xB didn't really know why he hadn't told the others, if he was being honest. It's not like it was gonna ruin things between him and his friends. It's just that, well, it was new, and then he was living far away, and then it would have been awkward because he'd gone so long without telling them, and things just... snowballed. He was pretty sure people had their suspicions, but he'd never told anyone, and he felt kinda guilty about it.
After all, it's not every day that a new mob gets added to Minecraft, and then goes ahead and gets added to you, as well.
See, xBcrafted hadn't always been like this. He'd been as human as they come, with maybe a little bit more affinity for water that your average player, but all that earned him was some teasing comparisons to the new guardian mob, when that came out. Personally, xB had never seen the connection, but to each their own. Then 1.13 hit, and suddenly he was a dolphin.
He wasn't a dolphin all the time, to be fair, hence why he'd been able to do a couple days of Season 6 before going off to have a 500-day-long identity crisis. No, he just grew a tail and fins whenever his legs were fully submerged. Which, normally, was fine enough and easy to avoid doing around the other hermits, except–
A beach ball hit him in the head.
"Sorry, xB!" Pearl called, picking up the beach ball from where it had bounced. "I was aiming for Cleo!"
"You were not aiming for Cleo," Cleo retorted, "Because if you had been aiming for Cleo, then Cleo would be aiming to systematically remove all your internal organs."
With that, the two ran off, squabbling.
"You alright there?" Hypno asked, from where he was sat on the sand next to xB's beach towel. "You were kinda in your own head."
"No, I'm fine," xB assured him, "It's just... people."
"Yeah, I get that," Hypno nodded, and went back to his book.
xB looked around at all the hermits messing around on the beach. Pearl and Cleo were still roughhousing, and they stumbled over Gem and Impulse's attempt to half-bury a sleeping Tango in the sand. Zed, Grian, Scar, and Doc were engaged in an attempt to build the most architecturally-intricate-while-still-stable-and-upright sandcastle ever, while False, Etho, Wels, and Cub were playing an intensely-competitive game of volleyball. All the other visible hermits were in the water, messing around (dear god why was Keralis wearing that thing again), although xB knew that Mumbo had taken a small expedition party to poke around the tide pools.
And then there was a thud, and a lot of yelling. Cub had hit the volleyball so hard it had gone up several blocks, before crash-landing on top of the sandcastle. Grian let out an agonised scream, and xB couldn't blame him. Zed made a show of throwing in the towel, as Cub went over to help the three remaining members of the project fix what had been destroyed.
"Princess!" Keralis called from the water. "Come join us!"
xB was reluctant, to say the least. Sure, he'd probably be going ankle-deep at most, but any water posed a risk if xB wasn't careful enough. But looking at Keralis' pleading eyes (and ignoring the everything else), xB caved. He stood up, and made his way out to the water, discarding his shoes and rolling up his jeans.
He waded out a little further than he would have liked, since the group Keralis was with was refusing to meet him halfway, but whatever. Knee-deep was okay. Knee-deep was manageable. He was fine.
"Aw, man." Beef pouted.
"What's aw man?"
"We had a bet running," Jevin explained, "Beef thought you would turn into a mermaid the moment you set foot in the water." xB winced internally. They were almost right.
"You've seen me in the water, man!" xB laughed, trying to shake the nerves.
"Yeah, I guess we have," Beef shrugged, before turning to look behind xB with an alarmed expression, "xB LOOK OUT-"
xB didn't react in time, and suddenly he found himself being hit by, perhaps even struck by, an intercontinental ballistic Zedaph.
xB went toppling into the water, his legs falling out from under him, and sinking fully under the water. This, he realised, as his legs fused into a dolphin tail and his fins materialised, was less than ideal. He sat up as quickly as he could, his head breaching the water's surface as he heaved in a breath.
"xB, are you okay?" Jevin asked.
"Are you okay, princess?" Keralis echoed the sentiment.
"Fine," xB croaked out. They didn't seem to have noticed his tail yet, this was fine, he could still salvage this. "Can someone, uh, help me up?"
Beef offered xB a hand, and he was about to take it, when Zed spoke up.
"Since when did you have a dolphin tail!?"
Everyone froze.
"Uh-" xB stuttered out, before deciding that he didn't want to explain, actually. He dove back into the water, gave himself Dolphin's Grace, and swam away.
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Eventually, he made his way to a half-underwater cave that was vaguely near the beach. He would freely admit that he'd handled that whole fiasco badly, to say the least, and now he was way too embarrassed to return. He sat on a rock at the edge of the water, letting his tail sit in the pool for a bit. Even now, it still felt a little weird, but the tail had grown on him (ha) as time had passed.
He was startled out of his thoughts by the sound of a blue slime schlorping through a crack in the wall next to him.
"Jevin," he observed.
"xB."
There was an awkward silence.
"If you don't mind me asking," Jevin began, "Why did you hide it?"
"It... I..." xB sighed. "I didn't get around to it early on, and now it's been long enough that it's awkward."
"No, yeah, I understand that." Jevin nodded. "Keralis and Beef and Zed have promised to keep it quiet, if you want."
"No, I should tell the others," xB admitted. "Either I do it now, or I clam up for another three seasons."
"That... yeah, that makes sense. Do you wanna head back now, or...?"
"No, I- I think I need a little more time."
"Alright."
"Thanks."
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One of these days I'll do one of these fics and team ZIT won't appear anywhere in the fic, even in the first planning of the notes. Today is not that day.
I've been Entropy, peace out from the present!
