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That crazy dad on the edge of the woods took in another kid, did you hear?
He can’t fix this one.
I bet you this new one’s gonna kill him.
Maybe he’ll kill himself first.
Phil wasn’t immune to the gossip he heard when he went into town. No one could understand why he would throw his life away to take care of another orphan. He was a great fighter and builder with stamina and resilience no one had ever seen- any normal person with his skills would’ve immediately joined the guardsmen or hunters. Maybe his heart was too big. Maybe he was stupid. Maybe he just cared too much. It’s not like he was rich by any means; the small log-and-cobble cabin that sat just behind the tree line was hardly noticeable unless you were looking for it. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling of the kitchen, failing to mask the odor of musty blankets and old wood. A small bathroom was currently the only other room in the house, and the only one without dirt floors (if you could even call the cracked prismarine tiles a floor). Phil was grateful Wilbur never complained about their living situation, but he nonetheless felt a pang of guilt when he saw his first son shiver under his thin, blue woolen blanket on particularly chilly nights. Phil would drape his dark green outer cloak around Wilbur’s thin frame, gently tucking it in under his feet and against his sides. Sometimes, those kinds of nights made Phil want to give up. Not because he didn’t want to take care of Wilbur, but because Wilbur would almost certainly be better off without him. Wilbur was getting older, almost 16 now, and he was incredibly intelligent, often making Phil’s jaw drop with the teetering piles of books he would go through on a weekly basis. Surely he could get a job at the local archives, or work for the newspaper, or even become a court scribe. He was brilliant, determined, good with people, and persuasive. He could fend for himself, right?
He can. Just go.
Phil would shake his head as if that would silence thoughts of abandoning his son, and force himself to look at Wilbur’s sleeping face. It was really the only time he seemed truly at peace. Wil put on a good “happy and thankful son” front, but over the years, Phil became an expert at seeing right through him. Wilbur himself had probably figured out long ago that he was no longer convincing, but he continued to smile. Without fail, Phil would open the creaky spruce door every evening to Wilbur’s beaming face, greeting him from behind his newest read. And every time, Phil would set his axe and rucksack down by the door and go ruffle his son’s unruly brown wavy hair until his hand was playfully swat away.
It was moments like those that surfaced in Phil’s mind during the cold nights of too-thin blankets, drafty walls, and groaning zombies. They warmed him to the core, gave him purpose, motivated him to wake up the next day and keep trying.
For Wilbur, as his hands bled from thorny berry bushes deep in the woods.
For Wilbur, when his arms ached after swinging an iron axe all day.
For Wilbur, every time he broke through the brittle bones of a skeleton whose ceaseless clattering threatened to wake his son from the paradise of dreams.
For Wilbur.