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Netherborn are born from the depths of it’s lava, among the dead who dropped down into its fiery depths. They are born with an affinity to lava, and some with an ability to hear nature, to hear the souls whose lives were cut too short.
It’s said that this ability is cursed, everyone with this ability despises it for it’s constant anger in one’s head.
Sapnap hates this ability with a burning passion, the ability to never hear the sun shine or to hear the wind blow; only the sounds of the trees, animals, and death.
-
He remembers the first war, the first one that swept land in years of chaos; never knowing where was safe and where was dangerous. He remembers the sound of crows, ringing in his ear with every passing day, and they screamed of horrors and death.
KILL KILL KILL KILL BURN THEM DOWN
BURN THEM DOWN KILL KILL KILL KILL
KILL KILL KILL KILL BURN THEM DOWN
BURN THEM DOWN KILL KILL KILL KILL
After that he remembers the feeling of feathers soaked in blood, sitting on the ground sobbing quietly; and the voices didn’t stop.
Because they never did.
Dream asks him the next day to burn down L’Manberg’s forests, “ Salt the ground in their ashes, and make sure they’ll never rise again. “
So he does, crafting a flint and steel with perfect precision, and heads to the forest.
The forest screams, branches snipped and cut for swords and weapons and walls, asks him to be their savior. The forest screams with less bravo then an murder of crows, but they whisper in the masses, to Save us! Save us! We will protect you, if you protect us too! He swears they twist and turn to give him a carpet as if he was royalty.
They scream and they scream, blurring his thoughts and blending together; into a static that threatens to drown him.
I am not your knight in shining armor, He says.
And so he burns it, burns it to the ground and listens to it’s dying whistles with nothing more than a glance back at the ashes.
A crow lands on his shoulder, and tilts its head to look at him with beady eyes, it whispers,
Two birds with one stone, huh?
Sapnap doesn’t answer the crow, and walks away from the forest with his head hanging low.
That’s not enough birds.
-
Bad used to read him a story at night, to soothe the voices that would never stop screaming.
Death was like you, he always had crows who sang their songs all day long because death never stopped.
He told Sapnap of crows, the legion of angels that would follow death wherever he went; warning each and every soul of their end.
They sang songs of death and doom as a choir, and those songs are hymns to the soul who would not listen.
He used to tell Sapnap, These crows would sing, and no one would listen to their song.
He’s their unwilling listener, chained down by his own mind and of the constant pain and headaches which would never leave him alone.
[ Technoblade whispers to you : How do you hear my chat ]
[ You whisper to Technoblade : I hear everything ]
-
It’s not only the crows that would sing, he felt himself listen into the songs of anything that lived, scampering thoughts that moved with the speed of light.
He works for Jschlatt, whose thoughts are muddled and rarely clear as the other’s, and so he asks one day,
“Do you have any alcohol?” As if this would be normal interaction between a soldier and his superior.
“Of course, but you’ll have to work for it.” As if this would be something worth betting over.
And so he does, mindlessly working away in the caves of his home so he could spend 4 hours blurring his memories together, for them to shut the everliving fuck up.
He spends hours talking with Schlatt, drowning his sorrows in wine and beer; dangling the edge of misery. He learns of everything and anything, from the execution of a kid to the withers to Schlatt’s own fall. All the while, he swigs from a bottle and wonders if the animals are dead.
[ Quackity whispers to you : What the fuck are you doing here. ]
[You whisper back to Quackity : it’s intermission ]
He listens to Manberg’s fall with a bottle in hand, and doesn’t care as the buildings fall, because it doesn’t matter in the end, it doesn’t matter in the end at all.
A crow lands on his shoulder, and whispers, You will not listen to our songs for some reason, so listen to Death’s, please.
He thinks to himself, I will listen to Death when I am six feet under.
[ Ph1LzA joined the game ]
[ WilburSoot was slain by Ph1LzA using Diamond Sword ]
-
Schlatt dies and the voices come back with fury, begging him to hear them out one last time.
The animals whisper to him, the trees, and the mobs, and they ask him to be their listener.
It’s always one last time, it’s one last time, one last fucking time.
It’s always We ask of you one thing : listen to our songs, and it’s never an encore he wants to hear.
He is the conductor of this never-ending show, and he wants it to end.
-
There’s a moment of calm after the war, a moment where everyone sighs, sharpens their swords and asks themselves What are we fighting for? Nothing?
Sapnap is fighting for the chaos to never end because if it does, he’s stuck alone with the animals that don’t understand what personal privacy is, and seem to throw themselves at his feet when he walks.
He asks his father for help one day, “ I don’t want this Dad, I don’t want any of this.”
Bad only responds with a hug, gripping him tight as if he’s afraid Sapnap will fall, “I'm so sorry, Pandas, I'm so sorry.”
-
He doesn’t want any of the screaming voices, he doesn’t want any of the voices.
He’s the pet-killer for a reason, for a reason he’s scared to say, I hear the trees and I hear the animals which I kill. He’s the pet-killer not the peaceful one, and he’s- an monster.
When L’Manberg falls one last time, one last time he listens to the barks and roars of the Hound Army. They sing to him, and say We will not harm you.
He sees death on a nearby hill, and death seems to recognize him.
[ Ph1LzA whispers to you : Do you hear them too? ]
[ You whisper to Ph1LzA : Death’s chorus is his choir of crows, isn’t it? ]
-
His head pounds with the force of the pyramids, itching to have just one more listener, instead of the one sick of their songs.
They sing their merry song with a cheerful smile that will continuously haunt Sapnap till his dying day.
[ BadBoyHalo whispers to you: I have a proposal for you ]
He never did listen to what Death had to say.