#None of the Evo Survivors are Okay

[minecraftbookshelf]

To Walk a Mile In Each Others Shoes: Bad Math

Summary: The soulbonds have consequences, and for some they are more welcome than others. Martyn & Cleo Edition

Characters: InTheLittleWood & ZombieCleo

Word Count: 267

General Note: I'm posting these as separate one-shot style posts for each soulbond pair. They are all written but I have them queued up and spaced out. All posted will be on this blog under the tag "to walk a mile in each others shoes," linked at the bottom of the other posted ones, and also on my AO3, which is linked on my pinned post.

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His skin is falling off.

He notices half-way through building the Heart, when he stops for food and realizes that his arm is the wrong color.

A quick inspection shows a few more spots, on his cheek, on his side, on his thigh, where the skin has either changed texture to a leathery, dead feel, or is coming off altogether.

A few more days and there is a stiffness in his limbs that wasn't there before, joints protesting every time he moves as if they are supposed be stiff and still. As if rigor mortis is trying to set in.

Almost hysterically Martyn wonders if soon he'll be as rotten and hollow inside as he feels.

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Cleo doesn't make a habit out of letting themself be fussed by things they can't control. It's a waste of time and energy and she has much better things to do.

But whatever is going on is weird and she doesn't like it.

The closest they can describe it, when Scott asks is an impending sense of vertigo. Like the world itself might fall out from under them at any moment. Like the very fabric of reality might be snatched away.

Also she's gained some of the more standard living sensations back and its altogether unpleasant. She hasn't been able to feel or taste or smell this well in a very long time and. It's a lot.

And pain. They haven't felt this sharp kind of pain in so long. It hurts in a way only Life can, when they have long become used to the ache of Undeath.

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Team Ranchers || Team Box || Dessert Duo || The Boat Boys || The Homewreckers || Bad Math || Tilly Death Do Us Part

[minecraftbookshelf]

To Walk A Mile In Each Others Shoes: Tilly Death Do Us Part

Summary: The soulbonds have consequences, and for some they are more welcome than others. Scott and Pearl Edition

Characters: Scott Smajor & Pearlescentmoon

Word Count: 406

General Note: I'm posting these as separate one-shot style posts for each soulbond pair. They are all written but I have them queued up and spaced out. All posted will be on this blog under the tag "to walk a mile in each others shoes" and also on my AO3, which is linked on my pinned post.

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The antennae are annoying.

Scott keeps forgetting they are there and catching them in his fingers when he runs them through his hair, which hurts. The extra perception they afford him of his surroundings would be useful, if he were used to processing it (which he isn't) so its more paranoia-inducing than anything else. And a healthy dose of paranoia keeps you alive, but too much gets you dead faster than anything else. And Scott does not intend to die.

Out of spite if nothing else.

His back itches almost constantly, and Cleo had informed him that there are patches of fine, dusty scales between his shoulder blades. Scales like a moth's wings, right in the place where they would sprout from.

The night the moon rose full Scott caught himself standing on the front porch of his house staring at it. Utterly entranced until Cleo shook him out of it. He has to brace himself against the lure of campfires and torches and the siren call of flint and steel (Though that, at least, he is used to. Like Cleo said, they're arsonists.)

And if he focuses on these little discomforts, Scott can ignore the way it sometimes seems like he can see right through the world. Through the Players that inhabit it. Beyond into the Void, into the Ether into...

Scott Smajor is a Void Walker, he knows intimately the dangers of looking too closely at Eternity.

So he closes his eyes and pretends he can't see it looking right back.

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The stars sing.

It's like a million voices directly in her head. It's shivers down her spine and ice in her veins and fire in her brain. It's the jolt of pain from a phantom axe crit at dawn and the stinging cold of powdered snow to pay it back.

Burn they sing burn bright and fierce and when you burn out take it all with you

They sing and there are so many of them, so many voices and yet they are so far away, so unattainable, and she is still alone.

She digs her fingers into Tilly's fur and buries her face in her neck and tries to focus on the familiar, low hum of the moon beneath the eternal choir.

(And Scott stacks TNT and strikes the flint and steel and she meets his eyes and, far beyond the day-lit skies, the stars swell in a final chord.)

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Team Ranchers || Team Box || Dessert Duo || The Boat Boys || The Homewreckers || Bad Math || Tilly Death Do Us Part

[minecraftbookshelf]

To Walk A Mile In Each Others Shoes: The Ranchers

Summary: The soulbonds have consequences, and for some they are more welcome than others. Tango and Jimmy Edition

Characters: TangoTek & Solidarity Gaming

Word Count: 370

General Note: I'm posting these as separate one-shot style posts for each soulbond pair. They are all written but I have them queued up and spaced out. All posted will be on this blog under the tag "to walk a mile in each others shoes" and also on my AO3, which is linked on my pinned post.

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Tango notices the itching first. A creeping sensation at his hairline and in-between his shoulder blades. At first he thinks its just sweat and dust, the normal byproducts of the work he and Jimmy are putting into building and populating their ranch. It takes him an embarrassing amount of time to realize that it isn't.

It's feathers. Sprouting in his hairline and down his back, fewer than Jimmy's, but in the same places, an unmistakable mirror of downy fluff and a few scattered emerging pinfeathers.

The itching gets worse and Jimmy shows him how to use pressure and cold to relieve it. Tango doesn't seem to have the ability to make the oil needed to keep them healthy, so Jimmy uses his own, flustered and rambling the whole time he shows Tango how to work it into the feathers.

They feel better after, though still itchy. An odd sensation of growth against his skin.

The pinfeathers never get the chance to open up.

(He never connects the dots, doesn't really register the weird sensations of deja vu, the vague sense of Knowing what is about to happen right before it does. And even if he had, he probably wouldn't have realized where they came from.)

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Jimmy doesn't notice until the ranch burns.

He knows a lot of people would probably make a joke about his obliviousness there, but in his defense he doesn't usually stick his hands into fire.

Until the ranch burns and Tango is raging and Jimmy is trying to put out two fires at once, both of them more literal than advisable.

The ranch burns and Tango burns and Jimmy reaches into the flames and pulls him out and it doesn't so much as singe his skin.

One things avians and netherborn have in common, Jimmy learns, is that they are always cold. Hollow bones and Nether-nature equally out of place on the ground of the Overworld. But netherborn produce heat, warming the air around them. Jimmy can't get as hot as Tango, no shimmer over his hand no matter how hard he strains and stares, but Tango says its enough he can feel it.

They may not have many nights in the game, but at least they can keep each other warm.

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Team Ranchers || Team Box || Dessert Duo || The Boat Boys || The Homewreckers || Bad Math || Tilly Death Do Us Part

[minecraftbookshelf]

Me Writing To Walk A Mile In Each Others Shoes: “the obvious theme of this one is fun headcanons for different characters. The second theme is ‘none of the Evo survivors are okay’”

Mr. TangoTek: *straight up refuses to realize he’s getting premonitions*

Me: “why do you do this to me?”