Archive of Our Own ^beta

Phil has spent the majority of his life either with other avians or alone. Preening his (or other peoples) wings has always been such a routine action, as normal as brushing his teeth, that he hadn't really considered that his new charge would be unused to the sight.

As far as he knows, he grew up entirely in the Nether, where nothing has wings; the only things that fly are ghasts and blazes, both of which do so without wings of any kind. So of course the action would be strange and curious to him. Most things are, he's noticed; cooking, toys, books, even just rain. (He loves the rain, and he also loves mud. That lead to a very long bath and a small cold, but it was worth it to see him that happy.)

He chuckles a little and stretches out his left wing to straighten out his secondaries. The kid follows the action with his eyes, mouth falling open with a curious growl.

"I'm cleaning them," he informs him, running his fingers along the feathers to check for broken ones and fix the misaligned sound ones.

He snorts and leans in closer, confusion painted on his face.

He thinks a moment, trying to figure out a comparison that will make sense to him. "Uh, it's kind of like how I have to brush your hair every day to keep it healthy and not tangled up. I have to clean my wings for the same reason."

His eyes widen further and he nods, letting out a small sound somewhat resembling an "oh". He's getting fairly good at understanding what he's trying to tell him. It's funny; the kid doesn't talk, at least not in English, but he's still fairly chatty.

(He's been attempting to teach him how to speak English, but it's slow going. He seems perfectly content with their usual form of communications, gestures and noises and other non-vocal things. He's fine with it, really; as long as they can communicate and work together, he can live with it. Maybe when he's in the village again, he'll see if they have any books on sign language. It might be helpful.

Of course, that's only if he likes doing it. Getting him to learn something he doesn't like is... proving to be very hard.)

Phil goes back to his preening, moving onto his right wing. It's usually the easier one; the left one somehow always gets messier. He has no idea why, it's always been that way.

They're quiet for a minute, the kid probably still waking up and Phil busy with his grooming. He's used to the extended silence; even before he took him in, he had spent a lot of time on his own, almost entirely silent.

The kid knocks his head against his arm and tugs at his sleeve.

"What do you need?" he asks. He's learned that that particular action is the kid's version of saying "help me".

He looks up at him briefly, no more than a second, before his eyes flick to the ground. He raises a hand to tug at his tangled hair, showing off the mess that it's in after a nap.

"I'll brush your hair when I'm done," he promises. "You need a bath, too."

That earns him an excited squeal and his hands briefly waving in front of his chest. He thinks it's an awfully cute reaction, and he gets it every time he offers him something he really likes. It's not often; there are few things that get him that happy.

Candy, the one time he's given it to him. Strawberries. Coloring books. Rain. Gold, of any kind; he quickly learned to hide his good hairpins, because the kid will take them. Gardening.

And baths. The first time wasn't as great; he had been filthy, still sick from withering, and he had to untangle the giant mess of hair that was on his head. He ended up having to cut out some particularly terrible mats, which is why parts of it stick up so oddly.

But after that first time, he quickly took to baths as a source of fun. He doesn't smile, he's not sure if he knows how, but he lets out cute, excited noises of all kinds and splashes around like any happy kid does.

He always ends up soaked as well, but he's not about to deny the kid the delight of a good bath and sweet-smelling soap. 

He'll have to introduce him to proper bubblebaths sometime.

He picks a broken feather out of his wing and winces slightly at the small pinch of pain. Seems that one wasn't entirely loose yet. "Ow."

The kid's excitement immediately wanes. His eyes grow concerned and he practically climbs onto his lap, pushing his hand away from his wing with surprising force and inspecting both the feathers there and the one in his fingers.

The sight of one of his feathers being out of his wing seems to terrify the poor thing, and he whines, staring up at him in fear.

Phil can't help but laugh. "I'm fine, okay?" he tells him, setting the feather down, pulling him a bit closer. "It happens all the time. I'm not hurt, little one."

He whines again, pushing at his chest. He points at his wing, making more tiny concerned sounds. It's adorable, really.

"I promise, I'm fine," he assures, ruffling his hair. "My feathers are supposed to come out. They all do, eventually. More will grow back." He pauses, before adding, "Like your hair! Remember when I had to cut it, and you were so upset?"

He nods slowly, still staring at where he pulled the feather from his wing. His eyes are shiny and his lower lip is visibly trembling.

"It's kind of like that. I had to pull that feather out, so a new one can take it's place. Like how I had to cut the really bad tangles out of your hair, so the rest of it could grow healthy."

The kid continues his staring for a few moments, raising his hand to touch his hair, and then reaching out to gently pet his wing. He has to force himself not to jolt a bit; it's been a while since someone other than himself has touched his wings. His small, warm fingers feel unfamiliar on his feathers, even though the kid has messed with his wings before.

(Really, he's surprised it's taken him this long to get super curious about them; he's been with him for almost five months now.)

The answer seems to be satisfactory, because he sniffles once, scrubs at his eyes with his too-long sleeve, and nods, showing he understands.

Phil smiles and pats the top of his head. "Good. Now, how about you go get your hairbrush, so I can fix your hair? I'm almost done here."

He nods again, but he doesn't get up yet. With his thumb in his mouth (he's tried to get him to stop, but he seems to need something to bite or suck on or he gets antsy-- he has to figure out a solution) and his expression thoughtful, he stays quiet for another moment, during which he goes back to preening.

He spends plenty of time just letting the kid think-- he gets lost in what he presumes are daydreams often, usually out of nowhere. He can't imagine he had much to do in the Nether other than hide for his survival and think. He's pretty sure there's not much for a six(?)-year-old to do for fun in that dimension, other than daydream.

The kid snorts curiously, and tugs at his shirt. He glances at him, to see that he's reaching over his shoulder to touch his own back, an expression of extreme consideration on his face as he tugs at his shirt.

He has to try very hard not to laugh and make him feel bad. "You're not going to grow wings, kiddo."

He frowns and lets out a sad squeal.

"I'm sorry," he says, still forcing down a chuckle. "Piglins don't grow wings, and not all humans have wings either."

This seems to be news to him, because his brows furrow deeply and his nose scrunches up.

(Has he never met another human, of any kind? He has parents somewhere, right? The kid is half-human, that much is evident, but maybe he didn't really know his parents...?)

"I'm a special case," he finally lets himself laugh quietly, realigning the last few feathers. "Most people don't have wings."

He squeals again and drops his hand from his back, now pouting. Phil bites his lip so he doesn't grin too wide and scare him. "Don't make that face. Maybe I'll take you with me when I go flying sometime, yeah? You're small enough for me to carry, and you can see a bit of what it's like."

He gives a dissatisfied mumble, face still scrunched up with annoyance, but he gets off of his lap and runs off to the bathroom.

He hears the drawers open and close-- the top one and then the middle one, where the brush is, because he always seems to forget which one it's in-- and then he returns, tiny footsteps loud on the wooden floorboards. He walks pretty heavily for a kid who's so sneaky and can't be more than forty-five pounds soaking wet.

Phil picks up the few feathers that he had pulled from his wings and gets up to dispose of them-- he doesn't keep them, they're horrible for making arrows because of their sleekness, and he has no other use for them.

The kid scrambles up onto the couch, clutching the hairbrush and a hairtie (clearly he wants his hair pulled up) and watches him carry the feathers to the trash. Seeming to realize what he's doing, he hops off the cushion again and hurries over to catch his wrist before he drops them.

"What?" he asks, amused by the seriousness in his small face. "I'm just going to get rid of them so I can fix your hair."

He mumbles again and tugs at his hand, catching hold of one of the feathers. He looks up at him, even briefly making eye contact.

"...do you want to keep one?" He tries.

He nods furiously.

"Okay, go ahead." He lets the kid pluck a feather from the few in his palm. He seems satisfied, quickly running off again. He disappears down the hallway towards the bedroom.

Phil drops the rest of the feathers into the trash and goes back to the couch. He has an inkling as to what the kid is doing; he's probably adding the feather to the collection of things he keeps in the bedside table.

It's mostly just random bits of things he finds interesting; shiny rocks, buttons, interestingly shaped leaves, dried flowers, things like that. He has some jewelry they found in the dirt outside of an dilapidated house in the forest, namely a pair of golden earrings laid with rubies and a matching ring, and some pieces of gold they found while in the abandoned mineshaft.

(Phil had been hesitant to let his new, still-healing child come mining with him, especially in a place as potentially dangerous as an abandoned mineshaft.

But as soon as he mentioned going out for that, the kid had scrambled off of the kitchen chair he was sitting in and insistently pulled at his arm, letting out unintelligible grunts and squeals that he was fairly sure would translate to please let me come with please please please in English.

Of course, he let him come with after.

It hadn't been too dangerous, though it wasn’t easy; Phil was far too on guard the whole time, while the kid excitedly ran ahead of him, staying just in reach of the torchlight. He figured he was just too excited about exploring an overworld structure to care about being cautious.

He wasn't... too worried, really, because he had given the kid his knife back (he had taken it after leaving the Nether) and he had proven to be pretty handy with it already.

He didn't like thinking about why he was decent with a knife at only six.

The trip wasn't too fruitful, unfortunately; they didn't get too far into the mineshaft. He didn't want to risk getting lost. All the good stuff is deeper in, though, so he still planned to come back, sans piglin child.

They did find a chest, though, settled inside of a minecart. The kid was delighted, running over to it and shoving it open before he could catch up. By the time he hurried over, holding their torch high and scanning the surroundings for any dangerous creatures, he was already digging through the contents.

"Anything good, mate?" Phil asked, glancing down at him.

He squealed excitedly and dropped down from where he was holding himself up over the side of the chest, clutching several items in his arms. Curiosity got the better of him and he kneeled down to see.

They got lucky; the kid had an enchanted book, a golden apple, and two gold ingots clutched in his arms. Inside the chest was the more mundane loot, but he wasn't surprised that his boy grabbed only the shiny things.

"That's pretty good!" he praised, ruffling up his hair. "Do you want to carry all that home?" He nodded furiously, eyes lit up with excitement, his tail flicking back and forth.

He checked the chest for anything else useful, snatching up the pieces of coal, some seeds (melon, maybe?) and a pouch of redstone, before leading the kid back the way they came.

On their walk back, he checked over their shoulders for monsters and the kid made happy noises periodically. It was nice, even if he was worried by how unpursued they were. (And also the fact that he's sure he saw him bite into one of the gold bars.)

Close to the entrance of the cave that would lead them out, he tugged at his sleeve and made a sound that was both happy and a little... worried?

Phil glanced down, his hand falling from the strap of the bag on his shoulder. "What's up?"

He met his eyes for a moment, fiddling with his armful of loot, before holding up the golden apple, seeming giant in his tiny hand.

He stopped on the pathway, confused. "Are you... giving that to me?" He asked hesitantly. "You found it, little one, you can keep it."

He snorted and shook his head, holding it closer to him. His eyes were wide and almost glowing in the low light.

Carefully, he took the apple and smiled unsurely down at him. "Thank you, then."

He nodded, shifting his other items to the crook of his arm and taking his hand.

He tucked the apple into his bag, gently holding his small hand.

He feels like the fact that his half-piglin child gave him something made of gold, something he has to know is useful, is important, but he's not sure what it means yet.)

The kid runs back into the living room, looking pleased with himself. Phil laughs and gestures at his place on the couch with his hairbrush. "C'mon, time to brush your hair. Do you want me to braid it again?"

He nods, scrambling up onto the couch. 

Phil gets to work gently working the tangles out of his hair. He's used to how he scrunches up his face and makes annoyed grunts when he accidentally pulls too hard; it made him worry the first few times, but now he knows he just has a sensitive scalp.

"You'll get a bath after we work in the garden, how does that sound?" He asks, when he's able to run the brush through one side of his hair fluidly.

He makes an agreeing noise and nods his head minutely, trying not to pull his own hair. His tail flicks with excitement.

(He was surprised when he took to gardening with such passion. He had tried to give him some chores to do in the house, but they visibly bored him, and he never did them very well.

He had offered to let him help plant some flowers, and that had done the trick; he'll spend hours in the garden, pulling up weeds or planting or digging new beds. He's going to try showing him things on the actual farm once he's a little bigger.)

He finishes brushing his hair and separates out the strands to braid. It's a familiar action, one that is tinged with a bittersweet nostalgia, for more than one reason; he often braided his mother's hair for her while she was sick, and he did the same for Kristen before she died.

He's glad his talents aren't going to waste, at least.

He quickly pulls back the kid's hair into a neat braid down his back, and secures it with the tie he brought. "Alright, go put on your shoes, kiddo. I'll meet you in the garden."

He gives a happy squeal and briefly leans back to press his head against his chest, the simple affection making him feel warm. He takes off to the bedroom just after that.

Phil smiles to himself. 

Things are good, even if he didn’t plan this.