For three beautiful glorious seconds he's flying. 

Then, of course, he hits the wall, and he is not flying anymore, because instead he is launching out of his bed in Kinoko and picking up his (working!! WORKING!!!!) hang glider, and then he's trying again! And failing again! But failing better!!! 

“Dude! That’s awesome!!!”

"Isn't it! I'm never stopping!!" And before Q has time to talk himself out of it Sapnap has an armful of laughing Quackity. 

Hug!!!!!! And a sort of half-twirl with Quackity half off the ground. 

…Wow, Sapnap had not realized how much he missed this. It’s really nice. 

It is. He... doesn't really want to let go. 

Yeah. 

He lets go after only slightly longer than normal, but it’s a bit of an effort. “You should get some rockets to go with it. Uh, if DreamXD lets you.”

"I should. ...Possibly after I manage to fly it for more than ten seconds before I hit something. Stretch goal." 

Sapnap nods and runs his hand along it appreciatively. “Seriously, dude, this is so fucking cool.”

There's something kind of glowy about the guy who can do that kind of water trick thinking something Quackity managed was cool. Not that Q wasn't thrilled with his results already, but that apparently that's impressive, even here, even to someone as good at this as Sapnap is. 

"'S the first thing I wanted to try when I found out I could die and not have it matter, I still can't really believe it worked." 

“I guess XD likes you.”

This is the third time someone's mentioned XD but if physics is a person here Quackity is really not sure he wants to wrap his head around that today.

He bumps Sapnap's shoulder rather than asking, the kind of affectionate where he doesn't have to worry he's being weird again. "I guess!" 

“Do it again!”

He does it again! And again, and again. By his fifth try he can stay in the air for fifteen whole seconds at a time, although his depth perception is fucked up enough that it's a challenge to not hit anything.

Sapnap is happy to watch and cheer and clap him on the back after particularly good flights!

Then they can pass the rest of the day like that. 

This was a good day. Just-- a totally unambiguous, no qualifiers necessary, really fucking good day. Q has no idea how long it's been since he smiled that much; his face kinda hurts by the end of it. 

And then night falls, and he falls asleep faster than he has in weeks (apparently dying lots of times wears you out even if none of them stick, who'd have thought) and-- 

And he dreams about hotel rooms, and gleaming liquid that drips from dark stone, and an arena built for him to die in, and lava, and hands on his skin, and glowing shears and more lava.

All in all, it's a very normal night. 

In the morning, there's cloth-and-bamboo wings leaning against the wall, and a book with a single smiley face in it in his pocket. 

Dream told him to talk to Tommy. He's not going to do that, that was bait; whatever fucked-up thing happened there Quackity has already resigned himself to never finding out the details. Besides, he doesn't actually need to know.

But Dream also told him to show the book to Ranboo. That may or may not be bait-- it's hard to imagine much of substance can be communicated by a smiley face-- but then, of course Dream's secret code to his allies if he had one would be disguised as being mean for no reason.

And, bait or not, Q... is not actually comfortable quietly failing to deliver that message, not on no evidence at all. He can scope it out, maybe, decide once he's there if it seems like a good idea. 

So, after a quick pit stop to steal a shirt from George: to the outpost?

The outpost! Tubbo’s there, in a warm coat, green and brown and fluffy. He’s the same age as the Tubbo Quackity knows, but with extensive burn scars. Ranboo’s there as well, talking to him, but Quackity isn’t able to get close enough to find out what they’re talking about; as soon as Ranboo sees Quackity approach, he jumps, whispers a sentence or two to Tubbo, and then stops talking. 

“Um… Hi? Do you want any cookies?”

(Next to him, Tubbo materializes a glowing purple axe. Just in case.)

Wow he is definitely having some sort of emotion about Tubbo immediately drawing an axe and he has no idea what it is.

He's so normal about it though. Or at least he can do an excellent impression of normal. If we want the rewards of being able to scope out whether it is a good idea to deliver this message we must face the mortifying ordeal of making conversation with someone we are so, so normal about.

He pushes his hair back and away from his face, smiles politely. "I wanted to thank you, actually? You were the first person I talked to when I got to the server, uh, however many days ago that was, and it was probably super weird for you but you helped a lot."

“—Oh! Yeah, uh, no problem, man.”

Wow, that tells him nothing at all.

...He can carry on this conversation by himself, but that kind of seems unlikely to get him anywhere. He can try to scope out Tubbo, but trying to get Tubbo to tell a stranger he's this wary of anything let alone something private sounds like a terrible idea, what if instead he ate glass. He can just hand Ranboo the book and let him figure out how to explain it-- but it sure sounds like, whatever the story is with Dream, it's the sort of thing you'd want to keep private and maybe would especially want to keep private from Tubbo; don't share people's secrets in front of unvetted third parties, that's fucking rude. He can make his excuses and leave, come back later, and maybe try to get Ranboo alone, which might or might not work. Augh.

"Good to hear," he says, going for polite, nonthreatening, chill. 

“Consider me thanked. Is there, uh, anything else you wanted?”

...yeah okay how about he gets the hell out of dodge until such time as they can talk without witnesses and he only has to work with one person whose reaction he can't guess.

"Nope! See you around." 

“Oh, okay! Goodbye!” Wow, that went really well!

That did not go nearly as badly as it could have! Mostly because it barely went at all, but oh well. 

From here... he doesn't really have anything in particular he wants to accomplish today. He'll steal some food from the Las Nevadas restaurant, maybe?