// dsmp rp
A Post-Prison Endersmile Drabble
Dream fell against the wall, but remained determinedly upright. Deep breaths in. Out. He couldn’t pass out, or he could very well end up with a knife in his back.
He didn’t know how long it was since he last used the book—how could he? But it was enough for the sheer force of it to be alien again. The world spun.
In and out.
He straightened his spine, looming tall over the body laid across the stone. Slowly, it blinked, red eye glinting in the firelight, and Ranboo hauled themself up onto their knees.
Then the eye snapped to Dream, and went wide.
Ranboo scrambled back against the wall. “W-Where am I?”
Dream had handpicked the location: a shallow tundra cave, not too far from the Syndicate’s land, just warm and sheltered enough to keep them both alive. Dream shivered anyway.
“What did you do to me?” Ranboo’s eyes flicked between Dream and the exit.
“Relax,” said Dream, and talking was suddenly harder than he remembered. “I'm helping you.”
“What— No, you’re not helping me. Wait— What do you mean?”
And Dream didn’t need to explain himself, but Ranboo had presented an opportunity. “Look. I'll let you go back home, back with— to all your friends. But first, I’m gonna need you to tell me something.”
Ranboo frowned. “Tell you something?”
“I need you… to tell me where you were.”
Ranboo glanced outside. “Well, I-I mean, I, um— I don't even know where I am.” All Dream could see was a blanket of white, but then again, his vision wasn’t wholly reliable.
“Think harder.”
There it was, that fear that Ranboo had always been so terrible at hiding. Good. Fear made Dream’s life easier.
“Um. Well, um— I see we’re in the snow. Uh. I live in— in the snow. On my own.”
Dream shook his head. “You don’t have to— I already know about the Syndicate. Techno and Philza and Nihachu, right? They literally helped me escape. I don't care where you live, that’s not— What I need is for you to tell me where you were, like, five minutes ago.”
Ranboo’s face was an open book: panic to contemplation to panic again. “Wait, was I… no, wait, hold on, was I dead?”
“That’s not my question.”
“I'm sorry, I don't— So, wait. You revived me.” Ranboo weighed up the words. “You revived me. You brought me back to life. Which means— Which means I was in limbo. I guess? Is that what you mean? It was just this, um, massive ocean.”
Huh. That wasn’t right.
“What kind of ocean?”
Ranboo’s eyes narrowed. “I mean, why do you want to know?”
“What kind of ocean, Ranboo.”
They flinched. Privately, Dream smirked.
“It— Well, there was just water everywhere. That was all I could see. And I think… yeah, there was this tiny island I was on. Like, really tiny. I was just. Stuck there.”
Ranboo had died by Sam’s blade; Dream wouldn’t soon forget it. But, in Dream’s experience, that kind of death didn’t result in an ocean limbo. It could relate to the prison’s location, he supposed, or to Ranboo’s terror of the burning water.
Whatever the reason, it needed research. Dream wished he could ask Ranboo to accompany him. He would just have to test it himself by the prison’s entrance.
“Are you going to let me go?” asked Ranboo.
Dream cringed as he shifted his weight, then cringed again at the slip—it was too dangerous to let Ranboo see the state he was in. “Head south, you'll reach Techno. He should be pretty easy to find.”
Ranboo gawked. “Oh! Um. Thanks! And, I guess, thanks for reviving me.”
Flames glinted off of netherite; the sword was still within Dream’s reach. No one had come for him, as of yet, but he wasn’t stupid enough to believe it would last.
“Just tell Techno we’re even.”
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