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occatorcreator · 3 days

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Second Chances

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3 - Friendship Forged

After the battle, Red, Yellow, Blue, and Green make friends with Purple, in spite of Purple's own doubts getting the better of him.

One of the villagers insisted that Red stay for a check up.

“If what you describe to me is true,” they told Purple, “then there may be possible side effects of her possession. I’d like to make sure she’s fit to go home.”

“Fine then,” Purple said, but struggled to hide his grumbling, “but don’t blame me if these ‘guests’ don’t wish to stay.”

“Oh, please, when they see the welcome feast we’re preparing, they’ll want to stay!” The villager said, nodding.

“Feast?” Purple echoed, “hold on, what’s this about a feast?”

“To celebrate your victory over Herobrine and the Wither!”

As the villager predicted, the stick figures were more willing to stay with the prospect of a large meal. It took some convincing to let the Villagers take Red away for a check up.

“Relax, my villagers mean you no harm,” Purple said.

“I know,” Blue said. She lingered by the window, leaning to look inside the hut. “I just hope they don’t discover something else wrong.”

“Hovering won’t help,” Yellow said, patting Blue’s shoulder. They glanced at Purple. “Say, uh, Purple was it? Do you mind if we help with the cooking?”

“Knock yourselves out,” Purple said, waving dismissively.

Yellow smiled and bowed. “Thanks! Come on, Blue!” Yellow held Blue by the shoulders and ushered her away from the window.

Only Green remained, fiddling with the Minecraft icon.

“Don’t you want to join them?” Purple asked.

“In a bit. I’m just thinking how we’re going to get home given that portal is knocked out,” Green said. He looked around in case the villagers listened in. “You know that creature is still out there?”

“You mean the Wither? I’m well aware of that,” Purple huffed, “give it some time, it probably will float off in the Nether elsewhere. It’s a large place.”

Green shot Purple a skeptical look. Purple kept his face as neutral as possible to appear firm.

“Plus, if that way is blocked for you,” Purple said, “then I can show you how to use that block to make a portal home.”

Green regarded the icon in his hands nervously, eyes flicking to the window.

“And I’m certain that the spirit that possessed her has been purged from it,” Purple said, “just hold onto the icon for her if you’re still worried about it.”

Green’s shoulders visibly relaxed and he smiled at Purple.

“Thank you, for everything,” Green said.

“Don’t mention it,” Purple said, head lifting as he basked in the gratitude of a fellow stick figure around his age. He forgot how nice that feeling was.

“So!” Green put the Minecraft icon away. “How did you make this place? Or did the Minecraft people make these?”

“You mean the villagers?” Purple asked, finding himself smirking. “This was a joint effort between me and them, though my castle was…”

And, like that, he found himself just chatting nonstop as he led Green through a tour of the village. Talking was rather easy, much to Purple’s surprise. He felt like a wise sage, imparting knowledge to a curious and willing pupil. Green wasn’t the only one with questions; they ran into Blue and Yellow while cooking, and they too decided to follow Purple around with their own set of questions.

Purple quickly learned that these three had developed preferences in the single day they had played Minecraft. Green had a keen eye for design and building, offering way too many suggestions to improve Purple’s buildings. Blue favored farming and cooking and really wished to learn about potions, while Yellow took to redstone and suggested helpful contraptions for the village. They were earnest, sheltered, and nothing like the jaded teens at school.

I wonder if these dorks could even survive high school, Purple thought in amusement.

It did leave the question about what Red would be interested in, had she not been possessed. And with thoughts returned to their friend, the three became anxious.

“I’m sure they’re done by now,” Purple said, leading them back toward the direction of the hut.

As they retraced their steps, they spotted Red in the middle of a crude animal pen, petting the cows and the pigs.

“Aw, these ones are so cute,” she cooed. She looked toward an empty space, grinning as if she was looking at someone. “Which one’s your favorite?”

“Um, who is she talking to?” Yellow asked, scratching his head.

“Spirits,” the villager beside the gate said, “or what she believes to be spirits.”

“Excuse me? She’s hallucinating?” Green balked so loudly that it startled Red.

“Hallucinating?” She repeated, looking worryingly from her friends to the empty air.

“Oh, don’t fret about it. Side effects are to be expected after a possession from Herobrine, and luckily this one is minor,” the villager said. They went up to Red with a metal bucket. They milked a cow and gave the bucket to Red. “Take a regiment of 3 buckets of milk daily for a week, and the symptoms should fade.”

Red looked down at the bucket, frowning.

“And if seeing spirits still persists after that, come see me again,” the villager added, patting her back. “And no skipping a dosage, got it?”

“We’ll hold her to it,” Blue said.

The group left Purple’s side to crowd around Red, chittering and asking of her health. Purple gave them some distance, but couldn’t help but listen in.

Spirits, huh, Purple thought, I didn’t see any online guides mentioning that. I heard of Herobrine, but he wasn’t in the game, not really. Did Alana mod the game?

His chest tightened at the thought. If something could be added to the game that could make people see “ghosts”, then why couldn’t someone add a way to stop aging?

Purple’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a caldron being hit.

“Soup’s on!” A villager shouted, “Eat up!”

“Oh boy, I’m starving!” Red said. She gave the cow one last head pat before vaulting over the fence. “Last one there’s a rotten egg!”

“Not fair! You're cheating!” Green exclaimed and, with a burst of energy, he, Yellow, and Blue came running after her in an impromptu race.

She got her good cheer back quickly, Purple thought, blinking as he walked up the stairs after them. A dining table was constructed in the center during the cooking, filled with all the Minecraft dishes available. Of course the villagers made nice color-coded seats for their guests of honor, with a throne at the end for Purple.

Purple, trying to shake the creeping funk that threatened to ruin the mood, strutted to his spot and sat down with Green and Blue at his right and Red and Yellow at his left. Villagers took their own seats further down, passing bowls around.

“Wow, these are so good!” Red exclaimed as she took a bite of bread.

“Yeah, you were missing out from the tour earlier,” Blue said, “Purple’s got a nice place!”

“Lord Purple,” a villager shouted, “could you and your guests tell us all about your battle today?”

Purple took a sip of water and nodded. “Well, I was going into the Nether to collect some… resources, when I heard a sound…”

From there, the group partook in stories, questions, and then just silly jokes and anecdotes. Purple quickly learned that Red was the clown of the group, quick to make a pun and run her mouth. She had a soft spot for the animals too, avoiding most of the meats aside from fish upon reading its descriptions.

The conversation was lively and Purple found himself chuckling at some of their antics.

“You gotta teach me potion making!” Blue said as Purple corked open another water bottle.

“Maybe next time,” Purple promised. He raised his glass. “A toast then?”

The others raised their glasses.

“To a new friendship!”

The four beamed back at him.

“‘To a new friendship!’” They shouted in unison, clinking their glasses together.

This was nice. Pleasant. For the first time in a long while, Purple felt truly joyful.

I could lead them on adventures and teach them all the tricks I’ve learned, he thought. Their curiosity and joy of the game, despite the harrowing ordeal, was infectious, and Purple wanted to recapture that feeling again. Just like when he and mom were building the castle and —

“Be grateful you never met him. He’d be horrible to you too.”

Chestnut’s words came to mind without warning. Like a thunderstrike, his good mood vanished in a puff of smoke so painful and sudden that it startled him. He froze, the scene before him slowing to a crawl and forcing him to observe it with fresh eyes. Delicious food turned to ash in his mouth and looked just as appetizing. The festive crowd turned from bubbly to oppressive and noisy.

The stick figures smiled and laughed with each other as they toasted, but Purple now found their laughter annoying and smiles too wide. When Green looked at Purple and saw the visible change of mood, his smile faded.

“You alright?”

No, Purple scowled at Green’s concern.

Out loud he said. “I’m tired,” he said, “I need to retire for the night.”

He left the table, pushing past the villagers coming by with more food.

“Lord Purple?”

“Purple, wait!” Green called out.

“I’m not in the mood. I’m tired,” Purple hissed. And it was true. It was like he was drained of battery. His limbs were stiff, and inventory items weighed him down with every step.

How could he partake in joy like this? How could he deserve to have good meals when his mother will never eat with him ever again? How could he be proud of his accomplishments when was too weak to fight Red’s possession the “proper” way? How could he bother to make friends with them when all his friendships crumble to dust in the end?

“But, we need to go home, remember?” Green pointed out.

“Unless you want them to stay the night?” a villager added, unhelpfully.

Right, Purple did not want them to stay. He marched back and stuck his hand out to Green for the Minecraft icon. He climbed to a distant spot from his castle and made the portal frame, lit it, and tossed the icon back to Green.

“When you enter, you need to make another portal in this formation,” Purple said, “when you do, light the frame just like I showed you, and it will take you to where you need to go. Now, if you don’t mind.”

He marched past Green and Red, ignoring how the group stared at him as he retreated to his throne room.

Just get away. Get away.

When he collapsed on his bed, he instantly fell into a dreamless sleep.

“Lord Purple?”

Purple groaned and waved the villager away.

“Let your lord sleep,” he grumbled, turning away.

“My lord, you’ve been holed up in your castle for a month,” the villager said, “and we haven’t seen much of you. You’ve not fallen ill, have you?”

“‘m not sick,” Purple said, “I’m just tired.”

“You’ve been tired for a very long time.”

Purple buried his head in the pillow, feeling terrible. It wasn’t like the villagers were wrong; this was the worst fugue he experienced since his mother’s burial. The sour end to the feast with those stick figures ended up coinciding with his birthday week. The realization that he was another year older, with only himself and a bunch of video game NPCs to celebrate it, left him with no energy to leave his bed. His mother wouldn’t be there to see him, to share gifts and spend time with him. He had no friends his age to invite, and thinking of those stick figures he met only hammered in how absolutely alone he was.

As such, he spent his birthday laying in bed, crying. He knew he was breaking his promise to his mother to take care of himself, but how could he keep going knowing he had a future of more lonely birthdays and solitary holidays?

What's the point of trying anymore, Purple thought, if I am always going to feel this way?

“You also have visitors here,” the villager cut through his ruminating thoughts, “They want to see you.”

That got Purple to pull himself up from his bed. It was most slow and painful, as his fatigued body struggled to prop himself up. He shot a confused look at the villager.

“Who’d be visiting me at this hour?”

The villager quirked an eyebrow in return. “Your friends from the Wither battle.”

“Wait, they came to visit?” Purple asked, eyes widening further as he straightened up.

As if on queue, the door to his chambers knocked wildly.

“Hey, Purple, it’s us!”

Purple let out a groan, recognizing Green’s chipper voice.

Why are they back? He thought, covering his eyes, it’s been a month! I thought they'd forgotten about me…

“Can you send them away?” Purple groaned.

“I will try,” the villager sounded unsure. Purple heard them walk back, opening the door, only for the door to be slammed open as the gang burst through the door.

“The hell?” Purple jumped to his feet, shocked to find his poor villager flattened by the doorframe and four eager stick figures crowding before him.

“Rise and shine!” Red greeted, waving.

“What are you all doing here?” Purple snapped. He didn’t care for decorum at the moment, all he felt was irritation at the sight of their chipper faces.

They at least looked sheepish about their intrusion.

“Well, we wanted to follow up on you,” Yellow pointed out. “Sorry we took so long! We tried earlier, but your villagers said you were too sick for visitors.”

“We sent them a soup recipe for you!” Red said “Did you like it?”

Purple nodded even though he didn’t know what either of them was talking about. The month cooped up in the castle was a blur, and he had no memory of them visiting or eating any soup. Or much of anything, come to think of it.

“Plus, you said you’ll teach us how to brew potions,” Blue said, continuing on, “remember?”

“Yes, but,” Purple started, “it’s been awhile…?”

“I know. We would have visited a little more,” Green said, “but now we’re here. And you’re…” he paused as he actually took a good look at Purple and his room. “…feeling better, I hope?”

Purple shrugged. “Sort of,” he grumbled, “but I can’t teach you today.”

“Are you still under the weather?” Red asked, having the gall to sound so down. All four visibly deflated, their eagerness fading into sadness and concern.

The sight of it made Purple both rankle from and clamor for their attention. A dual desire for their concern twisted and tumbled with the urge to be left alone to continue sleeping. He really didn’t know which he should follow.

“I’m not sick anymore, really. It’s more so that I’m… out of supplies,” he lied, “I didn’t get any time to stock up. Given that I was in bed for a good while.”

To that, they perked up. Green grinned widely at Purple. “We could get you some!”

Wow, Green just offered a nice way to get them off his back, but he did still need to play it up.

Purple turned away, shaking his head. “I can’t ask you to do that, it’s such a long list,” he exaggerated.

“No problem!” Yellow said, “I bet you could give us 100 items and we’d get it all to you in under ten minutes.”

“Is that so?” Purple remembered their conversations and his observations. These four were rather competitive; they loved to boast and heckle. Oh, this would be very easy.

“Very well, I bet I can add a little incentive,” he said, pulling out his list of potion ingredients from a chest nearby his bed. “This is what I need. The first one to come back here with all the items on this list will be the lucky one I tutor in the secret art of potion brewing.”

There it was, the manic look in each and everyone of them. These were sticks determined to win.

“Got it memorized?”

The group nodded in unison.

“Then chop chop, timer’s ticking,” Purple said, clapping.

At that they proceeded to scramble out the door with shocking violence. Yellow and Green were elbowing each other out the door, while Blue sharply shoved Red into the villager just as they pried themselves free of the door.

“Sorry!” Red bowed before tearing off, “I’ll get you for this Blue!”

There, Purple thought, dusting his hands and laying back on his pillow, gets them out of my hair for a bit.

“Here’s everything!”

Blue dumped a bunch of potion ingredients. Given that Purple’s inventory was full, the items piled on him, floating, but the sound of her entrance shocked him out of his doze.

“Uh? Huh?” Purple blinked, looking around for the others. “How did you-?”

“I may have pulled some tricks on my opponents,” Blue said, rubbing her arm bashfully. “Honorably, of course!”

“Honorable trickery?” Purple said, eying each item. “That’s an oxymoron.”

“Look, if I happened to dare Red to tame a wild horse or ask Yellow what he would make with glowstone dust,” Blue said, “it’s not my fault they got distracted and wasted their time elsewhere.”

The sour mood eased as he smirked at Blue for her cunning. How unexpectedly sly! Maybe he was too quick to brush them off earlier.

“And what of Green?”

To that Blue paused, looking rather embarrassed. “I told him he forgot to grab ender pearls for the ingredient list,” she said.

“Lying?” Purple let out an exaggerated gasp of horror. “Color me shocked, I didn’t think that would qualify as an ‘honorable trick.’”

“Yeah, but-”

“I knew you were full of it!” Green snapped, appearing suddenly. He marched up, pointing a finger at Blue while looking heavily bruised, no doubt from his scraps with angry Endermen.

“What? I thought it was true!” Blue whistled.

“Bullcrap!” Green tossed his stuff down. “Purple, you can’t let this cheat get the win!”

“I dunno,” Purple said, “I didn’t give any rules on how you were to get it, just to get it.”

Green gave the most amusing irritated reaction. Purple needed to stifle the laughter bubbling in his throat.

But then, Green’s shock turned to scrutiny, then into a smug smile.

“Well, she can’t win anyways,” Green said, pointing at the pile, “there’s no nethwart!”

“What?” Blue sifted through the pile and sure enough, no netherwart. “But I collected it- oh no!”

She gasped, slapping her hands over her mouth.

“What?” Purple asked.

Of all the things Blue said next, Purple wasn’t prepared for it.

“I ate it all!”

“You what?” Green shouted.

But Purple couldn’t speak, for he fell off his bed and onto the floor cackling.

Purple didn’t know how these four stick figures wormed their way into his life, but they managed to carve a space, bit by bit.

At first it was only a once a month visit. Sometimes, they bumped into each other while out in the Minecraft world; other times, they showed up randomly on Purple’s desktop. Then it became every two weeks. Then once a week.

Alana quickly caught wind of new stick figures visiting her desktop unannounced, and she was annoyed with Purple. She instated a rule that visits were to be strictly over the weekends and that they were not to touch her files. The gang were amenable to this and ended up visiting Saturday or Sunday to meet up, trade with the villagers, and play with Purple on the desktop.

One day, Purple was invited to visit the color gang’s computer. It was initially to judge some impromptu build completion, but ever since, Purple ended up visiting their desktop every Wednesday to hang out or play games. Windows was a different experience than Purple’s Mac. For one, their Animator, aka Alan Becker, was more present on the computer than Alana was, but he was fine with Purple visiting whenever he felt like. Sometimes he joined in their play, other times he just kept to himself and didn’t bother them much.

It took a long time for Purple to admit this to himself, but he was glad that he became friends with Red, Blue, Green and Yellow.

That didn’t mean it was all sunshine and roses.

The four were hyper competitive and loved to fight. Way too much, in Purple’s opinion. They got up in arms over such little things. Even Blue, who opted for taking a peaceful approach when possible, was quick to join in a fray. Purple found himself either stomping out potential skirmishes or letting them tussle it out of their system. Purple wondered if Navy had met them, would he try to coax him to be more like his friends?

The thought of their similarities to Navy plagued him. It didn’t help that of the four, he and Green got into a lot of frequent clashes when they were out adventuring. Green seemed to be a de facto leader of the group, and haughty. Purple found Green the most vexing; some days he went along with Purple’s ideas, and other times Green wouldn’t stop nitpicking them.

And Purple learned the hard way that if Green was crossed enough, he would raise a sword against him.

They were in the middle of making a build, Purple and Green already started with an argument on either building a pagoda or a castle. When neither could settle the dispute, Blue suggested building on the castle on one side and the pagoda on the other. That worked for a bit, until Purple discovered that Green’s castle cut on his side where his pagoda should be. Purple tried to mine down the walls to make room, causing Green to come by to stop him. They argued and argued, only stopping when Green pointed his sword at Purple.

“Green! No!” Blue scolded, forcing Green’s arm down. Purple could see Green’s arm strain, glare not leaving Purple’s for a moment.

How that glare reminded him of Navy…

“That’s it, we’re done here,” Purple said, dropping his materials and marching away.

“Wait, where’re you going?” Red asked as Purple pushed past her.

“Home. And don’t bother coming this weekend or any other weekend after that,” Purple snapped.

“Wait- why?” Yellow balked.

The question, so simple and yet so stupid that Purple had to stop and look back at them.

“Why? You raise a sword at me and ask me why?” Purple yelled, “I’m not going to be friends with people who’ll raise a sword against me over a stupid build!”

The gang looked between him and the others in complete horror and shock. Green stared at his sword, slowly blinking as though it had only occurred to him what he had done.

“But… fighting is part of the game!” Red said. “I mean, we’ve fought with swords before, and you weren’t bothered by that?”

“I WAS bothered!” Purple said, “You have no idea how much it bothers me with how violent you all get! You guys are on the cusp of violence half the time, and it’s scary!”

Red, Blue, and Yellow exchanged an unreadable look. Then, Blue tentatively stepped up, hands clasped.

“Why didn’t you let us know that it bothered you before?”

“It was obvious!” Purple snapped, stomping the ground. He deflated a bit when he saw Blue flinch back. “It was.”

There was a beat of silence before Blue continued. “We didn’t notice, honest! I know we’re easy to rile up, but if you told us that this bothered you so much we’d try harder to do better.” She rubbed her arm. “We probably could have avoided this if you had.”

“Plus, don’t let yourself off the hook,” Yellow added, “I mean, you kept riling up Green over this build instead of dropping it, and talking over him whenever he said anything.”

Purple rankled and pointed a finger at Yellow. “So? That doesn’t mean I deserve to have a sword pointed at me!”

“I’m not saying that,” Yellow said, raising his hands in defense. “I'm just being honest about how I feel- you dislike how we fight each other, and I dislike that you aren't clear about how you feel. It didn’t need to come to this point.”

“We’re your friends,” Red said, though with a questioning lift to her tone, “surely you should feel safe enough to tell us these things?”

No, I don’t, Purple thought, but he couldn’t get himself to say it out loud. He hated that, right now, he was proving them right. Hated that he always felt the need to clam up and hide his true feelings. Hated that he was being put on the spot. Hated how nervous and hurt they looked when he kept saying nothing.

He looked to Green, who had not said a word the entire time. Green stared down at his sword, muted and contemplating. When he looked up to see Purple’s gaze on him, he let out a nervous sigh and dropped the sword to the ground. The others turned to him upon hearing the clatter.

“Green?” Blue asked, but Green didn’t say anything. Very slowly he walked up to Purple, stopping only when Purple felt his foot move a step back.

“I’m sorry,” Green said, “I let my temper get the better of me. I shouldn’t have raised my sword at you over an argument over a build.”

Purple looked down at their feet. “You are aware that could have hurt me,” he said, quietly, “Killed me if you were careless.”

“I-” Green blanched, “No, I didn’t think of that. I’m sorry for that. And I’m sorry I didn’t know our fighting bothered you that much.”

Purple looked down at Green. His eyes were hidden, and his normally confident stance subdued and ashamed. Whatever vindictive thought Purple had about leaving or telling him off vanished.

I don’t want to be like my mom, making excuses for Navy, Purple thought, but I’m not doing myself a favor in ditching them.

He should give them a second chance.

“And Green? I’m sorry too, for not explaining how I felt earlier,” Purple said, looking at Blue, Red, and Yellow too, “let me be honest now: I don’t want you to fight like that. Swords and TNT shouldn’t be drawn or thrown over something as trivial as builds. I don’t want to ever feel like I’m going to get hurt if I did something wrong.”

“We will work on that, starting right now,” Yellow stepped up, “No matter how difficult it is, we’ll do better! We won’t fight like that again.”

“Promise?” Purple asked.

Yellow nodded and Blue stepped up. “Yeah, we promise.”

“But you’ll need to give us grace,” Red said, “We like sparring, but we’ll spar only when it’s appropriate- not when we’re angry.”

“Well, a spar’s different than a fight,” Purple said, “I just… I’ve seen what fighting like that leads to, arguments and fists.” His head drifted down. “It hurts people more than you think.”

It was the closest to voicing his mother and father’s whole affair to them. He should tell them, but he wasn’t ready. Not yet.

“Then, can we still hang out?” Green asked. He blinked rapidly, and Purple saw tears forming.

Purple looked down at Green, acknowledging the hopeful look in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Purple nodded and opened his arms for a hug. “See you on Saturday.”

He wasn’t prepared to be ensnared in a group hug as the others joined Green in hugging them, but their embrace felt comforting if a bit tight.

I just hope I’m not repeating my mom’s mistake.

#occatorart #alan becker #animator vs animation #animator vs minecraft #second family au #ava purple #ava green #ava red #ava blue #ava yellow

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