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It isn’t so bad, he thinks?
Tommy looks back at the pathetic excuses of wings on his back. They’re tiny, barely movable, and they can’t support his weight at all. The pure white colour is now an off-white, due to him not taking proper care of them. But, in all honesty, he couldn’t care less.
Surely, they’ll grow, right? He won’t forever have to deal with the teasing, right?
He gets called a flightless bird; a chicken.
But he is an avian. He has the feathers, and the traits to prove it. Half-human, half-bird; he has white feathers covering pointed ears, the need for freedom in the sky, and, embarrassingly enough, wings. He tilts his head to the side when he is confused or conflicted, and slit pupils are not something a normal human has. He has wings, for fucks sake. They’re just not… right.
They aren’t angled to fly high in the sky like Philza’s, and they aren’t flat and twistable to glide like Wilburs. He can’t speak to birds and Phantoms still attack him. So what is he?
Is he Tommy, the flightless chicken? Is that all he is?
Prime- that isn’t what he wants to be!
He wants to be TommyInnit!
So, yeah. Maybe he has tried to find some hope.
No one in the Origins Esempi is religious, so he doesn’t exactly know where he came up with the idea of praising Prime. But he has tried to believe in Her. He read books he took from villages about Her power, and he has been praying every night for weeks because of it.
She gives you strength and courage, leading you to your greatest life. Tommy thinks she might be able to give him strong and big wings if he believes.
So maybe it isn’t too bad.
Tommy looks up at the stars, he has a nice view from his room’s window in the Pub(e). He likes to believe She is the stars; the night sky. It’s his view of Her, that She is the stars, the moon, and the darkness. She gives light during the darkest hours.
There is no description of Her in any history books--in fact, there’s barely any books--so She takes the form of the sky and space. Prime is the place beyond his world, something that we don’t fully grasp.
“Prime,” says Tommy, sotto voce. Her name is light on his tongue. “I know I ask this a lot, but…” His hands stay in his lap, unsure of what to do while his cyan eyes look up at the twinkling stars. He swears they get brighter when he speaks Her name. “I want wings.”
You have wings, he can hear Her say.
“I want strong wings, wings that- that can carry me, not… these .”
There is no response, and cannot help but feel a little crestfallen. Nonetheless, he continues to finish the prayer. “Prime, please gift me this... I shall be under you, no longer stricken by greed or selfishness. I shall only be giving and selfless, and I won’t follow in the footsteps of those unforgiving.”
He pauses, letting himself soak in the words. “Thank you, Prime.” He finishes.
Tommy looks away, standing up from where he sits near the window. It is getting late, he should get to bed soon.
The sun shines on his face brightly, waking him from his slumber. Groaning, he rolls over, only stopping when pain erupts from his back. “Ack-!” Tommy quickly goes back to his previous position.
Sleep in his eyes, he tries to rub it out, to face the sun. He can feel it is around midday--courtesy of his avian genes.
His back hurts, he quickly realizes. More around his shoulders, but still, it all hurts. He stuffs his face into the pillow, unable to do much else. His limbs are heavy and weak, and his breath is cutting short.
Tommy doesn’t want to get up. But when he hears the door slam from downstairs, he assumes he has to. There is also the sound of Scott's explosions meaning he must’ve jumped up to the Pub.
He slowly peels himself up and out of the sheets, sweat coats his body, making the cool air of Spring blowing from the crack of his window is both refreshing and uncomfortable. He blinks to clear the black spots from his eyes and goes to get dressed for the day.
Something made him choose a blue sweater he got from Wil and some ripped jeans. The sweater was a dark blue and fit his frame loosely, and while he would never admit it, he really enjoyed it. Wil gave it to him a few weeks ago, and upon seeing it too small, he just waved it off saying “you’ll grow into it.”
Embarrassingly enough, he wishes he won’t grow into it.
It hides his wings pretty well, which isn’t too much of a challenge since they’re so small. Even if the sweater does have slits for them, he chooses it’s better to hide them. While it is a bit itchy on his back (which still really hurts) it doesn’t bother him too much.
It’s a simple outfit, but it seems almost obscure for him. Considering he always wears his red and white shirt with khaki shorts.
He walks out of his room without much difficulty and almost gets to the ladder before he notices a headache. He groans, putting a hand to hold his head. The loud chatter isn’t helping soothe it. Hissing at the pain, he takes his hand away and walks over to the ladder. He’ll get some food; that is probably his problem, he hasn’t eaten since lunch yesterday.
Down the ladder, one handle at a time, no one notices him. He is slightly grateful for that, he doesn’t need the teasing right now, nor does he feel like speaking, surprisingly.
He walks to the bar, where Jack stands behind. Tommy doesn’t bother sitting down and asking for something, he just goes straight behind the counter and to the chest where he knows some bread is.
“Oi!”
Great.
“What’re you doin’? That’s my job!” Jack screeches, almost astonished like he forgot Tommy was the one who established the pub with him. Some conversations stop, and it quiets down. Fuckkkk, Tommy drags in his head, knowing all the attention is on him.
He grabs some bread as Wilbur speaks, “Tommy! Where’ve you been?”
“In my room,” Tommy responds, and he thinks it is clear in his voice that he doesn’t want to talk. But apparently, the others don’t hear that.
“We’ve been talking about what we should do next to the Pube.”
Jack speaks up, “are we just gonna ignore how he walked straight behind the counter?”
Tommy huffs and rolls his eyes, shutting the chest with a click . “You forget I work here too, bald boy.”
“Stop calling me that!”
Ranboo sighs from where he stands next to Tubbo, who is on the rafters with the flowers. “You get used to it Jack…” Tubbo giggles at their pain.
Jack crosses his arms, “Oh, shut it.” He says as Tommy opens the trap door and walks out from behind the bar.
The talking continues, and Tommy’s head is too fuzzy to make anything out. He just hopes no one is talking to him. He stands next to the counter, taking a bite from his loaf of bread. It tastes stale, and it is a bit hard on the outside, but he doesn’t bother getting a new one.
He chews slowly with each bite and the talking turns into white noise. He is really tired today, geez.
Something touches his shoulder. Tommy jumps and opens his eyes--he didn’t even notice he had them closed in the first place.
Phil stands there, concern written on his face. Tommy notices the talking has stopped and his bread is now on the floor. Did he drop it? He looks past the elytrian to see the others looking with the same concern.
“Mate,” Tommy brings his attention to Phil again. “Are you alright?” He squeezes his shoulder comfortingly.
Tommy is about to respond before that pain in his back erupts again, and he feels like his skin is ripping like a knife is tearing and poking at his shoulders. He gasps sharply and steps back, his mouth opens but nothing comes out.
“Tommy?”
His back hits the counter and it fucking hurts . It burns like something is squirming underneath his skin and is breaking out. His skin is being pulled apart, atom by atom. He lets out a shout and falls forward, back into Phil’s arms. But before anything else happens, black fills his vision and he falls limp.
“Tommy!”
When Tommy regains consciousness, he is immediately screaming. Something stretches out his skin and he feels like his bones are breaking.
“--mmy, Tommy!” His hearing comes back to see Wilbur’s face above him. The man is holding him to his chest tightly. “Breath, Tommy, breath .”
“Ca- can’t--” he gasps, unable to get ahold of himself. It all hurts, and the parts of his body that don’t are just numb. Wilbur runs his cold fingers through his hair, brushing against his scalp. It does little to soothe his killer headache, but the touch is welcomed nonetheless.
Prime, help-
“I know bubs; you’re doing so well,” Tommy screams, Wilbur holds him closer. “So good, you’re doing so good. You’ll be okay,” The muttering continues, but Tommy is too delirious to hear anymore.
He doesn’t know how long it is before the pressure and pain bursts out all at once. It burns, and he goes in and out of consciousness, but after a while, the pain dulls down. It is still there, but he can breathe clearer and his senses are coming back.
Tommy pants as Wil presses a kiss against his hair, mumbling, “you did so good, you’re okay.” And other words. He thinks it is more for the sanity of himself, but Tommy enjoys the words either way.
“Wh- wha…?” That is all he can get out. Phil appears beside Wilbur, crouching down on what Tommy now notices as the Pub(e)’s floor.
“Hey mate,” Phil says quietly. The blonde blinks at him. “Go to sleep, I know you’re tired after that.”
After what? Tommy wants to ask, but the words die in his throat as he finds himself slowly slipping back into unconsciousness.
The next time he wakes up, he is back in his room. He wakes up slowly, first noticing the pain on his back is gone, now replaced by tense muscles. He’ll deal with that later, he supposes. Curtains are over the window, blocking out the light that he can still see slightly.
The second thing he notices is that Tubbo is curled up against him. Wings fluttering gently and soft snores coming from his mouth. Tommy sighs as he relaxes back into the comforting presence of his friend.
But, that relaxation is interrupted by the door opening with a creeeeak .
Tommy looks up, and Tubbo shifts in his sleep. Tommy subconsciously wraps his arms around the older boy protectively.
Scott stands in the doorway, holding a cloth and a small bowl of water. “Oh,” he says, “did I wake you?”
Tommy shakes his head, his throat too dry to respond verbally.
“Good. That’s good.” He walks in, and that is when he notices Sneeg on his shoulder. The moth hybrid waves at him. “Can you sit up?”
Tommy titles his head, confused as to why he is asking that.
“I need to clean your wings, Phil and Wilbur are gone and I’m th--”
Tommy sits up abruptly, Tubbo whines and wakes up, but he doesn’t care too much. “What?” He asks. Why would they need cleaning? They’re puny and no one seemed to care at all before.
Smajor laughs slightly and sets his things on the table beside the bed. “Look behind you.” Sneeg watches, expression unclear behind his mask.
The blonde gulps and looks down at Tubbo, the bee hybrid is rubbing at his eyes sleepily. He takes a second before he looks behind him, and fuck… that is not what he was expecting.
Wings. Many, in fact. He counts three pairs, six wings in total. He gasps at them.
They’re pure white, it looks, but they’ve coloured slightly pink and red in what Tommy can only assume is blood. But they’re… amazing.
One big pair in the middle, and then two smaller pairs on top and underneath. The bigger pair is huge, almost taking up his height while the smaller pair underneath is only half the size, and the other pair on top is about a quarter of it.
His original pair, he realizes. The small wings he had before look… fucking great when they are paired up with two other sets of wings.
He didn’t notice when he woke up, but the extra weight and tense muscles make a lot more sense.
Smiling, he sends his thanks to Prime.
“I’ve got fucking wings!” He laughs, the sound is slightly scratchy, but he doesn’t give a damn.
“You do, big man!” He looks down at Tubbo, who is smiling just as wide as him, despite having his slumber interrupted.
“Are you gonna let me clean them, or do you want someone else to do it?” He turns back to Scott, who has a slight smile as well. Tommy shakes his head, “no, you can do it.”
“Alright.”
Tommy looks in the mirror of the bathroom, astonished. For more reasons than one.
First of all, his wings! They’re fucking beautiful. After Scott, Sneeg and Tubbo helped clean and preen them, their true colour of pure white came out fully. Tubbo went as far as to say they’re blinding, and Tommy couldn’t agree more. Angelic, is a word that he would use.
They’re angled outwards and tall, the biggest pair reaching his ankles even while folded. They’re a huge pain to deal with while walking due to them being new limbs that he has to get used to. But he thinks the trouble is worth it.
As well as that, he found another pair of wings, coming to a total of four pairs and eight wings. They’re small, and they’re about the same size as his other pair, the original pair, but they're hidden underneath at the very bottom of his back.
The second thing he figured out was that he obtained many other features as well.
The most noticeable one being a new fucking pair of eyes-
How the fuck did he not notice?
He is really behind on noticing all these things… damn.
He hasn’t opened them yet for himself to see, so they stay closed. They’re located on his cheekbones, right under where his actual eyes are.
It’s damn creepy, but also damn fucking cool.
He opened them before but turns out they’re super sensitive to light, so they weren’t open for very long. Smajor and Sneeg thought they were cool, while Tubbo was more fascinated. He wondered how they worked, and if Tommy was telling the truth, he was slightly scared of Tubbo dissecting them in his sleep.
But, they’re not cyan, like his normal eyes are. They’re full-on white. No iris or pupil, just white. Tommy is excited for the day where he can open them all the time and not have them be so sensitive because he swears he got unworldly vision when he opened them.
Another noticeable feature is the faint purple skin on his ears and fingertips. No one knows why his skin was pigmented, but Tommy knows exactly why. He’ll have to thank Her tonight.
But something he noticed himself was how he felt. He felt… floaty. Free. Right .
Sure, the new appendages were heavy and were unbalanced, but they felt good. He felt good. He gave a breathless laugh, he’ll really have to thank Her tonight.
He looks away from the mirror and opens the door, walking out. The others are back, he smiles. Time to show off how he isn’t a flightless bird.
It is night, and just before Tommy goes to bed, he sits down at his open window.
“Hello Prime,” he speaks softly, looking up at the twinkling stars. “I missed yesterday’s prayer, but I would assume you’re not mad.” He did miss it yesterday, he passed out according to the others.
I’m not. She says back.
“Thank you,” Tommy has been wanting to say that for a while now, to say thank you directly. “Thank you a million times, Lady Prime.”
She doesn’t respond when he pauses, so he continues. “You gave me wings, you gave me freedom.”
No.
Taken aback, he whispers “what?” at Her response.
I didn’t give you them, I gave you strength. You were long overdue for your wings, my child.
Her words confuse him. “What do you mean?”
Those are yours, my child; your wings. You were always meant to have them, you were never strong enough to accept them.
Tommy stays quiet, letting the words soak in. “I-” He stops himself, and the stars dull. “I don’t understand.” The stars brighten.
You’re not meant to understand.
Instead of asking another question, he nods at her words. Space is something we will never understand, a world beyond ours is not meant to be comprehended. “I shall only be under you.”
You shall no longer be stricken by greed or selfishness.
“I shall only be giving and selfless.”
And you won’t follow in the footsteps of those unforgiving.
“Thank you, Prime.”
Tommy goes to bed content and fulfilled that night.