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It’s been about a week since Wemmbu stashed Gambit away in his enderchest and his brothers don’t seem to suspect a thing.
This was great for Wemmbu, who had been nervous all week. Acting nonchalant was more of Flame’s thing, but he was doing well keeping this a secret. Even though Wemmbu really wanted to take Gambit out and swing it around. But who wouldn’t? His mace was beautiful and deserved to be used!
Mane was still acting over protective. Even after a week of Wemmbu not moving from his older brother’s bed at night, the lion was still paranoid that he’d wake up to Wemmbu gone again. Wemmbu knows that it comes from a place of love, so he tries not to give Mane too much shit for it even if it was super annoying.
Wemmbu’s just really happy to have caught up on sleep. He was back to his energised self, bouncing off the walls, shouting and begging to start training again. He may have overexaggerated his enthusiasm a little bit at the start, but the smiles of relief on his brothers let him know that it was a good idea. Mane and Flame had also been exhausted from staying up to make sure Wemmbu couldn’t leave and he knows that his happiness is his brother's happiness as well.
Finally, Mane seemed to have chilled out on his protectiveness. The three brothers were going on a trip to a nearby village to stock up on some things they had gotten low on. A few crops that needed to be planted, some extra hay for the animals, Flame probably wants weapons, Mane wants to get all three of them some new clothes as the world goes into spring and Wemmbu wants to check out the library.
“You what?!” Flame gasped as they walked towards the village.
Wemmbu skipped ahead of his brothers, “I want to check out the library!”
“You?!” Flame jogged up to his brother, walking backwards so that Wemmbu’s eyes locked onto where Flame’s were hidden beneath his blindfold.
They had given Wemmbu his own blindfold once. It sits in his enderchest, as he couldn’t quite sense where things were like his brothers, who both had that cat instincts to back up their partial blindness.
“You - of all people - want to go to a library?! Do you even know how to read?!”
Wemmbu hissed at his brother, “Of course I know how to read! You helped teach me!”
Mane sighed, sensing a fight and decided to attempt to deescalate, “Flame, if Wemmbu wants to have a look at the library, then he can. I think it’s good that our Lilac wants to do more reading.”
To be fair to Flame, reading really wasn’t Wemmbu’s thing. It’s - in his humble opinion - very boring. The only real reading he’s enjoyed was when Mane used to read him to sleep. His older brother would do multiple silly voices that never failed to get little Wemmbu giggling. Otherwise, he finds it hard to sit still long enough to get past the first chapter on his own (they might need to get that checked, actually…).
However, Wemmbu was determined to use Gambit.
Flame pouted at the eldest brother, “Come on, Mane! You have to admit it’s really random!”
Mane shook his head and chuckled as Wemmbu brushed up against him with a purr, “Leave him alone, Flame.”
Wemmbu grinned in satisfaction as Flame let out a scandalised gasp, “You suck up!”
Wemmbu stuck his tongue out at his brother, “Bitch!”
“Wemmbu! Language!”
~
As soon as they entered the village walls, Flame had run off. No doubt to see what the blacksmith had stocked up on since the last time they were here. There were multiple villages scattered through the jungle, the one they were currently in was the largest around. Meaning it had the best market to shop at, however Wemmbu wasn’t focused on buying things on this trip.
“Maneeeeee~!” he whined, tugging at where his older brother was holding his arm, “I wanna go to the libraryyyyy~!”
Mane chuckled, “Yes, Lilac. I know. We’re going!”
They walked over to the large (for a village, at least) building before stopping at the front door. The building was two stories tall and had an outside seating area both out the front and on the second floor. It was built out of oak, which looked a bit out of place against all of the jungle wood. But who was Wemmbu to judge, he’d never really cared much for building.
Before he could rush inside, Mane pulled Wemmbu back to him and made his brother look him in his covered eyes, “You don’t leave this building until either myself or Flame come to get you. Do you understand?”
Wemmbu blinked at his brother's rare seriousness before nodding, “Yes! I promise I won’t leave without you or Flame!”
Mane pet in between Wemmbu’s horns with a sigh, his smile returning at the purr that the younger let out, “Good. Be polite, quiet and calm.”
Wemmbu pushed his head into the large hand, “Got it! Polite, calm, quiet!”
“Have fun.” Mane waited until Wemmbu fully entered the building before walking off to trade with the villagers.
Inside the library, Wemmbu quickly finds the section dedicated to languages and silently thanks the librarian for organising the library so well. There were a lot of languages, Wemmbu has come to realise.
In the worlds of Minecraft, there was the common language that nearly every player grew up learning. It was what was used the most to communicate with each other. After that, there were many branching languages in the Overworld. English, Spanish, Latin, German, Polish, the list goes on!
Then there were languages from other dimensions.
The Nether had their own speech for the whole dimension, everyone there spoke it and most knew the common language as well.
There wasn’t much written about the End and the languages used there, mainly because nobody really lived there anymore. It was a barren wasteland besides the Endermen. Not even the dragon was still around, having been slain a long time before Wemmbu was even born.
Creatures of the void didn’t technically have a language. More so that they could feel what each other wanted to say and could respond back in the same way. A lot of void creatures have difficulties learning common when they enter any of the dimensions, having never needed to verbally communicate before.
But none of this helped Wemmbu with his problem!
Wemmbu sighed in frustration as he put back the books he had already skimmed through. He stepped back and looked over the bookshelf again, hoping to find something that looked like the ancient language he wanted to learn.
The librarian tilted her head at the boy, “Looking for something in particular?”
Wemmbu glanced over at her, nodding as his tail swayed, “Yeah. I’m wanting to look into ancient languages, but I can’t find anything.”
“Hmmm…” the librarian stared off into space before grinning, “Oh! In the back corner upstairs is the section on ancient history, you’ll have more luck up there!”
Wemmbu brightened as his tail stopped swaying, “Thank you so much!”
The lady waved as he disappeared up the stairs and sighed to herself, “The youth are so full of life…”
Her coworker (and boyfriend) scoffed, “Squiddo, we’re not that much older than the kid.”
Squiddo waved her partner off, “Hush Ash! We have work to do!”
~
Wemmbu paused as he reached the corner the librarian pointed out, seeing another person already there.
It was a boy his age with an appearance that could be the exact opposite of his. An angel, two pairs of fluffy white wings cradling his head and a larger pair resting against his back. His short hair matching the pure white of his wings. His eyes remained closed, but he seemed to be reading from the small blue eyeball floating above his forehead. An angel - how funny - the complete opposite of Wemmbu’s demonic appearance.
The boy’s eye glanced at him and he turned his head away from the book with a soft smile. The book resting in the angel's hands had familiar characters on the cover.
⎓ꖎ𝙹∴ᒷ∷ ᒲᒷᔑリ╎リ⊣ᓭ
Wemmbu doesn’t know what it says, but he assumes it’s something to do with flowers due to the cover. Not the point!
“Hello.” the boy spoke, drawing Wemmbu’s attention away.
“Hi!” Wemmbu grinned, “You can read that?”
The boy nodded, “I supposed you want to learn?”
The boy moved over on the couch he was sitting on and Wemmbu fell down next to him, staring at the wall of text that he didn’t understand, “Just like that? Not even going to question it?”
“Nah,” the boy shook his head, “I had a feeling that something like this was going to happen today. I don’t normally come into town but something was urging me to. My name’s Eggchan, by the way. You can just call me Egg.”
“Wemmbu,” he grinned at his new friend.
He didn’t question the idea that something had brought them together. He didn’t care and it seemed that neither did Egg. Wemmbu got exactly what he had been looking for and Egg seemed chill with it. At least Mane will probably be happy that he made a friend.
“We’ll start with the alphabet, it’s basically a direct translation of the common alphabet…”
~
“Hurry up, Flame!” Mane growled, “I need to make sure Wemmbu hasn’t run off!”
Flame huffed, stuffing the new sword into his inventory, “Yeah, yeah! If you thought he was going to run off, you should have just stayed with him!”
Mane sighed, “Wemmbu’s going to be 15 in a few months, I have to start giving him some time away from us.”
“Wow,” Flame spoke dryly as he walked beside his brother, “never thought Mr Overprotective would ever let his precious Lilac out of his sight.”
Mane rolled his eyes at his dumbass younger brother and swiped at his head, “Whatever!”
Flame ducked under the sharp claws with a giggle and poked his tongue out before running ahead, Mane hot on his tail.
Once they got inside the library, Mane tried to keep his panic down when he didn’t immediately spot his youngest brother. His head turned rapidly to scan the room and just as his heart rate began to speed up, a voice spoke from the counter, “Oh, you’re the one that dropped off the purple boy earlier, right?”
Mane turned to them, “Yes, where is he?”
The other employee replied from beside them, “Upstairs. Probably in the very back corner.”
Mane almost sighed with relief, turning to head up the stairs as Flame nodded at the duo, “Thank you.”
Mane didn’t stick around to hear their reply, heading straight to where Wemmbu should be. Mane talked a big game about letting Wemmbu have more freedom, but it was still a new thing for him. It wasn’t like when Flame started to get older, he was always more of an independent child anyway. It wasn’t so hard to let Flame leave his sight to do his own thing. Wemmbu was different. He thrived on attention and other people, he was very sociable and chatty and it didn’t help that he was human-ish. Although Mane knows that Wemmbu can defend himself, his can’t help that his instincts think that Wemmbu needed more protection because he was the weaker cub.
Mane shook his thoughts off as he heard Wemmbu’s quiet laughter, followed by another unfamiliar giggle. Flame stopped just behind the older, both peering around a bookshelf to see a shocking sight.
Their little brother was very sociable, he loved to chat to every vendor possible. His charm always got them discounts with the older ladies running the stalls, however he had… difficulties making friends. People his own age tended to find Wemmbu to be too much. And Wemmbu wasn’t exactly friendly to people who obviously didn’t like him.
All this to say that Wemmbu had no friends outside of his brothers.
So how and why was Wemmbu sitting on a library couch and sharing a book with a boy they didn’t know while giggling over something.
Flame’s jaw dropped, “Never thought I’d see the day…”
Normally, Mane would have scolded Flame for the obvious jab at the younger. Today was not that day.
“Wemmbu.” Mane called, dragging both boys' attention towards him.
And what a sight those two made, an angel and a demon sitting side by side sharing a book.
“Mane!” Wemmbu grinned, “I made a new friend!”
The boy was so proud that it made a soft smile fall over Mane’s face, “I see that. Hello, I’m Wemmbu’s older brother, Manepear.”
The angelic boy smiled as the eye floating above his head turned to him (freaky…), “My name is Eggchan.”
“I can’t believe you actually made a friend!” Flame gasped.
Wemmbu scowled, “And that jerk is my other brother, Flamfrags.”
“What?!” Flame hissed, “How come he doesn’t get scolded when he insults me?!”
Mane rolled his eyes as the shock finally wore off, “You are grown, he’s still a kid.”
Wembu chuckled and stuck out his tongue, “Eat shit.”
“Language.” Mane warned, “Say bye to your friend, we need to get home before it gets dark.”
Wemmbu hopped up off the couch, “See ya later, Egg!”
“Bye!” Egg waved as they wandered off.
‘This is going to be an interesting life…’ the angel thought as his eyes finally opened, looking at the small family with his real sight.
~
The next day brought a dilemma to Mane.
“I want to go see Egg today!” Wemmbu spoke casually over breakfast.
Mane froze. Flame was about to leave to go help his farmer friend in the plains biome to the east of them. Mane himself was going south, having heard of an outpost that he wanted to raid (Wemmbu’s birthday was coming up and he wanted to get him a nice set of armour, which was expensive and he didn’t want to mine it himself). Even though Man had gotten comfortable leaving Wemmbu at home alone, he was not comfortable with him going out into the forest on his own.
“Lilac…” he trailed off desperately, “Both me and Flame are busy today, we can’t take you.”
Flame paused, sensing a fight as Wemmbu gently smiled, “I know, luckily I know the way to the village on my own!”
Mane took in a shuddering breath, “The forest is dangerous…”
Wemmbu’s smile was starting to turn cold and Flame could not be bothered with the fight. He knew damn well that even if Mane forbade it, Wemmbu would sneak out on his own and probably get hurt. Because he is dumb and determined.
“You said it yourself, Mane.” Flame cut in, choosing his words carefully, “Wemmbu’s nearly 15, he should be able to start going out by himself. The village isn’t that far from here and the path is well lit, I’m sure he’ll be fine. Besides…”
Wemmbu and Mane tilted their heads, “Besides what?”
Flame sighed before pulling out an enchanted sword, “I was going to wait for your birthday, however it might be useful if you’re going out on your own. And it’ll keep Mane at peace, at least a little bit.”
Wemmbu’s eyes lit up as the netherite sword was presented to him, “REALLY?!”
Mane’s gaze softened as Flame began explaining the enchantments and took Wemmbu over to an anvil to rename the sword. Now that he’d calmed down, Mane realised that Flame was right (“I’m going to name it ‘(✿◠ᴗ◠)’!”). Wemmbu was old enough to journey out on his own during the day (“How the fuck did you just say that out loud?!”). He couldn’t keep the youngest cooped up inside the treehouse forever.
Even if it was safer…
“Alright…” Mane sighed, interrupting the back and forth of his brothers, “As long as you promise to be home before dinner, stay on the path and send me updates throughout the day on your communicator. Do you understand?”
Wemmbu grinned in delight as he held the sword, “Yes, Mane! Thank you!”
Flame grinned and ruffled the younger's hair, “Stay safe, idiot!”
Wemmbu hissed as Flame ran out of the house with a cackle and Mane stayed behind to see Wemmbu off.
“Remember to message me when you get there!” he stressed, knowing that Wemmbu’s memory wasn’t the best.
Wemmbu waved with a giggle, “I will!”
Mane waited until he couldn’t see Wemmbu anymore before hesitantly going off in the opposite direction.
Wemmbu was a big kid and would be fine.
~
After arriving at Egg’s cottage on the outside of the village, Wemmbu took the time to put his overprotective older brothers minds to rest.
‘at eggs house now’
Mane’s response was instant, as if he was waiting with his communicator in his hand (which he probably was), ‘Okay, be safe. I’ll see you tonight!’.
Flame’s response came exactly a minute later, he most likely waited after reading it to not seem like he was also waiting for Wemmbu to message, ‘I don’t care. And work on your punctuation, it’s terrible.’.
Wemmbu waited another 30 seconds and the predicted second response came from his second brother, ‘Be safe.’.
Wemmbu smirked at his tsundere older brother and walked into the house, “Yo, Egg!”
“In here!” the angel called from another room.
Wemmbu followed the sound through the cozy cottage, taking in the random decorations. This guy was really obsessed with eyes, damn. He finally found his new friend, who was saying goodbye on his communicator before hanging up and turned to grin at his shorter friend, “What’s up, bro?”
Wemmbu flopped down on the couch like he owned the place, “Was that your guardian?”
“Yeah,” Egg nodded, “he was just checking up on me. Says that it’s good I made a friend, people normally think I’m too weird.”
Wemmbu laughed, “Bro, people think I’m too aggressive!”
Egg smirked, “Yeah, I can see that.”
“HEY!” Wemmbu whined, causing Egg to cackle.
~
It had been a few weeks since Wemmbu started hanging out with Egg and despite the fact that they were supposed to be learning about his mace - yes, Wemmbu told Egg all about the mace - they had actually become really good friends.
They were almost always at each other's homes. Mane was so happy when Egg started coming to the treehouse, but pouted half the night when Wemmbu’s attention was mainly on his friend.
“They grow up so fast…” Mane sobbed to his middle brother.
Flame rolled his eyes while patting Mane’s back in comfort, “It’s about time he made a friend, I thought he was going to be attached to us forever.”
Mane paused his theatrics and raised an eyebrow, “You didn’t make a friend until you met Lomedy when you were 16…”
Flame pushed his brother to the ground, “SHUT UP!”
In all honesty, Mane was still a little sceptical about Egg. It was strange that an angel wanted to be friends with someone who appears to be a demon. Mane thought that Egg was just using Wemmbu until he could get rid of him - it wasn’t that uncommon between angels and demons - but Egg had proven to be good for Wemmbu.
And for Mane and Flame.
Wemmbu is a lovely kid and his brothers love him very much. However, Wemmbu also has a lot of energy. Try as they might, Mane and Flame can’t always help Wemmbu get out all of that energy. But Egg - despite his rather calm demeanor - seemed to have as much energy as Wemmbu. They always managed to tire each other out, making Mane coo at them when finding them asleep next to each other.
Even though Mane still had his suspicions about Egg, he was grateful that Wemmbu had found a friend.
~
“This is so interesting!” Wemmbu squealed as he gripped the book from his enderchest.
After about a month and a half, Wemmbu was proficient enough in the ancient language - Endling Speak - to be able to read the book.
Egg smiled, “Are you gonna try it?”
They were hanging out at Egg’s house in an attempt to keep this a secret from his brothers.
“I already have!” Wemmbu groaned, “It’s harder than I thought! And I don’t even have an elytra, so I can’t try that!”
“Hmm…” Egg thought for a second before lighting up, “Why don’t you finally meet my guardian?”
“Huh?”
“Yeah! Minute’s good with a mace!”
Wemmbu stared at his friend.
“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THIS EARLIER?!”