"I heard a pretty juicy rumor about the building competition, but you guys have to promise not to say anything," Axel warned the two other girls as they strolled off. A bystander would've thought they were just wandering randomly off into the forest, but anyone who knew which way the Endercon Building Competition was from this direction would've realized they were on a path straight for it.
Olivia simply shrugged at Axel's remark. Jesse knew her friend better than that, though- the way Olivia was hiding a small smile, she was kind of curious to hear what Axel's rumor was. "Okay."
"Also, it's in two parts, each part more exciting than the last—"
Jesse rolled her eyes and playfully reached over to shove him with a laugh. "Spit it out, Axel!" she exclaimed, rolling her eyes a little at the bigger boy.
Axel obliged. From the way his dark eyes were practically glittering with excitement, and the fact that he was hopping around a little, he was actually really excited to tell them about the 'rumor'.
Jesse had to wonder when her friends had gotten so easy to read.
"Part one. The special guest at this year's Endercon is none other than Gabriel the Warrior him-freaking-self!" the burly boy declared with quite a bit of pomp, flailing his arms about in the air.
Jesse's eyes widened to the size of saucers immediately, and Olivia's hands flew up to her mouth in reflexive surprise. "Whoa!" the green-eyed girl gasped in awe, automatically reaching up to her heart and touching it as if to confirm that it was still there and hadn't just jumped out somehow. "What's part two?!"
"Part two. According to my sources..." Axel allowed himself a dramatic pause. He was quite dramatic sometimes. "... the winner of the building competition's gonna get to meet him!"
Jesse's mouth dropped open in shock, and Olivia gasped, hands still over her mouth as they kept walking along.
"It doesn't mean anything if we lose," Axel continued, a little dismissively, "but if we win... oh man. This would make up for all the losing!"
Jesse nodded vigorously, hand still touching the heart. It might've just been her imagination, but she was positive that the glass heart was pounding away faster than it had been going before. "Meeting Gabriel would be a dream and an honor."
"Totally," Olivia immediately agreed, "he's awesome. It'd be amazing to meet him."
"Reuben had better be careful in that costume," Axel added, making the entire group twist to look at the little pig dressed in his Ender Dragon costume, who looked up at the sound of his name with a squeal, "the last time Gabriel saw a dragon, it didn't End well."
Jesse's eyes lit up, and she giggled. She loved puns. And pick-up lines by extension, because most of them were essentially just romantic puns.
Olivia, meanwhile, rolled her eyes. She wasn't the biggest fan of puns herself, and would often groan good-heartedly whenever Jesse made one. Which was at least three times a week, so Olivia did a lot of good-hearted groaning. She was actually pretty nice about it though. Sometimes she would remind Jesse that she'd already used a pun that week.
She paused, having apparently spotted something as she looked around, before looking back at Axel and arching her eyebrow. "Soo... does this 'source' of yours make posters for a living?" the dark-skinned girl asked.
Jesse turned to see what Olivia was looking at, and immediately spotted it— Endercon posters were plastered all over a small section of trees, including some announcing that Gabriel was going to be at Endercon and that the tickets to the keynote were sold out. (Jesse wasn't surprised. Despite being sold at an exorbitant price, tickets for the special guest had practically flown out of the ticket box windows.
Axel rubbed the back of his head with a slightly awkward expression on his face. "Yeah..." he admitted sheepishly, "my source, uhh, doesn't, um... exist. You guys are my only friends."
Jesse jogged them both gently with her elbow, smiling at them. "Guys, let's stay focused... we have a competition to win."
Olivia let out a sigh. "We never win. And this year we've got Reuben with us." She gestured at the pig, who looked over at her. "We basically have no chance."
"Well... sure, winning is fun," Jesse said slowly, carefully picking her words, "but it's not everything. Wanting to win is. Wanting to win is the whole point. Not giving up is the point. Never letting up is the point. We were born to win, but in order to win," and she was now getting really into this little pep talk, gesturing wildly with her arms and allowing her voice to rise, "you have to prepare to win, and plan to win, and expect to win. We might... lose a lot of things," she had to make a concession there, "but winning isn't about never failing— it's about not giving up!"
Olivia cut her off before Jesse could get any more passionate about it— which was probably a good thing, because Jesse had been about to launch into a roll, and then she would've just kept pep-talking for the next three hours. "Alright, alright, Jesse, I get it." Her tone was lighter though, and her expression had lightened from the somewhat gloomy one it had fallen into.
"No, no, I second that," Axel jumped in, quickly backing Jesse up.
As if the pep talk or motivational speech or... whatever that had just been had jumpstarted Jesse's brain, an idea popped into her head with the speed of a racing horse and the force of a piece of gravel dropped from the top of a fifty-foot-tall building. "Wait a minute— wait a minute," she said abrutply, almost skidding to a halt altogether, "we're thinking about this all wrong."
The other two came to a stop, a little distance in front of Jesse as they turned to face the much-shorter girl. Both had rather blank expressions on their face, and Axel in particular looked quite bemused.
Jesse couldn't tell how Reuben was feeling. The Ender Dragon head hid a lot of emotions he could show.
"How's that?" Olivia asked, cocking her head to one side.
"The point of the building competition isn't just to build— something. You have to do something to get noticed by the judges!" Jesse exclaimed, spreading her arms out wide.
The not-quite-an-official redstone engineer put her hands on her hips, considering what Jesse had just said. After a few seconds, she nodded, accepting what Jesse had just said. "Okay then... so, how do we do this?"
"We don't just build something functional— we build something fun!" Jesse said enthusiastically, eyes sparkling, "after finishing the fireworks machine like we planned, we build something really cool on top of it!"
Olivia nodded, immediately seeing the sense in Jesse's idea. "You might be onto something," she said slightly slowly, a grin spreading over her face as she slowly turned the idea over in her head.
Axel spoke up now, attracting both girls' attention. "If you want to get a reaction out of the judges, you build something scary." He waited for the two girls to give agreeing nods (which they did) before continuing, "So I say we build a creeper—"
The curly-haired girl interrupted here, looking over at Axel and raising an eyebrow at him. "Wouldn't an Enderman be better?" she asked. "I'm more scared of Endermen than creepers."
Jesse pondered the idea for a moment as Axel continued, "they both have their moments... both pretty scary."
There was a short pause, before Olivia added thoughtfully, "then again, you did scare the crap out of us with a creeper today."
Finally, Jesse made her choice— she was definitely more scared of Endermen than of creepers, so she announced, with a decisive nod, "Let's build an Enderman."
Axel frowned a little bit. "Awww... Olivia's thing?" he asked, in a slightly complain-y tone, and oh. Oh. Yep, there was more of Axel's childish personality. Seriously, he was a big guy but he was such a dork sometimes.
Olivia put one hand on her hip and raised her eyebrow at Axel, looking unimpressed. Jesse could see the way her friends' lips were twitching, though. "Are you whining?" she asked him teasingly.
"No," Axel responded instantly, and rather defensively, "I was saying 'awwwwwwesome."
"Suuuure you were," Jesse teased him as well. Her grin didn't fade even when Axel playfully shoved the shorter girl a bit, scowling jokingly at her.
Olivia grinned at the childish display, before tilting her head to one side, hand still resting on her hip. "Think we've got everything we need?" she asked, curly hair bouncing a little as she moved her head.
Jesse cocked her own head to one side as she considered what they had. They definitely had everything for the fireworks machine, but to build the Enderman... they'd need ink. And wool. And something purple for the eyes. "It wouldn't hurt to grab a little more," she finally said, decisively.
"Let's get to grabbin', then!" Axel declared with a grin.
The rather petite leader of the group stuck her hand out, and Olivia and Axel quickly followed suit, setting their hands on top of hers. Reuben stood up on his hind legs, setting one hoof in the middle of the group gesture. "Okay, 'dare to prepare', on three. No, wait-" she quickly corrected herself, "'preparing is daring'. Nope, that's the same thing- forget it, 'team', on three. One, two, three-"
The whole group flung their hands into the air with an enthusiastic "TEAM!" Well, Olivia and Jesse did. Axel, probably having gotten rather muddled up by Jesse's rambling, shouted "Prepare!"
Grinning at each other, the three friends split up, running off into the forest at different angles. Jesse paused, glancing over her shoulder with a wide, slightly excited grin... and then she ran deeper into the forest.
Time to get some stuff.
"Redstone... there any redstone in this cave?" Jesse poked her head into a nearby cave. It wasn't a deep or particularly dark cave or anything- it was more of a shallow depression than a cave. And Jesse didn't have a torch because, well... you know.
"... well, I don't see any. Well," Jesse shrugged, pulling out a wooden pickaxe, "I've only got a wooden pickaxe, anyway. Might as well mine some more stone just in case, then."
And she was talking to herself again.
She tended to do that a lot when she was by herself or with Reuben, she'd noticed. Though when Reuben was there, she addressed him.
Jesse exploded out of the water, giving a little cough and waving an ink sac in her hands as if she'd found the Holy Grail. "Got some more!" she gasped to Reuben, who was just sitting on the bank and shaking his little piggy head at her.
Deciding that this was safer, Jesse had popped her heart over to where Reuben was sitting, just in case it slipped out and fell deeper into the lake- not that it would necessarily matter, since it'd eventually just teleport back to her (she knew, because she'd tried locking the heart up before. Long story short, it did not work), but if some sort of aquatic animal crushed it while it was lost, that would be bad.
Diving into a lake to kill squids and get ink sacs was perhaps not the safest practice, but Jesse didn't have anything to trade for ink sacs, and squids were pretty easy to kill.
Also, you can't catch on fire when you're underwater. That's a huge bonus.
"Hoo boy. Uhh..." Jesse couldn't help but stare openly at the flock of sheep she'd just stumbled upon. Although, to be fair, 'flood' was probably a more accurate descriptor in this case. She'd literally walked into a small clearing straight into a sheep. In fact, the clearing was practically packed solid with sheep. Jesse could barely move half a foot in any direction without running into a sheep.
Carefully, Jesse withdrew the shears from her pocket. The sheep didn't really have a reaction.
Well, one butted Jesse's stomach with its head, but that was more of a sheep thing than a reaction to the shears.
"Okay." Jesse put the hand not holding the shears on her hip, giving a decisive nod as Reuben let out a cheerful little oink behind her. "Okay. I can do this. I can work with this."
Taking a deep breath, Jesse waded deeper into the crowd of sheep.
To make a rather long story short, by the time Jesse was done she looked like she was wearing a layer of lint balls.
When Jesse finally reunited with the others, she was somewhat relieved to see that she didn't appear to be the only one that had had trouble getting materials. Axel had a rather large splotch of purple dye on the white, fluffy bit of his hoodie and had a thin layer of sand dusting his front, while Olivia's hair glittered with redstone dust and she had a good amount of wood shavings dusting her beanie. (Jesse grinned when Axel reached up and wordlessly dusted it off.) If she'd been the only one who'd had trouble, she would've felt a little awkward.
Without saying a single word, Jesse extended her slightly inky hand- one of the ink sacs had exploded in her grip when she'd grabbed it the wrong way- with a wide, slightly breathless grin.
Axel nodded at the sight of it and wordlessly placed his hand on top, Olivia adding hers to the handpile a moment late, before Reuben reared up and added his hoof to the pile.
After a moment of hesitation, the group threw their hands into the air with identical grins and launching them into an airborne jump, Reuben leaping into the air with a little squeal as well.
Landing back on the ground from the little jump, Jesse staggered into Olivia, off-balance and a little breathless from the whole ordeal. Olivia, who was also a little off-balance, tripped straight into Axel.
Usually, the domino chain would've ended there, but because Axel was kind of tired and also not entirely balanced at the moment, he toppled over as well, knocking the entire group onto the grassy ground with collective yelping and laughter.
Lying on her back in sunlight, body aching but racing with adrenaline, Jesse couldn't help but just grin up at her three best friends, Reuben snuffling and butting his Ender-Dragon-mask-clad-head against her cheek, while Axel was giggling nonstop like an idiot and even Olivia was chuckling from where she was squashed under Jesse.
It was moments like this where Jesse was really thankful that these two were her friends. Even if Axel could be a silly weirdo and Olivia was way too pessimistic sometimes, and they weren't exactly popular or well-liked or anything, Jesse was pretty sure that even if she could, she wouldn't trade them for anything.
A/N: Fluffff. xD
Okay, next chapter will be a little less fluffy. But we'll be getting into the real fun parts soon, so no worries!
Responses to reviews!
Quotev:
Diamond: Already replied to this, but just for the sake of keeping this up here, the reason is because she can't- the curse will magically just teleport it back to her. I'd imagine she's tried it several times already xD
Fanfiction:
Mooncake: Glad you think so, Moon!
InsaneAcrobat: Indeed! / Oh, yay! I'm glad you like it so much. I've been working on this idea for a while so I thought I'd finally share it! / (grins) Some of your theorizing is correct. I'm not going to say which ones, but some are correct. / Mm. / What inspired me to write it, ooh... I really like fairytales, and I thought if some of the characters were afflicted with them, it would make for a really fascinating story.
homeworkoverload: Thank you!
Princess of Muffins: Yeah, it's pretty depressing. / Good to be kinda back! / The curse will probably be broken, but I don't know if we'll learn much more about the witch. Bai!
CamronXTheXGamer: (laughs) / Perhaps.
ShiningHopeBeast: Yeah, I always liked that story, depressing though it was. / Yes, hm, and yes. xD / She MIGHT, but that's still kind of up in the air to be honest. / Yes, fire's a pretty big part xD
Alice Forshadow: I'm glad you like it so far!
AquaK13: Pfff xD / Yeah, when you think about how many things involve fire (the Nether, Boom Town, the enchanted flint and steel, the lava race in the Old Builder's world... oof. / Hmm... yeah, it's kinda similar. Take off the gold designs, but yeah. / Yeah, I never finished the game and I don't know where the game cartridge went :/
TheAmberShadow: All fairytales are based off of the original version, or the closest it can get to that version at least. So yeah xD / I'm not saying how the curse can be broken xD / I'm glad!
NovaAurora10: Glad you like it so far!
J.M.M.: Ah. / Haha, yeah, she's a jerk.
Guest: You said it.
Toni42: I'm glad you like it! That witch was seriously obsessed with Lukas, haha.
Artificial Cloudz: Haha, far too true.
x.X. A.L. X.x
