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It starts with Evbo getting confused about the limits of his body for the first time.
Or, rather, it starts with M, taking his first step onto the top layer of Parkour Civilization. The ascension isn't easy - every jump asks for precision, and the exhaustion from the whole endeavour weighs him down. And yet he reaches the top, and then stands motionless for a while, taking in the whole view, not quite sure what he'd expected.
It's... so small. A platform of pristine white, and a diamond throne, and a pair of what he can guess are command blocks. No level beyond that; no roads, no buildings.
No wonder Evbo used to go down so often.
The thought makes him startle, look around in a search of someone else who's supposed to be here. Evbo had told M to catch up with him at the top, back when they split up at the Civilization's entrance. M didn't like the idea, getting separated again at this point, but he'd followed through. And now he's here, and Evbo, who had a headstart, isn't.
M takes a few steps forward, then stops again, full of unease.
Standing here, alone, wearing boots of the unfamiliar weight doesn't feel too good.
A minute passes. Then another, heavier than the last one. Then he hears it - a sound of someone's jumps, sharp and rhythmic, and some of the weight falls away, dissipates in the wind washing around him.
Another minute, and Evbo pops from somewhere beyond the platform, at the exactly opposite side from where the champion's course lies.
M perks up. A little more of the weight leaves his shoulders, and the sun beaming in his face seems to soften a bit, leave some space for him to watch the literal essence of this world catching his breath. "You're late," he says. "And I even had a headstart. You're sure you haven't cheated in those races?"
Evbo straightens up, disheveled, the light reflected in his hair almost encircling his head. "Well, and you -" he starts, then laughs, a sharp, awkward sound. "Yeah, I don't actually know what to say in my defence here!"
"I guess it's a good thing I'm not challenging you to one," M joins in with a light chuckle.
It's not a joke that comes out easily; it brushes something in him on its way out of his mouth, makes that something roll with a dull, grumbling ache. But joking about it is the better option. Better than forever sidestepping it.
Rather than let the topic hang, he comes closer to the edge Evbo had appeared from, pointedly not approaching the diamond throne. The height makes his head spin, despite his whole life on the master's level. The temple's wall is smooth and empty - no parkour course, or at least not the one M can see.
"How'd you get here, again?"
"Oh! I made my own course," Evbo audibly beams with pride. Ah. Right. That's a thing Evbo can do now, making his own courses. "I got all the way up to this level and - dude, after invisible parkour the main path just doesn't feel the same anymore. So I made this whole other thing and - oh right, it's not there anymore. I can make it again, if you wanna?"
M lets out a small huff and takes a step back, casting a quick fond glance Evbo's way. "Maybe some other time. I don't know about you godly beings, but I kinda need a break."
"Skill issue," Evbo sticks out his tongue.
"Yeah yeah, you're right and I know it."
M takes a moment to look around once more, then walks up to one of the command blocks and sits down onto the floor against it. (He doesn't look at the throne. He doesn't need to think of the throne right now.) His god follows him shortly, plopping down against the other one, and for a moment, it feels like peace. It feels like everything is finally settling down, at least on this small sun-bathed level.
"Speaking of the course," Evbo speaks up again, fidgets with his sleeve. M doesn't miss the way his voice dips quieter. "When you jump on the slime block, how long do you feel it wiggling?"
M blinks; he registers the words, but the meaning doesn't quite catch up with him. "What do you mean?"
"The slime block. When you jump on it and it bounces you back?" This part, at least, makes sense; M nods, humming for Evbo to continue. "How long does it - or did it - after this -" Evbo full-on frowns, then gestures somewhere in front of himself. "Look, there was a slime jump in my course, and I did them before, and I can swear they bounced and stopped. But this one just kept wiggling and wiggling and I don't know, maybe it broke or something? Or maybe it's a new parkour trick that I found?"
There's something in his demeanor that makes M collect himself, try to understand this seemingly nonsensical issue. Something subtle but frail, teetering on the edge - the feeling that resonates in his whole chain-marked body. "I can't tell you something I never jumped," he murmurs, and pushes himself back to his feet. Evbo watches the motion with a puzzled look. "Can you make it for me?"
"Oh, ah, sure let me -"
It's a bit odd, seeing someone build a jump sequence from a ten-block distance, but it feels frankly normal when Evbo is the one doing it. M takes a moment to study the setup, worries his lip mentally building the trajectory. The sequence is on the harder side, the ascent demanding to keep the momentum, and the slime jump itself is two steps from a neo. He hesitates for a moment longer, assessing his own shape - and breaks into a short sprint, building up speed.
One, two. Three. He makes a misstep, loses speed, but keeps moving on. Four. Five. A slime fall - bouncing off just right, making that turn, and feeling his foot find a grip of the finish block. M takes one more step forward, for stability, and exhales with his whole body.
Now, the wiggling part.
"So, how was it?" Evbo calls out from the ground.
M contemplates staying at the finish line for a bit, but decides to jump off the sequence to not have a screaming conversation. The slime block cushions his fall, once more. "Nice jump," he concludes, squatting down right after the landing. "And a good sharp bounce. I don't know what to tell you, man."
"That's weird," Evbo mumbles, gazing somewhere into the distance. "My slime block was still wiggling when I finished that jump."
Almost instinctively, M's gaze flicks to the block in question. He'd never paid attention, never had the reason to - but now he notices it, the light wobble of its surface. The sunlight refracting through the slime keeps flickering, dancing atop the quartz floor, confirming it's not an illusion.
Then he processes another, implied part of the wording.
"Evbo," M says almost as a tease, trying to keep a sudden nerve off his voice. "Did you feel the block you weren't standing on?"
"I. Hah. What?"
Evbo stares at him, eyes wide and mouth agape. The silence falls between them and pulls taut, straining and tangible. M doesn't breach it; he waits, watches his friend and god shift his attention between the two of them, the course, and the endless gaping space around them.
Then Evbo laughs, and the sound resonates through the fading silence like a bell chime. "Wait - I did. I really did," he repeats, and grins at M like a child who did his first two-block jump. "Is that what becoming parkour mean? Do I feel the blocks now? Dude - that's so cool, I think we should try a couple things..."
M feels himself smirk in response, says something back that makes Evbo completely flustered, but the words slip his memory by the end of the day.
A quiet, subtle worry stays for longer.
*
They build the Civilization anew.
M thinks that "they" in this description is a very generous word. All he brings to the table is the command block jumps. The rest of it - the memories, the plans, the tireless resolve to keep going - comes from Evbo. He's like a personal everburning spark, circling M like a satellite, hyping him up and egging him on in equal amount, and with that energy things start taking shape.
By the end of the week, they've made six houses (two on each level), two infrastructure courses and one small garden, and M feels like an old pair of boots - worn out, but doing great.
He flops down onto his bed, letting out a sigh of contentment. Even this little piece of comfort is a result of a job well done - he'd furnished the temple top for a change, seeing as it's gonna take a while before everything else returns to existing. Now, there's a bed here (sitting barely two steps from the command blocks), a furnace, and a few flower pots scattered around the level's edges.
The place still feels bare, but M keeps telling himself it's a temporary arrangement. He'll think of a better one when the important parts are done.
(He keeps not even considering the diamond throne.)
The day is far from sunset, leaning towards it, but not yet committing. The level is bathed in quietness; Evbo had left him for a moment, to check on the noob level. M is left to his own devices, no work for now, no distractions - and all he feels like doing is settling down, breathing deep, and thinking of the tasks still unfinished.
A week, and the world feels a little less like a gaping wound. Maybe with time, jump by jump, it will close completely, stop bearing the mark of his poor decisions.
M isn't sure how long he stays like this, counting his breaths and trying to shape the block shop building in his mind. He still feels indecisive on the window shape, when the silence around him starts cracking, pierced by sounds of someone's approach. M blinks himself back to reality and sits up, collected and full of purpose like a dispenser ready to click.
Evbo flies onto the level through yet another self-made course, pops a 360 before landing because he can, and grins.
"Okay, good news: Noob level's looking great! The new building is good, I'd buy that one if I could, the neighbourhood still feels a little bit empty, but a couple more houses and you're gonna be set!"
He rambles it all out in a single breath, cheekily clicks his fingers in M's direction, and for a second, M's mind feels lighter, cleaner. The tingling warmth of his god's presence lands on his shoulders, envelops him whole.
Then a thought stirs under the surface: Does the guy even need to breathe now, at all?
"You're gonna say there are bad news, now," M chuckles, trying to bounce off this tiny wave of unease. Evbo purses his lips, looks up at the sky. "Just as I thought. Is the house sticking out the temple wall again?"
"No, no temple wall! I told you, noob's great!" Evbo waves his hands in a sort of placating gesture. "It's not a big problem, I think -"
M pushes himself out of the bed, just to give the guy a light shoulder shove. The tangible fabric texture against his palm brings him a small drip of solace. "Hey, come on with it. Not like I have better things to do."
Evbo straightens back up, still not looking at him. "Well, um- can we remake the reward course on the pro level?"
Now that just came out of nowhere.
"What's wrong with the course?" M frowns, trying to recall the structure. It's one of his yesterday's projects, a place to dispense rewards for the volunteer work. He'd double-checked it, made sure the jumps are solid but not too demanding. "I didn't know you were checking the pro level, too."
"I wasn't checking, I just - know that something's wrong," Evbo trails off.
His eyes widen at the last word, as if suddenly realizing the words he just said. M feels it slam into him too, the weight of the sentiment, another brick into the growing pile of unease.
"How'd you say it feels like?" he asks, even as a part of him braces itself against the answer.
"I'm not really. Sure? It's like the course is itchy," the law of the universe with his friend's face says.
It takes a surge of willpower for M to not flinch. The very next second Evbo looks back at him, finally, as if sensing something. He opens his mouth again; his expression is tinted with a shade of worry, then guilt, and M calls for all his resolve to act before anything else has a chance to blossom there.
"That's a new one," he says, stalling for anything better to say. Actions come to mind easier than words; so he reaches for his water bucket, and grabs a few blocks from his bedside chest. "Lemme look. It's not hurting, right? Just itchy, so maybe it's an easy fix?"
It doesn't matter if the words he says feel wrong, unable to settle in his own mind. He can't let his god feel bad about the things he is. Can't let Evbo carry guilt for the sacrifice he'd made. M lets the burden settle on his shoulders, instead, and vows to learn how to live with it.
The course turns out to be an easy fix, just like he said. M runs it a couple times, guided by "I think it's here... and here?" coming from the side, until he finds the culprit. The jump isn't bad, but there's a subtle change of pace it brings. He rebuilds it one block to the left, half a block lower, lets Evbo evaporate the faulty one with a finger snap, and runs the course again.
His body feels too light for the thoughts it carries.
*
One by one, the changes add up.
M doesn't know if it's a gradual process, or if it's something that Evbo simply has to break in, like those new boots on his feet. The diamond attire of his own still feels too heavy, an additional parameter to account for in every jump - but at least the body wearing them stays the same. It must be a dozen times harder, to stop being human.
It becomes a second nature - keeping a straight face, coming up with quips and harmless deflections. Reminding himself that the one he holds so dear isn't slipping away, just taking on a new form.
"You're talking in blocks again," he points out, catching a flicker of creation in a corner of his eye.
"Wait, really?" Evbo spins around, looking for the evidence of his lack of godly self-control. M pauses too, studies the thing that just popped into existence to their left - a headhitter into a magma block into a glass pane. Wow, that's angry. "Did I make this? That's not a jump anyone has ever built, dude. I think you should write it down," the tinge of awe in his friend's voice makes the built-up tension ease up a bit, loosen its hold on their little corner of the universe. At least, until Evbo snaps the jump into oblivion and turns back to M. "No, back to the point. What do you mean, 'I'm bringing the tickets back?'"
That's one of the things M hadn't expected them to have: an argument, first thing in the morning.
"I just think that's one of the things that worked well," he shrugs. Evbo perches atop the command block with a pouty face, preventing access. "Don't give me that look. You said I'm free to improve things!"
"And I don't think anything about the tickets is improving," Evbo murmurs.
The judgement hits hard, harder than he anticipates. It's not a first disagreement they've had in their life - but it might be the first since their mutual ascension, and it doesn't feel the same. Part of it might be coming from M himself, his constant doubt, the memory of all his faulty thinking in the past. But there is something else, lurking underneath.
"Dude, I wasn't gonna make it impossible again! And it's not gonna be a one-time chance," he tries.
Evbo puffs up his cheeks. "It's not just that. It's that you're gonna make less people run the temple course."
This. This thing.
Forget about the fact he doesn't even place the blocks anymore, just wills for them to appear. Forget about expressing his feelings with jumps. Forget about the whole days Evbo is nowhere to be seen, appearing the next day like "I've been watching you from the Parkour Dimension!".
It's moments like this, the way Evbo thinks now and the things he cares about, that make M want to take a step back.
It's almost like fear.
He hopes it's not fear.
He takes a moment to think, to steer his thoughts into a rational direction. "But people will have to run a course to earn a ticket, right?"
That earns him a quick glance. "Not as strong as a temple course," Evbo says, chewing on his lip; now more thoughtful than pouty.
"Not as strong," M agrees. "It's like a warmup. And those who get it, will be better prepared for the temple course. Wanna see my concepts?"
His friend's expression doesn't change, but he does move aside, hops from the command block onto a wooden slab that appears out of thin air under his feet. M lets out a quiet sigh and prepares himself for a showcase, pushing the rest of his thoughts into a dark quiet corner.
*
One day, there's people again.
M doesn't do anything for it to happen. No jumps, no special preparations; he builds and builds, and at one point it feels like he'd built every crucial part of each level, and the next day, there's people.
Of course, he comes down to greet them.
He doesn't recognize a single face beyond the one who'd followed them from the fighter level. Maybe it's for the best, he thinks. He doesn't trust himself to stay collected around someone looking like the villain or Seawatt. Yet, it's still the reminder that his old life is gone, no matter the amount of fixing.
The people look confused at first, but they take to Parkour Civilization well, settle down like a plant settles into a fertile garden. By the end of the day, they recognize M as a champion. By the end of the week, it feels like they've always been there; having routines and friends and instinctive knowledge of how the world works.
He finds himself talking about it with the fighter one day. The night slowly blooms through the Parkour civilization; they're sitting on the porch of the master's level of the temple. The fighter is wearing gold boots these days, and M stays in his diamond ones, and neither feels right.
"That's how it went when our level disappeared, too", his companion says after M voices his observations. "The mind fills the gaps, the world says how to fill them. In a year, we'll be the only ones to remember."
M has a thought that he knows how Seawatt felt now, and then squashes this thought like a stinky pest.
"They won't remember Evbo the champion, either," he says instead. "Only me."
The fighter nods, kicking one foot against the porch. "But they won't remember the villain, too. When was the last time you've seen Evbo, by the way? It's like he left us directions and vanished."
M's shoulders jolt before he manages to catch his composure. "He doesn't visit you?"
"Not a single time. And you?"
M doesn't answer.
With new people flooding the streets, he once more has a lot of work on his hands. Meeting them, watching them, making an impression. Polishing up the living spaces, patching up mistakes he'd missed. Building up an image of a reserved but fair leader, and trying to believe in this image himself.
Still, something good comes out of it - and not just for the people. It's like there was a hole in M this whole time, drilled out by long, quiet solitude; a hole that he hadn't noticed behind the weight of the world. But now, with all the people surrounding him, it slowly fills up. He starts remembering things about himself - old habits, small annoyances, favorite traits in others.
He remembers how to be human.
And that makes the contrast with the one that matters more stark.
"Wanna come down there sometime?" he asks as he climbs back to the top of the temple. The night is full and heavy, and it takes him a second to adjust to it after the blinding light of his course. The small figure sitting atop the diamond throne's backrest shifts a bit, turns to look at him.
"Down where?"
"The lower levels," M comes closer, leans against the throne. He has to look up to see Evbo's face, and even then it's half obscured by the darkness. "They look so good now. You gotta come see them, man."
"I can see them!" Evbo protests. "It's a good watching spot. I can see everything." He tilts his head and gestures down and forward. M stifles a sigh.
"Dude, you've been sitting here for a week. At least parkour around or something."
Evbo doesn't respond, only lets out a small, contemplative hum.
M feels it again, a sharp, piercing fear that he's losing him. Everything about Evbo keeps changing, shifting further and further away from the bright, hopeful guy bursting with life he once met. Now they barely talk, and every time it's him who has to start the conversation.
I can't make him feel bad about it, M reminds himself. None of this is his fault.
"Our fighter friend said you haven't talked in a while," he offers carefully. "I can invite him over. Somehow." It would take a massive mess of logistics, providing a private entrance to the champion's level, protecting the command blocks. M would do it in a heartbeat if it helped.
Evbo shifts on the throne, gazing downwards. "He said that? But we talk all the time."
Something feels off in the way he says it. M moves around the throne a bit, trying to get a better look at Evbo's face. "I didn't -"
And stops; because he meets Evbo's eyes, and they don't reflect the light anymore. Even as flickers of light from torches and end rods pass over his face, his eyes stay the same, an untouchable void glimmering with its own starlight. "I don't know what you mean," Evbo says. "I talk to everyone. They say so much parkour."
M barely keeps himself from sinking to the ground. "Maybe he missed something," he musters, as his heart keeps shrinking tighter and tighter. "Hard to catch it all when you talk in parkour."
"You think?" Evbo blinks, and in this second, he almost looks human again. "Man, I gotta talk louder."
M swallows his doubts, his reservations, and climbs onto the diamond throne - only to get a good grip on Evbo's scruff and pull him down. The guy yelps, and flails gracelessly; M drops him into his lap as he settles down in the seat that doesn't fit him. "Cmere. You can keep your watch from here," he chuckles, the sound that doesn't reach his soul. Evbo shifts in his arms, solid and real despite everything else, then stills like he's fallen asleep.
M basks in the feeling of his weight, and tries not to think of the day Evbo stops using words with him, too.
*
This chain inside him pulls, pulls tighter, until it snaps.
That morning, M wakes up to Evbo sitting beside him, studying the command blocks. It's been a few days in which he didn't have much work to do; Parkour Civilization hums below them, busy and content, and the command blocks are resting, covered with the thin layer of dust. Evbo doesn't seem to do anything that would bother this layer - he mostly stares, and reaches out sometimes as if to touch, but otherwise stays in place.
"You found anything?" M asks, stirring awake. He doesn't have much hope for a response, these days - but Evbo turns to him in an instant, and lights up like he hadn't in ages.
"Oh hey! Sit here, I'll -"
Before M manages to ask, Evbo summons a book into his hand and starts excitedly scribbling something.
M doesn't dare to move for a long minute. Something stirs inside him, warm and desperate, and he fears to break it somehow, disrupt this little burst of light and curiosity coming from the one beside him. Then, carefully like he's handling a glass pane, he leans over and looks at the pages.
He doesn't recognize the writing. It's something full of circles and ornaments, woven tightly against each other. "It's not parkour," M notes out loud.
"It's the language of command blocks," Evbo nods, and keeps writing.
Pages fill faster than M manages to follow them. One by one, the book grows thicker with unfamiliar symbols. He's almost about to ask what this all means, when Evbo stops, flips through the pages once more, and hands it to M with a delighted expression.
M somehow expects it to start making sense when he takes it, but it doesn't. The book stays unreadable, and all he's able to say is that it's a lot. It's impressively a lot. If it was in parkour, it would be the longest course he'd ever seen. "You gonna tell me what it means?"
"It's you!" Evbo beams.
The part of M that had missed this look narrowly wins over the part that makes his hands go numb.
"You mean... like, something about me?" he looks down at the written words once again. His throat feels dry. He should drink something. "You gotta translate it for me, I wanna know."
"No, like it's you-you," Evbo shakes his head.
The wind feels colder, all of a sudden. M feels the need to ask. He doesn't want to hear the answer. He needs to hear the answer, or it never leaves his mind. "Can you explain it to the mortal people?" he manages.
Evbo pauses. He's beaming a little less now, and this loss echoes in M's chest alongside the chill. "That's how everything is to command blocks," he speaks, finally. "Everything is words. Grass is words. Parkour is words. You're these words! That's cool, right? You can see what you're made o-"
The book falls out of M's hands.
Evbo lunges for it, catches it like it's a treasure. "Don't drop yourself," he chastises.
And the chain snaps.
It feels like such a small difference, too small compared to everything that happened before, and yet it snaps.
M pushes himself out of the bed, turns away, not letting the young god see his expression. If there's any protest, his mind filters it out. His eyes scan the level in frantic, desperate sweeps. He needs to go. He needs to be somewhere. This place is too small to stay.
He marches to the edge of the temple, then pauses. He doesn't have a water bucket on him. Some part of him doesn't want to have a water bucket.
(His life his grief his loyalty -)
(All of it, a bunch of words in a book -)
Why did he show it? What was he trying to say?
He hears his name called from behind, but doesn't turn around. The wind grows stronger, almost making him sway. Somewhere underneath him, people rush about their lives. Is there a book for every one of them? Does he want to know?
There are footsteps behind him, approaching, but stopping before they come too close.
"Hey man, can you say something?"
"If you needed to make me," M says, and doesn't recognize his voice, "could you just jump this book on the command blocks?"
There's a short pause.
"I mean, that's how everything works?" the voice of his life says. "Not in one jump, of course, you've got a lot going on there. I think that's gonna be one, two, three..." he hears a soft rustling, a page flipping. "Yeah, I say three per page, with some - oh, that's gonna be at least a 180 here." More rustling. "Yeah, okay, that's maybe - no, actually, I'll need a third command block here..."
M lowers himself down, sits at the edge of the temple; his resolve grows weaker every second, and he can't trust his feet to hold him. The voice trails off, and for a long minute there's silence.
He thinks of the old days, his first loss to a pro looking like a child. He thinks of the changes that followed, and the fights they brought; of the world tilting at the edges and the bright, hopeful voice telling him they'll get out of this, he just needs to manage that 360.
He feels the hand on his shoulder, as solid as it's ever been.
"Which word in that book says about why you'll have me?" M asks, barely louder than a whisper.
The hand on his shoulder squeezes, and there's a tremble to this motion, one that's too familiar to be a part of the cosmic force.
"Every one," Evbo says.
*
They talk that day, more than in a whole week combined. M doesn't remember the words exchanged, or the thoughts expressed - but at some point, they're enough to pull him off the ground and into the arms of his (clueless, but caring) god.
He wants to say things change after that, but it's not so simple.
The God of Parkour can't stop being what he is, and it would be ridiculous to want it otherwise. There are long stretches of time in which M wakes up alone on his little island, only aware of a faint presence beside him; days when the almost-human shape atop his throne only stares into distance and responds to him in sequences of blocks. He learns to read the will of this presence, understand the meaning of sequences, and believe that those can be warm and joyful, too.
In turn, Evbo keeps trying to remember that he used to be a human.
Sometimes it comes up as him trying to taste all the food that comes out of M's furnace, and more than once he needs a reminder that coal isn't, and has never been, food. Sometimes he asks M to talk about his day, and listens, and asks questions about all the things that have changed down below.
He returns to parkour himself - not in the realm of his mind, but a tangible, real one. He challenges M to new courses, and M challenges him back; and even if the blocks appear beneath them with no one to place them, it's not a thing to be picky about.
Even still, Evbo keeps refusing to come down from the temple, or see other people. Something about "we wouldn't get each other." For a while, M tries to come up with a solution, worried about the longing in those words. But somehow, before he manages to intervene, there's a girl in a fuzzy sweater at the master level claiming she knows his god's name.
(M doesn't manage to catch the details of how they met or why they started talking, aside from "experimental parkour". But Jumper looks sweet enough to be around, and insane enough to handle Evbo at his weirdest, and that's all he needs to accept her presence.)
But it's still not simple, far from it.
M calls for Evbo as he reaches the top of the temple, coming back from a day of talking and battling and troubleshooting. There's no response, and he mentally prepares to leave the guy alone - when he sees him, down on the floor, staring in confusion at his own hands.
M falls quiet, carefully coming closer. Evbo doesn't seem to notice his presence - he studies his own fingers like he sees them for a first time. A few sequences of blocks flash around him - a double neo, crystal jump, another crystal jump. A brewing stand; then a series of ice headhitters, one faster than the other.
As the last block ceases to exist, M drops down on his knees, wrapping his arms around Evbo.
His god looks back at him, his eyes of starlit void reflecting no recognition. But he looks scared, as scared as his parkour-rambles suggested, and M tightens his grip, pulls him closer.
Maybe right now he's a stranger to this small, divine thing. Or nothing more than a few lines in a book, something one could rewrite ten times a day. But Evbo clings to his embrace, and then relaxes in it, and the space around them stops spinning in patterns.
For now, M thinks, it's the only part that has to matter.