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“i’m leaving.”
tubbo looks up. the girl in front of him is perched on the kitchen counter of the caravan, firecracker curls cascading down her shoulder. he nods, silent. it was going to happen, eventually. nymphs don’t stay when the lakes dry up and war follows.
“are you taking fundy?” he says, quietly. the youngest member of l’manberg was asleep in another room, having been sung to by his father. a ballad, of sorts, in the language only this nation knew. it originated with tommy and wilbur, a familial language that they decided to use for l’manberg. it flowed easily from their tongues, tubbo’s not so much, but he learned easily enough. it sounded beautiful, patriotic, romantic. it was what wilbur had dreamed of whilst travelling, but now they were in the middle of geopolitical warfare. children don’t deserve to grow up in wars, he thinks to himself. it would make sense to take fundy far away, to return in peacetimes. he ignores the small voice in his head that reminds him that he and tommy are only children, too.
to tubbo’s surprise, she shakes her head. “i’m going back to sea, and he can’t swim. he wasn’t a nymph, as we all expected,” she laughs, soft and gentle. it was true. a mix of avian and nymph, fundy had somehow been born a fox/human hybrid. this meant that he aged differently, and despite being born only a few years ago, the boy was just a little younger than tommy and tubbo, now.
he’ll miss sally, tubbo thinks. her wit, her warmth. the way she smelt of sea salt. the way she made sure that him, and tommy, and eventually, fundy, were content and happy on their travels to find a place to declare their nation. there was nothing tubbo could do to convince her to stay. it wouldn’t be fair for her to stay in a place that was now constantly under attack. she deserved to go, to see the sea again. integrate back into her culture as a nymph, to be free. the yellow and black walls of l’manberg did not scream safety, rather danger, and a lot of it.
she sacrificed everything, when she fell in love with the brown haired traveller sitting on the docks. she told the story often. “he sang like he was blessed with the magic of eden,” she’d say fondly. “and his younger brother was whining and splashing his feet in the water so much that i came up to see what the commotion was about.” to which tommy would stick his tongue out and scrunch up his face.
sally was like the older sister both tommy and tubbo never had. tommy, who grew up with only wilbur, and tubbo, who grew up in anarchy servers alone. she doted on them, made sure that they were safe, kept them busy, told them stories before they slept. her and wilbur would sing up a riot by every campfire at night, and she taught tubbo everything she knew about being safe in the wild. but nymphs weren’t made for revolution, and war.
she didn’t expect this. perhaps she expected to listen to wilbur’s songs once, to pull him into the water as a joke. she didn’t expect to be here, years later. one family, one nation, one declaration of war pinned on the tree closest to the entrance.
wilbur would understand. he wanted the best for her, always. tommy however, would be devastated. and so would he. a fond smile. the smell of sea salt. quiet affirmations, a squeeze on the shoulder. how would they get through this godforsaken war without her?
as if his thoughts had escaped his brain, laid flat on the table like a war strategy they’d pore over late into the night, she got down from the counter and hugged him tightly. “write to me? messages in bottles. i’ll get them. as soon as the war is over, i’ll be back. i know my boys. crazy determined and insanely skilled. the war will be over in a month, tops.”
her boys. wilbur, the wanderer with a guitar and a vision. tommy, the loud, blond, kid brother who followed wil everywhere. himself, straight out of constant war in anarchy servers and catapulted into the next. fundy, young and giggly, who loved his dad’s songs and his mum’s stories. and she was leaving.
he nods, afraid that if he spoke the tears would start spilling, and gives her one last hug. in silence, he climbs the ladder on the caravan wall and hitches himself onto the roof, where tommy swings his legs and fiddles with his hands. below him, he hears the muffled cries of fundy, and seconds later, wilbur and sally begin to sing.
the air in l’manberg is frigid.
“she’s leaving, isn’t she?” tommy says, as tubbo shuffles closer to him. of course he knew. he always did, somehow. he claimed it was from years of growing up with the most secretive brother ever, and tubbo was inclined to believe him, given how little wilbur had shared with him about so many topics of his life. tubbo makes a noise of confirmation, and tommy leans into him dolefully.
“i’ll miss her.” tommy’s voice cracks, and beneath a sea of stars in the dead of night, two boys mourn for a girl who wasn’t dead.
a week passes, and l’manberg is quiet without sally, albeit not physically. wilbur had come home one evening with a bloodied nose, his uniform spattered with red, after an altercation with dream. tommy and tubbo worked tirelessly to teach fundy how to fight, to hold a sword, to be quiet around the enemy. it was far different to sally’s lessons, of cooking and reading and sewing.
dear sally,
it’s been a week since you left, and it’s a lot quieter without you. tommy sends his love. everyone misses you. eret sings to fundy before bed, now. wilbur is busy preparing for the war. it will come soon, he says. he got attacked yesterday but he’s fine. i’m scared, but we’re coping! fundy is fine- we try to keep him out of the war. tommy is trying to be cheerful; he says we’ll have won the war by next week. i’m trying to believe him. hope you’re safe. :) – tubbo.
tubbo clutches his sword and the message and sets off. the river rushes downstream and swallows up the note tubbo throws in. a twig snaps, and tubbo whips around, stumbling slightly.
george. dream’s right hand man, stands before him. tubbo flinches instinctively, raising his sword above his face. for a kid who learned how to survive around constant explosions and people hunting him, he’d never been a fighter.
george raises his eyebrows and lowers his sword nonchalantly. “i’m not here to fight you- i have a message. you can go home after, promise.” he twirls the hilt of his sword in his hand, watching tubbo as he gains his composure.
warily, tubbo drops his sword to his side. “go on, then.”
moments later, tubbo stumbled through the woods, barely finding his way back to the walls that guaranteed his safety. or maybe not, come dawn. dream’s message had been heard loud and clear. white flags by tomorrow, or they were dead.
an hour later, l’manberg had been informed of the conditions. the sun had set, and their weapons had been organised. wilbur refused to back down, to ‘die without dignity’. tubbo secretly wondered whether dignity mattered in death. there’s no changing wilbur’s mind, and so tubbo curls up next to tommy in a bed too small for the both of them, and they lay there, stone faced, sick to the stomach. the war had been nothing but a game until recently; hollering at the smp soldiers whilst hanging from trees and engaging in light combat had transitioned to hiding supplies in abandoned caves and treating tommy and wilbur as they came home with yet more scars, bruises, burns. there is no joyful singing to lull tubbo to sleep. the silence is cut with eret and wilbur’s muffled voices next door discussing plans, and tubbo’s stomach lurches everytime he almost falls asleep.
the morning comes far too quickly, and tubbo stumbles into the main room of the caravan to see everyone in their uniform. even fundy, who was dressed in a pastel mock-up of their revolutionary outfits, holding a sword slightly too big for him. tubbo’s stomach flipped. just kids, just kids, just kids. dear sally, i saw your son hold a sword today. i’m sorry. l’manberg was just eret and wilbur and three kids far too young. tubbo felt so lost. it wasn’t like the war hadn’t been going on for months now. tubbo and tommy themselves had engaged in multiple bouts of trapping, attacking, and overthrowing the opposite side’s men, to no avail. so why was this any different?
“gentlemen,” eret cleared their throat. they looked around, nervous, but that was natural for war, right? “i’ve been working on a secret weapon, for l’manberg.” tommy laughed, relief escaping from his lips. wilbur smiled, and patted eret on the back. “take us!” he said, and that was that.
a button. a laugh. a traitor.
“get out, GET OUT! FUNDY!” wilbur, collapsed in a corner, lung punctured with an arrow, burning to death. his frantic shouts echoed through tubbo’s mind.
“fuck, eret- what? tubbo?!” tommy, grabbed from behind and neck cut open with dream’s sword, thrown against a wall. he is face down; he is bleeding out; he is dead.
fundy only screamed. loud, high pitched, as a sword ran through him.
tubbo, on fire. tubbo, who dropped his sword in shock. tubbo, who just watched everyone he loved die. tubbo closed his eyes and prayed to god someone would just get it over with.
dear sally, we-
a blow to the head.
death had been lonely for far too long. he felt the desperation in the place, clinging to his skin, begging for things tubbo could not provide. his head ached, his throat felt like it was on fire. pain flooded his entire being and images of the war played out in front of him. helpless and alone, tubbo did what he believed he did best – laid down and accepted his death.
he left almost as quickly as he arrived.
he was awake now. in bed, alive, breathing. which member of l’manberg had respawned and dragged their bodies home? he didn’t want to ask.
tommy was across from him. tubbo watched with bated breath, and as tommy sighed and turned around, he relaxed. just asleep. not dead. not anymore.
“tubbo? tubbo, you’re awake?” wilbur’s frantic whisper registered in his brain, and he nodded, sitting up. bad idea. his head banged, his bones ached, everything was spinning. gently, wilbur pushed him down and checked him over. “it’s been a day. i woke up first, but i was already here. fundy woke-“ wilbur’s voice cracked, guilt seeping through his soothing whisper. “fundy woke up second. i gave him a healing potion and he feels better. he’s fine. he’s okay.” it was a mantra not meant for him, tubbo thought. “tommy woke up next, and immediately left. he said we meet with dream, well, tomorrow.”
tubbo nodded. his throat hurt, but he didn’t think that was why he didn’t want to speak.
glowing eyes, tommy’s screams, fundy’s yelping, wilbur’s shouts. arrow released; sword drawn. the prayer that eret whispered over tommy’s body- was that a hallucination in his last moments?
dear sally, tubbo wrote later that day, tears spilling over.
the eret who swam with you, the eret that sung fundy lullabies when wilbur couldn’t, the one who built our walls and swore alliance to l’manberg, has betrayed us. we didn’t see it coming. when i picture them now, i still see the person who weaved buttercups through your hair, not a soldier with glowing eyes who sold us to the enemy. i watched them all die. there was nothing we could’ve done, but wilbur is in bits blaming himself. trapped in an obsidian box, it must’ve been like fish in a barrel. they practically built the coffin themselves. all of us are awake now, bruised, scarred, but otherwise fine. fundy is outside, chasing butterflies like nothing happened. the only difference is that tommy sits nearby with a sword drawn. he’s determined not to let him die again. we meet with dream tomorrow. to surrender, to fight more, i’m not sure. – tubbo.
the letter gets thrown into the river. tubbo wonders what her reaction will be like. he wonders if she’ll read it and see the distress, the silent “please come back” written all over the letter.
that night, tommy and tubbo sit on the rooftop of the caravan again. wilbur sleeps in fundy’s room, refusing to leave him. no words are exchanged between the two. the whistle of the wind through the redwood trees is shrill, a warning signal that arrived far too late. a bandana covers the wound on tommy’s neck. tubbo’s hands shake. it feels as though they are still on fire. he thinks that tommy probably hears their family’s screams for mercy as well. beneath the stars, they mourn a girl who breathed life into their home, and the death that followed in her departure.
morning comes, and then afternoon, and suddenly tubbo is standing with his family, opposite the dream team on a part of the prime path near the community house. since death, everything has been engulfed in a thick fog tubbo’s brain can’t wade through. wilbur pats his shoulder and silently, he tries to remember how he got here. blood still stains their uniforms, and tubbo sees how tommy trembles as he approaches dream, hands up, empty.
it would be so easy, tubbo thinks, for them to grab him and kill him again.
“we aren’t surrendering,” tommy scoffs, as if this is the easiest sentence in the world to choke out. stupid, brave, loyal tommy. “a duel, for our country. one arrow each, no armour, half a heart. whoever wins gets their terms of the treaty met.”
wilbur chokes out a cry. tommy was specifically told not to “run his mouth, to challenge dream on his honour” by wilbur. he didn’t know about this. this was the last thing wilbur would’ve ever wanted. (tubbo was told, in the dead of night. nothing would’ve convinced tommy, so tubbo just squeezed his hand in apprehensive approval before they slept.) dream nods in agreement, and tubbo’s throat closes up. after all that’s occured, how did he still expect the soldier to possess compassion? eret stands behind him. they are no longer wearing the revolutionary uniform, and instead they are decked out in strong, heavy armour. a privilege only reaped by the most important of the smp’s soldiers.
dream laughs. “ten paces?”
“and we shoot each other.” tommy confirms.
the enemy is not a man of many words. would he have screamed for the grace of soldiers if the roles had been reversed in the final control room?
minutes later, tommy readies himself. no one wanted to physically hurt him to reduce him to half a heart, so tommy had to drink poison someone had made accidentally one night at home, stored carefully away so no one would hurt themselves. and now tommy was drinking it willingly, ready to lose another life. tubbo wasn’t sure why he didn’t seem afraid of death. he wasn’t going to ask.
standing tall, tommy grins while his brother straightens his collar with deft fingers. he salutes tubbo, and ruffles fundy’s hair. these gestures weave into a quiet, determined declaration: this ends now.
the four make their way back to the bridge, where both dream and tommy prove they’re on half a heart.
a countdown from ten. tubbo stands on the sideline with fundy by his side. he wishes he wasn’t here, but alone in l’manberg would’ve been far more dangerous.
“three. two. one.” wilbur’s loud, commanding voice finishes, and the two groups wait. no one fires at first, but dream approached, confident, cocky. it causes tommy to stumble trying to back away, and in that moment dream has him.
arrow pulled taut. straight in the heart. he didn’t stand a chance.
tubbo screams. he doesn’t think he’s stopped since.
wilbur stumbling into the caravan with a broken nose, fundy holding a sword, eret’s glowing eyes, tommy plunging into the icy water. what other fragments of the war will join tubbo’s carousel of nightmares tonight?
cheers erupt from the other side of the bridge.
“he just died!” wilbur screams, choking on angry sobs. “have some fucking tact!” tommy is sinking in the water. tommy is sinking into the water and tubbo thinks this must be a cruel hallucination, that he’ll wake up from this elaborate nightmare to sally’s singing, wilbur hunched over a book in the living room whilst fundy and tommy charge around play fighting outside. nontheless, through his daze, he moves to help wilbur pull his brother out of the water anyway. it is icy. he feels the cold too much for it to be a dream. this is real. tommy is dead, again. again. again.
fundy lets out a whimper beside him.
“you must surrender when he wakes up.” dream says, and the enemy turn to leave.
they failed. they failed. they failed.
they ride home on horseback, wilbur’s coat thrown over tommy as he grips onto him. it is a life or death situation. tommy is cold, and limp, and bleeding.
wilbur gets tommy dry and puts him to bed. he is breathing now, at least. tubbo makes fundy something to eat and brings him to bed. he tries singing. his voice cracks, and his l’manbergian is far from fluent like wilbur’s or tommy’s, but it does the job. fundy sleeps.
there is a disturbance outside the caravan. a soft knocking that tubbo already recognises. wilbur is at the door when tubbo leaves fundy’s room.
“please- let me help, i’ll leave immediately after but-“ a traitor’s voice, pleading. a traitor’s arms, filled with potions and bandages. a traitor, coming to their aid.
“you aren’t fucking welcome here. my brother died twice. he would be alive if it wasn’t for you, you fucking traitor.” wilbur spits. whilst there is venom in his words, his voice wobbles. wilbur is grieving. tubbo knows he needs sleep.
“i’ll see him out, wil.” tubbo says, gently. he wonders when he became the commander of the two of them. thankfully, wilbur listens. tubbo steps outside, sword in hand. eret walks with him.
“tommy is breathing,” he begins, and eret smiles gingerly. “no thanks to you.” the smile drops, and they flinch. “i’ll take the medicine. you aren’t forgiven, and you aren’t welcome back. but we have nothing.”
eret shoves the box into tubbo’s hands, and tubbo nods. “now go. don’t be seen around here” and with that, the traitor disappeared into the night. to turn around after being the direct cause of tommy’s death, to offer medicine with shaking hands as if they were the one who was in pain. tubbo shakes with silent rage. he misses eret. he thinks he’ll miss them for the rest of his life.
a healing potion, tightly wrapped bandages and a herbal concotion tubbo makes an unconcious tommy drink. it isn’t much, but it’s still more than the entirety of l’manberg has left. tubbo sits on top of the caravan. this time, he’s alone.
dear sally, today, your stupid tommy gave his second life for l’manberg. we have lost the war, unless wilbur wants us to fight until we are all dead. (tubbo emits the words “please, tell him not to. i don’t want to die again. i don’t want them all to die again. come home. come home, please.”) we pulled his body out of the river. fundy is fine. i’ll make sure he’s safe. tommy is breathing, but unconcious. still respawning, still in death’s grasp. it could go wrong at any moment. an arrow to the heart is not an ideal wound for me to fix. eret came around. they gave me medical supplies. i took them. it was not forgiveness. i will take anything to keep tommy alive. everyone is asleep. i haven’t been sleeping much. i hope you are safe. i hope you are enjoying freedom again. we all miss you. we understand. why did you leave? maybe we will meet you at another dock, when we inevitably have to leave. have you even gotten these letters? did you say you’d write back? it’s been two weeks, and yet it feels like centuries. i’m off, now. i should sleep before whatever the other side have planned tomorrow. wish us luck – tubbo.
eventually, tubbo will crawl into bed with his brother, and make sure he is still breathing before drifting off to sleep. in the morning, he will send the letter down the river. but for now, beneath the stars that ultimately too beautiful for a world so cruel, he mourns a girl who he prays isn’t dead, a traitor who once built the walls who keep them safe, and his family that will never be the same.
the morning comes, and tommy is awake. he seems fine, and insists that he needs to meet dream alone. tubbo’s frantic protests are halted with promises tommy will come back, unscathed and alive. there is nothing tubbo can think to stop him. his most impulsive friend, his stupid, crazy, brother. there is nothing he can do, so tubbo hugs him.
“i’m coming back. i promise. i know what that bastard wants.” tommy says, chin leaning on tubbo’s head. there is unspoken trust. tubbo can’t find many words nowadays. he thinks the only reason he agrees is because he knows if he doesn’t, tommy will go in the dead of night, and he will get injured, and not make it back home alive.
wilbur’s refusal is firm, before tommy says something quiet enough that tubbo cannot hear. he figures he will be told soon, if it’s important. with pursed lips, wilbur says something back and tommy nods. wilbur sighs, and hugs tommy tightly.
“be safe. if you die, i’ll kill you.” he jokes, and then another something in the nation’s language that tubbo cannot place quickly enough.
with that, tommy smiles, repeats it and runs out of the door with his axe and bow.
“do you know what he’s gone to do?” tubbo asks quietly, an hour later, sewing patches onto fundy’s uniform coat. fundy is sitting next to him, humming quietly, drawing something on scrap paper.
“no. but he told me that whatever it was, the outcome would be good. that i had to trust him, for-“ wilbur pauses. “god knows. he says he’s ‘got it under control’, and to trust him”
“he said that last time, too. look where that got us” tubbo snorts. he pricks his thumb on the needle and swears under his breath.
“he’s insistent like that.” wilbur smiles, trying hopelessly to hide his anxiety, but wilbur’s heart is on constant display, sewed onto his sleeve for all to view.
“prime knows where we would be if he wasn’t,” tubbo says quietly, just as anxious and ten times better at hiding it, bottling it up. too much to worry about, he muses, even without his feelings piled on top.
tubbo’s thoughts are interrupted by loud cheering and excited giggles. instinctively, he grabs his sword before recognising the voice as tommy. he runs outside, wilbur in tow, fundy behind.
despite facing death twice in three days, tommy looks elated. he is out of breath and clutching his side, and perhaps it is out of pain but tubbo is reminded of days where they would weave through forests and play tag. they were some of the first days tubbo felt safe in the months after he escaped the places he had lived as a child.
“gentlemen!” tommy crows, a grin on his face. despite his worry, despite the way he is clutching fundy’s half sewn coat in fear, tubbo cannot help but match it. “l’manberg is officially the newest independent nation of the dream smp!”
tubbo drops fundy’s coat in a puddle and runs to him.
the war is over.
wilbur is screaming, but this time it is joyous and loud. he twirls fundy around on his shoulders. tubbo is hugging tommy so tightly he’s worried he’s suffocating him. he doesn’t know when they ended up on the floor but it doesn’t matter.
we are free we are free we are free
“how- what- you’re sure?” tubbo asks, adrenaline rushing through him.
“completely sure. have the documents here,” tommy laughs, sitting up. tubbo hasn’t heard him laugh properly in weeks. he isn’t sure the last time he laughed himself. “i gave up the discs.” tommy says, more somber now.
tommy’s pride and joy. in the earlier days of the war tubbo and tommy had engaged in multiple instances of a much more high stakes game of chase for posession of those discs. running, ducking, tossing them to and fro. eventually they’d gotten them back, and it felt like the first win of the war. that night, sally sung along to the jukebox loudly into the night, and tommy had smiled triumphantly.
tommy sacrificed them. for us. for l’manberg. tubbo thinks, and tears up.
“you dumb bastard.” tubbo laughs through tears, and hugs tommy once more.
“anything for you lot.” tommy says confidently, and hugs back.
later that night, when wilbur is playing guitar, and tommy is singing loudly and out of tune around the campfire, tubbo writes.
dear sally.
we won we won we won! this morning tommy woke up and insisted he had to speak to dream alone. we let him, for some godforsaken reason. but it worked. l’manberg is an independent nation and the war is over. its over. after months of fighting, we don’t have to worry anymore. we can just live. we can invite new people. l’manberg is no longer under attack. this is the happiest i’ve seen us since you left. wilbur is playing guitar and tommy is singing. fundy ate a full meal for the first time in forever and now he’s running around happily. earlier, tommy taught him how to light sticks on fire. i’ll keep an eye on him, don’t worry.
i am so glad its over. i don’t think i could handle another death. we are free. you can come home. the war is over! we are recognised citizens! – yours, tubbo.
tubbo rushes up immediately to deliver it, and tommy follows suit. wilbur calls that he’ll put fundy to bed, and to be safe.
together, they throw the message into the river and tubbo lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
that night, for the first time in forever, they sit on top of the caravan and the stars do not feel like they are mocking them. tubbo hopes sally will come home soon.
------------------
it’s been a year. since l’manberg was first liberated.
a year, tubbo thinks bitterly. the worst year ever.
he bends down to scoop up some of the fresh snow. the ice cold of it all reminds him that he is alive, that he is relatively safe here. in the quiet of the dawn, he hoists himself onto the top of a cottage. it is not a caravan, and it is the sunrise, rather than a sea of stars that looks upon him. perhaps, these subtle changes are for the better. snowchester is a fresh start. he left the smouldering grave of l’manberg behind along with the boy he used to be months ago.
dear sally. tubbo knows this will be the last time he writes. moving on means severing childish strings of hope.
you never came home. i’m not sure why, to be honest. perhaps the letters never reached you. perhaps, you enjoyed the sea too much to come back. i hope with every fibre of my being it isn’t because you died.
tommy still misses you everyday. even more so, recently. a lot has happened since the last time i wrote, mid november, to inform you of wilbur’s death. tommy died for the third and final time. it was gruesome, and it was not the hero’s death he deserved. he came back, though. he always does, somehow. jokes that death doesn’t want him. i hope it never does. after his resurrection, he’s more fragile now, and it is hard for him to shake his depression most days. on the worst days, he wakes, disoriented, believing we’re still in l’manberg, deep into the first war. i’m the same, but who needs to know that? too much to worry about. new responsibilities.
i havent heard of fundy in a while. i’m sure he’s well. he grew up, of course, and unfortunately approached good intent with bad ideas. i believe he lives with niki now, a lot farther out. there are too many memories that haunt central dream smp. i agree. niki, who arrived shortly after the war, still wishes she could’ve met you.
all of us, except wilbur, have forgiven eret. we believed it was the kindest thing to do. right now, we still arent on the best of terms. i can’t exactly forget the death trap they willingly lead us into. so much guilt has lifted from eret. i think most people deserve to be forgiven, eventually. no use holding on to old grudges. that means thinking too much about the past. admist several explosions, scars, descents into madness, too much responsibility, more wars and a countless number of bad choices, i don’t know why i’d willingly do that.
i live on a commune i founded, now. snowchester. it’s a place for people to go, if they need somewhere safe. prime knows i needed it. tommy lives here, too. he protested, but i got him to agree. he secretly adores his nephew, and tolerates his brother in law.
surprise! i got married. you’d like him, i think. (he’s fucking loaded). he makes me feel safe, and he was one of the only people who cared for me in my brief stint as president of l’manberg. we have a son, a piglin toddler called micheal. he loves drawing, and singing, just like fundy did as a kit. i’ve put pictures of us all in this message. if you ever want to visit, we’re north of l’manberg in a snow biome. ask for directions to snowchester. missing you always. – tubbo
the message will be thrown into the ocean later. for now, tubbo sits atop his cottage and watches the sunrise. he mourns a girl he once knew, with scarlet red hair and safety radiating from her, and hopes to everything that she isn’t dead.