It had been nearly a week of just travelling before someone finally voiced everyone's thoughts.
"How long is it supposed to take to get to the Far Lands?" Lukas called forwards. Ivor glanced back at him from where he was perched behind Soren.
"If I've calculated correctly, from where we started," Ivor placed a hand on his beard, "it should be another three weeks."
Olivia spluttered. "Three weeks?!"
"They are called the Far Lands for a reason." Ivor turned back around. Olivia made a face, glancing back at Lukas, who returned it with his own irritated glance. She then let out a long sigh and turned to face forwards again.
They continued to move at the leisurely pace the horses had chosen. Olivia was currently perched behind Jesse, Soren and Ivor in front of them, with Lukas and Gabriel behind. Reuben was sprawled out across the saddle of the last horse, which was attached to Lukas' by the reigns. She and Gabriel had originally been on that horse, with Reuben perched behind Jesse, but after Olivia had literally fallen off of it, the others had decided it would be best to switch around.
She had attempted to assure them that she was fine, but at this point, she was pretty sure they would've taken her back to the cave if they could.
There wasn't much to do on their trip. Everyone was too nervous or touchy to hold a conversation for very long, and other than that, they had nothing else to do. Well, other than think about everything that was happening, but Olivia knew that she didn't want to do that, and figured the others would likely be on the same page.
That said, it didn't mean she always avoided it. In fact, she had thought about it quite a bit. Not that she wanted to; the thoughts would force their way in and refuse to leave her alone until she gave in. Often times she managed to break them off quickly; with all the stress and fear and pain that it brought to her attention, she was almost certain she'd start crying if she thought too hard. And since she was right behind Jesse, there was no way she'd be able to hide it if she did.
So, other than falling off of her horse, nothing interesting had come out of this so far.
Olivia glanced up at the sky. The sun was at the horizon; it was getting close to Spawn. If they wanted to stop for the night, they'd want to stop soon to avoid any mobs. Personally, the idea of avoiding nighttime monsters sounded more than ideal to her. And she was pretty sure she wasn't the only one, as Jesse shifted in front of her, then sighed.
"I-it's getting late." Jesse started to pull the horse to a stop. "W-we should probably bed down f-for the night." Soren's horse slowed to a stop ahead of them, then turned sideways so he could glance back.
"Yes, I suppose we should." He glanced at the horizon behind them. Despite the fact that they knew the Wither Storms weren't following them, they all had been on their guard for them the entire trip.
Lukas pulled his horse to a stop beside them. "Plus, right here seems like a good place anyways." Jesse nodded as the blond slid down to the ground, Gabriel quick to follow him down. Jesse hooked her leg over and slid down as well, immediately turning back to her as Olivia copied her. When her feet met the grass, Jesse quickly moved to support her if needed, but it was unnecessary, and Olivia straightened again.
Which wasn't far, considering she was automatically curling in on herself due to the pain in her arms.
"Gabriel, you help Olivia keep track of the horses while the rest of us work on a shelter," Lukas instructed as Jesse moved over to help Reuben off of his perch. Gabriel nodded once.
The others were quick to hurry off to start their work. Olivia glanced down at the grass below her feet, then at the rest of the field. The grass was uneven, some places having patches that went to her knees while others barely had anything. Likely due to the flock of sheep that was huddled a ways away.
She watched the sheep in quiet reminisce. Now that she thought about it, the Building Competition felt like ages ago. It probably was; they'd been running around like crazy for a while, and she had no clue how long it had been since it'd started. Even with it feeling like forever ago, it was still weird to think about how she could go from completely fine to… this. Curled in on herself, her hands no longer even slightly functioning, and everyone throwing her worried glances every so often.
In twenty-four hours, she had gone from okay to not. She honestly wanted to just go back to the way things were. Even if just to when she could at least move her hands.
She finally gave in and plopped down, huffing slightly in annoyance at herself. Reuben was quick to trot over to her, giving a small snort before settling next to her.
This was what would happen every time they stopped. Each time she sat down becoming sooner and sooner. Reuben would always come over to keep her company until the others were done. She had tried a couple of days ago to pet him or something, more to assure herself that her hands still worked, but she had wound up failing miserably. On top of that, it had hurt to touch him, so she wasn't too inclined to try again.
A little brown rabbit hopped by, pausing as it passed in front of her to look at her and sniff the air briefly. Olivia immediately took notice of the severe indent in its ear; it had probably gotten into a fight with another rabbit or something. Reuben leaned forwards slowly, trying to sniff it curiously. It, in response, did the same thing, but the second they were about six inches away, the rabbit darted off through the grass and out of sight. Reuben huffed disappointedly, and leaned back again. Olivia couldn't help but smile at the scene.
Reuben had tried to befriend just about every animal they had come across. only one of his attempts had been successful, with a little lamb they had run into a few days prior. The two had started running around excitedly while Jesse and the others worked on the shelter, and the lamb had run away when it had accidentally rammed into Lukas' leg. Reuben had been thoroughly disappointed when the wad of black wool had vanished into a sea of black and white.
This time, though, Reuben didn't try to run after it. He simply plopped down again, watching the grass where the rabbit had vanished.
The others were getting close to done; Olivia could see Jesse pulling herself out of the hole in the ground a short distance away. They had figured out that if they built a dirt hut every night, they'd have to gather materials every night as well. Lukas had been the one to offer the plan they had gone with. They would dig out a little underground shelter one night, then build a hut the next night with the materials they'd ultimately gathered. They had built a shelter the night before, so this time around, it involved digging.
Lukas pulled himself up after her, digging through his inventory momentarily, before retrieving a fencepost and found a place nearby to place it down. He motioned to Gabriel, who pulled the horses over so they could tie them to the fencepost. They had figured out that mobs won't attack horses unless a person is riding it, so leaving them out in the open wasn't too big of a deal. Usually, they'd build some sort of roof for them in case it rained. They always seemed to have enough materials to do so, anyways.
While Lukas and Gabriel took care of the horses, Jesse moved over to Olivia and Reuben. Reuben perked up when she reached them, hopping to his feet instantly. She smiled lightly, leaning down and patting his head for a moment, then straightening slightly and offering a hand to Olivia. As much as she wanted to protest the offered help, she bit her tongue and lifted an arm to her. Jesse carefully took hold of it and pulled her to her feet while Olivia did her best to ignore the sharp ache that appeared on contact. Jesse released her as soon as she found her footing, though her hand hovered for a moment longer, then lowered to her side. They then slowly moved over to the hole that was the entrance to their shelter, easily descending into it.
Soren and Ivor had already put together a fire pit in the center of the shelter, and were, unsurprisingly, quietly arguing about something. Olivia didn't bother to try and guess what it was about this time around, simply moving into the shelter and settling against a wall. Reuben settled beside her again as Jesse retrieved her flint and steel to start the fire. She pushed the tools together, and the spark produced hit the netherrack, causing the entire top of the block to be engulfed by a flame in less than a second. Jesse eased back, pocketing her tools as she settled on Reuben's other side. Lukas and Gabriel entered the hut a few moments later, Lukas blocking off the entrance with spare dirt blocks as the sun seemed to vanish from the sky.
The near-unbearable silence that had covered the group like a blanket for the past week returned. Olivia absentmindedly began to chew on her bottom lip to ignore it, watching the fire as she half-draped her arms around her knees. Her mind began to drift, trying to imagine what the Ivor's little lab place might look like.
Soren's Happyland in the End came to mind, and she lightly shook the thought away.
"How many biomes do you think we'll go through? T-to get to the Far Lands, I mean." Olivia blinked out of her thoughts and glanced at Jesse, watching her for a moment before shrugging.
"I'd say anywhere between five and… I don't know, twenty?" Jesse blinked. "It took us a week to get out of that forest, and this prairie is so thin that you can see the next biome without leaving the forest. We could only go through a few, or we could go through several."
Jesse gave a quiet hum. "Yeah, I guess." There was another stretch of silence. Olivia assumed the conversation was over, beginning to drift back into her absentminded habits, before Jesse interrupted her thoughts again. "H-how are you doing?"
Olivia sat silently for a moment, assessing her current state. Her arms hurt, her hands were almost completely numb at this point, and altogether looked terrifyingly similar to if they were literally rotting. Which, for all she knew, they could be. Besides the obvious, she was exhausted, the pain worsened by an endless ache in her stomach- whether that was from the sickness or hunger, she wasn't sure. She felt abnormally weak, which was driving her up the wall, breathing or focusing was harder than it should be, and moving her hands at all was out of the question at this point.
Of course, she didn't want to tell Jesse any of this. She didn't want to tell anyone this. But she couldn't hide all of it anymore. She could hide most of it, but she really couldn't hide the fact that her arms had literally gone numb with pain. Not with how they looked.
"I'm… I'm holding on," Olivia mumbled. Jesse blinked sympathetically at her. "I'm not gonna lie, it's… painful. But I'm managing."
"I… kinda wonder if it'd be better for you to be in that cave." Jesse leaned on her legs slightly. "I-I'd probably be really worried this whole time, but… A-at least you'd be able to rest. Y-you wouldn't be pushing yourself like this."
Olivia's face fell to a deadpanned expression. "You're not saying you blame yourself because I said I was coming with you, are you?"
Jesse blinked. Olivia's question had caught Lukas' attention. "N-not… Kinda…?" Olivia lifted an eyebrow, and Jesse sighed. "If something happens to you out here, then yes. B-but not really now."
"If anything happens to me, it'll probably be my own fault." Olivia leaned back against the wall. "Well, it will be no matter what, since I was the one who decided to come."
"I don't think it matters who's fault it is for what if it hasn't happened yet." Lukas cut in. Jesse and Olivia both glanced at him, before Olivia shrugged slightly.
"Point taken." The end of her agreement was cut off by a couple of mild coughs, and she cleared her throat.
Jesse glanced at Reuben briefly, reaching over and scratching behind his ears. He gave a few content snuffling sounds in response. "Yeah… I-I should probably stop focusing on what-ifs."
"That's what you do," Olivia teased mildly. Jesse shot her a playful glare, shaking her head lightly and forcing down the smile that was tugging at her lips. There was a brief span of silence, though it felt a little less unwelcoming and tense as it had before.
"What d'you think the it look like?" Olivia questioned, glancing over at the other two. They both glanced at her, then at each other. "Where we're going, I mean."
"Hmm…" Lukas leaned back against the wall. "I dunno. I'm kind of just expecting some house hidden in a forest somewhere." Jesse nodded in agreement.
"I keep expecting it to be hidden away. Whatever I hear about it makes it sound secretive." Olivia shrugged lightly.
Lukas hummed. "Yeah, I guess that'd make sense." A pause. "Maybe it's underground."
Olivia snorted slightly. "Maybe."
AN: hi it's been almost a month. sorry about that. i had a lot of school to work on over the past month so the fic just. got pushed back.
luckily the semester's over so i have time to do stuff like write this again.
until next time!