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When Ranboo opens his eyes, he’s not sure what he expects to see, really. He’s not even sure he existed before this. All he knows is that he is standing in a field, flowers up to his mid-calves; there is a lake to his left, and a scattered forest, and a few mountains to his right. He grabs a flower and starts forward, towards the lake, and something inside of his chest shifts. He feels it shatter into pieces, watches with mild interest as it floods his vision in purple, and realizes a second earlier than it starts. Suddenly, he is not where he was before— he is standing next to a tree, a tree with smooth white bark and dull green leaves.
“Huh,” Ranboo says, to nobody in particular. “That’s interesting.”
Briefly, he wonders if he could do that before. He’s not sure what “before” is, or even if there was one, but he wonders all the same.
Soon there are others. They all seem new, unsteady in their skin, just as he does, and Ranboo finds some help in knowing that at least he’s not the only one lost and bewildered by his sudden existence. Everyone here is blessed, or at least, that’s what Phil says (Ranboo likes Phil, even if pumpkins make him invisible and very, very eager to prank Ranboo. He just seems kind) when Ranboo asks if he knows anything about the world they’re in.
Niki is blessed of the sea, the rain, the sweat of the brow and the tears of a mother. She is nearly iridescent in the sunlight when Ranboo meets her, pearly scales glistening in the seawater and rainbows. Her hair is tangled, pulled back in a bun, and she moves through the water like she was made for it. Ranboo feels almost sad that he will never be able to see the beauty of the reefs she describes, and Niki feels the same about the mysterious ruins that Phil located in a desert. Niki promises to try to help Ranboo meet a dolphin pod, and Ranboo brings her books from the temple a few days later as a thank you.
Jack is made of fire and ash, his molten heart beating with the added power and energy of a blaze’s fury. He came through a purple portal that appeared in the spawn chunk a few hours after everyone else, bearing tales of a lava-filled land of jungles and pigs and warm moments (though Ranboo finds out later— the warmth of the Nether works differently on others than it does on Jack. That was his first death). He is like Ranboo; water is his antithesis, an enemy to the melting rock moving his body along. His eyes shine in the dark, a bright burning orange behind the strange glasses he wears.
Wilbur bears the blessing of the past. He is little more than a memory, and yet somehow, he has not died. He remains. When Ranboo meets him, Wilbur laughs long and hard after Ranboo beats Tommy in a footrace and decides to help Ranboo find materials. He can vanish from view entirely, though this seems to tire him quickly, and can see through solids that others would find impermeable. He giggles a lot, and floats two inches off the ground when he walks, and he cannot stand the too-burning bright scald of the sun on his back. He tells Ranboo excitedly of his plans to build a haunted mansion, for thematic appropriateness, and Ranboo agrees wholeheartedly. Wilbur’s smile is fleeting, but frequent, both more and less ghostly than the rest of his being.
Philza is favored by the skies, the great clouds above and the beautiful void below the world. His eyes are the solid color of diamond, sharp and cutting like one, too. Ranboo sees his wings glisten in the light as they snap open for the first time, unfurling like sheets of gossamer-threaded paper from behind their protective shell. They look fragile, but Phil is an excellent flier, despite being new to existing just like the rest of them, and this makes Ranboo think of the before, somehow. Phil is kind and knowledgeable, mischief and chaos. He cannot wear heavy armor, and cannot bear to be underground for long; everything in the poem of his marrow and the song of his blood long to see the sky, to praise the thing that blessed him with flight. When Phil goes down into the caves with Ranboo, he is tired, and so Ranboo does his best to send Phil up to the surface as much as possible (Ranboo doesn’t like the surface much, but he doesn’t mind it as long as it’s not raining).
Tommy is taken from the stars and the wind, the space between all the world. It is obvious, from the bright specks that dot his cheeks and wrists and nose to the nebula of vapor that trails after him like a loyal puppy to its master to the shift in the winds when he falls. Wilbur likes to say that Tommy can’t do anything; he is different, he is strange, but they all know he is favored like the rest of them. The stars sing him to sleep at night— a symphony of gales crescendo at Tommy’s request, and he will never be harmed by falling from grace. The wind refuses to let him come to harm, and the stars have made him out of their own, and so the boy cannot consume anything moving untouched by the wind. Ranboo sees him try to eat a steak, once, on the first day. He doesn’t try it again.
Tubbo is someone special, Ranboo knows. Tubbo is sturdy and strong, can break stone with his hands and withstand so much. He has a hard shell coating his fingertips and his palms, his knees and his calves, and can speak to Ranboo in a sort of raspy tongue that they’re both surprised to know. Tubbo gets tired quickly, and his movements are slightly off (too slow, or too reckless, or too careful, or too blurringly fast? Ranboo isn’t sure), but they stick together out of some unknown but mutual familiarity. Tubbo knows as much as Ranboo, and he says so right away, and Tubbo builds a treehouse to keep them out of the rain (only trying to shove Ranboo out three times, which Ranboo has the feeling he should be grateful for).
Ranboo isn’t sure what he’s born of, or blessed by. He knows he is; after all, nobody else in the world can teleport, or reach as far as he can, and Tubbo is the only other who can understand the dark creatures that glow purple in the night. Ranboo knows he is from far away, he knows that much, and inexplicably he feels homesick and severed. Tubbo feels the same, judging by his anxious humming to himself again. Ranboo’s existence is strange— he cannot see pumpkins or touch water, lest he burn, and he cannot touch the grass that his shadowy brethren can pick up.
Phil suggests going to find a library and understand more about what has happened to make this island exist, this little world of infinite treasures, and Ranboo insists on tagging along. He has an inexplicable feeling he’ll find something out on the journey.