"So why were you in the woods anyway?" Jesse asked, the two of them reaching what looked like an abandoned mineshaft that was relatively well-lit. Her heart was still thudding away, though at a much calmer speed than before, and she didn't want the silence to be awkward.
Petra gave a light shrug as she started down the wooden ladder, Jesse waiting for Petra to get at least halfway down so she didn't accidentally step on the redhead's face or anything embarrassing like that. "Actually, I'm not entirely sure of that myself. I just had this weird feeling that... y'know, I should be there." Petra paused before adding hastily, "I mean, I know that's a lame excuse-"
"Actually, it really isn't. I get those feelings sometimes, too," Jesse replied, descending the ladder slowly in order to let Petra get off safely. "And y'know what, it just shows you have really good intuition- after all, I ended up needing you, didn't I?"
The redhead let out a light laugh. "Yeah, I guess." And then she fell silent.
Jesse thought perhaps she'd said the wrong thing, but when her feet hit the ground safely and she looked over at Petra again, the redhead was regarding her thoughtfully. "I wanna show you something," Petra said at last, beginning to walk through the mineshaft... which, now that Jesse took a closer look, was more a tunnel-like cave.
Huh.
"How far away is this thing you wanna show me?" Jesse asked, a bit curiously. It was also a valid question, because right now it was nighttime, and she needed a weapon to defend herself from mobs if she wanted to stay alive through the night.
"Careful how you phrase things, Jesse," Petra said, a light warning dancing on her tongue, "you don't wanna get a reputation as a wimp."
Jesse's hands automatically strayed to her chest and clasped there, tightening a little as she felt the familiar feeling of glass safely in the pocket, the beat thudding away safely.
If only Petra knew.
She let out a slightly sarcastic chuckle that was supposed to sound dry and annoyed but came out thin and slightly nervous. "This isn't my first time in a cave, Petra." And true, it wasn't. She'd been in a good amount of caves before. Just never without something to defend herself with.
"Yeah," Petra said, in an almost distracted voice as she turned to face Jesse, "but have you ever seen..." And a large grin crept its way over her face as she pulled out a skull that was blackened, almost burnt. It seemed smaller than a regular skull, not to mention more shriveled. "A Wither Skull?"
"Whoa!" Jesse gasped, eyes widening as she regarded the skull carefully with her hands still clasped at her chest. She knew you only got Wither Skulls from the Nether, and she'd never been to the Nether before, not even before she'd been cursed, and there was no way she was going to willingly step foot in there now, not with her new vulnerability. This was the first (and probably last) time she'd seen a Wither Skull.
Not when there was such a high likelihood that she was going to die.
"Fresh from the Nether," Petra almost boasted, "you're the first person I've showed it to."
"That's so cool!" Jesse breathed, more than a little enviously. "I wish I could do stuff like that."
Petra raised her eyebrow a little bit, a slightly confused smile on her face. "It's not that hard to get a Wither Skull- you've just got to have skill and a Nether Portal. Maybe once you can fight better, I'll take you there."
"No!"
Petra blinked at Jesse, pausing right in the middle of putting the Wither Skull away again and staring at Jesse in confusion. "What?"
Jesse realized she'd just said that out loud and forced a little laugh. "I mean... with the incident last year-" Jesse had been wondering if Petra remembered the 'incident', and judging by the way Petra's eyes tightened slightly, she remembered it very well- "it's probably not a good idea to get me anywhere dangerous. I'm way too clumsy- probably would just get us both killed."
Petra pursed her lips, considering this statement. "I mean... I know plenty of people who are clumsy and who are good adventurers."
"Oh yeah? Name one of 'em," Jesse challenged the redhead, accidentally interrupting Petra. It was a mark of the fact that they were friends that Petra didn't smack her for doing that.
Petra paused again, considering her statement and thinking it through for a moment, before hastening on, "Well, anyway, you'd just need to be more careful and not get anywhere too dangerous while in a fight, and you'd be fine."
In the Nether, nowhere's safe for me.
But Jesse didn't vocalize that this time- she just smiled at Petra slightly. "Glad you think so."
Petra patted her on the head- Jesse was truly jealous of tall people sometimes- and turned around, moving deeper into the cave. Jesse forced herself to take a deep breath- in, out- let her hands fall back to her sides, and hurry to catch up with Petra. "There's this guy I'm meeting up with at Endercon. He's gonna trade me a diamond for it. Being the resident go-getter pays off every once in a while."
Jesse squinted thoughtfully, considering the statement. "The guy you got the skull for... what's his deal?"
Petra considered the question before answering, slowly, "He's kinda strange, I guess. But hey, everybody's got their thing."
The cursed girl arched her brow. She was actually very proud of that expressional quirk- she could manage to only raise one brow and not both, while Olivia struggled to keep the other brow from moving with it and Axel just couldn't manage the expression. "And you never thought to ask him, 'hey, what's with your whole... totally normal... not at all weird... skull thing?'"
The redhead shrugged in return. "As long as the guy is willing to pay, I earned that diamond."
Jesse gazed at Petra with undisguised admiration. "Wow," she said at last, some of that admiration leaking over into her voice.
Petra came to a stop, looking at Jesse with slight confusion. "Wow... what?" she asked, eyes roving over Jesse's admiring expression.
"In a single day," Jesse said, awe tinging her voice, "you went to the Nether, you killed a Wither Skeleton... I mean, I did build a pretty cool statue, but, still. It's pretty sweet being you, huh?"
Petra paused again. Her dark eyes roved over Jesse's awed expression, before she hesitantly added, "You know... you could come with me." And she began walking again.
Jesse stared after her... sort of friend. She was pretty sure she'd heard the redhead wrong.
"I mean," Petra continued, and Jesse shook herself out of the little stupor she'd fallen into and raced to catch up with the redhead, "if you're too nervous, I totally get it. But I wouldn't mind a little backup."
Nope, apparently she hadn't heard Petra wrong.
"You want me," Jesse pointed at herself, to emphasize the 'me' even more, before reversing the point in Petra's direction, "to come with you."
"Consider it my charitable act for the day. I figure if you can't go on the exciting parts of the adventure 'cause you're clumsy right now," and Petra shrugged a little bit, giving Jesse a friendly sort of smirk, "you can at least come with on the parts that you can go on."
Jesse's eyes practically glowed as a grin spread over her face. Okay, she knew she said she tried to act less like a child on Christmas morning whenever she hung out with Petra, but there was nobody else in this cave- nobody cared. "I'll consider it whatever you want me to consider it," she almost gushed, "so long as I get to come."
They slowed to a stop, and now Jesse could see the crafting table and the chest that Petra had been leading her to. "D'you need to craft something before we head back to town?" Jesse asked, craning her head back to make eye contact with Petra.
Petra gave her a light pat on the head again, which made Jesse duck away from the redhead playfully. "Actually, you do. Since that wooden sword of yours got busted..."
Jesse's eyes widened as she realized what Petra was getting at. "You're giving me a new one?"
"Even better- you can make your own. One stick, plus two stones, equals one sword."
Jesse grinned at Petra. That was... extremely nice of Petra. She really didn't have to do all this for her.
That said, she couldn't help but tease a little. "I thought you said me coming with you for the deal was your charitable act for the day," she joked, making her way over to the chest and bending down, sifting through the contents carefully to avoid making a mess- well, more of a mess than there already was, anyways.
Petra grinned back at Jesse lopsidedly. "That was. This is me helping a friend out."
Jesse almost stopped poking through the chest at that. Petra considered her a friend...?
"Nice of you to do that," she replied smoothly, once she recovered from the slight shock of Petra saying she absolutely considered Jesse a friend. That was a little surprising. Jesse'd thought they were kind of in the acquaintances-becoming-friends stage still.
Petra bowed sarcastically, making Jesse giggle. "Thank you, thank you ever so much," she joked back, which made Jesse have to turn back to keep peeking through the chest to hide the fact that she was going to start giggling madly.
Finally, after ten seconds of poking through the chest, Jesse let out a light sound. "Oh, here we go!" And picking up the sticks and stones in her hands, she let the lid of the chest fall and moved to the crafting table, quickly placing down the ingredients in the correct sequence. Instantly, they shivered together into a glowing clump before solidifying into a stone sword with a puff of smoke.
Grinning, Jesse picked it up, testing the weight in her hand. It was actually pretty decently weighted considering the blade was made out of stone, and didn't feel like those really big swords that were sold at obscene prices in shops- sometimes people tried to sell those to her, and Jesse often pointed out the small fact (tiny, really) that the sword was nearly twice her height. Not to mention that some of them were thicker than her fist.
"See?" Petra grinned at Jesse, "isn't it better when you make it yourself?"
The black-haired girl looked up from the stone sword, grinning widely at her friend. "It really is."
"Check it out," Petra nodded, pointing to some lights in the distance, "Endercon's all lit up."
Jesse steeled herself to be disappointed- after all, Olivia was right, a rainbow beacon had a high difficulty score, and was an impressive build otherwise, and turned to see what Petra was pointing at-
And promptly trying to smother a delighted squeal and failing miserably at the sight of bursts of color exploding above Endercon. "No way- we won!" she squeaked happily, jumping up and down in excitement and making Petra grin at her in amusement. "The Enderman was the right way to go!"
"Good for you, Jesse," Petra responded encouragingly.
Jesse finally managed to stop acting like a little kid and put her hands on her hips. "It's about time we beat Lukas and his gang of jerks," she added, a determined tone entering her voice, "what kinda name is the Ocelots, anyway?"
Actually, it wasn't a bad name, but Jesse wasn't about to admit that within earshot of the Ocelots- they'd probably start making fun of her.
Petra hesitated at what Jesse said, her smile falling slightly. "You know," she spoke up at last, "Lukas might be kind of arrogant, but he's come through for me in tricky situations. You might want to get to know him... just in case."
Jesse stayed silent as she considered this. Really, Lukas wasn't that much of a jerk compared to the rest of his teammates. He'd even visited her in the hospital after her accident (her hands twitched, but she congratulated herself as she managed not to automatically reach up and clasp at her glass heart).
"He's good at building, that's for sure."
Jesse still stayed silent, still thinking. He tended to avoid her eyes nowadays. And avoid her in general- she didn't know exactly why.
"It's always useful to have a guy like that around, no matter what you might think of him personally."
"Yeah," Jesse finally agreed, slowly, "you might be right."
"I'm just saying," Petra coaxed, "if you run into him at Endercon, try talking to him."
Jesse crossed her arms and gave Petra a squinty look. Not a hard one or anything- just one that seemed slightly annoyed. "I don't need a lecture on the power of collaboration, Petra."
"How about a lecture on the power of my fists?" Petra replied, almost casually. "It's short, but deadly."
If Petra had been anyone else, Jesse would've happily retaliated, but judging by the uncharacteristically innocent expression on Petra's face, it might be a good idea not to provoke the redhead anymore- otherwise Petra might actually give her that 'lecture', friends or not. "C'mon, let's hurry up."
They began walking across the bridge towards the other side. "Remember what Endercon was like before it was cool?" Petra asked, a little nostalgically.
"Yeah," Jesse grinned fondly as well. She remembered that well, actually. The first year Endercon had blown up was, well, three years ago.
Right before she'd been cursed.
Jesse's nostalgic smile faded, and she almost swore aloud except that Petra was right next to her and she'd have to explain why she was suddenly swearing randomly. She swore that her brain just did everything it could to drag that issue up to the surface whenever she was happy and cheerful and had actually managed to forget about it even for a minute. She could understand when she was in danger or when she was unhappy, but even when she felt happy... well, it wears on you.
She was thankfully saved by Petra muttering her own swear. Shaking herself out of her slight reverie, she let out a gasp at the sight of three creepers hissing and eagerly approaching the two humans. "Creepers!" she exclaimed, realizing a second later that she'd basically just stated the obvious.
"Crap," Petra muttered, looking behind her. Jesse twisted and almost groaned at the sight of zombies and a few more creepers making their way out of the cave as well.
The creepers began to make their way across the bridge towards the duo, the zombies following suit and lurching towards the group. "This... doesn't look good," Petra mumbled, edging backwards and turning so that she was back-to-back with Jesse.
Jesse made an audible gulping noise as she pressed her back into Petra's, blinking uncertainly at the monsters approaching. Then she tentatively looked down over the edge of the bridge, to the river down below them. The ground seemed to move even further away the longer she looked.
"Well," Petra said, a little shakily, "there's only one way off this bridge." The monsters were closing in. "Whatever we do, we do it together."
Jesse quickly guessed and second-guessed herself twenty times in the course of a few seconds. Then she made a decision. Fighting these monsters- so many of them- was pretty much just suicide. There was no way they'd be able to fight through all of them without a problem happening. Jesse'd already gotten lucky once tonight. She didn't want to test that luck.
"We jump," Jesse told Petra. "It's not a good idea to just stay and fight them all."
Petra shot the approaching monsters a look. "Agreed."
"Here we go!" And Jesse tensed her knees and leaped forward away from the bridge as far as possible, feeling weightless for a full second...
... before gravity slowly tightened its fingers on her and she started falling. "Woohoo!" she cheered, trying to clear any fear out of her body with the cheer.
It worked. The air practically shook with vibrations and explosions behind her as the creepers detonated behind her, Petra falling just behind her with her red hair fluttering in the wind as gravity pulled them towards the blue water, and yet Jesse didn't feel scared at all- she only felt excited.
After what felt like minutes but was probably only a few seconds, Jesse tensed just before she hit the water. Water sluiced into her nose and almost made her cough as it went down her throat, but she managed to hold her breath somehow.
For a moment, up and down made no sense and the only thing around her was water. Jesse probably should've been worried about drowning, but for some reason the thought never crossed her mind.
Then she bobbed to the surface, spitting out a small mouthful of water and raking her soaking-wet hair out of her face. She looked over to see Petra doing the same, shaking her head furiously so that water droplets spit off of her hair.
Jesse laughingly threw her arms up to avoid getting even wetter, though there wasn't much point right now seeing as she was pretty much chest-deep in water. "Hey, don't get me wetter here!" she couldn't help but laugh, even though they could've died just now, even though they probably would have died just now, her glass heart was thudding away at the speed of light, her clothes were soaked, and she'd just gotten water up her nose.
Petra rolled her eyes and playfully shook herself off, spraying Jesse again and making the shorter girl whine playfully in complaint.
But for the first time in three years, Jesse wasn't feeling afraid at all.
A/N: More fluff! Stuff will... probably go to hell soon though xD so don't get used to it.
I like how so many people correctly guessed Aiden's curse, and correctly guessed one aspect of breaking it... but nobody got the entire answer correct xD
I love this story so much, I've got plans x3
Replies to reviews!
Mooncake: (giggles) / (grins)
homeworkoverload: YesAidendoeshavethatcurseandLukasdoeshaveacursethathastodowithJessebutnothercurse. xD / No I have not!
TheAmberShadow: Yes, he does, and yes, that's one aspect... but not the entire way of breaking his curse. (Grins) / (shrugs) / Indeed. / No, it would not. I would explain why but that's spoilers. xD
ShiningHopeBeast: Yes it would!
AquaK13: Haha, true. xD / He will break it in Sky City, and you did get part of the curse-breaking process, but not the entire process. / Indeed. / No xD
Toni42: Indeed. (Winks) / Yeah, if you're gonna die by fire, then that's not fun. / (shrugs)
NoItsBecky: Convenience, haha... yeah... / There's more than one witch ya know xD
Princess of Muffins: Probably not. / Yeah, haha... lucky... / Ahahaha, yep. xD
Katie: I update once a week, so maybe sometime later this week. x3
CamronXTheXGamer: Ahhh x3 / Yep~
Guest: Correct!
Welp, that's all for now. See ya, so long, and g'bye!
x.X. A.L. X.x
