They rode slowly along the clifftop, waves crashing to their left. "Where are we going?" Steve looked up eagerly. Arix had listened to Steve's account of what he'd missed and silently scarfed down all of the food he'd had, but he hadn't spoken much since then. Steve was glad to hear the question.
"We're taking you home."
"Home?"
"Nowa."
"Ah. I don't strictly speaking have a home."
"You don't?!"
"Well I do have a place to stay. I guess what I meant was I always felt at home in the Outlands." not so much recently, though. Steve had a point. He needed a break.
"Good. Herobrine's going to find me eventually. He always does. And he'll be mad. I don't think he'll bother you, though, unless you happen to be with me. If you're in the city I expect he'll simply forget about you. He doesn't care for humans, especially in large groups. But be careful to avoid the gravel flats in future, or anywhere in that area. You wouldn't want to jog his memory. He's also fond of Cleft Mountain, towards the Western Outlands. Don't go there."
Arix was silent for a few minutes, processing this. He fingered the glowstone charm on his belt. "Will you be alright?"
"Sure. It's not like this hasn't happened before."
"That doesn't make it any better."
"I'll be alright. He does have reason to be angry, this time." Steve looked ahead towards the southern cliffs around the valley of Nowa. "I almost wish I hadn't fought him. It was necessary. Although, perhaps not. I don't know. I don't know. Well, he's surely freed himself by now."

Herobrine let his head fall back against the tree with a groan. He had awoken with a pounding headache several days before and discovered that he was unable to teleport. He had then spent some time attempting to free himself from the spider silk binding him to the tree, without much success. He'd been attacked by zombies, fought them off with difficulty (most of his magic required the free use of his hands, which he didn't have) and lost consciousness again from blood loss. When he woke up a cow was nuzzling his face. He screamed at it and it ran away. He had succeeded in slightly loosening his bonds when he heard more creatures of the night approaching.
The next time he woke, a slim shoot of grass was pushing up through the ash in front of him. He glared at it. He hated that piece of grass. Concentrating all his hatred for Steve and the universe, he produced a burst of flame that incinerated the tiny blade of grass. Satisfied, he leaned back against the tree. Now if only there were a way to just…
Oh. Sweet. Notch. Of course.
A few seconds later he had burned through his bonds and was flying, furiously smashing the charred trunk he'd been tied to into slivers and pouring lava across the forest floor. Finally when he'd calmed down he sat on the edge of the cliff and looked, panting, across the wreckage he had made. Well. Good thing nobody had been there to see that. What was wrong with him lately? First that juvenile mistake with the potions, which had dropped a house-sized squid on his head… he shuddered, trying to forget the slime. No. Steve. Steve was what was wrong with him. Wrath boiled inside him and he stood. He was finding that son of a bitch. He stretched out his hand—
—which had nothing wrapped around it. He looked down, confused. Where had he put his Steve finder? Had he left it at home? He teleported to his base and spent several hours searching before remembering that he'd used it to find Steve during the wildfire, which meant that he'd had it with him, which meant that it had disappeared after the fire and not before… which made it very likely that Steve had taken it while he was unconscious. Herobrine ground his teeth. Great. Just great. Now he was angry and he didn't have anyone to take it out on. And Steve was getting crafty. When on earth had that happened? Steve had been acting differently, and it was probably Herobrine's fault, for getting too familiar. He'd let Steve grow less afraid of him and look what had happened. He was going to fix that. When he found him again, Steve was going to be very very very sorry.
At the moment, however, Herobrine was short on ideas and desperately hungry. He teleported outside, looking for animals. A fresh steak would be nice (and he didn't have any food in the house.) Nope, nothing. He zipped around the countryside, draining his magic (he had an almost unlimited store of energy but still, it annoyed him to waste large amounts needlessly) and becoming more and more irked. When a cow appeared on the horizon he warped straight up to it and impaled it with a bolt of energy. Once it had stopped twitching he realized that the meat around the wound was ready-cooked. Well, that was a nice feature. Extremely impractical, but still. He stuffed himself, left the rest of the cow to rot, and climbed a tree to rest, pleasantly full of protein and drained of mana.

They kept riding, moving more slowly, as Steve said that if Herobrine had been going to find them then he would already. But this couldn't be the only reason. Steve seemed reluctant to end the journey. Fortune's sores began to heal, the seashore dropped away behind them, and they climbed over increasingly rocky ground. Arix saw, as if in a dream, the landmarks he had passed countless times when travelling to and from the city. Then one evening they looked down into the valley of Nowa, where the city blazed in eternal light. The streets stood out like fiery veins in some enormous cinder-beast. Neither of them slept much that night. Steve combed and braided Arix's hair.
The next morning Steve helped him onto Fortune and they stood at the cliff edge, where a path wound down across the rock to the green floor of the valley. "Going?" said Steve quietly after a while. Arix looked at him, standing with his hands deep in his pockets.
"You're not coming down with me?"
Steve looked up. "I see no reason to. Do you want me to come? I haven't been in a city in a long time."
"Isn't that a good reason to go now?" Steve shifted uncomfortably. "Alright, I can walk the last few miles myself." he seemed strangely averse to meeting people. Arix thought he should be starved for company after all this time, but then again, maybe after all this time he was intimidated by the thought of many humans in one place. And there would certainly be less to explain if Steve weren't following him. "I'll come visit you."
"Are you sure?"
"I promise."
"Alright. I would tell you to wait a while, several months at least, but I expect you'll need to use that time to recover anyway. By the time you get back to scavenging Herobrine should have forgotten about you. I hope." as they travelled, Steve had made him memorize the directions to another of his houses, the one where Argos and the chickens had been before he went to get them.
"That sounds about right."
"Be careful."
"Sure." Arix nodded and extended his hand. Steve took it, then clambered onto Fortune and wrapped him in another of his gently crushing hugs. Arix held his breath, resigned.
"Please do be careful and don't die. Yet."
"I won't if you don't strangle me."
"Sorry." Steve jumped down. Fortune gave him a disapproving look.

Steve watched until the tiny black dot had reached the city gates. He wasn't sure what he'd expected, maybe for Arix to turn back and wave. He must have had other things to think about. That was good. Steve, however, was a bit stuck. He walked the skeleton slowly back and forth across the clifftop a few times before turning towards home. Miles and miles of wilderness, but that didn't concern him greatly at the moment. He started riding.

Arix realized halfway down the cliff path that he still had Steve's lantern charm. Well, hadn't Steve given it to him? And he could always return it when they met again. He still liked having it with him at night.

Late that morning, the guards let a disheveled man on a black horse through the gate. He rode through without looking right or left. His clothes were torn, burned, and still showed traces of mud and bloodstains, and his right arm was a neatly bandaged stump. His left eye was a muddy green. He rode towards the center of the city and tied Fortune outside the library.

Unattended saddlebags were never left alone for long in Nowa, and a small ragged girl soon approached the horse, petted its nose, and then sidled towards them. There was a piercing whistle from nearby. She looked up and saw a woman with a violin shaking her head. "Shoo," said a man's voice from the other side of the horse, and the girl bolted without looking. "Who was that guy? He's either very naïve or very out of it."
"That was Arix," said Kikoskia, scratching Fortune's neck. He was a perky-looking fellow with short golden hair and ragged clothes.
"You know him?"
"Slightly. He's another scavenger. He's been gone for longer than usual."
"Was he always missing that arm?"
"He's missing an arm? He has been through it."
"Huh. Well, haven't we all." Helloween, the other speaker, shook back his hair to squint at the library. "Think he'll be alright in there?"
"People don't attack you in the library, Hell. At least, not normally."
"I mean, I hope he's not trying to burn the place down."
"That does sound like him. What, Stirling?" the woman, who'd been standing quietly on the other side of the horse, tapped a long object protruding from one of the saddlebags.
"Mage, huh? What kind of mage walks off and leaves his staff?" said Hell, lifting it experimentally. Stirling made a confused face. "I guess we'll just have to watch it for him, eh?"

Arix kicked open the door to the research room and stumbled inside. Red looked up from the desk. Even when startled, his movements were deliberate and controlled. His two companions in white—scribes—reacted differently. The man backpedaled into the wall and dropped the book he was holding, while the woman flung a manuscript under the table with one hand, placing the other on her knife. He knew her, didn't he? Chlora. That's right. The other was Levvi. Siblings. "Arix?" said Red.
"You were right about everything and I owe you an apology," said Arix. Red's eyes widened. He stood up.
"Sit down, Arix. You're not well."
"Do you accept my apology?"
"Yes! Although I don't know what for—"
"Everything."
"Sit down. What happened?"
Levvi still seemed to be in shock, but Chlora dragged a chair up and guided Arix into it. Red knelt in front of him, assessing his injuries. His gaze lingered on the missing arm and darkened eye. "I'm alright," said Arix. "I mean, I'm probably not going to die at this point. I haven't."
"What happened to you?" Arix sighed, sinking back into the chair. Suddenly he realized how tired he was. Tired and sore, although that had become his new state of being. If he could just find a soft bed in a quiet place he would sleep for a week. That might not happen. He gathered his thoughts with an effort.
"It's a long story."
"We can wait. We're not doing anything, after all. Research isn't real work. Remember?" Arix looked searchingly at him for several moments before recognition dawned.
"I said that."
"You did."
"I'm a jerk."
"No, you're not. What happened?"
Arix sighed, realizing how hard this would be. With an effort, he looked up. Red and the scribes were both watching him expectantly. "OK," he said. "Listen, it's a weird story."
"I'm sure."
"Uh. You've heard of Herobrine?"

A/N: We're wrapping up. There will be one, possibly two more chapters of this (probably one.) And then a kind-of sequel (While Rome Burns. Follow me if you want to see it when I start posting.) And possibly a oneshot/bonus chapter about things happening while Arix is incapacitated. Aaaand then the main story that these are all supposed to tie in to.
Helloween, Stirling, and Kikoskia are all A) characters that will show up soon in different works and B) based (loosely!) on YouTubers. Loosely. They're characters. Characters influenced by certain people who do exist in the real world but have nothing whatsoever to do with them.
I'm sorry, I categorically dislike YouTuber fanfiction and I tried to resist this, but they just kinda showed up in my head like "Hi we live here now and also we're really cool so you should totally use us in your stories."