Finding Space | AvA/AvM one shots

An Emotional Journey

A retelling of a section of AvM Episode 29 from Green's perspective. Best read with the soundtrack from this section!

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Purple kept running. It was all Green could do to keep up and voice his note-questions coherently. He had given up on making any specific melody.

"We trusted you! Why did you trap us?"

Purple kept running.

"And why did you abandon Blue and me for the dragon egg?"
"Why did you do... everything you did?"

Purple shouted unintelligibly in the distance, and Green was surprised to see that Purple could use a note-voice too. Green drew in another deep breath and kept going.

"Just stop and talk to me!"

When Purple vocalised that away, Green sent two note-figures. An angel and a devil.

"What is your problem? Whose side are you on? Are you good or bad? Are-"

An unheavenly, anguished screech of notes tore through the sky, destroying Green's note figures. The tumult echoed off the mountains again and again and again. Even though he was some distance away, Green had to shield himself from the sheer force of Purple's voice.

When he looked up, Purple was climbing again, slower than before, shoulders slumped. Green followed at a wary distance.

The stone beneath his feet yielded to snow as the air grew chilly and thin. Now that he wasn't running, Green saw the setting sun and the long orange-red light that dimly illuminated the mountain peaks. How much time had passed since he left the Nether?

He realised that Purple had stopped. They had reached the peak. Nowhere left to hide.

Perhaps now he would say something.

Purple glanced back at Green. Then took a deep breath and hummed. Two notes came into being. Purple cradled them gently in his hands. One note a dark blue, like the twilight sky. Another a beautiful shade of rose pink.

"There were two people, once. They were a couple."

Green blinked. This wasn't making sense.

Purple continued humming and sent the two notes into the air. The two notes grew into spirals of notes. A small purple orb grew inside the dancing hues, and then the whole image morphed into stick figures. A tall stick figure, the colour of the twilight sky. A second stick the shade of rose pink. And they were holding...

"And they had me."

Purple's note-scene evolved. The tiny purple bundle grew into a child, and Green watched as the tall dark-blue stick challenged the little purple stick.

"My father taught me to fight. He... it was hard. I never did well enough."

Purple's voice shook as the little purple note-stick fell, and fell again, and again. The rose pink stick ran forwards-

"My mother tried to help. Tried... tried to get him to go easier on me. But he-"

The dark blue stick advanced angrily at Purple's mother, and the child-Purple shrank to the ground in fear. The real Purple shuddered.

"He said I wasn't good enough. Would never be. That I wasn't worth his time. That... we weren't worth his time. And... he..."

The figure of twilight stalked away from Purple and his mother and disappeared.

The real Purple was taking deep breaths, but his voice was shaking worse than ever. Green realised that Purple was crying.

"She never got over it. She couldn't take it. She- she-"

The rose pink stick was hunched over, even though the now adult Purple was holding her. Her colour faded to a faint gray... And then Purple stood over a grave, a rose pink flower over the headstone.

And then something happened. Afterwards, Green could never explain what exactly had happened or how it happened. Perhaps Purple did something, or perhaps it was a quirk of this strange musical world. But something at that moment shifted, something about the world changed, and Green... Green saw.

Saw Purple look up and see the dark blue figure. Saw Purple run towards the figure. Saw a chasm grow wide and dark and tall between them until the figure of twilight stood at unreachable towering heights.

Watched how Purple immediately begin climbing towards the figure. How Purple used the villagers to become their king.

How the figure of twilight had become greater than any person in Purple's eyes but remained as distant and unreachable as ever.

And then Green saw himself and Blue, with those crowns, also climbing upwards, only for Purple to step over them and shove them away as he made his way towards that dragon egg.

Saw that at that critical moment Purple reached the egg, when he thought that treasure would be enough... The figure of twilight turned away.

Saw how Purple fell down, far down, back to nothing.

And again Green saw himself and Blue, with Yellow, and Red and Orange, run past Purple as they had in that parkour game. How this Green had paused before Purple glanced upwards again...

And saw the king, standing at the greatest of heights, in the shadow of the twilight figure. How the king had offered what Purple so desperately wanted, needed.

Watched Purple shake himself, as if awakening from a trance, then run forward to begin the climb again. How betraying and trapping each of them, Yellow, and Blue and Green, and Orange and Red, got him a little higher, a little closer. How the Minecraft block was the final key to everything. How Green's interference had almost ruined everything.

How in those critical last moments, the king had taken the thing he wanted and discarded Purple, leaving Purple to fall down, down, far down, back into nothing, surrounded by his mother's ashes.

"I just wanted to be enough."

And Purple collapsed to his knees. Green let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. He blinked and looked down, and once again felt the snow beneath his feet and the chilly air and saw the snowy peak and the shaking purple figure.

Purple sniffled and began a broken hum. Two note-figures appeared in front of Purple. Green's angel and devil figures from before. Green's question from before.

"You wanted to know. I... I..." As Purple broke down again, the angel figure vanished, and the devil's notes settled on Purple.

And Green saw. Saw not the proud king, or the enthusiastic minion, or a good stick or a bad stick. Just Purple.

And Green knew what to do.

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Episode 29 and Scott Buckley's excellent soundtrack have sat in my head for months now. So has this one-shot :D

Special kudos to everyone who has written or drawn this section, they really helped me to understand this scene better :)

Usual note that I may edit minor parts of this as time goes on.

Published 01 Nov 2022

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Life's been busy, but I should hopefully have more time for AB things now!