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His eyes flutter open, and he is alive again.
Laying on his back in a patch of soft, green grass, looking up at sunlight filtering through trees. Sparse clouds drift cheerfully through the bright blue sky, and a butterfly flits past his nose.
He sits up. He is alone.
Ranboo is, now more than ever, alone.
He quickly searches his inventory, grasping for his fading memory. No fear in the world could amount to the terror he experienced upon realizing his items were gone.
No tools, no books, no ender chest. Nothing.
How had he gotten here?
His mind sparks. A memory, not fleeting or fading but vibrant in its tragedy. Then another, and another, all rushing back to him, painted in beautiful and eye-catching hues and scored in full orchestra by his mind. No longer scrambling for answers, but having them. He takes a deep, deep breath, deeper than the deepest sea trench, and feels his lungs soaking in the freshest air he's ever tasted. Riddled with energy and what feels like pure magic, coursing through his throat and into his blood and up to his brain, he remembers everything.
Ranboo remembers his family.
He wakes up in a massive, plush bed set proudly in the room of a massive mansion in Snowchester. Tubbo lays next to him, curled around him like a snake, refusing to allow him to get up. He relents, laying back down, closing his eyes, opening them again.
Tommy and Michael are at the foot of their bed. Tommy's bugging Tubbo for one reason or another. He manages to pull the small satyr from the covers and drags him off with Michael in tow. Ranboo chuckles, sitting up, rolling out of bed, closing his eyes, opening them again, and he's back in the forest.
He remembers Phil and Techno and Niki. How could he ever forget the Syndicate? The two closest approximations to parents he'd ever had, the only person in the world he could consider his sister. He sees them, laughing around the table, that mysterious table, playing some sort of card game, and then he's back in the forest, tears in his eyes.
His past is still lost to him, but his present is here, in shocking detail, no books required.
… Ranboo remembers how he died.
Dream had escaped. His first priority, of course, was to target Tommy again. To destroy what he had so he could continue to manipulate him. This mission brought him to Snowchester.
He remembers it.
Dream stands at the end of the hall, holding Michael roughly in his arms, axe to Michael's neck, demanding. Demanding that Tommy return with him. Demanding the Discs, and Snowchester's subservience.
Ranboo remembers the anger.
With perfect fury, he remembers his instincts taking over. He springs onto the wall, prowling on all fours, onto the ceiling, then the other wall, launching himself down the hall in an instant, swooping Michael to safety.
Tubbo and Tommy run over, Tubbo takes Michael, Ranboo shoves them, rushes them out. They dash away, through the labyrinthine halls, and it is Ranboo and Dream, Dream and Ranboo, and Ranboo wants blood, and he wants catharsis, and he wants Dream to burn-
And they fly at each other, trading blows. Ranboo falls on Dream's axe.
He bursts out of his bedroom, ready for round 2.
Again, he dies, again, he resurges. He flies at Dream one more time-
An axe to Ranboo's chest. A massive bite to Dream's neck.
Dream lays dead on the floor of the corridor, as Ranboo's family returns to him.
He remembers dying, dying in Tubbo's arms, begging Tommy to take care of him, to take care of Michael. But strangely, he also remembers his own funeral.
Out of body and finally thinking straight, Ranboo watched them grieve. He watched them lay him to rest, building a grave, planting allium bulbs. He floated behind Tubbo, now a widow, laying a spectral hand on his shoulder, vowing to never lose the ring, not even in death.
And here he is.
Is this his afterlife?
Ranboo pushes himself to his feet, ducking under branches as he walks through the forest. His tail twitches anxiously in his wake, betraying his panic. He can feel his heart rate mounting to an arrhythmia, realizing no, I'm not ready, I want to go back, I love them so much, I can't go now-
And then he hears a twig snap.
It had been a rough couple of years for Rythian Enderborn.
The world collapsing, the new server. Zoey falling from the sky, falling into his heart, though he endeavored to keep her out. The grudges, the wars, the invasion of the End.
The bomb.
The arm.
The child.
Since leaving Sick Bay, Rythian had had many things on his mind. The succession crisis in the Twilight nation of Mycelia, and what that meant for Zoey. The plan to liberate the End, and what that meant for himself. Regaining his alchemical powers, polishing his thaumaturgical skills, and keeping tabs on Sjin and Lalna. But through it all, the back of his mind kept chanting.
I wonder how Ranboo is doing.
Ranboo had been an… earlier development. Back when Blackrock Hold had just been constructed, Rythian was experimenting with alchemy, attempting to create an Ender construct that was capable of the same magical feats as Endermen, but was not under the Dragon's control. The spell was complex and the materials numerous, but he'd thought he'd finally perfected it enough to give it the old college try.
Something, however, had gone wrong.
The spell felt different. The materials weren't all used. The result…
Was an abomination.
A little toddler-sized creature, half green-eyed Ender construct, as Rythian had intended, and… half albino creeper.
He thought back to the ominous warning that had appeared in the mine.
Maybe Israphel had been in their basement this whole time.
Rythian was prepared to scrap the thing. It was an artificial construct, and a failure at that. No point in keeping it around. But then Zoey had walked in.
She saw the construct and saw Rythian and left him no time to explain, eyes lighting up, face breaking into a grin. She sprinted over to the dias and swept the little thing off the ground, wrapping it in a blanket and cooing incessantly.
"Aww, Rythian! You could have told me if you wanted a li'l one!!"
"I… I didn't-"
"Oh hush, I forgive you, it's a hard question to ask. Plus, he's just so cute!! Oh, who's an adorable little thing?? What should we name him?"
"Zoey-" he'd tried to protest, the "Z" sliding off of his tongue as more of an "S", but she cut him off.
"Oh wait! I got it, I got it, how's this: Ranboo!"
"... Er. Why Ranboo?"
"Well, he's so many different colors! Like a rainbow! But he doesn't have all of them, so he's not exactly a rainbow. So if you warp the word a little bit, you get Ranboo!"
…. Well, now he had no choice. If he broke the news to her now, that this construct was a failure to be disposed of, she'd be heartbroken.
He couldn't well have that, could he.
"... Sure. Ranboo sounds great."
"Then it's decided! Do you like it, Ranboo?"
And the child had looked at Zoey, and then met Rythian's eyes, and he'd known that he'd made the right decision.
The years flew by. Three of them, in total, at the castle. Ranboo was taught everything Rythian knew - survival, alchemy, handling of dark and red matter. In turn, Zoey taught him about conduct, how to behave - cherish your friends and forgive your enemies, choose people and not sides, always say "please" and "thank you" and clean your dish after dinner.
But then Teep's abduction, and Zoey's desertion, and the mushroom rebellion and the nuke under the castle, and the three brewing wars and the looming threat of the End…
They'd spoken over MushNet. They had no choice.
If they wanted Ranboo to live, they'd have to send him away. To where, Rythian didn't know, but Ranboo knew he was going somewhere else by the time Rythian had the spell ready.
To calm him, he'd sat at his bedside, and told a tale.
"Let me tell you a story, about a boy, a girl, and a land of magic and monsters."
He'd not seen him since, and his heart ached. Part of why he'd wanted to move back to the crater, to make a home in the nearby forest, was a hope that Ranboo would somehow return.
For Ranboo, it had been 15 years.
For Rythian, only five.
And so he wanders the forest every day, gathering firewood, hunting for food, obtaining rare plants or fungi that Zoey needed. And just his luck - he'd stepped on a branch.
Ranboo's emotions went haywire. He crouched against a tree, limbs shaking, mismatched ears pivoting for the source of the sound. The undergrowth rustled. He heard footsteps. Heavy footsteps, like boots or hooves.
Hooves.
Had Tubbo come for him somehow?
His worries melted away like a wallet in Las Nevadas, and he traipsed out of his hiding spot, following the sounds.
"Tubbo!! Tubbo? I'm over here, Tubbo, please hurry-"
His own gait sped to a sprint, racing towards the source of the noise.
"Did you find Dream's book? You've come back for me, right?"
… no response.
Then, a voice. A very non-Tubbo voice. Swedish, with a moderate accent, similar to Fundy, but deep. Deep and smooth.
"... Who are you? Who is Tubbo? Are you lost, sir?"
Fear crept back up Ranboo's spine. He backed away as the bushes parted, revealing…
What looked to be a mostly human man.
Tall, by human standards, with brown hair with a blonde tuft. Tan skin and a prominent purple scarf that covered his mouth, set over a white coat and a black shirt and jeans.
An Eye of Ender on a necklace, and black combat boots, ladder-laced in blue.
His ears were pointed, and an air of ender particles swarmed around him.
Just like Ranboo.
He could hear the incessant buzzing of his own cloud as he looked the man up and down, his memories rushing to figure out why he seemed so familiar, and his particles whispered one phrase in unison.
"Welcome home, Lethe."
He was dreaming.
He had to be dreaming.
But the face was unmistakable.
Half black scales, half white fur, with a long black fang on the white side, forming the infamous downturned frown of a creeper. One red eye, one green. A long tail with fins and feathers, and two horns on the forehead, parting a mop of monochrome hair that was flipped in relation to the colors of his body.
This was him.
This was his Ranboo. Dressed sharply in a tailored suit, with a gold ring on his left horn and a braid hanging over the finned left ear.
… proudly wearing a crown that had once been Zoey's.
He dropped the bundle of firewood he was carrying, staring up in pure awe.
".... Ranboo?"
He knew his name.
This man knew his name, and pronounced it uniquely, as though there were an E instead of an A.
Renboo. Renboo. The name was so natural coming off his lips, as though he'd had it on his tongue for years, knew the feel of the syllables, the shape of each letter in his mouth, like he said the name daily, Renboo, Renboo, like an apology.
"... That's… that's me. Ranboo Underscore Beloved. Er- where am I?"
The man did not answer him.
The man launched himself forward and hugged him instead.
Something deep within Ranboo's heart sparked at the contact. He uneasily lowered his body to a kneel, allowing the stranger to properly embrace him, and he felt this love in the interaction. A deep and ravenous love, made fonder by years of separation, an endless well of caring only felt from Phil and Techno in his memory.
His eyes widen, and Ranboo remembers.
He was holding him again.
All these years, and Rythian never thought he would.
All at once, Ranboo is a child again. No taller than four feet. Sitting on Rythian's knee while he babbles about alchemy.
He is small again, even now that he is eight feet tall, he is little. He is Rythian's son. His little boy. His baby. Now and forevermore, his baby, carrying Zoey's silly little name, and he swears he will never let him out of his arms again for as long as he lives.
He's crying.
His baby is home, and all grown up, and he had to do it without him, and now Rythian is crying, and apologizing, and holding his son tight like a vise and begging for forgiveness, but he had to, he had no other choice, Lalna would have killed him, Sjin would have killed him, the Dragon, Great and Terrible Empress Voxyl would have taken him away.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
He knows this man.
He remembers long nights experimenting with matter beyond mortal ken. He remembers sword duels and magical rings and life stones and mushrooms. Sitting on the counter in the kitchen while a red-haired woman cooks dinner. He learned from her, too - she didn't take sides. She took people. She told him, Now your father hates science, she'd said, but I love your father. And if I need science to make sure he's safe, then I will use it.
Science? Magic? All she'd cared about was her family.
That was the day he'd seen B.A.R.R.Y.
Ranboo knows this man.
This man has a name.
Rythian, he thinks. Rythian Enderborn. Who had always pronounced his name with an E. Who had always said his mother's name with an S.
Mother. Father.
This man is his father.
He melts into Rythian's arms.
Father. Father. Father. He feels the tears burn his cheeks. How long has he been crying? How long had they been in this heap on the ground?
Rythian pulls away from him, hands firmly on Ranboo's shoulders, smiling as tears cascade from his eyes.
"... My son. I did what I could. I promise I tried my hardest. We both tried, so hard, but… we just couldn't, you just couldn't stay. You had to leave. Forgive me."
Ranboo holds eye contact, and doesn't look away.
"I tried to make you proud. I didn't know who you were, but I knew you existed, and- I tried to be the best I could be."
"Were you happy, Little Boo? Did you find happiness? Was there peace, was there love, was it a good life?"
"It was, it was, I swear to you it was. I married a genius and he was so handsome and brilliant and kind, and we adopted a child who was just as brilliant as he was, and we raised him with our dearest friend, and I had a sister and parents and friends who stayed until the end, and not a single one missed my funeral-"
He's crying again. Grieving the life he left behind, Tubbo and Tommy adorning his grave, and Michael, oh, poor Michael, he wants to apologize, he wants to take it all back and hold him in his arms and call him baby and little one and sweetheart and he wants to believe this is a dream and wake up tomorrow in the mansion next to Tubbo and get held down into the bed again and to fall back asleep and Rythian's hands are cupping his face and wiping his tears and he looks at him, softly, tilting his head
"... Then I am proud of you."
And a smile cracks its way across Ranboo's porcelain face as Rythian stands and helps him up.
"Much has changed since we sent you off… but your mother will still be so happy to see you. It's a bit of a ways back to the cabin, so how about on the way back you tell me everything."
"Everything?"
"Every last detail. Tell me your whole life story, the smiles, the tears, the furious snarls, every bit of it."
Ranboo smiles, drying his eyes.
"Well, it all started when I joined a budding nation and met the most beautiful satyr and the bravest racoon boy I'd ever seen. Well- he always said he was a racoon, we could never be sure…"
And he prattles on into the familiar air as Rythian traces his steps back to Blackrock Cabin, where a certain firey redhead took one look at Ranboo and wrapped him in her arms, home again.