Chapter Text
“Tommy-” Techno groans, dropping his sack onto the ground, the brown fabric becoming wet from the snow that coats the landscape. Technoblade crouches, pulling Tommy’s red knit hat down over his ears. The boy huffs, raising his hands to push it back up but Technoblade just rolls his eyes and tugs it down over the boy's eyes, making him let out a yelp.
“Keep yer hat on at all times, understand?” The boy stares up at Techno, cheeks puffed out and tiny fists clenching the hat, not having released it after pushing it up out of his eyes as if worried Techno would attempt to pull it down again. Techno huffs a laugh and stands, picking his bag up again and slinging it over his shoulder. A low moo brings his gaze back down to the ground, where Tommy has forgotten about his outrage at having to wear a hat and is now reaching his arms up to be held.
“Alright, alright.” Technoblade lifts the boy up, settling Tommy on his hip while he makes sure all of the boys’ sensitive human-bits are covered from the snow, and that all his sensitive non-human-bits are concealed too.
Tommy, apparently fed up with standing still, kicks his legs out impatiently and points to the hill a good distance away from the treeline of the forest. Behind it lies a village, and this at least Technoblade knows how to handle. On his face sits a thoroughly cleaned and dried skull from their dinner a week ago. The bone is cold but disguises his tusks as a feature of it, and his hooves are hidden within shoes Phil had given him that sit uncomfortably around his hooves. The only features that give a hint that he is of non-human origins is his tall, broad figure. But Technoblade has seen tall, strong human warriors in the Nether before, surely they weren’t too uncommon to arouse suspicion.
As Techno begins striding toward the village, human currency clinks together in his bag, setting a slight tune to their trek that Tommy quietly hums and moos to. The human currency confuses him, Phil only giving him a short lesson on it before he had left, but he knows to exchange it for food and supplies before they move on.
Move on , something stirs in his gut at the thought, warm but unfamiliar. He reaches the base of the hill and begins climbing as his lips twitch beneath his mask. A Piglin Brute only moves on when they are no longer of use to the Passel. But here Technoblade is, holding the young of another and caring for him, moving towards a new house for the two of them. Phil had even said they could come back, it confused Technoblade, making his tail flick in his pant leg. He was invited to come back, encouraged, even. Players, Technoblade had decided, were strange, unpredictable and- strange. He really should study the language more.
Nevertheless, when Technoblade crests the snow-covered hill, standing amongst a sparse group of spruce trees, the boy in his arm giggles and waves an arm toward the village that lies before them. Tommy glances up at Technoblade before waving his arm at the village vigorously, as if to say “Look! Look! Do you see it?” Technoblade hums, brushing a few strands of hair that had escaped Tommy’s hat out of the boy's eyes.
“We are going to… Buy food. And then we will keep going, to build a house.” Techno faintly smiles at how his words come out mostly clearly. His sentences are stilted, sure, but he’s sure once he keeps practicing, he’ll get the hang of Player soon enough, and maybe… Maybe Tommy can learn Piglin, too. Phil had said knowing multiple languages was good for children, Technoblade is only doing it to help the kid. No other reason at all.
Reaching the village, despite the light snow, is easy enough, Tommy’s jaw works as though he’s meant to be babbling, though he stays mostly silent, but he still waves his arms happily at the villagers they pass. Tommy makes no move to be let down out of Techno’s arms, and he actually attempts to kick Technoblade in the stomach when the Piglin tries to put the boy down, so Techno resigns himself to trading with one hand. The merchants, at least, seem to be amused by it, and Technoblade is sure he sees one vendor slip extra cookies into the bag without requesting an extra emerald.
The day passes easily, the sun makes it’s arc across the sky and helps relieve the chill from the air at its peak. Technoblade hadn’t intended to stay in the village for the entirety of the day, honest, but watching the villagers fawn over Tommy and give him little trinkets that he immediately turns to show Techno is, admittedly, adorable. And the food in the village is far better than anything Technoblade had managed to cook during their journey.
But, perhaps, Technoblade should have listened to the quiet whispers in the back of his head telling him to move on, that the happy moment would not last… Because it’s hours later, and they’re sitting in a little park area beside the town with a few other children and their parents, when Tommy stumbles and falls.
He’d finally allowed Technoblade to put him down, but only when the man had sat on the ground and placed his bag beside him, a reassurance that he’d be staying with Tommy as he played. The other children had pulled Tommy into some game Technoblade is unfamiliar with, but something that involves running, and Tommy stumbles along in the shoes unfit for his hooves while Technoblade eyes the men at the edge of the park who are watching Tommy closely.
And, true to the cold climate of the biome, the entirety of the park freezes when Tommy falls, and lets out a low, calling moo. Technoblade doesn’t move for a moment, hopeful that perhaps they hadn’t heard, but then one of the men begins walking forward, eyes narrowed and jaw set; His hands clenched into fists. The man breaks the frozen stupor of the townspeople, and parents hurry to clutch their children close to them, hiding them behind their skirts and shuffling backwards. Technoblade is on his own hooves in a moment, his bag picked up and hastily slung over his shoulder. The man pauses, turning his narrowed gaze to Technoblade, and widens his stance.
“We don’t want any of it’s kind here, I don’t know why you thought we’d like something like it here but we don’t . Get out, now, or I’ll summon the hunters myself.” The man spits out, and while Technoblade really, really wants to give into the voice that tells him to make the man sorry for referring to Tommy as an it , Tommy moos again at the sudden silence, and scrambles to his feet. When he sees Technoblade standing, the boy’s eyes widen and he hurries over to Technoblade. The Piglin doesn’t move his eyes from the man who hasn’t yet advanced any further, but he opens his arms to catch Tommy as the boy throws himself forward.
“We… Are leaving.” Technoblade says, as firmly as he can without growling, though he wishes too, they have made Tommy scared, treated the golden boy as a monster and that simply will not do but protecting the boy comes first. So he lifts Tommy up to sit on his left forearm, keeping his right hand free to draw his weapon if needed. Then he creeps backwards, through the cold snow that had captivated the pair earlier but now slows their escape.
Once they’re far enough away from the crowd that Technoblade deems them safe enough, he turns his back and runs, carrying the two of them out of the village and across the open plains in long, powerful strides. Tommy, for once, doesn’t laugh, perhaps sensing the danger and urgency and instead clasps his hands around Techno’s neck and presses his face into his collar.
And so, the forest swallows them.