Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Something was wrong. Zedaph didn’t know what was wrong, but he definitely had the feeling that something was very out of place.

Well, not quite. He had a good idea of what it was. Namely, him. Being a Watcher made him very aware that he was an oddity among players. However, that wasn’t what was wrong here, although sometimes he thought it contributed. He was used to living among the Watchers, with their hivemind culture and the magical weaving between worlds.

Tango and Impulse had helped his transition from Watcher to player go as smooth as it did. It had taken some years of navigating player life and learning how to be a player until he felt like he had finally found where he belonged, living happily in Hermitcraft.

And then that wrong came crashing down on him in Season 8. All because of a plushie.

“Look! It’s a little me!”

Tango had handed Zedaph a soft toy fashioned to look like himself, grinning with giddiness. It was soft, giving way with a gentle squeeze, bouncing back like a pillow. Kid toys, much less plush kids toys, didn’t really exist in most vanilla servers, but Tango had made it happen anyway.

“And now you can cuddle with me every night,” Tango smugly teased.

Zedaph was entranced by the little plushie. His throat felt thick, nonsense noises and sounds wanting to escape his mouth, and he wanted to squeeze the plush tight and never let go. But that wasn’t logical. It was just a soft thing, and it didn’t even do anything. He couldn’t use it for anything. Why get so attached?

“Do you like it?” Tango asked, starting to get antsy. “I made a bunch for all the hermits.”

Not trusting himself to speak, Zedaph nodded.

His lack of speech made Tango hesitate. “You like it, right?”

Zedaph nodded, more insistent this time.

“Did I catch you on a bad day?” Tango’s smile faded a fraction. “It’s okay if you want me to leave.”

Zedaph pulled the plush friend closer, hiding the lower half of his face behind it. He forced himself to lower it.

“No,” he said, forcing his voice to remain level, trying to sound flippant. “You know how words are.”

Tango’s grin returned. “Yeah, language can be a jerk sometimes. But seriously, you like the plushie, right?”

This time, Zedaph needed to respond and reassure his friend, even if it came out awkwardly high-pitched. “Yeah!”

“Okay, don’t force yourself to talk on my behalf, dude.” Tango chuckled and patted him on the shoulder. “I’m gonna go see if I can jumpscare anyone with one of these. Shoot me a message if you need anything.”

They parted with waves and smiles, Tango launching off the mountain and into the sky with a flare of fireworks.

Zedaph took the plushie inside, not sure why it made his brain feel so mushy and happy.

—-

By Season 9, Zedaph had a slightly better idea of what he was dealing with. Ignoring the moon glitch that had everyone running around like headless chickens certainly gave him time for introspection and to keep a private journal. The “wrong” feeling came and went occasionally, seemingly at random, but the intensity varied.

The brain and mental feelings were hard to objectively track and study, so he noted physical signs; habits or actions he did almost unconsciously. His speech was the most obvious, turning into almost incomprehensible babbling. An embarrassing disaster, really. He was incredibly grateful the hermits accepted without question that he sometimes went nonverbal.

Other signs he noted were tripping, playing with blankets or pillows, crawling that wasn’t for redstone, knocking things over, sudden incomprehension of redstone and/or physics, and experiencing difficulty with clothes.

In a word, clumsy.

When listed all out, the symptoms seemed to point to tiredness, but Zedaph wasn’t satisfied with that conclusion. It didn’t fit. Not completely. Two observations kept cropping up in his journal that didn’t match up with a lack of sleep

First, it felt like he was searching for something in those moments. A sort of comfort or strong craving just out of reach that would fix everything, but he didn’t know what that was.

Second– and this was the part that scared Zedaph; he was losing time. The more intense periods, where he couldn’t resist the fog that overtook his brain and made him a clumsy mess, were fuzzy splotches in his memory.

“Am I ill? No, I can’t be ill. I don’t have a body outside virtual reality to get ill.”

Zedaph paced a near-empty hallway of his base, steadfastly not making eye contact with the plushie sitting on the lone shelf. After the Tango plush of Season 8, he had commissioned the same artist Tango had for one in his own likeness, getting the little piece of fabric art onto Season 9. It was currently the reason why he was fighting so hard against the fog in his brain now.

“Is there a glitch in my coding? No, I’m sure I haven’t made a mistake. But something is broken!”

He enunciated his words and listened to the rapt clip-clop of his hooves on deepslate flooring. He turned and kept pacing.

“Why can’t I think? I’m going to have this same conversation with myself tomorrow because this is at amnesia levels! This is all pointless!”

Zedaph plopped down on the floor outside the hallway, wincing at the sudden fall on the hard deepslate, even if it had been intentional. Thinking was pointless, so he pouted and pulled handmade chalk from his inventory. All he had was green and lime green left over from a cactus-smelting bonanza, but dyed, packed mud worked well as chalk, and it washed away with a splash of water.

Drawing big, messy things with big, chunky sticks he had to grab with his whole fist made him feel small, like a child. But it brought his brain so much joy.

Zedaph didn’t know why he wanted to feel like a child.

—-

“Heya, Zed!”

Tango flew down to meet Zedaph, who looked to be just discovering the shulker box he’d left at his Cube base. He couldn’t wipe the grin off his face when he saw Zedaph’s gobsmacked expression at the shulker contents.

“Thanks for getting the first elytra, by the way,” Tango started. “I know you don’t need ‘em — they’re backups for the rest of us ground plebs — but I wanted to show off part of my haul. I gave everyone boxes like that.”

Zedaph threw an elytra at him, and Tango scrambled to grab it before it could get any dirt on it.

“Whoa, hey, I spent ages getting those!” Tango expected a retort from Zedaph, but none came, and he looked up to see the rammling looked angry at him. “Dude, what the hell? You knew I was gonna go End City raiding! What did you expect?”

The anger on Zedaph’s face fell away to shock and hurt. He drew a fist to his throat and twisted his hand, as if turning a key.

Tango instantly softened. “Zed,” he sighed, putting away the extra elytra. “Are you doing okay? Like, stressed or anything? Eating enough on Hermitcraft? You’ve been going nonverbal a lot lately.”

Zedaph hesitated, then typed on his communicator. Tango glanced at his own wristwatch communicator.

Zedaph: This is so much stuff, how dare you

“I thought you were really upset with me when you just threw the elytra,” Tango pointed out, annoyed. “Don’t change the subject, Zed. Can you type out what’s going on?”

Instead of answering, Zedaph did something unexpected. He burst out into tears.
Tango froze. Okay, so definitely stressed. It looked like he had hit a sore spot somewhere in there.

“Hey, man. Hey, it’s okay.” Tango pulled Zedaph into a half-hug, unsure what was going on or what he was supposed to be at this moment. He quickly typed out an SOS into the chat.

Tango: help at zed cube???

He didn’t see if anyone responded. At least one other hermit had to be online.

“Zed, just, just tell me what’s going on,” Tango pleaded. “It’s fine if you type it.”

Zedaph shook his head, sinking to the ground, and Tango went with him, crouching on the grass and rubbing his arm.

“I can’t,” Zedaph mumbled out from between sobs.

Tango offered a smile. “Sure you can. We’re friends, it’s all good.”

That only got a whine and shake of his head. Tango resisted the urge to sigh.

“Help is here! Help is here!”

Keralis came over the hill, waving his sword as he ran over, but the enthusiasm fell from his face as he approached. He knelt in front of Zedaph to look at him. “Hello, Zedaph. What’s wrong?”

Zedaph tore out of Tango’s grasp, tackling Keralis in a hug.

“There, there, Zedaph, it’s okay,” Keralis shushed, rubbing Zedaph’s back as he cried. He looked up at Tango. “What happened?”

Tango hated that all he could do was shrug. “He was acting weird, so I snapped at him, and he just… broke. I think he’s stressed out over stuff, and that was the straw to break the camel’s back. I’m sorry for snapping, Zed, by the way.”

“We’ll, that wasn’t very nice.” Keralis addressed Zedaph, “Tango was mean to you, huh?”

From Keralis’s shoulder, Zedaph sniffled. “Meanie.”

Tango gawked. “Meanie? Wha—“

“He says he’s sorry, though,” Keralis hummed. “But maybe now isn’t the time for sorrys. He can say it later, hmm?”

“Uh-huh.” Zedaph nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“No sorrys from you, Zedaph,” Keralis lightly scolded. “You’re okay. You’re perfect.”

“Hey now,” Tango cut in. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, Zed. I mean, I feel bad now, but everyone needs a good cry sometimes. And maybe you can tell us what’s got you so wound up?”

He pitched it like a question, hoping Zedaph would answer. He heard him mumble something.

“What was that, Zedaph?” Keralis encouraged.

“Ill. I’m ill,” Zedaph confessed. “Brain’s being weird.”

Tango tried to cut in at that, taking Zedaph’s shoulder. He whined when Tango pushed him away from Keralis.

“If you’re sick, let’s get you back to Hermitcraft and back to bed.”

“Nooo.” Zedaph shook his head, and he covered his ears with his hands while he shut his eyes tight.

“You’ll feel better in a familiar space—“

“Wait, Tango,” Keralis stopped him. “If it’s brain sickness, that has to be treated differently, no? Ask what his brain’s doing, anyway, and then we can help out. Zed doesn’t really get body sick.”

Tango looked at Zedaph again, the rammling curled in a protective ball and blocking out the world. He sighed.

“Zed?” Tango crouched beside him again. “Zed, can you tell us what’s going on?”

Zedaph shook his head. Well, that wasn’t helpful.

“We can’t help you if you don’t tell us what’s wrong,” Tango coaxed. “C’mon. Anything you want us to do? Anything that would make you feel better?”

Zedaph shook his head again.

“Can we stay with you for a bit, Zed?” Keralis asked. “We just want you to feel okay.”

“Okay,” Zedaph mumbled. He was shaking, Tango realized, and wringing grass in his fists.

Silently, Tango opened up his arms, offering a hug. He no longer gave off as much heat as he typically did thanks to his frosty transformation, but he knew how to give a Zedaph-approved hug. As Zedaph settled into the embrace, he rolled his knuckles along Zedaph’s back in just the right way to coax his white wings to the surface. He wanted to reach out and surprise him with a preening, but he didn’t know if that was okay at the moment. Just having the wings out and stretching them probably felt good.

This had to be okay for the time being, Tango decided. He just needed to be patient, and Zedaph could explain later if he wanted to. Comfort came first.

When they parted, it was quiet, and Zedaph was rubbing his eyes.

“I’m gonna go back to bed,” he murmured, tapping at his communicator. Without waiting for either of them to say anything, avoiding their eyes, he logged out.

Tango wasted no time in tearing off his elytra and throwing it in the grass. He took a deep breath, gripping the hair on the back of his head.

“I want to help him,” he said, kicking loose grass. “I just don’t know how!”

“Is something going on with Zed?”

“That’s just it! Usually, when he goes nonverbal, he just needs some time alone to chill, recharge his battery, that kinda thing, but I swear there’s more going on this time.”

“So it’s stress,” Keralis concluded.

“Maybe? But he’s not bouncing back. He’s been quiet for a while now. Impulse mentioned it to me, too.”

“It’s rude to pry.”

“We’re his only family!”

Tango froze, realizing he had just snapped at Keralis.

Immediately, he said, “Sorry. I just— yeah. I just want him to be okay. It feels weird to have him close himself off to me when Impulse and I are the closest thing he has to family.”

“He’ll open up when he’s ready,” Keralis promised, unfazed. “But, well, it might not hurt to check in on him sometimes until then.”

Tango glanced at the elytra on the ground, thrown there after he had snapped at Zedaph for being careless with a pair of wings. He couldn’t stop the guilt at pushing his friend to the point of crying. And it was all a miscommunication when Zedaph had just wanted to jokingly tell Tango off for going overboard on End raiding, anyway.

“I still need to tell him I’m sorry,” Tango sighed.

Chapter Text

Zedaph felt safe when Keralis took his hand after he logged back into the Create server. The other man had nothing but smiles for him.

“Let’s go to my train station, Zedaph. You haven’t seen all my railroads yet, have you?”

They walked the way there, Keralis filling the air with explanations of his rails and trains. Zedaph babbled now and then, parroting back some of the more fun words, and Keralis took it all in stride, just like he had promised.

“And here’s The Flying Hermit!” Keralis gestured grandly to the train as it chugged by.

“Big hermit!” Zedaph’s enthusiasm was dampened by knowing what was coming. It darkened the soft fog that enveloped his mind.

“Okay, there are moving trains here, so we have to look both ways before crossing,” Keralis advised, leading Zedaph up to the tracks. “Come on.”

Zedaph hopped his way over the tracks, checking for Keralis’s reaction as he did so, but only found smiles.

“Now, I don’t want to overstep,” Keralis said as they entered the building. “But how do you feel about carpet? You said you get clumsy, so I thought about making some rooms baby Zedaph safe.”

A baby. Zedaph almost gasped at the word, reaffirming his current state of mind.

“I want carpet,” he decided, looking at the floor and wondering what color it soon would be. He blinked, trying to get into a more adult mindset. “You don’t have to, you know.”

“Pshaw! I want to,” Keralis insisted. “I’m honored you trusted me with this, Zedaph. I also think it’s adorable. I get a sweet baby Zedaph sometimes! That’s amazing! And so, baby-proofing must be done.”

Zedaph laughed. Things were okay. When Keralis started laying down carpet, he was immediately on the floor, pressing his cheek against the carpet and sinking his fingers into the soft fibers.

“Isn’t that nice, sweet baby?” Keralis ruffled Zedaph’s hair, making him pause in surprise. Keralis took no notice, however. “Just give me some time to set up a wool farm, and there will be soft spaces everywhere for you!”

Their communicators lit up with new messages in the server chat, and Zedaph’s joy dissolved.

His feelings must have shown, since Keralis patted Zedaph’s back in reassurance. He straightened up and put away the spare carpet. “You stay here, okay? I’ll talk to the guys outside. And don’t worry about a thing. I’m certain they’ll accept everything just fine. They’re your friends, after all.”

Zedaph nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He dug his hands into the carpet, finding solace in the easy, simple action.

He heard Keralis call out as he went outside, and Bdubs, Tango, and Scar replied in kind. Zedaph wished he had his mini-Zed plushie here to hug. It would have offered more comfort than flat carpet. He crawled under a table, hiding away further from confrontation.

Their voices came through the walls, muffled, but uncomfortably clear.

“Thank you, Sweet Faces, for coming! This is not about the train station, no.”

“Wait,” Tango’s voice cut in. “Where’s Zed? We should wait until he gets here.”

“Zedaph asked me to talk to you all. He’s here, no worries. Just invisible.”

“Okay, so what is it?” Bdubs asked. “I’m not seeing anything new around, except more rails than last time I was around.”

Keralis spluttered. “Bdub, Let me talk!”

“Okay, okay! Talk, then!”

Keralis sighed. “So. Zedaph told me why he’s been so stressed lately, and he wanted me to explain it to you. But! But before I say anything, you have to promise not to be mean.”

“Why would we be mean about it?”

“What about some teasing?” Bdubs asked without missing a beat.

“No,” Keralis shot that down. “You have to be nice. This is not the time for jokes.”

“Okay,” Scar said. “Whatever it is, it sounds important. I promise I’ll be nice.”

Tango and Bdubs mumbled something.

“You promise?” Keralis pressed.

“I promise not to be mean,” Bdubs said.

“Yeah, I promise,” Tango echoed.

“Thank you. Zedaph has been hiding this, and I don’t think it’s healthy to do this on his own,” Keralis added. “He has episodes where he regresses into a child.”

“Huh?” Bdubs responded.

“Yeah…” Tango coughed. “I think we need more explanation.”

Zedaph covered his face with his hands.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t know what that means,” Bdubs clarified.

“I guess he just acts like a child, right?” Scar offered. “Grian and Pearl are kind of like that. Is that the same thing?”

“I don’t know about Pearl or Grian,” Keralis admitted. “But yes, Zedaph acts like a child. His brain rewinds to a sweet young one, and he doesn’t really understand a lot of things.”

Zedaph felt his face heat up. It was embarrassing when put that way, especially to his friends.

“And he often forgets what happens during these episodes.”

That detail had Bdubs and Tango burst out a simultaneous, “WHAT?!”

“Sounds about right,” Scar mumbled.

“You didn’t think to start with that?” Tango asked. “Zed, show yourself. Now! We need to talk!”

“Hey! You promised to be nice!”

“I’m not going to be nice when there’s a chance Zed could get himself into serious trouble and not remember it!”

Zedaph gasped, and he immediately clapped a hand over his mouth to hide the sound. The shouting froze him in place, but he clung to one detail: Tango was worried about him.

“Tango, I’m not letting you see Zedaph until you calm down!”

“You’re not his keeper!”

“He trusted me,” Keralis pointed out. “And while he’s a sweet baby, I am his keeper!”

“What?” Tango’s anger deflated, and his voice softened. “He’s regressed right now?”

“Yes! That’s what I’m trying to tell you!”

“So how small is he?” Scar asked. “Do you know what age he goes down to?”

No reply from Keralis.

After a moment, Tango sighed. “If I promise to be calm and quiet, can I see Zed?”

“Mm-hm, yep.”

“Then I promise I’ll behave.”

“Me too,” Bdubs threw in.

“Me three,” Scar added.

“Perfect. Then I’ll go in and see if Zedaph is okay with seeing you.”

Zedaph perked up when he heard the door, but didn’t move from his spot under the table.

“Is my sweet baby hiding?” Keralis frowned when he noticed Zedaph’s hiding spot. “Why are you hiding, sweetie?”

“Tango loud.”

Keralis chuckled. “Yes, he is very loud, isn’t he? But don’t worry. He’s not mad at you. Will you come out and see your friends?”

“Can I come in?” Bdubs asked.

“Fine, but Bdouble-dodo has to keep an indoor voice.”

Zedaph giggled. He peeked out from under the table to see Bdubs, who didn’t look upset, but the surprise in his expression wasn’t reassuring.

“He’s very small at the moment,” Keralis whispered, crouching beside the table. “Do you want to come out, little one?”

Zedaph watched with fearful big eyes as Bdubs came closer. Behind him, Tango entered, but he looked away from the scene after just a glance.

Zedaph crept out to sit on the carpet, not sure whether to pull himself up and out of the brain fog. Keralis’s bright, reassuring smile kept him from panicking.

“I’m not sure what’s going on with you, Zed, but I’m open to supporting you however I can,” Bdubs admitted.

“Hey, Zed,” Tango said awkwardly, not looking at him. He glanced at Keralis instead. “So he’s not going to remember this later?”

“I dunno. It gets all fuzzy,” Zedaph answered. A bit brighter, he added, “An’ I’ve been taking notes!”

An odd look crossed Tango’s face when he spoke, and then he turned away completely.

Jellie announced Scar’s entrance, stepping up to Zedaph and putting a paw on his leg.

“Hello! I heard you’re small today.” Scar sat down on the floor with him, and even gestured for Bdubs to join them on the carpet. “Can you tell me how old you are?”

Zedaph hesitated. Tango and Impulse sometimes joked about his age, only counting the years he had spent as a player after leaving the Watchers. He started counting on his fingers before realizing that was silly.

“Tango says I’m nine,” Zedaph said instead. He reached out to pet Jellie, clumsily running his fingers along her fur.

“Really?” Scar nodded, glancing at Keralis. “I know we’re probably being weird about this right now, but we’ll get used to it. Tango and Bdubs just need a bit of time. Does anyone else know about this?”

Zedaph thought for a moment, then shook his head.

“I just have me,” he said quietly. Keralis squeezed his hand. “I hide when it happens.”

“Well, now you have us,” Scar pointed out with a smile. “You can come see me anytime, and I’ll show you around the happiest place on Hermitcraft!”

“Yeah, you’ve got us.” Bdubs nodded. “Feeling like a kid shouldn’t make you feel sad, and you shouldn’t feel like you have to hide it. Nine years is a pretty good age. Hey, Tango.”

He didn’t raise his voice, but Tango hunched his shoulders.

“Come sit with us. We should think of plans for when Zed gets in this state. I’m not comfortable leaving a nine-year-old on his own.”

“Oh, that’s true,” Scar considered. “Maybe Zed can send a code word in chat if we’re on Hermitcraft, and one of us can go get him? If you want to keep this private, I mean.”

Tango cut in, “Impulse and I were running alone through multiplayer servers when we were nine.”

“Well, yeah. I was scamming people at nine, but that doesn’t mean that was the right thing for me,” Scar pointed out.

Bdubs cleared his throat. “So, yeah, a code word! And one of us can just hang with him at his or our bases for a while. Nine’s not too young, we can handle that.”

“I think he regresses younger than nine,” Keralis said. “Much younger.”

Zedaph wanted to crawl back under the table when everyone looked at him again. He didn’t know how he was supposed to tell his age! It was difficult enough that he didn’t know his proper age, either, having never kept track as a Watcher.

“Oh,” Bdubs said with a grimace. “Oh. Well, we can still manage babysitting!”

That was the final straw for Tango. He turned and swiftly exited the train station, the sound of rockets soon following.

Zedaph’s stomach dropped. Maybe this reveal hadn’t been such a great idea. He wished he could go back in time and convince Keralis not to say anything, or maybe he should have spent more time thinking of who to ask for help from.

“You don’t have to babysit me,” Zedaph said. “I’ve been managing on my own.”

“All this time? No, sweet baby, we can’t,” Keralis coaxed, shaking his head. “You don’t have to do this alone anymore.”

Bdubs huffed, tapping out a message on his communicator. “The more you object, the more I am going to want to babysit you.”

Keralis nudged Zedaph. “I built a swing just outside. Do you want to go try it out?”

“How high does it go?” All thoughts of being a weird, eccentric burden promptly disappeared.

“Very high.”

Zedaph gasped and bounced in place until Keralis ushered him outside.

Chapter Text

When he was finally in a clear state of mind, Zedaph summoned his wings and flew off to find Tango.

Tango looked straight at him as he flew in, so there went his chance to back out. Zedaph landed in the grass, giving his brain a few extra minutes to run through everything that could go wrong as he walked to the factory.

He climbed onto the raised platform, banishing his wings from view to avoid any errant feathers getting caught in any moving parts. He took a deep breath as he cautiously approached Tango.

“Hello! I’m back to normal now.” Zedaph grinned. “I’m sorry if I said or did anything extraordinarily embarrassing around you and the guys earlier.”

Tango glanced at him, then went back to tweaking a conveyor belt. “Keralis said you didn’t remember when you did that stuff.”

Zedaph shrugged. “The amnesia is mild. I have some vague, fuzzy memories, and I not-so-distinctly remember you leaving in the middle of it.”

“Yeah, I just…” Tango sighed heavily, turning around and leaning his back against a storage vault. “Why didn’t you say anything to me or Impulse? The memory thing could be really dangerous.”

“I didn’t know how you’d react,” Zedaph admitted. Everything was coming out now. It wasn’t a secret anymore, and it felt freeing to talk about it. “I had no idea what I was dealing with, honestly, but it was usually enough to just shut myself away and hibernate until it was over. It’s just been too much for lil ol’ me to handle on my own recently.”

“So you reached out to Keralis?”

Tango probably didn’t mean to sound accusing, but it still stabbed Zedaph with guilt.

“You know how Keralis is,” Zedaph defended his choice. “I tried thinking of hermits who wouldn’t be weird about someone acting like a little kid, and he was the first to come to mind. With you and Impulse, we’re always joking and teasing each other, and I didn’t know how to talk about it in a serious way. I didn’t know how you would react.”

Tango’s gaze dropped to the floor.

“I guess I don’t have to hide it from the Create crew now,” Zedaph said, trying to shift the topic. “I don’t know how that’ll change things. Scar was talking about banning me from working on contraptions, so that’ll be interesting.”

“Why?”

“Because I could hurt myself! And that’s a bad thing to do, apparently.”

“Seriously? You’ve always been able to handle yourself with redstone.”

“Look, I’m bummed about it too, but Keralis thinks I age down to something like a toddler, so yeah, maybe it’s a good idea to keep the baby away from heavy machinery.”

Tango’s eyebrows went up. “Toddler? I thought you said you were nine!”

“I’m trusting Keralis on this, okay?” Zedaph rolled his eyes. His face already felt hot. “Scar even agreed with him. Said I was acting way younger than nine, which, I can’t believe I’m actually talking about this. It’s so embarrassing!”

“Hey, it’s not embarrassing,” Tango tried to argue, but Zedaph shook his head. “Okay, okay, I don’t know. I’m just saying, it’s probably not as embarrassing as you think it is. I haven’t given you a fair chance to explain.”

“Of course it’s embarrassing!” Zedaph ducked into the factory segment, poking at brass joints, shafts, and cogs on the automated machine, currently turned off for Tango to work on. “I go all googly eyed, trip over my own hooves, and speak nonsense! I get annoyed with things when they’re not fun, but my sense of fun changes in that state, so nothing’s fun unless it’s silly!”

He paused when he heard Tango chuckle.

“Don’t you dare laugh,” he warned.

“I’m not laughing at you! It sounds cute, Zed. What do you play with during those times you’ve been shutting yourself away for baby time?”

Zedaph hid his face, knowing his cheeks had to be bright red. “I draw with chalk. Last season I had your plushie, and I made one of myself this season.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Mini me in a lab coat and safety goggles. No wings, though. Thought that would be a little too much for a cuddly toy.”

“No, I mean, what else?”

Zedaph shrugged, glancing at Tango through a gap in the machine components. He had stopped tweaking his machines, resting his elbows on a funnel, a wrench hanging loosely from his hand. “That’s it. Just looking at kiddy stuff can put me in that state, so I didn’t really want to start a collection.”

Tango’s face fell. “So all these times you said you were nonverbal and wanted time alone, you were shutting yourself in a room with just chalk and one toy?”

Well. That was a blunt and wholly unwelcome observation.

“Uh. Technically.”

“No one to play with.” It wasn’t a question.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Zedaph huffed, hiding behind the storage vault to escape Tango’s judging glare. “I have a cat. And I always had mine carts and redstone machines to play with when I wasn’t scared of them.”

“Why would you be scared of your own creations? Wait, stupid question.”

“Rude,” Zedaph huffed. “I don’t know. Sometimes they seem scary, and respawning while regressed is really weird and confusing.”

“I’ll play with you. Not right now, of course. When you’re…”

Tango hesitated, and Zedaph peeked through the gaps in the machine, honestly surprised at the offer.

“Small,” he filled in.

“Yeah. Small,” Tango agreed lamely. He glanced through the gaps at Zedaph with one quirked eyebrow. “Unless you’re small right now?”

“No, no!” Zedaph was quick to protest, waving his hands around to emphasize how much he was not. “Who’s small? Not me!”

“Doccy and Rev have plenty of toys I could make over here and on Hermitcraft–”

“Not Hermitcraft. Just here.” His base wasn’t all that big, clean and minimalistic, and he didn’t need out-of-the-loop hermits stumbling on any kiddy toys in his possession.

“Zed. I don’t like the idea of you just staring at a wall.”

“I have chalk!” Zedaph argued. Had his wings been out, they would have bristled. “I can take care of myself, thank you very much!”

Tango’s expression turned into shock, taking Zedaph off guard. “Zed– Zed, this isn’t me teasing you. I’m honestly worried about you.”

“Because I can’t pick myself up to think properly?” Zedaph snapped bitterly.

“Zedaph!”

The sudden shout made Zedaph freeze. That wasn’t teasing anger. That wasn’t anger borne out of poking the irritated bear too much. It was a stern snap.

Tango threw the wrench on the conveyor belt hard enough that it bounced, and he hopped over a different belt, whirling around to grab Zedaph by the shoulders. His ruby eyes scanned the rammling’s face.

“Zed, I’m not mad–”

“You’re just disappointed.”

“I–” Tango’s serious expression cracked with a laugh, and he shook his head. “No, no, I’m not disappointed, either. This is something you’re struggling with, and what I’m getting is that you can’t control this, but you’re trying, and you’re just making it worse.”

Zedaph’s gaze slid away, focusing on Tango’s rolled-up sleeve instead.

“I don’t want you staring at walls or being alone playing with chalk. Next time you find yourself feeling small or whatever, you come find me, okay? Or any of the other Create guys.”

“Why?” whispered Zedaph.

The concern felt misplaced. Tango was stubborn; he knew that. Simply saying he didn’t need help wouldn’t get Tango to back down once he set his mind to something.

But Zedaph felt small in the way that a lone player felt small when facing the Ender Dragon. He wasn’t a real player, not like the other hermits, but instead a ghost putting on a costume and pretending to run with the living for a little fun. He was used to being on his own, be that playing alone in his corner of the server or Watching clusters of players who didn’t know he was there.

The attention rubbed him in a way he wasn’t used to. It should have been directed at a real player who mattered in the grand scheme of games, not Zedaph.

“Because I care about you, Zed. You’re a hermit. You’re family,” Tango stressed, squeezing his shoulders. “And I will not let my family handle something alone when I could be there at your side to help out. I want to help you, Zed. All I need is for you to tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”

Tango said it so sincerely that Zedaph wanted to run away and escape back to his plush toy on Hermitcraft. It wasn’t Tango’s fault. It was the guilt that piled on him for making Tango worry so much. He wanted to hug his plushie until every bad feeling went away.

“I think I’m regressing again,” Zedaph admitted. “Don’t think I can stop it. Sorry.”

Tango’s hold on his shoulders relaxed. “Hey, hey. That’s all right,” he said, voice lightening up. “I said I’d babysit, didn’t I? You can act super small around me. Do you want me to take you back to Papa K?”

Zedaph shook his head. Although Keralis had been excited before, he didn’t want to push his luck and get on his nerves.

“Then you can stick with me,” Tango decided. “Do you want to do anything or play a game?”

Again, Zedaph shook his head. He glanced at the paused machine beside them. “I wanted to ask— is there space I can take for a build in the factory?”

“Sure. Can I hold your hand? How much space do you need?”

Tango offered his hand, and Zedaph took it, to be led out to empty sections of the factory.

“We’ve got all that upstairs, and a couple sections here I don’t have plans for yet. What looks good?”

Zedaph looked at his options, trying to mentally put together the honeyed apple contraption to imagine how big it needed to be. He pointed at the end segment on the current floor, and he tugged Tango over.

“Here? Well, you’re not allowed to build it right now.”

Still holding onto Tango, he placed a shulker box down in the middle of the empty space, laying claim for later. He let go and trotted along the conveyor belt, running his hand along the rubber belt since it was safely stopped at the moment.

Tango peeked inside the shulker box and crowed, “You don’t even have anything in here! How’re you supposed to build anything when you just have a couple bits of cobble?”

“I’m gonna put more stuff in it later,” Zedaph defended, snapping his words to make sure they came out intelligible. “An-and I’ve gotta talk to Bdubs about setting up stuff!”

Tango laughed, putting up his hands in surrender. “All right, all right.”

“You’re teasing me.” Zedaph stepped to line up just right, sliding back one hoof and lowering his head as he prepared to charge.

“Do you want me to stop? Seriously– meep!”

Zedaph charged, and while he heard Tango’s noises of surprise, he didn’t run into him. Instead, blinding pain exploded in his head as he hit something very, very hard.

That was around when he lost track of everything.

—-

Zedaph was sopping wet. That was easily explained by the nearby river and a vague recollection of splashing around at the banks. His clothes were soaked, his wings felt heavy, and his skin was clammy. And his horns felt like someone had tried to tear them off.

Even lying in the sun didn’t draw all the water away, even if the wooden platform he lied on had dried. He had been spared the itchy grass.

Tango sat in the grass not far away, jamming a screwdriver into a cuckoo clock with intense focus. Dry, of course, although his wet waistcoat had been discarded beside him.

The fog was fading, and instead of being a sniffly, miserable mess that didn’t know what to do, Zedaph had the drive to get up and clean himself up. He sat up and immediately grimaced. Maybe he needed to talk to his ‘babysitters’ about encouraging his small self to take bathroom breaks. On Hermitcraft, the option of that realism mechanic was disabled, but the Create crew had agreed to keep it on for this server in order to force them to take breaks.

“Hey, Tango.”

Words felt okay. He wasn’t slurring or anything, but his mouth felt syrupy. He was fairly certain he had drank milk, but couldn’t remember anything sweet.

Zedaph ran a hand through his wet feathers and stood in front of Tango. “Hello? Earth to Tango?”

“Huh?” Tango’s eyes snapped up, and he grinned. “Hi.”

“Hi. I’m back to myself now, and I think I’m going to head back to my base. Thanks for watching me in the meantime.”

“Oh! Oh, right!” Tango scrambled to his feet, dropping the clock. “Sorry, thought you were still baby for a sec there. Do you wanna know what you did during all that, or…?”

Zedaph shifted his weight between his hooves and nodded. “Please. Also, where are we?”

“We’re around where my starter base used to be,” Tango said, talking fast and excited. “I think we started at the factory, where you picked out a place for one of your machines. You tried to ram me, but instead broke the bubble tube with your horns.”

That explained why his head felt bruised, but he also was pretty sure he remembered attempting to ram into Tango. He never charged in a confined space. There was too big of a chance he would actually hit a wall.

“You cried, so I suggested we go find Scar’s house to play with Jellie, which cheered you up. Then we got distracted because I needed to wash off the grease and oil from working on stuff here, so we played in the river— are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Zedaph assured him. “I just need the toilet. Annoying body functions getting in the way.”

“Then get going, Zed! I think everyone’s got proper bathrooms in their builds by now.”

Zedaph huffed, stamping his hooves. “I just need to know what happened! And I’m grounded as long as my wings are wet!”

“Then put ‘em away and take an elytra! We can talk later.” Tango shoved an elytra and harness at him.

“Fine, I’m going, I’m going! Thanks!”

Zedaph swapped his magical wings for elytra, and he took to the sky for a speedy way home.

A thought nagged at the back of his mind that he wasn’t sure about having a babysitter. Not if they left him sitting in wet clothes, with an aching head, and overall feeling neglected. Maybe this had been a mistake.

Chapter Text

Night was a dangerous time to go shopping, but Scar was pretty sure he could manage it just fine. The shopping district was well lit from the fiasco of king’s quests, and hermits tended to mob-proof their shops. And he had a totem! Everything would be fine. He just needed to pick up a few items here and there for his Scarland builds, and then he would be back in the air and back inside in time to get some shut-eye before the sun rose.

It looked like he wasn’t the only one with that idea, as Scar spotted a gray name tag inside the walls of Impulse’s light shop. He needed some light blocks as well, so he headed inside to go say hello.

What he didn’t expect to find was Zedaph sitting in the corner, hugging a beacon to his chest. Zedaph stared at Scar when he came inside.

“Zed? What are you doing?”

Nothing looked broken, at first glance. Perfectly lit up, as a light store should be. There hadn’t even been a pillager squad outside, so Scar couldn’t immediately see why he would be hiding out in here.

“Waiting for Impy,” Zedaph said.

“It’s night,” Scar pointed out. He glanced at his communicator. “Did Impulse tell you to come out here? You’d think he’d wait until a more reasonable time for anything.”

“We’re in Impy’s shop, so he’s gotta come,” Zedaph insisted, hugging the beacon tighter. “I’m small and can’t go home.”

That got his attention. Scar slowly got down on his knees next to Zedaph.

“Why can’t you go home?”

“I’m small! I can’t get my wings out when I’m small.”

“Oh, I see, of course.” Scar nodded. Zedaph’s wings were magic, but he had never thought much about how they appeared or disappeared. It made sense that a child version wouldn’t be that great at magic. “And it’s dangerous to walk on your own at night, so you went somewhere safe, huh? That’s smart. Do you want me to take you to my base? It’s a more homely place to spend the night than a store.”

Zedph hesitated. “Really?” He sounded nervous.

“Yep.” Scar pushed himself to his feet and leaned on his cane. “I’ll be your caregiver for tonight, and even in the morning if you’re still feeling small. Come on.”

Zedaph stared at him slack-jawed for a long moment before scrambling to stand up. Scar pointed at the beacon in his hands.

“Hold on, Zed. Did you pay for that yet?”

Zedaph shook his head and clutched it tighter.

“Ah, we’ve got a little thief on our hands—“ When Zedaph looked like he was about to cry, Scar backpedaled. “No, no, it’s okay, I’ll pay for it! A perfectly legitimate sale! No pesky thieving here, nope.”

Scar tossed some diamonds in the beacon barrel, with Zedaph watching him closely all the while.

And that was how Scar found himself caring for a baby goat for the night.

Scar spent most of the walk to his base talking to Zedaph to keep the little from noticing the mobs lurking in the distance. The shopping district was lit up well, but it wasn’t walled off, and some shadowy corners still remained. As he asked questions now and then, Zedaph at first tried to answer in baby talk, and then devolved into vague babbling sounds somewhere along the way. Scar was nothing if not encouraging, keeping him in that comfortable, stress-free mental space.

When they reached the tree, Scar glimpsed a gray name tag below in the basement.

“Come on inside,” Scar beckoned Zedaph, letting him in. “Don’t forget to wipe your feet on the way in, and no boots to bed!”

“Scar?” Cub’s voice traveled up to them.

“I’m babysitting tonight, so please keep it down!”

“Which one are you watching?”

Scar glanced at Zedaph. “Do you trust me?”

Wide purple eyes staring at him, Zedaph nodded.

“Come up and see, Cub. Maybe you can help me with bedtime.”

Zedaph bleated like a goat, and he promptly covered his mouth in surprise at himself. Scar muffled a laugh.

Cub came up the stairs and stared at Zedaph. “So what’s going on here?”

“I found another hermit who regresses! I’m his caregiver for the night.”

Cub shook his head and chuckled. “You’re just collecting them at this point,” he commented. “So, little guy, can you give me an age?”

“Baaaaa,” said Zedaph, which wasn’t a real answer.

Cub just smiled and held up his hand, counting fingers to show Zedaph how to do it. “How old are you right now? One, two, three…”

Zedaph didn’t bleat again, although it looked like he wanted to. His mouth opened and closed a few times while the two vex waited patiently. Scar sat down on a log with a sigh.

“There are others who do this?” Zedaph asked, his voice wavering. “I’m not sick?”

“Of course you’re not,” Cub scoffed. “Who told you that? Age regression is a perfectly harmless coping mechanism.”

Zedaph hugged the beacon tighter, and Scar kept a careful eye on that, wary of the pointy corners to the cube. “But it’s weird. Not normal.”

“No, Zed,” Scar shushed, his heart going out to him, thinking of how scared Zedaph had been, hiding in the train station as Keralis explained the situation to the rest of the Create guys, having no idea how everyone would react.

“It’s not normal,” Cub agreed. “But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.”

Cub touched his arm, and in response, Zedaph lurched forward, nearly knocking Cub off his feet. The rammling pressed hard against his chest, bleating softly and desperately.

“I guess I’m helping out tonight.” Cub glanced at Scar with a raised eyebrow. “Age?”

Scar shrugged. “I don’t think he knows. Keralis estimated him around toddler age. So maybe two or three years old?”

“Keralis is his caregiver?” Cub’s eyebrows went up.

“Not really. Zed’s case is a little different, honestly. I’ll tell you about it after we get him to bed.”

“Nah, you sit down. I’ll take the kiddo. Now, what’s with the beacon?” Cub asked Zedaph, rubbing his back. “Oh, no. Did one of the Hole of Fame beacons break?”

Zedaph shook his head. “Baa.”

“Really? Okay, you can bring it to bed with you. The play pen in the attic has a bed, come on.”

—-

Cub came back downstairs later once the movement upstairs had softened to a quiet.

“He’s in bed now. I got him to put the beacon on a shelf, and gave him Pearl’s teddy to cuddle instead,” Cub said quietly. “I tried to get a vibe of what kind of care he was comfortable with, but he just seemed confused by everything. Kind of wish you had brought him by when he was big to chat about boundaries and expectations.”

"Yeah, sorry about not giving you a heads-up," Scar said. “As far as I can tell, he’s never had a caregiver before. He talked to Keralis, and then Keralis talked to us on the Create server. The catch to his situation is that he doesn’t remember the times when he’s regressed.”

Cub leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms in front of him. “That’s… not good, to put it lightly. I hate to say it, but if it’s doing that to him, he should think about finding a different coping mechanism—“

“His regression is involuntary,” Scar interrupted him. “He has the other guys on Create now to be caregivers, too – although Tango was a bit weird about it – so I think he’ll be okay.”

“Then I guess we’ll be seeing him around the tree base more often,” Cub said with a wry smile. “Have you told Grian and Pearl about him? It sounds like he’s never had a playdate before.”

“I wanted to get his thoughts on it before I told anyone.”

Cub nodded. “Pearl will be overjoyed when she hears she has a new playmate. But what’s this about Tango? It’s going to be a hassle if an admin has an issue with our setup.”

“I don’t know, honestly,” Scar admitted. “I think he was confused that Zedaph needed help when he was regressed. He just up and left in the middle of Keralis explaining things. We could talk to him? Or get Impulse to talk to Tango for us?”

“Impulse can deal with him,” Cub decided with a sigh.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Scar warmed cookies on the furnace while running plans through his head. He needed to talk to Impulse and tell him about Tango without saying too much about Zedaph, but he didn’t want to give Impulse the wrong idea and then reveal too much private information to Tango.

Ultimately, his wording had to be careful.

He turned at the sound of the stairs creaking. Descending the stairs, Zedaph peered around cautiously.

“Good morning! Cookies?” Scar offered. “They’re best when they’re warm.”

“No, thank you. I should be heading back to my base. Lots of things to do!” Zedaph paused, looking at the floor as he seemingly warred with himself internally. “I wasn’t too much trouble last night, was I?”

“Not at all,” Scar assured him, surprised.

“Are there still cookies?” Cub asked, coming up from the basement. He passed by the two in his search for the source of the chocolate smell. “Morning.”

“Good morning! Cub, can you tell Zed that he was a perfect angel last night?”

“An absolute darling,” Cub responded without missing a beat.

“Cub knows?” Zedaph asked. “I’m almost scared to ask what happened last night.”

“Not much,” Cub said. He got out a few wooden plates for the cookies. “Scar explained your situation. We’re always open to being your caregivers anytime you need it.”

Zedaph looked a little slack-jawed. “Oh. Well, thank you. I should be out of your hair now, back to normal, completely adult here, many adult things to do today—“

Cub grabbed him by the shirt collar as he turned to leave.

“Now, hold on there,” Cub said lightly, smiling amicably. “We need to have a talk about expectations and boundaries. You’re not as vocal as the other littles around here, and I want to make sure everything’s clear.”

Zedaph froze. “There are other hermits who regress?”

“Yep!” Scar spoke up. “We have an arrangement set up with a few other hermits. We keep things private, of course, but we have some caregivers, some littles, and some hermits who kind of take an elder sibling role when it’s play time.”

“I don’t think any of them have memory lapses when they regress, however.” Cub handed Zedaph a plate of cookies.

It didn’t look like that last part mattered to Zedaph. He glanced between them, his violet eyes wide and sparkling with revelations.

“You guys are using specific words,” Zedaph commented. “You have vocabulary for all this?”

Scar hummed. “Words of the trade! Feeling small, feeling big, littles, bigs.”

“We’ve got a couple different words for the regressors,” Cub added. “Just what’s comfortable for each hermit. We try to keep it on the down low, so anything that’s not going to raise questions is good.”

“I should go talk to the others, actually,” Scar mused. “I’ll ask if they’re okay with us telling you who they are, or if they want to meet the new baby. Can I tell them about you, Zed?”

Zedaph blushed, and a small smile crept onto his face. “I’ll take the element of surprise.”

Scar nodded. “But can I tell one or two of them?”

“Okay, okay, fine. Don’t tell them everything about me, but it’s okay to tell them if they’re like you and Cub– hermits who are familiar with this stuff.”

“All right, that’s about what I had in mind, anyway.”

Cub chuckled. “Zed, sit with me and we’ll talk. We can hash out some rules, like what kind of touch is okay, clothes, flight, and other stuff you might or might not be comfortable with. We need to take advantage of when you’re talkative and in a clear head.”

“Perfectly reasonable. Hit me.”

“And meanwhile, I have a few hermits to meet with this morning.” Scar spun on his cane and headed out the door.

—-

A few minutes of flying later, and Scar was swooping down to the bridge in front of Impulse’s dwarven base, landing between the two statues. He spotted Impulse with a small cluster of shulker boxes, the other hermit carefully eyeing the decor that lined the sides of his entrance hall.

“Hey, Impulse! Question for you.”

Impulse glanced at Scar and hopped on one of his shulker boxes to take a break. “Go for it.”

Hypotheticals seemed like a safe place to start.

“What would you do if you met someone who doesn’t approve of littles?”

“Walk in the other direction.” Impulse thought for a moment, then added, “Maybe push them off a cliff if the opportunity presents itself.”

“Okay.” Not very helpful. “Someone who doesn’t think littles should have caregivers?”

Impulse frowned. “Do I have to interact with this person?”

“Yes.”

Impulse nodded. “Then I’d try to keep the conversation away from age regression and keep them away from our group.”

Scar knitted his hands together over his cane. Closer. “What if that couldn’t be avoided? If a little wanted to be friends with them?”

“Okaaay,” Impulse said slowly, raising an eyebrow. “Wait, are they going out of their way to talk to someone who’s small at the time?”

Scar paused. Zedpah couldn’t control his regression, and Bdubs and Keralis were going to be talking about it on the Create server. He took a deep breath.

“What if it was a hermit?”

Impulse stilled, staring at him. “A hermit found out? And they’re being rude about it?” When Scar nodded, he sighed. “All right. I’ll gather the littles for some comfort play time. You go tell Doc whose butt he needs to kick.”

“Wait–” Scar held out a hand to stop him before he could get up. “I want you to talk to him.”

“To Doc?”

“No.”

“Well, that rules out Stress and False,” Impulse commented. “But you know I don’t really do well with confrontation, especially when I don’t know all the details.”

“Yeah, about that….” Scar looked away at a corner of the ceiling, rubbing the back of his neck. “So, the regressor said it’s okay to tell you; the little in question is Zedaph. He’s with Cub right now.”

“Zed?” Impulse’s eyes widened. “He’s never said anything— is he just getting into it?”

“He’s been hiding his regression,” Scar explained quickly, purposely glossing over the extra details. “He told the Create guys about it the other day. And, well, that’s the thing. Tango didn’t react well.”

“Oh, no,” Impulse sighed. “Geez. It’s Tango who’s saying rude things? To Zed?”

“Not directly rude, but some weird comments and acting angry about it,” Scar corrected. “And Zed won’t say if Tango has said anything to him since then.”

It was more like can’t, considering the amnesia, but Scar wanted to gloss over that for the time being.

“We were hoping you could talk to Tango? Before he finds out about our setup and does something drastic? Please? Pretty please?”

Impulse met Scar’s pleading eyes and gave in. “I might have to tell him about our setup just to explain things,” he said. “But yeah. I’ll, uh— I’ll talk to him.”

“Thank you so much!”

—

That was another flight, one full of anxiety and overthinking. Impulse tried not to think too hard about it, knowing it would only make him more nervous about the no doubt difficult talk, but he also needed to think about how to approach the topic.

Luckily or unluckily, he didn’t have to search long for Tango, finding his brother sitting on the sculk roof of his deep frost citadel, sketching in a book on a big chair he’d built there. Tango waved when Impulse flew in.

Impulse took a deep breath. “So, Scar wanted me to talk to you about something.”

“Yeah?” Tango tucked his book and quill away. “What’s up? I’m just waiting on my wool farm to stock up a bit more before I get back to work.”

“It’s, uh— well, he said something about Zed.” Impulse watched his brother’s face carefully for a reaction. “He said Zed is an age regressor?”

Tango’s smile fell. “Impulse, why did Scar tell you that?” he asked, his tone leaning into threatening.

“Because he told me that you also know about it—“

“It wasn’t his secret to tell,” Tango snapped. “Zed wants us to keep quiet about it, and that’s the opposite of quiet. He should’ve just come straight to me. Gods, I’m sorry, Impulse, don’t tell anyone else, seriously. Just pretend Scar never said anything to you, okay?”

Impulse held up his hands in surrender, taken off-guard by the target of Tango’s vitriol. “Wait, so you’re not upset with Zed?”

“What?” Tango raised an eyebrow. “Why would I be upset with Zed? It’s Scar who’s blabbing other hermits’ secrets.”

“Oh. Huh. Scar told me you seemed upset when Zed told you guys on Create, so he thought I’d be the best person to explain things to you.”

“I was just confused at first, but I talked to Zed about it later, and we worked things out. And what do you mean by explain?”

Impulse couldn’t help a grin. “Tango, there are other hermits who regress, and Scar and I are caregivers for them.”

Tango stared at him.

“Run that by me again?”

“Yeah. There’s a little group of us who are into the age regression thing. Some of us regress and act like kids, and some of us like taking care of them. It’s fine if it’s not your thing, just Scar and I were worried that you’d force us to stop or something.”

One moment, Tango was sitting on his chair, staring at him with wide blue eyes. The next, Tango was shaking him by the shoulders.

“Caregiver? That means you’re like a babysitter, right?” Tango pleaded. “You gotta teach me!”

Impulse chuckled. “Seriously?”

Tango nodded. “I want to do anything I can to support Zed. He’s been really stressed about this stuff. Does X know about this group?”

“I mean, he’s not really part of it, but yeah,” Impulse said, overwhelmed with relief that the conversation hadn’t gone south. “He lets us do our thing and helps keep the littles safe.”

Tango grinned. “They get kind of silly when they’re small, yeah?”

“I’ll set up something so you can see what we’ve got. I just have to make sure they’re okay with letting you into the fold.”

Tango looked both pleased and sad about that response. “It’s nice to know there’s people who really do know how to handle this stuff, and that Scar knows what he’s doing. That makes me feel better about this. I want to be a good babysitter for Zed. He’s my friend.”

“Caregiver,” Impulse corrected. “Our group, at least, uses the term caregiver. Some of the littles feel it’s a bit insulting when we call them babies. That’s why we call them small or little instead.”

Tango nodded, soaking in every little tidbit of information. Impulse smiled. It looked like they had a new caregiver on board.

Chapter Text

Pearl knew the rule: no flight when she felt small.

The rule didn’t apply to Grian because his wings were natural, and the rule teetered on the technicality of how deep she was in her little headspace. She had once had natural wings, but never on Hermitcraft. This morning, she put away her elytra and hopped around the server like a bunny.

No, not a bunny. Like a raccoon!

Her plans didn’t have to go to waste just because she felt small. Instead, they became suggestions. Besides, she had planned to hit up the caregivers anyway, so it all worked out anyway. She’d come in, charm them with her cuteness, and they’d give her all their trash and head pats! It all lined up perfectly!

Pearl began her plans by climbing on Scar’s tree. Now if she could just find an open window. Grian always found a way to worm outside from the attic playpen, so there had to be openings somewhere.

She caught glimpses of colorful vex illusions inside, and it entranced her so immediately that she stopped to stare until they pulled away to another room in the maze-like tree base.

Pearl muffled a giggle. They had to be entertaining a little inside; it was usually Grian, but sometimes they watched over Ren or the odd guest from another server. She checked her communicator, and nope, no guests.

A sneak attack on Grian it was.

…as soon as she figured out how to get inside without going through the front door.

After a few minutes of failed attempts to squeeze in through blocks that ultimately didn’t lead inside, Pearl gave in to impatience and found a chunk of pink wool that seemed to be plugging a hole in the base’s ceiling. She stabbed it with a pair of sheariously shiny shears, giggling at her wonderful idea.

It cut through the wool fast, and she fell through with a yelp.

“Hey!”

Pearl’s landing turned out unexpectedly bumpy, a little cushioned, and a little noisy.

She blinked a few times and looked around to see Cub running to her aid in the midst of rapidly-disappearing snowflake illusions. Under her, was Zedaph, who looked to have landed on his face, while she had landed on his back.

“Sorry, Zed! Didn’t mean to fall in like that.” Pearl rolled off of Zedaph and shot a smile at Cub to show him that she was fine after the fall.

However, Cub didn’t go to her. He went to Zedaph instead, helping him sit up, and the sight of tears welling in shiny purple eyes had Pearl hesitating. Her smile faded.

“Did I catch you guys at a bad time?” Pearl asked, trying to shift her mindset. Big; she had to be big right now. This wasn’t a time for her to play around if something serious was going on.

“It’s all right, you’re fine,” Cub shushed Zedaph, dabbing at his face with a handkerchief. “Can you check your hearts for me? What are you at?”

Zedaph tapped at his communicator and craned his wrist to show Cub the screen. He lowered his eyes away from Pearl.

Definitely a bad time.

“One heart. See your food meter? That’ll pop you back up to full hearts in no time.”

“Mm?”

“Yeah. I’m sure Pearl didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Zedaph glanced at her, then swiftly looked away again. He looked to Cub for direction.

“Do you want to say hi to her? Pearl.”

Pearl started when Cub finally acknowledged her in the room. “Uh, yeah? What’s up?”

“He regresses, Pearl, like you,” Cub explained calmly. “He’s small right now.”

Zedaph hid his face in his hands. Instead of being dissuaded, the realization brought with it new excitement; she had a new playmate.

“Another little?” Pearl scrambled over to him, crawling on the floor, and she held up six fingers to his face. “I’m little, too, Zed! How old are you? I’m six!”

He tensed at her voice, half-curled up with his legs pulled up almost to his chest. He peeked out from behind his fingers.

“Really small,” Cub answered for Zedaph. “Small enough that we can call him a baby.”

Pearl hesitated, glancing between them. But they never called someone that; Grian always threw a fit when Scar said it, and Pearl didn’t think she ever went that small for it to fit.

In a whisper, she asked, “Are you baby?”

Zedaph stared at her for a long moment. He nodded.

“Baby brother,” Pearl breathed, in awe. “Can I hug you?”

She leaned forward. He leaned back.

“Give him space,” Cub murmured. “He’s new to this.”

“That’s okay. He’ll be my baby brother,” Pearl declared with all her heart.

Zedaph’s jaw dropped, bewildered, but he didn’t protest. Cub offered a teddy bear, which Pearl instantly took and pressed into Zedaph’s chest.

“Oh! I nearly forgot!” Pearl jumped up and whirled to face Cub. “I'm here for your trash!”

Cub raised an eyebrow. “My trash?”

“Did I hear the trash lady’s here?” Scar entered in a dash, dressed in his construction worker’s outfit and hard hat. His eyes landed on her and Zedaph.

“Trash raccoon,” Pearl corrected. “Yes. I’m going to eat your trash.”

“That doesn’t sound very healthy,” Scar pointed out. “Wouldn’t you prefer some elven cookies?”

“Maybe one cookie. But do you have any trash for me?” Pearl bounced over to Scar, who produced a platter of cookies from behind his back.

“And what are you going to do with the trash?”

“Eat it.”

Pearl heard giggling, and she whipped her head around to see Zedaph freeze. She slowly turned around, and the giggling started again.

“Don’t you want to stay and play with Zed?”

She thought about that for a moment. She had plans for the day, full of discovering trash and sneaking into everyone’s bases for their trash, but she’d never played with Zedaph. He tended to be a very hermit-y hermit.

Pearl leaned in to whisper to Scar, “Does Grian know?”

“Not yet.”

“Then we should go get Grian,” Pearl declared, and she turned to go do just that.

“Hold on there a moment, Pearl,” Scar stopped her, taking her arm. “Why don’t you play with Zed for a bit, and then we’ll see if Grian wants to come and play, too?”

Pearl thought about it for a moment, but the idea of playing with Grian and introducing him to this small Zedaph was already in her head. She beamed at Scar and chirped, “No. Grian’s gotta come over.”

“Wait, Pearl,” Cub interrupted. “Look.”

Pearl looked back at them, where Zedaph was reaching out towards her and Scar, making grabby hands.

“Do you want cookies?” she asked, thinking he wanted that.

But Zedaph furrowed his brow. “Pearl,” he said, continuing to grab at the air.

Cub smiled. “I think he wants you to come and sit with him, Pearl.”

Curious, but still pouting about not being allowed to invite Grian over right away, Pearl went and sat down with Zedaph, who still clung to Cub’s arm.

Zedaph grabbed her sleeve and leaned over to quietly ask, “Are you like me?”

“What’cha mean?”

“Like…” Zedaph struggled for words, lips wobbling, and he grabbed one of his horns with his other hand. “Sometimes, I’m silly and useless an’ can’t do anything.”

All of Pearl’s eagerness and curiosity dropped like a stone.

When she didn’t say anything, Cub gently tugged Zedaph’s hand away from his horn, trying to refocus his hands on Pearl’s teddy bear.

“You don’t need to do anything, Zed,” Cub said. “Those aren’t bad things.”

“But I want to be useful. I want to do things, but I just— I can’t do things. My brain goes all mush and I can’t do anything I wanted to do.”

Through a lump in her throat, Pearl whispered, “I want to do things.”

But she couldn’t do a lot of things. She couldn’t fly, couldn’t work on complicated builds, wasn’t allowed to fight. Because sometimes she just turned silly. And she hated feeling useless.

“I wanna fly and do my builds and design redstone!” Zedaph grabbed both of his horns, and both Cub and Scar tried to pry his hands away without touching his horns.

Nobody paid attention to Pearl. And she felt guilty for how much she wanted their eyes on her instead. When she wasn’t even doing anything productive, just pretending to be a raccoon eating trash when that was just silly.

Zedaph was saying aloud truths that she had buried away, had tried to hide and not think about, but now that she heard them voiced, she knew she couldn’t stay. She had to get out of here. Put away the silly game, quit taking up Cub and Scar’s time, and get to work on those dumpsters she was slacking on.

“I am silly,” Pearl whispered to nobody at all. “I’m useless and can’t do anything.”

She thought the two caregivers were distracted by Zedaph and his tantrum, but she saw Scar glance at her with widening eyes. Cub shushed Zedaph, who retaliated by screaming in his face.

And Zedaph was crying, and all Pearl could think about was how she needed to pull herself together and go build. She got up and left.

Scar followed her, of course, putting a hand on her shoulder when he caught up outside.

“Are you okay?” Scar asked, apologetic. “Zed’s going through a hard time right now. I think he needs to vent and get all the negativity out.”

“I should take care of the server dumpsters,” Pearl blurted out, looking at the ground. “But I want to be small. But being small means being silly and useless.”

“And what’s wrong with silly and useless?”

Pearl furrowed her brow and frowned. “Well, it means I can’t do much. I have a lot of responsibilities, and when I’m small, I can’t do them.”

Scar hummed. “When you’re small, you don’t have to do them.”

“But I want to do them.”

“That’s what breaks are for,” Scar said. “Yes, you can go be big and clean up trash, but you need to pace yourself and take breaks to be small, so that you don’t end up crashing hard later.”

Pearl sighed. Scar had a point. She had worked herself hard lately, and now being small felt so tempting, even if she had the motivation and pressure to be the cleaning lady.

“And what about Zed?”

“He’s figuring that out as we speak. It might be this is his brain’s way of forcing him to take breaks. Cub and I are trying to show him it can fun.”

Pearl managed a bit of a smile. “So many of you guys are just workaholics, I swear.”

“W-well, hey, you need to include yourself in that!” Scar pointed out, trying to deflect from himself.

A giggle started to bubble in Pearl’s throat, but it died when she caught sight of two hermits flying in, one of which included a hermit who wasn’t part of their secret group.

She elbowed Scar. “Tango incoming.”

The smile also disappeared from Scar’s face, but it was quickly replaced by another one of his magical smiles.

“Hey, guys.” Impulse landed first, soon followed by Tango. “I talked with Tango, and things actually turned out pretty great! Is Zed still around?”

Pearl stepped forward, placing herself between the two hermits and the door. Cub and Zedaph needed to clean up and compose themselves, fast, and escape while she stalled.

“Zed just left. I think he’s gone back to his base,” Pearl lied. “What’s going on?”

“We just missed him? Wait, no—“ Tango looked around frantically, as if he might see Zedaph nearby. The grass crunched with new frost under his boots. “No, no, that’s— sorry, I gotta go find him—“

Before he could launch into the air, Scar grabbed his arm.

“Impulse, you said the talk went fine?” Scar asked, not looking away from Tango.

“Yeah! Yeah. More than fine, actually, so I brought him here.”

“What’s going on?” Pearl glanced between Impulse, Tango, and Scar, not catching on.

“Pearl, Tango knows,” Scar said. “Like, knows knows. Tango, Zed’s still here. He’s inside with Cub.”

Tango paused. “He is? Can I see him?”

“Er, well, about that…” Scar hesitated, a nervous smile plastered on his face.

From inside the tree base, Zedaph screeched. Pearl winced, while Tango and Impulse stared at the tree with wide eyes.

“Well, since all of us here know what’s going on, I feel comfortable being the bearer of bad news.” Scar sounded much too gleeful about the situation. “The baby is throwing a little tantrum.”

Chapter Text

Tango stared at the disconnect message on the screen in front of him in disbelief. A chuckle escaped him, at least; Zedaph’s magic was known to sometimes cause glitches. And now he’d managed to crash the server. By throwing a tantrum.

The server would be back up in no time. Tango spent that moment scrolling through the menu and some of his settings, instead of sitting with his worry, before tapping to rejoin Hermitcraft. Everyone else had to be in the same position, having been kicked back to their individual Waiting Rooms as well.

—-

Scar’s tree filled Tango’s view when he reappeared in Hermitcraft, and the first thing he did was check the tab list. Hermits slowly filled the list, logging back in.

He waited as long as his patience allowed. Zedaph’s name would pop up at any minute. Really. Any minute now.

Any minute–

“I’m gonna check the Create server,” he told Scar, who looked disoriented as the world rendered in on his side. He didn’t wait for a response, logging out with a few taps.

—-

As soon as he appeared in Create, Tango shot off a quick message to Keralis, asking if Zed was with him, and then launched into the air. He was so discombobulated from the worry (because oh, that feeling was panicky concern, wasn’t it?) that it took him a moment to remember which way Zedaph’s cube base was.

—-

Keralis felt his communicator buzz with a pointed message, but he had his hands too full to even glance at it. His eyes were for the baby in front of him, and only the baby. Because surely this had to be a baby.

“Shh, shh, it’s all right, sweet Zedaph. Don’t force yourself.”

He wiped tears and snot from Zedaph’s face with his sleeve as the rammling hiccuped on sobs. Angry sobs, from the sounds of things.

“I’m sorry, baby, I don’t have any small toys for you yet,” Keralis said, taking a hand. Toys were great distractions for babies, and would have helped immensely to distract Zedaph from whatever made him cry.

“I’m not a baby!”

“Okay.” That took him by surprise. After all, Zedaph had seemed so happy to be called a baby before. “What are you, Zedaph?”

“I’m…” Zedaph hiccuped, staring at him with wide eyes. “…I’m an adult.”

Keralis nodded. “So am I. But I can’t call you Adult Zedaph. It has no ring! You’re supposed to be my sweet Zedaph, Zedaph. What’s wrong?”

The long stare continued, but that was okay. Zedaph was allowed to stare and think as long as he wanted.

“Would you like to come inside?” Keralis asked, because they were in his garden. And while it was a nice garden and had a nice swing, he had a nice cozy interior with plenty of carpet for the not-a-baby.

“Um.”

“Yes?”

Zedaph turned a glare at the grass. “I’m silly.”

“Yes.” Keralis didn’t know where this was going.

“When I’m small, I’m useless.”

“Now, sweet Zedaph, it’s not our purpose in life to be useful. I’d much rather have fun and make everyone smile.”

His words alone seemed to trigger something in Zedaph’s brain, because tears welled up in his eyes. He didn’t protest when Keralis shushed him and wiped his face for him.

“I’m gonna be small now,” Zedaph declared, already mumbling his words together.

“Do I get my sweet baby Zedaph again?”

Zedaph shuffled forward, latching on to his hand and pressing close to him.

“Oh, a tired baby, I see,” Keralis observed, nodding sagely. “It is very early in the morning, isn’t it? Let’s go inside. I’m just doing some sketches, nothing important or loud. You can rest.”

A nod was his only answer, and that was okay.

He led Zedaph to a soft patch of carpet in the train station lodging he’d built, setting him down there and gingerly detaching him from his arm. He pulled a throw blanket off the back of his desk chair, and he gave that to his guest.

“Would you like any warm milk?” Keralis asked, but it was as if he hadn’t said anything. Zedaph already looked halfway to sleep, eyes half-lidded as and settled in with his blanket bunched around him. Cute, but his expression, though sleepy, was still troubled.

Keralis returned to his desk, where he had his morning hot cup of cocoa, and went back to add a bit more to his sketches. Base plans, either here or on Hermitcraft, never truly ended.

When he heard the rush of fireworks ringing outside, he glanced at the door and put down his pencil.

“Wait here,” Keralis said, although he didn’t need to say anything; Zedaph was fast asleep.

“KERALIS! Keralis!”

And hopefully that shouting didn’t wake the baby. Keralis didn’t let himself speak until he closed the door behind him. He made it two steps into his garden before Tango nearly crash-landed in the grass in front of him. The dungeon master costume, usually reserved for when Tango was on Hermitcraft, looked out of place on the warm Create server.

“I can’t find Zed!” Tango grabbed onto Keralis, nearly tugging him down with him. “You have to help me! We were on Hermitcraft, Cub was watching him, he started screaming— I don’t know—“

“Slow down, Tango, slow down.” Keralis hefted him to his feet, but Tango just slid down again, his lips wobbling with restrained emotions. “Baby Zedaph is fine. What are you saying? Screaming? Cub? What happened?”

“Impulse and Scar and Cub and— and maybe Pearl? They all kinda— I don’t know, have a thing? Have you seen Zed?”

“He’s here, he’s fine. The baby is down for a nap. I think he needs some time alone.”

“Huh? Is this about how I acted when— that day? Are you trying to keep me away from him?” He laughed nervously. “Man, does everyone think that? Look, I promise, I already talked it out with Zed, and we’re all good, promise! Now can I see him?”

Keralis hesitated. Tango didn’t wait for him to gather his words, brushing past to go inside, and his face broke into a smile at the sight of the blanket lump on the floor.

“Hiya, Zed.” Tango closed his elytra and knelt on the floor next to him. “I’m gonna hug you now.”

And he did. Zedaph tensed up under the blanket and started to squirm, and Tango hugged harder until Zedaph melted in his arms.

“Yeah. Good squish, huh?”

“Mm.”

There was a silence that Keralis couldn’t parse. He lingered at the door to take in the scene, watching the two hug it out. When Tango looked his way, Keralis gave a thumbs-up.

“I heard you were throwing a tantrum, buddy,” Tango said softly. “What was that about?”

“Not small.”

“You’re not small?”

Zedaph shrugged against him. “I don’t know. I don’t want to be small.”

“But why not?” Tango asked, sounding genuinely curious. “Being a kid sounds like it’s a ton of fun! No responsibilities, you can let everyone else worry about the adult stuff, and you get to play as much as you want! And you had fun the other week with me, didn’t you?”

Zedaph didn’t answer.

“Right? Didn’t you have fun?” Tango tried to pull at the corner of the blanket so he could see his friend’s face, but Zedaph pulled it back down.

“Did I? I only remember feeling bad at the end of it. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry. I’m trying to learn,” Tango insisted. “Really. I wanna do good by you, Zed. Impulse just told me about this thing Scar and Cub and him have, like, being caregivers for players like you. For people who regress. And I want in on it.”

“If I didn’t go all useless in the first place…”

“You know, you don’t have to be working all the time,” Tango pointed out. “Are the other hermits who regress also useless?”

Zedaph huffed, clearly defeated by logic.

Quieter, Tango said, “And I like hanging out with little Zed. I wanna play more with him, if he wants to come out and play?”

An invitation.

“Maybe. Feeling fuzzy and small,” Zedaph admitted.

“Can I get under the blanket with you?” Tango asked, to which Zedaph hesitated. Keralis took a step inside, closing the door as softly as he could, wondering if he should step in.

However, just at the moment when it seemed as if the silence meant an uncomfortable negative, Zedaph broke the pause by bleating like a goat.

Tango giggled. He kicked his boots to the side, and together, they moved the blanket to share the space. They met each other underneath with watery giggles.

“We could set up some chairs and scaffolding, and make a blanket fort,” Tango suggested. “A lil’ one, though, for the lil’ one right here!”

“Can you quiet down? I’m kind of still…”

“Oh! Yeah, sorry.” Tango lowered his voice, sheepish. “Is it okay if we just sit here for a bit?”

Zedaph nodded, making the blankets shake. They could do that. Sitting under the blankets together, content with the moment of peace.

And Keralis could have left them at that, secure in the knowledge that Tango was a safe babysitter for Zedaph, but a glance at his communicator told him that the conversation was far from over. He walked into the room and made a show of looking around.

“Oh, no! I’m sure I just heard Zedaph and Tango here, but I don’t see them anywhere!” Keralis exclaimed with a grin. “Where could they have gone!”

Tango muffled a laugh while Zedaph suddenly scrambled with the blankets, and the small rammling shoved his head out from under the blanket like he was gasping for air. He bleated, loud and concerned.

Keralis gasped. “There you are!”

“We were right under here all along!” Tango pulled the remaining blankets off his head, grinning wide. “Silly Papa K.”

“Mm-hmm!” Keralis nodded wisely as he walked over to them, crouching down to their level. “Papa K is very silly, hmm?”

“Very silly.” Tango poked his nose, and if Keralis hadn’t known he was just playing along with Zedaph, he would have thought Tango was the baby around here.

Keralis looked over Tango’s shoulder at Zedaph. “Scar’s on his way over. He said something happened on Hermitcraft?”

Instead of responding, Zedaph’s face scrunched up, and he pulled the blanket over himself again, to Tango’s protest.

“Or we could talk about it later?” Keralis tried. He offered a frown to Tango, trying to silently ask what the best course of action was.

Scar hadn’t given the full story over chat, but it had been enough. It was technically an issue they had to deal with, having operator permissions on the Hermitcraft server, when the server had an outage. Even if the cause of an outage was from someone’s magic flaring and even if they trusted the hermit in question to (probably) not do it again.

Scar landed on the train of Keralis’s train station, clearly lost to where everyone was supposed to gather, but at least he wasn’t shouting. Zedaph was in a delicate state. Tango had shared enough concern to cover all of them.

Keralis waved Scar down from The Flying Hermit and inside. At the sight of Zedaph and Tango leaning against each other on the floor, Scar hid a smile behind his hand.

“So, Scar, what happened on Hermycraft? Sweet Zedaph is calm and sweet again.”

Scar waved and gestured for Keralis to retreat outside again. Zedaph had started babbling, and Tango kept him distracted with little words and hums.

“We should wait until Zed is big to talk to him about all that,” Scar started with. “Well, part of all that. It started last night…”

Scar paused. Keralis waited for him to continue. They had plenty of time to go over any long story, after all. But Scar skipped the full explanation.

“Short version of the story: Cub and I were watching Zed this morning, and he was really upset because, I think, we were trying to convince him it’s fine to be small for a while.”

“Okay.” Keralis eyed Scar carefully. “But he can’t control the small?”

Scar’s shoulders slumped. “But that’s the point! He’s trying to fight it, when he should be trying to embrace it, to get a better understanding so that his brain copes better with being small! Listen, Keralis. Papa K.”

Scar patted him on the shoulder.

“There are hermits who are like Zed, and I’m very familiar with this by now. I’m an expert. Trust me.”

Keralis blinked. “Did you say there are others? More babies?”

“Yes.” Scar nodded vigorously, leaning on his cane. “I’m a well-known caregiver among them, as is Cub. That brings up another thing— we had a second little swing by, and Zedaph really upset them. He needs to apologize. When he’s ready, of course.”

Keralis put a hand to his chin in thought. “More babies is good for Zedaph… But his tantrum shut down Hermitcraft. Is that going to happen a lot now with him? How do we avoid upsetting a baby? Babies cry for all kinds of reasons!”

“We get him used to being little,” Scar suggested. “Have play dates, even. And with caregivers nearby to swoop in if one of them starts crying.”

“More babies,” Keralis brought up. “Are they as sweet as sweet Zedaph?”

Scar laughed. “Well, they don’t like being called babies, but I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if it’s you saying that. They’re the most adorable when they’re sleeping, in my opinion. We call them littles when they’re regressed.”

Keralis nodded, taking a mental note. Littles. Not babies. “I have a lot to learn.”

“And I will happily teach you, my young padawan! Right now, I’m trusting Cub and Impulse to watch one of the littles I usually watch on Hermitcraft.” Scar glanced at his communicator, and Keralis copied the action to see the new message there.

Tango: group vc?

Keralis tapped into the new group. “Hello?”

“Wanted to talk without disturbing Zed.” Tango’s voice came through as if he was standing next to them. “We really need to set up playdates for Zed and the other littles. He deserves to learn how to play while regressed. I don’t think he’s doing great with just a caregiver to watch him. He needs to be around more hermits like him.”

“Of course!”

“And toys. He needs toys. So many toys.”

Tango sounded so serious that Keralis had to smirk. “Are you sure you don’t want the toys for yourself?” he teased.

“Yeah!” Tango jumped for it. “I’ll need them to keep Zed occupied while I’m working on Decked Out 2. I gotta buckle down and get that built.”

“We’ve got toys galore,” Scar assured him. “And many more, coming to a Scarland near you!”