#act i

8. Villagers

9. Nil the Nitwit Villager

10. Nil activities 11. Villagers and their Hero 12. Nil's Worldview 13. Nil and Steve 14. Plains Villagers + Village Lore 15. Iron Golems 16. Experience

17. Polly the Passive Pillager

18. well, kind of passive 19. Illagers and the Hero 20. Johnny and Cap 21. Vinny 22. Ravager 23. Teeth Sharpening 24. Vinny's haircare 25. Pillager Outposts

26. Evokers 27. Walda, Thord and Eve 28. TOTEMS OF UNDYING 29. Illagers and Death 30. Golems and Allays 31. CHOP CHOP SLIDE 32. EVE 33. TNT Cannon 34. Polly and Steve Meet

35. PLAINS VILLAGE RAID

36. Polly's Pumpkin Parole 37. Nil and Steve II 38. Don't panic 39. sorry, buddy (silly) 40. Nil and family 41. Hero of the Village

42. Evokers and Librarians 43. Peace talks (silly) 44. Polly, Vinny and Johnny 45. Polly returns to the Mansion 46. MANSION SIEGE 47. Mansion siege details 48. Meanwhile, Eve 49. Nil and Village

50. ZOMBIE SIEGE I

51. ZOMBIE SIEGE II 52. Zombie Siege III 53. Zombie Siege details 54. Siege Aftermath

55. VILLAGE AND PILLAGE

56. Hello world, goodbye village 57. First Adventure I: Trust 58. First Adventure II: Purpose 59. Gender? 60. Enderwatching and Snippets 61. Nightwatch 62. silly

63. THAT Wandering Trader 64. Witches 65. Testificate? 66. Witches lore 67. Fav foods ---

68. COLOUR SYMBOLISM OF THE OVERWORLD ---

69 Allays 70. Illager Childhood 71. Magic 72. Happy memories! 73. Librarian and Cleric; Liv and Klavs 74. Lil' Nil 75. Cultural Exchange

76. TESTIFICATE LORE

77. Glen the Piglin

78. GOLD 79. Piglin Zombification 80. Bed in the Nether 81. Hoglin Hunting 82. Piglins and the Overworlder 83. Glen; Hero of the Overworld

84. 'Jean'

85. Water Bucket 86. Jean's Worldview 87. Steve's worst and best deaths 88. Theories, origin and mission 89. Music 90. Steve's Pets 91. Trail Ruins 92. Kiss of Ender 93. FREE THE END

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Hair.

Hair soft as a baby’s blanket; cascading in waves of chocolate gold. Curled at the ends, and all let down. Matty imagines tugging at it: how it would feel between his calloused fingers as he pulled and guided. What it would look like tied back or braided or slipping down the drain.

Skin.

Oh, how pristine. Unmarked and tender is the silk that wraps the flesh beneath. How sweet it would taste under Matty’s rough tongue– how the crimson would escape from its confines under the pressure of his canine teeth.

Eyes.

Every last drop of the oceans could be explored and examined, and yet, nothing, no pure blue water could come close to the depth of your iris. What they would look like staring into his own; how beautiful, how moving.

Legs.

Long and strong and nothing but shadows under the draped fabric of your black dress. Matty imagines how you would wrap them around him as he drove into you– clinging to every inch; to every movement.

There’s applause. People are applauding.

The curtain comes down.

Matty stands on autopilot, your image still burned into his retinas like the sun.

This was the eleventh evening he had spent tucked away in a dusty theater in the West End.

The eleventh time Matty had seen you twist your tongue into old English rhymes and gaze into the crowd. Into him.

The eleventh night that he had gone home alone.

The eleventh time he had laid in bed, chest heaving, hand wrapped around the thick base of his cock, stroking and squeezing and picturing nothing at all but you. How your breasts would look– peaked and hardened by the cold air of his flat. How you would sound moaning and gasping his name. How he would grab at your hair, bite at your skin, gaze in your eyes, claw at your legs. How he would have his way with you. How he would have you.

It was perverted, sure.

He knew it.

He knew it, yes.

He didn’t care.

Not one bit.

Maybe he would have if things had been different.

Maybe he would have if you hadn’t been performing his favourite play.

Maybe he would have if he hadn’t been too tipsy on wine and loneliness that first night.

Maybe he would have if you hadn’t looked at him when you spoke– oh, he was sure that you had.

Maybe…

‘Maybe’s’ are useless. Afterall, he didn’t care about the sickness of it all. Not. One. Bit.

It had become religious: his church was the theater, your altar the stage. You were his Mother Mary: pure as a virgin yet beholding a work so incredible that it is deemed a miracle. Your voice rang in his ears like hymns; your lines, his scripture.

Oh, how Matty worshiped.

He imagined what it would be like to see all of you. To have all of you. He would praise, and bite, and kiss, and suck, and taste, and devour until you were a squirming mess beneath him. His devotion was in his admiration. He moaned your name like a prayer; he touched himself like his climax was the eighth sacrament. He played out scene after scene in the cinema of his mind. It followed him

You followed him.

He didn’t plan to keep coming back.

He didn’t plan to keep cumming.

Perhaps he should have been scared; your sorcery was clear– compelling him through some sort of hypnosis to return night after night, and come home sweat-slicked and sensitive.

You had to know.

He was sure you knew.

Had you thought of him too?

The eleventh night was like the rest for the most part.

Matty stood to clap as the curtain dropped and watched as the crowds of people filed out like mice in a maze through the rows of velvet seats. The lights were dim and the air was heavy. It had become familiar. The familiarity did not diminish the electricity in his veins. Not one bit.

He took the same route out the side exit, his strides consistent as he moved through the lobby.

Old men and women queued to retrieve their fur coats and jackets. 

Young couples smiled and laughed about whatever nonsense they pretended to care about.

If this were any other night, Matty would have kept straight when the cool night air hit his face and soaked his lungs.

If this were any other night, he would have called a car and made the journey home.

If this were any other night, we would have dealt with the growing hardness in his trousers alone, back flat on his mattress and head dizzied with lust and the ever present lines of your face.

Yet, he didn’t.

Because, this was not any other night.

And, as such, the moment his polished shoes touched the hard pavement, he veered left. He turned the corner, and walked until the white ‘Stage Door’ sign found his line of sight.

And then, he stopped.

He waited.

He waited for you.

He knew you would be there.

He had seen it before. Only from a distance, but enough times that he was sure of it.

He unlocks his phone, turning down the screen brightness.

He taps rhythmically, opening the familiar folder with dozens of pictures– each nearly the same.

They were all in the same place, at roughly the same time.

They were all taken on the corner where the avenues merged.

They were all adorned with that same ‘Stage Door’, the very one he stood below now.

And, they all had you.

You, in boots the night it had rained.

You, in a jacket when it was chilly.

You, in a sparkly dress when there was a cast party.

You, nursing a tea when you had been ill.

You, you, you.

He knew you would be there.

He knew you would be here tonight.

The door creaked open.

His heart pounded against the boards of his chest, threatening to crack ribs and bend the walls of his skin.

It was you.

Matty wasn’t quite close enough for you to see, but you could tell there was someone there. You could smell the cigarette they were smoking, anyway. He knew you would be able to. That’s why he lit it.

He also knew you were a smoker. That you liked Parliaments. He had a picture of it: night four, lighter in hand, smoke adorning the screen.

You take a few more steps and see him.

You think for a moment that you recognize him, but brush off the thought quickly. He was probably just in the audience tonight.

His gaze catches yours.

He smiles.

You offer a polite nod back.

He puffs smoke like it’s air.

The moment is heavy around him— he knows you can feel it too.

“Hey– you were in the show tonight, weren’t you?”

His voice is certain as he speaks through a cloud of grey– almost too certain, as if he already knew the answer.

You gesture towards the sign slightly askew from years of English weathering.

“Yeah, I was,” you smile, turning to face him.

Soft, golden light spills onto you both from the street, casting a light glow onto the sides of your faces, the others hidden by the sharp darkness of the alleyway.

“Lady Macbeth?”

“Yep.”

“You were amazing.”

“Oh- thanks!”

You grin as you always do when given a compliment about your work. They were often hard to accept; it was work after all.

You turn to begin walking, legs tired from hours of pacing onstage and head cloudy with lines and cues.

“Fancy a smoke?”

You pause for a moment, considering it.

Your head is moving into a nod before your mouth can protest.

Matty slips a slender cigarette out of his pack, offering it to you.

You take it, fingers brushing. You barely notice, quickly planting it between parted lips.

Matty thinks he might just faint.

Skin.

“Light?” He asks.

“Oh, yes, please.”

He steps closer, movements certain as he lights the cigarette.

You take a long drag, letting the familiar headrush wash through you.

He watches you attentively as your shoulders soften, eyes growing droopier.

“Thanks,” you say softly.

“Anytime.”

And then, he’s gone.

Cigarettes stomped out on damp pavement. Trousers tighter than usual.

Matty  had played it out a million times in his head: what you would say, how he would respond.

It had happened.

You had met.

It worked.

Matty let the fantasies of the evening swirl into an endless film reel behind his eyes. He watched you take the cigarette out of his fingers hundreds of times over; peered adamantly as your face lit up at his complement. How your voice was dripping with appreciation, how you had become properly fond of him in only a moment.

He knew that you had known all along.

He was sure you had recognized him, that you had known that this moment was destined to be. 

If Romeo and Juliet’s love was written in the stars, yours and his was coded in the blood that you had scrubbed of your husband’s hands for the last eleven nights. In your passing moment together, he had felt it– the blood on your hands. It was now on his, too. Turning the corner, Matty pops a finger into his mouth. 

You taste so damn sweet.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Messy sheets.

Messy hair.

Messy flat.

Messy hands.

Messy mind.

Matty’s breath is heavy. Heavier than it’s ever been before.

He drops his phone beside him– screen bright and illuminated with a new picture. One from tonight. One of you, smoking his cigarette. 

The pads of his fingers trail delicately over his bare chest. The skin had been inked for years. Each swirl of black telling a story that words simply never could.

Matty had only awoken maybe thirty minutes ago– pulled out of sleep by desire swirling low, yet heavy in his stomach. Pictures of you, hands covered in blood as you yelled out to a crowd of viewers, each with their eyes locked on nothing but you. How you would run off stage and kiss him– how he would hold you. How you would be his. 

A ring on your left hand would sparkle in the stage lights, a child growing day by day in your womb.

He awoke with sweat on his collarbone and a tet in his boxers.

His need was insatiable. He was a poor addict; you, his drug of choice.

Now, after the high had come crashing down, Matty was left as Lucifer: an angel fallen from the highest heights of heaven, left in the darkest, and most delicious pits of hell.

Matty’s gaze poured over his pale skin, adorned by the red marks left behind by his nails; kissed by his release that he had chased so adamantly.

The contrast was beautiful.

White, pearly ropes of cum covered his stomach, stretching over the years-old ink and filling in the lines of his clawed marks. His chest had become a map of lust and desire, pioneered by pleasure. 

He looked like sex itself, and he knew it.

He spent a while laying just like that: feeling his hand run over the goose-bumped skin; the same hand that you had touched only hours before.

Breaths became deeper, less shallow. Marks began to fade. Cum began to dry.

Matty glanced over to his nightstand in the darkened room, a war-torn looking notebook sat atop of it, a black-inked pen beside it.

He reaches for it with his clean hand, sitting up as he does. The leather book falls onto the sweat-dampened mattress; edges torn and spine bent.

Matty opens it to a fresh page, flipping through page upon page of songs and poems. 

Some of them were for girls of his past. Some of them were for himself. 

Nowadays, he finds it hard to write about anything but you.

Words poured from the pen like the kisses he would press into your skin: warm, sweet, sharp.

The web of words begins by saying everything and nothing at all. His eyes wander greedily over to his phone, still open to your picture.

His pen moves faster.

I can show you the photographs

Of you getting on with life

Memories of his stolen dreams play hungrily behind Matty’s eyes. His pen flies wildly over the paper now.

I’ve had dreams where there’s blood on you

All those dreams where you’re my wife

Inside my mind.

Dark eyes and blown pupils read back the lyrics; a string of syllables being hummed under Matty’s breath.

His eyes catch the last line he wrote, where he had pressed ever so slightly too hard on the ivory paper, forcing ink through the thin layers.

Inside my mind.

He watches the words as if he is expecting them to move, and he swears they almost do. Inside his mind?

Matty picks up his pen once more, scratching out the three words in one, straight line.

He writes below.

Inside your mind.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place.”

Your words are loud– booming over the low hum of the creaking, old theater. The crowd doesn’t dare speak. Matty holds his breath.

“I have given suck, and know how tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, have pluck’d my nipple from its boneless gums. And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this.”

Matty grips the armrests of his seat tighter. His gaze stays woven to you: to the way you move, the way you speak. And then, it happens. He’s sure of it. More sure than he’s ever been before. 

You look at him. 

You see him.

Your words echo loudly in his mind: ‘Be so much more the man.’

He knows it then; he knows it from the vertebrae of his spine to the hair of his head: tonight, he asks you. Tonight, he touches you. Tonight, you become his.

The next hour is near torturous: the show that had once been his favourite blends into mindless words and over-dramatzised bouts of screaming and crying. What a bore. 

None of it meant anything at all now that he had made up his mind.

He had heard the monologue a million times– seen the look on  your face as you described smashing the skull of your own child.

He had cringed the first time he heard it.

How violent?

How grotesque?

He didn’t cringe this time.

For once, he’s sure that he understood. You meant it for him.

You wanted him to make a move, god, you needed it. You were his Lady Macbeth begging him to take action.

Left alone for too long, and the love would go cold; grow meaningless. The only way to feel it would be to destroy it. 

It was sick, and twisted, and utterly gorgeous. 

How delectable, the violence.

How tender, the pain.

Soon, it would be his to have– to feel.

All that was left to do was wait.

His eyes fall back to the stage as Macbeth scrubs his hands clean.

He looks down on his own.

Phantom blood soaks them through to the bone.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Dark, grey smoke curls around Matty into the crisp London night.

The rain of the previous night has long dissipated, leaving only a cool breeze in its place.

The small lamp that illuminates the ‘Stage Door’ sign flickers. It was out last night. Curious.

Matty checks the time on his wristwatch.

You should be out any moment now. You always are.

One…two…three…

The door creaks open. You step outside.

A long trenchcoat drapes over your shoulders, wrapping you loosely and ties haphazardly around your waist.

Matty watches as you turn your head, spotting him leaning against the wall across from the open door.

“Oh!” You startle slightly, placing a hand on your chest. 

Matty takes another drag. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you, love.”

You suck in a breath at the petname, your eyes darting up and down Matty quickly. You hope he didn’t notice.

He did.

He was attractive, objectively. A sharp jawline and messy hair– tall enough and slender in frame. He looked enticing.

He looked familiar.

The puzzle pieces click in your mind.

“Sorry- were you here last night, too?”

Smoke pours from Matty’s mouth as it stretches into a grin. 

“Good memory.”

You smile softly.

“Two nights in a row?”

Try twelve.

“Yep. It’s a great show, in my defense.”

You smile openly now, a soft blush creeping into your cheeks. You take a step closer.

“I’m Y/N,” you speak softly.

“I know.”

You raise an eyebrow in response.

“Playbill,” he smiles, taking a drag. “I’m Matty.”

“Nice to meet you properly, Matty.”

He lets out the smoke he had sucked in, letting it fan in your direction.

The moment is approaching.

 ‘Be so much more the man.’

“The pleasure is mine,” he smirks, hand sinking into his pocket and pulling out his same pack of Parliaments.

“Smoke?”

You shake your head hesitantly.

“I’m trying to quit.”

“That’s not what you said yesterday.”

You pause, biting softly on your lip.

He notices.

If only you knew.

“Suit yourself.”

He slips the pack back into his pocket, dropping his own cigarette and stomping it out.

Oh, how familiar this was. Oh, how different it was about to become.

“So,” he starts, taking an imperceivable step closer. You barely notice. He does. “Headed home?”

You nod.

“Shame.”

You squint softly.

“How so?”

“We could have had some proper fun tonight.”

You let out a small laugh.

He hears it. He notices the way you suck in a breath. The way your shoulders stiffen. The way your pupils go a bit wider.

“You’re bold.”

“I’m right.”

Matty pauses, taking a larger step forward, now.

He tentatively rests his hand on your clothed arm. He tests the waters: they’re as warm as the blood that pumps through your veins. He can feel it.

“Come back to mine, love.”

You let out a soft breath, melting into his touch.

If only you knew how long he had waited.

“O-okay.”

Matty smiles.

You smile back. 

If only you knew that you were now his.

You walk a step ahead of him, his hand now resting on the small of your back.

His gaze is fixed to the back of your head– to the way that your hair falls over your skull.

What a brain you must have.

It must be swimming with lines, with words and stories. The walls of your plush mind, soaked and coated in deep maroon. Even a drop spilled would be far too precious. Matty can see it so clearly: the code it would hold. Each blood cell, engineered to your uniqueness. He would bottle it up if he could. Maybe, it would tell him everything he had been waiting so, so long to hear. Cracked, white bones and spilled scarlett would stain him with knowledge far too bitter to be obtained, yet far too sweet to resist.

“My flat’s this way, darling.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

You’re asleep.

You’re asleep in Matty’s bed.

Your back is bare.

Your hair is wild and free.

Your legs are twisted in sheets.

Your cunt is swollen and red.

Your lips are bitten and taste of blood and something uniquely Matty.

You had given yourself to him so willingly.

So adamantly.

So perfectly.

He had held you and whispered sweet nothings in your ear as you drifted into sleep; collarbone bearing the marks of his teeth and the deep blooming purple where he had sucked spots into your prim skin.

He hadn’t slept. Hell, he had barely even shut his eyes.

To do so would be a sin, he was sure of it.

His pupils had stayed glued to you, not daring to blink.

How wasteful it would be to miss even a moment of time with you?

So, he hadn’t.

He watched as you stepped foot into his flat.

As your back arched in pleasure as he licked a flat strip over your sickly sweet wetness.

As  you had shed your trenchcoat at the door.

As your face distorted in pleasure when he bottomed out.

As you had nodded ‘yes’ to a cup of tea to mend a sore throat from long nights spent performing.

As you had clawed at his back as he chased your third orgasm of the evening, rubbing a sure thumb over your overstimulated clit.

As you had laid back on his bed in nothing but your panties.

As he had come all over your stomach, just as he had done on his own.

Now, he lay awake.

His mind swam with words. Words waiting to be said. Words that had already been spoken. Words that could only be immortalized on paper.

His beat-up notebook sings sweetly in his ear.

He has to write.

The pen is heavy in his hand– much heavier than usual.

The words come less naturally, too. As if these ones mattered more– as if they were special.

When he wrote, now, it was no longer a prayer. It was a recollection. A memory. A moment chiseled into the pure white paper staring back at him.

He opened to the same page as the night prior.

He begins to write.

I’ve been watching you walk

I’ve been learning the way that you talk

Moment after moment ricochet across Matty’s vision– dancing in black and white. It was real. It was always real. 

He glances over to you know; back facing him, skull taunting him.

The back of your head is at the front of my mind

Soon I’ll crack it open just to see what’s inside your mind

You stir in your sleep, only slightly. The pen drops from Matty’s hand, leaving ink smudged across the page. 

It drips down and sinks into his lap. Deep red that paints his sheets and his skin.

It’s red. It’s red. It’s red.

Matty blinks. 

There is only a smudge on the page.

It’s black.

He glances back to you; to your head.

He watches as you shift.

Are you dreaming of him?

He picks up the pen once more.

Maybe you are dreaming you’re in love with me

The only option left is look and see, inside your mind