↚The Pig's Shadow | Dream x Reader | Slowburn ↛

Chapter 26: A Letter to an Old Friend

First co-authored chapter :D

Mel is bold-italics, I'm just bold.

Eret's castle looked as dismally boring as you remembered it. Although someone had painted the windows with images of rainbows, the stone bricks were just a dull gray. As you approached it, Schlatt took the lead, poking his head into empty rooms. You saw Eret at one point, but purposefully ignored him and didn't tell Schlatt.

Finally, the two of you found Sapnap hoarding bread in the cellar. He glanced up as you entered, his face going from surprised to suspicious to uncertain to uncomfortable at the speed of light.

"Hey Schlatt, hey... Shadow." He placed another loaf in a bag, not meeting your eyes.

"Hey Sap. We'll keep it brief so you can... horde... bread." You gestured awkwardly to the shelves full of baguettes. "Listen, do you know what Dream did to that book I had when... y'all recaptured me?" Schlatt made a curious noise, but you gave him a look that clearly said 'Shut up, it's none of your business'. Judging by his eyebrows, he didn't get the message.

Sapnap hesitated. "Oh, you mean the book you had that was written in Ender?"

"Ender?" you asked, confused.

He shot you a suspicious look. "It's yours, right? How would you not know what the language is called?"

You paled. "Uh, I learned it a while ago, but I didn't know it had a name! It's... a diary." This was partially true. You had often teased Ranboo about keeping a diary, even though it had a different name. A memory book, a diary, what's the difference?

Sapnap looked unconvinced, but he nodded. "Actually, yeah. Dream and I burned it a few days afterwards. He said that he could read Ender and claimed there wasn't anything interesting in it, and I had to concur. Just a ton of smudged ink stains and the Ender entries." On the one hand, you were overjoyed that Dream hadn't taken an interest to the book, but on the other hand, it meant you couldn't contact Ranboo. Oh, and you were terrified that Dream had read Ranboo's memories.

"Seriously?" Schlatt muttered, annoyed. "We came all this way for f***ing nothing?"

"I mean, we're not going to find him in the forest. He's a gremlin. A very, very, very tall gremlin." One of the numerous conversations the two of you had had was describing yourselves to the other person. It had taken a comedic amount of time for Ranboo because the only available reflective surface for him was water, which he was deathly afraid of.

"Y'all could poke around where we burned it, I guess. Some scraps of paper burned off and blew away, maybe you could find those?" Sapnap offered. "I'll take you there, if you want." You nodded, despite Schlatt's voiced objections. Sapnap dipped his head. "Alright, let me get my bag and we can go." You followed him through the many shelves in the cellar, which were crammed with bread and spirits. Schlatt oohed and awed as he passed, sometimes pulling a bottle of wine off of a shelf and putting it in his bag.

"How many bodies do you have back here," you joked. Or at least partially joked. It wouldn't surprise you if Sapnap had a few skeletons in his bread ovens. The man in question gave you a 'not-amused' look over his shoulder.

"None. At least, not yet. So don't get me mad, or I'll start a collection," he laughed. "What about you? How many skeletons in your closet?"

"Far too many," you said darkly. Schlatt scoffed.

"She's not f***ing wrong." He picked up a wine bottle and whistled. "'The Macallan 1926'? Holy sh*t, where'd you pick up this beauty?" He grinned at you, then tucked the bottle into his bag.

"Market somewhere, I forget. Schlatt, get it out of your bag," Sapnap called back without turning around. Schlatt grumbled something about firey demon b*tches but placed the bottle back on the shelf. Oh God, I can practically hear Mel singing 'Good Old Days' right now.

You're not wrong XD

Finally, the three of you walked back up the stairs and followed Sapnap to a field behind the castle. A flicker of movement caught your eye and you followed it to a window. Inside you could see Eret, watching y'all unhappily. You gave him a vulgar gesture and continued walking. Schlatt noticed and glanced up at the window, scoffed, and rolled his eyes.

Ahead of you, there was a large ash pile with wood stacked next to it.

"This is our bonfire spot," Sapnap explained, wiping a streak of ash off of his boots. "I mostly use it for testing fire starters, but we do occasionally roast marshmallows on it."

You had no idea what a 'marshmallow' was -or why anyone would want to roast it- but it sounded disgusting. Marsh was a swamp, and mallow was an edible plant. Edible marsh plant. Yum.

"This is where the paper scraps would be, so... I'll... leave you to it, I guess," Sapnap said awkwardly, waving and heading back to the castle. Schlatt pulled a log off of the pile and sat on it, pulling out a 1984 bottle of wine and uncorking it.

"Sure, go ahead, drink while I work, Jon," you teased, scanning the grass around you. It was all yellow, dry, and uncut, with the sun reflecting off of it in flashes of gold and white. JSchlatt grumbled something profane at you about using that nickname, but you were already walking around, head craned at every flutter of white.

It took about twenty minutes (mostly because Schlatt didn't help and got himself knocked out by the wine), but you finally found about a half of a page, the edges charred. You glanced at the writing, noticing that it was your own scrawl, and laughed to yourself as your mind pieced together this particular conversation.

Did you know that there's only one state that starts with a 'K'?

Fascinating. Totally worth my attention when I should be making my dinner.

Oh. Well. There goes the joke.

I have outsmarted your outsmarting, mortal fool.

Hey, no 'Mortal'ing me, Enderchild, or I will find you and dump water on your head.

Enderchild Abuse. Call the police.

Boi, the only police here are a crazed pyromaniac, a colorblind short-one, and a mass murderer wearing a frisbee.

You're the colorblind one, right?

What? No! Where did you get that idea?

You're short.

That's hardly fair, coming from a giant.

Shaking off the memories, you grabbed the inkwell out of your pack and scribbled a hasty note in the small space available.

Enderchild, this is Y/N. Come to L'manburg. I'll explain later.

Carefully folding the note and placing it in your backpack, you Walked over and shook Schlatt awake. "Come on, fool, we're done."

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1138 words

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EYYYYYYYYYYY IT'S US, THE DUMB SQUAD.

I didn't agree to that name. I am not dumb, and there's only two of us.

Fine. Le Stupid Duo?

Fine.

Excellent. Sorry this took so long, some of us were on a week-long trip, and someone forgot to save the google doc. *cough cough* looking at you Mel *cough cough*

Shut up.

Anyways,

TA TE CHILDREN

I second that.