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Egg shakes his wings out again. He– lowkey, he kinda likes the snow, usually. But when it's been the same chunks of snow biomes the past– past few days? Hours? It’s very hard to tell– then snowfall goes from nice, magical, to something harsh. Deadly.
Wemmbu does very poorly in the cold. They’re walking side by side, because Wemmbu gave up trying to fly after the first thirty minutes. Ish. Clocks don’t work out here. Nothing works out here.
And, to make things worse, the rain and snow cycles seem to be broken too. The weather repeated in each chunk– like if someone had taken a photo in the rain, then copied it a billion times. All those copies have rain.
But it’s usually just one biome, that they can move sixteen blocks away from and be fine. Except. Except this is a really big snow biome, for some reason. Maybe back closer to the center of the server, the chunks would have generated as just an oddly large snow biome, with normal weather patterns, and normal sized mountains, and not harsh peaks that made it dark and cold 90% of the day.
Egg and Wemmbu keep trekking on. And Egg carefully watches Wemmbu get worse. Both physically and mentally. He’s getting more snappish– a combination of his lost mace, and his poor physical health.
“It’s really cold, huh,” Egg says, because Wemmbu has changed from shivering to not. Which means his body isn’t trying to warm itself up.
“I thought it was… it’s getting better. Warmer.” Wemmbu hums. Alarm bells go off.
“We’re stopping,” Egg decides lightly, like he isn’t panicking. Wemmbu won’t die to hypothermia, that'd be really lame. He won’t.
“Wh– no dude. It’s like. Um, it’s getting warmer.” Wemmbu argues, stumbling over his words, and Egg notes he isn’t hugging himself anymore.
“Bro, we gotta stop,” Egg shrugs, and starts digging into a mountain. The stone is slow to mine, because of how cold it is.
“Egg, what’re’ya doing?” Wemmbu asks, and half-collapses onto the ground. Oh crap. Egg should’ve noticed way sooner.
“C’mere,” Egg says, dragging Wemmbu up, and there’s an immediate flow of his excess energy into Wemmbu. Uh oh. Yo.
Egg extends a wing, and has a kneejerk reaction to curl it back up because it's cold, but he locks in and wraps it around Wemmbu. Wemmbu makes a halfhearted attempt to leave, but gives up quickly, and rests all his weight on Egg.
“You’re like… you’re being weirddd, dude,” Wemmbu accuses, and Egg squeezes his wing as close as he can manage, burrowing into the mountain. There’s a 2x2x2 area now. Egg pushes them both in, and reblocks the entrance.
“Sit– nevermind. Uh, you have the torches.” Egg says. Wemmbu blinks slowly. Egg’s wings flutter.
“Oh,” Wemmbu says, and opens his inventory. Egg feels the motion of Wemmbu’s arms against his side. “Mhm.”
Yo, how did it take him so long to notice? This is like– late stage hypothermia. How did he not notice the extra shivering, or the slowed pace? Or the hyperventilating?? It just ain’t adding up.
Wemmbu tosses him a handful of torches. His muscles are probably too tense to be more precise. Lowkey not good !
Egg places them on every block he can fit them, then lowers himself and Wemmbu to the ground, to curl up closer. They don’t have the energy to stand for long, anyway.
“You just– let’s warm up, dude,” Egg offers, and wraps his arms around Wemmbu.
“W’re fine,” Wemmbu tells him, head drooping onto Egg’s shoulder.
“Brother, are we serious,” Egg huffs, bringing his other wing to Wemmbu’s open side. “You’re tired. I’m tired too, bro.”
“Mmm,” Wemmbu murmurs, tone disagreeing, but he’s obviously too tired to express it. Which is lowkey proving Egg’s point. Lock in.
“Yeah dude,” He agrees, wings fluffing out now that it’s a little warmer. It should honestly be actually warmer than this. Wemmbu’s usually warmth central, even in cold biomes.
This lowkey might be very, very bad. Should Egg– should he keep Wemmbu awake? Or let his body rest? Probably rest, right?
Egg makes himself relax. He’ll let Wemmbu decide if he needs sleep.
“I hate the cold,” Wemmbu says softly, words mixing together just a little. Egg flexes his grip on the back of Wemmbu’s shirt.
“I know, dude,” Egg responds, trying to bring him closer. He’ll be fine. He’s Wemmbu. There’s been worse. There will probably be worse, but that isn’t really comforting. “You’re supposed to be in the Nether, not in the snow.”
“I knowww,” Wemmbu whines, nuzzling his face into the area between Egg’s neck and shoulder. Egg ignores the instinct to lean away, to get room to breathe, and just holds Wemmbu. It might be cute if they weren’t freezing and it wasn’t Wemmbu.
“Yo, bro is the whiner,” Egg teases. Wemmbu whines again, and relaxes.
Egg waits for a few minutes. Or maybe hours. Time is– it twists, in the Farlands. Whatever, that’s not– basically, Wemmbu starts shivering again. Egg’s lowkey half-zoned out, but once he feels the shivers, he locks in.
“You cold?” Egg asks, hopeful. Wemmbu nods into his shoulder. Yo, finally.
“It’s colder in the cave,” Wemmbu complains, voice muffled.
“Uh huh,” Egg says, and slips a hand from Wemmbu’s back to up his sleeve. A differently timed shiver goes through Wemmbu when their skin makes contact. Any excess energy Egg built up dives into Wemmbu’s nerves. “You have hypothermia.”
Wemmbu pauses. He drags himself off of Egg’s chest, leaning back just enough for them to lock eyes.
“…what?” He asks, a little stupidly.
“You have hypothermia.” Egg repeats, nodding once. Wemmbu tilts his head.
“No I– how’d–” Wemmbu’s mental cogs are overclocking. Egg can tell. He waits patiently. “Huh?”
“Feeling suddenly warm is probably hypothermia, bro. And you stopped shivering.” Egg explains, and realizes that they’re a little too close. He doesn’t do anything to change that. “That’s why I sealed us in.”
“Huh. I don’t– I didn’t think I could get hypothermia.” Wemmbu comments, and relaxes. Egg is frozen between bringing him closer and pushing him away.
“Brother– why would you not get hypothermia?” Egg questions, electing to do neither.
“Dude, I’m a demon?” Wemmbu answers. Egg makes a noise.
“Ph– brother. Brother, that– just because you run warmer– bro, you’d be more susceptible to hypothermia. Because there’s more temperatures that are colder than your body.” Egg tells him. Wemmbu offers a sheepish smile, still shaking. “Bro.”
“My bad yo,” Wemmbu says, voice almost a breathy laugh. Egg gives him a look, but Wemmbu avoids it by slumping into Egg again. It’s always just– lowkey just a little surprising they still fit into each other. That they still click into place.
Egg breathes out, and relaxes. He accepts his fate as a pillow for the shakiest man alive.
“You’re highkey like a lizard,” Egg comments. Wemmbu shakes– laughter, not shivering. “Cause like. You’re stealing my warmth.”
Wemmbu leans back, to glare at Egg. It’s lowkey not at all intimidating because he’s still shivering and snuggling against Egg.
“You’re literally a bird,” Wemmbu says flatly. Egg shuffles his feathers.
“Birds were lowkey made from my visage,” He responds. Wemmbu makes a pitched noise that nearly has Egg careening forward, before he realizes it’s just a confused sound. Minus 1000 aura.
“Bro what is a visage?” Wemmbu questions, tilting his head. He’s shivering more. “Pause, this shivering shit is mad annoying, dude. We’ve gotta get out of the snow biomes.”
“In visage means based on. And yeah, yeah, we’ll– tomorrow. We can just go perpendicular to the biomes.”
“Why didn’t we do that in the first place?” Wemmbu hisses, no real venom behind it.
“Bro, if we get lost we’re cooked. We’re zombies.” Egg reminds. “I didn’t want to take a chance– but the snow’s gone on way longer than I thought. So we should dip.”
“Great,” Wemmbu hums, and leans forward again, shifting back into place. Egg readjusts with him. “I hate the cold.”
“We know, bro,” Egg laughs, jostling Wemmbu.
“Dude, shut up,” Wemmbu grumbles, and his breathing starts to slow. The shivering doesn’t. Egg brings their bodies closer wordlessly. Wemmbu makes a (happy) noise.
Eventually, his breathing even out entirely, and he’s asleep. Which is kind of ideal– gaining energy back, and very low risk of not waking up.
Hm. Very low, but still present risk.
Egg– his sleep schedule gets a little cooked. Okay. There’s– there’s a slight worry, a sliver in his mind, that Wemmbu stops breathing. Or something.
He hasn’t stopped shivering, which is half good and half bad.
And! And, Egg makes energy just from the air around him. So technically he doesn’t really need a good night’s sleep.
He is really used to getting one though. And– at some point…
The cave is warm by the past few days’ standards. Or past few hours’. Hard to tell. It’s just warmer than outside.
Even though Wemmbu’s oddly cold, it’s just nice. It’s good. Safe.
Being safe is good. Cozy is good.
(They do eventually make it out of the snow biome. It’s thirty chunks wide. Insane. Wemmbu doesn’t stop shivering for at least two hours outside of the snow biome.)