Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The little boy laughed merrily as he tumbled through the green orchard. He darted beneath grasping green branches and raised roots, lungs bursting in excitement. His mother was galloping after him, calling out cheerfully, trying to catch him as his lithe body slipped through narrow tree roots. The dulcet moment was alight with the golden sunshine streaming in between cracks in the trees, as tiny lavender blossoms littering the soft mossed wiggled in the soft breeze. Small white butterflies floated softly above the carpet-like grass, and scattered when the little boy trampled near.

He giggled. Surely his mother couldn’t be that slow? His chest filled with self-pride, as the toddler continued to wobble his way through the orchard, fancying himself the fastest man to exist.

The ground shook slightly, a gentle tremor that gradually increased to a shuddering quake. The boy felt it, and he slowed down. He blinked in confusion.

Then someone turned off the sun. Everything became black, the stars blinked out, and the mild warmth of his friendly habitat was dissipating, melting, and the temperature rising to an unforgiving fury-

He looked up and caught sight of large orange walls creeping through the black edges of the trees. The boy’s eyes widened and he turned around, fleeing, trying to get away from the firestorm, moving to run back to the comforting arms of his mother.

He was suddenly facing a large, towering skeleton, empty caverns for eyes that peered at him, long brittle hair tinted blackened blue and half-melted in the blaze, fluttering in the shimmering heat. His mother’s triangle pendant dangled around the skeleton’s throat, her bony hands reaching for his own… and he screamed.

His eyes snapped open, sheets tangled around his short limbs in a tight grip. He could hear a night bird cuckooing outside of his window, as well as his own choppy breaths. He shuddered, closing his eyes tightly, rolling onto his side to comfort himself. He was just a little boy, drowning in the sheets of his bed, alone on the empty expanse of a white cottony desert.

There he lay, shivering, eyes squeezed tight and little fists clutching the bone-white fabric.

A maid opened the door with a creak. She peered inside, a ray of candlelight seeping through and illuminating gently the back of her mistress’s son. A sigh of relief danced off of her lips to see him alseep, though she hesitantly seemed to remember muted thumping and a little yelp. Poor child probably had a little dream-scare.

Someone rapped frantically with the door knocker. The maid gently pulled the bedroom door shut, hurried down a flight of stairs, nearly spilling the thick pool of melted wax that she held in a shallow copper basin.

Her blackened shoes trampled the soft carpet hairs as she made her way down to the door. She heard someone calling to her from the other side of the aged wood.

“Carol, I must come in!” someone shouted, in a young voice laced with desperation.

Quiet interest morphed into alarm, as hastiness spurred her to glide over carpeted floor. Caroline opened the door and welcomed her little brother, the family’s errand boy, inside. She held him at his shoulders and stared critically at his drenched outfit.

“Groeden, you frightful rascal, your clothes-!” She stopped abruptly at the sight of his wide, tearful eyes. Her grimace fell to a worried frown. “Groeden, what’s wrong?”

He sniffled and fell forward, burying himself in his sister’s starched apron, pallor discolouring his cheeks.

“Groeden?” the maid repeated. The wind shifted, and the rain twirled to seep into the dark household. The candle danced out, falling beneath a single wayward droplet’s smothering embrace.

The errand boy sniffled. “Madame- the mistress- she’s dead, Carol.”

“Oh my god,” she whispered, breath shuddering into the night.

Wilbur’s seventh birthday was dreadful.

There was cake, and there were other young children his age. Then came the greedy, young fists, reaching and grabbing to burrow themselves into his dessert.

As all the other parents, old nobles and duchesses, cooed at how adorable and lovely the children were, Wilbur sulked. His father cut him a piece of squished chocolate cake, offered on a simple white plate.

Eyes tearing slightly due to his misery, he gently hid the slice of cake under his chair and ran out of the gaudily-coloured room. As he left, he could hear the distasteful frightening sound of a child screaming while paper ribbons were torn.

He took himself down the empty halls. Everybody was still at that mockery of a party. His father, no doubt talking solemn stuff with other fancily-dressed dukes, probably didn’t notice he left.

His mother was still gone. He was waiting, waiting from her to come back.

He wondered why she would leave him, go to a whole different realm to sort out ‘some things’, quoted from his stoical father. That wasn’t like her. He was important.

He stomped down the carpeted floors and found himself facing a portrait. In it sat his mother, painted eyes aglow with pride as she held little him, all bundled up in blankets and wool.

Wilbur huffed. He was a big boy now. But still-

“Momma, you didn’t sing me a bedtime song for four months and twenty-three days now,” he grumbled accusingly. The painted smile before him didn’t waver.

“…I miss you.”

A week later, he learned that she had died. An accident, his father said. The man didn’t elaborate.

Young Wilbur spent the rest of the day curled up in the manor’s library, huddled with some fluffy sheets beneath a desk, the sturdiest hiding-fort he knew. He skipped dinner and stole a little candle, burning little scraps of crisp parchment in the tiny blaze to watch the ashes fall onto his knees.

He was ten.

His father sent him out to sleep with some ‘friends’ together, a flimsy celebration of his tenth year. But not so much ‘friends’, more like ‘sons of father’s friends’.

Irritated by the ugliness of their constant babbling, he took out his guitar, the only good present he was given, and tried to grab their attention by playing a soft, warm, major note.

His heart dropped slightly when they ignored him, fighting over a petty couple of blankets.

He didn’t care what they thought anyways, he told himself. But still, it would have been a bit nice had they listened to him.

So when the clamour settled down he took his instrument and snuck out of the room, leaving behind the obnoxious snores that vibrated through the silent night like little drums. His socked feet took him through the empty hallways. Wilbur could barely see in the darkness, as the maids made sure to extinguish all flames by bedtime. He held his guitar in his left hand, dragging his right-hand fingers across the polished walls so as not to lose himself in the dark.

A few minutes of careful treading carried him to the library. It was his refute.

It was his habitat. It was his heimat, his querencia, his… his home.

His favourite dwelling, a little home in the house he lived in.

Suddenly he was surrounded in a small labyrinth of bookshelves, towering up around him, welcoming him, telling him that here he’s safe.

There was a circular window, a round gap in the wall boarded up with crystal glass. The moonlight streamed through like liquid silver, and reach out like platinum hands to brush against his skin. The boy shivered slightly, clutching his mustard jumper to his skinny frame. He sat down on the carpet, in the little pool of moonlight, and began to play.

It was a little song he had heard a village musician play. He begged the man for a parchment with the lyrics and some chords. The guitarist, hardly able to resist Wilbur’s desperate, wide, brown eyes, hastily scribbled it down with a quill.

Now with moonlight dripping off of his dark locks, he pressed his fingers to the metal and wood, plucking the strings with his fingertips.

He fell asleep, shoulders hunched and back slumped under the wall, wooden instrument cuddled loosely in his grip.

The spirit watched him. The spirit liked the music, the crisp notes. He sympathized with the slivers of melancholy that the child had tossed into the wind.

…the spirit was starting to wake up.

Wilbur was twelve.

After having pestered his tutor into overtime with a barrage of his questions, he let the poor man excuse himself from the manor on account of a potential fit his wife would throw whenever he sat down to a cold dinner.

Wilbur knows it’s an excuse to avoid teaching the iniquitous brat about realms and the portals that connected them.

It was a strange subject, one poorly covered in the books sitting on the shelves of his library. He wasn’t even sure how many realms there were, he mused to himself.

Wilbur raised his long fingers and dragged them gently across the muted dyes of book spines, lined up in careful rows. His late afternoon meal of peach jam on wheat toast with a glass of mint tea rested at the bottom of his stomach, bubbling gently.

Through the window, tangerine sunset streaked through, coating the room in a dark honey afterglow. He stole a quick peak; pink clouds mixed with orange wisps as the fiery red sun sank down to its grave, ready to be reborn the next day.

Night would arrive soon, and darkness always comes with it. Holding a candelabra carefully in his right fist, he used the warm light to guide himself over to a chest of drawers, within which many aged leaves of paper had been stored. Old pie recipes, marriage certificates. Maps.

He digs through until he finds one he’d never seen before. A drawing of eight spheres lined up, with arrows pointing out a dotted path through the inky globes that flowed horizontally.

He reads the title, Theoretical Diagram of Realm Connections, and understood that he had found something important.

Wilbur gently scooped up the brittle scroll and shut the drawer. In the library was a table where he would write his history notes, a heavy oak thing where the wood lines swirled and made a ring in the top right corner, an immovable eye that always watched him. It was over this table that Wilbur spread the strange drawing over, using a carved pencil holder and a pale white river stone to hold each brittle corner in place. He placed the candelabra down on the table’s dark surface before taking out a fresh sheet of parchment, his half-empty ink bottle, and a raven’s quill.

He began the meticulous work of copying out the diagram, taking care to include all the labels, names, and dashed arrows. The boy took his time to slowly trace the outlines of each globular drawing.

Finally, he dragged the quill’s iron tip across the crisp parchment, sharp point seemingly cutting into the material and leaving behind a trace of dark inky blood.

Wilbur had tattooed the entire image onto the fresh paper, and after hours of agonizing concentration he finally stood up, chair scratching against the wooden floorboards, hems of his nightgown falling forward as he leaned to blow the ink dry.

Satisfied with his work, he carefully picked the old map and carried it across the room, back to the drawers they had laid in for a couple of centuries.

Now he could study it without fear of tearing the original.

Snatching a wooden chalice, he gulped down the dark berry juice and wiped his lips dry with the hem of his sleeve. And then he peered at the map.

Eight circles. Strange names were inked in his best imitation of thin, imposing calligraphy, lining the edges; he only recognized three of them.

The rightmost sphere held the words ‘KORINTHUS’ etched onto the milky paper, with a sketch of rolling valleys and lush trees. He was familiar with that. Korinthus was his home realm.

To the immediate left of Korinthus was a picture of some conical trees, as arrow-shaped as the snowy peaks surrounding them. That was ‘SNOWCHESTER’. Wilbur had heard about the cold neighbouring realm from listening to his father rant about Snowchester’s ‘lack of a civilized government’. Apparently the people lived together, fending off trolls and other such terrors in self-established colonies, unaided by mayors or kings.

Beside Snowchester was a sketch of a tall mushroom surrounded by little poppies. The spotted fungus had Wilbur’s choppy cursive stamped across its spots, spelling out ‘KINOKO’.

Left of Kinoko was a circular window overlooking a palace, steeples and turrets dangling above the walls. ‘ROTHICA’ was the largest, most populated realm. It was the capitol. The place his father would disappear off to for sometimes months at a time.

Following Rothica came five other realms, names all foreign on Wilbur’s tongue.

‘REDLANDS’ came with a geometric, spikey illustration of a sun and a lonely cactus.

For ‘ALPETH’ there was only a horned skull, cracked down the centre with dark ink filling in the background. Then ‘ZEXTILE’ with pictures of teal shrubbery and flaming stones and ‘BLOODSTONE’ with just an image of a volcano.

The final circle was blank. On the very left of the map, there was only an empty circular outline. No label scrawled over the pale paper.

He stared at the unblemished paper for several minutes, confused.

“A ninth realm,” the twelve-year-old muttered to himself. He had only heard his father mention the existence of eight worlds, not nine. Impulsively, he strode back to the wooden chest and began digging, shuffling crinkled scrolls and searching. “There should be something here…” he murmured to himself, frustration growing as the minutes fell by. In his haste to find more information he knocked over his candle, liquid fire spilling over.

Heat attacked his face, a bellowing swarm that rose and seeped under his skin. Startled, he yelped and reflexively swiped the burning stack of paper on the floor. A terrible decision that led to a furious burn on his palm, and he toppled backwards.

Wilbur crashed into a display case on the wall, watching in horror as the glass shattered. As he landed amid the shards, a slender, gilded bow and several chips of old timber fell onto his lap.

He sat there in shock for several heartbeats, alarmed and defensive thoughts flashing in his mind. He flinched slightly as he imagined his father’s possible reaction to the mishap.

His chest rose and fell, a steady pattern that Wilbur noticed due to the lack of motion. All was still. Wiping his sweaty, uninjured palm across his brow, he carefully calmed himself down.

His father was currently away in Rothica. Maybe he could bribe one of the maids to help him clean up.

The flaming papers burnt themselves to ashes, reduced to a harmless pile of soot spinning gently as a breeze flew in. The fallen candle had its flame extinguished, melted wax dripping a puddle on the mahogany. His hands stung from the glass. Lifting them up for inspection brought pain, and he winced at the cuts. Wilbur would need to visit the doctor again.

He pushed the golden bow to the side for now. Maybe he could find a new frame for the old artefact.

Wilbur fidgeted, scratching at his starched bandages. “Thank you, Maria,” he mumbled. The cheery housekeeper finished sweeping the glass into her pan and carefully dropped the pieces into a sheet of gauze, wrapping them tightly to be discarded later. She patted his cheek affectionately before leaving, dropping a few words of support and light-hearted warnings in her wake.

It was probably midnight.

He wasn’t going to go back to his room. He already spends most of his mornings waking up with his neck sore, haven fallen asleep on his chair, face resting over an opened book. He opted to continue the tradition.

As he laid himself down on the rug, a glint of gold caught his eye, singing out, a flash in the blue of the night. He frowned and squinted, reluctantly standing up to investigate.

The bow was still on the floor, as he had left it a couple hours prior. Sighing, he bent down to pick it up.

And just as his wrapped hand touched the decorative weapon, it started glowing. Light seemed to seep from pores, rays emitting from the bow’s core. The metal grew warm.

Wilbur’s mouth opened in surprise. He promptly dropped it.

The light went off and precious metal clattered against the hardwood planks. His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness as he stood there, mouth agape, moonlight flooding gently in.

“What the hell-”

This time, Wilbur didn’t let go.

Even when golden mist tumbled off the gilded surface, he held on, eyes squinted, ready to toss the weapon out of the open window should anything go amiss.

The same, blinding light seeped out. The mist oozed out of Wilbur’s fist, collecting into a large mass on the floor that elongated, stretching upward until the sparkles towered above the boy himself. He swallowed and kept his grip, fingers holding on so tight that the strain might’ve painted his knuckles white.

There was a man in front of him. A golden man that shimmered in the silver moonlight, smiling at him, draped in a loose tunic secured by a wide band at his waist. The bow in his hands dimmed slightly, but the glittery stranger was still scrutinizing him with piercing eyes that stared out from under the wide brim of a wide hat.

Wilbur passed out. Maybe he hadn’t seen anything. Maybe it was all just a strange dream, and he was moving on to the next one.

Except it wasn’t. When he woke up the next morning the man was still there, and Wilber wasn’t even touching the bow.

Eyeing the shimmering apparition cautiously, he slowly picked himself off the soft carpet and backed away, never moving his eyes, feeling his path with his hands as they felt around for obstacles behind. His injured hand grazed against the doorknob and he winced in the pain, but grabbed it.

“Wait!”

He froze.

The man spoke to him.

Wilbur gulped. “Hi?” he tried weakly, both terrified and intrigued.

It smiled. Earlier, the apparition had seemed to melt into the morning sun, nearly invisible. But now as Wilbur continued looking he realized that it seemed to be getting more solid. The figure was gaining opaqueness and it was grinning, ivory teeth showing under tanned alabaster. “Don’t worry. I’m not here to scare you, Wilbur.”

“You said my name!” he screeched, heart bouncing around his ribcage, hand twisting around the doorknob and flinging the exit open. Dashing madly out of the library, he slammed the door behind him and slid across the marble hallway, spinning his arms in a poor attempt to gain balance. Rushing as far away from his library as possible, he nearly collided into a poor maid. The startled woman dropped her wicker basket, stained sheets spilling over polished stone.

Wilbur grabbed her forearm and began pulling her, hair flying out in his frenzied state.

“Carol… come now with me… ghost, I swear!” he huffed in between heavy breaths. The bewildered servant made a futile attempt to calm the boy down, but couldn’t resist as she was dragged inevitably to the book-chamber.

“Over there,” Wilbur exclaimed, pointing toward an empty settee under the window.

She stared at the empty spot and frowned at the boy. “I’m afraid I don’t understand…” she said, baffled, voice trailing away as she saw Wilbur cowering behind her. A confused expression fluttered over the boy’s eyes.

“The man in that chair over there!” he said, shoving her childishly in the specified direction. She nudged his hands away and placed her palms his forehead, ignoring the frustrated glare that fell over his features.

“Wilbur, how late did you stay up last night?” she asked, cupping his jaw and tilting his head to search for drowsiness in the lines under his eyes. The boy swatted her hands away.

“Carol, don’t you see him?” he pleaded.

“See who? Wilbur, I think you’d better get some rest. I’ll tell the cook to delay your breakfast.” And with that, she was gone.

The boy reddened and buried his face in his palms, sighing heavily. He slowly peeked out through the gaps and caught a glimpse of the man still sitting beneath the window, now looking as alive as ever, chin resting on his palm and amusement dancing across his lips. The stranger might’ve been supressing a laugh.

“What do you want?” Wilbur demanded crossly.

Smile softening, the man stood up and lifted his arms to the side. Wilbur took a step back.

“It’s alright, my boy. When you’re ready, I’ll tell you why I’m here. Just know that I’m here to help you with… things in general.”

“And some call me Philza.”

“Wil…”

“Wilbur!”

“Just let me talk?”

The spirit sent a pleading gaze toward the boy sitting on the carpet floor, guitar strummed slowly by thin, youthful fingers. Wilbur narrowed his eyes. “You’re still a stranger,” he mumbled, and sprinted out of the library once again. This time, Philza followed him out.

The boy didn’t seem to notice the ghost trailing closely behind, even after they’ve exited the mansion and set foot on dewy grass. “You forgot your boots,” Phil pointed out, lips tugging upwards as he noticed the brunette’s gangly feet, bare and slightly muddied.

At his voice, Wilbur jumped and stared at him, shock hissing out in a strangled gasp. “You – you’re supposed to be stuck with the bow-!?”

“I chose you to wield me,” Phil explained patiently, praying to the gods above that the boy would accept the simple explanation, if only until Phil could better explain himself. “As you are my wielder, I can follow you around-”

A ridiculous howl interrupted him.

Phil sighed as the boy fled into a cluster of trees.

“Wilbur!” Phil bounded forward, airy form carried along by the gentle as he floated after his chosen.

The boy tried to swat him away with a tense fist to little avail. “Stop haunting me!”

Maybe he needs more time, Phil decided. He faded himself into the background, watching as the boy swivelled his head around in surprise.

He’d waited hundreds of years to meet this boy. A few more weeks wouldn’t make more of a difference.

Later, the boy stood on a wobbling stool. He balanced on his toes and used his fingertips to nudge Phil’s bow on the topmost shelf, a place so high up that it was hidden from view.

Phil wasn’t worried, wasn’t anxious with the thought of being forgotten and cursed to hibernate once more.

The light had shone, and the boy was a curious one.

A little bit of time. A little bit more waiting.

Wilbur was thirteen.

His father visited during the middle of a warm afternoon, catching him in the act of strumming his beloved instrument.

As soon as Will sensed Winston Soot’s presence, his fingers froze.

“Go on, keep playing.”

He blinked. “I didn’t know you’d come home so early, Father.”

The elder man tossed him a small grin in reply. “And I didn’t know you knew how to play music. May I listen in? I promise not to interfere.” His father walked over to his desk and sat down beneath the window, staring at him expectantly.

Wilbur swallowed through his dry throat and, after a moment’s hesitation, revived the dance of his fingers on the strings.

He played a song about little crickets who thirsted after the lingering tang sweet citrus, and baby robins who desired to follow their parents into the skies. It had a sombre, wafting melody, one that sounded like an under-ripe pomelo. It was a song he’d heard his mother sing to him, years ago, before he left.

His father must have recognized the tune, because the man’s eyes glazed over as he stared melancholically through the window. Solemnness brought in quiet appreciation in place of joyous applause.

Wilbur ended the song, bead-sized droplets of saudade falling onto the smoothened frame of his guitar. Nostalgia trickled through the echoing, final notes.
The two of them sat together quietly, each using the other’s presence as a comforting anchor to keep protected against waves of impossible wishes and longing.

“Your mother,” his father started, voice halting slightly, “she used to be an archer. Shooting the fruit off of my tangerine trees. Always got on my nerves. Beautiful, mischievous lady.”

When Wilbur didn’t comment, his father continued. “You don’t go outside as often as you used to, Will.”

“I’m just so terribly busy nowadays, I don’t have the time-” His father interrupted with a raised palm.

“Make some time then, it’ll be good for you.” Standing up straight, his father smoothened the crinkles in his black tunic and walked to the door. “Your mother was amazing, with both her voice and a bow. If you actually tried, you might learn you’ve inherited both of her skills.”

“But-” The soft click of a closing door signalled that the boy was speaking to an open room. There might’ve been crickets chirping as the sun sank to dye the sky red with evening hues.

Wilbur slowly let his head fall. He tensed his arms as if to strike a chord, but silence continued to chime in the room. He ignored the stale odour of softly-worn books, the cold scent of tree leaves wafting through the window, not conscious of how his eyes started to drift upward until they did.

Until he was gazing wistfully, cautiously, at the golden bow he’d hidden on the shelf.

“Screw it,” he muttered, and grabbed a stool.

The arrow was cold to the touch. Wilbur twirled it around for a moment before nocking it on the bone-white string with a gentle twang. Left hand clenched tightly around the grip as he raised the golden weapon. He let the thread bite his fingertips as he slowly drew it back, arm pulsing with the beginnings of an ache.

There was an apple on hanging on a low bough from one of the fruit trees. Wilbur’s eyes narrowed as he guided the arrow tip to point at his target.

Fwhipp, went his bowstring, cutting through the air, sending the projectile spinning forward. At the same moment, Wilbur shrieked in pain and dropped the bow, clutching the inside of his forearm. The skin burnt, sun shining on white pallor tinted to an angry pink to mark the area grazed by the traveling string.

He cursed and rubbed the darkening patch of skin madly. Later he would realize his arrow had gone slightly astray, imbedded in the apple tree’s soft bark.

“That was… decent,” a praising voice mused, breaking the calm silence.

The boy’s head shot up, bubbling brown meeting the calm blue eyes that could’ve been chipped straight out of the sky. “It’s you,” he sighed. This time, he wouldn’t run away.

Months ago, he might’ve.

The ghost extended a shimmering, milky palm, lips curled happily like the crescent-shaped rind of a peeled tangerine. The boy took it.

If the gardener had walked out of the shed at that moment, he would have seen the boy standing beneath the shade of the orchard, an empty hand extended outward. The gardener would’ve thought the boy was catching the leaves as they fell. It was a game the child had played with his mother, many years ago.

“Some call me Philza.”

“How many friends have you invited over for tomorrow?”

Wilbur scowled. The dining chamber was, save for himself and his father, empty of any personnel. Wafting sunlight floated through tinted glass mosaics to dust colours over the opposite walls. Wilbur curled a hand around the wooden handle of his knife and pierced the heart of his fried egg, watching as it bled out golden ichor.

“I am not celebrating my birthday, Father.”

Winston Soot raised his eyebrows. “And why not? You had a grand time last year.”

“I had a terrible time last year,” Wilbur corrected, grumpiness etched between the crinkles of a wrinkled nose.

Philza, hovering near the windows and examining the glasswork, turned around to raise his eyebrow questioningly. Wilbur shook his head slightly in response.

His father chided him briefly for his cheeky response.

The rest of the eggs, beans, and fruit passed into Wilbur’s stomach without another uttered word. Laying his cutlery neatly over the leftover drops of egg yolk on white porcelain, the boy pushed his chair back and stood up. His father nodded at him, indicating that he was excused.

The boy and his ghost left the dining chamber together. “Why are you not celebrating your birthday?” Philza wondered.

The pair walked on. Only once surrounded by the empty hallways and tucked away from unwanted ears did Wilbur reply “The other boys are idiots, Phil. They would refuse to read any book shoved into their face. All they do all day is ride horses or make games of tossing inflated pig bladders around.”

At that, the ghost let out a loud snort. Wilbur cracked a smile and eventually returned the chuckle. “You’ve never played with them though?”

“Never. Running and wrestling is not my thing, I guess.”

Phil rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Then what is?”

Wilbur sighed. “You know… guitar. Reading. Maybe one day, I’d like to travel.”

“Where to?” They rounded a corner and passed the butler, who carried a small urn garnished by a bouquet of dried daises.

“Other realms, I guess.” Wilbur stopped, hand resting against his library doorknob. “What do you know about realms, Phil?”

“I… know a bit about them, mate. Yeah, I guess.”

A mischievous smile graced the boy’s mouth. “Teach me about them, Phil.”

Wilbur went and slid open a drawer, retrieving a crinkled scroll that he spread over his desk. The paper had charred on the edges from when he’d tipped over the candle nearly a year ago, but was otherwise intact.

Phil walked around the desk and traced the circle with his finger, brows raised as he took in the image. “Ah, right,” he murmured to himself.

Wilbur crossed his arms. “Right what?”

Phil looked up and smiled apologetically, golden wheat strands falling like cascading water over sky blue eyes. “Sorry, but it’s been so long since I’ve been out of the bow. I remember now; eight large masses that tumble through the void, and we use portals to jump from one to the next. Which realms do you remember?”

Gleeful at the challenge, concentration laced Wilbur’s eyes as he slowly recited each of the names. “I live in Korinthus. Our neighbour is Snowchester. Then Kinoko, Rothica, the Redlands…” he trailed off.

“Alpeth, Zextile-” Phil supplied. Will tapped his neck and kept going. Birds twittering outside seemed to chirp their encouragement.

To outsiders, a strangely cheerful voice would croon out words that would burst with excitement, like dried zest twirled in nutmeg. That’s the young master, they giggle among themselves, adorable little bookworm he is.

To their misfortune, none other than Wilbur was privy to the sunny, rumbling laughter that rolled like the wind over Korinthus’s emerald hills, the imaginary friend who, to Wilbur, was very real.

Wilbur was sixteen.

And he wanted a pet. A little creature he could grasp in his hands, a being that could… would stay warm on frosty-edged nights.

Phil hummed through closed lips, snapping his fingers as he thought. “Not a snake or a lizard, then.”

Wilbur glanced up from that morning’s papers in confusion, copper-rimmed glasses glimmering as they slid shortly down the bridge of his nose.

“Snakes are as cold little buggers. Not sure you would like those scales slithering around your arm while you sleep…”

“I don’t fancy snakes very much,” Will admitted, taking a sip from the mug of cold orange juice before setting it back down on the floor.

“…snaking up your elbow, horned tongue darting out to find the softest patch of flesh, toxin dripping off an ivory fang…”

The boy shrieked out in annoyance, clutching the paper around his ear while he shuddered. “Gods, Phil, I’ve just woken up, please-”

The spirit chuckled before winking mischievously at his unsuspecting owner.

“Maybe a little cat, Phil, how’s that?” Wilbur begged. “One with long teeth, perhaps, to catch all the naughty mice nibbling at the book glue.”

“I don’t like cats that much, actually.”

“Oh, you don’t?” Wilbur looked up, intending to make eye contact with his friend, but ends up startled to find himself alone in the room. The chair Phil was lounging on – empty. “Phil?”

“Right here, mate,” and Wilbur nearly jumps a mile when he finds himself staring at a tiny, golden canary perched on the cushioned backrest right behind his right shoulder. Scrambling to pull himself together, he pushes his glasses back up his nose and peers through the lenses carefully.

“Phil?” he repeats, just to be sure.

“I can take any form I wish, actually,” the tiny yellow canary admits, shiny beak opening to let Philza’s voice warble through. The bird suddenly shifts and grows, growing larger as the feathers darkened.

Awe-struck, Wilbur stretches out a tentative hand to pat the shining obsidian feathers, dusted with golden specks. He’s a tad bit disappointed when fingers slip through incorporeal fibre of a crow’s dark wing. Nevertheless, Wilbur lets out a laugh. He is amazed and delighted and bubbly, all three at once.

The bird melts once again before inflating, limbs shaping rapidly from golden light as the apparition took the form of a man once again. Or maybe a bit more than just a man, because Wilbur finds himself staring at satin black feathers that protrude from Phil’s back. Phil spins around just to show off, and Wilbur marvels at the seamless way that the wings meld from feathers to skin. He’s never seen hybrids before, but he knows they exist, and he’d seen paintings of angels hanging all over the limestone walls.

Angels have white wings, normally, but even with his dark fletching Phil doesn’t look there’s a speck of evil in him. Somehow black melds with gold to look like a peaceful night sky, and shiny dust streaks between creases to represent comets.

Phil and Wilbur make jokes and laugh about Phil’s new, temporary look.

“They’re more beautiful than my guitar collection, I must admit,” Wilbur chuckles out, clutching a pale hand to his chest in faux-sadness over such a treacherous statement. But Phil spots something in his boy’s warm cocoa eyes that shows the boy’s admiration, and it makes him beam.

Phil changes his mind, and the wings become a permanent accessory.

Weeks later, Wilbur rushed into his arms, stony-faced and eyes dark like the depths of muddied water. Phil holds his breath and his eyes widen as, just for a moment, he can feel the troubled boy, can touch his skin. It’s… amazing, and Phil curls his wings like a second pair of arms, cloaking Wilbur in soothing feathers until the pressure in his angry chest fades.

Wings become more than an accessory at that moment. They’re comforting, grounding, and Wilbur would be lying if he didn’t admit he was a bit jealous. If he had wings, he would be able to glide away with Philza, to the end of the eight realms and back, away from his father and his terrible suggestion to dig up Wilbur’s orchard and build a hospital in its place.

A hospital could be built anywhere; Wilbur didn’t understand why it had to be on his consecrated ground, the place where he’d frolicked happily with his mother beneath the fruit trees, the archery range beneath grapefruit blossoms where Phil taught him to sever the thin stem of an apple with the flying arch of his arrow.

And he kept his face tight as he ran, ran, grabbed Philza and held him tight, arms clutching at air that was pulled together into a dense mass. Gilded clouds that shimmered as silk, wings of thunderstorms and eyes that watched over him. In the safety of his friend’s embrace, Wilbur finally allowed himself to cry.

Phil patted the boy’s chocolate curls gently, watching shoulders and back heave with choking sobs, yet he couldn’t help feeling a thread of euphoria stitching itself into the fabric of his mind. He… was becoming real to this boy. It meant their bond was strengthening.

The last person he’d bonded with was King Owen, the youngest of the four monarchs before the traitor Dante slew his brothers. Phil still feels the throbbing ache in his chest since young Owen’s death. He makes a vow to himself, in which he promises to keep Wilbur safe… alive… preferably full of joyous wonder.

Will hiccups. “Mum- her grave-”

“Hospitals have courtyards, usually, do they not?” Phil wondered, a suggestion burning on the tip of his tongue. “You can’t change his will, so tell him to build around her. An area where the ill may wander, and a way to preserve your mother’s grave. The hospital can be dedicated to her.” Fingers clutching at his back tightened. “Would she have liked that?”

The fingers lost their tension, Wilbur slumped forward, Phil caught him. “Yes,” the boy admitted.

Later Wilbur also admitted, in a barely-audible whisper that squeezed Phil’s heart in a fist, “Sometimes, and more often now than before, I wish you were my dad.”

The hospital was structured like a monastery, nestled in a small valley, with limestone walls that grasped for clouds while nurses bustled around below.

At the very centre was a churchyard. Vines crept up the trunks of fruit trees. Arms laden with scented leaves offered shade, yet a few rays of shining sunlight danced through, unbidden yet not unwelcome.

There are other graves now. The patients who sought treatment once it was too late, the ones who were too ill to save, the people who had leaned in too heavily to Death’s embrace.

Every Saturday in the late afternoon, Wilbur would pick his way through the steadily-growing grid of chiselled stones to reach his mother’s resting place underneath the tangerine tree. Sometimes he’d bring lilac hydrangea, a ribbon tied around the stems with a pretty knot Phil had showed him. Once, a flower crown woven from poppies. Or a song, offered from a guitar’s strings, plucked to create an aura of wistfulness.

He’d sit there until dusk, bow slung carefully on his back.

As Wilbur grew older, he and his father grew more distant. They saw less of each other. Mr Soot’s travels lasted longer, or maybe Wilbur happened to be out whenever he returned.

Wilbur was fine with it. He had Phil, after all.

“Shift that foot a bit more to the side, it gives you better balance.”

Will released the tension and watched the arrow rip through the air before impaling itself on the dirt, many feet away from the scarecrow they were attacking.

Phil leapt into the wind and soared into the air, circling low around the ground and inspecting the result. He returned with a bemused expression on his face.

“It may be a good defensive tactic, but unless you want to ruin your enemies’ footwear, angle the bow higher.”

Wilbur moaned. “Gravity, Phil, is my greatest foe.”

The ghost snorted. “Gather the arrows and we’ll give it a final round.”

The boy scratched at his forehead and swatted flies away from his sweaty brow. The heat was insufferable, and the two dozen arrows he’d fired were a good quarter-mile away. A few of them were lost, he knew, possibly lodged in the crook of a branch or buried in the roots of an impossibly thick cluster of weeds.

Phil saw his boy’s sullen expression, and sympathy softened his gaze.

“Wil? I’ll let you in on a secret.”

This nabbed the young man’s attention, and he crossed his arms, a large grin on his face. “Aw, Phil,” he cooed, “you remembered how much of a sucker I am for secrets.”

The spirit laughed. “Alright, you little jester. I’m magical.”

Wilbur snorted. “I’d have never guessed.”

Phil smirked. “My power passes over to my champion. So you have the ability to twist light into projectiles of energy. Unlimited arrows of sunlight.”

The birds chirped.

“Say WHAT-”

And a few minutes later, Wilbur was standing in the sunlight, eyes squinted tightly as he tried to pull mass out of the sky’s flaming jewel with an outstretched hand. It took concentration, and many of Philza's optimistic words of encouragement before a thin, pure white gleaming rod materialized in his palm.

Wilbur could barely look at it. The arrow was made of pure energy, siphoned carefully from the sun’s beams, and radiated light so strong that he averted his eyes. In the background was Philza, whooping with pride as his chosen proved his mental capacity.

“It takes a focused mind to pull that out of a hat, mate,” the ghost gloated. “Shoot it!”

Stunned and wordless, Wilbur carefully knocked the arrow into the bow. The entire weapon seemed to tingle with electricity, and his hand buzzed gently. He aligned the tip of the arrow with the target, the same scarecrow all his previous shots have failed to graze.

He drew his arm slowly back, swallowed, and released.

The dart whistled through the air, traveling impossibly straight, unaffected by the gravitational pull all common objects were subject to. The scarecrow, hundreds of yards away, didn’t stand a chance.

He was nineteen, and not in the least thrilled for the ball his father was hosting. It was a political event; one of the royal princes had arranged to visit Korinthus for a fortnight, and Sire Soot was quick to offer lodgings. It wasn’t just any prince, either. The high ruling family of ALL realms…

Wilbur couldn’t lie to himself and chose to admit his nervousness to Phil. The ghost consoled him with encouraging pats and suggestions to keep up a polite demeanour. They busied themselves with preparing Wilbur’s outfit.

He glared at his reflection in the oval mirror, where intricate mahogany carvings looped curls around the edges. With the stiff blue coat, the brass buttons over his cuffs, and the frilled lace protruding from beneath the edges of his collar, Wilbur might have been staring at portrait.

He took a deep breath in and watched as the reflection’s chest puffed out slightly. A scowl was tossed.

“How are you feeling, mate?”

Wilbur felt a soft hand rest itself on his shoulder reassuringly. He blinked, spotting a glittering coal feather in his peripheral vision. The person in the mirror stood alone. His hand fidgeted at his side, where a decorative dagger was strapped to his waist. A powerful impression is the key to unlocking a nobleman’s respect, his father often repeated.

In truth, the boy only felt powerful with Phil at his side.

He sighed. “I have to leave the bow in my room, at Father’s insistence.” Wilbur grimaced and fiddled with the short blade he wore, an ivory thing where the copper sheen on the blade glittered on the bone handle. “I don’t even know how to use a dagger. And the bow is prettier.”

The ghost’s lips crinkled around the edges, curling upwards into a smile. “It’s not like you need it. Our bond is strong enough.”

Once they were out on the waxed floors, Wilbur kept his arms stiff and chin pointed upward. He marched like a soldier to the front door, past bustling maids who scrambled around with flailing dusters and a butler who checked the arrangement of snapdragons and baby’s breath in the pottery vases.

Nobody but Wilbur saw the obsidian crow gliding in and out of the open windows. He’d occasionally throw comments Wilbur’s way such as “Relax, you’re stiff as a soldier,” or “stop nibbling on your cheek linings-!”

“Phil, do you think the prince will be… different?”

The bird spun through the air and landed on his shoulder, phantom claws gripping onto navy blue fabric. “Different? You mean different from other boys? More like you?”

“Yeah.” Wilbur peered outside of the window and was welcomed with an image of rolling his and stumpy trees, all dusted with an orange glaze as the sun burned the day to its end. There was a line of flickering yellow dots several pastures away, a train of carriages, one of which could be carrying a prince.

Phil extended his wings and rustled them, shaking off any imaginary dust. “What have you heard about him?”

Wilbur sighed, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the windowsill. Thin white drapes fluttered around him in the fresh breeze, mimicking a ghostly embrace in the evening rays. “He doesn’t play with other boys, like me. Or maybe it’s because he lives in a castle. I’ve heard that he is often brash, and has a quick temper. Others have called him charming, and these conflicting opinions… confuse me. And if I don’t like him I might do something embarrassing. Like offending a High Prince.”

The crow perched beside his head choked in a laughing warble, exploding into a puff of feathers as the ghost appeared in his human form. His smile was incredibly wide. “Mate, do you mean to say he might execute you for disrespect?” he teased.

Wilbur huffed and walked past.

As it turned out, Prince Nicholas was just as irritating as all the other boys Wilbur had met.

The fifteen-year-old had apparently ‘forgotten’ his crown in the chariot, and didn’t bother asking a servant to fetch it. Instead, he drew out a wide, white ribbon that was hidden in his sleeve. “I’m a magician,” he joked, brandishing it in Wilbur’s face as he tied it around his head. Oil-black hair hung over the cloth in spiky strands.

Prince Nicholas had large, fiery eyes and a grin that twitched mischievously. He wore a simple, black, shirt underneath his suit, which was only half-buttoned. White fingers that looked strong enough to crush Wilbur’s in an arm-wrestling match constantly fidgeted with the royal crest embroidered in silver thread on his chest. There was a yellow daisy inserted into an open buttonhole, and Wilbur suspected the prince had picked it off from a wild patch of grass himself.

Strapped to the Prince’s waist with a simple leather girdle was a golden axe. Designs that were intricate and yet also simple spilled over the hilt as stars and flowers and vine and birds. The weapon reminded Wilbur of his own weapon, wrapped carefully in a clean cotton sheet. The blade of this axe was exposed carelessly, and Wilbur suppressed a gulp. He sought the comforting presence of Phil, only to find the ghost gone from his side.

Internally irritated, he kept a straight face and pointed at the boy-prince’s weapon. “Weapons are not allowed inside, Your Highness.”

The Prince raised an eyebrow and pointed at Wilbur’s own dagger. “You have a weapon too,” he stated simple, as if that settled the issue. The bluntness of young Nicholas’s remark surprised Wilbur, who fumbled with his words and chose to advocate the rudeness of a sharp snip for tactful diplomacy.

“It’s for decoration,” he insisted, straining his words and stretching vowels, all in hope of shoving reason down the prince’s throat. Unfortunately, the boy pushed past him and walked to the dining room, where most of the other invited guests were already crowded. Wilbur watched, affronted, as the boy swung the bulky weapon over his shoulder and continued on his way.

“So is mine!” Nicholas hollered back at him.

In the future, Wilbur would look back on that day only to find himself repeatedly irritated, amused, and baffled at the prince’s stubbornness.

A shuffle from behind made Wilbur turn around. The air shimmered like a transparent curtain, revealing Philza as he stepped into the visible reality. The bird-man was eating something, jaw moving as spectral hands brushed minuscule crumbs from his lips, all while forget-me-not eyes sparkled.

“Where were you this whole time, while I underwent that agony?” Wilbur demanded. “He’s insufferable! And what are you eating?”

Phil nodded sagely. “The boy is interesting,” he decided. “But more so are the marvellous cinnamon rolls your chef prepared.”

“How – what are you talking about? You’re not even incorporeal!” Wilbur shouted, distress, bewilderment, and morbid amusement throbbing in his words like a painful laugh strangled from his throat. He swelled in indignation.

“I am… not quite eating the substance, but more the concept. The concept of cinnamon rolls, manifested into a form I can interact with.”

Wilbur spluttered in his confusion and marched away, preparing to submerge himself into the crowd.

Philza remained behind. His teasing grin fell as he squinted, looking past the bright lights and the hosts with goblets of wine and his own boy standing grumpily beside a platter of oiled bread. A familiar glint of gold caught his eye, and he gasped.

His wings stretched out as he tumbled gracefully through the air. Golden eyebrows pulled towards one another, and icy blue narrowed when it connected with acidic green.

“Hello, hunter,” whispered the avian.

The hunter, a spirit like himself, twitched. The hunter swivelled around and grinned, eyes the colour of young sprouts glittering beside rows of golden freckles.

Five years later, and Phil’s boy hadn’t grown up yet.

He’d aged. He is taller, and while Wilbur still has the same, lanky bones at twenty-four from his teenage years, he could drag the bowstring further back.

Phil wanted his boy to grow up, because while the past decade had been fun… all fledglings must leave the nest. Or die before they learn to fly. It’s Destiny’s code.

Phil was waiting for that terrible gust of wind that flings straggling chicks out from the trees forces them to adapt.

It came two months before Wilbur turned 24.

“When I have seen my twenty-fourth sun, my father either passes over all of this,” Wilbur explained, swinging his arm to point at the library, the shelves, the window outside, the meadow and everything else he’d known since birth, “either passes all of this down to me, or I get disowned.”

Phil was lounging near the fireplace, obsidian wings spread out as he leisurely read a spectral copy of one of Wilbur’s books. But he looked up when Wilbur spoke, always ready for whatever his chosen chooses to share with him.

“If he chooses me as his heir,” Wilbur stressed, “my future will be mostly laid out. I will never worry about having a home, having enough gold, none of that. But I’ll be tied down to this place, which means,” he looks up at the winged spirit, “no adventures.”

Phil snorted, but his eyes twinkled with fondness and support. “You worry too much. Worst case scenario, you could simply… disappear. Run through the portal, and build a cabin in Snowchester.”

Wilbur frowned. “And have my father, and the barons breathing down the guards’ necks to drag me back alive and unharmed. But if he doesn’t choose me, the estate stays under his arm ‘till his dying breath before being passed along to whoever’s name he scratches on the will.”

“You’re scared of him cutting away your inheritance.”

There was a brief silence before Wilbur grimaced, shaking his head vehemently. “The opposite, Phil,” he murmured, “I am scared he will take his quill and drag it over the deeds to this land, replacing his name with mine and thrusting into my grasp not only-” and here his voice raised, “not only all the acres I have lived my childhood on but also metaphorical manacles to keep me here till the end of my days!”

Without glancing at the bewildered ghost, he walked to the window beneath which his guitar rested. “I can’t talk about this. We’re going to town for the day, and I will get the strings on this instrument replaced.”

The young man forcefully pulled open a drawer and watched round, golden ikrells and copper igrines, the currency of those lands, slide to the front and clatter against the wall. He pocketed seven of each, closed the drawer, and grabbed the tawny knapsack from the belly of a separate cabinet.

The knapsack, if you peered closely enough, had thin threads of copper and silver woven together with the twine. In fact, the bag was enchanted to hold more objects that it would seem possible from the outside, so long as the total weight did not outweigh the carrier. Wilbur could still slip inside his guitar, the golden bow, a book, a scarlet beanie and a set of spare glasses without any issue. A trivial satisfied feeling rose up through his stomach from watching the objects fall safely into the bag’s cavernous interior.

He pulled the drawstring tight and lifted the satchel with ease. Phil watched interestedly, knowing the enchantment would reduce the object’s overall weight to equate that of a feather. Magic was pure fickle beauty.

“I’m leaving,” Wilbur called out to the room, even though he knew how Phil would never stray from his side.

The man and the spirit hailed and hired a passing carriage to carry them to the nearest town. They stepped off a half-hour later.

The rest of the day was spent idly. The pair walked through rows vendors’ stalls adorned with blushing fruits. A cheerful lunch of baguettes and lime Granny Smiths at the pastry store led was followed by a visit to a music emporium. Phil laughed at how Wilbur dedicated five minutes to gazing open-mouthed at the array of mandolins, violin bows, and coils of metallic cord.

It was late dusk when Wilbur left the emporium, a packet of azure, black and brass strings tucked carefully away in his enchanted bag. Humming contentedly, he tugged his coat tighter, lifting up the collar to shield his ears from the stinging wind. It never snowed in Korinthus, but the last gusts of the year were always blustery and cold. Phil spun through the winds as a ghostly crow, a creature free from the burdens of weather.

Glowing orange squares contrasted with the greyness of plain, damp concrete walls. From the outside, Wilbur glanced through old, foggy mirrors that have been spotlessly scrubbed. Phil encouraged him to push the doors open and mingle with the crowd.

Wilbur’s locks had been hopelessly tugged and tangled by the gust’s fumbling fingers, so he made himself presentable by tugging a beanie over his head.

“There’s a band playing,” Phil observed. The bird melted into the shadows and Phil appeared in the light, wings shuffling. Wilbur was happy, and therefore was he.

Wilbur pushed open the door and was immediately met with an onslaught of warmth, of light, of the rowdy jovial clamours from folks dancing with one another. He slid onto one of the tall stools, ordering a small Sazerac from the cheerful, bearded bartender.

The drink was slid along the smooth countertop into his waiting hand. Wilbur sipped slowly from it, savouring the slight sweetness and winced when the tips of his teeth grazed against an ice cube. Phil, always the laid-back friend, jumped up and sat on the countertop. Wilbur sustained a laugh as the bartender slid a pint of mead through Philza’s spectral body.

The ghost pointed at the folk band, surrounded by cheering dancers. “You should ask them to let you play.”

Wilbur set down his glass. “I shouldn’t-”

“I insist.”

Wilbur raised his eyebrows. “What are you going to do, throw me over there like a rag doll?” Wilbur taunted.

The crinkles beneath sky blue eyes deepened with a smile. “Wouldn’t you like to know… But I know how much you want to play.”

He did, actually. He wanted to pull out his guitar and join the musicians. He wanted to feel the thrill of playing for an audience. He wanted Phil happy, so he stood up and pulled his guitar out of the bag.

One of the singers saw him coming. With her elbow she nudged the lead guitarist, who smiled at Wilbur and nodded for him to join.

Elated, Wilbur slipped into his place beside them. The band was playing a song he had learned a few months ago, so he slipped carefully into the current of the music’s rhythm.

It was late in the night when the band finally stopped, and the crowd gave their final ovation. The musicians separated and spread out into the bar, each taking a drink in hand before settling down to talk with friends. Wilbur, deciding the hour to be late enough, carefully re-stored his guitar in his knapsack and left the bright tavern, though not before several fellow guitar players pressed music lyrics and chords into his hands and bade him a good night.

The gravel crunched beneath Wilbur’s feet. Several leaves fluttered past Wilbur and Philza as they made their way to an inn.

They didn’t speak. There was peaceful silence, and Wilbur’s mind was calm. At that moment the road was dark, with several scattered lanterns creating illuminated spheres. Everything Wilbur saw, from the fresh ivy crawling around a rusted lamp post to the milky moon half-hidden by clouds was beautiful.

It was so quiet. So silent.

But then there was a loud clatter coming from one of the alleys at the side! Wilbur jumped, and Phil angrily flapped his wings as several people came charging at them.

Wilbur started running, and the night didn’t look as beautiful as it did a moment ago. His hairs stood on end. The people were wielding blades, the length of his forearm, that rang out with a metallic clang as they tapped them against the pebbles.

They were running after him, Phil was shouting, Wilbur took out his bow and prepared to create a fiery arrow from the light given off by the lanterns’ flames, but he watched with dismay as it was knocked out of his grasp.

The people – men, from their broad chests and way they grabbed the back his shirt – threw him on the ground. He landed on his stomach, hands softening the impact. They tugged his beanie off his head, and Wilbur watched infuriatedly as they threw it into the darkness.

“This is Soot’s son,” they jeered, and kicked at his legs. Wilbur clenched his jaw and hissed.
The leader seemed to be a thug with dark grease smeared around his eyes and nose and over his cheekbones. While one of the gang members held Wilbur’s head still, the grease-smeared man crouched down and snarled at Wilbur’s face.
Philza was shouting, but Wilbur couldn’t hear him over the mocking chants that filled the air. He smelt the putrid breath of the man crouched in front of him, a resemblance of rotting cabbage.

“Your father’s an evil man, little noble,” the man crowed. “He’s an insignifican’, pompous power-abus’r. He convinced His Majesty to r’voke werewolf rights… and my kind – well, we ain’t pleased.”

The gang – all werewolves – howled once more, a furious chorus in the lonely wind. Wilbur wondered how late at night it was, for people must have surely noticed the shrieks.

Philza glided forward, his ghostly face passing through the lead werewolf’s scabbed muzzle. It was an absurd sight, but Wilbur focused on the moving shape of Phil's lips, and the words he was given.

“Focus on making an arrow! Concentrate! The bow is not far to your left, you can manipulate the light to draw back-” A calloused hand struck his face. Stars danced over Wilbur’s vision.

“Stupid boy, quit your starin’, you’re not even listenin-”

And then there was a quiet, familiar twang as orange cruised through the night. The bow, momentarily illuminated, made a sound that made the werewolves turn their heads as the string bounced back into place. Then there was a roar! The grease-smeared werewolf leaped into the air, displaying a burning orange-white dart lodged in his shin.

In the werewolves’ moment of conflict and confusion Wilbur stood up and roughly pushed two of the hoodlums aside, as he made a break for it.

The more reactive ones tried to grab the tail of his coat, but he was already out of reach. Phil was encouraging him, diamond eyes glittering beneath dangerously-angled eyebrows.

Wilbur swung the bow around, summoned another arrow and let it fly. It narrowly missed the shoulder of one, fizzing out as the Wilbur let go of the energy.

There were shrieks and swears, and the lead werewolf cursed Will out but yelled at his pack to retreat. “The f’cker’s a damn sorc’rur-!”

Wilbur fired two more arrows at the hightailing thugs before he slumped against a wall, right next to where his beanie had fallen.

Phil was fluttering around him, fussing, and at the same time cursing the men who attacked his chosen.

“I’m fine… just tired,” Wilbur admitted.

“Come, let’s get you to the inn before anything else happens,” Phil decided.

Wilbur had a restless sleep that night.

When he woke up he saw Phil sitting in a chair, staring wordlessly out of the open windows. It was barely dawn.

Phil heard the mattress creaking and turned, eyes brightening as he smiled his chosen a ‘good morning’.

Wilbur half-heartedly muttered the greeting, many thoughts weighing on his mind.

“Phil.”

“Yeah, mate?”

“The men attacked me last night because of something my father did.” It was a statement, and Philza confirmed it.

“That’s what they said.”

Wilbur sighed deeply, rubbing the lids of his eyes with his palms in an attempt to wipe away drowsiness from his face. He reached for his glasses, which were seated on the bedside table, wiped them with his sleeves and wore them.

“I don’t want to find trouble because my dad did something,” he rasped. “I don’t want... I don’t want to be faulted for something he did, or be made a scapegoat-”

“You can leave.” Philza’s suggestion was plain, simple, yet damning.

“I can run away,” Wilbur said warily.

“You can travel.”

“I can be free.”

“We can go on adventures.”

Twin smiles were slowly inching over their faces.

“Fuck it, let’s go today.”

They returned to the Soot’s estate for two reasons; for Wilbur to pack and say a final goodbye to his mother.

Wilbur dropped the buckled shoes he usually wore in favour of leather traveling boots that covered his shins. They were flexible enough around the ankles that he would be able to run in them. He ignored the embroidered robes he only wore when forced to, pulled on a mustard sweater, and packed several more shirts. A quill and an ink pot joined the clothes in the enchanted knapsack, along with a book of his favourite lyrics.

He also packed a history book and the map of the eight realms he had drawn so many years ago.

His guitar was coming along. The bow too, of course. He chose a simple flint and steel over a pack of matches, because they were more durable. A little iron knife.

While his father was at breakfast, he stole several bags of igrines and ikrells. They probably wouldn’t be missed.

A small sack of tangerines to eat, and when those were gone, a pouch of dried beef. A canteen of water.

At Phil’s insistence he ate a hearty breakfast of bread, eggs, and apples. Milk.

Once packed, they walked along a well-worn path down into the small valley in which the hospital was situated. Wilbur collected wildflowers along the way, gathering them into small bundles, little forget-me-nots and poppies and some strands of purple grass. While they walked, he wove them into a small matt, a little web of blossoms and fragrant stems. He inserted more daisies in between the gaps.

The building’s wide arches were the eyebrows of glaring irises that followed each of Wilbur’s steps. Phil glided to catch up and reassuringly grabbed Wilbur’s hand. For a moment, dreams became reality as solid warmth grazed his palm, before falling into air again.

The tall corridors with smaller hallways branching out at the sides might’ve resembled a maze once. But Wilbur had revisited this path so many times that he could find it even while in the deepest of sleeps.

The tangerine tree, with speckles of light creeping in through gaps between leaves. The growing vines of honeysuckle adorning his mother’s gravestone like a fiery crown. Silver ferns and sweet peas dancing in the breeze that kissed the floor. Regular blades of grass standing beneath a preening marigold stood to attention like soldiers.

Wilbur laid his woven mat of flowers over his mother. He was silent for a bit, but then spoke out aloud to the empty sky, addressing his mother and wondering if she, had she still been alive, would have helped him begin his journey or tried to stop him. Maybe she would have insisted to go with him.

And then Philza spoke. “If she is anything like her son,” and here Wilbur looked up, “she would have cried and pressed kisses on the crown of his head. She would have wanted him to know that she cherished her son as her loveliest composition, her most enchanting painting. She would have told him to go and experience the world, a fledgling finally set free into the winds. She would, I am certain, have been proud.”

Nine days of traveling. Nine suns and moons of riding caravans, of crossing rivers, of sitting in farmers’ carts. When the terrain transformed from the rolling hills Wilbur was familiar with to mountains with distant peaks, Phil told him to buy a horse.

It was a silvery-grey mare with pale eyes. However the farmer who sold her swore she could run as fast as any mountain goat alive.

Wilbur had never see a mountain goat run, but he believed, and handed over several igrines.

And she was beautiful. She was a gentle, calm thing, but sometimes she would be startled by the occasional bird, flying awfully close to her eyes. “Friend,” he called her, for she stayed close by him at nights as he slept, and was – alongside Phil – right beside him in the morning.

She ate flowers, and once, tried to nibble on Wilbur’s fingers. He yelped, of course, and swatted her away. Phil laughed at how a dismayed look seemed to creep over her eyes, a look easily warded away by Wilbur’s soft pats and a fistful of sweet orange peels.

It was night when they finally reached the portal.

There was a clearing. Several dead trees were fallen on the side, mushrooms sprouting over damp bark. Moss carpets draped themselves over blue stones. Rabbits bumbled through the grass, darting away into the undergrowth the moment they saw a yellow sweater-wearing man and his grey horse.

In the centre, among weeds and nests of fern was a structure of midnight-black stone. Moonlight reflected off of the glossy material, dimming whenever a cloud passed over. It was out of place, it didn’t belong with its surroundings.

However, in some magical way, it did. In the same manner of how a single red button in a pile of black would, somehow, fit.

Reverently, Wilbur gently dragged his fingertips over the stone. “Obsidian,” Phil murmured in explanation. Wilbur nearly expected to feel boughs of lightning coming from the structure, but there was nothing. No tingling or excitement, just emptiness.

Phil pointed at the bottom of the forest floor, toward the space in between the two dark pillars. Wilbur opened his bag and took out the little iron knife, which he used to sever and clear out the weeds. A few minutes of work led to fruition when tangled roots revealed a bottom of obsidian. Engraved on this stone platform were ancient symbols.

I ʖᒷᓭᒷᒷᓵ⍑ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ q⚍ᒷᒷリ 𝙹⎓ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ pᔑᓭᓭᒷ↸ ⎓𝙹∷ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ !¡ᔑᓭᓭᔑ⊣ᒷ ℸ ̣ 𝙹 ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ ⎓∷𝙹⨅ᒷリ ꖎᔑリ↸, ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ ∴𝙹∷ꖎ↸ 𝙹⎓ ᒷリ↸ꖎᒷᓭᓭ ∴╎リℸ ̣ ᒷ∷, ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ ʖᒷᔑ⚍ℸ ̣ ╎⎓⚍ꖎ ℸ ̣ ᔑ╎⊣ᔑ.

Phil ran his fingers over them, and to Wilbur’s shock, they glowed a brilliant magenta.

“How the hell did you do that?” he demanded.

Phil winked at him. “You still have much to learn. Gaelic characters, like these, are used by the elves as a medium for controlling magic. Magic is the use of the soul to channel energy, and these inscriptions react positively to encountering the soul I am made of.” He lifted his hand, and the light disappeared. “I can read them. Anyone who travels through portals must chant these words to activate the portal. One day, I will teach you to how to do the same.”

“What do the glyphs say?”

“It is a prayer to the Queen of the Passed, asking for passage into Snowchester. Men traveling between realms are often accompanied by priests, who have memorized the ancient phrases, and repeat them before the black stone.”

Wilbur, curious, touched the glyphs. Once again, they hummed with purple energy. “They aren’t glowing as brightly as they did when you touched them,” he wondered out aloud.

“I am not human, Wilbur. I am made from the stars, and I have a star’s soul.”

Philza smiled at the way Wilbur exhaled quickly in surprise. “You come from the stars?”

“Nay, friend, I am a star. Stars, as the most ancient and wisest of elves have discovered, are concentrated. Potent. Sentient, and intelligent. But many of us don’t have a physical form.”

“Like the bow?” Wilbur watched his friend slip into the shadows to take the form of a gold-eyed raven. The bird tapped several runes with his beak, and they shone with the magic. Phil continued talking.

“Yes. A physical body is what binds us to reality. Otherwise… we are what common folk call imaginary. Definitely there, but not fully real.”

The stars in the midnight sky above seemed to wink at Wilbur. He tried to imagine every star as a ghost, watching the living walk over the terrain.

“But why can’t other people see you?” Wilbur asked.

Phil looked up. “The bow ties me to my holder. I am real to you, and to all those who previously wielded me. Once a person knows I exist, I stay real to them. But not for anyone else.”

“Which is why only I notice you,” the man concluded.

The raven hummed. “Yes,” the bird muttered quietly, and continued with his prodding.

Phil didn’t speak after that, so Wilbur chose to let him be and finish… whatever he was doing.

Friend was nibbling on a patch of thistles near the trees. There was a small rabbit crouched in the shrubbery, watching the company with wary pink eyes.

Wilbur tried to offer it a minuscule, cream-white wildflower he had just plucked. The rabbit, startled, hurried away. Wilbur pouted, and Friend snorted at him.

Phil was still darting around the portal. The spirit’s coal wings were nearly the same shade of ink as the pitch-black stone of the portal’s legs.

The night sky, too, was black. Friend’s eyes were black. His boots, in the dim moonlight, seemed a colourless shade of ash.

The wind slowly, quietly, lulled Wilbur to sleep. His head fell back and rested against the coarse bark of a mountain birch.

Next to no time had passed, or so it had seemed to the sleeping man, before a man draped in golden threads awoke him. Philza had unsuccessfully tried shaking his chosen awake, and resorted to shouting.

His boy – his son – stumbled out of his nap.

“H-how long was I asleep-” Will groggily groaned.

Phil glanced back at the portal. The runes seemed to pulse steadily now, waves of light and magic and energy rolling in a gentle rhythm. “An hour. The portal is ready. I activated the runes, so we just need the key. A little flame, a spark.”

Wilbur shook his hair jerkily. A twig and some fallen leaves fluttered grumpily down. He was now alert.

“Come and bring your flint,” Phil ordered briskly.

Without wasting time Wilbur untied Friend and snatched up his bag. He held onto her leather reigns with his right hand, and rifled through his rucksack with his left. A flint and its steel were pulled out; the back was slung over Wilbur’s back.

He jogged to the centre of the clearing. Philza pointed at the flint in his hand, and then at the base of the portal. Recognizing his task, he nervously struck metal against stone. There was a spark, but it was soon gone.

Wilbur tried again, and again. The second and third sparks vanished, and he wiped his brow. “Steady, Will,” Phil said encouragingly.

The fourth spark was brighter, and was absorbed by the lilac magic. There was a searing explosion of light, and small arcs of lightning danced around the portal frame. Wilbur’s hairs stood on end.

The previously empty inside of the structure was now filled with a shimmering, purple gateway. It was an iridescent plane, a welcoming offer to a different world.

He was about to step in, but Phil blocked his way with an incorporeal arm. Phil levelled his gaze with his son’s, seriousness and sincerity etched into his diamond iris. “Once you leave, the simple life you had known will end,” he warned, but promises of a new life with adventure, excitement, and change lingered in the way his lips nearly curved into a smile.

"Not all those who wander are lost," Wilbur said, a grin spreading over his face. He felt exhilarated, heartbeat pumping rapidly as he stared at the glowing lavender portal before him. And perhaps he was a bit scared, too, but he'd get over it.

"Do you have somewhere you particularly want to visit?" the golden spirit playfully asked him. Phil was alight, glowing, and looked extremely alive, and Wilbur realized that this was what Phil was meant for. The spirit of the bow, the traveling tramp who was, ultimately, more free than any baron or queen could ever hope to be.

The golden bow, strapped to his back, seemed to mirror the passion flowing through his veins. It glowed so violently that Wilbur himself resembled a slender flame in the dark meadows.

"I need to see the land, and the seas. All of it."

Phil burst into merry laugher, and the sound of his voice was the song of a bird set free to fly as high as he wished. It was a hopeful song. Change wasn’t frightening, or scary. Sometimes it was difficult to achieve. But change is always accompanied by hope.

He gripped tightly onto Friend’s reigns.

“I have set my mind and my will, I am leaving,” Wilbur sung, his breath a small ghostly wisp lost to the eerie, enchanting echoes and chirps from the birds in the tree tops, from each of the leaves dancing with each other, from the songs played by the crickets, and from the wind. Maybe the leaves, the trees, the stars, lizards, and birds… maybe they were saying ‘goodbye’.

He backed into the shimmering purple. It burned, but lacked the pain. It was colder than the harshest rivers, and as warm as the sun on the most scorching of days.

And then the world before him collapsed, and bent, and twisted ‘round itself.

The sky crashed onto the ground, and Wilbur couldn’t even look straight…

And then the world righted itself. And Wilbur had to squint, as his eyes adjusted to the blinding light. Blinding light from the sun in the sky, reflected by the millions of snowflakes that created a deep carpet of whiteness that covered the terrain.

And then his senses re-awoke. And a deep chill seeped into his bones.

There was a sickening sound behind him, similar to that of glass shattering over a boulder, and when Wilbur turned around he saw a portal frame, empty and dark once again.

There were fewer trees here than what he was used to in Korinthus. Several small forests of evergreens peppered the land. There were mountains in the distance, and snowy plains everywhere he looked.

He shivered, and clutched his leather coat tightly around him. Poor Friend neighed in her cold. She would have to ‘tough it out’, as they say. But she will survive.

The sky was clear and blue, the sun was blinding. Philza’s eyes reflected the heavens above them. “It’s been a while, Snowchester,” he spoke softly.

They followed a distinct path of wet gravel through the snow, well-worn from the feet of previous travellers.

They moved quickly, to keep warm.