Wisteria

Grounding

Key:

Normal Text- English
Italics- Ender (but also used for emphasis, you can tell from context)
Bold- Piglin
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Techno was sitting on the bed next to Ranboo. Phil had gone back downstairs- saying he'd go out looking for another zombie villager because he refused to pay an emerald for two paper.

They hadn't really... said anything to each other yet. Techno was thinking, Ranboo didn't want to initiate conversation.

"Alright, how do you speak Piglin?" Techno asked eventually. He had been trying to think of any logical way he would- where would he learn? Why would he learn?

Ranboo sat there, trying to explain in piglin words. He'd only learned a little bit from the Travelers when they visited the cities. Often the teenaged ones would speak to each other entirely in Piglin, like a secret code the little ones couldn't understand. That was honestly the main reason he learned, to eavesdrop. There wasn't much to do in the End, in his defense.

"Uh... Learning- Learn was... not End... enderman." He gave it his best shot.

Techno narrowed his eyes, likely trying to figure out what he just said.

"Right, okay- you... learned Piglin from endermen that... not End, what?" Techno knew he was trying but good lord he had no idea what Ranboo was saying.

Ranboo drummed his fingers on his knee. "The Enderman...not the En- Fire?" Ranboo didn't know "Nether" in piglin, so he chose the next best thing. "Fire enderman?"

"Fir- what, endermen from the Nether?" Techno asked. Ranboo nodded. "Ah, alright, I see."

Another silence. They simply didn't know what to say- literally, in Ranboo's case. But for Techno, he couldn't really gauge what all Ranboo knew- he didn't even know where to start.

"What- no, uh... Who? Who... you. Who you." Ranboo said to break the silence. It was technically meant as more of a "how do you know me?" but he didn't know how to articulate that. Once again, he could settle for the next best option.

"Who am I?" Ranboo nodded. Techno took a breath. Well that certainly helped with the 'how much he knew' question. "My name's Technoblade." he said. "I live here. So does the guy who was with me, that's Phil."

Ranboo nodded. After a second, Techno added;

"I mean, you live here, too."

"I do?" Surprised, Ranboo turned to Techno, who'd been looking down at his boots since he sat down.

"I can't speak Enderman, Ranboo."

"I- What?" He tried to amend. This couldn't be right- he lived in the cities, in one of the Fleet colonies. He came to the Main Dimension sometimes for fun, but he'd definitely remember if he just... moved in with some Nether creature, wouldn't he?

"I guess you don't remember- I gotta be honest, Ranboo, I don't know where exactly you are in your whole memory thing right now. But you came here with me and Phil a while back."

Did he? Ranboo would know, right? He'd have to know. This was ridiculous. There was no way...

Right?

Techno stood up and walked across the room to a window, pushing it open and waving Ranboo over. Ranboo stood- having to take a moment to steady himself- and came over.

Outside was a snow-covered landscape, and sitting among it was a quaint little spruce shack. Techno pointed to it.

"That's where you live." He said. "We had to bring you inside because you passed out during a snowstorm. That was four days ago."

Ranboo looked at him incredulously. "Four?" he repeated. Four, that seemed excessive.

Techno nodded. "Yeah. Even before then you weren't really yourself. Not very aware, kind of just wanderin' about for a little over a week."

"No- No, I... just enderman. No-" he gestured wildly around as a substitute for 'all this.' There was no way, there was no way that this was happening- this couldn't be right. Well- sure, okay, maybe Ranboo was forgetting... something. Okay, he knew that much was true, there was a section of his memory suspiciously empty. But this was just... it was ridiculous, wasn't it?

"I'm sure it's a lot," Techno said, sensing Ranboo's not-so-discreet confusion and closing the window "And probably suspicious- we didn't kidnap you, I promise."

That was far less reassuring than it was probably meant to be.

Ranboo sat back down on the bed and took a deep breath. Yeah, yeah it was definitely a lot. How did he know Technoblade wasn't lying? He didn't- he didn't but... it was a gut feeling- he was just pretty sure Techno was telling the truth- as ridiculous as that truth may seem. Ugh, he just wanted to go home.

"Look, I'm not great at, uh-" Techno gestured at Ranboo "Y'know, this. When Phil gets back maybe he'll be able to help out, he's better in the... emotions department. I dunno. Until then, free roam, I guess. But stay around the cabin if you go outside, f'you don't mind."

Ranboo looked up. Techno had gone from his place the window to the ladder- as Ranboo got more grounded as to where exactly he was, he realized that the hole in the ground did, in fact, have a ladder. Ranboo nodded.

"Oh, and those books are in Galactic." Techno pointed to the bookshelves across the room, "We got them for enchanting. Galactic's like... written Enderman, right?"

Ranboo nodded, despite the fact that Techno was definitely wrong. Galactic was a written language that most endermen learned along with Ender, not the same language. But that was semantics, and it wasn't like Ranboo could exactly say that anyways.

"Alright, well you can read them if you want. No idea what they're about, though." Techno shrugged and started down the ladder.

Ranboo watched him climb down and then took a deep breath. He'd probably be staying up here a while- he felt like if he went anywhere else it'd totally disorient him. He managed to collect himself enough to stand up and walk towards the shelves. There was a table of enchantment in the middle, flipping through pages, presenting itself to Ranboo. Ranboo knew enchantment books like the back of his hand, so he didn't really care to read one of those at the moment.

The surrounding bookshelves were almost entirely Galactic- with the exception of a few in Old Galactic, which Ranboo did not know. Small particles- some meaningless, some letters, all magic- floated from their pages and into the enchantment book. He liked this little nook, frankly. It reminded him of the libraries in the cities. So long as he didn't turn around, he was actually quite comfortable here.

The bookshelves had a massive, and sort of hilarious, variety. From speculative fiction to biographies, history journals to collections of children's stories. Ranboo took a seat on the ground (he didn't like the way the wood felt, but he'd live) and found a book on the lowest shelf he found interesting.