In the Shadows We Fight (for justice and ourselves)

Why do you want to do something like this?

HoneyBee feels his consciousness slowly return to him. Surface-level thoughts broke through the surface first. Short, improper sentences about basic things he knew and felt. These thoughts finally connected together to form coherent notions that could be tracked from the initial thought to the final realization. He became aware of his senses next. He could feel his breaths rattling in his chest, and there was something firm and soft pressed into the back of his body. His head was laid across something a little more elevated than the rest of his body, and it was definitely softer. Something light was draped across the top of his body, keeping him warm but letting a few drafts of cold air in. As HoneyBee pieced together more clues about everything, he realized that something else in the room was breathing, too. Its breaths were quicker, shorter, and off-rhythm with HoneyBee's.

HoneyBee released an audibly groan as pain ricochet all throughout his body, seemingly brought on by his insistence to open his eyes. All his nerves felt too jittery, and his skin felt a little too burnt. His bones ached awfully, and his blood was slowly moving to every part of his body. The lights burned his eyes as he continued pushing them open, ignoring all the pain that was spreading throughout him like a food dye dropping into water.

"Shhh... it's okay. You don't need to get up yet. Just go back to bed. Continue resting," A voice- presumably the source of the breathing- spoke to HoneyBee in a quiet voice, right next to HoneyBee's head. The words were soft as they traveled into HoneyBee's pain-ridden head. As his thoughts wrapped around a thought that didn't send pain down his spine, HoneyBee was able to recognize one of his closest friends. Deviate, Ranboo, Lethe, the Endermen, whatever you wanted to call him, he was someone that HoneyBee cared about a lot. Ranboo was someone that HoneyBee promised himself that he would live for.

He wasn't sure what Ranboo was doing there. His last thoughts were of him trying to protect Croupier from the Blade by using the extreme limit of his power. He remembered being filled with uncontrollable lightning dripping like acid in his veins. He released it all in one neon green explosion. There was no explicit reason why Ranboo would be there. Even if he was Lethe, that didn't explain why he was at the Blade's cabin at that hour of the night. HoneyBee wanted to think more about it, wanted to figure it out, but the pain was returning back at full force. HoneyBee choked on his breath, and he felt Ranboo situate HoneyBee into a different position to make breathing easier.

'What happened?' HoneyBee attempted to croak out. The sounds came out wrong. They didn't sound like human noises, let alone words.

"Shh... we don't need to talk about anything at the moment. We can talk about everything later. I promise I'll explain it all. But right now, you should get some rest. I'll still be here when you wake up, okay?" Ranboo explained, and HoneyBee felt a light pressure against his hair. Ranboo's voice grew a little softer as he began talking in a wistful tone. "The End is where I'm from. It's a series of floating islands in the North. It is extremely cold and barren. There are Endermen, shulkers, elytras, and other creatures in the End. We have myths about our ancestors living among dragons. We live in treehouses, but the trees are different from what you're imagining. Our trees look like purple coral that stretches towards the endless night. Our days are extremely short, and our nights are really long. Most End creatures are nocturnal. It took me a while to get used to a diurnal sleeping schedule..."

Ranboo kept talking even when he realized he completed his objective of putting HoneyBee to sleep.

—

When HoneyBee wakes up again, it is a significantly quicker process. It's the same as when he wakes up in the morning: all at once awareness of the world. His eyes easily open up. He squints for a minute at the ceiling before his vision settles. He lifts his arm up, testing it. He brings it towards his face. There are thick bandages wrapped around his forearm, but he can see a few scars peeking around his wrist. There are raw, red colored shaped scars in a Lichtenberg figure, a stationary version of what his powers looked like in the opposite color as green on the color wheel. HoneyBee reaches for his other hand to feel one, but his first hand is grabbed by someone.