#skizzlemanweek

Skizz can only focus on so many things. In grabbing for the letter, he hits a tree. In dodging a cliff, he loses sight of his prize.

“What’s even in there, anyway?” Skizz yells over the whistling wind. A storm is brewing, and it only spurs Skizz to fly faster. “Can we just leave it?”

Impulse flares his elytra into a glide just so that he can put his hand to his chin in a mock thoughtful pose. “Hm. No.”

“Aw, c’mon!” Skizz complains, because the twitch of his friend’s lips gives him away. Whatever this is leaves Impulse smiling, but in itself is not important enough to leave him panicking. Hm.

The letter has floated back down now, teetering just above the grassy terrain. Skizz swoops low, both hands outstretched, whooping as he finally snaps it up between his fingers.

Not a moment too soon, as Skizz feels the first drop of sky-cold water against his arm.

“Let’s go home!” Skizz swerves in the air, trying to do a U-turn. It only takes a laugh from Impulse to know he is going entirely the wrong way.

The droplets turn from light drips to pebbles to heavy stones. By the time they bust the door open, both of them are absolutely drenched.

Impulse shuts the door and herds Skizz towards the furnaces. He shucks off his elytra as he goes, the soggy wings falling off his back in a way that Skizz almost envies, his back heavy from ruffled and waterlogged feathers.

“You stay here.” Impulse pulls out a towel from a nearby chest and tosses it over Skizz’s head. By the time Skizz gets the energy to pull it off and start drying himself proper, Impulse is returning with more towels, along with blankets and pillows.

The furnaces are crackling with full fires now, the light popping of glowing embers a welcome change from the booming thunder and blinding lightning. The storm is muffled now that they are inside, flashes of light barely visible through the curtains against the windows.

They move to the couch when they are sufficiently dry, Impulse taking a new towel and delicately going over Skizz’s wings, pausing only to fuss over the blankets tucked around the couch’s edges.

“So,” Skizz starts, once they are settled with warmed carrots and stew. He takes one more bite of his food before he sets it down, and opens the bundle containing the precious package. “Are you going to tell me what was in this envelope?”

It happens again, the suppressed smile, the slight curve at the edge of his lips. Impulse sets down his soup and turns to face Skizz, this time with a slowly growing grin. He pulls out an envelope opener from his pocket, ever prepared.

“How about you open it and find out?”

Skizz raises an eyebrow and scans the envelope for clues. No stamp, which means Impulse received it from someone directly. He just came back from Hermitcraft, so…Tango? Or maybe Grian? He did knock down the guy’s flashlight tower the other day.

“This better not be a prank,” Skizz gripes, to test the waters. Impulse has always been bad at lying, and this time he does not try, just shakes his head immediately.

“Nope, not a prank. Not at all.”

Odd phrasing. It almost sounds important, for all that Impulse was happy to let it be lost to the wind.

Then again, they did spend time to chase it down. Maybe it is important.

“Alright. I’m opening it.”

The paper tears easily. Skizz knew whatever it contained had to be light, but he is still surprised when he only finds a single page inside, neatly folded into thirds.

He knows it is Xisuma’s handwriting the moment he fumbles it open. The admin of Hermitcraft has sent along little gifts and check-in letters often, along with reminders that he can arrange visits to see Impulse whenever he likes. 

Those writings had neat handwriting paired with the casualness of a friend. This has a different tone: formal, but no less warm.

After a unanimous vote, we are pleased to invite you to join us as a member of Hermitcraft from Season Ten onwards…

Skizz has to read it again, and again, and again. He skips the rest of the paragraphs, the details of the next season and the outline of server rules, and finds the very last line.

From the bottom of our hearts, we’d love to have you join us, Skizz. Hope to see you soon!

“This is for real?” Skizz finally looks back up, to where his friend of decades sits across from him. Just one glance of bright eyes and a grin wide enough to burst is enough to convince him. 

“It’s for real. Of course it’s for real!”

Where is his buddy? Skizz checks his comm and, yes, it shows ImpulseSV as awake and moving. He flicks his comm to their chat page, which still shows Skizz’s unanswered texts.

It takes Skizz a moment to find the entrance to Dot’s current project, the course impressive and wonderfully decorated. If not for the fact that Skizz was rushing through it to find his friend, Skizz would have taken ages to walk through and admire every nook and crevice.

Skizz has to take a dip in the water, much to his disgruntlement. When he emerges and shakes off his wings, a familiar blur of yellow is there to meet him.

“Skizz!” True to his predictions, Impulse startles, hopping a good block into the air before ambling towards him. “What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for you, obviously!” Skizz shakes his wings again, making sure to flick the water in his friend’s direction. “Check your comm!”

“Oh!” Impulse startles, patting down his jacket, then his pants. “Ah, I think I took it off because I was working with so much water. I’m still not used to these new comms being waterproof, you know?”

“Yeah, I get that.” Skizz checks his own comm just in case, marveling when the device beeps to life with no issue. “Good for me, since I always forget about it.”

As Impulse rummages through his cluster of shulker boxes, Skizz takes a moment to take him in. His jacket and enchantments has made sure he is mostly dry, but his hair is still in disarray. His purple-tinted glasses are askew, and an unfinished redstone repeater is tucked haphazardly into his pocket, half of it dangling beside his leg. 

Impulse makes a noise of celebration as he holds up his comm. He wobbles as he shuts the lid, too preoccupied with scanning his message previews, and that makes the decision for Skizz.

“Okay!” Skizz claps, drawing his friend’s attention. “Let’s go.”

“Go?” Even as Impulse sighs, he still pockets his comm and wanders towards him, away from his boxes and boxes of multicoloured building materials. “Go where?”

Skizz grins, spreading his wings. “Away! Let’s get out of here!”

He takes flight, and almost instantly smashes into a dirt wall. 

Impulse laughs at him, the sound louder than his first rocket. 

“Come on, the exit’s here.”

Impulse leads them out into the open air, and from there Skizz takes over, swerving them away from the bustling cyberpunk city and towards their neighbours.

Impulse laughs when Tango’s base comes into view, following Skizz’s thoughts without a word.

After all, Dipple Dot is not the only person who needs a little fun every once and a while.

-

On hindsight, maybe walking into a newly-discovered trial chamber with no armour was a bad idea.

“Watch out for the kids!” Skizz hollers, swiping his sword in front of him as the little zombies do the monster equivalent of nipping at his ankles. “Man, I hate these guys!”

“I’m starting to think this was a bad idea,” Impulse despairs, safely perched on the locked ominous vault. A breeze had blasted him up there a few minutes ago, and there he has happily stayed, shooting arrows down below.

So Skizz shoots an arrow at him. “Come down and fight, you freeloader!”

“I’m helping!” Is the indignant reply. To his credit, the next shot actually lands, killing one of the husks. “See?”

Tango makes a string of blaze noises, a mixture of gurgling akin to lava and hissing akin to fire. “My shield’s gone!”

Skizz takes a swing at a Bogged, mouth twisting as the sword bounces off the golden armour with no issue.

Yeah, they need armour.

Skizz flares his wings and takes off, landing on a higher platform with enough force that the copper below his feet shudders. He checks that the platform is clear, away from mobs, before he cups his hands to his mouth and yells.

“Retreat, retreat!”

From there, they scramble back towards their bed and chests, laughing even while dodging the whirring flurry of wind charges. The breeze tries its best, but soon the chaos of an unfinished chamber is left behind them.

Their safe spot gives them a moment to rest. Skizz sighs as he slides down the copper wall, the metal cool against his back. The lamps cast their little bunker in a warm glow, shadows stretching along the beds and pulling their forms across the corners of the room. 

Maybe these lamps were the equivalent of the sun, for the people who used to live in these halls. With how hectic the fighting has been, Skizz almost forgets that this is all done by people long gone. 

The hours of mining copper, of waxing, of crafting trapdoors and lamps and everything in between. Whoever lived here before spent lifetimes to make these walls.

He falls asleep, just for a little while. When he blinks back awake, Impulse is waving a golden carrot in his face, a bowl of soup in his other hand.

“This is fun,” Tango concludes, as they finish gobbling their food and gear up to jump right back in like the lunatics they are. “Crazy, and a little scary, but fun!”

“You got the wind charges?”

Impulse is just a speck of yellow in the distance, nearly indistinguishable against the sunlight. Skizz has to use his communicator to talk to him, with how far away he stands. 

“Yeah, I got them.” A pause, a message flying through the worldwide channel. “Oh, hold on. Tango wants to watch.”

“Get him to bring his own wind charges!” A shadow zips over Skizz’s head, Zedaph descending onto his own haphazard column of red sand. It makes Skizz feel like the widest sandwich on earth, with Impulse on one side and Zedaph on the other.

Skizz shakes out his wings, idly catching a stray feather as it floats around his face. His skin feels restless, though the heat is probably just as much to blame.

Skizz waits for Tango to join their voice channel before he starts pestering him.

“Hurry up!” He bellows, cackling when Tango responds with muttered blaze noises and the sound of whistling rockets.

“Have you guys tested this yet?” Tango asks, as he quickly assembles his own pillar into the sky, slapping together a frankly unnecessary amount of scaffolding.

“Nope!” Zedaph chimes brightly. “Well, Impulse says Grian tested it out, but only Gem was with him to throw the wind charges. And Grian’s not even windborn! I bet Skizz can do much more than blow some guardians out of a lake.”

“At least Xisuma’s around.” Impulse pauses as he types a message, and relays the replies to them. “He’s got a backup copy saved. Feel free to let loose, Skizz.”

“We should’ve done this at your base, then!” Skizz shakes his wings out again, looks around at the barren landscape of their sand collection point. 

They know Skizz well enough, by now. Even with a backup saved, just being near to their precious architecture would make Skizz dial it down by the dozens.

Here, though, is no man’s land.

“Okay!” Tango has finally ascended his scaffolding. “Reefy!”

“Great!” Without warning, white wisps explode towards Skizz from Zedaph’s pillar. The gust kicks up the sand beside him, ruffling his feathers. “Oops, sorry! Test shot!”

“Wait, wait!” Skizz eyes the horizon and plops down his bedroll. “Let me snooze.”

It gives him a moment of calm, a chance to settle his thoughts and get into the space he needs to do this well. By the time his bedroll is rolled up, his valuables stashed away in his ender chest, he can feel the difference.

The air in this desert is warm, slowly floating upwards from the sheer heat of the sand. When he breathes, the air shifts. It does the same near Zedaph, near Impulse, near Tango.

Skizz closes his eyes. “Fire another test shot for me.”

The burst of wind comes from Impulse this time. Skizz sidesteps the blast and opens his eyes to take in the impact as it collides with the sand. The white wisps glow brighter now that Skizz is concentrating, and he diligently tracks as the magic fades. 

“Alright. When I say go, just keep firing until you run out of blasts, okay?”

Skizz nods as his friends agree. 

“Right. Three, two, one…go!”

Skizz tracks the first wind charges as they whizz towards him, not with his eyes but with the honed instincts of a windborn. The wind charges part the air like icebreakers in the ocean, barreling towards their destination with no care for detours.

Three seconds before the wind charges reach Skizz, he spreads his wings. Two seconds, and he flaps them, feathers glowing aether white. One second, and a swirling ring curls around Skizz, just in time to catch the wind charges.

The ring quickly engulfs Skizz’s sight, shooting far past his head faster than any time before. It takes a moment for Skizz to hear his friends cheering through his communicator, because the wind is so loud it creates a veritable vacuum of sound.

When Skizz tilts his head up, he can only gape. The wind charges have gained a glow akin to his wings, swirling upwards in a spiral that can only be described as a tornado. The pure white has become a dusty maroon, sand sifting through the currents like an ocean on land.

In the middle of it all, the eye of the storm, stands Skizz. For the first time since leaving his birthplace for good, the skies have bent to his will.

“Skizz!” Impulse yells through the communicator, barely restrained glee in his voice. “We’re out of wind charges! How’s it looking in there?”

Skizz takes in everything one more time, the way the vortex seems to turn without a sign of slowing, and can only laugh. 

“Oh, it’s looking pretty calm here. I could take a nap.”

“You’re nuts!” Tango yelps. He never got used to extreme weather in the overworld, and it still shows. “I’m about to fall off all this scaffolding, and you want to take a nap?”

Skizz grins, and shifts his feet. When he moves, step by step, the tornado follows.

His wings have to stay outstretched to keep the tornado going, but flying around has kept them more than strong enough to hold the air for a little while longer. 

“Want to join me, Top?”

It takes a moment, but then Tango is letting out a blaze shriek and firing several rockets at once, to the unhelpful cackling of Impulse and Zedaph. Skizz elects to ignore them for now. The day is still young, and their own whirlwind terrors will come soon. 

A test jump is enough to tell Skizz that the wind will carry him, far faster and further than any elytra there is.