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“Watch,” Spoke says, digging his way through a random villager’s farms for seeds. “Watch what’s going to happen. We’re gonna get carrots and then it’s gonna - it’s gonna get trampled by, like, by a zombie or something.” He kicks the dirt when the last plot only gives him more wheat seeds. “That’s what’s gonna happen.”
“That’s not what’s gonna happen,” Mapicc says.
“That’s just what’s gonna happen, bro, because everything we do right is just gonna fail—”
“I found a melon!” Mapicc says as Spoke comes up to him, holding out a handful of seeds.
“That’s not a carrot. That’s not even a—”
“It’s better than—”
“There’s not even gonna be a carrot in this village—”
“It’s better than wheat.”
“No, this is a sign,” Spoke says. “This is a sign that we should just log off.”
Mapicc doesn’t have a snappy retort to that. Dejectedly, he just says, “No. I’m not giving up on this server.”
Spoke doesn’t say anything more. He just continues digging through the farmland, only finding more—and more. Fucking. WHEAT. SEEDS.
Through gritted teeth, moving onto the next plot of land in the savanna, Spoke says, “Bro, if we have too many carrots, how is Ash supposed to take that away from us?”
“Exactly!” Mapicc says with way too much enthusiasm in his voice. “He can’t take every single one from us.”
What are they doing? “If we have too many carrots how can we possibly lose? We can’t physically lose if we have - if we have all the carrots in the world - except we can’t even find the carrots in the first place!”
“This is rational thinking, bro.”
“It is, except - it can’t even start because - because all the carrots are gone.”
“Yeah, well guess who has eight melon seeds.”
“That is still not a fucking carrot, bro.”
“I know, I know,” Mapicc groans, moving onto the next plot of farmland they’re going to plunder from the village. Spoke spots an armadillo that he immediately starts critting out.
“Do these drop carrots, huh?” he shouts at the balled-up creature. “Huh?”
“Spoke come here.”
“They don’t drop carrots. What?”
“Let’s make the floating grass civilisation.”
Above the last farm in the village is a floating grass block. Spoke and Mapicc stand around it for a long moment, watching the rare generation error. From the rate of growth of the crops in the village, this is an unloaded chunk that he and Mapicc have stumbled on, and he can’t help but think there’s divine providence in this strange grass block waiting for them.
“That’s deadass the sickest idea,” Spoke says. “Let’s build a shrine—”
Mapicc digs the seeds out of the farm and the grass block updates. It breaks.
Spoke and Mapicc just stare.
“I miss MinuteTech,” Mapicc says.
Spoke just wants to - he wants to—
“Everything just—” Spoke’s breath hitches involuntarily. “Everything falls apart.”
“I miss Minute,” Mapicc says.
“I feel like - the universe - I feel like the universe is speaking through me. Like, in the worst way possible. I feel like—”
“I miss Minute, bro.”
“Mapicc,” Spoke pleads.
Mapicc wipes an arm across his face. Spoke turns on his heel and walks away. After a couple steps, Spoke hears Mapicc follow.
“If Minute was here—” Mapicc says. His voice wobbles. “—he would know where to get carrots.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Spoke says.
“If Minute was here he would say we can just go to that village on the next hill over there.”
Spoke follows Mapicc’s pointed finger and throws his elytra on to fly there. He lands and says, “I don’t even see a farm, bro—”
“If Minute was here,” Mapicc says and his voice is light, “he would say he found the carrots.”
“He - wait, did you really?” Spoke rushes over to Mapicc’s voice, darting around the houses. “Oh my god!” Carrots! Fucking finally! “Twelve carrots!”
“This is what I’m saying, dude,” Mapicc says, giddy as Spoke buries the seeds in the village plot. “Things will work themselves out.”
Spoke pats soil over the last of them and rolls back on his haunches. Mapicc drops to sit on his heels as well so he is level with Spoke.
“Carrot civilisation,” Spoke says. “The glorious beginning.”
He watches the sprouts. It will take more than a few ticks for them to grow. He’s not actually attached enough to watch them do so. Just like Minute wasn’t—
“Not always,” Spoke says.
“What?”
“Things don’t always… work themselves out.”
“Well… yeah. I guess.” Mapicc shrugs, resting his face in his folded arms. “The Mafia isn’t going to topple itself.”
“He’s never coming back,” Spoke says.
Mapicc turns, staring at the side of his face. “Don’t say that.”
“We’re never going to see him again, Mapicc.”
“Don’t - say that,” Mapicc hisses.
Spoke breathes in deep. “Fuck.
“Fuck.
“Why did I say that?” Spoke hits the side of his head. “Mapicc, why the fuck did I say that to him?”
“Shut up, dude. We just had an argument, okay? He knows you’re under a lot of stress—”
“He’s never coming back. They never do. If Jamato wouldn't come back then why would—”
“Shut up!”
Spoke obliges.
“Shut up,” Mapicc repeats quieter. There is a well of grief there Spoke does not want to parse out, and he wonders if he sounded the same mere moments ago. Mapicc joins him in staring at the carrot sprouts.
Then, more purposefully, Mapicc says, “We’re gonna win. And then we’re gonna save the server.”
Spoke scoffs. “I don’t think - I don’t think this server is worth it anymore, bro.”
“Minute’s here,” Mapicc says and Spoke squeezes his eyes shut. “We make the server fun for Minute and then we can leave if we still want to. I just don’t want - I don’t want to leave him alone with the Mafia. And whatever Ash has over him.”
“Goddamnit, Mapicc.”
“What?”
“Why’d you - why’d you have to go and say that, man. Now I have to - goddamnit.”
Spoke presses a balled fist to his face, and he wishes he can shrivel up and die before the Mafia can even get him. He curls in on himself—in cringe? embarrassment? regret?—because why did he do that? Why did he say that to Minute? Why is he like this?
“Goddamnit,” Spoke hisses one last time. Why did he say that? Why would he say something like that?
Minute was the last person on the server—the last person who isn’t just an extension of Spoke himself—who still trusted him, who even tolerated him as a person, who maybe even loved him—and Spoke drove him away. And for what?
“Stop thinking bro,” Mapicc says, taking Spoke’s trembling fist away from his face. “Nothing good happens when you think.”
“Nothing good happens when I don’t either,” Spoke chokes a laugh. “Like Minute - fuck.”
“Alright. These carrots aren’t ever gonna grow.” Mapicc hooks his hands beneath Spoke’s arms and hefts him up into standing. “Let’s go home. Let’s go to spawn. You need a nap.”
Spoke allows himself to get pulled away from the carrot sprouts. “And then we save the server.”
“Yeah. Yeah, of course we will.”
He glances back one last time at the carrots. They’re still sprouts, but if he squints just right, he thinks the one on the far left has grown the slightest bit taller than the rest. “And make carrot nation.”
“And make - pfft,” Mapicc snorts, “Yeah. Sure, bro. Let’s make carrot nation. Let’s - let’s invite Minute.”
“Yeah,” Spoke says. He has little confidence the two of them will ever see him again, let alone be able to invite him. But there’s not much else that’s going to make him want to put one foot in front of the other. “Yeah, we’ll invite Minute.”
The carrots will likely stop growing when they leave the chunks unloaded. That's alright. They probably won't ever find this place again; it's a big server. Spoke lets Mapicc take him home.