Of a Flock

Chapter Twelve

Dream stepped out of the portal and lifted his nose up into the air. It was almost a shame that his mask was covering his entire face, but the wind still managed to worm its way through the gaps, and his hair. The sun shined above, warm, but about a hundred times colder than the Nether, and he soaked it in. A few clouds slunk along, and a soft breeze flushed through, bringing out all the scents Dream had previously missed.

"Oh my gosh, it feels so good to be out of the Nether!" Purpled sighed dramatically, falling to the floor and flapping his wings against the grass. "My sweater was just about to kill me in there with all the heat!"

"Why didn't you take it off?" he asked, tilting his head at the kid.

"Why don't you take off your mask?"

"Touche. You win." Dream grinned when Purpled pumped his fist. "Now can I get out of the lead?"

The kid bolted into a sitting position and clutched the leash tighter. "Nu, uh. Not until we get far, far away from this portal. I don't want you flying into it as soon as I let you go."

Dangit, he knew. And I don't want to go into a cave . . . On the outside, he rolled his eyes. "Why would I do that? I have more self control than that."

"Actually, no, you don't. Let's go." Purpled hopped to his feet and tugged the lead. Dream grumbled and gave a last longing glance at the portal, before following the surprisingly strong violet-backed starling.

"Do you still have the ender eyes?"

"No, they're back in the Nether Fortress," he crackled, his eyes wild.

Dream snorted. "You can calm down, you know."

Purpled whirled and stepped up to him, his purple wings spread out wide. He tilted his head up to meet Dream's hidden green eyes. "Calm down!?" he practically screeched. "After you have literally tried your best to drive up and down every single wall in the Nether, literally! I'm going to dream about running away from gold blocks tonight! If I never see another shiny again, it's going to be too soon." He backed down and shifted his wings shut. "I'm just glad that the End doesn't have anything shiny, otherwise I would have been begging Techno to take you back hours ago."

He frowned. "But we've only been together for about an hour and a half."

"Exactly."

"All right, all right, I get it," he said evenly. "I'm a magpie. The worst bird to be when an avian."

"Actually, that would be a paragon falcon. A.k.a., Quackity."

Dream tripped up and quickly recovered. "He's a paragon falcon?"

Purpled gravely nodded. "The fastest bird in the world. He's crafty, and annoying. I don't understand why he calls himself a duck name, but he definitely is a quack." He shuddered, and once again, Dream wondered what the man had done to him for Purpled to be afraid of him. The kid could take down a warden without a problem, but one man scared him.

Silence overtook the two as they walked into a forest. Purpled took out his ax and began to hack away at the trees.

"Find some sheep, will you? I want to craft at least ten beds before we enter the End," he said, chopping away. "We have invisible potions, one strength potion, regeneration potions, enough netherite to make an entire suit of armor, and a few hundred ender pearls. I got rid of everything we don't need. How about you?"

"I have some wood, iron, a couple water buckets and some ladders," Dream said, grabbing his diamond sword. He twitched, watching it flash in the sunlight, and forced himself to look away before Purpled took it away from him.