Minecraft Chronicles (MCC)

One day, Leaf was walking then something caught their attention, they heard someone walking around nearby, when they looked, they saw a small village, once they walked in they noticed a guard and went to talk to him. "Good evening, ma'am." The guard said, he seemed nice. "Hello, may I ask where I am?" Leaf asked, they stood with their hands behind their back, waiting for a response. "Well, you're in what used to be Raven Burn, our lord left and now no one seems to know what this place is... But why? Do you need directions somewhere?" The guard asked, tilting his head a bit, like a cat or dog. Leaf thought for a moment "well, you see, I was looking for a place to stay and happened to find this village," she nervously chuckled before continuing "I've never been to a village before..." The guard seemed confused before brushing their comment off "you can stay as long as you don't cause any trouble… I can show you to an empty house that you can stay in, miss—?" Leaf realized they hadn't told the guard their name "Leaf, my name is Leaf, I know it's kinda weird but that's my name!" They smiled a bit and bowed to the guard slightly, as if to say 'lead the way.' "Well then, follow me, miss Leaf." He led them to a small house, there wasn't much to it and it was a little dusty. "This is it, I apologize for the dust, there aren't very many people living in the village anymore- although there weren't many to begin with..." the guard thought for a moment "oh, right, how stupid of me, my name's Aziel, I am– or at least was the head guard, I still function as the head guard but without our lord, I'm not exactly sure if I should consider just being a guard or not." "Doesn't the head guard usually turn into a leader- err- lord if the original lord dies or something?" Leaf asked, brushing their dark orange — almost brown hair to the side, out of their face. "It depends, most lords have kids that take over, if there isn't a child then the lady or a relative may take over, if they don't want to or the lord has no other relatives then, occasionally, the head guard might become the next lord, if they choose not to, then, the village can continue without a lord, if the village agrees then one of the other villagers or guards can take over, or the village might just get pulled apart completely with the villagers going off to different villages. Anyways, I must get back to patrolling, you can take a look around if you'd like." Aziel bowed before walking back to where Leaf found him.

Leaf was sitting in the house Aziel said they could stay in, thinking, not just about going back home but how sad it was that Aziel and the rest of the village were basically abandoned by their own lord, they thought about how mad... how angry they'd be if they were abandoned... if they're family and any other families in their 'village' were abandoned... after hours of trying to come up with a reason for anyone to abandon their own village, Leaf walked over to the now clean bed and tried to sleep, they kept tossing and turning in their sleep. They woke up to someone knocking on the door so they got up and opened it only to see Aziel standing there. "I wasn't sure if you looked around yet but in case you didn't, I wanted to show you around, Jake and a few other guards are on the dayshift patrol right now." Leaf nodded "Sure, I'd like that- wait- dayshift? Were you on the nightshift? Shouldn't you sleep?" They tilted their head a bit. "I'm fine, I slept for a while before I came to get you, besides, my shift ended at dawn, it's currently noon," Aziel placed a hand on Leaf's shoulder "now, if you're coming with me, let's get going." Leaf smiled a bit "alright, let's go!" They stepped out and slightly closer to Aziel before closing the door to the house and walking with him, he started with the guard station, then the barn and mini farms for wheat, carrots, potatoes, beets, and many other fruits and vegetables, he even showed them a few other places, there weren't many people out and the ones that were seemed to be busy, like a purple-haired male who was tending to the animals in the barn, a red haired person that was tending to the crops, a blonde girl that was helping a tall, ginger girl carry crates, and a white haired guy who was with a brown haired girl that looked to be maybe 4 or 5 based on her hight and the fact she had a stuffed animal in her arms.

Hours passed as Aziel showed them around and talked to them, mainly pointing people out and telling them what job each person had, they learned that the purple haired male was named Vlad and that he was the one in charge of taking care of the animals and, if they had a party or something then he'd usually be with the kids, a female guard that looked almost exactly like Vlad was named Veronica, she was relaxing under a tree went he pointed her out, he noted that they shouldn't bother her since she seemed to be taking a nap, the girls tending to the crops were Alex and Shyora, they were obviously in charge of making sure the crops were taken care of and Alex was also a guard plus, they learned that Alex was born a girl but doesn't care much about if people call her a he, she, or they, which made Leaf happy, they didn't have the courage to tell Aziel that they prefer being called they/them and instead just let him refer to them as she/her mainly because they had a feminine body and, even though their clothes didn't scream 'girl' they were on the more feminine side and made their curves pretty visible plus they sounded like a girl.

Once Aziel finished showing Leaf around, he walked them back to their temporary house where they laid in bed, they couldn't do much and they didn't want to bother Aziel or really anyone for that matter, they were new and didn't know if anyone was hostile towards new people or if they'd even want to talk to them, so they just laid there, thinking, they did the same thing back at home. 'That white haired guy... Aziel said his name was Kai... he looks just like Blizzard... I miss him... I wish I could go home... I wish I could remember where home was...' Leaf thought, silently crying and eventually they passed out. The following day they were walking around the village and were approached by one of the villagers. "Hello! You must be Leaf, Aziel has said a lot about you! I wanted to introduce myself," the shorter, black and purple haired girl bowed before speaking again "my name's Kitty, I'm a Meif'wa, also known as a Nekomimi which just basically means I'm the cat equivalent of a werewolf- like a were-cat I guess." Leaf smiled a bit "Nice to meet you, Kitty, and I'm aware of what a Meif'wa is, I lived with a few for years, I'm actually not from around here though, truthfully, I'm not sure how I even got to Raven Burn, I'm from a tribe known as Hollow Peak, although the Meif'wa that live within the tribe call it Willow Peak since there are a lot of willow trees surrounding the space that they mainly stay in, it's also technically one of the northwest werewolf tribes." Kitty's tail swayed a bit and she smiled "That's cool!" The short girl blushed a bit in embarrassment "I've actually never seen a willow tree, I've seen drawings of them but I haven't seen any in person..."

After a few minutes of talking to and getting to know Kitty the short female was called over to help one of the farmers, Shyora, pick something, it seemed to be apples although they couldn't really tell from where they were standing. They turned and walked to the plaza which was pretty bare, it seemed almost abandoned so Leaf wandered around, found some stuff, and got to repairing the merchant booths, fixing the paths, redoing all of the posts and any decorations they had on them, and even cleaned a good portion of the mining equipment, put pickaxes on racks, putting random coal pieces into a bucket, they even organized the raw iron and gold, cleaned most of the cobwebs, and killed any of the creepy-crawlies they found/saw. They admired their hard work for awhile before feeling a sudden hand being placed on their shoulder which made them jump and turn around. "Hey, calm down, it's just me, I wanted to tell you that this wasn't necessary, I appreciate you trying to help but we don't use the plaza anymore, as I mentioned when I first saw you, there are very few of us here now so it's almost like our village disappeared, the merchant booths aren't even going to be used, merchants don't come here, I'm shocked you even found this place..." Aziel went quiet and cleared his throat a bit. "Aziel, I appreciate you telling me all of this but I'm positive we can make this village better than before and that starts with fixing everything, the plaza, any unfinished or ruined buildings, I can even make the barn bigger for more animals, even that house on the hill!" They pointed to a house that overlooked the entire village, it was old and the roof could definitely use some TLC since most of it looked like it was caving in or had already come down, even from afar there seemed to be a lot of growth on it like vines and maybe even some moss and around it like overgrown grass and trees and shrubbery that seemed to have grown out of control. "I can't force you to stop doing this, especially since I'm sure the others would love to see the village restored but if you're going to anything to that house, I'd suggest tearing it down, it was our lords house, since he left we don't really have a use for it- maybe you can tear it down then build something else up there? I don't know, I just think it'd be best to completely get rid of it, but right now I think you should go get some rest, it's not entirely safe at night, there are bandits, thieves, and rouge werewolves." Aziel put his hand on their chin and gently tilted their head to look up at him, mainly so he could see if they were tired. Leaf moved Aziel's hand "I understand, but I can take care of myself, I like how you're worried about me but you have to remember, up until a couple of days ago, I was on my own" they walked past Aziel and flicked the tip of their tail in his face before walking up to the old lords house to check out what they might have to do.

'Aziel was right, I might just have to tear this place down, it was hard enough trying to get in here...' they thought as they struggled through what used to be a small basement window, they hardly fit through it and almost fell when they did finally get through. The floor in the basement was surprisingly wet so Leaf simply rolled their pants up to their knees before walking around as to not get the ends wet, they found a strange room and opened the door, inside there was a picture of a man that had pink hair and baby blue eyes, he was with two kids, one boy that had lavender hair and baby blue eyes as well as a girl with pink hair and lavender eyes, both kids were slightly darker than the old male that seemed to be their father, there was writing on the wall under it that read 'Lord Hunter with his son Derek and daughter Lizzie' but Leaf noticed that there was more writing, unlike the rest, it seemed like dried blood, it was hard to make out some letters which read 'Liz---, Dere-, ---dy loves you, pl-a-e come ho--' there was more but they couldn't make any of the letters out. ' "Lizzie, Derek, daddy loves you, please come home" … What happened here? Why did he use blood to write that? Lizzie looks 5 maybe 6 here... Derek seems to just be a baby, maybe even 2 years old, they both look so young… how old are they now..?'  Leaf's thoughts were interrupted but the sound of something falling on the first floor, they ignored it and started looking around, they found a book but when they opened it, the pages were blank so they just slipped it into an empty bag that was sitting on a desk in the corner and looked around the basement once more, they found a few things that didn't seem important then, in a crate that was sitting in the corner, they found what looked like wedding attire as well as rings, one had the name Hunter inscribed on the inside while the other one had the name Penelope inscribed in it, they put them back in the crate and closed it once more before slowly walking up the stairs, the door to the basement was already open so they walked right into the living room, pictures of the kids were all over the place, even some from when Lizzie was younger, there weren't many of Hunter, they looked around and didn't find much, just some more rotting wood, some broken glass, and some furniture that looked torn, not from aging but rather from a sword or knife cutting into it, tables and chairs were flipped over, some seemed to have been thrown against walls, there were some bugs crawling around and some cobwebs were in the corners, the house was a complete mess, the front door was blocked by part of the ceiling collapsing, the windows were boarded up, and the sink was full of… 'BLOOD-!? What the hell happened here-!?' Leaf's heart started pounding a bit, they didn't expect to see blood in the sink, although it seemed to be diluted with water, it was still blood, there was no doubt about that.

After calming down they started looking around and found a painting of a woman, she had light pink eyes, lavender hair, and dark skin 'Lady Penelope' was written on the frame. 'Lady Penelope looks beautiful, no wonder Lord Hunter married her, their kids are also really cute' Leaf thought as they stared at the painting. A few minutes passed as they looked at it, they noticed something hidden right behind it, so they carefully moved it which revealed a hole in the wall, just big enough to fit their hand in, inside they felt a wooden box which they got out with a little help from a hammer. They looked at the wooden box, curiously before opening it, it had love letters to Penelope, most were cheesey and had some pick-up lines in them but the ones that didn't just talked about how much the sender loved her and wished they could be together, at first they thought it was Hunter when he was younger but she found a picture of a guy with blonde hair and hazel eyes, sure, Hunter could've dyed his hair pink but he had baby blue eyes whereas this man had hazel eyes. Leaf put the box in the bag, careful that they didn't let it spill and once they did, they heard a voice come from upstairs. "Where do you think she hid it?" A female voice said. "I don't know but we've looked everywhere, I'm starting to think Tony either lied or Hunter found out and got rid of everything." A male voice said, he seemed irritated and it sounded like they were headed towards the stairs. 'I gotta go! Don't see me, don't see me, don't see me!' Leaf thought as they rushed to the basement and crawled out before quickly running into the treeline, they climbed into a tree and waited as the two figures left, they couldn't get a good look at them as they left but one seemed to have green hair while the other had what looked like silver hair, they both had short hair so it was hard to tell who was the guy and who was the girl but Leaf knew one thing. They had to get back to the village, so, without a second thought, they dropped down and ran to the village, specifically where Aziel was patrolling, before they reached him, they put the bag down where it would be out of Aziel's sight then they told him about the two figures, withholding the part where they found the box and the blood and the message in the basement. "I'll go up there with you in the morning to do a complete search of the house, ok?" Aziel placed a hand on their shoulder "right now, you should go get some rest, I don't want you to get hurt while on my watch, plus, you said that the basement was wet and I don't need a cold or anything going around the village." Leaf nodded "I'll go to bed, I left a few tools back that way so I'm going to grab them, put them somewhere, then turn in for the night, ok?" Aziel slightly nodded before removing his hand and going back to his patrol. Leaf walked back and grabbed the bag before quickly going to the house he let them stay in, they started looking at everything in the bag before shoving it under the bed and sneaking back to the lord's old house, they went back in and hid the room with the bloody writing then started to remove the blood from the sink as best as they could, they used some of the water from the basement which the scooped up with a bucket and just poured it in the sink to replace the bloody water that was originally in the sink, they did quick sweeps of each room on both floors plus the attic, mainly making sure there was no other bloody writing or just any blood in general before heading back and going to sleep.

Once they woke up they went and grabbed the tools they needed then went and found Aziel. The blonde haired male had an extra sword and shield for Leaf "Here, take these." He said and handed them to Leaf. "I usually dual wield katanas but I can work with these." They responded and led the way, showing Aziel the only entrance which they quickly realized was too small for Aziel to fit through. "I can figure out a way to help you get in, just give me a second to get upstairs." They said, getting a nod from Aziel before walking up to the living room and looking around, they saw a decent sized window which they broke and removed most of the glass so Aziel didn't get cut then they helped him in. The two looked around, making sure no one was in the house, the only living things besides themselves were insects until they reached the attic, at which point there were a few birds and mice that were most likely eating some of the bird eggs, although there was one that stood out, it was a bit bigger than the other mice, not all that much bigger but there was a noticeable difference, it was dark gray with white, red, and orange spots, while the other mice ran once Aziel and Leaf walked into the attic, that one just sat there, looking at the two. "Aww, look at him, he's so cute." Leaf said, looking at the mouse. "I mean, it's a rodent, I don't see the appeal in it, all they do is ruin things with their teeth." Aziel responded with a shrug and slight sigh.