A Rift Through Worlds (A Dream SMP x Hermitcraft AU)

To teach and to fight

When the tour of the zoo concluded, the sun was low on the horizon, pulling a white blanket of clouds along with it. Deep blues and fiery oranges had overtaken the ocean and the stars were accompanying the bride to the pedestal with slow steps. And as the moon chased the sun, ever so slowly, ever so patiently, Cleo and Tommy were making their way back to the insect exhibit.

They walked through the road they had taken before, Tommy saying goodbye to all the animals they came across. He said goodbye to the baby elephants, to the empty bee dome, to the giant, magnificent peacocks, to the flamingos and the crocodiles. The sun was shining in their faces, blindingly beautiful under the everlasting rainbow.

"I used to be a teacher", Cleo told him as they made chit-chat. Tommy looked at her with a questioning gaze. While he had had his suspicions about Cleo being some sort of all-wise person (with all that knowledge about exotic animals), he was still surprised to hear the truth be admitted so openly.

"Really?", Cleo nodded with a soft smile, smiling at memories that Tommy couldn't see.

"Mhm. I taught science on a few other servers whilst keeping building as a hobby", she said, "I was in a few high schools"

"Wait, wait, wait", Tommy quickly interrupted her as he let the words sink in, "You taught science?"

"Yeah"

And to Tommy, thanks to Tubbo and his talking Tommy's ear off about how great science is and what some Albert Einstein did with it, it seemed like the greatest thing of all time.

"You made nukes?!"

Neither of the two knew whether or not that question was a joke. Not even Tommy himself, who had been the one to utter the sentence. Nevertheless, Cleo laughed and then nodded in a manner that Tommy could only decipher as a 'maybe'.

"One of my students made a nuke for a project", she told him and his mouth fell agape, "He got an A+ at the end of the year, despite the fact that the principal banned him for the rest of the year"

Well, that's a fun story Tommy wanted to hear. He thought of Tubbo at that moment, of the way his best friend found explosives and anything gunpowder-related to be fascinating when others found it scary. He thought of all the stories the shorter of them had told him from school; tales of funny teachers, tales of funny pranks. And he remembered that he had never shared any of his own; he didn't have any to share.

"I never went to high school", he muttered, lowly, because that was something he had learnt led to trouble.

Phil had told him that those who cut their education short were easy to manipulate, to maneuver, to make a puppet out of. Wilbur later, before L'Manburg, during the peaceful days of working at the hotdog van, he had tried to get Tommy a tutor but no one would stay for more than a day because of the teens obnoxiousness. They'd all leave with headaches and less money than they'd demand. And in the end Tommy gave up, and and then he convinced Wilbur that he didn't need a teacher, that he'd teach himself.

Look how that turned out.

"You didn't?", Cleo asked, sounding mildly surprised. He shook his head. "Why?"

There was concern in that question; concern he had only noticed in the way his family spoke to him; in the way the hermits questioned his way of thought and way of life. So, he clenched his hands and told himself that cleo was someone he could trust -no matter how much of a stranger she was still to him, she was one of the hermits, and she was good.

"I wanted to follow Wilbur to the Dream SMP, so I cut it short to move with him", and that truth, that memory, felt more real than it should've.

"Oh, is that your brother? Wilbur?"