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Part 10 of unstableversary 2026
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Published:
2026-05-01
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Sunshowers

Summary:

From the very first moment Flamefrags ever closed his tiny fists around a little wooden blade, his older brother had made it clear: if he dropped his sword, he would die. 

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In the Mist, Flamefrags needs a second chance.

Unstableversary Day 10: Anew

Notes:

this was SUPPOSED to be cartwings but something terrible happened to me with the new flame upload. mind the tags and enjoy. (probably a little messy but im sleepy im tired I dont want to write anymore grandpa!!!!)

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

From the very first moment Flamefrags ever closed his tiny fists around a wooden sword, his older brother had told him: drop your sword and die. 

Mane had carved that very first sword himself; sat on the porch of their little cave house and chopped away at a branch of oak with his pocketknife. He had to pinch the handle of the blade in between his index and middle finger and thumb so his claws wouldn’t get in the way. 

And then he wrote into the handle: Happy Sixth Birthday, Little Bro. 

It was his first sword and from the moment he took that gift into his hands, Flame knew that he was built for this. He didn’t learn until much later what a person did when they held a blade. He only knew then, at six, that the balance felt good in his hands and his body shifted and suddenly his small and clumsy soul fell into place. 

Don’t drop it, his brother said. You can’t drop it. If you drop your sword, you die.

So Flame slept with the sword every night; clutched the gift to his chest and traced the letters carved into the hilt with his thumb. 

And sometimes Mane would shake him awake in the dead of night; put his hands on his shoulders and say get up get up get up if I was an enemy, you’d already be dead. 

But you’re not, Flame would say. You’re Manepear. 

Imagine I’m somebody else, his brother would say, and Flame would sit there, uncomprehending. He wasn’t someone else. He was Manepear, Flamefrags’ only older brother. Manepear-the-brave, Manepear-always. 

He could not possibly imagine Mane as an enemy. 

Flame could not, as a child, imagine many things. His monsters lived in the darkness and on the roof in the night, when the wind would blow through the trees outside and make awful creaking whines. He imagined them as awful large hungry dogs with shaggy fur and rotting breath. He thought they would come inside and tear them apart and he told this to his older brother.

Mane took his hand and he closed it around the hilt of his little wooden sword. He said to Flame, then: 

Look at me. I’m not strong enough. You’re going to protect yourself. From wolves and nightmares and enemies and traps and everything. You’re going to be strong. Can you be strong, Flamefrags? Can you be the strongest? 

Never let go of your sword. Never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never—

 

Flame’s palm stings with impact. Flowtives is laughing. There isn’t a body to bury. 

Not even a body. He shouldn’t be surprised by the Mist’s cruelty by now. Time and time again they have proved to him—with flint and steel, with mace and elytra, with a sword in—

a sword in where? in his best friend’s throat? in his chest, sliding through the ribs? in the gut, sliced open and left to spill inside-out? through the head, splitting the pupil and his pale golden eyes and the gray matter of his mind? 

Did it hurt? Did they take their time? Was it quick? Did he struggle or accept it? Did Flowtives corner him in place? Did he break all of Lomedy’s armor or was it a quickdrop? Did he hold him down and slit his throat or did he let him drown and why didn’t they let him bury something, bury anything, bury Lomedy? 

If they let him—if he could—Flame would sit at Lomedy’s side for hours and hours and pick the dried flakes of blood from the face of his precious friend and hold him close and warm that cooling body of his with the flame in him that never goes out. Maybe he’d hold Lomedy’s face in his hands and look into those glassy golden dead empty doll eyes and close them with his thumb. He’d look for the scars; find each one and catalogue them well, the birthmarks and freckles and faint dark lines where he was hurt and healed so he could match up this stiff corpse of a nothing with his best friend. 

If he could have—if he was better—he would have stayed there at Lomedy’s side and held him close and cradled him to his chest even as he choked on his own blood; aspirated it and choked and died. Or maybe he would talk him through it; tell stories of how good it used to be, how much he loved to hear Lomedy sing in the garden in the morning. Maybe he’d sing something to him to make it easier. Flame hasn’t ever sung for anybody. No-one in this world. He would have done it for Lomedy, if it made it easier. If he could have made it easier. 

If he was there—if he hadn’t trusted Flowtives, hadn’t let himself get complacent—he would have saved him. He would have saved Lomedy even if it meant giving him the armor off of his back—even if it meant standing in between him and an army—even if it meant giving him his last totem. If he was there, he would have saved him. Maybe they would have lost all their stuff and dug off into a one-by-one somewhere, injured and dying and holding each other and laughing about how they could have died should have died but didn’t—how they had made it out together, Flame and Lomedy, Lomedy and Flame, ruined and alive, happy. 

He can imagine it right now; Lomedy, chasing down safety through these twisting tunnels; a rabbit racing down the burrow with a fox at its back. A rabbit torn to pieces at a dead end.

If he couldn’t save him, he could have died with him. That would have been okay, too.    

Drop your sword, Flame thinks to himself, and die. 

Fragger slips from his hand. Fragger hits the icy stone with a sick, clattering ring. It shocks Flowtives and Mistrul so much that they stop dead in their tracks. 

It takes a second for him to realize what he’s done. 

It takes a second for Flame to realize he just tried to die.

 

In the morning sun, Lomedy first pours a cup of tea for Flame, and then one for himself. Wordlessly, his friend wipes off the rims with his napkin, drops three sugar cubes in Flame’s cup, a dash of milk in his own, stirs each gently for one-two-three-four seconds, and then pushes Flame’s cup towards him. 

“You’re so good,” Flame mutters, staring blankly at the teacup. Three months in prison, and Lomedy still remembers exactly how Flame likes his tea. 

Lomedy just smiles, and laughs, and the sun lights on his curved canines and it lights up his teeth pale gold. “I’m good, bro?” 

Flame blinks. That was one of those inside thoughts that had somehow become an outside thought, and now Lomedy’s grinning like he’s a cat and Flame’s the canary. 

“I just didn’t think—like, you remember—” he gives up, kisses his teeth, and lets it lie. “Whatever.” 

“I’m just built different like that, bro,” says Lomedy. Through the glass, he watches a robin peck at the windowsill. “I remember everything ‘bout the people I love.” 

Flamefrags watches his tea steam. The water vapor catches the light like his best friend does. 

“You love me?” he asks, softly. 

Lomedy looks at him; cocks his head to the side a bit and widens his eyes. 

“Yeah,” he says, easily. “You’re my best friend, Flame. You, like, help me in the farm sometimes. And you cheat at chess. And you take second watch. ‘Course I love you.” 

“Oh,” he says, and then, thoughtfully, after a moment: "What would you do if I died?"  

“Log off,” Lomedy answers, instantly, and Flame nearly chokes on his tea. 

“Log off?” 

“Yeah, “ Lomedy says. He stirs his tea, absently. “Lost a teammate once. M’not doin’ it again.” 

“So, you’d—” 

“You’re my second chance, bro,” Lomedy says. He looks out the window. He doesn’t look at Flame. He takes a sip from his tangerine-colored teacup. 

There were many things he wanted to say, then. There were so many of them that they tangled in his throat like ribbons and got stuck there and in the end Flame didn’t say anything at all. He just drank his tea and watched the light of the sun rise. 

 

He didn’t understand it then but he understands it now. 

He understands it when they run; understands it when he beheads Mistrul and rolls his skull at Flowtives like some ball; understands it when he finally makes it back to their base and it’s empty. 

There is no Lomedy anymore. Not here and not on this server, not anywhere he can ever reach. There are no more soft calloused hands and no smiling golden eyes. There are no more sugary cups of tea and no more early-morning songs drifting in from the garden. There is no ringing laughter, there is no one in this world who loves him. 

Log off, Lomedy had said, and Flame gets it. 

I’m not strong enough, Manepear had said, and Flame gets that, too. He wishes he had a little wooden sword to hold and letters to trace and monsters in the dark. It was so much easier to have monsters in the dark because he could convince himself that Mane was wrong, that he was strong enough, that there was somebody who could and would protect him. Kid fears. Flame would do anything to have kid fears again. Not this. Not this. Not this. Not this nagging absence this void this hole in his heart in his head in his life without Lomedy his friend his perfect forgiving friend, kneeling in the grass, the grass lit up by strips of sun, the sun lighting up Lomedy, on his brown-black curls and on the laurel crown on his head and his mischievous eyes, on his tan skin and the scars on his hands and the impossible endless love for all things in him. 

Lomedy arrived in his life like a sunshower.

Like rain on a sunny day; a miracle. Like looking up at the pale blue sky and feeling the cool water on your skin, faithful and freely falling; like watching the light catch in every drop of wondrous water all around you tumbling down and twirling and stuck there in midair, frozen, transfixed in time and transfigured by the sun into an array of reflective, sparkling clear jewels. Stars, all around, stars, in the sun. Forgiveness, at last, for only a second.

There-and-gone. 

He comes back in a similar way. 

Flamefrags is organizing his shulker boxes. Skrilley is there. He says hi or something. He says he has good news but nothing has been or will ever be good again. 

Then a ghost is speaking to him.

It takes a second to let the sound register, because it is such a familiar and lovely sound to register and it makes more sense for it to be in the world than not. But then Flame realizes and remembers and turns over his shoulder to sprint to hug to hold to pick up and spin around and never ever ever let go of his best friend. 

“Lomedy,” he breathes. 

“Hi, Flame,” chirps his dearest only best friend in all the world with his precious alive voice and Flame hugs him so tight he kinda squeaks. “Bro. S’fine. Hello?” 

There you are, repeats his mind. There you are there you are there you are. Hi, Lomedy, hi. 

“Love you too,” Flame chokes out. It bubbles out of him, all those ribbons that had tangled deep in him with no place to go. “I do, I really do. I couldn't--I didn't get to say it. You’re my best friend. My best friend, Lomedy, Loms, you’re my best….” 

Lomedy just freezes in his arms and then relaxes; melts into his hug and rocks gently in place. He doesn’t let go. Probably because he gets it. This is, after all, Flame’s second chance too. 

Notes:

FUCK MY STUPID CHUD TORCHFLOWER LIFE THATS A WRAP BABYYYY oh my god I cant believe I did it!!! thank you guys for reading that is unstableversary 2026 and you all are not hearing from me from a WEEK (probably.) I need a break after speedrunning so hard... anyway thank you all for coming with me on this journey! I have had a blast writing this series :D

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