A Lot More Hermitcraft Stuff

Wooden Hearts (one-shot/AU)

The puppets danced before him, following the pulls from thin strings that tied around his fingers. EX smiled to himself, soaring them through the air with wings of colored paper and plunging them behind the ocean-colored glass.

The small wooden dolls had been with him for a long time and he'd decided to put on a show at the local market. Children had gathered excitedly to watch the performance, cheerfully laughing and smiling at the toys who were flung across the mini-stage by their strings.

Ex had recently reached the sixth year of his little show and few remembered the long forgotten dolls, the ones who'd been put into the storage box or given to his friends. Every year, he would add new puppets or take away some puppets, just for a nice change of scenery.

His friend, AX, would occasionally take some of the puppets for some of his own shows, putting on brilliant works of swordplay and battle. They'd always return in pristine condition so he'd always lend them to his friend whenever need be.

One of his puppets, Doc, had been gifted to him in his third year of his show by a friend named Guude. Doc had had a wooden toothpick stuck in him that had broken the shoulder joint, so EX had replaced the arm with wood wrapped in aluminum foil to represent a prosthetic limb.

One of his most recent puppets named Grian had been found in a box in a dirty alleyway. The mangled box had contained multiple puppets that seemed charred from fire and were beyond repair, their wooden limbs lined with scratches that were deeply imbedded into the now burnt wood. Little Grian had been the only one that wasn't too damaged, only a major burn on his back. To remedy this, EX had built small wings made of popsicle sticks and faux feathers that mostly covered the blackened wood.

Two puppets who had joined late in his sixth year were Keralis and BDubs. BDubs had broken several times and it had taken more time than he'd intended to repair him, making sure the cracks were all covered. Keralis had been in his second year but had left after "going through the nether portal." Kids from one town had missed Keralis and begged him to come back, so EX brought him back through the same portal he'd left in.

Although all of his puppets were based off real life friends, but the puppet named Xisuma, one of the few from his first year, had been based off his older brother and EX always took special care of him, making sure he never got damaged despite his clumsy actions.

All of his puppets held a special place in his heart and they never really felt like the plain wooden dolls they were. They'd always felt more like...

Friends.

   ~*~

i'd like to note that this was originally going to be super angsty with EX killing children and then putting their souls in puppets but i decided to go for the fluff route-

*looking through the list of hermits to see who joined when* *sees Python, Wels, and Jevin on the inactive list* huh? they're inactive? *begins to google their channels to see when they last uploaded hermitcraft* oh okay Jevin just finished his series, that's alright... Wels just hasn't uploaded hermitcraft in a bit alright... P-Python... *desperate scrolling* when did you even last upload hermitcraft?!

(i accept if they just don't want to play hermitcraft, but it was still a little startling for me who hasn't kept up with the hermits since forever)