Ok so super sorry this took a week to post, i didnt want to post it until i was at least somewhat happy with chapter 5, and that took way longer than expected. And once i was sort of satisfied with it, i thought i might as well wait until monday to post to get some more chapters under my belt. I just get stressed out when I don't have more than one fully written chapter in google docs before posting, and i definitely sort of rushed posting chapter 3 because i didnt want to wait. I also just had sort of a difficult week in general and that didnt help anything lol

So at the time of writing this i was mostly done with writing out the first draft for ch 6, which absolutely kicked my entire ass. like it was so hard to write. Its STILL kicking my ass tbh because i merged chapter 7 with it and i still need to go back in and clean that mess up.

So a few things:

*** Warning for spiders and spooky zombie happenings but HEY its september lets get into the halloween spirit

*** I drew this story's jesse: jawd DOT tumblr DOT com SLASH post SLASH 187830577289
Its still a WIP, and i know i said you can imagine jesse looking however you want, and you can. we can all have our own headcanon appearances here. I'll try to roll back on anymore appearance indicators of jesse after this chapter aside from clothes and another thing thats going to happen in this chapter thats a little more permanent aside from the baldric.

*** theres my blog too, if anyone has a tumblr and is interested. I reblog mainly dumb things and Aesthetics™ and post art. I have a second one fruitpacket that im more active on, and ive got two aesthetics blogs, and basically im just a very extra person. Might make one for this story, maybe with character mood boards and stuff just for fun idk?

*** I changed one diamond to three diamonds. It seemed weird to get hyped about a single diamond bc like what are you gonna make. a shovel? also pretend the drop rate of wither heads is higher than in normal minecraft

Not sure if im happy with this chapter. I think i am, but the beginning feels off to me. Im no good at writing the scenes where you walk jesse around and do quick time events. Like they are super hard to write and a major reason i had trouble with chapter 5 and 6

ONE LAST THING, would you guys want a more set schedule? Like a chapter every mondays/tuesdays or is awkwardly waiting for the next chapter and never really knowing when it will come out good w u guys. Bc im leaning towards the former, lmk. Anyway enjoy 9k words of petra and jesse ft. A Bunch Of Monsters Jump The Shit Out This Poor girl And Her Pig And It Isnt Even 9 PM Yet.

Alternate title: Jesse kicks things


The last sliver of sunlight fell behind the horizon as the sky pulled a blanket of stars over itself, leaving nothing behind but deep purple clouds that were nearly drained of the sunset's colors. Crickets chirped slowly in the brisk night air, almost inaudible over the singing croaks pouring out into the late evening darkness from the frogs hidden beneath leaves and dirt.

Jesse stumbled to a halt, legs straining and shins throbbing from the long, uninterrupted run. She could feel sweat running down her legs and back like bugs crawling down her skin. The chilled air was seeping through her clothes and drying her throat as she breathed heavily, hunched over with her palms resting on her knees.

"Reuben?!" Her voice came out hoarse and cracked. Jesse paused between breaths to swallow, clearing her throat as she straightened, looking around the unfamiliar trees. "Reuben, where are you!"

She rubbed at her aching shoulders. This is what she gets for running out of form with a bag strapped to her. Falling into a slow walk, she looked around cautiously and cupped a hand to her mouth, calling, "Just… give me an oink if you can hear me!"

The meager hope she clutched to sank from between her fingers when there was no response. She rounded a tall tree with thick leaves, squinting her eyes through the low light and spotting tracks against hard patches of mud. Approaching, Jesse kneeled down, delicately feeling over the cloven prints pressed into the ground.

"Hm, pig tracks." She mumbled under her breath.

She took one last look behind her before heading in the direction the prints were facing, jumping at every noise she heard.

Jesse stopped at a broken down well, hands holding tight to the straps of her pack as she looked around the growing darkness nervously. She stepped up to the crumbling cobblestone, peeking her head down into the darkness.

"Reuben?" Her voice was hushed but echoed against the worn down rock. Curiously, she took a pebble in her hand and held it over the opening, letting it slip from her fingers. She counted to five before it broke the surface of audibly mushy water, layered with scum and dead leaves. Pulling a face, she stepped backward and startled herself when an old piece of wood crunched under the heel of her boot. She shook her head and slapped her cheeks, gathering herself,

"Okay, get it together, Jesse." She whispered, turning and kicking the pieces of the wood far away in the most annoyed of manners. They rolled to a stop near another bare section of ground. She strained her eyes, catching a glimpse of where the tracks continued.

She moved to walk in its direction, but instead nearly screamed when her shirt caught on the prickly leaves of a passing bush. Angrily, she picked up a stick and beat the outstretched bush away with more force than was probably necessary, throwing it to the ground where it snapped in two. One of the halves ricocheted back towards her, barely missing her shin as she jumped out of the way.

"Reuben, I really don't want to be out here!" She yelled, stepping over the snapped stick and bypassing the bush which had grabbed her, giving it a dark look.

Pausing at the small clearing of visible ground, multiple tracks crossed over the soil. Jesse noticed for the first time their size. It was difficult to discern if there was a track of an adolescent sized runt, the trails overlapping each other in a frenzied manner.

She heaved a breath, rubbing her hands over her goosebumped arms, her sweat drying on her skin and leaving her nearly freezing. Spotting what looked like the shaggy leaves of carrot stalks suffocating between dark green sprouts of pigweed, ironically enough, she found her lips quirking upwards and veered off the nature-beaten path. Crouching down, she felt the waxy foliage, leaning down and smelling the bitter, soapy aroma and pulling away, nodding to herself. Wild carrot and hemlock could be identical if she didn't know what to check for; she'd had too many close calls with it and Reuben before. Twisting it around and giving the root enough leeway for her to pull, she yanked up. She nearly fell back, not expecting it to come loose with hardly any give, but stopped herself from hitting her head using an arm. She smiled down at the long carrot, brushing dirt off of it.

"Hey, Reuben! I got a carrot for you!" She held the root up, half expecting to see him come careening down the path towards her at top speeds. It was her go-to way of finding him when they were out gathering in the forest and he wandered off. She was met only with the stillness of the settling night.

"Just where are you?" She muttered, pocketing the carrot after deftly ripping off the long, leafy stems from the root.

Anxiety was setting heavier in her chest by the minute. Her eyebrows were pulled together as she stopped and turned in a circle, looking over her dark surroundings.

"Reuben? Where are you, bud?"

Taking a moment to ground herself, Jesse closed her eyes and took deep breaths in through her nose, and out there her mouth. She had been attempting to count to ten when her ears picked up grunts, distinctly pig, and her eyes flew open. She abruptly legged it, taking a sharp turn as she rounded a corner and almost slipping over the dead leaves. She came to a stop at a herd of pigs and pulled her hands up to her hip with a meek sigh, leaning her hip against a tree

"Reuben? You in there?" She asked, pushing herself off from the wood and moving inwards, scattering the group. Examining the ground, she noticed every track led back to a specific pig. She ran a hand through her hair, uncaring of her clip that was losing its grip and beginning to slide down "Stupid pigs. Stupid hair. Stupid-stupid-stupid."

She roughly tied her hair back, clip and all, into a sloppy ponytail at the nape of her neck, looking around helplessly and wishing Reuben would just pop out of the herd and come running to her. She would grab him and they would head back to EnderCon together, meet with Axel and Olivia, and enjoy the rest of the night.

"Reuben?" She tried again, a few oinking pigs curiously looking her over as they reentered the clearing, the few braver ones sniffing at her pocket. "No, not you guys—okay, all pigs but Reuben? Shut up."

She paused, knowing not to let her hope raise but still giving it a chance. A few pigs oinked, tearing grass from the ground and loudly chewing, but it was otherwise silent.

She stalked off, shooing away a pig that had followed after her trying to get at the carrot sticking out of her overalls. She shoved through a small field, not paying attention as she threaded through tendrils of tall grass, pushing back the spires of tall reeds that reached up and tickled her chin. Her legs collided with something and she fell back with a yelp as a chicken tumbled out, squawking in equal parts terror and anger. She held a hand to her chest, watching the bird proceed past her and disappear back into the grass after leveling her with a glare. Hesitantly standing, she wiped the back of her clothes off and heaved out a sigh, growing tired of the sudden flares of adrenaline. It was leaving her in an increasingly cold sweat and unexpectedly hyper aware of how dark it had grown. She could hear her own wavered breaths over the forest's ambiance.

"Reuben, it's getting scary out here." She commented quietly, wading through the grass and stumbling back onto the scant ground.

She jumped down a short but steep overhang, eyes immediately training on a birch tree with a bent, smoking wing arching out from a sparse bush behind it.

"Reuben—Reuben! Oh no, no, no, no. You in there, buddy?" Jesse rushed to the tree, shoving aside the bush to reveal Reuben's costume, smoldering limply on the ground. She carefully lifted one of the wings, a sense of relief pouring over her when there was nothing but his outfit's harness, which looked chewed through. She exhaled, looking over the remnants of Axel's hard work before stomping the small embers out lest it caught a dry bundle of tinder on fire.

Her spirits rose at the sight of a redstone-lit tunnel carved into a rocky crag, visible between a group of trees. She twisted her way around the trunks, slowly stepping into the cave. Once inside, the moonlight light died like it was being swallowed and she was overtaken by the eerie red glow of the torches.

She could see an end to the tunnel exiting back outside not far off. Jesse figured a semi-lit cave was better than being out in the open, even if the outside seemed brighter than the cave's darkness pulling at her body. The lights flicker, casting an ominous red glow throughout the passage and making her hairs stand on end. Her footsteps echoed off the walls and reverberating inside her head. Reaching up against the side on her tip-toes, she managed to dislodge one of the ember-like torches, catching it in her other hand. It did little to raise the visibility, but it was a comforting weight in her hands as she dragged her fingers across the wall, picking up dust and grime. Whoever mined the cave had tunneled for the softest coal, hardly giving a thought to how straight the line was as she made sharp, angular turns around every other corner.

The lights grew low as she made it to the halfway point. She curled her thumb and pointer finger around the base of the torch to free the hand and feel her way across the jagged walls with both hands. Stepping through a stagnant puddle, she pressed her back against the wall as she skimmed past a dark hole, unwilling to face away from it. She spotted a bumpy silhouette and raised her light despite every cell in her body telling her to book it then and there. The light reflected off of eight shining eyes of a massive white spider nearly as tall as she was—a brood queen. The two regarded each other for a moment, Jesse's breath stolen from her body as she stood frozen in place. When it didn't leap at her but instead just twitched a mandible, she took a small step, then another, and another, until she was running out of the cave, redstone torch forgotten on the ground as she exited out into the night, the light from the moon almost blinding her. Supporting herself against a thin, towering rock at the outside of the mouth, she listened for the sound of claws skittering across cave walls from inside the cavern. When a full minute passed, and still she heard nothing, Jesse let out a shaking breath, her legs weak. She laughed breathlessly, looking down at herself; she was so terrified her whole body was trembling.

Outside the cave was a dense plot of long shifting grass, and she stopped dead in her laugh, nearly bolting when it rustled loudly.

"…Reuben?" She said; so quiet her own ears barely picked up her voice.

She forced one leg in front of the other, her body feeling like it was trying to rust itself into place so it didn't have to get any closer to the foliage. She broke free when she heard the sounds of whimpering and parted the greenery.

Jesse scarcely kept herself from screaming when Reuben jumped into her, but soon found herself on the ground with her arms wrapped around his quivering body.

"Reuben! There you are!" The edges of her eyes stung as she held him close. He was still whimpering under his breath, but his tremors had subsided. "I was so worried!"

She pressed a hand over his jaw, turning his head this way and that as she looked him over, satisfied when she concluded he wasn't injured aside from a few superficial scrapes. Jesse felt like her chest was compressing over her heart as he whined, shoving his face in between her body and her arm like we were trying to disappear.

She pulled the carrot from her pocket, "Hey, it's okay, you're okay. Come on, Reub. Want a carrot? Huh?"

He slowly pulled his head out from between her arm and side, sniffing the dirt covered root before gingerly biting into it, nibbling across its edges.

"There you go. Everything's fine now, we're together." She said, smoothing a hand over his head and rubbing behind an ear as he swallowed. He gently bumped her chest with his forehead, giving her a small oink.

"Oh, I am so happy to see you. Come on, let's get out of here." She stood, setting Reuben down only at his insistence. "Hope you're ready for some more exercise. We've gotta hurry back to town if we don't want to run into—"

Jesse stopped, a horrible groan sounding nearby that had her blood turning to ice so fast it felt like she'd been turned to stone. Reuben made a low, quavering noise, squeezing in between the spaces of her calves.

"We need to go. Now." She whispered, looking around them frantically. She ushered Reuben forward, walking slowly and wincing with each step. They sounded like they were stomping through dead twigs compared to the still woods. In her gripping fear, it began to feel like one of those places which had no palpable reason to exist, every shadow moving out of the corner of her eye and the sound of the night coming at her from every angle, disorienting her.

Jesse only realized she had set them off into a random direction when a rippling, shallow stream grew close and the sound of mushy leaves whispered from under her feet.

She picked a hesitating Reuben up from underneath his arms, quickly hauling him over the brook as her low boots filled with frigid water.

Shuddering, she dropped him to his feet, sitting over a flat rock and yanking her boots off, emptying the shoes as she looked around, eyes not leaving the surrounding darkness. Reuben kicked his upper body up against the rock, resting his chin over her leg and looking up at her worriedly. She let a tiny smile pull at her face, rubbing a thumb over his chubby cheeks.

"It's fine. What matters right now is finding some shelter we can hide out in. I passed an old well looking for you, maybe if we can find it again there could be an abandoned cabin or shack in the area."

He pushed his snout against her hand affectionately, then suddenly shrieked, making her jump. She swung around, hurriedly throwing her boots on and standing to her feet, but saw nothing. Reuben was still screeching at her, scrambling back.

"What, Reuben, what is it?!" She turned to him, following his line of sight to a spot above her head.

A giant spider had been sneaking down a thick strand of web above her from a branch. She barely stumbled out of the way in time as it dropped down. It looked like a juvenile, only a little larger than her head. Not even thinking, she ran at it and kicked it into the air, watching it soar over the stream with a shrill noise. It landed on its back and twitched, before bursting into vapor with a resonating sound, like a popped bubble of heavy mist.

They stared in silence, then looked to the other. Jesse broke into faltering, nervous laughs. It was cut short as a crowd of adult giant spiders came surging down from the trees in a chorus of clicking and hissing, and her heart dropped straight down her chest. She looked around, squinting through the trees and seeing the thick layers of webs tangled across the girthy branches. They had been walking through a massive nest.

"That was the baby, we killed the baby, Reuben run!" She said without taking a single breath, turning on her heel and bounding in the opposite direction from the cluster of long limbs and pincers.

Reuben was keeping pace with her as she squelched across the terrain in her wet shoes, picking up a rock and throwing it uselessly back at their pursuers.

Numerous giant, angry spiders chased after her at a remarkable slow pace as they tried to climb over one another, easily tipping over onto their backs and jamming up against each other. Arching hastily around a grotto, Jesse grabbing Reuben and pressing her back flush against the rocks, pressing a hand over his mouth to stop his high-pitched squealing. The spiders scurried past their hiding spot, and she could have collapsed in relief—which she did, releasing Reuben and falling to a knee, breathing heavily. She wiped a hand over her forehead and blew out a long sigh.

"I think… I think we're good."

Not moments after speaking, a wheezing noise that sounded like a lit fuse came up on her left, and she cried out at the sight of an expanding Creeper, its brittle skin lighting up from inside its body. Reuben followed as she took off, hurriedly beckoning him. Jesse turned and watched the Creeper dim, returning to its slim shape and looking after them with its gaping mouth.

She slid over a compact rise of dirt, landing in a crouch behind the weak cover and searching her surroundings. "Okay, we made—"

An arrow missed her face by an inch, causing her to shriek and stumble back over a mortified Reuben. She looked up to an outcrop where a crumbling skeleton archer missing most of its ribcage was nocking another arrow, aiming at Reuben this time, the pig crying out as he realized this as well. She tackled him as the arrow fired, rolling them out of the way and stopping them with her legs. She was instantly aware of a white-hot stinging spreading through the shell of her ear, followed by warm liquid dripping down her neck.

Reuben was practically screaming, standing on her leg and pounding her shoulder with his hooves, licking her ear.

"I'm fine! Don't worry about me, we need to move!"

He looked reluctant but ran, ensuring Jesse was on his tail. They sidestepped trees and dips in the ground, jumping over fungus covered logs and avoiding slippery, moss-covered stones.

Jesse ground to a halt, Reuben slamming into the back of her leg. An abnormally tall zombie with a stumped ankle and skin stretched taut over a skeleton that looked too large for its own body was hunched over on the path. A single distinctive, foggy white iris was fixated in their direction. Jesse held perfectly still, Reuben inching behind her. Her heartbeat was so loud in her ears she wondered if it could hear it pounding in her chest.

"Reuben." She whispered, "Stay behind me."

It took a step forwards, and Jesse unhinged the razor-like edge of the sheers in her pocket and chucked it at its head, surprising it.

She looked to Reuben. "Go!"

They ran, the zombie staggering behind them at an alarming speed Jesse hadn't been anticipating.

Over the clanging of the empty glass bottles in her pack and the hoarse caterwaul from the zombie behind them, she could hear the stomach-turning noise of its exposed ankle-bone beating against the ground. She grabbed Reuben and hurled them both out of the way as it leaped for them, rolling to a harsh stop as the back of her head painfully collided with a tree trunk. She pushed Reuben off in the opposite direction, shoving herself out of the way of the zombie that hadn't been unable to slow down in time and ran face first into the tree with a crunch.

She made a hard left, eyes darting around furiously as she surveyed the area for an escape between other monsters that had stumbled into the area. Her legs began to burn as they pounded across the ground. She skidded to a halt at the wall of zombies before them, Reuben hitting the back of her leg once more. Jesse scrambled for her sword, raising it in front of her. She ran forward swinging wildly, all thoughts of the forms she'd been teaching herself gone from her mind

"Get! Back!" She nailed one across the head, making it stumble slightly to the side. She repeated the motion over and over again until it fell to the ground, raising the blunt weapons and stabbing the wood through the weak flesh and bone of its chest. It loudly burst into a mist, knocking a few zombies back from the force.

She held out an arm, shielding a terrified Reuben, "Stay behind me, I've got you."

Advancing, she managed to take out a second zombie by gripping her sword like a mallet. She yelled, putting all her force into hitting the head off a third zombie sneaking up on her right, her training sword snapping in two after the hit and fading into a wispy dust. She looked at her hands in disbelief.

"No! Stupid wooden swords!" She growled, "Come on, let's go!"

The two barely made any headway before they immediately came to a halt at a scaling cliff, both looking up the steep rock of the dead end. Reuben was glued to the side of her leg, trembling like a leaf.

"I know it's bad, I'll think of something," Jesse said, trying to shuffle around him to face the hoard, but instead right in front of her stood the towering zombie, back bent strangely over her. She yelled, and in her panic to get away she tripped over her soggy shoes, landing back first against the ground on top of her pack. The air was knocked from their lungs hard enough that it took a moment to catch her breath amidst her body futilely trying to suck in air it couldn't find.

The zombie bent over her body before she could think to roll out of the way, so she instead quickly brought her legs up against its sternum and ribs, keeping its hands and face out of reach. Her muscles shook with the force of it pressing its entire weight over her, arms swinging out just inches from her nose.

"Reuben, run!" She said through gritted teeth, "I'll meet you back in town, I promise!"

Reuben looked around, conflicted. Monsters of all kinds were making their way towards the commotion. Jesse coughed at the thick, foul blood that wept from the papery skin over the zombie's chest, dribbling over her.

"Get out of here! Now!" She yelled with an intensity she had never used with him before. He took off shrieking through the monsters that turned and shambled after him, too slow to pose any threat.

Jesse slammed her heel into the zombie's ribs as hard as she could. She bought her leg in close again before yelling out and kicking it hard enough that something cracked and she was able to shove it off of her. Lurching away, she clambered onto all fours, breathing hard enough she thought she may throw up as she crawled away. She wiped splotches of dark blood from her face, looking over her shoulder. It had gotten to its feet—foot, and quickly fell into a blundering run after her. Her legs shook with fear and adrenaline as she pushed herself up, stumbling away, but skeletal hands clamped down over her pack, reeling her back and swinging Jesse upwards as she cried out in surprise.

She turned and its face was suddenly too close as the zombie held her up. Her leg kicked out on instinct, nailing it in the jaw and crunching down over the weak bone; its black mouth drooped open wide, the jawbone held on now only by its skin. She struggled, kicking out again and making a disgusted noise as her foot collapsed into its chest. It swayed on its feet as she managed to pull loose the strap over her chest, falling heavily to the ground at its legs and running. She didn't get far before a spider slid in front of her and they both collided into the other.

"Agh!" She kicked it off, backing up on her elbows and passing the large body of the gurgling zombie strewn over the ground, jaw crooked and blood rising out of its mouth that was opening and closing like a fish. It loudly blasted into mist, causing her to stop and shield herself, loose hair blowing from her face. The spider had taken the moment to jump over her prone form. Jesse shot out and grabbed the base of its dripping fangs inching towards her neck, her arm muscles beginning to shake and seize up.

"Get—off—me—!"

It was suddenly propelled away from her, and Jesse saw Petra shove its head down with her foot, pressing its fangs into the dirt as she repeatedly stabbed its thorax with a pickaxe until it popped noisily into dense smoke.

Dazed, she found herself being pulled up by Petr, who was looking her over. The redhead turned to the approaching monsters, holding onto Jesse's hand and pulling her away.

"Come on, let's get you out of the open." She said, turning and bringing down her pickaxe hard through another spider's head. Jesse's rattled body unthinkingly gravitated the string it left behind towards her, drawing it into her inventory.

She was led from the thick of the forest and brought to a mine about half a mile from Beacontown where Petra helped a hazy Jesse down a ladder and a set of creaking wooden stairs. The shorter girl's mind came out of its stunned state as they traveled through thin tunnels, past minecart tracks and boxes of labeled supplies. She tried to speak but was shushed every time, so obediently followed behind the other girl.

Petra ushered her into a cozy cavern through a padlocked iron door, brightly lit with oil lanterns and warmed by a short row of furnaces smelting what Jesse guessed was iron by the lingering smell it left in the air. She was pushed down onto what appeared to be a woolen sleeping bag.

"They got you good, huh? Just sit here." She said, rifling through a large chest off to the side.

"Do you live down here?" Jesse couldn't help but ask, pulling her ruined leather boots off. She frowned at the blisters covering her heels.

"Yep." She answered tersely, closing the chest and kneeling down next to her with a tweed bag of what looked like gauze and compact jars of pastes, a single fat jar of some thick, amber syrup shoved in the middle of it all. Petra set the bag down, placing a folded, long sleeve black shirt next to her. She grabbed Jesse's hand, slapping a wet cloth into it.

"Clean up and change shirts. You're covered in blood." She said, getting up and grabbing her pickaxe from where she'd placed It on a table, picking up a dirty cloth and wiping the pick off as she leaned against a wide crafting table.

"Thanks," Jesse said, in slight awe at the girl before her as she dabbed her face and neck with the rough linen. Dried cracks of dark blood stained the old looking cloth a muted brown.

"Don't mention it." She gave a slight upturn of her lips that Jesse could've missed if she weren't paying attention. "In all realness though, don't. I can't let people know I take on charity cases."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't worry, I'll find a way to pay you back so that you don't have to stress over the heavy burden of knowing you helped someone without asking anything in return." She teased.

"I never said I wanted you to pay me back. It would be nice to receive some compensation, but I wasn't just going to leave you out there in the state that you were in." She said curtly, face tinted red as she turned away. "What were you doing out here, anyway? Weren't you at EnderCon?"

Unhooking her overalls and letting the denim fall down her chest, She started rolling off her shirt, careful of her throbbing ear.

"Reuben took off when it was getting dark and I went out to look for him. We kinda got lost."

"Reuben? Where is he?"

Jesse suddenly stood, her overalls abruptly falling down her legs. "Oh no, Reuben! He could still be out there!"

"Hey, hey, calm down. He's a smart little guy, I'm sure he followed the lights back to EnderCon." Petra said, placing her pickaxe down over a chest.

"The lights!" She slapped her forehead, "The lights! Why didn't I think of that when I got us so lost we were almost killed?"

"People don't think straight when they're scared."

"I wasn't scared," Jesse said indignantly. Petra rose an eyebrow and leaned on a leg,

"All right, so what if I was scared?! I had every right to be! First, there was this creepy brood mother that just stared at me, then I killed a baby spider and its whole-ass family rained down from the sky to like, avenge it I guess, and then this—this zombie! It was like six feet tall and was power walking at me with a speed it had no business having!"

"Woah-woah-woah-woah." Petra stopped her in the middle of her spiel. "First of all, pull your overalls up and put that shirt on, you're standing in your underwear—"

"These are PANTS—"

"Second, you not only ran into a brood queen, but killed a youngling in a nest of spiders, essentially came across a mutated zombie, and…" She gestured at Jesse's ear, the dark haired girl rolling her eyes as she pulled up her overalls to her hips, holding them there.

"Skeleton archer."

"And got shot by a skeleton archer, all within a time span of what? An hour, an hour and a half?"

"I think it was more like fifteen minutes." She grumbled, sitting down to wash away the blood that had soaked through her shirt and left a thin film over her shoulder, donning the black shirt when she felt clean. She assumed this was the smallest shirt Petra had, It was a little tight around the arms, but the material was thick, warm, and had a neckline that stopped just before her throat. Her mood rose marginally as she rubbed her hands over the knitted pattern that was only visible to the touch. It had a sharp, metallic smell, with a whiff of saffron; earthy and salty-sweet, not unlike the girl in front of her.

"You're more resilient than I give you credit for, Jesse." Petra gave a short laugh, opening a chest and placing her pickaxe inside next to four others.

"And you didn't think I was resilient before?"

"Well, no."

"Yeah all right, fair," Jesse said, turning away and taking a roll of gauze when she received a nod from Petra. She took two strips and wrapped them thickly around both ankles over her blisters. She tightly swaddled and tied off the ends of the strips around the middle of her feet when Petra assured her it would keep the bandage in place longer.

Popping her hair clip out of her wild hair, she slid the tie out of her low ponytail and combed her hands through the messy locks.

"You're really worried about your hair when you've got a hole in your ear?" Petra snorted from where she leaned against the rocky wall.

"I care about my appeara—I've got a what?" She nearly yelled, hands stopping short in her long hair.

"Just what did you think I put that first aid kit down for?" Petra raised her eyebrows at her, pointing to the tan bag as she made her way over.

"My blisters?"

"Um, no. Your feet will live to see another day. That missing piece of cartilage on your left ear though?" She sucked air in through her teeth, "Can't say the same."

Jesse's hands hovered uselessly around her ear. "How—How bad is it?"

"Not bad. Don't worry, it's only a nick. Put your hands down, I don't want you touching it."

Jesse did as she was told, crossing her legs over Petra's lumpy blankets. "That was a lot of blood for only a nick."

"Cartilage always bleeds more than soft tissue of the same density, you're fine." She said, sitting on her knees and dragging the first aid over to her, lifting out the large jar and setting it roughly in Jesse's lap. "Hold that. I'm going to clean it, I don't trust you to do and not get an infection and die."

"What's this?" She turned over the unlabeled jar in her lap, watching the honey-colored substance sluggishly move over the glass.

"Pine resin."

"Oh, okay." She said, watching Petra pour a bottle of a clear, sweet-smelling liquid onto a piece of torn cloth. "What for?"

Petra gave the girl on her bed a look. "I told you, I'm cleaning this. When I get the dried blood off this is going to start bleeding again. I'm gonna need something to stem that."

"So you're using pine resin," Jesse said. Petra sighed, heavily resting her hands over her thighs, looking at her seriously.

"Would you rather I give you stitches?"

"No, no, nope, no, you do what you need to, I'm good. Slather me with that tree sap."

Petra gave a huffing laugh through her nose, pressing a clean area of the wet cloth she'd given Jesse on either side of the missing triangle of flesh.

"Ow! Warn me!" She jumped, nearly yanking Petra's wrist away from her, but quickly thinking better of it.

"Don't be a baby." She cleaned the dried blood off, hastily pressing the square of concentrated sugar water over the open wound. She ignored Jesse's griping, unscrewing the lid of the jar in Jesse's lap and dipping a finger in, pushing back her hair and removing the cloth as she smeared it over the wound. She handed the lid to Jesse, who screwed it back. The dark haired girl moved to pin her hair away from her left ear with her clip. Sticky hair was the last thing she wanted to deal with right now.

"Thank you. So, like…" She trailed off, giving her a questioning look.

"What?" The other asked.

"Like, what do I do with this?" She clarified, waving a hand over her ear.

"Just treat it like you would regular stitches. It'll stop bacteria, so don't try to clean it. Just peel it out when you think it's healed." Petra shrugged, taking the resin back and handing her a tiny strip of gauze. "Stick this over it though so it doesn't ooze off, it's not completely dry."

She accepted the gauze, feeling around her ear and gently pressing it over the sticky substance. She stopped, looking up, "Hey, those tiny jars—do you have one with resin in it? I can pay you, I've got emerald chips in my pack—my pack!"

She groaned, covering her face with her hands and leaning over her crossed legs, nearly hitting Petra in the nose.

"I knew I was forgetting something—stupid zombie! All our money was in that, Axel and Olivia are going to kill me!"

"Ah, sorry… about your pack. Would've picked it up if I'd seen it." Petra rubbed the back of her neck. "That might be on me, I rushed us out of there."

"No, it's not on you," Jesse said, voice muffled.

"You, uh… you wanted some resin?" She slid her hand into the first aid bag, rustling around and pulling out different jars before placing them back in with a clink in search of the right one.

"I totally had one of Olivia's favorite shirts in there."

"Here," Holding up a palm-sized jar of the dark sap, Petra unceremoniously placed it in front of Jesse, "Now quit moping, it's bumming me out. you can go out and look for it in the morning when you can actually see and monsters aren't taking shots at your life."

"Thanks, Petra. You're so nice." Jesse sniffed dramatically, idly touching around the piece of gauze over the tip of her ear and cringing at the pain.

"No, no. No saying that, you're not allowed to think I've gone soft just because I did something a normal friend would do. Now get up, we need to go."

"Right, Reuben!"

"No. You know I have my own things going on too, right?" Petra held the metal door open for her. "Come on, I want to show you something really quick."

Jesse stood, placing the resin in her inventory and looking at her ruined shirt with scrutiny before folding it up and sending it into her inventory as well. She slipped her feet into her slightly damp boots, noticing the leather starting to dry in a hard, rippled texture and sighed. She had really liked these shoes. Clipping her overalls over her chest, she jogged up to Petra who was still holding the door for her, tapping her foot impatiently. Jesse passed Petra and left the bright room, grinning at her. The redhead just shut the door behind them, leading her into the tunnel.

Jesse finished combing out her hair with her fingers as they walked in silence, the only sound was their echoing footsteps and dripping water. The torches were becoming sparse and Jesse took the time to pull her hair back into a low french braid, smiling whenever Petra looked back to see she was still there. Jesse was turning her head at every noise, the occurrence outside still fresh on her mind, which made the braiding process a little difficult and the outcome a little crooked. She straightened it out as best she could, wishing she had a mirror as she furiously smoothed back fly-away hairs.

"You were pretty serious when you said you care about your hair."

Petra's voice had her looking up, seeing her glancing over her shoulder with a raised brow.

"Well I didn't say hair specifically, but it's usually the focus, yeah." She adjusted her clip where it now sat uselessly in her pulled back hair. She gave a one-shouldered shrug as Petra turned back around. "I like my hair. I like hair in general."

"To each her own." She said, jumping down a short ledge.

"Hey so, not that this isn't a really… cool, dimly lit tunnel." She slid down the ridge, catching up to Petra's side who was looking straight ahead. "But, how far away is this thing you want to show me?"

"Careful, Jesse. You don't want to get a reputation as a wimp."

"This isn't my first time in a cave, Petra." She put a hand on her hip, watching Petra come to a stop at a chest Jesse would have otherwise missed. She pulled a thin key out of her bandana, pressing it into a small lock and clicking it open with a flick of her wrist, tucking the key back into her hair as she pushed open the chest and leaned into it. Jesse came up and curiously peaked around her, Petra shooting her a look. She quickly turned away and stuck her hands behind her back, pretending to admire the dark ceiling when as she heard the sound of the chest closing.

"So, not your first time in a cave, you said?" Petra repeated, holding something out of view behind her.

"Yeah?" Jesse turned back towards the taller girl.

"Well have you ever seen—" She took out a ghoulish, ashy-black skull, holding it carefully between both hands. "A Wither skull?"

"Woah!" Jesse exclaimed, taking a step forward in interest despite herself.

"Fresh from the Nether. You're the first person I've shown it to. So, you'd better appreciate this."

"You risked your life for that dusty old skull?" Jesse asked, looking at her in a disquieting manner.

"No." She said in an offended tone of voice, "I risked my life for the thing I'm going to exchange for that dusty old skull."

"That's insane, Petra. You could've gotten yourself killed!"

She chuckled, moving the skull to one hand and holding it under an arm. "Don't worry so much. I can handle myself."

She drew it into her inventory, waving a hand at Jesse to follow as she trekked onward down the tunnel. "There's this guy I'm meeting up with at EnderCon—"

"Oho? A guy?" Jesse grinned, poking Petra in the ribs and getting her hand slapped away.

"Not like that! He's at least sixty!"

"Oh." She frowned.

"He's going to trade me three diamonds for it. Being the resident go-getter pays off every once in a while."

"Is a Wither skull worth that much?"

She laughed a little, looking over, "Are you kidding?"

Jesse continued walking silently next to her, staring blankly. Petra sighed.

"Yes, it is. For all the trouble I had to go through to get it, I should be asking him for much more."

"Why doesn't he just go get the skull himself?"

"He's… not the kind of guy who has time to do something like that," Petra said, clearly thinking carefully about her words before speaking.

"What kinda guy is he, then?" Jesse asked slowly.

"The kind who understands the value of hard work."

"No, like, what's his deal?"

"He…" She trailed off, "He's kinda strange, I guess? But hey, everybody's got their thing." She shrugged.

"And you never thought to ask him, hey there, what's with your whole… totally normal, not at all weird skull thing?"

"Hey, as long as this guy is willing to pay, okay? I earned those diamonds." She said earnestly, almost to herself.

They walked in comfortable silence, Jesse examining her fading green hands. It looked like the dye hadn't been as potent as they had thought. She had been expecting to have green hands for at least the next two weeks. It was still stained dark around her cuticles, and she found herself absently pushing them back with her thumb nail. As she messed with them, she looked to Petra with a hint of a smile.

"You know, it's pretty amazing," Jesse said, stopping.

Petra stopped as well, turning to look at the other girl behind her. "What is?"

"In one single day? You went to the Nether, you killed probably a bunch of Wither skeletons." She counted off the deeds on her fingers. "Saved me, cleaned and patched me up—and you're still not even done with your day yet. I mean, I did build a super cool statue, but still. It's preeetty sweet being you, huh?"

Petra looked at her in thoughtful silence for a moment, before giving a tiny shrug. "You know, you could come with me."

Jesse stared at her as she walked away, stuck in her spot for a few moments, eyebrows raised in surprise before running to catch up despite Petra only being a few meters away.

"I mean, if you're too nervous, I totally get it." Petra hastily cut as she looked at Jesse, who still looked taken aback and slightly star struck, "Buuut I wouldn't mind a little backup."

"You want me, to come with you?" Jesse asked. She and Petra were friends in the sense that they waved or talked a bit whenever they saw the other. Not once had she ever been asked to hang out with anyone other than Axel and Olivia. No one wanted to hang out with the Order of the Losers' pig girl.

"Just consider it my umpteenth charitable act of the day. I don't know what's wrong with me tonight, really. Being so nice like this." She joked, smiling a little.

"I'll consider it whatever you want me to consider it, so long as I get to come," Jesse said, voice taking on a nervously laugh as she grinned wide, rubbing her arm.

The cave was like a great gray snake, curving under the hillside with sudden drops where Petra had rope ladders nailed to ledges and steep climbs where planks of wood were built together into simple stairs secured against the rock. Jesse was pushed along by an almost embarrassed looking Petra whenever she stopped to admire the handiwork.

They came across a crafting table and chest pushed into a nook in the wall, the surface littered with flecks of wood and a single, broken stone ax blade.

"You just keep more than one crafting table down here?" Jesse asked, inspecting a small owl whittled into a stick on the chest.

"That's, uh, that's mine." Petra quickly said, taking the owl from her. "I whittle to keep my hands busy. Sort of a nervous habit. Hey! Um, since that wooden sword of yours got busted—"

"You're giving me a new one?"

Sliding the whittled stick down her pant's deep pockets, Petra crossed her arms. "Even better. You can make your own."

Jesse looked to the helper's grid on the wood, brushing away the debris and looking to Petra excitedly. "I've never had anything but that old wooden one."

"Well one stick plus two stones equals one sword. Just grab what you need from that chest." She smiled, resting a hand on her hip and leaning back against the rock wall.

"Oh. Okay, thanks!" She clicked open the chest, getting to her knees and kneeling over into its contents, moving shrunken sixty-four cobblestone blocks precariously bound together into single stacks. She popped two out of the unstable bind, half expecting the entire chest to burst apart with cobblestone and kill them both.

"Hey, is all this stuff yours?" She asked as she sorted through the sticks, feeling for the sturdiest one of the bunch.

"No, we're just stealing from whoever was dumb enough to leave this here—of course it's mine!" She hissed.

"Just... making sure." She sheepishly laughed.

Finding a stick that was flexible and sturdy, she took both ingredients and emerged from the chest, "Here we go! Jackpot!"

"It's only cobblestone and wood, Jesse," Petra said dully.

The shorter girl made her way to the table and set her items down in the correct squares of space. The ingredients shook before they were sucked in towards the center square, absorbing one another and ringing as the dense mass collapsed onto the crafting table as a sword. She picked it up by the still-warm handle, admiring the smooth, sharp blade created from stone, the dancing flames from the torches visible as blurry lights in the reflection of its dull but polished surface. It was beautiful.

"Don't cry," Petra said impassively.

"Okay." Jesse sniffed, biting her wobbling lower lip through a smile and giddily wiping back a tear.

"Isn't it better when you make it yourself? Here, you'll be needing this. Trust me when I say carrying a sword in your inventory isn't ideal."

Jesse found herself being strapped into a leather harness buckled over her chest diagonally and splitting off into two straps below her collarbone, reaching over her shoulder and around her side. The straps connected to a thin belt fastened around the middle of her waist.

"This is my own design. The ones at the store are overpriced and the crafting recipe just makes a weird fitting thing that chaffs you. This offers more support for weight than a sheath on your hip would and doesn't pinch or restrict your arm movement while still giving you easy access to whatever you're carrying." She was talking faster than Jesse had ever heard her talk as she adjusted the buckles to fit her snugly. She took the sword from Jesse's hand, sliding it down the scabbard as she prattled on about design schematics she was sure Axel would appreciate. Petra suddenly turned around, showing her back where her sheathed sword seemed to magically stick to her, "And look, I've got one just like it under my chest piece, I even made holes in my vest for it, it's practically invisible."

Jesse looked down at the new ensemble, all courtesy of Petra. She would be lying if she said she didn't feel ridiculously cool.

"Wow, um. Yeah. Sorry, that was probably a lot." Petra said, backing away brusquely and rubbing her neck, the tips of her ears pink. "Just sort of came out. That was… pretty embarrassing. I don't have many opportunities to share this stuff with people."

"I think it's totally cool, I had no idea you were such a nature survivalist craftsman wood whittler." Jesse got slapped over the back of her head for that one. "Sorry, I'm sorry, I wasn't making fun of you! I really do think it's cool."

"Whatever, just don't go blabbing. I've kind of got an image to uphold."

"I don't see how it would muddy your image any, if anything it just makes you look like a hardcore, self-sufficient, cool lumberjack or something." She said, running her hands over the smooth leather strapped across her.

"Lumberjack?"

"Yeah, you know, with like... all the wood carving and leatherwork and stuff."

"That doesn't put me anywhere near being a lumberjack."

"Well, you're ripped too. Isn't that enough?" Jesse held her hands out like she was explaining a math equation. "Look, buff person who whittles is lumberjack. Do not fight me on this, because I will win."

Petra smiled, a genuine laugh bubbling up her throat from a moment before it was gone. "I should keep you around more, Jesse."

"Same." She grinned, laughing when she got punched in the arm. They approached an opening in a cave leading to a long bridge over a cliff. Jesse balanced along the track rails, Petra joining her only at the other's insistence. They exited the cave, breathing in the brisk, Autumn night air.

"Check it out, EnderCon's all lit up." Petra pointed to Keystone hall's glass dome that towered above the trees, reflecting the blooms of bright colors bursting against the velvet dark backdrop of the night—Axel's fireworks.

"I can't believe it—we won!" She could see the tip of their build's green head just barely visible over the cusps of the trees, having been moved from the build site to EnderCon as all winning builds were. "Axel was right, everyone loves a Creeper."

"Good for you, Jesse." Petra smiled slightly, patting the side of her arm. She didn't seem incredibly invested in EnderCon at all, but Jesse appreciated the thought and matched her smile with a grin, brushing her braid off her shoulder.

"It's about time we beat Lukas and his gang of jerks. I think everyone was getting tired of them winning every single year." She said, hardly noticing Petra's uncomfortable change in posture. "What kind of stupid name is the Ocelots, anyway?"

"You know… Lukas may be kind of arrogant, but he has come through for me in tricky situations." She said steadily, looking at her. "You might want to get to know him—Just in case."

Jesse was quiet for a moment, looking down to her feet then back up at the fireworks. Petra watched her shift through emotions, first annoyance, then guilt, then anger, then resting on a dubious expression.

"He's good at building, that's for sure. It's always useful to have a guy like that around… no matter what you might think of him personally." Petra added.

"Axel and Olivia won't like it, but… I don't know—you could be right." Jesse shifted in place, unsure as she kicked the heel of her shoe against the ground. "He's let his friends mess with us for years, though."

"I'm just saying, if you run into him at EnderCon—try talking to him."

"I don't need a lecture on the power of collaboration, Petra." She rolled her eyes.

"How 'bout a lecture on the power of my fists?" Her straight face made it difficult to discern if she was teasing or not, but the upwards twitch from her mouth gave her away. "It's short, but deadly."

"Like me." Jesse grinned.

"Only one of those things applies to you." She easily moved out of the way from a shove, snorting a little.

"C'mon, let's hurry, Axel and Olivia probably think I'm dead and I need to find Reuben—" She stopped at Petra's look. "And we need to go do that… that thing that you also need to do."

They walked across the tracks together, heading over the bridge as the sound of rushing water rose from below them. The layers of clay deposit visible on the upper sides of the canyon walls made eye-catching patterns across the steep ledges. The claps of the fireworks slowly stopped, leaving a long reverberation in their wake that bounced through the deep gorge below them, vibrating through their chests.

"Remember when EnderCon was like before it was cool?"

"Remember what we were like before we were cool?"

"Some of us will never be cool." Petra looked at her blandly.

"Ha-ha," Jesse said monotonously, then stopped in her tracks. A triad of Creepers were marching down the other side of the bridge like they had important business to discuss with them. Jesse turned around, a group of zombies and two more Creepers had filed in from the natural path across the steep rock, blocking them in.

"This doesn't look good…" Petra looked between both sides of the bridge as she and Jesse instinctually pressed their backs against each other, swords clinking together. Jesse looked down at the water, which appeared much farther away than it had been just moments ago.

As if sensing Jesse's line of thought, Petra spoke, "Well, there's only one way off this bridge. Whatever we do, we do it together."

Jesse looked between the two sides closing in on them, momentarily thinking to the blade on her back, but fresh fear took hold of her chest once more and she locked up.

Petra grabbed Jesse's wrist, "Well?"

"I-I don't know, there's too many of them!"

"Then we jump!" Petra pulled on her wrist, running to the edge.

"Wait-wait-wait-wait—" She shrieked when she was yanked off the side of the bridge just as a Creeper blew its fuse behind them. Explosions rang through the air above her as they set one another off, sending the zombies flying back in bursts of smoke. Petra grabbed her shoulders, steadying her out and smiling at her. Jesse attempted to smile back but the other's face turned into a look of open-mouthed concern as she yelled something.

Jesse looked at her in confusion. "WHAT?!"

"I SAID, CREEPER!" She shouted, grabbing her arm and spinning Jesse around. A Creeper was twisting through the air awkwardly behind her, middle bulging out and glowing as it prepared to blow. She wound back a leg and kicked it away, the force of her punt and the Creeper's explosion as it slammed hard against the canyon side pushing her into Petra. They shoved off each other just in time as the water approached the two girls fast. She landed spread eagle over the water, suspended over it for a moment before her body sunk under and she pushed her way to the surface, mildly alarmed at how shallow the water was.

"Burns! It burns!" She cried out, slapping at the water in pain.

"Don't you know, you dive into the water. You don't land on top of it." Petra said, swimming over to Jesse to mournfully look over her leatherwork strapped over the girl's body, undamaged but covered in water. She muttered something about waterproofing with pine resin as she turned, pushing red hair out of her face and swimming towards the shore. "Pull yourself together and follow me."


reviews are super appreciated, love hearing back from you guys. lmk if you think the beginning's pacing can be improved at all