Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

BigB squints up at the sky with his hand shielding his eyes. It’s bright outside  today and the sun is warm on his face, only relieved by the cool breeze. Looking up he can see sharp savanna mountains outlined against the bright blue sky from his place by the river and smiles. It's perfect . There’s some flat grass area at the top of the peaks that looks like it has a tree that would be a great place for a base!

The game just started a while ago. After everyone split off from the group, BigB wandered off and spent a while mining underground. He managed to find a ravine and mineshaft but had a close run in with a cave spider bite, he was more so freaked out by being in such rough shape than the actual pain though and panicked and hid for awhile, luckily the bite is almost healed up on his forearm by now, its just a little red. 

He did hang out with Pearl for a bit on his way out of the caves and teased about being boogeyman which was fun. He also ran into Jimmy and Joel at the mansion. They seem to have claimed it as theirs without much issue, considering it was empty for some reason? BigB personally would definitely not want to live there. That seems like a hazard waiting to happen.

BigB rubs his wrist. The buzz of magic settled into their wrists for the life timer still feels a bit weird, but it’ll hopefully fade out over time. 

Carefully climbing his way up the stones and dry shrubbery, BigB crests the mountain. As he pulls himself up something shuffles and he freezes. He starts to reach for his iron sword but stops once he sees what it is. The top of the mountain is covered in frogs. So many frogs.

They’re various sizes, though with minimal variation. All of them are orange except for one, a white one that gazes at him with intense round blue eyes. 

They’re adorable . 

The frogs observe him while BigB stands at the top, walking around in the crunching grass checking out how sturdy the plateau is and looking over the ledges.

He glances down and addresses one of the frogs sitting in the overgrowth. “You know, this place is perfect.” Placing down a deepslate for a platform on the edge he pauses, tilting his head towards the frogs with a quirk up of his lips. “I kind of want to call it frog mountain. Do you think the name would fit?” 

Vertically slit golden yellow eyes follow him as he moves. One of the orange frogs on the rocks gives him a cursory ribbit as they stare him down and BigB smiles, taking that as a yes.

-

It's quickly turning night-time. The evening sky fading from intense orange and pink hues to desaturated blue. The birds are still chirping as BigB wipes his brow, scanning over his now finished and safely lit up platform with the small beginnings of walls. Some of the frogs are exploring what he’s built, while the others continue to stare at him from the weeds. Which, yeah he will admit, it was a little creepy at first that they just sat there and watched him, but the weirdness of that had kind of faded after the first hour or so and became more so endearing that they were so interested in what he was doing. 

The communicator on his hip buzzes and BigB startles. None of the frogs so much as blink. Unclipping it from his belt he gasps at the text. “Cleo just blew up to a creeper? Oh no way...”

So many people have died already. It’s equal amounts unsurprising and disconcerting with how they have it set up this time. It leaves him with a certain creeping dread. He rubs his wrist where his timer appears at his touch, the magic marked into his skin still displaying the numbers, a fresh and soft green, ticking down by the moment. 

Sighing and looking away from his arm, moving to pick up more deepslate and rearrange it, he squints out down the mountain spotting a small shape. Is that person down there? Or is he mistaking a mob? Before he can call out down to them BigB hears the crunch of a branch and whips around arms up prepared for a creeper. 

But there’s nothing there. It’s just the border wall.

The border wall is tall. A gentle blue glow against the dropping night, separating their piece of the world from the endless continuing of everything else beyond it. Moving closer and walking up to the border, he presses a hand on to the light blue waves. The second his hand touches the wall BigB flinches. It hums with something deep and jarring that reverberates through his bones, an old tune he can’t quite parse behind the thrumming of static energy that presses around him. The wall seems to dip down the smallest bit with the shape of BigB's hand, like pressing onto an overfilled waterbed, or against particularly dense jello. And BigB will say right now? That’s weird. The barrier border, or at least, most barrier borders, are completely solid and only tingle when you brush them with your skin. They don’t have a sound to them like that.

A part of him is giddy, though. People have gotten through the barrier before in prior seasons. He’s pretty sure the southlands group did that once, right? Maybe this is how they did it. Some sort of weak spot or something.

BigB looks over at the frogs who are still staring up at him, some of them sitting around him in a circle weirdly still. He grins. "Did you do this for me? Let me through the barrier? If you did, you guys are the best."

None of the frogs blink. Or breath, actually, now that BigB squints. Huh. The wall hums under his skin and he thinks that's probably normal? If things here are weird, maybe the frogs just don't breathe. Or maybe he just can’t see well in the dark as he thought he could with a torch. As long as the frogs are okay, it's not really his business really. Cleo goes around not breathing all the time and it's not like he asks them about it. The frogs don't need his judgment.

BigB turns back to the barrier and gives it an experimental shove with both hands, leaning his body weight into it. It ripples and his hands push in slightly but not much else seems to happen. He hums. Maybe just a little bit at a time? 

He tries gently placing just one hand on the barrier and letting it weigh down naturally. It seems to sink in further than shoving did. The reverberation sings through his body. He slowly moves his arm further into the barrier until he's managed to get elbow deep. It feels like a strange kind of pressure he can't really place.

The frogs are croaking in sync with the humming. All the sound makes it hard to focus and makes his head kind of fuzzy. BigB tosses a lighthearted, exasperated look at them over his shoulder. 

"Hey, I'm trying! It's gonna take a bit to get through this, alright?"

He places his other hand on the wall and starts pushing in, working his way through the barrier. About halfway up his upper arm and nearly his shoulder through on the other arm a tugging feeling in his chest urges him to pause, a nagging feeling to stop moving . BigB stops. 

The frogs are still making noise. It’s well into night now, which doesn’t seem quite right, it’s only been a few minutes after all. The wind is still blowing, and he can still hear the birds. But he can't quite shake the feeling that something isn't right. That he's sure something is slightly off, yet everything seems fine. 

His gaze shoots around. He feels nervous. Like he's been caught somewhere he's not supposed to be. Which, in a way, he guesses isn't entirely incorrect? Considering the fact that he's currently trying to do the world's slowest shimmy through the world border and escape the designated play area, he probably is somewhere he's not supposed to be.

But that's when he spots it. Or rather, doesn’t.

He could see pretty far outside the world border earlier even in the dark, he could see further out into the savanna biome and mountains with other things in the distance. Now the border seems… thicker. More solid and viscous. He can't see out anymore. Whatever he’s going through right now, it doesn’t look like it’s taking him out, if even anywhere. There’s just a dull reflection of his own face on a dark blue surface that doesn't seem shiny enough for it, let alone in this light. 

BigB reels back his arms in a flit of instinctual panic. Surprisingly, he slips out with no issues, landing roughly on his back on the dry grass. He winces. The hum cuts off. It’s quiet. 

Opening his eyes and looking around, the world border seems normal. BigB turns his head to the side to face the frogs in the torchlight. The frogs stare at him.

The nervous feeling unravels from his chest and leaves BigB feeling light and relieved. 

He laughs uncertainly. “Oops?” 

“BigB?”

Startled, BigB quickly rolls up onto his knees and looks around for the voice that echoed from below. “Hello?” 

After a moment Pearl's face comes into view from over the edge. “Heya BigB!”

“Oh! Pearl!” BigB rapidly gets up and dusts off his jeans, offering her help up the last bit of rock.

Pearl gives him a joking yet uncertain grin. “I’m not gonna regret approaching you right? You’re not boogie man?”

“No, No! I’m not actually the boogie, promise! Besides!” He smiles conspiratorially at her. “I have something to show you.”

BigB moves out of the way of her view and Pearl gasps. “Oh my gosh. How many frogs do you have up here?”

BigB tilts his head and considers. His first thought flies out unbidden. “A lot of them! They’re like family, you know?”

Pearl laughs and nods. “Well then, meet my family!” Pearl reaches into her zipped hoodie, holding out a lengthy siamese cat from her jacket. BigB lights up. Pearl cradles the cat in her arms, it starts purring as she pets it softly. “I will say she doesn’t have a name yet though, but I’m open to suggestions.”

“Hmm… that’s a hard one.” 

“Maybe I should just call her Froggy. That way she’d fit in with the rest of the family.”

“Oh my gosh. Pearl you’re a genius. That’s perfect.” 

They both grin and laugh as Pearl spins Froggy around in her arms. The frogs watch the two as they continue to talk throughout the night, working on their temporary base until they eventually wind down. Pearl, BigB, and Froggy end up asleep some early hours of the morning, sprawled out on the deepslate under the light of the moon. 

Chapter Text

“Could we yoink some sugarcane?” 

It’s afternoon now, with the sun low in the sky, muddled by a few clouds here and there. It’s been cooler today: more windy, less humid. BigB and Pearl spent a while this morning scouting out the areas they could see from the top of froggy mountain, contemplating another base location. They found the remains of some mangrove tree roots twisted around a pond and ran into Etho. It was a nice conversation until they split off and most of their time since then has just been wandering around listlessly.

“Yeah, do we need any?” BigB replies with distracted interest.

“For sugarcane at some point for TNT probably! I mean, I can see some up there.” Pearl gestures her head towards the top of the mansion. “We could do a little sneaky sneak and grab some? A little in and out heist mission?” 

“Ooooh, Pearl. You wouldn’t.”

She smirks with playful joy in her eyes. “Well, why not?”

-

BigB and Pearl make their way hidden in the shade of the dark oak trees and fading light of day. Crickets are already chirping despite the early hour and mud squishes beneath their feet. Pearl zips up her jacket, pulling the hood over her head. BigB’s not entirely sure if she did that for the mission or because it's cold, but he knows he wishes he was wearing his sweater right now instead of his button up, now that the sun's setting. 

Getting right up to the back side of the mansion they can see how the wood is starting to rot. Mushrooms grow on some of the lower planks, surrounded by ferns and other thick grass. The cobble is probably in the part best in shape, but even that seems like it’s started to be taken by the moss. 

BigB rubs his hands together and  whispers to Pearl. “How are we gonna get up?”

She hums and looks around with a slight frown before lighting up and pointing to a window a good two feet above their heads. “That way?” She inquires. 

BigB gives her a skeptical look. 

“Well, we’re not scaling the walls BigB!” She whispers. “I mean. Actually I probably could with my diamond hoes, you know, use them like mountain climbers do? But we don’t exactly have four diamond hoes for both of us. …Unless I go up and toss them down?”

He thinks of Pearl tossing sharp objects down at him from very tall heights and shakes his head quickly. “No no. This is fine. Window it is then. Help me up the tree?”

She smiles and nods.

Pearl boosts BigB up one of the nearby dark oak trees, he grapples up onto the thick branches. Once he’s settled safely he reaches down and helps pull her up as well. Luckily this window is missing some of the panes, so Pearl carefully pulls the other pieces of glass out of the window-frame, as she’s the one wearing gloves, and hoists herself inside first with BigB following. 

The inside is dark and musky, BigB squints. The torches have long since gone out so BigB lights his own and Pearl follows suit. Once grand halls and intricate doorways now sit decaying, some of the more elaborate details carved into the wood are lost. Everything seems overly empty instead of wondrous, with dusty flower pots left without plants on the tables, and the likely mildew covered red carpet that seems torn up and worn now. No one alive lives in these walls anymore. 

The flooring quietly creaks every few steps as Pearl and BigB make their way up the staircases. It gets a little easier to see once they get to the next floor with the early evening filtering in from the windows that remain. A zombie groans from a room over and BigB and Pearl share a glance, passing by there quickly. 

Once they get to the top BigB opens the door out to the roof and gives a sigh of relief. 

“It’s not over yet. We’ve still gotta watch out for Grian, Tim, and Joel up here, B.” Pearl murmurs.

BigB tenses and drops into a sneakier stance. They share a snort as Pearl copies him. 

Going over to the chests, BigB starts rooting through items. Pearl follows suit but then laughs under her breath. He gives her a curious look over the chest lid and she points to a sign on the crafting table, reading it out with a grin and an accent: “You ain't seen a bad boy before?” 

BigB laughs lightly, eyes crinkling, repeating the text under his breath as well as he snickers. “You ain’t seen a bad boy before…” 

“Oh hey they have bamboo.” Pearl says, shoving some in her inventory. “And propagules! They were also at the tree!” 

“Oh! Do you think they planted it maybe?” 

“Hmm, possibly! That might have already been there though. Oh!” She grins sheepishly patting her pockets. “I don’t have any more room in my inventory, can you grab the sugarcane BigB?”

“Oh, yeah sure! I’ll just take a bit off the top.” BigB grabs some of the sugarcane and breaks it off with ease, putting it in his inventory. He moves to grab left side of the plant when his foot slips. He falls off the small dirt platform, taking the whole stalk in hand with him.

Pearl quickly turns back around at the thud and takes in BigB slightly wide eyed on the floor. “Ah.”

“Oops.”

He sits up and makes sure none of the sugarcane is horrifically damaged and gives her a thumbs up. 

“Cool! I think I’m good to go. BigB?”

“I’m good, I think. We don't want to take too much from them.”

“Okay!” Pearl says as they go back to the door into the mansion. "Now to make sure they never know we were here.” She grandly opens the door. "After you!"

The walk back out is mostly uneventful aside from a brief creeper scare, they make it down the diffrent levels without sight or any of the other players and few mobs. Its a good and quick trip, but to be honest, BigB feels like the emptiness of the mansion follows him on the way out. 

-

Sprinting through the forests at night is dangerous. An arrow whizzes by and lodges into a nearby tree truck with a thunk barley missing BigB's face. Pearl has sprinted up ahead, dodging away from a zombie and slamming it to the ground with her sword. She stabs it as it tries to get up from the ground and disperses into a cloud of dust. He winces as another arrow brushes his shoulder and gets some skin this time sprinting faster, weaving through the trees. His eyes dart around and catch the reflection of light off water in the distance.

“Pearl! Go that way!” He points towards the glow as he looses one of the zombies in the brush.

“Okay!” Pearl shouts back and changes course. 

As they approach the shoreline a high pitched growl reaches BigB’s ears, along with the deeper groans already surrounding them, and he’s not sure if he wants to laugh or hide. The answer is definitely hide, actually. “Pearl! Pearl we have an issue! There’s a baby zombie down here too!”

“Get up in the trees! They can’t reach up there!” Pearl pulls herself up the closest tree on the shoreline. BigB catches up and yelps as the baby zombie behind him grasps at his pant leg. Twisting around BigB slices down and knocks it slightly back, quickly ducking to avoid another arrow that swishes into the sand.

“Grab my hand!” Pearl holds out her arm from up in the tree and BigB grabs on, scrambling up the trunk until both of them are on top. 

The two of them are breathing heavily. Meeting Pearl's gaze he can see she has a series of deep scrapes on her face from zombie's and branches snagged in her hoodie, her hair is wildly windswept, but overall she seems fine. BigB’s own arm itches a little from the arrow slice, but their wounds both are already healing quickly and barely bleeding. So he smiles.

“Well. That could have been worse.” Pearl starts, brushing her messy hair out of her face. “I’m glad I didn’t bring Froggy with me, that’s for sure. Thick forest at night? Not a good place for kitty cats. Two of ten stars.”

BigB laughs. “I don’t think it’s safe for us either to be fair.”

Spotting something out on the water, Pearl perks up and points. “Oh, that’s a base! Is that Scott? I know Scott was making a base in the ocean last I heard.”

BigB looks out to the direction Pearl is facing and can also see the island floating on the water like a lilypad. It sits with other, smaller starts of islands, defensively lined in bamboo. “Oh you’re right!" He squints. "I think I can see him actually, and Etho.”

They just pause and look for a moment before BigB says: “He has a really good spot there.”

“He does have a really cool spot there actually, it's quite nice…” Pearl mumbles in agreement. She looks back over her shoulder at BigB. “Hey, do you think we could just stare from a distance and look intimidating? See how long it takes him to do something?”

Oh. That's kind of funny. “I mean we could, yeah.”

Some twigs snap as the two shuffle around in the tree limbs until they’re both crouched facing Scott’s base. They wait a few moments, occasionally glancing amusedly at each other, patiently sitting and waiting. 

...Scott has got to have noticed them by now. 

“He can’t last forever. Right? He’ll come over and say hi?”

“Definitely. This is how it works, you just stare at people until they come and say hi.”

A moment longer passes and Scott starts leaving his base, walking across the grass walkway out the door to the shore towards them. The two whisper shout, thrilled. 

“It’s working!” “Here he comes!”

Scott squints up at the two staring down at him from the trees with sparkling eyes. “What are you two doing? Were you staring at me hoping I'd come over? Like… did you think if you stayed there long enough I’d eventually come over?”

BigB and Pearl break into laughs and giggles. 

Pearl thrown her arms up in celebration. “Yes! Exactly right, Scott!”

BigB wobbles in his gentle laughter and nearly slips off a branch with a noise of startlement, Pearl steadies him with her hand.

“You know, two look like cats stuck in a tree. I wasn’t going to come over at first but I thought I’d go look for Jimmy if he’s still up. What are you two up to?”

BigB watches Scott contently as he joins them in the trees, climbing up and pulling himself into one across from them.

Pearl responds. “Honestly just going around the server looking around.”

“Ah, well me and Martyn live here in the coral isle. We’re the coral kids. I haven’t been up to much aside from what I’ve already built because I need grass to spread to the island.” 

“Ahh yeah good luck with that.” BigB nods to him. “Earlier you said you were looking for Jimmy though right?”

“Yeah.”

“They live in the woodland mansion it seems,” Pearl chimes in. “ Or well, on top of it.”

“Ah! Thank you, did not know that.” Scott hops down from the tree, sending a small poof of sand out from under his feet. “I’ll probably go head over there now then before it gets any further into the night. It’s been great seeing you both, though.”

“Yeah man, same! We’ll see you around.” BigB replies.

“Bye guys!” 

“Bye Scott!”

Pearl and BigB both make their way out of the trees and BigB yawns. The wet salty air from the sea is cold but it doesn’t make him feel any more awake. 

“We ready to head home, do you think?” Pearl asks, looking slightly less tired than BigB himself, but still ready to leave.

“Yeah. If we wanna look around still though we can probably cut by spawn actually.”

Pearl nods and the two head off up towards the rocks inland. 

-

Reaching the area by spawn BigB’s eyebrows climb his face at the number of voices carried along by the breeze. Pearl holds a finger up to her lips and starts sneaking behind the boulders. He looks at her curiously but follows suit creeping slowly and quietly next to her where they both hide, peeking over the top. 

At the top Bdubs and Scar are laughing and talking. In the middle of gesturing Scar blinks like something occurred to him and his eyes lock on BigB. BigB flinches in surprise but Scar just smiles widely and waves both him and Pearl over.

Bdubs turns around and notices them both at this point and greets them both warmly. “Hey guys!”

“Hi Bdubs, hi Scar!”

“Well, hello there both of you!” Scar claps his hands together and tilts his head towards them, one eyebrow raises, smile still in place and amusement dancing in his eyes. “Now, what were you two doing lurking around back there behind all those big ole’ rocks?”

Pearl laughs and shuffles to the side. “Nothin’!” She says a pitch higher than normal, very blatantly smirking.

BigB’s lips twitch up unbidden. “Yeah we were just… hanging around. You know, doing stuff.”

“Yeah.” Pearl adds. “Just normal neighbor things!”

Bdubs squints and goes back a step, putting a hand on his hip pointing at Pearl, shield at the ready. “You two better not be up to anything suspicious! We don’t want no boogie men killing on the rock! Least of all not to us!”

Scar waves his hands around placatingly and rolls forwards to between Pearl & BigB and Bdubs. “Now, now, gentlemen and ladies! I’m sure our dear friends here have no ill intent to the wonderful people here at the rock. Why, look at this view! How could you kill anyone in a place like this?” He gestures grandly off towards the overhang of the rock towards the dark forest and the trees. 

BigB agrees, it is a very nice view.

Bdubs seems to relax and walks over the edge as well, followed by him and Pearl. “We have a show going on actually!” 

“Oh?”

Scar looks over, meeting BigB’s eyes and grin a crooked smile. “It’s a nighttime spectacular, some say!” 

Bdubs nods affirmatively with a smirk.

Pearl gasps, spotting what they're referring to. “Did you burn the mansion already?”

Looking over across the forest, BigB can see the licking flames of yellow and orange creeping up the side corner of the mansion, glowing through some of the windows. The wind blows the smell of smoke he had yet to notice upwind towards them. It smells kind of nice, like a wood stove going. He feels a bit bad about that.

“Gosh, look at it.” Scar gushes. “Isn’t it great ?”

“Scar,” Pearl says. “How could you.”

“Hey, he didn’t do it!” Bdubs chimes in. “It was mom.” He states. 

BigB squints and wrinkles his nose at Bdubs, who for all the world isn’t even looking at him, acting like that’s a sentence that makes sense. Pearl with a furrowed brow echoes the word just as Cleo appears, trudging up the rocks from below to join the group.

The other two's attention turns to her, Scar cheers while Bdubs amusedly chants: “Let's go mom! Let's go mom!” while clapping.

Bigb blinks rapidly. Well. That… answers one question, and opens about seven more. But okay. 

The next few minutes kind of blur in laughter and banter of everyone chatting at the rock. Grian, Jimmy, and Joel do seem to notice and they watch them struggle to put out the fire and blow up the comms with messages. Martyn arrives at some point muttered in ash and smelling of burnt wood. He apparently tried to help put out the flame but gave up at some point. The rock explains their family dynamic as well and Skizz and Impulse stop by but eventually depart.

His attention is brought back by Cleo chatting with Pearl. “Hey Pearl, as someone who’s teamed up with BigB before? You’re not safe if he gets the boogie man.”

BigB’s stomach drops as he splutters, trying to find something to say.

“Yeah? What, what BigB?” 

He can tell they’re teasing, that was a long time ago by now. But it still sends adrenaline through him that makes his heart twist, remembering the weight of boogie man and it at last lifting, being left knee deep in bloodied water with shaking hands and nauseating regret. He never wanted to kill her, he really truly didn't.

But Cleo raises an eyebrow at him and smiles, holding her hands up, and BigB knows they’re not upset with him, not seriously. “I’m just saying. Last time I was on a team with BigB I got killed.” 

Pearl nods. “He’s been a little sus, you know? He did make me think he was boogie man at the start, so who’s to say.” 

BigB snorts and gently shoves Pearl with his shoulder. 

Bdubs waves off Cleo. “You don’t even know what it’s like. There’s pressure!” 

They sigh exasperated. “I really don’t! But thank goodness I know I never would have betrayed my day one ally.” 

BigB pouts and he and Cleo meet eyes wryly, but not with anger, and they both know things between them are alright.

-

Eventually they depart and it’s much much deeper into the night. BigB is exhausted, and Pearl isn’t looking too spry herself. 

“Do you think we could like, just set up beds here maybe? By the rock? I know we were looking for another place to base maybe, but I don’t wanna walk all the way back to the mountain… or even up the mountain.” Pearl yawns.

BigB nods along with heavy eyes. “Yeah no. This is fine, this is it. New base, marking crafting bench-” BigB sets a crafting table down with a thud on the stone. “-placed.” 

“Heyooo.”

BigB fights the urge to sigh and smiles, raising a hand in greeting to Martyn who jogs up to them. 

“This is our spot.” Pearl says standing protectively over the bed she’s just placed. “This is our spot we claimed it.”

“Oh! I see.” 

The conversation once again blurs to Bigb. He’s ready to head to sleep but Martyn seems content to chat it up with Pearl, recounting his day and shooting BigB an increasing amount of glances. 

“You gonna make your move them?” Leaves his mouth before he can think the words through.

Martyn tenses the slightest bit, raising his eyebrows and starting to say something, but BigB doubles down and Pearl frowns. “I know it’s you.” He says firmly, following it up with a yawn.

Martyn laughs casually. “What do you mean? Know what's me?”

“I know it's you.” BigB smiles, riding the silly feeling of lack of sleep. “Admit it now and we’ll let you live. I mean let you go!”

Pearl huffs amusedly.

Crossing his arms and shifting his weight to his right, Martyn looks at him skeptically, grin still locked. “You’re being hella agro right now. You mean boogie?”

“He’s been occasionally sus all day. Maybe we should be more careful.” Pearl jokes. 

As BigB turns to face her, searing pain slams up his back and he yells.

“Wrong person, but rightfully so!” Martyn yells. “Sorry, B! Sorry, sorry!”

Pearl yells grabbing at Martyn, she jumps around the lava that’s now been splashed across the stone, lighting the area up eerie orange and yellow. She draws her sword and slams into his side but Martyn’s hand has flashed forward, sending the diamond sword spearing through BigB’s chest. BigB gasps trying to breathe and failing, he grits his teeth trying to twist off to get away and get space from Martyn but the pain peaks and for a moment he feels like he weighs nothing as the world swirls in front of him. Then BigB’s mind falls off into nothing.

A chat message buzzes throughout comms. 

[bigbst4tz2 was burnt to a crisp whilst fighting InTheLittleWood]

Chapter Text

There is darkness. The air, if that’s what it could be called, is solid and thick like being under water. 

BigB is slowly sinking, maybe drifting? It's calm without thoughts. The only thing here is a deep toned old song that makes him want to stay here, stay asleep, be still, rest . The darkness is nice. The song presses in on BigB and he feels like he’s being crushed, but he doesn’t mind it at all as his breath slows further. He is held.

A loud noise that’s not quite a croak but could not well be amounted to any other thing in intention rings out shattering the silence and BigB gasps thrashing around, his eyes slam open– and he is somewhere else. Trembling, BigB sits up on the ground rapidly trying to ground himself, disoriented. He looks around and processes.

Birdsongs pitch up and down evenly from around him on a loop. It’s evening, the sky is both the bright fading orange of the sun and the rising deep blues of night, covered in a haze that makes everything too saturated and too dull. The ground is dry beneath BigB’s hands, he flexes his fingers, compared to the much more humid climate over all he’s been experiencing in the limited life game area, this could be a desert. All of the grass is dead and crunchy, completely barred of shrubbery aside from red ferns dotted thickly around the landscape. The trees, thick and tall as they are, do seem better off, but their leaves wilt sickly. Dry, rotting wood, clinging onto life with not much to hold onto.

The strangest part, he notices, is that he is sitting about 40 paces away from the woodland mansion. 

Or at least, a wooden mansion, he supposes? It is also in disrepair, but neither overgrown nor burning down like the one at spawn has been. 

A sound carries to his ears and BigB freezes; it's singing. The voices sound low and rough like the vocal cords being used were not made for it, it has a slow cadence that lets the song take its shape on its own time, and BigB can’t help but let his shoulders fall.

He slowly stands up and takes stock of himself. All his items are gone. At the movements his back twinges and BigB winces gently touching it with his hand. Ah, right, he got killed a minute ago, didn’t he? Lava majorly sucks. But he should have respawned at the rock, not… wherever this is.

The manion seems strange. He really doesn't want to go in there. But it also seems like it’s calling, asking him to come in. There’s a lot of things going on here right now and BigB’s not sure he wants to be part of any of it. 

Looking around to see if there’s any other clear paths to go through, he’s met with none. The branches are strangely twisted and empty of any animals. It’s desolate. He has the strongest sense that if he goes into those woods, he might not come back out. BigB steels himself, and starts walking up to the mansion.

Standing in front of the tall dark oak doors the BigB wrinkles his nose. It smells very strongly of damp wood and mushrooms, and the door is cold to the touch. Which is normal for dark oak forests and sometimes a mansion, but weird because this one is in such a dry area.

“Hello…?” BigB calls out quietly. “Sorry to intrude? Um.” He gently pushes the door open and it creaks. The birdsongs he heard outside stop. A small orange blur BigB hops away down the hallway. He blinks. Was the birdsong coming from… the frog? 

The other singing is still ringing out from further within the mansion.  

He looks to where the frog went and follows it. It’s not like he knows where to go. 

Turning the hallway corner he’s met with a flight of stairs that would usually be by the main entrance. He looks at them with apprehension. Up the stairs everything is in disarray. Tables are knocked over, pieces of paper from books are scattered on the floor, and some of the walls seem singed in places? But otherwise everything is untouched, the dust up bothered. 

BigB chews on his lip. It could just be the dim lighting, since none is coming through the windows, but the proportions of everything seem wrong , and he can’t quite place why. He sees a glimpse of orange hop around the corner of a room and calls out.

“Frog? Hello? I’m not gonna hurt you. Are you leading me somewhere?”

The frog does not reply. BigB steps into the room full of shelves and chests, checking around each nook and opening all the lids, but he doesn’t see a frog anywhere in there. Heck he even looks up on the ceiling. Nothing

Rubbing his nose as he walks out of the room he yelps, stumbling and grabbing onto the wall to keep from falling. BigB is standing at a shadowed cobblestone staircase that goes down. That is in the doorway he came through. That was a hallway. The only doorway. And the singing, which at this point sounds even less like words, is coming from down the steps.

“Oooh,-” He scrambles back up into the room, staring down at the descent. “- oh so I’m in a horror movie. Cool. Cool cool cool. Yeah, this is fine. Totally fine!” He takes a deep breath, now standing a good 10 feet away from the opening, fidgeting with his button up collar. “Right!”

BigB’s really not faced with any good options here. Either he could wait in the room at the top of the scary staircase for either Pearl to come find him before he starves to death and whatever is singing to come up, hoping that maybe the stairs will change back to a normal hallway while still trapped who knows where in gods knows what this mansion is, or he can go down right and face the thing singing getting it over with by himself, but at least prepared?

He paces in circles, biting the inside of his cheek. “I do not wanna go down there. I really do not. But I can’t just wait for Pearl or anyone to come get me because to be honest I don’t think they’ll know where this is .” He jumps up and down to get rid of the jitters. “Okay. Okay. Like, if I die down there, anyone that’s listening? Know that I hate this, like, so much.” And with that, BigB goes down.

-

Light levels he can see in returns to BigB as he reaches the bottom of the stairs that seemed to go for too long. The drilling drown of song filling his head until he couldn’t even think of being scared.

The room is nice and open. It’s large and full of tables and chairs, almost like a combined living room and dining hall. It’s home-y, in a strange way. There’s flower pots and moss and other pieces of furniture that seem like they’ve been gathered to this room from throughout the entire mansion as well. Beautiful red ferns climb the walls where the wood is damp and rotted through. There’s a chandelier, broken and shattered, still barely hanging from the ceiling. The light is especially dim here, the carpet squishes as BigB steps in… He smiles. 

There’s so many frogs!

They’re all singing together as they move around jerkily. Their skin is thin and dry, very pale and inconsistently textured, like someone took skin from several different animals and melded them together into something that could be a frog shaped suit. The flesh slides much too much over the bones like fabric laid over twigs as they move. One or two frogs look at him with blank glassy eyes and mismatched pupil types. The one he had followed into the room before sits next to him by his feet, BigB reaches down giving it a pat and a sad smile. It feels pretty gross to touch, to be honest, but it seems like the frogs need it, they’ve had a rough time.

There is shuffling and before him, almost as large as the room coming out of the darkness is a bright white frog, not breathing, and staring at him with bright blue round eyes. 

“Grand master frog.” Comes as a greeting from his lips. He knows in his mind that isn’t exactly the correct translation, but it relieves some of the pressure of the humming. 

The frogs in the room stop. They don’t blink, they don’t move. 

A deep bellow comes from the grand master frog and BigB kneels. He is being gifted.

BigB’s thoughts feel thick as he holds out his wrist where his life timer is stopped. This is a place of living in death, if he gives what is asked, he will be given life, too. The red ferns snake from the wall towards him and some sprout out of the ground, surrounding and wrapping his wrist. It feels like he’s shoved his arm in the middle of a deep bass speaker but BigB can’t bring himself to move. He feels tired and heavy.

His eyes blink slowly as he murmurs words from his mouth that don’t reach his own ears. “I will bring you life, I will bring you flesh, I will bring your healing so you may breathe again in your rebeginning. I shall be your favored one. Twin devoured, the intertwined fallen vex and frogs. Twin devoured, twisted remains of the vex, the frogs, I hear you.”

The floor falls out to darkness beneath him.

-

Pearl hovers concernedly over BigB, her eyebrows furrowed. She brushes a hand against his forehead. 

It’s been a few hours since BigB respawned asleep. After being killed in the middle of the night she didn’t blame him, picking him up and carrying him to one of the beds at their new base after he reappeared on the rocks. 

She made Martyn watch over them as payment for the boogie kill while she also slept too since she didn’t make those beds to just not go to sleep, and it's the least you can do, Martyn-. Eventually, Pearl awoke early with BigB still asleep and bid Martyn a slightly tense farewell, with him asking her to apologize to BigB for him when he awoke. 

She started work on building up the base with cobblestone walls and some furnaces as well, the beginnings of a grand tower they could watch all the other people around from, and brought Froggy over to their new home. Good progress was made and Pearl was satisfied, though a little smidge concerned. It hadn’t been horribly long into the day but BigB still wasn’t awake. She didn’t realize he was that tired, or she would have asked for a break herself to make sure he got one earlier on in the night.

Various people had popped by, mostly the people from the rock and one or two of the bad boys, as they were now apparently called, to check in on the new build popping up. They chatted and when they found out BigB was asleep either gave their boogie man sympathies to pass on or lightly teased.

Drawing away from her thoughts Pearl draws her hand away from BigB’s face, glad he doesn’t seem feverish or anything. BigB’s face twitches and she tilts her head, watching him.

“Oh, BigB? You awake?”

BigB blinks his eyes open, squinting at the sunlight in the sky above him disoriented. His eyes drift to Pearl hovering above him.

“...Hi?”

Her face lights up and she bounces. “Hi! Good morning sleepy head, I was getting worried you weren’t waking up!” She jokes. 

BigB sits up yawning, rubbing his face. “Oh, sorry? I had a really weird dream, I think. I don’t really remember what it was about.” He considers for a moment. “…Frogs, maybe?”

“You and those frogs, BigB! Well while you were busy having fun dreams, I started building up our base!” She gestures widely at the walls that have formed around them. “What’dya think?”

BigB smiles, swinging his legs off the bed and getting up. “It looks great Pearl! How did you get this much done already? What all happened while I was asleep?” 

“Well-!”

The fading feeling of sleep and memories of dreams leaves BigB as he falls into his and Pearl’s conversation about the day. Unbeknownst to him, BigB’s timer ticks slower.