Archive of Our Own

“So there I was, only a couple hundred potatoes behind.” Techno’s words drifted over the VC, his deep pitch causing his voice to almost rumble through Ranboo’s helmet. “I had just a few more days of farmin’ left before I was certain I’d defeated Squid and secured my spot as the number one potato provider in the region...”

“I’m sensing a huge ‘but’ coming up,” noted Ranboo as he swung his netherite pick through another column of basalt. To his left, atop a pillar of blackstone, he heard Philza let out a loud laugh, only confirming his suspicions.

Techno let out a heavy sigh. “...but, unbeknownst to me, a whole three plots of my land had gone foul, so when I dug up the harvest from those plots, all that they yielded were poisonous potatoes. As per the rules of our competition, only edible potatoes counted towards the score since ya couldn’t legally sell rotten ones on the market.”

“Sabotage?”

“Oh, definitely. Had Squid written all over it.”

“So what did you do?”

“Returned the favor and then some.”

“We snuck into Squid’s farm the following night and poisoned the entirety of his bone meal reserves,” Philza elaborated as he sorted through his inventory, still chuckling. “It took basically the whole night because Squid’s stash was fucking massive , and we had to make a second trip to bring more poison pots from our brewing station back home. Luckily, I’d made extra beforehand, so that helped cut back on time.”

“He wouldn’t have realized what was goin’ on if he’d actually, ya know, worn gloves like a normal person when treatin’ his crops the next day. He told me later that when his hands started goin’ green and he was gettin’ unexplainably nauseous and light-headed, he knew somethin’ was up. We saw him cleanin’ out his bone meal silo the next day.”

There was a grunt over the line, presumably from Techno shoving a block of obsidian into place back in the Overworld. “Doesn’t really matter, though. While he was busy clearin’ his silo, I was able to clean up my fields and get another crop of potatoes goin’. He had to spend a week restocking on bone meal, and by that time, I’d jumped into the lead. It was just another week later that I finally reached a hundred thousand potatoes farmed. And so, the Great Potato War finally came to a close with yours truly claiming victory.”

Ranboo tucked his pickaxe under his arm to clap appreciatively. “Woo, yeah!” He could imagine Techno doing a dramatic, sweeping bow as he murmured, “Thank you, thank you, I’m so great, I know.”  

Philza, meanwhile, just chuckled, rolling his eyes as he spread his dark wings and glided over to another pillar of basalt and blackstone. He hooked his rigs of ropes and iron claws into the side of the stone to hold him in place as he started to mine out another section of the basalt delta. 

Ranboo, meanwhile, pulled out an ender pearl from his inventory, took careful aim, and threw it to another nearby ledge. He was overcome with the familiar sensation of having the ground drop out beneath him and the air snatched from his lungs as he was whirled around to the next part of the delta, greaves hitting the previously untouched basalt with a noisy crunch. As soon as he was certain that he wasn’t about to topple over the edge into the gap below, he took out his pick again and started to mine the fresh material. “I can’t believe some of the stuff you guys got up to after the fall of the Empire. I’d imagine after the Wars, you’d be, I dunno, tired? Maybe wanna lay low?”

“Oh, we were tired,” Philza replied. His words sounded like they were supposed to be light, but there was an undercurrent of grimness to his tone. “The Resource Wars were nasty business, especially towards the end.”

“The other factions crossed a line,” Techno rumbled in agreement. “We had no other choice but to disband and scatter ourselves. So we were tired, and we were layin’ low. That little farm town was like a safe haven after all the runnin’ we’d done to get away from our enemies. The slow life was never for us, though. We had to keep ourselves occupied somehow.”

Ranboo smirked. “So you guys waged war over the potato market?”

“No, Techno waged war over the potato market,” clarified Philza. “I helped on occasion, but most of the actual work was him.”

“Hence why I alone claim the title of Potato King.”

“What did you do then, Philza?” asked Ranboo. Having spent the past half hour listening to Techno’s dramatic retelling of the Great Potato War, he was reasonably curious as to what the legendary ‘Angel of Death’ was up to during what they called the ‘In-Between Years’, the few years between the fall of the Antarctic Empire and their involvement with the Dream SMP, L’Manburg, and Pogtopia. Not many were privy to the legends’ activities during that time, as they’d completely fallen off the map - from what Ranboo could recall from his readings, anyway.

Philza didn’t respond immediately, humming as he thought back to that time. “I just busied myself with various projects - farms, cool builds, getting rare materials. I also spent a lot of my nights out flying and exploring.”

Something Ranboo had noticed in all the stories Philza and Techno had told him over the past several weeks since he joined them in the Arctic was that there was virtually no mention of Wilbur and Tommy. Their names were tossed around here and there, Philza making an offhand comment about his eldest son’s musical habits while Techno rolled his eyes or glowered at the very mention of the ‘gremlin child’. Given what he’d heard about what happened to Wilbur and witnessed the mess Techno and Tommy had made of their friendship, Ranboo figured it was a touchy subject. 

So as curious as he might be - 

“Find anything cool?”

- he didn’t ask.

“Oh, plenty. I still have some of my journals somewhere in the storage room, if you want to have a look.”

Still, he wondered why Philza hadn’t gone to live with his sons in the Dream SMP after the fall of the Antarctic Empire. And what was it that finally pushed Techno to join Pogtopia?

“That would be great, actually. Thanks.”

He knew it would be a long time before he got those questions answered, if at all. But he wouldn’t pry. If they wanted to tell him, they would. After all, he was in no position to demand answers when he himself kept so many secrets from them.

“Of course, mate, just remind me when we get home.”

Ranboo snickered at that, dispelling the thoughts that swirled in his head. “You’re asking me to remind you?”

“Oh.” Philza laughed, realizing his mistake. “I see your point. How about - Techno, remind Ranboo to remind me to get the old journals out of storage, yeah?”

“You got it, Phil. Anyways, how’s the mining goin’?”

Ranboo scooped some basalt into his inventory and shuffled some things around. “I think we’re almost done here. Once we get all this stuff smelted and cut, we’ll be able to start construction on the Nether side of our portal, and then maybe we can move onto the path. The polished basalt with the blackstone accents is gonna look sick .”

“Better than that cobblestone mess we’ve got goin’ on right now, at least,” Techno mumbled. “I’m just glad that we won’t have to walk all the way over to the ruined portal at the top of the hill anymore.”

“And then walk all the way back from the shore to get home,” Philza tacked on. “I have no idea what’s up with the portal link with that one, but the new portal shouldn’t have any issues.”

“Hopefully,” said Ranboo.

“Hopefully,” Philza agreed.

Ranboo blindly fished around in his inventory for another ender pearl with one hand as he shoved more basalt in with his other. However, his hand ghosted over an empty slot, and he released an anxious sigh. “Oh, no.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I just used my last ender pearl earlier. I didn’t even notice.” He gave his inventory another once over in the hope that his eyes might have skimmed over it amid the various other materials he and Philza had been gathering that day. Of course, his search was fruitless. “Man, I wish I knew how to teleport.”

“Your enderman hands are pretty cool,” Techno provided helpfully.

“Unfortunately, being able to pick up solid blocks of material with my bare hands doesn’t really help me get around a basalt delta.”

“It’s still cool though.”

“Oh, totally.”

Philza gave a dissatisfied hum. Ranboo looked over to find that the winged man was searching through his own inventory menu, a frown pursing his lips. “I don’t have any pearls on me either. We should head back, then. It’s not the safest for you to be hopping around a delta without any pearls.”

“Yeah, us ground plebs have it rough, Phil,” Techno monotoned, grunting again as he presumably shoved another obsidian block into place. “No massive crow’s wings to carry us around wherever we want, we’re truly hopeless.”

“I think I manage pretty well,” said Ranboo, hopping from one pillar to another. He came to a wall, jumped, and dug the sharpened claws of his netherite gauntlets into a lip in the brittle stone. Digging his toes in as well, he took out his pick and used it to reach up and carve a handhold for himself further up. Then, he swiftly dropped his pick back into his inventory, reached for the handhold, and clambered up the wall, feet kicking out little bits of stone behind him. With a huff, he hoisted himself onto the platform and proceeded down a little crumbling slope, being wary of the chunks of magma and flowing lava smoking and bubbling nearby.

He heard a pillowy thump and a whoosh! off to his left. When he glanced over his shoulder, he found it was an airborne Philza following alongside him. Ranboo was distinctly aware of the man’s careful gaze, ocean blue eyes darting around his form and his surroundings. “Yeah, I’d say so too. Where’d you learn to climb?”

“Dunno,” Ranboo admitted, taking a quick jogging start before vaulting up another steep incline, just barely reaching the top. A nervous breath rushed out of him as he scrambled to push himself up and get his balance. “It was probably a long time ago, wherever I came from. Someone had to have taught me, or maybe I taught myself? Never really thought about it, to be honest with you.”

“Well, you’re pretty fucking good, mate,” Philza commented, circling around and perching himself on a nearby pillar to watch as Ranboo lept from one pillar to the next. “Do you come out to deltas often?”

“If I have pearls, I do.” Ranboo skipped from one pillar to the next, gaining a little speed as he came upon a slightly larger gap. “I mean, yeah, they’re dangerous, but the worst that could happen is that you trip over the side into lava and lose all your stuff, and then you have to go through a respawn.”

“Lava deaths aren’t weighted deaths,” remarked Techno, as if nodding along. “They don’t count.”  

“Unless, like, someone dumps a bucket of lava on your head.”

“Well that’s just murder,” Philza commented.

“A really convoluted one at that,” Techno added. He sounded disappointed, like the prospect of an inefficient killing was upsetting to him. “If you’re gonna go through all the trouble to take a weighted life, then why don’t you just, I dunno, stab them? It’s a lot easier.” 

Ranboo laughed, making another jump. “Yeah, right? Why not juUuUuH - !”

“RANBOO!” he heard Philza cry a split second before his foot missed its mark and slipped on a crumbling basalt ledge, sending him tumbling off the side of the delta. Fiery wind whistled past his ears as he plummeted, the lava lake below drawing nearer and nearer with every second, and he just barely registered the confused, thundering shouts of Techno over the VC and the rumble of the boiling lake below and the frantic thump of wingbeats somewhere up above - 

A weight crashed down upon him hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs, and his freefall was cut short by a pair of strong, armored arms hooking under his own and pulling tight towards his chest. He heard a strained groan above him, accompanied by a string of muttered curses and more hurried wingbeats. “ Uff , for being so f-fucking skinny, Ranboo, you’re not - not very light ,” Philza wheezed out, adjusting his grip under Ranboo’s shoulders.

Ranboo gasped in a breath, and he pulled his feet up a little higher for fear of the lava nipping at his toes. “Uh, s-sorry about that?”

“What’s goin’ on, what happened?” Techno demanded. 

“Ranboo took a nosedive off th-the edge of the delta,” managed Philza, pumping his wings over and over in a desperate attempt to give them some more altitude. It worked, if only a little. Ranboo felt some tension leave him as an additional seven meters was put between him and a fiery fate. “Caught ‘im before he c-could hit the lava. I’m lookin’ for somewhere t-to land right now.”

“Thanks, Philza,” Ranboo offered, for all the help that did for the man currently struggling to keep him from plummeting to his death and losing virtually all of his gear. 

“Are you guys good?” Techno asked. 

“Will be soon,” said Philza. “Ranboo, I need you to - to tuck your legs in, you’re making too much drag.”

Ah, there was something he could do! He hurried to oblige, bringing his knees up closer to his middle. He felt Philza adjust to the shift in weight, fixing his grip on Ranboo once more and straining for upward movement. Ranboo, meanwhile, decided it would be best for him to ignore the lava bubbling not too far below him and instead set his eyes to the Nether shores. “Oh, Philza, off to the left, there’s a soul sand valley. Would that work for a landing?”

“It’d be softer,” Philza agreed shortly, not able to say much more. Ranboo felt a slight drop in his stomach as the man tilted his wings and sent them on a gradual banking turn to the left, hot winds tugging his bangs over his eyes. He shook his head to get the hair out of his face as Philza continued their upward-forward angle, and his eye caught something off to their side.  “Philza?”

“‘Eah, mate?”

Ranboo felt dread curling in his gut as the creature turned towards them, sorrowful eyes trained on their figure. “Th-there’s a ghast.”

“Where?” Philza asked, voice sharp from strain or concern or both. Probably both. Definitely both. 

“Uh, to our right - ” A screech cut him off, and his heart skipped a beat - “to our right, TO OUR RIGHT , PHILZA.”

“I see it!” Ranboo sucked in a sharp gasp as they suddenly dropped about ten meters, a ball of smoldering magma hurtling over their heads. “Holy fucking shit, Gods above - ” Another ball of magma came, this one cutting awfully close to Philza’s back - “are you fucking kidding me ?!”

“There’s a ghast?!” came Techno’s cry on the other end of the line, his usually low baritone creeping up in his anxiety. “What?!”

Ranboo clicked his jaw, popping it open and closed in an attempt to alleviate some of the stress as he saw the ghast drawing nearer. “Philza, don’t get me wrong, I am very thankful for you grabbing me, but I - I think you’re gonna have to drop me.”

“No,” Philza insisted, giving his wings another determined thrust. “We’re almost to the shore, I’m not dropping you.”

Another screech, and Ranboo felt the heat of the rocketing magma as it whooshed past. “It’s fine, I don’t care about my gear, I can get new stuff, but I don’t wanna take both of us down.”

“Phil, listen to Ranboo,” Techno advised. His voice was level but his words were rushed. “I know the situation’s less than ideal either way, but you gotta know your priorities - ”

“Almost there,” Philza repeated, jaw tight around the phrase. 

“Phil - ”

“Almost - ”

“Phil - !”

“PHILZA - !”

Ranboo and Techno’s shouts overlapped as the ghast released a cry and shot out one last fireball - and this time, its aim held true. Just about twenty meters from the soul sand valley shore, a blazing ball of magma collided with Philza’s back and sent them plummeting. Ranboo’s heart jumped into his throat when he felt the man’s grip on him slacken, but to his surprise, he didn’t completely lose hold. In fact, Ranboo could still hear wingbeats above him, sloppy and short but there nonetheless. Though, a groan rumbled deep in Philza’s chest from the strain.

Their landing wasn’t exactly as smooth as Ranboo had initially hoped it would be, but he was immensely grateful that they managed to reach land, even if it was by a worryingly close margin. He was dumped onto the gritty shores, rolling and ending up on his front, earning himself a faceful of acrid sand. A second after, Philza crashed into the dunes a few feet away. 

Ranboo pushed himself off his chest, groaning at the soreness in his bones. Oooh, that’s definitely gonna bruise… Blinking away his dizziness, he lifted his head to see that the ghast that had been chasing them had turned around, drifting away; it must have assumed them dead. 

Then, he looked over to take in the sight of Philza laying partially on his side but mostly on his chest, unmoving. The back of his armor was blasted open in some parts, and little blue and orange flames danced at the base of his wings, eating up the feathers.

“Oh no...” Ranboo popped open his inventory, scanning the slots with shaking hands. “Oh no, oh no, oh no, this isn’t good, this isn’t good…”

“Ranboo, what’s going on?” said Techno. “Phil? Phil, are you okay? Answer me!”

Nothing but a throaty groan came from Philza.

Ranboo’s fingers closed around the neck of a small fire resistance potion and he yanked it out of his inventory. “We crashed, Philza’s back is on fire,” he filled in. “I-I’ve got some fire res, don’t worry.” Rambo shuffled forward, popped the cork open, and - after mentally grilling himself on if there were any repercussions of using regular potions on skin instead of splash potions, debating if those repercussions could potentially be worse than just leaving him to burn, and deciding that he didn’t have the time to care -  dumped the contents onto Philza’s back. Immediately, the flames fizzled out with a sputtering hiss. It revealed fire-warped skin that puckered a painful pink-yellow, and the faintest scent of singed feathers tickled Ranboo’s nose. He grimaced at both the sight and the smell.  “O-Okay,” he exhaled, clicking his jaw a few times. “Fire’s out.”

“How’s Phil?” demanded Techno.

“Mff…” Philza stirred. Ranboo saw him shove his hands under himself and try to push off the ground, but his elbows buckled and he crumpled again. “Oh, fuck me ,” he mumbled, eyes pinched shut. “Right between the wings, did it have to be right between the wings…”

“Phil?”

“I’m all good, Techno,” Philza grit out as he made a second attempt at sitting up. Ranboo jumped in to help, gripping an unburned part of his shoulder and his upper arm to provide some support. The man briefly nodded his thanks. “Just...a little burnt.”

“Where are you guys?”

“Uhh…” Ranboo glanced around, looking for a landmark. “At the minor soul sand valley not far from the main Nether highways. It’s across the way from the basalt delta we were mining at.” Thankfully, there were no skeletons within sight. Being right by the lava lake probably played a part in that. Skeletons - with their flammable nature - liked to stay deeper inland than most Nether mobs would care to, and wither skeletons tended to remain with their lighter counterparts.

“Yeah, I know that one,” answered Techno. “I just finished the portal a second ago, so I’m coming through to meet up with you guys. Phil, you got pots?”

There was static over the line as Techno presumably entered the Nether portal. Meanwhile, Philza dove into his inventory and rifled around, eventually producing a potion of regeneration. He popped off the cork and drank the substance in one go, wincing at the foul taste. He deposited the bottle back into his inventory with a wave of his hand. “Yeah, just took a regen pot.” 

He looked over to Ranboo, who was still supporting him by holding his upper arm. Again, Ranboo could feel the man’s eyes darting over him, so he tilted his chin up instinctually, blinking. “How about you, Ranboo? Are you okay?”

“Oh, uh, I’m fine,” Ranboo stammered. Philza’s eyes left him, and some of the tension drained from his jaw. He let his head drop down again. “Got a bunch of soul sand in my face but I’m all good.”

“Ya didn’t eat any, did you?” asked Techno. His voice was a little clearer now that the connection was no longer trying to establish itself across dimensional planes. “The stuff’s toxic unless you clean it out.”

“N-no, I didn’t. At least, I don’t think so.” He truly didn’t think so, given the lack of acidic aftertaste in his mouth. He’d never accidentally eaten soul sand before, but Tubbo told him about how he accidentally inhaled too many of the particles while getting the materials for the tunnel to Snowchester; he threw up later that night and got something like the flu the next morning. Needless to say, it didn’t sound like a pleasant experience. 

He craned his neck to look at Philza’s back, and he grimaced as he realized that the burn was dusted in a layer of dark sand, sticking to the raw, bleeding flesh upon his back. “Yikes. You’re, uh, you’re gonna want to clean that up.”

Philza groaned, realizing what Ranboo meant. “Ohhh, soul sand poisoning. Fuck.” He opened up his inventory again and produced an ender chest. It gave a wordless whisper as he opened it up, a small gust of black smoke coming to greet him before revealing his things. He quickly pulled out another little box that, upon closer inspection, appeared to be a first aid kit of some sort. From there, he grabbed a clean rag. 

This rag was handed to Ranboo. “Mate, I need you to do me a favor and carefully wipe away as much of the soul sand as possible. Can you do that for me?”

“Um, yeah, sure.”  Ranboo reached for the rag, hesitated, and quickly took off his filthy netherite gauntlets. Then, he gingerly accepted the rag from Philza and shifted himself over to sit more behind him. 

Ranboo didn’t miss the taut line of Philza’s shoulders as he gently ran the rag over the burns between the base of his wings, though he suspected that it must have been from the pain of the injury. Techno chatted in Ranboo’s ear the entire time about how to properly dust off the residue without aggravating the burns. Philza, meanwhile, was quiet. Eerily quiet, more like. Ranboo wondered if he was biting back noise in order to keep from startling him. 

As he worked, he noticed that the flesh, thanks to the regeneration potion, was as slowly stitching itself back together, and the deformed skin began to smooth out, a healthy color returning. The burns were too severe to be completely taken care of by a regeneration potion. (Nether fire always ran a bit hotter than fire made in the Overworld.) Ranboo suspected that Philza would need to wrap bandages around the wounds, especially now that there were some darker splotches forming on the healing skin. It was most likely from the soul sand. So much for avoiding poisoning. 

Among all of this, Ranboo also took note of some faint lines traced into the skin that didn’t appear to be part of the injuries Philza sustained that day. It took him only a few seconds to realize that they were faded scars. They were almost perfectly symmetrical, forming an outline around the base of his wings. There were also puncture scars. A lot of puncture scars. Geez, how many times had people tried to stab him? Perhaps they were from arrows.

Suddenly, Philza released a shaky breath. “Ranboo.”

“Huh?” Ranboo answered dumbly, blinking and perking his head up.

“...Are you done?”

Ranboo looked at the rag he was gently pressing to Philza’s back and realized that he’d stopped moving it. “Oh. Uh, yeah, I guess so. There’s not really much else I can clean up. The rest is gonna need, like, actual water and sanitizer and all that.” He winced. “Hate to break it to you, but there’s some dark spots on your back. Think you got soul sand poisoning.”

“Oh boy,” Techno monotoned at the same time Philza dropped his head, muttering another curse.

“U-Uh, there’s a chance it might be burn scars?” Ranboo offered, as if that were any better.

“Regen doesn’t leave scars,” replied Philza, defeated. “Nice try, though.”

“Think I see you guys.” Sure enough, Ranboo spotted a pinkish figure clad in netherite at the top of the slope in the soul sand valley, and he waved him down. After swiftly dispatching a wither skeleton that wandered a little too close, Techno slid down the slopes and jogged over to them. He knelt down in the sand in front of Philza, putting a careful hand on the front of Philza’s shoulder and ducking his head to better find Philza’s gaze. The warrior’s brows were pinched together tightly, drawing worry lines into his usually smooth features. There was a level of concern in his crimson eyes that Ranboo had never seen before. Suddenly feeling out of place, Ranboo pulled away and balled up the dirtied rag in his clawed hands. 

“Phil.” Techno’s voice was even, calm despite his features saying otherwise. 

Philza lifted his head and met Techno’s eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure.” The phrase came out sounding more like a statement than a question under his level tone.

Ranboo didn’t miss the way that Philza’s eyes darted over to him, briefly catching his stare and sending a small ripple of unease through him. “I’m fine,” Philza repeated, slower this time - deliberate, Ranboo processed, though he wasn’t sure why.

Techno seemed to get it, though, for he asked no more questions and stood. He muttered a terse, “‘Scuse me,” as he shuffled over to where Ranboo stood and took over. He counted to three before helping Philza carefully stand, lightly supporting his wings with one hand on each as to take some of the weight off his back, then gently lowered them down so that Philza could adjust to the weight pulling at his burned back muscles. Then, he gladly offered an arm for Philza to hold onto to keep himself level as he awkwardly balanced the weight of his wings with tense, shifted shoulders and a slight forward hunch.

Once he was certain that Philza was steady on his feet, Techno turned his head to look at Ranboo through the corner of his eye, and once more, Ranboo was forced to tilt his face elsewhere. The piglin hybrid’s gaze had always been particularly acute, almost a prickle upon Ranboo’s skin everytime Techno looked his way. This time, however, it was more akin to a sharp prod. “Ranboo, I’ve got Phil right now, so I’m gonna need ya to walk in front and take care of any skeletons that try to mess with us on our way to the portal. Ya got that?”

Ranboo bobbed his head. “Yeah, of course, I’d be happy to.” He’d do anything to help Philza at this point, and he really, really wanted Techno to stop staring at him. His prayers were answered when the piglin hybrid gave a huff through his snout and turned back around, ducking his head a bit to whisper something to Philza that Ranboo didn’t quite catch. Whatever it was, Philza responded to it with a meaningless tilt of his head. 

Ranboo pulled on his gauntlets and shifted some stuff around in his inventory, eventually grabbing his sword and strapping his shield to his opposite arm. Forcing some confidence into his stride, he took up his position at the front. They started up the slope through the soul sand valley.

It was quiet for the duration of their trek up to the Nether portal. Ranboo didn’t understand why it was so unsettling until he realized that it was the lack of banter between Philza and Techno. Whenever Ranboo saw them together, they were locked in a near-constant back and forth, bouncing jokes and ideas and theories off of each other in a steady switch-off between Techno’s monotonous drawl and Philza’s easy chuckles. Now, there was silence, stifling as if there was a hole in the very atmosphere itself depriving them of the air needed for conversation.

Ranboo worried that he might’ve made them mad somehow, especially Techno. While Ranboo had learned that Techno’s intense gaze and often impassive expression was just his typical state, there was a deeper intensity to his stare this time around, an edge to his voice that Ranboo felt was awfully close to when he’d first met the warrior. Did Techno blame him for Philza getting hurt? With the perpetual prickle of Techno’s glare trained on his back as they made their way to the portal, Ranboo was really starting to wish that Philza had just let him plunge into the lava lake. If this was how Techno responded to these circumstances, Ranboo loathed to think what Techno would be like if both of them had ended up in the lava, gear lost and stuck in respawn for the next several hours. Ranboo had been a direct target of the Blood God’s wrath a couple of times before while he was stuck under the Butcher Army. He didn’t wish to repeat the experience.

And then there was Philza, sporting severe burns upon his back just so that Ranboo might hold onto his gear. Ranboo would have to thank the man a million times over before he felt he had expressed his gratitude to an appropriate degree. Maybe he could do something to help the healing process in order to offer his thanks. He had a pretty good stash of burn ointments back home that he used to treat the frequent water burns he got, and he was pretty sure they worked on fire burns as well. Yeah, he’d give Philza some of his burn ointment. It wouldn’t be enough to make up for everything on its own, but it was a start.

They got to the top of the slope, and Ranboo was met with the sight of about a dozen skeletons, both generic and wither. Tightening his grip on his sword, he began to clear a safe path for his injured friend. 

Time to earn his keep.

Logically, Philza knew he was being ridiculous. He had sat through all of the careful cleaning of his back, both from Ranboo and from Techno, with little to no problem; he had breezed through the application of the potions Techno brewed and the ointment Ranboo provided without a hitch; but here he sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the roll of unused bandages in Techno’s hands with his heart pounding a war drum in his chest and his body itching for him to go go go fly away despite the fact that his wings were very much not capable of moving, let alone carrying him through flight.

He’d put this off for long enough, honestly. He was nauseated from the soul sand poisoning, already having vomited earlier. What he really needed to do was lay down, pass the fuck out, and let the infection run its course, but he couldn’t do that until Techno wound the bandages around the wounds on his wings. 

He knew the wounds had to be wrapped up, so there was no point in asking if there was a possibility of skipping the bandages. To try and squirm his way out of this would be petulant of him - more petulant than he was already being, anyway.

For once, Philza was glad for Ranboo’s sheepish nature. He’d scurried off after handing over the ointment, saying something about organizing his inventory and getting out of their hair. At least now Philza wouldn’t have to worry about any questions from the kid about why in the world he (a supposed ‘warrior of legend’) was staring at the innocuous bundle of bandages like it was a rabid silverfish ready to bite his hand off.

Techno rolled the bandages from the palm of one hand to the other; Philza couldn’t help but track the movement, almost entirely unwilling to tear his eyes from it. 

He heard his friend give a sigh. “Phil, you know they’re gonna come off tomorrow when I gotta change ‘em out, right?” He didn’t sound annoyed. Far from it, in fact. There was nothing but patience in his words, a bone-deep understanding. His voice ached with it. 

Philza drew in a breath. It filled his lungs and eased a burning in his chest he hadn’t realized was there. He let his eyes droop closed; he willed away the phantom weight upon his back, ignored the way that the darkness behind his eyelids reminded him of walls and not sleep. For a second, he swore he heard the winding of gears behind his head, click-click-clicking with every shift in his back and shoulders, pulling, tightening, folding - 

“Yeah,” he exhaled, forcing his eyes open. The sterile white bandages were there to greet him, held in familiar, calloused hands. 

“Okay. Ya ready?”

Philza, tilting his head up to look at Techno, gave a grimace and pretended it was a grin. “Sure, mate.”

Techno nodded, stood, and moved to sit behind Philza. “Alright, same thing as usual. Tell me if you need me to stop.”

“Mmhm.” Philza felt a couple fingers tapped against the base of his neck, where the worst of the burns met mostly-healed flesh. Philza nodded approvingly, and the fingers disappeared. They were replaced by the end of a smooth, elastic bandage. The fabric was brought down across the middle of the burns, wrapped around to the front of his torso, then brought back down again. Philza reminded himself of how different it felt to what he could recall in his spotty memory, a gentle pressure rather than an oppressive grasp. 

“Want me to talk?” Techno asked after the bandage roll came around for the third time. They both knew what came next, so there was a reason why Techno, someone who favored companionable silence more often than not, made the offer.

“Yeah, sure.”

“What about?”

“Uh, tell me what Chat’s up to.”

He heard Techno scoff. “Well, they were bein’ awfully quiet until you went and acknowledged them.” 

A line of fabric stretched over the top of his right wing’s base; he swallowed around a wave of nausea that he was certain did not stem from the soul sand poisoning. 

“Now they’ve started to act up again. Most of them are shouting encouragement like you can hear it, which he can’t, Chat, no matter how loud you scream, so stop tryin’.”  

The fabric came around the side, hooked under the bottom; he sucked in a silent breath. 

“I guess it’s the thought that counts. To be fair, a lot of ‘em are tryin’ to be nice and quiet for me, considerin’ what I’m doin’.”

It went up the other side; he forced the air out of his lungs, blinked rapidly.

“Other than that, just the usual nonsense, mostly ‘E’. Chat’s not bein’ very creative with their chaos today...”

Philza focused on Techno’s voice as he continued to rattle on about this and that, little inconsequential things that were spoken for no reason other than to fill up the silence before anything else could creep in. Philza was guided along by the familiar rise and fall of his friend’s timbre, and he let it carry him away from the darker corners of his mind. 

Just like every morning for the past week, the first thing Ranboo felt when he woke up and was greeted by the sight of his bedroom ceiling was relief. A wave of it would wash over him as he felt the warmth of the mattress beneath him, signifying that he hadn’t left his bed in a good while. He then checked his inventory and let out a quiet breath when he saw that it was empty as it had been the previous night, no random materials or tools or items. Finally, he sat up and gave himself a once over, looking for any scrapes, bruises, or burns he couldn’t remember getting. There were none.

So, just like every morning for the past week, Ranboo hopped out of bed and hummed a pleasant tune to himself as he puttered around his house. He pulled on some proper day clothes, washed up, brushed out his bedhead, adorned his golden circlet, and pulled something out of his cellar to have for breakfast. Once he was done eating, he did a quick maintenance check on his farms and fed his pets. Pulling on a pair of boots and throwing his thick, waterproof cloak over his shoulders, Ranboo strode out into the frigid morning to feed the cows. 

Today would be a good day. He would finish up his chores, and then he would make his way down to Snowchester. He’d promised Tubbo he would help out with some of the finishing touches on the ‘hyperspeed tunnel’ between the portside community and the Dream SMP mainland. In return, Tubbo had promised a house for Ranboo to claim as his own in Snowchester for whenever he wanted to come around for a visit, though Ranboo wasn’t really looking for any sort of payment. He liked building, and he liked to spend time with Tubbo. That was ‘payment’ enough.

Ranboo noticed that he wasn’t the only one up so early this morning. Techno was splitting some logs with his netherite axe in the yard between their houses, adding to the dwindling pile of prepared firewood stacked against the back wall of the cabin. The warrior didn’t acknowledge Ranboo, seemingly absorbed in his task. 

He also noticed that there was a lack of activity on the roof of the bee farm this morning, where Philza would usually spend some time checking on the honey supplies and making sure none of the redstone had broken down. He had a pretty good guess as to why Philza was absent, of course, but he wanted to hear about the man’s condition for himself. He hoped it wasn’t too awful. 

So, Ranboo waved. “Good morning, Techno!”

The warrior split one last log with a harsh downward arch of his axe, then paused in his motion and looked up at him. Ranboo registered a tension behind those crimson eyes, though by the way Techno laxly held his axe in his hand rather than white-knuckled his fist around it like he tended to do when he was genuinely peeved, Ranboo figured that any outright hostility in his stare wasn’t intentional. Probably. Maybe. 

“Morning, Ranboo.” His drawl was as enigmatic as ever. 

Ranboo let himself click his jaw just once. “How’re you doing? How’s Philza?”

“I’m doing well,” answered Techno, shifting his grip on his axe as he picked up another spruce log. He balanced it on its side and made little adjustments to make sure it wouldn’t tip over. “Phil’s still asleep.” Techno lifted his axe and brought it down upon the log, splitting it in two with virtually no resistance. The axe blade thumped sharply against the chopping block; Ranboo was suddenly compelled to take a half step back. “He’s running a fever.” 

Ranboo grimaced. “I-I thought that might happen, but I was really hoping it wouldn’t. Is it, like, bad , or…?”

“Not for the moment. Soul sand poisoning is pretty rough sometimes, so I think it’ll get worse before it gets better.”

“Yeah, Tubbo told me about it earlier,” Ranboo continued. He saw Techno’s eyes dart over to him at the mention of the former president’s name but didn’t give any comment. Ranboo took that as a sign it was safe to continue. “He got it about a week ago while gathering some soul sand for a project of his. I’m, uh, actually going to visit him today to help him with something. I could ask him if he knows any remedies, maybe?”

Ranboo wasn’t entirely sure what terms Techno, Philza, and Tubbo were on at the moment. From what he had gathered, the two warriors currently had nothing against Tubbo as he was no longer a leader of a nation. Now, if Snowchester was an up and coming faction or simply a place of residence was a topic up for debate, but from the lack of plans to destroy Snowchester, Ranboo figured that the little town and its primary resident were safe for now. 

Techno picked up another log, placed it carefully. “That would be nice.”

“Oh, uh, okay! I’ll be sure to ask, then.” When Techno gave no reply, simply bringing his axe down upon the log and slicing it cleanly in two, Ranboo took that as his cue to leave. “Er, bye, Techno!”

“Bye.”

Ranboo turned on his heel and hurried over to the wheat shed. He knew that Techno wasn’t always the most social of people, but even this was a little terse for him. Their conversation held a similar sort of strain that had been present when Ranboo first arrived in the Arctic with Philza, all narrow red eyes and clipped words.

He really hoped Techno wasn’t cross with him.

It was familiar like the sting of broken blisters upon weathered hands was familiar. It was home like a look-out perch deep in enemy territory was home. He belonged here, locked in battle with gore on his greaves and death on his blade, like he belonged in open flame, turning and twisting and skirting around the inferno that desired nothing more than to eat him alive.

Philza ground his jaw as he brought his gleaming blade to meet the steel of another’s and swung his wing around to crash into his adversary’s side, knocking them off balance. He wasted no time thrusting forward with his sword, sending the diamond edge through their battered chestplate. When he yanked his weapon out, it came back painted with another victim’s life as the body itself crumpled, deprived of what he had so ruthlessly taken. 

He lacked the time required to give a shit. Another two warriors came to replace the one he’d felled, and he backpedaled, kicking up battle-stained sand as he tried to put some distance between himself and the arrivals to come up with a plan of attack. 

He bumped into someone else who appeared to have similar thoughts. The presence behind him was just as familiar as the chaos, but more like the sound of an old friend’s footfalls coming up the stairs was familiar. Thus, falling into a back-to-back stance with him was easy as breathing.

“We’re outnumbered,” said his friend. The words came out like the battle was already over despite the fact that it was still raging all around them. It was a harsh, objective look upon their reality, but it was their reality nonetheless. Philza knew this. The Antarctic Empire might’ve been the largest remaining faction, but they were no match for the combined forces of all of the other factions of the region. “We need to cut our losses and get outta here, regroup with the others back home.”

They separated to briefly dive back into combat, Philza rushing a member of another faction as they attempted to get the jump on one of his own allies who had her back turned. The approacher was dead before they could even raise their axe above their head. Philza buffeted a few others with his wings, spun around to cut a slash through someone’s throat and kick them down, then darted back to the middle to stop a back-seeking blade from reaching his friend. In return, his friend used his shield to deflect an incoming volley of arrows.

“We’ll need an escape route,” Philza noted. His eyes scoured the advancing line of enemies, and he scowled. “I don’t see any from here.”

“Me neither. Need a better vantage point.”

“Got it. Cover me?”

“‘Course.”

With no need for further prompting, Philza gave a powerful thrust of his wings and pushed off with his feet, rocketing into the air. He trusted his friend to take out his bow and shoot down anyone who dared try to fire at him as he climbed up towards the clouds, though he was careful to vary his flight pattern to make himself a harder target to hit. A few stray arrows whistled by, but he paid them no heed.

Once he was at what he deemed an appropriate altitude, he stopped his accent and tapped into his comms. “Okay Techno, I’m in position.” He scanned the battle field below, searching through everyone that wasn’t wearing the Antarctic blues. “Most of their manpower seems to be stationed to your rear, in the direction of the forest.”

“No losing them in the woods?”

“There’s too many of them, we’d never make it through from where we are right now.” Philza made a sharp left dive, narrowly avoiding a round of arrows. “We’ll need to head down the shore first in either direction before turning into the forest. I think heading north is our best bet right now. I see a break in their ranks just past Pete’s position. If you gather the others and make a rush for it, there won’t be enough people there to immediately stop you, and you’ll be able to make it through. I can cause a distraction over by - ”

He never got the chance to finish. A terrible net of metal and barbs tangled into his wings, hooking into the muscles, and he fell, fell like a stone, dragged to the unforgiving earth, gravity’s grisly promise, down down down, spinning, screaming, crashing, burning, no, Gods, not like this, please, please - 

“ - please!”

It came out of him in a gasp, breathless and strained, as he slammed his palms onto the mattress and surged upward. Fire shot down his back at the movement, and he swallowed around a shout. Head spinning and stomach rolling, he settled himself down again, wheezing for air. 

There was pressure around the base of his wings, he registered, but when he reached over his shoulders to grab at the net or the Clamps or whatever the hell it was, white hot pain be damned, he found there was nothing but soft fabric. 

...Bandages. Right. Techno wound bandages around the base of his wings last night. He’d burned his back saving Ranboo from falling into lava. He was nauseous from the soul sand poisoning, not from the ruthless hold of the metal rigs.

Philza closed his eyes, curled his fingers into the pillow beneath his head, and forced himself to breathe.

The clack of cloven hooves approached the door at a brisk pace. A second later, they stopped, and Philza heard door hinges give a soft squeal. “Phil?”

He exhaled and cracked his eyes open, squinting at the figure in the doorway. “Hey,” he rasped in reply.

Techno gave a huff through his snout, and he fully entered the room, pushing the door closed behind him but leaving it just slightly ajar. “Thought I heard a shout. Nightmare?” 

Philza grunted in the affirmative, eyes drifting shut once again. His head was starting to pound something terrible, now that he was conscious.

“Which one?”

“The…” He sighed long and hard, dragging his shaky hands down his face. “The battle on the southern shore, after the peace conference.”

Techno snorted, the sound leaning more towards bitter than amused. “Some ‘peace conference’ that was.”

“Yeah, pretty fuckin’ awful, mate,” Philza mumbled in agreement.

“I’ve got a feelin’ that they kinda skimmed over the whole ‘peace’ part of ‘peace conference’ that day.”

Philza gave a mirthless chuckle. “Bastards.”

“Oh, totally,” said Techno, his answering grin nothing but a flash of sharp teeth and tusks. The dusting of humor faded a moment later, and he turned serious again. Pulling up the chair from the desk in the corner, Techno sat down at Philza’s bedside. “So you’re all good?”

“Yeah,” Philza exhaled. He moved to sit up, and Techno helped him along, gripping his upper arm and shoulder. It was painful, but it needed to be done.

“Know where you are and all that?”

“My room in our cabin in the Arctic off the mainland of the Dream SMP,” Philza answered, glad that the response easily flowed off his tongue. He stifled a yawn behind his fist. “What time is it?”

“Mm, ‘bout noon.”

Philza’s eyes darted to the window. “Open the blinds?”

“Yeah, one sec.” Techno stood and lumbered over to the windows, pulling the curtains aside to reveal the usual view of the shared yard between their house and Ranboo’s. He half expected to see the kid trotting around, tending to his above ground farms or doing renovations on his slowly growing house. The yard was empty, however, save for a little white fox bounding through the snowdrifts banked against the hill. The sky overhead was a cloudless, crisp blue. 

Philza felt his wings twitch, and he winced at the movement. Part of him that really, really hated being ground bound wanted him to run outside and go for a flight. The other part of him that wasn’t a fucking moron knew that he wouldn’t get an inch off the ground and he’d definitely injure himself worse if he tried. 

Techno sat down in the chair again, hanging an arm off the back with a sigh. “So how’re you feelin’?”

Philza gave him a flat look, squinting through his quickly mounting headache. “Feeling shit.” 

“Figured.” He jerked his chin indicatively. “We should take off those bandages ‘n see how the healin’s comin’ along.” Philza couldn’t deny the little spark of joy at the very thought. Techno must’ve noticed this, as he narrowed his ruby eyes a bit. “You know that we’re prolly gonna have to put some fresh ones on soon after, right?”

“A break is a break,” Philza replied. 

Techno nodded. “A break is a break,” he echoed. Philza shifted around so his back was to Techno, and he let his friend cut through the bandages wrapped around his back, shoulders, and wing bases. With every loop that was peeled away, Philza felt a little lighter, a little freer. Breathing was suddenly much easier, and it wasn’t just because he no longer had something bound over his chest. 

Techno made his observations of the injury upon his back, happy to report that the worst of the burns themselves seemed to have healed and the dark splotches from the soul sand poisoning had lessened from what he could recall of the previous night. They discussed his symptoms and his fever and estimated how much longer he would be ill for. While Philza couldn’t even stomach the very thought of food at the moment, he was glad to accept the water Techno brought him, and his friend left a pitcher on his bedside for him to grab whenever he wanted. 

It didn’t take long for Philza to grow weary again, ready to lay down and sleep off the rest of the infection. But of course, before he could do that, there was one last matter they had to attend to.

It was the same song and dance the night before, Philza staring down at the bandages held in Techno’s hands and Techno patiently waiting for him to psyche himself up. A few long minutes later, he turned around, and Techno began to wind the fabric around his wings. 

Techno offered to talk. Philza asked him what Ranboo had been up to that day. Techno replied by explaining their encounter earlier that morning and revealed that the kid had gone down to Tubbo’s latest residence ( “It’s like, uh, Icey….Snow - Snowy…?” “Snowchester?” “Yeah, that’s it, Snowchester.” ) to help the boy with a project. Techno didn’t know if he would be back, or if he had plans for the rest of the day.

Philza listened to Techno ramble on, eyes trained on the bright blue expanse visible from the window. When the bandages were all done, he slipped back under the covers. Techno settled into the chair at his bedside with a random book he’d grabbed from the shelves upstairs, and Philza drifted off to the comforting presence of his friend and the occasional crinkle of parchment.

“WHEEEEE!!”

Tubbo came - quite literally - screaming through the Snowchester exit of the hyperspeed tunnel and barreled into a mound of snow that had been shoveled up for this very reason. Ranboo doubled over laughing at the sight of Tubbo with his upper half buried in the snow and his lower half sticking out, legs flailing for purchase. Deciding to be nice, he only laughed at his friend for a few more seconds before hurrying over and yanking him out of the pile. 

Tubbo tumbled out, staring up at Ranboo through the glass of his borrowed helm’s visor and grinning wider than the sky. “It works!” he declared.

Ranboo gave a nervous laugh, glancing at the exit a whole twenty meters away. “I-I think it works a little too well.”

“It works exactly how it’s intended.” 

“So it’s supposed to launch you out the other end at a million miles per hour?”

“Well, okay, perhaps not exactly , but I’d say that’s a pretty fun unintentional side effect. Who knew that mixing depth strider, soul speed, and dolphin’s grace could be that fast?” He pulled off the netherite helmet and held it out to Ranboo. “I guess we can safely say that your waterproof stuff can take the pressure, too. Not a crack in sight. Why don’t you give the tunnel a go?”  

“Oh, this can only end badly,” Ranboo sighed, but he accepted the returned helm (and greaves) from Tubbo anyway. Reminding himself that this armor had gotten him through a chaotic ocean monument raid with only minimal burns, he double checked that everything was sealed up tightly and all of the buckles were fastened, then came to stand at the entrance to the tunnel. With an encouraging thumbs up from his friend, Ranboo drew in a breath and stepped into the front chamber. The respiration kicked in at the same time the enchantments for soul speed and depth strider activated with a pulsing glow of runes on his greaves. He was careful to keep his legs still as he angled his body forward so he wouldn't go rocketing into the roof of the tunnel. 

Ranboo pushed a palm against the glass. Tubbo’s pet dolphin ‘Docky’ pressed his snout to where his hand was positioned and chirped happily. A spur of energy coursed through his veins, and before he could talk himself out of it, Ranboo gave his legs a few powerful kicks. 

And he flew .

Needless to say, the two of them spent the next hour rocketing back and forth through the new tunnel between Snowchester and the Dream SMP, trading off Ranboo’s netherite helmet and greaves each time. Ranboo expected the novelty to wear off after the first ten minutes, but nope, the thrill of shooting through the watery highway at breakneck speeds never got old. The only reason they had to stop was because Ranboo’s boots were starting to show wear and tear from overuse, and they were both utterly exhausted. With the sun starting to set and a deeper chill settling over the little portside town, they decided it was best to go relax in Tubbo’s house for a bit. They shucked off their soaked armor and stepped out of their boots. A fire was started in the hearth, and soon the little house was enveloped with warmth.  

“Are you going to be staying here for tonight, or will you be heading back home?” Tubbo asked him as he trotted around his kitchen, busying himself with making hot cocoa. Ranboo, meanwhile, wandered around Tubbo’s connected living room and rearranged the cushions on the sofas for the fun of it.

Ranboo mulled over his options and ultimately decided, “I think I’ll have to head home.” He picked up a pillow in both his hands, spun in a slow circle, then found its home on a nearby footstool. “I need to take care of my pets and the other animals.”

“Is there a chance that you could ask Philza or Techno to do it for you?” 

Ranboo tilted his head to the side in a halfway shrug. “I could, but I don’t wanna be a bother.” He remembered something then. “Philza’s sick at the moment, actually.”

Tubbo turned around from the stove, where he was heating up milk in a saucepan. His eyes were curious, clearly a little surprised, but Ranboo was glad for the lack of intensity behind his stare, gaze directed more towards the couch than him. “Really?”

“Yeah. Soul sand poisoning.”

Tubbo wrinkled his nose. “Oh, yikes. That’s gotta suck.” Despite the past bad blood between him and the two warriors, there was genuine sympathy Tubbo’s voice. He always seemed to care, kindness virtually unending. Ranboo hoped to have his level of maturity one day. “How’s he doing?”

“Techno said he was okay, but he’s running a fever. Didn’t say much else beyond that. I was actually wondering if you knew any remedies or tricks for getting rid of soul sand poisoning since you told me you had it last week. I’m hoping to pass them over to Techno to help Philza.”

Tubbo hummed pensively, leaning back on the counter with his hands braced on the ledge on either side of him. “Well, nobody's figured out how to cure soul sand poisoning. You just kinda have to let the illness run its course. Usually takes a day or two. But, something I did figure out while I was ill was how to make a broth that was light enough to eat without being sick while having enough stuff in it to actually be worth eating. Want me to tell you the recipe?”

Ranboo grinned. “Ooo, yeah, that’d be great! Lemme just…” He popped open his inventory and fished out his memory notebook, flipping to a blank page that he could tear out later. Producing a quill and inkwell too, he sat down at the table and started to copy the ingredients and instructions as Tubbo relayed them. He tried his best to make his handwriting at least somewhat legible. 

By the time he’d gotten everything written down and made certain that he hadn’t missed anything, the hot cocoa was ready. He deposited his things into his inventory once more and accepted the offered mug with thanks. Tubbo sat down at the table across from him, and they drank their beverages. Seeing as the drink was based with milk, it only nipped at Ranboo’s lips when he sipped it from his mug. 

“So how’d Philza get soul sand poisoning?” Tubbo questioned a minute into the companionable silence. “Do you know?”

“I do,” answered Ranboo. “I was there for it, actually. It was...kinda my fault? Depends on how you look at it.”

“Oh, really? What happened?”

And so Ranboo recounted the previous evening’s events to Tubbo, who listened and nodded along with the story, fully captivated by the tale. 

“So now he’s sick?” Tubbo concluded.

“So now he’s sick,” Ranboo confirmed. 

Tubbo hummed again, hands wrapped around his warm mug. “Gonna be honest, Ranboo, that all sounds like it was one big fucking mess.”

“It kinda was, yeah,” Ranboo chuckled, nodding. “It was a stroke of bad luck that that ghast showed up. I think Philza would’ve been fine if it hadn’t.”

“Yeah, that kinda sounds like where things started to go down hill.”

“Like they hadn’t already.” Tubbo laughed, and Ranboo continued, “At that point, I was just telling Philza to drop me in the lava. I didn’t wanna take both of us down and have both of us lose our stuff.”

Tubbo winced at the thought. “Ha ha, right - but he really didn’t let you go…” That last part came out as a mutter, more to himself than anything. “Funny. If I were in his position, I definitely would’ve…”

Ranboo snorted. “Thanks.”

“No, really, just - why didn’t he drop you ? Why would he risk…?” The thought trailed again as Tubbo stared into his mug of hot cocoa like it held all the answers.

Ranboo knew that Tubbo was the curious type, liked to figure out little puzzles, see if problems had solutions, and test hypotheses through experimentation (especially that last one, seeing how Ranboo himself had been subject to such tests). Ranboo, however, wasn’t exactly sure what was so captivating about the conundrum. “Why is this confusing to you?”

Tubbo took a long sip from his mug. There was a hardness in his eyes as he (thankfully) glared down at the table, debating with himself over matters that Ranboo was clearly not privy to. 

When Tubbo set down his mug, seemingly realizing something, he rushed out, “Maybe he risked carrying you all the way to the shore despite the obvious danger because dropping you could’ve taken a weighted life.”

Ranboo blinked. “Uh, what ?”

“That... Yeah, actually that makes sense,” Tubbo continued, nodding to himself. “Like, think about it, Ranboo.” He set down his mug and rested his elbows on the table, chin propped up in his hands. “We know that weighted lives are lost when there’s intent to kill behind the death, right?”

Ranboo tilted his head to the side, considering it. “Aren’t there, like, a whole bunch of technicalities to the weighted life system?”

“Well, yeah, but nobody knows the nuances,” Tubbo dismissed with a hasty wave of his hand. “But what we do know is that if you, for example, stab someone, they lose a weighted life because you knew that in stabbing them, they would die.”

“Yeah.”

“So, uh, let’s see - Philza’s carrying you over the lava lake, right?”

“Right.”

“And then the ghast shows up.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And then Philza’s got two options: keep carrying you to land, or drop you and get away from the ghast. But if he drops you, you die, and he knows that you’ll die and be forced to respawn.”

Ranboo saw where this was going, puzzle pieces fitting together in his brain seamlessly. “That means that dropping me in the lava lake could count as death with intent to kill behind it - ”

“ - Thus taking a weighted life. One of your weighted lives.”

Silence rang in the air as the two of them came to the realization. Tubbo picked up his mug and took another long sip. Once more, he looked like he was debating something with himself, brow pinched in thought. It cast a slight shadow across his friend’s face. 

Ranboo clicked his jaw softly; he didn’t like the look of the shadows on him. “Uh, Tubbo?”

“I mean, it’s a stupid reason for someone to lose a weighted life, right?” Tubbo said in reply, seemingly coming in mid-thought. “That’s why he’d go through all the trouble when in the past he’s usually more - ” He cut off the thought, waving a hand once again. “And lava deaths are horrible, anyway.”

“Are they?”

Tubbo looked up at him, a brief flicker of his friend’s gaze against his own. “You’ve never had a lava death before?”

“No, not that I can remember. Have you?”

“A few times, yeah. They’re pretty terrible. You’d think it would be quick, but no, it’s always a little longer than you expect.” He chirped out the phrase despite its inherent morbidity, almost smiling a little at the thought. It could have been a grimace he wore, though. 

Tubbo took another sip of his mug, and when he set it down on the spruce wood table once again, it gave a hollow clunk - empty. “Anyway, it’s good that you didn’t lose a weighted life yesterday to something as dumb as falling off a cliff and then getting fireballed by a ghast.” 

He paused, hesitant as he ventured to ask, “You still have all three of yours, right?” Ranboo nodded, and Tubbo returned the gesture solemnly. “That’s good. You can lose ‘em pretty fast around here.”

Ranboo saw him rubbing the inside of his left forearm where - under the skin-tight sleeve that most people took to wearing - three little hearts were drawn into his skin. They, like everyone else’s, were no bigger than a thumbprint each. While some people guarded their life count with surprising ferocity, it was common knowledge in the SMP and beyond that Tubbo was hanging on his last life. He had shown Ranboo the hearts before, explained why the first blackened one had a clean slash through it while the second looked like a china plate that had been dropped, exploding outwards into a million little pieces. The stories behind the deaths were heart-wrenching (no pun intended) and explained a few of Tubbo’s quirks, like why he wasn’t a big fan of dark, narrow spaces or fireworks. 

Ranboo, meanwhile, had all three of his weighted lives, signified by the trio of cherry red hearts on the inside of his left forearm, unblemished. He wondered if - in the earlier parts of his life that were lost to the black hole in the back of his head - he had ever come close to turning one of those pristine little hearts to black. 

“Aw,” whined Tubbo, pulling Ranboo out of his thoughts. His friend was looking down at his mug with a slight pout. “Cocoa’s all gone.”

Ranboo chuckled weakly, and he pushed his mug forwards. “You can have the rest of mine.”

Tubbo’s head snapped up at the offer and he gave a loud gasp. Ranboo could practically see stars in his eyes. “Really?!”

“Yeah, go ahead. I’m all good.”

“Thank you, Ranboo!”

“You’re welcome,” Ranboo laughed as Tubbo snatched up the mug and proceeded to take a gulp large enough to almost choke, “you’re welcome.”

They chatted about lighter things for the remainder of Ranboo’s visit. Tubbo rattled off what he wanted to do next with Snowchester and Ranboo told him about what kinds of farms he was currently working on back home. They discussed the possibility of working together to help Tubbo finally get himself kitted out with some maxed-out netherite armor since his previous set had been destroyed by Dream. Ranboo knew that he would probably be busy building the new Nether portal room now that Techno had gotten the portal all set up, so they planned to meet up again in a couple days. 

Eventually, darkness settled over Snowchester, and Ranboo had to head home. “Message me if you need a hand with anything else,” Ranboo told him as he pulled on his powdery blue cloak, fastening the clasp around his neck.

“Will do,” replied Tubbo, “and - well, I’d say ‘same to you’, but I don’t think your neighbors would be very pleased to see me up at your place considering they live, like, right there .”

Ranboo chuckled. “N-No, I guess not.” He walked towards the foyer, and Tubbo bounced ahead to push the door open for him. Ranboo ducked into the chilly evening and plodded down the steps. He waved over his shoulder, grinning widely. “Bye Tubbo!”

Tubbo returned the adieu with just as much enthusiasm and then some. “See you around, Ranboo!” 

Cold, cramped, choking him, pinning him down, depriving him of air he so desperately needed. Not in his lungs, oh no; the oxygen here was stale but definitely breathable, for he felt his breath rattle through his ribs with every rise and fall of his chest. No, he needed the air elsewhere. He needed it to pull at his hair, ruffle his feathers, buffet his wings like the sails of a great ship, letting him pilot that rolling ocean in the sky. He needed it like he needed to keep breathing that tepid air, in and out, in and out - 

“ - in and out, yeah, just like that, Phil. Good. You’re good.”

He could feel the pressure upon his back, domineering, oppressive. With every twitch of his wings, every flex in his shoulders in an attempt to stretch the cramping muscles, a gear whirred behind his head, and the Clamps would pull his wings ever tighter, folding them closer than they should go. He swore he heard bone breaking once, but he couldn’t recall experiencing any discomfort. He figured that he couldn’t feel anything over the white hot pain laced into his joints. But he crumbled at every click of the gears, not from the agony that overwhelmed him, but from the crumbling of his soul, or whatever it was that remained in his chest. He needed to get - 

“ - you out of these bandages, alright?... Alright, I’m gonna take that as a yes.”

It was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It played on loop in his head, spinning his mind around and around, dizzying, sickening. He couldn’t stand to eat the food provided to him through the hatch under the door, as it would almost always come back up, and the smell would make the rolling in his stomach worse. He only managed to drink water because something in the back of his head that just barely cried over the constant, maddening chant of wrongness told him that he needed to or else he would die, and that was a bad - 

“ - idea to leave you alone for so long, dunno what I was thinkin’. Knew I should’ve checked on you sooner...”

The darkness pressed in on all sides, walls leaning in, too small, too tight. Even if he could, he would never be able to extend his wings. And there was no sun in here, nor moon, nor stars, nor clouds. Seconds ticked by with no sky to give them meaning. It was meaningless. He was meaningless. What was he without his wings? They were the very thing that defined him, a constant in his perilous life that told him that, yes, while he was bound to this singular line of breath, this singular heartbeat, he could still relish in the freedom of flight. Even as Death loomed in every corner of every room, he took comfort in the fact that he could lift his wings and, for just a moment, liberate himself from the grim promise of his fragile mortality. 

But in this cell, he came to the terrifying realization that there was nothing here except for the Clamps, the wrongness, and the perpetual night. He was empty. He was nothing.  He was - 

“ - gone, Phil, the bandages are gone. You’re good. You’re fine. Open your eyes.”

He blinked. There was no difference between the darkness and the backs of his eyelids. Void. Abyss. Alone. Cold. 

“C’mon, Phil, you know you want to. You know where you are?”

Deep below the earth, so far from open air, in a cage of solid walls. A cell. Captive.

“Well, I’ll tell ya, I guess. We’re in our cabin up in the Arctic way outside the Dream SMP. Your bedroom, specifically. We put the finishing touches on it last week. You’ve got your nightstand, your pitcher of water that you haven’t been drinking out of even though you probably should . Uh, you’ve got your desk over there with all your books and your notes, too. Might want to organize that sometime. Does any of that ring any bells?”

That was...not...here? Was he here? Where was he?

“You know who I am?”

He did. He did, but he didn’t , and it was killing him -

“Technoblade. Or, well, I guess you usually just call me Techno, as does...pretty much everyone else. And you’re Philza Minecraft, but I just call you Phil.”

He… Right. He knew that. Of course he knew that. How could he forget his friend? And his name. He had a name. Philza Minecraft. He existed. He was here, with Techno.

“ Gods, he’s still shaking - Heeeey, I’m gonna put my hand on your back just to show you the Clamps aren’t there, alright? So don’t freak out on me, Phil, or else I’m gonna... Well, I don’t know what I’m gonna do, but it’s probably not gonna be fun for either of us.”

And then there was that pressure on his back again, right between his wings, solid, heavy - 

- gentle, warm, familiar, small, light.

“Aaaaand taking my hand back now.”

The weight disappeared. Heat lingered on his skin.

“See? No Clamps. You’re not in that cell anymore, Phil, we got you out of there. I surrendered myself, the Empire, all its assets, and all its members to the other factions. Then they let you ‘n the others out of your cells, and when you’d all rested up, we booked it. Scattered ourselves so they couldn’t catch all of us. You and I - we set ourselves up in that little farm town, and you flew around the woods and explored, and I spent a stupid amount of time farming potatoes. Remember all that?”

He did. “I-I...do.” 

“Gonna open your eyes?”

He drew in a shaky breath. Released it. “...It’s not the cell.”

“Yes, it is indeed not the cell.”

Philza opened his eyes.

He was sitting up on his bed, knees folded awkwardly under himself. He found that his arms had hugged around his middle with his finger digging into his bare skin not quite hard enough to hurt but somewhere close. Head ducked down, he was hunched forward so much so that he was in danger of tipping off the edge of his bed. Though, he never would have fallen, as Techno stood there with his hands raised towards Philza’s shoulders, not touching but ready to catch him.

So Philza let himself fall forward, and he let Techno catch him. He always hated crying, but there were times where he couldn’t help it; and so he sobbed into his friend’s tunic, muffling the sound on his shoulder and swallowing around the pathetic, sputtery gasps. It was hatred and anguish and relief crashing over him all at once like a tidal wave that made him lose his composure. 

He knew that Techno wasn’t big on physical affection, far more comfortable with a nudge on the arm or a pat on the shoulder, but still, the piglin hybrid’s arms came around to oh-so-carefully wrap around Philza’s back, the touch feather-light for both their sakes. Philza bunched the fabric of the back of Techno’s tunic in his hands, an anchor. 

Techno said nothing, no questions or soothing little murmurs like others might do. Philza didn’t expect it, and he didn’t much care.

When the worst of it had run its course and Philza no longer felt like he was crumbling to pieces in his best friend’s arms, he pulled himself away and ran his hands down the front of his face. “Damnit,” he murmured as he wiped away tears. “Gods fucking damnit.” 

“Wing injuries are always fun,” Techno suddenly deadpanned, and Philza barked out a cruel, watery laugh. “We only have good times here in the Technoblade and Philza Minecraft household.”

“Yeah, the fuck are nightmares anyway, fucking - panick attacks?”  Philza sniffled, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “Never heard of ‘em.”

“Thousands of disembodied voices in your head chanting for violence in order to curb their insatiable thirst for blood? Couldn’t be me.”

They shared a low chuckle in spite of themselves, and Philza brushed some of the hair out of his face. “Gods, we are so fucked up, Techno.”

“Sometimes. Other times, I’d say we’re okay and maybe - dare I say it? - pretty decent.”

“And the day we’re more than ‘decent’ is the day I die.”

“Philza Minecraft suddenly becomes fully immortal, let’s goooo.”

Philza ducked his head in another laugh. When he lifted it, he saw Techno using the untouched pitcher on his bedside table to pour him a glass of water. Techno handed the cup to him, which Philza took with a nod of thanks and immediately downed in one go, hardly stopping to breathe. “I’m gonna regret that,” he admitted, passing the now empty glass back to Techno.

“Prolly. You still haven’t eaten anything today.”

“Mm, been busy,” mumbled Philza as he stretched. He winced at the ache in his back but relishing the way it worked the tension out of his shoulders. 

“Busy?” repeated Techno. 

“Sleeping.”

“You need to eat.”

“Tomorrow?”

“ Tonight .” 

Philza groaned. “I’m still nauseous as all hell, mate, I won’t keep anything down.”

“You at least have to try.”

“...Maybe.”

“You know what, I’ll take it.” 

Philza’s eyes drifted to the window and was glad to see that the curtains were still drawn. It was dark outside, stars just barely visible due to the clouds that had blown over. It could have possibly been anywhere from six in the evening to six in the morning. “What time is it?”

“Uh, s’not late. Something like six thirty? You slept straight through the afternoon, from what I can tell.”

Philza’s wings twitched. There was still a pang of discomfort, but it didn’t swamp over his spine and shoulders like it had earlier in the day. He glanced around him to find that there were bandage strips scattered around the mattress along with Techno’s closed pocket knife. “How’re the burns?”

“Uhhh.” Techno leaned over the edge of the bed to look at Philza’s back, and he clicked his tongue. “The worst of it looks pretty much gone. It’s mostly just the splotches from the soul sand poisoning now.” Techno straightened himself out and briefly put the back of his hand against Philza’s forehead. “Still running warm, Phil.”

“I sure do feel like I’m running warm.”

“Yeah, you’re about as sick as it gets.”

“Too sick to go outside for a bit?”

Techno huffed like he really wanted to argue, but Philza knew he wouldn’t. This wasn’t the first time memories of the weeks spent in the Clamps and that Gods-forsaken shithole of a cell reemerged, and Philza knew that it would be far from the last. But it meant that they’d created an odd sort of ‘routine’ for whenever it happened: Techno would pull Philza out of his spiral, Philza would sob into Techno’s shoulder for a few minutes, and then they’d crack a joke or two and go outside so Philza could feel the open air in his wings, even if he was just standing. (It was often that he was just standing , as most of the time, his spiraling was due to wing damage. Unsurprisingly.)

For a split second, though, Philza wondered if Techno really was going to try to fight him on this one, but he eventually relented with, “If you can get a shirt and your winter clothes on without a problem, then I think you should be alright.”

So Philza, head still fuzzy from sleep and fever, stumbled out of bed. He grabbed one of his loosest-fitting shirts with the widest possible gap for his wings and went about fastening the buttons in the back with practiced ease. Meanwhile, Techno went to grab their winter cloaks, passing Philza his when he finally had his shirt on right. The weight of the cloak over his back startled him for a split second before he shook off the feeling, busying himself with the clasps and getting his wings through the slits. Finally, he stepped into a pair of boots and grabbed his usual bucket hat and scarf. 

Yes, his whole body ached from sickness, and yes, the temperature of the Arctic dropped from tolerable to wintery hell after the sun went down, but it was all worth it for that first breath of fresh air and the feeling of a wild breeze billowing under his feathers. His back protested at the impact of the wind pushing his wings, and he couldn’t bring himself to care. An easy smile crept onto his mouth; his eyes stung and watered, but this time it was from the biting chill of the breeze against his face.

Techno stood right beside him despite the cold. He summoned his sword and placed the tip in the snow, hands patiently draped over each other on the pommel as he kept a sharp eye out for any monsters that decided to wander a little too close to their front yard. The tundra was dark save for the lanterns they’d scattered about and the swirling purple light of the new Nether portal.

And so Philza enjoyed the open air.

Ranboo braced himself against the chilly evening wind as he stepped down from the new portal frame, boots crunching in the snow. A quick glance up told him that the stars were hardly visible due to a growing cloud coverage. He wondered if they would get snowfall that night. As he plodded along through the snow, he pulled out his memory book and quickly scrawled down a note to check his ceiling for leaks again, just to be safe. 

When he’d written his note, he snapped the book shut and deposited his writing things into his inventory with a wave of his hand. Once that was done, he looked up to where he was walking and noticed, to his surprise, Philza and Techno. They stood in the yard in front of their house, both donning their winter cloaks. Philza was positioned off to the left with his wings spread wide to either side while Techno was off to the right, sword propped up beneath his hands. 

Curious, Ranboo waved. “Hello!”

He felt more than saw their gazes shift to him, one a darting flicker across him and the other a penetrating stare. Ranboo tilted his head away as usual.

A beat later, Philza responded with a wave of his own. Now that he was closer, Ranboo could see the man’s ashen features, the bruises beneath his eyes, and his tousled hair beneath his hat. His voice rasped as he replied, “Heya mate. How was Snowchester?”

Ranboo did a mental double take at that, though he quickly rationalized that Techno must have told Philza of his whereabouts sometime that day. “Oh, uh, it was great. Tubbo’s made a path that can get you to and from Snowchester and the Dream SMP mainland in, like, under two minutes.”

Philza raised an eyebrow, impressed. “Really?”

“Yeah, he calls it the hyperspeed tunnel. It’s an unholy combination of depth strider, soul speed, and dolphin’s grace. I guess it only works if you have the enchantments, but most people do nowadays anyway. After we finished building it, we messed around with it for at least an hour. It was fun.”

“Sure sounds like it.”

“Yeah,” Ranboo sighed, folding his arms loosely. There was a brief wane in conversation, and he continued, “So, how’re you feeling? How’s the, uh, poisoning going?”

Philza chuckled weakly, lips twisted in a lopsided smile. “Not gonna lie, mate, it’s kinda shit.”

Ranboo sputtered, “O-Oh, uh, sorry to hear that.”

“It’s better than it was earlier,” Techno provided, tilting his head to look at Philza. “Fever was worse this afternoon, but you slept right through it.”

“And I’m glad for it,” answered Philza.

“So what’re you guys doing out here, then?” Ranboo asked them, glancing at the frozen tundra. He could see some strays drifting around the snowfields, wisely choosing to keep their distance from the warriors’ residence. He wondered if it was the lanterns that chased them away or the sight of Techno and his massive netherite sword pulsing an ethereal lavender from the plethora of enchantments woven into the blade.

“I needed some fresh air,” Philza replied with that same tight-lipped smile that Ranboo couldn’t make heads nor tails of. “Been cooped up inside all day. I was itching to give my wings a little stretch.”

“How long have you guys been standing here? It’s, uh, it’s a little chilly.”

Techno huffed, the breath visible in a cloud as it came from his snout. “‘A little chilly,’ he says. It’s freezing, Ranboo.”

“Oh.”

“We haven’t been out here for long,” Philza told him, “just a few minutes.” He tilted his head to the side. “You’re really not cold?”

“Uh, well, I am , but it’s not...terrible?” Ranboo shrugged. “Could be worse.”

“I don’t know if it gets much colder than this around here,” rumbled Techno. He pulled his cloak a little tighter around himself. “Phil, why can’t we ever choose someplace nice and temperate to set ourselves up?”

“Hey, I didn’t tell you to build your secret cabin on the edge of the huge fuck-off tundra,” Philza shot back with a playful bite to his words. 

“It’s not like I had much of a choice! Everywhere else has been settled before, I needed somewhere far away from everyone!”

“Then what are you complaining at me for, mate?” chuckled Philza, lightly bumping Techno on the shoulder with one of his wings. “You brought this on yourself.” 

“Uh, well,” Ranboo interrupted, earning himself both of the warriors’ gazes, “if you want, Techno, I can stand out here with Philza while you head inside, if you really don’t want to stand in the cold. That is, if you want to stay out here for a bit longer, Philza.”

“I do,” Philza confirmed with a brief nod. He looked to Techno, continuing, “That sound good to you?”

Techno adjusted his hands atop the pommel of his sword, thinking. “...I suppose,” he decided a moment later. His sword disappeared into his inventory, and he offered a jut of his chin at Ranboo. “Thanks.”

“Yes, thank you, Ranboo,” Philza added, smiling warmly. “That’s very kind of you.”

Ranboo bobbed his head. “Of course, anytime.” Techno lingered for a beat longer before turning towards the cabin, soon disappearing into the little house. Ranboo took up the same position that Techno had assumed beside Philza, only he held his comparatively smaller netherite sword in his hand, hanging in his loose grip at his side. Just as he had observed earlier, there wasn’t much mob activity tonight. It was silent too, Philza not saying anything to disturb the tranquil quiet that wafted over the snowfields on the wind’s whisper.

Ranboo spoke, though he hadn’t really meant to say it in the first place. Perhaps he was just looking for reassurance. “I think Techno’s mad at me. Or at least, he was this morning.”

“Mad at you?” Philza echoed without removing his eyes from the horizons. Ranboo nodded, and the man folded his arms into his robes thoughtfully. “Mm, I don’t think so. He never said he was mad at you when I spoke with him today. Think he was just worried about me. He can look a bit angry when he’s worried.”

“Oh. Okay.” Ranboo paused, thinking for a moment before venturing, “You know, I was talking to Tubbo about what happened yesterday with the whole, uh, me-falling-off-a-cliff-and-you-getting-sniped-by-a-ghast fiasco.”

Upon hearing that, Philza’s eyes darted over to him. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, we started getting into the technicalities of what counts as a weighted death and what doesn’t.” Ranboo heard Philza heave a tired sigh but didn’t say anything. “Tubbo thinks that if you’d actually listened to me and dropped me in the lava, that would’ve counted as a weighted death ‘cause you, like, knew dropping me would kill me, so that would mean the death was intentional.”

Ranboo found himself rubbing the inside of his arm where his three untouched hearts were stamped on his skin. “So I guess I just wanna say thanks for not dropping me.”

Philza, as always, offered an easy laugh to diffuse the tension, and he said, “Well, the thought crossed my mind yesterday too. The rules of the weighted life system are finicky, I’ve found, so I didn’t want to run that risk.”

“Yeah, I-I mean,” Ranboo continued, shrugging, “worse comes to worst, we both end up in the lava, and both our deaths are accidental, and then we just respawn with no lives lost, right?”

Philza didn’t give a reply, no affirmation of any kind. It should have been an easy question-answer: “Right?” “Right.” Yet, the man kept his silence, and consequently, that silence was made poignant. 

Ranboo could feel him staring, so he didn’t turn his head to look at the man as he prompted, “Philza?”

Philza’s gaze left him. “So he didn’t tell you.”

Ranboo blinked. “Who didn’t tell me what?”

“Tubbo. He didn’t tell you about... me .”

“Uh, n-no? He might’ve, but if he did , then I have no idea what it is you’re referring to right now.”

The man didn’t say anything for a while, and for a moment, Ranboo thought that he was going to drop the subject altogether. He spoke again eventually, but when he did, his words were slower. Careful. “Can you keep a secret, Ranboo?”

He thought about the missing pages of his memory book, waking up somewhere different from where he went to sleep, the voice in his head telling him things he himself couldn’t recall, traitor, traitor. “Honestly?... I don’t know.” 

Soft concern edged into Philza’s voice. “What do you mean, mate?”

“Uhm.” For lack of anything else to do, Ranboo ran his empty hand up and down his other arm, fingers lightly scratching into the sleeve of his coat. He clicked his jaw a couple times. “It’s nothing. Just, if whatever it is that you wanna tell me happens to be important, then you...might want to hold on to that for a little while.”

“Are you alright - ?” 

“Just figuring out a few things,” Ranboo hurried to reassure, “about my memory. S’not a problem or...anything you have to be worried about. Yet. I don’t think.”

“Ranboo - ”

“I’m fine.” It came out sharper than he intended. He clacked his jaw shut tight.

Philza’s eyes landed on him, then looked away. “...Okay.”

The subject was finally dropped. The hollow whistle of the tundra filled Ranboo’s ears. Unease prickled under his skin.

“...Just for the record,” Philza began a moment later, words slow like a meandering thought, “at the time, I knew that neither of us would fall into the lava lake if I continued to carry you to the shore instead of dropping you. I’ve been flying for a very long time, and I’ve flown through some pretty shit conditions; so I knew that, even if that ghast did get me, I could still manage to fly us over to solid ground. I mean, it fucking sucks that I got hit, but hey, we lived.”

Ranboo considered the point, and he dropped his hand from his arm. “We lived. That’s...pretty cool.”

Philza ducked his head in a chuckle. “That is pretty cool.”

There was another lapse in conversation; this one, Ranboo observed, didn’t make him want to crawl out of his skin as much as the first one. 

Sometime later, Philza spoke up once more: “So tell me more about this busted speed-tunnel that Tubbo’s designed.”

Ranboo was happy to ramble to Philza about the tunnel because it was genuinely a clever design, and it had been a lot of fun putting it together, especially since Ranboo got to use his ‘fancy enderman hands’ to more easily move around chunks of (cleaned) soul sand. He went over the general make-up of the tunnel, how it was built to incorporate all three aspects of magical swiftness in a relatively compact layout. 

Philza appeared to have the same level of appreciation for the former president’s craftsmanship as Ranboo, noting, “He’s a smart kid, very good at the structure and design aspects of building. Pretty handy with redstone, too - better than myself, that’s for sure. Did you do anything else while you were there?”

“No, not really. After we finished messing around with the tunnel, we went inside to drink hot cocoa and chatted - oh! That reminds me...” Ranboo popped open his inventory and fished out his memory book, flipping to the page he’d scrawled the recipe onto earlier. He carefully tore it out and offered it to Philza. “I wanted to give this to you before I forget. Well,” he laughed, “before I forget again .”

Philza accepted the slip of paper, skimming it over. A second later, he raised an eyebrow and glanced at Ranboo out of the corner of his eye, clearly puzzled. “Is...this a soup recipe?”

“Yeah, Tubbo gave it to me. He got soul sand poisoning last week, and he told me that he figured out a broth that was light enough to eat without being sick but had enough stuff in it to actually be worth eating. Uh, I don’t know how you’ve been managing on the whole food front today, but I figured it would at least be good to have. You know, just in general.” He nodded at the paper. “Consider it thanks for, uh, not letting me fall into a lava lake yesterday.”

Philza looked up from the torn parchment and gave Ranboo a bright grin. “Of course, mate, and thanks for the recipe. I actually haven’t eaten yet today, so this should be very useful.” Ranboo bobbed his head while Philza folded up the paper and dropped it into his inventory for safe keeping. 

Philza returned his eyes to the horizons for a moment before he broke into a shudder, wrapping his thick-sleeved arms tighter around himself. “I should probably be heading inside,” he confessed with a disappointed sigh. “Don’t want to make myself more sick than I already am.” Ranboo watched the man’s face twisted up with slight discomfort as he folded his wings shut, the movement a series of tremulous jerks rather than one smooth motion like it usually was. He exhaled a relieved breath once the appendages were finally closed. Then, he nodded to Ranboo, saying, “Thanks for standing out here with me, mate.”

“Oh yeah, of course.”

“Have a good night.”

“You too!”

Philza gave him one last smile before turning around and heading for the front door of the cabin, his massive black crow’s wings dragging in the snow behind him as he went. Ranboo, meanwhile, headed around the side, crossed their shared yard, and stepped into his house. 

When he’d shucked off all his gear and winter clothes, Ranboo came to sit on the edge of his bed. Then, after a brief moment of consideration, he pulled his memory book and writing tools out of his inventory. Turning to the next blank page, he wrote down a new entry.

‘philza asked me if i could keep a secret but i told him no. i dont want to risk HIM finding out about anything important. but whatever it is tubbo knows about it too.’

Ranboo paused before he added one last note. 

‘i think it has something to do with philza’s weighted lives.’

He set down his quill and reread the note a few times, making sure that it was to his liking. When he was satisfied, he moved to close the book, but his eyes caught on a fresh note on the page opposite to the he’d just written on. 

‘check the ceiling for leaks!!’

Ranboo furrowed his brow. “‘Check the ceiling for’ - ? Ohhh, right, the wind. Might snow again tonight.” He shut his memory book and left it on his bedside table, then started a slow circuit around his shack, checking for any cracks overhead. He’d really rather not have to wake up to water dripping dangerously close to his face again.

Philza lumbered into his bedroom, stifling a yawn behind one hand while he clutched a lantern in his other. He was happy to be going to bed and even happier to have been able to eat something without immediately hurling it back up. He didn’t know how in the world Tubbo had figured out what to put in that broth, but it was just the right balance of substance and blandness for his queasy stomach. He’d have to ask Ranboo to give Tubbo his thanks the next time the kid decided to visit Snowchester.

Philza gently shut the door behind him, though he was wary to leave it just slightly ajar. Then, he set down his lantern on his desk and made sure the glowstone radiator in the corner of his room had the grates open and angled so they radiated heat without shooting light beams right into his eyes. Though, he wouldn’t have really minded the extra light. As childish as it felt, he would be leaving his lantern lit tonight, as well as his curtains drawn open. He knew from experience that going to bed without bandages bound around his wings didn’t exactly mean that he was free of the nightmares’ hold. Techno knew this too and had offered to sit in his room at his bedside like he had throughout most of the day. Philza had declined, telling his friend that he had a right to sleep in his bed.

Philza sat down on the edge of the mattress, surveyed the frankly ridiculous number of precautions that he’d taken, and heaved a tired sigh, dragging his hands down his face. “Fuuuucking hell...”

It was stupid. He knew that he wasn’t back in that cell, knew that he was safe, far, far away from all those factions, but the phantom weight of the Clamps haunted him, and the feeling of falling - a drop in his stomach so jarringly different from an exhilarating aerial dive - plagued many of his nights.   

They’d fucked him over. For a long time, he’d been furious about the hours of sleep and the sense of security they’d robbed him of; but years down the line, his anger burned itself out. Now all he was left with was cold fear, rapid heartbeats, and stolen breath; a cracked door, a lit lantern, and open blinds.

Philza let his hands fall from his face and land in his lap. His eyes dropped to the black sleeve that he wore on his left forearm. His fingers, of their own accord, ghosted over the skin-tight fabric and caught on a wrinkle, tugging the garment down.

Three hearts, just as usual, looked up at him, though two were barely visible, choked of both life and death several decades ago by vile magic. All that remained for him to look at was a single heart colored a deep, damning red. It returned his glare through black-slit eyes.

It didn’t scare him as much as it used to, the fragility it signified. He’d taken that curse and warped it to his own benefit, after all, taken advantage of the technicalities of the spell. He just found it funny that some people who read the stories (those so-called ‘legends’) about him went as far as to regard him as an immortal being just because he’d been traipsing around this dangerous world for a good deal of time. Oh, they couldn’t be further from the truth - but they didn’t need to know that.

He glanced to the little shack across the yard. He could see a light on through the window, a tall, slender shadow roaming the walls inside.

No. He’d been wrong earlier. Ranboo didn’t need to know, not now , at least. It could wait for another day, when he’d figured out whatever was going on in that troubled head of his. Poor kid.

Philza tugged the sleeve back up and laid down on his bed at last. Arms tucked under his head beneath his pillow and wings draped freely over the sides of the mattress, he allowed himself to be taken by sleep, braced for the nightmares that were sure to come.