They left early in the morning, Herobrine on the replacement for his zombie horse, Steve on a work horse. There were a few zombies lingering around the gate, Steve rode them down and then between the two of them they divided the zombies into nonthreateningly sized bits. Then they rode off down the road, grass waving on either side, forest standing back tall and dark to their left. Steve hummed quietly to himself. "When's the last time you've been to the city?" said Herobrine. Steve shrugged. "Can't remember. Actually, I'm not sure I've been." "You have, at least once." "Oh, that's right, I remember now. Don't think I've been since then." the entire family had taken a trip once. It had not been very dysfunctional, surprisingly. That was only a few years before mother left. She had more or less gotten used to the idea of Steve, and tended to ignore him. Lord Heron, who didn't want to restart any drama, ignored Steve as well. As a child Herobrine could never understand why they didn't appreciate him more. He was a much nicer child than Herobrine. He didn't talk back, he didn't disobey (unless Herobrine suggested it,) and he wanted to please to an almost unhealthy extent. It made no sense.
Herobrine was discovering that there was a lot about adulthood that didn't make sense.
"Well, you'll have to follow me then." "Alright." Herobrine looked at Steve and smiled. "You're very trusting, aren't you?" "Huh?" "Do you trust me completely?" Steve squinted at him. "Hmm… yes." "That's dumb." "Why?" "Say I told you to jump off a cliff." "Then you'd be insane. And I'd have to tie you up and feed you cookies until you got better." he grinned. "How do you know I'm not already insane? I think it runs in the family." "Well then, we're both insane." "Nah, I think you lucked out." "Are you kidding? We both know I'm the crazy one." "Not necessarily. Damaged and crazy are different things." they rode in silence for a while. Steve considered. Herobrine was a prankster who didn't say much about his inner life. What was he trying to say? He knew that there were long periods when Herobrine didn't want to do anything but lie in a pillow nest and look at the wall. He'd always assumed that it was because he was lazy. Which was fine. He had no obligations. Now that he thought about it, there was sometimes a worrying dullness in those frost-grey eyes.
Herobrine had half-expected Lord Heron to follow them, but he hadn't seen him since the day before. And it was pleasant, riding through the fields with Steve. Grass rippled in the breeze under a bright sun, butterflies fluttered gracefully in the calm or were tumbled sideways in the breeze. They did encounter one creeper, but Steve had brought his bow, and they rode out of range and shot it without too much excitement. "Probably should've stopped to get the arrows back," Herobrine mused as they rode away. "Sorry," said Steve absently. Herobrine waved his hand. "Don't apologize." "Sorry." "Are you… apologizing for apologizing?" "Um—" "For Notch's sake, stop apologizing!" "I'm s—augh! You almost got me." "Ya derp." "Derp." Steve flicked Herobrine's hair into his face and rode away quickly.
"So. Metals expert." "Hmm? I'm not an expert—" "What did you think about that, back there?" "I think he thought exactly what I did. That the setting is perfectly fine. But he didn't want to say anything about it." "Why would he, we're paying him." "Right." Herobrine kicked a lamppost as they passed. "This is weird." Steve shrugged and continued looking around. It didn't seem to bother him much. Herobrine noticed something, but tried not to look like he had. He was tired of having to explain everything to Steve and sounding paranoid. "Steve. Look at that guy around the corner of the fish stall." Steve looked, and the person in question quickly disappeared. Herobrine waited. Steve said nothing. Dangit, I'm seeing things. Either that or he missed—"Was that… dad? What is he doing here?" Herobrine laughed. Proof he wasn't seeing things. Of course, he couldn't make this up if he'd tried. "Who knows. Whoring maybe." Steve gave him a you should speak respectfully of your father look. "Hey now." "Steve, you exist." "That is true." "It is and you know it. He's a hopeless womanizer. It's disgusting." "Hi, Herobrine!" Steve looked curiously at the attractive young lady in red stockings who was waving at them from across the street. "Who's that?" Herobrine tackled him and dragged him down a nearby alley, blushing. "Ignore that that happened. Ignore. Ignore." "…Oh." "Right," said Herobrine, walking down the alley, "We should find somewhere to stay. And also get away from here. And also hopefully lose dad." "What do you mean, lose him?" "I think he's following us." "We only just saw him." "Well, I'd expect him to have been waiting, and not to have tried to follow us the whole way. He's not dumb." there was a scream from behind him. He whipped around and found an urchin dangling in the air, one skinny arm enclosed in Steve's fist. It was kicking viciously at his ribs. Herobrine's money pouch dangled from the limp hand. "…." said Herobrine. "Reflexes," said Steve, batting away kicks aimed at his nether regions. The urchin was playing dirty. "you may want to work on them." "….Thanks." he took the money pouch back and the urchin glared at him. Herobrine glared back. "Alright, drop the thing. Let's go." Steve raised the urchin to face level, holding its legs so it couldn't kick him. "Stealing is mean," he said, placidly. The urchin stared at him. It didn't seem to have been called mean before. Larcenous, swinish, hopeless, bad—yes. But mean was something it understood. Mean was when your sister hit you on the head and wouldn't share. Also, it had had a long day and a pretty severe scare. It had sized up Steve, apparently incorrectly, as a slow-moving type who didn't notice much, and had been prepared for death, a night in jail or at least a solid beating when it realized it was wrong. Thus the vigorous kicking, which hadn't phased Steve, to its amazement and terror. The urchin went limp and began to cry. Herobrine groaned. "Put it down, Steve. Steve. Steve what are doing. Steve, don't be nice. It wants that. Steve. Dammit. Notch, why." they were standing in a shady alley and Steve was comforting a screaming urchin.
The urchin's name was Frank and Bad Things happened if he didn't bring home enough money every day. Herobrine wasn't particularly touched. Just another sob story, you got a lot in the city. Some were true. Some were entirely made up. You often didn't hear the true stories, people with pride didn't whine. Con artists did. But he allowed Steve to buy Frank a sandwich and a bowl of milk and talk to him until he had calmed down. In the end Frank scampered off grinning with a bag of apples and a loaf of bread, stopping at the corner to look adoringly back at Steve, who waved, before disappearing. "Right, so we're done with that," said Herobrine, crossing his arms. He double checked that he still had their money on his person. He did. "Well, follow me." "Poor kid," said Steve. "Reminds me of myself." "How?!"
The rest of the evening was enjoyable and not very eventful. It did involve food and did not involve low-aimed kicks, two things which made Steve happy. Herobrine spent a long time arguing with the innkeeper though. Apparently he'd stayed there before and it was unusual that there was only one room, with one bed. "Alright, fine. Wait. One question. Has my dad been here?" "…." the innkeeper gave his best impression of a cow standing in a field. "Well?" said Herobrine. "…" the innkeeper turned slightly, like a cow that thinks it hears something from the opposite direction. Herobrine took his key and made a rude gesture to his general surroundings. "I guess we know the answer to that. Come on, Steve." the bed was fairly large by Steve standards, and much too small by Herobrine standards. "I might just sleep on the floor," said Herobrine, throwing his pack down. "It's probably got fleas." "No, I think it's fine." "Well it looks suspicious. I'll sleep on the floor." "No, I'll take the floor." "No you won't." "It's fine." "Steve! Stop being so horrendously nice to everything!" "No I don't mind. I can sleep anywhere." "It's going to be dumb if we both sleep on the floor." Steve agreed. "So? Take the bed." "Nope." "Nope?" "I'm not sleeping on a bed while you're on the floor." "Steve! Take the bed!" "No." Herobrine flung himself facedown on the bed in disgust. "I hate everything." "No you don't. Look, there's room for both of us." Herobrine mumbled something. "What?" "Nothing. Fine we'll share." "Good. I'm glad you stopped being ridiculous." I'm not the one being ridiculous, thought Herobrine.
A/N: My other stories are better than this, I swear. Which ones? Literally any of them. But perhaps this will amuse you. I hope so.
