#pix and joel are also there but not for long enough to tag

[smokeberrry]

siblings when they go in the sea i think

[whimsicaltwine]

asked for my counsel (no one asked for your thoughts)

read on ao3

Tags: Pixlriffs & MythicalSausage, Jimmy | Solidarity & Pixlriffs, Pixlriffs, MythicalSausage, Jimmy | Solidarity, Season/Series 01, Empires SMP Season 1, Cod Empire (Empires SMP), Angst, Self-Harm, Eating Disorders, Aftermath of Possession, Guilt, MythicalSausage Needs a Hug, Hurt No Comfort, comparing and contrasting sausage and pix is literally so much fun, love when the minecraft smp accidentally has narrative foils

Summary: After being freed from Xornoth's control, Sausage asks Pixlriffs for advice on dealing with his guilt.

Words: 2,220

full fic under the cut:

“Thanks, by the way.”  The mirky water below them ripples gently around Jimmy’s ankles as he leisurely kicks his legs.

“I won’t give up my place here just because you’ve welcomed someone I don’t like,” Pix responds, gazing out over the water.  The last of the sunlight still lingers in the sky as a soft, blue glow, and the weather-worn wood of the dock is surprisingly smooth beneath his hands as he leans back on them and gazes out at the water.  Twisted tree branches draped in moss bend low over its still surface.  Despite the fact that the air is nearly as wet as the water, the Cod Empire has always been beautiful.  Jimmy’s hosted quite the party, too.  Even a fifteen minute walk away from the main festivities, Pix can hear the rhythm of the drums carry over the trees.  Lizzie and Joel are probably still dancing like it’s their first day out of prison, hair fleeing from elaborate styles as the rest of the guests cheer them on.  

Jimmy, though he’s right at home reveling with the rest of them, has always had a good sense for when Pix needs a moment to recollect himself.  He also happens to know the best little hideaways, like this tired dock that stretches out over the river.  “I know you don’t like having Sausage around.  Thanks for giving him a shot.”  Pix scoffs.

“I’m not giving him a shot, Jimmy, I’m respecting your choices.  There’s a difference.  If you’re going to insist on being diplomatic with the man, I’ll be civil, but there’s no changing my mind on him.”

“I know, I know.  I just think he’s – well, I think he’s really sorry.  You never know!  He could be a better guy than you think.  And even if he isn’t, I think a better relationship with Mythland will do the Cod Empire some good.  Since they’re on the defensive after everything, I reckon it’s a good time to make some moves on that front.  You know we’re in a different situation here than you are all the way in the desert.”

That, at least, Pix can see the logic in.  Still, he made up his mind a long time ago.  “Right.  You can do whatever you want, but you know where I stand.”  

The wooden and shell beads on Jimmy’s many bracelets softly clatter as he raises one hand to gesture at the open air.  “I’m just saying you should keep an open mind just a little bit.”  Pix rolls his eyes.  Really, it’s getting annoying.  Stubborn and combative as Jimmy is, he’s also sometimes liable to look on the bright side until it blinds him.  At least fWhip knows to leave well enough alone.  For all the solemn, seething silences and fiery words Pix had been witness to early on in their friendship, fWhip has kept quiet since rekindling his relationship with Sausage.  Jimmy, on the other hand, despite having a much worse history with the man, has made sure Pix is on the receiving end of plenty of poking, prodding, and puppy eyes.

“I’ve seen enough to decide that no, I should not, Jimmy,” Pix intones, letting force fall into his voice more strongly.  “I’d appreciate it if this was the end of this conversation.”  Rather than looking to see if Jimmy’s face falls or not, Pix redirects his gaze back out towards the slow-moving water and the fireflies that twinkle on the opposite bank.  Jimmy huffs, but lets it go.

“Right, then.  Do you want to head back soon?  They’ll be starting the glowberry dance in a bit, and I always like watching that one.”  Pix shakes his head.

“You go on,” he tells Jimmy.  “I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.”  Standing, Jimmy shakes off his dripping feet and slides them back into his sandals.

“Ok.”

“And make sure Joel doesn’t get too drunk yet,” Pix tosses over his shoulder with a smile.  Laughing, Jimmy agrees, after which he sets off to join the others, leaving Pix alone on the quiet dock.  Despite having gotten to know the Cod Empire well over the years, it never ceases to amaze him in its sheer difference to Pixandria’s clean-cut sandstone and dry, brittle heat.  As the light has faded farther from the sky, the whirring cicadas have begun to cede the trees to chirping frogs.  Pix makes a mental note to ask Jimmy to point him towards someone who can tell him more about the tree frogs.  There’s a page in Pix’s journal that’s calling their name.

And then another sound enters the mix: the groan of well-worn wood as someone makes their way down the dock.  Pix pats the ground next to him out of habit, but finds no dropped bracelets, knives, or trinkets.  Twisting around, he calls out, “Jimmy?”

For a moment, the footsteps pause.  Then, with the hesitance of a street cat, a broad figure steps into the lantern light.

“MythicalSausage,” Pix corrects himself, voice flat.  Speak of the wither.  The offending party shifts his weight from foot to foot.  “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Can we – can I talk to you?” he asks.

“You seem to have decided to, yes.”  Silence hangs in the air, interrupted only by the serene chirping of oblivious treefrogs.  After a long, taut moment, Sausage steps over and sits down in the spot Jimmy had just vacated, entirely too close to Pix.  He scoots over a few pixels.

This close, the light exposes a sheen of sweat on Sausage’s face and flighty eyes that dart away from Pix’s when their gazes meet.  Sausage, in Pix’s opinion, has always looked quintessentially Mythic; with his solid frame, thick beard, jewelry-studded face, and air of brash confidence, he’d look right at home as a statue in one of the nation’s profane churches.  Pix has spent more time than he probably should wondering why it strikes him.  As rulers, they all have an identity to broadcast; Pix’s own clothing and stature are carefully curated to reflect the Vigil, the sands, and the people that mill about the city.  Under scrutiny, though, when Pix dips his gaze below the surface of the other rulers, they all warp and shift and waver: there’s wildness under Lizzie’s power, anxious tension under Scott’s smug propriety, and haughtiness under Gem’s kindness.  Sausage, though, Sausage’s lavish clothes and sharp-edged jolliness seem to go all the way through.

Usually, anyways.  Tonight, his shoulders are hunched and face waxen.  Gazing at the nervous man beside him, Pix reasons that Jimmy always has had a habit of picking up bedraggled strays.  A man, however, should be judged by different standards than an animal.

“What do you want?” Pix asks, short.  It takes him a moment to speak up.

“I need to talk to you.”  The words come out all in a rush.  Sausage taps his fingers against the dock.  Pix waits.

“I wanted to ask you–” Sausage starts before coming up short, giving a harried sigh.

It really was shaping up to be such a nice evening.  Maybe he should have gone back at the same time Jimmy did.

Sausage’s voice rises in volume, cracking and sharp, as he finally manages to get out, “I need to know – you – how do you take it into your own hands to get what you think you deserve?”  Pix’s thoughts halt.

The word, “What?” falls from his lips without his input.  Now that Sausage has managed to get started, though, it seems he’s gathered momentum; a barrage of more words escapes into the night.

“After the dragon, you left.  You thought it was your fault, and you left, and spent more than a month out in the open desert with no supplies or food.  How’d you do it?  How’d you get yourself to do it?”  Sausage’s eyes lock onto Pix’s like a piston clicking into place.  “They say you came back half dead.  You thought your life was too good for you, and so you gave it up.  You made sure you got what you thought you should.  How?”  His face twists with confused desperation.

Pix thinks of a tender, peeling sunburn and his tongue sticking to the inside of his dry mouth.  He thinks of reviewing reports while hunger comfortingly twists a knife into his gut, keeping shame quiet.  He thinks of static and satisfaction rushing into his head in equal measure while waiting out a dizzy spell.  He thinks of easily feeling his ribs beneath his skin.

These days, there’s Joel to offer him sweets, Jimmy to reassure him nobody deserves pain, Lizzie to insist on sharing the Ocean Empire’s most decadent luxuries, and fWhip to order more food for himself than he can finish.  Getting better is like scaling a cliffside without any tools.  He claws his way up pixel by determined pixel.  Even this morning, Pix made sure that he awoke on the floor beside the bed in Pixandria’s embassy, body stiff and bones aching.

Evidently, he’s paused for long enough for Sausage to get restless.  “You didn’t even actually deserve it,” he muses, voice awash with something like wonder.

If anyone were to deserve it, it’d be a violent conqueror with a taste for power, someone whose open hostilities, both personal and political, prefigured a deal to gain power at the cost of an apocalypse.  It’d be the man who joyously cackled while ice climbed up Pix’s throat in the End.  If Pix’s hands are forever stained with one death and the consequences he never intended, Sausage’s are steeped in blood, selfishness, and intention.  After the visions were done screaming in his head, once he was crumpled on the floor and struggling to draw in the End’s thin air, Pix heard a familiar voice crow something untethered and joyous.  Scenes from that night run together in his memories like watercolor: rough stone against his knees, Jimmy’s concerned eyes, Xornoth’s craggy smile.  Sausage had stared down the end of the world with a grin and a word of thanks.

Sausage continues to tap his hands against the dock.  Jimmy has told Pix of standing high, high above the ground in Mythland, terror brewing in his stomach as manic delight set upon Sausage’s features.

Pix directs a stormy gaze at Sausage, who has given up looking at him imploringly for favor of wringing the edge of his cloak beneath his hands, brimming with nervous energy.  There’s purple smudged beneath his harried eyes as he looks out over the water.  “I need to know how you did it,” he eventually says, the words soft and brittle in the soupy night.  Pix quietly, stiffly regards him.

An image springs to mind: Sausage, sitting in front of a mirror with a dagger in one hand.  Heavy tapestries whisper on the walls.  In the late night, by the wavering light of a lantern, Sausage slowly, steadily places the dagger against his thigh, where the wound will be easy to hide.  He winces as he cuts deep.  Gradually, pain weaves its way into Sausage’s daily routine, greedily keeping his nights to itself and gobbling up unblemished skin.  It tangles him up until he can’t stop.

If anyone deserves that, it’s Sausage.  Lightning and possibility racing down Pix’s spine, he looks at a man who, whether by his own hand or by the effects of his actions, has ended thousands of souls.  And yet, even as something eager buzzes in his head, something in Pix’s stomach squirms at the thought of it.

The rhythm of the distant drums shifts.  It’s a small change, but one that snaps the tension in the air into tiny fragments and clears the mirky thoughts from Pix’s mind.  Right now, his friends are enjoying themselves.  Why should he listen to the addled pleas of an enemy?  Why should he debate whether to be the arbiter of justice?  Thoughts suddenly crisp as folded paper, Pix brisky gathers his robes, stands, and gives Sausage a steely gaze.  He seems so paltry all the sudden, slouched like a sick animal and wide-eyed like a child.  

“Wait–”

“Good night, MythicalSausage,” Pix says coldly, washing his hands of the matter.  When he turns to leave, no footsteps follow him.

As Pix steps back into the hall’s courtyard, Jimmy perks up and raises one hand high to wave him over.  “You missed the glowberry dance!” he chirps.  Pix takes a seat on the bench next to him.

“I’m sure I’ll be back to watch it next time.  Whatever happened to Joel and Lizzie?”

Grinning, Jimmy gestures towards a table crowded with wooden bowls of food.  “Snacks table.  I think Joel’s decided to recite poetry in a few minutes, though, so I’m glad you’re here for that.  What were you up to, anyways?”

Here, where the trees are lined with strings of lanterns and the air is filled with chatter, it’s easy to let the last dregs of his encounter at the dock drain away.  “Nothing important,” Pix lets him know.  “And I thought I told you not to let Joel get too drunk.”

“Ok, ok, I know, but the man has a mind of his own, mate.  And don’t you wanna see him get up and put on the performance of a lifetime?”

Chuckling, Pix settles into his seat.  “I do,” he admits, “I do.”

[heehoothefool]

So uh

@the-pigeon allow me to help and make a part 2 (assuming you do draw it, no pressure I've just had this in the back of my mind and your tags prompted me to actually make the post)!

Empires SMP 2 as DnD Races!

In reference to a previous post about their classes, I'd like to specify I am doing this with the emperors as players in mind. If they were NPCs this would be a very different list.

Joel: I'm gonna say aasimar. Like, normal aasimar. Wings, literally angels, close enough to being a big sexy god with those sick wings.

FWhip: He's a goblin what more do you want from me?

Jimmy: Once Aarakocra, but cursed into some sort of cloth construct or warforged. I'm gonna pin him down as warforged for the purposes of functioning within a game. It would be very neat to play.

Pix: Oh this man is a wood elf all day long he is a man of the past he is so old. Also very much a man of the woods. If, however, you wanted instead to tie him to the Copper King theory, some sort of high elf and maybe toss in some other in game stuff to make him live longer than he should in there.

Sausage: Fallen Aasimar to connect him to his lore of Pearl punting him to earth. He is the fallen protector. Alternatively, halfling considering the whole connection to nature thing and the general vibes of Sanctuary.

Scott: Oh this guy is a straight up fae. Just a fae. Look at that black market and those colors and tell me he is anything else.

Joey: Human. Literally just some guy. He's having a wonderful time.

Oli: Also a fallen aasimar except he's having a time about it. Lady how dare you. That was rude. He is a washed up angel with a lute.

False: Half elf but also she's a clone so do with that information what you will.

Gem: Sun elf. Praise the sun. It's so simple and also a fun call to her Hermitcraft self also being an elf.

Katherine: I want her to be a drow monster slayer please please please let me have this also the drow palette with her cute pink stuff would be so nice and would also go with the black version.

Shelby: Firbolg I can see it now. She lives in the swamp and is a little socially awkward but tends to be pretty friendly. I think Firbolg would suit her nicely.

Lizzie: Once human, her wild magic turned her into a tabaxi and she hasn't figured out how to change back. She runs a thinly veiled illusion at most times to try to appear like her normal self.