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Flight is not easy when your wings are significantly larger and wider than others. Techno’s known this since the beginning of the year when they first placed their elytra bracelets around their wrists.
Everyone’s wings are moderate, different colors to represent their personality, each styled for their way of flight. All except Techno’s, that is. His drag on the ground, red feather tips scraping against the cobblestone floor of the dome as he struggled to lift them up. They are always too heavy, always tangling Techno in wine red and sunset gold when he falls from the skies and onto the training mattress. And worst of all, they seemed to have a mind of their own, slapping him in the face and knocking his crown off whenever he was standing or sitting.
Curse these wings, he’d grumble to himself after every class, holding them off before they could whap him in the cheekbone. How would he be able to surpass everyone in class with wings like these? They didn’t provide him the speed he sought for, nor were they favored by the winds.
“You sure you don’t need any help, Techno?” Wilbur asks him at the dining hall the evening after class.
“I’m fine,” Techno replies, stabbing at his potatoes with a fork. “I can manage.”
Wilbur raises an eyebrow at the claim but doesn’t press further. “Alright, if you say so.”
The dining hall starts filling up with people, silverware clinking against ceramic, lanterns brightening to throw light on the students. Tommy and Tubbo slip into the seats in front of Techno and Wilbur, greeting them before piling food onto their plate. He doesn’t pay much heed when Tommy and Wilbur start mumbling about bees- Tubbo bees- bee politics, whatever.
Techno’s shifting his mashed potatoes around when Tubbo’s bee familiar - or at least one of his bee familiars - bumps against his ear. He grumbles, trying to bat away the loud buzzing creature, but it simply evades his swatting hands, irritating him further.
“Turbo- Tubbo-” Techno wrinkles his nose, feeling the fuzz of the bee brush against his face again, “tell your bees to back off.”
Tubbo halts midway through his corn, staring up at Techno with a questioning face. He swallows, waving a hand at the bee. “Spunz, don’t bother Techno, come back here.”
The bee hovers next to his ear for a second more before flying back to Tubbo’s shoulder and sits itself there. The other two bees, Spinz and Spoons, lay dormant on Tubbo’s hair, and Techno shoots them a slight glare in a warning not to fly over as their sibling had done.
“That’s weird,” Tubbo says, tapping his chin. “Usually Spunz only flies over to people if they’re sad or concerned. Which I don’t think you are. Right, Techno?”
Sad? Concerned? Techno raises an eyebrow at Tubbo, his fork accidentally slipping from his hand and landing with a loud clang on his plate.
“No,” he replies slowly, mouth forming around the ‘o’. Tubbo seems to buy it, shrugging his shoulders and returning to the conversation without further questioning. Wilbur, though, eyes Techno incredulously in which Techno returns by piling his items onto his plate and excusing himself from the table. He shuffles awkwardly away from the full conversations and the rowdy atmosphere of the dining hall, retreating to the shadows of the academy’s corridors.
Him? The almighty Technoblade? Sad? Hell no. Not worried one bit. There was nothing bothering him at the moment, and he would keep it as such. Even if he did feel something negative, well, pog through the pain.
The common room in the dormitories is warm when he enters, the heat slowly drifting away as he ascends the stairs to his shared room with Wilbur. His boar familiar, Billy, greets him at the door, snout bumping against his leg when he enters. Techno reaches down and rubs the area between Billy’s ears, running his fingers through the fur.
Shoulders slacking in exhaustion, he kicks off his shoes and his cape, folding it across the foot of his bed before he collapses on the mattress.
What a day.
There comes a knock on his door half an hour later when Techno’s in bed reading for his enchantment table course tomorrow, legs crossed over one another. He averts his gaze from the book to the door, Billy raising his head up toward the noise as well.
“Come in,” Techno says, bookmarking his page and setting it down.
The door opens and in comes Phil, his eyes trailing over to Techno’s. His arms are placed within his large sleeves, away from sight as he sniffs, glancing around the room.
“Hello, Techno,” he chirps. “Just wanted to ask if you were free at the moment.”
“Uuuhh…” Techno trails off, eyes darting to the side then back to Phil. “Yes…?”
“Great! Then you don’t mind me kidnapping you for a few, right? I’ll tell Wilbur, too, of course, so he doesn’t get worried when he comes back and sees you missing.” Philza walks over and grabs Techno’s cape, setting it down in front of the student and patting it. “Come on, dress up. It won’t be for long.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, right now.”
Techno glances out the window, stars blinking back at him. He looks at Phil, glances back out the window, then asks slowly, “Where exactly are we going?”
Phil laughs, bringing Techno’s shoes over to the edge of the bed. “Somewhere. I promise it’s not going to take long. That is, if you cooperate with me.”
“Sounds highly suspicious of you, Phil. An attempt at child kidnapping? That’s very bold if I do say so myself.” He puts on his shoes, throwing his cape around his shoulders and fastening it. “Lead the way.”
Phil heads out the door and Techno follows with Billy at his heels. They travel down the cobblestone stairs and into the common room where several people are playing chess. Then out the dormitories they go, down the hall, and to somewhere Techno would have never suspected.
“The elytra arena?” Techno questions, tilting his head toward the glass dome. His voice echoes off the walls. The three moons were out today, bringing forth milk moonlight and spilling its rays all over the mattresses lined along the ground.
“I saw you had trouble with flying-” Phil starts, but nothing more was needed to be said for Techno to understand the situation, “-so I wanted to bring you out tonight to teach you separate from others.”
Techno opens his mouth to tell Phil that he doesn’t need help; he can learn how to fly perfectly fine, but that’d be a lie for him to state. Phil tacks on with a, “Not saying that you’re falling behind the other students; you’re an exemplary student. As a teacher, when I see my students struggle, I offer them a helping hand.”
Phil stretches out his hand in a gesture for Techno to take as an agreement. Techno glances at it miserably, but there was nothing else he could do other than accept the offer. It was a long way back to the dormitories anyway, and he doesn’t want to waste this trip to the arena for nothing. With a sigh and an uneasy grimace on his lips, Techno takes Phil’s hand, allowing the elytra band to be slipped onto his wrist.
A heavy weight forces him to bend backward as the wings start settling in. Techno groans in annoyance just as Phil puts on his elytra.
“So, what do you think is your greatest problem right now?” He questions Techno, placing a hand on the feathers of the other’s wings and spreading them.
“They’re heavy.”
“That’s all?”
“...And they slap me in the face.”
“Seems like they have a life of their own.”
“Yes.”
Phil finishes inspecting his wings, placing a hand on his hip and tapping his foot. “New wings don’t often work against the will of its host, but it does happen sometimes. The best way is to force it to do what you want.”
As if that wasn’t obvious enough.
“What you want to do,” Phil continues on as Techno’s wings twitch and shudder, “is to think about flying. Think about yourself in the air and make your wings follow the direction of your eyes. The good thing about them is their size; they're like mine. Propels you upward with little force and allows you to glide easily though it isn’t necessarily as fast as others. Give it a try.”
Techno heaves an audible sigh before locking his shoulders back and feeling the wings on his back spread, loose feathers spilling onto the ground.
“Now, now,” Phil interrupts, “don’t lock your shoulders entirely. Sag them. Be relaxed. Your wings will lift faster and it’ll take less strength.” He places his hands on Techno’s shoulders, pushing them forward from their position.
Lifting them once more, Techno wills his wings - please, please, please don’t slap him in the face again - to propel themselves upward. It’s a throbbing sensation at first when his toes lift off of the floor, cool night air circulating pushing into his face, but it works, and that’s all that matters at the moment.
Well - a sigh of relief - at least he had managed to take flight. Now onto the hard part: actually flying and being able to glide. It isn’t going to end well, Techno knows from the past classes he’s had since the beginning of the year. As if on cue, a tremble travels through his wings, the tips twitching and becoming unstable. He’s already midway from the cobblestone to the glass and it’s then does his anxiety kick in, his heart jumping to his throat, eyes becoming dry. Techno’s wings fail him a second later, sending him plummeting down, arms flailing, feathers hitting his nose, tangling with around his arms. The breath is knocked out of his lungs when he makes impact with the mattress, a wheeze slipping from his parted lips and a ripple of dull pain flares across his back.
Techno rolls back into a sitting position, dusting himself off and ruffling his wings. Philza stands over him, offering another hand to help him up.
“Keep trying,” he says gently. “Take your time.”
And so Techno keeps going, attempt after attempt, sweat coating along his brow and back aching. He pushes forward, but his efforts are fruitless. Every time he stands back up and tries again, he fails, experiencing the same fate through and through. Though Phil is there to guide him and give him tips, they just don’t seem to work well. It frustrates him, obviously, and Techno wants nothing more than to retire to his dorms and sleep.
“Okay,” Phil finally states, a hint of exhaustion lacing his tone (it makes Techno’s shoulders slump hearing the disappointing tone in the professor’s voice), “here, what about we try it another way?”
“Another way?” echoes Techno, busy keeping his wings from moving. “And that is?”
Phil pulls a vial out of his satchel, downing it in one go and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Do you trust me, Techno?”
“Trust you? I mean you’ve already technically kidnapped me in the middle of the night…”
Phil’s laugh booms around the arena and Techno cracks a smile, letting out a small chuckle.
“Then we’re taking a mini flight lesson outside the school campus. I’m pretty sure you don’t mind, yeah?”
Techno doesn’t have the chance to agree or disagree before Phil wraps his arms around the latter’s stomach and heaves him up, startling the student. He’s absolutely not ready when Phil takes to the skies, wind whipping into Techno’s hair and shoveling it. They pass the low hanging clouds, mist skimming their cheeks as they look down on the faded lights of the academy below.
“What the heck, Phil?” Techno nearly reels back in surprise at how high they were. Phil’s grip on his waist keeps him from falling, though his wings are squashed behind him. The sight was far from breathtaking, the clouds obscuring his vision so he has to squint in order to focus on the school’s glowing emblem.
“I’m going to drop you” Phil states without an ounce of hesitation, the arms around Techno’s waist already loosening. “Ready?”
“Ready?!” Techno’s about to object, mouth open as a yell slips from his tongue when Phil drops him like a bag of potatoes. The last thing Techno sees is the professor placing his hands behind his back and waving toward him. Then, its incoming darkness and ice-cold wind sinking itself into his eyes. Techno’s eyes fill with tears. Blinking rapidly, he tries to claw at the air, grabbing onto something, anything that would help break his free fall.
He’s going to die like this, he realizes. His body takes a flip, knees knocking against one another as he pants out breaths of white that quickly disappears into the dark sky above him. He’s going to fall. He’s going to die. Oh gods, he’s going to die like this and he’s never going to finish his studies and Phil for some bloody reason doesn’t seem like he’s going to come after him and he’ll never learn how to fly-
Techno can fly. He can fly, just not well enough, but well enough to break his fall somewhat. He has wings, he has wings, he has wings-
Come on, he grits his teeth, unfurling his wings and trying to get them in the right position, come on, come on, come on.
“God damn it!” he hollers into the wind that screams into his ears, “LISTEN TO ME!”
It’s the equivalent of a giant sigh of relief when a gust of air propels him upward, inches from the forest below. His feet drift in the air, body carried by the momentum of his wings. Techno's chest heaves, throat burning with the frigid air he's breathing in rapidly. He swallows, coughing.
“Haha!” he declares, slightly short of breath “See? All part of my master plan. Technoblade never dies.” He wobbles a little, wings just a bit weak with fright to sustain his body.
Phil descends toward him, rolling his eyes. “Sure, sure.”
“Kinda seems like a way to murder orphans instead of teaching them how to fly,” Techno jokes, taking a swoop in mid-air to test out the feeling. “Y’know, dropping the kid into a deadly forest isn’t the best way to instruct someone.”
“Okay, okay, in my defense, this method worked with some of my other students, and see? It’s also successful for you, Of course, I’d fly straight down if something were to happen. But it turned out alright, so, pog!”
They both laugh into the night, the stars glimmering from above and the fog stirring restlessly below as the two make their way back to the arena.