#amaly writes

Tango's eyes were red. And in the Nether, this was competely normal. Well, not normal, per se... while not unheard of for a blazeborn, red eyes were rare. Caused by eyes that were too human to handle the lava that boiled beneath their skin, but blaze enough to function regardless, the hue was reflective of the boiling blood cells bushing their way to the surface. The bloodshot red of adjustment, of heat, with minimal impact on his vision, as far as anyone could tell.

But in the Nether, it was a novelty more than anything. In a world where red was the color of the sky and ground, the fungi and bricks, and half the creatures all shared the hue, having scarlet eyes was no more interesting than heterochroma.

That had all changed when Tango first entered the Overworld.

As if it wasn't enough for the sun to shine brighter than any lava pool, or the sky to attempt to extinguish his flares, or the colors to be so vast and indistinguishable being outside sometimes simply gave him a headache, the people of the Overworld seemed much more... disoriented by the red-ness of Tango's eyes.

As he interacted with person after person, world after world, even in worlds with creatures of every variety, he felt estranged. People looked at him with their white sclera, meeting his crimson, and ranged in reaction from confusion to worry to fear to hatred.

He'd gotten question after question asking why he was "like that", if he had redstone dust in his eye, if he needed a medic, if he'd gotten enough sleep, if he was aware his eyes were bleeding, he'd heard it all.

He'd been called every name under the sun and then some, from a freak to a horror, something to be locked away and hidden. His eyes went from a something he forgot to a part of him he was painfully aware of. He learned to look down, to hide them as long as he could. To preface conversations with "I know-s" and dismissals, to back for reactions.

It wasn't as though everybody reacted strangely. There were always outliers, those who saw his eyes and barely reacted, who would be surprised and move on, or those who would find them admirable, cool, interesting. And those moments were held onto and appreciated, of course. But they were few and far-between. Those who approached, who commented, who spoke up were so overwhelmingly negative.

Red, completely and wholly.

Tango learned much later that the issue lied far beyond the color of his eyes. That people of the overworld feared the Nether, knowing it as a dangerous death-trap. They entered to plunder what resources they could and left without a word. They interacted with its creatures as little as possible, fearing the fires. His red eyes were something strange to latch onto, to blame the treatment and fear on.

Then, Tango entered another world. Hermitcraft. And in it, he built a home. One to mimic the world he no longer lived in, but loved nonetheless. And he held his breath, trying to scout out who to avoid, who he could befriend, and who would be uncovered by his presence. He waited for hatred, for stares.

He never made eye contact anymore. He'd learned to fear it. So when a taller man approached him to intrudoduce himself, he didn't look up. He was from the overworld; there couldn't be any chances taken. That was until he crouched down to eye level, and Tango had no choice but to look into--

Red.

White sclera, sure, but iris and pupil matched in hue, a red not too far from Tango's own. A long scar traced the half of the man's face with the red eye, partially covered by the mask over his mouth. A friendly conversation. A normal discussion. No hesitation, not a flicker of confusion or worry. Then, the man-- Etho-- turned around and called someone over. And Tango had to stop himself from staring.

A creeper-goat mutant, heavily scarred, but with a demeanor that radiated kindness. And his eyes... one eye was completely dark, inky and buglike, adding another question of the genetic pool of the person in front of him. And the other... strange and mechanical, whirring with redstone signals. And red. All the way through.

Hermitcraft was a special place. It seemed everyone had seen people act and react to their existence differently. Everyone had a story, ugly and beautiful and complex. And, as a result, those few and far between had all condensed into one server, one world. Long since having learned to look past what could be seen, as they all hoped would've been done for them. And, gradually, Tango's eyes returned to how they were always meant to be.

Just another part of who he was. Rare, and red.

Grian inhaled once.

Fresh air filled his lungs. Real, humid, fresh air. Not void-filtered air, taken from various worlds, mixed and artificially filtered, making sure those who hadn't Aceneded survived.

Survived.

He exhaled.

His hundreds of Eyes twitched incessantly, a constant reminder of Their influence. Always Watching, always keeping him trained on one world or another. He'd spent countless years Watching as others lived their lives.

This time, it was his turn.

The sky was grey, heavy clouds building. Most of the hermits were inside, hiding from the inevitable downpour or lamenting about how they couldn't sleep away the simple rain. Grian looked up at weather the entire world found gloomy, and he grinned. Smiled wider than he had the entire time he was in captivity; because that's what they told him it was, now that he was free. Captivity. That the world wasn't meant to be walls and rules, that he should've anyways been able to do as he wished.

He looked up into the gloom of the sky and stretched his wings, testing the feeling of the moving air between his feathers. The rain had started now, spaced-out trickles of water gently falling to the earth, but it was picking up by the second.

One beat, two.

Grain took a step backwards, bracing himself, then a step forward. Another. Faster with every step, feeling the resistance build under his wingspan, the sky itself begging to lift him into the air, bring him against the forces of gravity. He felt the limbs he used to stretch only for more room on his body to open Eyes flap once, twice, three times, in time with his ever-growing steps.

And then he was airborne. Tens of times over, now, he'd flown. Since joining hermitcraft, he'd flown every chance he got, slowly, painstakingly re-learning how to take to the skies. Never once did it lose its magic, the exhilarating feeling of suspending himself in nothing, feet far from any surfaces, existing in the void above; the kind one. The one that cradled the creatures within it with vast, invisible somethings, as though to directly challenge the crushing emptiness of the true Void, taunting it with its kindness.

The rain was pouring now, and Grain was flying fast enough for each drop to make an impact. He was soaked through, hair plastered completely to his face, jumper sticking to his skin, chilled to the bone. It was freezing, and Grian's face was numbing slightly from the pelts of spring cold. He'd spent so many years alive. So many he couldn't count them, though he was sure it had far surpassed a normal player lifetime. Eras upon eras of players passed by. Thousands, millions Watched.

A sharp beat of his wings sent him rocketing upwards, and laughed piercingly, tightening his wings to his back and allowing himself to free-fall back to the ground for a few moments before extending them once more, gliding in looping circles high above.

So many years alive. And, yet, somehow, he'd never lived.

Realistically, the flight had only been around an hour. Maybe more, maybe less. The rain had slowed down. The sun shone through, peircing the clouds and illuminating the world in its sunset-filled hues, coloring the horizon with warm tones. Grian's wings ached, muscles still re-growing from years without use. The smell of damp soil and the sounds of life slowly emerging from its hiding filled his senses. Grian glid to the ground, touching down, weighed by the force of gravity once more. It had been an hour.

Yet it was a lifetime. It was a second. It was a breath of fresh air. It was seeing through his own two eyes, living his own life. No longer condemned to Watch.

He collapsed backwards onto the wet grass, staring up at the last few droplets of rain as they fell onto his already-drying face. Shivering, soaked, cold, exhausted, breathless, and aching.

Free.

Alive.

Grian inhaled once.

The air was sharp with evening frigidity. His heart was running at a thousand miles a minute. His throat hurt from the cheers and laughs he'd shouted up in the sky. His jumper would probably have grass stains on it.

He didn't care.

An exhale.

For once, he was well and truly himself.

Identity was a strange thing. Who are you, really? A collection of experiences that shape the mind, a genetic factor that can be easily corrupted if things go wrong? What is the difference between a person who is identical with another, who was created as…

False stared down at her hands. 

Empires False stared down at her hands. The title sent a shudder through her.

The dreams that she had dismissed night after night had all been proven true. Who was she? A clone of some kind, no memories, with a creator/twin who feared her too much to give closure and friends who had known a version of False she never was before ever knowing her? She had been sent to a whole other world. Banished, for the sake of safety. And yet, here she was, unsafe. Even in her own world, her alternate self haunted her. It was absurd, really. And yet there she sat in Cogsmeade, staring down the weapons she had built her life around, inadvertently. 

She hated to admit it, but she was scared. 

Scared of who she was, who her alternate self was. What she remembered, what she now knew. A lifetime— if that— of pushing people away, of hurting them, of fights and attacks. A “lifetime” that had led her to this very moment. She didn’t know how she felt. Lost, abandoned? A part of her wanted so desperately to find her alternate self, to confront her, to demand answers in any way she could. 

Somehow, another part of her resisted. 

False was so tired. Of the nightmares and sleepwalking, of confusing comments that in hindsight made so much sense, of stories connected through an unstable rift, of anger. Of fighting. 

Cogsmead had been her only home. Her escape, her slice of identity that she had all to herself, far from violence and far from the version of her who lived in the other world, with the other “hermits”. And as much as some parts of her yearned for her to fall into her own patterns…

She sighed. Turned around, walked with legs that weren’t really her own, because nothing was truly her own. No part of her was really herself. Left the main building, rocketing into the air, glancing over Cogsmead. She was a lie. Someone created from another, by another, of another. Completely unoriginal. Except for this. False had made friends, in a world to herself, carrying a name that wasn’t truly hers, creating a kingdom as a refuge from a life she didn’t remember leaving behind. 

She glided back to the floor, finally assured. Hiding behind two pieces of wheat was a trapdoor that led to a bunker she had hid on her own. In a land she had built. There was a barrel in that bunker. And in that barrel, she collected her weapons. Potions of harming, swords and TNT, everything she could find from an era of hurting. She hung her weapons up, and she walked away. 

Identity… was a difficult thing. But she was not the woman on hermitcraft; she never had been, no matter what. With or without the weapons that had banished her, False was her own person. She shared DNA, a face, a voice, and a name, but those things didn’t define her any more than they defined the next person. False was herself, not because she fought, but because she had been shaped into someone new. Her time on Empires— her whole life, really— meant she was different. She was someone Hermitcraft False could never be. People change a million ways every second. And False, in all her doubts, knew for a fact that she didn’t have to force the change for it to come her way. She’d just put her weapons down there, for the time being. Do more good, bring more joy to others’ life. 

Become herself. Find who she was. In her own time, alone. Away from those who claimed her the same as another. Everyone knows the story of Hermitcraft False. 

But to this day, the ending to False’s story remains her own.

°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~

Check out the Hermit a Day May charity link!

My name is Aai, pronounced like the first letter of the english alphabet. I'm bilingual, Muslim, and queer.

(More about me under cut)

°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~