Chapter Text
All is quiet in the ranch on the day Jimmy has the stupidest idea to ever cross his brain.
“Hey, Tango?” he calls from his spot over the stove. The chicken he’s frying sizzles in the pan, ready to be removed and stored in a chest for later.
“Yeah, Jimmy?” Tango responds. He’s sitting in a chair, woodcarving sticks for tools. The shhk, shhk, of the carving is soothing in the small room.
Jimmy shakes the chicken from the pan and onto a plate, tapping his spatula against the counter as he turns to face Tango. “Are we... married?”
“I dunno, are we?” Tango answers, blinking his red eyes owlishly. “Do you want to be married?”
“Well, I mean...” Jimmy laughs, poking his fingers together. “It’s silly.”
“I like silly!”
“You know the husbandry category of Minecraft achievements?”
Jimmy can tell the exact moment Tango realizes what he’s thinking as soon as the ear-splitting grin crosses his face. “Oh my God. You absolute genius.”
“I thought it would be funny because the husbandry achievements—”
“—are like the ranch!” Tango finishes, jumping up from his chair and bouncing. “Oh, this is great! This is great! We have to start immediately! And we’ll be proper soulmates afterward! A solidified bond!”
“High five!” Jimmy shouts, and the pair clap hands in utter glee.
The air of happiness smothers as soon as Tango and Jimmy sit at the table and look at the list.
“Ah. Cats,” Jimmy says, and Tango sends him a betrayed look, as though speaking the word into existence solidified their goal’s status as unreachable. “Where are we going to find cats? There’s no villages on the server...”
“And axolotls, where would we find those?”
“I think axolotls spawn in lush caves. As long as there’s some in lush caves, we should be good...”
“But don’t they usually fight tropical fish? There are no warm oceans on the server.”
“Nooooo,” Jimmy bemoans, sliding further into his chair. A chicken hops onto his foot and clucks at him. Mockingly. Jimmy shoots a death glare at the chicken.
“Not all is lost yet,” Tango decides. “There’s always... OH!”
“What?” Jimmy asks, looking up. Tango is grinning again. “What is it?”
“Zombie villagers.”
Jimmy shoots up in his chair. “And if we get another—”
“—And we cure them—”
“—WE COULD GET A VILLAGE! Oh, Tango, you GENIUS!” Jimmy cries, crushing Tango in a sudden hug.
“But wait, hold on,” Tango says, voice muffled into Jimmy’s shoulder, and Jimmy moves away, looking down at where Tango’s finger is tapping on the list. “Look. We also need sweet berries.”
“Oh....”
“Oh.”
“Well... well. We’ll come back to that later.”
“We need sweet berries to eat and to breed foxes. So we also need foxes. And with the world border, we don’t even know if there’s a taiga.”
“Cross our fingers and pray?” Jimmy suggests, and Tango chuckles. He looks down at the paper and blanches. “Oh God, we need mooshrooms as well.”
“OH! I actually know this one!” Tango says excitedly. “If we strike a cow with lightning, it spawns mycelium!”
“Awesome!” Jimmy says excitedly. “What on Earth does that do?”
“Well, mooshrooms can spawn if there’s mycelium!”
Jimmy stares at Tango with wide eyes. “Oh my goodness. You utter genius.”
“I’ve seen rabbits, frogs, and ocelots. We have goats now, and we can go over to Scar’s for the pandas. Er, Jellies. And I believe turtles spawn on sand.”
“And there is sand?”
“There is sand.”
“Thank God.”
“I think that’s it for the breeding,” Tango muses. “Now for the food...”
“I know we can get the pufferfish and tropical fish through a fishing rod,” Jimmy says.
“And that... huh! Okay! This is all doable! Go us for problem-solving.”
“Goat horn for good luck!”
Tango laughs as they both pull out their singing horns and blow into them, the sound triumphant in the stillness of the ranch. “So, what are you gonna go for first?” Tango asks, tapping the list again.
“I reckon you should look for zombie villagers and I should look for bees?”
“Sounds like a plan!”
On second thought, Tango thinks, maybe walking into a cave without backup was not the best idea.
He hasn’t died, hasn’t even found a creeper, but the eerie echoes within the tunnels and the torches flickering in the sconces never fail to give him heebie-jeebies. He fixes his bright yellow glasses with a frown, turning to glance over his shoulder. Nothing.
Tango ventures further down into the cave system, sliding over a pile of gravel and using a pickaxe to slow his momentum until he hits flat stone. He sets a torch on the wall quietly and glances around, before stepping forward with a gasp. The cave system’s mouth opens up into a huge cavern, lush berries and moss growing on the sides of the walls and stalactites dripping into pools of water glowing with squid. Distantly, he hears the groan of zombies and grins to himself. Success. Well, potential success. Tango takes out his pickaxe and swings it over his shoulder, slowly digging down into the cavern proper. Even though he might not find a zombie villager in here, he could find some ores to bring home to Jimmy.
Tango glances to the side and spots more moss and blinks before standing straighter. Glow berries! Axolotls! He frowns and glances around, noticing a glowing pool of water. He takes a deep breath and plunges in, pulling out his iron sword and opening his eyes. The water is warmed by nearby lava, and he hopes it doesn’t send too much of a frigid shock to Jimmy. Tango swims forward, shish kebabs a glow squid without mercy, and picks up its glowing remains to slip into his inventory. He blinks a few more times before swimming to the surface and taking a gulp of air.
Once he’s had a chance to recover, he glances back into the pool. Alright, axolotls, where are you? He submerges himself again and swims forward, looking for any sign of the small creatures, until the feeling of bubbles against his head sends him spinning. Pink legs skitter past his head and he exhales a cry of relief, swishing his bucket upward. Bucket of pink axolotl, success! And a ding from his communicator signaling an achievement earned, no less.
He pockets the axolotl bucket and swims upward once more, shaking his hair out like a dog. “Alright, one more axolotl,” he murmurs. “Let’s get you a friend, huh?”
Tango glances around once more at the mossy pool. There could be any small creatures crawling around the dripleaves and spores. Hopefully the nice kind. He’s not much a fan of spiders.
He swims onto land and wrings out the sleeves of his crimson shirt, peering around shrubbery and running his hands underneath moss until he lets out a cry of glee upon seeing another yellow axolotl skitter past his fingers. “Hey, buddy! Hey! Hey! Hi friend!” He buckets the next axolotl with a happy hum and slaps his hands together. “Success! Now...”
Tango looks up, searching among the dripstone and craggy ceiling until he spots some tangled vines in the ceiling shining with light, and pulls stone blocks from his inventory with a swish of his hand. He begins towering up, getting closer and closer to the glow berries until a sudden spike of pain in his hand almost sends him off the tower completely.
Biting back a yelp, he latches his hand onto the tower, desperately hanging on. He curses under his breath when he sees the arrow stuck straight through his hand. He can’t die again, he won’t die again. He can’t let Jimmy down.
Mustering his strength, Tango pulls himself onto the stone tower and pulls the arrow out of his hand with a yank with a wince. So sorry, Jimmy, sorry, sorry, he thinks as he continues blocking upwards, faster now as he can hear more arrows whizzing through the air.
Finally, victoriously, Tango reaches the vines and plucks glow berries out of their stays and into his inventory. He glances back down, searching for the skeleton that has now lost interest in him. The glinting of bones in torchlight alerts him to its presence, and he blinks once more and narrows his eyes when he catches sight of what is next to the skeleton.
Bingo.
On the other side of the world, Jimmy is getting smacked in the face with a tree branch.
Moments prior, he had felt twin spikes of pain in his hand and only had brief seconds to worry about his partner’s underground fate before said tree branch evilly ambushed him and deposited all of its twigs and leaves into his hair. Jimmy is quite certain that if any of the other server members saw him right now, they would laugh so hard he could steal their goat horns and they wouldn’t even notice.
He sighs as he thinks about the goat horns, picking leaves off of his head. He had felt so victorious when he and Tango got matching horns, but no one ever responded to them. Oh well, he supposes. That’s just the way the goat horn rumbles.
Jimmy glances around the tree branches. “Bee hives? Any nice bees around? Hellooooooo?”
He sighs dejectedly, the sound whistling sadly through his teeth. Nothing. Maybe if he sat on the ground and sang then bees would flock to him like a Disney princess. That would surely work.
If only Tango were here to cheer me up, Jimmy mopes. He glances back into the trees, squinting up at the sunlit clouds in the sky. Even if he finds no bees on his trip, he could get other things for the achievement list. He pulls out his comm, checking the list that he and Tango wrote. Beetroot. Did they have beetroot? Jimmy knew that beetroot seeds could be found in mineshafts and dungeons, but the lack of villages made finding it on the surface nigh-impossible. Tango would have better luck.
“What else is there?” Jimmy muses, leaning back onto the springy forest grass. The rustle of the leaves in the tree (and in his hair) was soothing background noise for his contemplation. He blinks at the comm as he reads an item, then sits up. “Rabbits? I can get rabbits. I should get rabbits!” he murmurs excitedly, getting up and beginning to jog in the direction of the plains.
In his haste, he does not see the next tree branch.
Smack.
“Ow....”
<SolidarityGaming> does anyone have beetroot seeds
<PearlescentMoon> I have beetroot seeds! :D
<SolidarityGaming> where are you
<PearlescentMoon> in the sky
“So, what can I do for you today?” Pearl says with a lopsided grin. She’s got one arm lounging on the crafting table and another cradling her head, looking like a sleazy merchant ready to sell her wares. Jimmy blinks at her before smiling hopefully and splaying his fingers together.
“Yes, right! You know the achievements list?”
“I’m well acquainted,” she says with a laugh.
“Tango and I had the great idea to complete every husbandry achievement.”
“Oh!” Pearl perks up. “Because the husbandry achievements have to do with animals and food, and you both are on a ranch?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s so... soulmate-y of you guys,” she says wistfully. “I’m happy for you. And you need beetroot seeds for it?”
“Yea, because you need to eat every food in the game, and, well... beetroot.”
“I can do that for you, I can do that. But what am I getting in return?”
“Uhh...” Jimmy rocks back on his heels and stares at the ceiling, thinking, before he brightens and looks back at her. “You want more wolves, right?”
She blinks at him, before smiling. “You know where to find dogs?”
“Well, no, but we need to breed wolves for a husbandry achievement. But, when we do get wolves, we’ll let you have the pups.”
“Deal! Absolutely a deal!” Pearl reaches across the crafting table and shakes his hand vigorously. “Let me just pop into my chest,” she mutters, opening the storage unit and taking out the seeds with a pleased hum, before making a thoughtful noise.
“Hey, Jimmy? You need to eat every food in the game, right?”
“Uh, yeah. Why?”
Pearl produces a shining item and brandishes it at him. “Need one of these?”
SolidarityGaming whispers to you: slight problem
You whisper to SolidarityGaming: Whats up?
SolidarityGaming whispers to you: pearl says we need a golden apple
You whisper to SolidarityGaming: Oh no
Tango shuts off the comm with a grimace. How did neither of them think of that? Eating a golden apple could potentially unsync their hearts. If one of them died by freak chance with extra hearts, then they would be on yellow and red at the same time. The thought boggled his brain, but his fear of upsetting Grian was enough to make him reconsider this adventure altogether. They couldn’t finish the husbandry achievements without a golden apple, and, well...
Scratch that, now that he thinks of it! They also need an enchanted golden apple. What are the chances that he will find one of those in such a small world border?
(He hopes there’s a chance. More than anything, he hopes there’s a chance.)
The groan of his catch returns his attention to the real world. The zombie villager in a boat groans at him again. Tango didn’t know where else to put him, so he hopes Jimmy doesn’t mind the intruder in their living room. Tango doesn’t mind, so really, the guy has a 50/50 chance.
He runs his hand through his hair with a frown. What a predicament... if only...
You whisper to SolidarityGaming: I’VE GOT IT
You whisper to SolidarityGaming: We need a golden apple for the zombie villager
SolidarityGaming whispers to you: i’m on it!
“If you’re curing a zombie villager, might I interest you in... this?” Pearl splays some nether wart between her fingers, blaze rods in her other hand, and Jimmy gasps. “Since it’s not really like I can use it, anyhow.”
“Oh my goodness! Pearl, absolutely, a thousand times yes, wow, you are so smart. What can I get you for that?”
“Find me a sweet berry bush and you’re all set,” she says, eyes glinting.
“Alright. Check-in. What have we got?” Tango says, pulling out a chair and sitting down on it.
“I have beetroot seeds, a golden apple, nether wart, and blaze rods,” Jimmy says with a satisfied nod, setting all the items down on a table.
Tango shifts a finger through the blaze rods with a smile. “Oh, that’s right! You traded with Pearl and she went to the Nether! Well, I got us glow berries, two buckets of axolotls, glow inc sacs, and...” Tango finger guns the groaning menace in the corner. “That man!”
“He is so loud.”
“He is very loud, yes.”
“I guess we have to keep him inside, huh?”
“We could dig out a space for the villagers underneath our house,” Tango thinks aloud. “Though we might have to relocate the chickens.”
“Also, I was not able to find bees nor rabbits. I really tried the rabbits. They bested me.”
“That’s alright, we can just try again later,” Tango says with a smile. “Let’s scratch some stuff off the list, though. I’m going to craft a brewing stand for the weakness potion. We both have the Parrots and the Bats achievement—”
“—And we have A Seedy Place.”
“We should get Whatever Floats Your Goat!” Tango darts up and stretches out a crick in his neck. “Onwards to the goats!”
Jimmy giggles and points to the crafting table. “You forgot the brewing stand.”
“Oh, right!” Tango quickly crafts a stand and sets it on the table, then opens the door, jogging over to the goat pen. Miraculously, none have jumped out of the enclosure. Tango opens the gate and sets down a boat, nudging a goat into it and taking a seat beside it. A noise from the comm spells out his victory.
“Alright, your turn,” Tango says, hopping out, and Jimmy steps in. Yet another noise from the comm.
“We’re awesome! Victory goat horn,” Jimmy says excitedly, and they both pull out the horns and blow a fanfare.
“What is going on over there?” Scott mutters to Cleo, who glances up from bridge-building.
“Oh, I don’t know. Silly soulmate things?”
“It’s so sad he’s got a goat horn now,” Scott sighs. “It was more fun when he was begging us for a horn.”
“What if we killed their goats?”
The two meet wide eyes, then smile devilishly.
Tango has made the advancement [Zombie Doctor]
<Tango> Avert your eyes!
<Grian> ILLEGAL
<Tango> You see nothing!
“What are you going to write on your sign?”
“An eviction notice for InTheLittleWood.”
“Noo,” Tango says, laughing. “Are you actually?”
“I might,” Jimmy says. “I definitely could. His house is very ugly.”
“Shh, shh,” he says, still laughing. “He might hear you!”
“I’m gonna stare at him,” Jimmy giggles, pulling out his spyglass and staring at Martyn through the windows of the bleeding heart.
Tango laughs louder this time as he carves his sign, the snikt of the carving tools on the wood chipping away at the peaceful quiet of the ranch. Jimmy puts his spyglass down and returns to his sign before finishing it with a pleased noise and picking up a glowing sac, spreading it onto the sign. Their communicators buzz at the same time, notifying the chat of his victory.
“What did you write?” Tango inquires, looking down at the sign. “Ooo, yeah, I like it.” Tango puts his unfinished sign next to Jimmy’s, which together spell out The Ranch: Property of Jimmy and Tango.
“Here, let me help,” Jimmy says, and Tango places the sign onto the grass so they can both reach. Both slowly chip away at the sign until the final ‘o’ is finished, and Tango picks up an ink sac victoriously.
“I’m gonna make the Jimmy brighter than Tango.”
“Aww, why?” Jimmy asks, smiling up at his soulmate.
“Because you are the light of my life,” Tango says with a giggle, and Jimmy laughs back. It’s so silly and so sappy, and in this moment, they are content.
“Hey, Tango?” Jimmy asks. It’s night, and they’re both curled up in their shared bedspread on the floor. The wood is hard underneath his back, and he’s staring up at the ceiling as he tries to fall asleep, but this thought was too pressing to keep quiet.
“Yeah?” he hears shuffling and the duvet moves slightly, indicating that Tango has turned to face him.
“Are you sad that we’re the only ones with the Sing goat horns on the server?”
“Hmm,” Tango muses for a few seconds. Then, “No.”
“Why not?”
“I like that it’s our thing. If I hear it, then I know it’s you. Plus, it sounds cool.”
“Heh,” Jimmy chuckles, “it does sound cool.” The lilting smile slips off his face and he frowns again, blinking up into the darkness. “But would you be happier if people actually responded to our calls like they do to other people?”
“I dunno,” Tango says. “Would you?”
“Yeah,” he says softly, curling his hands in the bedspread. “I would like it very much.”
Hours later, under the half-moon, when Jimmy and Tango are peacefully sleeping under their covers, two forms slip into the goat pen. No one is awake to hear the screams.
Tango raises a hand to his face with a yawn, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He sits up, being careful not to disturb Jimmy as he slips out of the covers and stands. Quietly, he opens the door, blinking in the early morning sun. There’s a few more minutes before the roosters start crowing, and that time is his favorite. Something about the dawn is precious to a rancher, and he basks in the peace quietly, closing his eyes as he listens to the noises of the animals around him.
Except...
There’s a distinct lack of goat bleating.
Frowning, Tango wanders over to the goat pen to investigate, and gasps when he’s greeted with the sight in front of him
“JIMMY, COME QUICK!”
Jimmy has to sit down when he sees it. All of their goats were slaughtered, their blood staining the grass. It was senseless, and it was cruel.
“I can’t believe this...” Jimmy whispers. “Our goats...”
“I’m so sorry, Jimmy, I-” Tango’s voice breaks and he inhales. He won’t get angry. Not now.
“We were- we were going to get new goat horns and we were gonna-”
“Hey, it’s okay, Jimmy, it’s okay, there’s...” Tango turns away from the bloody sight. “I’ll take care of this. You should go out for bees again. Okay? There should be bees.”
“Yeah, I’ll get bees,” Jimmy whispers.
“And you need a campfire, and you need a bottle, and you need shears, remember those, okay?”
“I’ll just... yeah, I’ll get those.”
Tango uses his hand to urge Jimmy out of the pen, and only once he steps out does he look back at the mess. Who could have done this? It was clearly just to hurt the pair, because there was nothing to gain from goats dying, no resources to harvest, and their corpses would despawn eventually. It was just pointless murder.
Red starts to stain the peripherals of his eyes and he shakes his head. No. No, he doesn’t need rage right now, he needs work.
And work he shall do, he thinks grimly as he peers upon the list on his comm.
Tango has made the advancement [We Need to Go Deeper]
Jimmy stares blearily into the chest. He knows he should be crafting a campfire right now, but he can’t find the energy. He can’t believe it. All their goats, dead. Killed in cold blood.
And he thinks he knows why.
A snarl forms upon his lips as he stands up, anger running through each limb and practically sparking at his fingertips. No, he won’t get the bees, he thinks. He’s going to do something else instead.
Jimmy takes out the buckets of axolotls and a sword and heads down to the river, rage searing in each step.
SolidarityGaming has made the advancement [The Cutest Predator]
SolidarityGaming has made the advancement [The Healing Power of Friendship!]
“What in the world is he doing down there?” Martyn mutters to himself as he peers out the window, staring at Jimmy, who currently looks like a drowned rat on the banks below the bleeding heart house. He takes out his spyglass and peers down at the axolotls that join Jimmy in killing any Drowned they find.
Then, Martyn says, “Ohh, I see,” and continues about his day.
Tango wipes the sweat off his brow after exploding another bed. He’s been at this for an hour now, but the spawn rates of ancient debris are unbelievably unlucky, and he might run out of netherrack to explode at this rate. He’s only got seven pieces, which is enough for a hoe, but he might as well get netherite for their tools as well. They are still in a death game, after all, and after the massacre of the goats, Tango doesn’t want to take any chances.
He inhales heavily for a moment, then exhales. The netherrack that surrounds him blistered his hands after an unlucky touch, and he had quickly mourned what Jimmy must have thought until he felt the raking of claws against his side that wasn’t from his end, and realized that neither of them were currently being the most careful partners.
Though, he did wonder what kinds of claws Jimmy would have encountered with bees...
The next time they meet up in the ranch, they both have matching expressions of weariness on their faces. Neither of them walking into this challenge expected such disaster, but nothing ever seems to go well in a death game.
“Check-in,” Tango says tiredly. “What have you got?”
At his statement, a grin flits across Jimmy’s lips, and he pulls something from his inventory with a twirl. “Et voilà.”
“Oh my God,” Tango says, mouth falling open. The trident sparkles in the light of the house lanterns, the cyan weapon shining. “You beautiful man, Jimmy, you!” Tango immediately dashes over to his soulmate and picks him up, swinging him through the air. “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy!”
The twin laughter of the ranchers fills the house, and the cows next door begin to moo in response. Tango sets Jimmy down, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes. “I can’t believe you. You are the best soulmate ever! How long did it take to get that?”
“I actually teamed up with the axolotls to kill the Drowned, cos I thought, hey, two birds with one stone, eh?”
“I noticed you got the achievement,” Tango says with a nod.
“I also figured it would be easier to do the bee stuff together. You know, easier than plotting out coords to hives.”
“Oh, speaking of!” Tango says, turning to look at the villager they have in their house, who looks back at them. “Unless we want to go enchanting, we need a channeling and a silk touch book.”
“So we need—”
“Two villagers, yes.”
“And we need multiple villagers for a village...”
“Yep,” Tango says, popping the ‘p’.
Jimmy drops his head with a sigh. “We were so close to greatness.”
“Don’t give up hope yet!” Tango says with a chuckle. “Look what I got.”
When Tango pulls the ancient debris out of his inventory and holds it for Jimmy to see, Jimmy stares at him, his face slowly spreading into a grin. “Tango. No way.”
“Yes way.”
“How much even is that?”
“12 pieces.”
“Oh my goodness.”
“So I was thinking, eh, we can spend our meager diamonds on a hoe and get that netherite hoe achievement!”
“Oh, everyone is going to absolutely hate us.”
“It’ll be funny though, right?”
Jimmy laughs and says, “Yeah, yeah it will.”
Tango has completed the challenge [Serious Dedication]
SolidarityGaming has completed the challenge [Serious Dedication]
Smallishbeans: I hate you both
SolidarityGaming: something wrong, joel?
“I mean, something is very wrong with them, clearly,” Joel rants, waving his arms in the air and pacing. “Seriously, who wastes netherite on a hoe?”
“Mhm,” Etho says, staring at Joel’s shirt. It’s so ugly. Etho can’t stop staring. Though, is it ugly if it’s his own face?
“They could have used it on anything! Tools, armor, but on a hoe? What a waste! You could say, oh, maybe they only had two diamonds, maybe they could only craft a hoe, but you can craft a sword with two diamonds and then use netherite on that! Hell, they could have twin shovels!”
“Yep,” Etho agrees, still staring at the shirt.
“Are you even listening to me!?”
“...Yes.”
Joel buries his head in his hands with a groan. “Oh, I miss my wife.”
“Knock knock knock!” Jimmy shouts. “Knocky knocky!”
“Are they even home?” Tango wonders, staring up at the spiky structure.
“I don’t know. I keep seeing Scar running around, but I don’t think Grian left...”
“Is that Timmy at the door?” a voice calls from inside the walls, and Jimmy and Tango take it as permission to enter.
“Hey, Grian?” Jimmy asks, and the feathered blond head of their friend pokes out of the structure.
“What do you want?” Grian asks, eyes narrowed.
“Is Scar here?”
“No, he’s... off somewhere. I don’t know, I don’t have him on a leash. Why do you need him?”
“We need to breed his pandas.”
“Absolutely not, he does not need more,” Grian responds, sticking his head back in his base.
“Pleaseeee,” Tango wheedles. “We need the achievement?”
“The achievement?” Grian scoffs, poking his head back out. “What for?”
“We’re trying to get all the husbandry achievements.”
“Because you two are husbands now, is that it?”
“We thought it would be fun!” Jimmy butts in, excited. “And an interesting challenge!”
“Hmm,” Grian muses. “Hmmmm. Well, I suppose it couldn’t hurt. Knock yourselves out.”
Tango and Jimmy share a fist bump and knock their bamboo sticks together. Success!
“Do you think we should try the bees now?” Tango asks as they walk back to their house. “I mean, we keep avoiding it, so we should do it at some point.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Jimmy sighs. “Have you gotten the villager to be silk touch yet?”
“No...” Tango says with a sigh. “We don’t have any emeralds, so I made him a fletcher so I can trade sticks and then get emeralds.”
Jimmy nods and says, “That’s smart. So the next villager will be silk touch?”
Tango nods back and pushes a tree branch out of their way. “That’s what I’m hoooH MY GOD!”
“What! What, what is it?” Jimmy panics, looking around. Tango points a finger straight ahead at the ranch, and Jimmy turns to look, then frowns in confusion.
“A wandering trader!”
“I... what’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it!” Tango says gleefully. “This is great!”
Jimmy watches in bemusement as Tango sprints over the cobblestone wall and straight to the trader, then widens his eyes as Tango pulls out wheat and starts breeding the llamas.
“That’s so smart!” he calls, running over and hopping the fence as well.
“The thing about these guys,” Tango says, pointing to the trader llamas, “is that they’re technically different from normal llamas. So, they count for two slots on the breeding achievement!”
“That’s so cool!”
“And and and,” Tango adds, holding up a finger, his teeth glinting in his grin, “this trader is selling buckets of tropical fish.”
“So...”
“We can breed the axolotls too.”
“TANGO, YOU MADMAN!”
“Oh, but it doesn’t stop there,” Tango smirks. “Have you tamed an animal yet?”
“No, actually,” Jimmy huffs. “I can never find any horses!”
“You can tame trader llamas.”
“...You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness, Tango, you absolute... oh, you are... I’m astounded by you.”
Tango’s cackles fill the night air, and soon enough, Jimmy’s laughter intertwines.
SolidarityGaming has made the advancement [Best Friends Forever]
Tango has made the advancement [Best Friends Forever]
After breakfast the next day, Jimmy glances down at the list on his comm and says, “I reckon we should do all this fishing stuff next.”
“Yeah, you think?” Tango responds, eyes lidded as he stares at Jimmy with his head on his palm.
“You can take a bucket and do the tactical fishing while I get the rod, and then we can trade off. That way we aren’t using too many materials.”
“Makes sense. River time?”
“River time!”
Together, they craft a rod and a bucket, and scale the cliffside down to the river where a day previous Jimmy had fought tooth and nail for a trident. This time, it’s much more peaceful. The sun glitters on the scant bits of sand, and the breeze offsets the warm morning air.
“Do you think it’s worth it to replace those goats?” Jimmy wonders sadly, and Tango glances over at him, thoughtfully gnawing at his lip.
“I don’t know. We finished all the goat achievements...”
“Yeah, but- oh, nevermind,” Jimmy sighs, and Tango doesn’t need him to continue to know what’s on his mind.
Soon, Tango thinks, he’ll get a different horn for Jimmy. One that he can play and others will listen. That’ll be sure to cheer up his partner! Although, he reasons, staring down at Jimmy as he casts his fishing line with a smile, Jimmy seems to be cheering himself up on his own.
“Oh! I got a suspicious stew! We need to eat those, right?”
“Yep! You keep going, man, I’ll jump in!”
“Don’t scare away all the fish!” Jimmy scolds, and Tango cannonballs into the river with a laugh.
Tango has made the advancement [Tactical Fishing]
SolidarityGaming has made the advancement [Fishy Business]
SolidarityGaming has made the advancement [Tactical Fishing]
Tango has made the advancement [Fishy Business]
“Oh! Oh, Tango, wait!” Jimmy calls from the riverbank, and Tango looks up from where he was having a staring contest with his fishing rod. “A Drowned! You can get the axolotl achievement!”
“Oh, you’re so right!” Tango gasps, and sets the fishing rod on the ground, scrambling up the cliffside to the ranch. He sprints inside the house and grabs the axolotl bucket from the chest and runs back outside, sliding down the face of the hill and skidding next to Jimmy. He sets the axolotl into the water to Jimmy’s cheers and dives into the water, feeling for the gurgle of bubbles.
The dark water reveals slopes of seagrass and lo and behold, an underwater zombie. The Drowned makes eye contact and begins floating forward, and Tango pulls his sword from his hotbar with a grin, the axolotl by his side. Here we go.
Tango has made the advancement [The Healing Power of Friendship!]
They’re both laying in the sand of the riverbank, slowly drying off in the late morning sun when Jimmy says, “I’m glad you were my soulmate.”
Tango turns his head to glance at Jimmy and murmurs, “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you were mine too. Sorry for blowing us up.”
“Ah, y’know, it was bound to happen.”
“Why was it bound to happen?” Tango says with a chuckle. “‘Cause it’s a death game?”
“No,” Jimmy says quietly. “‘Cos of the canary.”
“What canary?”
“You know,” Jimmy says, waving a hand in the air. Tango tracks it with his eyes. “The canary in the coal mine. The miners would take a canary down because the canary was more sensitive, and when the canary died, the miners knew it was too dangerous for them to continue. And I died first in Third Life and Last Life, so...”
“Oh,” Tango mumbles. “We died first.”
“Yeah,” Jimmy says bitterly. “The canary curse continues.”
“That’s not fair to you, though,” Tango replies, sitting up, leaning on his elbows so he can look down at Jimmy. Jimmy turns his head to look back, blinking owlishly at Tango’s intense stare. “I’m the one who made us die, not you. If you’re the canary, then... well, then I’m the coal mine.”
“Huh,” Jimmy says, blinking again. “Huh.”
“Team rancher?” Tango asks, holding a hand down for Jimmy to fist bump, and Jimmy smiles, raising his fist to knock it against Tango’s.
“Team rancher!”