Short Stories and Oneshots

~Treehouse~ (part two)

oof

idk how far apart each of these chapters are set, it could be a couple days or a couple weeks

and SNSKJFHVNUGSBOJHGIVUY I KNOW I HAVEN'T UPDATED THIS IN FOREVER

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Olivia had spent hours in that treehouse.

Now, looking up at it from the ground, it seemed strange to her. Alien. She had spent a good portion of her life there, and yet it seemed so unfamiliar.

Hitching up her vermillion robe, she started up the ladder. She hadn't visited this place in years- she barely even came to Beacontown anymore. She was so caught up in her life now, and hadn't looked back once.

She frowned slightly as her boot touched the dusty floor. The whole place was dusty, tiny bits of dust dancing in the sunbeams coming through the window. Obviously, the rest of the Order wasn't coming here any more often that she did. A shame, really. With all that had happened, she had thought at least one of the others would've visited regularly.

She hesitantly sat down on her red bed, looking around. It felt like this place had been frozen in time, existing in an alternate time than the one she lived in now.

Olivia still remembered Jesse's speech after they had defeated the Witherstorm. "My friends and I started out in a treehouse, and now we've been to some of the craziest places in the world." She almost laughed. They had started out in this treehouse...and now what was left of that? Dusty books and almost-forgotten memories.

So why was she here? What had prompted her to return to her old home?

Looking for nostalgia? Seeking old memories? Hoping that maybe, maybe, one of her friends would be there?

She didn't know.

At the very least, she knew it wasn't the last. The 'New Order of the Stone' hardly saw each other at all anymore. They all had their own schedules, their own lives. In Olivia's eyes, that was for the best.

Friends don't stay close forever. Things change, and they grow apart. It was just part of life.

That didn't mean she didn't miss the rest of the Order. They were still her friends, and they would always hold a place in her heart. But with her duties in Redstonia, Axel's job as a wrangler in Boomtown, Petra doing....whatever she was up to nowadays, Lukas writing, and Jesse leading Beacontown, it was probably best that they didn't distract each other.

Because Notch knew, distractions were the last thing she needed.

Ellegaard had recently told her she thought Olivia was working too hard. Olivia had laughed and shrugged it off, but her old mentor had seemed genuinely concerned.

"What's going on? For...gosh, it's been months now, you've been just work, work, work. Always hopping from one project to another. Are you alright?"

"Ellie, I'm perfectly fine. I just...you know I like to keep busy. Not everything has to have something wrong with it."

"True, but you didn't used to be like this. Seriously. Are you trying to distract yourself from something? I became a workaholic right after the Order split up...did something happen with your old friends?"

Olivia had once again dismissively assured her she was fine, but now she started to wonder. Was this all just because she was missing her friends? She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen all four of them for more than a few moments. She and Axel used to regularly frequent Beacontown, but even those visits had become scarce.

That wouldn't be a problem for much longer, though. Lukas was almost finished with another novel, the 'full stories of the Order' or something, and he had requested they all meet in Beacontown to help him edit and revise the first draft. That was the day before Founding Day, and she was a bit hesitant to leave Redstonia right before something so important, but she was always willing to see her old friends.

Old friends. When had she started referring to them like that? It's not like she had many new friends. Partners and colleagues, yes, but not much in the way of real friends. And she and the rest of the Order were still young, not even in their mid-twenties. And they had all been through so much...been through it all together.

So why did she feel so separate from them? Why did everything seem so different now? Why was she only just now considering this?

To her knowledge, questions starting with 'why' were often the most difficult to answer. What, whom, where...they were all solid facts. Whys seemed to be the precedes to guesses, the 'maybe's and the occasional 'I don't know'. She didn't like not being able to answer questions. For her, the world was a machine, a puzzle to fix or solve.

And for the moment, she didn't quite know where to put the piece that was her and the rest of the Order.

Maybe this was why she'd come back. To decide where they really fit into all this.

Olivia sighed, reaching up and tucking one of her unruly black curls behind her ear. A few pieces of hair snagged on her earring, but she didn't notice.

Was this right? Continuing to stride forward in life and leave all your past behind? She'd always thought it was for the best- keep going forward, and never look back. Olivia had made herself stay focused, looking to the future, not the past. Sure, she could learn from history, but if you looked back instead of forward, you could trip on some random event that could completely turn your life upside down.

But always looking forward may have problems as well. You could be so intent on looking up that you never realize you've passed a point of no return until it's far behind you.

Was that what had happened to her and her friends? They had always been so earnestly focused on going above and beyond, being the best and the boldest...that maybe they'd gone past a line that couldn't be seen from their hopeful, narrow-minded view of the world.

She sighed, tugging on her long scarlet sleeves. The lazy afternoon sun made it warm inside the treehouse, but the thoughts circling her head made her feel cold. Olivia no longer liked these kinds of puzzles, the ones that made you doubt yourself again and again.

Maybe that's why she had started to leave her old memories behind, dismissing them as the 'past'. At least now, as her job as a professor, she felt separate from everything else. With her friends, she was 'Olivia, the Redstone Engineer'. A member of the grand New Order of the Stone. Her newer achievements and goals didn't matter as much, because she'd never best what she'd accomplished in the past.

Olivia stood up, shaking out her long robe. She still wasn't sure why she'd come back, but didn't want to stay any longer.

Things are better now. For you. For them. You're living your own lives. She told herself. She'd believed that for a long time, and a visit to her old home shouldn't change that.

But it did. Ever so slightly, it did.

Because simply acknowledging her past, remembering even briefly that she had been a rather different person not too long ago...it was enough to make her doubt, make her wonder, possibly even make her regret.

Nevertheless, she steeled her heart as she went down that ladder one last time.

For better or worse, ever since she left that treehouse, her life had never been the same.

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Oof

I had a lot of trouble with this chapter and most of that was just sTARTING IT

And this is like so short oh my fUCK

I haven't written anything less than 2000 words in a LONG time