"Why didn't you come to the party?" Tommy asked suddenly. "I sent out an invite to everyone but you didn't show up."

Ranboo looked rather taken aback. "What?"

"The party. There were invites for everyone but you didn't show up." Tommy said bitterly, already regretting having asked.

"What do you mean?" Ranboo asked. "There were no-"

Tommy talked over Ranboo, disliking the anger that was stirring in his stomach again. Anger came to him so easily these days, not like how it did before. He didn't like how exile seemed to be changing him. "Never mind, I don't want to talk about the party."

"I never got an invite, Tommy." Ranboo interjected, making Tommy fall silent.

"I don't want to talk about it." Tommy said instead, the cogs in his mind already working and trying to piece together what had happened. They were silent all the way back to the village, and Tommy stepped into the house with the villagers and placed down the brewing stand he had. Almost instantly, one of them donned the outfit of a cleric, and Tommy opened the trading menu.

"I have a lot of emeralds from... the past, from L'Manberg." Tommy explained, feeling a twisting sensation in his stomach as he thought about L'Manberg in the past tense. "I can trade now." He smiled slightly, feeling excited at his new project.

Tommy slowly leveled up the villager, and he jumped for joy when the villager offered pearls.

"I did it!" Tommy exclaimed. "And it's a one in three chance!" He grinned widely, and Ranboo mirrored Tommy's grin, genuinely excited for Tommy.

"That's really good!" Ranboo said, looking hesitantly happy, as if unsure if Tommy's mood would change again and swing like a pendulum all the way back to the other side.

Ranboo was right in anticipating a mood change. As the two were heading back towards Logstedshire, the sun setting, Tommy began speaking again.

"I'm not going to be here forever," he said in a contemplative voice. "Not here, not in exile, not in this world... I'll be gone someday. And I don't know how long I have left."

Ranboo looked vaguely uncomfortable once more. "Yeah." He mumbled, disliking the idea that his friend would be gone one day.

"I'm losing." Tommy said quietly. "And... Everyone always told me I was the hero, the hero of this server, the hero in this story, the one that came and fought Dream, but maybe I was just... maybe I was just a pawn. Maybe this was just meant to be."

Ranboo shook his head. "No. I don't believe this was meant to be. I should've been exiled too."

Tommy interrupted Ranboo, holding up a hand. "It doesn't matter anymore." He said dismissively, and Ranboo felt a jolt, watching the cold way in which the subject was simply dropped.

***

"Do you have a pickaxe with fortune?" Tommy asked, considering the silk touch pick that Dream had forgotten to take back at the end of his last visit.

"I do." Ranboo answered.

"I want to get diamonds." Tommy said determinedly, not in an excited way of someone discovering the game, but in a way of someone who had a grim mission and knew that it was what they were supposed to do.

"Alright." Ranboo said. "You want to use it?"

"Yeah, if you don't mind." Tommy said. Ranboo handed it over without complaint, although there seemed to be slight hesitation in the way Ranboo's hand gripped the handle of the pickaxe for a second too long.

Tommy and Ranboo strip-mined until they found a cave, and they wandered through before Ranboo yelled excitedly, waving Tommy over.

"I found some diamonds!" Ranboo told Tommy.

"Where?" Tommy walked back to where Ranboo was waving his arms.

"This." Ranboo pointed, looking with that hesitantly happy look at Tommy again. It bordered on pity, perhaps because it was born of pity itself, and Tommy knew and resented it.

Tommy mined the diamonds and collected them, feeling rather impressed by the pickaxe.

"Can I keep it?" Tommy asked nonchalantly, wanting to hear Ranboo's response.

Ranboo hesitated. It was a good pickaxe, after all. "Do you want to keep it? Didn't you say that Dream puts all of your stuff in a pit?"

"He does." Tommy shrugged. "But I want to keep it." He said it with efficient conviction.

Ranboo watched Tommy for a long time, the expression in his eyes as though he was trying to read Tommy. "Okay," he finally said. "I'll make another one."

Tommy cocked his head to the side. That wasn't what Ranboo had wanted to say.

"Why don't you explore the cave further, and I'll strip mine?" Tommy offered instead.

"Sure." Ranboo jumped on the opportunity to do something. Tommy hauled his pickaxe over his shoulder and went back to his grueling task, saying nothing further. That day, Dream never came to visit.

***

The next morning, Tommy awoke to miserable sheets of rain pounding down, the tent moving with the wind and funneling underneath the blankets of his bed. He sat up blearily and poked his head outside, not even fazed when his head was immediately dampened and water dripped into his eyes from his hair.

"It's raining." Tommy said to himself, his voice feeling so quiet under the patter of the rain. He glanced to the side and looked at the beach where his beach party was supposed to be, which was completely unchanged. He glanced over towards Logstedshire, and he smiled slightly when he remembered the chest room. Things would come to an end, whether sooner or later, and he was doing his own work to make sure that he would be able to get there someday.

But it all seemed so long. Day by day, everything was the same, and his only friend, only friend, was Dream. He didn't have very long left, he'd convinced himself, and at the same time, it seemed like not enough and far too much.

There wasn't much to do that day. There wasn't anything to do, really. He could visit Technoblade... but what would Dream think? Would he approve? Or would Dream see it as a violation of their friendship by leaving the boundaries that Dream had set?

Later that day, after mulling around doing nothing, the realization hit Tommy. It was pointless of him to try and destroy the bridge and make things harder for other people. He didn't need less people visiting. He needed more people visiting.

Tommy immediately gathered materials and headed into the nether to begin work repairing the bridge, but when he arrived at the nether hub, he stared at the nether portal there that led to civilization, that led to L'Manberg.

Why would he've done such a thing, Tommy didn't understand. He sat down at the edge of the bridge and let his chin droop onto his chest, feeling suddenly tired as he watched the uniform pattern of the lava, changing and moving.

That wasn't the way he wanted to make things, he decided. He would make it as easy as possible, with bright arrows on the floor pointing the way to his portal. He remembered why, he definitely did, but to make such a decision... it was stupid and hurt him more than it did anyone else. If he made it really easy to get there, and he threw more parties soon and made it all seem more exciting, then everyone would like it more than L'Manberg and come move to him.

Retrieving the concrete that had been used in Tubbo's statue, Tommy returned to the nether, dodging threats from mobs, and was surprised to bump into Niki and Ranboo, one after another.

"Hey," Niki said.

Tommy stopped in his tracks and looked at Niki, remembering that this was someone who hadn't visited him once in the days and days he'd been in exile.

"Why didn't you come visit me?" Tommy said abruptly.

Niki looked unbearably awkward, her gaze darting away for a few moments. "I didn't know you were in exile," she said, shrugging her shoulders as if she didn't like the truth as much as he didn't like that she hadn't visited. "I'm sorry, I only heard recently."

Tommy arched an eyebrow, not believing what she'd said. Ranboo looked vaguely uncomfortable and shuffled his feet.

"You haven't been in L'Manberg for an entire week?" Tommy said, looking rather skeptical. "How have you not heard?"

"I just haven't really been around." Niki shrugged, looking genuinely apologetic. "I'm sorry, Tommy."

Tommy looked away, wanting to say a million things, but realizing that this was one of the last people who was being kind to him and remembering him, he decided to stay silent.

"Well, what I'm doing at the moment is building a path to make it even easier for people to come visit." Tommy explained instead of pressing the issue further.

"Cool," Niki smiled awkwardly.

"By the way, do you have a fire resistance potion?" Tommy turned to ask Ranboo.

"Yeah, of course." Ranboo searched through his inventory and handed one to Tommy.

"Thanks." Tommy said. He turned around, gazing down at the big pools of lava, the mesmerizing way the patterns of the lava shifted in sync. He broke out of his stupor abruptly and then began building again, listening to the sound of Ranboo and Niki chatting in their VC, not acknowledging Tommy anymore, and his shoulders slumped. So he was just intruding on their conversation. What was he to do such a thing? Even with other people, physically, he was still alone. Ever since the exile, people treated him differently, when all Tommy wanted was a friend that would treat him no differently as the Vice President of L'Manberg and a nobody exiled from their country. How could he be with other people and feel so alone?

When his cobblestone reserves in his inventory ran out, he merely left the two of them chatting and went back to his mine to mine some cobblestone. A draft blew into the mine, chilling Tommy slightly and causing goosebumps to rise over his arms, reminding him of the ragged state of his clothing. He shivered, rubbing his arms and letting his pickaxe drop to the floor, listening to the clink of it against the stone.

After harvesting another few stacks of cobblestone, Tommy returned to the nether, walking through the rain to enter the portal, feeling rather numb. What was the point of going back to talk with them? They clearly didn't want to talk with him. Why burden them with pity? He didn't want their pity anyways.

"I'm back." Tommy announced, unsure himself of why he was doing such a thing.

Niki and Ranboo seemed rather startled, but they then greeted Tommy and continued chatting.

"You guys are really just talking over me." Tommy commented with a straight face, unsure if it was because he wanted to get a reaction from them, or because he just wanted them to know what it was they were doing.

"Oh, we're sorry." Niki immediately apologized, looking intensely uncomfortable. Tommy had half a mind to let Niki go if she didn't like being around him so much, but decided it would look rather rude.

Tommy merely shrugged without words and walked back onto the narrow cobblestone bridge with his cobblestone. By the time he returned, both Ranboo and Niki had left, and Tommy had no idea where they'd gone.

No matter. Tommy thought to himself. At least they're being honest to me.

After Tommy finished creating the bridge, he began widening it, feeling rather resentful that this was what he had to do to find people who would come visit him. That day, even Dream hadn't come...