Chapter Text
When she thinks about it, Invisibility might be her favourite potion.
It would be even if she didn't think about it — Remby thinks so at least, but that sounds more like a question for Eggchan — but now thinking about it, she knows it to be true.
Invisible, the people smile at her. Invisible, she can wave back cheerfully, purple fingers wiggling in the air, and they will smile or laugh and their faces will be amused or fond or happy.
She carefully attaches her clothes to her armour every morning when she puts it on, to keep them visible as well.
She wants everyone to see her in her beautiful and her light and sometimes even her self-made and clumsy dresses and blouses and skirts and flashy pants.
Invisible, nobody recognizes her.
Invisible, nobody shouts: "What are you doing in a dress, boy!"
Invisible, strangely, she feels so much more seen for herself.
---
The invisible knight has come to their shop multiple times now. She is pleasant, a bit bubbly, with over-exaggerated motions, presumably to make up for the lack of facial expressions. All in all, she is nice. Parrot probably has to like her because she is a good customer who tips well, but this way her coming back is definetely much more pleasant.
Today, she twitches and her amethyst-trimmed helmet is low over her shoulders and tilted far enough forward that Parrot can see the top of it despite her being quite a lot taller than him. Her whole body screams nervousness.
"Welcome. What can I help you with today?"
Her purple-gloved hands fiddle in nothing, probably playing with her hair.
"Can you- Would you teach me how to brew potions?", as always her voice is quiet and sounds like it isn't used to being quiet.
Well, the obvious answer is no, but looking at her?
"Why?", Parrot asks, curiousity getting the best of him, "Why do you even need so many invis potions?" And it is really a lot, Parrot has done the math, and she comes to buy potions so often that she must use them around the clock. If they didn't spoil after a few days, Parrot is sure she would buy them by them by the shulker-filled chests. The first time she tried that, Parrot had been the one to explain that potions spoiled. Only afterwards had he come to think of how good that would have been for business.
Thinking back to it, he doesn't regret it.
Back then Parrot had asked her about the purpose of so many potions, too, and she hadn't answered.
So, if Parrot is honest, it suprises him when she says, "I can't stand looking at myself."
Parrot only wonders what she means for a short moment before she continues stuttering out, "I'm not a- well, I wasn't born, a wo-, like this, I- I was- I have a dick. And other, you know, male anatomy."
Her hands are clenched into fists around lavender skirt falling over her diamond leggings. The top is scrunched up by her grip, revealing the frilly white underlayers. She takes a breath and continues before Parrot can reply. "But I'm not! Not a man! And I know taking so many potions is unhealthy, just, I promise it's temporary."
And Parrot... is overwhelmed. What can he say to that? Is there anything to say to that except, "I'll gladly teach you", then grinning what he hopes is cheekily but is probably just awkard, "But only if you promise that we will stay your supplier!"
She laughs and her shrunken form expands to the fullness of her broad shoulders, signature for avians, which was the first thing Parrot noticed about her. The tension in the room evaporates, and Parrot is sure he has made the right choice.
---
Remby needs to free Eggchan from the end, or perhaps more accurately, the Farlands.
And she'll do it. Remby will get Egg out of there, once she doesn't need to be invisible.
Because the only thing Remby would like more than being inbisible, she knows, would be experiencing it all without being invisible.
And apart from the constant nagging, clawing terror of being discovered, of having this all ripped away, apart, of it all being seen as just a facade, and really, Wemmbu, you never were a woman, just a coward who couldn't stand to fight anymore and how pathetic are you, please-
Remby wants to see herself in her dresses. It is one thing to know it is her wearing them, another thing to see.
And she wants to see the dresses she made on her form. She wants to see how the corset shapes her chest and the skirt twirling around her legs. Maybe take of her armour.
It is impractical, Remby knows that, she does!
She knows that swishy skirts and hanging fabric are a tripping and a catching and a choking hazard and can be gripped and pulled at and used to take her down.
ManePear was right with all of it, with how her long hair flies everywhere and she always has to reach up and pull it out of her mouth and Remby remembers that conversation still clear as the moment it happened.
"Are you even taking this serious?" , and he had looked so disappointed, blindfold scrunched in a way that meant furrowed brows and a scolding, and looked down at Remby lying on the floor and she knew what he would say before he did, and tears had gathered in her eyes, "but you're way too weak to pull it off. Your hair is getting everywhere."
Remby's scalp had still hurt from where he pulled her by the hair and her teeth hurt from the broadside of the axe he had slammed against her face afterwards.
And Mane still had a first full of her purple strands. As she reached up to feel the thumping spots, her hand came away wet and glistening. Bloody. "You see it?", Mane had scoffed and shook Remby's hair onto the floor, "You really gotta cut it, dude"
And finally Remby's tongue had managed to form words, broken though they were, "But Mane-", "No buts, dude, I'm serious", and his disappointed face looked just like- and he said "You have to cut your hair, I'm telling you, Wemmbu, it's for your own good. If you're not taking this seriously, I'll leave.", in retrospect, he might have truyl meant well, but then, in that moment, Remby had lowered scrambled out, "No-no, Mane, no, I'll do it, wait", and worst of all, "Don't go", and her she had bitten right through her lip and squeezed her eyes shut against the tears as she reached up with her left to gather up her hair and with her sword in the right- and Remby cut it off.
Mane snorted.
"Dude, not that big of a deal. I would have cut it for you", and Remby thought, for a moment, hatefully, 'you'll never touch it' and only nodded at him in silence.
And in the mirror, it looked terrible, and it was too light on her head and when Egg asked "Dude, your hair!", he sounded so sad, and Remby shrugged "It got in the way."
And then Mane had left anyway, despite all of her efforts, all of her trying, she had still failed and he had left. A lost cause.
And if she is a lost cause, then fuck Mane's teachings, she'll never make him proud, so fuck him to the moon and back and may he burn in the lava he crawled out from.
Remby will wear her hair long and her skirts swishy and if she ever meets him again, she'll beat him to a bloody pulp.
(So she tells herself, but sometimes, in the quiet, she imagined telling him "I need it long, Mane, do you understand me? I need it like this".
And Mane would understand and hug her and apologize, and say "I'm sorry I left, Remby", and call her by her name, and explain how she wasn't a lost cause, but Remby could never imagine what else he would say, why he left, so in her fantasy, she just skipped that part and continued with "Some weaknesses are necessary and acceptable, we'll just make up for it, what'd'ya say?" Because Mane was too good a fighter to not recognize it for the weakness it was.
And Mane would train her like before, and they'd make a style to avoid people grabbing her hair.)
So Remby travells the Overworld with all swish and swoosh and twirl she wanted on the search for a Player Tag. And though what Remby is looking for, what she needs, is hidden away quite dangerously, if she can't go as herself, live as herself, isn't it better not going at all?
From Eggchan's research, a playertag could only be found within ancient cities. From the shriekers around, Remby knows this one hasn't been looted yet. And even if it had been, very few people could distinguish a Player Tag from a normal nametag.
The only difference was really the glimmer of enchantment on the former, that gave a Player Tag the power to change the Name of a player permanently.
Remby exhales.
And it isn't the same as then.
But... standing outside the city, the skulk overhead like a starry sky, there is cold stone underneith her feet, that may have never been kissed by the sun at all, and if it has, it has long forgotten, and she thinks-
She thinks Rejoice, for all his vibrancy, his joy, had been so terribly pale. The flowers printed on his cloths bloomed brightly, so too the imitations he had built, but in his hair were only withered remains.
And Rejoice was withering, too, in that dreadful place, his grave, his death, his home all in one.
He never got to see the sun in the end.
Remby thinks she was withering too.
Except she had to leave not a place, but her old identity behind.
And she suceeded, she is suceeding.
Wemmbu was violent and careless and nobody smiled at him, they feared him, and if they did smile, he blew them up for the trouble.
Wemmbu was strong but had nothing to be strong for.
But Remby does.
And Remby can be kind, and might blunder and stumble, but she can be kind and still strong. She can protect, not only fight.
Remby can destroy, but she can also create.
She is wearing her very own creations!
She rubs her pointer finger over the crude sunflower embroidered on her thumb pat, and breathes in.
Remby thinks Rejoice would have liked this new her.
She breathes out, and sneaks forward, torch in one hand, the other wool. If she doesn't disturb the Warden, she won't have to fight it.
Remby wonders if this is how people felt about Wemmbu. A monster to avoid if possible but to challenge if necessary, out of anger or fear or the need to protect someone else, even knowing he might bring their doom.
And warden of his own heart, killing indiscriminantly, no matter if those approaching meant harm or not, for fear of being hurt, angry for it.
Opening the first chest, Remby thinks she should like to be more like Minute.
Remby wonders if she can, or if she has to much of Wemmbu in her. They are one in the same, but she hopes , desperately, perhaps selfishly, that she has changed. That she is a good person, or at least better than him.
What would she do if she isn't? What if Wemmbu is better than her? Should she go back to being him? Could she, even? She wouldn't want to, certainly, would perhaps rather die, be another body, endlessly floating in the unending void or more clumps in the lava, a bloated mess in the ocean, another looted corpse rotting on a pathway.
Remby has to be better than Wemmbu.
And of course she is, why is she worrying about it at all, she is angry at herself all of sudden, for those stupid worries. But yes, Wemmbu never worries about being a bad person, Remby does. It must mean something.
'It does mean something', Remby promises herself, 'or else 'ill make it mean something'.
The first chest held an enchanted book for Swift Sneek, which Remby took with her. When hiding your name tag, you crouched a lot more than expected. Or at least more than Remby had expected starting this all.
When this is over and Egg is free, maybe she will go back to the guard Force and put her skills to good use. Egg could open a book shop. Or a library. They could visit Minute together and tell him gossip, bring overworld food.
Remby is just opening the fifth chest of the city when a thought comes to her, 'I could learn how to bake'
She has two enchanted golden apples from chests, would they make for a good apple pie?
She imagines showing up for guard duty, an arm full of cookies for night shift on the walls, dresseed up with a half-open braid, dressed in dark blue or maybe even green to match her eyes. She wonders if she would look good in green.
Or she good make clothes. Remby's rich enough that even selling nothing at all would suffice, just maybe mining a bit every few wells should be enough.
Or Egg and her could explore the world, stay away from conflict, or help people in trouble, maybe she could get a pet.
'Didn't Flame have dogs?', Remby thinks. He did, she's sure.
She is suddenly overcome with a want. A want for all of it.
Deep in the bowels of a mountain, torch in hand and still bowed over the opened chest, she wants to live.
Oh, how she wants it.
And as she holds the torch over the chest, a Player Tag glitters within.
She feels an invisible grin spread over her face. She bites into her bottom lip to keep from making noises in joy and jumping around.
Remby snatches the tag out of the chest and presses it against her plate. She opens her eyes and looks down at her treasure. She found it.
Remby puts the tag away in her inventory.
Soon, when she her ivisibility potions run out, people will only see Remby. And no one will no of Wemmbu, not with her dresses and braids, where Wemmbu only ever wore a ponytail.
Remby sneaks out the city the way she came, equips her Elytra, spreads her wings, and takes of, laughing in the wind.