well im gonna blame college for not a lot of updates, but now all the schools are shut down due to the coronavirus so! ha!

...also im really sad so I want attention

stay safe everyone


"Unlike from a player's perspective, wielding a sword inside the game is far more complex than just swinging back and forth to the beat of the critical strike cooldown." Herobrine stood above his wife, his hands on hers as she held a wooden sword with both hands. "While I'm sure this has become obvious given the fights you've witnessed, being proficient in the skill is an entirely other matter. It requires significant amounts of repetitive practice, experience in real battles, and knowledge of what your body can or cannot do."

"This is already complicated." Heather complained, feeling self-conscious with him towering over her. "I do know how to fight."

"No, you know how to brawl. You are capable of defending yourself against the most basic of mobs, yes, but should you be threatened by anything worse you would stand little chance of winning." He adjusted her grip on the sword's handle, pulling her left hand away. "The first step is your stance. Watch me." Drawing his own wooden sword, Herobrine took a battle-ready stance, sword held near to his chest to defend himself. "Always make sure your feet are planted firmly. Otherwise knocking you down would be relatively simple."

"Okay." Heather shifted her feet, copying him. He glanced at her, assessing her form, before giving her a single nod.

"Very good." He stepped in front of her, raising his sword. "I'm going to attack you. Show me how you respond." After a beat of silence, he swung his sword, down at her chest, and Heather lashed out with her own to knock it away. "Good. Although, a swing like that is fairly predictable. You will have to move quickly in order to pull it off."

"You're saying so many words and they're just getting muddled in my head." The blonde pressed a free hand to her forehead, where she could feel a headache coming on. "Is there a simpler way to do this?"

"Well…" Herobrine paused, thinking. "I can try to focus more on demonstration, rather than instruction."

"That sounds good." She pulled her sword up to her chest again.

"Alright. I'm going to go through a few strikes. Just do as I do." Herobrine stepped back, easing a different stance, and she copied him. "Ready? One." He swung. She swung. "Two." He stepped back, pulling his sword to his side. She followed his lead. "Three." He followed through with his movement, turning around and swinging in front of him. Heather, somewhat clumsily, copied him. "Four." He ducked, then swung upwards. His wife did the same. "Good job. Let's start over. One."

The afternoon passed in much the same manner. Herobrine wasn't the best teacher, but he was gentle and persevered despite her lack of ability. Heather could feel her muscles starting to ache by the time the sun started to go down, her body complaining at the unfamiliar form of stress, but it wasn't too bad. She was learning.

Herobrine finished his lesson just before the sun disappeared over the horizon, and the two of them retreated indoors, Heather's feet dragging in the grass as she made her way inside. After a quick meal of a single loaf of bread, the queen fell into bed and passed out.

She didn't get up until late the next day, upon which Herobrine pulled her outside to train some more. Heather's body ached from yesterday's training, but she was able to ignore it. A small price to pay for swordfighting skills.

She improved slowly over the next week. Her confidence in her own ability grew, and soon enough Herobrine gave her a stone sword instead of a wooden one, to help her get used to the weight. He taught her quite a few choreographed routines, which he instructed her to stitch together in any order for use in battle, as well as some responses to various attacks and defenses. Probably her biggest problem was working on her response time, but her husband assured her that it would come with time.

On that note, Herobrine had definitely been acting different. He was almost doting, taking the utmost care not to hurt his wife when sparring and offering her water and rest whenever she showed signs of being tired. Occasionally, he'd pick a flower and tuck it into her hair. Didn't say a word, just placed it behind her ear and went back to whatever he was doing. It was cute.

Heather wasn't in love with him, but she was definitely growing more fond of him. He was still quiet, still stoic, but very sweet. He didn't hide the fact that he loved her, but was careful not to make her uncomfortable, keeping a few inches of distance between them at all times - except during training, of course. They were bonding, and Heather found herself hoping she did fall in love with him. That would be nice.

Ultimately, though, she knew she couldn't force herself to fall in love. After all, she'd kind of already tried.


Heather woke up one morning just as the first rays of dawn began to peek in through the windows.

Yawning, she pushed yourself up, stretching aching arms above her head. Se was tempted to go back to sleep, but was curious to see the sunrise. It'd been a good while since the last one, lately she'd rarely gotten up before 10 AM.

Dragging herself out of bed, she made her way out of her room and into the living space. She didn't see Herobrine, he must still be asleep. His room was on the other side of the cabin, but she tiptoed anyway as she snuck out of the house and into the flower field.

Heather settled herself in a pocket of poppies and watched as the sun drifted lazily into view. The remaining stars melted away under the rays of golden light, and slowly the sky began to turn blue. She'd almost forgotten how pretty Minecraft was.

"Hey, Heather." The blonde jumped out of her skin at the voice, directly behind her, and whirled around to meet a familiar pair of red eyes.

"Theo!" Immediately, she was on her feet, drawing her stone sword.

"Hey, hey, it's okay!" Theo lifted both his hands in surrender. "I'm not gonna hurt you."

"You're gonna kidnap me though!"

"Says who? Maybe I just want to talk." Keeping his empty hands in plain view, Theo sunk down into the grass, crossing his legs in front of him. "It's been a while, that's all." Heather didn't respond, shifting into one of the stances Herobrine had taught her.

"What happened to you?" She asked carefully.

"What do you mean?"

"Where've you been all this time?"

"I took a day off. Went back to Earth."

"Why? I thought you hated it there."

"Yeah, but Notch can't find me there, and I needed a little time to recover." He rested his hands on his knees. "So I figured, what better place to hide than in another dimension?"

"I guess." Slowly, she lowered her sword to her side. Theo wasn't the most trustworthy person she'd ever met, but if he did decide to kidnap her there really wasn't much she could do about it. She really needed Herobrine to get up. Unfortunately, she doubted she could yell for him without Theo springing up and whisking her away to the End. She'd have to stall. "So… why are you here?"

"Like I said, just want to talk." He shrugged. "I wanted to check up on you. You and your…" he coughed. "...husband. On a related note, why do you have a stone sword?"

"Herobrine doesn't want me stabbing him." She responded simply. "He's teaching me some fighting moves, so he gave me a dull weapon to practice with. The idea is that I learn how to fight so that I can defend myself if a bad guy-" she paused to give him a hard look. "-were to show up while he wasn't around."

"I see." Theo glanced around nonchalantly. "Where is he, anyway?"

"Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy?" Heather snipped. Immediately, the hacker burst into laughter.

"That- ha- what the heck, Heather." He managed through his laughter, and the queen started to giggle at the sight of his amusement. "That's fighting dirty."

"Sorry!" She defended herself through a grin. "It just slipped out."

"Still!" Theo dissolved into laughter once more, and Heather covered her mouth with one hand, letting yourself sink back down into the grass. She probably could've seen that coming. He was about her age, anyway.

Finally, Theo calmed down, rubbing tears from his eyes as he sat down cross-legged across from her. "So," he chortled, trying his best to choke out his remaining laughter. "What's- what's new?"

"Um." She grinned at him under the her hand. "Well, Herobrine's teaching me how to fight."

"Yeah, you mentioned that." Still snickering, the hacker rose unsteadily to his feet. "Why not give me a little demonstration? A little sparring practice?"

"Uh.. I guess?" Grabbing her stone sword, Heather hauled herself upright. "If Herobrine wakes up, though, he's gonna murder you."

"We could go to the End to do it." Theo examined his fingernails.

"No!"

"It's okay, I'm sure it'll be fine." Summoning his own stone sword, the hacker took a battle stance, beckoning her forward. "En garde!" Buzzing with the beginnings of an adrenaline rush, she shifted her feet, running through all the forms that Herobrine had taught her. Then, she charged.

The two of them sparred/playfought for the next 20-25 minutes, Theo seemingly being impressed by her skill. He went pretty easy on her, occasionally stopping to give her a tip or two, and both of them were careful to never actually harm the other.

This lasted until a new figure appeared out of thin air, throwing Theo to the ground and pinning him there with a boot on his chest.

"Herobrine!" Heather yelped as her husband came into focus, scowling down at the boy pinned under his foot. "It's okay, we were just sparring!" Before he could respond, though, Theo teleported away, replacing his stone sword with diamond and taking a swing at Herobrine's neck.

"Stop it!" Heather protested helplessly as Herobrine batted away the strike and teleported away, attacking his opponent from behind. Theo reacted in the nick of time, whirling around and blocking it at the last moment, and the queen's next cry died on her lips as she realized they weren't listening. With a huff, she hefted her stone sword at her side, then threw herself between them right as they were about to clash.

Immediately, they both stopped. They also both shouted. Her name. Loudly.

"What the heck?" Theo snapped as Herobrine grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her behind him with moderate force.

"You two cut it out!" Heather protested, latching onto her husband's wrist. "You don't need to be fighting. Stop." The two didn't break eye contact with one another, but slowly, surely, Theo lowered his sword to his side.

"Truce?" He offered, dropping his sword and raising his hands. She gave Herobrine a pleading look, and he let out a deep sigh before dropping his stance.

"Very well."

"Thank you." She squeezed his arm, hugging it to her chest. In response, he patted her head with his free hand.

"Why are you here?" He asked simply, watching his opponent with unwavering eyes.

"I just wanted to check on Heather." Theo shifted, his hands still raised. "I know time passes a lot faster here, and I left for a day or so. I just wanted to catch up."

"Oh. About three and… a half, I think, months have passed since then." She looked up at Herobrine. "I was gone for most of it. You sent me back home."

"Me?" Theo blinked. "Oh. Uh, sorry? That's… actually pretty cool, I can do that?"

"I guess."

"That's… very… interesting." He rubbed his chin. "I guess- well, never mind. So you've only been back here a couple weeks?"

"Yeah."

"What have you been doing?"

"Just... chilling with Herobrine."

"Ah." Awkward silence blanketed the three of them. "So, I should prob'ly go." Theo announced at last.

"Wait." Herobrine stopped him. "Why did you come back?" The hacker blinked, and his brow furrowed.

"I told you. I wanted to check-"

"Not here." He was interrupted. "Minecraft. Why did you return? From what Notch told me, he had given you quite the sound beating before you slipped away." She winced at the reminder. "You've established that you can't beat him. Why try again?"

"He won one fight." Theo waved him off, dismissive. "That doesn't mean I can't defeat him."

"So you do plan to continue with your plan to usurp his rule."

"Yep."

"I see." Herobrine didn't speak for a moment, twisting the handle of his pick in his hand.

"And if you're thinking about trying to fight me," Theo spoke up. "Forget about it. You've tried to beat me twice already, and failed both times. You know you can't beat me, save yourself a beating and-" He was cut off by a punch to the gut.

Heather stepped back, getting out of the way as their fight resumed. She'd like to step in, to try and avoid either of them getting hurt, but now that Herobrine had a good reason to fight she doubted she could talk him out of it. And, while she did like Theo, him taking over Minecraft has never been a good thing. She let them fight.

Backing away to what she hoped was a safe distance, Heather watched as they fought, comparing their fighting styles. Herobrine was incredibly precise in his movements, while Theo haphazardly hit him with everything he had. Considering Herobrine had tons of experience, and Theo had… none, it made sense.

Theo fired off a round of sparkling arrows, and Herobrine teleported back beside his wife. Immediately, the hacker teleported closer and hurled a purple potion at the ground between them.

A wave of exhaustion rolled over the blond, and she was on the ground before she realized she was falling. Blinking sleepy eyes open, she looked up to see Herobrine pinning Theo against the ground. Apparently the… what she assumed was a potion of weakness didn't affect him too much.

Letting out a sigh, she dropped her head to the ground and passed out.