to Scar’s sweetness. Their lips parted to make way for their tongues, the lingering taste of the berries spreading through both their mouths. Scar shivered and all his muscles seemed to relax. The remaining berries fell out of his hand and landed with a thud in the sand. They kissed until they were both short of breath, but even then they didn’t want to stop. Neither of them wanted to be the first to pull away. Only when they started to feel light-headed did they stagger away from each other. Dizzy, they grabbed each other’s hands in support, but fell to the sand nonetheless.
Scar turned to look at Bdubs, heart thumping so loud against his chest that he was sure Bdubs must have been able to hear it. Suddenly, he couldn’t help but giggle. The happiness bubbling inside him just had to out itself.
Bdubs joined him in his fit of laughter. Soon they just lay there, laughing in the sand. They looked at each other, and then to the sky. They watched the clouds drift by as their laughter subsided, a feeling of warmth that had nothing to do with the tropical sun spreading through them, and they felt totally at peace, all their worries forgotten.
Their peace was disturbed when Grian, smirking, walked over to them and said, “Hey lovebirds! Would you mind helping me gather firewood, or are you too busy tasting each other?”
The two sprawled up from the ground, blushing heavily, and stood to face Grian.
Grian shared a look with Scar. He was happy for him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be teasing him about this for the rest of eternity. He set forth towards the forest.
Bdubs and Scar didn’t immediately follow him. They glanced at each other and burst into another fit of laughter.
“You have some sand in your hair,” Bdubs said, reaching up to brush it out of Scar’s ebony-brown locks.
“So do you,” and Scar did the same.
Bdubs’ hand slid down to cup Scar’s cheek, his fingers tracing the long scar that ran from eyebrow to chin. His eyes flickered to Scar’s lips, but at that moment Grian called out for them again, and the moment passed. They hurried over to where Grian stood waiting for them.
The scouts came back to a surprisingly organised situation; everyone had split into groups and were doing different things of importance. One group was just on the outskirts of the forest, collecting firewood, a few people were making tools from anything they could find, and some heavy lifters like Xisuma were gathering larger sticks and logs that they could use to build a shelter.
From that last group, Keralis called out to False and Cleo, asking if they could help. They walked over to him, as did Ren, while Cub and Joe joined the firewood collectors.
“Hi Keralis, what can we do?” Cleo asked.
“You could start building some shelters with the materials we’ve collected so far. You might need Grian’s help to figure out a sturdy build.”
“On it. Where is he?”
Keralis gestured at the trees on the other side of the beach. “I think he’s out collecting food with some other people. They shouldn’t be far, you’ll probably see them as soon as you get to the edge of the woods.”
The three of them left Keralis to gather more wood and headed over to the trees Keralis had indicated. When they passed the first row of trunks, they heard someone calling out.
“Don’t drop them near us, okay? Do you know how many people die being hit in the head by a coconut?”
The voice came from a small figure down on the ground. Stress was talking to someone high up in a tree, and when False, Cleo and Ren followed her gaze, they saw Grian, hanging upside-down from the highest branches of a coconut tree. He grinned as he caught sight of them. Twisting flexibly to his left, he grabbed a ripe-looking coconut and tossed it down, two meters from where Stress stood. It landed in a bed of moss with a dull thud.
“Hey Grian, we need your help building huts! Could you get down from there?” False asked.
“Sure, just a sec.” Grian threw four more coconuts down in quick succession and then swung down, more elegantly than any of them would have expected from him, and slid down the trunk and back to the ground.
He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his sweater, which was way too warm to be worn in the tropics, but he didn’t care.
“Will you be okay without me, Stress?” Grian asked her, just in case.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine,” Stress assured him. And so Grian and the others left her alone with the coconuts.
At that moment the three people who had been gathering food deeper into the forest came back to her. Impulse had filled the cloth of his shirt with berries, Etho was carrying a collection of leaves and what looked like bark, and Iskall had his arms full of some sort of mushroom. They all proudly presented their finds to Stress, who was definitely the plant expert among them. She examined each of their findings carefully.
Taking one of Impulse’s berries between her thumb and index finger, she carefully sniffed it.
“How many different bushes did you get these from?” She asked him.
“Only two, the red ones and the blue ones are two different types, but I didn’t mix in anything that looked similar.”
“Good. Did the bush with the red ones have any spikes or small, pointy hairs?”
“Uh… yeah, I think it had thorns,” Impulse said hesitantly.
“The red ones are poisonous,” Stress firmly decided.
“How do you know?” Etho asked her.
“Well, it’s always better to assume everything is, anyway, but these berries smell bitter, and since Impulse said their bush had spikes, I’m pretty sure of it.” To Impulse, she said, “Throw out the red ones.”
“What about the blue ones?”
“Did they have any thorns?”
“No.”
“Did they grow in pods or clusters?”
“…No.”
“Any odd-coloured sap like a milky white?”
“I didn’t know we had to check the sap…”
Iskall cut in there, saying, “I did! Its sap was transparent.”
Stress smiled at him. “Thanks Iskall.”
He blushed.
Stress took one of the blue berries and sniffed it, smiled, and crushed it against her arm. “Now we see if I get a rash in the next 5 minutes.”
She moved over to Etho and picked up a piece of his bark.
“Cinnamon,” he said happily.
Stress inhaled the scent with closed eyes, enjoying the familiar smell. She moved on to some of the leaves he’d gathered.
“Mint, basil, rosemary, and aloe vera! Nice collection Etho!”
Etho smiled modestly as Stress walked over to Iskall.
Nervously, Iskall said, “I feel like I’m in an exam here…”
Stress giggled and answered, “I’m not examining you, I’m examining your find.”
Iskall let out a mock sigh of relief.
Unfortunately for him, she immediately said, “No! These are autumn skullcaps, or Galerina Marginata, some of the most poisonous mushrooms in the world!”
Horrified, Iskall dropped them immediately.
“It’s okay, you’re fine. They aren’t poisonous to the touch,” Stress assured him. She glanced at her arm, where a faint pigmentation was left from the berry juice, but no signs of irritation. “It looks like these berries are okay to eat, but we should still be careful. No more than two berries every five minutes. It’s not much, but we don’t want to risk any possible toxins gathering in your stomach. If we manage to eat them for two days without anyone getting sick, we can slowly increase the portion sizes.”
Iskall didn’t hear a word she said. He just stared at her lips, moving fast as they always did when she was talking about something she knew a lot about. He watched the breeze blow her dark hair into her eyes, and at that point she caught his gaze.
“What?” She asked in her sweet British accent.
Flustered, Iskall didn’t reply.
Impulse and Etho grinned at each other knowingly.
In the meantime, Grian was giving explicit instructions to the people building the huts, very professionally ensuring that all the structures were as sturdy, shielding, -from water, sun and intruding eyes- and generally perfect as possible.
“Grian!” Scar said in his giggly voice as he walked up to the architect.
“Hey Scar! What have you been up to? I thought you would be with the gathering group, what with your knowledge of nature,” Grian remarked.
“Oh, no, I was exploring! Look, I found mistletoe!” He proudly held up a thin branch with small white berries.
Nervously, Grian jumped back. “Uh, Scar? What are you-”
“Oh! Nonono!” Scar giggled when he realised what Grian must be thinking. “I just wanted to show you!”
Grian laughed too. “You should hang it up in one of the entrances to the huts, see what happens.”
The first shelter was almost done already, and Scar happily hung the branch right in the middle of the entrance, where there was no way around it.
“By the way, Scar, are you aware that your last words could have been ‘my nachos are everywhere’?” Grian laughed.
Scar paused, and then burst into even louder laughter. He collapsed into the sand, rolling around with pure joy. He looked up at Grian, who just stood there, watching him, with a half-smile playing around his lips. Scar’s big puppy dog eyes twinkled and the next second he was wrestling Grian onto the sand with him.
“Aah! Scar!” Grian yelled.
Scar jumped up and bolted away as Grian chased him, sand flying off their clothes, out of their hair and billowing around their feet.
The explosion was dampened by the water, but Scar and False were still thrust away from it. On the surface, the other hermits were tossed around by the resulting waves. Scar and False turned around as soon as they could, and swam back to the origin. The window had imploded at the weakened spot and Xisuma swam out, getting cut by the glass remains now drifting around them. A shard sliced his cheek and drops of blood trickled into the ocean.
Xisuma gave False a thumbs-up, both to indicate that he was fine and that they should head to the surface.
Scar was way ahead of him.
When they finally filled their lungs with oxygen, the other hermits were anxiously awaiting them.
Xisuma answered the questioning gazes almost immediately. “The water put too much pressure on the door, and I was unable to open it, but the cockpit didn’t immediately fill with water, so I had air for a bit,” he explained.
Relief now washed over their faces; X was fine, and he was safe.
Grian, chaos hungry as ever, asked False, “How is it that those grenades worked underwater?”
“Waterproof grenades,” she said simply, tucking her dagger back up her sleeve.
A sudden strong gust of wind shifted the thick fog away, and what previously lay hidden behind the mist, was now clear as day.
“An island!” Zedaph shouted, along with at least three others.
They cheered as one, and everyone started swimming towards it gleefully.
As an unspoken rule, they stayed in groups of two or three, so no one would get lost.
Grian tried to swim alongside Scar, who noticed, and swam away faster, laughing. He splashed water in Grian’s face playfully, and yelled, “Catch me if you can!”
Grian, not one to back away from a challenge, swam with all his might, but couldn’t catch up to Scar. He quickly exhausted himself and let himself simply float on the water, panting. Scar saw and came back, and swam the rest of the way dragging Grian behind him.
Meanwhile, Team ZIT were attempting to see how far Tango could swim with Zedaph and Impulse hanging onto his feet. Once Tango couldn't go any further, Impulse took his place, and so they rotated between the three of them, until they reached the beach.
Gradually, all 26 of them made their way to land, to safety. Sand clung to their soaking clothes and the clothes, in turn, clung to their skin. But despite being wet to the bone, they weren’t cold. The island seemed to be rather tropical, the sun blazing brightly in the sky, making the ocean reflect specks of light on the Hermits.
“Everyone alright?” Xisuma asked, fatherly as ever.
There were nods and sounds of agreement as they all stood up and brushed themselves off.
“You’re not, Sashwammy! You’re bleeding all over!” Keralis exclaimed, putting his hand gently over the wound on Xisuma’s cheek.
Xisuma moved away from him, saying, “I’m fine, it’s just a few scrapes. We have bigger things to worry about. Thank goodness we all made it out of that crash alive, but now we’re stranded here. This place doesn’t exactly look inhabited.”
“We have to check. We should send a few people to explore the place, maybe go to the highest point and see if there’s anyone else around,” Pearl suggested, brushing sandy hair out of her face.
“Agreed. I volunteer to go look around,” False said.
“I’ll come with you,” Cleo offered.
Then Joe, Cub and Ren volunteered, too, and they had their scouts.
As the group left for the trees some ways off the beach, the ones remaining tried to figure out what to do.
“Assuming there is no one else on this island, which I think is a safe bet, we should at least try to stay safe for the night. Maybe tomorrow someone will come rescue us.” “We should prepare for the worst case scenario and try to build shelter here.”
“We need to make a fire, it might get cold at night.”
While they tried to figure out the best course of action, the scouts were making their way up to the highest point on the island. They climbed up a small mountain, the warm breeze drying their clothes somewhat.
Ren, attempting some smalltalk, said, “That was a nice dagger you had back there, Falsie, where’d you get it?”
“Oh, Cleo and I went diving once and we found some things at the bottom of the ocean, probably from a shipwreck or something. She kept the armor and I kept the dagger,” False answered, glancing behind her at Cleo, who smiled.
They had reached the top of the mountain and stood atop a flat plateau, with a view of the whole island. It was quite small, with only that single mountain, a centered forest and beach all around. They spotted a clearing in the forest, with a shimmering lagoon between the trees.
“That must be our only source of drinkable water!” Joe realised.
“It doesn’t look like this place is inhabited. I don’t see smoke, buildings, or anything that might indicate human life,” Cleo said, cutting right back to the reason they were there.
“Let’s get back to the others, they’ll want to know what we found.” False decided.
And so they climbed back down the steep, rocky slope of the mountain, and headed back to the rest of the Hermits.
2: Youtube suggested it to my sister and she was really excited about it, so I started watching too
3: I love them all, but my absolute favorites are probably Grian, Tango, Impulse and Scar
4: Not that I remember
5: Yep; last life, Naked and Scared, build battles, and others I don’t really know how to classify, like Grian’s build videos or Mumbo’s redstone things.
6: I did watch like 16 of them at one point, but it was too much.
7: Season 7, because that’s when I watched the most perspectives, and I loved the HEP vs Mycelium resistance war.
8: Well so far there hasn’t been a war yet, (Grian get on with it), but I love that Grian is basically building Diagon Alley
9: When Scar and Tango rode maple into the vault with the diamond throne in season 7
10: I used to follow all of them on twitter, but then I deleted twitter. But I think I still follow a few of them on instagram (I think False, Stress, Impulse, Scar and Grian)
11: I don’t think so..?
12: Since about halfway through season 6.
13: The G team, mostly because at the time I only watched Grian. The star team rap was sick though, I still listen to it sometimes.
14: Before, but I stopped and HC made me want to play again.
15: Not any hermit individually, but seeing al, their amazing builds definitely improved mine.
16: YES ALL THE TIME
17: Oh yes I love him, he makes amazing remixes and I often listen to them while I shower. My favorite is either Hermit gang or Resource gathering.
18: Toon Towers <3
19: I would camp SO LONG I would just sit there for days if necessary. I MUST BE THE BEST lol
20: I tried to download it but I don’t have a PC or anything and the file didn’t fit on my phone so no
21: No
22: Jellie- I can’t find an infinity symbol so ya know; sideways 8/10
Pearl and Maui- 9/10, mostly Maui because he interrupts Grian’s recordings and it’s adorable. Also I’ve always wondered if Pearl’s name is based on Pearlescentmoon because that would be amazing.
Max- Okay now I regret giving Jellie the infinity because Max is even beter 😭😍 but yeah sideways 8/10 for him too
Beef has a donkey so 10/10
23: A lot of them are obvious; yellow- Impulse, Red- Grian, Tango, Mumbo, But some are weird and I can’t really explain them, like Silver-Pearl
24: I tried a few simple things like sugarcane farms and such
25: Yep! I’m a proud owner of a purple Mumbo For Mayor shirt :D
26: Yeah! I post fanfics right here on this account :) (and I’ve tried a bit of fanart but not publicly)
27: Not all day, but I have tuned in every now and then.
28: When I can, but mostly they’re in entirely different timezones so they stream at like 2am for me.
29: No, but sometimes I do homework.
30: Yep, season 6.
31: Yeah, I hadn’t watched Grian’s videos in a while so I binged them last week.
They hit the water and the ocean rushed in through the hole in the wall, flooding them all within seconds. They struggled to unbuckle their seatbelts. They had only what air they had managed to suck into their lungs before they were submerged, and it wasn’t much. It took some of them up to 5 seconds to unbuckle, and then they had to find their way through the dark water to the only way out; the hole the explosion had blown in the side of the plane. Cub, who was closest, was the first out, but still had a ways to go before he broke the surface of the waves. The plane was sinking fast. If they didn’t escape quickly, they would be too deep to make it to the open air. Cub finally felt air on his face and gasped, taking in as much oxygen as he could. He looked around him to see a thick fog around him, and the only two other people who were up already; False and Scar.
Then Impulse, Tango and Zedaph emerged, once again acting as one entity. Then three more heads popped up. Then two, then another five. When another group made it up, Cub did a quick headcount.
“25... Who are we missing? Where’s Xisuma?!”
Everyone looked around for some glimpse of their pilot, but he was nowhere to be found.
“He must be stuck in the cockpit! We have to get him out!” Keralis yelled, and submerged himself once more, attempting a heroic rescue, but False grabbed him by his shirt and yanked him back up.
“Keralis! No offence, but you aren’t nearly the fastest swimmer here. Scar was all the way on the other side of the aisle and he was one of the first up. He is apparently a very apt swimmer. And there is no time to argue, or X is gonna drown in there.”
And so, despite his internal screaming that this was not “Scar safe,” he went down to the depths, to the bottom of the ocean, which was surprisingly undeep. But there was no time to think about that yet, as he sped into the hunk of metal settled in the disturbed surface of sand.
He came to the door and knocked, just in case Xisuma was still conscious. His question was answered. From the other side of the thick door came two knocks in response. There was silence, and then around him, Scar suddenly heard Xisuma’s voice, if slightly warped by the water.
“Who is out there? Get out, get to the surface, you’re gonna drown!” Xisuma said desperately. Scar, who was indeed starting to feel the strain of limited oxygen, swam out and around to the front of the plane, so Xisuma could see him. Xisuma still had his headset on and seemed to be talking into it, which explained how Scar was able to hear him; over the PA. The cockpit seemed to be partially airtight, so it hadn’t entirely filled with water yet, but they didn’t have long.
When Xisuma saw him, he was understandably surprised to see Scar, of all people. He gestured for Scar to leave him, to save himself. Scar acknowledged that he needed air, but he gestured to Xisuma that he was coming back. And so he swam back up to the surface, where 24 faces immediately turned anxiously to him.
“Xisuma’s fine for now, he has air. But I don’t know how to get him out. He should be able to open the door from the inside, but since he hasn’t done that yet, there must be some sort of issue with the controls.”
“We could try breaking the window at the front,” Pearl suggested.
“But how? Those windows have to be sturdy enough to withstand tonnes of air pressure. We can’t just bash it in,” Joe pointed out.
Then False chimed in. “I don’t know about you guys, but I brought grenades.”
24 faces stared at her in pure shock and astonishment.
“How did you even get those past airport security?!” Grian asked. It was a genuine question. He’d tried.
False just shrugged. “Do you want to use them or not?” And from within her boots she drew 3 handgrenades. “I’ll come down there with you. I don’t suppose you know how to use a grenade?” She asked Scar, doubt in her voice.
Scar shook his head nervously.
“Great. I’m coming. I don’t know how much air he has left, but we should hurry.”
They dove back beneath the waves, Scar keeping some distance between himself and the grenades. When they got to the front window, False went straight to work. From her sleeve she pulled a dagger embedded with small jewels. She went about weakening one spot in the window with the blade, and gestured for Xisuma to step back. Well, swim back, as ¾ of the cabin were filled with water. He took a deep breath and swam behind the pilot’s chair. He gave False a thumbs-up, and she pulled the pin out of the first grenade. She tossed it as hard as she could underwater, and she and Scar bolted away.
(I’m back! I’m gonna stop making excuses for why I take so long between posts. I hope you enjoy!)
Grian sank back into his chair and flipped open a magazine. He hadn’t gotten further than the first sentence when Mumbo, in the seat to his left, said, “I hope I didn’t forget anything… I always feel like I’ve forgotten something when we go on a trip.”
Exasperated, Grian tousled his dirty blond hair out of his face and looked at him. “That is the sixth time you’ve said that, not counting the 14 times you said it in one breath while we checked in our luggage.”
“I’m surprised you counted. Actually, no I’m not.”
“No, 14 is just when I lost count.”
“Oh.”
A stifled giggle draws their attention to the man on Grian’s right. Green Eyes quickly look away.
“What’re you giggling about, Scar?” Grian asked innocently.
“Nothing… your magazine has a funny cat in it.”
Grian glanced at the second page and saw that indeed, a cat with fingered gloves on looks quite silly.
A strand of long ginger hair announces a fourth person making her way into their conversation. Grian looked up and saw Cleo leaning over the back of his seat, eyes fixed on the apparently now popular cat. Without looking away from the subtext, she asked, “Do any of you know where we’re going?”
“Xisuma just told us to pack warm clothes, we weren’t even allowed to look at the flight-board.” Mumbo said, slightly annoyed.
“There are twenty-six of us, how do none of us know where we’re headed?” Cleo sighed, and let herself fall back into her chair. Grian, thinking the conversation is over so he can finally immerse himself in whatever his magazine had to say about the best way to treat your cats on Christmas, unfolded his table and propped it up.
“How did Xisuma get this jet all to ourselves anyway?”
“Did you know he had a pilot’s license?”
Grian ignored the new talk topic and let the world wash away. Just him and his christmas cat facts…his eyelids heavy…
Grian is shocked awake by a loud bang. He wasn’t the only one. Next to him, Scar had lurched forward, apparently still asleep, but it was the sound of his nachos spilling that seemed to wake him.
On the other side of the aisle False was already in fight pose, with a knife she got from who knows where, and all the way at the back of the plane, Zedaph, Impulse and Tango were prepared to jump out the emergency exit, parachutes at the ready.
Over the PA a soothing, but currently slightly panicked British voice said “This is your captain speaking, but you knew that already, because who else would be talking from above, it’s not your time yet… anyway, we seem to have a slight problem with the engines, in the sense that one of them is currently on fire. Grian, you wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with this, would you?”
“For once, no. I was asleep.” Grian responded, though there was no way Xisuma could hear him from the cockpit.
“I knew this thing wasn’t Scar safe!” came the exclamation from beside him.
Grian turned to peer between their chairs and to the seats behind them, where Joe was tightly clutching Cleo’s arm as she stroked his hair in an attempt to calm him.
The plane was rocking wildly back and forth, like some insane turbulence. They were quickly losing altitude, as was clear by the way the ocean sped towards them and the pressure in their ears. As if it all wasn’t bad enough, a second explosion announced the loss of the other engine, blowing out a large chunk of the wall on the right side of the plane, covering Cub with shrapnel. Everyone had buckled back into their seats, including, in whatever whim had caused them to believe they’d rather die with their family than stand a chance at survival, team ZIT, parachutes and all.
“My Nachos are everywhere now…” Scar moped, right as they plunged into the deep blue womb of mother nature.
(Hello everyone :) So sorry for the huge gap between posts, I just moved back to my home country, so there wasn’t a lot of time for me to write. I also knew this was going to be the final part in this story, and I didn’t want it to be over. But I may write another Hermitcraft fanfic soon. Because this is the final, it is quite a bit longer than usual, hope you don’t mind. Enjoy!)
As soon as Grian landed beside him, Mumbo pelted him with questions. “Are you okay? Who was that? What happened to him? I’m sorry I was no help, I couldn’t climb down the tree fast enough…”
“That’s all right Mumbo, I don’t blame you. I’m fine, a few scratches and bruises, but otherwise unharmed,” Grian assured him.
“Who is he, though? You must know him, or at least, he knows you, or he wouldn’t have attacked out of the blue like that.”
Grian shrugged and brushed his fringe out of his eyes. “I don’t know, Mumbo. He looked at me like he knew me, but I’ve never seen him before. If I had, I would remember.”
Mumbo nodded thoughtfully. They decided they should probably tell Xisuma what happened; perhaps he knew more. They found the other hermits still sitting on the side of the road, Tango, Xisuma and Keralis trying to convince False to start singing again.
“False can sing?” Grian asked, surprised. He momentarily forgot what he came to them for.
“Right, yeah! You and Mumbo haven’t heard it! She’s phenomenal!” Tango told him. His crimson eyes sparkled, but then he clenched his fist behind his back and his smile faded. It looked to Xisuma like he was punishing himself for something. He pushed the thought aside for now.
“Yeah, Falsie sang in Argentina, and she really is incredible.” X agreed.
“I need to hear this!” Mumbo said excitedly.
“You know what, guys? When this is all over, I’ll sing for everyone and get us into the new year.” False decided.
Everyone smiled triumphantly. They continued to chat about other things, until Grian remembered what he came to tell them.
“Wait, guys. There was something I was trying to tell you before, but I forgot. A man attacked me when Mumbo and I were over yonder. I don’t know him, but we figured he must know us to have any reason to attack me. I was wondering if you guys knew anything about that.” Grian said to all of them, but facing Xisuma. He figured that if anyone knew, Xisuma would. He knew everything regarding the hermits.
“What did this man look like, Grian?” Xisuma asked him.
“Um… quite a handsome man, olive skin, but bloodshot eyes. He had a long scar along his right cheek.” Everyone except Mumbo gasped at his description. “What?” Grian asked, confused. He glanced at Mumbo, who shrugged, feeling just as out of the loop as Grian.
Xisuma was the one who responded. “Remember that night in the other world, when Tango and Keralis were held hostage, Tango died, and you two had to capture a bunch of people?”
Mumbo and Grian nodded, starting to understand.
“The man that attacked us back then matched that exact description. Malus.”
They recognised the name from the recount the others had given them after the fight. Their eyes widened in surprise.
“I assume your fight led to him being thrown into the black hole? It would explain how he got in that world.” Xisuma guessed correctly.
Grian nodded.
“No point dwelling on it, there’s nothing we can do about it, and we shouldn’t mess with the past anyway.” Keralis said, looking at Grian, knowing the latter would beat himself up over bringing the dangerous man to the other world for many nights to come if wasn’t reassured. Keralis knew Grian would blame himself for Tango’s temporary death, once he connected the dots.
Grian smiled at Keralis gratefully, aware of what he was doing. Keralis smiled back.
At that moment, light returned to the road up ahead; the black hole had closed.
Everyone hurried back to the taxis, this time not fussing over who sat where, so Tango ended up next to False, with Xisuma in the passenger’s seat.
Xisuma motioned for the driver to continue, and looked via the rearview mirror at the two in the back. Tango was sitting very stiffly, arms on his lap, like he really didn’t want to come in contact with anything.
...Or anyone…
Before Xisuma could dwell on that realisation, Tango noticed him watching, and looked in his eyes through the mirror. Tango blushed slightly from the embarrassment of being watched, and looked away. Nobody talked for the rest of the trip.
At some point during the drive, Tango sensed the other hermit’s minds. He could only really feel their aura, not their thoughts, but if Cleo was paying attention, she would feel them nearby too. Though to be fair, they were probably still recovering from the black hole and watching the six of them get sucked through, so it was unlikely that she was paying attention.
Then, suddenly, Tango felt an overwhelming wave of emotion. Pain, sadness, loss. This grief came from someone else’s mind, and he immediately recognised the aura. It was Impulse.
“Stop! Stop the car!” Tango shouted. He needed to get to Impulse, now.
The startled taxi driver hit the brakes, and Tango jumped out. He couldn’t bear the pain that wasn’t even his own, it was too much to know what his best friend was going through.
He sprinted in the direction of all the presences, but there was still a long way to go. The reach on his telepathy was quite far, so he felt the hermits far before he was anywhere near them. Then Xisuma was next to him. Without a word, he super-speed-ran all the way to the Hermits, taking Tango with him.
They stopped behind a few trees that hadn’t been torn from the earth, a few meters from the hermits, and Xisuma let go of Tango. Tango immediately ran through the group gathered around a single person, curled up in a ball of dread, arms wrapped around his legs, trying to protect himself from pain that came only from within.
“Impulse!” Tango screamed as he pushed his way through the mass of people.
Impulse, the one on the ground, just shook his head and whimpered, rocking back and forth. He mumbled to himself, “That’s not Tango, he’s gone, he’s never coming back.” And he let out a scream.
But then comforting arms wrapped around him, and the same voice that had called his name whispered, “Impulse, it’s all right, it’s me, I’m okay.”
Something in Impulse’s heart mended, a hole sealed. Even though it went against everything he just saw, Impulse wanted to believe him. And he did.
There’s some strange connection that forms in friendships such as these, and when your best friend is nearby, you just know, even when every logical part of your brain says it’s not possible.
Impulse carefully raised his head, and looked directly into his favorite pair of blood-red eyes. And as the final cracks in his heart and soul mended, miraculously, Impulse smiled.
“Tango! You’re alive!” he yelled, and despite himself, giggled with relief. “Wh- how? I saw you die!”
“You didn’t see me die, you saw me vanish into the black hole,” Tango corrected him. “It wasn’t deadly. Long story short, it led to another world, we traveled back in time, and now we’re home!”
“We? Where are the others? Did they make it?” A new expression of worry clouded his chocolate eyes.
“Yes, they-” before Tango could finish his sentence, someone else jumped playfully on top of both of them, knocking both of them over, and embracing them.
“Zed!” Tango laughed, and hugged him back. Then he smiled again, to himself. I’m back with my family.
All the hermits gathered around them just stood, some confused, most just watching the trio’s heartwarming happiness. Xisuma had not yet emerged from the trees, trying to get everything together and prepare to see all the people he was closest to in the world, after all those years. He didn’t quite dare to believe it, and once he’d laid eyes on them all, he stood frozen. Xisuma had always been the sensible and logically thinking one in the group, their leader of sorts. But now he was just afraid of it all being a dream, and he was terrified of getting his hopes up.
He stood there, numb but scared, between the trees, and watched team ZIT wrestle and roll around playfully. But then Cleo, having sensed him telepathically, and noticing his hesitation, came towards him.
“Xisuma, it’s okay. It’s really us. I know how you feel,”-she gestured at her head- “obviously, but you don’t have to worry that it’s all a dream”. Xisuma didn’t move. “You’re making me do this,” she said, and in one movement, twisted his arm behind his back and forced him to the ground.
“Ow! What was that for?” Xisuma demanded, coming to his senses.
“Could you have dreamt that?” Cleo asked, releasing him.
“I suppose not…”
“Good. Come join us. Where are Grian and the rest? The ones who went with you?”
“They took the taxi. They should be here soon.”
“Taxi? From where- you know what, tell everyone the whole story later. I’m just glad you’re all alive”.
“Me too.”
They joined the people still huddled around the now again-hugging team ZIT, and once people saw Xisuma, he was embraced by at least ten different hermits.
Just then, two taxis appeared at the end of the street, and Grian and Mumbo tumbled right out. They jumped to their feet as False and Keralis stepped out a bit more gracefully, but all four of them sprinted over to their friends. Everybody was hugging everybody.
“Bubbles!!” Keralis yelled, peering over the many heads in search of the little fella. And he was tackled to the ground and embraced tightly by bdubs.”Bubbles!” Keralis said again, happily.
But then Grian caught sight of team ZIT, still lying on the ground in the middle of the crowd. “Group hug!!” he shouted, and flopped on top of them, Mumbo right behind him.
Impulse grinned. “Hey G! Welcome back!”
Then another body added itself to the pile of happiness. Scar threw his arms around Grian and giggled in a way only he could. Then Iskall threw himself on top of Mumbo. After that, the rest followed, one by one, until all twentyfour of them were one big pile of pure euphoria. Even Jellie perched on top.
They could have remained like that for hours, just soaking up each other’s warmth and friendship, but eventually Zedaph said, “Um, I know we’re all very happy, but perhaps Impulse and Tango would like to breathe. I wouldn’t mind some fresh air either, actually.”
Everyone laughed and started gently trying to disentangle themselves from the heap of limbs. Before they could all disengage, however, two more young women showed up and just stood watching them, confusion on their faces, but also an expression that said, ‘yeah, seems about right’.
“Uh… Hi! I thought this was a New Year’s party?” one of them asked in her Australian accent.
At this, someone deep within the pile somehow jumped up, throwing all the hermits off him. Grian attempted to flatten his now messy hair with one hand, while he waved at the girls with the other. “Pearl! Right! I forgot I invited you… years ago.”
“Ehm… I’ll ask later. Is it still okay that we’re here? Oh yeah, I hope you don’t mind, I brought a plus one. This is Gem.” Said Pearl, gesturing at the woman beside her.
In a voice a hundred times sweeter than candyfloss, Gem said, “Nice to meet you all. You must be Grian, judging by the chaos around you.” This was met with welcoming laughter from all around.
Pearl and Gem helped everyone out of the mess of bodies, and then everyone- some skipping, some running, some just walking- went back to the ballroom where, a few hours or a few years ago, depending on who you asked, everyone was dancing, not a care in the world. Grian flew through the open doors and looked around at the place he had always continued to call home, with every day that had passed in the other timeline.
As he flew around, Mumbo and Iskall jumped up to reach him and each grabbed hold of one of his legs, pulling him down. “Come back down to earth, Grian!” Mumbo joked.
“Yeah, get your head out of the clouds,” Iskall added, laughing his contagious Swedish laugh.
Grian allowed his friends to pull him down, and hugged them again. “I love you guys.”
A few minutes later, it was as if no time had passed. Everyone stood around the room in little groups, chatting, while the big clock on one wall ticked off the minutes until the new millennium began.
Team ZIT stood around the same high table as they had before everything happened. They were talking about all sorts of things, but not the one thing everyone was wondering about. They had decided that was a story best told when everyone was together and listening, so all six time travelers could talk about it together.
“Oh, by the way, did you know False speaks Spanish?” Tango asked his two best friends.
“What? No way!” Impulse said in disbelief.
“Of course she does. That sounds like something she’d secretly know.” Zed grinned.
Their conversation was interrupted when False came over to their table.
“Hey Tango, wanna dance like we did in Argentina?” she asked with a smile, not knowing how pained that made him feel.
But he didn’t want to disappoint her, so he said, “Can you give me a few minutes?”
She nodded and slipped back into the sea of people.
“Tango, are you okay?” Zedaph asked, watching the way his friend stared after her.
Impulse saw it too, and had also noticed the flicker of hurt in Tango’s crimson eyes when she asked him to dance.
“I don’t know what happened in Argentina, or how in the world you even got to Argentina, but something changed, Tango, and it’s hurting you. We don’t want to see you hurt.” Zedaph told him.
Tango tore his gaze away from where False had disappeared between the mass of bodies, and turned back to face him. “I- I think I’m in love with her, guys. But I don’t want to be, I don’t want to ruin our friendship, or make things awkward with the rest of the hermits.” Tango confessed.
Impulse nodded, he’d suspected something like that. Zedaph looked surprised but understanding, and asked, “Have you talked to her? Maybe if you just told her how you feel, you can get it off your chest. It might be awkward for a bit, but you’re both mature...ish, your friendship will survive.”
“I think Zed is right. Maybe you should just confess.” Impulse concurred.
Tango sighed. “I guess it’s worth a shot. I don’t want to live like this.” And with that, he trudged to the dancefloor, where False was waiting for him. But when he put his hand on her waist, his mental connection with her seemed to become more focused, and narrowed down from his general view of all hermits’ thoughts, to only her’s. He felt her every emotion with every fibre of his being, and while that may seem romantic, it had the opposite effect. He felt everything she felt towards him, which was pure friendship and platonic love. And as he felt that, all his romantic notions seemed to melt away. He valued their friendship more than anything, and didn’t believe in lost causes anyway. He knew how she felt, and now he felt that way too. And he was grateful for it.
They tango’d into the final five minutes before the clock struck twelve, and Tango happily led. They were already warm from the wild movements when Xisuma approached them. “Two things. One, Falsie, were you going to sing us into the New Year?” he asked.
Tango and False stopped dancing to face him. “Yes, I’ll head to the stage.” False confirmed.
“Hold on. The second thing was that I was just talking to Stress, who was watching you dance, along with the rest of the hermits, I might add, and she mentioned the year the tango was invented.” He paused, looking at them meaningfully. “1880.”
False and Tango glanced at each other. “That was the year we went to in the time machine.” Tango said, realising. “Do you think we-?”
“I think we did!” False said, laughing.
Xisuma smiled. “Now you can sing, Falsie.”
And sing she did. Even more beautifully than in Argentina, over a century ago. She sang them all the way into the New Year, and everything was as it should be. As Xisuma watched Tango watching False, he saw no sign of his strange behaviour from earlier. He smiled to himself. Whatever had been going on with Tango, he was alright now. And the two of them, along with the rest of their family, shouted, “Happy New Year!”
Hello! You probably saw my screaming in the tags, and i meant every word of it, but i still felt like reiterating. The way you wrote is fuckin Phenomenal, but also makes me think of knitting in a way? As in, everything builds perfectly on top of each other, and the stories feel very Linear in a way. Also the characterization is Spot On and every sceen feels very lively, especially with argentina, the details you include are so Nice :)
Sorry for the wall lol, i Did actually have a question, what pronouns do you use?
Your praise means so much and it makes me so happy!! (I literally screamed). My pronouns are she/her😊
Again, colourful images of all the different parts of their lives flashed beneath their eyelids, and they felt the pressure of being forced through a wormhole. But the second time always feels shorter than the first time, and before they knew it, the images ceased, and they abruptly came back to their surroundings.
This time when the door opened, Keralis and Xisuma remembered to shift their weight away from it, so they didn’t fall out. They all felt something, something they hadn’t felt in years. The sensation of magic coming back in touch with their souls. They had their powers back.
“Whooo!” Grian couldn’t help yelling. In the other world, he had struggled to remember not to jump off buildings, after he found out he could no longer fly. It still happened on occasion, three years later, that he would slip and attempt to levitate, but ended up face planting instead.
Grian, the tiny little figure that he is, wormed his way between the bodies compressed together in the machine, and somehow made his way outside. As the breeze met his face, his eyes lit up brighter than the sun in summer. He crouched, and launched himself into the air with all his might. He soared through the trees, through the air, through the clouds, letting the wind ruffle his dirty-blond hair. He closed his eyes and the droplets of water from the clouds clung to his lashes. He flew back down to the hermits and landed lightly on his toes.
The others smiled at his happiness. They also relished in the return of their magic. It was as if they had never left, they weren’t at all rusty. Their powers seemed eager to reconnect with them, and the hermits manipulated the elements with ease. False studied every detail around her, Mumbo faded in and out of sight as he turned invisible and back again, and Xisuma and Keralis ran around faster than the human eye could follow (though of course False picked up on it), chasing each other.
Getting back down to business, Xisuma asked Tango, “Where exactly are we?”
Having already heard the question in Xisuma’s thoughts before the latter spoke, he had an answer ready. “We are about 200 kilometers away from where our past selves are. That way we are neither in range of the local black hole, nor Cleo and my telepathy. We should hide the time machine, and I thought here,” he gestured around them, to thick trees making up a large forest, “was perfect.”
Xisuma nodded in agreement.
They all set out to find large branches and leaves they could use to camouflage the machine. Mumbo took out the flux capacitor and wrapped his jacket carefully around it, and then all of them piled the branches and leaves onto the machine. They stood back to admire their handiwork. The machine was barely visible beneath the greenery.
“All right! Now that that’s done, we can start heading home!” Tango urged, eager to finally reunite with the rest of team ZIT.
They would need taxis, but first they needed to get out of the forest. Grian carried Mumbo as he flew over the treetops, while Keralis and Xisuma dragged Tango and False with them and ran.
Up in the air, Mumbo said, “Hey, Gri? Do you think things will be different when we get home? It’s been years, do you think we’ve changed?”
Grian thought about it for a bit, wanting to give his best friend the most honest answer possible. Eventually, picking his words carefully, he said, “I think… what we experienced in the other world must have changed us. We wouldn’t have noticed, but I think it must have. A lot happened there. But over here, no time has passed. They barely noticed we were gone, all they saw was us getting sucked into the black hole. At first they will only care that we aren’t dead, and they won’t make too much of a fuss about what changed about us.”
Mumbo nodded, not entirely reassured. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”
After that, they flew in silence. When they reached the edge of the forest the others were waiting for them. Beside them, somehow, already stood two taxis. Likely, Xisuma had run to the nearest city and gotten them.
They all got in, Mumbo, Grian and False in one, after some prompting from Tango, who seemed rather eager to sit with Keralis and Xisuma in the other taxi. Again, Xisuma noticed his strange behaviour.
When this is all over, I’ll ask him about it. X decided.
When they were right where Xisuma had calculated the edge of the black hole’s force to be, they stopped. They were going to wait here until the light returned up ahead. They couldn’t see very far along the road; it kept getting darker and darker the closer it was to the black hole, which was sucking away all the light.
Xisuma, Keralis, Tango and False sat on the side of the road while they waited for the light to return up ahead, while Mumbo and Grian explored the area. They were very careful to only head away from the darkness.
They found a nice tree to sit in, and climbed-in Mumbo’s case, Grian just flew- all the way to the top. Mumbo sat, comfortably leaning against the trunk while his legs dangled in the air, and observed the view. Grian hung upside down from a branch.
They sat peacefully for a while, until, suddenly, they heard a man curse beneath them.
They looked down, and right below their tree a man stood with his head between his knees, as if he had a headache. Concerned, Grian swung off his branch and floated down to the man. Mumbo gradually climbed down.
“Are you okay?” Grian asked the man as he landed beside him.
Through gritted teeth and without looking up, the man responded, “I banged my head against this stupid tree!”
Grian winced slightly. “Is it severe? Are you bleeding?”
“No. It just hurts a whole damn lot.” At last the man looked up.
Grian flinched again, because the man’s face was marred by a long scar, and he had wide, bloodshot eyes. Besides that, though, he was really quite handsome. Olive skin stretched over a sharp jawline, and accented pearly white teeth.
The man looked at Grian as if he was someone he had been looking for for years. Without warning, he launched at Grian.
Grian yelped and tried to escape the man’s deadly grasp around his throat. He flew into the sky, trying to shake the man off.
Mumbo saw the whole thing happen, but there was nothing he could do; he was only halfway down the tree before Grian started flying, and there was no way he could reach them then.
Grian and the man had gone from friendly conversation to a battle to the death within a minute, and were now hurling through the air blindly, only paying attention to each other, trying desperately to stay alive. Grian grabbed the man’s wrists and wrenched them away from his neck with all his might, digging his nails into the man’s palms. This worked, and Grian took a painful breath.
Suddenly, Grian noticed he no longer had full control of where they flew. They were being pulled into the darkness, the darkness they had wished to avoid. Grian tried to fly back to safety, but the man’s weight made it too difficult. And the longer he waited, the further in they would go and the harder it would be to get out.
Against all his morals as a person and hero, Grian took a deep breath and kicked the man away from him as hard as he could. The man released his grip and hurled into the darkness. They were so high up that there was no hope for him to hold on to anything, and would inevitably be sucked into the black hole.
Grian watched in dismay, but pulled himself together and made his way back to Mumbo.
At least I know the black hole isn’t as dangerous as it seems. He’ll be fine.
At around midnight, by which time the singer had replaced False on the stage again, Xisuma spotted Grian at the edge of the crowd, scanning the people’s faces, looking for them. Xisuma left Keralis to dance with an imaginary partner and maneuvered through the dancing couples towards Grian.
“X! Mumbo finished repairing the machine, we can go home!” Grian informs him excitedly, as he catches sight of his leader.
Xisuma traversed the final few meters between them, dodging a wildly dancing pair, and stood next to Grian, looking out at the stage. “Amazing! Where is he?”.
“He stayed to guard the machine, it would be disastrous if anyone stole it, or even so much as touched it,” Grian replied. A woman looked at him curiously, and he waved.
Xisuma noticed and looked at Grian. “You’re wearing modern clothes, G! You could destroy the timeline! Go back to Mumbo, I’ll assemble the others and we’ll see you in a few minutes.”
Grian examined himself and realised that he was risking a lot, just by being out in the open like this. He smoothed out his red sweater, and nodded. He spun around on his heel and ran back into the alley he came from.
Xisuma walked back over to Keralis, who was still dancing with the warm night air. X tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. Keralis opened his dark eyes and dropped his arms. “Sashwammy! What did Brian say?” Keralis asked, cheerful as always.
“Mumbo managed to fix the machine, we are to meet them there in a few minutes. Have you seen Tango and False?”
Keralis scanned the crowd before answering. “Yes, there they are,” he said, gesturing. Together, they walked towards where False and Tango were sitting on a bench, watching the dancers absentmindedly, just chatting. They sat a good half meter apart, Tango gradually inching further away, as if he was afraid to sit too close to her. When he caught sight of Xisuma and Keralis, he looked almost relieved. Xisuma noticed these things, of course, but he could think of no explanation for Tango’s strange behaviour.
The crimson eyes looked at him from beneath beautiful golden curls. “Hey, X, Keralis,” He grinned. Beside him, False smiled at them too.
“Grian was just here, Mumbo fixed the time machine, so we can leave. I told him we would meet them there in a few minutes, so is there anything you guys would like to do while we’re here?” Xisuma asked.
They all thought about it for a bit, and False said, “I would like to say goodbye to Catalina,” she saw the questioning looks on the others’ faces, “The singer.” She got up and the others watched as she wove her way through the crowd. They watched as she waited patiently for Catalina to finish her song, as they started to talk, as they embraced each other. And Xisuma watched Tango watching False, and saw something in the blood-red eyes that he couldn’t quite identify. But he felt that if he could, it would explain Tango’s behaviour from earlier.
When False came back over to them, Tango got up, and the four of them walked to the main street.
When they arrived at the place they had expected to find the time machine, where they had left it, they found only a near-empty street. Then they saw dirty-blond hair poking around a corner. A pair of warm, dark eyes followed it, and then a wide grin. The grin parted to form words. “You didn’t think we would leave it out in the open while we repaired it, did you? We aren’t that stupid.” He disappeared back around the corner.
The others followed him, slightly dumbfounded. The nimble little builder was fast; they had to run slightly to keep up, and the only thing guiding them in the maze of dark passages was the occasional glimpse of a red sweater flitting around the next corner. It was a mystery how the two had managed to get the time machine so far into the depths of Buenos Aires.
At last they arrived, slightly out of breath, in what was probably the darkest and most secret hollow in the entire city. Grian always had been good at finding hideouts.
Mumbo and Grian stood proudly on either side of the newly repaired machine.
Mumbo’s moustache moved as his mouth opened. “We can go home!” And with that, he climbed through the open door and into the machine. Grian followed, and then so did the rest. They struggled again to fit into the tiny space, but they made it work. Only once they had closed the door and were already all cozied up, did they realise they had forgotten something. Well, several things.
“We’re still wearing these ridiculous outfits!” False laughed.
“Don’t worry, I have our clothes,” Xisuma said. “I don’t suppose we want to spare time to return those people’s garments?”
They shook their heads. It had been fun in Argentina, but they really just wanted to go home, after all these years.
“And uh… Tango, do you think you can program it crammed like this?”
“I can do anything!” Tango laughed. His fingers worked their magic, a blur as they sped over the controls, making sure that this time, they would get home. “Everyone ready? Hold on!” And he again pulled the large lever.
For the second time in 24 hours, the six of them disappeared in a bright flash.
After having stolen some time-appropriate clothes from where they hung to dry in someone’s back garden, the hermits set out to discover the secrets of the past. Well, not so much secrets as just things. Over a hundred years earlier than the time they came from, the world was a different place. Or perhaps it was just the country. Since none of them had ever been to Argentina, they had no way of telling, but they were pretty sure even Argentina was more modern where they came from.
The streets were filled with people, old and young, bustling about with long, frilly dresses, bowler hats, and moustaches Mumbo would have been proud of. Every now and then, carts pulled by horses passed them, and the faint scent of manure filled their nostrils.
As Tango fiddled with his stolen hat, he spotted a billboard littered with advertisements, posters and announcements. The papers flitted in the wind. One that caughts his eye had an image of a dancing couple on it, and read ‘Baile, ¡este noche!’
Tango knew enough spanish to know what that meant. He turned to the others and said, “There’s a dance tonight! We should go! It would be the perfect Argentinian experience, and I want to see how dancing was a century ago.”
The others needed no convincing. They all nodded enthusiastically. They walked closer to the board to read the details. The dance was in the main square at nine, and there would be live music. The poster encouraged everyone to bring their sweethearts.
It was only halfway through the afternoon, so they had some time to kill before the event. They decided to sneak into a horse race that was already going on. They didn’t have any money to bet with the citizens, but they bet each other things like that the winner could ask the loser any question and they had to answer with 100% honesty. False bet on a majestic black horse by the name of ‘Verdado’, which she thought was fitting, as it meant ‘true’. Verdado ended up winning the race, so False got to ask each of the others a question.
“I think I am going to keep these questions as a sort of ‘I owe you’. This is valuable.” She decided. The others protested slightly, but admitted that they would have done the same.
After the race, which ended at seven, they went to a pawn shop to sell some of False’s jewelry so they could buy dinner. They went to an Empanada stand and bought two steaming hot ones for each of them. They sat down on a bench at the side of the street as they waited for their meals to cool off. They talked, they laughed, and they all felt content. They might have never wanted to leave Argentina, but the thought of never seeing their friends in the future again brought them back to their senses. At last it was time to head to the main square. They joined a crowd of people also headed towards the dance. Most of the children were tucked into bed, but their parents were out and about and ready to party.
The main square was beautifully lit, with lanterns everywhere. At the far end, on a makeshift stage, a band was already playing upbeat music. A woman with a voice like an angel’s sang her heart out to the audience. Couples danced wildly across the square.
Keralis pulled Xisuma into a cha cha, and left Tango and False to admire the joy and enthusiasm of the Argentinians. And of course their dance moves.
“Wanna dance?” False asked Tango.
“I-uh…” but before he could finish his sentence, she dragged him to the center of the square and started to tango. As Tango recognised the moves, he grinned, and moved his feet along with her’s.
False’s hair swayed along with her, and she and Tango moved smoothly to the beat. This particular skill did not surprise Tango much; the grace False presented was to be expected of any warrior of her abilities. With the elegance of a gazelle, she swayed, twirled and pranced, Tango following her every move with his bright crimson eyes and following suit.
They didn’t know if they had been dancing for minutes, hours, or days, but after a while a man came up to them and tapped Tango on the shoulder. The man was dressed as any other wealthy man in Buenos Aires, with hat and all. He seemed to recognise them as outsiders, and spoke english, with a thick accent.
“What a beautiful dance you do. Where did you learn?”
Tango and False looked at each other. They knew the risks of messing with the past, and were suddenly not sure if it had been a good idea to Tango. They didn’t know if it existed yet. “Eh… It is our dance. We just do what our bodies tell us to do…” Tango tried.
The man didn’t seem to find this strange at all. “Ah, it is beautiful. Tell me, what is your name?”
“Tango,” and as an extra thought, he added, “Señor”.
The man laughed. He did not once look directly at False, and spoke only to Tango, the male. Even now, he looked to Tango when he asked, “And what is the lady’s name? Is she your wife?”
But it was False who answered. “No, I am not his wife. I am but his friend.”
The man seemed taken aback that she addressed him in this manner, but now finally looked at her directly. He simply smiled and walked away.
Tango laughed, and said, “What is with people thinking you are together with another Hermit? Me, and Malus’ allies thought you were with Grian.”
False shrugged, looking at the point where the man had disappeared in the crowd.
Another person walked up to them then, a woman this time. It was the woman who had been singing on the stage. She flipped her dark hair out of her face and looked at False. The woman did not appear to speak english, and she babbled something to False in spanish.
False responded in kind, and the woman looked delighted. Tango looked from one to the other, confused, until he picked up the word ‘cantar’. The two women continued to talk for a bit, gesturing to Tango every now and then, until, without any apparent end to the conversation, at least not to Tango, the woman walked off.
“What did she say?” Tango asked as soon as she left.
“She wants me to sing on the stage. She saw from a distance what happened with the man we just talked to, and she admired my feminism, I suppose. Although I don’t think that’s a term here yet. She is ahead of her time in that aspect though.”
“Well, are you going to sing?” Tango asked, eager to discover more of False’s hidden talents.
“Yes, I told her I would come up in a minute. She basically wants to trade; I sing on her stage and she gets to dance with you,” she winked.
“You just sold me out like that, huh?” Tango teased.
False flashed her beautiful smile and let go of his hand, which she was apparently still holding from the tango. Tango’s hand slid away from around her waist, and she walked over to where the woman was waiting for her on stage. The woman winked at her and went to take her place in Tango’s arms, who held her, only slightly reluctantly.
Suddenly, False’s pure voice rang through the square, reverberating off buildings, soaring through the sky. Tango recognised the song almost immediately. A song by Gloria Estefan, who was obviously not born yet, but he didn’t think people would notice. They would probably think False wrote the song herself.
“Todas las noches cuando miro al cielo
Brillan tus ojos como dos luceros
Ojos tan puros como el agua clara
Que calma las heridas de mi pobre corazón”
For the second time that day, Tango’s jaw dropped. How had he never known she could sing like this? She sang it better than Gloria herself!
“Woah! Falsie can sing!” A voice behind him echoed his thoughts.
Tango spun around, only to see Keralis and Xisuma approaching him, still dancing. Tango realised his mouth was still open and snapped it shut. He barely acknowledged Keralis and Xisuma as he listened in awe to the perfect voice he never knew his friend had.
The woman in his arms cleared her throat politely, just letting him know she was waiting for him.
“Right, sorry,” Tango said, even though he knew she would not understand him. He figured she would want to tango as he did with False, so he started to lead. The woman was a natural; she moved smoothly to the example Tango was setting, twirling almost as elegantly as False had.
Tango only paid as much attention to the dance as was necessary to get the moves right. The larger portion of his thoughts and focus was on False. The music, her voice, they seemed to touch his soul. This was something he had never felt before, but he knew he had to feel it again. The purity of the sensation seemed to cleanse him, make him whole. He could feel the melody wash over him like a liquid, seeping into the cracks and imperfections in his being, and filling them, so his soul was as pure as a newborn’s.
He continued to listen to False sing, to feel her voice reverberate inside him, to watch her eyes twinkle in the light of the lanterns. And he felt something in his stomach, which had nothing to do with the tango’s wild moves. Like the wings of a mariposa brushing against his insides.
(It ended up being romantic, which is not what I intended, but it felt like the natural way to go, it felt right. I guess I’ll just go with it? I asked you guys but I got no responses so eh...)
Women in frilly, long dresses quickly ushered their children away from the strange people. What on earth were they wearing? And that man! Red eyes! He must be a demon.
Those same red eyes peered out of the time machine at his friends. “Uh… my bad,” Tango mumbled nervously to himself.
Xisuma and Keralis jumped up from where they lay on the ground. Keralis turned to the onlookers and said, “And that was our magic trick! Move along now, show’s over.”
There was no comprehension in anybody’s eyes, just confusion, and fear.
Xisuma’s soothing voice offered an explanation. “I don’t think they speak english.” And then he remembered what the time machine had shown them. He looked around, and sure enough, a blue and white flag rippled in the breeze.
The others looked where X did, and Tango whispered the answer to False’s unfinished question. “Argentina”.
“Not good.” Mumbo said. At first Tango thought Mumbo was talking about the fact that they ended up in the wrong continent entirely, but then he heard metal clang, and someone took a sharp breath through their teeth. As Tango turned around he saw Mumbo wrapping his shirt around a bleeding hand. Through gritted teeth he growled, “The machine is broken. I can fix it, but it will take a while. For now, we’re stuck in the past.” And, answering Tango’s questioning gaze as he looked worriedly at Mumbo’s now bloody shirt, he said, “The flux capacitor got jostled out of place and I attempted to reach it, but a shred of metal cut my hand.”
“At least the red suits you,” Grian grinned. Mumbo’s moustache twitched as he smiled.
“How long do you think it will take you to fix it, Mumbo?” Xisuma asked, getting back down to business.
“A few hours, at least. I don’t know until I can disassemble everything and see how much damage was done.”
“What are we gonna do for the next few hours, then?” Keralis asked. He turned his back to the group of Argentinians still gathered around them. And, gesturing towards them, he asked the hermits, “And what do we do about them? We might have just wrecked the past, and we can’t communicate with them.”
At this, False pushed past him to face the crowd. “¡Ese fue nuestro truco de magia! Esperamos que te haya gustado y puedes irte ahora, hemos terminado. ¡Adiós! Y tú, señorita.” She brushed her hair nonchalantly behind her ear and turned back to the Hermits.
They all stared at her with their mouths wide open. Grian nudged Mumbo’s chin shut with his first two fingers, but couldn’t bring himself to terminate his own expression of surprise.
“What?” False asked.
“Wh- How? Who are you?” Tango stuttered, full of admiration.
False smiled a beautiful, innocent smile, but in her eyes shone a mischievous twinkle.
Xisuma cleared his throat and straightened, trying to regain his composure. “Wow, Falsie, I never knew you spoke another language. What else don’t we know about you?”
“I guess you may never find out, mi amigo.” She winked.
“That’s cool and all, but what did you say?” Grian asked, finally pulling himself together.
“I just repeated what Keralis said. Told them it was a magic trick.” False replied casually.
“Eh… we still have to fix the machine. Mumbo, can you get started on that?” Xisuma asked, changing the subject, a little flustered.
“Right, yes. You guys should go explore, though. I will need-” he looked at his watch, “-probably the rest of the day to fix it, and since we’re here now, you might as well have fun. How often are we going to experience 1880 Argentina?”
“I’ll stay with you Mumbo. You may need help using drills and such, given your injured hand.” Before Mumbo could protest, Grian pressed his finger to the former’s lips, silencing him.
“All right then, let’s go explore the past!” Tango grinned in excitement.
A whirlwind of images, past, present, and future whizzed around them in a blur. Every now and then they recognised individual images. The first meeting between the hermits, Joe performing his poems for them, Grian first discovering his powers, (it involved Mumbo and Iskall pushing him into a swimming pool, only to find him floating an inch above the water), a visit from Xisuma’s evil clone. Then unfamiliar images, likely from the future. A woman walking down the aisle in an astonishing white dress, Cleo tackling Joe to the ground playfully, (Not that that had never happened before, but the room was unfamiliar), three red-headed toddlers rolling in a field.
The occupants of the time machine feel a pressure all around them, unrelated to the fact that they were all tightly squished together. The machine was sending them through a wormhole the size of a needlepoint, so one could have expected more discomfort. The machine jerked suddenly, and, had the Hermits not been so closely packed, it would have sent them flying. As it was, Tango, his hand still gripping the lever, hit his elbow against some of the many controls.
“Ouch! My funny bone!” Tango hissed through his teeth. But then something caught his eye. Where his arm had painfully come in contact with the switches, numbers were changing rapidly. The year Tango had programmed -1999- was decreasing drastically. Panicking slightly, Tango attempted to stop the machine from sending them further into the past. He hit the controls again, this time intentionally, and the numbers stopped. But it was too late. Or too early, because the machine had sent them all the way back to 1880.
“Not good.” Tango winced, both at their situation and the pain still prickling his elbow.
The other hermits didn’t really know what was going on a meter away from them, partially because they were all so tightly packed most of them couldn’t even move their heads. Tango’s statement, however, caught their attention. Mumbo, too tall for the machine and therefore with his head bent against the ceiling, asked, “What’s not good?”
Through gritted teeth, Tango admitted, “The uh… the machine malfunctioned. We are on our way to 1880.”
Grian spoke this time, his voice muffled, as his face was pressed against Mumbo’s shoulder. “So you didn’t program it wrong as Xisuma said, yet we are still on course for an entirely different century than intended.” He giggled and mumbled to himself, “Of course…”
“Is the destination still the same? Or did that break too?” False inquired.
Tango checked. As soon as he looked at it, he knew something was indeed different. “Oh boy. No, Falsie, you’re right. We are not anywhere near our future home. Not even close.”
“But then where-” She stopped as the pressure on them lifted, and a noise that sounded like steam escaping filled their ears.
The images, which had continued in the backs of their minds all the while, stopped abruptly; their journey had come to an end. The last fragment of time they saw was one where four figures climbed out of a complicated looking machine stationed next to a flag rippling in the wind. A flag with blue stripes and an angry-looking sun.
The door of the machine opened with a click, letting in fresh air. Xisuma and Keralis, who had had their backs pressed against it, fell out, tumbling across pavement. As they looked up, they saw a busy city. People all around them paused to stare. The other hermits climbed out of the machine, and Tango whispered, “Oops.”
